Reading Time: < 1 minIf you start a business, there’s a good chance that you started it to help solve a problem that you once had. Learning to serve your past self is a powerful way to serve others, as you likely know their problems on a level that others don’t. The same comes from advice. If you’re giving […]
Encouragement
When you’re up, go down, and vice-versa
Reading Time: < 1 minDepending on the role in your organization, you may have people above and/or below you in the hierarchy of the company. A good use of your emotions is to remember “when you’re up, go down, and when you’re down, go up“. If you’re feeling great, that’s a perfect time to chat those lower than you […]
Inspiration is found in work
Reading Time: < 1 minIt’s easy to sit back and wait for inspiration to strike. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. I’d venture to say that most times it won’t. If you want inspiration to show up, then get to work and you may find that it randomly appears. As I’m writing this, my queue of blog posts was […]
Push toward your goals or not, but you age at the same rate
Reading Time: < 1 minYou have a choice today to push forward toward your goals, or to just continue on with the status quo. Whether you push forward today or not, either way you’ll be a day older. Julia Cameron used an excellent question to explain this in her book “The Artist’s Way“. Suppose you’re considering learning to play […]
Do it every day
Reading Time: < 1 minA few months ago, I talked about how I push for “always” to help achieve “usually”, meaning there are some things that I try to do every day simply to make sure they get done sometimes. While reading Molly Beck’s excellent book “Reach Out“, she shared a quote from Gretchen Rubin’s blog that is a […]
Only one person can change me
Reading Time: < 1 minIn recently reading the book “QBQ” (the “Question Before the Question”, which I discussed a bit here), much of it felt similar to some of the ideas in “The Daily Stoic“. The books come from completely different directions, but end up focusing on one idea — you are responsible for yourself. QBQ had a few […]
Don’t wait to be told
Reading Time: < 1 minI recently finished reading John Miller’s excellent (and rather short) book QBQ (The Question Behind the Question). The focus of the book is about taking responsibility rather than handing out blame, even when blame feels like it might be more appropriate. One piece of taking responsibility is choosing to push things forward without waiting for […]
Keep tapping
Reading Time: < 1 minThe ability to focus is often very underrated (“I multitask very well!“), but it’s key to getting deep work done. If you can stay focused on your main goals with minimal distraction, you’ll reach them much more quickly. To be honest, this is something I often struggle with. In Seth Godin’s classic book “The Dip“, […]
Lightning will strike soon, right?
Reading Time: < 1 minIt can be easy to wait for inspiration to strike before you write your next blog post or record your next video. Many times, though, the waiting will never end. Prior to 2020, I generally blogged when I “felt inspired”. I intended to post a few times a week, but usually only posted once a […]
Slow growth is stable
Reading Time: < 1 minWhen we’re starting something new, many of dive in completely. Workouts go from 0 to brutal. Reading goes from 2 books/year to 2 books/week. Running goes from never to 20 miles/week. Most often, we burn out and these all end quickly and poorly. You need to decide, particularly early on in a new venture, to […]