What To Do When Nothing’s Happening

Mountains of Arizona
Clear 61 Degrees
4:29 p.m.

Everybody wants quick. That’s what you read about in books, that’s what you hear about on podcasts. There’s enough of it out there you run the risk of thinking that’s normal.

“If I start doing this in my business, when can I expect results?”

Don’t expect results. Expectation is the way you lose EVERY SINGLE DAY. Just do the work. Make smart choices. Follow a system with a little bit of a track record. Expect nothing. If you’re doing this just to get something or just to get somewhere, connect with yourself and figure out something BETTER to do with your life. That’s my best answer.

Needless to say, this approach does NOT bring a crowd to my corner at parties or social events. And I’m not gettin’ invited to any business events with this schtick either.

The problem is that we’ve lost our awareness to identify when progress is actually HAPPENING.

When it looks like “nothing” is happening is when most of the good stuff is actually happening.

I lived this wave in the music world playing the pipe organ.

First year of college, you learned a ton. Improvement was fast. You thought you were pretty special.

Second year, everything went to shit. All of a sudden, you couldn’t do anything right. This is when you started to wonder if you were REALLY going to do this for a living.

Third year, you started putting things together. Stuff started clicking. This is the year I won a national music competition when no one (including me!) thought I had a chance.

Fourth year, you build on year number three. You put more of the puzzle together. The refinement process begins and you realize you’re going to spend the rest of your life on the final 10-20% of the mastery curve.

So one might look at a history like that and say that year number three is when most of the progress happened.

But no one looking in from the outside ever knows what’s going on.

So that summary would be WRONG.

Year number two, when “nothing” happened on the outside is when everything was ACTUALLY happening in any place that mattered.

Growth is what happens when it looks like “nothing” is happening.

RESULTS come as a product of growth. And they come WELL after the progress has actually been made.

Step one is to choose a road you actually LOVE walking on.