And then magically... Many times, we start a project, sometimes a YouTube channel, a podcast, or maybe a newsletter, with the intention of making it big or at least to be able to pay our bills. The few success stories that everyone sees make us hope that we can win the lottery too.
Each action is insignificant. ...but together they become significant. We can break things in one go but we can't make them in one go. Drip by drip. Brick by brick. Things get made. Creativity is manual labour. Showing up day by day. What we need is to put ourselves a space where
Attention and love. Attention and love are hygiene factors, just like food, water and air. When we don't get enough of them, it affects our body and mind. Yes, we can survive more days without them compared with the latter, but learning to live without them isn't a good
You don't need more time. Decisions don't happen on their own. The narrative doesn't change on its own, at least not for the better. It takes intention, and courage, to see things the way they are, and then to invent a story and make a decision that takes us where we
Everything everywhere all at once. Technology allows us today to access "Everything everywhere all at once." Not only what's happening in our life, but anywhere in the world. Though it sounds idyllic, it hardly is. It paralyses us. It keeps us busy all the time without actually getting anywhere. What can
Low energy protocol. Decisions require significant energy and most decisions made during the low energy mode derail our efforts towards making things better. Instead of making decisions when we are low on energy, we can design protocols that we can follow that can allow us to rest and rejuvenate and come back stronger.
In or out? Are you in the gym or are you out? You can't be in the gym all the time. If you are in, why are you not doing the reps? If you are out, how does thinking about the reps help you? More often than not, we spend a
Just the facts. An excerpt from The Art of Possibility - The Way Things Are: The practice of "the way things are" is a reality check on the runaway imagination of the "calculating self". It’s like the world-weary policeman saying, “Just the facts, Ma’am, just the facts.
Near-instant gratification. Most of our strategic goals take time in order to lead to results. For instance, going regularly to the gym or eating healthier might show changes in a few months. Consistently initiating conversations and creating opportunities might lead to a financial return in a similar time period. Organically reaching out
What's it for? If we are not clear about what’s it for, it’s very less likely that we will be effective. “We always do it this way” is a good place to hide, but is rarely effective if things haven’t turned out the way you have wanted them to.
"I" or "We"? Which one to use when writing a message, "I" or "We"? "I" makes the message personal. It puts you on the hook. It makes it better for the reader because she now knows who is talking to her. "We" can become a
Let go. Let go of the stresses... of the achievements and the failures... of the striving and the wanting... of the inadequacy and the insufficiency. It might be difficult to let go. But, we can start to practice it one day at a time.
Constraints are good. Constraints create the conditions for us to be effective. If we are in the gym only for 60 minutes, we focus on getting our reps in and getting out. If we decide that we close our office at 3 pm, we are focussed to get done with the things that
A thousand cuts. As a professional, we learn to show up even if we don't feel like it. That makes sense. The client did not sign up for our emotional turmoil, they are paying only for the pizza we decided to add onto the menu. But what doesn't make
Energy magnets. We are all energy magnets. We absorb what we are exposed to. Some people have a stronger filter. Some, like me, don’t. What we can do is to be conscious of which energies we get exposed to. If we keep spending time with radioactive stuff, we shouldn’t really
The unpaid professional. Steven Pressfield talks about turning pro in his books The War of Art, Turning Pro and others. And Seth Godin teaches us how to become a professional in The Practice. But, what does it mean to be a professional? Does it mean sitting at your desk from 9 to 5
Downward spiral talk Some excerpts from The Art of Possibility: Downward spiral talk is based on the fear that we will be stopped in our tracks and fall short in the race, and it is wholly reactive to circumstances, circumstances that appear to be wrong, problematic, and in need of fixing.... Focusing on
Stories we don't tell. There are stories we tell and there are stories we hide. The latter affect our lives as much as the former. And unless we create spaces where we are able to tell the stories we usually hide, we would find it difficult to see them and to change them for
A game to play. Here's a game you might try from the book "Pathways to Possibility" by Rosamund Stone Zander: There is another open-ended game that I am particularly fond of. It functions like a towrope to pull you out of your habitual decision-making patterns.... It is played like this:
What battery are you at? Not your phone. You. Is it in the 70-80% or the 15-20% range? Or maybe it is 3-5%... If your phone was at 3%, you would use it carefully until you can plug it again. Generally, when we are at low battery, the critical voice and the hungry ghosts take
Lightness. What if we start choosing lightness? Yes, in contrast to heaviness. But also in contrast to darkness.
Creativity & chaos. When Steve Jobs launched the iPhone in 2007, it "disrupted" everything. Of course it disrupted Blackberry and Google and all the competitors. But it also disrupted the whole economy. It changed how companies did work and how people interacted with each other. There was no organised way of
"We always do it this way." There are people who aren't interested in change, whether it makes things better or not. You can try to change them. It's going to require a significant investment of effort, time and money. And it might (most likely) still not work. Or you can find the
Being a contribution. Being a gift. Being love. Being friendship. Being compassion. Being kindness. If we have a choice of being, we can choose to be these.
Low confidence. Self-doubt or low self confidence takes away our ability to trust ourselves and our belief in ourselves that we can make things better. Sometimes, this takes the shape of procrastination and sometimes perfectionism, but almost always, it stops us from shipping. Thinking that it's better to not ship
