Ninety percent of life is just showing up.
- Woody Allen

This struck me the other day when a coworker called me a “machine” because I got a piece of work done that I said I was going to get done.  Radical concept, right? Now, the piece of work was a daunting task that wasn’t easily completed, it  wasn’t opening the mail or filling out a comment card, but it also wasn’t rocket science.  The task simply required concerted effort to the tune of approximately 9 uninterrupted hours spread over the course of two days.  I was shocked that he was shocked.  I simply had completed a task that I offered to complete.  It was an initiative that I came up with, planned, and then executed against.

He thought that was refreshing.

I thought I was just doing my job.  It got me thinking.

There’s a lot of noise out there. A lot of conversations and streams of ideas, inputs, opinions, thoughts and more.  We live in a world with a lot of communication and openness with one another. We all share a lot.  A lot of mundane facts. A lot of complaints (some more than others). A lot of ideas. A lot of brilliant ideas (and terrible ones), a lot of great partnerships and things we “have” to do, a lot of aspirations, a lot of desires. A lot of goals.  A lot of “If I could just”‘s.  A lot that could literally change our world and the world around us.  And yet, far too often it seems that little changes at all for us.

Why?

Because we’re too busy talking to actually put in to motion the great (and terrible) ideas, the partnerships the projects, the aspirational efforts.  We’re kibitizing and bloviating, we’re waxing poetic in the comments of some blog post or rewriting our best snarky comeback to a comment on a Facebook status update.  We’re filling our time instead of using it to create real value for us and the rest of the world.  Whether intentionally or not, we tend to shy away from action until action is obvious or the best, last option open to us.  Few of us are proactive when it comes to taking action.  Which is too bad.

Its amazing what a little action can do.

I thought my co-workers comment was a staggering insight in how little separates people from the success they’re trying to achieve.  Reaffirmed for me in the moment above was the reality that it still (and always will) comes down to the people who talk about doing things and the people that actually do them.  It’s amazing what action begets compared to ideas or commentary without action, without concerted action.  90% of creating value is really just showing up. Just doing it.  Just taking a set of concerted efforts towards a goal, towards the realization of an idea is enough to separate you from the crowd.  To make you special.  Imagine that.  The act of action is so precious now that it has become a differentiator in this uber-crowded marketplace for attention, services, money, etc.

There’s a lot of navel gazing when it comes to how to stand out from the noise on the Web.  How to break through, be seen, be heard and be noticed.  And it comes from taking action.  Any action.  The people that cut through the noise.  The people that get noticed are the people that stop talking and start doing.  It’s easy to talk about launching a blog, starting off on your own, launching a new web site or service or group or charity or organization or band or fundraiser or podcast.  The amazing part is how hard it is for people to overcome the inertia to actually bring these things into reality.

Being able to overcome that inertia is what separates the visionaries from the crowd, the notables, the heroes, the leaders.  That’s it.  Simply taking action takes you from just another member of the crowd to a leader. Instantly.  This seemingly simple truth had me looking for some deeper explanation.  I wonder if our collective inability to overcome inertia isn’t due in large part to our previous conditioning by the market.  Let’s take the simple act of launching a Web presence.  In the past it was hard to start a Web site.  You needed to be able to afford expensive graphic design packages, you needed the skills to design the site.  Then you needed a whole separate set of skills to code and update the site. And still others to market the site and get the word out about your new venture.  You either needed all of those skills or a lot of money.  And because those two conditions are very hard to meet,  many great ideas have gone by the boards due to that very real barrier.

It goes for pretty much anything worth starting.  The startup costs have traditionally been high.  Fundraising was not easy without a direct mail budget or TV ad dollars or print ads in the newspaper to get people to care.  It was expensive to be the doer.

The key word in all of this, of course, is was.

The best part about the world we live in today is that these costs are now gone. Or if not gone completely so marginal that they are hardly a barrier any more.  And when compared side-by-side with the barriers that were previously keeping good ideas as simply ideas they look as close to zero as you can get.  This has happened rather quickly.  The advent of self-publishing Web sites (blogs) is less than 10 years old.  Micro-distribution via online networks is less than three years old.  Free posting and advertising is less than 10 years old as well.  So the technology has changed to a point where the cost of starting is essentially zero.  Yet the majority still remains inert.

Are we inert because we still perceive the starting costs as too high?  I think it might be a large part of it.  Yet, in delicious irony, the cost of inertia is infinitely higher than the cost of starting, of taking action.  The cost of inertia is the opportunity cost of lost opportunity.  (Wikipedia: Opportunity cost or economic opportunity loss is the value of the next best alternative forgone as the result of making a decision.)  And the opportunity cost on interia is steep.  Simply remaining inert can ensure that you never become the leader or the difference maker or the influencer that you want to become.  That seems like a big price to pay, when getting started in today’s world is so much cheaper.

If you want to break out from the pack. If you want to be noticed.  If you want to make a difference. All you need to do is take action.  All you need to do is show up.  And if you show up again and again and again you’ll suddenly find yourself in the rareified space that is that of the doers and leaders and visionaries.  By moving from a mindset that makes starting seem expensive and difficult to one of ease and massive upside (and incredible downside in lost opportunity) you will join the select few who make a difference and who stand out from the crowd.

Let’s take a final example from the social media pantheon (and one frankly thas has been beaten in to the ground) that of Gary Vaynerchuk.  You guys know him. You know his story.  But you know what is truly fascinating to me? Is that Gary is out there doing.  He’s taking action.  Too many people are sitting on Twitter and Facebook adn their blogs right now and they are swooning over what Gary did or what Gary said or what someone said about what Gary said or did.  And where’s Gary?  He’s not on Twitter reflecting on his last speech or sparring with detractors online in the comments of Joe’s blog.com.  He’s out doing. Busting his ass to create value for himself, his family and the world around us.  Everyone else is just talking. He’s doing. He’s got the $1,000,000 book deal.  You’ve got your 250 followers.

And you know how he did it?  He just started doing it.  Episode #1 of Wine Library.  Nowhe’s up over 700. He’s a celebrity. He did it because he didn’t see the high startup costs that many of us think exist in front of us.  He saw that the opportunity cost of not starting was far greater than the $300 he spent on the camera from Best Buy.  He was right.  I believe that all of us at one time or another have let our version of $300 keep us from much greater opportunity.   It’s time to get over the old mentality that says only the people with massive resources of talent or time have the right and privilege to stand out and make a difference.  The tools are there, the costs are low, the stakes are high.  So let’s get started.