Scott Perry's Blog, page 55
March 14, 2019
But Will Your Endeavor Take Off?
Ultimately, it is impossible to know if an endeavor will succeed. What does “success” even look like? Too often success is confused with popularity and profits.
What if you measured success by the well-being it generates for yourself and others? What if success is doing well enough today so that you can get up and do it again tomorrow?
Take care of the important things, like maintaining your integrity and stepping forward with intention. The less important things, like how much recognition and reward you receive, will take care of themselves.
One thing is assured. If you never start your endeavor, you’ll never know if it has legs. Traction requires movement. If you don’t build it, they certainly won’t come.
And what if your endeavor fails? Everything you do rubs up against the possibility that it might not work. It’s very likely that your effort won’t unfold as planned. But that’s precisely how integrity and intention are tested and made more resilient.
There are lessons to be learned from any outcome. There’s also the opportunity to practice the virtues of patience, humility, and acceptance. Any result can be leveraged to build character, courage, and will.
Until you start, you are hiding. Which posture, starting or hiding, comes with the greatest possibility of regret?
The only way to make progress with your endeavor is to lean in and do the work.
Keep flying higher!
Scott
This is an excerpt from my best-selling Amazon title, Endeavor: Cultivate Excellence While Making a Difference.
March 11, 2019
Find Your Rhythm
What defines some sound as "music?" It's organization and intent. Music is sound meant to communicate and connect and rhythm is the organizing element of that sound. Music is done out loud, with and for others, and it has a beat.
With music, as it is in any meaningful endeavor, timing really is everything!
Rhythm comes from the ancient Greek word ῥυθμός, rhythmos, and defined as "regular recurring motion, symmetry." Repetition and balance help your endeavor, musical or otherwise, establish patterns worth recognizing and remembering. Rhythm also encourages movement, forward motion, and a sense of progression.
It's also important to establish frequency (how often), and period (how long). Frequency and period determine if what you're sharing is a riff, a movement, or a complete symphony.
Intentionally establishing a steady beat (the "pulse" your audience taps their foot to), and the tempo (the pace or speed of that movement), is essential. It can also help to vary or syncopate (intentionally inserting "the unexpected" or unanticipated), the timing. This encourages your audience to "lean in" or "wake up" and pay closer attention.
In music and other meaningful exchanges rhythm has a huge impact on "what happens next." It inspires and informs "the dance."
Does your rhythm of your work swing, shuffle, or march? Is it suited for the ballroom, the bar room, or the mosh pit? Finding your rhythm is essential for flying higher in your venture!
Scott
March 4, 2019
Devotion
What does it mean to be devoted?
We don't talk much about devotion these days. Why have we lost touch with the idea that we can be enthusiastically loyal and true to an idea, or cause, or another person? What's wrong with observing and honoring the goodness, worth, and even sanctity of something or someone beyond ourselves?
We live in an age of limitless information, opportunities, and distractions. Maybe that makes it harder for us to pick and stick with a single plan, purpose, or person? Perhaps all this choice has made us self-absorbed? Have we become thoughtless, selfish and unwilling to commit?
I don't think so.
Whatever the reason is for our lack of devotion, we possess the capacity and opportunity right now to make a different choice. We can, with intention and integrity, go "all in" with something or someone worthy of our devotion.
Realizing our potential as thoughtful, generous, and compassionate human beings requires devotion. Only the devoted can fully deliver on their promise and bring out the same in others.
What are you devoted to? Who are you devoted to? Why? When will you commit?
Why not right now?
Keep flying higher!
Scott
February 25, 2019
Why Testify?
The significance of what it means to testify goes beyond the context in which the term is often heard today. There's more power in the act of testifying than what it means in the legal or even religious sense.
The root of "testify" means "witness." Bearing witness in a legal or religious context is important, but on a deeper level, a human level, testifying is truly profound. Standing up to be seen and speaking up to be heard is a courageous act.
To testify is also the generous act of sharing your truth. You assert based on your personal experience and observation. But it speaks to a universal concern or endeavor. Most important, to testify is to commit to action based on your belief.
"This is what I see. This is what I think. This is what I'm doing."
