Month: August 2019

Always Beginning

“The secret of life … is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.”

Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

In life, we are either beginning, or doing nothing at all. The problem is, ‘Nothing’ doesn’t always feel or look like nothing.

‘Nothing’ wears a lot of disguises. Sometimes It’s dressed up in complacency or average routines. Sometimes It wears fear, doubt and uncertainty on Its sleeve. ‘Nothing’ even disguises Itself as things we want, like money, power, fame at the detriment of things we really want and dream.

For example, making ends meet is necessary — sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do in order to fulfilling and follow through with the responsibilities we have. But if you are spending your time at a job that you hate, and you have the drive and opportunity to do what you love and you don’t, then nothing’s got you exactly where It wants you to be.

Beginning is meeting each day with a fresh start. Beginning is grabbing that blank sheet of paper, empty canvas, empty SD card and creating like it’s the first time. It’s sitting down at a piano, or a workbench or table and being open to ideas and possibilities. Beginning is also facing poor circumstances, setbacks, food poisoning and bad moods, and still somehow making time in the day for what matters to you.

Time fades yesterday’s creativity. We might create something perennial and remembered. But we still have to wake up and try to do it again and different.

Even if you’ve got all the money in the world, or you are considered the best in the world, you still have to sit down to a blank page of your craft.

Beginning never stops.

Which is terrifying, but at the same time exciting.

Today’s another change to make something great and impactful.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner

Daily Blog #674

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Making Creative Space

“Make an empty space in any corner of your mind, and creativity will instantly fill it.”

Dee Hock

Yesterday, I spent the better part of morning organizing my apartment’s work environment. I don’t have a lot of space, a cubby corner sandwiched in-between two windows, so a tidy and intentional area is key. Making art is something I’ve been pursuing more and more, and I wanted to make sure everything was accessible and open. Otherwise, creating feels like a chore.

I’ve discovered over the last couple years that I’m at my most creative when I have everything ready to go and in arms reach. The fewer obstructions I have to get from A to B (from an idea / desire to make, and from the tools, instruments, materials and space needed) the greater chance I’ll follow through. If I lean a guitar next to my desk I’ll inevitably pick it up and start playing. Put a blank piece of paper in front of me and give me some space and I’ll eventually write ideas on it.

We often point to and blame all these big reasons why we can’t work on our dreams yet — ’I don’t have enough money’, ‘I’m not old enough / I’m too old’, ‘I’m not smart enough yet’ — but in reality its the little things, like our environment, that are the true cause of our inability to act.

There’s this inherent unwanted laziness that comes with creating. I don’t have a lazy bone in my body, but when I have to dig around for some sketch paper, or if my guitar is in its case, or if my desk has no room for me to write, I’m less likely to do it.

You can see this pattern in many areas of life:

Health: We hang clothes on our treadmill or weight rack. We don’t know where our workout shoes are when it’s time to run. We keep ice cream and candy in the house instead of healthy foods.

Community: Our days are crammed with work or traveling to and from work. We have work meetings on top of meetings. When we are not working, we are scrolling. And with every second of our day stuffed like a turkey with immediacy, we neglect the important connections of friends and family.

Perhaps we aren’t a couch potato — we’ve just have physically prioritized watching TV over working on our side-business.

Space should reflect priority. We need to give ourselves the space we need to thrive in art, work and life. Physical space, mental space, time, solitude…

By giving yourself the space to create, you’ve created a safe haven for ideas. Prioritize space and you’ll start bursting with ideas and can’t help but lose yourself in creating.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner

Daily Blog #673

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Limitations Spark Creativity

Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life’s search for love and wisdom.

Rumi

Creativity is, in part, about facing our limitations and finding ways to turn them into opportunities.

Things will try to stop you:

  • There will always be a better gadget or tool you could have.
  • There’s too many books (over 130 million, give or take) out there in the world to read them all (I know, I’ve tried — and will die trying :).
  • There will always be sometime you need to learn.

People will try to stop you:

  • They will tell you that you are not good enough.
  • They will tell you to stay in your lane.
  • They will point out all your flaws.
  • They will try to force you to quit.

Life will try to stop you:

  • Work will get in the way.
  • Time won’t be on your side.
  • Mixers and birthday parties will always — coincidentally — fall on the same date and time you were going to work on your art.

And worse of all — you will try to stop you:

  • Fear.
  • Doubt.
  • Worry.
  • Uncertainty.
  • Pain.
  • Negative, discouraging and depressed mindsets.
  • Past Trauma, Present concerns and Future anxiety.
  • Poor sleep, hangry feelings, and couch sweatpants calling your name.

