But this world is changing. More and more people are beginning to realize that how long you’ve been doing something matters much less than what you’ve actually done. Experience does count, absolutely, but it’s the projects you have worked on and what you accomplished and completed to get that experience that matters a great deal more.

Years from now, you’ll never remember how many emails you returned each day, how many people you got back to, or how many meetings you went to. What you will remember, however, are the projects you believed in, worked at, completed, and then looked over with the satisfaction of having created something good.

What you do and what you work towards every day should be about those projects. Find one that matters to you. Find one that you can be passionate about. Find thy “why” in what you are doing. And spend you time on that. Make that the most important part of your work day.

For a really good, inspiring article about projects and finding that “WOW” project that you can pour yourself into, check out this great article, originally published in Fast Company Magazine:

The Wow Project

We are in the midst of multiple revolutions across our planet. Be aware of what is happening, because right now, in 2010, we are experiencing an incredibly transformative time. What is occurring will have reverberations that will be felt for years. There is no doubt in my mind that we will look back on this coming decade as a defining decade for our time. Here’s why:

Quite simply, we are experiencing one of the greatest decentralizations of power the world has ever seen.

Alright, that’s a pretty hefty statement. What do I mean by that?

Technology and information are democratizing Everything

And by everything I mean: content creation, control of ideas, food production, and the mass delocalization or work. Just about anyone can make a web site in under 5 minutes and share their ideas with the world. I can shoot a video with my phone, edit it right there, and upload it to YouTube in under 30 seconds. And then I can share that video through a web site, through Facebook, or through Twitter. We no longer have to rely on news editors to tell us what is most newsworthy. We can vote on that through sites like Digg – and content that is democratically chosen as most relevant is what is most seen. After years and years of farm consolidation, people are starting their own farms to grow their own sustainable food because they don’t agree with how food is grown and produced in America. Even people with no former farming experience can read about how it is done and start a farm to feed hundreds of people, and begin producing food within a few months. And I can easily hire a designer in the Philippines to create a logo for my brand. I can even create a company that has employees I have never met, exchanging data around all parts of the globe. If done right, I can theoretically live almost anywhere in the world and carry on the work I am doing.

So I say that now, more than ever, you need to focus on making your mark on history. Because now all it takes is an idea and the ingenuity and perseverance to actualize that idea. The barriers are almost unbelievably low to become a superstar in your chosen niche.

All it takes is a willingness to try, to believe, and to start.

Good luck.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Reading this book made me want to go out and run… every single day. Ok, I must admit that I already am somewhat of a runner, but this book changed my perspective on why we run, how humans are built, and most of all changed my attitude about running. I now smile when I run, and notice the beauty of the world around me much more. Great stuff, great book.

Oh, and don’t worry. This book is not just for runners. It has an engaging storyline, colorful characters, and plot twists. Highly recommended.

I don’t think either of those approaches to learning apply to me, but I do strongly believe that one will never really grow in life unless that person is committed to be open to new thoughts, new experiences, and new knowledge.  So I am always trying to learn new things and to expand what I am capable of.

Generally, I think I do a pretty god job of reading, internalizing, and learning.  I am always hungry for more, which is preceisely my problem sometimes.  See, I often get so excited by the possibility of learning something new that I take on too many things at once.  It’s like I’m in an ice cream shop, and I can’t decide on any one flavor since they all look so good, and instead I try one, then want to try another, and another, and another, until I am so full I feel sick and the staff is mad at me for eating so many samples and not actually committing and buying anything and now they are giving me angry looks and all the people in line behind me are pissed off but damn it all tastes so good and I can’t stop.

Yeah, that describes my approach to bookstores, to reading things online, to new activities, etc.  Everything looks so damn cool, you know?  It would be great to be able to do everything I want to do.  So I find myself in the midst of trying to learn dozens of things at once, which I would desribe as a type of life multitasking.  And you know what?  It has been shown conclusively that those who multitask (say, splitting time responding to emails along with writing a blog post) do both things with a lower level of quality.  If I were to focus on the blog post, and then respond to the emails, the tasks would be done better and probably in less time.

So I postulate that those who engage extensively in life multitasking suffer from the same lack of quality in what they do.  If I were to focus my efforts more exclusively on learning a limited numbers of things, I would likely learn them more quickly with a better retention rate than using my current methods.

Actually, this is precisely the approach to learning that a brilliant man, Josh Waitzkin, is advocating.  This name might actually tickle the brains of some of you – Josh Waitzkin was the subject of the 1993 film Searching for Bobby Fischer, about a chess prodigy.  Josh believes in diving deep into whatever it is you are learning, to focus on it such that you attain significant depth in your learning.  Here’s a quote from Josh:

Let’s say we have three skills to learn. The typical approach is to take them all on at once. It is much more effective to plunge deeply into one, touch Quality, and then transfer that feeling of Quality over to the others. A martial artist, for example, should internalize one technique very deeply instead of trying to learn 10 or 15 superficially. This approach engages the unconscious, creative aspects of our minds, and we start making thematic connections which greatly accelerate growth. It is also important to point out that deep presence is required for a state of neural plasticity to be triggered—our brain does not re-map effectively when we are skipping along the surface

So my goal is to target my efforts into learning one thing well before moving on to the next, rather than trying and struggling to learn 3, or 4, or 12 things at once.  I am sorely tempted to order Josh’s book on learning from Amazon, but I already am reading about 6 different nonfiction books at once.  I’ll try to finish just one first, I think he would approve.

