Inspiration to Write and Finish

I loved an article from Nathan Barry this week,

A lot of people get to where you are now. A half finished book, an iPhone app with just a few customers, or the perfect idea that just needs circumstances to fall into place before they can build it. These people, like you, are on the brink of something great. Truly changing their own lives and careers through what they can create…

Back in high school I had friends who always had big ideas, which they talked about loudly and frequently, but nothing ever happened. Years later I’d run into them and they’d still be talking about the epic trip they are going to go on or the company they are going to start. But after years, nothing has happened. That’s not you.

As my friend Jeff Goins says, ”You can outlast those who are lucky and out-work those who are lazy.” That’s how you win.

Nathan is definitely speaking right to me. That is where I am with so many projects.

It’s easy to get half-finished, or even 99% finished, and not push all the way.

Interestingly Leo wrote a similar article on Zen Habits this week, speaking right to me too in How I Tackle a Big Writing Project.

It’s a wonderful piece and talks through, with quite a bit of humility, how Leo was able to complete an eBook in just two days. It seems amazing but really it’s not.

In my experience the actual time I spend writing is minimal usually. I think about something for 10 hours for every hour of writing I actually get done. In his case he just skipped all that middle work, which I talked about earlier this week in The Tale of The Two Writers, and just did the 10 solid hours he needed to write the book.

I love it.

I’m inspired by both Nathan and Leo and I’m eager to reconnect with my inner writer more in the coming days.

Whatever it is that you are wanting to do deep done, I hope you can reconnect with that too.

The Tale of Two Writers

Two writers sit down to write. One writes for five hours. One writes for one hour.

Who do you think got more quality writing done?

The second writer did.

It's a trick question.

The first writer scribbled everything down on a napkin first. Then he copied it into his favorite moleskin journal. Then rode it very clearly with great grammar on a legal pad. He then typed it into a typewriter and reviewed it as a manuscript. Finally the editor took the manuscript and published it in a book. That's how long chapter 1 took. After five grueling hours all the writer wanted to do was rest.

The second writer finished several chapters in one hour. She skipped the napkin, moleskin journal, legal pad and typewriter. In fact she skipped the editor and publishing company too. She knew she wanted her final product to be an ebook for the world to see and worked on that from the beginning. She spent her extra time meditating, relaxing outside, hiking around a mountain, and boosting her creativity so that she could sit down and write so more. After her five hours all this writer wanted to do was write some more.

Be the second writer.

Write smarter, not harder.

We want to see what you've written.

What I Learned From a One-Day Juice Fast

by Travis Hellstrom

My wife thought it would be fun to do a one-day juice fast and on Sunday we gave it a try. I was a little nervous about it (I love to eat stuff), but I was willing to try.

We went out the night before and bought juices that we liked. We got the V8 sorts in particular since they are heavy on real fruits and vegetables. You could also use a juice blender if you wanted as well I’m sure.

Then starting in the morning we only drank juice through the whole day. We didn’t eat anything until the next morning (starting with something small, a banana, even then).

The 10 Things I Learned:

1. I could do it - I wasn’t sure I could do it. My stomach was especially nervous. It let me know throughout the day growling and complaining. But it worked out just fine.

2. I can be a whiny baby - Tunga would probably be nice and say I didn’t whine too much, but I did. I was a baby about it. Which leads me to the next lesson.

3. Food controls mood - I was surprised by how much food controls my emotions. It was really tough for me to positive and upbeat while my stomach was growling like a tiger. It settled down (and my emotions settled down) when I drank more substantial juices with lots of vegetables in them.

4. I don't know what it's really like to be hungry - I reminded myself with this experiment that I don’t really know what hunger is, to be starving like hundreds of millions of people around the world do everyday.

5. It was worth it - At the end of the day, it was worth it. Or maybe I should say, the next morning in particular it was worth it.

6. I felt great afterward - When I woke up I felt great. I felt thinner and healthier and didn’t have a strong urge to eat.

