Over this past weekend I was blessed to present alongside an awesome lineup of speakers at TEDx MillRiver in Connecticut. One of my fellow presenters was Peter Bregman, author extraordinaire as well as leadership, productivity, and communication expert.  His latest book 18 Minutes can be found in the featured section of any Barnes & Noble or any other major bookstore.

After both our presentations were over I sat down with him to ask a few questions regarding career and life, two topics which I knew he’d have some great insight on.  He did not disappoint. Check out the Q&A below:

Q: In terms of our personal life, is there a golden ratio that maybe we can follow for “I want these many projects to be career, these many personal development, and these many fun etc?”

I’ve thought a lot about this, and for the most part, at least in my life, I do not see a distinction. Personal development IS organizational development. When I develop myself as a person, I become a more effective, more communicative, stronger person and I become  a more effective, more communicative, stronger leader. Essentially, developing myself creatively, developing myself personally, IS developing the business because a business is only as strong and capable as the people in the business are. So for me there is very little distinction between the two.

Q: You have a chapter in your book called “Paralysis,” and it’s something many entrepreneurs or creatives deal with when facing a new project.  Do you have a rule of thumb to determine how much preparation/thought should be done before just diving into a new project?  At times my big fear is of making a huge mistake off the bat that kills my chances of success and crushes my spirit to continue.

I’m a big proponent of just getting to work and figuring the details out later. As long as you don’t invest too much money upfront, there are few mistakes that you can’t recover from. A much more dangerous mistake is never getting started in the first place for fear of not being ready. Most of the real learning happens in the midst of the action – so I wouldn’t wait very long to jump right in.
Read the rest of the interview