However, show me a brilliant song that wasn’t influenced by limitation.
Show me a work of art that didn’t have to trudge through doubt and uncertainty.
Show me a bestselling novel that doesn’t tell a story where the hero faces challenge and difficult, or a nonfiction book that doesn’t try to show us how to be better versions of ourselves.

Limitation is in our DNA.
That’s what makes our creativity even more special. To make something, despite our limitations (or because of our limitations), is a powerful way to add value and create change in the world.

Take your limitations and infuse them into your story. See them for what they are — opportunities to help others, and to help yourself.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner

Daily Blog #672

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I Need a Tune Up

“Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I can’t find who it’s originally attributed to, but there’s a great quote from the show Justified where the protagonist, Rayland, is bringing in a drug dealer or something and says “If you run into an *sshole in the morning, you ran into an *sshole. If you run into *ssholes all day, you’re the *sshole.”

Personally, I’ve noticed that when I’m in a bad or discouraging mood, every little things seems to be against me. I wake up late, feeling tired. Everyone I come into contact is in a bad mood. My car is out of gas. There’s construction and traffic on my way to work. I trip and rip my pants.

The real problem isn’t the traffic, the problem is me. (It’s not you, it’s me.) And more specifically its my mental state.

When I’m feeling great mentally, everything is great! Traffic seems much lighter today than normal! Wow, I’m literally getting all green lights. Who cares that I tripped and ripped my pants. It was time to get new ones anyway.

I wonder if our mindset works on the same wavelength of music frequency.

We tune instruments, such as a guitar or piano, to be in tune to a particular harmony. Does ‘tuning’ our minds to a more optimistic mindset create more harmony in our lives?

It’s more likely that having an optimistic view of our life, in good or bad circumstances, changes how we perceive what happens to us. So when setbacks happen, our optimistic mindset become a mental firewall to self-criticism and despair, which makes us more resilient to negative circumstances.

All when need to do is figure out how to turn the guitar tuning pegs, so to speak, and align our mental strings to the correct note.

First, we must become aware of our mental states. It’s hard to stop being a crabby patty if you don’t know you are acting like one. This requires us to make regular mental pit stops to check in with ourselves and make sure we are acting from the mindset we want to be in. Am I grumpy? Do I feel agitated or annoyed by things that normally aren’t? Am I hangry?

Second, we need to cover our bases. Did I get enough sleep last night? Do I need a nap? When was the last time I took a break? When was the last time I had water or ate something? It’s the little things that we are neglecting that cause us the most trouble.

It’s the little things that we are neglecting that cause us the most trouble.

And lastly, we need to find a way to reset. Easier said than done, but taking time for ourselves helps. Go for a walk. Take a break and pick up a good book. Read a blog post or two. Go play a pickup basketball game with a friend. Run up some hills. Breathe. Do whatever you need to do to reset your mental state.

When we are in tune, and acting from a mental state of possibility and opportunity, life is electric. Setbacks become moments to practice resilience. Failure becomes lessons. And all the good things become joy.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner

Daily Blog #671

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How to DO

“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.”

Leonardo da Vinci

“Just do it” is a pithy phrase that cuts through the heart of fear and asks us to act on our ideas and dreams… But often, no matter how many times we tell ourselves (or someone tells us) to just do it — we don’t. We want to, but we don’t. I could tell a family member (or myself) to just do it and eat healthier and exercise, but that’s not gonna cut it. As catchy and tagline worth as it is, it leaves room for uncertainty, ambiguity and fear. How do we do it? Where do we start? How do we not fail? How do we do it and win?

“Just do it” is a spiritual mantra of Athletes everywhere in the world. But do you think they make it to the Olympics or to the finals by winging it? No, they have honed their minds and bodies to do perform on instinct.

Before we can do, we need to make it clear as crystal what we are specifically going to do, why and how.

Clarity of thought creates clarity of action.

For example: “I want to get up early” is not going to work. How early? Why do you want to get up early, specifically? What’s the driving motivation behind the desire?

When it comes to getting up early, if you are focusing just on the morning, you’ve already lost. The question isn’t ‘What time will I get up?’ The question is ‘what time do I go to bed?’. We need to start where all the trouble begins — going to bed early. Going to bed at 2 AM and trying to wake up at 5 AM is not a sustainable and realistic goal. Sure, you could do it for a while. But there’s no wiggle room.Why do you want to get up early? So you can have some alone time for yourself. So you can read more and work on developing your writing skills. So you can work on your side business. Whatever your drive is, make it specific. It needs to be a big enough reason for you to get up out of a warm cushy marshmellow-of-a-bed every morning.

