INSPIRATIONAL: The 12 Immutable Laws to Getting Shit Done

Over the years I come to a few realisations, many of which were learnt the hard way (see Law No.3). This is my attempt to smooth the road for others to come, with a series of immutable laws, I've yet to be able to find evidence to the contrary, feel free to prove me wrong because that's the way science works. As with all natural laws of the universe, take what is useful and pass the rest onto someone else, who will.

Law No.1 Most people don't and some do. So make your choice, I dare you! 

William H. Danforth in his book I Dare You! [link] said that 95% of people will be "content to go along their own way".  4% will move into the "higher leadership level" and 1% to the "kingly" level (granted the book was written in the 1930's when women were pushed aside and written out of history  (I'm sure he would have used a different term in our modern times)). The 1% been those who 'will never be held down until every unused capacity has been marshaled for service'. Danforth argued it was the habits and hard work of the top 5%, that separated them from the other 95%, who reached a comfortable plateau, with no intention of rocking the boat any further. Danforth dared people to become one of the 1%. Yes, yes I understand mathematically if everyone took up his challenge, then we would be more like the 100%, much like if everyone went squirrel suiting all the time, it would seem just pedestrian, instead of insane.

As the old saying by JFK goes [link], "a rising tide, floats all boats" (that don't have leaks in them and which have yet to sink from said hole). So, by everyone upping their game JFK style, it forces the 5% to up there's and to stand of the shoulder of meta-giants [link], so the cycle of self perpetuating social stratification towards a beneficial Utopian society continues (anomalies such as Miley Cyrus twerking [link] not withstanding but having said that, she certainly one upped Madonna in those stakes, so the theory still holds tight). Sometimes it takes a unwavering self belief to be in the 5%, even when the odds are against you.

 "The 95% see the obstacles the 5% see the objective." ~ William H Danforth
I Dare You!  was published back in the 1930's and little has changed over the intervening to years, to disprove the 95/4/1 law. Why? Because most people are lazy, choose the path of least resistance or have a crack, but quit when things get tough, as Steve Jobs put it well.

On the subject of underused potential Gandhi put it well " The Difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems." I guess it's the same as saying 'just think! you could feed the world a few times over just from the food that we let go to waste and throw away. 

If you apply the 90/9/1 approach to social media [link], roughly 90% consume content without ever creating it, you know all those people stalking you on Facebook.....9% make some contribution to the discussion i.e they may comment or join a thread on a forum and the rest generate the content. Thus, the 1% of people who generate the content become the ones people consume. Yeah I know, cruel world. That person just wrote that tutorial and doesn't have any clue about what they are talking about but people are taking it as gospel. This raises issues of whether those who are creating, are really the best people to be doing so (refer to law No.3 learn from the best or teach yourself). Hopefully through, in the sea of mediocrity, the cream will rise to the top or as they say in the digital age, the signal from the noise.

So long story short, if you want to be consumed then you have to create, rather than trolling online forums, flaming the living hell out of it's inhabitants, having a go at those, who are. Which leads me onto the second law.......

Law No.2 Do stuff. Do great stuff and put it out there.

I have found opportunities do not come to those who wait. They are captured by those who attack.........Start something! Break a window, if necessary  ~ William H Danforth.

Maybe Mark Zuckerberg picked up a copy of I Dare You! a few years back, before he came up with the Facebook Motto 'move fast (which also feeds into the 80/20 rule [link] but I digress) and break things', although the Nike slogan of 'just do it', puts it a little more succinctly, with less criminal overtones.  

There is no better time in this world to be creating stuff and getting it out to a global audience. Whilst there are still gatekeepers (although who the gate keepers are have certainly shifted (hello fashion bloggers getting front row seats at Paris fashion week [link])) to pass, to get wider distribution, the time is now, as Moby puts it, so play rather than procrastinate.

or a more photographic take by Zack Arias

A college friend of mine Marita talked about the approach of her organisation Robogals to getting things done.

  

"There is no secret sauce to our program. We just go out there and do it." ~ Marita Cheng 

 
Enough Said.

Become makers, rather than just consumers. I realise the paradox will arise that to create we have to consume and if all you are doing is creating then at the same time one must be consuming, so I guess we'll have to come back to that one at a later stage, but you get the point.

