I’ve always liked the phrase “The secret of success is starting before you’re ready.”
Probably because I’m someone who tends to over-prepare. I read, research, zoom out… then zoom out again... until I either disappear down a tangent or get sucked into a Dunning-Kruger death-spin realising I know nothing at all.

Over time, I realised the real insight in that phrase isn’t about starting early.
It was that delay creates a false sense of certainty, but that early movement actually preserves optionality.

We delay because we think once we start, we’re locked into a path. So we gather more information, seek more alignment or try to “get it right the first time.”
In practice, that’s backwards.

A small story to illustrate.

I recently moved, which meant rebuilding my home office. In true startup lore, the new office is a converted garage. Unpainted walls, dangling bulbs, exposed wiring, garage doors still in place. The potential was obvious... but had not fully manifested yet.

I did what I always do: plan. Sketch layouts. Think about custom shelving, desk placement, whiteboards, how visitors and customers would enter the room. I even had a few conversations with ChatGPT about it (Thanks for the great tips Monty!).

Then I set a hard constraint. Once the ceiling was painted, since that was the one thing that would be painful to redo later, the office would go into use.

Almost immediately after moving in, reality pushed back. Power outlets weren’t where I expected,... The imagined layout didn’t quite work. Small pivots were needed and continued over the next weeks as inhabiting my early office showed more flaws and inefficiencies.

A while later, the garage doors were replaced by large windows. Suddenly, daylight changed everything. I realised angling my desk slightly gave me better light and a better view. Which meant rethinking the shelving plan... thankfully before anything was ordered.

And that pattern works everywhere...

In Navigator, I call this approach One Mile Out Camp. Explorers used to set camp just outside town before a long expedition. Long enough to simulate what they’d actually need once they left for real. Close enough still to turn back easily and pick up what they forgot.

It’s not base camp. It’s not the summit.
Just enough exposure to reality to learn... without locking yourself in.

In leadership transitions, I use the same principle. In the first 2–3 weeks, we define direction and then start moving. We pick reversible decisions and no-regret work. We choose directional clarity over completeness, and learning velocity over polishing a plan.

Meaningful work can start long before every stakeholder agrees on a perfect North Star or roadmap. In fact, that early movement often creates the clarity people are waiting for.

Waiting for readiness is often just fear wearing a spreadsheet.
And the longer you wait, the more rigid the eventual plan becomes.

The funny thing is: starting early doesn’t lock you in, it keeps your options open.

But now I'm really ready to get that shelving up, because reality has spoken... and my books are tired of their boxes.