You can go fast or go far, not both

We can do things fast, or we can do them for a long time. Rarely can we go fast for a long time. Instead of thinking about how much you need to get done this week, think about how much you could get done over the next 30 days.

Think long rather than fast. You’ll get much more done over the next month, year, and decade thinking about “slow productivity” rather than crushing your life with 16-hour days of work.

Indeed the French proverb rings true: He who wishes to travel far spares his speed.

Goodbye, 2022

This post is a bit late because I don’t write blog posts on the weekend and because I didn’t do this on the 1st of the year.

As I have been doing for the past couple of years, I’m not going to do results-based goals. I’m going to focus on the process. Here are a few of the things I am targeting in the year of our Lord, 2023.

  • Create 10 videos each month for my YouTube channel.

  • Do a photoshoot with my family every six months.

  • Photograph and write about the mundane moments of life and specifically my children (not necessarily on this blog, though.)

  • Read 3x books each month.

  • Get out of debt entirely.

  • Launch a new training course.

  • Launch a line of merchandise for my YouTube channel.

  • Start sketching faces a few times a week again.

Hope you have a great 2023. I’m going to work my hardest to make this year different than the past three. They’ve been rough on the personal and business development fronts. But a new year holds new optimism. I just have to do the work.

Accurate feedback and unconditional love

One thing I question about the “self-esteem” generation is when we confuse accurate feedback with unconditional love. The thought seems to be, "If I give accurate feedback, I'm being mean."

To love and encourage a child is good (and necessary!) to build a thoughtful and confident person.

But the confusion about giving honest feedback ignores the fact that children can take loving (but honest) feedback and improve!

We must build our children’s confidence by guiding them to success that will work in the world outside of the home. Their peers will not have the same love their parents have.

Mistakes are opportunities to teach and learn. Accurate feedback along with encouragement is the way to do this.

I believe this to be the case with new students/novices as well as children.

When we tell the child that the work they did was great, when it was terrible, undercuts our credibility in all things we teach them. The moment they have the “ah-ha” moment that you always told them they were great at everything is the moment that they are suddenly and catastrophically deflated of all self-confidence they might have had.

Accurate feedback keeps your child grounded in reality and binds the confidence of the child and the trust they have in you with a strong bond.

Nobody cares about the “inside” muscles

We’re so caught up working out our muscles, that we don’t spend time strengthening the inside muscles. Call it our “sensory awareness” or self-perception. It’s an afterthought to most of us. Do you take the time to taste the food you eat, or look into the sky, or listen to what somebody it telling you without just thinking about what you want to say?

What if we slowed down and trained our senses?

Too often we look but don’t see. We listen but don’t hear. We touch but don’t feel. We eat but we don’t taste. We talk without thinking, and more.

By slowing down and observing more, we improve our senses, our mind, and our overall experience of life.

Trust the reader

You don’t need to spell everything out for your reader. The reader can apply the information you are presenting. They can apply it to the moment more specifically than you could anyway.

When the writer is afraid of offending or looking stupid, he writes too many words and appears desperate to not be yelled at (or tweeted at.)

Don’t add caveats and “I’m sorry” statements to your work. Be unapologetic and your work will be timeless. Trust the reader to interpret you as you intend.

Fishing for compliments

If you’re fishing for a compliment, are you allowed to say “thank you” when you get one? Or should you quickly return the compliment from whence it came?

I’ve noticed those who fish for compliments seem to be more concerned with hoarding praise, rather than spreading it around.

Suffering from our opinions

Are we willing to acknowledge our mistakes or even our weaknesses? Can we learn from those mistakes? Are we able to work on our weaknesses?

Imagine being an NFL team that is 10th best at offense, defense, and special teams, with some small tweaks, you can be a top-5 team. But if you’re not willing to acknowledge that you’re ONLY the 10th best, you won’t learn from your mistakes and you can’t improve them.

Adversity is an opportunity for growth. The greatest deception men suffer is often from their own opinions.

If you can’t see where you can improve, your opinion that everything is “good enough” will ensure that it never gets better than that.

What doesn’t happen next?

Think about what won’t happen next and consider how that can add ideas to whatever you’re working on. At the core of creative block is an inability to think outside the box. That box might be the limitations you have on the current project or the box of commonly accepted norms.

Instead of thinking about what happens, think about what doesn’t happen, what isn’t connected, and what isn’t immediately obvious.

What if I change its name, make it bigger, or smaller, or lighter, or heavier? What if I add something, or remove something, make it stronger, weaker, more agile, more immovable, etc…

Keep asking these questions and they’ll start to become second nature in your process of creating art.

Asking the right questions

We think problem-solving is a matter of finding the right answer to the problem. However, problem-solving and getting better at solving any problem is a matter of asking the right question first. “Is there a different or better way of looking at this problem?”

Looking for the right answer is expecting something from others, but seeking the right question is something you control. Therefore, successful problem-solving most often requires us to reframe the initial question and break down our assumptions.

The curious child is annoying

They ask a million questions and they challenge things that don’t make sense to them. Because of this, we strangle curiosity in the cradle of our children’s lives and teach them that it’s best to stick to the safe roads of accepted norms.

