Life Lesson

It’s one thing to put all your effort into making something excellent out of the gate … To invest time and energy and money so you’re shipping the best it can be.

If you think about it long enough, though, that’s actually the easy part of excellence.

The tough part comes when to be excellent is when you decide to take a step backward or to shut down operations until you can guarantee you’re putting out something of excellence.

I’d go so far as to say excellence isn’t created by those who put something out in the world – no matter how great it is –; it’s created by those who notice when something could be better and set out to make it so – even at their own detriment.

In essence, excellence isn’t something that happens out of the gate; it happens on mile 25 when you have the chance to cut corners without anyone noticing and the option to call it “good enough.”

That’s the breaking point. That decision determines excellence … or not.

Stay Positive & Excellence Comes After You Ship, Not When You Ship

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If we’re hoping to become better weightlifters, we need only to visit the gym more often. The gym doesn’t shame us for not doing our best or remove a recent promotion we’ve gotten when we can’t lift more than we did yesterday.

If we’re hoping to become a better pianist, we need only to practice more and harder and smarter. No one is there to point out all of our mistakes or take away some bonus because we didn’t play longer than we had planned to play.

Most often, the work we do – the meaningful work – doesn’t have a safe space to practice or train like lifting or playing piano does.

Everything is on the line all of the time at work. Livelihoods, salaries, and relationships that are there can all make or break us.

And so we try to be as safe as possible, reduce risk and hide.

Rather than trying to do the opposite (which is certainly an option), I recommend finding a similar line of work that allows you to train for the real thing.

To freelance or to pitch your work to those you don’t need approval from simply to discover your weak points and to try new things. A space to take risks you wouldn’t normally, so you can bring those learning back to your regular work.

If we all found the equivalent of a mobile gym with our work, we could train and reach and fail and learn and do things that are more in the interest of making change in the world than keeping our paycheck safe.

The freelancer’s workshop is a great place to get started. There’s no need to leave where you’re at now, but there is a need for a fourth space of sorts to help you become better with less feelings of risk. Click the purple dot on the page for a discount.

Stay Positive & It’s A Safe Place For Unsafe Actions – Place To Grow

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When you’re troubled on the decision to make, go back to your objective.

When you need to decide where to put your funds, go back to your objective.

When you’re facing adversity, go back to your objective.

When you need to find places to cut, go back to your objective.

The real challenge is deciding on an objective you can stick with when you have to go back to it.

Stay Positive & Will Your “Why” Hold Up?

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Your why doesn’t need to be a single thing, a single statement, a single reason.

It can be a list.

In fact, it’s better when it is.

So when you’re stuck and the one why you’ve told yourself for why you do something isn’t enough, don’t drop it entirely – find more whys.

Stay Positive & Whatever It Takes

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Everything good in life is an escape from something else.

We enjoy science fictions novels because it’s an escape from our reality and boarded-up imagination.

We enjoy bonfires because they’re an escape from the routine of an early night.

We enjoy hard labor when we work desk jobs and enjoy desk jobs when we work hard labor because it’s an escape from the daily grind.

It sort of begs the question: What are people escaping from when they choose you or your brand?

We can be there for others in a better way once we understand what they’re escaping from.

Stay Positive & Surround The Escape

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Mistakes are meaningful because they make us more human.

More human is a good thing because it’s less black and white, it’s less process, it’s less hiding and it’s less filtered.

Which is another way of saying non-corporate, authentic, big-hearted and meaningful.

Stay Positive & More Human, Please

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If you want your business to succeed, connect with more people face-to-face.

If you want to excel in your work, connect with more people.

If you want customers to tell others, connect with with one another.

If you want more support for your idea, connect with those outside your industry.

If you want larger tips, connect more with each guest.

If you want to make a difference, you need to be connecting more–more to others and others to each other.

Stay Positive & The Connection Economy Is Now

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