If you chase two rabbits, you will catch neither.
Author: Dad
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Art & Fear
You learn how to make your work by making your work.
You make good work by among other things making lots of work that isn’t good and gradually weeding out the parts that aren’t good.
Your work is your guide.
Art & Fear
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Hard Choices
Great words to live by:
Easy choices hard life. Hard choices easy life.
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Worth Fighting For?
Fight the fights that are worth fighting. Don’t fight just to fight, and don’t put yourself out there for something that’s not worth it. This applies to everything in life – business, friends, family. With friends and family, very often there is something that you kind of want but the other person really wants. You want the living room to be organized in a certain way and the other person wants it completely different. If you don’t care that much, then it’s a fight that’s not worth fighting. If you care strongly about something then you should advocate for it. But if you don’t care, and it’s better to preserve the relationship then let the other person win.
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Top Athletes
Roger Federer made an interesting comment in a recent interview: The difference between the #3 and #4 tennis player is bigger than the difference between #4 and #200. What separates these guys is not their talent or their dedication. It’s their mental game. The top competitors have the best mental game. -
The Way Out
Most often…
The only way out is through.
Said another way:
If you’re going through hell… keep going!
Quiting is not an option. Keep grinding and keep pushing until you break through.
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What Makes You Special
Far too often, people think they are special because they come from a special situation like a royal family, or have an exceptional talent that makes them different and better. It’s not what you say or where you come from that makes you special.
The truth is this:
You are not special because of who you are but what you do.
You become special through your actions. By what you do. Every day, day in and day out. Your actions define who you are and the person you will become.
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Pre
Steve “Pre” Prefontaine was one of the greatest runners of all time. He had epic quotes that inspired me all my life. Here are a few:
To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.
It’s not who’s the best – it’s who can take the most pain.
“Somebody may beat me, but they are going to have to bleed to do it.”
“I do it because I can, I can because I want to, I want to because you said I couldn’t.”
I’m going to work so that it’s a pure guts race at the end, and if it is, I am the only one who can win it.
A lot of people run a race to see who is the fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into exhausting pace, and then at the end, punish himself even more.
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I’ll do it “Some day”
Some day is not a day of the week. Saying you’re going to do something “some day” isn’t a plan and it isn’t realistic. When I hear “some day” I hear “never going to happen.” If you want something, don’t talk about some day. Pick a day and put it on the calendar and get it done.
In other words:
A goal is a dream with a deadline.
-Napoleon Hill
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Dream, But Have a Plan
You should have a dream, but dreams are very low probability by definition. You should also have a plan. Have a dream and a plan. If a dream is less than 1% chance of accomplishing it, a plan is greater than 80% chance of accomplishing it.
-Steve Young’s dad
Good advice from Steve Young’s dad. Steve dreamed of being an NFL player, but he also had a backup plan to be a lawyer if that fell through. He actually went to law school while he was in the NFL.