Bearing witness creates tension. Those beholding your testimony must decide what they do next. Testimony invites collaboration and the opportunity to build trust and forward motion. It also invites rejection and a moment for building resilience and resolve.
Either result is a revelation that you can leverage in your decision for what you do next.
Are you ready to testify?
Let's keep flying higher together!
Scott
February 20, 2019
What Is an Endeavor?
It's more than a hobby, but not necessarily your job or role. It’s a vocation found at the intersection of who you are, what you're good at, and where you belong. An endeavor is work that you are meant to do now.
An endeavor cultivates gratitude because you don’t have to do it, you get to do it. It also generates appreciation in others because it is a gift generously shared with those who need it.
Endeavors shun the status quo. These efforts intend to transform. Endeavors strive to help people get from where they are to where they want to be.
Endeavors cultivate fulfillment and well-being. They align who you are, what you do, and where you belong. These enterprises encourage a sense of passion and purpose. Endeavors inform a healthy perspective about your status and level of prosperity.
You might luck out and “wander” into a vocation, but a thoughtful approach gives you better odds of developing and delivering work that is significant and satisfying.
Here’s a Venn diagram of how you can identify your next endeavor.
This book shares an approach to identify, develop, and deliver work that makes a difference. It’s not a checklist, nor a step-by-step system. It’s a set of concepts and practices developed through my journey as a husband, father, teacher, and musician that helps me thrive every day.
The approach laid out here is also honed through my coaching practice and the work I do as a coach in online programs created by Seth Godin. Everything shared here has helped countless others experience a greater sense of well-being and fulfillment while navigating a challenging journey into what’s next.
Keep Flying Higher!
Scott
This is an excerpt from my best-selling Amazon title, Endeavor: Cultivate Excellence While Making a Difference.
February 18, 2019
The Power of Affiliation
Affiliation strikes fear into the hearts of those invested in the status quo.
The status quo favors the exclusive club at the top. They stay there through control and domination. For those winning the status quo game, confidence, certainty, and even arrogance and sociopathy are rewarded. Curiosity, courage, and creativity are discouraged. Those that don't take a hint are punished. The status quo amplifies our differences and fears to keep us humble, hiding, and alone.
How do those that recognize the selfishness and self-indulgence of the status quo make things better? How do we break the status quo and build something better? Something that cultivates compassion shares the abundance available?
Affiliation.
When the humanitarian, generous, and active gather, the door to possibility is cracked open. When the affiliated leverage the very impulses the status quo fears, curiosity, courage, and creativity, there's an opportunity to break the status quo and build something better. Something that serves more and shuns fewer.
Complaining about how things are won't change a thing. Community and a cause can. Are you looking for "the others?" "People like us who do things like this?" We're here and we're waiting for you to join, and even lead us to a better "what's next."
Affiliation and action lead to trust and forward motion. Let's gather and let's go!
Keep flying higher!
Scott
The Hive is a free Creative On Purpose Community of fellow travelers dedicated to helping each other fly higher in endeavors that make a difference. We'd love for you to join us!
"The Hard Part" - Getting Beyond Unhealthy and Unhelpful Beliefs
Why do we cling to beliefs that hurt our sense of wellbeing and impede our happiness? Why do we believe in things that don't stand up to scrutiny or science? Why is the change we know is good for us so hard to make?
We're born with the capacity for reason, why do we use that power to rationalize beliefs that cause us harm? Why can't we think things through and "see the light?"
The fact is, you can't think your way out of unhealthy or unhelpful beliefs because those beliefs don't "live" in your thinking brain. They reside in the darker regions of your reptile brain. That brain is only programmed for fight or flight and procreation.
"The hard part" about changing pernicious and persistent delusions is that you can't think them through, because the place where those beliefs live only reacts. Like our beliefs, most of our behavior is driven by the unconscious.
Here's what we know, behavior informs and inspires beliefs, not the other way around. Before you change your mind, you must first change your behavior.
But I just told you most of our behavior is unconscious? That's true, most behavior is unconscious most of the time. But right now, in this moment, is an opportunity to recognize that, yes things are as they are, but not as they must be. You can aspire to change and then step into that possibility by taking a new approach.
Your posture "telegraphs" your mindset.
