Speaker 1: We can always change that circumstance or the environment, but
Speaker 1: we can decide who we are and who we become
Speaker 1: in those moments. Welcome to the one you feed throughout time.
Speaker 1: Great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.
Speaker 1: Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 1: you think ring true. And yet for many of us,
Speaker 1: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Jeff Coins,
Speaker 1: the author of four books, including the national bestseller The
Speaker 1: Art of Work. Jeff is also well known for his
Speaker 1: prolific blog and podcast, and which he shares thoughts and
Speaker 1: ideas that will help you pursue work that matters, make
Speaker 1: a difference with your art, and discover your true voice.
Speaker 1: And here's the interview with Jeff coins Hi. Jeff, welcome
Speaker 1: to the show. Hey Erica, to be with you. Thanks
Speaker 1: for having me. Yeah, I'm excited to get you on
Speaker 1: the show. In your new book, which is called The
Speaker 1: Art of Work, a Proven Path to discovering what you
Speaker 1: were meant to do, I found an awful lot of
Speaker 1: similarities with some of the themes that come up on
Speaker 1: this show all the time. So I think it's gonna
Speaker 1: be kind of right in the sweet spot for for
Speaker 1: a lot of the things that we talk about. But
Speaker 1: I'd like to start off with um the parable of
Speaker 1: the two wolves. In that parable, there's a grandfather who's
Speaker 1: talking with his grandson and he says, in life, there
Speaker 1: are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle.
Speaker 1: One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness
Speaker 1: and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 1: the grandson stops. He thinks about it for a second,
Speaker 1: and he looks up at his grandfather and he says, what, grandfather,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do. Yeah, I love that parable,
Speaker 1: and I love the focus of the show, which to
Speaker 1: me is really about mindset. It seems to me that
Speaker 1: the world that we live in is full of people
Speaker 1: that that tend to embody, you know, one mindset over another.
Speaker 1: In fact, psychologist Carol Dwack talks about this in her
Speaker 1: book Mindset. She talks about the fixed mindset and the
Speaker 1: growth mindset. And the fixed mindset is sort of this
Speaker 1: idea that things are the way they are and I
Speaker 1: am the way that I am, and nothing's really going
Speaker 1: to change, you know. I'm in the situation that I'm
Speaker 1: in because I deserve it, because of karma, because this
Speaker 1: is my you know, lot in life. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: the other mindset is, um, we can change things, and
Speaker 1: we can't necessarily change, uh, the circumstances around us, but
Speaker 1: we can change who we are in the less than
Speaker 1: ideal moments when life throws something you know, hard at
Speaker 1: us or difficult. Uh. We can't always change that circumstance
Speaker 1: or the environment, but we can change I believe this.
Speaker 1: We can decide who we are and who we become
Speaker 1: in those moments. Effectively, you know which which wolf you're
Speaker 1: going to feed. And for me, the way that tends
Speaker 1: to break down is when stuff that happens that's not
Speaker 1: according to the plan. Who am I going to be?
Speaker 1: Because at any given time, I can be the victim
Speaker 1: or you know, not said you know, sort of hype
Speaker 1: it up too much, or I could be the victor.
Speaker 1: I can be the person who tries to make the
Speaker 1: most of my circule stands and do something with it.
Speaker 1: And one of the ideas I kept running into, and
Speaker 1: I was doing research for this book, just kind of
Speaker 1: interviewing hundreds of people who, um, had found their calling
Speaker 1: and we're doing, um, the work that they were meant
Speaker 1: to do. UM. What what I found was that that
Speaker 1: these were not people who had perfect circumstances or great
Speaker 1: educations or any of that, but they all had this
Speaker 1: growth mindset. And so I write this in the book,
Speaker 1: and I believe this with all my heart, UH that
Speaker 1: what makes a life extraordinary, whatever that might mean to you, successful, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, fulfilled, whatever it might mean, UM, but what
Speaker 1: makes that life extraordinary are not the chances that you get,
Speaker 1: but really what you do with them. And I think
Speaker 1: the secret to Uh, living that extraordinary life is to
Speaker 1: embody that growth mindset where you make the most of
Speaker 1: the opportunities that you're given, whatever they may look like. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that that mindset. We had Carol on a
Speaker 1: few months ago and she was really great, and that
Speaker 1: very simple flip of the mind is so powerful and
Speaker 1: in the way we approached the any things. So your
Speaker 1: new book is called The Art of Work, and it's
Speaker 1: a proven path to discovering what you were meant to do.
