A dream you don’t have to fight for isn’t a dream—it’s a nap. One changes your afternoon. The other changes your world. Keep fighting.
I get that question a lot.
When I speak at conferences or to businesses they say two things to me:
1. “You sure are taller than you look online. What are you, 6’ 5?”
2. “Our business hasn’t done much with social media yet, should we?”
The answer to the first question is simple, “Yes, thanks for noticing.”
The response to the second question is surprisingly just as easy, “Not unless your business involves people.”
Don’t believe me?
Ask Clint.
When you sign up for the Quitter Conference, September 21-22, go ahead and order some new business cards while you’re at it.
You’re going to need them.
Clint did.
It’s easy. Here’s all it takes.
Spend more time practicing your dream than you do promoting your dream.
That’s it.
The Internet has made it ridiculously easy to promote your dream, your craft, your passion, your whatever. As someone who writes books and throws events, that is awesome. But that ease comes with a consequence.
The temptation is to spend more time on promoting what you’re doing instead of practicing what you’re doing. Honing your skills, putting in the hours to improve, working hard while no one is watching. Promoting makes people think you’re great. Practicing actually makes you great. There’s a huge difference between those two things.
Week 19 of FinishYear is over! (It’s not too late to join FinishYear with us! Here’s what we’re doing.)
On every Sunday in May, we’ve been sharing a quick summary of how we did that week on our Finish List. (Except last Sunday when I was traveling and totally dropped the ball!)
Here’s my list of goals, and the summary of the progress I made:
1. Make the Quitter Conference awesome for people who attend.
We’re on the cusp of rolling out some really awesome announcements about the next Quitter Conference. I can’t share them yet, but I have no doubt that this third Quitter Conference is going to be the best one we’ve done. And I’m writing a ton of new material for it, based on some things I’ve learned about chasing a dream in the last 90 days. Plus, last week we announced that there’s a money back guarantee! I feel like I knocked this goal out this week. (If you want to join us on September 21-22, sign up today!)
2. I am going to finish reading 12 non-fiction books this year. One per month.
I have 40 pages left of Imagine: How Creativity Works
3. I am going to finish running the Nashville half marathon Saturday, April 28th in under 2 hours and 10 minutes.
Done! And I’ve already scheduled to go to the gym on Monday, Thursday and Friday with my workout friend. I probably need to add some definition to my next exercise goal in order to replace this one.
4. I am going to finish writing a new book in 2012.
Manuscript is due June 1. Last week I wrote the introduction and it’s going to shape the entire flow of the book. I’m really happy with it and feel good about this goal.
5. I am going to finish a box of thank you cards this year as a sign of my gratefulness.
Zero cards. I wasn’t at my desk all last week but that’s not a great excuse. This goal is my least successful one thus far.
6. I am going to finish handwriting out the entire book of Proverbs in a moleskine notebook.
I’m in chapter 25!
That’s how I did.
How was your week?
What on your Finish List went well? What on your Finish List needs more attention next week?
Two weeks ago, my friend Santiago told me something shocking.
He said, “In June of 2011, people spent more time using their mobile apps than they did their desktop browsers.”
This was the first time that had ever happened, but it’s not that surprising. That same month, combined sales of smartphones and tablets were greater than the sales of desktops and notebooks for the first time ever.
That’s not really shocking information. The idea that people use apps a lot won’t knock you over. Small surprise. Thousands of articles have predicted this. What is shocking, though, is how many people missed the arrival of the next Internet.
Fear always tells you two things about time:
1. It’s too late.
2. Do it later.
The first destroys you with regret.
The second delays you with laziness.
They’re both lies.
Wage war against them.
Right now is the best time to get started because it’s the only time we’re guaranteed to have.
The truth is, my wife and I didn’t have “chase a dream” as a line item in our household budget.
We didn’t have money earmarked for that. Some people are that smart perhaps, we were not. So when we started to talk about doing something different with our lives, when we started to have big “what if” discussions, money was an issue.
I remember my wife and I going back and forth about whether we should pay to have someone redesign and redevelop the Stuff Christians Like blog. We didn’t have a “blog development” line item in our budget and had to be really careful. We had to McGuyver things together with the limited resources we had.
That’s why it was important to me to give you a money back guarantee for the next Quitter Conference.
I think you’ll love the conference.
You are going to learn a ton, laugh a ton, and dream a ton.
You are going to meet hundreds of people who will encourage you to never give up on your dream.
You are going to be blown away by the surprises we’ve planned for this one that we’ve never been able to pull off before.
But more importantly you are going to feel like the ticket price was worth every dollar you spent because I don’t take those dollars for granted.
I’ve been in the trenches of dream chasing, I know that every dollar counts. I know that the two resources that are in the highest demand are your time and your money.
So if you come to the Quitter Conference in Nashville on September 21 and 22 and don’t LOVE it, I’ll refund the price of your ticket. No questions asked.
The last one sold out and we had a waiting list. Please don’t miss your chance to go to this one. To get the early bird ticket price of $99 before that ends on May 24, sign up today!
Fear is incredibly talkative. The minute you start working on something that matters, it will talk your ear off if you’re not careful. One of the things it always says is:
(Today we’ve got a guest post from Matt Chambers, the director of SafeWorld! You can follow him on Twitter @chambers_matt, or read his blog http://ethoshift.com.)
conTENT not CONtent by Matt Chambers
I have a confession to make.
I’m a…contentaholic.
Never heard of it? That’s because it’s probably not officially a “real thing.” (Not yet anyways)
But I promise I have it. It’s self-inflicted, easily enabled, and I’ve been struggling with it for years.
Basically, it’s a mental filter that stops enjoying moments of reality for what they are and processes them according to what kind of tweet I could create as a result, or how amazing it would look on Instagram.
This is a picture I took of my alarm clock two weeks ago in Indianapolis.
I wasn’t there to work out for the Colts, but that’s a pretty good assumption.
I spoke in Grant County, Indiana on a Friday night. Then rode 95 miles back to Indianapolis and checked into the hotel at 12:30AM. Roughly 3 hours later I was up for a flight to San Antonio.
Before I took my dream job, I didn’t expect so many 4 AM alarm clocks. I bought into the myth that when you find your passion or calling or dream, things will be easy. Life will flow like a gentle river of fresca, passing banks of candy cane grass. La. La. La.
I was wrong. Here’s the truth: