Dear Changemaker
I recently wrote this letter to the co.space, a home for changemakers in State College, PA. Although this was written for college students, I think it still applies to all of us. I hope you get something from this, but more important: I hope you do something with it. If you know someone who might be a good fit for this co-living environment, please encourage them to apply--or to reach out to me for guidance. My door is always open.
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Dear Changemaker,
You’re on the cusp. The door of the airplane is open, your chute is packed, all that’s left is for you to jump. You may feel anxious, excited, or both. Regardless, there are 3 common things that co.spacers say or think when they kick-off the airplane and launch into their journeys for the first time. Understanding these thoughts will equip you for success in your time at the co.space and also in your career.Read on, meditate on these, and apply daily.
“I don’t belong here.”
Believe it or not, this is one of the most common thoughts that can occur for new or returning co.spacer. The whole point of the co.space is to put mover and shakers under one roof so they can support and amplify each other. Strangely, it can also cause intimidation. It turns out, though, that this often happens when you start a new venture. It’s called imposter syndrome, and it’s totally normal.Research is finding that many of those who experience Imposter Syndrome come from families where achievement is highly valued and pressurized. Go figure.It’s also amplified if you’re a perfectionist or if you have a habit of brushing off your successes as flukes. One way to tell if this is you is by asking yourself if you have the thought “I must have tricked them into picking me.”As stressful as these experiences feel, it’s part of the journey. It’s part of growing as a person, learning, and stretching your abilities. It might feel strange, but it’s normal. It’s your new normal.
“I don’t have a big idea.”
No one said this was a house for entrepreneurs or innovators. It’s a house for changemakers. Changemaking is about being the change; first. Making change in an industry doesn’t mean you have to have a software startup or a hoodie company that brings hoodies to communities that don’t have access to hoodies. Changemaking is about calling out what could be better about the world, looking inside yourself and evolving from there.This conscious introspection and deliberation to constantly reinvent oneself is called: intention, and you’re going to hear a lot about it. Co-living in co.space will give you many opportunities for intentional growth, and the fun part is that it will almost always happen right under your nose, without some big red alarm or fanfare.For example, new co.spacers often feel the massive importance of taking on the whole world, but may fail to clean and put away their own dishes. How you do anything is how you do everything. That’s just how your brain works.
“My idea is too big.”
Brace yourself; here come the inspirational quotes about “every marathon starts with one step,” and “slow and steady.” These can be helpful in the short term to spike motivation, but they’re not effective at alleviating the long-term, water torture of incapacitatingly huge dreams.When you ask an effective changemaker how they’ve made such incredible impact, you’ll almost always hear the same story. “It didn’t start this way,” or “we had no idea what we were doing 10 years ago.” It turns out that big, hairy, audacious goals are actually made up of lots of small, incremental goals. The key is action.You have to start without seeing the end. Action begets answers to your questions.We often overestimate what we can achieve in one year, but massively underestimate what we can achieve in 10 years. The formula for change is small, consistent, incremental improvements multiplied by time--not wild, overnight paradigm shifts. And the cool thing is that 1% compounding interest doubles every 72 days, not every 100 days. 1% change is a much more practical and statistically likely goal. If your mission is change, you can’t ignore this implementation reality.Finally, there are a few other things that will happen you move through the co.space and on your journey:You’ll have to decide which advice to take. You’ll have to forgive yourself for making stupid decisions. You’ll have to forgive yourself for taking bad advice. You’ll have to get up early in the morning and put your gym shorts on without hitting the snooze button. You’ll have to come home to a messy house talk to your housemates head-on and refrain from passive aggression. You’ll have to clean someone else’s dishes so you can eat your breakfast. You’ll have to forgive others when they break your things.You will have to love people before they’re perfect.Especially yourself.There are only two things that will hold you back from your wildest dreams: fear and oppression.You already know what you can control and what you can’t.While you’re at co.space, you’ll be given all the tools you need to build something bigger than yourself. So pay attention. Go to house dinners. Raise your hand in house meetings. Pitch an idea that considers others first.You’ve got a community of changemakers, past and present, ready to come to your aid. All you need to do is show up. All you need to do is bring yourself. All you need to do is care.Do that, and you’ll have an army of changemakers with you wherever you go. Welcome to the tribe,Chris Danilo
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A note to my readers: If you'd like to take more action and get closer to our own tribe, join the private, Relentless Community Facebook group, here.
Self-evolution
If we're not learning about ourselves, analyzing our results, and rebuilding . . . then we are bound to make the same mistakes, relive the same embarrassments, and date the same kind of people. Learning is everything.When the light bulb goes off, we feel alive! When we discover something new, we are inspired to keep searching. When we educate ourselves, we practice a healthy habit of incremental improvement.For how important education is, I don't talk about it enough. I often rant on productivity and output, urging others to shoulder their biggest ambitions and push forward without conceding. What I've offered to you so far has been 1) a thought about purpose, direction, priority, or ambition, immediately followed by a 2) CTA or "Call To Action" for that thought. Although this seems like a good format, it could be more effective.
This is the ugly part of taking action.
When you've worked hard to produce something and you realize that your baby is ugly. The only logical thing to do, then, is to test improvements.I think maturity is the ability to experience this realization and still choosing to move forward, in a new direction, knowing that the pain of failure in the short term is requisite for the longevity of a healthy legacy. If we're not living for legacy, then for what?Did you know that the average American spends 5 hours per day watching TV? (citation) This is staggering. Now, multiply that by a few million people. We could build cities, multiple cures for cancer, affordable housing systems, renewable energy, ad infinitum. All of that time watching TV, selfishly idling, indulging in voyeurism and fantasy. The same goes for Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat (which are the modern day CBS, NBC, and ABC). All of those micro-moments accumulate!Not to mention that we are what we eat, read, watch, and do. Garbage in, garbage out. We literally use the cells that we consume to build our new self. Think about that for a minute.
