by Nathan Coumbe

The end vs. the beginning

One of the essential habits in Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is #2:

“Begin with the end in mind.”

The premise behind this habit is that before starting something—a career, a hobby, a marriage, a life—you should project yourself into the future.

By doing so, whether three years or five (or even all the way to your 80th birthday), you can lay out a map for how you want to live your life or complete a project.

I love this habit, and the idea behind it, but it’s also the only habit out of the seven with which I struggle. Why?

Because it’s overwhelming! Sometimes I don’t even know what I want life to look like tomorrow, let alone in 47 years. (God, is 80 really that close?)

It’s also overwhelming because at times, the daunting idea I have in my head seems so impossible that I become paralyzed, unable to do anything.

I know I’m not the only one.

The negative thoughts creep in with a seeming inability to solve them.

  • I can’t uproot my family while I pursue a master’s degree—it’s too many years out of work!
  • I can’t possibly go to medical school—it’ll practically leave my wife working as a single mom!
  • I can’t throw all my energy into a marketing business—we could be left destitute and homeless!
  • I can’t coach people to improve their health—I’m still trying to do that for myself!

The solution?

Start.

Decide on the very next small thing you can actually do.

Julia Cameron calls this “filling the form”—taking the next small step instead of leaping ahead to some giant thing you might not ready for.

Using the examples from above, you can…

  • Put in an application to see if you even get accepted to school
  • Take a biology course to get your first prerequisite needed to attend medical school
  • Call one business in your area to see if they need a freelance marketing expert to help them
  • Help one person you know develop one new healthy habit

It’s the oft-cited cliché that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

You have to put a destination into the GPS. But then you must focus on the directions and look for the next turn.

If the end in mind is too big to tackle, focus instead on the tiniest first step.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Why not you?

Why can’t you organize a study group to work through a difficult Udemy course?

Why can’t you pick yourself to be a successful musician (rather than waiting for a record company to do it)?

Why can’t you organize a petition to get an environmental ordnance passed through your local government?

Why can’t you start that small marketing agency on the side and build it up to your full time gig?

Why can’t you throw together a fundraiser to help a down-on-her-luck mom keep her house for a year?

Why can’t you coach someone else to help improve their health and well-being?

You don’t need another credential. You don’t need permission.

You just need the skill… and the desire to act.

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by Nathan Coumbe

If you don’t know, it helps to ask

I was roasting alive at a book festival last week. 100º temps, no cloud cover, no breeze. 

I needed to know why! WHY, when Mississippi has such mild autumns and winters, did the organizers insist on hosting the festival in the hottest part of the year? Every year for 9 summers.

In sheer agony and frustration, I said aloud, “Why do they do this?”

And I got an answer from someone much more knowledgeable and pain-tolerant than me:

This is the only time when the Mississippi Congress is on vacation during the year. The State Capitol is empty and available for use.

I asked and got a reasonable answer. Of course there was a good reason for the decision they made.

Most things aren’t done as mindlessly as we might assume. When you feel that way, it helps to ask some questions.

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by Nathan Coumbe

A fun-filling (rather than fulfilling) career

Starting in the late 1970s, the idea of “passion” entered our discussions about work. 

The goal became to find work that aligned with pre-existing interests, rather than pursuing mastery of a difficult craft (which had been our way of doing things for hundreds of years).

Don’t get me wrong, you absolutely must be interested in what you do. That’s vital to persevere through the difficulties that arise in learning anything new and worthwhile.

But I’m coming to find that our obsession with trying to align work with things we already like is sapping us of our ability to enjoy (or at least be satisfied with) most any type of work available to us.

We’re asking our jobs what they can do for us, rather than focusing on what we can offer the world by engaging in those jobs.

Satisfaction and enjoyment in our work is a lot like motivation. We think we have to wait for motivation to hit before we act on something (like getting in a workout or finishing a difficult project). But that motivation only comes after we’ve taken the action.

Action precedes motivation, not the other way around. And happiness in our work often comes AFTER we do the difficult work itself.

It’s probably not what you want to hear… But that doesn’t make it untrue.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Do you do what you THINK you do?

If you’re a business owner or freelancer, what problem would you say you solve for your customers? (Hint: it’s probably not the same as what they think.)

If you’re an employee, do you know what problem your company was created to solve? What its original purpose was? Do you know why customers hire your employer?

