…One bite at a time.
But that’s where the advice ends. You know damned well you’re going to get full long before you can eat the whole thing.
Then what? How do you keep the hyenas away? How do you preserve it from the hot sun? How do you move that much animal?
I know this analogy is kinda disgusting, but I didn’t make it up.
The truth is, I’m feeling like I bit off more than I can chew at the moment.
I sent out a free copy of my new book yesterday to my entire email list. The DPF was legit. The e-reader version sucks. The formatting is all messed up, but I revised and tried to fix it right up to the deadline I had promised. So I sent it anyway.
Seth Godin is often encouraging us to “ship it!” No work of art will ever be perfect. You do your best to provide value, then get that value out to others ASAP, so you can turn around and work on the next project of value.
I think that’s good advice, but it’s harder to follow than it sounds. I’ve put some work into this book, now I feel I have to apologize for it. Or that it’s done, but not done. I still have a lot of work to do before I look to ship the next imperfect work.
To add insult to injury, I’ve got three elephants to deal with all at once…
Tali and I started living the farm life about seven months ago. We got here in early spring and have been behind ever since. The time to start planning a garden is January or February. We moved here at the end of March and spent a couple of months just trying to unpack and keep up with chores of the farm. We started our garden in June. We’ve made mistakes that set us back. The time to get firewood in is early summer.
The snow is coming in three days, we have about two thirds of the wood in that we’ll need to get us through the winter.
We’re also launching the new LoveAllYourLife.com
Tali and I will be blogging about the Ranch/Permaculture, Financial Independence/Personal Finance, The Lyceum Method/Personal Development, and Relationships. (And whatever else comes up.)
We’re launching a new community platform for our readers, and plan to host live events here at the ranch. A podcast, more books, audio and video content…we have big plans!
The firewood is late.
The book is coming along, but far from “done”.
The website is live, but we’ve had no time to get the word out.
So how do you eat three elephants?
Stop and write a blog post about it apparently.
This is either incredible discipline to my craft, or the masterful execution of elite-level procrastination.
Of course, this is all self inflicted. I didn’t need to pull the trigger on all three of these at once. I bit off more than I could chew.
Why am I telling you all of this? Because I get sick of all the success gurus out there who like to point to their challenges in hind-sight. You already know they’re successful. You get to see the final product and looking back on obstacles helps to make sense of them. When you can already see the final product, any challenges look like they were just part of the process.
I’m sharing with you the challenges in real-time because that’s what The Lyceum Community is all about. Real connection. Authentic growth. The best people I can find helping each other get even better.
Let’s be real.
Want to see where this all goes? Stay tuned…
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go take another bite.
At least we have an amazing backdrop for whatever challenges we create!
