Is a 5-day Work month possible?
Societal Subscriptions - the cost of... feeding the machine.
"Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to a job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, car and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it." ~ Ellen Goodman
I find that the more I enjoy an exercise, the more I'll do it. Going to the gym always felt like work... but I'll get on my bike and ride for 5 hours. I struggle to do yoga at home, but have no problem going to yoga classes because I enjoy the community, like the teachers, love the music, and how I feel afterwards.
Otherwise, it feels like work and I'll usually justify a reason to avoid the work.
I've been thinking a lot about why people don't do what they know they need to do to be either Financially Fit or Physically Fit for life.
While I was proclaiming an injustice of the failure of our educational system to provide the means for 'financial literacy,' I realized the problem may be the same as it for 'health literacy.'
The truth is available. We can read a book by Dave Ramsey or go through his program... and he will tell us what it takes to become wealthy. But the change in behavior required is beyond what most people are willing to do. This is why the 1% will always be the 1%. They are the 1% who are willing to do what the other 99% are unwilling to do.
I bet the same goes for health... there is a 1% who are more physically fit at 60 than most people half their age. They have developed a discipline of being physically active and eating right. But was discipline really what it took? I'd argue that discipline plays a much smaller role than we might think.
Instead, what the 1% have discovered is this:
If you can't find pleasure in it, you'll always make excuses not to do it. But when you do enjoy the work, you'll do it. And the greater the enjoyment, the more you'll do it... and when you do the work for the sheer joy of it, you'll get better at it and it won't feel like work.
My dad turns 80 this year. His job as a lawyer never felt like a job. He loves it. His been on the bar for over 50 years. He makes more today than ever before and the perks are so good that he can't justify walking away from it.
It's effortless because he enjoys it.
So whether it's health or wealth - find the joy in the work is the key.
Also, it's a simple equation, yet most won't follow it because we don't WANT to:
Own a business? To increase your earnings: charge more or find out how to do more with less effort.
Partly inspired in part by The Art of Work: A Proven Path to Discovering What You Were Meant to Do by Jeff Goins
And then it hit me... what's its all for? I spend 8+ hours/day doing 'work.' What's the end game of it all?
Reward = Work Work = Reward
The real value of Wired For... is that I have spent an enormous amount of time refining processes and workflows. My fascination is with the process itself, rather than the outcome. Once the outcome is achieved, I'm on to defining the next process. I strive to simplify the process and streamline the workflow. For me, it's about reverse engineering success. It's about isolating what matters and removing what doesn't. I'm forever streamlining because I believe in evolution: there's always a smarter way.
When it comes to a topic I'm interested in, I don't just read, I consume myself in the topic. Like a true academic, I go as deep as I can on a topic. I use PubWriter to capture my notes.
I don't just read a book, I write what I read. I teach myself by reading a little bit and then I write to learn what I read. I might spend 30 minutes reading and 90 minutes writing. What I read is more like a prompt to get my brain in a new lane.
To get the gist of what the author wrote, I write what I'd say if I were in a one-on-one conversation with that author. I recite back what I understood he/she meant, and often expand on the process in a sort of self-socratic method.
While reading, I can't help but highlight, summarize, and rewrite what I read. I tend to read primarily non-fiction asa result. The fiction I do read contains a narrative that reveals a hidden process I can disintegrate and study, even if only in my head.
13 Reasons Why and Ready Player One are two of my all-time favorite fiction books. I also enjoy smart mystery & thriller shows like Mr. Robot, Fortitude and The Killing.
In those narratives, a process unfolds and we discover the relevance of the mechanics that explain the reasons for a characters actions.
What led to this moment? What are the reasons we do what we do?
Do we select the work or does the work select us?
A reason I find reward in the work itself is because I enjoy the workflow. This is also why I've been such a big fan of AuthorDock. It's a canvas where I construct the workflow in a way that can be logged, analyzed, and refined. It also allows me to insert others into the workflow.
What are the beliefs, mindset, recipes and processes in use by those who have mastered their craft?
If mastery was as simple as following a process, wouldn't we all be able to master in whatever we choose?
The biggest lesson I learned in 50 Interviews was that it's not what we want, but what we believe that defines what we become.
In my own life, for years I had wanted to become an entrepreneur. But it wasn't until my beliefs changed that I became one.
