Jeffrey Willms

Having Trouble Journaling? Try a Logbook

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    Do you have half-filled journals tucked into book shelves and nooks around your house? I did. I tried to hide them because each time I saw them I heard them calling out to me. “Fill me up!” they would yell. In my head I would make all kinds of excuses.
    “They’re too nice to not have a perfect entry.” Or “I didn’t do anything interesting today so I should waste a page.”
    And then how are you supposed to start a journal? “Dear diary,” sounds middle-school girlish. And then you just try to write what you did and it sounds like you’re the most narcissistic person in the world. “I…, I…, I…”
    Sure, I would start for a couple of days. Then you miss a couple. So I would either try to remember what I did those days or just start over.
    But it always ended the same. No journaling. No recording of moments I know I’d like to remember or at least know where I could find them if I ever wanted to. “A life worth living,” Jim Rohn said, “is a life worth recording.” And I want to live a life worth living which meant I needed to figure out how I could document what I was doing.
    And then I happened upon the idea of a logbook. I was reading Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon. He detailed how he kept a logbook.1
    It fit my style perfectly. Sketches and a couple of quick notes. Nothing in narrative form. Just quick little reminders of what happened. Enough to spark the memory. Why was I mad? Or laughing historically? Or crying?
    Here’s how I use my logbook:
  • I get the Moleskin daily planner. Each day has it’s own full page.
  • I’ve started to write down what time I get up (in an effort to get up earlier) and how much I weigh that morning (the scale doesn’t lie).
  • After my quiet time, I write down the best verse that I’d like to remember (but often don’t) throughout the day.
  • After winding down the day I fill out the rest of the journal, sketching a quick picture of the activity and a couple of words of who I was with or what happened.
  • I probably put in too much detail but it’s my logbook. You can record whatever you want in yours.
    I’m finishing my second full year of the logbook. It’s the most consistent thing I’ve done the past 2 years. And it’s allowed me to track my other habits and see what adjustments I’d like to make in my morning routine, my diet, or work habits.
    There’s no hiding how I spent my day—wisely or foolishly. It’s all laid out in front of me. So if you’ve ever tried to journal and failed, try again. Try a logbook.
Footnotes
  1. I strongly recommend Austin Kleon’s books, including Steal Like an Artist and Show Your Work. Also check out his blog where you can also see an early post on his logbook titled, On Keeping a Logbook.
  2. Don’t think you can draw? Bull $#!+. Check out Dan Roam and his books as a great place to start.

Working with Cow Hoofs

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    Kermit thinks it isn’t easy to be green. Try being a cow. If you don’t produce you become hamburger. And being a cow can seem so ordinary. A cow isn’t supposed to build airplanes, or sing songs, or paint. The dairy cow is meant to fill the world with glorious milk.
The key for being a great cow is to know your constraints and how to work with them. Dean Jackson challenges us to “Imagine that you have some cow-hoof mittens and you put them on for the day and you observed how much of your stuff that you did today could you have done with your mittens on.”1
    Think about your day. What do you do that isn’t high value? What could you have someone else do or hire someone else to do? Maybe you aren’t supposed to do the graphic design, edit the post, do the  social media post. Everything. You do whatever the part is that only you can do. Whatever your milk is…produce that and let other people process the rest.
    One constraint that might be useful to think about how you could operate if you only had your cell phone. What if you had to get everything accomplished by going mobile-only? No more spreadsheets, word-processing, or long emails. You’d be limited for sure. But you could still do a ton. 
    Gary Vaynerchuk, serial entrepreneur and businessman, answered that question on his #AskGaryVee show. He suggested, “Anything that isn’t great on the phone, you scale through another human being. If you’re able to afford an admin or use some AI assitants and things of that nature…. But I think the human element of having an admin or somebody else to close the shortcoming but I think of living in a mobile-only environment is real.”2
Take a look at how Dan Martell, another entrepreneur that produces content to build his personal brand and authority. Dan schedules a couple of days 3-4 times a year where he records about 5 minute videos. The video content comes from questions that his audience would like him to answer.He has his team record and edit his responses. That video gets posted to YouTube.com. The audio is extracted for the Growth Stacking podcast on Apple’s iTunes and SoundCloud.  He then writes a quick intro to the video and publishes the blog post to his personal blog, Medium.com, and LinkedIn.com. He also sends it out to his email list.
    He has quotes pulled out from the video and added to a photo for quote cards to be put on Instagram. He does a quick Facebook post and tweets to drive traffic to to the posts so that people see it and he gets more exposure. He constrains himself with time and content production but still produces his “milk.”
    Constraints are all around us. The key is to use them to your advantage.3 How can you put on some cow hoof mittens and multiply your productivity?
 
