Jeff Goins's Blog, page 41

The ADHD Guide to Building a Writing Habit

Those of us with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder have a bit of difficulty when it comes to sitting down to write. We read the articles on finding our voice, but the act of writing, the actual moving of our fingers across a keyboard or our pen across the page, can seem impossible.

We get distracted. We get discouraged. We self-sabotage. At the end of the day the screen is a blank page, the pencils haven’t been touched and we wonder how to just get the words on the page like everyone else does.

This article will show you how to finally get past the resistance that our ADHD puts up and actually use it to get a writing habit locked in.

Take out the trash

First, let’s start with a clean slate when it comes to our writing or lack thereof. Sure, you can say, “Why did I waste all the time sorting my socks when I could have written the next great spy thriller?” Let’s just move past that. Shake the Etch-a-Sketch. Hit reset. We are starting over today. We aren’t going to swim in a sea of regret about what we did or didn’t do. Today you’re a writer.

Identify the fear

Our ADHD will kick into hyperdrive at times when we try something new. Sure, we are impulsive. We go to Target for four things and come back with twenty. But when it comes to the act of writing we start feeling this clutch of fear. What if everyone hates it? What if it’s not original? What if … what if …what if… Our ADHD just won’t let it go and once you’re ADHD latches on to something, it’s going to keep playing that tape over and over.

To get that condemning voice out of my head, I simply confront it. What if everyone hates it? Well, I probably learned how to write or how not to write along the way. What if it’s not original? See that mystery section over there? In that mystery section, in nearly every book, someone dies, no one can figure out who did it, then someone figures out who did it and then there’s a big conflict to see if they get caught. So yeah, there’s not much out there that’s original and some of those books sell millions upon millions. Once I answer the fear, it quiets down.

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Kill the distractions

Distractions are the arch-enemy to our writing life. Especially with being ADHD, any shiny objects in our field of vision get us off our writing game. We check Facebook and Twitter and down the terrible rabbit hole we go.

Make a conscious decision to turn off your wifi and power down your phone. Yes, power it down. Unless you are a brain surgeon on call, you’ll be fine for the 1/2 hour or hour that you’re writing. Yes, no one will be able to reach you—and I get that can cause anxiety, but you’ll feel a great increase in your focus. (If someone has to reach you, put your phone on vibrate and turn off the wifi. I’ll actually delete apps that I can get lost in.)

Set up the writing space

Did you ever try to write while lying on your bed? Fell asleep, didn’t you? Did you write in your kitchen? I’m sure you fixed twenty snacks. Our ADHD brains latch on to location to tell us what is going to happen. We sleep in a bed. We eat in a kitchen.

So what I had to do was only write in two places: a desk in my house and a coffee shop. When I sit down in those spaces, my brain will say, “THIS IS WHERE WE WRITE! I KNOW THIS PLACE!” Since I’ve developed the habit of sitting there over and over, my brain resists less and less and I get more and more writing done.

Decide where you are going to write. Make it comfortable (but not too comfortable) and make it your sacred writing space.

Pack Your bag

Your ADHD will not remind you to bring your charger or your pens. It will not remind you to bring that article or your research. There is nothing more frustrating than starting your writing and not having your tools available.

One of my mentors told me to pack a “writing bag.” A writing bag has all of your equipment for writing: computer, charger, pens, paper, notes, research, etc. I also carry an extra external battery for my phone, postcards and stamps. And one of the best moves I made was buying another charger for my computer. One is marked with Sharpie: RYAN—HOME and the other RYAN—BAG. It’s a little extra to have an extra charger, but it’s worth it to not have your computer on 3% just as you are hitting your stride.

Also, you want to pack this bag the night before you write. You are thinking more clearly and you are not rushing out of the door. You are more apt to remember what you need to bring when you’re not itching to get to writing.

Set micro-goals

I coach a lot of beginner writers and they will say, “Well, I’m shooting for 10,000 words this week.” I’ll ask, “Have you ever written 1,000 words in a week?” “Well, no, but I figure I can just sit down and do it.”

Oh, that’s when I LOL and then ROTL.

So adorbs.

If you wanted to run a marathon, you wouldn’t give it a shot the day of the race. You’d train. You’d take small steps to get there and practice a long obedience in the same direction. It’s the same with writing.

I recommend that you sit down and attempt 250 words and sit there for at least an hour. If you get your 250 done and want to go longer, great. If you can’t get 250 words out, but you sit there for an hour, perfect. But you have to complete one or the other: 250 or an hour.

Every day just crank out 250 words. If you can do more, great. If not that’s fine. The following week, add 50 words. Make it 300. Then the following week, 350. You get it. You’ll be making strides quicker than trying to get it all done

Create a reward system

Who doesn’t like a trophy? Am I right?

When you hit a writing goal, whether it is 1,000, 10,000, or 100,000 words, have a reward ready. Maybe go to a movie. Maybe you buy yourself a set of LEGOS or a some books that have been sitting in your Amazon wish list for a long time.

Whatever it is, make sure it’s valuable and a bit healthy (if your reward is three Milky Way bars, that’s not going to be great for anyone.)

Pull the trigger

By developing a habit you won’t have to push yourself to get your writing done. It will start to become a natural part of your day and the actual joy of writing will happen. Your ADHD won’t keep you from writing, in fact, it will encourage it because you’ve removed the obstacles and built in a reward system.

Give it a go. And I’m curious…have you discovered any tricks for overcoming distractions to write? Share them in the comments.

Why You Don’t Need Another Life Hack, Success Formula, or Marketing Tactic

These days, we are inundated with endless offers to hack our lives. We are surrounded by opportunities and strategies to use this “proven tactic” or formula to achieve this result or that. But the problem is tactics and formulas don’t actually get you what you want.

There’s always another trick. Always another strategy. Another event to attend or way to get your work out there. And I think these areas are important, but there are always obstacles standing in the way of your ultimate success. So let’s look at three of the big ones.

Distraction #1: Fame

Let’s be clear: marketing is part of the job. If you’re a writer, creative, or artist, and you think that you can just make stuff and people will care about it, you’re kidding yourself. Or at very least, you’re rolling the dice. As Austin Kleon says: “talking about the work is the work.”

