Doing the least amount possible

If you know how little you need to do to get by, you can ensure much greater consistency with the things you do.

I like to set minimum attainable standards I must meet, but also maximum limitations I must abide by for nearly every task in my life.

If I just meet the minimum, I can check that item off my to-do list. The maximum limit ensures I don't spend 3 hours in the morning working on sketching when there are more pressing items I must be doing.

Example #1: Go to the gym each day

Minimum standard: Drive to the gym and walk on the treadmill for five minutes.

Maximum standard: Complete my full lifting routine for that day + 30 minutes of running.

Knowing that all I NEED to do is get to the gym and walk for five minutes helps get me to the gym and once I'm at the gym the lifting and cardio is easy. The most difficult part of going to the gym is the going part.

Example #2: Read every day

Minimum standard: Read for five minutes.

Maximum limitation: Read for no more than 60 minutes.

Finding five minutes to pick up a book is easy and most of the time I get engrossed in what I'm reading and stick around for 30 or 40 minutes. Here the maximum limitation forces me to focus as I read because I can only spend an hour reading at most.

This technique has been the most effective way to get me doing the daily task I want to incorporate into my life and be consistent with them. Reading, praying, working out, sketching, email, cleaning my office, learning new skills via online training, writing these blog posts, and a number of other things.

Have you considered setting a minimum standard for something to be considered a success in your life and business?

Buying the Sigma 50mm f1.4 ART or Canon 50mm f1.2L?

In a sharp break from the normal philosophical-leaning posts on this blog, I want to talk about some camera gear.

I've been long overdue for an upgrade to my 50mm lens. Over the past 3-4 years, I've had this love affair with my 85mm lens and haven't used my Canon 50mm f1.4 enough to justify an upgrade.

Now is the time for an upgrade, and I'm forced to make the choice between the near 15-year-old Canon f1.2L 50mm lens and the larger/heavier and $600-cheaper Sigma 50mm f1.4 ART lens.

The choice of the actual Canon branded lens that has an additional 1/3rd stop in the aperture department seems to be the obvious choice, but after looking into the comparisons, the Sigma lens seems to be very superior when it comes to the lens distortion and sharpness. The only downside I've found to the Sigma is that it's about an inch longer than the Canon and it's about half a pound heavier.

Both lenses have fast focusing (for sub f2.0 lenses) and weather sealing.

For additional sharpness and less lens distortion at a $600 cheaper price tag, I decided to go with the Sigma.

The only argument I heard about why the Canon 50mm f1.2L was better was that, despite it being a much less sharp lens, it "just produces a better portrait."

I'm not really sure what that means and I haven't been able to find anyone who compares this made up lens feature. For me, I'll take the best available tool and find a way to make beautiful portraits with it.

Sigma 50mm F1.4 lens review should be coming soon!

Doubt the people you love the most

I want the people I care about to doubt me, underestimate me, and be sure that I will fail. It's the best motivation for my success and it drives me more than pretty much anything else.

Because of the way doubt fuels me, I doubt most the people who I want most to succeed because I know how it feels. I believe that my doubt will be a great motivator to their success (if they know I am doubting them and they care about my opinion).

It's a loving sort of doubt, not the doubt expressed by people who want you to fail because of insecurities. This is an empowering doubt meant to help push someone to the next level and then shove it in my face.

Years ago I loved when people complimented me in various ways, but these days, I prefer the people who express doubt and arrogantly proclaim that I will be a failure. The compliments drove me to get fat and lazy, the doubt and arrogance drive me to work harder and ensure that I'll be shoveling dirt back in their faces as the years move on.

P.S. today my wife and I lost a dear grandmother on her side of the family. Death is always a sobering reminder of the fleeting nature of life. Take nothing for granted and do your best today as if it's your last.

Did I wake up too late?

It's never too late to start. This maxim stands true for a day of work or a life of accomplishments (or lack thereof.)

Resist the urge to lay down and give up because you've got a late start. Woke up 3 hours late? No big deal. You may still do 80% of your tasks (and don't sleep in again!). Just discovered your passion at age 45? No problem. Sam Walton opened his first "Walmart" store at age 44.

