Social media has made things both harder and easier for us as writers.

On the one hand, it is much easier than it was years ago because we can connect with almost anyone. We can share content and be inspired by what other people are posting.

On the other hand, social media has made it much harder. Why? Because social media by definition only showcases people’s success. We end up comparing our whole lives, including our failures and frustrations, to a partial view of other people’s lives because they only post their wins. (And we all do the same thing, by the way.)

When you see all the wins that people are posting, don’t compare yourself. Sure, you can learn from other people. But your race is not their race. You have your own pace, your own goals, your own priorities, and your own commitments in life.

For example, if you are a young mother with three kids at home and you only have 15 minutes of silence a day before collapsing into bed at night, don’t feel guilty about not getting as much work done as the single guy who probably has far fewer commitments, much more free time, and seems to be accomplishing more.

Here’s another example. Maybe you are that single person who is just getting started and feels guilty because you’re not accomplishing as much as that business writer with several kids who seem to travel all over the world and have it all. They have a New York Times bestseller, an email list of a hundred thousand people, and what looks like a perfect life.

But what you may not know is that her marriage is crumbling and she’s secretly miserable because she has to run herself ragged to keep up with all the demands of her freshly grown business.

In other words, you never know people’s real situations and what their lives are like on the inside. So don’t assume that what you’re seeing on social media is the whole picture.

This is certainly no judgment on anybody’s personal situation because we all have different lives. Our lives are constantly in flux according to our stage of life and where we are in building a business or reaching our goals.

Don’t worry about anybody else. Just focus on running your own race and learn what you can from other successful people. Then, apply those lessons to your situation.

If you keep at it, pretty soon people will be comparing themselves to YOU. And then you can help a mentor and teach them, just like others have done for you.

Question: Do you have a hard time avoiding the comparison game?

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Let’s talk about one of the hardest truths to swallow. Here it is: the circle of relationships that brought you to where you are is not the circle of relationships that will take you to where you want to be.

Most of us don’t like conflict. We don’t want to feel like we’re leaving others behind. This fact alone prevents a lot of people from growing because they are not willing to make tough changes to their personal and professional relationships.

You’ve probably heard about what happens in a crab basket. When you put a bunch of crabs in a basket, and one tries to crawl out, the others pull him back in. Most social and professional circles work the same way. Whenever you try to grow or improve, the people around you who don’t want to grow will try to discourage you. They may not do so directly, but they will express doubt that your plans or dreams are realistic. People will try to keep you in the crab basket of mediocrity in all kinds of ways.

Let me get personal for a moment. Once I had been teaching college for 12-13 years, I knew there was something more I wanted. I didn’t want to do that job forever because the context of our tiny college was very limiting. We had a small number of students, my salary was very limited, and there was zero potential for either one of those numbers ever increasing.

I was very friendly with the people I worked with. I still consider most of them to be friends. But none of them had any intentions of building a business. There’s nothing wrong with that at all, and they are wonderful people. But I knew that if I wanted to build a business, I had to start spending time around people who thought and dreamed bigger, and who were doing the kinds of things I wanted to do.

So, I started getting involved in mastermind groups and communities. I started taking courses and investing in myself. I started doing freelance work. I started podcasting and writing my own books. Most of the people in my day job didn’t know what to think of this because it wasn’t in their DNA to build something of their own.

I’m not talking about denying the value that some people have had in your journey. You can be grateful for a season or a phase in your life and recognize its value, while at the same time also understanding that you need to have a different focus moving forward. The two things are not mutually exclusive.

Life is a journey, and if you’re not willing to let go of some things, you won’t have room in your heart and mind for the people and things that you need to carry with you going forward. It doesn’t mean that those relationships were not important, and that you can’t still be friends. It just means that you are going in a different direction in life, and you will be spending the bulk of your time and energy around people who have the same goals as you do.

This is a very difficult thing to do. You have to do a real gut-check because it means some people in your life won’t agree with your direction, and you will not fit into your old social circles and old ways of thinking. So be prepared for that.