So you can’t completely neglect marketing. It’s a noisy world out there, and it’s a hard sell to get people to notice something new, not to mention getting them to care about someone they’ve never heard of before. You have to earn influence. Nobody is a bigger advocate of this than me.

But there’s a difference between doing your diligence to promote work you believe in and endlessly pursuing more opportunities to be famous. And here’s the thing: there’s always another marketing tactic. So at a certain point, you just have to stop the book signings and tours and online summits and go do your work.

No strategies. No gizmos or gadgets. No upsells, downsells, or whatevers. Just the work. And call me naive but that had better be enough.

Distraction #2: Money

Making money is also a part of the job. But this can be a slippery slope. There’s always more money to make. As Walt Disney once said, “We don’t make movies to make money. We make money to make more movies.”

Use business as a way of doing more of the work that matters to you. Money means capital to invest in your next project. When John Green, one of today’s top-selling authors in the world, made millions of the success of The Fault In Our Stars, he told me this wasn’t a license to stop working for the rest of his life. Rather, what excited him was the opportunity to finally be able to pay for all the creative projects he wasn’t able to afford before then.

Money makes a better means than a master. Don’t get caught up in the endless thrill of adding more zeroes to your paycheck if that’s not what you set out to do (and if it is, that’s okay — just own it).

Distraction #3: Success

Almost all of us, at some level, want more of whatever it is we have. More love. More acceptance. More acknowledgment or affirmation or the ability to take better care of ourselves and our families. These aren’t bad things, necessarily. But they are distractions from the work we originally set out to do.

And so when the next opportunity comes along, it can be hard to turn down… even if we don’t need it. Because you can always be more successful, right? And you wonder: Will this be the last chance to make it? To be part of this group? And if I do decline, will I miss out?

To be certain, at the outset of your career, you may have to take more gigs than you want and say yes more than no. But once the avalanche of opportunity comes, it can be hard to slow down.

At this time, we must remember why we got into this not because we were going to be famous or successful, but because we couldn’t imagine getting to do this all day long. It was the dream. And here we are — writing our books or composing or songs or building our businesses — and it just doesn’t feel good enough.

These are the times when you must stop, remember what success really means to you, and focus on the work at hand.

Focus on the deep work of craft

For me, this means saying no to that webinar or that summit or that thing that would help get my work out to more people, to make more money, and have more impact. All good things. But if you make things, which is what I do, there comes a time when those opportunities stand in the way of your craft.

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And if you neglect your craft, eventually this whole thing falls apart.

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Which is why this year I’m focusing on the theme of not more, but better. “Making magic,” as my friend Sean D’Souza says. Doing it for the love of it. Getting your due reward and not failing to promote stuff you believe in, of course, but also not getting caught up in the insatiable greed of just wanting more for the sake of more.

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So that’s my rant. Make more magic. Focus on your craft. And see these benchmarks of fame, money, and success as the means they are, not the end. And maybe, just maybe, that means you say no to the next big opportunity or the latest marketing strategy.

Just because it works doesn’t mean you have to do it.

How have marketing tactics distracted you from doing the work? How has marketing helped your craft get noticed? Share in the comments.

100: Celebrating a Milestone and Relaunching The Portfolio Life [Podcast]

Living your “dream” doesn’t look the way people think it does. Many people talk about creativity as this mystical thing, but reality is a little less magical and a lot more work.

As someone who makes a living through creative work, people are often surprised to learn that I don’t write all day. In fact, despite publishing three books and over 900 posts on this blog alone, writing is probably the thing I do least each day.

Most professional creatives do more than one thing. They are not a jack of all trades, but rather masters of some. And, as I learned the hard way, there’s plenty of non-creative work that goes into supporting a creative career.

That is the impetus for The Portfolio Life. Everyone I know, regardless of whether their full-time occupation finds them in a cubicle or a coffee shop, does more than one thing.

This week on The Portfolio Life, Andy and I talk about what we like/dislike about the podcast, what we hope to achieve, and honoring the attention of the audience.

Listen in as we discuss candid feedback from listeners like you, the clarified promise of our show, and how we want to get better by going deeper.

Listen to the podcast

To listen to the show, click the player below (If you are reading this via email or RSS, please click here).

Show highlights

In this episode, we discuss:

Getting vulnerable and opening up communication channels
How far we’ve come over two years and 100 episodes
Whether or not the podcast should continue
Why you must serve your audience
Navigating the tension between selling out and starvation
How to have conversations people connect with
Answering the question: What do you do?

Quotes and takeaways

It’s very freeing to discover full-time creatives live more of a portfolio life than we imagine.
Don’t lose your life trying to make a living.
When all you do is talk about what you do instead of actually doing it, you’re no longer an artist.
To pique the interest of others, create something you’d be interested in.
Serve your audience by not delivering any fluffy content.

Resource

The Art of Work
Serial
This American Life
Download the complete transcript here

What is your favorite part of The Portfolio Life? How can we make it better? Share in the comments. Remember, you can’t be too specific.

Nobody’s Heard of You (and That’s a Good Thing): The Advantages of Anonymity

When F. Scott Fitzgerald finished The Great Gatsby and sent it to friends, fellow authors, and critics for feedback, he received one of two responses. Neither was particularly encouraging.

One group said it wasn’t any good. In fact, this was the majority opinion of the work, which didn’t sell that well in Fitzgerald’s lifetime. H.L. Mencken called it “no more than a glorified anecdote” and referred to the author as “this clown.”

A bit more bluntly, Ruth Snyder wrote, “We are quite convinced after reading The Great Gatsby that Mr. Fitzgerald is not one of the great American writers of today.”

The second group, however, was even worse. They liked the book and wondered what Fitzgerald would do next. And that was the problem. After Gatsby, Fitzgerald’s career and life would descend into an abyss from which he would never escape. As a prominent writer of the 1920s who quickly rose to fame and success, making ten times the average income of his peers, he was just as soon forgotten.

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Fitzgerald never really bounced back from that failure. By all accounts, he was a sensitive soul and didn’t cope well with rejection. His personal life fell apart, too, when his wife Zelda who had been cheating on him was admitted to a mental hospital, and he was left to raise their daughter.