Speaker 1: This is not a what color is your parachute type
Speaker 1: book right where you're asking a bunch of questions and
Speaker 1: you take a test and suddenly you find out you
Speaker 1: should be um an accountant. So talk, you know, give
Speaker 1: me a brief overview of what the process of finding
Speaker 1: your calling looks like to you. Now, I know there's
Speaker 1: an entire book on it, but but give me just
Speaker 1: sort of a high level how it's different than the
Speaker 1: way most of us think about it. Yeah. So the
Speaker 1: argument of the book is that when you find your calling,
Speaker 1: when you discover your purpose in life, which I believe
Speaker 1: is a very subjective thing. It's not it's not an
Speaker 1: objective truth, Like, here's what a successful life looks like,
Speaker 1: because what success looks like for you may look very different,
Speaker 1: uh to me. But I kind of begin with this
Speaker 1: premise that's percent of the world's workers. This is based
Speaker 1: on a gallup pole a few years ago. Of the
Speaker 1: world's workers are disengaged with their work. They're not happy
Speaker 1: with how they're spending most of their waking hours, and
Speaker 1: that seems to me to be a problem. And so
Speaker 1: the book is full of these stories, some famous people,
Speaker 1: some people whose names you've never heard of before. Um,
Speaker 1: all kind of you know, a variety of different stories,
Speaker 1: Mother Teresa, Walt Disney, all these different people who all
Speaker 1: leave a mark on the world. They all do something
Speaker 1: significant and find great satisfaction uh in the work that
Speaker 1: they do. One of the common things that they all
Speaker 1: have with one another is that the way that they
Speaker 1: get to their life's work surprises them. It's not a
Speaker 1: perfectly planned out process, and they get to that point
Speaker 1: and they go, oh, yeah, this is everything worked out
Speaker 1: the way that I thought it would. In many cases,
Speaker 1: as I was mentioning before, finding your life's work is
Speaker 1: the result of some wrench being thrown into your plans,
Speaker 1: something not going according to plan, sometimes very tragic, sometimes
Speaker 1: just disappointing. But we all end up at some point
Speaker 1: in life. I believe um where we wake up and
Speaker 1: realize the life that we wanted for ourselves is not
Speaker 1: the life that we ended up living. And this is
Speaker 1: a book that asked the question, well, what do you
Speaker 1: do now? I don't think that you just ignore your circumstances.
Speaker 1: I think hidden in the obstacles, hidden in all of
Speaker 1: the um, the pain and the sacrifice and the challenges
Speaker 1: that we all face, it is an opportunity to do
Speaker 1: something extraordinary with your life. And the art of work
Speaker 1: is There's a reason that the subtitle isn't a proven plan.
Speaker 1: It's a path. And that path I mean, don't don't
Speaker 1: think of it as some straight shot, nicely paved road
Speaker 1: to your life's purpose. It's not a straight path. Uh.
Speaker 1: It is a you know, rocky and windy path. I
Speaker 1: think of it like you're hiking out in the woods
Speaker 1: with your friends or family. You don't know what's going
Speaker 1: to you know, come around that bend. You know you can't.
Speaker 1: You can only see so far. Your job when you're
Speaker 1: on the path is just to take the next step
Speaker 1: and hopefully travel it with uh, you know, a few
Speaker 1: friends and fellow sojourneys, because that is, you know, that's
Speaker 1: the journey of life. Discovering your life's work is going
Speaker 1: to take your whole life. It is going to be
Speaker 1: full of surprises. But what what makes the journey worthwhile
Speaker 1: is really what you do with all of those surprises
Speaker 1: and setbacks and who you bring along with you. I
Speaker 1: think there's an idea that is perpetuated in our culture
Speaker 1: that you just you should just know what you're gonna do.
Speaker 1: Like certain people, they just know what they're meant to
Speaker 1: be and they go be that. And that's the way
Speaker 1: people who are, you know, extraordinarily successful or have a
Speaker 1: calling work as if they've known from the very beginning.
Speaker 1: And your book is very much about That's know, a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't know, and that's fine. And as
Speaker 1: you as you start walking down the path of life,
Speaker 1: you know, certain doors open, certain things happen, and being
Speaker 1: responsive to those and understanding who you are and reacting
Speaker 1: um to those circumstances in a positive way allows you
Speaker 1: to find a path. A path because it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: just one path. It could be multiple paths to the
Speaker 1: goal of where we're going. But I really like that
Speaker 1: what you're saying is if we pay attention to that
Speaker 1: and to our life, who we are and what life
Speaker 1: presents us, it helps us find our way. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think that's absolutely true. I mean, and when you think
Speaker 1: about walking on a path, um, you don't really know
Speaker 1: where it's going to end up. I mean maybe if
Speaker 1: you have a map or something, you have an idea.
Speaker 1: But every every path, every trail I've I've ever followed,
Speaker 1: has always taken me to places that I never expected.
Speaker 1: But when I end up where inevitably I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: end up, I realized, Man, all of this journey was.
Speaker 1: It was a necessary part of getting getting to this place,
Speaker 1: but it didn't happen the way I would have planned
Speaker 1: or even thought it should happen. One of the things
Speaker 1: in the book that I like a lot, and we
Speaker 1: talk about this a lot on the show. We say
Speaker 1: that we don't succeed in spite of our difficulties, but
Speaker 1: because of them. And in the book you uh say
Speaker 1: that difficulties don't disqualify you from a significant life. They
Speaker 1: are prerequisites. Yeah. Um yeah, I think it really comes
Speaker 1: down to building resilience and realizing that all of the
Speaker 1: things that's happened in your life can prepare you for
Speaker 1: what's to come. I love the idea that all the hardships,
Speaker 1: all the difficulties, all the failure can be a means
Speaker 1: of practice. These aren't things that need to shame us
Speaker 1: or disqualify as from uh living out our purpose in
Speaker 1: many ways, their forms of feedback, their friends in disguise
Speaker 1: that help us understand what we're good at, what we're
Speaker 1: not good at, what we could get better at, what
Speaker 1: we actually enjoy doing, and and what you know, we
Speaker 1: probably shouldn't be doing. And again that was sort of
Speaker 1: surprising for me. That's Um, all of these people that
Speaker 1: I interviewed and all these biographies uh that I read,
Speaker 1: they were all full of failure. Not just a little
Speaker 1: bit of failure, but seasons of failure, years of failure.
