Why clarity always comes from action: Phil Fraser of the Business Sounding Board

read a business book or you could read business blogs.

There’s a myriad of business podcasts out there to listen to, along with lots of online training courses.

You could enrol on a formal training course or even go as far as studying for an MBA. Personal development can also come via a business coach, mentor or Business Sounding Board like ​myself.

You may have done some or all of the above.

But the best learning, by a long distance, is, as Nike keep telling us, to just do it. Or being more direct JFDI.

"Clarity comes from action”. I saw this comment recently and I LOVE that line and it fits perfectly with the idea of getting up and doing it.

You only really learn by doing.

It’s great understanding business ‘in theory’ and planning your strategy is to be encouraged, but it’s not true learning.

You only truly learn by getting your hands dirty, trying things out, failing, iterating, changing and going again. The learnings from ‘doing’ are endless and almost infinite.

Got a new business idea or a new strategy or new product or new offering? Go for it. You will only start learning once that idea, product or strategy moves from the PC screen or whiteboard to "real life”.

And the only thing that will be true and your only guarantee from your initial idea/business plan, is that it won’t end up like you planned.

But as it changes, grows and matures, so will you and your thinking, as you learn and develop.

Often fear restricts your learning and development. Fear of failure. It’s a cliché but the best learnings come from our failures. Why allow that (highly irrational) fear stop you from a wonderful opportunity to progress, learn and develop?

Consider what’s the worst that could happen versus the best? The best so out-weighs the worst that its stupid not doing it. And you only learn from doing.

‘Learning by doing’ will almost always prove that you can learn something better and faster if you practice it.

The most obvious example of this is how you learnt to ride a bike. It was probably not by reading a book about it or going on a course, but rather by getting on a bike and falling off it…. Repeatedly - until, one day, you made it.

I’d also argue that learnings that come from actual taking action are more engaging and memorable.

And on reflection, you will probably find that, taking this a step further, in situation when you were forced to take action, that learning went deeper.

Think about the learnings you and your business made during Covid.

"You’ ll only know, and learn, by DOING.

So get up and get doing, business people of Yorkshire. You, and you alone, are your secret source of business learning and development.

Phil Fraser is an entrepreneur and business coach behind the

The Business Sounding Board. www.philfraser.co.uk