The Ryan Leak Podcast - The Perfect Plan Myth

Episode Date: October 5, 2026

What if the thing holding you back isn’t a lack of planning, but too much of it?We tell ourselves we’ll start when the plan is perfect, when we have more clarity, when we’ve done enough research, or when we know exactly how everything will work out. But the perfect plan isn’t coming.In this episode, Ryan challenges the myth that you need certainty before you take action. Some information is only available on the other side of action. You can plan, prepare, and research, but eventually you have to move.You might not need more clarity. You might just need more courage.Make the best plan you can. Take the next wise step. Learn. Adjust. Keep moving.Because a good plan executed today is worth more than a perfect plan that never leaves the notebook.

What's going on, my friends? Welcome back to the Ryan League podcast. We'd love to keep things short and sweet for you each and every week. Today's episode, I want to talk to you about the perfect plan myth. The perfect plan myth. I need to dismantle something today, and it is the perfect plan myth. And I think it's been holding people hostage for way too long. We keep telling ourselves that once we have the perfect plan, then we'll make the move.

then we'll start, then we'll have the conversation, then we'll go after the dream, then we'll launch the business, then we'll write the first chapter. But can I just save us all a few years? The perfect plan isn't coming. Yeah, it's not coming. I've met people who have been planning for a decade. They've got spreadsheets. They've got vision boards. They've got color-coded notebooks in a Pinterest board with 47 pins labeled Dream Life, and they've never taken a single step. Because the plan isn't perfect yet. Meanwhile, somebody else with half their talent

and a quarter of their preparation is out there building something. They're learning, they're adjusting, they're getting feedback, they're figuring out what works and what doesn't, not because they had a better plan, but because they actually started. I think the perfect plan myth is so attractive because planning feels productive. Researching feels like action. Organizing your thoughts feels like movement. Having another meeting about what you're eventually going to do feels responsible. And to be clear, planning matters,

preparation matters, wisdom matters. I'm not suggesting you quit your job tonight, empty your savings account, and start a company tomorrow morning because some guy on a podcast told you to take action. Please have a plan. But at some point, planning stops being preparation and becomes procrastination. And that line is easy to miss because procrastination doesn't always look like sitting on the couch doing nothing. Sometimes procrastination is incredibly busy. Sometimes procrastination has a spreadsheet. Sometimes procrastination has a strategic.

Plan, sometimes procrastination schedules another meeting, sometimes procrastination, says, I just need to do a little more research. Sometimes procrastination is preparation theater. You're rehearsing for a show that never opens. And I think underneath some of that is perfectionism. Perfectionism has a way of disguising itself as excellence, but they're not the same thing. Excellence says, I'm going to give this my best and keep improving. Perfectionism says, I'm not going to let anybody see this until there's nothing left to criticize. Those are two completely different goals. Excellence wants growth.

Perfectionism wants protection. And researchers who study perfectionism have found connections between perfectionistic concerns and things like anxiety, distress, and procrastination, which makes sense when you think about it. If your standard for beginning is flawless, beginning becomes terrifying. Because once you start, people can judge it. Once you publish it, people can criticize it. Once you launch it, it can fail. Once you have the conversation, you might not say everything perfectly.

So planning becomes safer than doing, but safe doesn't always move your life forward. Here's what I've learned, my friend. You don't need a perfect plan. You need imperfect action that you can improve every single day. Because some information is only available on the other side of action. You cannot research your way into knowing everything. There are things you will only learn once you launch. There are questions you won't even know to ask until you start.

There are weaknesses in your idea that won't become obvious until an actual customer interacts with it. There are parts of your plan that look brilliant on paper and make absolutely no sense in real life. That's not failure. That's feedback. I recently started a golf mastermind with 11 other executives. from around the country who are pretty high-level people. They were all men that signed up. I literally came up with it in August and text it to a couple of friends.

And we called the Omni PGA in Frisco and said, hey, I think you guys have these like golf ranches. You know, can I rent a couple of them? And literally put together like a PDF and had Zach on our team, put together like a little website pretty quickly. and it was sold out, you know, within a week. And it was like, man, well, what are we going to do when we get there? I'm like, well, I mean, I got a few ideas.

And, you know, 11 guys showed up. And we had an incredible time, incredible time. I can tell you this much, though. It wasn't perfect. It was good, though. It was good. And in fact, it informed this next one that we're doing. it's around a Cowboys game.

