Tag: Mid Sized

You Stop Incoming Hits By Hitting Back

A friend of mine is going through a rough time. Life is hitting them from all angles. All they want to do is crawl into a ball and hide. In their defense, I think we’ve all been there. I know I have.

But, all this does is move shots from all angles in the front, to all angles at their back. It does nothing to stop the incoming shots—it merely changes the target.

In self-defense situations, you always do everything you can to avoid the fight—but you also defend yourself when necessary. Getting swung at even once is just cause for self-defense. And defending yourself isn’t curing into a ball; defending yourself is hitting back.

This is what you have to do when life decides to hit you, too. You have to hit back. Not by punching, kicking, or elbowing. But, by confronting, transforming, and responding.

Just like you block a punch by confronting it with your arm, you block a problem by confronting it with your mind. Just like you transform a person’s energy against them in Martial Arts, you transform emotional energy into a creative outlet in life. Just like you respond to an aggressor’s attack based on training, you respond to life’s challenges based on experience.

And if you don’t know what to do against an attack and get hit—what do you do? Curl into a ball? Or figure out what went wrong and learn how to defend against it? The latter of course. So, expand your mind! Find the right book. Write to find clarity. Talk to more experienced people. Broaden your understanding. And hit back.

Don’t just give life a different target; make life the target and take your shots.

What Does Disciplined Look Like?

First of all, let’s make it clear that disciplined and motivated don’t look the same.

Motivated looks eager, enthusiastic, energized. Motivated looks like a full night of sleep; the first few steps of a long run; the kid that just found out they’re going to Disney Land.

This is not what disciplined looks like.

More often than not, disciplined looks plain faced, crusty-eyed, and heavy-legged. Disciplined looks like a half night of sleep; the most painful part of the run; the kid who just left their fifth Disney ride who is sunburnt, cranky, and thirsty.

Sure, there may be times when disciplined might look like motivated. But, it isn’t often that motivated looks like disciplined. Because when the motivated person hits inevitable walls, gets confronted with tough barriers, faces painstaking challenges—they lose their motivation. And, without discipline, there’s nothing left to carry them through. So they don’t.

Remember this the next time you’re feeling tired, unenthusiastic, and like a worn-out kid at Disney World. Disciplined, more often than not, doesn’t look pretty. If you want your journey to always look pretty, you’ll quickly lose motivation when things get ugly (which they will). It’s only those who are willing to push through the ugly that get the long-term, sustainable pretty rewards.

So, saddle up buttercup and get back to work.

Rebounding From Success

Over the weekend, I had a tweet go viral. As of this writing, it reached upwards of 446K people. The notifications wouldn’t stop. I was getting dopamine hit after dopamine hit and it lasted for three days! It was pretty exciting to say the least.

As soon as I realized what was happening, however, excitement wasn’t the only feeling that emerged. I also became incredibly self-conscious. I started hyper examining my profile page, past tweets, and analytics. And most notably, I started getting anxious and second-guessing myself as I thought about what to do next.

These are the cautionary side-effects that come with success: it inflates the ego; manipulates expectations, desire, self-image; and causes a person to move from their work to their head. And being “in your head” is not a good place to be when producing work is the game. Producing work best happens when you’re out of your head—when you’re in your zone.

In order to get back on track I had to deliberately get myself away from the analytics. I had to forget about the outcome(s) and focus back on the craft. Just like it takes mindful effort to recycle failure, so too does it take mindful effort to rebound from successes. When in doubt, just remember, regardless of the outcome—viral or bust—always return to your work. And you’ll always be right.

Honoring Those Who Have Passed

What’s the best way to honor those who have passed?

By keeping them alive in our thoughts and stories.

For at the end of life, isn’t that what we all want? To be remembered?

And not just as a person who died. But, remembered for the person we were when we were alive. The things we’d say. The emotions we’d show. The quirky things we’d do. The situations we’d speak up against. The values we’d relentlessly stand by. These are the things that bring a person to life after they, or we, have passed.

When someone passes, it can be hard to replay all of these things in our head. Painful emotional responses may erupt unwillingly which might makes us avoid, suppress, and/or distract ourselves from remembering. But, we mustn’t.

We must carefully replay the image of our loved one’s life in our mind and deeply embody the parts that impacted us. And then, as the only bearer of that part of their legacy from our own unique perspective, we must carefully replay that image for others so that they, too, can be impacted.

With this, I leave you with five thoughts: (1) Who do you honor in your life? (2) How do you honor them? (3) Who’s going to honor your life? (4) What parts of your life do you want people to embody the most? (5) How can you best embody those parts of your life while you’re still here?

Aligning With Your Life’s Task

A good litmus test to gauge whether you’re in alignment with your life’s task or not:

If you retired today, with enough money to last you for the rest of your life, would you keep doing the work you’re doing?

If yes, you’re in alignment. And if you’re able to sustain a suitable life for yourself doing that work, then keep on keeping on! That’s an exciting place to be where the focus can simply be on growing your skills and expanding your impact.

If no, you’re out of alignment. Here’s the thing: maybe you’re doing crappy work for great money? Maybe you have dependents to support? Maybe the money is the means to a better end? Maybe you live an expensive lifestyle?

Here’s my warning: while some of the above mentioned situations might be true for you and your life, what’s also true is that your work is how you’re going to spend a heaping chunk of your life’s time. And if you’re not careful, you might end up retiring with a lifetime trail of unenthused, unimportant, unfulfilled work.

Maybe it’d be better to do great work for crappier money? Maybe you could start a side-hustle to experiment with other, more fulfilling work? Maybe it’s time to set a concrete date when you’re going to make the leap to fulfilling work—rather than leave it at some obscure point in the future? Maybe you could live a more modest lifestyle?

Maybe life isn’t best saved for retirement—maybe the retired life is best lived now?

Flexible In Approach; Rigid In Resolve

Every morning, my alarm goes off at around 7am. Today was no different. The beeping started and I finally managed to drag my arm to the nightstand and drop it over the snooze button at 7:08am.

I remember the time exactly because I must have looked at “7:08am” three of four times as I continued to snooze until I finally realized—wait a second—the time hadn’t changed!

I fumbled for my phone and realized it was actually 9:24am. Yup. I forgot to switch my alarm clock back to real time and left it switched to “alarm set time.” I missed my morning workout and was supposed to have already been reading, uploading quotes, and eating breakfast.

…And I hadn’t even gotten myself upright yet.

It was in this moment that I had to make an important decision—how to get done all that I planned with two hours less time? Because losing two hours is no joke—and everything I had planned to get done was important to me.

Here’s what I did:

(1) Knowing that I had off work for the upcoming weekend, I swapped my Saturday Rest Day with my Thursday Workout Plan. Skipping workouts isn’t an option, but moving it to a different time within the same week is! That saved me an hour.

(2) I showered and got right to reading, uploading quotes, and eating breakfast—at a slightly elevated pace and with none of the normal distractions (e.g. email, stocks, news) This saved me another thirty minutes.

(3) I decided to use this rough start to my advantage and made it my writing topic for the day. This saved me the last thirty minutes as it usually takes me that long to get my writing started.

Staying flexible in our approach allows us to bend and move with the tension of life as it comes. And the tension is going to keep coming. The problem with rigid is that it breaks under tension. Better to take that rigid and apply it to our resolve.

Sexy Follows Foundation (Foundation Doesn’t Follow Sexy)

Learning how to defend against punches, chokes, and grabs is great. Learning how to defend against laziness, temptation, provocation is better.

Learning how to monetize a website, blog, or article is great. Learning how to write more clearly, concisely, and consistently—is better.

Learning tactics to promote yourself, a product, or service is great. Learning how to make yourself, a product, or service more remarkably great—is better.

It’s easy to invest most of our time into learning what’s sexy. UFC style self-defenses, multiple channel monetization, maximizing reach and distribution. It’s hard to invest time into learning the less-sexy, foundational stuff. But, it’s those foundational skills that give the “sexy” stuff life.

Because what’s the best way to defend against a punch? By never getting into a position of being punched. And how do you do that? By learning foundational character development skills of how to be confident, disciplined, and cool-tempered.

What’s the best thing you can do to make money online? By creating something that serves a need and is thoughtful and generous. Not by creating superficial content, taking short-cuts, or cleverly fooling people into payment plans and sexy funnels.

This is even true for how people see each other. What makes a person sexy? You might argue something about a person’s appearance, but that fades quickly if it isn’t matched with a sexy character. Ashton Kutcher said it perfectly:

“The sexiest thing in the entire world is being really smart. And being thoughtful, and being generous. Everything else is crap, I promise you. It’s just crap that people try to sell to you to make you feel like less. So don’t buy it. Be smart, be thoughtful and be generous.”

And so I pass it onto you: be smart, thoughtful, and generous. Especially with how you spend your time. Are you investing in foundation or drooling over what appears to be sexy?