Speaker 1: And you know, as as as you said, Eric, Um,
Speaker 1: we have this weird relationship with failure where we think
Speaker 1: failure prevents us from success. What I think, and certainly
Speaker 1: what I learned, is that failure leads to success if
Speaker 1: you can learn from it, if you can pivot along
Speaker 1: the way, you can make different choices, learn from your failures,
Speaker 1: and then ultimately persevere. Yeah, yeah, I agree, you say
Speaker 1: that we were just talking about the path, that this
Speaker 1: is a path, not a plan, and you say that
Speaker 1: struggle is part of that path. Yeah, hardships, struggle, Um,
Speaker 1: these things create character. We don't like them when they're
Speaker 1: happening to us, kind of like the annoying friend who
Speaker 1: always tells you the truth about yourself that you don't
Speaker 1: want to hear, but afterwards you go, oh, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's true. I should I should listen to him. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in the same way, I think hardship, failure, obstacles, Um,
Speaker 1: these things ultimately make us better if we have that
Speaker 1: growth mindset. Yep. In the book, you you talk about
Speaker 1: mentorship a little bit, or the idea of mentorship. You
Speaker 1: end up calling it something else, accidental apprenticeship. But what
Speaker 1: I thought was really interesting about that was you said that, Um,
Speaker 1: you were talking about how how it's often not one
Speaker 1: person that is our mentor. And I think maybe you
Speaker 1: and I have had a similar experience. I spent a
Speaker 1: number of years looking for the one person who was
Speaker 1: everything I wanted to be and could mentor me to
Speaker 1: be that in all aspects of my life, and I
Speaker 1: became very disillusioned by that. For obvious reasons. Um, it's
Speaker 1: very It's very obvious to me now that you can
Speaker 1: have different people who who are better in various aspects
Speaker 1: of their life mentor you in those areas. What do
Speaker 1: you mean by an accidental apprenticeship. One of the things
Speaker 1: that has always fascinated me is this idea of apprenticeship.
Speaker 1: When I worked for a nonprofit for seven years, I
Speaker 1: was constantly doing things that I didn't want to do.
Speaker 1: Why because I didn't have any experience, I didn't have
Speaker 1: any expertise. So when my boss who believed me and
Speaker 1: hired me when nobody else would as a college graduate
Speaker 1: with a Spanish degree, a year, a year of touring
Speaker 1: with a band around the country under my belt, all
Speaker 1: of these kind of irrelevant experiences that did not look
Speaker 1: very impressive on a resume. But when my boss to
Speaker 1: be saw something in me and hired me and then
Speaker 1: constantly through stuff at me, I would say, yes, I'll go, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll do that. I don't know anything about marketing, but
Speaker 1: i'll try that. I don't know anything about, um, you know, spreadsheets,
Speaker 1: but I'll try that. All along the way, it was
Speaker 1: learning things, doing things that I didn't want to do,
Speaker 1: accumulating experiences that ultimately ended up being um incredibly useful
Speaker 1: later in my life. And so when I was writing
Speaker 1: out of work, I wanted to explore this idea, this
Speaker 1: ancient idea of apprenticeship, because I think that one of
Speaker 1: the things that's lacking in our culture now is is
Speaker 1: the concept of mastery. That you would spend a long
Speaker 1: time doing the same thing, doing things that you don't
Speaker 1: want to do, over and over and over again, usually
Speaker 1: in the context of serving somebody else's dream. An apprentice
Speaker 1: in the you know midi of old times in the
Speaker 1: Middle Ages would um they would work in the studio
Speaker 1: of a master crafts person, a teacher, and they would
Speaker 1: basically work for room and board, and typically the time
Speaker 1: to the length of that stay would be about seven years,
Speaker 1: and then they'd spent another two to three years as
Speaker 1: a journeyman kind of going out and practicing on their own,
Speaker 1: and then ultimately, if they were good enough, they would
Speaker 1: become a master. When I was in my twenties trying
Speaker 1: to find, you know, some person to mentor me to
Speaker 1: teach me, I could not find that one master. I
Speaker 1: couldn't find that one teacher. My boss was one of
Speaker 1: those people. But there were times when that was a
Speaker 1: frustrating relationship. Of course, um I had I had friends
Speaker 1: and and that you know, next door neighbors and a
Speaker 1: lot of especially men in my life who would influence
Speaker 1: me at just the right time, help me learn something
Speaker 1: that that was kind of the next step in my journey.