Here’s another example: “I want to be healthy.” Too vague. Too open to interpretation and bending the rules. What does healthy mean to you? Does it mean having a huge amount of energy each day? Does it mean being able to run the city and not get winded? Why do you want to get healthy? So you live longer and brighter and decrease your chances of Alzheimer’s or Cancer? What does health look like, specifically? Eating mostly plants? Nothing out of a box? Cooking at home instead of only eating out? Whatever it is, make it clear.

Once you have a firm grasp on what exactly you are wanting to cultivate in your life, then you are ready for taking a chance and just do it.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner

Daily Blog #670

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How to Dance in the Rain

“Some people come into your life as blessings. Other people come into your life as lessons.”

Mother Teresa

There’s an ancient Italian maxim that roughly translates to ‘he who is resistant to change is destined to perish’*. When things are good — work is — we hold on to that good thing like we’ve glued our hands to it. We keep doing the same thing over and over expecting things to always work the way it did the first time. And when things are bad, all we want is for things to change, but we cling to what we know like a life-preserver for dear life because everything is so unassured and unknown.

Which hits on the problem (if you want to call it a problem) with change:

We all want change that works for us, and we don’t want change that doesn’t work for us. We want to bend change to our will, and not the other way around.

However, Life likes spontaneity and flow. Change happens whether we want it to or not. Sometimes things happen we don’t want to happen to us. We lose money, we lose our job, we break our leg, we end up in circumstances we don’t want to be in.

Water that becomes still and doesn’t connect to other streams, rivers and movement quickly becomes stagnant — a breading ground for pesky mosquitoes and parasites. We too can become stagnant if we aren’t intentional. Our skills, bodies, friends, and wither away into man-boobs. Without change in our we can quickly become stale, complacent and stuck where we are. And too much spontaneity we can become unstable and reckless.

We automatically assume that things we don’t want to happen (or didn’t expect to happen to us is a bad thing, but what if misfortunes are a good thing? Maybe not now. Maybe not tomorrow, but someday. What if it makes you a better you? What if it changes your life for the better?

I’m not justifying or saying I want bad things to happen to us, but when they do, we’ve ultimately got a choice: thrash against them, make things worse and mentally negative, or let it go and turn it into an opportunity.

For every problem you are focusing on, there’s an opportunity you could focus on instead.

*inside joke 😉

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner

Daily Blog #669

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Comfort Zone Gaps

Comfort is not necessary a bad thing, but if it makes you feel complacent or stuck then your comfort is getting in your way of living a meaningful life.

Think of comfort zones as concentric circles like a dartboard, with you standing comfortably in the middle on the bullseye and larger circles of discomfort expanding out around you.

We don’t really want to leap for the outer circle immediately. We could try, but the problem is most of the time we won’t. The outer circle is terrifying when you are safe and stable in the middle. You might hate where you, but you’re sure as heck not about to go out there. When faced with an overwhelming amount of fear and uncertainty most of us (if not all) who are not trained do nothing. Even if that uncertain situation is something we want to do and even dream about doing. The gap is too far away.

Jumping straight into your discomfort zone is like trying to give a speech in front of a large crowd without any morsel of preparations or practice — palm-sweating and almost assured you’ll choke.

The better approach to getting out of your knitted-sweater of a comfort zone is to take it one circle at a time. What’s something you can do that puts your foot in the water? What path can you create with milestones along the way to achieving your goal? How can you use fear to your advantage?

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner

Daily Blog #668

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Storytelling Power

“Storytelling is the game. It’s what we all do. It’s why Nike is Nike, it’s why Apple is Apple, it’s why Walt Disney built Disney World and it’s why Vince McMahon makes a billion dollars.”

Gary Vee

Every subject can be interesting with the right passion and story behind the telling. Even mud is exciting when someone passionate about mud talked about it.

Passion, curiosity, storytelling and juicy detail makes everything — even what’s deemed boring — interesting. (And if you’re not interested, you know someone out there in the world is.)

Which tells me, if people find you or your work boring, it’s not about what you do, but about how you talk about it. Telling the story behind what you do is an essential part of the skill or knowledge you want to know. It’s embedded into the skill itself. You don’t have to be great at talking about what you do, or like, but those who are and learn to weave passion and clear narrative into talking about their work will go much farther building a community than those don’t.

