Someone recently asked, ‘should I pay a membership to a blogging platform to potentially earn money through writing. I can not afford to waste money on another side-hustle that won’t pay-off’.
I had some advice for them as to why people write, and it isn’t really about the money.
“I didn’t realise you noticed all that” is the comment my mother made when I shared a post on Medium about Mother’s Day this time last year. It was my first ever post on Medium, a platform chosen because I believed the message should be available to more than those on my weekly work email.
Because of this, problems arise.
I distil these into two categories of problem; relationships and scope — but at their heart, they are communication problems.
I might be weird, but I have an imaginary statue in my mind that sort of looks like me. But instead of being made of Marble like some Greek or Roman adonis, it is made of adjectives and nouns all stacked up in the shape of me. It has helped me to describe myself, it has made me more confident, more powerful, and happier. You need one too.
I had been employed by the same employer for over 20 years. Within that time I fulfilled 10 different roles with various job descriptions; everything from a paid student to Chief Engineer, an aircraft technician to a fear of public speaking coach.
There has been one constant. I have always been on the cycle of incompetence and confidence.
There is something special about the moments that occur in nothing time. Not nothing as in no value, nothing as in nothing planned. Nothing happening. Nothing time.
Our strongest bonds are made when we are doing nothing. We are our most creative when we are allowed to be idle. Our brains require nothing time.
You wouldn’t plant a seed, then dig it up every few minutes, and be disappointed that it hasn’t grown.
So why do you keep questioning yourself, your hard work and your decisions?
Have patience, stop overthinking and keep watering your seeds.
I have rescuer tendencies. When I see people struggling I want to help them. I rationalise that if they succeed faster, then we succeed faster, then we can get more done. This is short term thinking, people need room to suck, to struggle, to work it out for themselves. That is how they grow.
We have a problem in the modern world. There is an epidemic approaching one opinionated or offended response at a time. I think I know why.
I probably watch too much sport, I love playing it too. Whatever sport it is I’ll find something in it that appeals to me. Sport has given me so much. It has shown me so much about myself and, more importantly to leadership, the capacity of every type of human when they are in the right environment.
