May 20, 2012
 

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The Step AFTER you make your goals (The Engineer's Method.)

See what the best case scenarios are, and write down how to make it happen more often.

See what the worst case scenarios are, and write down how to mitigate them.

I used to make all these grandiose goals, and write down the steps it would take to get me there. Now it worked, but I think there’s another step that makes it even better, for when you want to do something world changing. It’s to see that there are multiple ways you can fail, and there are multiple levels of success. Can you sacrifice the ultimate success to mitigate most failures? Can you sacrifice all the middle level successes to increase the chance of the ultimate success?

It all depends on what you want.

 

 

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Are people happy when they fail?

“Fail, fail more, and learn!” It’s touted so much by so many people that it’s a cliche amongst our crowd.

The wisdom itself is great, treat everything as lessons, and perservere. But I fear something much worse has come out of it. I think failure has began to be applauded by everyone. Entrepeneurs are starting to be happy when they fail

Building something great and making money from it is fucking hard. Now we have one more reason not to bet hard and win, we can quit in the middle and bask in the glory of failure. We can share our “lessons learned”, talk about how we tried and participate in this mental masturbation with friends.

I don’t think shunning failure is wrong either. Rather, maybe we’re celebrating the wrong thing. Maybe it’s not about success or failure, maybe it’s about completing things.

Doing every single thing possible to bring the outcomes that you want.

When we applaud sheer will, hustle, and building, then we’ll get a lot more people doing it. Conversely that’s what leads to success, and fulfillment, growth.

 

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Reality is right in front of you

But everyone should want to grow!

But the business is great, the cash flow needs to come!

But I’m smart!

But, but, but. But is the biggest impediment to success.

But ignores reality.

Have you found yourself frustrated at how things are going? Maybe you expected something from someone, maybe you expected something from the world, maybe you were expecting something from yourself. But your expectations were off.

This is the worst time to lament, but about. You’ve been given an opportunity to grow beyond your wildest dreams.

You’ve been shown reality.

Now it’s up to you. You can choose to hide from it, you can choose to attack whatever caused it, or you can choose to see it. To deal with it. 

Fear and frustration are the most valuable teachers. They only happen when you’re at your extremes, and two things happen there:

You hit an edge, or you’re about to grow.

The difference between the two is how you deal with what’s happening.

Accept it for what it is, so you can deal with it.

 

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Dokkodo by Miyamoto Musashi

Miyamoto Musashi is one of my personal heroes. If you feel stuck, if you feel your will and confidence draining, his philosophy might propel you to take the deadly step that makes the difference.

Born a village samurai in one of the most turbulent eras of Japanese history, Musashi left home to develop his own style of swordsmanship and to follow the path of the warrior. He did that.  and is regarded in Japan as the best swordsman in history. What’s more important about Musashi though is the philosophy he developed through his training and self reflection.

Below is “Dokkodo” Or the Path of Aloneness.  Musashi wrote this a week before he died.

  1. Accept everything just the way it is.
  2. Do not seek pleasure for its own sake.
  3. Do not, under any circumstances, depend on a partial feeling.
  4. Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.
  5. Be detached from desire your whole life long.
  6. Do not regret what you have done.
  7. Never be jealous.
  8. Never let yourself be saddened by a separation.
  9. Resentment and complaint are appropriate neither for oneself nor others.
  10. Do not let yourself be guided by the feeling of lust or love.
  11. In all things have no preferences.
  12. Be indifferent to where you live.
  13. Do not pursue the taste of good food.
  14. Do not hold on to possessions you no longer need.
  15. Do not act following customary beliefs.
  16. Do not collect weapons or practice with weapons beyond what is useful.
  17. Do not fear death.
  18. Do not seek to possess either goods or fiefs for your old age.
  19. Respect Buddha and the gods without counting on their help.
  20. You may abandon your own body but you must preserve your honour.
  21. Never stray from the Way.

Take from this what you will.  For anyone that’s striking out, or wants to make change, I think his life holds a lot of lessons. Eji Yoshikawa’s “Musashi” might be the best start for you, if you want to read one Japan’s classical novels, and get a bunch of resolve.