In need of money, he moved to Hollywood to write screenplays and struggled with alcoholism until his untimely death at age 44.

No matter how you look at it, it’s a sad story. What I can’t help but wonder is if the pressure to write something even better than Gatsby was one of the causes for Fitzgerald’s short-lived career, and for that matter, his life.

This is a problem we don’t often acknowledge: the trappings of success sometimes hurt more than they help. So why do we still strive for it?

Why being anonymous can be an advantage

Often, I find myself imagining what it would be like to be more successful. I wish more people read my books or that I had begun writing earlier or that I had saved more money. I regret wasting so much time and worry that I’ll never “catch up” — to what, I’m not sure.

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We writers don’t like to admit we think about such things, but many of us do. As an online teacher, I tend to run into people who share similar longings:

“Yeah, I’d love to write, but who would read it?”
“Is it too late for me to start now? If only I would have started earlier…”
“It doesn’t matter how you good I am or how hard I try. Nobody knows who I am.”

​Occasionally, I even regret how I began my writing career and wonder what it would have been like to publish my first book to universal acclaim, as Fitzgerald did. What would it be like to be an early bloomer? Maybe not everything I imagine.

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As it turns out, there are hidden opportunities to the invisibility and irrelevance we all fear. And when you embrace those opportunities, you end up creating better work. We might think of these as “The Advantages of Anonymity.” Here are a few examples:

When you’re anonymous, you can try new things. Fame brings pressure to perform, which can lead to playing it safe and not taking the kind of risks that make for interesting work. But when nobody knows who you are, you can experiment without expectation.
When you’re anonymous, you can fail quietly. This means you can attempt projects that may not work and learn from them without public shaming. You can iterate more easily and less conspicuously.
When you’re anonymous, you can get better faster. Because you’re not worried about what people will think or trying to live up to your last success, you can use all that energy to practice. It’s often easier to grow your craft in the shadows than in the spotlight.

Granted, we all want our work to succeed, but we forget there’s a shadow side to sudden success: it usually doesn’t last. Fast fame is the quickest to fade. And so perhaps, what we should want more than sudden success is the opportunity to create enduring work.

“Fast fame is the quickest to fade.Tweet thisTweet
The opportunity of invisibility

Scott Fitzgerald’s last royalty check before he died was for $13. At the time, The Great Gatsby was practically out of print and couldn’t be found anywhere. What copies had been bought were apparently by Fitzgerald himself. A once-promising writer who was writing movie scripts just to survive now considered himself a failure, and that consideration killed him.

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These days, we love to glamorize failure. But we forgot how painful and demotivating failure can be, how more often than not it demoralizes a person from ever attempting anything again.

There is, however, another side to failure: we can choose how we see our circumstances. Fitzgerald didn’t have to consider himself a failure. He wasn’t. He’d already published This Side of Paradise to literary and popular acclaim. He didn’t have to drink himself into oblivion or fade into obscurity. He could have kept going, kept working.

And if he had done that, he may have lived to see the success of his greatest work yet.

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One potential cause for the downfall of this great author may have been the pressure he placed on himself after having achieved incredible success so early.

Maybe he would not have lived so extravagantly so that he wasn’t later forced to take on gigs he did not want just to pay the bills. He may not have drunk himself to death or given up writing novels in exchange for screenplays. Maybe he would have been able to endure the criticism long enough to see people to recognize the genius of Gatsby, which would have come had he lived another 20 years.

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It’s easy, of course, to judge the past with the perspective of the present. But I don’t judge Fitzgerald. I empathize with his struggle to produce something great. And what I recognize in his story is the gift in being largely invisible to most people. It encourages me when I sometimes wish I were a bigger deal than I am. This invisibility means I can move more deftly. And so can you.

Three lessons of anonymity

​So what do we take away from this, if we have not yet written a great American novel? A few things:

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First, nobody’s heard of you and that’s okay. Embrace the gift of invisibility and use it to your advantage. Try bold things. Practice without the pressure of having to perform.

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Second, don’t disparage being the underdog. There’s an advantage to being the person nobody expects anything from: many people will want to help you. Embrace this place and let them. Once you reach the top, the same people who helped you get there will now want to tear you down. That’s a hard place to be and an even harder place to stay. So don’t rush it.

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Third, enjoy your failures quietly. If you try scary things and they don’t work, nobody notices. Success brings with it a lot of expectation, and that generally doesn’t make for great creative work. So enjoy the opportunity you have that Fitzgerald missed out on, which is to fall on your face without anybody talking about it.

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The truth is there are special privileges reserved for the unlikely and overlooked, and we tend to forget them. This is natural, of course, because we all want the success we see other people having. But let’s not forget that there are disadvantages to that, too.

“There are special privileges reserved for the unlikely and overlooked.Tweet thisTweet

So instead of pining for more success or fame, why not use this time? Don’t avoid the spotlight entirely, but don’t race towards it, either. Build your craft slowly, and let the fanfare come when it does. Be intentional, but not anxious. All great work gets its due eventually.

What hidden advantages exist in your own anonymity? Share in the comments.

What Actually Works: How to “Make It” as a Writer

As we get ready to close registration for this round of Tribe Writers, I’m getting some questions on whether or not the program “works” and what kinds of success previous students have had. And I realized something: those are the wrong questions to ask.

These days, everyone’s trying to sell you a trick or a tactic, some quick hack that’s going to speed up your success. At times, I think, I’ve even been guilty of making such promises. And it’s not that formulas and strategies don’t sometimes work. It’s just that they aren’t enough.

Take writing, for example. This week, we close registration on another class of Tribe Writers. The next eight weeks will be filled with another group of writers learning how to get their message heard and how to build a career around that craft.

But that’s not really what they’re learning. They’re learning how to be, not how to do.

We promise things like how to build a blog and get 1000 subscribers or start making thousands of dollars per month off your writing, because these are tangible things that people understand. However, what I’ve come to understand is that the intangible is almost always more potent than the tangible.

