Archive of posts from September 2019

Are you growing?

Many pursuing work that matters are eager to spot-train areas of life, but do so to the detriment of other areas:

We might spot-train growing in sales but neglect training our teams. Any perceivable improvement we’d find on our balance sheets would only produce an equal-and-opposite decrease in customer satisfaction.

We might spot-train investing in business but not invest in our relationships. Any richess found in our bank accounts would only produce an environment where one has nobody to share the spoils with.

We might spot-train feeding the mind but over-feed the body. This disciplined pursuit of knowledge and understanding would only produce a mind less disciplined to sustain the habit of ongoing personal development.

The downside of growth to watch out for is that our focus may lead us to forget other areas important to a full life.

We’ve heard that If we’re not growing, we’re dying. We should make sure that while we’re growing, we’re not letting other parts of ourselves die in the process.

We need you in good shape so you can make a difference in the lives of those you wish to serve.

I was surprised to see the amount of traction a particular tweet got this week.

It said something to the tune of, “The secret to success is doing the things you NEED to do, not the things you WANT to do.”

We live in an era where this sort of advice is transformative, garnering huge numbers of retweets and comments appreciating the concept.

Entrepreneurs and companies who ride the wave of picture quotes preaching ‘hustle’ often appear to celebrate the idea of comfortable busywork done over many long hours, rather than the discipline of getting real work done. Things you didn’t want to do. Just like you had to do at the cubicle job you quit in order to do this.

There’s a better way.

We find it by looking past the “what” in the picture quotes we see. Past the “how” in the blog posts we read. We find it in the “why” behind “what” we do or “how” we do it that really makes real work worth it. It makes real work meaningful.

Meaningful work is seldom glamorous, usually no more so than the aforementioned cubicle job you may have left behind. But meaningful work is done not because we’re in the right mood for it, or for how it makes us feel, but simply because of the meaning it carries – the “why” behind the “what”. No task is too arduous if it moves you – and those you serve alongside – toward a greater goal of contribution and impact.

A business owner – or team member – grows up when he/she understands this valuable distinction. If you’ve already learned it, well done. If this is new for you, congratulations, you’ve come of age.

If you still haven’t learned after reading this, please scroll up and try again.

What’s the main device in your life?

Your phone? Same here.

How often are you using that ‘on the go’? Not very often? Same here.

It’s time to redefine ‘mobile’:

Most of our devices are mobile. Phones, tablets, laptops, smartwatches, it all fits in a backpack and goes with you wherever you’re going. They’re no more or less “mobile” than we are.

**We are not “on the go”. **Phones, tablets, laptops, smartwatches, we use all of these in our offices and in our homes far more than we do while ‘on the go’. Cars are mobile devices. Smartphones are not.

Your website’s “mobile” experience is likely being viewed by someone sat close to a laptop, but deliberately chose to browse from their phone because it’s their main device. It need not be a reduced experience “while on the go”, but as immersive and memorable as whatever they’d get on the big screens.

Your communication strategy is likely lagging behind the preferences of those you wish to serve. 46% prefer messaging over email. 49.4% prefer messaging to phone calls. Not because they’re “on the go” or “mobile”.

The world changed, but it’s not mobile anymore.

How much you honor the process affects how much you succeed.

The sales conversation desperate to go off-course is far less likely to help the prospect move forward unless you can keep it on course. Providing there is a course, of course: to bring them maximum ethical advantage in the best timing for them.

The customer or client eager to buy right now is far less likely to get the result they’re looking for unless you keep them focused on their own goals. Providing there are goals, of course: your process is to keep the main thing for them, the main thing.

The marketing system that “isn’t working” is far less likely to “work” unless you can honor the process of seeing it through to fruition. Providing there is a process, of course: the one where you remember to be disciplined, methodical, and strategic.

Honoring the process is what keeps you away from frenetic tactic-switching and inconsistent performance.

Do you honor the process?

How do you feel when you hear that?

“You were lucky”?

We often hear it and think it’s demeaning our hard work. Marginalizing our progress. Mocking our sacrifices.

We give ourselves too much credit.

Being the lucky one that hits the egg. Born into a developed nation to parents who raised us well. At a time in history we’re all so connected. Luck abounds. We’d be fooling ourselves if we tried to overlook how lucky we are who are able to read this post.

As you work on important projects, investing yourself into bodies of work that matter, let’s not lose sight of how incredibly lucky we are to be afforded the opportunity to do this work. Even our rough days where things don’t go at all to plan are days to be thankful for.

Keep working at it, you lucky duck.

Some schools are setting kids up for failure.

Today I drove by a school sign that said, “We will not tire, falter or fail.”

It sounds good. Determined. Resolute. Able to overcome obstacles. But those who reject these things can’t succeed.

To tire is part of the process. Every work of significance or importance I’ve ever worked on made me tired at one point or another. You press on through it some times, you get some rest others. But the only way to not tire is to never do hard things.