Like much of reason and rationale, the concern is for the momentary relief and betterment of man’s condition right now, but little regard is paid to the future of the human race as a whole.

The child’s curiosity fuels the wellspring of any genius he or she may possess across their adult life.

Curiosity opens a door to freedom but leaves one at the risk of looking stupid. Better to appear stupid, than to trap your mind in a cage.

What would happen if children were able to embrace their curiosity, rather than have a biting response to every dumb question? Could our sacrifice of time and energy to answer the curious child become a boon for the whole of society?

The good and bad of curiosity

Curiosity gives us the drive to learn and explore new things. The unbridled curiosity of children makes them masters of learning. This constant state of learning ensures the child’s brain retains maximum neuroplasticity, which then makes learning even easier. So the cycle of curiosity not only drives us to learn new things but makes it easier to learn new things as well. I suspect that we become more “set in our ways” as we get older because we stop learning and lose some of that “plasticity” in our brain, which makes curiosity and learning more difficult or painful.

The same curiosity and desire to satisfy that intense desire for what is new is the same force that seeks satisfaction as we scroll through social media feeds.

Interesting to think that the agent of such learning before social media, has become the agent of such time-wasting in those of us who have access to social media and instant-media entertainment options. We chase the context switch to satisfy our curiosity rather than learning real things to satisfy the itch.

A general rule about making difficult decisions

Whenever you are facing a difficult decision between two things, choose the more difficult option. If the easier option was the right one, you wouldn’t be thinking about it. It would be done. Thus, the more difficult decision is probably the correct one and your brain is trying to trick you into taking the easy, but wrong, way out.

Like all things, this is a general rule and there are exceptions. But, generally, it is helpful.

Think and emulate (look and steal?)

Children learn by emulating their parents. So why are we so afraid to copy the people we look up to? If you overcome the fear of being a copycat, you 10x your growth and learning.

They’ve figured out the formula for success, so copy what they’re doing with humility. Once you’ve honed your skills by copying them, add your own spice and flavor. Just like that, you will have developed your own style and it will look great and feel professional.

Don’t be afraid to emulate in the process of learning. Examine the art of others and think about why they did what they did and emulate that.

This is the way to greater success faster than you can imagine.

2023 is coming…

I’m starting to think about the plans for next year. Every year since I started writing in this blog, I’ve had some form of a plan for the next year. Yet, over the past three years, I have failed spectacularly to accomplish the things I wanted. Sure, I’ve learned a lot on the way, but I simply have not delivered at the high level I expect of myself.

I’m working to outline my plans for 2023 and I have a sneaking feeling that this upcoming year will be a truly great year in terms of getting back on track and finally putting together a great year of work.

It’s been very difficult to contend with shifting priorities and not having the time and dedication to my primary business since mid-2019. Three years have felt like forever, but 2023 will be different.

My hope is that I feel some pain and sadness to leave 2023 behind next December. Because 2023 will be the year that changes my life in all the best ways.

Rejecting the first solution

When I’m working on a photo shoot and I finally get the lighting just right, it’s tempting to rest right in that spot and get the photos we might get. And those photos would be good enough. Good enough pays the bills and good enough gives you moderate success.

If “great” is the end goal, however, the first creative breakthrough we have rarely is the best we can do. We must continue pressing beyond the first exciting moment. That is the moment to which we must not be a prisoner.

When I write a blog post and finally get it all to fit together, the temptation is to publish it right away. However, if I go back and re-write the post, it is better the second time around 98% of the time.

I believe this is true with virtually everything you can do in life. It’s just very difficult to enter back into the uncomfortable position of not knowing how it’s going to work out when we’ve already discovered a solution that seems good enough.

I re-wrote this blog post (it’s much better this time,) I re-light photoshoots all the time, I rebuild scripts for videos, I re-edit video productions I’m working on, I re-wrap gifts, I re-read books, and I re-tell stories. They’re always better the second time around.

When I take a few days off

A funny thing happens when I take a few days off. No matter if I take a few days off from working out, or making videos, or even something simple like writing these blog posts.

Getting started again feels 10x more difficult. There is a feeling of discomfort and an utter lack of confidence. I have no idea why.

Also, when I start writing, working, taking photos, making videos, working out, etc… it’s the most fun thing ever. It becomes easy in about twenty minutes and I sit there wondering why I let the break ever happen.

I know I need to take breaks, but the difficulty of getting restarted is frightening. Do I avoid burnout by taking enough breaks? Or do I take breaks and risk never getting started again?

The choice is difficult when I take a few days off.

How I read (and how I’m getting better at reading)

I’ve been using a method of double-reading books to help me to understand what the author’s main point is and the direction he’s heading. It also helps me get through a book very quickly to determine if it’s worth investing a week or two in order to read it.

The double reading method I’ve been using works like this: Read a book once, but very quickly to get through it in an hour or so of reading time. Then read the book a second time, but deeply.

With this second read-through, you have a better idea of the over-arching point so you will pick up on the foundation the author is laying early in the book. It really helps you to conceptualize and extract value from the book.