Work isn’t a four letter word. Sure, it has four distinct letters, but it’s anything but crass in the world of constant sales, marketing, prestige and (you guessed it) money.
People want work from you. More honestly, you expect work from everyone else. From the moment you step on a sidewalk or start using a public road to the instant you click on a webpage that manages to load, you expect all of the pieces to fall into place for you.
In a way, this a fantastic thing to appreciate – a world where we can expect instant gratification from so many facets of life.
Yet we hate to work. That is obvious. Slogans like “Work Smarter, not Harder” are sadly famous for motivating us to take shortcuts over doing things the right way.
Don’t get me wrong; using a hammer to build a house is better than your thumbs. That is an example of working hard and smart.
What I mean is that you can’t build meaningful things without work.
Too often, good folks will email me asking for shortcuts. They want my help to find tips and tricks to bypassing the work that is necessary for them to gain credibility in their given field.
It’s alright to ask, but before you do, can you honestly say that your work is good enough to show up on Wall Street Journal or The New Yorker?
But that’s what we (myself included) want. Shortcuts to success. We think we deserve it because we have nominal talent that has been validated by a handful of barely impressive people.
Real work doesn’t look like that. It looks like a construction project. We’re consistently building something that we are hoping will resemble a complete, finished product. We’ll make mistakes along the way. The house we’re building may have to be a duplex, and that extra bathroom may take up too much square footage.
Most times, however, the house we’re building can turn into a mansion.
When I started building jonnegroni(dot)com, I imagined it as a comfy apartment that would be big enough for me and some good friends. Thanks to some impressive readers and a weird attitude my parents brought me up with, it turned into something bigger and better.
I’m a believer that no vision is big enough, and if your goal is to build something larger than life, I’m the last person to discourage you. Just know that a big vision requires blueprints, strong hands, and maybe even a team.
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Reblogged this on live free or die trying.
Precisely.
“Team.” Little light bulb went off. That’s what’s so challenging about blogging! Most of us are flying solo. Generally speaking, it’s a rare one-man band that makes great music.
One of these days, I need to compose my own team of excellent writers!