Category: wisdom & self-knowledge

Simplify Life With My Rule Of Three

Having a baby was the best thing that ever happened to this overcommiter. It meant I had to let go of all the illusions I had that I was going to get to those 117 projects, commitments, opportunities, dreams, and distractions.

Anais Pics
Maile, Anais, and I in front of my parent's house in DC

When you have a baby, it quickly becomes obvious that you can really only do two things if you’re the 9-5 breadwinner: 1. Do your job and 2. Be with your family. If we sort that list by priority, instead of time, it’s 1. Be with your family and 2. Do your job. Either way you slice it, that’s about all you have time to care about effectively.

Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you get to do a third thing. What’s your #3? It took me some time to let go of the illusion that I was going to be able to do more. I barely have time to 1 and 2.

So there’s only one choice left for me in life: What’s my #3 going to be?

My #3 is music. It was my #1 for a long time, but I’m much happier with it as my #3. Because I love it so much, and am so attached to the dream of making it, I let go of everything after it.

My #4, was a dream I nursed of making a name and business for myself doing Web work. And I do keep a very small bit of freelance Web work going, but knowing that it’s not my #3 means I don’t torture myself about not doing more speaking, writing the book, and starting the business.

Family Time Rocks! In The StudioI still have my 4, 5, 6, 7, 8… and I get to them when I can. But I don’t fret over not getting to them anymore. And having a baby is the best excuse in the world to turn things down, guilt-free. It’s so easy now to say, “I would love to, but I can’t”. As Bob says,

Life is sad
Life is a bust
All ya can do is do what you must
You do what you must do and ya do it well

If I want to stay up a little later, I don’t wonder what I should do. I do my music. And I love it. It’s what I want to be doing and my time is scarce, so I’m more strategic about it now that I ever was when it was my #1 and I didn’t have any deadlines or need to be efficient and resourceful.

So even if you don’t have a baby, I bet you have a job and a family. And if you’re wondering how many other things you can be truly effective at, it’s 1, not 3, not 7, not 34 or 117. So stop expecting that of yourself and enjoy saying no because it means you get to do what you must do, to be who you want to be.

Cut the agonizing and the chaos from your life by answering this: If ou can only do one thing with your hour of free time a day (when you’re lucky) what is it? Because everything else is distraction.

Search For Infinity

My Own Personal Mt. Everest

Hugh MacLeod says “Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.” and I know what he’s talking about.

For about two decades now I’ve know that my greatest contributions to this world, apart from my personal love and service to those around me, would be my songs. And I’d say that for at least the last decade I’ve known that the Mt. Everest I need to climb is the one I create out of those songs, that I write, sing, and record. And that mountain is the catalog I build and will leave behind.

The mountains on my bookshelf are The Complete Beatles, Dylan Lyrics along with Leaves of Grass. But my medium is the Web, and my song page is where I collect my completeness.

I know that apart from loving and serving my people, the thing I gotta keep doing to keep my soul engaged, my heart alive, and brain on fire is add to that catalog as masterfully and urgently as possible. Especially now that I am a happy family man, well employed and content, it is imperative that I share my joy and not to lose that sense of urgency and craftsmanship.

Every time something interrupts my making music I am pulled off the path, and boredom and misery creep in when I am not writing songs. My job is to climb, and filter out all that does not help me further and faster up the mountain.

"Ignore Everybody" (except Hugh MacLeod)

Hugh MacLeod’s book on being creative and successful is full of frank advice. He never mentions a family but it feels like, having run the marathon of 26 years or so of adulthood trying to make it, and having made it, Hugh is scratching his fatherly itch to pass on what he’s learned.

He’s a cool, cussin’, self-appointed, tell-it-like-it-is dad to all the creative types out there who’ve  got a dream and want to quit their day job knowing that they’ll soon get discovered if they do. But with tough-love, MacLeod delivers the hard but clear advice: don’t quit your art, but don’t quit your day job either. “Getting discovered” isn’t a realistic plan.

I’m lucky to have had a “cast-a-cold-eye” mom who has always supported my art but never minced words about my needing a day job, a backup plan, so I recognize MacLeod’s advice as the tough love that I, thankfully, got. I wasn’t always thankful, but at 37, with a wife and a two-month-old baby and a great day-job, I sure am glad I had someone hammering me in my early, optimistic 20’s, about what else I was going to do but believe in my dream of being a rock-star.

When I arrived in Austin 15 years ago from DC to be the next Guthrie, Dylan, or at least Townes Van Zandt, I met most of my close, lasting friends at the Cactus Cafe’s open mic night. We were bound together by the same talent and dreams.

Many of those friends didn’t have a parent nagging them not to put all their eggs in one basket, and almost all of them have tried to make a living as a musician at one point or another. And they’ve all suffered the dream-crushing burnout that follows. Most are still in the game, but have had to come around to plan B later, when it’s much harder to start a new career or just find a good day-job.

So thank you mom, and thank you Hugh for taking the unpopular position with the wide-eyed dreamers that their dreams are not all they need. We need to hear that, though I’m not sure it’s possible till we’ve tasted enough of reality’s blows.

The book is broken up into 37 rules. Here are seven that stuck with this musician:

1. Ignore everybody.
3. Put the hours in.
7. Keep your day job.
9. Every body has their own pri vate Mount Eve rest they were put on this earth to climb.
22. Nobody cares. Do it for your self.
35. Savor obs cu rity while it lasts.
36. Start blog ging.

Somewhere along the way I modified my dream to what I call the “Willie Nelson model” which boils down to one principle: never quit doing your thing.