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I've been traveling. It was oxygen to meander cities again. To imbibe art. Savor the familiar. Discover the new. Travel is an old and neglected friend. The reunion was sweet and delicious.
I'd forgotten how much I need to explore the world. I need it to fuel my brain. I need it to fill my heart. It used to be easy. Jumping on a plane was effortless. It was almost a reflex.
It shouldn't be a reflex. We have a clear obligation to travel responsibly. We also have a responsibility to travel. To broaden our horizons. To meet new people who might not be the same as us. To see old friends who feel exactly the same as us.
Time goes by slowly and then quickly. In the blink of an eye so much life has changed. Mostly accidentally. Regaining what was lost is hard when we didn't notice we lost it. It's even harder when we don't know where we lost it.
What are you missing?
DETAIL
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Last week my newsletter had a weird formatting issue. I saw it the minute I sent it out, but I didn't catch it when I was proofing my writing. 'Weird formatting issue' is not on my list of things to check before I hit send. Much like 'spider hidden in floral display' was not on the florist's checklist for the Queen's funeral yesterday.
Both issues will obviously not happen again. I will now check for random changes to formatting, and I suspect there will be the addition of a heavy dose of fly-spray to future televised funeral processions.
Both issues are also minor details. Details that are hard to catch and easy to over-engineer for. They are non-critical issues that would drive you mad trying to anticipate. And to re-enforce my point from last week, obsessing over these details would definitely delay shipping your work.
Recovery is the better focus. From a formatting issue perspective, I turned the issue into a blog. Sure, I was frustrated in the moment, but I had no way of fixing it once sent, so I just had to suck it up. I would advise the royal PR team to name the spider and create a social media persona for it.
Mistakes are inherent in any creative endeavor. Let them inform the process and be the source of inspiration not perspiration. In other words, don't sweat the small stuff. Next time you think you have f-d something up, ask yourself how you can have fun with it. How can your bug*...become a feature?
*Spiders are not bugs. But the joke is still funny...
POLISH
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This week has been a constant reminder of the statement "perfect is the enemy of good." Which is, evidently, not a statement - it's an aphorism* . It's also not even the original statement which was "the best is the enemy of the good" - Voltaire, 1770.
That is a lot of learning for one morning.
In my start-up days, the 'Just Ship It' rule was the living embodiment of Voltaire's caution. Perfecting code is somewhat elusive. Frankly, software spends most of its life in need of repair - just look to the endless app updates on your phone. Bugs are best revealed through live user testing, so best just get your product out the door.
In my legal days, the battle for good versus great lived through Parkinson's Law which states that a job will expand to fit the available time. If you give yourself all day to complete a project, it will always consume that full day. From a productivity perspective this is problematic on a couple of levels. Full days are as rare as unicorns and most projects will be better served by getting a quick start than laying dormant while you await that perfect day. Parkinson's law had a very early impact on me and has guided my approach to work across my career.
All these aphorism's, rules and laws sum to the same result. Time spent perfecting your work is your enemy. As a former colleague of mine used to elegantly say - you are just polishing turds.
Obviously, you still want to produce excellent work and my solve for this is using an iterative approach. Find a partner to collaborate with and feed them a draft of your work. Even better, create a team to get pieces of the project done. Teamwork tends to put get-it-done pressure on a project and has the added benefit of input from multiple brains.
I am also a huge fan of the Pomodoro Method to get good work out the door. Set a timer, give yourself 30-90 minutes on a project, and force yourself to stop with the buzzer. The results of creating scarcity of time will frequently exceed your expectations.
For maximum good-ness, pick some completion tasks and get cracking on them today. Carve out some 30 minute sessions and see how much you can output. Make it a game. Put some music on. Pour yourself a glass of wine at the end of the day to celebrate. Just make it a great glass of wine. In this context good IS the enemy of great.
*Aphorism - a pithy observation which contains a general truth. Oxford Dictionary.
BYGONES
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I was a child of the 80's and a student of the 90's. TV and music were my two biggest influences. As a child these were Fraggle Rock, The Muppet Show, The Wombles, CHiPs, and Knight Rider. Music was WHAM, Madonna, and George Michael when WHAM stopped Whaming. The only reason I think I have a semblance of musical taste is thanks to the incredible jazz showcased on The Muppet Show.