So do stuff. But what stuff pray tell? Stuff that you find engaging and are good enough at that will help ensure that it's of a high quality (following laws No.3, No.5 and No.10 ) and keep you pushing through all the rejection you are going to face (law No.7). Vincent LaForet had to ask seven times, to be rejected six times, to take the yet as unreleased 5D mark II out for a spin. What would have happened had he taken no for an answer the first time (Note: there are definitely times when no means no but that is an issue for another blog post)? Reverie [link] probably would have still been made, but would had been the 400th indy cinematographer to post up their short, shot with it and gotten lost in the digital noise. He was at the right time (video was easily and distributed on the Internet by that time), he had access to equipment few had (so he was one of the the first in the door) and had a quality  video to show as a result with a small team of three people including himself. All that combined and the rest is history. Canon within a week, had more hits on that video, than the whole hits on their website had for the entire year.  

In the sea of mediocrity (if anyone knows the term for that which is ruled by the one who publishes the most let me know as mediocrity doesn't quit hold work as well), only that which is rises to the top. Everyone is searching for the next viral hit for procrastination purposes (see Law No.1), so if a tree falls in the woods and nobody is there to hear it did it still fall? Much like Schroeder's cat people have to see it or else your fine work is going to live in the fuzzy world of superpostition.

 So where do you put it out to? It depends on what your ultimate goal is, as to the destination of your finely crafted work. Half the battle in life is finding those people that your work resonates with. You don't have to have everyone in the world enamoured with your work, just enough so that you can live the life that you want to (refer to Law No.11).

The process of getting your stuff out there will typically involve getting harshly judged/flamed (if by anyone else other than you family (which will most likely do it behind your back anyway)). Haters gonna hate [link] (see law No.7). So once you figure out your various target markets, hangout where they hang out, both online and offline. Create genuine connections, feed into their desires. basically network (see Law No.11). and over time you will build up a loyal following if you remember to align you personal goals with that of theirs. A friend once told me that everything is done out of self interest, when I went on a tangent about altruism. I had a think about it and couldn't come up with an argument or example to disprove it. If what you care about, is what others also care about, then it's a win win situation.       

In summation, make stuff, make great stuff. Find people who like your stuff, such as to purchase it from you and then repeat.

Law No.3 Learn from the best or teach yourself 

Never trust the middle person. Take everything with a grain of salt, then combine it all together in a way that rings true to yourself. Take what is useful, then pass what remains onto someone, who would find it of more use. Another way of putting it, is a smart person learns from their own mistakes. A wise person learns from the mistakes of others. 

Here are just a few:

Chase Jarvis Live [link] whatever you think of his interview skills, the quality of his work or the motivations for doing what his doing you can't deny the quality of the people he is interviewing so soak it all up.

Luminance conference [link]

Ted Talks [link]

Capture with Mark Seliger [link]

Twit Photo [link]

Many a book. I'll refer you onto my previous articles on the must read books in photography [link]

Somewhat contravening Law No.4, the seven habits of highly effective people by Stephen R. Covey works so much better in musical form 

Whilst Guy Kawalski  isn't Steve Jobs, he knew Steve Jobs and that is more than enough for me

If you wanted to start up a business here are a few guiding principles sans Tony Robbins' NLP inspired state transference inducing enthusiasm via Zack Arias

Tied in with this, is the old saying, that an education is something that nobody can take away from you. Once you have read widely, studied hard, then stop, so that you can do. which leads onto law No.4.

Rule No.4 Stop watching/reading/listening motivational videos/books/podcasts 

If you are motivated enough to walk down the street to your local book store to buy a book on motivation, then you probably don't need it in the first place. If you purchased it off amazon, then read on. It was probably a wise investment.

Tony Robbins [link], every pickup artist that followed Mystery [link], all gyms and many photographers who are now diversifying the business into the educational realm via podcasts,DVDs and workshops rely heavily on the same common denominator for capital generation, underutilised memberships and buying into their product that has you as the willing linchpin. If they made a dollar from everyone that actually followed through on their advice and used their services, they would be driving around in second hand, 3 door Toyota yaris' [link] instead of Porsche 911's [link]. They rely on the fact you'll rather not stop watching, compared with actually making the effort to take action and hence have no reason to buy the next latest and greatest product, they bring out, because you are too busy actually doing and making shit. 

The economists like to call it opportunity cost, i.e the cost that one incurs by choosing to do one thing over the other. If you spent all day watching/reading/listening motivational videos/books/podcast then you fore go the opportunity to create stuff. 

You can watch motivational videos until you are blue in the face, but at the end of the day, you have to get off the couch (unless of course you have a tablet, with a relevent creative software on it, in which case stay right where you are). 

So in a nutshell No more....

or.......

or........

and sadly also no more Kid President pep talks :( 

 

because the answer is within yourself not in some 'guru'.

