You Can’t Spell Motivation Without Bacon

Dogs can teach us a lot about motivation.

I’m reminded of my favorite commercial of all time:



Bacon! Bacon! Where’s
the bacon? I smell bacon. It’s gotta be bacon. There’s only one thing in the
world that smells like bacon and that’s bacon! There it is! It’s in the bag! Chewy,
yummy smokey bacon! Oh boy oh boy oh boy, num num num num num, it’s
bacoooooooon!

That’s motivation.

And what’s interesting is, we all have our own version of
this moment.

Those triggers that freeze time, make our left eyelid
twitch, activate our deepest
cravings and human hungers and move us to execution.

Those currencies that, when sniffed out, override our
excuses, tap into our natural motivations and drive us to do things.

I have a client who’s obsessed
with personal improvement. As a recovering academic and a higher education
advocate, learning isn’t just what she does, it’s who she is. She even warns
the people she works with, if you want to
get me to do anything, I better be learning something new.

And that’s why she’s so prolific.
Learning is her bacon.

                                 

The goal is to find your bacon. To figure out why you do what you do.

Once you know that, anything is possible. Once you identify
the small collection of intrinsic triggers that stoke your creative fire, nothing
can stop you. Once you learn how to activate your own internal generators,
there’s no reason you can’t become a prolific collector, creator and
communicator of ideas.

But you have to dig down through the many levels of why.
You have to flesh out the drivers that motivate you on an hourly basis. One
exercise for doing so is to sit down and physically map out every single
decision you made on a given day. Phone calls you made, conversations you had,
food you consumed, activities you did, people you saw, ask yourself, literally, why did you do what you did?

The first time I tried this exercise, I uncovered profound
truths about myself. I discovered that most of my behaviors can be traced back
to one of the following:

A blank canvas. Making things has always been the most
natural way for me to engage with the world. When I get up in the morning,
there’s a mechanism inside me that says what I’m supposed to make next. And so,
I am motivated by the freedom to express myself.

A personal ritual.
I can motivate myself to do just about anything, as long as there’s a ritual
attached to it. Ritual is an
intentional, purposeful experience I layer on top of an activity to make it
more meaningful. I have one for everything I do. And so, I am motivated by a
repeatable process.

A captive audience. I believe human
interaction is a divine transaction. Engaging with people, even for a moment at
a time, fuels me. Every time I go out of my way to earn people’s attention, I
reward them for giving it to me. And so, I am motivated by a chance to perform.

An interesting problem.
Creativity is my gift. As a lifelong thinker, the moment something activates
the problem solving impetus of my brain, my body has a physical reaction. I
start obsessing, imagining and zealously deconstructing everything in my path
until the internal monologue stops. And so, I am motivated by challenging
situations.

A meaningful
contribution.
I’m
genetically wired for hard work. It’s just my nature. I’m happier when I’m
being productive and prolific. There is a place in me that starves if I
go more than a few days without nudging
the world in a positive direction. And so, I am motivated by the chance
to work.

That’s my bacon. That’s why I do what I do.

What about you?

A similar exercise for uncovering
your natural motivations is to plug yourself into the following formulas:

I can feel like I’ve achieved a return on investment, as
long as ________.

I can rationalize anything, as long as it has something to do with ________.

I can accomplish anything, as long as I have the organizing
principle of ________.

I can
stick with a new behavior, as long as I can find a way to incorporate ________.

I can trick myself into doing something daily, but only if I
get the chance to ________.

These exercises require a lot of personal reflection. And they
often feel like we’re tricking ourselves into taking action. But we all have to
be a little deluded to stay motivated. And as collectors, creators and
communicators of ideas, our work demands that we become masters of activating own
internal generators.

That we find our bacon.

Peripheral Creation Versus Principal Creation

Being prolific doesn’t mean doing everything fast.

In fact, when it comes to the principal act of writing, that
is, physically putting words on a blank page, I actually work quite slowly. Which
seems unlikely, considering I’ve published two books per year, every year, for
the last decade.

But you have to understand, writing is only one step of the creative process.

Before showing up at the page, there’s a mountain of journaling and researching and ritualizing
and gathering inspiration and taking notes and organizing material to be done. And
after showing up at the page, there’s a second mountain of editing and
formatting and architecting and managing and publishing and marketing to be
done.

Now, those activities, I do execute
quickly. Because they’re peripheral steps in the creative process, where it’s
more about speed and less about skill. Where velocity doesn’t degrade value.

Photographers know all about this distinction.

According to the landmark study by the International Society
of Professional Wedding Photographers, after editing, designing, bookkeeping,
going to meetings, communicating with clients, marketing, networking, equipment
setup, technical maintenance and working in photo labs, only about twelve
percent of the photographer’s time is actually spent taking pictures.

