Slow down, calm down

Most of us are going too fast. Or rather, we’re trying to go too fast.

That podcast isn’t going to be popular overnight.; you need to commit 18 months to it. Your business isn’t going to shoot to the moon in a fortnight; you need to commit 5 years to it. Your sales pitch doesn’t have to be presented at the speed of sound. Take it easy.

When you try to go too fast, people can see that you’re flying through and it smack of insecurity. When you try to go too fast, people will feel like you aren’t hearing them and they will cease trusting you. When you go too fast, you burn out and become bitterly disappointed by your failures. (Often things that would not be a failure if you just stuck with it for another year, etc…)

Also, take it easy on yourself if you aren’t hitting the kind of goals and achievements that you had hoped at this point–that, too, takes time.

When you slow the process down (no matter what the process), you calm the process down. A calm disposition is much more effective for being warm, friendly, creative, trustworthy, and working in a stress-free mode.

Tactical repeating

We’re afraid of things that are different. This little bit of information will help you when you create photographs, build user interfaces, share thoughts and videos online, and talk face-to-face with people. Make things as smooth and familiar as possible.

When we’re speaking to somebody, the best way to do this is to repeat what they say to us right back to them.

Not only does it help them to feel comfortable while speaking to us, but it causes them to naturally expand upon what they’re saying while telling them that we are actively listening to what they have to say.

One important note, this technique is something that we need to deploy tactically. If you mimic the exact words of the people around you, they will hate you and kick you out.

However, if you’re interested in creating connections between you and strangers, repeat the things they say right back to them. This technique is also effective with the people in your everyday life as well.

Both of my brains are making bad choices

We have two brains, or rather, two ways of processing and reacting to information.

We have our natural mind which causes us to react fast, instinctively, and emotionally.

We also have our rational mind which is slower, more deliberate, and logical/reasonable.

Nearly everybody reacts to questions, suggestions, and critiques with their natural, instinctive, and emotional mind and then a moment later we create a response in our rational mind–which has been affected by the emotional reaction.

This is valuable to understand because if we can affect somebody’s natural, instinctive, and emotional mind–his subconscious response–we can guide his more rational mind to make the decisions that we want him to make. Of course, this could be used for terrible and hurtful things and it’s our responsibility to use a tool like this responsibly and honestly. Negotiation, whether personal or business is a good way to use this. Manipulation for nefarious ends is, well, evil.

But far beyond you or me using this as a tool of “master manipulation” (or whatever), it is most important to understand that we, too respond this way to all kinds of things.

If we can actively and conscientiously work to master our own mind and its response and reaction to things, we can better position our rational mind to make better decisions for us and the people around us. We won’t have a bad and upset emotional mind firing up a “rational” response that seeks revenge or envious reprisals.

We also will better be able to control ourselves in negotiations when the other side is applying pressure to achieve their goals.

Understand how the information thrown at you will affect your decision-making and you can practice making better decisions.

Real motivations

What would happen if we took the time to really examine our genuine motivation behind the way we interact with others?

The things we do, the things we say, the way we feel toward them. All of these things, are we concerned with how we look compared to them? Are we able to congratulate them on new successes or happiness even if we get nothing for ourselves?

Forget about vocalizing a congratulation, are we able to feel genuine happiness inside for them?

Is our motivation kindness or concern for being the top-dog or at least looking like the top-dog?

Kindness lends toward a happy life for you and others. Concern for yourself lends itself to a life of anger, stress, and people having no respect for you.

So, what are our real motivations? Is it possible to work on changing them?

It’s true because somebody said it

Why do we give value to things people say just because it gets said? Just because somebody says something does not mean it is right and good. Yet we still let these things affect us.

If the person speaking is somebody that we like, we’re practically cult-followers. It’s good because they said it and if that guy we hate says something, it’s by default, wrong.

It’s interesting to watch.

If I am only for me, who am I?

If I am only for myself, who am I? What does that person leave behind when they die? Probably just a feeling of relief for everyone.

Do good to those around you by your example, by the work you do, and by the good, you give back to the people around you.

Gray hair

If you have gray hair in your beard, I don’t ask “why?” when you say something. Grandparents have seen some stuff and their life experience informs decisions and their thought processes in a way that gives them wisdom that youth (younger than 50, but especially younger than 30) simply does not have.

If you have gray hair in your beard, I’ll hold your word in high esteem merely because of that.

As a side note, all food made by grandparents should be good. Other than living, old people have done a lot of cooking. Just like life has informed their thought processes, so it has done to their cooking abilities. It's easier to taste the good in food than in advice (particularly when that advice requires action from you).

Carrying your knowledge

No man is easier to deceive than one who is smugly confident of his own sophistication.

So many of us want to be important very badly. When we start to believe we’re important, intelligent, or sophisticated we very often let this consume our decency and humility.

We become self-convinced of our own superiority and hence less patient and more condescending to people around us.

That attitude, when it remains unchecked, will set you up for crushing defeat and shame. When something incorrect slips into your “knowledge circle” and you carry yourself with that same smug arrogance, but you turn out to be wrong.

At that moment, you lose all credibility and trust. Now you’re resented by everyone and we all know you’re wrong as well.

Be careful of how you carry the knowledge you learn and operate with humility.

Show your work!

Your time is too valuable to not show your work. Show it early and show it often. Show the unfinished project and show the derailed project. Show the good stuff and show the bad stuff. Show the stuff you suck at and show the stuff where you’re pretty good.