One more thing about all this: there will be some people who see what you’re doing and will want to join you. Make sure to make time and energy for those people who are curious about your new direction and find ways to help them.

Daily Question: Are you willing to let go of some relationships in order to make room for new ones that are more in line with your new direction in life, writing, and business? Be honest.

The post The Art of Letting Go appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

In this episode, I begin a series on the making of my Father’s memoir of his experiences in Vietnam. I’ll be writing it with him over the next year or so. I talk about why I’m doing it, some of my fears as I start the project, the process I’m using to figure out the theme of the memoir, and some of the resources that will be helpful as we create the memoir.

The post Journal of a Memoir #1 appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

In your writing life, you will find that it’s easy to let go of some things, and much harder to let go of others. One of the items it’s difficult to let go of is books. After all, you’re a writer… why would you get rid of books?

The reality is that we fill our lives with clutter, especially in the modern world where we have so much access to almost everything we could ever want. But when you consider the books on your shelf, some of them were relevant to your life a decade or two ago, but they no longer have a place. You have outgrown the ideas in those books. You have moved on. And every time you see those books, you feel guilty because you know you don’t need them any longer, but you just can’t bring yourself to let them go.

It’s hard to hear, but true: you can’t make room for new ideas or new blessings in your life if you keep on hanging onto books that no longer serve your vision.

When you pass along those books to someone who can benefit from them, you not only free up space in your office or home, you also bless someone else. In fact, you are doing a disservice to a book if you hang onto it after it’s no longer relevant to your life.

A book WANTS to bless others, so the best thing you can do is pass it along. It’s not meant to be a collector’s item—it’s meant to change people. So give your books a chance to do that by giving them away to friends, donating them to goodwill, or selling them.

It’s OK to recognize the value something has had in your life, then let it go. When you do, you will make room for new and more relevant books that can take you to whatever destination you are going.

The post It’s Time to Let Go of Some Books appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

They’ve asked me questions like:

• How do you make a full-time living as a ghostwriter?
• How long did it take you to build up your business?
• When did you find time to build your business?

Those who have been following me for a while knew this transition had been coming for a while. But to many others, this seemed like it came out of nowhere.

Just the other day, someone commented that “It must be awesome to be living your dream … I wish I could do that.” Yes, it’s awesome to be in charge of my own schedule and income. However, that person’s comment seemed to be a way to suggest that I basically got lucky.

As a result, I thought I’d take this opportunity to share the journey of how all this actually happened. It has definitely not been an “overnight success.” In fact, it’s been a long, long time in the making.

After I share my story, I’ll share a few practical tips if you’re on the same journey (WARNING: Long post ahead!).

It Began with Blogging

My business journey began sometime around 2010 or 2011 when I started blogging. I had no idea what I was doing, other than having the impulse to write. I had always wanted to be a writer, but the only opportunities I knew about were submitting articles to magazines or trying to find a publisher for a book. Then when blogging came along, I saw it as an opportunity to sharpen my writing skills and maybe help a few people.

For a few years, I wrote on a semi-consistent basis about teaching, faith, family, spirituality, worship, and whatever else came to mind. There was no rhyme or reason other than just getting my thoughts out there.

Around the same time, I began to follow a few people who gave me a vision for what a writing-based business could look like. There were five specific people I followed: Dan Miller, Joanna Penn, Jeff Goins, Michael Hyatt, and Kimanzi Constable. They each emphasized different topics and had their own unique way of writing. But each one impacted me in a huge way.

As I studied these amazing writers, I noticed they all had several things in common:

• They all wrote books.
• They all sent email newsletters.
• They all had courses or memberships you could purchase (as well as other digital products).
• They all wrote blog posts.
• All but one had a podcast where they either shared great content, interviewed leaders in their field, or both.
• They all frequently collaborated with other writers through podcasting and blogging.

Bit by bit, I saw that it was possible to build a business around writing. And with each passing month and year, I got more and more hungry to build a business around my writing. I didn’t want my life or schedule to be dictated by anyone else.

