“A child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nor does the genius or the madman. It’s only you and I, with our big brains and our tiny hearts, who doubt and overthink and hesitate.”

— Steven Pressfield from the book “Do The Work”

The best thing in the world is listening to podcasts and going to conferences which constantly challenge me to step my game up. I’ve never been good at playing lower than my level. On the tennis court or the classroom, I’m at my best when I feel like I’m playing up a weight class against people who I need to prove myself against.

It doesn’t mean I always win, but the sheer motivation of not embarrassing myself is usually fuel for getting me up everyday.

Work is a funny thing, because I’ve never truly had a professional job where I was over the moon to wake up everyday and tackle whatever it is we were doing. It doesn’t mean I’m not committed or that I don’t care, that I don’t work hard or that I’m not hoping for that day by day. But the very nature of organizations and our lack of understanding of digital sometimes/usually means that professionals (even outside of my field) find themselves mired in a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with their actual training.

I’m not just talking politics, but dealing with the struggles of poor structure, lack of control and an inability of leadership to create the sorts of pathways to getting things actually done.

The alternative to this is boredom. You can get bored by waking up, but I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault that we get bored. You get frustrated enough with it and you’ll do something about it. Of course, the hows of what to do can almost be as frustrating as actually doing nothing if you’re not careful.

That’s why collaboration, community and partnership are so important. There are more important things than work, but it’s still important to wake up everyday feeling like you have some control over where your life is headed and that you can use your smarts for good.

When we’re not doing that, it’s time to reevaluate and shift our priorities. As one friend put it recently, “you can’t find your destiny if you can’t sit still sometime.”

You can’t guarantee success, but you can put the work in consistently. I’ve spent the past few years doing my homework and digging trenches in the hopes that when my number was called I’d be ready. What I’ve come to realize, is sometimes your number doesn’t get called and you have to walk up to the counter and be heard.

Not everyone is paying attention when you want them and in a world where everyone has a number, you can’t always expect to be heard unless people are given a reason to listen.

Let’s move forward.