Odds are, what you think you do and the reason your customers actually buy from you are quite different. 

But if you want to increase your levels of success and sales, you have to align those two things.

Whether you’re starting a business or building a musical group, there are two marketing questions you must ask first: 

  • Who’s it for? 

And

  • What’s it for?

And if you work with others, you must also ensure they know the answers to these questions. If they don’t know, they won’t care, nor can they truly help you succeed.

“No involvement, no commitment.”

—Stephen R. Covey

In fact, it’s a good idea to solicit answers to these questions from your people. You might get closer to the truth of what it is you’re trying to do.

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by Nathan Coumbe

What’s the project?

Go ahead: read the books, watch the videos, and take the courses. 

But at the end of all that, you need to take action. And the best way to do so is to have a project. 

I don’t mean a 3-panel trifold board school project that you dread so much you put it off until the night before it’s due. 

I mean a project that puts into action the stuff you’ve just learned. Something that fires you up. And lets you use your new skills in a way that will let you experiment while also helping others.

Maybe that’s:

  • Writing and submitting an article to practice your research skills
  • Building a website to practice your design abilities
  • Creating a YouTube video “lecture” to teach someone what you just learned
  • Playing a solo for friends and family (or dare I say, other, more critical musicians?)

When I was working and studying as a musician myself, I learned this was an unspoken rule of improvement. 

Everything you learned had one goal attached: perform what you learned in front of someone else.

That pressure to perform led to vast improvements in my playing abilities, especially my weekly recurring jazz trio gig. I had to be laser-focused on putting newfound abilities to use on a regular basis. 

My unspoken mantra became: “If I can’t use this tonight, I haven’t really learned it yet.” 

Until you can use what you’ve “learned” in the real world, nothing has happened. 

Human beings are artisans and craftspeople: your brain is wired to make things and do something with what you learn. Not just have it marinate in your mind after reading a book or watching a video. 

Making, performing, creating, teaching. These acts put our knowledge to use… and make us feel useful. Like the masters of a craft that we all have the ability to be. 

So, you need projects. 

They’re the key to learning new things. But they’re also the key to fulfilling work and a meaningful life. 

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by Nathan Coumbe

Never be in a hurry

I’ve been on a Cal Newport Deep Work/Digital Minimalism kick for the last few weeks.

Here’s a quote from Saint Francis de Sales that seems particularly apt to my current way of thinking:

“Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.”

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by Nathan Coumbe

A solution to the homeless problem

I live in the Deep South—the “Bible Belt” as some call it. 

One of our quirks? We’re surrounded by churches. 

By most estimates, there are more than 9,100 in this state. That’s one church for every 330 Mississippians.

Many of them are huge. But what I’ve never understood is why they’re so big for seemingly no reason. 

They take up massive tracts of land. The enormous buildings themselves cost a fortune to light, heat, and cool. 

And 6 days a week, they sit almost entirely empty. 

Why not take a leaf out of the “Good Book” and use them for the public good when a service isn’t happening?

What if they became a shelter for the homeless? From the sweltering heat (we hit 104º a couple of weeks ago), pollution, and the elements?

What if they were a place to shower and eat? A staging ground for launching a job search?

My research has shown that some churches throughout the country already do this, but not many here in Mississippi. 

I’m no theologian, but I feel Jesus would approve.

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by Nathan Coumbe

You don’t have to help everyone

But you can help the person in front of you. 

We often get overwhelmed when we see a problem. “There are so many people suffering from this. I don’t even know where to start.”

That thinking paralyzes us from taking any action. Because we can’t understand how we can possibly solve the big issue, we do nothing. 

The solution is simple: help the person in front of you. Right now. In this moment. 

Then, when the opportunity presents itself again, repeat.

One thing, one person, one idea at a time. 

It’s a lot better than nothing at all.

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by Nathan Coumbe

We need the dreamers

A friend of mine wrote to me the other day telling me that my “realistic views” helped to balance out her “daydreaming” ideas. 

But we need the dreamers. 

Without them, nothing changes. Nothing improves. 

No new ideas means the world never gets safer, cleaner, healthier, or more just.

Without the imagination, suppositions, and oulandishness of some humans, we stagnate. 

Sure, we also (sometimes) need the realists and the doers to make the dreams come true. 

But without the people who are willing to say, “Is this anything?”, the rest of us have nothing to work with.

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