I've Never....

There's a drinking game out there called I Never.  Have you ever played it? If so, take a drink. That's how the game works. People throw out unusual things and the people who have done them have to take a swig.  Since I'm a pretty straight-laced guy (no drugs, not much of a wild past), I always leave stone sober. That's part of what this blog and book are about for me: doing things that I've never done and helping you guys do them, too.  I have never run a marathon or climbed a mountain (outside of day hikes). I am going to do both because I want to put them in the book.  Be sure to give me your input. I'll totally be your guinea pig and figure out how to crack the code so you can do them, too. Then we can get ripped together at the next party.

Asking for Help

Am I copping out? Isn't this blog (and the forthcoming book) about how to be good at everything?  That's true. But there will come a time when you just won't care about getting better at something. When you'd rather spend your time mastering your backhand rather than how to repair your DVD player. Here's an example from my own (current) life. As you probably know, I have a small graphic and web design business called JAMES DID IT. I am working to build my client base, which means taking on sites whose technical demands are beyond my current expertise. Here are the choices: spend time cultivating more clients and designing their sites  -- or --  find people who are good at the technical part and have them make the sites I designed work.  I choose the latter. As with everything in life, it would not be difficult to learn the programming stuff. It would mean reading some of those books I bought like two years ago and finding online training videos. It would take a few hours, but I could do it pretty easily.

The point is: I don't want to. I don't really care if I know exactly how this stuff works because there are tons of great people out there who are already great at it. So my job becomes cultivating client relationships and creating the visual look of the site (both of which I love) and letting someone else do the part I don't find as rewarding. 

What if we all restructured our lives this way? Do the things you love and ask for help on the things you don't. That doesn't always mean having to pay someone: barter for things when you can (I bet there's something you love that someone else doesn't). Or call in a favor. 

Doing so makes you more of a man. Asking for help takes balls. So grow a pair and get what you need. 

Motivation

I work at home, which means the hardest part of accomplishing anything is getting motivated. And the hardest part of getting motivated is just starting. Here are my tips. The first is to schedule whatever you need to do. Fill the day. It might be something like:  10 a.m. Phone meeting with John 10:45 a.m. Gym 12:30 p.m. Lunch with Investors 1:30 p.m. Respond to e-mails 2 p.m. Work on MacKenzie Project 3 p.m. Work on Phillips Project 4 p.m. Work on Strauss Project 5 p.m. Respond to e-mails 6 p.m. Return urgent phone calls 7 p.m. Dinner with Suzie You get the idea.  If you schedule the important things, you'll get them done. If you don't, you risk the needly silly stuff (checking Facebook or e-mail or watching TV) creeping in, and suddenly you haven't worked out, you're late to lunch, and the Strauss Project never gets a minute of your time. I think complicated to-do lists are a bit of overkill, but that's just me. Do what you need to do to get it done, but be wary: if you have to spend all of your time setting up or maintaining your system, you'll never get to the actual work part.  Now. Stop reading and get out there.

Doing Everything

Hey folks. Welcome to the first real blog entry.  I have always been one of those people who seems to be an overachiever. Those guys that everybody hates a little bit because he seems to be great at everything... but they also like him because "he's just such a nice guy." What is my secret? How do I do it? Well, the first and most important part is that I simply don't do things I'm not good at. Sneaky, right? If you only publicly do things at which you excell, you're bound to rock out. At a certain point, people think you must just be great at everything you do. The other part — and this one has come much later in life — is that most things aren't really that difficult. At least, they're not complicated. It's an important difference. Most things have a really straight-forward "wash-rinse-and-repeat" code that, once cracked, allows you to excell.  Let me elaborate. I'm a fairly athletic guy who isn't too good at sports. The reason is that I haven't taken the time to get better at them. What's important to me is looking and feeling my best (in that order — who cares how you feel if you look like hell?). A few summers ago, however, I was working out of town, and we got together volleyball and ultimate frisbee games nearly every day. It was a blast. I had the prerequisites: I was strong and coordinated. I just hadn't taken the time to learn how to get the frisbee all the way down the field; or how to spike the volleyball into the competitors' dead zone. Once I got good at those things, I was unstopable.  This site — and the book I'm writing by the same name — will be all about those basics. Cracking the code and mastering whatever I can think of trying to master. (I welcome your suggestions.) In fact, a lot of what happens on these pages will be about the book, as it comes together. (There's something else I'm not inately good at: I can write pretty well, but I don't know the first thing about publication.)  So be sure to subscribe and keep checking back. You never know what I'll be up to next.