Jon Acuff's Blog, page 36

2 ways to love your job more in 30 seconds.

I don’t finish books. This is a shame, given my chosen profession of writing books, but there it is.

My shelves are piled high with books I’ve read thirty pages of. Even great books tend to die an early death in the face of the busyness of life. I’d love to think you’ll finish this blog post, but there’s a whole world of awesome things to do, like kite surfing, so let’s not waste any time.

There are two walls that stand between you and doing something you love with your life. The first wall is called attitude and the second is called expectations.

If you want to have a better job today, deal with both of those walls.

I can’t teach you a new skill in the next thirty seconds that your boss will be blown away by. I can’t change your character in the next paragraph. One post of words will not deeply impact your hustle on your dream or fix all your relationships, but if you want to have a better job right this second, that’s possible. All you have to do is choose your attitude and adjust your expectations.

Notice I didn’t say, “Change your attitude.” That could take years. Choosing it, though, takes a handful of seconds. Monday at work, choose to have a good attitude. Choose not to be cynical. Choose not to act like you’re doing them a favor by showing up. Choose not to complain. Choose to cheer for the accomplishments of your coworkers. Choose to treat customers like superstars.

Choose your attitude every day until eventually it chooses you right back.

Choose your attitude every day until eventually it chooses you right back.
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It’s not about feeling happy or feeling committed to your work or feeling like being a good employee. Feelings are the flightiest things in the world, held to the whimsy of a thousand factors. Feelings will tell you the day is already ruined because you woke up on the wrong side of the bed or had a bad commute that morning. Don’t listen to feelings. Make choices. Today, choose a good attitude. This is the one thing you can do right this minute to actually shock your boss, improve your work relationships and dramatically increase your long-term odds of an awesome career.

The second thing you need to do is to adjust your expectations. What are you expecting your job to do for you? We all carry laundry lists of secret expectations, and when our jobs fail to meet them we fail to enjoy our work.

Do you expect your job to fulfill every creative wish you have? Do you expect work to bend around your dreams and hopes? Do you expect that this will be the last job you have, since changing jobs is such a hassle?

Take three minutes and write down what your expectations are for work. And then, take another three minutes and write down the real ones because you probably just lied to yourself a little bit.

Tom Magliozzi, the late cohost of NPR’s Car Talk show, theorizes that “Happiness Equals Reality Minus Expectations,” but I disagree. If you pull the thread of that thought, what it’s saying is that “The way to be happy is to not have expectations,” but that’s ridiculous. To have an expectation is to have a hope. To have a dream. To have a desire about something you want to happen. Surely, deadening our ability to hope is not the solution to our frustration at work. The trick is not to eliminate your expectations; the trick is to adjust them.

Write them down and then find the right home for them. You may very well have some expectations that belong at your job. You may also have a lot of expectations that belong somewhere else. Like a side job or a hobby or a different job all together. I’ve always wanted to write books of poetry. Was that the right expectation to place on my last boss, Dave Ramsey, a by-the-numbers financial guru? Probably not, but I still mistakenly did it.

When your attitude or expectations get out of whack you create a vicious cycle that cripples most Do Over moments. Your unspoken, unmet expectations give you a bad attitude. Your bad attitude makes you even more unreasonable in demanding that your job meets your expectations. You do enough laps around this circle and work becomes more miserable.

Want a better job right this second? Choose your attitude and adjust your expectations.

Want to take the next step to loving your work? Read my book Do Over. It’s the best $11 investment you’ll ever make in your 40 year career. Buy a copy today.

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The lesson I learned in the shower.

Recently, I noticed that Jenny purchased a body wash called “Hustle.” I laughed when I saw it because I’ve made a habit of overusing that word.

I stopped laughing though when I saw the yellow callout on the bottle.

“Compare to Old Spice Swagger Body Wash.”

They clearly meant you were supposed to compare the products. They expected you to to analyze the texture, cleanliness and ability of each body wash to make you smell like an 8th grade boy who has run out of Axe Body Spray. In that respect, I assume they are equal.

But what happens when you compare Hustle to Swagger?

Those words are often thrown around together by fake entrepreneurs who love posting watches and yachts they don’t own on Instagram with terrible motivational statements.

