Month: December 2019

One and Done.

“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.”

Alexander Graham Bell

Question: If you could only do one thing next year, what would it be?

Of course, there are hundreds of things we want to do, become and experience, but trying to do it all at once is a surefire way to end up doing nothing.

Focus on one thing first, then start the second if you finish the first.

What’s one thing you want to do that will make your life better than before?

And don’t wait until tomorrow, if you can. Start immediately. Jan. 1st feels like a nice clean slate, but honestly, we can start at any moment. Why not this one?

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #794

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Goodbye 2019

“You must live life in its very elementary forms. The Mexicans have a very nice word for it: pura vida. It doesn’t mean just purity of life, but the raw, stark-naked quality of life. And that’s what makes young people more into a filmmaker than academia.”

Werner Herzog

2019 was a particular raw year for me. I faced quite a few harsh realities that had been accumulating like cobwebs in an unattended ceiling corner. It seems insane to me how momentary decisions, like being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or hanging out with the wrong people has big-boy ( / big-girl) ramifications and unintended consequences. For me, it was staying too long at a job that’s wasn’t working for me. I had my reasons, but at the end of it, my ‘reasons’ were more justifications for things I didn’t like that I was seeing (and trying to avoid), such as colleagues exaggerating successes and thoughtlessness (or manipulation). Apologies, I’m being vague here. I’m not some who enjoy mincing words or criticizing another’s character.

Negativity and anger harm the source more than the recipient.

At the end of the day, my character is the only thing I have control over, not someone else’s. We can set the example, lead by doing, instruct and guide when given the opportunity, but we act for others, they have to do it themselves.

In many ways, I’m ending my 2019 in a much better place than how it started. But I can’t help but feel like I’m entering the 2020 atmosphere hot upon reentry and a little raw. Perhaps that’s exactly what I need. A raw look at things will give me an honest and first principled look at my life and creativity (music, writing, art, business). Who knows? Maybe this raw, anxious energy can give me a creative edge. Great ideas tend to bleed. And honesty and heart show through and hit a nerve that connects your ideas to real people who want to hear them and be a part of the story too.

Great ideas tend to bleed.

I’m still thinking about what I want to experience and do in 2020. I don’t think I’m going to do a million resolutions like I normally do. I want to have some sort of structure, goals to aim for, but I want to do so thoughtfully and intentionally.

  • How can I help friends and family accomplish their goals this new year?
  • What if I focused on enabling others, instead of solely focused on myself?
  • What’s working, what’s not working?
  • How can I nurture my intuition more and follow it at the moment?
  • What can I remove from my life? What is distracting me from what I love and enjoy?
  • How can I focus on experience, without sacrificing the future?
  • What can I build this new year that will set me up five, ten years from now?

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #793

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Beginner’s Creative Advantage

Most people default to mimicking what a successful person does, and that moves the needle, but it doesn’t get us to originality.

Original ideas come from following our curiosity and playfulness.

Your creative advantage is that you haven’t succeeded at the level you want to succeed at yet. When you are in the spotlight (however modicum or huge your success is), you are beholden to your success. Expectations seem high. Self-expectations are usually through the ceiling. Sure, you’ve got the money and clout, but you are internally and externally capping yourself. Because you succeed in a particular way, you want to keep following that success. Known success is chosen over unknown originality and potential failure.

By not being successful yet, you have the creative freedom to experiment and find your own way of doing things. You might not have the financial freedom to do whatever you want, but you have more room to fail with less risk. (The higher you climb, the longer the fall if you fail.)

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #792

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Magic Beans

“The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on
being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.”

Anna Quindlen

I think New Years Resolutions usually fail because we put too much pressure on ourselves to succeed. By the end of January, we want to have lost 25lbs, read a hundred books, run a marathon and thirty other goals on top of that.

We want the magic beans, the thing that will immediately give us what we want as easy as possible. But that’s no how change works.

Change happens slowly. A decision to change can happen instantly, but the hard work and commitment to make it reality takes some time.

While you’re thinking about 2020 and what you want to accomplish and experience, remind yourself that it’s okay if a goal might take a while. It might be easy, but it might not be. Either way, if it’s something you want to do or accomplish, do let difficulty stop you from doing it. Difficult moments are fleeting. They are like a campfire in a rainstorm.

By all means, make a giant list of things you want (I know I am going to). Then, pick on and focus in 100% on it. You’re not saying no to the others you’re are just saying no to them right now while you focus on the goal at hand.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #791

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Cutting the Unessential

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Find a way forward. The best way to cut through the nonsense is to keep going. Sometimes it will look like you’re going in circles, and sometimes you have to go back to the beginning. But we never really go back to the start. We have our hard earned experiences to guide us, and our open mind to see what matters to us and what doesn’t.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #790

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Change at Any Moment

“When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves.”

Viktor E. Frankl

“Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.”

Victor Hugo

Transformations occur all the time, everywhere. We can change in an instant, and also gradually. Usually, we’re experiencing both.

The question is: does transformation ever stop?

Where does a hurricane start? When we can see it from a satellite swirling below? Or when cold air molecules get blasted with warm evaporated water molecules?

What is money? is it a mule and three bushels of grain? Is it a Roman aureus coin? Is it SUPREME clothing? is it a collective human idea? is it 1’s and 0’s on a computer somewhere?

Who are we? Our likes? dislikes? Our personality? Our soul? Our job?

Things are continuously moving. We live in continuous cycles and forces, which mostly we aren’t aware of. History rhymes, as they say. For all we know, we’re experience things right now that have already happened in the past. Or maybe everything right now is completely new.

