“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. … A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.”

― Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “Life is what you make it. Always has been, always will be.”

“Your life is what you make of it” is one of those wise nuggets of insight that’s easy to nod our heads in agreement, yet dismiss and not implement into our lives.

Part of the reason is it can make us uncomfortable.

I know the idea is true, but I almost don’t want it to be true. Because if it’s not true then all the crap, frustration, and problems we experience throughout life aren’t our responsibility. But if it is true, then our life and our actions are our responsibility. And the things that happen to us might come from chance, but it is still our responsibility to do something about them.

“Ugh. She is so lucky. She gets everything she wants.”

“What does it matter that I lost my job, it’s not like it was my fault?”

“Wow his company is super cool. I would do something like that too if my parents bankrolled it as his parents did.”

I do think luck (and its counterpart) exists. But not all good luck is lucky, and not all bad luck is unlucky (Put that on a fortune cookie). Timing the market is lucky (and possibly something we can hone and train). Yet, making does with what you have is luck. It’s subtle, but one is an external event, and the other is an internal one.

We don’t get to choose what life we’ve come into, who our parents are, or what our culture looks like—but we do get to choose who we are.

We get to choose who we are

Every time we step up and take responsibility for our lives, we are choosing luck and choosing the path of wisdom.

Step up.

(No—I’m not talking about the hunky Channing Tatum Dance movie called Step Up.)

Own your life. Don’t wallow in complaints, could-have-been’s, and misfortune.

At the end of the day, there’s only so much time we have.

At the end of day, after all the emotions and little day-to-day problems we are dealing with, if we were just to look up we’d see the massive galaxy we are in, in the unfathomable universe.

Our problems are important—but they’re also relatively tiny.

So what do we do?

We get up. We get going. We make the most of the day. We work even if we are still a little bit sleepy.

We take care of ourselves—because that’s what we need (and that’s what we would tell our best friends to do too). And we own up to our responsibilities and expect others to do the same.

And if we fail… well, we’ll do better the next day.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing — Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #1627

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“ Rest until you feel like playing, then play until you feel like resting, period. Never do anything else.” — Martha Beck, Author

“When you are creating to the magnitude that I try to create, your brain is like a computer, and you need to refresh.”

— Missy Elliott, Musician

Sometimes, we just need to sit down and work on our craft.

Learning can be a crutch. If we’re always learning but never implementing what we learn, then we’re effectively procrastinating via learning.

As much as learning and seeking inspiration can help us come up with our own ideas, they also take away time from putting pen to paper (literally and metaphorically speaking).

No conversations. No books. No twitter. No inputs—just pure focus on creating.

Without effort, there is no output, just ideas and dreams.

But on the flip side too much work back-to-back and we’ll deplete our energy and stamina, which also slows and stops great ideas from coming.

There have been many times where I’ve been go go going and I’m seeming to make progress, but in reality I’m treading water.

Or I’m working on good things, but I’m agitated, my neck is yelling at me and I’m not present with what I’m doing so my work suffers.

All work and no play makes Josh a dull boy.

We need both creative input and creative output to making great things and enjoy making them.

It’s good to take stand up and walk away for a while. Space and time are great creative palette cleansers.

Go for a walk. Draw something. Workout. Write a poem. Work on some unrelated craft or project. Read a good book. Sleep on it. And then come back with fresh eyes.

Fresh eyes creates fresh ideas.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing — Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #1626

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Do you know who you spend the most time with? Trick question!

It’s You!

We change, grow, and experience, but we are around ourselves more than anyone else our entire life.

But most people don’t truly know themselves. And a lot of people hate themselves or at least dislike parts of who they are.

We expect certain ideals, and if we fail to meet those expectations, we lash out and let ourselves know it.

Becoming your own best friend is about being happy with where you are, and excited about where you are going.

Part of that journey is learning to accept who we are and giving ourselves some slack. (And accepting our flaws, even while continuing to improve our weaknesses).

Love yourself as a true best friend would.

Best friends tell you what you need to hear, but they are never discouraged.

Often our worst enemies are ourselves. We mentally punch ourselves with negativity, anxiety, and comparison.

I would love to gain more muscle, but I shouldn’t hate myself until I do. That’s crazy, and yet it’s easy to fall for that comparison.

Not only do we compare ourselves to other people, we compare ourselves to who we could be, or better yet who we /should/ be.

Superficially, we are our own worst critics. You might not like your nose or body type, or wish you looked so and so from that movie.

But we all have those things! Comparison gets you nowhere.

You may love someone’s hair, and hate your own, and they probably love your hair and hate theirs too.

Best friends respect each other.

Respect your time. Respect your passions. Be your weird, unabridged self.

