Things rarely live up to the hype

Whether it’s the young, up-and-coming sports player, or the big business contracts that are going to come by massaging a new client, things very rarely deliver on the hype.

Maybe the issue is our expectations, but having that high expectation gives us something to get excited about and helps us do our best work.

So it’s useful to buy into the hype and throw your weight behind your project and your client, regardless of how much more you can get out of them.

Use the thought of riches and glory to motivate you to work harder, but be content with knowing you gave it your best effort and you worked your tail off.

With that, you can both get excited and passionate, but also be thrilled and content when something doesn’t deliver on the hype you expected. Of course, when something does deliver on the hype, you’ll enjoy it even more.

Devaluing your role (and stealing ideas)

We might think that because we’re not doing all of the heavy lifting, that we don’t have a valuable role to place in our life. But the ability to recognize a good idea is talent. Don’t worry about taking a good idea you see or hear and making what you can of it.

Knowing the right thing to take and build with takes talent and creativity.

Stress can be good

It can be good when you use it as a fire to keep you uncomfortable and to force yourself to keep growing and building and working with urgency.

Remember that when you’re subjected to stress. It’s a great motivator and can be the catalyst to boost you to the next level.

On the other hand, if you allow stress to crush you, destroy your confidence, and suck the life out of you, it’s the worst thing. But it’s only that bad because of your response to it.

When you feel stress, feel it. And then remind yourself that you can use that feeling of discomfort to absolutely smash whatever it is you’re after. Use stress, don’t let stress use you.

It’s not about tomorrow, it’s about today

Focusing on how massive the change in life could be in 90 days is what we do automatically. “I could lose 20 pounds in 90 days!”

The problem is, that keeps the goal *over here* way out away from actually having to do anything right now.

We want everything to change right now. We want to make up for lost time and do ten years of lost work in a day. We can’t do that. We have to know and believe and be convicted that we can’t do that. That time, energy, and growth potential is gone. Forget about it.

You’re not going to lose weight over 90 days if you don’t focus on doing weight-loss stuff for one day first.

Focus on what you do today. Right now. Not the next 24 days, focus on the next 24 hours.

Make tomorrow 1% better than today, but make today 1% better than yesterday first.

Don’t try to make it 2% better or 10% better. Make it 1% better.

Take the time to build something and achieve the goal you want to achieve. Stop chasing lost time. It only costs you more time and is one of the lynchpins of procrastination.

Focus on today and what you’ll do today. NOTHING ELSE.

Wanting to live, but being too afraid

We, humans, make some strange decisions.

We’re so afraid to ask the girl out that we don’t ask and never get to go out with her.

We’re so afraid of criticism that we hide our artwork, but then nobody gets to see it.

We’re so afraid of pain that we avoid pleasure.

We’re so afraid of looking bad that we don’t put ourselves out there and realize we come across pretty well.

We’re so afraid of getting hurt, we avoid anything except the banalest and dullest of pursuits.

We’re so afraid of death that we never try to live.

If only we could make ourselves believe that everything has a risk associated with it. Everything worthwhile has a possibility of a downside to us, but if we do enough worthwhile stuff, some might backfire, but most of it will go pretty well.

If we could only believe that, we’d all be much more willing to take risks and do great things.

Growing up, growing old, and all those sayings

There’s a famous saying out there that says something like, “the trick in life is to grow up without growing old.” Everyone has ideas about getting older and trying to stay younger and we’re all probably wrong.

So many people have gotten old and practically everybody does the same thing(s). Growing old seems easy until you have to do it.

My take on old age and the changes that come with it has more to do with ambition and passion. Do you lose your passion and ambition as you get older, or does losing your passion and ambition cause you to get older?

Much in the same way, do you grow older and stop exercising, or do you stop exercising and grow much older?

It’s hard to be sure because I have grown old yet. Maybe someday I’ll have a good answer (or a good excuse) depending on how my life twists and turns.

