“There is no answer. There never has been any answer. That’s the answer.” – Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein (photo credit: Carl Van Vechten via Wikipedia)

Do you read self-help book after self-help book – or business book after business book – looking for the One Big Answer that will solve your most important problem?

I have. And I can tell you this:

The One Big Answer isn’t in a book.

It’s not in a guru. It’s not in your best friend. It’s not in any religious text.

It’s not anywhere…because it doesn’t exist.

It’s a truth that everyone keeps forgetting. Even me. I see a new self-help or business book and think, this is what I need to turn it around. I buy it, read it – and still don’t have that One Big Answer.

Why not?

What worked for the author may not work for you, even if you do exactly as they did. The people you will face won’t react like the people they faced. They did what they did in a different time or a different industry. And luck, of course, is a bigger factor than most of these authors want to admit.

You may not be able to do what they did, at least not right now. You may not have enough money or the right contacts or the skills. You may not have the right product, or even any product.

So is it time to just throw in the towel?

Not so fast.

Life is not One Big Answer. It’s a series of little ones.

We can make plans for five years, ten years, a lifetime. But we can only live one day at a time. One hour. One minute.

What can you do right now to start in the direction of solving your problems?

It can be as simple as doing research on the people that you admire that you want to contact, and ask advice from. (I say, connect with people who do what you want to do.)

It can be as simple as calling your debtors and asking if you can work out a realistic payment plan.

It can be as simple as writing one more blog post which can reach and teach people…and I am doing that right now.

Small movements, added up, can lead to big changes.