As a young adult I switched gears. The Spice Girls reigned supreme and quirky drama's stole my heart. Friends was a major influence, obvi, alongside My So Called Life and then Ally McBeal towards the end of that decade.
One of my favorite characters in Ally McBeal was Richard Fish played by Greg Germann. His character, if not the whole show, would likely be cancelled-on-arrival today. Provocative only begins to describe the antics that ensued in weekly installments.
Germann/Fish's catchphrase was "Bygones". He said the word to dismiss people's reaction to his poor behavior. He uttered this frequently, as his behavior frequently warranted it.
Lately I have found myself uttering "Bygones" on a rather frequent basis. Though it is warranted for different reasons. Less to dismiss my behavior, more to dismiss the ghosts of yesterday. To move myself and others to the future. To ensure we don't dwell on the past and instead drive ourselves forward. Wayne Dyer talks about this beautifully in of his now historic seminars. When driving a boat, it is a fool's errand to look at the wake, "The wake is the trail that is left behind."
In our business world we call this the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Interestingly this is also called the Bygones Principle or the Concorde Fallacy. Where we erroneously make decisions for the future based on accounting for past investment.
Yes, our best decisions are made based on the information to hand. Yes, much of that information is a collection of past performance but Dyer tells us plainly that "the past does not determine our future." The riddle here is to determine how to make great decisions for the future without reference to the information at hand (the past).
The thin line between the two lies in what we can extrapolate as learnings from past expenditure. Be that expenditure emotional, effort, career, relationship, or financial. We don't have to keep spending just because we did in the past. We don't have to continue to care just because we did in the past. We don't have to keep grieving just because we have something to grieve. We can learn from that expenditure, alter our behavior, and pick a new path to drive forward from.
Ask yourself, does this serve me or my business? It applies equally to massive investments in business lines and assets that are not performing as it does to relationships, long-standing team members who just are not keeping up anymore, and clothes in your closest that no longer fit and taunt you with your failings.
Bygones. Use this magic word at least three times today and deliberately cut ties to what used to be.
DOCTORS ORDERS
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Guess who finally succumbed to COVID. I managed to outrun it for 2.5 years, but then it caught me. Not badly, all things considered. My symptoms were not terrible: sense of taste and smell maintained throughout; brain-fog seems to have eluded me; and I was in pretty good spirits across the board. Which made it even harder to do what I knew I needed to do. REST.
I spent the first seven days somewhat laid flat with sheer exhaustion. My main symptom. Was it COVID or was it the aforementioned 2.5 years of trying to outrun it? 2.5 years of supporting companies and people trying to outrun potentially game-over consequences of it? 2.5 years of caution, precautions and anxiety dominating every nook and cranny of the collective psyche?
I am not on week three and I am still TAF (Tired As FCUK).
Put your hand up if you are running on empty.
Our brains consume a substantial part of our energy on a daily basis. Conservative estimates are that our brains use 20-30% of our energy. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I believe our brains have been in overdrive for the past-long-wee-while and have likely been consuming A Whole Lot More Than That. My guesstimate it's been more like 40-60% consumption when you factor in the confluence of issues coming at us in the media, general anxiety, and the level of change we have all had to absorb. That's all before looking at the impact of your day job.
We all need to pause. We need to give ourselves permission to stop. We need to give others permission to stop.
Accordingly, this is my prescription, regardless of your health status:
1. Two days (S/S) of absolutely NOTHING. Set yourself up for two days of literal bed rest. Order or make some good food and just lay flat and sleep+read+StreamYourHeartOut.
2. One workweek (M-F) of minimal work. I did two half-day board calls and otherwise cancelled all my meetings and spent time cleaning up my inbox. Overall, I worked at about 20% which should be your goal. I did all this from bed as I was sick...I will also allow doing this work on your couch or from a desert island. Please don't set-up-shop in your home office as that will defeat the purpose.
3. Two days (S/S) of supportive activities. Book yourself in for a retreat or retreat at home. Daily yoga/walks/light exercise, making nourishing food (make extra and freeze it), maybe tidy out a cupboard or three (as that is joyful), meditate, light gardening, some inspiring movies/music/podcasts and reading.
4. This is the hard part. For the following two weeks you need to organize your life to be lighter than usual. I want you working at about 80%. No multi-tasking. No getting caught up in drama. No coffee meetings or dinners out. No late nights. Figure out what you absolutely must get done then, quietly and calmly, get that work done. Add in a little meditation and light exercise. Keep eating well. This is a critical time to lock in the benefits of the prior week and start to rebuild your stamina.