Twelve percent.

No wonder they take their time.

Shooting is their principal work unit.

And that’s something that should never be rushed.

But as for everything else in the creative process, if you
want to achieve artistic prolificacy, put the pedal to the medal. 

What Calls Out is the State of the Heart

When I have a headache, I take aspirin.

Thirty minutes later, the pain usually goes away.

But when my mind starts going to dark places, conjuring up
horrible thoughts that are far too ugly and desperate and destructive to be
okay with me, I snap out of myself like a werewolf turning back into a man and
wonder, jesus christ, did I really just think that?

Yes, yes I did.

In these moments, I try to suspend judgment. I try to have
compassion for the bewildering mental lows I am capable of. And I try to
tolerate and survive my difficult thoughts, as opposed quarantining them out of
existence.

It’s okay.

Whatever happens solely inside my mind is not cause for moral
alarm.

These thoughts don’t make me a bad person, they just make me a
person.

Scott’s Sunday Sentences, Issue 011

Sentences are my spiritual currency. 

Throughout my week, I’m constantly scouring and learning and reading and inhaling and annotating from any number of newspapers, blogs, online publications, books, articles, songs, art pieces, podcasts, eavesdroppings, random conversations and other sources of inspiration.

Turns out, most of these sentences can be organized into about eleven different categories, aka, compartments of life that are meaningful to me. And since I enjoy being a signal tower of things that are interesting, I figured, why not share them on a regular basis?

In the spirit of “learning in public,” I’ve decided to publish a weekly digest of my top findings, along with their respective links or reference points. Sentence junkies of the world unite!

Creativity, Innovation & Art 

“I want to build a solid house, but I want to leave all the doors and windows open so that varmints can come and go as needed and steal what they desire,” from American Songwriter.

Culture, Humanity & Society 

“Anthropologists estimate that hunter gatherers only had to spend around four hours a day searching for food, the rest of the time was leisure time,” from Working Our Lives Away.

Identity, Self & Soul 

“It pleases us to see ourselves burdened by the sorts of difficulties that only a warrior hero could meet,” from Eric Maisel.

Lyrics, Poetry & Passages 

“I know how crazy you are about all the things that I don’t care about,” from Neil Young’s Speech.

Meaning, Mystery & Being 

“Choose your obsessions rather than letting them choose you,” from Brainstorm.

Media, Technology & Design 

“Releasing people from their dependency on email will free up the time and mental space needed to move the species forward,” from The Next Big Thing.

Nature, Health Science 

“Patients are very possessive about their conditions,” from Dr. Khoo.

People, Relationships & Love 

“The ones whose eyes meet ours when we wake in the morning,” from Hopeful World.

Psychology, Thinking & Feeling

“Don’t do what I did, but ask what I asked,” from Liz Gilbert.

Success, Life & Career

“Whatever gets you down the hill faster,” from Steven Pressfield

Work, Business Organizations

“If you keep to a routine, there’s no limit to how much you can deliberately not achieve,” from The Onion.

See you next week!

How to Save Radio Shack

A few months ago, I posted my thinkmap, research and narrative arc about why Radio Shack is broken, and how we can use digital to fix it.

I’ve been fleshing out the details of my strategic execution, which you can preview in the slides below or on Slide Share.

Enjoy!

While Time Ticks By Like a Winded Toy

Yoga and creativity are parallel practices.

Both require patience, discipline, flexibility, focus and
vulnerability. Both can be done individually or with a group. And both achieve
the most meaningful results when I’m wearing as little clothing as possible.

Recently, I discovered another quality they have in common.

In yoga, it’s actually easier to do the posture than it is
to sit out.

No matter how tired and sore and sweaty and frustrated I am,
when I resort to squatting on the floor, slugging back water and staring at myself
in the mirror, that only magnifies the pain. And I end up just sitting there, feeling
sorry for myself, with nothing to focus on except my own suffering, while time
ticks by like a winded toy.

And that’s when I say to myself, look, I didn’t come to class to not practice, so I may as well stand up and try again.

In creativity, it’s the same thing.

It’s actually easier to write than it is to not write.

No matter how lonely an uninspired and disillusioned and
angry I am, when I resort to artfully creating constant distractions instead of
working, jacking myself off on social media and pathetically waiting for that
one email that changes everything, that only magnifies the pain. And again, I
end up just sitting there, feeling sorry for myself, with nothing to focus on
except my own suffering, while time ticks by like a winded toy.

And that’s when I say to myself, look, I didn’t come to the page not to write, so I may as well bear down and try again.

The point is, doing the work may be hard.

But it’s a hell of lot better than the alternative.

The Specter of Completion Never Stifles Me

The biggest barrier to starting is finishing.

