Learn by teaching

I have had to conquer this inner desire to keep methods and secrets to myself. The truth is, there’s no secret to designing a great brochure or taking a beautiful photo.

Light, retouching, colors, and composition are free to everyone.

What I’ve found is that the things I am not willing to share always rot away inside of me and I naturally evolve into a different artist. Those “trade secrets” that I held so firmly end up being worthless to me in the end.

Art is simple, but there is an intuition you must have and a feel you acquire making art over time. This happens as you create new work (create lots of new work!) It is art, not science. There is no textbook you can read and become a great photographer. You become a great photographer by taking pictures.

If you’re good at what you do, the thing that makes you special is not able to be shared. But the knowledge and techniques you used to become such an artist are shareable.

When you share your secrets, skills, and knowledge with others, you re-learn those things yourself and you get better as well. I've seen it in my own life dozens of times. When I share what I know, I learn on a deeper level and really understand the material.

Learn, teach, and then learn from what you taught. Then teach that new stuff. The cycle goes on and on.

Searching for a push

I’ve been writing a bunch about critics and “haters” in my last few blog posts. It’s because I’m working on organizing those thoughts in my head and solidifying them as a habitual process for myself. When I write about things, they seem to stick with me better than just thinking about them without writing them down.

We all probably have two different primary motivations for doing what we do. A positive motivation (e.g. I want to make money to provide a good life for my kids) and a negative motivation (e.g. I was doubted by my English teacher in 5th grade, I’ll show him exactly how successful I can become!)

Objectively the "positive motivation" is more important for your life. Hate, etc… is like taking a poison pill and waiting for it to kill you.

But the negative motivation is often the one that fills us with a fire that will do far more to push us forward than any positive motivation ever could.

Great winners are great winners, not because they love to win, but because they hate to lose. They are motivated to take extreme measures to find success.

What negative motivation can you find to cause yourself to hate losing with a hatred far greater than any joy of succeeding?

I have the people who doubted me and abandoned me that fill my mind anytime I start to give up or have doubts. I can succeed and I WILL succeed because these people will be forced to see me thriving and happy with an ultra-successful business.

I want them to be forced to see my success and how wrong they were and live with that forever. It is dark and dirty, but it’s an explosive motivator and I intend on taking advantage of it.

The wrong metrics hurt me

I’ve been running a YouTube channel as a business for about seven years, but for the past three years, I have not been prioritizing my channel. I suffered from some significant burnout which led me to lose confidence in the work I was producing, and ultimately lose the “muscle memory” I had developed for working hard on that kind of knowledge work.

I’ve since learned that I believe I was focusing on the wrong metrics and that led to me burning out and losing a bit of the passion I once had for this channel.

I was so worried about criticism and bad comments. It was a way of imposture syndrome validated by random internet strangers who would make comments that made me question if I was any good at what I did. It was all a weird game because, in my heart of hearts, I know that it was just a YouTube video. It shouldn’t be that complicated.

Having bad comments means people have decided to watch your videos. Therefore having a couple of bad comments is a good problem to have. Views that nobody watches don’t get hate–they don’t get anything!

The new metric I am concentrating on is the number of hours I am focused and deeply working on new videos. It’s the only important metric at this moment for my channel.

The more time I invest in deeply working on new videos, the more videos I will create and the better they will be. Therefore these videos will gain more views. More views from people who love what you make and come back for more is the number that matters.

The bad comments can just be used as some valuable insight on things I can correct, but they no longer will be a way of causing doubt to creep into my head. Unsatisfied customers are inevitable, but companies don’t shutter because a few folks complain. These viewers aren’t even paying, so there will be some haters and critics, but I will press on and continue adding viewers despite the clamor.

Hate is a good thing

Maybe not good abstractly considered, but it is an indicator of good things.

When you start doing things differently and you get any kind of success or attention, you’re going to get criticism and negative comments. It comes with the attention.

But it’s better to stink and be seen than not to be seen at all.

Attention will help almost any business you have and as you gain traction, you will gain detractors and haters. It just happens. Take it as a sign that you’re moving in a good direction.

If you can persist through the hate or criticism, they’ll probably move on to someone who is easier to pick on. The internet does seem to have an endless supply of trolls, but your persistence is more powerful.

