The best musicians are the ones who were, at one point in their career, comfortable being bad. Everybody starts somewhere - at the beginning. Thinking about the best musicians, how might we take a lesson from their book and become the best we can be?We discipline our mind.We develop an intentional and daily practice of doing something - practicing your scales, taking a walk, saying “no” to dessert, taking a breath before we react, pausing to think before we judge, etc. Like working out, routinely exercise the muscles and they’ll grow.How to discipline the mind?Develop and maintain a daily routine of some kind: morning, work startup, before bed, dinner, whatever.Exercise your mind - daily. Read a book, listen to music, take up an artistic hobby, learn how to identify bird calls - literally any thing to exercise your mind.Decide how you want to improve. Is it your ability to think through challenges? Decision making? Leadership? Marketing?Identify what 3 next steps you’ll need to take to get better. Perhaps it’s reading a book? Setting and keeping a release date? Survey your customers?Do the thing - ship your work. Be okay with yourself if it sucks… you have to start somewhere!Learn and improve - wash, rinse, and repeat.The goal is not to get good at a hobby or become a master at making your bed, the outcome we’re after is an agile, resilient, and creative mind that’s ready to ship work, look bad, learn, and get better.Learning a hard skill is easy. It’s the real skills of resiliency and vulnerability that take work.

Last modified on 2022-01-01