“The cobbler’s children have no shoes” is a phrase that rings true for most businesses. My 8-year-old production house has no video about itself 🤦‍♂️.

The assumed reason is that we’re working on customer work so we don’t have time for our own. This assumption is wrong.

The reason the cobbler’s children have no shoes isn’t because the cobbler is busy making shoes for customers. It’s because the cobbler is paralyzed by the impossible task of making shoes for her children.

This is The Cobbler’s Dilemma: “My children’s shoes must be THE BEST.”

“What will people think if my children’s shoes aren’t the very best shoes they’ve ever seen? I’m a cobbler! I better do a truly perfect job on these shoes and then I need to make sure my children wear them right and keep them clean and don’t pair them with the wrong outfit…”

This cobbler is totally screwed. There’s no way she’s ever going to make shoes for her children.

This type of perfectionist thinking is the surest way to never get a single thing done. Instead, she’ll shrug her shoulders and joke that “the cobbler’s children have no shoes.”

Meanwhile, the cobbler’s children have the best treehouse in town. She loves building treehouses almost as much as making shoes. She could’ve made 28 pairs of shoes in the time it took to build that treehouse.

But no pair of shoes could possibly be good enough for her children.