Are they really the same? Here’s what I think.

Hustle is quiet.

Swagger is loud.

Hustle is humble.

Swagger is proud.

Hustle believes in work.

Swagger believes in words.

Hustle believes in work. Swagger believes in words.
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Hustles lives in the future.

Swagger lives in the past.

Hustle competes against itself.

Swagger compares itself to others.

Hustle knows rest is part of creativity.

Swagger thinks rest is for the weak.

Hustle thrives on intention.

Swagger thrives on attention.

Hustle asks strangers for friendship.

Swagger asks strangers for favors.

Hustle is vulnerable enough to hope.

Swagger is too cool to care.

Hustle knows when it’s enough.

Swagger doesn’t even believe in that word.

I could go on and on, but we’ve both got things we need to hustle on today.

Hustle is not the same thing as swagger. Not even close.

Want to learn how to hustle? Read pages 207-262 in my book Do Over.

Don’t have it yet? Let’s fix that today.

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Bon Jovi was wrong and you probably are, too.

Last week, I asked this simple question on Twitter:

The results were staggering, but not surprising.

We tend to over edit ourselves during the creative process and it’s a colossal mistake. Why?

Because you’re usually the worst judge of things you create.

No one really knows perfectly if what they’ve made is good or not. We’re too close to the project to see it for what it is.

Take Jon Bon Jovi for example.

He didn’t want to put the song “Living on a Prayer” on their album. He didn’t think it was good.

Richie Sambora, his guitar player, convinced him to do it and it ended up being their most popular song of all time.

There are two takeaways from this:

Don’t self edit so harshly, especially during the early stages of a project.
Get you a Richie Sambora. You need someone who can tell you the truth.

You kill good ideas when you expect them to be great too soon.

You kill good ideas when you expect them to be great too soon.
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And once they’re done, you can’t see them for what they really are and need community to tell you.

If you remember that, you’re halfway there …

P.S. I wrote a book about being awesome at what you do. You should read it.

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The one tool I use everyday.

How have I written 6 books in the last 7 years? (New one comes out this fall!)

Being really tall helps, but more than my amazing height, becoming productive has been a process of learning how to use a few simple tools.

I use Evernote to capture my ideas.

I use a stopwatch app to focus on one thing for 60-120 minutes.

I use a big notepad on a stand to plot out ideas without being chained to my desk.

I use a variety of tools to knock out my day, but the one I use the most is my calendar.

About six years ago I got tired of my years just sort of happening to me. Without a plan, the weeks would just march by one by one without anything really changing. I felt stuck.

During that season, I heard that a young entrepreneur I knew who had started a calendar company. Unlike other calendars, this one was massive. It’s 25″ x 36″ which means I’d have three feet to work out my days. It was beautifully designed. And it was available in both paper and dry erase.

I personally used that calendar for years and years. I recommended it to so many people that eventually it just made sense to partner with my friend and design my own.

We only print 1,000 each year and we’re almost sold out.

Best of all, you can save 20% today. Just enter code “DoOver” at check out.

If you’re ready for a big year, get a big calendar.

Click here to order.

Awesome years don’t happen by accident.
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I need your help today for a hilarious reason.

A week ago, I announced I was holding a meme contest for the paperback launch of Do Over. (You can buy a copy right here.)

The two winners would receive an awesome stack of books from Penguin.

I thought I’d get a few entries and then ask you to vote on the three best.

That was a dumb expectation.

You sent in hundreds of entries. There are so many amazing Do Over memes that we had to create a quick survey to tally the results.

That’s where you come in.

Will you please take a few minutes and vote on your favorite meme? The survey will be open for 48 hours. (It closes Saturday morning at 10AM Central.)

Here’s the link.

If you made one of these memes, tell your friends to vote for you!

Are you ready for some hilarious memes?

Click here!

One meme to rule them all. (Vote for the best meme today!)
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You’ve only got 14 hours left.

Have you ever dreaded Sunday night because it reminded you that Monday morning was coming?

Have you ever looked at the clock expecting it to be noon and it’s only 10AM because your work day is dragging?

Have you ever felt like one week of vacation wasn’t enough because it took you that long to even shake off work?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, it’s time to read Do Over.

And not someday, today.

Why?

