Whom the gods would destroy…

Virtually all of us are not doing extraordinary work. We’re just not. In 500 years you and I will be as well known as the random farmer in ancient Egypt.

Our work is the stuff we need to do to get by and pay our bills, but it doesn’t change the world and the people around us couldn’t care less about what our day-to-day work is.

We convince ourselves that every job, project, deadline, or audience is an end-of-the-world scenario. We tell ourselves that everyone will look at us differently or examines all the tiny particulars of everything we do.

Much like the teenager who is paralyzed by fear while attending High School because “everyone” is going to see that pimple, we repeat this process and neuter ourselves when we make our work more important than it is.

It reminds me of the Latin saying, Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat “Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first deprives of reason.”

Don’t become a madman by inflating the importance of what you’re doing and the importance of the audience who’s watching.

Sleep on the side of the mountain

Have you ever seen those photos of the crazy climbers that hang their tent on the side of a rock face?

We can say these people are crazy, but really, they’re just way more dedicated to something than we can fathom.

They sleep on the sides of mountains.

Stay curious and never plateau. Never leave off climbing toward greater excellence in your work and life.

Learn and expand your abilities always.

No matter if things are going well or badly, keep learning new things, practicing skills, and expanding your abilities.

There is no standing still in life. Either you’re moving forward or sliding backward.

Covet what others have (don’t!)

It’s distracting to always be envious of what others have. Why do you want it anyway? Usually, we didn’t even think we wanted until we saw someone else with it.

What is “it”?

“It” is that fancy car, the bigger paycheck, the beach house, the debt-free lifestyle, the more fit body, the bigger accolades from your peers, etc…

Decide what you will work for independent of what the people around you appear to have and focus on going after that.

Let others envy you, don’t waste time and energy being envious of others.

You’re not who you think you are (and you’re unquestionably not who they say you are)

You’re not a “genius,” a “maker,” a “creative,” a “brilliant mind,” or whatever other labels they stick to you.

You are what you are because of the amount of work you put in and the strategy that went into that work.

Strive to be the one who pays attention to detail and who fulfills the mission at hand.

Don’t worry about buying the stock at the lowest price and selling at the highest price. Instead, buy or sell at a good price. You’ll be more successful than the guy who sits on his hands while waiting for a better moment.

Resist the urge for huge plans and ambitions. Your ambition should be a focus on the details and to put in work each day. Be a little better than yesterday. That will elevate you higher than your original plans.

As Paul Graham once said, “The way to do really big things seems to be to start with deceptively small things.”

Work harder.

How to fail

You’ve been lied to. What you think is "failure" is not failure at all.

If you are moving, you have not failed. No matter what direction you’re heading.

In the words of Thomas Edison, “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”

This so-called failure is a discovery and it's not bad, it’s very good! The only failure is when you give up. That is how to fail.

Knowing less as you learn more

The fire of the sun doesn’t burn as hotly as the young man who’s just learned something new or finished his first book of substance.

Armed with a tiny amount of details, his mind elevates him to a high plane where he is one of the world’s foremost experts.

Nobody can challenge him and his newfound prowess. After all, he’s read an entire book on his expertise.

Scientia inflat or “knowledge puffeth up” is the condition with which he suffers.

Will he crack the code and learn to always be a student? Will he listen and observe more than he talks? Will he insert himself into uncomfortable situations where he’s the least knowledgeable in the room? Will he pick up a second book and acknowledge that there is still learning to do?

Or will he crash and burn under the weight of his self-imposed ignorance?

The more we learn, the more we realize how little we know and how much more there is to learn.

Do you always remain a student, or have you told yourself that you’ve graduated?

When the tide of battle turns

There is a moment in any conflict when both sides believe they are going to lose. At that moment, whoever commits most to the task at hand and pushes hardest will be the victor.

When things seem darkest is when you must push the hardest. Then you will have the breakthrough. So push! Even if you believe the outlook is grim.

Do what feels wrong to get were it feels right

When you start something new every roadblock is a mountain and you can only “fake it ‘till you make it” for so long. We convince ourselves that if it’s not helping and contributing to the bottom line, what’s the point?

This is equivalent to hooking a great marlin at sea and cranking away on the reel until the fishing rod or fishing line snap completely.

You have to be able to let out the line and trust that in doing something that seems to be counter-intuitive, you’re doing something productive.

Instead of pumping up your ego and becoming a delusional, pompous, ignoramus, look to be unassuming, helpful, and one who passes credit to others.

The more humble you are, the more you add rocket fuel to your ambition. You just don’t feel it at the moment you do it. It’s the long game that I prefer to play. You sacrifice the now for something better in the future. You sacrifice your desire for instant gratification and accolades/recognition/respect for a real, deep, and meaningful impact a little bit later.

Stop dreaming so much

The list of ideas is worth nothing if you don’t do something with it. Ideas don’t make themselves come to fruition. Why are you waiting?

Do you think the work is complete because you’ve made another business plan?

Do you think the great ones just dreamed about ideas and then went to bed?

They worked in the dark. They worked when nobody was looking. They sacrificed the day, hour after hour, for the ambition that burned within them.

They sidestepped the desire of the ego to be petted every waking moment and gorged with entertainment and distraction and they started doing.

Move toward any direction, but move you must. Work doesn’t make itself good, you need to craft it and shape it and make it great.

You either build your life or you die the slow death of comfort while everyone around you rises above.