Speaker 1: But then they would leave, you know, they'd move or
Speaker 1: I'd move, and life would go on. And so when
Speaker 1: I started interviewing people, um and and telling their stories,
Speaker 1: I found that that was the norm. You know, I
Speaker 1: kind of felt left out. I was like, I don't
Speaker 1: have some mentor that I get together with for coffee,
Speaker 1: you know, once a week and we talked about my
Speaker 1: life and we're gonna be you know, friends for fifty years.
Speaker 1: That's not the way most relationships work. I I wish
Speaker 1: it did, but our culture isn't you know, set up
Speaker 1: that way. You can put somebody on a pedestal. But
Speaker 1: you know, that's kind of unfair. It's unfair to you
Speaker 1: and it's unfair to them because ultimately that person isn't
Speaker 1: going to fulfill every need that you have. They're going
Speaker 1: to disappoint you. If you, you know, follow in the
Speaker 1: footsteps of one single mentor so when I started studying
Speaker 1: apprenticeship which was something that always fascinated me. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, this was the way for hundreds of years,
Speaker 1: especially during the Middle Ages and in Europe at least,
Speaker 1: and and still some in in you know, uh, the
Speaker 1: developing world. There's still places that that you know, practices,
Speaker 1: but for the most part it's a dead art. But
Speaker 1: for hundreds of years, this was the way that you
Speaker 1: basically trained for a job. You Um, if you were
Speaker 1: good enough and connected with the right people, you would
Speaker 1: go at work as an apprentice, as a student under
Speaker 1: a master crafts person, under an artisan or an artist,
Speaker 1: somebody who was a specialist in their trade. And that
Speaker 1: apprenticeship lasted seven years, and then typically you'd spent two
Speaker 1: to three years as a journeyman, which meant you had
Speaker 1: to go out and prove yourself. You had to go
Speaker 1: show that, Um, you spent your seven years well and
Speaker 1: you proved yourself to the world ultimately by submitting a
Speaker 1: masterpiece to a guild. And if they accepted it and
Speaker 1: they said you were good enough in your work, was
Speaker 1: skilled enough, you would become a master and you could
Speaker 1: take on apprentices uh, and so I've always found that interesting,
Speaker 1: and I think that one of the things missing in
Speaker 1: our culture today is this concept of mastery, of spending
Speaker 1: years and years, really a decade, becoming great at what
Speaker 1: you do. Now you got to call edge UM if
Speaker 1: you can afford it, and you study a bunch of
Speaker 1: different things for four years that are usually pretty irrelevant
Speaker 1: to your trade. UM. Then you hopefully get a couple
Speaker 1: of internships where you snag donuts for somebody in an
Speaker 1: office somewhere for a couple of summers before you graduate,
Speaker 1: and then you're thrown out into this world with you know,
Speaker 1: basically UM, a sense of entitlement that now it's time
Speaker 1: for you to start practicing your craft. And I think
Speaker 1: that's a problem. And so during my twenties I was
Speaker 1: always looking for somebody to guide me, to help me
Speaker 1: find my way. What was interesting when I started doing
Speaker 1: UM research for the Art of Work, I started interviewing
Speaker 1: people and just looking at their lives and looking at
Speaker 1: my own life. I realized that really apprenticeship, even in
Speaker 1: the Middle Ages, often is not the result of one
Speaker 1: teacher picking a special person and teaching them what to do.
Speaker 1: It happens in community, even in you know, kind of
Speaker 1: the the old ages of you know, training as an
Speaker 1: artist or as an artistan. A lot of times there
Speaker 1: will be multiple apprentices in a studio with you know,
Speaker 1: that mastercrafts person, and um, they were learning together. Uh.
Speaker 1: Of course, we don't have any sort of formal way
Speaker 1: of doing that now. And this idea that you're gonna
Speaker 1: go find one mentor and have coffee with them every
Speaker 1: week for the next fifty years is unlikely, if not, um,
Speaker 1: you know, completely improbable. But what is likely is that
Speaker 1: there are people around you right now that you can
Speaker 1: learn from if you're willing to um, be intentional about
Speaker 1: connecting with those people, finding ways to help them and
Speaker 1: learn from them and get from in front of them.
Speaker 1: It's a very informal process, and I call it an
Speaker 1: accidental apprenticeship because a lot of times these people show
Speaker 1: up in your life and you don't even recognize them
Speaker 1: until they're gone. And the challenge is to not just
Speaker 1: sort of glide through life unintentionally, but to begin to
Speaker 1: recognize the accidental apprenticeships in your life that have already happened,
Speaker 1: where you connect the dots and you go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: this thing lead to this thing led to this thing.
Speaker 1: And that's what prepared me for what I'm doing now.
Speaker 1: And then ask yourself the question, who's in my life
Speaker 1: right now that I could be taking advantage of their knowledge,
Speaker 1: their experience, UM that right now I'm I'm not. And
Speaker 1: I think the people who truly master their craft to
Speaker 1: become great at what they do, UM know how to
Speaker 1: do this. They know how to find the right people
Speaker 1: to connect with, learn from them, and ultimately get that
Speaker 1: advantage that's um, you know, really helps their work stand
Speaker 1: out from everyone else's. Okay, and back to the interview
Speaker 1: with Jeff Coins. What I'd like to do now is
Speaker 1: have you read a section from your book. On the show,
Speaker 1: we talk a lot about thinking about things. Knowing about
Speaker 1: things is not the same as doing them. That taking
Speaker 1: small steps UM is really important, Getting started as important.
