There are two ways to have a big break:
1) Luck
2) Cheating
This is probably offensive because for a hundred years we have been hard sold that we are the reason everything happens. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, be a self made man, make sure not to be born a woman or ethnic.
Now the problem is that it's easy to look at somebody who is a really good person, who is really talented and point to their hard work. You would be right to do that. Hard work puts you on top and hard work keeps you on top. But your big break is what allowed you to play in the game in the first place.
Lebron has an almost perfect body for basketball. Phelps for swimming. Mentally Kasperov had something when it came to chess. Mozart with music, Shakespeare with words.
Now all of them worked hard. They crafted and perfected their bodies, minds, hands and imagination. They pushed themselves and tried new things. This is why they were eventually on top. But they all got in the game because of a big break.
If you choose you can create your own big break. Maddoff figured this out and stole twenty thousand million dollars. Ben Johnson wasn't happy just being in the game nor was Lance Armstrong. Being the 44th best cyclist in the world is actually pretty amazing. You get paid to ride a bike!
The problem with luck is that it makes you less important. It makes your accomplishments a little less than if you just created them all by yourself. I get it, pride is the number one disease on planet earth (white men are particularly prone to catch it). That's why cheating is so easy. Because all of the cheaters have a reason. Lance said everybody else was doing it, and they were. Maddoff gave a ton of money away to charity. Ben Johnson was Canadian, Canadians can't be evil!
Hating luck and cheating are oddly tied together, they are both belief systems that you are special. And guess what, you are special! You are lucky and I am lucky. Look around and see where you are lucky, where you are blessed, where fortune has smiled upon you. Then seize that and work, work hard. Maybe you will be the 44th best cyclist in the world and you get paid to ride a bike and you can break the wind in stage eighteen of the Tour de France for somebody who was lucky enough to be gifted with #3 talent. That doesn't take anything away from you, you are amazing.
Just be careful of catching the disease of pride.
It's not that pride comes before the fall, pride leads the way to the fall.
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Monday, June 27, 2016
I'm Been Failing at That for a While...
It feels really bad to say you've been failing at something for five years. It feels ok to say you've been trying something for five years.
I've been trying to write a novel is not a true statement. I've been failing to complete a novel is what I'm actually saying.
What if we replaced the word trying with failing. It changes where we place the blame.
I've been failing to workout is very different from my workouts have been failing to get results. Failing squarely places the blame where it needs to fall. If your workouts have been failing then change them. If you have been failing to workout then start.
This is not a negative stance either, it should push us towards clarity. If you know you've been failing to workout then you don't need to find a better workout. Different workouts are designed for different results. Not starting to workout has nothing to do with results. You have no idea if you would get exactly the results you wanted from the first thing you tried. Now when I want to google "workouts that help you gain muscle faster" I know I'm hiding. The workout I try, whatever that may be, may get me muscles the fastest.
Hiding hates clarity. In a clear anything there is no hiding. I've never lost something on a clear desk. I've never forgotten something during a peaceful quiet day.
When I find myself "trying" something I need to do two things.
1) Find out where the failure is: starting or results.
2) See where I'm creating chaos to hide in.
That chaos is probably not the problem either, but we will attack that in the next post.
I've been trying to write a novel is not a true statement. I've been failing to complete a novel is what I'm actually saying.
What if we replaced the word trying with failing. It changes where we place the blame.
I've been failing to workout is very different from my workouts have been failing to get results. Failing squarely places the blame where it needs to fall. If your workouts have been failing then change them. If you have been failing to workout then start.
This is not a negative stance either, it should push us towards clarity. If you know you've been failing to workout then you don't need to find a better workout. Different workouts are designed for different results. Not starting to workout has nothing to do with results. You have no idea if you would get exactly the results you wanted from the first thing you tried. Now when I want to google "workouts that help you gain muscle faster" I know I'm hiding. The workout I try, whatever that may be, may get me muscles the fastest.
Hiding hates clarity. In a clear anything there is no hiding. I've never lost something on a clear desk. I've never forgotten something during a peaceful quiet day.
When I find myself "trying" something I need to do two things.
1) Find out where the failure is: starting or results.
2) See where I'm creating chaos to hide in.
That chaos is probably not the problem either, but we will attack that in the next post.
Thursday, June 23, 2016
Early Indicators of Success
The best early indicator of success is success, go youtube video's of Lebron highlights from high school. It looks like Lebron James playing a bunch of highschoolers.
Galen Rupp is the best American distance runner right now. He has run a 12:58 5k and won a silver medal in the 10k at the 2012 Olympics. That 12:58 is a forty second improvement from his best time he ran, in high school.