Realizing that we all want what we don’t have is a life-changing concept.

Because even when we get the things we want, we just wanted the happy feeling we thought we would get from having them.

Happiness comes from within, from loving yourself, not from superficially, or from external gains.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing — Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #1625

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Some friends crisscross through your life like planes trailing in the sky. Teaching you lessons (some good, some bad). Influencing your tastes in music and how you spend your time. Informing you more about yourself.

Some friends fade out of choice. A difference in values. Crossroads. It could be a decision they made, or perhaps one that you made.

Convenient “friends” who peace out ✌️ when you’re going through a rough spell.

Some friends exist in different stages of life. High school. College. Marriage. Big moves and changes.

And some friends stick around and become daily companions. You see each other grow, but you often overlooked it because day-to-day change is happening so slow you miss it.

I want to be the kind of friend who is genuine and who can pick things up right where we left off, no matter how long it’s been. And I want to be the kind of friend who you see frequently, (maybe not every day) but even if it’s been a while you know you can call and I’ve got your back.

But most of all, I want to be a loyal friend. Particularly when they need it most.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing — Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #1624

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“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” — Henry David Thoreau

We’ve all heard the (at this point cliche) phrase about following your friends off a bridge if they decided to jump. This is essentially your parents telling you not to do dumb sh✨t at 4 AM when you and all your friends are bored.

This is mostly good advice. Just because someone else is telling you to do something doesn’t mean you should. Not all advice is advice that’s good for you.

But let’s consider a more subtle version of this idea.

What do you do when everyone around you tells you to do or be something, but you know it’s not right for you?

What do you do when you know you need to jump to grow but everyone wants you to stay the same?

Sometimes when everyone tells you to play it safe, what you need to do is take a leap of faith.

The smartest people I know (and follow) are nonconformists. They see the world differently.

They figure out what they want and what they stand for and figure out how to make it happen. They don’t let fear control their actions.

They’re not dumb either. They figure out how to leap but also try to minimize the risk if they fail (and they know that failure is a possibility.)

It’s hard to march to the beat of your own tune. Not only are you going out into the unknown, everyone and everything is telling you what you should do instead.

The question is, who do you want to be—someone who wishedor someone who tried?

Everyone wishes. Few do.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing — Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #1623

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How many apps do you have on your phone?

How many of them do you actually use? (You can actually look this up in your phone settings if you are curious.)

How many email addresses do you have? What does your desktop or file folders look like? What websites do you check frequently? How many tabs do you have open right now on your computer???

Even writing about it is stressing me out.

Tabs are my embarrassing weakness. On any given day, I’ve got elevendy-billion tabs open.

I love when the browser inevitably buckles under the weight of too many tabs and it finally crashes and I can start fresh. (Ahhhh.)

Digital clutter effects us just as much as physical clutter. Perhaps even more so, since there’s usually no finality to it.

It feels good to have inbox zero, but it’s worth asking why are we receiving so much email in the first place? And how much of it is actually what we want?

One thing I’ve been thinking quite a lot about lately is how everything has its on gravitation force that pulls on us.

How we spend our time is influenced by the people and things we surround ourselves with.

The more we think/surround ourselves with someone (or some hobby/thing), the more influence and priority it has on us.

Digital, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual—everything has a gravitational pull on us.

Which also means, it’s easy to become distracted, now more than ever.

Back to our phones, we’ll more likely open the apps on our home screen more than we would open an app five pages deep.

To me, distraction are anything that keeps us from our most important things.

If family and music are what’s important to you, then anything that takes you away from that is distracting you from your greater purpose.

The tricky thing is that it’s usually other opportunities or interesting shiny things that distract us from our purpose.

Great opportunities… but opportunity that happen to be in the opposite direction we wanted to go.

Distractions can come in little or big sizes.

First you need to know what you want in life (which is huge). Then the key is asking yourself—

Is this helping me, or distracting me?

What is distracting me that I can easily remove and get rid of?

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing — Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #1622

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Why do we read self help books? What are we seeking?

We want something to change, something to be different, better than it is now.

But most self-help books are glorified fluff pieces. (I know, I’ve read all of them.) They make you feel good but don’t lead you to change anything.

You read one then you’re onto the next.

There biggest value is awakening our souls and motivating us to change.

The problem is change is tough. It takes work to lose weight, to start a business, to run a marathon, to get off the couch and do something, anything.

So what’s a book-loving self-helper to do?

Make the downsides of not taking action worse than changing.

What’s worse?

Getting up off the couch and going for a run weekly, sweating yourself to fit, or looking back on your life on the couch with regret.

Traveling, figuring things out as you go, or never leaving your home town even though you dream of traveling the world.

