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…or how to become a producer, instead of a frog.
…or how to stop coasting and start rising…
Lots of way to say the result… but let’s get back to the quote in the title:
The quote in this form: Good artists borrow, great artists steal. was a favorite of Steve Jobs but he was probably (mis)quoting Pablo Picasso who said ‘Lesser artists borrow; great artists steal‘ – who in turn might be rephrasing Igor Stravinsky, but both sayings may well originate in T. S. Eliot’s dictum:
‘Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn.‘ – The origins of this quote itself is an example of great artists stealing.’ ?
Why am I sharing this quote right now?
It is because I am going to ‘steal‘ an email I got from one of my classmates, Derek Doepker. Class mate in a coaching program I participate in…
Derek Doepker (vibration: 100) is an author and helps writers write bestsellers… I met him first on a webinar where he was teaching participants how to sell more of their books by recording the audio version themselves.
Great guy, as far as I can tell… little rigid… but that just may be his ethnic heritage (German). Very disciplined, very productive. Smiles only for photos.
So I am stealing his last email… and yes, I signed up to his email list. I am ready to learn from him. You will see why.
Just one more piece of reason why this and why now:
Yesterday, on the Getting Guidance from your Future Self weekly workshop I asked the participants to make four lists: What they want to do more or, less of, what they want to start doing, what they want to stop doing.
Most answered with inner stuff, (start listening, stop listening, think about… blah blah blah) things that cannot be checked, and none of them had any measurable outcome in mind.
So Derek’s book, where he calls almost all our promises and plans b.s. played out in spades.
You are playing for keeps, you are playing for looking good… And this is how you remain the same.
If how you and your life are work for you: OK. If it doesn’t, then you are BS artist and miserable… and you need to break through your BS.
So I asked every participant to create one, ONE habit, goal, accomplishment, whatever you want to call it, to create a line of demarcation, so when they look back five yours from yesterday, they will be able to say, proudly: I started that on the inauguration day of Biden and Harris.
For most of them, that is a preposterous plan that is doomed to fail… Guaranteed.
Why? Because their current habits do not support any change. Because how they are doing life is going to pull them back to the BS, unless…
So here is Derek’s email where he teaches how:
a preposterous plan doomed to fail
Take a goal you have in mind.
Now, ask yourself this question…
How would you guarantee you FAIL to achieve this goal?
This may seem like a preposterous question.
However, it’s surprisingly enlightening.
For instance, I had a goal to get a rough draft of a new book done last month.
I asked, how would I guarantee I do NOT hit my deadline?
Here are some ideas that came to mind…
° Check social media constantly
° Have no accountability
° Surround myself with distractions
° Forget to work on my book and don’t give myself any reminders
° Take on too many other projects that rob my focus
° Try to make sure the draft is 100% perfect (perfectionism)
And so on.
Then I flipped these points to their opposites.
Since forgetting to work on my draft may lead to failure, I put daily reminders on my calendar app to work on my book.
Since too many projects may lead to overload, I made sure to limit how many projects I took on.
Since a lack of accountability may cause me to delay the draft, I told some people about my deadline.
What you’re seeing is a process called Inversion Thinking. It’s where you consider the opposite of what you want.
While you may not always know how to succeed, you can likely figure out how to fail. Then you simply do the opposite. Or at least, make sure to NOT follow any steps in the doomed-to-fail plan.
So give this a shot.
Come up with your preposterous plan for failure…
Then invert it to get even more clarity on how to succeed.
Take care!
Got it?
OK, it is one thing to get how Derek does it, how I do it, (exactly like Derek, by the way. So in many ways he is preaching to the choir with me… ).
And it is a whole other thing to actually put it into action, so you can say five years from now: I started a habit a day after the inauguration, and look how far it has taken me…
So what should you do?
Set a result, a specific, measurable, testable, visible, result. Something you can really fail at.
I promised to create a publishing calendar for 3 months… If I do it, I’ll know what to write about. I can tweak and correct it, and eventually become so good at it, that I can stop just winging it… and come up with big fat zeros… as nowadays I do… way too often to my liking.
You’ll know because I will come up with interesting topics that really interest you, and products that you want to buy, cam buy, will buy.
- A student of mine committed to writing five emails a day to learn the craft of writing emails.
- Yet another student committed to writing a business plan she got paid for a long time ago, but she hasn’t felt like writing it.
- A third student committed to study three hours a day so she can become a registered nurse…
You get the kinds of promises/goals that work.
Something that requires you to do something, every day, so a habit can be formed.
Your life is the sum total of your habits, and if you look, your habits have not been geared towards what you claim you want, they have been geared towards remaining the same.
So what I want you to do is this: prepare yourself for breakthroughs
- Make up a result that is measurable, and preferably a habit that you perform every day
- make the list of things you will stop doing… and
- make a list of the things you’ll start doing to support yourself in doing what needs to be done, so you can produce the result.
- email them to me. Just hit reply on this email or I will ignore your email.
The best and most preposterous of you will win a personal session with me… but I will read, review, and answer each and every one of you.
This is worth, just doing the exercise, a 100 bucks… but for many of you, this may be the start of the life you have always wanted, where you start mattering, where you start becoming productive, and where you can be proud of yourself.
Talking to me is worth $250… or millions… it is all up to you and what you’ll do with what you get.
The best plans are the plans that make that inner voice really loud and protesting, by the way.
If your inner voice isn’t getting loud, you created something that won’t matter, because it is more of the same.
If you are hesitant, then I recommend the Freedom Courses: there you’ll find out why and what flavor of BS artist you invented yourself to be when you were 3 years old… You’ll love it, you’ll hate it, but you’ll have some choice about it in the end.
Tomorrow I’ll open up signups to the Freedom Courses… so be alert… And ready… lol.
Do the exerc ise… and email it to me.
And if you MUST buy something, get the humility activator… you’ll need it.
Go get it
