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Teddy Roosevelt said that, and not many people listened. Even less are listening now.
Let’s see why?
Do what you can. Yeah, what CAN you do?
Most people I know have never taken the time to develop any skills. They are amateurs in every area of life, in everything they do, including the work they get paid to do.
They skim things. They dabble in things. No skills, no mastery, no superpower.
Why? Because it is not exciting. It is not something you would post on social media. It is too meh.
Picasso, before he became Picasso, learned to draw and paint realistically. Well. Then he began his journey to break up things.
No one does anything well nowadays… or only a very few.
People, you, want exciting, extreme, fancy.
When I observe people, when I talk to people, they don’t seem to EVER look at what they can do. Where do they look?
1. In their minds
2. In what they don’t have
Why would that be?
I have a hunch. You don’t know what you have.
You know what you brag about. And you know what you pretend to have.
But you devalue what you have. Take it for granted… just like you take the people in your life for granted. You take everything for granted. I know I do…
Every project, small or large should start with formulation. It is a phase. Ideally it takes as long as it takes… Formulation is research, observation, thinking it LOGICALLY through.
In marketing it is researching your market, what language they use, what they say they need, what they buy, what they complain about after they bought what they bought…
In most other projects, looking what are your resources. Stuff, knowledge, people. Who you are working on or with. What would be the ideal outcome. What would be a normal outcome. What would be a not-so-hot outcome.
I have never met a person who did that.
You come to life unprepared, because you look at life as if it were a McDonald’s… You can’t see the decades worth of planning and preparation that went into that hamburger on a bun.
This is why the guru courses sell. Some even buy a course twice… I have done that. And everyone has many courses on their bookshelves, but the teaching is unheeded.
Everyone wants the fancy stuff…
…and no one wants to do the fundamental.
Without a foundation nothing will work… and of course, nothing works.
It is the same in self-development, self-growth. The fancy, when it cannot stand on a foundation, is just puffery.
It sounds like I am ranting, and maybe I am.
But this is more than just a rant.
It is never too late to build a foundation.
And if you are one of the rare people who already has SOME foundation, it is never too late to build on it.
Here is an interesting observation. Arrogance considers a tone of voice, an attitude more important that having more that just a ‘feeling’ that you can do something, or that you know something.
People who can do something do it… instead of pontificating about it.
There is nothing more precious, there is nothing that makes you feel better about yourself and your life than mastery. Excellence.
It is an aphrodisiac. It is sweet. It is intoxicating. For me it is better than food, better than sex.
Like everything else, mastery begins small.
Mastery grows through mistakes, error, clumsiness, strengthening strengths, and weeding out the weaknesses. First your goal is to get to ordinary, and most people don’t even get there… so if and when you do, you got to second base… First base is through speed and precision.
I know, I know, mastery is not politically correct in this day and age, it is not sexy, not Twitter-worthy, or Instagram-worthy.
But without it, you are building castles in the air, castles that you can’t live in. But more importantly: you can never love yourself. Just because you can do it badly you don’t become lovable. Unless you get to first base your Self say… meh.
And the worst thing: you know it. You know it’s worthless, and you also know that building worthless word-castles makes YOU worthless.
And unless you love yourself, unless there is integrity in your world, you hate yourself.
And that is where most people live: in self-hate… rightly so.
But you don’t have to be stuck there. You can start building a foundation of integrity right now.
It will feel painfully slow, but unless you start, unless you build it, you’ll live the rest of your days in self-hate.
I shiver at the thought of it.
In my first step to steer my business like an oceanliner to new waters, I have just canceled my Playground, and I am starting a new program that is dealing mainly with the future.
The new program is on Tuesdays and some sessions on Saturdays for those who have a job and no guts or power to negotiate two hours off in the middle of a workday.
If you think your life doesn’t depend on the future you never created… you are sadly mistaken.
No guts no glory. That is life.
If you are a pansy, a sensitive soul, a Milquetoast… it is not for you. Love is tough… and I am all about love. What YOU think is love is coddling… Ugh… Ugly.