I know this sounds hard. I am not going to list out the amount of drama and workload in my life the last two weeks, but rest assured it's actually one of the busiest periods of my year. There are a lot of additional responsibilities on me at the moment. I have still worked really hard to operate (well) at 80%.
If we don't pay attention when the warning light comes on, we do permanent damage. It's time for us all to take ourselves into the shop and get some maintenance done.
Doctor's Orders!
NOT A BUG?
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I'm going out on an edge today. A razor's edge. Two in fact: Hanlon's and Occam’s. You have likely heard of Hanlon's Razor which offers that we should "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Occam's Razor proffers that "Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected."
In philosophy, a razor works like a real blade and helps us to shave off excess. In many respects they operate as safety razor's, stopping us from doing harm.
Hanlon's Razor is the most obvious mental safety device. I was taught to receive all communications with positive intent front of mind. Email especially, which is very prone to being either poorly written or hastily read. Negative intent oozes from the pores of email. The potential for career damage from a misunderstood email is very great.
Occam's Razor is a maxim that helps reduce excessive cognitive expenditure. I'm not sure if the KISS rule (Keep It Simple, Stupid) originated from Occam's Razor but it's easy to see probable origins. Essentially Occam's Razor tells us to choose the simpler explanation or follow the simpler path over the more complex.
As mental models, both of these are extremely useful as base assumptions. They counteract our seemingly deep human capacity to make up stories and complicate matters. How many times have you been angry at someone who "cut's you off in traffic intentionally" when most likely the driver was oblivious? How often have you completely misunderstood an email! How many hours, days and weeks have you fretted over a decision and failed to act?
Practice Hanlon's Razor next time you feel your blood pressure rising as you read a missive from one of your less favorite colleagues. Practice Occam's Razor when you realize you are obsessing over how to start a project or make a decision. Pick the simpler place to start, you can always add complexity if required. Excessive mental deliberation is a bug not a feature.
DONEDONE
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Somewhere along the way I think we slightly messed up the commands we give our dog. "Sit" or "LayDown" can be used interchangeably - I am quite sure Winston knows which is which he just doesn't much care. "LayDown" is in itself interpretative and must be clarified with the command "DownDown" if we want him to stay in that position for more than a nano-second.
So I often find myself saying "Down" and quickly followed by "DownDown" as he goes through a his circus-like goodboy routine.
For some reason this all flowed through my head as I thought about Sturgeon's Law: there is Done and there is DoneDone. Sturgeon's Law provokes that 90% of everything is crap. Sturgeon was a Sci-Fi writer (!) and his offering is extremely useful in a world of overload. I find it very calming to know that don't need 90% of any given sample set. My immediate issue is how to set my discovery phasers for optimal crap-filtration in my life? The real issue is how to ensure the work I produce is not relegated to the CrapPile.
How do we optimize the work we do for the last 10%. DoneDone is a lot harder than Done. For insights on how to solve this, I immediately looked to Tom Cargill's thinking on software development. Cargill came out of Bell Labs (arguably the birthplace of our modern technological world) and observed that 90% of work takes 10% of the time and the last 10% of work takes 90% of the time. Some would even suggest the last 1% of development takes 99% of the time. As long as I have been involved in technology, I have always observed this to be true AND also can be applied to where the value lies in every project.
The immediate implications of this are that we need to leave more time (much more time) for finishing projects. I worry about the NeverEndingStoryVibes of this as a solution. It also has some very real money-pit implications.
HusbandMark has always said you should never give a painting back to an artist because they will mess with it. They will not be able to help themselves. A work of art is never done. In many respects software projects are never done either. Code needs inevitable updates and security fixes let alone evolving the product informed by customer use.
So yes, your project will take a lot longer to complete than you think it will be. Yes, it's also much more likely to be crap than you would care to think. And yes, it may never feel like a masterpiece. Finishing is hard. Bake this into your process from the start. Give yourself more time at the end than you think you need. Consider also convening an editorial/finishing committee to help you establish what non-crap might look like. Finally, know that we live in a world where post-release updates are the rule and not the exception. Yesterday's crap might be one clinical trial/peer review/focus group/update/brushstroke away from triumph today.
