Step 1: Forget how unpleasant it is to write a book.
Step 2: Take the first tiny step of writing a new book and see what happens.
Here is how my project to write this book unfolded, which is a typical scenario for me. Notice how I found fuel along the way.
I jotted “reframing book” on the whiteboard in my man cave after thinking about the topic for months. For me, writing down an idea is the first step in manifesting something out of nothing. Progress feels good, no matter how small. It fueled me to talk about the idea with others.
I mentioned the book idea on livestream to get feedback. The overwhelming positive replies fueled me to the next step.
So I talked to my literary agent about the idea. My agent’s enthusiasm for the idea fueled me further.
My literary agent talked to my first-choice publisher. The publisher’s enthusiasm fueled me.
Then I started turning my rough notes into chapter ideas. When chapters start forming out of nothing, it feels like progress. That fueled me, too.
As I write this sentence . . . hold on, let me take a photo.
After a few months of not finding enough time to write in the rolling chaos that is my home, I decided to go on a solo writer’s retreat and make the work as painless as possible. I’m sitting in that chair now, and I must tell you this isn’t a bad experience. I’m being refueled by the insane beauty of Hawai’i as I write. The summary of my creative process looks like this:
Take a tiny step, look for fuel. Take another step, look for more fuel. Keep going until you are done.
The next time you have a big project or challenge, ask yourself what is the smallest thing you can do today to move it forward. Then do it and see if you find more fuel. If not, it probably isn’t your calling, or at least not yet. But I would still try a few more tiny steps to see if something brings you fuel. If not, move on.
Systems Versus Goals
In my 2013 book How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, I introduced two reframes that changed the world. That’s a big claim, and I invite you to be skeptical about any claim of that scale. But it happens to be true. Once you see these two reframes, you will start noticing them incorporated in the advice of nearly everyone in the business of giving advice. Here is the first one.
Usual Frame: Success requires setting goals.
Reframe: Systems are better than goals.
According to my reframe, a system is something you do every day to create good options for yourself in the future. Some people conflate systems with “practice,” which is also a type of system, but not the whole story. The best systems give you many options. Ordinary “practice” might be preparing you for exactly one thing, which may be the right thing to do (or not). So practice alone is not nearly as useful as a system that prepares you for multiple opportunities. Being flexible and prepared for anything is a good position to be in if you live in a rapidly evolving world.
A few examples will help you.
Getting a college education is a system because it gives you multiple career options. You might have a general sense of where your career will go, but you are (usually) not over-specifying it. And that’s good because your preferences and your opportunities change all the time. It’s safest to develop skills that can fit a variety of situations.
Learning to be a plumber might be a great career path, but it isn’t an ideal system because it limits you to that one profession. Systems increase options; they never limit them. To fix a plumber’s career path with a better system, I would advise them either to learn business skills to grow by hiring employees, or to acquire other trade skills with the long-term goal of being a general contractor. In my example, if the plumber ends up renovating and flipping houses instead, using the full set of skills to get it done, that was not necessarily contemplated as a goal, but the plumber prepared for a variety of opportunities and selected this one when it became an option. By way of contrast, a plumber who achieved the goal of learning the trade probably has a boss and a paycheck, but not much else.
A big downside of long-term goals without systems is that every day you do not meet the goal, you are in a mental state of something like failure. But when you have a system, you can feel success every day. For example, if your system involves exercising daily, you are successful if all you did was take a walk. But if your goal is to lose twenty pounds, you will feel like less than a winner every day until you reach the goal. And that’s only if you don’t get discouraged first. Compare that to a system of being active every day and continuously learning what foods are good for you. You can work your system every day, confident it will produce results. That’s continuous winning. It feels great.
Goals are not worthless. They come in handy for any situation in which the objective is clear and there are no just-as-good options. Examples include scoring high on a test, winning a sporting competition, and running a marathon. But when it comes to career, love, and health, you want to prepare yourself to embrace the best opportunity that pops up. It’s a fast world. Be a fast learner and a fast mover.
For a deeper dive into systems—for everything from career to fitness to romance to diet—see my book How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big.
Talent Stacks
I mention Talent Stacks in this book several times in connection to other reframes, but it is a major reframe itself. The Talent Stack reframe is the second world-changer I introduced in How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big. A talent stack is a collection of skills that work well together to make you valuable and rare in a wide variety of ways. This is far different from the classic advice about focusing on being the best at some specific skill. That might have made more sense in an earlier time. But in a fast-moving world, you can’t predict what next year looks like. That means your best odds of happiness are closely associated with how flexible your talent stack is.
Usual Frame: Focus on being excellent at a skill that has commercial value.
Reframe: Acquire skills that work well together and make you rare and flexible at the same time.
The simplest example of building a talent stack that meets my specs is adding public speaking skills to any big-company job. That one skill set makes you the obvious choice for promotion to manager. It also makes you a better candidate for a variety of lateral and upward career moves.
If you also add effective listening skills, business writing, contract negotiation, and some people skills, not much can stop you. And you could learn that entire stack of skills in a month without breaking a sweat.
On my Locals subscription site—scottadams.locals.com—I have recorded over 200 micro lessons, most of them less than four minutes in length. Each teaches you a new useful life skill. In a few weeks, you could rewire your brain with over 200 new skills, building upon your existing awesomeness. Would you want to compete with someone who had developed 200 skills in one month? I wouldn’t, and I’m the one who created the lessons.