Dreaming about a thing in order to do it properly is right; but dreaming about it when we should be doing it is wrong.

This quote is from a Christian preacher, Oswald Chambers, who lived into the early 1900s. The guy is intense. Real. No-nonsense.

I told my daughter last night to shower. 10 minutes later she was still clearly not in the shower. Why? She had chosen to do other things. She lost focus.

And she irritated me immensely!

But she also made me think about God. I wondered if God was irritated with me because He has told me to do things and I just get distracted with all sorts of other things, lose focus, and end up dreaming about doing those things instead of actually doing them.

Actually, I don’t really see God as getting irritated. Maybe more frustrated. Sort of like. “Look, John, I told you what to do – it’s right there. I’ve made you for this, got it all ready to go, now do it!” And then I see Him looking at me with compassion as I sit frustrated or depressed about not doing what I want to be doing because I am wondering “how will I be able to do this?” and “can this really be what I’m supposed to be doing?”

Basically, we don’t have faith. We don’t believe in the possibility of those dreams. (My daughter just didn’t care about getting showered, so clearly the similarities stop somewhere.)

So, for us to put our dreams into action, we have to first believe they are possible. Without that, we’ll never get anywhere.

Do you believe your dreams are possible?

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(That’s about -2 degrees Fahrenheit for the metrically-impaired.)

Discipline is doing things you know you should even when you don’t feel like it. Today it was negative 19 degrees Celsius at about the time I usually go for a run. I skipped yesterday for a number of reasons. (Ok, it was only actually one – I was grumpy.)

But today was different. I slept last night. A lot. I got up early. Had time to think – clearly.

My wife has told me – more than once – “You think too much. Stop thinking and start doing!” She’s probably right (most wives are, aren’t they?).

If you’re sort of joining me on this journey to being closer to who you were made to be; if you’re trying to move towards working in areas about which you are passionate; or if you are a creative type would like nothing more than to create, then here’s the deal: you’ve got to take steps in that direction. Regularly.

And sometimes that takes discipline.

Going for a run today reminded me of that. And it felt good.

I bet you’ll feel better the next time you do that thing you know you need to do, too.

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It finally snowed a bit here in Madison, WI yesterday. Not a ton of snow, but enough that it made sense to shovel. This year, I went all out and bought this semi-fancy shovel with a thick handle and, to really ensure I get it all, a metal edge along the bottom of the “solid” plastic scoop area. Seriously, this is supposed to be a great shovel.

After a clearing a small portion, however, this shiny new shovel was really disappointing. Sure, it’s got metal along the bottom, but it doesn’t seem to hit the pavement evenly. So, while fine for some types of snow, it wasn’t clearing my walk all that well. Looks great, but doesn’t really deliver.

I went back into my garage and grabbed an old, all metal scoop shovel that a retiring family gave to ours as they headed to Florida. This thing is old, orange, beat up, bent, rusty – some would look at it and simply put it out with the trash.

But this shovel worked perfectly. It cut right down to the pavement and performed exactly as I needed.

The shovel reassured me of something. So often I’m worried about improving myself, learning more, developing more, looking better or more impressive, or getting ready to – someday – be truly useful in this world. But my bent, rusty snow shovel shows me that sometimes the perfect tool for the job doesn’t look perfect at all.

Most of us don’t look perfect. But we wish we did. I love my bent, rusty snow shovel. It’s perfect for just the right job.

So are we. Right now. As we are.

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This is one of my favorite quotes from Jim Collins’ books. He is talking about business. I’m talking about life.

One of my friends and I talked about this a bit recently. He is between jobs and trying to figure out the right next step. One step would involve going back to school to get an advanced degree in a discipline that he says he “could get excited about.”

But he’s got something else that burns within him already – music. My question to him was

“are you settling for good, when you should be shooting for great?”

Damn it’s hard to be a good guy (or gal) and try to make a living as a musician (artist, writer – fill in your own creative passion here).

Over my career, I made a lot of choices that led to more money, more resume clout, and more bragging rights. But none of those choices led me closer to my passions.

A lot of those moves led me to jobs where I was good – even really good – but never great.

Like Collins, I believe passion is one key ingredient that enables us to achieve greatness. Sure, we have to be skilled, work hard, etc., but without passion we’re just posers, faking our way through life. I realize that may sound a bit harsh.

I cannot tell my friend what he is passionate about. Nor can I tell him how to feed a family while working towards his passions. That’s the struggle for most of us creative types – finding that balance of moving in the right direction and taking care of our responsibilities at the same time.

I don’t really have the answers to this. Just a hypothesis. And I’m still trying to prove that myself. It’s really a lifelong experiment.

Without encouraging you to take harmful risks, allow me to suggest that shooting for great, while likely involving some risk and surely some challenges, is worth it.

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When I was in high school I worked at a place called Donutland – yes, that’s right – Donutland. I’ll just let that sink in for a moment.

I don’t really want or need to go into detail about that. Let’s leave it at this – it was a short stint.