Speaker 1: And I really love the way you say this, uh,
Speaker 1: this section in your book. Could you go ahead and
Speaker 1: read that part from me? Sure, nobody gets changed by
Speaker 1: an ideal, nothing gets shaken by a dream, and the
Speaker 1: world remains the same regardless of how great your idea is.
Speaker 1: It's only when people take action that true transformation happens. Now,
Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong. Dreams are powerful, They are fuel
Speaker 1: for change, but by themselves they do no good. Hanging
Speaker 1: out in coffee shops and talking about one day being
Speaker 1: a writer or an activist or an entrepreneur is just
Speaker 1: about the worst thing you can do. It feels like work,
Speaker 1: but as in fact destructive to the real work of
Speaker 1: realizing your dream. So what do you do? Stop talking
Speaker 1: and start doing. Don't dream of being a writer, Begin writing,
Speaker 1: don't dream of being an active Go start something, don't
Speaker 1: dream of being an entrepreneur. Launched something. I love that
Speaker 1: just getting started. There's another part in your book where
Speaker 1: you describe sort of what you just read there, that
Speaker 1: you and a group of friends would get together and
Speaker 1: you would talk about the things you were gonna do,
Speaker 1: and you would you would make these little plans, and
Speaker 1: and one day somebody in the group suggested, what if
Speaker 1: we changed every time we said what if to let's
Speaker 1: so instead of what if we actually posted something on
Speaker 1: the blog today, to let's post something on the blog today.
Speaker 1: And you talk about what a fundamental shift that was
Speaker 1: for you. Yeah. That was actually my friend Jonathan, who
Speaker 1: ended up starting a publishing company. And I was getting
Speaker 1: ready to go do a talk um in front of
Speaker 1: a group of young entrepreneurial people who wanted to start
Speaker 1: these dreams. And I called him right before I was
Speaker 1: gonna do this talk, and I was like, dude, you've
Speaker 1: done this. I just talked about doing this of you know,
Speaker 1: especially at the time, I didn't have much experience with entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1: And I said, what what have you learned? And he
Speaker 1: told me that story. He said, we used to sit
Speaker 1: around the table at night after our kids went to bed,
Speaker 1: and we would dream about what if this happened, what
Speaker 1: if that happened, and nothing would ever happened. We would
Speaker 1: just dream and dream and dream for months and years,
Speaker 1: and then one day someone said, what if we stop
Speaker 1: saying what if and started saying let's again. I think
Speaker 1: that goes back to mindset. Are you a victim? Are
Speaker 1: you the kind of person that life happens to you?
Speaker 1: Or are you the kind of person who you know?
Speaker 1: I don't believe any of this, you know silliness about
Speaker 1: your completely in control of your destiny and you can
Speaker 1: you know, create, you can manifest your reality. I just
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes tough stuff happens, right, um, But I
Speaker 1: do believe that you can let things happen to you
Speaker 1: and say well that's that's the end of that. Or
Speaker 1: you can say, yeah, this this thing happened to me,
Speaker 1: and now I'm going to do something about it. I'm
Speaker 1: going to take these obstacles and turn them into opportunities.
Speaker 1: I'm going to take what life has thrown at me
Speaker 1: and try to make something beautiful and extraordinary with it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I really I love that. And one of the things
Speaker 1: that you you then go on to talk about is
Speaker 1: that we often have to act even when we don't
Speaker 1: quite know where we're going or we're unprepared. You say
Speaker 1: that we think that passion comes first, that our desire
Speaker 1: is primary, but if we are truly called, the work
Speaker 1: always comes before we're ready. We will have to act
Speaker 1: in spite of feeling unprepared. Yeah. I mean, if you
Speaker 1: think about a great story, I think it's Star Wars
Speaker 1: or Wizard of Oz or these epic stories that many
Speaker 1: of us grew up with. Um and and I think
Speaker 1: we all when we watch those movies, there's something that
Speaker 1: happens at a psychological, maybe even spiritual level, or something
Speaker 1: that that connects with your heart that that makes you
Speaker 1: feel like my life is like this too. This is uh,
Speaker 1: it's perhaps a little bit egotistical, but I also think
Speaker 1: it's innate. It's the way we're made. We are built
Speaker 1: to believe. That's um, when we watch a great story
Speaker 1: or read a great story, that life is like this,
Speaker 1: that we're learning some truth that we can hopefully apply
Speaker 1: to the story of our lives. So when you look
Speaker 1: at those stories, uh, the adventure always comes to the
Speaker 1: hero or the heroine before they're ready. So you know,
Speaker 1: the Empire comes and and basically kills Luke's family. Uh,
Speaker 1: and as a result of that, he has to go
Speaker 1: become a Jedi. He doesn't want to do that. Uh.
