When life hands you lemons? Make lemonade.
When earth hands you mountains? Go camping.
Author: Phil Garland
Right Decisions in Life Are Hard to Judge
When you run a business it’s pretty difficult to track how each decision is affecting your trajectory. Yes, there are tools to help you calculate this like key performance indicators (KPIs) and number of leads, but it’s still difficult to tell why consumers are buying. It take years or decades to determine the perfect formula for building a business. And, on top of that, the formula is continually changing.
Likewise, making decisions in your life, and tracking the outcomes of events, is extremely difficult. You never know what’s behind door number two if you’re only walking through the first door you see. You also can’t backtrack from one choice to another. From small things like skipping breakfast to big things like changing careers, there’s no taking back an action. And there’s no way of knowing what might’ve happened.
The only way I know how to continue is by listening to myself. My internal compass, answering questions going on in my head, is the only guiding light I have found. Knowing the human brain, this probably isn’t the best compass but it’s the only one I’ve got. I try to find out as much information as I can and do research of what success looks like. I try to picture myself in a certain situation and imagine what the outcome will look like. But, I never quite know what’s behind door number two. It might be a terrible choice. It might be the best choice I’ve ever made.
The only way to find out is to keep moving forward. To keep living with my decisions and making the most of it.
Capturing Exponential Growth
About seven months ago I had an awakening. I decided to take life by the horns and try to create the world I wanted to live in. By doing so, I met a ton of influential people that I am still influenced by today. Each person I’ve come in contact with, who are doing big things, have made massive strides in the past seven months. They have captured exponential growth.
It’s amazing to look at my Facebook feed and see how far these people have come. Months ago they were talking dreams and today they’re living them out. Not only is exponential growth affecting the amount of processing power that can be added to microchips, it’s also infultrating our ability to get stuff done.
By combining the “dreamer” mentality with a technology that’s advancing at light speed, people are able to become successes within a year. It doesn’t take thirty years of putting in your time to rise to power anymore. Instead, power comes from infatuation with a problem and trying to solve it. Exponential growth is at your finger tips, you only need to reach out and grab it.
Freedom is Earned
The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. – Albert Camus
I did something this evening that I almost never do. I watched about an hour and a half of videos of what’s going on in America, mostly involving police and civilians.
By watching these videos, I had a lot of thoughts racing through my mind. From anger at police to anger at people not listening to police. But my biggest anger came from reading unapologetic comments. Stuff like “Well, they were doing something illegal” or “that’s what happens when you don’t follow an order.”
Yes, I agree that some people antagonize police to catch the reaction on video but that doesn’t mean what people are doing is illegal. One video was a girl who got a $25 ticket for talking to her neighbor in “No parking zone.” She had her car running and it was obviously a rural area. There didn’t seem to be any harm of her stopping to chat.
The cop got out, asked for license and registration and proceeded with fining her. Although that may be the law, whatever happened to giving a warning or treating people like human beings? Wouldn’t it have been easier for the cop to tell the lady she wasn’t allowed to park there and that be the end of it?
Whether you’re pro cop or have a problem with cops, I think we all need to realize our freedoms come from believing what it truly means to be human.
Compassion. Loyalty. Respect. Decency. Love.
Those are all human traits. It’s pretty sad that those traits are the bar for being “free” in today’s society. By acting with those beliefs you are already doing better than what seems like a majority of America. Living free, and having freedoms, is about caring for those around you no matter the circumstance. Your very awareness of the traits that make you a compassionate human being is the precursor to living freely in an unfree world.
Niches Allow for Scaling
Comparative advantage, doing what you do best and trading for the rest, is a major benefactor of the new economy. Given the ability for people, and softwares, to focus on certain niches, makes each aspect of the economy better off. Instead of having companies focused on general problems, companies can focus on solving one solution. And, since everything is interconnected, companies can combine their solutions into multiple solutions depending on a problem.
With more and more companies focusing on solving specific problems, more efficient solutions will end up winning out. Thus, the world will become more efficient through competition. By allowing for comparative advantage to take place in every industry, we are building a more efficient place to live. The technology revolution allows for us to gain from what was once a trade-off of labors.
Steady Progress is Better Than None
Part of building the life you want is coming to the realization that it takes time and hard work to get to where you want to be. Although it’s nice to think hustling all the time, 100% of the time, will help you arrive at your end goal, it doesn’t quite work that way.
Yes, spending time getting to where you want is essential but spending every waking minute to get there will only end in exhaustion. Instead, taking a long term approach to big goals allows you to achieve your dreams without burning out.