What is your mission in life?
How are moving toward it? What do you think you need to get there?It turns out, that giant, hairy, audacious goals are often made up of lots of small, manageable, actionable tasks. Do 10 pushups every day can turn into 20, 40, 75, 100.1% compounding interest doubles every 72 days, not every 100 days.All of this to say: the blog is going to start looking a little different. The format will evolve, my words will change, and the message may emphasize things other than motivation--and that's okay. If you only signed up for a motivational tip, this probably isn't the best place for you.If you signed up because you wanted to be the change, evolve yourself, and collect on the compounding interest of your life's efforts to develop, well, this is probably a great place to start. Hope you learned something new from this post.
2 Minute Action
What's a "Garbage in" input that you are going to quit or reduce today? Doesn't have to be a lifetime commitment. Just focus on today.Let me know in the comments.
The Secret to Doing More (That No One Wants to Hear).
The biggest reason people have hired me in the past is to help them do more.
"We need to be bigger""We need to be faster.""We need to get MORE done."Of course, the secret to doing more, whether it's your business or your personal life, is right in front of each of us.It's strange because as soon as I say it, every client I've ever had always lets out a huge groan.I say: "We can do more, but we can't talk about that yet."Then they say, "What? Why not? That's the whole reason you're here."
And then, I say there are 3 ways to get more done:
- You can pick things to do that are easier or take less time.
- You can hire more people to do the work.
- Or we can talk about all the work we're NOT going to do.
It's always that third one that is the hardest to digest.But why is it so hard to eliminate things from your to-do list?
I've found that there are 3 main reasons why we choose to ignore this obvious problem.
- The "It's my baby" syndrome
- "I have no time to think about that"
- You just gave me 2 ways to get more done without subtracting work
Let's break these down one-by-one.
Number 1. It's my baby.
I can't let go. It's beautiful even if you tell me it's ugly. Can't you see I have an emotional connection with this baby? I've invested in this baby and I'm never giving up.Guess what? While that might be the ethical and logical move for a literal baby, it's a dangerous mindset for a project.After Johnson and Johnson became successful developing medical products, they got so big that they started buying up companies who could move faster and produce higher quality products than they could. It meant that JNJ became an investor. One of the reasons JNJ is so successful today is because of how clearly they can look at the market and make the decision to buy or sell.This means they're not afraid to kill a business they just bought for $50 million if the market tells them to turn around. This is hard! It actually comes from a strange psychological effect in the brain called "the sunk cost fallacy."It means after we've invested in something, even just a little bit, we're more likely to stick with it until the end instead of dropping it and starting new.Here's a simpler, real-world example:"Finish your dinner. There are starving people in the world." Remember that? That's another example. It doesn't help those starving people to eat the food on your plate. By buying that food at the market, you've already made your economic impact. What you do after that has no impact (unless you store that food for later, presumably to avoid buying your next meal).
Number 2. I have no time to think about that.
I only have time to move forward. I only have time to develop new features. I only have time for the things that are generating profit, today. I only have time for what's urgent and in my face right now.We've all had days like these, or worked for a manager like this. I call it "Fire of the day" management style. Some of the symptoms include: feeling like you're being pulled in a million directions, feeling like you're always busy, feeling like you have a ton of things to do, and yet somehow, at the end of the day, you can't really think of anything you got done. What did you actually do today? It felt like a lot, but can you write a list? Probably not.When you are only reacting to whats in front of you, you are ignoring looming threats and you're missing otherwise visible opportunities. When you are a slave to urgency, you have no control over what you're doing. You're just answering emails as they come in, picking up the phone when you get a call, and your pile of tasks never gets touched.
Number 3. You gave me 2 ways to get more done without eliminating work.
I'll just hire more people. I'll just work later. I'll just ask more from my team.It turns out that hiring more people can be more of a burden in the short term, as they learn the ropes of your processes. And it can actually be pretty miserable if you haven't already taken the time to create clear protocols that are scalable.Working later can solve short term problems, but won't help you grow or sustain future stressors. I've worked 100 hour weeks. It's awful. I didn't expect the physical or emotional tolls it took. Plus, your ability to do high quality work during your first hour isn't the same as the last hour. Making stupid mistakes can cost up to 3 times more work in the long run.In the same way, asking more from your team can solve a short term problem, but sooner or later, your team is going to be fed up--even if you give them cash incentives.
So why eliminate any work at all?
It turns out that taking the time to work on tasks that don't directly impact your project is a huge time and energy drain. Not just because you could be spending time on something that doesn't help you move forward, but you could actually be building something that detracts from your work in the long term.Taking time to define "WHY" you're doing something will save you a lot of headache later. It just costs a little time, right now.This is called intentionality. It's called deliberating.It's easy to come up with a million ideas. It's a lot harder to figure out what fits your mission, your brand, is profitable, is ethical, is helpful, and adds value or richness to life.If we just take a little extra time to make sure what we're doing is aligned with our true goal, but calibrating your work to your mission is critical.And the first step is isolating all the work you're doing that isn't helpful, part of your main mission, or adding long-term value.
2 Minute Action
It's too hard to write a list of things you should stop doing in 2 minutes.Instead, I just want you to write down one thing that is costing you 80% of your energy/time/money and only giving you 20% of the benefits/profits/results in your life.What would you do if you got that time back?Would love to hear what you come up with in the comments.