Sometimes we can fall into this trap of thinking there is a plethora of critics ready to pounce on every mistake we make.
The truth is, there are not that many voices—it’s the same voices criticizing over and over again.
Speaking criticism into existence is far too pedantic for the important work of moving mountains.
It’s not a destination or a dollar amount.
It’s not a plaque on the wall or being mentioned in the New York Times.
It’s a posture.
People like us do stuff like this.
It took James Dyson five years, 5,100 prototypes before he got his first Dyson Vacuum just right.
Despite having a superior product, it was laughed at by all of his competitors for not having a bag. In fact, no one in the UK would even manufacture it. Not because his product wasn’t good, because we couldn’t see.
We couldn’t imagine a world of bagless vacuums. It wasn’t what we were used to.
The world is full of people with great ideas. Great ideas are not in short supply anymore. What’s hard is:
Having the guts to finish
And
Getting past the fear people have of change.
Forward progress depends on overcoming these two hurdles.
The first kind involves winners and losers. Exchanges are closely monitored, every penny is carefully divided. What you give must be less than what you get.
The other kind is a sprint. A short burst, giving it your all to make change happen.
The question we need to understand is: In a race to the bottom, who wins?
Why fight for every inch when there is plenty of room at the top.
Your first victory is different from your first break.
Your first victory will be quiet. You won’t receive the red carpet treatment. But you can be proud because you likely changed one person. (Maybe even yourself.)
Then, you get to do it again.
Building a body of work. Little by little, drip by drip, getting more attention and more trust with each interaction you make.
Until your first break.
You hit the tipping point. You’ve crossed the chasm. You’ve reached the masses.
Once you’ve changed one person, then you can change ten. Yet, most of us wrongly think it’s the other way around.
We don’t need to lower the bar for everyone to get over the top.
No one wants to have open heart surgery from someone who didn’t finish medical school.
The alternative is, you can provide a clear path.
Clarity offers the surest path of enrolling the people you seek to change.
Until there’s a happy ending.
It turns out the key to controlling a free fall is very simple: You have to relax.
The problem is, it’s not in our human nature to jump out of airplane at 13,000 feet falling 120 miles per hour.
We tense up when the stakes get high.
That’s the moment.
We can learn to manage the risk we face, the uncertainty life presents by loosening up and going along with the ride, not fighting it.
Fighting gravity is a losing battle.
In Delhi, honking your car horn is used for directions rather than alerts.
In Japan, cities are labeled by district/block/house number (in the order it was built). Streets are not actually labeled.
In China, doctors are paid every month for you to be healthy. When you are sick, you don’t pay.
In Russia, people don’t put eyes on smileys when typing. They use ) or ))) but not :).
It’s neither good or bad, just different. Different cultures with different histories.
We get so used to doing things our way, we forget there is a whole world of possibility—as long as we don’t ride off the weird, the different and the strange as distasteful.
Better yet, why do it for money?
It’s only recently in history that someone got paid for writing a book or painting a picture or playing the guitar.
For centuries, you didn’t make art for money, you did it because it made you happy. As a result, you shared that experience with others.
Art is about connection. A labor of love. To make change happen. Not for clicks or for popularity.
We do what we do for free not because we want to. Because we must.
No catch. No angle. No “this for that.”
Whatever it is you do, do it. Do it well. Do it for free. Again and again.
Josh Allred's Blog 