There are so many people that inspire me with their journey to find meaning and purpose. And yet, I often run into a challenge when I invite these people to appear on Taking the Leap. They are hesitant.

“I don't know what I could say that would be of value.”

“I haven't achieved anything yet.”

So many ways of saying, “I am not successful, so why are you asking this of me?”

I spent my morning trying to understand what might cause these people I admire to have such doubts about themselves. And then, as in all good insights, I realized I am also afflicted.

I have been putting off some things until I am more "successful". 

As I dug into this, I realized that my success was partly defined by financial measures – to have enough money, to be seen as prosperous, to have enough influence. I had adopted a fuzzy definition of success strongly influenced by the status quo. 

We cheat ourselves when we define success in financial terms.  This type of thinking limits our options. It commits us to a specific and very narrow view of the problem; a way that often blocks us from achieving success.

I know because I used to do this.

I had defined success as having enough money to be able to travel the world and take a month long vacation. And so I worked harder, raised the household debt and committed myself to a life where I would never be able to stop working. My dream went from 5 years out to 10 years out to some mythical state of retirement when I was 70.

One day my partner and I woke up and realized we would never have our dream unless we did something drastic. We had to break out of the dominant paradigm and take control of our lives.

We quickly realized we also wanted more than a month-long vacation. We yearned to spend the winter somewhere warm where we could write, photograph and renew ourselves. And we didn't want this in 10 years. We wanted it this year. 

I will always remember the day we realized we could have all of this and we could have it within the year.

It meant a lot of changes and sacrifices. We had to reorganize our life. We moved into my tiny studio – two guys, a dog, a cat, and hundreds of piles of stuff lining every wall. We are renting out the rest of our house. We cut our expenses, lowered our debt and changed our lifestyle.

The key was to stop focusing on the financial part of the goal and start focusing on the life we desired to live. And then we were able to be creative about how to get to what we wanted. We discussed so many ways to move us closer to what we yearned for.

I am surrounded by people who say they can't afford their dreams. The sad thing is that they can. They just need to stop yearning for money and start focusing on what they really want.

Maybe they don't get a new car every three years. Maybe they don't buy a larger house. Their kids share a room and then they spend next year touring the world as a family with the money they saved.

Properly defining success allows us to make the sacrifices necessary to live a life others only dream of and allows our hearts to come alive. 

But beware, the status quo is a sneaky and pernicious little beast. It had wormed its way back into how I defined my success, because I had not been explicit in my definition. I had just assumed that how I thought about success would align with the world I am trying to build.

I'd love to know your thoughts about success, how you define it and whether or not you feel like a successful person.

Ready for the next step? See my article on how to Invest in Service.

Tofino Bay, Canada just before I destroyed it in the resin booth

This ended up being a pretty awesome weekend, but it didn't start that way. It began with a complete loss of motivation verging on despair.

My studio is at the in-laws about an hour drive away. As such, I only tend to go up on the weekends. This means I have a limited amount of time to work on my art and a lot of expectations.

We arrived mid-day on Saturday. I set about mixing epoxy resin and preparing three pieces for their final protective coating. Within an hour, the three pieces were ruined and every attempt to salvage them just created more defects in their surface.

Epoxy resin and I have never gotten along. I have read every tutorial. I have adopted every precaution. And still my pieces end up with bubbles or covered in dust and hairs. This was one of the worst cases of the latter. It looked like an army of midges had flown down onto the surface. There were hundreds of hairs and dust motes on each piece.

I have come pretty far in learning this craft. My transfers have improved significantly and I've even begun to learn how to do some basic woodworking. But the epoxy resin stage was a wall I could not scale.

I wrote off the three pieces. They were ruined. I abandoned my studio and locked myself in the guest bedroom. I had been working on these pieces for weeks, and had such high hopes, only to ruin them in the final stage.

As I lay on the bed feeling sorry for myself, I took notice of a flurry of dust in the air. There were hundreds of particles of all sizes. It must be the house. I lifted a leg to kick in frustration at the dust – talk about an exercise in futility – and watched in amazement as my work pants released a cloud of particles into the air. 