Speaker 1: The tornado whisks Dorothy away before she's going to fall
Speaker 1: the Yellow Brick Road. There are these things that happened
Speaker 1: that nobody wants to happen, and yet ultimately they lead
Speaker 1: to greater good. They lead to something powerful happening. If
Speaker 1: we're going to believe that we're living some sort of
Speaker 1: extraordinary story, and I hope we can believe that. I
Speaker 1: think in our hearts we want to believe that sometimes
Speaker 1: shame and failure and even sadly our parents can kind
Speaker 1: of you know, um, get beat that out of us
Speaker 1: figuratively and sometimes uh, you know, literally um, and and
Speaker 1: it in we have to sort of rescue the story
Speaker 1: of our life and believe that. Um. At times, certain
Speaker 1: things happen that don't feel uh, you know, as part
Speaker 1: of the plan or even opportune. And yet if we
Speaker 1: can make the most of that, if we can act
Speaker 1: in spite of not feeling ready, even when we feel afraid,
Speaker 1: we are beginning to live this incredible story. And um,
Speaker 1: that's just not the way we live though. I mean,
Speaker 1: we tend to treat our lives as plans, not stories,
Speaker 1: and we try to script everything out and when something
Speaker 1: goes wrong, uh, you know, we kind of throw up
Speaker 1: our you know, our arms up in the air and
Speaker 1: try to get everything back into control. That's just not
Speaker 1: the way stories work, and I certainly don't think it's
Speaker 1: the way life works. Yeah. You you talk about the
Speaker 1: fact that we have to Um. You've got a line
Speaker 1: here that I really like, which is that decisions reveal opportunity. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I keep talking about in
Speaker 1: the book is because it's sort of the monitor of
Speaker 1: all these different stories, is clarity comes with action. If
Speaker 1: you're reading a book that talks about discovering what you're
Speaker 1: meant said, do you want, you want that, you know,
Speaker 1: take this quiz and it'll tell you what to do.
Speaker 1: But I I think that many of us we were
Speaker 1: skeptical about that. I certainly am. And even if you
Speaker 1: tell me, Jeff, you're supposed to go be a plumber. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but and what about this and what if this? That's
Speaker 1: not That's not what we're wired to do. We're not
Speaker 1: wired to be told what to do. We're wired to
Speaker 1: discover things about ourselves as we take action, you know, discovery,
Speaker 1: and it's sort of the result of dedication. It's taking
Speaker 1: a step, learning as you go. Imagine that you're on
Speaker 1: that path and you've got this lantern and you can
Speaker 1: only see so far ahead of you before you have
Speaker 1: to take another step. I mean, you were stepping into
Speaker 1: the darkness. But but with each step, the lantern reveals
Speaker 1: just just the next decision that you need to make. Um.
Speaker 1: I think there's this idea that finding your purpose is
Speaker 1: like you go up on a mountaintop and you consult
Speaker 1: maybe with a guru or a light beam comes down
Speaker 1: from heaven and tells you what you're supposed to do
Speaker 1: with your life, and then you go do it. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, the argument of the art of work, which
Speaker 1: came out of all these stories that I studied and
Speaker 1: all these people that I interviewed, and I look back
Speaker 1: at my own life and I realized, yeah, this is
Speaker 1: true for me too. I never knew exactly what to do,
Speaker 1: but I took the next step. And when I took
Speaker 1: that step, it either failed and I learned something from that,
Speaker 1: or there was some confirmation. I realized, Okay, this is
Speaker 1: the right direction, and I'll take another step, and another
Speaker 1: step and another step as uh As somebody once asked
Speaker 1: Mother Teresa, Hey, could you pray for clarity for me?
Speaker 1: She said, no, I'm not going to do that because
Speaker 1: I've never had clarity. I've only ever had trust. I
Speaker 1: think it's our job when we're on our life's path,
Speaker 1: you know, we're on the path towards our life's work.
Speaker 1: It's not to wait for clarity to come. It's to
Speaker 1: act in spite of things being unclear, understanding that clarity
Speaker 1: comes with action, and to trust the process as we go.
Speaker 1: And the way that we do that is by looking
Speaker 1: at other people, realizing that we're not traveling, you know,
Speaker 1: this journey alone, learning from mentors, learning from the stories
Speaker 1: of other people, which I know capture in the book
Speaker 1: We've Got People from age eighteen two a d. When
Speaker 1: you realize this isn't just a solitary journey and you
Speaker 1: can learn from other people's experiences, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you don't feel quite so alone, and there's wisdom that
Speaker 1: that comes from you know, understanding how this, how this works.
