GarthBox

There’s no shortage of information (often free) regarding any subject you can imagine.

What to do with it?

Many are still making a lovely income by organizing it. The best blogs you visit have gathered and sorted information that would have taken you days to find and consume.

There are dedicated study guides to Parkour, Tasting Beer, and Volleyball.

You no longer need to search through files and files to find the guitar tab for a song you like. Now it’s compiled neatly and even shows you how to strum each chord.

Sorting and redesigning information is a lucrative business.

More lucrative, I believe, is putting the information to use. Creating something remarkable.

Teaching a Parkour class for kids. Participating as a beer tasting judge for aspiring homebrewers. Kicking ass on your work’s volleyball team. Writing and performing your own song on a terrace to hundreds of people who don’t know you.

The problem about organizing information is that more information will come out and you’re Ultimate Guide To This or That will no longer be the Ultimate Guide.

The next person too afraid to do will create a guide better than yours and make a few bucks from it, leaving you wondering: what’s next?

If information is really just advice written objectively, than Oscar Wilde had it wrong: The only thing to do with advice isn’t to pass it on, it’s to act on it. Again and again until doing becomes what makes you a healthy income; not organizing.

 

Stay Positive & The Sorting Department Is Crowded Anyway

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“Good work.”

It’s the phrase we all crave to hear. We want the applause. The pat on the back. The nod of approval.

The problem is when we connect that desire with the work we’re doing.

The work becomes the path to the high-five instead of the path toward creating something remarkable.

It’s best to say, “Here. I made this.” and then move on.

Sure, accept the praise if it’s there, but don’t do what you’re doing for the praise.

Why give anyone the right to judge your work and evaluate what’s good and not good?

 

Stay Positive & Pat Yourself On The Back, And Move On To What’s Next

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There are a few layers of hard work.

The first is being busy. Checking boxes. Sort of the monotonous must-dos.

The next layer of hard work is putting focus, intention, and care into each action.

The third layer is developing a process so strong that an observer may think the series of tasks that you’re completing is done effortlessly.

Sometimes the process is a long one, but that makes the end result worth giving.

 

Stay Positive & For Others, Worth Buying, Every. Damn. Day.

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Decision-making is difficult at first.

What color should you paint the wall? Does the logo need to be larger? Do you ask friends and family to give you money before you ask for investors? Do you pull the trigger now or wait until a better time?

Our lizard brain immediately seeks to put the weight on someone else’s shoulders.

So we ask others what they think. We ask them “if you were in my shoes, what would you do?”

The problem is that they are not in your shoes. And, once you ask enough people, you’ll likely be left with a split-decision that you still need to make.

Better to decide yourself. Decide early. Decide often.

Decision-making is difficult at first.

 

Stay Positive & Key Words: At First

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There’s a chant my volleyball team does when we’re in a rut. “1-2-3 Be Better!”

It’s really what we all want. It’s why some marketing works and some marketing doesn’t.

It’s why we choose one product over another; this spouse instead of that spouse; this plumber instead of that plumber;this fruit instead of that vegetable. It makes us feel better.

The real problem a marketer must figure out is what does being better mean to the target?

What’s their narrative? There why? What they care so internally and so deeply about?

How exactly does choosing that plumber make them feel better when, perhaps to you, there are better plumber choices out there?

Once you have that… that’s when you ace.

 

Stay Positive & 1-2-3 Be Better

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It’s incredibly easy to dive in, to be narrow-minded, to become subjective and, although you feel smart, you’re really ill-informed about a subject.

In this age of infinite information, we’re tricked into reading all there is on a subject and then calling ourselves experts.

When, truly, that subject is related to so many others, which also have millions of words, photos and videos about them.

The beer industry isn’t just about the beer industry, it’s about agriculture, oil prices, and, would you believe it or not: tacos.

The custard industry isn’t just about the mouth-watering delicacy of iced dairy, it’s about chickens, genetics, and extremely unpredictable ethical (or unethical) decision-making that happens from people half way across the world where their culture is different from yours.

The trucking industry isn’t just about getting something from point A to point B, it’s about the coal miners who fear layoffs, the city that has contaminated water and is receiving no help from the government, and it’s about the black market targeting semi-trucks instead of trains.

The best way to get smart and see the big picture is, as Seth Puts it, read more blogs.

Check out his post and download Feedly.

There’s no excuse for not understanding the big picture.

 

Stay Positive & Do It Before Everyone Else Starts To

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As the day wanes, our willpower to choose our own success does too.

We try to conserve energy by adopting what success looks like for those around us. We begin to second guess if we woke up with the right form of success in our minds. We start to change what success looks like for us based on the powers of influence that we’re surrounded by and the result is that we feel less fulfilled at the end of the day.

Your colleague puts more hours in and works hard at work, so you feel the need to put yours in too…even though you woke up thinking about how you’ll have dinner with your family tonight. That was success to you in the morning, but it shifted throughout the day.

If you can look forward, just a handful of hours from now, when you’re back in bed at the end of the day: What is it that you need to do to feel like you’ve succeeded today? Not your laundry list of to-dos, but the task that holds the greatest meaning to you. Write it down. Carry it with you. You’ll want to check it off tonight.

We often forget we have the choice of what success looks like for us 5 years from now, 5 weeks from now, 5 minutes from now. The choice is always ours, but we must choose.

 

Stay Positive & There’s No Reason To Let Others Shift What Success Is For You

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