What ultimately matters is what are we doing to do? How do you want to change? If everything is constantly changing, so can we.

If you could change something about yourself (or your life) instant, what would you change? Do it. Why not? Maybe you don’t like where you are. It’s okay. I’ve been there many times too. The ending is just the beginning. Accept where you are, find a way forward. Change starts with you.

If you could change something gradually over the next year, what would it be?

Do that too. Use time as your ally. Spend five minutes a day on it. Go up to twenty minutes if you can make room for it. There’s no sense in waiting for change to come — it’s already here.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #789

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Maybe We Should All Dress Up Like Steve Jobs

“My favorite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.”

Steve Jobs

One thing Christmas presents has taught me over the years is that stuff doesn’t bring you happiness. Sure, new gadgets and gear can enable our creativity. Sure, those new jeans do make our butts look good. Sure, that new record player will be fun to have.

But when all is said and done, we’re still going to want more. As soon as I carefully unwrap my presents (yeah I’m that guy who spends twenty minutes opening a gift), I’m almost immediately itching to get on my laptop and search for deals on the other things on my wishlist.

Wishes don’t end. There’s always another cool thing to buy. If not now, then tomorrow.

I think that’s why people like Steve Jobs only wear one outfit (in his case it was black turtle-neck and 80’s Levi jeans). He put away the distractions and nice things to focus on his creativity.

Am I going to stop giving people gifts? No! I love finding the perfect present for the people I care about. Does that mean I’m going to stop wanting gifts or stop asking for them? Heck NO.

But I will remind myself to focus on what matters and truly makes me happy, versus the things that only give small fleeting moments of comfort.

Related:

The Gift of Nothing — Patrick McDonnell

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #788 🎅

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Take 5

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”

Oscar Wilde

A new year and a new decade are upon us. It’s easy to go through life without actually pausing and considering what we are doing and why we are doing it. So in between exchanging presents and stuffing our faces with pie and cookies like the Fat Schmidt in us all, take some time to think about your past year and what you want your life to look like. Take a breather. Grab some paper and a pen and sit with yourself:

  • Who do you want to be?
  • Where do you want to give your time?
  • What’s a priority to you?
  • What brings me joy?
  • What do I need to do less of? What do I need to do more of?
  • What do I need to start?

Most of us live our lives like the toss of a paper airplane — we throw and hope the wind takes us where we need it to0. Of course, not everything is in our control. Trying to plan every second of your life will inevitably be messed up by something bigger than yourself. Yet, it’s good to know if you are, at the very least, aiming for the right direction. Nobody wants to reach the end of their life and realize they’ve been facing the wrong direction the entire way. There’s always a chance to turn around, but wouldn’t it be better if we knew sooner rather than later?

That’ why it’s healthy to pause every opportunity you can (make) and think about what you’ve been doing and where it’s leading you.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #787

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Always Aim for Higher Quality

“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”

Steve Jobs

Quality speaks loudly to what we care about. That goes for things we create and the things we enjoy as consumers.

Even movies that are ‘so-bad-it’s-good’ are only so-bad-it’s-good because of the amount of dedication and care put in them. Pretty much everyone can smell inauthenticity like a rank sewer.

Of course, there’s a lot of low-quality things we can buy, like cheap jeans or a mattress from a “going out of business” sale, but that’s more about large companies making things affordable to the masses. These things are designed to be cheap and replaced frequently. It’s wasteful, but it’s not necessarily low quality.

The big contributor to low quality is lack of care. Meaning, not caring in general (because you prioritize other things) or lack of motivation to care in moments when you are called too.

But in order to create something worthwhile and impactful, we have to give a d🎄mn about what we are doing and have a continuous desire to learn and improve as we do it.

The ‘what’ and the ‘why’ will look different from each of us, but the ‘how’ flourishes in giving our creative work everything we’ve got in the moment.

Care comes from:

  • Genuine interest.
  • Time given.
  • Attention given.
  • Curiosity given.
  • Playfulness.
  • And a desire to see it through.

Sometimes that means just trying a little bit more than you normally would (or think you could).

Usually, that means saying no to a lot of things, so you can say yes to this right thing.

And high quality always means caring about what you put your name on.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #786

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Doing the Unexpected

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

Anaïs Nin

One of the big regrets of the dying you hear about is working too much. This makes sense to me. If I spend 99.9% of my time working, (hopefully) building wealth but ignore or don’t give time to the people I love, then what was the point of working for? 

The other big regret that I forget about, or perhaps I avoid because it’s uncomfortable, is conforming:

“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

The courage to live true to myself.

How often in life do we do the exact opposite of this?

It takes courage to do the unexpected. Not only do you have to face your own fears, but you also have to face the fears of the people around you, who are usually trying to keep you safe. But safety is rarely assured in life. Sometimes, playing it safe is the riskiest thing we can do. But stepping out on a limb and becoming your own person is also potentially risky.

Sometimes, playing it safe is the riskiest thing we can do.

There’s always a chance that doing something risky will blow up in your face. The balance between how much we play it safe, and how much we take chances is unique to each of us, but the big thing we want to avoid is complacency. 

Complacency is playing it safe because you are scared and you don’t believe that you can do it (whatever it is). It’s wanting things to stay the same out of fear of everything going downhill if things change. ‘Stick to the status quo.’

The problem is, the status quo is a lie. The status quo is just the status quo that you know and are surrounded by.

Ultimately, we have to decide what kind of life we want to live and go do it. Otherwise, someone else (who might not have our best interests in mind) will decide for us. Otherwise, we keep making the same old mistakes, falling for the same old traps and patterns.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #785

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