This Might Not Work Rule
Take small uncertain bets that preserve your ability to try again
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 99%
The rule begins by saying out loud, “this might not work.” Acknowledging uncertainty lowers the emotional barrier to acting and distinguishes pioneering work from guaranteed routine. The bet must then be bounded: Godin says he never undertakes a project so large that it has to succeed. That constraint preserves the ability to solve problems and play again. His chocolate-wrapper failure demonstrates the pattern: waiting three extra weeks might have prevented thin paper but would have missed the launch windows, so the team moved and addressed the nonfatal problem afterward. Repeated creative practice applies the same logic. A weak blog post matters less when another will appear tomorrow. The mechanism combines explicit uncertainty, limited downside, action, repair, and another attempt.
Origin
Godin says he uses the phrase at least twice a day and illustrates it with chocolate packaging that arrived on paper too thin for the launch.
Core principles
- 01Meaningful innovation includes the possibility of failure
- 02Naming uncertainty makes action easier
- 03A project should not be so large that it has to work
- 04The goal of an infinite game is to play again
- 05Repeated output makes individual misses lighter
How to run it
- 1
Name the uncertainty
Before acting, say that the attempt might not work and identify what remains unknown.
Pro tip Use the exact phrase to normalize uncertainty.
Watch out Do not disguise a known unacceptable hazard as ordinary uncertainty.
- 2
Bound the bet
Keep the project small enough that failure is survivable and another attempt remains possible.
Watch out Never go all in on a project that has to work.
- 3
Choose action over total assurance
Move when eliminating every uncertainty would impose greater costs, such as missing the relevant window.
Watch out This is not permission to skip proportionate checks.
- 4
Repair the miss
When a nonfatal problem appears, treat it as something to solve rather than proof that the whole effort failed.
Pro tip Generate practical alternatives using replaceable resources.
- 5
Play again
Use the preserved capacity to make the next attempt, allowing any single miss to remain light.
Pro tip A bank of future work can protect a consistent practice.
In the wild
Godin spent a month coordinating collectible chocolate packaging, but the plant reported that the delivered paper was too thin. An extra three weeks of assurance would have missed the launch windows, so the team moved forward and considered a reprint or putting the wrapper inside a cardboard box.
→ The problem remained solvable because the project was not large enough to make the error fatal.
Godin says half of his nine thousand blog posts are below average and that he cannot know which are weak until later. Because another post follows each day, an individual clunker stays light.
→ Repeated attempts preserve consistency without requiring every output to win.
Common mistakes
Making one bet existential
A project that has to work removes the capacity to experiment and play again.
Waiting for certainty
Trying to remove every possible failure can cause the opportunity window itself to close.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for innovation, launches, and creative output where outcomes cannot be known in advance.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal for irreversible bets or situations where a failed experiment would cause unacceptable harm.
From the transcript
“If you can say before you do something, this might not work. It makes it easier to do it.”
“That my job as a pioneer is to do stuff that might not work.”
“But it's not fatal because I never do a project that's so big it has to work Oh, never go all in.”
From the episode
Big Business Growth: Strategy Marketing with Seth Godin (a.k.a. Willy Wonka)
Seth Godin