Storytelling is a meta-skill, meaning a skill that enhances other skills. Instead of dull, monotonous facts and figures, you can combine storytelling with history and you’ve got thrilling adventures. (i.e. Hardcore History) Instead of drool or nap-worth lecture, you can combine passionate curiosity with science and you end up with icons like Richard Feynman.

If you are striving to be a master at what you do, don’t forget to add storytelling to the mix or your repertoire.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner

Daily Blog #667

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B for Effort

“The journey is never ending. There’s always gonna be growth, improvement, adversity; you just gotta take it all in and do what’s right, continue to grow, continue to live in the moment.”

Antonio Brown

Yesterday’s blog about comparing your work to others brings up a horrifying almond milk-curdling question:

What if my work is crap?

This is a reality we all must often face on our creative journeys. We live in a hyper-connected world. The internet levels the playing field, which increases the competition. You are a few taps away from a painting, song, business idea, film, photo and more that makes your work look like a baked potato. Now, my goal as a writer is not to beat out all the worlds competition. I want to improve my ability to tell a good story as well as get my ideas across clearly that you and others like us can use and find helpful in their lives. But competition is great because it’s a pressure cooker — it puts us in an environment where we have to improve.

When faced with our work not as good as we want it to be, we are left with two choices:

Give up or get better.

Giving up is easy. But has consequences beyond the obvious once you can think of. Mainly, you have to live with the fact that you didn’t try or didn’t give it your all. That’s a powerfully negative mental rock that you have to carry. (Only to be resolved through strengthening your mind and refusing to give up next time.)

Getting better is hard. But if we want to become masters at what we do, we must face the hard things, plateau, try again, fail, try again and keeping fighting for our dreams.

Will we become the best in the world? Possibly. The potential is always there if we are willing to put in the time and work necessary to do the extraordinary. But even if we don’t, we become better versions of ourselves in the process. Even if you only get to the top 10%, 20% of your craft, that’s infinitely better than giving up your dreams, doing nothing, and not even getting a participation trophy.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner

Daily Blog #666 👹

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Comparing Notes

“Whatever you put around yourself, you will be the mirror of it. Surround yourself with things you love.”

Marcel Wanders

Comparing your creative work to others is a tricky walnut to crack. On one hand, seeking out and comparing your work to others that are better can help increase your skills and the drive to push yourself to new heights.

However, with the wrong mindset, the other hand can quickly shove you down into deep dark abyss known as ‘self-loathing’ and ‘mental-verbal abuse’.

Let’s follow this thought for a moment. There we lay, on the muddy cave floor, holding ourselves back by spinning stories and convincing ourselves we aren’t good enough and never will be. (That got a little dark Josh…) But this isn’t true. This is just one story out of many we could tell. Negativity, Self-Criticism, Doubt are not the only way to live. Thinking your work sucks and you’ll never get better is just one story you are telling yourself that’s not getting you anywhere you want to go. The key is seeing that when it happens and deciding to tell a new story that enables you and pushes you forward, instead of holding you back.

Mindset has a massive role in everything we do. Thinking it, doesn’t make it reality, but it doesn’t make it possible. Mindset is like water to our bodies. Poor water causes all kinds of problems and parasites. Clean water rejuvenates and makes us capable of being ALIVE.

It’s worth pointing out that everyone feels like their work is no good somewhere along their creative pursuit. We do all this hard work, and then stumble upon someone’s work that is touched by the gods. When this happens, there’s two things we can do:

Deflate and Dismiss

Every excuse in the book isn’t worth stopping. If we come across someone who is better at what we do and feel deflated and down or dismiss them as unnaturally lucky or talented, then our mindset is getting in our way. Reflect, and find ways to change it. Or we can —

Be Inspired and Get Better

Great work is a great motivator. If we come across someone who is better at what we do, then we should feel motivated and driven to get better. Your awesome skills and work should lift my own, and vice versa.

Your skills aren’t worthless. Remember how far you’ve come. If you are an artist, think about someone you know who has never touched a paint brush in their lives. Could they do what you do? Of course not, not without all the time and effort you’ve put in. If you are a musician, could anyone who’s never picked up an instrument (unless you count an imaginary instrument) come close to what you can do? No way. We just get used to our skills and our professionalese and see only how far we have to go, versus how far we’ve come.

Let your progress motivate you to reach for that next level. Celebrate others work and achievements and allow yourself to be inspired to up your skills.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner

Daily Blog #665

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