My First Books & Podcast

In 2014, I had been blogging for a while but decided to take things to the next level. I was a big fan of the Evernote productivity app, and had been teaching it to my college students for a while. Encouraged by all the online courses I was seeing from others, I created my own course on Evernote and promoted it to a few dozen people I knew. (I even got official permission from the Evernote people so I wouldn’t be sued, ha.)

A few people bought it, and I remember being so ecstatic that people had given me $47 each for a course! Let me tell you, when you get those first payments for something you created, it’s a huge rush!

Soon afterward, I took my course material and wrote a book on Evernote for pastors. It was published with a small Christian publisher, and was only an ebook, not print. I think less than 25 people bought it.

However, I was proud that I had at last written a book, which gave me the confidence to write my second book, The Artist’s Suitcase: 26 Essentials for the Creative Journey.

That was 2015, and around the same time, I started a blog and a podcast by the same name, “The Artist’s Suitcase.” I loved podcasting but it was a lot of work. I gave up on my show after only 37 episodes, but I kept on writing and blogging.

Negotiating for a New Teaching Role

Around that same time, I had been teaching music/worship ministry at my college for about ten years. I was totally burned out and needed to either change jobs or teach something different. So I used the negotiation skills I was learning from my side jobs to gradually work my way into a new role at my college.

Over the next couple of years, I transitioned completely out of the music area and into a newly-created role for me: Professor of Communication Arts (yes, I made up that title but the college let me keep it).

The way I figured it, I might as well be doing similar things in my day job as my side hustle. The things I was learning in my side job were so valuable that I wanted to teach them to students. One of the advantages of teaching at a small college is that you can work your way into a new role if you play your cards right. I will always be thankful to the college for being open to my crazy ideas for classes such as Faith & Film, The Art of Storytelling, Communication Technology for Ministry, and Writing for Publication!

This development also irritated some of the other professors. One of them remarked to me, “Why do you get to teach all the fun classes?” I responded, “Because I asked. You don’t have to settle for what the Academic Dean gives you. Be proactive and negotiate for what you want.”

That didn’t seem to sit too well with the professor, but it was all true. I was done just accepting what others wanted to throw me.

Dipping My Toe into Client Work

Back to the side gig. In 2016, I struck up a friendship Rye Taylor, a podcast producer. We connected on a site called 48days.net, which was a networking community and an early version of Dan Miller’s Eagles Community. He needed someone to write show notes for a client podcast he was producing. I agreed, and we worked on the show together until just a few months ago, when I handed it off to another writer.

Soon after getting the hang of writing podcast show notes, I started doing the same thing for a few other clients, and my business started to slowly grow over the next couple of years. I will always be grateful to Rye for giving me my first shot at client work! He was such a pleasure to work with that he forever set the standard of how I should treat anyone who works for me.

Then in 2017, I started podcasting again. At the time, I was focusing on the topic of creativity, so I started the “Born to Create” podcast. I was working on a book of the same title. I’m embarrassed to admit this now, but I worked on that book for 2-3 years and never finished it. I created 150 pages of raw material, ideas, character sketches and backstory, and outlines … but never actually wrote the book.

Yep, it’s easy to get stuck. Been there, done that, have the t-shirt.

Around the same time, I started writing for The Good Men Project, a website with several million visitors per month. Then after a short time, I became a lead editor. This meant I was not only recruiting new writers, but also editing and posting their material. The pay was abysmal, but the experience and connections were invaluable.

Despite some successes, the summer of 2019 was one giant frustration. I applied for several jobs with companies that needed writers or content consultants. A couple of those companies required extensive pre-interview work. I spent about 25 hours doing required work for one of them, made it to the top 50 out of 2,000 candidates, but didn’t get any further.

Later that summer, I connected with a potential client who was very interested in me helping her company implement a training program. The possibilities were huge–so huge, in fact, that if they accepted my proposal, I would be able to quit my teaching job and focus on that for the next year.

