Phil Garland

If you’re anything like me you’ve read a lot of “self-help” business books. I’ve read quite a few successful authors Tim Ferris, James Altucher, Michael Ellsberg, Craig Ballantyne, and so on, all with the purpose of “finding” my future. It feels good to read these books. It makes you think, “If I can do what they say, I’ll be successful, happy, and well-financed.” And then, nothing changes. You go back to your normal routine, your normal habits, and live your normal life. Nothing changes besides a couple insights you already lived years without. That can change, you can connect these ideas, but it starts with doing.

Gathering Dots From Reading

The insights you glean from reading a business book are like dots in a child’s coloring book. Each book has a few dots sprinkled it which are completely applicable to your life. Every time you read you can add a few dots to your page. Just because dots appear on a page, doesn’t mean you’re any closer in connecting them. It means you have un-executed plans. It may feel good to gather dots, but life isn’t about collecting insight, it’s about taking action.

Start Connecting the Dots

Putting the dots together is not that difficult. Maybe you read something from Four Hour Work-Week, like how to cut-back on email. You can put that into practice tomorrow. It might be a change in habit, but it is actionable. Similarly, if you’re like me, you’ve been accumulating a lot of dots in your head or on a piece of paper. Instead of reading more “self-help” books, start combining the lessons. Start putting productivity habits into place, start trying a new diet, if you’re reading about copywriting, start writing copy. Each little piece you start doing will lead to the next piece.

Each dot you connect will lead to the next dot. They might not be numbered like a child’s coloring book, but the lesson’s you learned will slowly connect to one another. The next dot to connect to will reveal itself once you start doing. Start with something simple and watch your skills snowball. Let action be the pen that connects all your ideas.

I wrote content today, I swear. But it’s for a project which is taking a lot of my time. I’ll be back with a fresh post tomorrow. Take me at my word, please.

Here’s something to try. Google “8 things to do before 8am.” Endless posts about successful people and their morning habits…

There’s a ton of information on the internet of how to be successful. And a ton of people trying to sell you something, click on their call to action, or get you to sign up for their email list. Writing blog posts like that allows them to add you to their precious following. That’s all well and good. But comparing yourself to all the “successful” people in the world isn’t going to make you successful. Stop listening to them, and start doing for you.

What works for you might be different

It’s all well and good to try and mimic successful habits. There are definitely some habits that we should try to eliminate, and others we should build upon, in order to be the person we want to be. But habits aren’t one-size fits all.

For me, the first thing that comes to mind is dieting. I have tried multiple diets from vegetarianism, to veganism, to Paleo and keto. All of them had different effects on my body, and mind, but none of them I can say is perfect for me. What I learned by trying these diets were the foods that made me feel good, and the foods that did not. Exploring different diets allowed me to feel my body and find the right foods to put into my system. I won’t claim any of them make me successful, but each one taught me about myself.

Instead of doing things because successful people do them, do things because you want to find out how you react. Your reaction to a habit might be amazing, or it might be awful. You won’t know without trying, but try for you, not others.

Reading what success looks like is easy

It’s much easier to read a blog post, news article, or watch a video than it is to put habits into action. We can all think we’re capable of putting habits into practice when we read about other people putting them into action. It’s easy to think but much harder to do. Living your life within your habits is far harder than the authors let on. Yes, successful people might have those traits, but they’ve mastered them. They master them by doing them.

Reading about success is easier than achieving success. Instead of focusing on eight things to do before 8am it might be better to focus on one thing that’ll make you happier. Do that for 30 days and prove to yourself you can create a new habit.

You don’t know until you start doing

My before 8am routine probably needs some work. I constantly wish I had a couple extra hours. I wish I could wake myself up by 4am like the “successful” people do. I’ll get there. However, just because I didn’t wake up by 4am doesn’t mean I can’t accomplish something for the day. By doing stuff, I get invigorated and get into a working mindset. I see all the pieces that can fall into place and they help orient my daily tasks.

This doesn’t happen by thinking about what habits I need to add, and which I need to subtract. It happens because I’m doing. I’m working on something that needs to be solved. No article on successful habits will help me do the task at hand.

After putting in the work, then experiment

Once you start building habits, once you start taking care of your mind and body, and once you start putting words into action, then you can start to experiment. Much like my diet experiments you can start playing around with different habits.

How does going without caffeine feel? Should I add a protein shake to my morning routine? These questions can be answered for yourself, but they need to be combined with the habits you’re already cultivating. Some things “successful” people do might not work for you.

Become successful with your own habits. Try to optimize yourself, and you’ll soon become the expert on habits that make you successful.