You don’t need to learn how to hack Amazon or a simple trick to launch a bestseller. I mean, those things are fine short-term, but it’s not really what most aspiring authors want. What we want is to know, at the deepest level possible, that this is what we were meant to do – and we are actually doing it. No more pretending or hoping or waiting.

You are a writer. That’s what you want to hear and believe and live. It’s what I want, what we all want to believe about ourselves and secretly fear is untrue.

What you really need

I learned this recently when I was asking our community what they tell their friends when folks ask about Tribe Writers. How do they describe this thing? Here’s what some of them said.

Jan Cox, children’s author and poet, said:

“Good question. It is a shot in the arm. It is intentional. It makes you focus. It builds on what you know and pushes you past it. It is clear and well put together. Jeff is always a question away. The members help one another.”

Clara Lucca Hinton, who manages a Facebook group of over 100,000 people said:

“Tribe Writers is a group of passionate writers who gather for daily food from their fearless leader Jeff Goins.”

Dave Kwiecinski told me:

“Just this weekend, at a marketing workshop in Atlanta, I described it as the best community of writers on the planet. ”

Sarah Simmons said:

“I say it’s an online writing course, but so much more, and that it changed my life. TW showed me a path to success and how to be myself on the way there. And I always let people know the community alone is worth its collective weight in gold (with 4,500 members, that’s a lot of gold!).”

Are you seeing a theme here? I am. What helps people succeed is not a trick or a tactic. It’s a community. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again:

“Every story of success is a story of community.Tweet thisTweet

So if you’re wanting to succeed, and that looks different to everybody, you should stop asking yourself, “What should I be doing?” and instead start asking, “Who should I be hanging out with?”

Because who you spend your time with will influence who you become much more than any strategy or lesson you try to learn and apply.

But what about the outcome?

Of course, this sort of thing doesn’t sell as well as the instant results that tend to pollute this World Wide Web in which we all get ensnared:

“Become an Amazon best seller in 7 days!”
“Make $100,000 in 6 weeks!”
“Write a book in 30 days or less… even if you’re a terrible writer!”

But is that what you really want? Chasing results will always leave a little empty, if you don’t understand at a core level who you are and why you do what you do.

That’s why I’ve tried to focus my work on helping people become who they are – as writers in courses like Tribe Writers and as human beings with books like The Art of Work.

It may not sell as well as the abundant promises of sudden success and riches we see from the world of Internet marketing. But I sure feel better about it.

And here’s the thing: if you focus first on the process, the results will follow. Activity follows identity. But if you focus too much on the end result and forget about the means you use to get there, you just might make some unfortunate compromises.

Success stories from Tribe Writers

So far, this is working well for us. When people ask what kind of success Tribe Writers has helped people achieve, I’m proud to point to some of our shining examples of alumni:

I tell them how Mike and Kristen Berry launched a parenting blog and got a million people to visit it in a year and now write and speak full-time.
I tell them about how Stacy Claflin wrote 20 books in three years, quit her job running a home daycare, and now writes fiction full-time.
I tell them how Elizabeth Bradley started guest posting for celebrities, influential bloggers, and movie stars just by asking in the right way and quickly built an email list of 2000 people.

Or about Jackie Bledsoe who has become a full-time author and authority on mariage and family. Or Anne Peterson who has written multiple children’s books and devotionals. Or Sandy Kreps who has authored several books on simple living and regularly blogs on the subject.

So, yeah. People get results. They see “success.” But what I now realize is that success means something different to everyone. And by far, the biggest success you can achieve as a writer is to actually become one.

The bottom line

What I’m trying to convince you of is this: only you get to decide when you become a writer. No success hack or marketing tactic can help you do that. So the onus is on you to take action.

Don’t wait for it or dream about it or wonder. Own your identity. Find a community who will support and encourage you. And then let your activity follow.

To be honest, I think this is really hard to do on your own, maybe impossible. I fell into some important relationships in my own journey, but some of that was luck and some of it was me finally humbling myself to realize I couldn’t succeed on my own.

When people started asking me how I did it, I realized there weren’t many communities to which I could direct people. So I created one, sharing all the best practices and lessons I learned from hundreds of guides along the way. I hired a team to help me grow and manage this community, we called it Tribe Writers.

It’s not for everyone, but it is for the person who is frustrated and isn’t afraid to ask for help or invest in themselves. If you’re waiting to become the writer you were meant to be, you should join us.

And if you sign up before the deadline, you’ll get some snazzy bonuses including a copy of Bryan Harris’s “Rapid List-building Course.”

Find out more here.

Two Moments That Define a Writer’s Life

This week, I’m hosting a free webinar on everything you wanted to know about being a full-time writer. Don’t miss it! Sign up for free here.

I stepped up to the microphone, palms sweating and heart racing. This was the moment I’d been waiting for, the culmination of months of practice and preparation.

Looking out at the audience in front me, the bleachers full of anyone who had ever made fun of me, I took a deep breath and held it in. This was it. All the preparation, all those long nights of studying and preparing—it was all going to be worth it. And then I exhaled.

“A-C-Q-U-I-E…”

Stunned faces greeted me as my eyes opened to see my audience—peers, mortal enemies, and teachers—all with eyes on me. A few close friends grinned as they watched, and I closed my eyes again to focus, thinking back to the hours of study, of going to bed early, foregoing TV to squeeze an extra hour of prep time in the morning.

Staring at the back of my eyelids, I could see the words, hundreds of them, in my mind, having memorized what they looked and sounded like. I knew this word, had seen it many times. Now, it was just like remembering a photograph of a place I had visited before. I didn’t need to ask for a definition or a sentence; I knew this word.

“…S-C-E-N-C-E.”

I repeated the word to confirm I was done. Acquiescence. There was a pause, then the moderator, Mr. Simpson, spoke in his deep, resonant voice: “That is… correct.”

The school erupted into a roar of applause and cheers. My friends rushed off the bleachers, running, ready to greet me with high-five hands ready. I had done it. I had won the school spelling bee.

My opponent was an eighth grader who reportedly cried the whole bus ride home. Being a chubby, long-haired sixth-grader with an affinity for baggy concert T-shirts, I smiled a little upon hearing the news. It was a small piece of justice, payback for all those hours of study and all those years of being called a “nerd.”

