So What If vs. What If
There is a big difference in the question of “what if” vs. “so what if.”
They are two completely different ways of looking at every decision or circumstance one is faced with.
More “so what if.”
Three Hundred
This is my 300th post on this blog.
I have been at best inconsistent and at worst negligent. I used to pay attention to all of those “10 steps to a Million Readers” kinds of articles. I have tried doing the thing where you end every post with a question because that’s how you engage readers (supposedly). However it never felt like me.
What’s been true over the last few years as I have written is that I have my best responses when I write about the things I care about as if we were sitting around talking about them. It’s what makes it worth doing, regardless of the number of subscribers I have.
Thanks to all of you who are the faithful few that read almost everything I write and even post responses from time to time.
In the Arena
I heard this quote last night while watching a TED talk. Theodore Roosevelt’s “The Man in the Arena.” This should be posted somewhere where you have to walk by it every day.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself on a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who is at worst, if he fails, at least fails daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory or defeat.”
Amen.
Shedding
There are times when it’s appropriate to take on new things. Opportunities present themselves that seem like they will lead somewhere, and so time and energy is committed and spent.
Opportunity cost is one of the least-valued costs, and yet is probably the most important factor in any decision. Doing one thing means, in most cases, that something else will be left undone. Or it can mean not having the time to see other opportunities emerging, or simply not giving one’s brain the opportunity to think and ponder freely. Time is the most precious of all the finite resources.
Spring is a time when animals shed their winter coat and get leaner / lighter for the summer. It’s instinctive for animals, but not humans.
Take this spring as an opportunity to shed things that don’t matter, aren’t successful, or aren’t helping you get where you want to go. I am. It’s painful because it often means putting things on the shelf where real financial and intellectual capital has been spent. It’s not, however, more painful than spending MORE on it and looking back six months from now and saying “I should have done this sooner.”
For Free
A few weeks back I was having breakfast with Bruce Benedict, the proprietor and creator of Cardiphonia. Cardiphonia is a music label in the 21st century sense of the word, focused on helping upcoming artists in a niche space (sacred music). Bruce is one of those guys that you can’t help but love watching. He loves what he does, and is amazingly good at it.
We have been getting together to talk shop for a few months now, focusing on the challenges of starting and running your own thing. Anyway, at this one particular breakfast we were talking about the success his label is having. I asked a fairly innocuous question (or so I thought), which was “How does Cardiphonia make money from all of these artists and the music you write?”
His answer: ”I don’t ever think about how to make money at it. I just love doing it. It’s my art.”
I wonder if being willing to do something for free because you can’t imagine not doing it is, in no small way, a prerequisite to being great at it.
MLK
I read this quote on Seth Godin’s blog today from Martin Luther King, Jr. It’s tremendous, and worth repeating, especially with the circus we are about to endure in an election year.
“The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority.”
May you live as a maladjusted nonconformist.
