A bundle of 7 books for $7.
Month: December 2017
Christmas Changes Haiku
Christmas when little
About plastic waterproof
Now glass 80 proof
Book Recommendation Sunday
Today’s might be my all time favorite book.
Well, Crap
I logged in to WordPress this morning to compose my daily blog post, and it notified my that my theme (previously Blaskan) had an update available. Accustomed to software updates that generally only make things better, I clicked “Update”. It replaced my theme with something awful, and completely destroyed the look of the site.
I just spendt an hour picking a new theme and getting all my stuff back. Grrr. I like to keep it simple, and I don’t like to mess around with design stuff on this site unless it’s truly dire.
Oh well. A new year, a new look.
When You Deliver Work Late, You Invite More Scrutiny
Here’s another reason to get your work done fast (yep, even (especially!) deep, creative work): you’ll get less scrutiny and fewer requested edits.
If you crank out a design, page, or product FAST – on or ahead of schedule – the momentum bleeds into the perception of the work by the recipient. They’ll like it more, and be less focused on changes because they’re so happy with the speed. They’ll respond to speed with speed: you got it to me fast, I’ll approve it fast with little deliberation. Let’s launch this baby!
Take longer than you told them? Get ready for them to respond in kind with long, drawn out, deliberative decisions over tiny details, lagging last minute tweaks, etc.
Every day past expectation the project takes, the expectation for perfection ratchets up. From your customer’s perspective, it goes something like this: “I’m waiting so damn long for this thing, it’d better be perfect. Is it perfect? I don’t know. Maybe we should tweak this one more thing…”
Creative types are notorious for delivering later than the expectations they set. Then they get frustrated when people want to make changes and get picky. When you kill momentum, you turn an otherwise big, excited greenlighter into a slow, skeptical analyst.
Tired of lots of late change requests?
Work faster.
Don’t Make Me Sell Something You Can’t
“Meet my friend/husband/sister/coworker. Can you tell them about how awesome X is?”
I get this from time to time. I hate it.
X can be unschooling, writing, economic freedom, cryptocurrency, podcasting, or any number of things.
It’s not that I don’t like discussing stuff I’m interested in, it’s that I don’t like doing it with unwilling audiences. (This is one of the reasons I could never be a professor.)
If you drag someone to me kicking and screaming and ask me to get them interested in something you haven’t been able to sell them on, I’m gonna politely pass every time.
I only like preaching to the choir. They came for the sermon. I’m not interested in hounding poor souls just trying to go about their day.
Skin vs. Talk
I just saw a Tweet by someone divesting themselves of all their crypto holdings in a particular coin because they were tired of being accused of conflict of interest and wanted to prove their unbiased commitment to the project.
This is a losing game. And backwards.
If you run around appeasing every accuser, you become a slave. And they never stop accusing.
If you keep your skin in the game and ignore their talk, you won’t ever have to worry or engage self discipline to stay committed to the project.
Incentives are better than opinions.
The Comparison Trap
I’ve been playing around posting to the platform Yours.org lately, and I noticed something funny.
Actually, my colleague Derek Magill pointed it out, and the minute he said it, it rang true.
Yours allows you to post content for 10 cents, and then people can pay you for the content, to comment, etc. It displays how much each author has earned on the piece of content right at the top.
If I post something there and it only earns 10 or 20 cents, my immediate subconscious reaction is to feel kinda crappy and not really want to post more. It feels like failure.
Yet at the same time, I happily post to my WordPress blog every single day without earning a dime and it doesn’t feel like failure.
Why would earning money for a post feel worse than not earning any at all?
The comparison trap.
The feeling of success is subjective and contextual, often more about our perceived standing relative to others than to our own stated goals. On Yours, it’s easy to see all the top posts with 5, 50, or 500 bucks. Next to that, 20 cents feels lame. On WordPress, nobody’s content has earnings, and traffic numbers aren’t publicly displayed, so there’s no threat of being perceived as a failure. If WordPress emailed me out of the blue and said, “We’re sending you 20 cents for your post today”, I’d feel like a badass.
If you can overcome this external definition of success, you’ll be unstoppable. You’ll create a life of untouchable wonder and fulfillment.
It begins by asking what your goals are, being honest, and sticking to a definition of success that only measures progress against that internally chosen standard.
I blog because it changes me. I blog because I enjoy it. If I pay attention only to my goals with blogging and forget the good opinion of others, earning a few cents can only ever make me happier than earning nothing.
Forget Your Category and Do Your Damn Job
Forget ‘how to be a man’. Forget ‘how to be a freelancer’. Forget how to be a good conservative, liberal, or libertarian. Forget how to be a mentor or mentee. Forget how to be a philanthropist, environmentalist, atheist, reactionary, revolutionary, artist, or entrepreneur.
Forget any effort aimed at your ontological status in the abstract.
Instead, do your damn job.
Your job is whatever activities you’re engaged in and committed do. Just do them. Do them right. Do them now. Do them with pride.
If you won’t, quit and switch to things you will.
Seeking or giving advice about your state of being is beyond pointless until your state of doing is beyond reproach.
Book Recommendation Sunday
This week’s rec is a timeless favorite – a classic that never gets old!
Link here.