Want a new mindset? Adopt a new posture and practice it. Before you became confident at or about anything, you became curious about it and then screwed up the courage to try. You acted "as if" the outcome was inevitable. And with surprising swiftness, you learned it was.
This is how you learned to talk, walk, read, and write. You can apply the same process to improve your belief system.
All you need to do is first imagine a better way and then try, and try again.
Keep flying higher!
Scott
February 11, 2019
Teach to Learn
Teaching is what I was born for. Some of my earliest childhood memories are about sharing what I just learned with others.
What I've learned is that teaching serves the teacher as much as the student. It reveals what you truly understand and what you don't. This allows you to leverage your strengths while you develop your weaknesses.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself to become a better teacher, and therefore, a better learner.
What have I learned or discovered?
Will it serve others as well?
How can I frame what I learned so others can learn it more easily than I did?
How can I share that frame in a way that encourages others to share it as well?
Teaching creates tension and leverages status. Good teachers do so ethically and with empathy. You simultaneously reveal incompetence while holding out the promise of competence in an endeavor that matters. Good teachers beget good teachers. They elevate and enhance the community.
Teachers make a difference. They change and improve the status quo. Teaching is a generous, compassionate, and courageous activity.
Want to be a better learner? Become a better teacher!
Keep flying higher!
Scott
February 4, 2019
"The Process" - How to Get Work Worth Doing Done
What is productivity, really?
It’s not just “getting things done.” Everyone gets all sorts of things done daily. After a day of doing things, most are exhausted, But some get remarkable work done every day and appear energized by the effort. Wouldn’t you like to be one of those people? I decided that I did.
Since graduating from Seth Godin’s altMBA program two years ago, I built a brand, Creative On Purpose, and developed a successful and self-sustaining coaching program, membership site, speaking and workshop career, released two best-selling books on Amazon, and published over 100 blog posts and broadcasts.
And I’m just getting started.
My family, friends, fans, and followers frequently refer to me as “a shipping machine” and ask, “How do you do it?”
I developes something I call “The Process.” It involves these five steps: Vision, Mission, Goal, Strategy, and Tactics.
These are terms you might use all the time. I find that they are often confused or conflated.
The idea is to work from “the big picture” all the way down to “the very next step” with absolute clarity. Work worth doing is done with integrity and intention for the greater good. If your work enhances the lives of others, you too are served.
Here’s a thumbnail description of each step:
Vision - the world you wish to live in and work toward.
Mission - the unique way you’re positioned to help fulfill your Vision.
Goal - the next project you’re working on that fulfills your Mission.
Strategy - the means or plan to achieve that Goal.
Tactics - the smallest viable steps to try and test for executing your Strategy.
I created a free 18-page handbook that unpacks "The Process" further. if you're ready to get more work worth doing done, I hope you'll check it out.
If you like what you read, why not share it with a friend or three?
Keep flying higher!
Scott
February 3, 2019
"Productful"
My wife and I homeschooled our sons. We invested much of that time in cultivating a love for storytelling. The boys were not only avid readers but also developed a love for crafting tales in various ways.
They also had a knack for “inventing” words to “better” describe things that existing words just didn’t adequately capture. For instance, Spencer, our oldest son’s favorite thing to do was “celegrate.” Spencer wasn’t just “grateful to celebrate” birthdays and holidays. He “celegrated” everything from peanut butter sandwiches and naptime to family gatherings and outings.
When I asked our youngest, Emerson, how his day was, his response was, “productful.” With Emerson, “fulfilling productivity” rarely included his math and Spanish homework. More often it was all the “treasure” he collected and “forts” he built on his rambling adventures around our thirty-eight-acre farm after school with our border collies Jack and Flop.
The boys are grown and gone, but “celegrate” and “productful” are words still actively used by all of us. They inform and inspire every endeavor that I apply myself to and encourage my flourishing and prospering every step of the way. I wish the very same for you.
What step can you take right now to make progress toward the world in which you want your loved ones and planetary “neighbors” to live? What habits and actions can you build today to be more “productful” and “celegrate” every challenge opportunity and success?
This is the final chapter of a free 20-page handbook called The Process: How to Get Work Worth Doing Done. To download your copy, click here.
Keep flying higher.
Scott