Footnotes
  1. I first started thinking about this after listening to the I Love Marketing Podcast with Dean Jackson and Joe Polish. In their 3-part episodes on the Self-Milking Cows, they discussed how to delegate, automate, and systematize content creation so that you are only working on the things that you can work on. This quote comes from Dean Jackson, episode #127.
  2. Gary Vaynerchuk produces a ton of content. This quote came from the #AskGaryVee Show, episode #234 with Oliver Luckett. He is the master of producing content through delegation and systematization. Watch his video How We Make the Sausage to see how he takes one piece of content and multiplies it.
  3. Constraints are all around us. When we acknowledge and work with them we can create and innovate in new and wonderful ways. Phil Hansen’s TedTalk Embrace the Shake provides excellent insight into how he did that with his art. 

Avoiding Bad Endings

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    Have you ever watch a great movie and then it gets ruined at the end? It doesn’t happen very often. Usually the plot sucks right from the beginning and fails to draw you in , or the middle build-up just doesn’t move you to care.
    The movie that sticks out to me is The Pledge. It was a Sean Penn movie starring Jack Nicholson. You can get the synopsis and reviews on other sites. But it was great…until the end.
    The ending just ruined the movie. So much so that I think about it every time I think about bad endings. And we need to think about our endings as much if not more than our beginnings.
    Daniel Kahneman and his colleagues designed a cold water experiment that shows how we remember bad things. In the study, the subjects were told there would be three trials. Each participant plunged their hand into a bucket of cold water at 14-degrees Celsius. Cold but not unbearable. One bucket the subjects held their hand in the water for 60 seconds. The second bucket was the long trial where the participants had to hold their hand in the bucket for 60 seconds, but then for an additional 30 seconds warmer water was let in raising the temperature 1-degree.
    The researchers then asked the subjects which trial they would like to repeat—the shorter but colder bucket or the longer but less painful bucket. As Kahneman reported in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, “Fully 80% of the participants who reported that their pain diminished during the final phase of the longer episode opted to repeat it, thereby declaring themselves willing to suffer 30 seconds of needless pain in the anticipated third trial…. They chose to repeat the episode of which they had the less aversive memory.” (p. 383)
    John Gottman researches couples and their marriages. He has found that a the foundation a deep friendship is at the heart of a great marriage. One of the methods for increasing this friendship is to make deposits into the other person’s emotional bank account. This can be accomplished by “turning toward each other” when the other makes a bid for the affection, laughter, or sympathy.
    Gottman found that, “Although you can earn points in your emotional bank account during just about any everyday activity…, we have found the first one, “Reunite at the end of the day and talk about how it went,” to be the most effective.” How you end the day is a huge determinant in how your marriage movie goes.
    Endings effect how we remember events. The better the ending the more favorably we remember the event. The worse or painful the ending, the fewer positive emotions we associate with the event. So how can you create better endings in other areas of your life?
  • Relationships: How can you say goodbye when you leave for the day to your kids so that it is uplifting?
  • Work: How can you leave a job so that you don’t burn the proverbial bridge? Or, can you leave everyday on a positive note so that the next day is better?
  • Workouts: Can you make the last 5 minutes enjoyable so that it motivates you to come back
Footnotes

Pick Your Identity Like Your Choosing What Superhero to Be for Halloween

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All superhero’s have an identify. Think about Batman. He’s Bruce Wayne by day but fights crime in Gotham City. Everything he does orbits around his quest for justice and fighting crime in the city. It’s why he trained to become a scientists and trains his body. His identity impacts his choices.

Young businessman acting like a super hero and tearing his shirt

The same goes for every other superhero. And that identity helps determine their lifestyle. We can do the same thing. We can choose an identity that creates a lifestyle that we want.

Great athletes do it. Tom Seaver, a hall of fame baseball pitcher, tied everything to his identity as a pitcher. In a Sports Illustrated article from 1972 he articulated his organizing identity:

“Pitching is what makes me happy. I’ve devoted my life to it. I live my life around the four days between starts. It determines what I eat, when I go to bed, what I do when I’m awake. It determines how I spend my life when I’m not pitching….If it means in the winter I eat cottage cheese instead of chocolate chip cookies in order to keep my weight down, then I eat cottage cheese. I might want those cookies but I won’t ever eat them. That might bother some people but it doesn’t bother me. I enjoy the cottage cheese. I enjoy it more than I would those cookies because I know it will help me do what makes me happy.”

But it’s not just athletes. Gary Vaynerchuk lifestyle is organized around his identity as a businessman and entrepreneur. Tim Ferriss’s identity is organized around being a human guinea pig and writing about it. And Hillary Clinton’s is about being a politician.