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Eliminate Unknown…

Known is Comfortable

There’s a reason we have an education system built on the signal of a college degree. It makes people feel good, it’s a great system for cultivating worker-bees, and it allows an escape from the unknown. If you follow the checkbox path of adulthood you will know your path throughout your life. You will be the average American with 2.4 kids, a nice suburban home, some family vacations, and a workaholic mentality until you can retire on your nest egg. It’s comfortable to follow the conveyor-belt mindset.

Building a check-the-box career is comfortable. Even if you hate your job, you don’t hate your paycheck, and you can create the fantasy your future will hold to get you through the hard times. Knowing your steps, knowing that collecting a paycheck will lead you somewhere, is comfortable.

The Unknown is Scary

The opposite of the checkbox path is the entrepreneurial path. It’s the unknown path. Questions are abundant, and not knowing is always a part of the path.

“How do I know people will want what I’m doing?”

“How do I signal my value to people, and make them believe in me?”

“By doing this today, what fruit will it bear in the future?”

These are all questions I struggle with in dealing with the unknown. They are questions I never worried about when I was on the check-the-box career path. It didn’t matter. I provided a quality product to my employer, they paid for my services every other week, and we both got what we wanted. Beyond interviewing, and doing solid work, I didn’t have to prove myself on a daily basis to attract new clients or expand my business. The incentives weren’t there to deal with the unknown.

That has changed.

Eliminating the Fear of the Unknown

There are definite steps you can take in order to eliminate your fear of the unknown.

1. Become a student of the process.

There is a process to success. It’s not a simple “hack,” but a deliberate path to success. It’s about habit development, self-discovery, intentional living, and strong confidence. Becoming a student to the process means living the habits that’ll make you successful, even if you don’t know what success looks like. Doing things today that make you better will help you discover the unknown.

2. Develop a proof-of-concept and minimum viable product

We all have ideas. Some seem really cool in our minds, others come in one ear and out the other. In order to act upon our ideas we must actively develop them. Having an idea in our heads, or in our notepads, is not enough. We must develop a product to show our thought. The product doesn’t have to be some innovative new device, or a sophisticated app. It can be something as simple as a “How-To” guide or a blog post. Showing the ability to create something is a signal of your capabilities.

3. Have faith in yourself

This is the hardest to do when eliminating the unknown. You have to be strong, you have to be confident, and you have to believe in yourself. To fully eliminate fear of the unknown, you have to develop a strong level of self-worth. There isn’t time for negative thoughts when you are going through the process. Instead you need to focus on what makes you strong, and use that to your advantage.

Living Your Way

Living life on the check-the-box path isn’t bad. There are plenty of successful, happy, well-financed people in the world who have lived the known path. There will continue to be successful people living that lifestyle. However, if you have dreams of living different than the prescribed career path, you need to take advice on living in the unknown. It’s not easy, we haven’t been prepared for it through our education system, and you have to have trust in yourself.

Living your way is about making the most of the world you live in. It’s about developing into the person you see yourself becoming and grappling, then conquering, the unknown. In order to live your way, you must give it your all on a daily basis, and trust that eventually things will fall into place.

 

You’re Above Average Whether You Know It or Not

If you’re reading this post, you’re above average. It’s important you hear that. Even though you might struggle at times believing in yourself, your direction, your path to successes, you are above average. You have a way of looking at the world unique to you, and you can accomplish what you put your mind to.

Sometimes you tend to compare yourself to others and that detracts from your value. “This guy has accomplished all of this, and me? Nothing.” or “That girl is in the position I want, why can’t I be like her?” You have no idea who they are as a person. They might look awesome on the outside, but on the inside they might be living a struggle. You don’t know.

You need to have pride in who you are, take pride in the process, and marvel at the person you’re becoming. Although you may think of yourself as average, or below your peers, you’re not. You’re on the right track. Getting to your end goal, whatever that means, isn’t about others, it’s about personal growth.

Positive Sum Days

Personal growth isn’t something that’ll just happen to you overnight. It won’t happen to you 30 days from now. It’ll happen when your time is right. But only with the help of positive sum days.

Each day is about creating a positive result in your life. Instead of binge-watching eight episodes of a Netflix original, only watch seven episodes and spend your remaining hour on a positive. If even seven episode binges is cringe-worthy then give up Netflix. Stop putting yourself in a position that limits your personal growth. Saturdays may be the end of the typical workweek, but there is no end to improving yourself. Instead of craving watching football over beers with buddies, instead focus your energy on you. Try to improve yourself, in a direction you want to go, and start actualizing the person you want to be.

Sitting back, relaxing, having fun, those are all admirable traits. But so is putting yourself in a situation to grow.

