The constant distraction of 24/7 social and traditional media will keep your senses stimulated and give you the feeling of accomplishment at the moment. It’s just a distraction.
The key to better productivity is to shut out the background noise of all sorts. Social media, email, notifications, small talk, all suck energy from us during hours of work.
The only sensory stimulation we want is from the productivity we achieve, not from a day of scrolling Facebook.
There is a famous mountain in Southern France that is climbed in many bike races. It’s called Mont Ventoux and it’s a daunting climb that covers about 5,000 feet of vertical climbing.
Of course, if you do make it to the top, you have a long and very fast descent back to the bottom.
But if you don’t bring the right bike and you don’t pace your descent correctly, you can literally melt away your brake pads.
If you have no brakes you’ll be flying down a mountain full of turns and bends at 60+mph without a way to slow down.
So instead of riding, you’ll be walking. Most people don’t want to be walking 12 miles down the side of a mountain dragging a bike with them.
But when you combine bad preparation with bad pacing you end up in a most unenviable position. Whether bike riding or doing business, you don’t want to be walking Ventoux.
It was Henry Van Dyke who wrote “Some people are so afraid to die that they never begin to live.”
That’s what I like to call a “sunset quote.” Anything I add subtracts from the message.
So be prepared. Being there at the right time in the right place is helpful when you’re climbing. Opportunity comes to us all, but you have to be working and your work needs to be good.
The mountain is steep all the way to the top, but it is snowy and cold and lonely as you get closer to the summit.
As you get closer to the top, expect to have to work harder.
Solidly into the new year and I have thought about and looked over my list of goals for 2020. I see that I have achieved precisely zero of them.
Not the best year.
However, that’s no excuse. It’s shameful that I allowed such a tumultuous year to dictate how much I got done. I completely let the start of the year get into my head and lead me astray and I spent the remainder of the year playing catch up (which is the best way to be sure you will underperform by massive margins.)
2021 will be the year of flexibility and compartmentalization.
Each month is a box and any success or failure lives in that box.
Each week the same thing.
Each day the same thing.
One bad day is ok. Two bad days are not. A bad week, month, or year? How can we even think upon such a thing?
If you start today and you grind all year long you will achieve what you never thought possible in 365 days.
Or you could keep doing what is not working and spend your time hoping and doing what is not working.
It was a very different year and I worked so much but felt like I didn’t work much at all because the work that I believe is so important I did so little of.
I just did a lot of other work.
That’s the danger of expectations and rigid schedules. Even with a ton of productivity and accomplishment, you still leave so much to be desired on the table because you’ve constrained yourself so much.
2021 will be all about falling in love with the process and not the outcome. Doing good work, not focusing on results. Taking pleasure from completing work and finishing projects rather than other people’s validation or acceptance of them.
Looking forward to a happier and more flexible 2021!
I harp on the reason behind why we do what we do because I constantly fall into the trap of finding it hard to begin if I don’t think the end result will be worthwhile.
My internal dialog is: If it doesn’t change the world, should I invest the time and effort into doing it?
To which, I must remind myself that I don’t decide what will or won’t change the world. You don’t choose the act that will create the most good over the course of your life. It just happens and it’s usually not what you think will be most impactful.
This attitude goes back to my belief that we should never start something only if we “know” it will be a winning project. You don’t play a game only if you’ll win. You play hoping to win, but you only win when you combine the best mix of hard work, effort, and thought/innovation. Do that stuff best and you’ll win. But still, sometimes you lose. Doesn’t matter. You still show up and work hard and smart again the next day.
The effort and the process is what matters. The world will be changed whether you like it or not. Are you giving yourself the best chance to be involved, or will your opportunity pass you by while you wait for the right opportunity?
What? You’re waiting until New Year’s Day to start your resolution?
Why? Why not start today?
Real change isn’t linked to a specific date. It’s hooked to you making the first move.
December 29th is just as good as January 1st, as far as I can tell. I’m starting today.
There is a guy named Jackson who collects carts in the parking lot of my local grocery store. He’s out there in the freezing cold and dark getting the job done.
From what I can tell (and our very brief conversations) he has a fairly severe down syndrome or mental deficiency which makes it difficult for him to know what to say. He’ll talk slowly and labor thinking of the proper words to use, but he figures it out.
He’s a bit of an inspiring character. There he is working away and doing everything he can to get the job done. He’s friendly, kind, and comes to your car to get the cart as soon as you’re finished loading your groceries.