Some decisions come from a rational pro and con process. But most come from who we are. We ask ourselves, “Would a [insert organizing identity] eat this, buy that, say this, or do that?” The organizing identity can be whatever you want it to be. It could be your occupation–teacher, coach, doctor, lawyer, or entrepreneur. Or it could be your role in the family–husband, father, son. Or it could be something from your race, religion, or position.

Your organizing identity is important because it can make your decisions easier and quicker. If your a vegan, there’s no chance your eating that piece of meat. So instead of trying to change your behaviors and habits one at a time, think about what your identity is. What would that person do, believe, and think? What is the lifestyle you want? Is your identity congruent with the lifestyle you want?

Batman’s identity determines what he does. Yours will to. And you can make it what you want it to be just like you get to choose who you want to be for Halloween.

Take a Risk…Be Boring

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When investing, many advisors suggest diversifying your portfolio. By buying a little bit of different things you spread your risk over a variety of different investments. If one goes bad, you still have a bunch that are thriving.

risk-scale

The old adage “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” can apply to our personal lives too. Clyde Coombs, a University of Michigan psychologist, developed a theory of risk based on this portfolio idea. By being cautious, disciplined, and controlled in most areas of our life, we can take high risks in another.

This occurs over and over in life. Remit Sethi, personal finance entrepreneur calls the concept his Tripod of Stability. He states, “This basically means that I try to keep the big things in my life ultra-stable–car, where I live, relationships-so I can afford to be ultra-aggressive about other things.

In willpower experiments, scientists have concluded that willpower is a finite resource that can become depleted like using a muscle and that willpower draws from one source for all tasks. When you are focused on working out and dieting, you may be more open to gambling, an affair, or stealing.

In order to create, grow, and improve we must push ourselves beyond our comfort zone. You will NOT get better if you don’t. And pushing beyond your comfort zone is risky. It can take willpower and energy. By definition it means you have to try to do something you haven’t done before.

And that means uncertainty, doubts and fears. We must balance that risk with the known, boring, routine. It’s why I like to have my daily morning routine of getting up, having a cup of coffee while I read the Scriptures. Then I workout doing Pilates, pushups, body weight squats, and kettle bell swings.

Every Saturday and Sunday I do the same things. It’s routine. It may be boring to some. But I love it. I know what I’m doing and what I’ve chosen to do provides me with energy and our productive activities. And by being boring I can take risks in other areas of my life.

But just because I take risks, doesn’t mean I’m stupid. Take steps to mitigate the risk. I have a house by the beach which could be susceptible to hurricanes, flooding, and the wind. But I’ve purchased wind and hail insurance, flood insurance, earthquake insurance, and have an extra umbrella policy. We also are prepared with water and an emergency kit.

Adam Grant in Originals wrote about taking risks:

“To become original, you have to try something new, which means accepting some measure of risk. But the most successful originals are not the daredevils who leap before they look. They are the ones who reluctantly tiptoe to the edge of a cliff, calculate the rate of descent, triple-check their parachutes, and set up a safety net at the bottom just in case.”

Cliff Jumping

We have to take risks. But by being boring you open yourself up to taking smart risks.

Are you a routine person and does it allow you to take risks in an area of your life?

 

Why I’m Building a Soapbox…and You Should Too

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Soapboxes were boxes that speakers stand on to be heard above the crowd as they wander by. They are a platform to stand on where you can present your case and gather an audience.

Soap boxes, stages, or platforms can be real, physical places. Speakers’ Corner at Hyde Park in London is known for people given speeches on their soap boxes. But now they don’t have to be.

You and I can start building our soap boxes from the comfort of our living rooms. Or coffee shops. Or the beach. Anywhere you can have a computer and an internet connection. We just need to take the leap, start putting ideas out into the world, and connecting with an audience.

Why should we build our soap boxes? One, it allows you to connect with people, fans, and followers. The new world is about connecting and interacting with our tribes. Soap boxes allow us to meet those people and help lead the tribe.

Second, it helps us fight the interference that we face. We can work on our soap box without feeling the fear, doubt, and shame that can come from putting our art into the world. Seth Godin, explained in Linchpin:

“I’m trying to sell you on the idea of building a platform before you have your next idea, to view the platform building as a separate project from spreading your art. You can work on the platform every day, do it without facing the resistance. As the platform gets bigger and stronger, you get to launch each idea a little farther uphill.”

Finally, it allows you to show your work. You can document what you are experiencing in the moment instead of trying to create. To show people what you are doing from day-to-day and week-to-week. Making your art is often a grind. Most people just see the finished product and forget about the toil through the blood, sweat and tears that we have to put in to get to the finished product. Share the journey with others.