Making steady progress towards your end goal is far more beneficial than a couple of sprints while running on empty. At the end of the day, empires are built over time and from continually building. Taking a small step every day is better than taking giant leaps that deplete your willingness to move forward. Progress begets progress but it shouldn’t be looked at as a short term objective. Move forward but don’t burn out.
Laying Low Weekend
We need a break from the world when we’re connected all the time. This weekend I’m laying low.
The Number One Lesson I’ve Learned Reading 100 Business/Productivity Books
TL;DR Don’t read for consumption, read to create.
Although it’s a lot of fun to read books like Four Hour Work Week and dream up the things we’d do with that kind of free time. A lot of Tim Ferris’s advice is centered around a few assumptions. (1) You have a business that has a client base (2) You have stumbled through the entrepreneurial journey (3) You have processes that can now be optimized.
I’m Not Singling Out Tim Ferris
I love Tim’s writing and think he has a TON of valuable insight. My issue with it is he actually writes for a very small niche — those that fall under the three assumptions I outlined above. All authors of business books speak to a niche as well. Even if you think it’s generic business advice, it’s not. Every author has their strengths and weaknesses. Someone with a marketing background might be able to speak to the marketing side but could be terrible with financials.
The most successful copy writing books/blogs teach others how to copywrite/blog. That’s a great value but not all that it takes to run a business. Every time you read an article, you’ll add a little bit more knowledge to your archives but that doesn’t mean it needs to be using space in your brain hard drive.
Business books are always for a specific niche. Finding the right book for your given problem is key. Nothing else matters.
Build Your Own Thing, Then Read Applicable Books
I’ve heard it called many things but my favorite is just-in-time learning. Kylon Geinger, host of The Successful Dropout has an excellent recording on the topic. The premise of just-in-time learning is the complete opposite of what we were taught in school. Instead of putting away information in our brain, as soon as a problem arises, we look for a solution. Never sooner. There’s no need to fill your brain with empty thoughts.
By putting challenges in front of me, and trying to build things, business books are 100x more valuable. Not only do I get nuggets from the greatest minds in the world, I have an action item right away. For example, I started Growth Hacker Marketing to gain insight while writing content for a business and read The End of Jobs to help curate a newsletter involving the future of work.
Giving myself projects has allowed me to apply just-in-time learning regularly and my value derived from books has increased exponentially. Next time you’re looking for a business book to read, combine it with a business project. The amount of applicable insights will increase and you’ll be able to put lessons into practice immediately.
Not All Writing is Created Equal
When I first started blogging, the hardest part for me was taking the ideas in my head and putting them to paper. This problem persisted for multiple reasons: fear of judgment, no practice in turning thoughts into words, little belief in my ability, etc. However, with time, I became much better at turning my thoughts into words. It almost (ALMOST) comes naturally to me now.
Lately, I’ve taken up an interest in writing content. Not just content that gets a few clicks but the kind of content that people go back and read multiple times over (evergreen content). This is a completely new world. Although it’s “just” writing, it’s in a completely different form.
All of these months of blogging has been taking thoughts in my head and jotting them down. Now, I have to take thoughts in my head, connect them with other thoughts, and write them into enriching material.
I doubt I’ll struggle with this issue for too long, maybe a month or two, but it definitely feels foreign. Writing as a way to produce content is not created equal to writing for me. The bright spot: Without training myself to write daily, this would feel like Mt. Everest instead, it feels like another fourteener.
Your Internal Scorecard is the Only Thing That Matters
In grade school, we are always taught to study for the test. To do whatever it takes to get an A. We might need to pull an all-nighter to get the essay completed or spend hours upon hours memorizing definitions.
All of this was done for an external scorecard (report card). However, as soon as you exit school and enter the “real world” there no longer is a report card. Nobody is going to tell you what you have to do to get an A.
Most of the time you’ll have no clue if you’re doing A work or C work (you’ll know if you’re doing F work…).
The only thing that matters, and the only thing that’ll propel you forward, is creating an internal scorecard. This scorecard grades yourself on specific categories: Follow-through, attitude, attention to detail, happiness and communication.
If you rate yourself on those five categories and judge each interaction or decision based on how the action affects your scorecard, you can quickly internalize where you’re going and figure out what matters.
The problem is, we often look for external reinforcement. We want people to see us, respect us, praise us. But that’s not what matters. What matters is knowing what you’re doing and how it’s affecting you.
Your internal scorecard is greater than any report card you’ve ever received.