She asked for a detailed proposal, so I spent about 60 hours over the next two weeks putting together an amazing proposal. I did a bunch of research on her industry and put together an incredible proposal that included podcast production, a book, consulting, assessments, the whole shebang.

It was rejected immediately. Over text, no less.

To say I was discouraged and defeated is a huge understatement. Truth is, I was angry. And I stayed that way for two months.

I was still a college professor in my day job, so I started that school year in a very bad mood. I couldn’t get over the fact that 60 hours of proposal work had been flushed the drain.

Or was it really down the drain? Turns out, it wasn’t.

The Big 5: Deciding What I Really Wanted

That anger, that desire to succeed, is what fueled me to sit down one day in the Fall of 2019 to figure out what I really wanted. If I were going to design a business that was perfect for me, what would it look like?

I whittled it down to several criteria–what I called “The Big 5.” Whatever direction I went with a business, it had to include these 5 things:

• The ability to work from anywhere.
• The ability to set my own schedule.
• A focus on writing, which is my main marketable skill.
• The opportunity to make as much income as I wanted, not limited by someone else.
• The opportunity to spend time around highly successful business people and creative thinkers.

Around that same time, I enrolled in Ghostwriter School, a course created by Nick Pavlidis. Aha! Now I had found the business model that met all my criteria! Ghostwriting would allow me to set my own schedule, be geographically independent, earn as much as I wanted (over time), be writing-focused, and put me in touch with successful people.

So it really wasn’t until last year, 2020, when things finally started to coalesce into something that I knew could be a viable business. Once I got my first ghostwriting client, I knew it was going to work if I continued to work the system.

However, I had a conundrum: I did not want to focus exclusively on ghostwriting. I still wanted to create my own stuff and teach writing. So I decided that my business would have two parts: Inkwell Ghostwriting (which does client work), and The Daily Writer (which creates resources for writers). The Daily Writer includes books (three of my own coming within the next year), a membership community, and a podcast.

These are two distinct sides of my business, but there is a lot of overlap. What I learn in my client work, I then teach via The Daily Writer. And all the material I develop for The Daily Writer, I can then share with my clients as added bonuses if it fits with their project.

The 90% You Don’t See

When you see someone who has a successful business on some level, you may think you know their story. But a business is like an iceberg: what you see is only the top 10%. There is a whole lot of stuff, and a whole journey, that lies under the surface, unseen by most people.

When people see me from the outside, here is what they see:

• A guy who has a full-time business doing things he loves.

But here are the things most people didn’t see the last ten years:

• The late nights, early mornings, and weekends writing, recording, and editing podcast interviews and episodes.
• The hundreds of podcast show notes I wrote for clients in my spare time.
• The frustrations, dead ends, and discouragement that cropped up on a regular basis.
• All the courses I took, books and articles I read, and audiobooks and podcasts I have listened to in order to learn new skills and make myself more valuable (Not to mention the many thousands of dollars I spent doing those things.).
• All the weird, random, low-paying writing jobs I did for clients. Those jobs were not exciting, but I was grateful for the income, and they taught me valuable skills.
• All the times I have gone for hour-long walks, dictating content for articles, newsletters, or podcasts.
• Hundreds of phone calls and Zoom calls connecting with people.

When you talk about people who have a similar journey as mine, those things are not unusual. It takes a few years to get some skills under your belt and figure out your direction.

A Few Lessons

I’d love to close out this email with three observations if you’d like to turn your writing into a business.

FIRST: It is critical to get around the right people. You must spend time around those who have a similar vision for their life. These people need to be positive, encouraging, and helpful. The Daily Writer Community is a great place to find those people.

SECOND: You must keep learning and moving forward. Even when it feels like you’re not making a lot of progress. Keep trying new things, keep putting out content, keep creating. The moment you stand still and say, “I’m done learning,” is the day you might as well quit.