Before investing your time in a project for eight weeks only to get feedback that it’s all wrong, show that work to the client all along the way.

I’m still trying to figure out the best way to do this in my own business. It can be tricky to explain to a client that the finished project will be much nicer than what you’re showing and have them understand you and be comfortable with that.

High-paying clients may be terrified if you turn in something that is 10% complete after a week. They can’t see the 100% complete artwork and the sketches are scary to see. I think the answer is to be forward about the discomfort they will feel and that you’ll update them every 3-4 days with new status’ so they can watch it be built and offer input and guidance.

If you start showing your work and if the client has confidence in you, they can offer suggestions and pointers to ensure you stay on course with the project before you invest 80 hours only to find out most of that effort was a waste.

I still don’t have the perfect system for sharing creative work with clients early in the process, but I’m working on figuring it out. Feedback is scary, but it’s much less scary when you realize it saves you your valuable time and helps complete projects much sooner than you otherwise would (and with less work, too!)

Consistency

You simply must show up. But if you show up when people expect you to show up, it’s like doing twice the work.

If they don’t know when to expect you or what to expect from you, they have additional work to do.

Make it easy for your customers. Tell them when you’ll show up and then show up and deliver what they expect. That’s the good stuff.

Inside the snow globe

Things always look so good from the outside. Whether it’s the way we used to be, the things that other people have, or the opportunities all around us. It all looks so good.

However, from inside of the bubble we can find it difficult to be content with what we have. But if we were outside of that bubble (i.e., if we lost everything tomorrow) we’d be incredibly envious of who we are right now. It’s easy to see that from the outside, difficult to see from the inside. Don’t worry about what others have–you only see the outside of that bubble. Comparison is indeed the thief of joy.

5-minutes. Right now.

Most people are not lazy, but the idea of trading a big piece of time for that thing you need to get done feels like a bad trade-off at the moment. It’s easier to keep scrolling through Reddit or Twitter.

The answer is don’t think about the six hours of time you need to complete your task. Just start a five-minute timer and shut off all distractions and trade just that five minutes to get a little bit of your task done.

What ends up happening is you break the loop of avoiding the task and you feel that it is actually a good way to use that time.

Take five minutes, take five minutes now and use it every time you start feeling lazy or unmotivated throughout the day.

Pop the happy bubble

Don’t rest on prior accomplishments. That was yesterday and tomorrow doesn’t care about that.

So what if you were in great physical shape 5 years ago, you’re a fat slob now. That great year of work you had back in 2018, that was three years ago. Get over it and build new stuff.

Don’t believe the best or worst things people say about you. The best stuff gets you high on a figment of somebody’s imagination.

Measure your happiness against the effort you apply and the performance you have. Complacency is the enemy of success.

Reward yourself for the process, not the result

To build and sustain the enthusiasm and energy to continue building even through the difficult days requires us to focus on the process and let the results come whenever they come.

We must focus on the process of what we are doing. Celebrate every little win and every step in the right direction.

This will train you to associate energizing happiness with the efforts you put forth regardless of the immediate visible success that appears (or doesn’t appear.)

We can’t control the world, but we can control our input (to a certain extent), thus it appears that if we can train our brain to release dopamine and associate happiness with success in sticking with the process, we will be more effective at doing the process, which in the end, will deliver a much better final result.

We’ll be happier while building, we’ll be happier when the results are delivered, we’ll be more steady and more sustained throughout the entire ordeal.

When the process is the goal, you are happier and less tired and you make better stuff.

An idiot with a plan

Warren Buffet has a quote that goes something like this, “Any idiot with a plan is better off than a genius without one.”

Also, any idiot with a plan is better off than a genius with a plan who sticks to it.

Because no plan survives first contact with the real world. Too many geniuses get caught living in the abstract where their ideas are perfect, but that doesn’t mesh with the real world where things get tested.

The idiot at least is courageous and doesn’t care as much about looking stupid and he is often very effective. Much to the chagrin of the “genius”.

The idiot could learn from the genius, but the genius also has much to learn from the idiot. Finally, make plans, but be flexible.

You aren’t doing good work if you aren’t doing it fast

Did you see how crazy my blog title sounds when you read it? It’s practically offensive. But we do this to ourselves all the time. The day doesn’t feel productive unless we’ve crammed in X number of things and gone as fast as we can to get them all done.

No!

We should measure success by whether or not we did the thing, not by how long it takes to do it or how difficult it is to do.

Measure yourself against who you were yesterday. Did you commit to and do your job today?

If the answer is yes, stop worrying about speed and difficultly. The job is done. You did your duty. You did well.

What is your ideal day?

What does your ideal day look like? What work, adventure, study, art, or play is in that day? Is it spending time with family or alone with a book? Is it spending time helping your community or rescuing animals?

Once you have the answer, ask yourself what you’re doing to make every day like that.

Get to the fulcrum point

Get to the tipping point in every project. That’s what I’ve focused on for several years. There is a point in each project where suddenly you can see the finish line, where the work isn’t marching uphill, and you’re ready to coast through the remaining work to the finish line.

This requires strong focus and dedication in the first half to make the smooth second half possible.

If you procrastinate or allow your focus to be turned to non-essential tasks, you slog through the first half forever and you panic through the second half as the deadline is then usually hours away.

Make a big effort to get to the tipping point, the fulcrum point, and enjoy the work you do.