Because I made a 7 part video series you get for free if you order before midnight.

Best of all, it’s only $11 right now.

Enjoying your job is worth $11. (Probably even $15, but let’s not get carried away.)

The free 7 part video series disappears in a few hours.

Don’t miss it and don’t spend another week dreading work.

Order Do Over today and then fill out this form for your free videos.

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Win a free library from Penguin Books!

Win a free library from Penguin Books!

One of my goals in life is to have a home library so big that I need one of those rolling ladders to get around.

Will I sing from the top? We’ll see. I’m not ruling anything out.

If you like books too, I’ve got some exciting news.

I want to help start your library by giving you 11 different books from Penguin, my publisher!

I handpicked books from their insane collection and will be picking two winners next Tuesday. How do you win?

Create the best meme about the Do Over paperback.

(Google “meme” if you don’t know what that is or ask the person closest to you who has their nose pierced.)

I want to see hilarious memes that capture the best of Do Over and the best of pop culture.

Here are two examples:

Please note in the first one, that it wasn’t directly about Do Over but was more about hating your job. That works, too.

The book is about rescuing Monday so if your meme doesn’t specifically mention Do Over, but instead focuses on a career situation, that’s cool too. You can also place Do Over in a popular scene from a movie or TV show. Last year, someone used Do Over as the boombox John Cusack was raising in Say Anything for example. (You can buy a copy of the book right here!)

What books will two lucky winners win? These:

I’m running the contest myself and feel like 7 days is plenty of time to enter.

You can enter as often as you like.

How do you enter? Do two things:

1. Post your meme on social media and tag me so I see it. (I’m @JonAcuff on Twitter and Instagram.)

2. Email it to Ashley at Acuff.me

On Tuesday, January 17th, I’ll post the three best on my Facebook and let you pick the winner.

Ready to meme?

Or do you feel like “ain’t nobody got time for that?”

Up to you really.

Here’s to Do Over moments. Here’s to libraries. Here’s to doing something funny with a photo of Kermit the Frog.

Make memes. Win books. (I like all of those words.) See how here:
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The tweet I want you to send me next year.

I have some good news and some bad news.

The bad news is that people who tell you “a job is just a job” are lying to you. Working for the weekend and living for vacation are terrible ways to go through life. Screw TGIF. (The lifestyle, not the restaurant. I am no enemy of mozzarella sticks.)

The reality is, your job is more than just your job. It’s how you are going to spend 40-60 hours every week for 40-60 years.

Hooray for positive, encouraging openings to blog posts!

But wait, there’s good news.

The good news is you can enjoy your job. You can have fun at work. You can find purpose and passion and change the world.

The secret is simple, “Find something you love so much you’d do it for free and then get so good at it that people pay you a lot to do it.”

That’s all you have to do and if you’ll dare try, you’ll send me a tweet like the one I got last week.

Do you know what I love about that? We’re not seeing the shiny “after” or the final product. We’re seeing the glimmer.

I love the glimmer.

The glimmer is that quiet question you hear late at night that says, “What if?” The glimmer is that fragment of a thought from the third grade you who still believes there’s more to life. The glimmer is possibility and potential.

Do you know why most people are on their phones so much? They’re afraid of the glimmer.

If you can distract yourself with your phone, you don’t have to admit that last year you said next year and nothing actually changed. If you can watch enough TV or make your life loud enough the still voice of hope can’t challenge you.

This is why at red lights we grab for our phones so desperately.

Are you done running?

Are you ready to dream again and dare again and try again?

I am.

The paperback version of my latest New York Times Bestseller Do Over comes out today.

I think it will help you so much I even put together a free 7-part video series for everyone who buys a copy before January 13. (After you buy the paperback, click here to get the video series!)

The only people who should read it are people who will have a job the next 40 years.

If that’s not you, carry on about your day.

But, if you’re ready to admit the glimmer, if you’re ready to make more money at work and have more fun, I’ve got something you need to read.

It’s called Do Over.

And it’s time to start yours today.

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Please don’t send me this email next week

The 30 Days of Hustle and the 90 Days of Business Hustle close tonight.

I’m reminding you of this because last year we had so many people email us after the January 2016 course had closed that we launched another round the following month.

