Life of the mind

There is a flow to your life and much of that flow is found within the thoughts that fill your mind. 

Those thoughts are wholly your own. No one else thinks the same as you. 

Your thoughts and ideas are unique and truly yours. 

Their subject determines so much about your life. 

How often do you stop and ponder exactly what does go through your mind? 

Do you hold thoughts captive? 

Do you strain your mind to control its contents? 

With so much riding on the ideas rolling around in your mind, it makes little sense not to. 

Successful men and women don’t allow thoughts to stride through their mind willy-nilly. No, they expend great energy to inform their minds. 

Take a play from their playbook and do the same. 

If life is foremost the life of the mind, success if anything else comes from disciplining your mind.  

Where Do You Find Inspiration?

“Every artist,” Austin Kleon said, “gets asked the question, “Where do your ideas come from?” The honest artist answers, “I steal them.” Inspiration is that spark of genius that sets your heart to racing, and your hands to moving. It propels you forward as you strive to create something genuine and true. At least, that’s the way I see it. You may have a varying take on what inspiration is, but there it is striking as it will. It has no master, no owner. It comes and goes as it wishes, leaving behind only that which we make of it.

My sister-in-law gave me a copy of Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon for Christmas. I’ll share some of what I’m enjoying and learning from this great read with you in a few weeks. Today I want to talk about another product Austin’s put out there, The Steal Like An Artist Journal. It's filled with exercises and creativity prompts to bring out the creative in each of us. I noticed it online while reading Steal Like An Artist, and decided to order it.

I’ve always struggled to call myself an artist, writer, or creative. It’s been a lack of confidence on my part, with a dash of imposter syndrome thrown in for flavor. Who am I to publish? Who am I to claim the mantle of an artist? Doubts like these have plagued me, as I’m sure they have you at one point in your life.

The greatest help I've found is to show up every day and put something down on paper. It gives me confidence, and hope that I’m getting better. Sitting down to create something—anything—is more important that the finished product. The journey is more important than the destination.

The journal has served as a helpful tool in training my mind to be on the lookout for new and different ideas. To make connections between things that at first glance have nothing in common. “We are all having ideas all the time.” Philip Pullman said, “But I’m on the lookout for them. You’re not.”

The Steal Like An Artist Journal has helped me improve at being on the lookout for good ideas. In short, it is where inspiration finds me each morning before I write.

Enough about me and my journey for one day. What about you? Where do you find inspiration? Are there any tools, or routines that you find helpful?

Tall Tales, Spinning Yarns & Telling Stories

Writing is nothing more than thinking another’s thoughts after them. Perhaps it's for the second time, but more often than not, it’s for the hundredth time. Writers rarely get it right the first time. They plod, meander and sometimes even stagger from time to time. It’s hard stuff. They agonize over word choices, sentence structure, and every detail of how they’re communicating. They wrestled their scattered thoughts into submission and trapped them on paper and you’re now getting to come along for the ride.

Isn’t it fun to set off without a destination in sight and nothing to guide but the moonlight above? You get to hop in the car and drive fast, for the thrill of it all. You don’t have to worry about the road, pack a lunch or pay for gas. You simply have to hang on tight as you turn page after page. One moment you’re cruising down the 101, beach on your left taking in the beauty of another sunset, and the next you’re soaring through the clouds on a jet bound for a far off destination.

Have you paused to think about how magical it all is? Somewhere on this scattered mess of a planet, another human sat down to put ink on page to create the very thing in your hand that’s transporting you all over the universe without your ever having moved. To top it all off, it’s putting ideas in your head. Silently, and unnoticed it’s at work causing thoughts, emotions and all manner of things to come bubbling to the surface. Perhaps you’ll dream about some adventure you joined because of a good piece of writing.  

Imagination is one of the greatest gifts the good Lord has given us, and good writing uses it to perfection. Amidst all the hustle and all the busyness of life, imagination comes riding in on a blue horse to save us. Its tales and adventures pick us up when we’re down, encourage us to try new things, and push us to dare greatly into the unknown.   

The world would be a much more dreary place without it. Stories and books put color and zest into a world often considered gray. What would the world be without the wackiness of Alice in Wonderland, the adventures of Curious George or the triumphs of Sherlock Holmes? What would we understand about the deeper struggles of mankind without Moby Dick, The Great Gatsby or Of Mice & Men. Or of man’s inhumanity to man if not for Anne Frank’s Diary, George Orwell’s Animal Farm or Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird? These take truth, wrap it in language and then etch it into our hearts.    

Storytelling—it’s mankind’s longest running tradition. Man has been gathering to listen and share tales as long as he’s had breath in his lungs. Whether it’s around a fire, transistor radio or farmhouse dinner table, it’s what we do. We recall episodes long past, spin yarns about the victories we’ve won and put lipstick on the underside of life.

