Focus Digest: July 2024 Welcome to July, Friend. This monthly digest is for creative professionals and small business owners looking to create a more ideal schedule, get organized, and stay in control of the things that matter. If you are new to the digest...here's what to look forward to at the start of each month: - A short article on a single concept around focus
- A couple quotes that we've enjoyed thinking on
- Links to interesting or related articles from our corner of the internet
- Upcoming events and resource spotlights for our [Club Members]( If this sparks any ideas Iâd love to hear from you! (We send the digest once a month. If you'd rather not get the focus digest you can easily opt-out via the link at the bottom.) * * * Save These Dates Re-Plan Your Year (July 9)
As we move in to the second half of 2024, a lot of folks donât even remember what their goals were for this year. Or things have changed so much, they need a reset. Thats why Iâm taking the Focus Club community through a simplified version of our popular Plan Your Year workbook. Weâll be getting clear on what matters most over the next six months so that when you sit down to talk to your loved ones after Christmas, you can share the highlights of what you accomplished for your health, your relationships, and your career. If youâd like to join us, we would love to welcome you inside our [Focus Club membership](. * * * Give to Grow: A workshop for building your career (August 13)
My good friend, Mo Bunnell, works with many of the worldâs top law firms and professional service providers and has some of the best sales coaching / methodology Iâve ever seen. Itâs relationship-centric and brilliant. Iâve invited him to lead a free, virtual workshop on how to build your business and career by investing in relationships. See you there! * * *
CEOâs only: If youâre an entrepreneur, business owner, or a full-time coach / consultantâ¦
There are only two more high-touch masterclasses happening this year if you want to finally build your Million Dollar Schedule that will allow you to grow your business faster while also working less hours. If youâd like more info about one of the next business owner programs, just hit reply and letâs chat. * * * You Have Ideas
But, what you need is more bad ideas. You know the drill. Itâs late in the morning on Saturday and youâre outside mowing the lawn. Or maybe you donât mow the lawn. So, say itâs a Monday evening and youâre taking a walk through the neighborhood. Or itâs Tuesday morning and youâre taking a shower. And then⦠bam! You have an idea. Seemingly out of nowhere. Awesome. But why arenât you having more ideas in more places? I think we put far too much emphasis on the when, where, why, and how of good ideas. We should talk more about the when, where, why, and how of bad ideas. We all need to have more bad ideas. More crappy first drafts. More embarrassing design mock ups. More failures. More awkward moments. Now that we have the internet in our pocket, we can share moments and slices of our life with the world. But most of us are sharing the highlights. We share the best photos of the grandest places. Which is fine. But it also can cause a slight sense of disillusionment. Gee, everyone I follow on Instagram lives in the mountains or on the beach and eats incredible food. I live in the suburbs and had a tunafish sandwich for lunch. When we see other peopleâs beautiful Instagram lives and fine-tuned Pinterest taste, we think they live like that 24/7. It can be challenging when we start to overlap the perfect and curated âworldâ we see through our smartphones and the messy and challenging world we live through our own eyes and skin. Thatâs why you need to have more bad ideas. Ideas are good for the soul. Theyâre good for your creative imagination. Theyâre brain food. They help you build motivation. But itâs not just good ideas that build motivation â bad ideas do this too. When was the last time you had a real whopper of a terrible idea? Youâre probably embarrassed to even recall. As if having a bad idea is the same as farting during a fancy dinner. Itâs not the same; not the same at all. We need bad ideas. You need bad ideas. Out of ten thousand ideas, only one of them might be truly great. If you sit around waiting for the great one, how are you going to get it? And then (well, this is a topic for another post, but what Iâm trying to say is that) once you have a great idea, thatâs only the very beginning â doing something about it is what matters most. How to Strengthen Your Creative ImaginationSo here you are. Standing at a place that is âNot Amazingâ and youâre trying to get over there to âAmazingâ. There is no shortcut except to go through the mud of âNot Yet Amazing.â I want to have more bad ideas, more terrible first drafts, more embarrassing design mock ups, more failures, and more awkward moments. While that may sound like the worst Christmas List ever, what it actually means is that I want to try harder and have less fear of failure. More bad ideas, more terrible first drafts, and more failed attempts, means more work created. All that said, here are some thoughts about ideas, and why I think you should try and come up with more (bad) ideas every day. IDEAS ARE A COMMODITY
If you think ideas are rare itâs because youâre not used to coming up with any. The more ideas you come up with, then the more ideas youâll keep coming up with. I once read this from Jonas Ellison: âNever be stingy with your ideas. Donât say youâll save them for another post, another story, another day. Put it out there. Circulate your ideas freely so your mind can generate new.â Since ideas (especially bad ones) are a dime a dozen, thereâs no fear in giving them away and sharing them early and often. In fact, a bad idea in your hands might be a great idea in someone elseâs. Thatâs because⦠PEOPLE ARE GREATER THAN IDEAS