You’re Above Average

Whether you like it or not, you’re stuck with the burden of being above average. You’re not allowed to live an average life. You have something in your mind, in your soul, that is far stronger than average. To waste it on material objects, addictions, or leisure would be more than a shame, it’d be a disservice to the world.

You need to stop worrying about what you did yesterday, who you might be tomorrow, or what your peers are doing compared to you. You need to focus on building a better you, today, and rely on your process. Each little step forward is a step to your fulfillment. Don’t forget it.

Oh the joys of hipster-ness!

A couple days ago I was given the pleasant gift of a half-loaf of gluten-free bread. (I know, I’m supposed to be a meat-eating, hunter-gathering, carnivorous, Paleo-dieting Caveman, but I couldn’t resist. Plus, our ancestors probably would’ve eaten bread if it didn’t have gluten!)

It took me three days, but I finally hit gold, just as I ran out of gluten-free bread…

Here’s my morning-by-morning account of the events:

Morning 1

I love breakfast. So I woke up on morning one and made some eggs and chicken sausage. I forgot I had gluten-free bread. So, while the meal was cooking, I took the loaf out and grabbed two slices. No one told me how crumbly they’d be. As soon as I grabbed a slice half of it fell back into the bag. In hindsight, this was ominous.

After jigsawing the pieces together on my plate I waited for the sausage and eggs to finish cooking. I figured if I under-cooked the egg that the over-easy goo would mold the pieces of gluten-free bread together. I was wrong. It was a disaster. The whole thing crumbled and I was left with a sausage and egg gluten-free crumble.

But, that did NOT stop me. As the old saying goes, “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.”

Morning 2

Now, after one morning of crumbly-ness, I was an experienced pro. While my sausage and eggs were cooking I gently cradled the gluten-free bread, ensuring its intact-ness from bag to plate. This seemed successful. I had two beautiful slices of gluten-free bread ready to be topped with egg and sausage. Once they were cooked I gently placed both onto the bread.

And then I went for the sandwich. My lessons in gentleness thrown to the wind, engulfed by my desire to eat.  I stood no chance. Again, the whole thing crumbled and I was left with a sausage and egg gluten-free crumble.

Once again, this did NOT stop me. As another saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you (gluten-free bread). Fool me twice, shame on me.”

Morning 3

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” – Albert Einstein

This morning I decided to innovate a little. Egg goo wouldn’t hold the bread together, neither would gentle hands. Alas, it was time for the winner. Coconut oil!

I took a skillet and a mighty spoonful of coconut oil. Heated it to medium heat. Gently grabbed two more gluten-free slices from the bag. And placed them into the heated oil. The slices turned out marvelous. A nice crispy outer-layer and a solid foundation for a breakfast sandwich. The experiment was over. A delicious, non-crumbling, breakfast sandwich!

Lesson Learned

It only took three mornings, but I finally succeeded. But I didn’t succeed on accident. I succeeded by persistence, innovation, and testing different methods of creating a sandwich. Although it may seem like a silly task, and a silly post, it’s a huge lesson to be learned.

Sometimes the biggest problems we face, and the things we’re afraid to fail at, just need a little bit of innovation. Instead of trying the same thing over and over, and being defeated by our first few failures, we must move forward with different ways of attacking the problem. Eventually we’ll find the right formula, but will only find it when we persist.

As the New Year hits, so do the resolutions, the desires, the aspirations. We get a spark of the person we want to become, the life we want to create, the things we want to accomplish, and the places we want to travel to. It sounds good, and we might accomplish some of our goals for a couple of days, weeks, or months, but then we fall into old habits. The habits that we said we’d turn around in 2017 go back to the habits we had in 2016. A New Year, but not a New You. So, how do we accomplish these goals, how do we stop putting off and start doing?

1. Remember YOLO

Remember how long you’ve been putting this off, how many extensions the gods gave you, and you didn’t use them. At some point you have to recognize what world it is that you belong to; what power rules it and from what source you spring; that there is a limit to the time assigned you, and if you don’t use it to free yourself it will be gone and will never return.

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Thanks Drake! Honestly, “You only live once,” is a huge reason for my motivation. It’s easy to slack off on a day-to-day basis because there’s always tomorrow to get something done. But that’s the wrong way of looking at it. Instead we should think “We only have one life, maybe only one more day, let’s make the most of it.” Instead of spending time watching TV, or following the news, we need to spend more time doing our goals.

2. Moving Forward Feels Good

I don’t know about you, but when I take a step forward I get an adrenaline rush. I really enjoy improving myself and my capabilities. Maybe it’s lifting a 30-pound weight instead of the 25-pound weight. Or it’s being able to write 500 words without thinking about it when last week it was a struggle to write 200 words. No matter what you accomplish, if it’s a step forward, it’s going to feel good. Each step forward, makes the next step easier.

