“Don’t justify your dreams, execute on them” – Gary Vaynerchuk
As I reflect on 2017, I realize that I spent a lot of time justifying my dreams. Writing a business plan, revising, revising, revising; all the while, questioning my motives, questioning whether I would want the outcome of my plans to be actualized.
And over & over again, the answer is a resounding
You have to start in a realistic place & begin to execute. My biggest failure this year was not participating in a Farmer’s Market – but I think there was a reason for it.
This past summer was a huge learning curve for me in the garden. Managing 50+ tomato plants, 60+ pepper plants, a small herb patch, 30+ heads of lettuce, as well as garlic & onions taught me a great deal about the amount of care & attention I had to feed the garden. And just like with your personal health – preventative pest & disease control always trumps curative approaches. It’s much easier to attempt to stop a problem before it occurs rather than trying to cure a plant of a disease.
Not going to the Farmer’s Market felt like a loss – especially since it was one of my New Year’s Resolutions, but here’s how NOT going actually helped me.
So the next step to this execution on my Moonshot Master Plan is to build my customer base through a few different channels. In the physical world, that means a CSA (community supported agriculture). Essentially it is a weekly subscription box of fresh produce. I also plan on taking excess produce to the Farmer’s Market, but I am hoping to build a big enough following to cater solely to my Veggie Box program. And in the digital world, I will be building my channels through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, my YouTube channel, & my latest venture, my podcast on Anchor!
The veggies & herbs offered will differ throughout the year & will include:
Another thing that held me up were regulations & WORRY about regulations. I’ll be getting my Dealer in Nursery Stock license renewed so that I can sell all of the other plants I’m growing, or plan to resell:
So this is the year of execution & follow-through.
The seeds have been sown & there’s only one way to grow!
What else would you grow? Or what else would you like to see me grow? Drop a comment or fill out a form for a chance to win a Gardening 4 Gains t-shirt or tank!
And make time to be there!
In this world, everybody wants every thing.
Right now.
ASAP.
Yesterday.
Give yourself at least an hour every day to just.. Be.
Put your phone down & step away from your computer.
Do you remember what it was like before the world was so toxically interconnected? Do you remember reading labels of food, shampoo, or maybe even books on topics you were interested in?
People have FOMO from social media, but while the focus lies there, they are missing out on Real Life – you know, the stuff that happens when you look up from your anxiety-inducing, glorified tracking device.
We all want to manage our time; make the most of this short & limited time we have on this Earth right? There is so much we can do all the time! I HAVE to check my Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, WordPress, etc. right? Stay up to speed on my emails?
It all comes down to time – and managing time.
Most of us are terrible at this task for a few different reasons:
Time is valuable but placing value on time can be a dangerous thing. Don’t place such a high value on your time that nothing is worth your time; you’re managing your time but in those moments you must make the most of what you’re spending your time on – you didn’t go to a baseball game to scroll on your phone.
Placing value on your time also makes your interactions transactional – not relational; functional, not pragmatic.
As with anything with value, its value depreciates over… yep, Time.
What I’m trying to get at is the fact that we need to STOP IN THE MOMENT.
Stop to listen to what people are saying to you; hear their words & read their faces.
Stop talking to advance yourself to a sale; ask questions & listen.
Really listen when people talk to you – THERE IS A REASON THEY ARE TALKING TO YOU!
In my experiences in life, people are attracted to certain people because they trust them; they can unload some of their fears & anxieties on them – and this is a huge honor! Everybody is walking around with a million thoughts flooding the brain, so we can’t solely think of moving towards the sale or towards our ultimate goal in talking with someone.
Sometimes the most important connections made in business are made because of things completely unrelated to business.
Structuring your day & managing your time is an important task that has to be done. But as you’re going through your day, don’t lose sight of what is truly important in life; make the most of your minutes by diving in & being highly engaged with people.
Be something we need more of – a real, genuine, & caring person.
Does working in sales change your life? I stumbled across a LinkedIn article with this title by Adam Honig (check it out here) the other day & was immediately drawn in.
The cover picture is a before & after of a salesman. Pictured is a polished Shia LeBouf ‘First day in sales’ & a more rugged/unkempt-looking picture of him for the ‘One year later’ photo.
I love (and hate) that people have this perception of sales! However, Mr. Honig did not write an article about how hard sales was & how it will kill your spirit, but laid out the foundations of what it takes to be a salesperson, the pros & cons of being in sales and how it will ultimately change your life.