It was victory, the first thing I had ever really won. The first accomplishment of which I could feel truly proud. But as they say, there is an intimate connection between pride and failure. And I was about to learn all about it.

“There is an intimate connection between pride and failure.Tweet thisTweet
What failure teaches us

The next year, I boldly stepped to the mic again, backed by an entire class of confident seventh graders winking at me, assuring me I had this one “in the bag.”

Convinced I was special and more gifted than my opponents, I didn’t bother studying half as hard this time. I just knew I’d win. I was wrong. Choking up on the last round, I lost to a sixth grader.

“That was an interesting spelling,” my science teacher, Mrs. Tuntland, said the next hour, right after watching me strike out in front of the entire school.

“Yeah, well… there was another word on the list like it. And I just mixed them up is all,” I said. Having misspelled the word flourishing, adding an e instead of a g to the end, I was a little defensive.

Making matters worse, I’d lost to none other than a sixth grader. Now that was justice. I may have shed a tear or two myself while walking home that day. I thought I had the whole thing in the bag. So why did I lose? Was I not confident enough? Was I not talented enough?

No, it was much more obvious than any of those reasons.

The truth is I hadn’t studied the list nearly as much as the previous year. The reason? Because I didn’t think I needed the practice. I was already a winner. Naturally gifted. What was the point in studying?

Because of my confidence in previous accomplishments, I failed to work as hard as before, and for that, I paid the consequences.

Why practice beats talent

In life, we are given certain gifts and talents. No one would deny this, that some people are better at basketball, or accounting, or singing, than other people. But how one goes about acquiring such skills is the real mystery. Is it innate or the result of hard work? In fact, it might be both.

What I learned from the seventh grade spelling bee is that no amount of natural talent can compete with diligent practice. Being naturally talented is never good enough. Without the work that precedes the moment onstage, you, too, will fail. Not in a “I tried my best” kind of way, but in a regretful, “I could’ve done better” way, which is the worst way of all to fail.

“No amount of natural talent can compete with diligent practice.Tweet thisTweet

At the time of my failure, I wasn’t mature enough to admit my culpability. There were more important things to me that year, like fitting in and going to parties and finally getting a girlfriend (which didn’t actually happen but was a goal, nonetheless).

For years after, I coasted on “being smart,” letting years of practice and privilege give me the upper hand on my classmates — until it finally caught up with me. Upon entering high school, my GPA dropped, which concerned my parents but didn’t worry me. I signed up for a few extra-curricular activities and eventually joined my first club sport: the golf team.

All the while, I was searching for something, exactly what I didn’t know, but something nonetheless.

The mystery of motivation

Now, I can see what I wanted was something to excel at, something to drive me, something to give me purpose. Like winning the school spelling bee against someone two years your elder, we are all looking for a challenge worthy of our motivation. But this was a mystery to me for a very long time.

If the feat is too small, it will be boring. If too large, it will be demotivating. What we all seek is some project that is both attainable and at the same time a little unreachable, so we are required to grow.

“We are all looking for a challenge worthy of our motivation.Tweet thisTweet

In high school, I started acting in plays and enjoyed them. Words had been a part of my life for so long at this point that it wasn’t difficult for me to memorize a script and then regurgitate the lines on stage. This was lacking in our theater department and immediately set me apart, so I began to score many of the leading roles.

At sixteen years old, after several failed attempts at playing a musical instrument, I finally picked up the guitar and didn’t put it down. My dad taught me to play a few chords, and before I knew it, I was in a band with a couple of friends. Most weeks, we would rehearse nightly for hours on end. It was what I thought would be “the thing” but soon realized it was yet another shadow of my true calling.

Playing old Nirvana songs and strumming a few Zeppelin tunes was fun, but my real passion was creation. I wanted to make something, something other people would hear and enjoy, that would inspire them the way music had always inspired me. Which led me back to words.

In a way, it took mastering one skill to lead me to another.

Finding resonance

I had always written but as I began approaching college, I started to take writing more seriously.

Weeks before graduating and going off to college without any idea of what I might major in, my English teacher who was notoriously hard on her students returned a paper to me that said, “This is excellent. Please consider a career in journalism or writing.”

I received an A on a report of a book I had never read.

To me, this was a sign of giftedness. It made me feel special to not try hard and still get a good grade. But the truth is my mom had been reading my the dictionary since I was a kid. I loved words, of course — that part is important. But I also had a lot more practice than many others. Which is also important.

The following year, I remember sitting in my parents’ car during summer break after my first year in college, puzzled as to what I should do with my life. Reaching into a box of old papers, I pulled out that old book report, hoping it might provide an answer. I suppose it did. But it wasn’t just the giftedness I remembered — it was the practice.

Those two moments — the spelling bee and the English paper — are more connected than I realized. One was a triumphant result of practice, and the other was the epiphany I’d been waiting for, the key to help me unlock the mystery of what my life was about.

The two moments that define a writer’s life are the moment when you realize you were born to write and the moment when you realize how hard it will be. In finding our life’s work, we need both these moments — the times when we realize something comes easier to us than it does to other people and the acknowledgment that without hard work, all the motivation in the world doesn’t add up to much.

Two moments that define a writer’s life are the moment when you realize you were born to write and the moment when you realize how hard it will be.

Are you called to be a writer? If you want to hear the rest of the story and learn more about what it means to write for a living, check out the webinar I’m doing later this week. You can ask me anything. Sign up for free here.

What accomplishment are you coasting on? How has a season of hard work paid off at some time in your life? Share any experiences or questions in the comments below.

099: Austin Kleon on the Challenges of a Creative Career [Podcast]

When you set out to do creative work for a living, there are unexpected obstacles you face, things like finance and marketing, which can add up to a lot of work that doesn’t necessarily feel creative. So what do you do?

The question is worth asking: Is getting paid to do what you love really worth the cost?

Often, career experts talk about the grind involved in turning your hobby into a career. But few acknowledge the price you pay after you achieve your goal.

The part we tend to overlook is when you trade your day job for a dream job, it’s still a job.

