GarthBox

Not sure when people started believing they could succeed without doing the reading. The smartest, happiest, most successful people read upward of 30 books a year. Those who are remarkable at their jobs read about their work, the industries that interact with their work and fiction writing that inspires them with their work. It’s never made sense not to do the reading.

Not sure when people started believing that winging it was something to be proud of. When all other options are exhausted and you’re forced to wing something, and then if you perform well you can be proud, but if there is an option to practice (even if it’s one read through out loud, one replay, one rewrite) then it’s smartest to do it. It’s never made sense not to practice.

Not sure when people started believing the best work they can do is work that doesn’t fill them with fear. The best work that’s been brought into this world is the result of someone who felt concerned about it, they poured their heart into it, their worry, their anxiousness–they went through the emotional labor of putting something meaningful out there. It’s never made sense to avoid that emotional labor.

 

Stay Positive & Read, Practice, Create Something Meaningful. Go.

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No matter how you design a list, how you order it, how you take the time to include all that should be on it; that list will never compete with the list that has all its items checked off.

That is the best list.

 

Stay Positive & Get Going

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It only takes one question to better connect with your boss, your friend, your significant other, a stranger, your mom, a client…

And it’s a question for you, not them.

What is the other person feeling?

Answer that instead of reacting in the moment or acting on habit or selfish motives, and you’ll see just how strong of a relationship you can make with someone in only a few moments.

 

Stay Positive & Connection = Caring

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There will be moments that feel like bad timing.

Either you were too late or feel like you showed up too early. You feel like it’s your fault, that you’ve done wrong, that you ought to be smart enough to know when to do something and when not to.

You need to recognize that there is no such thing as bad timing.

When you feel too early for something, you’re then more prepared for when the right time arrives.

When you feel too late for something, it challenges you to level up, think smarter and try something different.

The only timing that matters is now and what you’re going to do with that.

 

Stay Positive & Shake It Off

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There’s one component that’s stopping you from levelling up: time.

The moment when you’re faced with making a decision, you have roughly 30 seconds before you begin talking yourself out of it or, in other words, fearing an outcome.

Time to fear is what air is to humans. It’s essential to live and we sure like a lot of it.

Remove time from the equation and you’ll succeed.

Remove the time variable, and you’ll begin to forget just how powerful fear can be.

 

Stay Positive & Fear Is Only As Powerful As You Let It Be

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To be the smartest marketer, business owner, cook, artist, musician, writer, hackysack player, dancer…you can’t silo yourself into knowledge of only that industry.

So often people and brands find the most successful step forward…by reading about other industries, educating themselves on what other artists and brands are doing.

There are general principles of success that often go unnoticed when we silo ourselves within an industry.

Look out. See what you can gleam from logistics companies, from mixologists, from street performers.

 

Stay Positive & There Are Lessons Everywhere

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It’s obvious that to be a writer, you must write. How you become a great writer, though, depends on how you practice your writing.

There are styles of writing to practice, words to learn, analogies to make that you’ll never learn simply freewriting or putting to ink whatever comes to your mind in a blog post. (Sure, those help, but in conjunction with what I’m about to suggest.)

The trick to becoming a great writer is to practice writing the same way one would practice an instrument.

Learn the chords, the tabs, the keys…or letters, words and word pairings.

Then begin practicing a song…or practice writing your favorite novel.

By writing the way other famous writers wrote, you can better pick up their style, how the words hit the paper, how they flow. The same way you understand music by playing your favorite songs.

It seems, crazy, but why?

No one became an expert musician simply by listening to music. Do you believe you can become an expert writer simply by reading?

 

Stay Positive & Great Practice Makes Greatness

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