Telling a good story takes more than interesting prose or vivid imagery; it requires timing, emotion and rhythm just like your favorite tune. It builds and builds towards the payoff—be that a laugh, outrage, or a tear. As Hank Williams asks the Drifter in “The Ride” by David Allan Coe:  

"Drifter can ya make folks cry when you play and sing?

Have you paid your dues, can you moan the blues? Can you bend them, guitar strings?"
He said, "Boy can you make folks feel what you feel inside?

Anyone trying to entertain and regale you with a good ol’ fashion story is engaged in one of mankind’s grandest ideals. Go along for the ride.

“Stories,” Stephen King said, “are found things, like fossils in the ground.” So grab your shovel and get to digging. There’s no telling the whopper of a tale we’re likely to find.

I'm going to try several new things on the blog this year.  Some of them will work and some of them won't, but we're going to give it a go anyway. Each month, I will share some variety of short fiction with you here. Be it a short story, a scene I'm working on or some rambling prose I found enjoyable to write. Regardless of the shape it takes, or its quality I hope you come along for the ride.   

Client Meetings

Regardless of your current profession meeting with people is one of the most important aspects of your success. Over the years you will share countless meals with people you are looking to influence and build healthy relationships with. Changing how you approach these situations can transform your results as well as your business. Today I discuss how you can run meetings that do far more than generate business. 

1. Take It Offline

The first step in building relationships and taking your game to the next level is to get personal. There is only so much you can do over the phone or email, at a certain point you need to meet face to face. When it comes time for that, pick up the phone or shoot them an email offering to treat them to coffee or a meal. Pick a place closer to them than to you. Begin developing the habit of putting their needs above you own, it will be invaluable.  

2. Personally Connect

The very best meetings are those where you connect on a personal level. Make your time together about them. Spend over 95% of your time asking good questions about the them and their story. It communicates that you genuinely care about them, are looking for common ground and value relationships over business. Connections are built on common ground. You will find that the better you become at connecting with people, the richer your life will be and the faster your business will grow.     

 3. Explain Your Process & Set Expectations

When you do broach the topic of business, use it to as an opportunity to establish expectations. Frustrations are born from unmet expectations. Everyone carries certain expectations with them through life. Sadly, these aren't always communicated and it reaks all kinds of havoc both personally and professionally. Why not use your client meeting to establish expectations for your future clients? Use it as a chance to share your process, answer their questions and roll back the curtain on your operation.  

 4. Follow Up

 As you may have heard, the money is in the follow up. The best habit you can develop is to follow through on the commitments you make durring the meeting. If you tell them you will send them an email containing certain information, send it to them. It does you no good to nail the meeting and then fail to follow through. One common way to follow up is to send a recap of your time together as well as any other information you discuss immediately following your meeting. This establishes trust and sets us up for a successful relationship. 

Clients meetings are often some of your biggest opportunities. Respect their time by doing them well. You just might find that some of your best meetings yield not only some of your best clients but some of your best friends in the process. 

Developing a "Stop Doing" List

Most lead lives full of activity and lacking discipline. "To do" lists are overwhelming and ever growing. They are filled with wasteful activities, "we just have to do", that drain us of energy, steal our time and keep us from chasing truly great opportunities. 

Enter the idea of the "Stop Doing" list. 

A "stop doing" list in its most basic form is a list of the things that you and / or your team are going to stop doing.  

The solution to your crazy schedule and consequently a crazy task list isn't just another list but the process of evaluating exactly what you are doing each day. A "stop doing" list helps you take a cold hard look at what you are doing and literally stop doing those things that are not the most fruitful for you and your team.  

Like much of life, the power is in the process. 

How do you determine which activities are worth doing? Putting together a "stop doing" list begins by taking a hard look at your task list and asking yourself a series of questions.

1. What is the purpose of this task? It is always helpful to begin with the end in mind. To ask yourself the five year old's favorite question, why? Why is this item even on your "to do" list? What was it's origional purpose? Why are you doing each particular task? Purpose matters especially when it comes to the tasks that cosume your time. If the ultimate purpose of a task isn't worth the time, energy and resources it consumes ditch it. 

2. What outcomes does this task produce? Every task you perform produces an outcome. What is the result of doing each item on your list? What fuit does it produce? Make note of the outcomes your work produces. If what you are doing isn't producing good results that are helping you achieve your goals, it is probably something wasting your time.    

3. If I did not already do this, would I do it? Thinking about starting over often helps provide clarity. There are any number of things you do each day that were once great and needed items but whose time has passed. Honestly evaluate each and every item as if it were a new idea even if you've been doing it for years. Just because its the way things have always been done isn't a good enough reason to keep something on your to do list. You have too much going on for wasteful tasks born of tradition.  

4. Does it fall in my area of strength? Focus on what you do best. A stop doing list allows you to focus on your strengths. Stop doing things you're not best equipped to do. Chances are that even if the task is worth doing, someone else around you might be better suited to perform it.