As a self-proclaimed “writer who draws,” my guest on the podcast knows this better than most. This week on The Portfolio Life, best-selling author Austin Kleon and I talk about the tension between a creative career and the business it takes to support it. Austin has a unique but practical perspective on doing creative work without losing that edge that got you the job in the first place.

Listen in as we discuss juggling the administrative work alongside the creative work and decide for yourself if the leap is one worth taking.

Listen to the podcast

To listen to the show, click the player below (If you are reading this via email or RSS, please click here).

Lessons on art and self-promotion

Here are a few quotes from out interview that stuck with me and the lessons I took away from each of them:

1. Writing can be a way to work through your own struggles while helping work through theirs.

“Show Your Work was me actively trying to communicate about self-promotion to people who hate self-promotion, because I hate self-promotion.”

2. Focus first on creating something worth sharing before you worry about how to promote or publish it.

“Most questions about publishing and getting your creative work out into the wild is about self-promotion and marketing…  The questions presuppose you have something worth sharing in the first place.”

3. Self-promotion doesn’t have to be selfish. Being generous with what you share is the best way to get your work to spread.

“If I share enough, if I’m interesting enough, and helpful enough to enough people, eventually good things will happen to me.”

Show highlights

In this episode, Austin and I discuss:

How reading fuels inspiration
Understanding seasons of creative work
Being comfortable with fluctuating productivity
One question I (Jeff) am embarrassed to answer
The importance of allowing margin for “ramp up”
What is more valuable than the amount of time you have
A common myth we believe about successful authors
How to run a business while still getting your creative work done
The timeline of Austin’s journey to best-selling author
What to do when you feel like a fake
Why you may not want to make a living with your art

Quotes and takeaways

”If I had a choice between having a full day vs an hour every day to work, I would pick the hour every day every time.” —Austin Kleon
Sometimes you don’t know who you are writing for until someone starts listening.
“Look at the world and write the book you think is missing.” —Austin Kleon
Some of history’s greatest artists did their best work later in life
“Instead of making a living doing what you love, what can you do for a living that means you get to spend the most quality time doing what you like?” —Austin Kleon

Resources

Steal Like an Artist
Show Your Work
Steal Like an Artist Journal
Daily Rituals by Mason Currey
On Writing by Stephen King
The Gift by Lewis Hyde
Market Day by James Sturm
Live Webinar Today on Becoming a Full-time Writer
Download the full transcript here.

How do you balance administrative and creative work? Why are (or aren’t) you pursuing a creative career? Share in the comments

The Best Way to Not Become a Writer

I’m hosting a free webinar this week on getting published and paid as a writer. Sign up here to learn more about how to write for a living.

The best way to not become a writer is to wish you were one.

To think about writing. To dream about it, imagine it, wonder what it would be like to write one day — these are the worst ways to accomplish the things we want to achieve the most. So what’s the best way? Do it.

One thing I learned in writing The Art of Work, my best-selling book that turned one year old last week, was that most people have no idea what their dream is.

Passion? Calling? Purpose? People don’t have a clue. And the very idea that they should know only makes them feel more crippled and ashamed for not having an answer to that age-old “what should I do with my life?” question.

So after interviewing hundreds of people who did find their calling, one trend I noticed was this: You don’t think your way into clarity. Clarity comes with action.

“You don’t think your way into clarity. Clarity comes with action.Tweet thisTweet

This is true in just about anything from learning how to fall in love to launching your dream career. Life is confusing, and the path towards our purpose is foggy at best.

But things don’t have to stay this way. We can achieve clarity, if we’re willing to act. (For more on this, check out: When Your Calling Seems Vague and Unclear, You’re on the Right Track).

What does this have to do with writing?

Often, I receive emails from writers wanting to know what they should do to start their careers:

Should they self-publish or try to get an agent?
Genre fiction or literary nonfiction?
Mac or PC?

All these questions, though, are the wrong ones to ask right now. People want to know what to write about or when the perfect time to work on your manuscript is. And those issues are virtually pointless when you’re first getting started. I mean, really getting started.

Of course, genre matters. So do your publishing options. Heck, even working with a Mac matters (I’m a bit of an Apple fanatic). Those just aren’t the places you start. Questions like that are what my friend Anthony call “false first steps.” They aren’t where you begin your writing.

Here’s what I tell writers who ask me these questions: The way you become a writer is you write. You practice. You put yourself out there every day. And as you do this, you get rejected and dismissed and frustrated like you never would have imagined. But you also get better. And over time, all that practice starts to matter.

“The way you become a writer is you write, you practice, you put yourself out there every day.Tweet thisTweet
Start here

The best advice I can offer, as controversial as it sounds, is to start by calling yourself a writer. Why is this so important? Because activity follows identity. Some things in life we have to believe before we become them.

This is an act of faith, and in fact, a bit of a mystery to me. Nonetheless, this was the advice best-selling author Steven Pressfield gave me when I was first starting out, it’s haunted me ever since.

In an interview, I asked him when I could call myself a writer, and he said: “You are a writer when you say are. Screw what everyone else thinks. You are when you say you are.”

“You are a writer when you say you are.Tweet thisTweet

The next day, I started calling myself a writer. You know what? It worked. I became more confident, and people noticed. That confidence led to competence, and before I knew it, I was this thing I was pretending to be.

Here’s the lesson: if you play a part long enough, you start become that person. So why not choose to play the role you wish you had?

How, exactly, do you become a writer?

Start by owning the title. Then earn it by writing every day. Act as if it’s true and experience the magic of becoming what you always wished you were.

Here’s how it works:

You do it.
You believe it.
You become it.

That first step requires both faith, but the best things always do. It’s a little audacious to do something you aren’t quite sure is true about yourself, but until you take that first step you’ll always wonder if you have what it takes.

Yes, this is a little “woo-woo,” but it also works. I’ve seen it time and time again. What we believe about ourselves actually affects who we become. And what we do influences what we think about ourselves.

So be careful with both the thoughts you entertain and the actions you take. And when self-doubt starts to assail you, don’t forget Mr. Pressfield’s sage words: “Screw what everyone else thinks. You are when you say you are.”