Sam Walton didn't let his late start deter him and now his family has a pretty successful thing going on.

Sometimes I wonder how many good things get passed up because you or I got started later than expected. How much are we surrendering because we can't remain agile and flexible even when our first plans don't come through the way we expect?

Never give up. Never make excuses. Never be envious of those who have youth rather than experience.

Monday is beautiful

In a world where we all hate Monday so much, I try to show the day some love. For me, Monday is a fresh start, a clean slate, a promise of what's to come and the excitement of a new week full of potential.

I love Monday. Do you?

Kodak paid the ultimate price

This isn't a break-up story, it's what happens when you stand still when you stop moving when you stop innovating.

When a company gets large it also gets cumbersome and moves like a large ship. Smaller startups are far more agile and can risk it all if they believe it will make the difference. Large companies play it safe and prefer to be risk-averse.

In 1976, Kodak sold 90% of the film in the country. Less than 30 years later they're a dead company. Why? Because they failed to innovate. With billions of dollars in revenue tied up in the film photography realm, they failed to make the transition to digital when the rest of the world did and they paid the ultimate price.

Your company is smaller than Kodak was in 1976 and far more agile. Don't be afraid to make changes, try new things, and take risks.

What are you doing to stick out?

Are you noticeable or easy to forget? In today's marketplace, having noticeability is useful–unless you're in a crime syndicate.

But to be noticeable requires doing things differently or being so magnificent at what you do that people cannot ignore you any longer. The problem for us is that there is only one Michael Jordan, one Lance Armstrong, one Ansel Adams, one "greatest-ever" legend at nearly everything.

We all have a limit on just how magnificent we can be at any given thing (I could shoot 1000 basketballs a day and never even crack an NBA roster, let alone compete on Jordan's level,) but we all can go about things differently and in a more daring fashion.

Be the first bookmobile, the first person to transform an old airplane into your home, or the first person to walk across the North Pole. Do something different and run the risk of being noticed.

I know in principle these things are true, but I still find myself tempted to play it safe because the comfort of conformity is a seductive and entangling mistress. If you're going to be different, you have to live it and it must become your modus operandi. Everyone can sniff it out if you're faking the commitment to doing things differently. That's not the noticeability you want.

What are you doing to stick out?

Forcing creativity

Forcing creativity, or as I like to call it, "getting work done" is the bane of all the dreamers and creatives in the world. We love to dream. I'd dream all day if I could make a living at it. Hard work needs to be done to get ahead. Walking doesn't cut it, you need to run to make progress.

My favorite way of forcing my creativity and getting things done is to place myself under artificial time constraints. Building my own deadlines and sticking to them.

Of course, you need to develop the self-discipline to actually want to stick to your deadlines. After all, you're the only one to whom you're accountable. Will you throw off the deadlines and embrace the mediocrity of relaxed, slow-paced, get-nothing-done-ness?

Or will you make those deadlines the most important thing in your working day? Will you actually make the change and get that work done or consistently stick to your schedule?

Try forcing your own creativity. You just might find it's pretty great.

Selling for cheap vs. expensive

Would you rather sell one $1 product to 1,000,000 people or one $100,000 product to 10 people?

1 million customers bring 1 million potential tech support issues, 1 million overhead charges, and 1 million transactions that need to be processed.

You can take care of 10 customers and treat them like the kings and queens that they are.

Bottom line is that your company makes the same profit (probably more due to less customer service and transactional fees!) and you don't need to stay up all night struggling to care for a million customers.

How do you charge $100,000 for your product? Become the best at what you do and never stop until you get there.

New Year's Resolutions

If you can create a New Year’s Resolution, can’t you start now instead of waiting for a special day?

Make changes for the better whether it’s the 1st of the year or the 100th day.

Goodbye, 2018

2018 was a good year. Not great, just good. I left a lot on the table and played it safer than I should have. It's always easier to talk about taking bigger risks than actually going and taking those risks.