 

Law No.5 It takes time and concerted effort

Nobody was born out of the womb a world beater. It takes time. Had Lance Armstrong not even been on the juice, it still involved putting in a shit tonne of miles. He couldn't lay off for three weeks before a race, eating enough In-N-Out cheese burgers [link] to make Elvis circa 1975, look like a catwalk model, whilst vicariously living through reruns of Welcome Back Kotter [link], then proceeding to spend idle hours in the wee night discussing on Internet forums, if it had indeed jumped the shark [link], have a blood transfusion the next day, then rock up at the starting line, before proceeding to smash it up Mont Ventoux [link]. It just doesn't happen.   

No. It takes according to Malcom Gladwell as part of  his 2009 book Outliners (and pretty much anyone else if you ask them(excluding Tim Ferriss)) 10,0000 hours to get towards some stage of mastery of any given skill. If you want to do the math, spending one hour a day for seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, that would take 27.5 years to master something (the number does tend to look a bit better when you are talk 4 hours a day (only 6.9 years), besides raising the whole question of choosing wisely in what you want to master in, as time is kind of a limiting factor in life.     

and Tim Ferriss tearing it all apart in less than 4 hours....

The harder I practise the luckier I get. Whilst the origin of the adage is hard to determine [link] the take away is not. 

Breaking it down even futher, just doing something each day that moves you further towards your goal, as Drew Barrymore said is sage advice (go to around 41:00) 

If you want a photographers take on it, Zack Arias puts it well in his transform video "well Avedon sucked. Karsh sucked. Adams sucked. Mary Ellen sucked. Coward sucked. Jarvis sucked. Every photographer in all of history, was a horrible photographer at some point in time." The point is they sucked, but they got good, because they continually worked on it, in a way few others did. They were not super human, they put in the 10,000+ hours. 

In a world where instant gratification and validation is only a button away there seems to be a focus on appearing or projection of actually doing stuff rather than focusing on doing the hard yards many of which will never get a  . Forget been and focus on doing the hard yards.  This is clearly explained in the great 'Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy [link]' article. Basically we want it all and we want it now, rainbow spewing unicorns included. It's kind of like the difference between William H. Danforth's version of daring and the Double Dare version . One takes hard work, over an extened period of time. The other slight levels of physical exertion, over a short peroid of time and in the process aquiring 15 minutes of national syndicationalised fame and the associated instrant gratification ( well as least as the live audience was concerned) which upon returning to the school ground -after the showed aired several months after taping- resulted in high fives all round. The fastfood, of the processed food spectrum. 

       

Law No.6 Fear exists. Deal with it  

Fear can stop one from doing any number of things, that one has anxiety over, from actually making work, showing work, talking to people about your work or striking up a conversation with clowns.

Overcoming fear is easier said that done because often it is irrational, unless in reference to clowns. Really what's the worst that can  happen? Take a bit-o-honey and ask yourself what's the worst that can happen? If the answer is, I have to hack my wrist off with a small pocket knife because it's jammed between a rock and a hard place ala Aaron Ralston, then maybe it might be a bit harder.....

although most other things, the perception of the risk is actually greater that the actual risk. This once again is all fine in theory but another thing to put into action. Let me know how that goes. Tim Ferriss has a good way of dealing with it here are his tips

  

Law No.7 Welcome to the world of rejection. Population you and the other 5%

If it doesn't happen tomorrow, it will happen. Thankfully you are not alone. You can't change the reaction of others, if in the negative, only your reaction to their reaction. Often you'll never actually get the chance or courage to find out why your work or proposal was rejected, but don't take it personally, it's just business. Unfortunately the only videos I could find with dealing with rejection was in relation to relationships, so feel free to replace [potential female/male partner with potential art dealer/art director]

This isn't to say that the 95% have not faced rejection, only that the 5% have faced a lot more of it (and we are not talking on a per capita basis).

As mentioned previously Vincent Laforet faced it, as has every other photographer or anyone else who wanted to get permission, or showed their work. You can take it one of two ways; haters gonna hate and move on, or This is just a rejection for now but not a forever rejection come back in a month with some new work and maybe things will be different. Alternatively  you could just sending them passive aggressive emails for the next three or so months in the hope that they will change there mind. Guess how many movie studios George Lucas was rejected from when he pitched Star Wars or how many book publishers J. K. Rowling visited before Harry Potter, was a house hold name? In answer in both cases, more than one.You know what? Vincent, Lucas, Rowling and yourself are in good company......

