Monetize Your Life
At the heart of the way you use your available time is the amount of skills you are able to call on to convert free time into meaningful output. If all you know how to do is play on that shiny console your free time options are severely limited. Where to start with adding skills to your current repertoire? Where to start, where to end?
What is Know What You Don’t Know?
Know what you don’t know is a systematic process of working backward from a desired goal or skill detailing the knowledge you need to get from your current level of knowledge.
Why use Know What You Don’t Know?
The frustration caused by how vast a topic can seems when looking at it as a whole is often the reason used for giving up or worse still not trying. I know the first time I tried to teach myself guitar I fell into this trap. I knew what a guitar should sound like, so I went out and bought one along with a song book. For a week I suffered as I sat, for hours whacking at different bits of the book unsuccessfully. A month later a string broke and I never played that guitar again, eventually selling it when I got a good offer for it. I failed. I know now though that it had nothing to do with how hard the guitar is to learn but had everything to do with me not having any clue what I needed to know and in what order I needed to learn it.
Know What You Don’t Know is for me the simplest way to learn a new skill, it’s simply a matter of at a very high level figuring out what is involved in learning your new skill. This is really important in order to acquire a well rounded study program as well. I often find that I tend to spend more time on the excercises I enjoy rather than the ones that I need to work on. This well rounded approach has tons of knock on benefits as well. As an example the second time I tried to learn to play the guitar I faired a lot better until I got a stuck with a couple of barre chords. Try as I might I did not have the dexterity to hold the chord and produce a clear crisp sound.
At first I kept at it trying over and over and it didn’t help. I think it actually got worse as I started to get frustrated and lose my cool. Having knowledge of all the things I needed to learn I kept on practicing in all the areas I knew I had to learn. A week later I could play the barre chords easily. As it happens I just didn’t have the strength when I started. What was critical here was the fact that I knew that that barre chord was the be all and end all of my guitar career and I was able to focus on other areas of my playing which ultimately built my skill and dexterity to the point where I succeeded. I have no doubt that it would have taken me twice as long or longer to master that had I kept at only that.
Know What You Don’t Know gives you confidence and direction and keeps you working toward your goal.
If this sounds good to you my next post will be a practical example of how to use Know What You Don’t Know to learn anything.
How to use know what you don’t know a practical example.
Useful links:
Are these three words ruining your life an interesting discussion about the psychology of failure/success by Jonathan Mead on the Zen Habits blog
The last week has been a lesson to me on the price we have to pay when we retreat to the safety of our minds. Any form of success can easily make us forget the reason we took part. I spent the last two weeks not doing what I love, writing, teaching and learning, allowing myself to be controlled by expectations. Having had a few good weeks on myDL I’m struggling to write. Even though the success has been very moderate I’m suddenly finding myself quitting in the middle of posts and shooting down more ideas than ever paying the price for pursuing perfection. It’s not enough to find your passion! you need to find a way to keep it yours too!
Re-connect with your passion
Connect to the original reason you found your passion often. Go back to the reason you started. Whether your passion makes you $1 a year or $100 a day you when you started you started because you connected deeply with it. Connect with that feeling often. Remember all the reasons why you’d gladly do what you’re doing for free. Remember that some time good enough is good enough, the price of perfection is high when you let it stop you producing.
Study how the professionals progressed
Research heroes of your field and look how they progressed. Even the most gifted of gifted athletes and writers knocked their head once or twice. They didn’t start out perfect but they always had passion. No one is born able to do it all. Read about how they did it. Study their mindset. Model their strategies. Use their tactics. Have a good old laugh at the mistakes that they made. When you’re done, have a quick chuckle at your own expense 10 years from now someone will be laughing at how you knocked your head and you won’t care when you’ve made it. Passion will fuel you when you know that you won’t be perfect, but that you’re doing the right things. The price of perfection is less time spent learning.
