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 […]
Encouragement
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 […]
The best coaches have very few social media followers
Reading Time: < 1 minI heard the title of this post on a recent episode of “The Long and The Short Of It”, and I’ve been pondering it ever since then. Here is the full text of what Pete said on the show: It was in the health and fitness space, there was a strength coach that I follow […]
Post-COVID
Reading Time: < 1 minI made it most than two years without contracting COVID, thanks to a good degree of caution, mask-wearing, and vaccines, but it finally caught me last week and knocked me down. All in all it wasn’t too bad, but it was rough enough that I had to end my daily blogging streak at 620 days. […]
First, go fail 49 times
Reading Time: < 1 minIt’s surprising to me how often “fail more” can be a great way to help a person ultimately succeed. Seth Godin says that if you’re struggling to come up with a good idea, to “show me all of your bad ideas first“. I’ve even tried to “fail” on purpose at times; when trying to find […]
Enjoy your obscurity
Reading Time: < 1 minWe all tend to want to reach more people, whether that’s through our creative work, sports, acting, etc. Even on this blog, which I’m doing almost entirely for my own growth, it would be kind of fun to have more traffic. That said, a bit of obscurity can be a good thing. If you look […]
Pray for help, but put in the work
Reading Time: < 1 minWhen you have a lot that you need to accomplish, it’s ok to ask for help. That could be in the form of prayer, asking friends, or wherever you’re most likely to turn. As I’ve heard said before, though, “faith can move mountains, but don’t be surprised if God hands you a shovel.“ Or, as […]
Make time for the right things
Reading Time: < 1 minA study by the Management Research Group showed that 97% of CEOs said that the key to their organization’s success was “long-term strategic thinking”. In a different survey, 96% of CEOs said that “they don’t have time for strategic thinking”. Clearly, something is lacking. Dorie Clark unpacks it in this excellent TEDx talk from 2021: […]
Someone should do something about that
Reading Time: < 1 minI’m sure you’ve had a friend lament a bad situation and say that “someone should do something about that”. Perhaps you’ve said it yourself, and I’m sure I have at some point too. Perhaps the person to “do something” should be you. It’s a tricky line, because when things look bad, sometimes the best solution […]
Take some time to do nothing
Reading Time: < 1 minSometime in the next few days, see if you can carve out a bit of time to just do nothing. For many of us, that time needs to go on the calendar or it’ll never happen, so do that if you need to. As Austin Kleon said in “Steal Like An Artist“: “Creative people need […]