If all else fails, just remember you can always just be f**king awesome as Julian Smith would say [link]

Associated with and often accompanying rejection, is a sense of failure. So onto law No.8

Law No.8 Failure is acceptable. It's called trying 

There is an old saying good news travels fast. The flip side of that idiom coin is that bad news typically doesn't. Remember that time you were curled up, balling your eyes out, in a foetal position, because a girl rejected you (Note: this in no way reflects my personal experience I have had. Clearly I'm a stud)? Yeah, I remember that. Why does nobody else? Oh that's right I never updated my Facebook status relating that fact to the rest of the known world (i.e my cirle of freinds and friends of friends (as I can't quite remember as of writing what my privacy settings are in relation to my status)). Plenty of people have failed, but kept going and persevering through self belief and hard work (see Law No.5).

Failure really needs to be reframed, as something that is positive, rather than a negative. Hell, it should be celebrated! Bring on the I-just-dropped-10-million-on-the-stock-market-with-money-that-wasn't-mine keg party! 

"There is no such thing as failure only opportunity to learn" as Mark Sparks would say [link]. Solid reframe Mark, Solid Reframe.

Law No.9 Know your limitations 

Dirty Harry put it best, when he said a "mans as got to know his limitations."

Know the limitation of your camera and other gear you are using, know the limitations of your printer, the software you are using, the screen you are softproofing on, the paper you are printing on. Know their limitations. How do you find their limitations? Read the instruction manual, then push it 20% or until failure (see Law No.8)

Get to know yourself. What are your limitations? What buttons do you have? What are you prepared to do? What are you not prepared to do? Why think about all this? So you can surround yourself with people who fill in those gaps and love doing the things you don't enjoy doing. If post production sucks, balancing the accounting books is like a visit to the dentist, creating a smick looking folio is like learning a foriegn language or shopping it around to art buyers directors is sucking the life out of you, hand it off to someone who loves it. A cavet on this; make sure they are smarter people than yourself. People, who push you to be a better person and see those things that you can't and enjoy the feeling of been humbled.  

Jim Rohn coined the phrase you are the sum of the 5 people you interact with the most [link], I think that is pretty right. If you want to be better and grow, then surround yourself with people better than yourself. Having said that, why would someone better than you want to hang out with you in the first place once again a catch 22 situation another unsolved paradox (see Law No.11)?

Once you know the limitations, that is when you can begin to hack the system.

Law No.10 Think Different 

"People will dress differently, think differently, live differently. Are you leaders going to sit back and wait for yourselves to be adapted to these conditions? Or, are you going to be one of those who help bring about these changes" ~ William H. Danforth.

Once again, I think maybe Steve jobs also got passed a copy of I Dare You!, when he asked us to think diffently 

This was something that always applied to me.Whereever all the other photographers were, I would find another position, because if nothing else, I had a shot that nobody else had.

Think differently as Steve Job would say or be like a purple cow as Seth Godin would put it [link], or a more Jarvisian take "don't be better be different." 

 Law No.11 Network, Network, Network

 

"I dare you to develop the fine art of finding, making and keeping friends by genuine giving of your time and personality to others. Look for the best in people . learn to like people. Find out what they are interested in." ~ William H. Danforth 

I went a lecture series at the NGV that Julia Zamiro [link] was MCing and giving the opening talk. What I took away from the talk, was an anecdote about her time working as an actor in the States. She was at a party and was surprised how superficial the world and interactions were around her as well as the ones she had. everyone was doing something but doing noting but virtue of looking busy as if talking on there phone to a non-existent person on the other end. Everyone was talking about what they were doing, how busy they were and the next big thing they were doing. To break through the facade she decided to just state the facts. When it came around her turn to talk saying something along the lines of 'well actually I don't have any work and the moment and I'm a bit worried'. It broke the ice from which a real friendship could be built and often people could then relax and say that the case was the same for them.  

Another book published in the 1930's alongside I Dare You! was How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie [link] until neuro linguistic programming took over with the likes of Tony Robbins  

Zack Arias take on networking is well worth the investment in time 

Figure out who your customers are, then get to know your customers. Go to the places where your customers hangout online (forums, facebook pages, twitter) and offline conventions, association meetings etc

Find those who are the decision makers, the gate keepers, the people who the gate keeps seek advice from and then the people who know the people who advise the gate keepers. Basically 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon..... 

   

These days instead of following the yellow brick road you need to follow the pulse [link].

Law No.12 Remember the Sunscreen

If all else fails just remember to wear sunscreen.