[sidebar – For you non-Americans, I’m not sure you all even know what a doughnut is. I’m hoping this wikipedia entry on donuts can help.]

I was visiting my inlaws one weekend and my mother-in-law had some donuts available for our breakfast. It turns out, those donuts were made by my old bosses (Bob and Bonnie) who have since left the retail donut business and gone wholesale.

In retail, you produce what you think the market will purchase. In Donutland’s case, they filled their donut cases as full as they thought they needed to be to sell a day’s worth of donuts – but they never knew exactly how many they would sell each day.

In their new wholesale business model, Bob and Bonnie only produce after they have received orders. So there is no wasted production. The sale is made before they even have a finished product. Granted, they have proven themselves to the market prior to orders.

Applying Retail vs. Wholesale Mentalities to the Pursuit of Dreams
When it comes to pursing our passions (and especially for creative people) some believe the wholesale route is the way to make it. That is, you create a sample (demo tape or maybe a few chapters) and hope to find a market (publishers or record companies) to buy before actually creating it all. In the retail model, you would simply create and hope to find someone to buy it after it’s created.

In business, I like the wholesale model because it mitigates risk. It’s safe, you know how much to produce and you already have the orders before you invest in the production.

In Life and Pursing Passions, I like The Retail Model
In life and pursuing passions, I’m leaning the other direction. Sometimes I think we let the market dictate whether we do what we are good and passionate about.

That would be the position of the so-called realist.

I’m a bit of a realist, but a realist who dreams and has faith in the purpose behind your gifts and passions.

I don’t believe you should let the existing market (or the markets you are aware of) be the sole dictator of whether you pursue your passions. Sometimes markets open up that were never possible in the past. You could not have known or predicted them. I believe the Internet has afforded many of us creative folks that opportunity.

Five years ago, maybe seven, I told one of my good musician friends that “the Internet is going to open possibilities for independent musicians like never before.” He disagreed and pointed to the entrenched music distribution model, record labels, etc. I believe he even said, “That will never change.”

iTunes blew that theory out of the water and continues to. Brilliant. (See the link under my blogroll for a catalog of online music distributors.)

Furthermore, just the other week, in the Wall Street Journal, Peter Buck from REM (I think it was Peter) commented on how broken the traditional system of music distribution is. Interestingly enough, that article was on how artists are leveraging the Internet to create hits without the corporatized, sanitized, and sterilized format of traditional radio (I should point out that, obviously, the lyrics of most popular music aren’t exactly “sanitized”).

Beyond iTunes, the music genome project (www.pandora.com) is another great example of how the music market is evolving.

Keep Creating, Keep Your Eyes Open and Be Ready

I’m going to explore and expand on some of this more in the future, but for now let me simply encourage you who are creative to do your best to keep creating – work out your craft, your niche in whatever art form you excel at and enjoy.

And keep your eyes open. Markets move.

When a market specific to your craft and your unique approach hits, will you be ready?

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My boss, Mark Morse, and I were hanging out at an American Marketing Association event in Minneapolis this last Thursday. As the event wore down, we found ourselves sharing a beer with Art Fry (he may have been drinking wine, but I digress).

Art Fry is the guy that invented the wildly successful Post-It Notes for 3M. If you’re interested, this link will give you more about Fry and the history of the Post-It Note.

We had a really interesting chat with Art about his long tenure with 3M, the history of 3M, and also about some of the leaders that influenced him while at 3M.

As we were all preparing to leave, he said something that I think we all need to hear. This is my rough paraphrase:

“None of us were really geniuses. We were just normal people who were willing to give something new a try.”

Have you been avoiding giving something new a try? It seems like Art’s attempt(s) turned out pretty well. Maybe yours would too?

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I was thrown an incredibly tight deadline today. For an incredibly large client. And while I generally find myself a fairly non-corporate guy in spirit (you wouldn’t know that from my resume), I am actually looking forward to this.

Why?

There is a woman in Asia holding a training session and she desperately needs materials/information/guidance to allow her to succeed – or even survive. And she would be grateful for any help we offer.

The Cynics Response
Sure, you could say “Why did she wait until the last minute?” I’ve certainly asked that many times in situations like this over the last 10-15 years. But answering that question won’t help her in the short-term.

For me, there is no greater satisfaction than in helping someone – especially someone who is truly grateful. (And her situation is likely not her fault anyway.)

I’ve struggled for years over whether “helping” needed to be in a non-profit organization. And, maybe I could help people with greater needs in a non-profit. However, as long as I am making my money in the business world, it is great to find opportunities to help real people – even if they are just a cog in some big corporate wheel. They are still people.

Could You Help Someone?
Maybe you’re a bit like me and you still dream of changing the world. Is there a way you could help others in your job? There are probably more opportunities than you think.

A Little ManagerMustard
Managers, you might take note of what motivates each of your team members. Every person is different. For some it may be acknowledgment or public praise. For others it may be about the difference they can make. Find out what motivates your team members and play to those individual drivers. You’ll see results. Trust me. For more on this, read Marcus Buckingham’s The One Thing You Need to Know.

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