By the Ocean
Sunny 74 Degrees
6:09 a.m.
My “work” day usually starts around 4 a.m. I don’t have an alarm. I haven’t had one since 2003. I just wake up because I want to.
I’m down to two cups of coffee per day, which I consider a personal victory over the coffee bean. It’s been a long and arduous battle, but I have triumphed! (Don’t talk to me about switching to green tea or the mushroom garbage…it’s not going to happen.)
If I COULD “go for coffee” all day long, I would. I’d tire of the actually coffee but not of the “going for coffee.” In my mind, these are two separate things.
No one really stirs, except for the dogs, until almost 7 in the morning. So that’s almost half a normal work day I get in complete solitude and silence. (There are some neighborhood cat fights outside, kind of like a Feline Fight Club, but I can ignore those.)
If you do creative work, you know it’s incredibly difficult to fill that amount of time, day after day, with production.
Once the kids get up, everything changes. Silence and solitude become a distant memory and are replaced by almost constant action and noise.
My wife says she doesn’t know how I get things done in that environment, but the facts show that a lot gets done…including me cooking everyone breakfast.
My work these days is moving from creating to guiding, directing and advising. I still make quite a few things for clients, but far less than before. Why?
Because of leverage. There is 10X the leverage (and value) in directing someone’s progress compared to powering someone’s progress.
It took me far too long to realize that “doing it for someone” can be a real disservice to someone you’re trying to help.
“Fishing” for a client can make you a lot of money, but the client doesn’t often walk away improved. He doesn’t receive insight that forever shifts his perspective. He doesn’t move forward more capable than before I met him.
So rather than push someone forward, I offer the direction, counsel, insight and tools for them to push themselves.
By about 10:00 a.m., the “work” day is over. After that, the calendar is pretty much empty except for LIFE.
So my day has a lot of empty space. Larges blocks of time with no appointments, no commitments, no plan. I used to think it was a mark of success to be busy, and then I realized that’s actually the opposite of success.
Why?
Because the only version of success that matters is MY VERSION. And my version isn’t a day fully of busy. (Never let someone tell you the prize you’re reaching for. Only you can choose that.)
Thoreau was on to something when he said, “A man is wealthy in proportion to the number of things he can leave alone.”
The empty space doesn’t survive for long because the kids fill that space without even trying. My wife’s surfing addiction fills the rest.
The gurus tell you to stop working in your business and start working on your business. Not too many people tell you that the greatest progress seems to come when you stop “working” on anything at all and start LIVING.
Why is that valuable? Because just like how growth in your muscles happens when they are resting and repairing, so too does progress happen when you take your focus OFF the goal you’re pursuing.
That’s when integration begins. When connections are made. When hidden things become obvious. When clarity bubbles up from a place you couldn’t find when you were actually searching for it.
They can’t teach you this in school or everyone would just go home and relax.
But working harder is not the way. It’s the opposite of the way. (I recorded a podcast with my wife about this not long ago.)
What’s the way for you?
I have no idea! That’s what makes your life so exciting!
You get to discover the way, then you get to LIVE it.
Do it and never apologize for it.