It’s much easier to make your work better if you have something to work with.
You can’t edit your blog post if you haven’t written it yet.
You can’t make your new song swing if you don’t record the demo.
You can’t grow your business if you don’t start by landing one paying customer.
Trying to make things perfect before you put the work down on paper is futile.
Get the rough draft finished. Then go back and make it better.
You’re a dedicated internet user, which also means you’re an experienced “searcher.”
But what if those searches could help make a dent in our little carbon problem?
You can take a tiny action today and switch your default search engine over to Ecosia, the search engine that plants trees.
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According to HubSpot, the average person makes four searches each day. That means if you switch, on average, you’ll plant one new tree every 11 days. Imagine the difference that could make to your carbon footprint.
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I was walking at the park near my house this afternoon. And when I crossed the bridge, walking the well-known paths I’ve memorized, I saw a picnic table next to the river where no table had ever been before.
It’s at the perfect place where you can hear the water splashing over the tiny spillway under the bridge—a light, pleasant gurgling and rushing sound that’s quite pleasing to the ears.
From the looks of it, somebody went out and bought treated pine from a home improvement store, built it themselves, and set it up in this spot.
They didn’t ask permission. They simply thought that this little neck of the woods would benefit from having a place for people to sit… A place to gather and eat next to the water with family and friends in peace and near-quiet.
This was a small, brave, creative act. They didn’t ask permission from the Parks Department to let them do it. They saw a way to make something a little better for other people, and they did it.
They took a small creative risk. That’s what we were asked to do on a daily basis.
No one ever gives us permission to be creative. No one will ever give us permission to make things better.
Because the way things are right now is the status quo. And people don’t want the status quo to change. So we have to create—to make things better—without asking if it’s okay.
It takes a little bit of courage, the tiniest amount of risk, and the will to act.
The people we admire most are the ones who act the most inauthentic in the moment.
Being authentic: the idea that you should do or say whatever it is you’re thinking or feeling in the moment. This is what we glorify.
Vs.
Being inauthentic: doing things we’d rather not. Doing them because we promised we would. Doing things regardless of how we feel in the moment.
War heroes, the type of people we admire for their bravery and selfless acts, are those who act decidedly inauthentic in the moment.
If they were being authentic—when the rounds cracked overhead or the grenade dropped in the middle of their buddies—they’d run as fast and far away as they could.
But instead, they make a conscious decision to act despite how they feel in the moment. They run towards the sound of battle, or throw themselves on the grenade to save their friends.
They do these things despite feeling terrified, exhausted, or pained. And we admire them for that.
We admire the same traits in people from all walks of life: athletes, leaders, writers, musicians.
We want them to do what they signed up to do. Imagine going to a concert where the musician didn’t play because “they just didn’t feel like it” when they got on stage.
So, in fact, we don’t want authenticity. We want professionalism, decency, integrity—for people to keep the promises they make… To do the things that need doing regardless of how they’re feeling in the moment.
In terms of behavior, authenticity leads to tantrums and inaction.
Inauthenticity, on the other hand, leads to professionalism.
(H/t to Seth Godin for inspiring this post.)
How do we discourage the plastics companies—and all of the companies that use their products—from creating and using MORE plastic? Without the burden of cost ending up on the consumer?
Seth Godin mentions that the only real change will come through collective action on the part of us as citizens or via the government through taxation. (Check out his great podcast episode on the topic here.)
It worked for cigarettes; I assume it would work for plastic reduction as well.
But I feel that, in the short run, it would hurt all of us as consumers… because we really don’t have a choice. And you’d better believe that the people with money invested in plastic will make sure WE feel it before they do…
A couple of years ago, my wife and I went on a no-plastic, “reduce our waste” crusade.
We stopped buying drinks in plastic bottles…
We only used reusable grocery bags at the store…
We severely cut back on food and packaged goods…
We went to a more whole-foods diet (good for our health AND for the environment)…
We started using compostable garbage bags that we could compost ourselves.
My wife even persuaded a local restaurant to start selling glass bottles for to-go sauces that people could bring in and refill for a reduced price.
This is only a smattering of what we did to reduce waste…
The problem that we ran into was no matter what we did, we couldn’t get most of our food without massive amounts of plastic.
Our stores didn’t sell eggs in cardboard cartons. Nor did any of the local farmers we knew.
Every single piece of meat that we bought was wrapped in a pound of plastic. They wouldn’t allow us to bring in containers of our own… Or even follow our request for it to be wrapped in paper instead.