You don’t just have to have one soap box either. Build the blog soap box. Build the Facebook soap box. And the Twitter. And the Instagram. And the Snapchat. And the Medium. You can stack them one on top of another and make a bigger soap box.

This is my soap box. I’m building it board by board and nail by nail. I hope you decide to build yours.

Fighting Interference

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Have you ever been driving along and the GPS lost its signal? The error message flashes on the screen alerting you that the connection has been lost. Usually it’s because the signal has been jumbled in the atmosphere by clouds, trees, or being in a valley.

hand with a phone searching for signal with a stormy sky

The same thing can happen in our lives. The signals from our mission, values, or habits get scrambled so that we struggle to decipher the code. Other authors have called this “noise” or “resistance.”  I call it Interference.

Interference can come from internal or external forces. Either way, it’s these obstacles that keep you from finding and following your personal mission.

Interference can manifest itself in a variety of forms. The most common ways are as fear, self-doubt, burn out, busyness, procrastination, distraction, addiction, perfectionism, perceived lack of space, time, or money, and well-intentioned people like your friends and family.

When the Interference becomes too strong we lose our tracking and start down the path that society envisions for us (or what we believe society envisions for us).

Instead of taking our path, we start living what Randy Komisar called the deferred-life plan. Komisar wrote,

“It’s not, as I’ve learned from my own experience, that the deferred life is just a bad bet. Its very structure—first, step one, do what you must; then, step two, do what you want—implies that what we must do is necessarily different from what we want to do. Why is that the case? …. Don’t misunderstand my skepticism. Sacrifice and compromise are integral parts of any life, even a life well lived. But why not do hard work because it is meaningful, not simply to get it over with in order to move on to the next thing?”

To live the life we want instead of the life we’re living we have to break the interference. To break the interference we have to ask ourselves 1) How bad do I want it? And 2) Why do I want it?

Steven Pressfield believes that you have to turn pro to break through the interference. Being a pro means showing up every day. You want it bad enough that you’re willing to show up even when you don’t feel like it. Even when there’s no inspiration.

It’s like getting your cell phone signal back. You’ve got to climb out of the valley, or up the tree. Or move to where there aren’t any clouds.

Break through the interference. Show up. Everyday. And put in the work. Are you ready?

The Rule of Hard Things

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Nobody likes to do hard things. They’re hard. But think about the accomplishments you truly treasure and the trophies or mementos that mean something to you. They were probably hard to do or get. That’s the irony. Hard things are what we should be looking for and trying to do.

Climbing Rock

In her best-selling book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, psychologist Angela Duckworth details The Hard Thing Rules that she has implemented for her family. The rules are in place to help her train her daughters in grittiness and to develop an expertise in something they have a passion for.

The Hard Thing Rule has three parts:

  1. Everyone in the family has to do a hard thing.
  2. You can quit, but only at a natural stopping point like the end of a season, or after a recital.
  3. You get to pick your hard thing.

These rules allow for the development of perseverance and grit, but only in an activity that you want to do. It isn’t forced upon you. Plus you know that other people are working on their hard thing. You aren’t alone.

Know you may be wondering what a hard thing is. A hard thing is an acting that requires daily, deliberate practice. Deliberate practice has specific qualities that are characterized by the following:

  • Developing skills that have been systematized into effective training techniques.
  • A teacher or coach develops a training plan to make small changes that add up to the desired result.
  • Training takes place outside your comfort zone and forces you to try things just beyond your present abilities.
  • It is NOT aimed at some vague, overall improvement but has specific goals and targeted performance enhancements.
  • Feedback is given and efforts are modified because of that feedback.

So if you want to accomplish big things and be known as a gritty person you have to commit to a hard thing or two and get down to the hard work of daily deliberate practice. The first question is to decide what you want to be your hard thing. Is it sports or physically related like weight lifting, dancing, or swimming? Or is it music, comedy, or learning a language?

The next step is to ask who can be your coach, either in person or virtually for a class or program. Who will give you the specific goals for your improvement and the feedback to make modifications to your efforts?

Finally, you have to make the decision to get started and commit to the daily practice. It doesn’t have to be for a lifetime. You can decide what your hard thing is and you can quit at the appropriate time if you want. But choosing something and sticking to it can result in tremendous rewards.

Personally, my hard things are going to be ballroom dance and increasing my vertical jump. For ballroom dance I will be working with a local dance company to have weekly lessons to improve on my Rumba. For the vertical jump I will have a virtual coach to lead me through the exercises. I’ll reevaluate at the end of the year and determine if I want to continue based on the results and how much fun I’m having.

What’s your hard thing and how do you plan on practicing it?