Move At Eighty Percent

A six-word reason to stop stalling: you are not underqualified, you are undermoving. We open with a true story about someone who passed on $80–$150/hour contract roles because a laptop spec didn’t match, and we unpack the deeper pattern many of us carry—self-disqualifying before opportunity has a chance to choose us. From there, we trace how the same habit shows up in careers, relationships, businesses, and long-shelved dreams, and we replace perfectionism with a practical path forward.

We walk through a simple two-part audit that turns vague doubt into concrete action. First, list what you already have: skills, experience, results, story, resilience, connections, and ideas. Then ask what you’re waiting on and whether it’s essential or solvable in 30 days—borrowable, rentable, learnable, or adjustable on the fly. Along the way we call out how fear often wears the mask of logic—“I just want to be prepared”—and how clarity and confidence actually grow from movement, not from more planning.

Using examples drawn from job searches and product launches, we show how companies iterate in 30, 60, and 90-day cycles and why you can do the same with your next step. The core takeaway is the 80 percent principle: if you have most of what you need, start now. Submit the application, send the message, post the offer, make the call. Doors don’t open for the most perfect person in the room; they open for the person willing to knock. If this speaks to you, hit follow, share this with a friend who’s sitting on a near-ready idea, and leave a review telling us the one move you’ll make at 80% today.

Chapters

• 1:11 A Costly Missed Opportunity
• 3:02 The Real Block: Self-Disqualification
• 5:06 The 80 Percent Principle
• 7:06 Fear Disguised As Logic
• 9:31 A Practical Audit: What You Already Have
• 11:40 Apply First, Figure It Out Second
• 13:50 Start Like A Company, Not A Perfectionist