3. The Snowball Effect

This is my favorite reason to start doing. Once you start your dreams get bigger, your aspirations get higher, and your abilities skyrocket. If each day you are improving the skill you learned yesterday then in 30, 60, 90, 365 days your skills will be exponentially greater. What started out as a snowball soon turns into an avalanche. Instead of trying to achieve a small improvement, your skills become honed and the old you won’t even recognize yourself.

4. Putting It Off is Fear-Based

Fear-based actions lead to trouble. Why don’t we look at our credit card statement? Because we’re afraid to look what we’ve spent money on. But by not looking, we hide our fears from ourselves. Putting it off creates even more problems down the line. Instead, we need to focus on eliminating fear. Getting rid of fear-based actions, and start doing something about it. Doing is the greatest eliminator of fear. Stepping up to the plate with confidence and taking control of ourselves helps alleviate fear.

Start Doing Now

We only get one chance to live. We don’t know if we’ll even be alive tomorrow. All we know is today, the present. We must strive to make ourselves better today, and we can’t do that unless we take the time to get things done right now.

For me, the beginning of 2017 is all about now. It’s about doing something this minute that’ll pay dividends for me in the future. I don’t know when I’ll reap the benefits, but I know if I slowly build, the snowball effect will take over, and I’ll be rolling full steam ahead. By doing right now I am also eliminating my fears. Instead of worrying what might happen, I’m more worried about what might happen if I do nothing.

Take a step forward, turn into a better person today, and start doing now.

The past couple of nights I’ve had vivid dreams. Each dream held meaning while asleep. Each dream I’ve failed to remember upon waking up. But I know what my brain is telling me. I’m ready.

Dreams

I’ve always held an interest in dreams. What does seeing an elephant mean? Why do we have nightmares? How come some dreams are so trippy? Learning about myself, I’ve learned about my dreaming. And when I have vivid dreams, like I’ve had recently, it means my subconscious is trying to connect to my conscious. My brain has taken the ideas floating around, connected the dots, and is trying to tell me “It’s time.” Wake up, Phil, and achieve your dreams.

I’m Ready

Today I woke up with the realization that I’m ready to tackle my thoughts and ideas. I have practiced great habits, read tons of books/blogs/articles/copywriters, I have formulated a plan in my head, and now it’s time for action. I need to take my thoughts and turn them into actualities. Thankfully, I feel like my head is in the right place for doing so, and I have the capability to achieve my ideas. I’m ready.

Today I watched a TED Talk How great leaders inspire action. Simon Sinek, the presenter, explains what he calls “The Golden Circle” with what on the outside, how in the middle, and why in the center. He then goes on to explain that great leaders, and great companies, focus on the why and work from the inside out. He likens this to the cortex of our brain, and how we evolved to “feel” our emotions. It’s an excellent watch, I recommend it, but it got me thinking a lot about my path.

Over the past two-and-a-half months I have been doing a lot of thinking, writing, self-development, and self-exploration. This inward looking has opened up my mind to all three of these: Why, How, and What. I think I have firmly developed all three, and know my path forward to achieve all three. But that doesn’t mean the end of the road. I have a long way to go and a lot of finding to do.

My Why (The Most Important)

I see a decentralized future where people don’t work for one employer, collect social security benefits, get a pension, or have a steady stream of income. Instead people will need flexible abilities which create value for people, no matter their needs. My why is about helping people come to this realization, grapple with the hardship of this reality, teach people how to develop a meaningful career/life, and to excel in the decentralized future.

I myself am going through it as I write this. It’s not easy to grapple with. But the more people ready for the future, the better.

My How

This one’s still in development. Hopefully it’s a combination of courses focusing on freelance working, budgeting/financing, blogging/podcasting about living life your way, and a mentorship program. The how needs to be developed but it’s directly motivated by my why.

My What

This is what’s communicated to the consumer. For now I’m focusing on teaching myself copywriting. In time my what and my how will create the material relating to my why.

Me Today

It sounds good to write this stuff out in a blog. It’s cool to put a nice picture, post it on facebook, and track viewership. But I believe that to be superficial. Life isn’t about social media likes. Life is about finding yourself and doing everything you want to do, for you.

I would love to say everything is free of hardship, and free of doing stuff you don’t want to do, but that would be doing you a disservice. Life is difficult at times, and we need to learn how to work through that, and do stuff we don’t like in order to do the stuff we do like. It’s not an easy path forward, but my “Why” is to limit the hardship on future wanna-be entrepreneurs.