We couldn’t even go vegetarian—getting our protein through beans, yogurt, and other non-meat sources—without having it packaged in plastic bags or plastic cartons. All our stores had also gotten rid of the giant dispensers for grains and such… So we couldn’t bring our own bags for that either.
The futility of it all became clear when I saw what a major corporation (which will remain nameless) was doing with plastic.
They were shipping tiny pieces of hardware—each of which was about the size of a pencil tip…
Each wrapped in plastic… Each sealed in its own plastic, Ziplock bag…
Mailed in its own bubble-wrap-lined mailing envelope.
And they were shipping hundreds of these to hundreds of locations around the world… On a regular basis.
I knew then and there that our individual action wouldn’t make even the tiniest of dents in the waste problem we faced.
We’ve continued our personal waste-free crusade, simply because it makes US feel better about our actions. But the discouragement is real.
I don’t really have any answers today. Because taking individual action to solve systemic problems doesn’t make much of a difference…
So I pose the question again: how do we dissuade these companies from using plastic without the burden of the cost—and all the work—ending up on consumers?
We aren’t creating the waste—those are the massive corporations who save money by using it. And who are doing it without thinking of the second- and third-order consequences of their actions.
There aren’t many alternatives for individual consumers… And the plastic is being created ANYWAY. So it feels like we don’t have a choice.
And when we have no choice, there’s nothing that we can do, and it doesn’t look like there will be better choices for quite a while.
There is one particular Buddhist philosophy I’m particularly fond of:
Define success as what you already have right now.
So what do you already have that makes life worthwhile?
A loving spouse or partner?
Healthy relationships?
A car that runs?
A roof over your head?
A job that keeps you fed?
It’s even possible for those that have little or nothing. Because as the Stoics would say, you still have your mind—the one thing that cannot be harmed…
That thing that lets you make choices… Or take action.
Some of us—living in war zones or on the street—have lost everything. Even a sense of hope or safety. That cannot, and should not, be minimized.
But where there’s a mind, there’s a spark of potential.
Every day that you’re still “playing the game“ is a day you’re moving closer to achieving your goals.
If you’re still in the game (whatever that game is to you), you’re succeeding.
You might not be moving forward quickly. In fact, you might be standing still.
Sometimes, literally surviving—keeping your head above the water—is all you’re capable of doing. And that’s enough.
Because until you quit, there’s still the possibility of winning.
Staying in the game the first, and most important, part of playing the game.
But once you’re out, there’s no longer any possibility of winning.
Creators will be judged no matter what they do.
Writers…
Musicians…
Entrepreneurs…
Anyone who creates anything for a living faces judgement. And usually criticism.
But you’ll also get judged for doing nothing.
“If you could have, why didn’t you?” is the other question we all face.
You’ll get judged for doing nothing. You’ll get judged for doing something.
So you might as well do SOMETHING.
Why do we award medals and trophies to athletes who compete at Olympian levels?
Why do we build statues to great leaders and war heroes?
Is it to immortalize their achievements, or something greater than that?
The great orator Demosthenes said:
“Reflect, then, that your ancestors set up those trophies, not that you may gaze at them in wonder, but that you may also imitate the virtues of the men who set them up.”
They don’t exist for us to stare with admiration. The point isn’t so our children will say “gee, whiz, Mom, that’s really cool what you did.”
These monuments to great achievement exist to move us to even greater ones.
Don’t just admire others’ work and success—aspire to be that same kind of person. Do work that others will look upon in awe and seek to emulate or surpass 50, 100, or 1,000 years later.
Don’t erect monuments for your own glory. Instead, use them to inspire others to surpass you.
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Here’s one of the most enlightening things I’ve heard this week (and it’s 30+ years old).
It’s a quote by Denis Waitley from his audio program “The Psychology of Winning“:
“Victims are inactive, waiting and dreading… the survivors are reacting, and hanging in there… the dreamers are in the shower, active but nonproductive… [but] the innovators are out of the shower, dressed, ready, and proactive in the market.
The innovator for the 21st century has the visionary’s ability to look ahead…
The philosopher’s ability to learn from history…
The inventor’s ability to employ breakthrough concepts…
And the entrepreneur’s ability to deliver those concepts profitably and effectively to the marketplace.”
Right now, if I’m honest, I’d say I’m somewhere between dreamer and innovator. What’s holding me back? My failure to take action when I think I should.
What about you? Where do you fall within these categories?
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