THIRD: I highly recommend starting a podcast. A podcast, for me, has been essential for meeting new people and creating opportunities. When you have conversations with awesome people, magic happens. I guarantee I would not have a full-time business today if I hadn’t been podcasting.

I know this has been a super-long episode, but I hope it has been helpful. I have made a lot of mistakes in my journey, but I honestly wouldn’t change anything because I have learned from each mistake–probably more so than from the successes.

The post How to Be a 10-Year “Overnight Success” appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

Today I want to explore a topic that a lot of people ask me about. It’s also a topic that, when you give it the attention it deserves, will transform your book-writing experience.

When I mention the topic “how to build an amazing non-fiction book outline,” it may not sound like the most exciting topic. However, if you’re writing a non-fiction book, this is a critical topic because your outline is the backbone of your book. A great outline makes everything easier.

A Few Questions …

What is a book outline? An outline is the scaffolding or framework that is the backbone of your book. I prefer to think of an outline as the journey the reader will take in order to solve a problem.

Why use a book outline? An outline makes writing much easier because you can see where you are going. It also gives you the big picture of the whole book and ensures that you are serving your reader in the best way possible.

When should you outline? It is always better to outline at the beginning because you will use your writing time wisely. You don’t have to guess where you are going. When you are “in the weeds” of writing, it’s easy to get lost in the details. The outline always brings you back to the big picture.

What Type of Non-Fiction Book Should You Write?

Knowing what you’re shooting for upfront will be a huge help when developing your outline. That way you don’t have to guess at what type of book you’re writing.

I recommend a 150-page non-fiction book (Approx. 40,000-45,000 words.). This is a great length. It’s long enough to demonstrate your expertise, but short enough not to intimidate the reader. Unless you’re Stephen King, less is always more when it comes to book length.

For the outline, I recommend 10-15 chapters, divided into 3-4 main sections. This keeps the chapters at a manageable length (2,500-3,500 words). Each chapter will be divided into 5-7 segments of 500-750 words. You can get your head around writing in these smaller chunks, and it feels less intimidating.

Note: The steps below are primarily for authors who are starting from scratch. If you already have material from your blog, podcast, workshops, presentations, etc. you can easily start from there. However, you still want to make sure and go through the following steps to ensure that you are creating a solid outline that makes sense, rather than a collection of material that is loosely related.

5 Steps to Building a Book Outline

1. Determine who your ideal reader is and the problem you are trying to solve for them.

This is a huge step all by itself. But the bottom line is that you must have a clear idea about your topic, your ideal reader, and the change you want to help them achieve as a result of reading your book.

Remember, a book is more than just a dumping ground for a bunch of information. You are taking the reader from Point A to Point B. Point B represents a place where they are happier, healthier, more successful, more abundant, or whatever change you are helping them achieve.

2. Figure out why your reader hasn’t already achieved these results.

In the book, you will use a simple sales technique where you are addressing reader objections (false beliefs). But first, you have to understand what those objections and false beliefs are.

These false beliefs typically fall into three categories:

• False beliefs about themselves (“I can’t do it,” “I’ve tried that before and it didn’t work”)
• False beliefs about the topic (“The topic isn’t relevant to me,” “Your program won’t work”)
• False beliefs about their environment (“My family doesn’t support me,” “I’ll be the odd one in my social group”)

Here are a few other ways you can discover people’s pain points related to your topic:

• Do keyword research to learn what people are searching for related to your topic: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-do-keyword-research-ht.
• You can also use a tool call Brainstorm It!, available here: https://tools.sitesell.com/.
• Spend a lot of time talking to people in your target audience to make sure you understand their pain, struggles, frustrations, and obstacles related to your topic. Don’t assume that you already know.
• Use Google to ask questions related to your topic. Google will produce even more relevant questions that will be helpful.

3. Use the reader pain points / questions and organize them into 3-4 major sections of 3-4 chapters each.

I recommend taking some time to write each pain point / question on an index card, then group them according to topic. This is where a lot of people get hung up because they don’t feel they’re organized enough to tackle this. It doesn’t need to be perfect. Go as far as you can with this step, and you’ll refine it in the next couple of steps.