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:36

Yep, you already know. I'm gonna jump right into this episode because it's no point in wasting time. So someone passed up on the chance to make$80 to$150 an hour. Not because they weren't smart enough, not because they weren't capable, not because they didn't need the money. They didn't apply. Why you ask? Because they didn't have the right laptop. And when I heard that, I didn't judge, but I did get quiet because I realized something uncomfortable in that moment. That some of us are not stuck because there are no opportunities. Some of us are stuck because we keep disqualifying ourselves. And if I'm being real, I've done it too. So let me tell you what happened. I was having a conversation with someone who was searching for work. Um, just like myself, where I was in this space a year ago, where I was looking for anything to come through. And I ran across this company that paid extremely well. It was contracting work, but it came through in the clutch. And so it was, you know, really needing something to come through, something to hold them over, something to put money in the bank while they figured out the next step. And I sent them this company. I sent them a position and shared that there are hundreds of other positions on the site that pay in that same range. And when we had the conversation, I asked them, hey, did you hear anything back from blank? And they told me that they didn't even apply for their position because one of the requirements, requirements, said you needed a certain type of laptop. And that one detail stopped them, y'all. Not just from applying to that one role, but from applying to any of the roles on the site. And when I say yes, there were hundreds of roles, contract roles, short-term, one to two months, maybe extensions, maybe not. But in the meantime, it was money coming in. And these positions, like I said, were paying anywhere from$80 an hour up to$150 an hour. This wasn't no pocket change. This wasn't maybe one-day money. This was relief money. This was rent money, mortgage money, this was breathing room. And they didn't even apply because they didn't have the right laptop. And I remember sitting there thinking as they were talking, wait a minute, if a job pays that much, why not apply first? Why not figure the laptop out afterwards? Borrow one, use someone else's for a week, rent one, work the four for the first week, get paid, then go and buy exactly what you need. Problem solved, right? But the application never went in. The opportunity never got the chance to say yes or no. It was shut down before it even had a chance to exist. And that's when it hit me. This wasn't about the laptop, this was about something bigger. Because how many of us, yes, hand raised, are doing this in our own lives? How many of us are standing still not because we're missing everything, but because we're missing one piece? And instead of moving with the 80% that we do have, we freeze over the 20% that we don't. And let me be very honest here, this isn't just about jobs because this shows up in relationships. We meet people who have 80 to 90 percent of what we have prayed for, but they don't have the other 10 to 20 percent. So we walk away from the 80 chasing 10 to 20 percent that may never show up, or we end up getting it, and it's a headache, so we end up letting it go anyway. This shows up in business where you have the idea, you have the experience, you have the voice, you have the story, you have the skill, but the website isn't ready, the logo isn't just right, you don't have all the prices yet, you don't have all the pieces yet, so you don't move. This shows up in dreams, you feel pulled towards something, but you tell yourself I'm not fully ready, I need a little more time, I need to get one more thing in place, and what happens? Months go by, then years go by, and the truth is you were ready enough a long time ago. And I want to say something that might be hard to hear, but I'm gonna say it anyway. Because a lot of the times it's not really about what you're missing, it's about fear. Fear of being told no, fear of looking unqualified, fear of stepping into rooms where you feel like you don't belong. So we dress fear up as logic. We say, I just want to be prepared, I just want to meet all the requirements, I don't want to waste anyone's time. But underneath that, we don't want to feel exposed, we don't want to feel like an imposter, we don't want to risk trying and not getting it, so we stop ourselves first. And here's the sentence I need you to hear today: that you are not underqualified, you are under moving. And let me bring this back just for just for a moment, because I've caught myself in this too. That there are things I know I'm supposed to be building, spaces I know I'm supposed to step into, ideas that I am sitting with, and I've had moments where I thought I don't have everything yet, but then I had to ask myself a better question. Do I have 80%? Because if I'm honest, I do, and 80% is more than enough to begin. Because even in school, 80 to 90 percent, isn't that a B? And a 90% is a a low, a low A, a high B. Nobody ever cried over a B. But in life, we won't even turn the paper in unless it's 100. So we are waiting for perfect. And while we're waiting on perfect, doors are opening at 80 and closing and opening and closing, and we're still standing there. So I want you to do something with me. Get your pen, get your paper. Because I don't want this to just sound good. I want you to see yourself in it, and at the top of the page, write what do I already have? And I want you to list it out your skills, your experience, your knowledge, your story, your resilience, your connections, your ideas. Push yourself to get 10. And I promise you, when you get to that 10, the level of openness that comes and the way that that pen is going to just continue to write is because you haven't pushed yourself past what you know that you can do. And if you are struggling to get there, hear me clearly. That's not a qualification problem, that's a self-belief problem. Because there is more in you than you've been giving yourself credit for. So now, underneath that, right, what am I waiting on? And this is your paper. So if you choose the lie to yourself on this paper, what is that saying about yourself? So I want you to be completely honest. Is it truly something that you need? Or is it something that you've convinced yourself you need before you can even begin? A better setup, more time, more confidence, more clarity. Ask yourself: can this be figured out in 30 days? Can it be borrowed, learned, adjusted, solved along the way? Because most of what we call requirements are really just hurdles we're afraid to jump. So here's the rule I want you to try. Apply first, figure it out second, move first, adjust later. Because clarity does not come before movement. Clarity comes from movement. Confidence does not come before the setup. Confidence comes because you stepped. So before today ends, I want you to do one thing at 80%. Y'all people are walking through doors at 60%, and you sitting on 80 waiting for 20% to show up. No, that's just like when you get a puzzle, you expect that all of the pieces are going to be there, right? So you don't go through if the puzzle says that it's supposed to be 500 pieces in the box. Do you count 500 pieces to make sure that they're all there, or do you just start? You start with the border and you put the border together and then you begin to put the middle section, but you don't just wait until you have counted all of the pieces to start the puzzle. We are going to have to get out of the out of the mindset that we have to have everything that we need in order to start. Corporations don't even operate that way. They do research, market research. They create products and see what's going to work, and then they come back in 30, 60, 90 days to say, okay, well, we need to tweak this. It wasn't perfect, but they said we can't wait for perfection. We're just going to put it out here and see what works, tweak it from there and continue to move. But we operate our lives in hoping and wishing and praying that 100% is going to show up. And the last time I checked, none of us are God. None of us created this universe, none of us are in a space of perfection. We can operate out of excellence for perfection. So why can we not move? So again, I want you to do one thing at 80%. Even if it's at 70, move. You've thought about it at 70. You almost there. Submit the application, send the email, start the page, have the conversation, take the step. Not perfect, just emotion. Because doors don't open for the most perfect person in the room. They open for the person who was willing to knock. So when we talk about even those hurdles, sometimes you go over them, sometimes you go under them, sometimes you go around them. And sometimes you just got to push them over and keep going. You are allowing one hurdle to stop you from where it is that you say that you want to go. So let's get in motion. And I want to leave you with this question. What opportunity have you already talked yourself out of this year? Because you didn't feel a hundred percent ready. And I need you to sit with that and then ask yourself what would happen if I moved at 80?