This year we won’t be doing that. In fact, both of these courses will be closed until at least May 2017.

This is it, today’s the last day as they both close at midnight PT tonight.

For business-related goals, join the 90 Days of Business Hustle at one of three levels: Content, Community or Coaching.

For all other goals, join the 30 Days of Hustle at one of three levels: Quick, Premier, or All Access.

You’ve got nothing to lose because both courses come with a 30-day money back guarantee. I know you’re going to love them.

Hope to see you on the inside!

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3 simple questions that reveal your big goals.

When it comes to goals, people only have two amounts:

1. None at all.

2. Too many.

People will tell me, “I just don’t know what I want to do with my life. I don’t have one perfect passion like other people.” They have 0 goals and January, the greatest goal setting month of the year, comes and goes with a whimper.

The second type of people have too many goals. They have 1,000 things they want to do. They have half written books and almost cleaned garages and diets that were half started scattered about every corner of their lives.

The good news is that figuring out a goal for 2017 is not that complicated.

On the piece of paper, I just want you to answer three questions:

1. What do I need to do?

2. What do I want to do?

3. What should I do?

What will go in each category? Well, a need goal is something you have to do or you will be fired. Or divorced or die. For instance, if you’re in the middle of budgeting season at work, you might not want to do your budget for next year, but if you don’t, your employment will come to a very unsurprising conclusion. That’s a need goal.

If your wife has asked you to go to counseling, that’s a need goal. You might not feel like doing all the things that it would take to do that particularly activity, finding a good therapist, checking if your insurance will cover it, being honest to a complete stranger with a beard who is asking you questions while the white noise of a sound machine tries to lull you into vulnerability, etc. but you need to if you want to repair a broken marriage.

If your doctor told you that at 42, you’ve already consumed the amount of bacon an 88-year-old would consume, you probably need to exercise. You may never be one of those smiling psycho paths you see on Instagram who love 4AM work outs and see nipple chafing from a half marathon as a badge of honor, but that’s not really the point. The point is that if you don’t exercise you’re going to die. You need to do it.

Start writing down need goals without judging the quality of them at all yet. We’re not trying to create a perfect list or even a complete list at this point. We’re creating our first list.

Question 2 asks, “What do I want to do?”

This one is tricky becomes it borders on the quicksand like nature of passion, calling, and purpose. I think all of those are great things, I just think when we try to answer those questions sometimes we get stuck and never do anything.

So don’t read “What do I want to do?” as “What’s one thing I want to do?” Or “What’s the most important thing I want to do?” Or “What’s the dream I’ve had since first grade, the one my dying grandmother wrote on a piece of paper and stuffed into my hand on her deathbed, begging me to fulfill as my destiny under the coyote moon some day?”

When I asked this question one December, here are some answers I had:

1. I want to run the Nashville Half Marathon in under 2 hours.

2. I want to make a certain amount of money next year.

3. I want to take 6 weeks of vacation.

4. I want to sleep 7.5 hours each night.

Those are four things I wanted to do, but I didn’t need to do them. If I ran the Nashville Half Marathon in 2 hours and 10 minutes, nothing bad would happen. If I didn’t even run it at all, my life wouldn’t be dramatically impacted. If I only took 5 weeks of vacation that year, I’d still have a pretty good year.

Those are want goals. You might have had them for years or maybe only minutes, but what’s something you want to do?

If you have a hard time coming up with some, try using a time frame to make it easier. What’s something you want to finish this year? This month? If that doesn’t work, reframe the question with the future in mind. That’s how we handle our neighborhood pool.

Our reputation as a family is that we pool hard. If our neighborhood pool is open, you can find us there. Why? Because our house is small. It’s old. None of the kitchen cabinets close. They’re like relaxed fit jeans or sweatpants. They just kind of pucker open, which is convenient in a way because you can see what’s inside them from across the room by looking through the two-inch open gap.

Our friends have nicer houses. I get jealous when I visit them and they have those drawers that close themselves. Have you experienced those? As you slide the drawer shut, it’s like the cabinetry says to you, “I’ll close this last inch for you. You’re busy. I’ve got this for you!” But the downside of our house is balanced out by the upside of our delightful neighborhood pool, unless we don’t go ever.