That’s why so many artists die with their music still in them.
They’re too busy twisting themselves into psychological pretzels, paralyzed by the
wrong questions:

When I’m done writing
this script, then what? What if nobody likes it? What if the final product isn’t
good enough? What if my work gets criticized and compared to everybody else? Or,
what if my audience actually embraces it? Then what? Does that mean I’ll have
to go out there and actually start selling the damn thing?

No wonder people never start.

They’re too afraid to finish.

Psychologically, this makes total sense. Humans have a
natural aversion to completion. We don’t like when things end. Endings
represent loss and change and death and dying and saying goodbye and starting
over.

But as I learned from watching way too many karate movies in
the eighties, the best way to block a punch is to not be there.

And that leads to a different question. One that most
artists never think to ask:

How can I eliminate
the construct of “finishing” from my creative equation?

Simple.

By deciding that my work is never finished.

This proclamation gives me the freedom to approach my creative
process as a fluid experience. Viewing each piece of output as a constantly
evolving organism, within the ecosystem of my larger body of work. As a result,
everything I create is assigned its appropriate home on the artistic continuum.
And with no visible end in sight, the specter of completion never stifles me
from starting.

Because there is no finish line. 

Suffering Surfaces the Self

Misery isn’t doing something you
hate.

It’s becoming someone you hate when you
do it.

I have no problem executing the grunt work, sucking it up and grinding it out
until the job gets done. With a little creativity and lot of focus, I can rationalize
most of life’s activities into something at least marginally meaningful.

Unless.

When an experience causes me to
degrade into the lowest version of myself, this cynical, bitter, apathetic, antisocial,
hypercritical sack of flesh and bones, that’s my definition of miserable.

When my relationship to the world no
longer makes sense to me, and I feel like a lonely chunk of tofu taking on the
flavor of whatever disgusting soup it’s immersed in, that’s my definition of
miserable.

When I’m trapped in a system of
rules that put me at odds with myself, one that keeps my intellect on pause and
my expression on mute, forcing me into a false self I can no longer comfortably
inhabit, that’s my definition of miserable.

See the difference?

It’s
less about activity and more about identity.

Because I don’t care about being the
best at what I do.

I just want to be best of who I am.

The upside is, misery also gives me a
window into my values.

Suffering surfaces the self.

So it’s still a net gain. 

When You’re Good, You Make Others Gooder

With great chops comes great responsibility.

When you’re the top talent in the room, you have a social obligation
to share the artistic wealth. To elevate the collective game of the other
players. To fight the selfish urge to concentrate
all your skills and energies and sensibilities into your own performance and
blow everyone away, and instead, to disseminate
the volume of your spirit far and wide, so that your magic illuminates everyone,
not just your own reflection.

That’s why they call you a pro.

Because you operate from the right pronouns.

Real leaders stand for the we.

Scott’s Sunday Sentences, Issue 010

Sentences are my spiritual currency. 

Throughout my week, I’m constantly scouring and learning and reading and inhaling and annotating from any number of newspapers, blogs, online publications, books, articles, songs, art pieces, podcasts, eavesdroppings, random conversations and other sources of inspiration.

Turns out, most of these sentences can be organized into about eleven different categories, aka, compartments of life that are meaningful to me. And since I enjoy being a signal tower of things that are interesting, I figured, why not share them on a regular basis?

In the spirit of “learning in public,” I’ve decided to publish a weekly digest of my top findings, along with their respective links or reference points. Sentence junkies of the world unite!

Creativity, Innovation & Art 

“Artists have an itch that nothing can scratch except work,” from The Artist’s Way Everyday.


Culture, Humanity & Society 

“Evil wasn’t invented, it’s just what happened when somebody got tired of all the effort it took to live right,” from Trusting Soul.

Identity, Self & Soul 

“We are the model for what we create,” from Eliot Frick’s speech.

Lyrics, Poetry & Passages 

“Every door has a key, and if you can’t find it, make one,” from Pharrell.

Meaning, Mystery & Being 

“Longitudinal relationships increase a sense of meaning, transient relationships increase a sense of happiness,” from The Unhappy Life.

Media, Technology & Design 

“Social media allows brands to start conversations, but are they conversations worth starting?” from The Marketoonist.

Nature, Health Science 

“Nature equips human beings with appetites, but not with meanings,” from Meanings of Life.

People, Relationships & Love 

“A person who can defend themselves with a gun is just not very interesting,” fromJerry Seinfeld.

Psychology, Thinking & Feeling

“What do you have to lose? You’re already depressed,” from Chris Brogan.

Success, Life & Career

“Stick around and continue to be yourself and the correct people will find you,” from Lena Dunham and Alec Baldwin.

Work, Business Organizations

“Jobs that require intuition and personality and connection and genius should never be outsourced,” from Seth Godin’s Skillshare Class.

See you next week!

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