Speaker 1: But that wisdom doesn't mean that that you're automatically going
Speaker 1: to feel super courageous. You're still going to have to
Speaker 1: take that next step and that's always scary, but that's
Speaker 1: part of the fun too. Yeah, I really love what
Speaker 1: you say. They're about clarity brings action. On the show,
Speaker 1: we often say that you can't think your way into
Speaker 1: right action. Sometimes you've got to act your way into
Speaker 1: right thinking. And it's it's a similar idea that the
Speaker 1: you know, the further we moved down the path, the
Speaker 1: clearer the view gets. One of the things that you
Speaker 1: talk about is a lot of people when we're discussing
Speaker 1: moving on to a different career or finding our calling,
Speaker 1: we talk a lot about making the leap, and you
Speaker 1: say that that can be a mistake. We should be
Speaker 1: instead of saving all our energy for the leap, we
Speaker 1: should be building a bridge. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 1: I got to interview this family who moved their family
Speaker 1: to Burundi. It's a husband and wife, um Ben and
Speaker 1: Christy Carlson, and they moved to Burundi, which, if you're
Speaker 1: not failar with that country, it's uh the second porest
Speaker 1: country in the world. Um, it's in Africa, and uh
Speaker 1: it's they moved there to start a coffee company. And
Speaker 1: when I asked them, how did you get from this
Speaker 1: point to that point? From working for a nonprofit, you know,
Speaker 1: this American family to moving to the second porest country
Speaker 1: in the world, working with these farmers farmers every day
Speaker 1: to try to increase their their wages. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: get them fairer compensation and also you know, get some
Speaker 1: great coffee into the world. And Christie told me she
Speaker 1: was well, it was a leap, and I said, well,
Speaker 1: I asked her, said, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 1: How long did this leap take? And she said, well,
Speaker 1: it took about ten years. And I thought that is
Speaker 1: a very slow motion leap. Um. I think that that
Speaker 1: this idea of of leaping into your dream is a myth. UM.
Speaker 1: It doesn't usually happen that way. It is a slow
Speaker 1: and steady process of slowly closing that gap between where
Speaker 1: you are and where you want to be, where you're
Speaker 1: you're meant to be, And of course it's a lifelong journey.
Speaker 1: But we look at these transitions transitioning from uh, you know,
Speaker 1: being a banker to becoming a park rangers, as Jody Mayberry,
Speaker 1: another guy in the in the book U his story,
Speaker 1: I tell we look at these sometimes, you know, big
Speaker 1: transition somebody going from working a desk job, we're you know,
Speaker 1: sitting in a cubicle to living some adventure and it
Speaker 1: always looks like that Jerry Maguire moment where you like
Speaker 1: throw the gauntlet down and say who's with me? And
Speaker 1: even in that movie, what often is the result after
Speaker 1: that big uh moment is a lot of hard work
Speaker 1: to try to make it work. I think that the
Speaker 1: best transitions tend to be not giant leaps, but bridges
Speaker 1: that are built through a daily, intentional practice that helps
Speaker 1: you get to where you want to go. And so
Speaker 1: what that looked like for me was um publishing my
Speaker 1: words on a blog every single day for a year.
Speaker 1: And when I started doing that, things began to happen
Speaker 1: that I had dreamed of happening for basically seven years, uh,
Speaker 1: and that never ended up happening. And what was I
Speaker 1: doing during those seven years while I was sitting on
Speaker 1: the couch thinking about writing right right once in a while,
Speaker 1: once a week, maybe, when I started getting disciplined about
Speaker 1: the work and sharing my work with people. Um, these
Speaker 1: breaks that I always long for, that I thought were
Speaker 1: the result of luck or something, they started happening, you know.
Speaker 1: And within eight months of blogging, I had a book
Speaker 1: publisher contact me. Within really about eighteen months, I've made
Speaker 1: enough money to replace my wife's income. She could stay
Speaker 1: home and raise our son. And by the end of
Speaker 1: that second year, I was quitting my job to start
Speaker 1: this business and become a full time writer. And I
Speaker 1: look back and I go, yeah, there was seven years
Speaker 1: of failure and dreaming and wishing things would be a
Speaker 1: certain way. But things really started to change during those
Speaker 1: two years of practice. And I think that's what building
Speaker 1: a bridge looks like. It means getting up and using
Speaker 1: whatever time you have, whatever free time you have available,
Speaker 1: practicing in the margins of life to begin closing that gap.
Speaker 1: And as my wife reminded me that the day my
Speaker 1: first book was published giving this card that said it
Speaker 1: was never a question of if, but a matter of when.
Speaker 1: When you do the work and you discipline yourself to
Speaker 1: do a little bit of work every day, day in
Speaker 1: and day out, as often as you can, you create
Speaker 1: momentum that over time leads to all kinds of breakthrough
Speaker 1: and it's very hard to stop. But that that doesn't,
Speaker 1: you know, that doesn't make for a great movie. So
Speaker 1: that's why we like to talk about the leap instead
Speaker 1: of building a bridge, right, yep, I agree, and I
Speaker 1: my experience has been very much the same, which is
Speaker 1: that if you start and I like what you say
Speaker 1: on the margins of life, you know, I love the
Speaker 1: phrase start where you are, which is, if all you
Speaker 1: can write is fifteen minutes a day, start with that
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes. But do it um and then things, things
Speaker 1: really start to happen. And whether those things are always
Speaker 1: external or their internal is is not always known. But
Speaker 1: sometimes I think that the simple feeling of well being
Speaker 1: that we get from doing the thing that we always
Speaker 1: say we want to do and actually doing it, that
Speaker 1: internal congruence is almost worth everything that happens in the
Speaker 1: external world, because we stop feeling so bad about ourselves.
Speaker 1: I heard a great story that was told, uh by
Speaker 1: Stephen Pressfield, and I think he heard it from someone
Speaker 1: someone else. I think it was in one of his books. Um.