If you’re not sharing your work or putting your most vulnerable pieces out there because you’re afraid of criticism, you’re probably holding yourself back.

Hate comes with success, so no matter how uncomfortable it is, don’t forget that if you weren’t in the arena performing, the critics in the stands wouldn’t even know to criticize you. It’s a good problem to have.

For myself, I try to suppress any envy I feel toward other successful people. I think about all the good stuff I have and find contentment in that. Life is really good. Then I study them and see what seems to work. How can I implement that into my life or business?

Personal deadlines vs. professional deadlines

Personal and professional deadlines are useful tools. If we don’t do our work, all deadlines turn into frightening fiends that choke us with stress and fear.

We know about the professional deadline. The paper is due tomorrow at 6pm. That project needs to be delivered next Tuesday by lunch time, etc…

These are useful tools to keep us sharply focused on the project we’ve started. But there is a way to avoid the choking and terrible final rush that comes with a deadline.

I’m a bit of a procrastinator and most people I know are, too. I am envious of the boring stability that responsible people have. I hate the thought of being so predictable, but I crave the stability that it seems to bring.

This is why I’ve introduced the idea of personal deadlines to myself. I take any professional deadline and I give myself one less day, or week, depending on the length of the project. Fore example, the project that is due next Tuesday is personally due next Monday. The key is to stick to your personal deadline like it’s gospel.

This has allowed me to complete high-pressure tasks and jobs with far less stress. I target the personal deadline and am able to coast for the final day or week before the professional deadline arrives.

At first it’s hard to convince yourself that you absolutely must abide by the personal deadline, but after you do it a few times, you will love the flexibility and freedom it affords you. You won’t be pulling those all-nighters and freaking out while you’re wracked with stress and heart palpitations because you have no clue how you’re going to deliver by the real deadline. It’s a game-changer.

“Luck”

It’s not luck. It’s never luck. Seriously, it’s never luck. There is a reason you were where you were when that thing did or didn’t happen.

Luck is not what brings an opportunity and luck is not what makes it stick and turn into success.

Opportunity comes to all of us, but it must find us working hard and willing to overcome the fear of a new thing.

We must strengthen ourselves to run past our fears quickly and courageously. That is the way to build a successful business, life, and legacy. You don’t need luck, you need the courage to do what needs to be done.

Facing resistance

You’re going to face resistance both internally from your doubts and fears and externally from people who don’t believe that you’re capable of fulfilling your duties and achieve the greatness you set out to achieve.

You can believe that doubters and never know if you can be great, or you can dare to be great and either fail and learn or achieve and see what you’re capable of.

Either way, resistance must be faced. This is the essence of most work. Work is the disturbing of that which is still. It is resistance or effort against objects at rest. If we avoid resistance, we avoid all work and all things that would give depth and meaning to our life.

We must train ourselves to get comfortable with facing the resistance from within and without. A few minutes here and a few minutes there. Practice being uncomfortable and retaining your confidence.

Examine yourself and your motivations. If you’re doing what is right with pure motives, you should have the utmost confidence in yourself. At that point, resistance is merely an inconvenience to overcome.

No retreat

You may have to take a step back for a short moment, but retreating should not be a sustained thing in your work or business-building. Retreat only when you must shore up resources and plan in a quiet moment.

I would rather fail in my efforts to press forward than die because I fear progress and forward movement. Die moving forward rather than be trampled while you retreat.

Why things become problematic in our life

Things become problematic in our life when we use them to escape harder things that we should be confronting and overcoming.

We escape into “pleasure-now-but-regret-later” things like drinking, drugs, social media, over-eating, television, Netflix, video games, etc…

The more we spend away our time on these things the further we enter into the vortex of guilt.

We start to feel guilty, inadequate, and anxious because we’re not doing our duties and thus we seek more of those escapes and our life begins to spiral.

The fatal error of taking no action

To be neutral in an important matter helps the oppressor and not the victim. Our silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. We close our eyes to that which we cannot bear to remember, but it ends as a thing we can never forget.

The whirlwind

A storm is coming. You have sown the wind, and you will reap the whirlwind. How do you treat your friends, family, and business partners? It changes everything.