Note: Thanks to Eddy Azar for sharing this with me. 

 

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Solve Problems

No one is asking you to work, they are asking you to solve a problem.

So a client asks a designer to make a business card. They feel uninspired, and work for 15 hours making crap. Then they do one of two things:

 

1) They show it to the client, the client isn’t happy, so they bitch about the fact that they worked for 15 hours.

2) They don’t show the client, the client gets angry, and they bitch about the fact that art is beautiful, and it can’t be forced. It’s not their fault they didn’t deliver.

 

That’s not how it works. The client was asking the designer to solve a problem, not to make a business card. They probably wanted a way to show credibility, and connect with people.

If this designer wants to be an artist, then he/she is in the right. Their job is to make beautiful things with using their craft.

But, if the designer is also a business person, then they’re in the wrong — they aren’t thinking like a business person.
They aren’t asked to design a business card, they are asked to provide something that adds credibility, shows people critical information, and differentiates them.  The business person has to solve this problem, not toil using whatever hammer he likes the most. Maybe get someone else in on it, maybe do something completely different.

 if you’re in business, solve problems. No one cares about how long you toiled or what you did.

 

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Move Forward

I’ve had so many ideas that sat in my head for way longer then they needed to. It’s harder to keep on thinking about it then to just scope down and build something you can run with. The difference is you’ll fail a lot more, and you’ll realize you’re not the smartest person in the world.  All your ideas won’t work…really…

So do you have some sort of freelancing you want to do, a business you want to start? Is there some place you can go to find customers and pitch them? You don’t need to build everything, just pitch them. Solve the rest when it’s time to solve them.

Fail quickly and fail more. Move forward.

 

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Look for the **** this question

It can come when you least expect it, “the **** this I’m going to make a big scene dissappear and think about my passions again”  feeling.  It’s so weird, this exact thought goes through me over things as small as missed emails, waking up late, you name it.

Then I observe it and ask myself why this feeling comes up. Why do I want to stop?

It’s usually about keeping up appearances, preserving self worth, deep deep fear,  the ego.  Ha the sad joke is that protecting yourself this way is the worst thing you can do for yourself; it paralyzes you and makes you self-sabotage. How can you make an impact if you back out when the world needs you to shove forward?

So every time you want to drop things and move, ask yourself why it comes up. It can be for good reason, but if it has anything to do with your ego, you know you need to go even deeper. Maybe you’re a lot closer than you think.

 

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People get angry when they themeselves aren't sure .

Just had an excellent talk with my friend Viera. Her insight was that when people believe soundly in something, they don’t get angry if you question them about it.

Try talking to an average Christian family and question god. The conversation gets tense fst–”how can you have no faith?!”

Now try talking to an enlightened priest. They are only interested, they want to see your point of view. They have figured out their reasons, so they don’t need you to agree with them.

For me, I realized I did this with power dynamics. I wasn’t sure if it was manipulative or not, so I defended as soon as it was questioned. Fortunately this question helped me clarify the philosophy behind it. I don’t feel a need to justify anymore, the tension is gone.

Maybe we can do this in all areas of life: question ourselves when we get angry, discover what we’re unsure about, and make a resolution.

What things do you react negatively to as soon as it’s mentioned?

 

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Doubt

Feeling bad is ok, and winning is great, but what takes over the mind is doubt. It’s like this seasickness you can’t escape, a never-ending hangover. Because everything is so close, you see it, but since you’re 90% there it’s all shaking. Back and forth and back and forth. One day you wake up, and you feel like the world is yours. The next day, you realize there are 6 things that need your attention. You need to deliver, you need your captains to deliver, you need the world to listen.

So what do you do? On the days you doubt, you need to stay away from people who look to you for morale, and you need to start reflecting. Build your resolve back up, put on your sword, and start walking back.

The man is made when blood is pouring from his face, he sees his demise is millimeters away from victory. He sees his failure, and he meets it.