Check it out, and create an account at Yours.org to see more and jump in to the emerging world of content powered by crypto!
A Bias Against Cheesy
On my Momentum dash (Chrome plugin) this morning was a quote:
“Don’t go through life, grow through life.”
My immediate thought was, “That’s cheesy”.
But why? The sentiment is simple and important. It’s also pretty deep if you contemplate what happens when you switch your life from a motion metaphor to a growing one. What’s with my immediate aversion?
It rhymes.
A pithy quote or inspirational phrase is great. But if it rhymes it moves one notch too far up the cheese ladder.
I thought about why this might be. Why do I have a bias against rhyming?
What about songs or poems? Most of those rhyme, and the verses can be profound without necessarily feeling cheesy.
My current theory is this: something profound is memorable. But when it rhymes, my brain begins to suspect a deliberate effort to make it memorable, which makes me think it might not be profound enough to be memorable on its own. The use of rhyme has a trying-too-hard vibe.
But songs and poems are formats with baked in constraints, and the use of rhyme throughout doesn’t convey a stretch effort to be memorable (of course some lines might feel contrived just to fit the format).
I often have a dismissive reaction to anything too cute or cheesy. It’s worth resisting. I get the most value when I forget the messenger and the medium and take away something of value from everything I can.
Series Wrap-Up: Forward Tilt
Just wrapped up the Forward Tilt Podcast series.
If you enjoyed the podcast are looking to take the first steps towards building a great career, consider applying for our full startup apprenticeship program. 12 months where you will apply the lessons from Forward Tilt and a lot more on a daily basis and get real experience during a paid apprenticeship at a startup.
Check out the final episode of Forward Tilt now on iTunes, YouTube, direct download and all major podcast platforms.
Also check out:
- Office Hours Podcast
- For a free copy of the book, Forward Tilt: An Almanac for Personal Growth go to discoverpraxis.com/forwardtilt
New Summer Internship Program!
We have a ton of top-notch people interested in Praxis, but who aren’t quite ready to commit to the full, yearlong program with a full-time apprenticeship, etc.
We’re offering a pilot program to address this!
A “Praxis Lite” if you will – 3-month virtual bootcamp, followed by a 3-month part-time summer internship at one of our business partners in Atlanta, Austin, or San Francisco.
It’s designed so it can be done over summer break from school, or if you just aren’t ready for a full-on professional apprenticeship but you want some experience and exposure.
We have capped participation for this pilot, so apply ASAP if you are interested!
12 Days of Christmas Blogging Challenge!
At Praxis, we’re obsessed with relentless personal growth, for ourselves and our customers.
One of the best, most accessible methods of pushing yourself is to take on small, short-term, daily challenges.
It’s not the size of the task that leads to greatness, but the ability to show up and do it every single day no matter what.
The compounding effect is amazing.
So, starting today, we’ve challenged everyone in our network to write and publish a post every day for 12 days, now through Christmas. The entire Praxis team is doing it, as are many of our participants, advisors, and alumni. You should join us!
I can’t tell you how powerful daily blogging has been for me since my friend and colleague challenged me to do it some five years ago. It has led to the creation of nine books, endless growth and opportunity, and one company!
Here are a few resources to inspire you:
Write for you, not for the audience
Ten benefits of daily blogging
What I’ve learned from writing every day
Dive in, commit, deliver.
You will be glad you did!
Why You Don’t Have a Job
Every company wants great talent.
Praxis is no exception.
We use the best information we can get to help us determine who will create value as a member of the team.
Marketing associate Brian Nuckols walks through exactly how he demonstrated to us he was worth working with.
This is amazing. And it demonstrates powerfully everything we’re helping young people see about the world and how to win opportunities!
Notice:
- We did not know Brian or have any character references prior to this. He had no “inside track”.
- He needed full time work, but he ignored that and focused on companies he was interested in, even though in our case all we had was an (very low pay) internship. He never once asked about pay or a full-time role. He simply proved he could create value and his internship quickly became a job.
- We never once saw nor even thought to request a resume, educational status, etc. In fact, we didn’t even know his amazing, outlandish mix of previous experiences until he started telling stories at happy hour as an employee. Why? Because that info is less valuable than what he did show us.
- Brian spent probably 20 hours deep diving into our company, getting to know how we worked, and creating ways to demonstrate that knowledge in specific ways. He didn’t tell us, he showed us!
- 20 hours sound like a lot? Compared to what? Five years padding a flabby resume by chasing credentials?
- Brian’s specific ideas he proposed weren’t all great. We didn’t hire him because he had a perfect strategy for us. We gave him a shot because he demonstrated forward tilt, creativity, passion for our mission, detailed, critical thinking about our marketing, and a massive degree of self-learning and initiative.
- Brian focused on US, not on him. “Here’s why I love what you’re doing, what it looks like to me, and what I’d do to help it grow”, vs. “Here’s what I’m all about and what I do and how great I am.”
If you’re buying a credential, polishing a resume, and blasting it around based on title and salary, you’ve missed the boat and wasted hours (if not years) and lord knows how much money.
The good news? It’s never too late.
Learn to create value.
Prove your ability to do so.
Check out Brian’s approach. It’s one great example among infinite variations!