The Client Letter
September 24, 2013
The Desert of Arizona
Sunny 61 Degrees
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It’s funny how often times, the exact things the average Joe abhors are the very things that contain the secret to true freedom.
I was talking to a friend this morning about success and about how certain people have achieved it.
Some people get lucky, but I’m not interested in those folks. If I’m going to “get lucky,” then I’m open to it. But I’m not waiting around for it.
Our conversation quickly turned to the big secret that’s hiding right out in the open for just about anyone to see.
Success is about the daily accumulation of work. Others might refer to it as, “the daily grind.”
Your success depends on your ability to properly define what your “daily grind” should be and then your ability to simply sit there and get it done.
Do you know what your daily grind should be to reach your goals?
Now to the average Muggle, the “daily grind” is drudgery.
That’s because most people have been trained to endure spending their lives doing things they hate.
But if you’re reading this, you are most likely not one of those people. And hopefully, you’re not doing something you hate. If you are, do something else, because life is too short.
Even if you’re doing something you love, though, grinding it out on a daily basis isn’t exactly romantic.
It’s romantic as hell before you start. That’s when you’re dreaming of the future and how all of that work is going to pay off someday.
But the romance wears off once you realize that you’ve got work to do. And so it’s a daily choice you make…
Do you “do the work” or do you distract yourself from doing the work?
Each day you start over with a clean slate and have to make the same darn decision again.
I’d say it gets easier over time. But I’d also say it’s never easy.
It reminds me of when I used to run cross country. I never got to the point where I enjoyed it. I LOVED it when it was over. I LOVED others knowing that I was capable of achieving something like that.
But the actual doing of it isn’t something I learned to appreciate.
I used to think that’s because running cross country wasn’t for me.
But I was young, naive and relatively clueless.
Now I realize I simply didn’t have the discipline to live at my edge–to push myself and be OK with the discomfort that comes with that.
But living at your edge is what creates energy. It is what attracts success. It is what makes life worth living.
Wouldn’t you know it, the very thing that makes you feel alive is protected by the thing that we feel least like doing?
I always felt truly alive after a cross country race. Same with after I played a music recital.
TRULY ALIVE.
I thought it was because I was glad it was over. But really, it was the prize I got for doing something REAL.
Are you living at the edge? Or can you do better?