Remember, you’re taking the reader on a journey. What is the most logical way to order the chapters so it makes the most sense to the reader?

Here is a typical structure for a non-fiction book (each Part consists of 3-4 chapters):

• Part 1: Foundational information about the topic; why it matters
• Parts 2-3: Dive deeper into the material and apply it to different situations
• Part 4: Special circumstances, or other material that doesn’t fit elsewhere but is still relevant

You can also use mind-mapping to help organize and brainstorm content (There is some overlapping between these steps.).

4. Look at similar books in your genre to ensure you haven’t left anything out.

No, this doesn’t mean you are copying what other authors are doing. Rather, you are ensuring that you’re covering the bases of your topic. Looking at other books in your field will also help you see where your perspective is unique. You will probably get some ideas for your book outline or structure, as well.

5. Get feedback from a few people who represent your ideal reader.

This is a key step because they will probably identify some things you missed. To keep things simple, I recommend going back to people you talked to in Step 2 and asking them to review the outline.

Action step: Spend some time brainstorming your book outline. It’s an evolving process, so don’t be afraid to dive in!

The post 5 Steps to Building an Amazing Non-Fiction Book Outline appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

William Goldman was one of the most successful Hollywood screenwriters of all time. He was the creative genius behind scripts for The Princess Bride and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, among many others. In total, he had nearly three dozen scripts produced, which is remarkable by anyone’s standards.

In his funny and insightful book Adventures in the Screen Trade, he famously said, “Nobody knows anything. Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what’s going to work. Every time out it’s a guess and, if you’re lucky, an educated one.”

This is a vital truth to understand not just in the movie business, but any creative endeavor, including writing. The truth is that nobody knows what is going to work. There is no set standard about what constitutes a great movie, a great book, or a great anything for that matter.

Whenever writers get together, we sometimes talk about the successful ones as “great writers.” Maybe you have friends who have written books and you consider them “great writers” because of their success.

But what does it mean to be a great writer in a world where nobody knows anything? How do we quantify and measure success, much less hope to achieve it?

Greatness means that you accomplished what you set out to do. It means identifying who your audience is and serving them well. It means being consistent with your writing and making it a habit.

When you reframe greatness, it is completely within your reach. You and you alone get to define what it means for you to be a great writer. Travel your own pathway and live by your own definition of greatness.

Because at the end of the day, nobody knows anything.

The post Nobody Knows Anything appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

Courage is a theme that seems a lot of us have been talking about lately. For many people, the last couple of years have been a time when they’ve had to bolster their courage in the midst of many changes. I can’t remember a single two years in my lifetime where so many things have felt uprooted and tenuous in the world as a whole.

But with change comes the need for courage. This is as true for writers as anyone else. We don’t necessarily think of what we do as courageous. On the surface, it appears pretty safe and secure. But putting yourself out into the world through your words, or all the things required to do that like starting a business or striking out on your own by leaving a job, absolutely require courage.

One of the hardest parts of change, and one of the areas that requires the most courage, is the need to let go of things as we figure out who we are. You can’t become more successful or become a better writer by staying the same. In fact, the very definition of change and progress means to become something different than what you already are.

The hard reality of success means that you have to let some things go. So, on today’s episode, I want to share three areas where we need to learn to let go in order to be more successful as writers. I don’t want to give the impression that I have all this figured out, because I surely don’t! These are lessons I’m learning right now, sometimes very painfully.

1.) If we’re going to be more successful… we have to let go of some books.

Yes, you heard that correctly. What? A writer let go of books? That’s crazy, right?

A few months ago, I left my full-time job as a college professor in order to be a full-time ghostwriter, as well as run my Daily Writer membership community. However, I’m still an adjunct professor there, so I didn’t feel an urgency to clean out my office.

However, I recently spent a couple of hours going through hundreds of books I still had in my office. My intent was to give the vast majority of the books away to other professors and students. And then what was left, I’d donate to our school library.

