You hear it all the time — I am busy; I am working hard…. and yet, these people (ourselves definitely in some moments), find themselves in the same spot. They are not achieving the creative success — making and releasing the art they love. We are not achieving the financial success, or simple project success of our charity and cause.
A massive risk we overlook
We mistake our hard work as progressive work. We confuse motion, activity, and checking any boxes as successful predictors of achieving our goals. But why … why is this not productive?!
It might be productive …
But it may just take a long long time for it to be realized. The work you are doing can result in the impact you seek. It can through simple persistence, timing, luck, and or covering off all the steps simply through brute force effort.
I wish this on none of you. I have taken this path before. I have suffered on hundreds of days and thousands of hours of straight committed work. In many cases I burnt out, I didn’t find my joy, and the impact didn’t truly become realized.
You can do so much better .. here is how.
Framework of achieving my life ambitions, steal this
Here it is .. built from my life experiences and cross checked across some of the most prolific and successful entrepreneurs and creatives in the world today. I pulled these ideas from studying 1,000+ hours of content and ideas shared by these individuals, and so … we can now all win together.
Our world is so full of abundance and is meant for you to share you, and I believe by that action we will all be that much better.
DOING — do the work
Yes, this secret framework requires the core foundation of every single successful person, ever. HARD WORK.
You must put in the repetitions. You must put in the time. There is no short-cut. So what is my hard work creatively today?
- Writing articles and a new book
- Making videos that meet my audience in a more engaging format
- Recording podcasts
I daily make sure I list the 5 actions I am taking TODAY to keep my persistence. You need to do this too.
STRATEGY — conscious choices
Now we get into the meat — answer these questions for yourself:
- WHY and WHERE are you seeking to make an impact?
- How are you DOING this work (format, medium, audience)
- WHAT topics are you focused on — are you chasing trends, being culturally relevant?
Strategy is your north star. This is the big ship where you reflect and adjust the body of work that you are driving.
This vital to you having the impact; adjusting to shifts in the world, and find ways that support you to your goal.
A strategy shift for me — interviewing people for my podcast, to bring in a greater span of ideas and more value for my audience.
Strategy — shifts to achieve the goal frequently demands regular resets
TACTICS — accelerate
What can you do to do better work?
What do you need to be more more creative?
How can you have bigger impacts?
The focus on tactics are the amplifiers to your DOING and guided by your STRATEGY.
These are tricky, as these require an examination of what you are doing to find ways of making them better. Here is an example from my list above —
- Hire an audio producer for the podcasts and have them cut the podcast — because they are better and it frees me from the cognitive and emotional struggle of self-judgement that emerges when you simmer on your self worth and the value of what you share.
- Working to hire a video producer — same reason as audio, but a greater challenge. Here I express my voice in the videos, so I am still seeking partners that can capture our voice together in these videos. I know this will be a tactic that will pay off and give great value to my audience (easily confirmed by the 100+ hours of recorded video I haven’t produced and released from some amazing conferences and events)
Check your time distribution!
We all think of these three elements, occasionally. One area I found as super helpful is to INVESTIGATE how much time you are spending in a day/week/month on these areas. Too much in one area is bad, and no this does not need to be a forever breakdown. Let’s see some examples:
100% DOING — great, but as mentioned above you’ll take decades to hit your goal without clarity on goals, adjustments, and use of accelerators
100% STRATEGY — Great you are a dreamer. Talking, taking notes, drawing sketches, but never doing / creating / publishing is a road frequented too often by too many. Many a great impact to the world is lost by this loss
100% Tactics — Interesting idea, but without the work what are you accelerating. These are people / businesses that have a million connections, are well off and gifted with resources + talent, but fail to achieve any level of an average persons potential in these areas let alone their potential.
Achieve a balance —
- Just starting out: 40% Strategy, 50% DOING, and 10% tactics
- Steady State: 50% DOING, 20% Strategy, and 30% Tactics
Please please shift and move. Don’t trap yourself in any one way, but always have some time allocated to all 3. It’ll pay off in a HUGE WAY.
Promise.
Now go do — it’s your turn, I and the world are eager to be a part of it too.
Credits and thanks to folks like Gary Vaynerchuk, and my mentors at EY for the continued inspiration.
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About Me
I am a father, study of human behavior, strategist, cybersecurity executive, and a coach and mentor on a journey to give more than I receive everyday. I lead teams globally, build products, and daily an executive for a leading company where I serve the largest companies in the world using the largest cloud deployments in the world impacting the financial services, healthcare, and fintech industries. I provide these publications and content through my media agency to deliver insights and advantages. Mindset, mental strength, mentorship, personal improvement, health, fitness, and humanist ideas are drawn from personal research and practice. Everything read and heard is my original works and my own perspective. All rights reserved for noted authors and sources. I produce research and strategy, as well as provide advisory services that include inquiries, briefings, consulting projects, and presentations on published findings as well as bespoke speaking engagements where I often keynote at conferences, seminars, and roundtables annually.