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Good morning good friends! I’m reading a book by Rolf Potts called Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel. Just a couple of chapters in and I’m really digging it so far. I came across this quote today and I thought I’d share it. To give some context, this chapter is titled “Learn, learn, and Keep Learning.” and it’s about the lessons travel teaches and how you can prepare for travel.

“The goal of preparation, then, is not knowing exactly where you’ll go but being confident nonetheless that you’ll get there. This means that your attitude will be more important than your itinerary, and that the simple willingness to improvise is more vital, in the long run, than research.”

The-Goal-Of-Preparation

Are you willing to improvise in your adventures? What does it look like when you vary from the itinerary? Can you rest in the fact that this path will lead you to where you want to go even if somehow everything goes awry and not according to plan? That’s how we have to approach the things that we do. We have to live with an underlying sense, a knowing, that even if everything blows up in our faces we can still carry on towards the destination. Even if that destination is still a little fuzzy.

The goal of preparation is not to be prepared for everything that will be thrown at you. It’s to understand that the path is going to zig and zag, this way and that, but at the end of the day you still get where you’re going. Walk with confidence today.

You know more than you think you know about your destination. It’s in your heart.

Great to talk to you again, friends.

Chris

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“You cannot sustain yourself long-term on the approval of others.” – Todd Henry

There’s a point in your journey where you’re going to look for approval and it won’t be there. You’re going to look all around you. You’re going to go searching for someone to prove you right; someone to validate your ideas, plans, and goals — but no one will show up. It’s in these times where we need something more. Something more than a “Good job!” or “Great work!” to make us keep going. We have to build up our life’s work around something more than the approval of others.

Lack of confirmation doesn’t mean you suck. It may mean that you missed the mark but that doesn’t mean it time to quit. Here are three types of approval that don’t come from other people:

1. Approval from your vision.

If what you’re doing is leading you down the path to your goals and is in line with your vision and why, you don’t need approval.

2. Approval via forward motion.

Home runs and batting averages don’t win games. Runs do. If you can look at what you’re doing and see that it’s moving you forward, you don’t need approval.

3. Approval from belief.

The ability to believe, to dream, to know something to be true even though we haven’t seen it for ourselves is one of the things that makes us human. As is the ability to doubt. I really like to hear people get excited about my ideas because it immediately confirms in my mind that I’m on to something. When I don’t get support though, I think something must be wrong. Ideas can’t be sustained solely on the approval of others. Mostly because others don’t believe in your idea as much as you do. They haven’t seen the minecraft style empire you’ve built-in your mind and since they can’t see it, it isn’t real (to them). Don’t lose your belief.

We cannot balance our life’s work on someone else’s scale. We must build it up around what you know to be good and true. If you’re chasing those things, you don’t need approval.

 

seeking approval from others

Happy Tuesday, guys!

Chris

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I’m glad you’re here. I sincerely hope that this week has been fantastic so far and that you’re doing all that you set out to. I want to share with you one thing I’m realizing more and more as I walk through life. That is that I can’t be all things to all people. I can’t be the hero 24/7. I can’t solve the everyone’s problems or even all of my own!

But aside from what I’m realizing I can’t do, I am also realizing what I CAN do. What I can do is choose the things I want to be and do. I can be something to some people. But I have to pick the things, I have to pick the people. And that is empowering and exciting. When you let go of all the things you can’t do and shift your focus to what you can, you start to realize the value you can provide.

You can’t be all things to all people. You have to pick the things and the people.

The most important thing you should be doing

One question I’m loving asking myself right now (mostly because I’m reading Essentialism by Greg McKeown and it’s blowing my mind!) is :

What is the most important thing I should be doing right now? 

If you can answer that one question today, and actually do that thing, you win.

Happy Friday, friends!

Chris

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Yosemite-Wildfire-2Two years ago,  Jen and I were out in San Diego celebrating our five year anniversary. We had talked about making the long (8 hour) drive up to Yosemite on the trip. You know. Since we were so close *sarcasm*. But the recent wildfires had left the valley filled with smoke so we decided that it wouldn’t be worth the drive if we couldn’t see those epic views.

