Plans are Useless but Planning is Indispensable

American army general and statesman, Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, ""In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."

Eisenhower's point was that plans never go the we think they will but having one allows you the flexibility to strategically pivot when the situation calls for it.

The other day, my friend and the director of my first feature film arrived from Los Angeles. We'd been preparing a fundraising campaign video for weeks but hadn't actually rehearsed it together.

Last night, at about 9:00 pm we stumbled through the first draft of the script before realizing it simply didn't strike the right tone. 

For the next several hours we tweaked the wording before finally agreeing on the right message. 

In the end, we discovered it was the original framework that allowed us to improvise. It was the structure we had in place that allowed for greater creativity. 

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