Why I deserve a free wedding

Weddings cost so much money and they seldom deliver on the dollars-per-minute-of-enjoyment side of the deal. So why do we spend so much money on weddings?

If I dared to have a cheap wedding I would make certain family members very angry. Surely my wife’s family would not be thrilled either. So I guess the solution is to take out a small loan to pay for my wedding? I should pay out tens of thousands of dollars for an evening and dinner with the family? Why not take everyone to a nice steak house and get food that is edible and spend less money?

No, that’s unacceptable. You’re expected to have a miserable day, eat (usually) awful food, and spend the equivalent of a base-model Corvette to do that.

I don’t deserve a free wedding and neither do you. You simply must grin and bear it. It’s usually miserable and costs a ton. But it builds character and gives you practice on overloading expenses onto whichever family member will help foot the bill.

How do you react?

When things get tough, how do you react? Do you look for a way out or the first excuse that appears?

What you should do is pivot and find the next move you need to make and get after it.

No stopping and complaining. No asking why it’s happening to you. No excuses.

Whether things are going well or poorly, there is always opportunity. You just have to be able to go forward and you’ll run into some. The direction matters not, the action is everything.

Why do you work?

Do you start a project or get into a fight you’re unsure that you can win? I am sure this is the fastest way to ensure you take no risk.

The safe stuff is the stuff you’re most comfortable taking on, but glory is gained when you take on the stuff that nobody thinks you can do or win and you do it or win it, you become special.

You also gain confidence. Take on the stuff you’re scared of even when the “odds” are against you. None of that matters. What matters is how hard you fight for what you want.

Use the hammer, not the sledgehammer

You don’t always have to reach for the biggest or most powerful tool in your box. Use the tool that’s right for the job and you use less energy to get the work done and also risk far less collateral damage.

Imagine trying to tap together a picture frame with a sledgehammer. Destroy the wood, use lots of energy to lift and swing the sledge, and still not get the job done effectively.

Pick the right tool, not the biggest tool.

Consistency over intensity

Consistent goodness is great. Having the energy to be great for one day and then vanishing for a week is terrible. It reeks of missing potential.

Focus on small wins and consistency in doing a little and repeating.

20% every day is better than 100% once a week.

Feeling on the morning after

The election day was yesterday. It always feels good to have the day behind you, but usually, we know who is the winner by early Wednesday morning and we’re pretty much clueless.

Who knows what the next steps are. It might be days or weeks of fighting and theories and who knows what.

Times like this are a reminder to myself to be patient, especially when you feel the pressure of the situation.

Pressure is only as bad as you make it.

The day we all want to ignore

It’s here. Election Day in the US has been an interesting and exciting event for the past few election cycles. I suppose it’s always been exciting for the political geeks, but it’s gotten to the point where it’s pushed its way into everyone’s life and polarized pretty much everything we do.

Hopefully, it will be a swift and peaceful election and we can all get back to work quickly.

Taking the unfair abuse of life

We all cry that it’s unfair when things don’t go as we think they should. The playground echoes forth the voice of a thousand ten-year-olds crying out: “hey! that’s not fair!” There is you or me stewing about a business dealing that hasn’t gone according to plan while staring out a window at 1 am. It’s the same internal desire for equity (or what we believe would have been equitable.)

Breach of fair and equitable dealing is a sad fact of life. It’s part of the journey.

We can make our response to these things the central excuse for why we don’t accomplish our grand plan, or our response can be another rung in the ladder we’re climbing.

Obsessions of the mind

It’s time to get out of your own head. Stop thinking and planning and start doing. Start doing something that you have not spent any time planning. No matter how uncomfortable, do something without preparation.

I’m an obsessive planner. I plan so much that I fall in love with my plans and begin to think the work is completed. Even if I haven’t started!

I fall into the trap of imagining how awesome the work will be when it’s finished. Then I never start doing the work at all!

Too much planning and thought takes the place of action as you spend more time living in a fantasy world rather than doing the simple work in front of you.

The planning will get so complex that you convince yourself the simple work to be done couldn’t possibly be the right thing to do. All because it looks too simple and too easy.

Instead, you never start. You never get the important stuff done. You dream about more plans and more to do lists.

You become paralyzed as the fantasy world and a delusion of grandeur. Your huge plans replace the actual world around you.

The work doesn’t start because you’ve lost the distinction between your grand plans and the real world. The abstract has started to replace the physical. Then laziness, indolence, and procrastination bite you like a viper.

Creative-minded people are especially susceptible to this condition as they have imaginations that run wild.

These imaginations include grand plans and dreams of how successful you will be, but they also build false expectations and horrors that the whole world watches every little move you make.

When you believe this lie you become afraid to make a mistake or look stupid. When you become afraid to look stupid you are further paralyzed from success.

We must get out of our own head. Live in the real world. Put away the abstract. Be courageous enough to live with what is real and take part in what happens around you.

No more grand plans. No more illusions of the crowd watching every move. Simple, honest, humble work will win the day.

Time to look stupid

If you’re afraid to look stupid it’s going to be much harder to win.

The innovator must endure the ridicule of the established and the cutting edge artist must be subjected to the judgment of the gallery.

But in the end, the innovator and the artist are remembered for their contributions while the crowds are largely forgotten.

Don’t be afraid to look stupid. Fear of this is the best way to ensure you will not be successful.