I find this is a daily exercise: declaring to myself, and incidentally to the world, that I really am a writer. In the end, I think it makes me a better one.

“Act as if it’s true and experience the magic of becoming what you always wished you were.Tweet thisTweet

Want to learn more about this?

Sign up for my free webinar this week about writing for a living full-time.

Yes, There Really Is a Shortcut to Success

The other day, someone commented on a Facebook post of mine in which I promised them a “shortcut” to success. They said, there’s no such thing. That made me wonder.

Really? There are no shortcuts in life? Only the hardest working people in the world win? It’s a popular belief, which should be reason enough to question its validity.

But let’s explore this idea.

Let’s say there are no shortcuts and everyone is as successful as they absolutely deserve to be. Does that mean Bill Gates, who makes about $11 billion per year (or $1.3 million per hour!) works 54,000 times harder than the average American worker who earns $50,000 per year? How is that even possible?

Look. We all want to believe hard work pays off. And it does. But at a certain point, you can’t work any harder. You have no more time than anyone else. So what do you do? You have to learn how to work smarter.

And that means learning from someone who’s already been there.

You need a guide

For years as a writer, I struggled to get noticed. I blogged and nobody cared, tried to write books no one would read, and failed to motivate myself to work. I wanted a publisher but didn’t know anyone in the industry and didn’t have any readers to show for my work. I was stuck.

What I needed was someone to show me another path. It didn’t have to be a shortcut. I was just tired of the long road to success  —  because it was leading nowhere  —  desperately wanted to know what was missing.

In any great story, there is a point in the journey when the hero meets an obstacle he cannot overcome. This is the moment when the guide arrives. This is the essence of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey: you cannot succeed without someone wiser to show you the way. Frodo needed Gandalf. Luke needed Obi-wan. And you and I need a mentor.

Sure enough, in my own journey, that’s what happened. I met a handful of people who acted as guides in helping me become an author, speaker, and entrepreneur. My dream became a reality within a matter of 18 months. But this wasn’t because I hustled — it’s because I found a guide.

“I didn’t succeed because I hustled any harder. I succeeded because I found a guide.Tweet thisTweet

And you know what? I didn’t work any harder in those 18 months than I did in the previous seven years. But I did work smarter  —  not because I was any smarter, but because someone showed me a better way. I met the right people, connected with the right networks, and practiced my craft in the right way. In other words, I found a shortcut.

But maybe you don’t like thinking of success this way. I certainly don’t. It’s embarrassing to admit I got a little lucky, that I was in the right place at the right time, that it wasn’t just about the hustle. But that’s the truth. And I think we need to acknowledge this reality.

How to find a mentor

How do you find a guide, or in today’s terms, a mentor? It’s not as easy as we’d like. First of all, mentors tend to be busy people. So getting in front of one will take work. People move around so much these days, and so many things, including our careers, are constantly changing. It stands to reason, then, that your mentor will not just be one person, but a team of people.

In my book, The Art of Work, I call this an “accidental apprenticeship.” The idea here is that if you pay attention to your life and the people who are in it, you will find there are those around you right now whom you can learn from. In that sense, the best mentor is the one that’s right in front of you.

“The best mentor is the one that’s right in front of you.Tweet thisTweet

Still, you’ll want to be intentional about getting into relationship with this person. So there are a few steps I recommend following that have worked well for me and that I’ve seen others emulate, as well:

Make your first ask a small one. In other words, don’t lead with, “Will you mentor me?” Instead, ask for a few minutes of their time, offer to buy them lunch/coffee/whatever.

Make it all about them. Ask them to tell their story. Ask specific questions about choices they made in their own success journey and why. In other words, flatter them to death. Nobody is immune to this kind of treatment, and it certainly beats the awkward alternative. Come prepared with questions, and try to talk as little as possible. If you show up informed and interested, you will be both engaging and memorable.

Take notes. When you meet with this person, write down everything they say. Honor their wisdom by capturing as much of it as possible. I recommend using a notebook and pen over a phone, just so that it’s clear you’re not checking your email or texting your buddies.

Follow up. This is perhaps the most important and most often overlooked secret to getting into relationship with influencers who can eventually become part of your team of mentors. I meet with a lot of people and even tell them how important this is and still see on average about 80% of people never follow up. What I mean by this is a simple thank-you email for the person’s time, or even better: a copy of the notes you took to show that you really did listen and take to heart their wisdom.

Become a case study. Hands down, this is the best thing you can do to earn the attention of an influencer. And if you do this consistently over time, you will get people interested in mentoring you. Take some piece of advice this person has given you (or published in a book, blog post, etc.) and apply it. Demonstrate that this stuff works and tell the world about it. The reason this works is fairly obvious: you’re making the mentor look good.

Again, this goes back to making it about them. Don’t offer empty flattery; just show that you’re someone worth investing in. Do this enough times, and people will be lining up to give you their time, attention, and ideas. Because the truth is nearly everyone wants to help someone who is going places, so they can feel responsible for that person’s success.

For more on this, check out this article: How to Find a Mentor in 10 Not-so-easy Steps.
Is this really how it works?

I realize this may come off as manipulative or even sound a little unsavory. So allow me to address a few potential objections:

Objection #1: Don’t influencers just want to help people out of the kindness of their hearts?

Well, maybe. But they’re busy. And so when push comes to shove, they’re going to invest in people with promise, not takers who seem to make everything about themselves. Your best bet is to be remembered as the ambitious person with lots of questions who was eager to learn, not the know-it-all who was more interested in herself than the person with experience.

Objection #2: Are mentors so egotistical that the whole thing has to be about them?

No, they’re probably not all ego. But we all love to feel important and valued once in a while. And when seeking someone’s help or advice, appeal to this side of them, not their more noble generous side. As you earn their trust, you will see more of this side. But in the beginning, assume they are only interested in helping themselves. And make it worth their while. I’m sure many influencers are very kind and generous people. But it’s better to lead with humility than arrogance.

Objection #3: Do I have to be so strategic? Can relationship be an end in itself, and not a means to get something out of people?

