by Nathan Coumbe

There is no such thing as bad weather…

Only inappropriate clothing.

If it’s raining outside, why would you get mad at the rain? What good does it do?

Put on a jacket; break out the rain boots; grab an umbrella. Don’t curse the rain.

Things are going to happen that are beyond your control. All you can control in those instances are your responses to them. 

You’re on vacation in Hawaii, and it’s raining outside…so curl up on the couch with a good book and a hot cup of tea. Or go outside in your bathing suit — you’re in Hawaii, for Pete’s sake.

A politician you don’t like is voted into office…so go vote next time. 

You burn your hand while taking dinner out of the oven, and dinner crashes to the floor. You could kick the oven (that’ll teach it to burn you!), curse, scream, and tell everyone that the evening is ruined. Or you could run your hand under some cold water, put aloe on the burn, and order pizza while laughing at your clumsiness. 

Sometimes life sucks. Sometimes things happen that you wish didn’t. 

You can’t change or manipulate the events. It’s a waste of energy. 

You can only change yourself.

Spend your energy wisely. 

Don’t miss a thing! Subscribe below to receive updates as soon as they post.

Join 845 other subscribers
by Nathan Coumbe

Separate the chaff from the wheat

Wheat doesn’t grow out of the ground, ready to grind into meal for the creation of bread. It comes with a bunch of extra stuff you don’t want in your loaf. You must first separate the chaff from the wheat. 

The same is true with ideas: good ideas don’t just happen. If you wait to have a good idea, you will never have any ideas at all. 

You won’t know the difference between a good idea and a bad idea if you have no ideas.

Ideas are simply ideas; let them flow through you, without judgement. Afterwards, you can determine the ones that might work from the ones that definitely won’t. 

Don’t miss a thing! Subscribe below to receive updates as soon as they post.

Join 845 other subscribers
by Nathan Coumbe

What is the art that is yours to do?

How do you identify it?

Seth Godin asked the question, “Where are the spots [in your personal/professional/creative life] in which you are most afraid?” 

Find the places and things you are afraid of, and determine why you are afraid of them. Then you can identify what you need to go work on.

“Begin with the thing that scares you.”

Don’t miss a thing! Subscribe below to receive updates as soon as they post.

Join 845 other subscribers
by Nathan Coumbe

The instrument is a means to an end

Instrument – noun 

  1. A tool or instrument; 
  2. a thing used in pursuing an aim; 
  3. an object or device used to produce musical sounds.

The purpose of an instrument is to accomplish a goal. Play a song; perform surgery; type a book; draw a sketch.

Why, then, do we spend so much time focused on learning the tool, the means to the end, rather than pursuing the end itself?

How ridiculous would it be for a surgeon to spend four years of her education learning how to use a scalpel? His end goal is to perform surgery, and the scalpel is simply a tool to help her achieve that goal. So she focuses on what he is trying to accomplish, rather than on the scalpel, and learns to use the scalpel to achieve the goal – helping the patient lying in front of her.

A drum set, trumpet, guitar, or violin is a tool used to create music. And yet, in conversations I’ve had with other musicians and from my own personal experience, an inordinate amount of time in the education of a musician is spent on technical exercises or non-musical experiences. 

I am not diminishing the importance of mastering every facet of one’s tool – a surgeon must be a master with a scalpel; a musician must be in total control of her instrument. But to focus on technique, on the instrument only, while ignoring the purpose for which it was created, is to learn only half of a craft. 

How different would an artist’s life be if every exercise or technical study was drawn from a major work in her field? What if, in learning a song, one created one’s own technical exercises that enabled mastery of the music being played, rather than technique for technique’s sake? 

Learn medicine, not scalpel technique.

Learn to create art, not how to use a pencil.

Lean to play music, not an instrument.

Don’t miss a thing! Subscribe below to receive updates as soon as they post.

Join 845 other subscribers
by Nathan Coumbe

Getting the grade

Students are so driven to get the grade that they will cheat on tests and assignments. 

Why?

Because we’ve taught them that the grade, not the learning, is important. 

If all our emphasis is on the grade, then of course they are going to cheat. Or cram. Or do just enough to get by.

“Will this be on the test?”

What is the end goal of education? Is it getting good grades, or imparting knowledge, skills, and wisdom to students?

If it is the former, then don’t be surprised when students cheat, cram, and stumble their way through class. 

If it is the latter, if the “why” behind education is learning rather than grades; encouraging curiosity and leadership rather than compliance; expect to gain willing enrollment from those in your charge. 

What is school for?

Don’t miss a thing! Subscribe below to receive updates as soon as they post.

Join 845 other subscribers
by Nathan Coumbe

Teach someone else

Do you want to know how to retain anything you, yourself, are trying to learn?

Teach someone else.

A teacher, after all, is nothing more than a professional learner. Any teacher worth her salt will tell you that the greatest learning comes when one knows one will have to teach the material being learned to someone else.

The next time you find yourself reading a book, taking a course, or watching a video lecture, imagine that the reason you are learning the material is so that you can teach it to a small group of people in 48 hours.

Better yet – actually teach it to a small group in 48 hours. If you can’t get a group together, then teach a few people individually. If that is impossible, then write a blog post, or record a quick video lesson, and publish it.

