Ok, I’m done with this. I cannot keep up, so I am shutting the blog down.
You know what’s coming, right?
April Fools
So, I have made the commitment to myself to publish something on my personal blog (this site) everyday until the end of April, and at 2:30 this afternoon I realized that I didn’t have anything ready to post for today. So I figured, “Hey, I made it 3 days in a row. That was a good run.” But then I thought about the reason I had decided to challenge myself this way in the first place, and I knew I had to get something written and published. Even if it isn’t great. Maybe especially if it isn’t great.
Especially if it isn’t great
What does that mean? Why do I say that? It goes back to why I decided to challenge myself in this way, in the first place. The decision comes directly from recently listening to and reading a lot from Seth Godin. I’m sure I’ll write more about him, soon, but for now I’ll just say that he has motivated me to develop the habit of writing everyday, even if some of it is bad.
Voltaire popularized the saying, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”
Vince Lombardi said, “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.”
So let me work for perfect and hopefully along the way I’ll come up with some good and maybe even some excellent.
The 20 Mile March
Hopefully, some readers will know of the story of the 20 mile march. It is a story that took place on 1911, but was outlined and gained popularity 100 years later in Jim Collins’ book Great by Choice. I’ll give you a link to the description, along with some of the business implications and parallels that he points out on his website here. The gist is this:
Two teams attempted to be the first to reach the South Pole embarking on their trips within days of each other in 1911. One team went as far as they could make it when the weather was good and rested when the weather was bad. The other team got up and traveled 15-20 miles each day. Even when the weathered cleared and they knew they could make it the last 45 miles in a final push, they kept the pace, knowing that they still had to turn around and make the trip back. In the end, the team that kept the steady pace reached the Pole first and was nearly back to base camp before the other team reached the Pole. In case you’re wondering, that second team never made it home.
So, here’s my 20 miles for today.