7. My stomach shrank - When I did eat, I didn’t eat very much. I was full very easily throughout the entire day.

8. It changed my habits the day after - The next day and the day after I felt great and continued to eat less than I had before. I also wanted healthier foods and unhealthy stuff didn’t attract me as much.

9. It made me more creative - For the past few days when I’ve been hungry I’ve been doing different things: drinking more water and juice, eating fruits, yogurt and little snacks. I feel more energetic and creative about what I want to eat instead of having large meals at normal breakfast, lunch and dinner times.

10 . My wife is a good sport - Biggest lesson of all, Tunga is very patient and kind. She never complained once, was very supportive and put up with me whining. I told her I’d like to try it again and I promised not to complain as much next time.

My Professional Statement

by Travis Hellstrom

I am currently in graduate school at SIT Graduate Institute and hope to graduate this summer with my masters degree. One part of our final thesis portfolio is a biographical professional statement, which I really enjoyed writing. I enjoyed it so much, in fact, that I thought you might like it too.

I've always believed in helping people. Maybe it's because I'm the oldest child in my family, maybe it's because I grew in a community where people take care of each other, maybe it's that it brings me joy, or maybe it's a natural state for all of us. Whatever the case it's always been a big part of my life and motivated everything that I do.

When I was young this inspired me to become captain of my safety patrol. I took this responsibility much more seriously than our coach probably would've liked. Analyzing the assignments of all of the other safety patrol officers was probably not something he ever thought you'd be doing after school with a fifth grader. I also suspect me running small drills with my fellow safety patrollers and spot checking them on their ability to respond to first aid situations would've come as a surprise as well. But that's who I am in that's who I've always been. I was always the cop when I played cops and robbers with friends. I was a police explorer wearing the uniform and running through drills with my local police department. I was the Boy Scout becoming an Eagle Scout, promising to always be prepared. I was the pre-med student who got all the right grades and passed all the right tests to get into medical school. But after hundreds of hours shadowing doctors and hospital executives I didn't have the answer I wanted to the question I'd been asking since freshman year, “Is this really the best way for me to help people?”

A slightly better answer, I thought, was going into the Peace Corps. I had met volunteers when I studied abroad in Costa Rica for three months and Peace Corps felt right. Medical school would always be there if I wanted to come back to it. But as it turns out I didn’t.

Peace Corps exceeded my expectations in every way. For instance, I had no intentions of being romantically involved with anyone during the Peace Corps. I met my future wife Tunga within the first few months. I thought I would volunteer for the required 27 months and have an amazing time. I stayed 50 months and wrote two books about it. I was never interested in business and in fact for quite a long time thought it was the devil. I've helped start two Certified B Corporations in the past 2 years on two continents.

My journey to SIT Graduate Institute as a Peace Corps Fellow has been an adventure. It's funny how we can end up happier and healthier than we ever imagined by going down path that we never knew was there. I suspect the line from Robert Frost about going down a road less traveled is famous for a lot of reasons. When we take the road less traveled we find ourselves alone more often, able to peer into our own souls and discover what we really believe. We learn and grow and end up somewhere that we chose. Instead of plotting a course using someone else's map, we hold our own compass and go our own direction.

SIT has been a wonderful mixture of so many things that I love: Leadership, Social Business, Nonprofit and Social Business Management, Social Entrepreneurship, Service and more. I've met wonderful colleagues, made wonderful friends and help synthesize years of learning from both my American and Mongolian lives. Just like my practicum experience with Woodland Balance, I intend on consulting for many years to come with organizations ranging from nonprofits to social businesses and governments.

My dream has always been to be a humanitarian. Even when when I was too young to know what that meant, I knew who I wanted to be like. Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama: great men and women who dedicated their lives to helping people and making our world a better place.

One of my favorite quotes comes from Picasso, “My mother said to me, 'If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope.' Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso.”

To become truly oneself is our life's work. I feel lucky to have done so much of that work here at SIT.