Everything I Know

by Paul Jarvis

Courage doesn’t come from an absence of fear; it comes from being afraid and moving forward anyway.

I’ve never put much stock in rules or formulas. I’d rather try things first-hand and learn from my own experiences. Sometimes I fail and I lose money or clients, but sometimes I don’t. Either way, I always learn something valuable.

The amazing thing about working for yourself is that you don’t have to follow the leader. You can carve your own path and establish your own rules. You can express your unique voice. You can align a job with your values and create work that feels fulfilling and exciting. This is, after all, the reason most people go into business for themselves in the first place.

My best advice? Fuck advice and listen to yourself. Trust in your journey and learn as much as possible through first-hand experiments.

The world rewards people who try things and come up with new ways of doing business. The biggest innovators get the biggest rewards, and those who simply copy the original model get only part of the original reward – at best.

If people aren’t paying for your work, it's not a problem you can solve with more social media promotion — it's a matter of getting better at that work by doing more of it, or finding other work that does have value to others. Social media can only amplify what's already there.

But blogging and social media don't make you better at your craft; doing your craft makes you better at it.

The most successful people I’ve worked with speak to interested consumers instead of industry peers.

time. I

would also rather do the work than manage others. Some people are remarkable managers, but I’m not one of those people.

If we don't let our weirdness rise to the surface, we don’t let our work stand out.

I realized that money wasn’t a valid goal for me when I didn’t feel more accomplished by getting more of it. Making lots of money didn’t make me feel better. In fact, I was actually feeling worse, because I was working far too many hours and not living my life.

A funny thing happens when you focus on work that you love; more soon starts to appear. Like attracts like.

Make no mistake, this value has nothing to do with your own, intrinsic value, objectives, or sense of personal worth. But until money changes hands, other people aren’t valuing the business you’ve built as much as when they’re paying you for it.

Once he meets that target, he doesn’t take on any more work and travels to surf, climb and go on adventures. When he hits his “enough” amount, he closes the computer and walks away for a while—sometimes 5 to 6 months at a time.

Knowing what’s enough enables me to travel with my wife for 2-3 months a year, on average. It’s

The “enough” mark creates freedom. Once it’s hit, we both have the freedom to choose new adventures and explore fresh ideas and places.

Did I want 100 employees? Definitely not. I've never wanted to manage people.

So, I decided not to have any goals. Not a single one. Not then, not now.

This might seem like a total slacker mentality, but a lack of goals isn’t the same as a lack of passion and drive. Where I lack in goals, I hold true to my values and let them guide my business – and I work hard at sticking to them.

Now I let my values guide me, because they provide more freedom of choice.

Sometimes, in order to stay true to yourself and your values, you need to innovate through change. And sometimes that means stopping and stepping back for a while.

A goal implies something will happen in the future. It takes us away from the present

and can even stop us from doing the work, since what if it fails? Why even try? Why put it out there? What if no one likes it?

Focusing on the present requires ...

But if you don’t do the work, nothing will change, so why not at least try?

Spending even a second thinking about tomorrow requires you to stop thinking about the work you should be doing today. The results might not happen. But if what you do aligns with your values, those results won’t matter. The fact that you went all-in will be enough. And if the labour itself isn’t enough, perhaps you need to switch up what you’re doing.

It takes sacrifice to make something great. In order to shift your mindset and experiment with ideas, you have to choose a new path. You have to change your paradigm from consumption to creation. Then the possibilities are limitless.

What are you willing to sacrifice in order to make great and meaningful work? It doesn’t have to be your rent money, but we’re all busy, tired, stressed and being pulled in several directions. What can you cut out to create room for making something great?

Help people for free, as often as possible, without expecting anything in return.

This isn't charity work; it's just a way to slightly reframe your work.

Starting incrementally made it easy for me to transition into more writing, as writing incrementally shifted from a side project to a larger amount of work.

Our fear of failure often prevents us from attempting things. It feels safe not to try, but not trying is the only way you're guaranteed to fail. Don't fail in advance by not even making an attempt.

Most of the time, our fears come down to being judged by others.

We need to do the same. Pushing past the fear of being judged and doing the work is exactly what can lead to great work.

Don't let the fear of being wrong give you decision paralysis, either.

Fear is losing what you might already be grateful for having, so let gratitude shine through that kind of fear.

So turn your fear into gratitude. Be happy that it’s there, because it means you’ve got something worth losing.

The only way to push past fear is to acknowledge it and fight through it with first-hand experiments. Sometimes the results can be pleasantly surprising.

Fear only has the strength you give

I start small at first, with small pushes. I know that being afraid and moving forward don’t have to be mutually exclusive. I work up to medium pushes. Fear still can't do anything if I don’t give it any power. Then I push harder. Don't worry; fear can take it, and fear can't fight back.

Achieving something doesn't come from a lack of fear; it comes from being afraid and trying anyway. True

The less time you spend catching up on what you think you’re missing out on, the more time you can actually live your life, do your work, or connect with others in a present way.

Focus instead on great enough to launch and perfect enough for your audience to enjoy.

Great enough isn’t settling; it’s launching.

So practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice makes closer. Every time you work at what you do, you’re one step closer to the next step. A whole bunch of these steps add up to launching.

They're good because they do what they do as often as possible.

Breaking my work into tiny pieces makes it feel less like a huge creative job and more like small tasks that I can

Your work shouldn’t be so precious that it can’t stand up to criticism. If it is, you should probably hold it close and not share it (there’s value in creating work like this too—work that’s just for you). But if your work is meant to be shared with the world, know that it will face criticism.

It’s not easy, but most of the time, we need to separate our emotions from feedback on our work.