There are so few examples of people that are huge successes that started out as failures in their field. Sometimes you hear stories of JK Rowling who wrote Harry Potter. She finished the first novel on her severance pay and government assistance and is now literally richer than the queen of England. But let's be clear, she was not fired from writing novels.
It's probably more clear with athletes than anybody else but I think it still holds true for many, many professions.
Somebody once asked me where I learned to tell such great stories. I remember telling stories when I was five and I kept telling them ever since because people kept listening.
I think the hidden agenda behind failing your way to success is the fact that we want to be able to get what we WANT whether or not we are good at it or it is good for us. We hope that our desire for something is enough to get it. We have faith in our desires.
Maybe we should stop buying into marketing and start enjoying the lives we have right in front of us. In the Bible Paul refers to kicking a thornbush. That's a fitting analogy. You may not have found what you are best at yet, but you probably have found what you are not best at yet. Enjoy the journey of life but don't get caught up kicking thornbushes because society says being x, y or z is more special.
Galen Rupp is the best American distance runner right now. He has run a 12:58 5k and won a silver medal in the 10k at the 2012 Olympics. That 12:58 is a forty second improvement from his best time he ran, in high school.
There are so few examples of people that are huge successes that started out as failures in their field. Sometimes you hear stories of JK Rowling who wrote Harry Potter. She finished the first novel on her severance pay and government assistance and is now literally richer than the queen of England. But let's be clear, she was not fired from writing novels.
It's probably more clear with athletes than anybody else but I think it still holds true for many, many professions.
Somebody once asked me where I learned to tell such great stories. I remember telling stories when I was five and I kept telling them ever since because people kept listening.
I think the hidden agenda behind failing your way to success is the fact that we want to be able to get what we WANT whether or not we are good at it or it is good for us. We hope that our desire for something is enough to get it. We have faith in our desires.
Maybe we should stop buying into marketing and start enjoying the lives we have right in front of us. In the Bible Paul refers to kicking a thornbush. That's a fitting analogy. You may not have found what you are best at yet, but you probably have found what you are not best at yet. Enjoy the journey of life but don't get caught up kicking thornbushes because society says being x, y or z is more special.
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
Right and Wrong can be Wrong
"Yah, that's the hard part".
Tim Ferriss was talking to Malcolm Gladwell about how he decides what parts of the story are interesting. He goes on to say that writing is not a math equation, there is no right or wrong.
I've never thought about the fact that right and wrong are easy. Math, no matter how complicated is easy because you either get a right or wrong answer.
What's really hard is things that are very simple but not right or wrong.
Taking a paint brush and dipping it in paint and putting that paint on a canvas is not complicated. Why is a Picasso worth millions? Because he did something and to this day we still don't know exactly what it is that he did. Not only do we not know there is no way for anybody else, with a lifetime to study his paintings, to take what he did and build on it and do better than Picasso at being Picasso.
Newton said he was standing on the shoulders of giants. I think we are in love with science in the modern era and we are all running around looking for a giant's shoulder to stand on. But the hard stuff is just taking a story and deciding which parts are important and then telling that story really well.
The Mona Lisa is not wrong for not being cubist, because there is no right and wrong there.
The lazy person is dying for right and wrong as much as they are dying for shoulders to stand on. Tell me what to do and either I will tell you that you are wrong or I will do it. The lazy person want's an algorithm that spits out the right answer when you put something in it. That machine by default makes the person useless.
This is as true for writing a novel as it is for building a spiritual life.
Tim Ferriss was talking to Malcolm Gladwell about how he decides what parts of the story are interesting. He goes on to say that writing is not a math equation, there is no right or wrong.
I've never thought about the fact that right and wrong are easy. Math, no matter how complicated is easy because you either get a right or wrong answer.
What's really hard is things that are very simple but not right or wrong.
Taking a paint brush and dipping it in paint and putting that paint on a canvas is not complicated. Why is a Picasso worth millions? Because he did something and to this day we still don't know exactly what it is that he did. Not only do we not know there is no way for anybody else, with a lifetime to study his paintings, to take what he did and build on it and do better than Picasso at being Picasso.
Newton said he was standing on the shoulders of giants. I think we are in love with science in the modern era and we are all running around looking for a giant's shoulder to stand on. But the hard stuff is just taking a story and deciding which parts are important and then telling that story really well.
The Mona Lisa is not wrong for not being cubist, because there is no right and wrong there.
The lazy person is dying for right and wrong as much as they are dying for shoulders to stand on. Tell me what to do and either I will tell you that you are wrong or I will do it. The lazy person want's an algorithm that spits out the right answer when you put something in it. That machine by default makes the person useless.
This is as true for writing a novel as it is for building a spiritual life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)