Mountains of Arizona
Cloudy 77 Degrees
2:05 p.m.
What makes business hard is the degree to which you think you have to have it figured out to get started or move forward.
That’s a logical idea to have. How could you possibly move forward if you don’t know which way to go?
I struggled with that for some time. I didn’t know which direction to go, so my best approach was to go in ALL of the possible directions.
This is both tiring AND demoralizing.
You might think you’d be overjoyed to find out that “Direction 245” is not viable. That you could take that one off your list.
But that’s not what it feels like to hit a brick wall for the 245th time. It’s just PAIN you’re feeling at that point.
Rather than solve this problem by developing some super human ability to see into the future, I just decided to stop trying to solve the problem altogether.
And then I sat down and started writing things, like this simple message to you, that might help other people. That was almost seven years ago.
I didn’t know what the next step was, so I just decided to choose that one activity (writing an email to people I care about helping) as EVERY next step.
What’s the next step? THAT.
What’s the step after that? THAT!
That was the best course of action I could think of.
Because back then, I couldn’t see the trees for the forest. The forest was FULL of possibilities but as for figuring out which tree to walk up to first, I had no clue.
Wouldn’t you know it, I’ve settled into proving to myself that this is actually the smartest way forward! You stop walking and you start creating.
From that point of creation come the answers, over time. The work then isn’t to “find your path,” it’s to watch closely as your creative contributions to the world slowly illuminate the path from the darkness.
You stop “searching” and start “discovering.”
You stop trying to get what you don’t have and you start expressing who you are.