I'm not one for "New Year's Resolutions." They only last a few days, anyway. I prefer setting goals for the year and working toward them. Here are a few goals for 2019–personal and professional:

1. (5 am) wake up every day

2. Read 52 books in 2019

3. Write a post every day

4. Sketch 5-6x a week

5. 5,000,000 views monthly on my YouTube channel

6. Start a photography YouTube channel

7. Be consistent weekly with my podcast

8. Create more impressive videos, even if that means creating less of them.

9. Create 2x-5x courses/products for my company.

10. Hit 1.5 million YouTube subscribers

11. Hit 100k followers on Instagram

12. Be more personal on all social media (show my face and get involved more)

13. Achieve more than 3x of these goals this year.

I made a list at the beginning of 2018 and I achieved 1 of the ten goals I outlined. The main goal will be achieving more than ONE of these goals this time around.

Complacency

I have a problem with "resting on my laurels". You know, when things are going good and you start thinking you've got it all locked down and you're ready to cruise. Well, for me, that's exactly when I take my foot off the gas pedal and begin to nosedive.

I wrote a post yesterday about how I'd been perfect in my run of writing blog posts every Mon-Sat for one solid month. I was very happy with my success and wished it to continue for weeks, months, years(?)

Yet today I find myself almost forgetting to even write. In fact, it's past dinner time, it's past 9 pm and I'm just finally getting set in front of my writing desk to put this together.

There is a Biblical proverb that says "Pride cometh before a fall" and while I'd argue my attitude wasn't self-aggrandizing in the least, it still seems to be that frame of mind that almost instantly sets me on a course of complacency, laziness, thinking I've done enough for long enough.

You can never do enough good. You can never do that much good for too long either. The message to myself is: stay hungry, stay focused, stay humble.

Thanks for listening.

Is this thing on?

Well, here we are. I never thought I'd stick with this daily writing thing. I said in my first blog post where I committed to writing each day that I didn't believe I'd stick with it (probably because I’ve tried to start several times, but never really committed.)

Am I now able to stick with it for another month? until summertime? across all of 2019? beyond 2019? That's the plan.

But what's the point? Does anyone even read what I'm writing? (for the record: I’ve had a traffic spike of +3,000 site visitors since starting the blogging in November)

The short answer is: it doesn't matter because I'm not writing for others to read. I'm writing for me to write and when I write I solidify my thoughts and get them neatly lined up in my mind. They become more clear.

So here's to another year (or five) of making my thoughts more salient and improving my writing day by day.

Death is a deadline

Deadlines are hated because they introduce discomfort, but we often are able to use that discomfort as a motivator to get our tasks finished on time. We don't like discomfort so we try to avoid deadlines and keep things comfortable. Comfort is no good teacher. Comfort leads to laziness and complacency.

The biggest deadline that we all have is one that is unknown. Death. We'll all face it someday, but when? Tomorrow? Next year? 50 years from now? Who knows.

We all behave as if it doesn't apply to us. Not that deadline. We take things for granted, lose focus, waste time, don't spend time, effort, money on things that really matter, and get stressed out about problems that will seem laughable 6 months from now.

But some of us have the great fortune of experiencing near-death. So often this roots in a person a fundamental change in which the precariousness of this life we live has reared its head and made that person REALLY believe they will die. A realization of and meditation on that precariousness of our lives makes us free from the trivial things that would bog us down and it helps us push for the stars in pursuit of our goals.

Can you honestly think about death and its finality? Can you use this to motivate you to be more free, more kind, and more focused on leaving your mark?

Nothing shameful about sweeping

There I was sitting in the bedroom of a condo I was renting about ten years ago when my landlady showed up enraged. She'd had a fight with her boyfriend and punched him in the face, he reported her, the police got involved, and that day she'd lost her job because of it. She was a school teacher.

She was talking (yelling) to someone on her phone. I don't remember much except one point when she said (yelled) "I can't go bartend, or be a waitress! I HAVE A TEACHING DEGREE!"

I think it was the arrogance of it that hit me at the moment, but years later I realized that there is nothing shameful with taking a "lesser" job. Tending bar, waiting tables, or sweeping the school hallways are not shameful, they are all opportunities to excel at the task in front of you and learn from every experience each day.