Changing, despite the fear, embarrassment, and possibility of failure, or feeling stuck and staying the same.

Always let the cost of inaction be greater than the potential cost of action.

Set yourself up to win, by viscerally understanding the downsides of not trying.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing — Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #1621

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Everyone is going to have an opinion about your creative work.

Some genuinely want to help you improve and succeed.

Others are criticizing just to tear you down.

Knowing the difference is key to your success and mental health.

Not all feedback is created equal.

It feels weird saying that too much advice can be a bad thing. The fact that people are giving us advice at all is awesome, but not all advice is created equal.

Advice can come from places of pain: jealousy, fear, caution, recklessness, worry, etc.

Advice coming from a place of pain should be ignored or at least heard with a grain of salt.

The advice to watch out for the most is the kind with an agenda. If someone is trying to get you to do something or take a particular path in life, stop and ask yourself if it’s something you really love.

Do I want to pursue this because I love it or because of some external reason?

An older, wiser person who has been through what you are experiencing or something similar should have more weight than an older person who has never been through it.

Experience doesn’t always necessarily mean the advice is correct (advice stuck in the past, for example) but it does have weight and value.

If someone experienced gives you advice, it’s always good to pause and take it honestly. then consider how and if it applies to your life.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing — Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #1620

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There’s advice and then there’s “advice.” (Note the quotation and the italics.)

The two separate pieces of advice might be equal sound. But the problem is advice is coming from different places— one from a place of love and “advice” is coming from a place of fear.

I have mixed feelings about advice that is given from a place of worry and fear.

“You shouldn’t take that job because it doesn’t pay enough.” Is different from “You shouldn’t take that job because you are worth 5x more than what they are offering.” Can you tell which one is coming from love and which from fear?

Advice is all about the packaging.

Packaging and presentation make all the difference. I could give you the same birthday gift but wrap it in a garbage bag or wrap it in thick clean paper and tie it with twine in a nice bow and you’ll feel the difference.

There’s a book called Words that Work, that has a great subtitle: “It’s not what you say, It’s What People Hear.” I haven’t read the book, only that title. But I completely agree with the subtitle.

I could give you the best damn advice in the world—advice so good that it would light your ears on fire—but it wouldn’t mean a hill of beans if I said it with criticism and fear. You would likely listen, say “okay Josh” and then throw it in your new garbage bag gift wrapping and leave it on the side of the road for the next trash pickup.

I can think of many mistakes that I’ve made (you know, 20/20 and all that jazz) and advice I was given but didn’t take because of the way it was given.

It’s hard to override this. I’m not even sure we should override it most of the time. But perhaps if advice is coming from someone we know or even someone we admire then despite the packaging, maybe we should try to take a moment and listen objectively.

I have found it helpful to identify where a piece of advice is coming from. “Is this advice that I’m getting coming from a place of fear or love? Is this person saying this because he or she has personally experienced this too or are they saying this—subconsciously or not—out of envy or embarrassment or failure or conformity?”

The worst kind of advice is advice we didn’t ask for from people we don’t know.

This type of advice should be thrown in a dumpster fire. This is different from the advice we receive from people we know or admire or the advice we seek out. For example, consider all the content you consume—podcasts, articles, books, videos—whether you are looking for it or not, sometimes little tofu nuggets of insights will pop out at you.

The other day I was listening to a podcast with Jason Fried and he said something that I wish I had learned five years ago, it was something along the lines of “You can’t make a sandwich out of equity.” It’s good to work somewhere and have a stake (equity) in the company but it’s also important that they are paying you enough for what you need to live. You can’t eat a sandwich made out of equity. Brilliant! I wish I had learned that sooner!

Advice is good. Seek out insights like they are your full-time job. But be wary of advice that comes from fear. Even if it’s good advice, going with your intuition instead is usually a better choice.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing — Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #1619

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There’s very little of our lives that are set in stone.

Birth and death.

But our time here, the living in-between those two bookends is ours.

Things happen to us, things happen at us, things happen because of us, and — of course — things happen regardless, without our input. Flipping that on it’s head —

Things happen for us

There’s only so much we can change with things that happen to us. We can change our inputs. We can change what and who we surround ourselves. A large part of the things that happen to us is determined by where we live and what we do for work.

The things that happen after the things that happen to us, on the other hand, we can change. Our *reaction* might be just as important as our actions.

Others have said this better than I:

“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” — Epictetus

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” — Charles R. Swindoll

And related: “It’s not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it.” — Hans Selye

We are not the sum of what happens to us, but we become the sum of how we act with what we are given.

Some unfortunately don’t see that in time and crash and burn.

Others learn that (usually the hard way) and become better at it.

It’s all about the story we tell ourselves and the world.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing — Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #1618

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