DRIVE
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As I pursue graceful productivity, my theme from last week, I have been more than obsessed with the idea of cognitive load. Grace implies a flow and presence that an overloaded brain seems incapable of. Or at least my brain.
Decision making fatigue is at the core of this. An incredible recent email from Rian Dorris at The Flow Research Collective broke this issue down as follows, "the brain is an organ. It gets fatigued just like muscles do. Making decisions depletes energy and can lead to increased stress, anxiety, and even depression. Cognitively, it compromises executive function. Physically, it can lead to headaches and impaired digestion
Doris notes that there is research to suggest the brain makes something like 35,000 decisions a day and over 200 of them are food decisions. Pop me an email if you want me to forward the full article...they don't publicly publish their newsletter content.
As a result of consuming this intel, I made a few instant decisions. I book all my work trips to depart at the same flight time. I always fly the night before meetings, so I have the afternoon to prep (and some buffer for flight changes). I answer every email within the day I get it, with a quick answer if I don't have time for a longer one (please don't test me on that). I deleted a HUGE backlog from Trello and obliterated my Netflix queue because having a million things I wanted to watch seemingly made it harder to choose. I cleaned all the screengrabs from my phone and filed them in Evernote or deleted them (now I just get to look at pics and not think "oh yeah, I need to order that doorbell..." And I organized the 500Billion articles I had open on all my browsers. Now I read them immediately or save them to Instapaper.
I know, that is a LOT of admin. But I really feel like I lost 10 pounds. From my brain.
There are a million ways you can automate your world. You can establish a daily schedule, you can set morning and evening rituals, you can pre-make decisions (I love making all my food in the weekend, so I just need to grab something from the fridge when hunger strikes.) One of my other favorites is delegating decision making in certain areas to a trusted friend. Best case is either a good decision or one less friend - which surely reduces cognitive load on some level.
Have a think about it and try a couple on for size. Or just observe what you find hard and how you might be able to program a decision-making algorithm for yourself? Leave your brain for the important decisions like where to go on vacation and whether you need another puppy...
RELENTLESS
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I have talked previously about my inner White Rabbit. My always-on sense of urgency. An inner clock that ticks loudly, telling me that I am behind. I must work harder. I must work faster. I'm late!
Shifting this is hard. It's an in-built mechanism that likely evolved early in my life and is supported by just about everything in our modern world. The inevitability of being behind in an ever-expanding and relentlessly changing universe. We cannot possibly read enough, have enough meetings, attend enough lunches/dinners, be fast enough on email/text/slack and we definitely cannot ever be cool enough on social media.
There are some excellent counterpoints. Cal Newport is a personal favorite. Newport's concept of Slow Productivity is especially appealing to me. But he and his kind are a rare breed. Lone vegetarian wolves in a forest of white rabbits. If you have dealt with rabbits you know they will destroy the habitat and starve the wolves out. Ok, so I stretched a little to make that metaphor work.
Lately I am not enjoying Fast Productivity at all. I feel I am hyperventilating my way through life. It's not fun and I also don't think it's effective. So, I decided to embrace Graceful Productivity.
In a nutshell this means a couple of things. First, I always embrace the rocks, pebbles and sand methodology from Steven Covey. I did a fun video tutorial on this if you need a refresh. I create my list the night before and I stick to it. But life happens and we need to be able to shift gears. Items of the pebble variety can easy-peasy transfer over to the following day. Some items can be delegated or even outsourced. This is the graceful element. When we are hyperventilating our way through the day, we miss the obvious. When we are present, graceful, we see opportunities to move things around and frankly be more efficient.
Essentially, it's not all or nothing. We don't need to be in either the Deep Focus/Slow Productivity Cal Newport world OR the frenetic 'Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook' world of Gary Vaynerchuk. Give yourself permission to find your own pace. Manage your energy and you will manage your time.
SIMPLE MIND
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When life starts happening to us, we default to blaming the big stuff. "I need a holiday" is the immediate and obvious reaction to life's chaotic moments. Closely followed with "I need a new job."
We blame the obvious villains: our partner/boss/colleagues/neighbours/parents/children. Clearly they are the cause of our problems. "If only I didn't have 'x' holding me back."