Of course, relationship can be an end in itself. But the truth is most of us, whether we admit it or not, want something out of a relationship. And that something could just be love or acceptance or maybe even guidance. Just because you want something from someone doesn’t necessarily cheapen how you approach them.

And in that regard, yes, I do think you have to be strategic. Many of us are extremely busy. So if you don’t make intentional space for people to guide you, then you will likely drift through life, disappointed and disillusioned as you watch others succeed in things you wish you could achieve.

My advice? Don’t be so strategic it stifles the relationship. But be intentional with your time and focus it on those who will give you a return on your investment. I guarantee you this is how your would-be mentors are thinking.

Avoid the scarcity mindset

My friend Mary told me when she was first starting out as a writer, she asked an author out to lunch. “How do you get published?” she asked. The person wouldn’t tell her. She said those were her secrets and that Mary would have to find out for herself.

That day, Mary vowed that if she ever made it as a writer, she’d share everything she learned with other aspiring authors. A few years later, I called her asking for advice, and she made good on her promise.

Shawn Coyne, long-time New York editor, told me a similar story. Back in the day, nobody in publishing shared anything. There were no guidebooks on how to be an editor. He had to figure it out all on his own. Once he did, instead of hoarding his knowledge, he decided to share it in a book, blog, and podcast. And this refusal to succumb to the scarcity mindset changes everything.

When we let go of our perceived scarcity and embrace our actual abundance, it changes so many things:

Scarcity kills our creativity. Abundance expands it.
Scarcity makes us afraid. Abundance makes us brave.
Scarcity pushes people away. Abundance attracts.

It can feel a little risky to embrace this mindset, this idea that there are guides out there who will help you and opportunities for success yet to be uncovered. But it is a much better way to live than to assume the alternative: that everyone is out to get you and there is no way you’ll succeed.

And once you do experience this abundance, you will have an opportunity to help others, which is one of the greatest rewards of success. This is why I feel so responsible for helping other writers make their own journey towards getting published.

Of course, I tell them it will take hard work. But I also teach them the rules of the game and how to improve their chances of success. You can’t just work harder. You have to work smarter. Stop trying to manage your time, as my friend Rory Vaden says, and instead learn how to multiply it. Finding the right guides to help you is an integral part of that process.

“Don’t manage time. Multiply it.Rory VadenTweet thisTweet
The three shortcuts to success

So how does this work? Well, keep in mind that I teach this stuff to hundreds of students at a time over the course of a couple of months, but the following are the main highlights:

Shortcut #1: You can get to where you want faster if you follow in someone else’s footsteps.

Find a guide or mentor you can learn from and emulate, even from afar. This is the difference between those who continuously struggle and those who find a faster way to succeed. Humble yourself and trust that there are those out there who want to help you.

Shortcut #2: Invest in opportunities that grow your capacity.

In other words, don’t waste years trying to figure things out. Instead, sacrifice time and money to accelerate your learning. That might mean taking a course, hiring a coach, or working for free for a certain period of time in exchange for experience.

Shortcut #3: Change your location. When opportunity is sparse, move.

That might mean moving across town to a co-working space where more people are connecting in person. It might mean ponying up to go to that industry conference where all your peers will be. Or it might even mean relocating to a place where there are more people doing what you want to do. The point is geography matters. And chances are there’s an opportunity closer than you realize. You just might have to move towards it before it will come closer to you.

“You have to move towards opportunity before it will come closer to you.Tweet thisTweet

Do these things, and you will see your luck increase. I promise. You can’t just sit around and wait for things to happen — for those mentors to come find you or for opportunities to fall in your lap. Luck, of course does happen on occasion, but it’s better to look for luck than wait for it. Because luck is often hiding in the hard-to-reach places that most people are too timid to approach.

Who knows? Maybe as you scan the horizon for the right opportunities, you just might see a shortcut.

I’m taking all the lessons I’ve learned about how to make a living writing and trying to pay it forward, teaching a free video series this week. It’s everything I’ve learned in the past decade, including how to avoid failure and fast-track your success. I’ll teach what you I did and what I’ve helped thousands of other writers do. You won’t have to waste another second trying stuff that “might” work. And in that sense, I guess you could call it a shortcut. Sign up here to watch the video series (it doesn’t cost a thing!).

098: Behind the Man Behind The Muppets [Podcast]

Have you ever felt like the work you’re doing is not important? Do you sometimes feel like an amateur pretending to be a professional? I feel this way all the time.

Jim Henson is most famous for co-creating The Muppets, perhaps the most iconic puppets in history alongside the characters he made for Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock. What you may not know is Jim never set out to become a puppeteer.

From an early age, Jim’s sole mission in life was to get on TV. The means to that end were the custom, hand-made puppets he created with a friend. But after making the equivalent of $750,000 his junior year of college through commercials and licensing of puppet characters, Jim was burnt out on the craft. In fact, he almost quit everything and became a painter.

Instead, Jim traveled to Europe and discovered his deep desire to create art that endured was already at his fingertips.

This week on The Portfolio Life, Andy and I talk about how to deal with doubting yourself, and what it takes to breakthrough and find your calling when you’re just not sure about yourself. Listen in as we discuss the backstory of a consummate creative, and how you can leverage your commercial work to make something that matters.

Listen to the podcast

To listen to the show, click the player below (If you are reading this via email or RSS, please click here).

Show highlights

In this episode, we discuss:

The evolution of Jim Henson the artist
A common quality of magnum opuses
How to do commercial work that matters
Stealing from your influencers and innovating their ideas
What happens when people pursue a dream and fall into their calling by accident
Injecting art into where you are in order to create enduring work
What you’re doing may not be as insignificant as you think it is

Takeaways

Sometimes the thing you’re supposed to do, is the thing you’re already doing.
The work of an artisan and an entrepreneur are not mutually exclusive.
Don’t ever be ashamed of doing work to make money so you can make art that will endure.
You need an experience that shifts your perspective sometimes in order to have that awakening.
If you’re gonna do something, you better treat that thing like your calling. Make it an art.

Resources

Jim Henson: The Biography by Brian Jay Jones
Make Art Make Money by Elizabeth Hyde Stevens
Download the full transcript here.

Why are you trying to make money? What is your work/art for? Share in the comments