To make a long story short, it was my pants. I had tried hair nets, dust covers, air purifiers and more. But I'd always worn a pair of work pants and in every case I had been defeated.

Much to the horror of everyone in the house, I now apply the epoxy in nothing but boxers, a hair net and my ventilator.

Applying epoxy resin in the buff. Not for the faint of heart!

And for the first time in almost a year, I have my first finished epoxy resin piece with next-to-no defects.

To say this was an emotional turnaround for me is an understatement. I found myself singing and dancing with the blow torch while waiting to zap any bubbles.

But it gets better. Every artist I've spoken to has told me you can't save an epoxy resin piece once it has defects. I once found a video showing a woodworker spending three hours sanding, buffing and polishing a bar top to get the dust marks out. This seemed like an insane amount of effort but I still tried it. No go. My artist friends were right.

In my newfound delirium, I decided to try again. I had found an article saying you could sand your piece lightly with 400 grit sandpaper and then simply re-apply the epoxy resin. It sounded too good to be true.

But it was wasn't. It actually worked.

One of the ruined resin pieces sanded and waiting to go back into the resin bay

Not only did I complete three new resin pieces, I was able to save two of the three pieces I had thought lost to the landfill. And I would have saved the third one, but I ran out of time and dust covers.

It was one of the most productive weekends I have yet to spend in my studio. And yet also one of the lowest emotional points I have experienced. 

The whole "it's darkest right before the light" metaphor comes to mind, but I can't stop from rolling my eyes at such a statement even though I just experienced its truth. 

I've spoken before about the need for grit and determination. This is just another example. I have been fighting with this process for over a year. And let me tell you, I'm not normally someone that will stick with something through so much failure and endless frustration.

I'm actually a poster child for ADHD and telling patience to go F' itself. So I am a little perplexed as to how I managed to stick with this initiative for this long.

As such, I've been turning to my network and asking people how they stay with something when the novelty and passion have worn off. 

So without further ado, please share. How do you stay with something when the novelty has worn off? What tools or tips do you have for someone who is feeling like they will never "get it right"? How do you know when to give up on something? And when not to?

Whatever you desire for your audience, you have to be willing to go there first.

I've been taught this simple truth so very many times in my life. 

As a performer, if I wanted an audience to be excited and happy, then I had to be those very things. It didn't matter if I had a headache, was upset with my partner or feeling nervous about a new routine. When I walked onto the stage, I had to be confident, dashing and full of life. To do otherwise was to risk losing my audience and "bombing" – a truly horrifying social experience.

As a presenter, it is the same. I'm always nervous before I present, but if I allow the nervousness to stick around, it will be impossible for my audience to relax and enjoy the journey. They will be just as nervous as I am.  

And yet, there is a powerful urge to start motoring through the presentation and just ignore my clammy hands. It's important that I stop and connect with my audience in order to change my emotional state. I've used jokes, a warm up exercise or even a Q&A session before my presentation. This is about creating rapport and putting myself at ease so that they can be at ease.

As a coach and facilitator, this rule applies as well. When I'm working with a group, I make sure that I expose some of my own dirty laundry. I prove that the space is safe and that I am willing to share and explore the very things I am asking them to contemplate. 

This is not to say that my vulnerability will enable everyone else to feel safe being vulnerable. The rule is simply that I should not expect others to explore a state if I'm not willing to go there first. It is far more likely that they will enter a territory if I first open the door.

As a life partner, there are times when I find it hard to not get distracted, annoyed or even frustrated when interacting with Eli. It took many years before I realized that these moments were equally challenging for him. I can be a bit stubborn and slow at times.

It was a cycle of frustration, inattention and anger that would build up between us. I found it hard to identify the cycle let alone stop it. It's still something I struggle with, but things are improving as I learn to apply this rule and change my emotional state.

I make this shift, sometimes successfully, by focusing on my breathing and becoming curious about what it is happening As I begin to become curious, my emotional state changes and I become more fully present in what is happening in him and myself. I can enter fascination and understanding and this transformation helps him to also exit the cycle of frustration, self-doubt and the like.

