By the Ocean
Light Rain 72 Degrees
6:37 a.m.
With the exception of the newsletters I write each day, week and month, I’m in the “one-at-a-time” business.
I fought this for decades. The gurus tell you “one-at-a-time” is dumb. Those guys want SCALE. “However big it is, we gotta make it bigger baby!” They want leverage. They want automation. They want to build a thing and then “exit.” As if there’s anywhere to go.
I’ve discovered that these are all things that add up to less meaning when your name is Jason and you’re living Jason’s life.
What I want is a full life. Where I can do what I want and live richly according to my own definition of what that means.
I discovered the only way to get that is to be me.
I discovered that means that I work with people one at a time.
Case closed.
There is a weird stillness that you notice when you’re on the right path for you. You might think it would be exciting, but it is not. It feels underwhelming. Totally normal. This is the absence of resistance and the presence of flow. “Flow” is when you’re still and moving at the same time. You’re present in the moment and surrendered to the current of the Universe.
My daughter, Deva, asks me all the time if I’m excited. Generally, the answer is “no.” This is a path of fulfillment, not excitement. When you discover your work and develop the discipline to do it (that took me a while), life takes on a very different feeling. The “work” isn’t something you do to get it done, it’s something you do to feel alive.
There’s no thrill of the chase. There is only the “planting of the seeds” and watching the trees bear fruit.
Is a farmer “excited?” I don’t know. Right now I’m as close to being a farmer, at least given my approach to business, as I’ll ever be. My guess is, no, they’re not excited. They’re just doing the work. Following the rhythm. Moving through the cycles. Watching the miracle of life appear before their eyes.
It’s a beautiful thing to witness.
Figure out who you are, find your place, do the work. Those are the steps.
Each month I open the door to helping one new person through that process: to settle into YOURSELF, to find your path, to build a business that’s sustainable and get moving forward. Most of my work is with private clients who are already well down the road, but this “getting started” work is something that won’t leave me alone…so I keep doing it.
I’m collecting the stories of the people I help for a book that will appear in the future. The book is based on my “crazy” contention that each of us can do what we love and prosper. Imagine teaching that to a child and watching the miracles they create based on that knowing? The world would change in a single generation.
I’ll keep the door open to this until Friday night.