When life gets hard, we tend to overcorrect. Or at least see the solution in change of a dramatic proportion. The answer clearly lies in switching it all up and getting a new career; moving house; working overseas; or (and) starting a side hustle. With a side order fantasy of disappearing on a 3+ week meditation/yoga retreat. Well, maybe that's just me
The other week I suggested breathwork as a starting place to move through overwhelm. Telling someone to breathe always seems like the most low-level and obvious advice. Right up there with suggesting we drink more water. Oh, and getting more sleep.
We tell ourselves stories that over-complicate our reality. Sure, breathing isn't going to make the endless deadlines stop, but it will help you get clarity about what is really going on. Water isn't going to make you happy, but it will make you feel considerably more energized and capable of dealing with what is thrown your way. And sleep isn't going to stop your kids fighting, but it will allow you to cope infinitely better with your frustration.
We can't see the trees and we only see the forest. Life happens in the simple moments. Optimizing the little things in your life has real power. Big solutions exist in small changes.
MUCHNESS
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Depending on your global placement it's either summer solstice or winter equinox. AKA the middle of the year. It's time to dust off your goals for 2022.
It doesn't matter whether you are on track or wildly off track. This is no time for a pity party or an early celebration. Regardless of your progress, I want to you embrace abundant thinking and supersize your ambition.
There are times to be big and times to be small. Now is the time to be big. The more constricted you feel, the more important it is to take up space. Fortune favors the bold. Always - and especially in a challenging market.
What would it look like if you doubled your ambition for the year. More revenues for your company, a much bigger promotion, triple the sales, quadruple your pipeline, quintuple your audience. What would exponential growth look like?
Does it scare you a little? Good!
Get ambitious. Write down the new audacious goal. Declare it. Then figure out the one thing you need to do to start it in motion. One action you can start this week.
Embrace your muchness...your greatness knows no bounds.
OVER IT
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The saying "your goose is cooked" refers to being in a degree of trouble as a result of one's actions. Evidently originating from the martyrdom of a person whose name sounded like 'goose' in German. Or so the internet says.
Don't ask me how my brain works. I don't always know. But this is the saying that leapt in my head as I thought about today's topic. Burnout.
It sneaks up on you and is very insidious. Gradual, subtle and with very harmful effects. Well, it's subtle in the beginning. Once it takes hold, it's anything but subtle. It's debilitating.
It's also extremely confronting. Not only are you faced with not being able to do things the way you used to, but you also need to acknowledge it's the result of your own most excellent work. All your striving and caring and perfection and being relied upon. Your reward for being a good person who does great work is to be thoroughly exhausted and on the verge of collapse.
The best part is...wait for it...nope - there is nothing good about this. It's a massive alarm bell that you need to make some changes and make those changes reasonably quickly. Failure, please hear me on this, is not a pretty picture. You are literally damaging your adrenals, minimum, and creating damage to your health that could take a lifetime to repair.
The worst part is confronting the fact that you are doing it to yourself. You are the one taking on too much work. You are the one not getting enough help at home to compensate. You are the one saying yes to too many things. You are the one who the team keeps relying on rather than doing the hard yards themself.
You are the one.
You matter.
You owe it to yourself to take control. You owe it to yourself to stop making everyone and everything else matter more than you.
If this is you, or might one day be you, please stop. Just for a moment. Take a deep breath through your nose. In and out. Feel what it's like to have a second of calm. Just one second. Take another, deeper breath if you didn't feel it the first time. You need to recognize what that feels like. Step One of moving beyond burnout is understanding that you are in constant fight or flight mode, and you need to teach your body what the rest-state feels like.
That is your task this week. More to come next week but for now I want you to find as many moments as possible in your day for one-deep-breath. Just one. One second. One breath.
You owe it to no one else but yourself.
ALL POWER
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What do you completely suck at? What is your worst attribute? What is the story that you tell yourself when you are at your lowest; when nothing seems to go your way?
Is there one story? Are there multiple? Are these bedtime stories that play on a loop as you go to sleep or do your stories greet you in the morning? "Rise and Shine. Allow me to start your day with a mental barrage of all the things you will fail at today."
We collect these stories like jeans that no longer fit. Like power cords we will never use. For devices we no longer own. They do not serve us. They do not spark joy. Yet, we cling to them like crutches well after the bones have healed.
We need to banish these thoughts as Jennifer Connolly banished the Goblin King in my all-time favorite movie. We need to state, unequivocally, "you have no power over me."
For the last few weeks I have been working with Julie Cameron's Morning Pages. The process is simple, you write three pages, handwritten, in a journal each morning. No stopping. No editing. Just write.