Be the tide that raises all boats

It’s a cliche, but cliches are good. When the tide comes in, it fills in all the gaps and it raises all the boats.

If what you do makes the people around you better, richer, more famous, happier, or anything else, who cares? Or, rather, what do you care?

We don’t live a life in which you shouldn’t do something go for yourself if it also happens to help others around you as well.

When you do that, you prove yourself to be a more invaluable piece of the puzzle than other people.

So if your work is good for you, but also pretty great for the people around you, you’re doing something right.

Raise up all the people around you and you’ll have more opportunities and more prosperity.

It’s also better in every regard to NOT be jealous or envious of your peers.

Short-term fixes and long term success

We all want success fast. How can I make a million dollars in a year? How can I lose weight in six weeks?

You can make a million dollars pretty easily if you’re willing to smuggle drugs. You can lose all the weight in six weeks by adopting weight loss drugs and unhealthy methods to drop weight fast.

You can also build a business surprisingly fast on the back of ripping people off and alienating all your friends in the process.

But isn’t this the balancing act we all need to walk? The ethical yet effective way to achieve what we want as quickly as possible.

Short-term fixes are usually pretty easy. But they rarely lead to long-term success. I firmly believe this applies in business, relationships, health, personal development, and everywhere else.

How to be creative and unexpected

Creativity is not a skill, it’s a mindset. You can change your mind and open yourself to become a bit more creative.

Creativity is about being open and willing to explore ideas and concepts even if things don’t make sense at first glance. Even when you’re sure there is nothing there, you still keep drilling down and exploring.

You can be more creative by being more relaxed, more open to things you never considered before, and more willing to have fun with your project especially when it doesn’t seem to serve the purpose at hand.

We must be willing to be incorrect. Not everything must be concrete and we don’t always have to be right. When you unlock that in your mind and when you really believe that, you will become much more creative.

Background noise and micro-distractions

Filling the quiet spaces of time in the moments between your work are micro-distractions that drain your focus and creative energy. I believe that all external stimuli require some energy to process–whether you’re conscious of it or not.

Minimizing visual and audible distractions will free up energy to focus on the important work.

Phil Mickelson

Phil Mickelson just won the PGA Championship this past weekend. I don’t especially follow golf, but I do know of a couple of the big names.

As Phil approached the 18th, and final hole, the fans swarmed the golf course and cheered and walked with him. Security seemed to completely lose control of the crowd as they surged in support of this guy.

Mickelson won this championship at age 50, becoming the oldest player to win a major tournament in history.

He hasn’t won a major tournament in forever, but the love that these fans showed him was palpable.

This is what happens when you just show up day after day, month after month, and year after year. You don’t have to always win, you don’t have to create the most incredible artwork, you don’t have to have the best arguments, most viral moments, or most beautiful looks.

You have to show up and work hard. That’s it. You do that and you will make an incredible impact for yourself and on others.

Dividing the event from the emotion

We’re not going to escape conflict or stress. But we can change our approach to it and we can practice reacting better.

We must work on dividing the event from the emotion. Step back and observe the event after it’s happened (and maybe after you’ve reacted badly) and look at the event, how it affects you, and how it affects the people or things around you.

When you take the time to simply look at the event, you strip away the emotion and just look at the facts a little out of context.

The moment you realize you can step back and observe the event without emotion, you will realize that you have more control and resilience than you thought.

When you understand how much control you have, you will see that you happen to the things around you instead of being the thing upon which other stuff happens.

This will give you confidence. This will give you better self-control. This will help you have a better instant reaction when things go sideways. This will help you be more content and more resilient under pressure.

Practice dividing the event from the emotion.

The stress of today

Almost always, the stress of today comes directly from the bad decisions or failure to decide in earlier days.

When you put off work today and the decisions you don’t make will bring great stress and pain tomorrow.

The chickens always come home to roost.