The good kind of obsession

Get obsessed with keeping the fire of ambition burning within you. The fire that drives you to do great things. Seek to be obsessed with doing good, doing right, and delivering value.

Keep the fire burning, or it all turns to ash.

“Just enough” is enough. Sort of.

When paying the bills each month and having “just enough” money is the goal, you end up getting trapped in an endless cycle of just barely making it.

If you can motivate yourself with dreams far beyond having “just enough,” you will drastically shift your goals and expectations which will lead toward actions that allow you to live with plenty and the ability to help others, all while reducing the stress you have with regard to finances.

Just enough is what is needed, but “more than enough” gives you what you need and gives you the opportunity to help others and free yourself for more valuable work.

“I thought”

That’s where the problems began. When we think rather than think deeply, usually we’re finding reasons to do what we’ve already decided we’re going to do. That, or, we make assumptions. Never tell a lady you just “thought” she was pregnant. That’s a bad thought.

Stop thinking and start starting

We can get caught in the trap of waiting to get started because we have more research to do. After all, why not use Google and learn an immense amount about what you need to do to help guarantee success?

The reason is that research stops you from starting. You can still do your research after you have begun. In fact, your research will mean much more because you will understand the context much better and you will be able to apply and test the things you’re learning.

Otherwise, most of the things you learn will be forgotten by next week.

To be successful is like riding a bike, you’ve got to keep moving to be successful and get anywhere. The first step is pushing off and getting started.

Asking for advice

Don’t ask experts for their advice. Witty phrases and a clever quote are fun, but they aren’t always useful.

Ask experts about their story. How they got here and what their concerns are.

Then it’s up to you to extract the useful traits, habits, and practices that will make your life better.

Unrealistic goals and macro plans

Set unrealistic goals when you’re making long-term plans. The realistic and achievable goals are for the day-to-day tasks that drive toward these larger more “unrealistic” goals.

We don’t get excited about the boring, average, and mundane. We get excited about the unrealistic dream.

The point isn’t even to hit that goal, it’s to have a carrot dangling for you to chase and work as hard as you can to get there.

Wherever you end up as a result of this unrealistic goal, it will likely be much better than if you set a “realistic” goal.

You assumed it would be easy. You were wrong.

People are optimistic and we tend to overestimate how well things will go. We don’t understand how much energy and effort it will take to push through.

We like to assume things play out in a stable and linear fashion. It’s as simple as a straight line from here to there.

That’s never how it works and you need to work much harder than you think. It’s going to be far more difficult than either of us ever expected. If you’re not prepared for the effort required, you will fail.

How to achieve big things

Do you want to write a novel? Don’t just go and write. What does it mean to just start writing? Is it throwing words into a blender until you get 300 pages mashed together? Probably not.

With any big task, you must set goals that are achievable and specific. i.e. “I will work on this project with zero distractions for 12 hours a week.”

That is the input you can control. Focus on that. The idea of “just write a novel” is far too vague and you will never stick with it.

Working for 12 hours of intense focus each week is possible. Now, you must break down that big task into bite-sized pieces that you can sit down and start work on in those 12 hours you now have dedicated to writing a book.

Achievable goals paired with specific yet small tasks is the way to success. You can start right now.

Giving up when it’s hard

It’s tempting to give up and retreat when things get hard.

When business slows down we must not be swallowed up in sorrow that things aren’t as good right now as six months ago. This drains us of the optimism and energy needed to press on effectively.

The difficult part about encouraging another person to pick up and keep running forward, to keep making efforts to improve, to ignore the flaws of those around them and fix the flaws in themself, is that it must be believed by the person themself.

You can’t force it to happen. It’s a bit of a game of hope and usually, it is a failure.

So often it fails because we live in a very self-centered society. Some might even argue that the whole world suffers from this plague.

Those in the process of giving up will often spend immense energy defending why it’s the good and proper thing to do. There is typically no arguing with them. They have made up their mind that this is the best way to survive. It’s the safe route and therefore the best route.

But the truth is, they’ve given up already and the work left to do is the work of convincing themself that it’s actually the best thing to do.

It’s hard to watch, but at least you can observe and take lessons to apply in your own life, business, and relationships.