by Nathan Coumbe

Are you an innovator… or one of the others?

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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by Nathan Coumbe

Infinity makes your career difficult

“Infinity” overwhelms us. We aren’t wired to understand or cope with it.

When we humans are faced with a seemingly infinite number of choices, most of the time we make no choice at all.

We freeze up, afraid to make the wrong one…

Or we just walk away…

Or, sometimes, we just go with whoever or whatever happens to be #1 that day—the “industry leader”.

And today, we have an infinite number of career choices. We grow up being told we can be anything… and in many cases that’s true. Most of the gatekeepers are gone.

But we’re also pushed to develop competence in many areas, rather than expertise or remarkability in just one or a few. We have to get Bs in everything, rather than an A+ in our favorite area and some Cs in the others.

This need to be good at everything, combined with too many choices, paralyzes us. Because we don’t want to pick the “wrong thing”. We don’t want to dedicate years of our lives and massive amounts of money to something that might not be a good fit.

So we don’t pick at all… Or we just pick the one that has the highest possible salary, the best job prospects, or the most security.

We don’t consider who we are, how we’re wired, what we love, what changes we’d like to see in the world…

We just go with whatever comes our way… but we can do so much better than that. We can contribute so much more.

But we have to choose what we’re going to focus on… and what we’re going to quit.

So what do you do? How do you overcome the paralysis of analysis? The overwhelm we experience when faced with too many choices?

Tell me your thoughts in the comments.

(H/t to Seth Godin for inspiring this post)

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by Nathan Coumbe

Can you get rid of household chores?

I just finished reading Michael Hyatt’s latest blog post: “3 Ways to Create More Margin in Your Personal Life” and absolutely loved it.

I’ve been a follower of his advice for a few years now, but I’ve always just applied his stuff to my work life.

Today’s blog post showed me that I could easily apply his “Delegate, Automate, Eliminate” philosophy for things I do around the house.

Most interestingly, his advice is to find what you both enjoy and do well at home that also needs to be done.

For me, that’s cooking. I enjoy doing it, making menus, crafting yummy healthy meals, and serving it to people I love.

But most of the other things I have to do, I either hate doing or just don’t do well. The two that first came to mind were cleaning and lawn care.

But for whatever reason, I never thought to eliminate, automate, or delegate any of these things. So what did I do?

We’ve already hired someone to handle our lawn care from now on. The next step is to hire someone to help us keep our home clean.

That way, we’re helping someone else make a living, creating more margin in our free time, and focusing on what we enjoy and do best.

Check out the article here:

3 Ways to Create More Margin in Your Personal Life

Once you read it, let me know in the comments what you’re planning to eliminate, delegate, or automate. I’d love to see what you’d like to focus on instead.

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by Nathan Coumbe

First, put wood on the fire

Here’s one of my favorite quotes from Earl Nightingale:

“It’s foolish to sit in front of the fireplace and tell it ‘first give me some heat. Then I’ll give you some wood.’“

Of course, it’s a little foolish to talk to your fireplace at all. But that’s not the point.

Why would you expect the fire to warm you up with no wood? That’s as foolish as thinking people will buy from you before you’ve created value for them.

You have to help people before they’ll give you money…

You can’t get warm if you don’t put wood on the fire.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Your day begins at sunset

In traditional Jewish & Orthodox Christian cultures, the new day begins at sunset, not sunrise.

Even God, in the book of Genesis, began his work days building the universe in the evening.

Yet we base all our work, plans, and decision-making around what time we wake up. And we end the day with (often inadequate) rest and sleep.

What if we flipped this idea on its head?

I’ve been listening to Michael Hyatt’s latest book, Win at Work & Succeed at Life. In it, he has an entire section dedicated to this topic and its importance.

But what interested me the most was the inverted way he looks at work and rest.

He made me realize that rest isn’t a reward for hard work…

In fact, rest is the vital precursor to doing excellent work day after day.

Think about it: in the ancient world, everyone worked long, hard days building, crafting, and farming. Without adequate rest, their bodies would have broken down, and their work would have suffered.

The crop might have failed, the buildings might have crumbled… Their creations would have worn out and broken. So their days began at sunset, which means they started their days with rest, relaxation, and sleep.

Most of us do knowledge work these days, but the same principle applies. We have to prioritize rest if we hope to succeed at work.

Can you change your mindset and start your days with rest?

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by Nathan Coumbe

Action brings clarity (not thinking)

You can sit and think all you want… Contemplating your next step, figuring out all the possible outcomes, anticipating roadblocks.

But eventually, you’ll have to do something.

And most of the time, that sort of thinking is just procrastination. And it usually happens because we’re scared to take action.

Ideas aren’t eggs. Sitting on them doesn’t help them hatch.

If you want to figure out if something is right or possible or good for you, try it and see what happens.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Overcome Overwhelm with One Tiny Step

I’m sure you’ve experienced this before: you’re tired, exhausted, stressed out… You have too much on your plate and feel like you’ll never get everything done.

You’re staring at the car keys to drive to the gym…

Or at the blinking cursor on your keyboard where you’re writing your next post…

Or maybe it’s the pile of stuff in the corner you’ve been meaning to organize and put away…

Or that stack of books you want to read but just never get around to…

And every time you look at it, you get hit with a wave of anxiety. You just don’t see how you can do it all. 

And because you can’t do it all, or you can’t do it all perfectly, you don’t do ANY of it.

I’ve been there. There have been days where I just didn’t feel like dragging myself to the gym. Days when I had no desire to write another blog post…

But I learned from my Precision Nutrition coaches how to get out of the f*** it mentality and make steady progress. The secret?