He got me thinking on my drive home the other day about how much I have and how I take it for granted. I’ve been given so much and I waste so much. I could do so much more if I did the best with what I’ve got.
If Jackson can get out there and put in hours of work, I should be able to do so as well.
Results don’t matter, doing the best with what you’ve got is supreme.
When you work for the awards, your work will not be good.
When you do good work, the awards will come.
The awards are the praise of our loved ones, made up awards by publications, being listed in the top-ten of whatever magazine, getting Instagram likes, getting Facebook page follows, etc…
Don’t work for the awards.
Imagine starting a sandwich shop in New York City.
The big publication rates your shop as the third best.
Now imagine that you want nothing more than to be rated number one!
You’re angry and upset that you lose motivation to continue with your craft. Quality slides, sales slip, and, after a few years, you close your shop.
There must be hundreds of sandwich shops in New York City and you were number three! What have you done!?
There is so much incredible art and all the many wonderful experiences you deprive of others. You will lose so much business and future opportunities. All because you closed that shop. Because you were third.
To be content with the third-best is good, but better is to still want to be number one–while holding as most important your standard of excellence and the process of doing the best job possible.
When the process of "doing the best you can" replace outward accolades, you will find contentment, stability, and happiness.
You also won't kill the thing you love because it's not good enough in the eyes of others.
Only good things can happen. The still ship is unturnable. However, when she moves forward, progress and adjustments are made. Don’t be a sitting duck, be a moving ship.
Boiling water isn’t always cooking something, but it’s always bubbling. The moment there is an opportunity to cook, it always cooks.
It’s always ready to cook. It’s always bubbling.
Opportunity knocks for each one of us. Will it find you ready?
Nothing too rigid. Rigid appears strong for a while, but when it reaches a breaking point it’s a loud, shattering, destructive process.
Gum doesn’t snap. It stretches and bends and flows.
In everything you do with your work, leave room for flexibility and creativity.
It’s much less stressful and you’re better able to be stable and productive when things get flipped on their head.
I don’t hear the cheering and I don’t hear the booing because I’m not listening to the audience.
What I wrote above is the ideal, but it is not what I do because my method of work is invariably connected to being in some kind of “flow state” with my audience and the people who love what I’m creating.
You must find a way to be in tune with your audience and potential clients in a way that shows you care, but at the same time, you must be able to allow critique and criticism to roll off your back and not affect you or your mindset for even a single second.
Filter all comments and cheering from the audience through a diamond level filter in a place of complete sterility and allow the important, constructive stuff to get through to you.
The cheering makes you fat and lazy, the booing destroys your confidence and will to drive forward. Ignore the cheers and the boos.
You put me and Wolfgang Puck in the same kitchen with the same ingredients and tools and he’ll cook my pants right off my lower half. He’ll smoke me like a freshly caught salmon.
But you give us both the best camera in the market and I’ll make Wolfgang Puck look like Wolfgang "Suck, suck, suck" if you’re catching my drift.
The tools don’t matter that much. What you or I can do with them is everything.
Give me a suit of glittering armor and people will question my sexuality, but you give that suit of armor to Alexander the Great and half the world is under his thumb by the time he’s 30 years old.
Give me a baseball bat and I can hit a dribbler to second base, give that bat to Bryce Harper and he’ll make it worth $500 million.
Who cares what tools and skills you have if you can’t use them to the best of your ability? Find your strong suit and lean into it. Don’t try to be the elephant who thinks he can fly.
I must have shoveled 2,000 pounds (or more!) of snow yesterday clearing the 12 inches of snow we had from my driveway. It was a workout.
It took hours.
But imagine, if you will, trying to pick up one ton of snow with one shovel scoop and dump it all at once.
You couldn’t even get started because you can’t do that much.
By chipping away, one scoop at a time, the job got done.
Rome wasn’t built in a day because Rome couldn’t be built in a day. You must settle for doing a little bit at a time if you wish to be effective and build something lasting.
We’re not allowed to be curious. Asking a sincere question about something that “is obvious” is perceived as being stupid.
On second thought, we're allowed to be curious, but it will cost us some reputation.
I still ask earnest questions about “obvious” things and people think I’m weird.
I get lots of interesting answers and neat stories, though. Worth it.
Don’t get attached to what you think it should be. Don’t identify something by its future supposed outcome.
The future doesn’t care about what you hope for. It simply happens as was planned out regardless of what you wish for.
So don’t hope 2021 is what you wish for, make it what you dream of.