Fast forward to 5 days into our trip; we’ve done the beach, we’ve done tacos, we’ve done In-n-Out (multiple times. Like an embarrassing amount of times) so the topic of a Yosemite road trip comes up again. Half serious, we look up the weather and the live webcams from that day and all signs lead to clear skies! So we decide to go. At this point, it’s midnight and the webcams were useless. If we were going to go, we’d have to chance it.

This was the plan: Wake up at 3am, start driving. Once it’s light out, we’ll check the webcams. If it looks clear, we’ll keep going.

So we did. (that’s right on 3 hours of sleep. Because if you want adventure, you have to hustle for it) Once the sun came up we checked the webcams to see what looked like, and what we hoped was, fog. A good 3 hours in at this point, we decided to hope that is was fog and that the sun would burn it off.

It wasn’t fog. It didn’t burn off. When we arrived, the sun was blazing through the smoke that had shifted into the valley overnight creating a red-orange haze over the whole park. It looked like a scene from a zombie apocalypse movie and it felt just the same. Ash fell from the sky and the smell of the smoke was wild and unforgettable. There were signs everywhere warning the elderly and people who were ill to stay inside and cautioned all to limit their time breathing in the smoke.

And even though sometimes we couldn’t see more than 20 feet in front of us, it was still epic. The views were limited and not what we expected but around every turn was something worth a “wow!” It was a great lesson for me to learn: Sometimes you get where you’re going, after a long journey and a lot of build up, only to find that the destination is not what you expected. It’s little hazier. A little less clear. It looks different. But it is beautiful nonetheless.

No matter how much you plan for what comes next. No matter how clear your vision is for your destination, it will likely be different than you planned. And I want you to know that that is okay. Because where you are is beautiful nonetheless. Here’s thing about life; life doesn’t know that it has to adhere to your vision of perfect. It doesn’t have your grand plan on file for reference. All life knows is how to happen. And it will do that no matter what your plans are.

So be here. Be in the hazy present of where you are. Because this is where you are and it is beautiful nonetheless.

P.S. We drove back to San Diego that night. 16 hours round trip to see a smoke filled Yosemite. Like I said, you have to hustle for adventure. Even if it turns out to be a misadventure.

Happy Tuesday, folks!

Chris

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I learned a very important lesson this summer. That lesson is the importance of action and implementation. First let me air a confession. I have spent the past 2 years believing this one statement to be true to my core: We were made to create and not to consume. I’ve been saying it, but I haven’t been living it. It’s not like I haven’t made things. I have! I’ve been making lots of cool things that I am crazy excited about. But the thing that I’ve learned is that when the scale is tipped too far into the consumption side, then action suffers. Next steps are halted by a constant flood of new ideas fighting for my attention. That’s the nature of creativity. Consuming a lot of new content breeds new and interesting thoughts and ideas that seem fun. So I chase them. It’s like being a dog in a park full of idea squirrels.

The solution: Stop going to the park…. For now.

Having a ton of ideas is great, but we have to decide which path to take. That’s part of this whole thing. To choose what you’re going to pursue by picking things that align with the problem you want to solve and taking small actions and steps toward making them real.

I just started reading the book Essentialism by Greg McKeown which is all about doing the right things and the disciplined pursuit of less. Early in the book, McKeown uses this graphic to demonstrate the difference between how essentialists and non-essentialists use their energy:

ptsc-638-essentialismI don’t think I can add anything to that to make it more perfect. That is exactly how I feel.

There is a time for consuming. There is a time for learning and taking in as much as you possibly can. And there is also a time for action, next steps, and implementation. Without moving and acting on things, you will end up with a head full of jumbled ideas and nothing to show for all that hard work and education. So I am leaving the consumption phase (for now) and moving in to a season of implementation and action. I’m in the action phase.

Here’s the bottom line: This cycle that I’m in of consume, consume, consume, half-ass something, consume… It’s not working. I mean of course it’s not. So, if something’s not working, you adjust your approach. You adapt. That’s what we do. So that’s what I’m doing.

This most recent episode of The Work Podcast is all about this topic. You can listen to this episode and older episodes here:

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We don’t have to be stuck. We have the ability to change, adapt, and grow. That’s one of the reasons why we started this crazy journey in the first place; for freedom and for the thrill of the making new things. Don’t let good things get in the way of awesome things.

Here’s to making awesome stuff!

Chris

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