In [Creativity, Inc.](nosim&tag=shabla-20), Ed Catmull writes about how people are far more important than ideas. Saying: âIf you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they will screw it up. If you give a mediocre idea to a brilliant team, they will either fix it or throw it away and come up with something better. The takeaway here is worth repeating: Getting the team right is the necessary precursor to getting the ideas right.â Catmull also writes about how ideas are not singularly, perfectly-formed things. Theyâre half-thoughts. What-ifs, hunches, gut feelings, whispers of a dream, foggy afternoons. Thatâs why⦠A BAD IDEA DOES NOT REFLECT YOUR TALENT, CHARACTER, OR TASTE
If youâre in an environment where you are afraid to share a bad idea, you need to change that environment. Donât despise your own bad ideas and donât despise other peopleâs. We put so much emphasis on only having good ideas that weâve assumed this posture where all ideas should be acted on. Thatâs silly. Just because youâve had an idea doesnât mean it now must be cared for and built. Feel free to have lots and lots of horrible ideas and then throw them out. Give yourself freedom to have bad ideas. Give everyone you know â your friends, family, co-workers, bosses, peers, strangers you meet while standing in line at the coffee shop â permission to have bad ideas. In fact, why not just⦠START WITH THE WORST IDEA YOU CAN
I dare you. Seriously, why not? What is it youâre stuck on right now? What is the worst possible solution to that problem? Coming up with a bad idea is so much easier than coming up with a good one. Start with the worst idea you can and let that build your momentum. Bad ideas become the stepping stones to good ideas. As you get more comfortable coming up with many ideas all of the time, youâll learn to adapt this very important rule, which is⦠DONâT BE A SLAVE TO THE TYRANNY OF A NEW IDEA
Ever feel like you have more ideas than time? I hope you do. Having too many ideas is not a dilemma. The dilemma is to have no ideas at all. We think having more ideas than time is a dilemma because new ideas are exciting, and we feel obligated to act on them and do something about them. Donât feel obligated. Itâs okay to let good ideas die. You donât have to act on every idea you come up with. Donât give in to the tyranny of a new idea simply because itâs new. As I said, and as Iâm sure you are aware, there is something more important than coming up with ideas: finishing them. If you have more ideas than time, thatâs great. Focus on what you can do now. Believe me when I say that⦠GREAT IDEAS COME BACK
Back in 2014 we completely re-designed and re-booted the [Tools & Toys]( website. I brainstormed with my team, worked with our designer/developer, and we made something awesome. About 5 months later I stumbled across a page in my notebook that was about 2 years old. And on the page was a list of goals and ideas for Tools & Toys, and the list was filled with the exact same outline of goals and ideas that weâd just implemented. I had written it, forgot about it, and two years later when I was starting over âfrom scratchâ those ideas came right back and I didnât even know it. But two years can be a long time to wait on an idea. Sometimes an idea wonât let you go. You know the ones Iâm talking about. And so, in those cases, try to act quickly because⦠IDEAS DEMISE OVER TIME
When an idea truly grabs ahold of you, keeps you up at night, and wakes you up early in the morning, then itâs time to take action. You know what Iâm talking about. If and when you can, act on those best ideas quickly. When they grab ahold of you like that, it means theyâve got life on them. When an idea has life on it like that⦠LISTEN TO WHAT YOUR IDEA WANTS
Eventually the idea will take over. It will begin to think for itself. It will have its own needs and wants. Listen to it. What does it want? What other ideas are branching out from this original one? This happened to me as I was writing my book, The Power of a Focused Life. I spent 5 months writing the first draft. Then as I was doing research and working on the second draft I realized that this idea wanted to be different than what I originally imagined. In response, I turned the book upside down, pulled it all apart, and re-wrote everything from scratch to create [The Focus Course]( instead. I never would have built the Focus Course if I hadnât first started with the book. I needed to be in the midst of that project before I could see where it was ultimately headed. Itâs a rule of the universe of creativity that⦠ACTION BRINGS CLARITY
Once you start moving and acting on an idea, then you begin to get clarity about what the next step needs to be. Itâs okay not to have it all figured out before you begin. Just begin, and let your feet take you. * * * In shortâ¦. The ability to solve interesting problems is an integral part of doing our best work. And doing work that matters means having the guts to try things that might not work.
* * * [Capture Your Ideas. Organize Your Writing.](
Right now one of our most popular courses is on sale for half price! (This is also one of my personal favorite courses that we offer, btw.) [Learn Ulysses]( is two things: - A top-to-bottom course that will teach you how to master one of the all-time best writing apps there is.
- A simplified workflow guide for getting your ideas and your writing into a state of structure and organization. Stop losing ideas, chasing scattered notes, and fiddling with loose documents all over the place. Ulysses is a delightful, easy-to-use app. And [this course]( will get you up and running in no time. Learn Ulysses is half-price for a limited time. Get it [here](. * * * Noteworthy Links, Reading, and Instagram Reeling - [The science behind celebrating the small wins](
- [How Iâm able to take 9 weeks of vacation each year](
- [This is your most important job (if youâre the boss)]( * * * [Unsubscribe from Focus Digest]([updates](. Or, to unsubscribe from everything, for ever and ever, [here](. Blanc Media, 714 Main St., Grandview, MO 64030, United States