What changed by beliefs? 50 Interviews. By making my work interviewing entrepreneurs, I adapted a new set of beliefs. I had changed the wiring in my head, and as one of my interviewees eloquently stated 'Once you wiring changes, it can never go back.' My beliefs had begun to go through a fundamental change.
Let's work on our belief of work and love. I believe it's what makes up the vast majority of life itself. We don't feel alive unless we are doing work that matters, and we none of the work matters without love in our life. When it comes down to it, it's really all about love and work.
Much of what we do is to keep love present.
The more who love what we do, the more we are provided space to do it. In the absence of love, the work we do has no meaning. A writer whose spouse supports them for 12 years because they believe in them is owed an enormous debt for having faith before others do.
What do when you wake up? Does it add value to others? Will it eventually? How could you pivot what you do so it would?
Masters get paid for the work they produce. If you are a musician, but can't sell your music, then you are not a master. But if you are a teacher, and you get paid to teach, you have achieved some level of mastery in teaching.
So it begs the question, would you rather learn from someone who has mastered music or someone who has mastered teaching?
When do you master life itself? Will others pay you simply for living? No. They pay you for how you positively impact your their life. They pay you not for your gifts, but by what you have mastered.
In the end, all that matters is what we master.
To take this discussion further, I'd argue that a life of significance is one in which we become the masters in domains that positively impact others.
My wife has mastered the domain of kindness. She is the kindness person I know. Does kindness pay? Perhaps not directly, but she has managed to land jobs as a result of her kindness to others who happily recommend her for a job when she asks. And while it's easy to argue the significance of one job over another, namely as point to argue how much one should be paid for that job, that's missing the point. The point is that her ability to master one domain (that does directly pay) had an indirect impact on a domain that does (the job).
I try to be kind to my clients. I often do more work than I'm paid to do, but that' because for me, it's not about the work, it's about the opportunity to do something kind for someone else. If I see an opportunity for improvement, I see an opportunity to do something kind, and kindness is one of my core values.
This became crystal clear as I watched someone I deeply cared for behave in an unkind way towards others. But as I proceeded to be unkind to her, it occurred to me that any kindness I conveyed was lost as I treated her unkind. But this is also an inside job.
Authentic kindness is to cultivate kindness in the absence of kindness. This is perhaps the hardest task - to be kind to an individual who is being unkind. But it's the only way you will be able to turn them toward kindness. Set the example you want to see it others.
When I fail to be kind to others, I fall into despair. When a job requires a sacrifice of kindness for the outcome to be achieved, I have a hard time doing the work.
A key point I want to make is that the domains you do master in life can have a direct impact on other domains. In fact, you could even draw a connection to the 'kindness domain' my wife has mastered to the words you are reading right now. In a direct way, she inspired this epiphany.
The underlying reason we work at it.
Jeff mentions a musician friend who went from struggling to succeeding when we unraveled the work mystery. At least this is my assumption, Jeff leaves the question unanswered which I suspect acts as a cliff hanger for the next section. His focus on the outcome of fame and fortune was an obstacle to becoming a master of his craft (it's all about the music). It wasn't until he mastered his craft, that he was able to produce the outcome he desired (success and fame as a result of mastering his craft).
If your goal is to become a full-time writer, then your job is to master both the domain of writing. If you leave the mastery of publishing to someone else, you can keep your focus on mastering writing.
How do you master the domain of time?
It's about how your wired.
Highlights
Your life’s work is not a single event, but a process you are constantly perfecting, finding new ways to put your passion to work.
It’s not enough to be good at something; you must focus on what you are meant to do.
Every calling is marked by a season of insignificance, a period when nothing seems to make sense. This is a time of wandering in the wilderness, when you feel alone and misunderstood. To the outsider, such a time looks like failure, as if you are grasping at air or simply wasting time. But the reality is this is the most important experience a person can have if they make the most of it.
“Repeated failure will toughen your spirit and show you with absolute clarity how things must be done.”
It’s nobody’s responsibility to make your dream come true. Tough
Although you are confined to where you are and how many steps you can take, at no point are you locked into any direction. That’s the beauty of the move. Even when all other opportunities are exhausted, you can always pivot.
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it. — W.C. FIELDS
It’s about understanding your potential and then dedicating your life to pursuing that ideal.
But passion alone is not enough to sustain the work. True mastery is about greatness, about doing something that pushes the limitations of what others think is possible or even sensible.