Change your mindset about failure
Change your mind about failure. You’re going to make mistakes, you’re going to make plenty. Live with it. This is not permission for you to fail! This is permission to make mistakes. Put together a system and incorporate an element of quality checking before you complete. Systems are often passion killers, use your system to channel your energy to the parts of this blogging lark you’re most passionate about. When I write I now complete my outline, knock out my first draft. I then revise the piece while also checking for glaring spelling and punctuation mistakes then I revise again at least 12 hours later. When I just started out I found I still missed a glut of errors. I should have been checking more until my error margin was acceptable. At the moment I still miss the odd mistake but if I do I fix it and move on I still trust my system. You should do the same set up a system and stick to it as long your success rate is within acceptable limits. The price of perfection is going to be a heart attack if you don’t have trusted system to handle the areas of your blogging which you struggle most with.
This look at Battle Studies by John Mayer is part of my Lessons from series, these are a collection of lessons which I take from looking at everyday things a little differently.
I’ve been sitting on the new John Mayer album, Battle Studies for 2 weeks now, and like the pot of pasta with a do not disturb sign in the back corner of my fridge that’s been there for the same length of time, this album has really taken on a life of it’s own. Unlike the the deadly ex pasta though this album is mostly harmless. See my John Mayer Battle Studies Review for more on the Battle Studies itself track by track. This is not a review though this, like my, Lessons from Stranger than fiction is a look at the lessons I learnt from Battle Studies. Ok a quick run down on the history of this album, Battle Studies is the fourth (excluding his self released, Inside wants out) studio album. An artist taking a nigh on 3 years in these days of the attention deficient masses is fairly rare. However that’s just how long Battle Studies has been in the making. What makes this album really brilliant and sold me from the beginning is that despite the huge success of Continuum this was not an attempt to repeat the success or copy the sound Battle Studies is a stand-alone album.
Sell your art not your soul
That in essence is the lesson I learnt listening to John Mayer’s uneasily honest Battle Studies, it’s not ok to try and find a success recipe and churn out cookie cutter results. True greatness doesn’t come from a mould. True greatness come from people who unwittingly create those moulds. Listening to this album I have no doubt that Mr. Mayer the businessman had a few sleepless nights after long days in the studio pouring his heart onto a hard drive. In the end though after all the agonizing John Mayer, the artist won out, how rare that is in today’s music industry, where a new musician’s image is often decided on long before the first bit of music has been laid down. In all our endeavours there is a battle between the artist and the businessman, the pragmatist and the dreamer. There is a place for all sorts businessmen and dreamers but ultimately we are doomed when the artist makes his decisions like a businessman. There must be that integrity of action in art for creativity to flourish.
Sadly the battle is being won overwhelmingly by business. Money puts food on the table not ideas. Herein lies the problem.
- How do we make money from our passion?
- How do we keep our passion pure?
- How can we keep our integrity while still paying the bills?
These are not problems that John Mayer had to worry about, making Battle Studies, but it is something he was thinking about near on 10 years ago playing in dingy night clubs in Georgia. His bills, now, I’m quite sure get paid each month with a fair amount of spare change. Still I’m quite sure that he met some resistance from the execs who were looking for Continuum 2: The sequel. He has what all of us aspiring artists need, a proven track record of success and courage in his convictions. We need to spend less time thing about what will be successful and more time getting to grips with that courage. As artists, and yes writers are artists too, we need to start experimenting wildly. Only when we have experimented to the nth degree tried and retried every idea we have in the creative toolbox. Only when we’re at peace with our art can we go forth and sell it with the cockiness that comes from mastery. Without that we’re chasing success in a raft without paddles, unable to choose our own course.
Bonus track
The big take home message off this Battle Studies? Art can be bought but real artists can’t. Be an artist of Self development and take control and credit for the change in your life, your extended social group can be a great motivator or your worst enemy if you allow them to influence your work.