If you, like me, are prone to lose perspective on this then I have a piece of wisdom for you. And this comes from a source much, much wiser than myself: Aesop (he of the many fables.)

Here’s one of my favorites:

The Miller, His Son, And Their Donkey

A MILLER and his son were driving their Donkey to a neighboring fair to sell him. They had not gone far when they met with a troop of women collected round a well, talking and laughing. “Look there,” cried one of them, “did you ever see such fellows, to be trudging along the road on foot when they might ride?’ The old man hearing this, quickly made his son mount The Donkey, and continued to walk along merrily by his side. Presently they came up to a group of old men in earnest debate. “There,” said one of them, “it proves what I was a-saying. What respect is shown to old age in these days? Do you see that idle lad riding while his old father has to walk? Get down, you young scapegrace, and let the old man rest his weary limbs.” Upon this the old man made his son dismount, and got up himself. In this manner they had not proceeded far when they met a company of women and children: “Why, you lazy old fellow,” cried several tongues at once, “how can you ride upon the beast, while that poor little lad there can hardly keep pace by the side of you?’ The good-natured Miller immediately took up his son behind him. They had now almost reached the town. “Pray, honest friend,” said a citizen, “is that Donkey your own?’ “Yes,” replied the old man. “O, one would not have thought so,” said the other, “by the way you load him. Why, you two fellows are better able to carry the poor beast than he you.” “Anything to please you,” said the old man; “we can but try.” So, alighting with his son, they tied the legs of The Donkey together and with the help of a pole endeavored to carry him on their shoulders over a bridge near the entrance to the town. This entertaining sight brought the people in crowds to laugh at it, till The Donkey, not liking the noise nor the strange handling that he was subject to, broke the cords that bound him and, tumbling off the pole, fell into the river. Upon this, the old man, vexed and ashamed, made the best of his way home again, convinced that by endeavoring to please everybody he had pleased nobody, and lost his Donkey in the bargain.

The most successful (in terms of revenue-generating) type of video games on the market these days are games known as Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (or MMORPGs). The developers of MMORPGs create an enormous world where hundreds to thousands of people can be online in the same space at the same time, interacting with each other and with a virtual world.  In theory, the concept is wonderful – real people are much more fun to interact with than virtual, programmed characters, so playing a game online with other people should be a more fulfilling experience than playing a game alone.

(Many people playing online together)

In actuality, MMORPGs have devolved into huge wastes of time for people as they feel compelled to put more and more time into the games.  People easily get addicted to them.  Here’s why:

MMORPGs are a persistent, dynamic world, and employees of the game publisher work continuously to update the games and create new parts of the world for players to explore.  By constantly updating these virtual worlds, the game publishers are able to charge their customers a monthly fee – often as much as $15 a month – to keep playing.  But in order to keep players coming back, and keep them playing, the game needs to constantly present new challenges to the player, and present new reasons for the player to want to keep playing. This is where treadmilling comes in.

When you begin to play an MMORPG, your character is not very powerful, is not experienced, and his equipment is weak.  In order to progress through the game, it is necessary to spend time doing the same tasks over and over to, in effect, “build up” your character.  Eventually, he becomes stronger, finds or buys better equipment, and overall becomes more powerful.

What do you do with your stronger, better equipped character?  Your stronger, better equipped character now can go into tougher regions and kill more difficult enemies.  So you travel there, and kill those enemies, so that you can get even stronger and get even better equipment.  And with this stronger character you can go to new regions, to kill different enemies, to get even better gear, and make your character look even cooler… so you can kill even tougher enemies.  Treadmilling.  You run as fast as you can, and work as hard as you can, but in effect you are staying in the same place, and are not really changing anything substantial.

Okay, I think you get the idea.  That’s the treadmill.  You work hard so you can “level up” and get better stuff… but this just fuels the process of wanting more for your character, and wanting even better stuff. Having other people online just fuels the desire to become a better character, because there is status involved in having great gear, and being powerful.  In the end though, most people become dissatisfied with this game, realizing it brings them no lasting fulfillment.  Many people quit after long periods of playing, wondering what the point was of trying to acquire all that stuff, and of attaining some sort of status just to show off to their peers.

For a while I played World of Warcraft, the world’s most populated MMORPG (and one of the most addicting.)  Eventually, I realized I was being driven to play by the treadmilling mechanic, and when I understood how ridiculous it felt to be manipulated by the game creators in this way, I quit.

Treadmilling doesn’t just exist in MMORPGs, however.  It exists in real life.  We see it every day.  Buy the huge tv so you can impress your friends.  Work longer hours so you can get promoted and make more money… so you can just barely qualify for that loan on a house.  But, now that you have the house, don’t you want a nice car too?  Just take out a home equity line of credit.  Only, make sure you work even harder to get a promotion so you can pay for all of this.  Don’t you realize it’s all the American Dream?

I find it to be insidious, yet it is hard to fight off the messages we hear over and over, every day in newsprint and on television.  The thought of having all the trappings of “the good life” is appealing, and the idea that we can have them now (on credit) is very seductive.  Of course we are all seeing these days how unsustainable that system is in the long term.

I think it’s time for us to look down, and if we are running frantically along that treadmill, maybe decide to step off of it.

Harnessing Entrepreneurial Manic-Depression

The Entrepreneurial Mindset