The Passion Pipeline

They say that when you wake up in the morning, you have a limited amount of energy that you can direct toward different decisions and projects throughout the day. I’m not talking about physical energy, I’m talking about mental energy.

Every decision you have to make, you drain some of that energy. If you spend much time getting worked up about little decisions, you waste more of your energy reserves. Think about a guy like Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs who wore the same clothing every day. One less decision to make every day.

Now broadly apply that concept to the passions you have in your life.

You only have a limited amount of passion to spread around. Some for your business, some for a hobby, some for your family, some for religion, and so on.

What happens when you allow one hobby to become an obsession? Instead of splitting that passion pipe five ways, maybe the hobby begins to consume 85% of the pipeline pathway and business and religion get choked out. Maybe your family takes a backseat to your business, etc…

I firmly believe that there is a limited amount of passion you can express at any given section of your life and if you allow things to get out of balance, you lose touch with things that would normally be massively important to you. Examine your passions. Is anything out of balance?

Always five minutes late

I do this thing where I think I can cram in one last thing before my next appointment. I’m doing it now with this blog post. I have something to do half past this hour and I’m racing to get this done.

I’ll probably be a couple of minutes late. I’m always a couple of minutes late because I always do this.

Despite knowing it will make me late, I’m still cramming in this blog post writing. I don’t understand it.

The mindset I wish I had about it is that by just getting to the meeting room three minutes early, I’m not losing those three minutes. I’m USING those three minutes to establish a better reputation as the guy that shows up and is punctual. Instead, I’m here writing.

Gotta run.

No goals except progress

One useful trick for better productivity is to avoid setting goals to be completed today or this week or this month. Instead, focus on getting a little bit better than you were yesterday. Maybe that means you do one more task, avoid one more distraction, answer one more email, and so on.

Focus on you, not the task. It’s a cliche, but the best stuff comes when you focus on the journey, not the destination.

Focusing on the journey makes the destination better than you could imagine.

If you start, you have to finish

If you start a job or commit to a contract, you have to finish. But for personal projects or trying to build habits, you only have to start.

We get so caught up worrying about finishing, that we allow that to be a barrier to getting started.

Almost always, getting started is the difficult part, getting finished is pretty easy.

So, unless you’ve signed the contract, don’t worry about finishing. Concern yourself with getting started and the end will take care of itself.

Resilience, toughness, rebounding, getting stronger

When your world is falling apart, or maybe it’s just your project that is not going the way you thought it would, or maybe you’re losing your sports event/game/race, when that stuff is happening the people watching you are on your string.

They give up if you give up. They pull harder if you pull harder. But they also can’t do anything for you. You, and only you, are the one who can rise up and turn it around.

I have tried to make it a general rule in my life that when I least feel like doing something, that’s the cue that I most need to do it. When I am making excuses (even valid ones) about why I shouldn’t get a workout in, or get my reading done, or spend time meditating, etc… at that moment it’s most essential that you go and do that thing.

In this way, when everything is going badly, you can press through and pull yourself and your entire world out of the darkness and into a brand new day.

Never give up and do your work. When you want to sleep in, don’t. Don’t sleep in for the sole reason that you preferred to sleep in rather than get up and do your things.

Use moments when you need to be resilient to make you tougher. Embrace those moments and find a way to love them.

Living fast

It’s what we want to do. It’s cool and it’s a ton of fun.

But the scenery is much different at 60mph than taking a leisurely stroll.

When we spend our energy focused on going fast instead of going far, we miss tons of details and opportunities to make a difference to the people around us.

Focus more on depth than speed and you will both eliminate stress and make a greater impact in everything you do.

The way you begin is the way you’ll go

What you choose to do at the beginning of your day and then again at the beginning of your workday will dictate how good or bad your day of work will go.

There is some ability to recover if you start badly, but never do anything by choice that will cause you to start the day badly.

Shut off the phone, close out the social media, put away the podcasts and YouTube, and use your focus and energy to build momentum and have an awesome day of work and life.