We got a whole Cowboys, Dallas Cowboys Suite. It seats, I think, like 30 people. So we've got 26 spots. And we're doing 13 of females and 13 males that are just high-level thinkers, high-impact people, and just inviting them to spend a weekend with me and just being super intentional. Essentially what I wanted to do was create a safe space for people who, are always on. I think about people who have a lot of people pulling on them.

They're pouring out a lot. They don't have a whole lot of deposits going into them. So I wanted to create a weekend that's fun, engaging, but create an environment where they can take their mask off. They can let their hair down a little bit. And we did it once and now we're about to do it a second time. It's not perfect. And guess what?

we're learning along the way. We're not waiting for it to be perfect. In fact, I think kind of the point of what we're trying to do is that it should be a little bit messy because life is not perfect. And there is a little mini perfectionist, Ryan, that wants everything to just be so dialed in, but that's not how life works. And so, Here we are just trying new things. We're putting ourselves out there and figuring it out on the way. I just got to encourage somebody today to just try something. You can't make it better if you don't ever get started.

It's not going to be perfect. I mean, the first podcast I did, I don't know how many years ago, that was it wasn't polished. In fact, I think I was writing in the car and called a friend and like recorded it using an app. My first book had, I don't know how many typos. I've got like five different versions of chasing failure, which is a book I wrote because we couldn't even find

all the typos. I mean, it was just so bad. But I don't care. Why? Because I started. And every version after that had something the first version didn't. Experience. That's the thing planning can't give you.

Experience. You can read 20 books about public speaking. Eventually, you're going to have to get on a stage. You can listen to all the podcasts you want about entrepreneurship. Eventually, somebody has to buy something from you. You can study relationships. You could look at all these different personality assessments. Now listen, eventually you're going to have to have a conversation.

You can research what works for your body and working out. Eventually, you're going to have to pick up a way. You're going to have to get on that treadmill. You'll have to do something. There comes a moment when the next lesson cannot be learned through more information. It has to be learned through participation. And there's another reason your purpose. your perfect plan probably won't work anyways.

It's because human beings are notoriously bad at predicting exactly how long things will take and exactly how smoothly they'll go. Psychologists call one version of this the planning fallacy. We tend to underestimate the time, cost, and complications involved in future tasks even when we've experienced similar delays before,

which is hilarious. We're creating a perfect plan when research basically says we're not even that great at predicting the future. So, my friend, maybe the goal isn't certainty. Maybe the goal is adaptability.

Maybe instead of asking, do I have the perfect plan? We should be asking, do I have enough of a plan to take the next wise step? It's a much better question. Because you don't need the whole staircase to take the next.

step. You don't need to know how chapter 12 ends to write chapter one. You don't need to know exactly what the company looks like in 10 years to get your first customer. You don't need a five-year plan for a conversation you need to have this afternoon. And you might already know your next step. That's what can make this difficult. You're not confused. You're just scared. And there's a difference. You keep asking for more clarity when what you really need is more courage. You've researched enough. You've thought about it enough. You've talked about it enough. You've prayed about it enough to at least take one step. So take it and get started. And I'm giving you permission. Start messy. Yeah. Start nervous. Start with questions. Start with version one. Start with three customers. Start with one page,

one phone call. Start before everybody understands it. Start before you know exactly how. how it ends because your first version isn't supposed to be your final version. Your first version has one job to exist. You can improve something that exists. You can edit a bad first draft. You can improve a mediocre presentation. You can change a business model. You can adjust the strategy.

You can recalculate the route, but you can't improve something you refuse to start. So stop asking your business. plan to guarantee an outcome it was never capable of guaranteeing a plan is a direction not a promise make the best plan you can with the information you have take the next wise step pay attention learn or just keep moving and give yourself permission to figure some of it out along the way because a good plan executed today is worth a whole lot more than a perfect plan that never leaves the notebook my friend the perfect plan isn't coming but your next step is all ready here take it my friend thank you so much for listening to the ryan league podcast if today's episode inspired you

i'd ask that you don't keep it to yourself and share it with a friend and hey it would mean the world to me if you take a moment to rate review and subscribe your support helps us reach even more people with these short sweet nuggets of inspiration thanks for being a part of the journey and we'll catch you next time