So on the 17th day in a row in a July when we are tired of dragging that cooler down the stairs one more time and sick of putting sunscreen on our kids, why do we still attend? Because we know that in October we will wish we had. When the pool is closed and the days are dark and the house feels small or as people who don’t live in it tell us, “Charming,” we’ll ask ourselves, “Why do we live in this stupid house? Oh yeah, the pool. I’m glad we went so many times last summer!”

It’s a simple forecasting trick. In July, we ask, “What do we want to be true in October?” And when we have an answer we change the way we behave in July.

So, if you still don’t have something you want to do, ask yourself that question.

What do I want to be true a month from now?

What do I want to be true a week from now?

If that still turns up zero results, ask a friend for help. Ask a coworker or a boss, I guarantee they will have an answer for you. Say, “I’ve been reading this blog by this really tall, really, ‘commanding’ is the word I think I’m looking for author and he says that the future belongs to people who do things. I want to be one of those people. Can you think of something in my life that I could do? Is there a goal I’m missing?”

They’ll have a few ideas, I promise.

If they say, “No, you’re already perfect, but when you smile at the ground it ain’t hard to tell, you don’t know you’re beautiful.” it’s probably time to find new friends.

Also, be careful that you don’t edit your wants right now. It’s tempting to judge them as not good enough or noble enough. Don’t worry that they’re too vain or should be more impressive or aren’t big enough. Fear loves to tell you that you’re being selfish as a way to prevent you from even going through this exercise.

The third question we need to answer is “What should you do?”

A should goal is something you should do if you were a better person. If you were a better mom, you should spend more time with your kids. If you were a better husband, you should not have an epic fight while putting up the Christmas tree. It always looks so peaceful on Facebook, people are hanging popcorn strings and twinkly lights while making out. But then you set up your tree and it’s always a lot more yelly in reality. You should not have that argument.

This question is a little tricky because at first glance it’s not a particularly fun activity. You’re trying to call out these slippery, shame filled ideas out of the shadows. But remember, the goal of this entire exercise is to reduce the number of things you’re trying to do and nothing clogs your ability to hustle like a whole bunch of unidentified should.

The dangerous thing with should is that it will talk you into doing things you really don’t want or need to do. I see this happen in offices when someone thinks at their age they should have a better job or should be making more money. A really talented graphic designer, who loves creating projects will think they should be a manager. They’ll get promoted to creative director because they should progress up the corporate ladder. But months if not weeks in, they’ll realize that managing designers is a lot different than being a designer. They no longer get to do their favorite thing which was designing projects and they might not have the skillset to manage in the first place. They can become bitter micromanagers, desperate to get their hands dirty with design again but afraid there’s no easy path to climb down a ladder without looking lazy or afraid or dumb.

College students pick majors they think they should have as well.

The trick is that I don’t want you to spend a lot of time on this particular question. Write down a few, but know that want and need are a lot more important. If anything, I just want you to get the should goals out of the way.

Three questions, limitless potential.

What do you do next once you have a list of goals?

It depends.

There are three popular options:

1. Do nothing.

2. Try what you always try.

3. Hustle.

If you’ve followed me on any social media for longer than 14 seconds, you know I love queso and I hate options 1 and 2.

I’m a fan of the third option.

Why? Because I’ve seen 5,000 people accomplish amazing things when they hustle.

I’ve seen stay at home moms start big businesses.

I’ve seen people lose weight.

I’ve seen authors finish books.

I’ve seen houses get decluttered.

I’ve seen thousands and thousands of lives change for the better.

We’re on the edge of a new year and I have two options for you:

1. If your goal is business related, take the 90 Days of Business Hustle Course.

2. If your goal is anything else, take the 30 Days of Hustle Course.

The video content is completely different for each course, but the results will be similar.

You will do more than you did in 2016.

You will look back next December and be amazed at what you got done.

You will make more money, write more pages, lose more weight or a million other things.

But only, if you sign up in the next 36 hours.

I’m going to shut both courses down at midnight on Thursday. They’ll be closed for a few months and probably only available twice in 2017.

Most people won’t change anything next year. Don’t be most people.

Most people won’t change anything next year. Don’t be most people.
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Swim upstream.

Make big goals. Live big dreams.

Hustle.

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