Currently, I am an Account Manager with AM Leonard. That’s a fancy title for salesman, but it is definitely much more than sales; it is customer service, accounting, marketing, being a shipping specialist – simply put, anything to ease our customer’s woes & make their lives easier by seeking out & providing solutions.
So how has Sales changed me?
As a psychology major I never saw myself going into sales – I’m pretty sure I vowed to never take a sales job, but look where we are now! I love the industry, learning about my customers’ processes and all of the relationships I’m building all over the country along the way. Sales has changed me in a way, but I think it also just forced me to become my best Self – continually seeking knowledge & improvement to fully understand my customers, the industry, and ultimately, my Self.
We all grow up with aspirations & inspirations for life, so what happens when we reach adulthood? Finding ourselves “in a rut” or “trapped in a cubicle”; lost in a world that promised us so much more. What happened to your inspiration? What happened to fighting your way to glory? And when did you lose all the power to do so?
When I think of glory, I imagine a football coach giving an inspirational speech; a player making an impossibly athletic & willful move to win the game – blood, sweat, tears and victory.
The problem is that our glory is a picture painted by symbols of what we believe to be victory or success; the ultimate glories of life are forgotten because the idea of success is what we chase instead of fanning the embers that lights the path towards true glory & success.
In other words, success is not a thing or an end goal, it is an action – a continual action of adapting & creating in order to build up to your ultimate goals. I think that we all have one big-huge-out-of-this-world goal, but do we expect to just magically have it one day without putting the work in?
When we think of people like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, professional athletes – we think that they are just talented beyond belief. Heightened, superior intelligences & abilities; they are the superhumans. But none of these people just stumbled upon success. Of course they are extremely talented, but to assume that is the only factor that led them to the top is absurd. Hard work, curiosity and a desire to learn, improve, & innovate is what separates them. The countless hours spent reading, coding, practicing, learning, succeeding, failing – it’s all about the quality time you pour into your passions.
The ultimate glory in life stems from the seeds planted by your everyday victories. It is easy to see yourself trapped in your situation or lacking motivation, but at the end of the day, it all comes down to you. If you are unhappy with your job, then move on. But ask yourself if you’ll be happy in your next role – or will it unfold the same way? Sometimes it is not the environment you are in, but what you are feeling within. When we struggle, I believe that people want to overcome – but people also do not want to fail! So rather than continue to fail they decide to move on. I think it is important to remember that failure is temporary & in the present moment; it can be painful, but it is only temporary!
There are millions of opportunities for success before,during & after failure – persistence is the key to overcoming failure, and failure is the key to evolving your ideas & strategy.
Last night I was in the locker room of the gym I regularly attend, gathering my things and preparing to leave when a gym-regular asks me, “you done?” I answered with a brief “yep, getting ready to head out” and then got a response of “lucky you!”
As he walked out I just stopped and really thought about that statement. How am I lucky? Why are you here? Why are you complaining about a situation you put yourself in? What is your motivation? And what does it mean to really want “it”?
I was almost offended by the statement because I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that he viewed his workout as a chore, and consequently thought that I shared his viewpoint. Working out, whether it is weight lifting, sports, cardio, is not a chore, but should be viewed as a privilege and something that you can take pride in!
And pride isn’t even the point or the issue, this statement is about a matter of perspective. He thinks I’m lucky to be done with my workout, but I think he’s lucky that he has a full workout ahead of him. He is there because of his health insurance, I am there creating my own. He is there to maintain, I am there to progress.
By no means do I believe myself to be superior to anyone for what I do, but what differentiates yourself from others is how you frame your life’s activities. Do you let life control you or do you take the reins?
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Fast forward to my current situation – I am just now getting back to weightlifting after the last ~6 months being a patchy mosaic of consistency due to a shoulder injury (funny considering I said how I was “creating my own healthcare” ha!) – and I’m finally publishing this article after sitting in my drafts for nearly a year! This article has kind of been haunting me as I feel it sitting here waiting for completion; and that is where all of these lessons converge into one.
We all have passions & pursuits that we feel like we should go after, but aren’t sure where to start, if we know enough, or if we even have the talent. Here are the lessons I learned from “Wanting It”, but not allowing myself to attain it; of chasing it, but not with the correct ‘how of doing things’:
No matter what we do in life, we all strive to attain “It”. Whatever your It is, chase & attack it furiously and never let the Fear hold you back from your dreams.