Twenty posts in and it still astounds me how hard it is for me to put my name to my writing and send it into the world. I’ve spent a lot of the last few months on my craft, working out what words best describe that voice that lurks at the back of my mind the voice that is the source of my questions and the spark for my writing. I’d like to think my writing is not just that voice but a combination of that and something more. The compulsion is what intrigues me. The compulsion to find a soap box and let go of the ideas knocking about in this not so old head. Time for me is like a sitcom that can only be enjoyed in context. Friends is one of my favourite shows of all time but 10 years earlier it would have made no sense and 10 years later it’s already losing relevance. Looking at my writing I have similar feeling each day that passes between an idea and the release of that idea on paper or a screen it becomes less relevant, less real. Until the idea like grapes left to long on the vine spoil and ferment leaving nothing but regret at a seasons work wasted for a few days laziness. Time is now, everything else is dreaming or remembering. There is no time in the future and all the time in the past has been used up. Go forth and kick ass, 20 posts in and I’m starting to feel it.
Know What You Don’t Know is the process I use to approach pretty much every new skill I want to add to my box of tricks. I’ll run you through at a very high level how you can use Know What You Don’t Know to put together a blogging action plan.
Step 1 – What do we need to know
In a very Covey way we begin with the end in mind.
What is the desired outcome?
We would like to learn how to build a successful blog.
On a high level what would this entail?
If we had no clue at this point it’s time to go do some research. For Dummies books are very useful at this stage as is hanging around in forums as you’ll pick up the terminology that you’ll soon be fluent in.
For me at the highest level Blogging comprises – Good Content, Good Design and Good Promotion.
During step one we are trying to be as general as possible.
Step 2 – What is Good?
Typically at this point I will spend time looking for examples of Good Content, Good Design and Good Promotion. You’re probably reading blogs with these elements already. Subscribe to these good examples and read them religiously. Study the structure of their content, look at what design elements Good sites have in common and start studying how these sites promote themselves. Do a search, are they paying for advertising, relying on social networking site and word of mouth.
Write down what you notice when things don’t make sense take some time and do some research.
At this point if we were to write down your total knowledge on blogging should have lists that look something like the this except a lot longer (this is just an example):
Content | Design | Promotion |
useful links | Domain name | Social Media |
bullet points | Ads placed close to text | RSS and E-mail placement |
Length of post | Custom banner | Blog roll use and placement |
pictures | simple theme style | SEO and keywords used? |
scannable | Content Management system | incentives – free e-books etc. |
Make this list as long as you need it to be and keep adding to it. I suggest you use a tool like Evernote which allows you to access your notes regardless of whose computer you’re working on or just to keep a notebook and with you and constantly update your list.
Step –3 Plan and Research
Go through each of the items in your list and decide in what order you need to know them and then research them. Find websites, books, forums and chat rooms and get as much information as you can on each subject you’ve listed.
By going through this process you will be in a position to find the right resources at the right times. Don’t be surprised if you find that for every item you research you find 4 more items to add to your list that you need to research.
The beauty of this system is that as you add items in step 2 you get sight of the bigger picture and you start gaining confidence in what you know and what you still need to learn. Add one or a couple of these items to your to do list each day and you’ll quickly find your knowledge increasing.
Disclaimer:
Using Know What You Don’t Know will not turn you into the next Darren Rowse or John Mayer. It will give you a framework to learn what they learnt in a structured way. You still need to do the hard work of actually learning and applying and practicing. What this system does do is help you guage your own progress.
Useful Link
Are these three words ruining your life an interesting discussion about the psychology of failure/success by Jonathan Mead on the Zen Habits blog
Do You Want To Get the Most Out Of Evernote?
Learn All the Expert Tips in just 24 hours and take charge of Your clutter, with Evernote Essentials!
Click Here For More Information on Evernote Essentials!Translator
Sign Up to the Monetize Newsletter and receive your FREE
Gift
- @dukebuzztap Duke Basketball Report >> Miami 78 Duke 74 http://t.co/GTnYZHDw
- @iFly_LikeMIKE RT "@ThatGuy_Zae: Twitter Not Over Capicity Yet ?? !!"
- @Pandacorn_ RT @BigNigelThornyB: Why do so many people on twitter say they're 'indie'? They don't look Indian..
- @iDream_Nike Uhh ! Time for me to get off Twitter ..
- @Jada_so_real @Na_TooFreaky_ U got a twitter #holdup
Recent Comments