“Some people can say, ‘well, I’m just not an entrepreneur.’

This is not true. Everyone is an entrepreneur. The only skills you need to be an entrepreneur: an ability to fail, an ability to have ideas, to sell those ideas, to execute on those ideas, and to be persistent so even as you fail you learn and move onto the next adventure. Or be an entrepreneur at work. An ‘entre-ployee.’ Take control of who you report to, what you do, what you create. Or start a business on the side. Deliver some value, any value, to anybody, to somebody, and watch that value compound into a career.”

James Altucher

Make the list right now. Every dream. I want to be a bestselling author. I want to reduce my material needs. I want to have freedom from many of the worries that I have succumbed to all my life. I want to be healthy. I want to help all of the people around me or the people who come into my life. I want everything I do to be a source of help to people. I want to only be around people I love, people who love me. I want to have time for myself.

THESE ARE NOT GOALS. These are themes. Every day, what do I need to do to practice those themes?”

James Altucher

Making the list of goals is hard. Or maybe it’s too easy and my mind immediately goes to all this unhelpful shit like directing a movie or being an NYT bestseller or whatever.

I love the way James turns that in this quote. “You want to direct a movie? Every day, what do you need to do to get closer to that?”

I can make that list. I can start that habit.

Of particular color and value here are the thoughts of Merlin on resolutions which you can find in this fabulous podcast episode. (Fast forward to about 41 min).

Write the list, then throw it away and start the tiny habit.

You can’t make money without selling something real. You can’t make something real without […] imagination […]. You can’t have imagination without surrendering yourself to an idea that you want to create something of value to other human beings.”

James Altucher

In the blog world (where many of my clients and friends live) it’s easy to setup a site and dole out advice on things like life, success, happiness, etc. There’s no required certification. For better or worse.

The blog world is inundated with these kinds of properties. It can be greasy, but my experiences with these kinds of bloggers has typically been positive.

My other world, the tech & startup world, is much different. It’s not a simple thing to get into (or at least it feels that way). When there’s real money, real stakes, there needs to be real value, real worth.

Recently I’m seeing these two worlds combine. Bloggers thinking more about real value, startuppers thinking more about lifestyle and happiness.

These two worlds are much more alike than I used to think. Though blogging is easy to start, creating true value (a question the typical blogger starts thinking about a year or more after starting) is hard. And that’s hard everywhere — be it a blog, an app, an HVAC company, or anything else.

And maybe I should rephrase that. It’s not that it’s hard to create real value, it’s that creating real value is the real work.

My two worlds are discovering they share the same ecosystem: creating value, making things someone wants.

“If you’re present at the time when things are being created, then what you’re seeing is always going to look like a mistake.”

Dan Harmon

“…trying to be big is different from trying to make art. Big isn’t a useful goal. Making a living at it might not even be a useful goal. Engaging in the art, making change, embracing it… that’s a useful goal.”

Seth Godin