Life doesn't owe us anything. We're not entitled to riches just for showing up. Sometimes the best lesson can be learned in the humility of doing the task in front of you while building toward that greater goal.

Of course, she did get herself into the situation by punching the lights out of her boyfriend, but that wasn't the point here. If you mess up, be prepared to pay the price. But please, remember, there is nothing shameful about sweeping.

Write drunk, edit sober

There was a study about creativity that some smart people did which indicated that if we wish to be more creative, we should move into an "open mode" way of thinking.

The ability to shift yourself into a free or "open" mode of thinking where the standard restraints and requirements are nonexistent, at least in our mind, for a period of time can be the greatest boon to developing better ideas and being a more creative person.

This is the idea behind writing drunk. When you're loose and stuff doesn't have to make sense all the time and you can explore things that seem to be a waste of time and/or ludicrous.

However, once you've developed that great idea, it's time to buckle down, put the beer down, and pick up the coffee and begin the editing process. Edit and implement to transform those incredible creative ideas into incredible creative realities.

Write drunk, edit sober.

Are we human or machine?

The problem is that the machines will always be better at being a machine than a human will. The chair does its job perfectly and never tires. The calculator is faster than you. The bucket does a better job of holding water.

When we invent the machine to do a job, it will end up doing its job better and faster than you. So how can we compete?

We compete by being humans, not machines. We compete by being artistic, flexible, unpredictable, creative, and understanding.

The robots are predictable, inflexible, monotonous, and cold emotionless cyborgs.

The illusion of perfection is boring. The finished product is predictable. We want to see the challenges, the process, the working out the difficulties, the hard moments and hidden stuff all along the way.

Don't be a machine, focus on being a human. Share human experiences.

Chasing perfection

90% is good enough. The time it takes to try to fill that gap between 90% perfect and actual perfection is a waste and nobody notices the difference between 90% and 100% perfect.

Why chase perfection when it's imperfect to spend 90% of the time fixing that last 10% of "perfectness"?

In that time, you could make 9x more things at 90% quality and produce 900% worth of quality cumulatively instead of just one product at 100% worth of quality.

Wasting that kind of time and effort is imperfect in itself. So what exactly are you chasing?

I have the theory that you'll never achieve perfection this side of heaven. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good enough.

Blowing yourself out

The greatest runners pace themselves at the beginning of the race so they have the energy to close out and maintain a lead when coming down the home stretch. Not much is worse than starting strong and fading as you approach the finish line.

For me, the week consists of six blocks of potential work time: Monday-Saturday. Sunday is a day of church, rest, and reset from the outside world. In my mind Monday through Saturday is a sprint, but in reality, it's a marathon.

Pacing early in the week is vital to ensure I'm still getting the sleep I need, waking early, working out, and focusing on Friday just as I was on Monday.

Today is Friday and this blog post is a short, hastily thrown-together thing because I blew myself out on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I sprinted hard those days and now, by Friday, I'm a few hours behind and my morning routine is a third of what it was a few days ago.

I must use discipline to force myself to shut down earlier, maintain adequate sleep early in the week to ensure I can run hard down the stretch as I close out the week. No excuses, I’ll still do it, but it could be much easier if I’d paced myself.

Pacing, pacing, pacing. Everything doesn't have to be completed today. In fact, if you simply work at a smooth, semi-fast pace, you'll end up with more productive weeks, months, and years. Pace yourself and trust that tomorrow will be there when you need it. (for most of us, it will be!)

Should we value attention or results?

When nobody is looking do you still work as hard? If you couldn't get 100 likes would you still put forth the effort? If the only payoff was self-satisfaction or a meager paycheck, would you still be grinding your face off to get ahead?

In the day of social media influencers and celebrity entrepreneurs, we can get more caught up in growing a following instead of focusing on what brings our customers value.

Big following does not always equal successful business.

Unless you're in the business of attention, attention does not equal results. Delivering the results your client expects will deliver the results you expect whether you have 100 or 1 million followers.

Likes are nice, but they don't pay the bills.