This process magically draws out the stories. Gets them from the head to the page and removes their energy. As the nonsense is forcibly extracted it has no where to hide. Laid bare, it becomes less a statement and more a (bad) question. Then, it seemingly shrivels and dies as the question is revealed for the rubbish it is.
The evening stories are a little sneakier. They feed on the unsuspecting end-of-day brain. A brain that has been busily helping you process information and sees this as another input. A brain that doesn't know any better than to get to work like any other instruction from the boss. Whispering to you as you shut your eyes at night. Slipping in at the last minute to disturb and disrupt your sleep.
Except, you are the boss. This is your moment to have control of one small thing for the day. So shut that dialogue down and fill the void with something else. I love an inspiring podcast or meditation podcast, Deepak Chopra or Tara Brach always work for me. I am also a big fan of proper bedtime stories a la audible. Pick anything that floats your boat. Set the sleep timer on your app and drift on off. The Goblin King can go mess with someone else's head.
IN PLAIN SIGHT
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Flipping things on their head is fun. Last week I asked you to apply positivity to something that is not going well in your world. I also asked you to critique something that was going well. I know, I can be mean like that.
This week I have a real doozy for you...turning your worst attribute into your best.
Actually. it's kind of cool as you think about it.
The first bit is a little confronting. So, we will slap a warning label on that part. Step one is to sit down for a few minutes and write out all the negative things you say about yourself. "I'm lazy." "I procrastinate." "I'm not a good speaker." "I don't feel like I belong." "I'm not smart enough."
You know. The usual suspects.
You can do this exercise for the whole list (and I will award bonus gold stars) but I want you to pick out the most glaring one. What's the one that brings up the most fear. What is the standout?
Take that and flip it. Find the strength in your perceived weakness. Figure out how to amplify it and get it working in your favor.
Let's look at not belonging for a second. You feel like an outsider. I totally get how that can feel very isolating and non-grounding. It's like you keep looking for 'home' and nothing every feels quite right. You don't identify with the people around you or the choices they are making. It's like you are doing the opposite to your peer group. You clearly don't want what they want?
Obviously, I think this is an asset. What a tremendous gift that you don't belong. It's possible you are creating the future where you will belong. Or you are thinking about creating the future. Maybe you are building your business or career in stark contrast to the rest of the herd? Bravo. You are making independent decisions that are bound to take you to much more interesting places than the herd.
This is one example of many. If you get stuck, email me yours and I will do the flip for you.
Turning on the channel of negative self-talk comes naturally to all of us but it's nothing short of self-sabotage. Tune into a new station. Dial up your strengths and lean into what sets you apart from the crowd.
WAKE UP
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One of the questions I always ask executives is "what keeps you awake at night?" It is a question I have modified slightly in language; from a wellbeing standpoint it's not ideal to allude to sleep loss. Regardless of phrasing, I want to understand what they see as the greatest and most pressing challenge. Do you know this for your business?
The corollary is the question "what gets you leaping out of bed in the morning?" AKA what are you most excited about right now? If you struggle to answer that question, see my first question.
Having an answer to both of these questions gives you a lot of information. Digging deeper into each of the questions will give you a lot of answers. If not answers, certainly a lot of areas of inquiry. Who can you talk to about the issue that is troubling you? What is one thing you can do today that might move you forward on that challenge? How many people in the business share your concern? Are you missing something bigger and obsessing over something obvious - is there a problem behind that problem?
Delving into what is getting you amped for life is it's own bounty. Are you excited about your work or is it a hobby that is electrifying you? Is there a specific task you are doing that you are loving? Do you have a new morning ritual that is making everything in your day easy? Even just the knowledge that you still love your work is an incredible realization. If that's where you get to (and if not, time to squiggle?!)
Now, turn those questions around. Ask the morning questions in reference to your sleepless night challenge. Could you create a ritual, could you learn to love the challenge, do you still love your work, is there a hobby that might round out your life?
Then add some challenge to your mornings: who could you speak with that might challenge and stretch you, what task are you avoiding that you could focus on, how are the people in your business feeling about their work, is there a threat to your business that you should broaden your focus to see?
Obviously, I am talking about perspective. When we bring positivity and optimism to a problem, we give ourselves more space and energy to solve it. When we bring challenge to the energy of enthusiasm, we create expansive thinking that will propel us forward.