Speaker 1: He said, there's an old story about a new actor
Speaker 1: move into Hollywood and running into Walter mathow Um at
Speaker 1: a party and Walter says, hey, kid, how's how's it going.
Speaker 1: He goes, it's going okay. I'm just waiting for that
Speaker 1: big break. And Walter laughs and says, kid, it's not
Speaker 1: the big break. It's not the one lucky break that
Speaker 1: you get. It's the fifty breaks. And there's this idea
Speaker 1: that like, I met this one person and everything happened.
Speaker 1: But man, when you get down to the nitty gritty
Speaker 1: details of a story of success, it's always this thing
Speaker 1: went to this thing, lent to this thing, went to
Speaker 1: this thing. And the momentum behind that, I mean, the
Speaker 1: the action behind all of that momentum is somebody taking
Speaker 1: small daily steps over time that again lead to something
Speaker 1: so much bigger. Once all those things, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of run into each other. It's it's
Speaker 1: like knocking down dominoes. And yeah, you have to start
Speaker 1: where you are and you have to not despise small beginnings,
Speaker 1: and you have to stop waiting for some perfect opportunity
Speaker 1: and begin with wherever you are, using what you have. Yep.
Speaker 1: I agree with all of that, and I think that's
Speaker 1: just such great stuff. You say that every great endeavor
Speaker 1: begins with a smaller, less significant one. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: there's this idea that's um. Uh, you know, if I
Speaker 1: just had all of the perfect equipment and all of
Speaker 1: the perfect you know, opportunities, and lived in the right city,
Speaker 1: then then I would be ready. But the reality is
Speaker 1: most of us are looking at our lives, um feeling jipped,
Speaker 1: you know, feeling like we missed out. We didn't get
Speaker 1: the weren't born in the right decade, we didn't get
Speaker 1: the right education. If we only had a little bit
Speaker 1: more money, or if our you know, our company got
Speaker 1: this venture capitalist to back us, then we'd be okay.
Speaker 1: And that may be true, but that is not your say.
Speaker 1: You don't have any control over what could have been,
Speaker 1: and we all have to take what we have and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, do something significant with us. And if you
Speaker 1: spend your life wondering what could have been, or what
Speaker 1: if I had this or that, you're going to waste
Speaker 1: your life. Yeah, we had. We've had that come up
Speaker 1: with several guests. One of our guests it was in
Speaker 1: a as a as a musician and from the from
Speaker 1: the get go, this band worked so hard. Thiss, what
Speaker 1: what was it? You know, what was it that drove
Speaker 1: you guys to work so hard? And he said, well,
Speaker 1: we realized we weren't the greatest singers. We realized we
Speaker 1: weren't the best looking guys out there. We realized that
Speaker 1: we didn't know all the people. He was like, the
Speaker 1: only thing that we had any control over was how
Speaker 1: hard we worked. And that's just such a poignant way
Speaker 1: to think about. And it's it really takes that um
Speaker 1: that spend your effort on what you can control and
Speaker 1: actually makes it something meaningful. I remember when I got
Speaker 1: started as a writer, I looked at people who they
Speaker 1: looked like they just got lucky. It seemed, you know,
Speaker 1: they met the right person at the right time. And
Speaker 1: every time I hear some success a person to an
Speaker 1: interview and say I just got lucky, it just makes
Speaker 1: me mad because there's nothing practical about that great So
Speaker 1: I I have to have a fairy godmother, is what
Speaker 1: you're telling me? Like, and if I don't, I'm screwed.
Speaker 1: And I would look at people who, um, got lucky,
Speaker 1: and uh. And then I looked at people who were
Speaker 1: just really good. You know, it looked like they were
Speaker 1: more talented than everybody else, and sometimes they were lazy
Speaker 1: with their talent. And maybe none of those things are true,
Speaker 1: and maybe all of them are true. I didn't know.
Speaker 1: I just I just that's how I felt. And one
Speaker 1: day I just decided to stop feeling sorry for myself,
Speaker 1: and I said, you know, um, you can't control how
Speaker 1: lucky someone else gets. You can't control how good somebody
Speaker 1: else is, even if they're lazy. What you can control
Speaker 1: is you can keep working, you can persevere, you can
Speaker 1: work harder than everybody else. And so I would start
Speaker 1: telling myself, Uh, you can outwork the lazy and you
Speaker 1: can outlast the lucky, and uh. That was a mantra
Speaker 1: that that drove me and continues to drive me today. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that is an excellent point to wrap the
Speaker 1: show up. So Jeff, thanks so much for taking the
Speaker 1: time to be on the show. We will have links
Speaker 1: to your website, your Twitter, all that stuff on our
Speaker 1: show notes at one you feed dot net and um,
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you being on. Oh totally my pleasure.
Speaker 1: Thanks for everything that you're doing, Eric. I love the
Speaker 1: show and I love all the guests that you've had
Speaker 1: on a big fan and glad to be a part
Speaker 1: of it. Excellent, take care, Thank you. You can learn
Speaker 1: more about Jeff Goins and this podcast at one you
Speaker 1: feed dot net slash Goins. That's g o i n s.