If you can’t predict the future—and increasingly you can’t— action trumps everything.

Things simply aren’t as predictable as they once were.

Our intellectual journey—as teachers, innovators and businesspeople—was to answer the question of how can you achieve success in an uncertain world. To find out, we looked to those who thrive best in uncertain environments: serial entrepreneurs. When we did, we learned they not only think differently, but act differently, too.

It is a pattern of thinking and acting based on the assumption that the future is going to behave in a way similar to the present and the immediate past. Instead of thinking your way into a new way of acting, which is at the heart of using Prediction, you need to act your way into creating the future you want.

If you can’t predict the future—and increasingly you can’t— action trumps everything.

In the face of an unknown future, entrepreneurs act.

More specifically, they:Take a small, smart step (see “What’s a Smart Step?”) forward;Pause to see what they learned by doing so;and Build that learning into what they do next.

It is the action you take based on the resources you have at hand and never involves more than you can afford to lose, that is, your acceptable loss.

It can involve bringing other people along, although initially it does not have to. Having taken the step, you pause to reflect on what you have learned. From there, you take another smart step or quit if your desire has waned (or you have discovered something else that you want more) or if you have exceeded your acceptable loss.

You repeat this process until: You succeed. Or You no longer want to continue. (You changed your mind; something else is more appealing.) Or You exceed your acceptable loss. Or You prove to yourself it can’t be done.

Just Start: Take Action, Embrace Uncertainty, Create the Future by Leonard A. Schlesinger, Charles F. Kiefer