Ultimately, of course, I want you sleeping well and waking up enthused for the day, for your work, and for your life. Perspective will help you with that. Turning off your screens before you go to bed and reading will also help. As will listening to a meditation podcast or some yoga-nidra as you drift off. Bundle all of that up and you have a winning formula for greatness. Or at least a head-start.
LETTING GO
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As kids we learn to pump our legs back and forth to slowly gather momentum on a swing. Almost like magic we start to move. In no time we are soaring.
Life can be that simple. Not always but more often than you think.
Sometimes it's all in the technique. Here are some things that have helped me:
- Grow and nourish your network. This is your greatest asset, we all need people cheering in our corner.
- Find people who are interested in what you are doing and ask them millions of questions. Don't always be in sales mode.
- Go to fewer conferences, they are rarely a source of deep connection.
- Don't ask people if they like your idea. It doesn't matter (unless they are investors!!).
- Do it because you HAVE to, not because you think it will make you rich. An unrelenting desire to build something new will take you a lot further than a deep desire for cash-ola.
- Ask for money and you will get advice. Ask for advice and you will get money. Mostly because the advice-asking helps you build deeper connection, but it's also a softer sell so people are more likely to lean in.
- Do the thing you don't want to do. Hate building projections, build projections. Hate cold-calls and networking, do that. Hate pitching...you guessed it. I'm not saying this to be a hard-ass...it's just where you will likely find new sources of information and richness for what you are doing.
- Create a momentum to-do list of little things you can achieve to keep you moving. A lot of the time it can feel like you are doing doggy-paddle in the middle of the ocean. Knowing you have done something tangible will give you the sense you are making progress.
- Take time for yourself. Your mental and physical health are game-changers. Exercise, walk, meditate, dance. Anything daily. Preferably 30 minutes but I'll take 5 minutes of nose-breathing.
Shine Bright.
FREE AS
PhotoCredit: Bird'sEye
En Vogue is one of those forgotten groups that should never be forgotten. Their glorious 1992 hit "Free Your Mind" says everything. EVERYTHING. There is a treatise hidden behind every line in this song. It's a solid investment of 4.14 minutes of your today.
Free Your Mind.
And The Rest Will Follow.
It's easier said than done. One of the hardest parts of starting any squiggly adventure is stepping off. Stepping into the great unknown. Be it teeny or "holy shit-balls I just quit my job", it's all the same squiggly step. The same scary squiggly step.
And before we make that step, we think we should know where we are going. We should have a grand vision. A destination at least. An idea of the future "us" that we want to be. Preferably in crystal clarity. Otherwise, well otherwise we are shifting from a place of certainty to the complete unknown. That doesn't seem especially smart?
It's smarter than you would think. In the linear modality we kid ourselves that we can plot a path to a predictable and known outcome. In the squiggly realm we understand that 'predictable and known' are illusory. They are visions of the ego that satiate us with concepts like comfort and safety. Telling us little white lies like "the paycheck is worth the misery". "You'll be happy once you can afford the house". "One more step and you'll be the boss, it will all be ok then".
The linear is controlled by the ego which doesn't want you to take risk. It's not that it doesn't want you to be happy, it's just that your ego is rather attached to your job title and doesn't quite know how to stabilize if you are <cough> unemployed.
Nothing will make you feel smaller than going to a dinner party and admitting you are between jobs.
The real truth is that you need to strut yourself down the en vogue runway in your fiercest 90's ensemble and declare yourself free. Free from what you were and free to decide who you want to be.
It's only when you let go of the vision of who you think you need to be that you will become who you MUST be.
Be expansive, be experimental and be larger than life.
Be open, be brave, be curious, be bold.
Above all, free your mind. The rest will follow.
START FRESH
PhotoCredit: BrightEyed
Last week we met the perfectionist monster - the uninvited guest on our bold adventures into brave new lands. The perfectionist monster also brings its baggage along for the trip. This is not a personalized set of Louis Vuitton cases ala The Darjeeling Limited. (Oh how I love that movie). Less that, more "I can't get out of bed let alone make a decision to save myself" baggage.
Welcome to the stranglehold of anxiety and indecision that accompanies any foray into the unknown.
Rollo May says it best "Because it is possible to create — one has anxiety. One would have no anxiety if there were no possibility whatever."