“To know, but not to do, is really not to know.”

–Stephen R. Covey

To know and to do, but not to teach? Well, that’s just not right.

Join 845 other subscribers
by Nathan Coumbe

What is failure to you?

If you try something new, you might fail.

Why is that such a debilitating statement? Unless you are attempting to leap between two buildings or run past a speeding car on the interstate, our failures are rarely fatal.

Yet we are paralyzed by the thought of failing at a new side hustle, of being rejected when asking for a date, or of failing at the new hobby we have never before tried.

If being proactive means choosing how one respond’s to a situation, then we can fail proactively. You can look at failure as a reason to never again attempt something, or you can look at it as simply one way the new thing won’t work.

Thomas Edison tried 10,000 ways to make a lightbulb before he found the way that worked. He saw each failure, not as a discouragement to trying again, but as a stepping stone to success.

Choose to see failure as a learning experience and you will only ever improve the next time.

by Nathan Coumbe

What makes you uncomfortable?

Resiliency is a skill that can be developed through practice. The first step is choosing to practice. 

What makes you uncomfortable? The answer to that question will help determine where to start.

I hate asking people to make special accommodations for me: I always feel I am inconveniencing the other person (I rarely am), or that I am being a very annoying customer (if they think so, that’s their choice). So when my wife and I started to drastically reduce our waste production, I was uncomfortable with some of the suggestions she made. 

A story…

My favorite example took place at our local Mexican restaurant: they have delicious salsa that we would buy in large tubs to take home and use during the week. These tubs were made of styrofoam and had plastic lids. My wife suggested that I take one of our many empty glass jars and ask for salsa to be placed inside. I was so reluctant, so uncomfortably scared to simply ask. It felt dangerous, even though the worst thing that could happen was to receive no as an answer. No danger at all, but my mind made it feel dangerous.

After numerous arguments (I was scared, remember?), I grudgingly went to the restaurant and made the request. The host looked at me curiously, but he acquiesced and placed the salsa in our jar. He even went a step further and informed me that there were no preservatives in the salsa; it would only keep for a week or so. A wave of relief washed over me. 

But wait! 

The next week, when I went back for more salsa, there was a sign on the front counter. 

“$2.99 jars of salsa to go. Bring the jar back for a $0.99 refill.”

The host, who was also the manager, bought a stock of small glass jars and decided to sell them. He was actively encouraging people to reuse the jars while also proactively choosing to reduce the waste his restaurant produced. 

By choosing (i.e. being forced by my incredible wife) to do something that made me uncomfortable, my wife and I achieved one of our small waste reduction goals. But the most inspiring thing was the change it created in someone else. 

Seek out discomfort in all areas of your life. It makes you stronger mentally. Discomfort in the gym makes you stronger physically. 

Other people avoid discomfort, which means you will be doing things others won’t. The intersection of discomfort and action creates change the world desperately needs. 

Change makes things better. Seeking out discomfort makes things better. 

What makes you uncomfortable?

Go do that.

by Nathan Coumbe

Proactivity and resilience go hand in hand

Resilience is the ability to rebound from challenges, setbacks, and crises. When something happens, a resilient person is seemingly less affected by the event than a non-resilient person (not true). 

Is someone born resilient? Doubtful. 

Resiliency is a skill; it can be practiced and improved. It can be practiced by consciously choosing how to respond to a challenge, setback, or crisis. The effects of the event may indeed be negative: they might be seriously damaging to mind, body, or spirit. But that most fundamental human right, that of proactivity and the ability to choose, cannot be taken away by a negative event. 

Resiliency, therefore, is practicing proactive responses in the face of negative events. It can mitigate the long-term effects of a difficult situation.

Is it easy? Of course not.

Is it necessary? More than ever. It will make you stronger.

Choose how you respond; become more resilient.

by Nathan Coumbe

Your lens determines your reality

Imagine you are looking through a telescope. Is what you are seeing actually how the world looks?

What if the lens had a crack in it? The image is now distorted, but is reality actually cracked? Of course not.

Imagine a friend is looking through another telescope, and you are are both looking at the same thing. What if her lens had a higher zoom or some filter on it which changed the color? Or perhaps your friend has a degenerative eye disorder which makes it difficult to see. 

Would the two of you disagree on what you were seeing? 

Yet we do it every single day.

Each of us walks around using different lenses to see the world. Two perfectly rational people can look at the same issue and have completely different opinions about the “reality” of the issue. Stephen Covey would call these lenses paradigms — different ways of seeing the world. 

Why does this matter?

We can only become truly effective when we realize that our ideas and opinions are not the only ways, the correct ways, to see the world. Seth Godin talks about each person having her own unique noise in her head. What she wants is different from what you want, at least in some minuscule way. Sometimes that way is vastly different from yours. 

If, for example, you wanted to sell something to someone – an idea, a widget, or a plan – you would need to talk about it from the other person’s point of view. That person doesn’t care how you feel about it; they only want to know what it will do for them. We are selfish that way.

Be proactive when speaking with someone: consciously try to see the world through her lens.

Imagine a world where each person sought to understand the other person before arguing.