As a salesman (of my art, my passions, etc.), this rule is king. I will sit for hours while someone overwhelmed with excitement attempts to sell me used glue remnants. Their enthusiasm and passion are a joy to witness and also extremely contagious. Compare this to the corporate sales representative droning through endless powerpoint slides about a product they don't really care about. Three minutes of the latter and I begin searching the room for a way to maim myself just enough to have an ambulance come and rescue me. 

And yet, as artists, it can be hard to sell ourselves and our work. It seems slimy and two-faced. Our hands go clammy and we are filled with dread. We question our worth. We question our work. We start thinking about becoming a barista.

We've missed the whole point.

Every person we touch, every piece we put into a home, is a chance to change the world. I know that sounds grandiose and deluded, but this is the true potential of these interactions if we would stop sabotaging ourselves.

As creators, we have a chance to impact our audience, if we are simply willing to go there first.

When I go to sell a piece, I can choose to get excited. I can talk about my passion, my purpose, and my journey to help others while searching for what matters. I can choose to become contagious and have what is flowing through me enter their lives and start them on their journey for purpose and meaning.

But that means I have to change how I see selling my work. I have to see these interactions as joyous, magical, super nova, potentially life-changing events.

Are you contagious? Should you be?

I've already gone through four shirts, 2 litres of water and most of a half gallon of apple cider. It's hot in Kansas City. The dog and I went on a 2 hour walk in Swope Park this morning. Then I drove around the city, watched an old man fish and three young men talking with gestures on a street corner.

I managed to find some food and get back to the hotel. My computer sat on the desk, where I had left it, taunting me.

I took a nap. Then I took a bath. I considered another nap, but instead called Laura, who I am so excited to finally get to meet tomorrow.

I ate a second lunch and finally sat down in front on my computer. My dog was snoring and twitching in a dream on the bed behind me and I wondered if I should make another cup of in-room, coffee-like drink.

I checked email. I checked bookFace and the twitter.

But finally I had to acknowledge that I didn't want to get down to work. I wasn't avoiding all work. I'd have killed for some client work. I didn't want to write.

Yesterday I saw a post from someone who is struggling with motivation. He was lamenting that he had read every book, but just can't commit to deadlines for his own projects. He was hoping someone might have a trick or a solution. I could hear the words not written, "I am broken. There is something wrong with me."

This is all of us. If struggling to commit to a personal project is an unassailable fault, then all of us are broken.

And this is where the follow your passion folks drive me insane. It's not about passion. It's not about to do lists, or writing words on mirrors. It's not about a lack of motivation and it has nothing to do with inspiration.

There is one determination of success and it is grit – the determination to sit down every day and just do the thing. It matters not if what emerges is a pile of steaming dog crap. What matters is the grit to sit down and produce it anyway.

Grit realized is habit. 

So today I forced myself to pull my chair up and write these words. They weren't the words I expected to write, but they were the words I needed. If you are finding it difficult to work on something, please know you are not alone. Every one of us is right there with you. Acknowledge that you are not broken and then sit down and get started.

Me, I've done my hour and now I'm off to change my shirt and take another nap.

You might also enjoy my post on the Myth of Procrastination and Productivity.

Or this article on Staying Inspired.

Show Notes:

This week I am speaking with Otto Scharmer – senior lecturer at MIT's Sloan School of Management, co-founder of the Presencing Institute, founding chair of the MIT IDEAS Program, social innovator and an amazing facilitator of personal, organizational and societal change. We speak about stillness, transformation, and his latest book, Leading from the Emerging Future.

Otto Scharmer's Website

The Full Guided Journaling Exercise

Otto's book: Leading from the Emerging Future [on amazon]

BALLE: The Localist Movement

The Music

I'm totally infatuated with The Bell Hours and Luke Gartner-Brereton.

For Your Eyes by The Bell Hours from their Easy Weather album.
Easy Weather by The Bell Hours from their Easy Weather album.

Amaryllis by Luke Gartner-Brereton from the Ambrosia album.
 

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