Just do 1% of whatever it is.

If I don’t feel like exercising, I tell myself “I’ll just do my warm-up and that’s it.” I don’t even tell myself “I’ll see how I feel.” I just do the warm-up. 

I’d say 80-90% of the time, I end up doing the whole workout. But there have been times when I just did the warm-up. And you know what? That’s okay.

It’s so much better to do 1% of something every single day than it is to do 100% of something 3 days in a row… And then burn out, not doing ANYTHING for the next two weeks (or two years in the case of me exercising at one point…)

It’s the Kaizen method, the Japanese practice of tiny improvements over a long period of time that lead to massive gains in effectiveness.

You can do this with anything that’s overwhelming you. Just take the next right step.

  • Have a book you need to read but don’t have the motivation to tackle it? Just tell yourself you’ll read one page… Or one paragraph… Or one sentence
  • Need to declutter or clean? Put away exactly one thing or sweep one corner
  • Just write one sentence instead of feeling obligated to write an entire blog post

Doing that small step is better than nothing at all. And if that’s all you do, you still did better than zero. 

But chances are, you’ll do that one thing and feel motivated to keep going. If you do, then run with it! 

But if you don’t, feel satisfied knowing you did something. And that you’ll do something again tomorrow. 

(H/t to James Clear for reminding me about this practice. Read his post on the subject here.)

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by Nathan Coumbe

Who I learned from this week (July 23, 2021)

https://michaelhyatt.com/shave/

Michael Hyatt put together a crazy in-depth guide with four big parts. If you’re looking to up your productive and get more done while working less, I highly recommend you download this ebook.

Directed marketing
An absolutely fascinating post by Seth Godin about reaching your audience organically.

Serve a handful of people well, be remarkable, and they’ll tell a few others. It starts small, but the results are exponential.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/marketing-made-simple/id1569923210?i=1000526591946

Donald Miller’s “StoryBrand Framework” is the gold standard in effective marketing, especially for creatives, solopreneurs, and small business folks.

His team recently came out with a new podcast called “Marketing Made Simple” which I’m absolutely DEVOURING. Not only are the hosts incredibly engaging and funny, they give practical advice and step-by-step instructions on how to market your business from beginning to end.

There are five episodes so far, each with a call-to-action to fill out your very own StoryBrand Brandscript (which you can start for free right here).

This is Where Your Temper Will Take You
A great article by Ryan Holiday that makes a compelling argument for anger being a primary cause of the Confederacy’s failure in the American Civil War.
3-2-1: How to find opportunities, and what it takes to improve
I’d like to specifically draw your attention to his 3rd idea in this newsletter.

What’s the single tiny step you can do to move the needle on your project or goal? Even if it feels microscopic?

https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2021/07/21/on-pace-and-productivity/

Last, but not least, this article from Cal Newport shows us that how much time we look at collectively has a big impact on whether or not we look productive.

Scientists like Galileo and Newton had seemingly slow, unproductive days when looked at individually. But when you look at their accomplishments over the span of years, it’s mind-boggling what they did…

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by Nathan Coumbe

The messy middle

Any worthwhile pursuit has a messy middle. In his book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Donald Miller talks about what it’s like to cross a stretch of water. We leave the shore and eventually arrive on the opposite side.

But in between those two points, we have “the hard work of the middle.” That’s where the journey becomes a slog, the motions seem repetitive, and the effort seems useless.

Pursuing a goal, starting a business, losing weight… All of these pursuits have that same hard work to be done in the middle.

In almost every case, we start strong and make decent, even quick, progress. But soon after we hit a point where we lose focus and motivation.

“Why am I at the gym for the third time this week? I just want to go home…”

“I really just want to pig out on pizza, beer, and ice cream. I don’t feel like cooking…”

We get frustrated, hit plateaus, and our motivation wanes.

It’s when we hit that point we have to rely on our “why”.

Our reason for pursuing whatever it is has to be strong enough to get us through the messy middle. Seth Godin calls this “the dip” in his book of the same name.

Without a strong why, without a reason to keep pushing through, we burn out and quit.

Not only does our motivation have to be strong, but we have to revisit it every day. Zig Ziglar had a saying about this rule:

“Motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing. That’s why we recommend it every day.”

First, identify a strong reason why you want to pursue something.

Then make time every day to review it. Keep your motivation front of mind.

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by Nathan Coumbe

What does coaching mean to you?

I heard the best description of what a coach does this week on Michael Hyatt’s podcast, “Lead to Win”:

“I love developing people and helping [them] to see the best potential in them and call it out. And that is what coaching is all about.”

That quote is from Michele Cushatt, Chief Coaching Officer at Michael Hyatt & Company. (You can check out the episode here.)

Her definition of coaching leapt out at me… I had to listen to it at least three times. 

Most of us have an image in our head of a coach as a cheerleader… Maybe it’s someone who tells you “great job” when you finish a task or make a little progress. 

Or maybe “coach” conjures images of someone putting you through drills or practices to help you develop a skill. 

Coaches can and should do those things. But that’s not the essence of what coaching is…

A great coach sees the potential in another person and calls it out! That’s the key. They bring forth what’s already inside someone else. 

They help someone become the best person they can be. The person they are destined to become.

Do you have someone in your life doing that for you? If not, can you find someone?

Or is there someone you know who’s got tons of potential but can’t see it? Or hasn’t developed it? 

Why can’t you take the role of coach and call it out to them?

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