When we set out to do anything new, anxiety is a byproduct. The act of creating induces anxiety, we are "destroying the status quo, destroying old patterns within oneself, progressively destroying what one has clung to from childhood on, and creating new and original forms and ways of living." - Rollo May
So the change process, the following your bliss process, the doing something new process isn't a comfortable one.
I read this Rollo May quote after exiting my second start-up. In a speech I did around the same time I talked about the low-level of nausea that followed me around where-ever I went. Rollo May helped me understand where that feeling came from. He also helped me understand that, while it wasn't a great feeling, it was a great indicator that I was venturing into creative territory. The bad feeling was a barometer of me doing great work.
That speech was the birth of The Squiggly Life. From that moment on I have attempted to share my learnings of the squiggly life and to be a guide and a friend to those living it. Because it's a lonely, fear-inducing and - in case you missed this - always anxious process.
It's also incredibly rewarding and glorious.
My goal is to normalize the feelings that might otherwise cripple us. To assure you that discomfort is an indicator you are doing it right. Comfort is not going to move you up the mountain.
So that feeling you have. That it might all fall apart any second. That you might not be good enough. That certainly other people are better than you. That this was a bad idea. That you should go back to safer ground. All those feelings mean you are doing exactly the right thing.
Exactly. The. Right. Thing.
Keep doing it. You are among friends.
PERFECTION
PhotoCredit: Scary
If you do nothing else today, go check out this awesome collection of Monster drawings. I have the best time finding images for my weekly musings. The links are always at the top of each post titled "Photo Credit".
The perfectionist monster that lurks in us all is much less cute than today's cover photo. Starting something new is seemingly the equivalent of feeding the monster after dark. Or getting it wet. I vaguely remember the Gremlin rules. The biggest thing that stands between you and your dreams is likely a perfectionist monster with the midnight munchies.
It makes sense. We dream up these elaborate ideas of future-us doing something really awesome and really well. In a flash we go from Paris Hilton's assistant* to being a mega-mogul household name that eclipses Paris's star (permanently it seems). All the hard stuff in between is overlooked. We get the big job, we leap straight to a million followers, we breeze through our classes as we retrain for that new career.
Then perfectionist monster paralyses you. It says no. Hold the phone. It's going to be way harder than that. It shines the light into the dark corners of that dream and shows you all the things that will be hard. All of the things that might go wrong.
So, best not to start right? Best to stay safe and not step out too far on the ledge.
Sure, that's one option. The other option is you do it anyway. You saw that coming right? You do it anyway because it's like this for everyone. It's never perfect. It's never linear. Not for anyone. Ever. My favorite example is Ryan ToysReview (now Ryan's World). At 10 years old, with over 32 million subscribers, over 50 billion views, earning a reported USD26Million from YouTube in 2019 - it's easy to see nothing but success. But the early videos were so rough and even the name of the channel wasn't grammatically correct. They clearly started with no idea what they were doing and they have slowly built up this success over 7 years. Mistake by mistake.
I could fill a book with other examples. I need to fill a book with examples. No one, I promise you, starts with a clue what the finish line will look like.
Just. Start. Celebrate your mistakes as you go. I know you can do it because plenty others just as capable as you have. Maybe even less capable. So why shouldn't you have your shot?
Dream boldly. Fail bravely. Laugh loudly.
START YOU UP
PhotoCredit: Unravel
After writing today's subheading 'Absolute Beginnings' I got super distracted listening to David Bowie. If you are seeking a six minute distraction, I really enjoyed this gem. I so love David Bowie and his voice is on full display in this BBC live performance.
Today is both a question for you and a nod to my focus for April. I have been inspired by a few people who are exploring new beginnings in their lives and have asked me how they should start? It's a lonely and scary process that is equally exciting, full of promise and loaded with ambition. Sweet and Sour - a winning combination when you get the balance right.
For those of you on that journey, or contemplating it: what are you struggling with, trying to optimize or keen to learn?
For those of you not on that journey, why not? Is there something in the back of your mind that might want to come out and play? Is there something in your life already that is a new beginning that you might be able to support more? A new opportunity to expand your role, your horizons or even just your thinking?
"The more things change the more they stay the same" is a troubling observation. Side note: this is a translation of “plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose“ from French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr. In a world of constant and lately overwhelming change: are you evolving or are you stubbornly sticking to the habits and practices of your lifetime?
Perhaps it is time for your own new beginning?