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Don has a brilliant mind and loves to keep it thinking.

One of my Inner Circle members, he recently booked a private coaching session to strategize the marketing of a new online business for freelance writers (he’s freelanced for years).

Not five minutes into our conversation, Don was heavily into explaining arcane keyword research tips he’d picked up at a workshop, tossing around terms like long-tail and bid management software and content network…

When he paused for breath, I asked him to help me out by backing up for a minute to answer a few questions.

Did he have his blog or website launched? Well, not yet.

Did he know what his keywords were? Some, maybe, but he needed to do more research.

What exactly was he going to sell? Well he had several options about that and hadn’t quite made up his mind.

I suggested that it was time to stop analyzing and take action on the basics of creating an online business.

And that step one would be to determine an initial set of keywords and launch a simple website or blog that could begin to build him a prospect list.

This straightforward suggestion silenced Don. After a moment he told me he didn’t think he was ready.

When I asked what would ready feel like, he said: “I would be certain about what I’m doing.”

That desire to have certainty before taking action is what keeps most of us trapped in over-thinking. The hours, days, months and years go by, and at best our business crawls forward.

At worst we have no business.

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