I only kept a couple dozen of these books. But why give all those books away when I had invested thousands of dollars in them over the last 15-20 years? The reason is because those books were helpful for a certain period in my life, but they’re no longer helpful on my future journey. You can’t make room for new ideas or new blessings in your life if you keep on hanging onto things that no longer serve your vision.

Some of these books were ones I had used as textbooks for classes. Others were reference books related to worship, arts, film, sound systems, theology and ministry… all areas where I used to teach. But I’m no longer teaching those courses, so there is no need to keep them.

Writers have a hard time getting rid of books. After all, we have immense respect for books and what they can do for your life! But when you pass along those books to someone who can benefit from them, you not only free up space in your office or home, you also bless someone else. In fact, you are doing a disservice to a book if you hang onto it after it’s no longer relevant to your life. A book WANTS to bless others, so the best thing you can do is pass it along. It’s not meant to be a collector’s item—it’s meant to change people. So, give your books a chance to do that if you no longer need them.

2.) If we’re going to be successful… we have to let go of some expectations.

Writers, by definition, tend to be an introverted group of people who don’t like change. Most of us like systems, predictability, and routine. We prefer sitting in a room alone for hours in front of a computer screen instead of being in groups of people. Which is all well and good.

The downside of the typical writer personality is that we have a hard time with change and risk. But you have to remember that nothing is certain. There are no guarantees, either when you have a writing business where you are serving clients, or whether you are writing and launching your own books or other content.

There is more change and disruption happening in the world today than probably at any point in human history. All bets are off. Every industry is undergoing massive change because of technology. But instead of seeing this as a threat, it’s a great thing because it means we get to build the kind of business and life we want.

It also means we need to let go of our preconceived notions about what to expect. We have to roll with the punches, be nimble, and be able to change and grow and take advantage of new opportunities. This means that your long-term goals are important, but your short-term strategies may need to be reconsidered.

It’s like Charles Dickens says at the beginning of A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” But you get to choose which one it will be for you, and it begins by letting go of expectations, having fun, and being willing to adapt and grow.

3.) If we’re going to be successful… we have to let go of some relationships.

This is probably the hardest one to swallow. Why? Because most of us don’t like conflict and we don’t like to feel we are leaving others behind. But the cold, hard truth is that the circle of relationships where you are now, is not the same circle that will take you where you want to be. This fact alone stops a lot of people from growing because they are not willing to make tough changes.

You’ve probably heard about what happens in a crab basket. When you put a bunch of crabs in a basket, and one tries to crawl out, the others pull him back in. Most social circles work the same way. Whenever you try to grow or improve, the people around you who don’t want to grow will try to discourage you. They may not do so directly, but they will express doubt that your plans or dreams are realistic. People will try to keep you in the crab basket of mediocrity in all kinds of ways.

Once I had been teaching college for 12-13 years, I knew there was something more I wanted. I didn’t want to do that job forever because the context of our tiny college was very limiting. We had a small number of students, my salary was very limited, there was no potential for it ever increasing, and most of the people I was spending time with had no intentions of building a business. Nothing wrong with that at all, and they were wonderful people. They still are. But I knew that if I wanted to build a business, I had to start spending time around people who thought and dreamed bigger, and who were doing the kinds of things I wanted to do.

So, I started getting involved in mastermind groups and communities. I started taking courses and investing in myself. I started doing freelance work. I started podcasting and writing my own books. Most of the people in my day job didn’t know what to think of this because it wasn’t in their DNA to build something of their own.

I’m not talking about denying the value that some people have had in your journey. You can be grateful for a season or a phase in your life and recognize its value, while at the same time also understanding that you need to have a different focus moving forward. The two things are not mutually exclusive.

Life is a journey, and if you’re not willing to let go of some things, you won’t have room in your heart and mind for the people and things that you need to carry with you going forward. I hope you will give some thought to these three areas where you need to do some pruning.

As always, let me know if I can help in any way.

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