To falter is part of the process. Every work of significance or importance I’ve ever worked on has been peppered with mistakes. Or they’ve experienced moments where I’ve sat back and thought, “Is this worth it?” It’s these moments that remind you why you’re doing what you’re doing. To avoid such realizations is to work without a why.

To fail is part of the process. Every work of significance or importance I’ve ever worked on has had failures in and around it. The ideas that don’t work out teach you and lead you toward the ones that do. The features you build that aren’t needed point you toward where those in your care want to go. To avoid failure is to avoid progress.

If it sounds good as a school motto, beware. The reality of meaningful work is far less glamorous, but far more fulfilling.

Here’s the big secret of most experts and professionals.

Most are afraid.

Of being wrong about being good at what they said they were.

Of being found to not be as good as they said they were.

Of being too late, too soon, too cheap, too expensive, too brief, too verbose, too similar, too different.

The reason? Because they made it about them.

About their talents, rather than the empathy for those in their care.

About needing to know all the answers, rather than embracing the role of finding the answers as an act of service to those in their care.

About needing to do what their industry dictates as “right”, rather than what those they wish to serve really need from them.

Marketing isn’t about you, and neither is service. The more you understand this, the less fear you’ll have to wade through.

I learned something from a seagull today.

The beach is the half-way stop on my cycle rides, at which point I take a short stroll along the water’s edge. The purple flag was up, meaning there was dangerous aqua life close by.

But the most dangerous life I encountered wasn’t aquatic, but a seagull.

A dead fish had washed up ashore. It could have been any gull’s lunch, except this gull had decided it was to be his. Each time another gull got too near, he would squark and chase it away. His process was basic, he spent too long addressing with each intruder and more would only keep coming. But it was his for as long as he was within view on my walk.

In business, it’s easy to assume the best opportunities are either “fair game”, or “unlikely to be yours”, depending on how you look at things.

But this gull decided the odds would be different for him. Not because he had a better process, nor because he was lucky for some reason, but because he was simply prepared to do the work.

We see many businesses delaying their market outreach because they’re “perfecting their funnel” or “refining their script”. This gull had none of that. He didn’t over-think it, nor did he “perfect his strategy”. He got the fish because he decided he would, then took action.

This isn’t a rally-cry against strategy (you need that) nor am I advocating trying to outmuscle competitors (doesn’t work). Rather, it is a call to start standing up and taking action.

If you think you’re not ready, remember this seagull. What does he have that you don’t?

When there’s a simpler way and a complex way, do it the simpler way.

Not to be confused with ‘the easy way’.

The simpler way is always there, it’s just never the one we notice first.

When trying to craft a marketing message, you may find yourself with pages and pages of important things to convey. The simpler way requires sacrificing paragraphs, axing features, and turning the focus away from yourself onto those you wish to serve.

When developing a product for the market, you may dream of all the things it could do, for so many people. The simpler way requires removing many of those things, for many of those people, so it can best serve your chosen few.

When you want to change the world, you may enthusiastically invest in all the areas you wish to create transformation in. The simpler way requires you to focus on that which most needs you right now, and leave the rest for another day.

Looking for the simpler way takes work.

Don’t think you’re doing your work a disservice by ‘lazily’ pursuing the simpler way. The complex way is lazy way.

How do you transform your thinking?

There are lots of questions we don’t think to ask of ourselves, our peers, or prospects in business. We don’t ask because we deem the answer obvious.

For instance, assuming shoppers at a fashion store will always want the clothes to be cheaper. “Of course they’d want things to be cheaper, that’s a silly question!”

If the question posed to them is, “Would you like cheaper clothes?” The answer will invariably be, “Yes, of course.” The answer is only obvious because the question was obvious.

What if instead the question was something like, “What values do you place on the clothes you wear?” The answer is unlikely to be “Cheapness, I want my things to be cheaper”, is it? Cheapness goes out of the window, now we’re focused on things like manufacturing process, longevity, and sustainability. Suddenly, we’re not looking at price tags anymore.

The answer wasn’t obvious. The question was.

So. How do you transform your thinking, or the thinking of someone else?

Ask yourself – or them – a question that has never been asked.

There should only be one thing in a content marketing plan.

Regrettably, it always appears to be the last thing to make it into a plan.

Instead we have elaborate articles and sophisticated sequences that omit this one thing.

The process is usually sound, the technology workable, but without this one thing, it’s all for nought. Folks wonder why their content marketing plan fails them, despite constructing things correctly.


The one thing? The recipient.

We sometimes forget that marketing isn’t about you. When we make it about you, it becomes that which you would love to receive. It’s what you’d love to read, or watch, or listen to.

The recipient, though? If it’s not about them, why on Earth would they engage? Share? Care?

If we can remember this one thing, even a feeble content marketing plan can outperform even the most sophisticated alternative.

If a leader has no followers, are they really a leader?

We see this question pop up a lot. Perhaps it’s one of the reasons we’re so often proud of – or lust after – large numbers of followers on social media.

Loneliness has a bad rap. It’s considered to be all-bad. But it serves an important role in the production of leaders and the meaningful work they inspire.

• Mandela didn’t have any Twitter followers when he stepped into his role of leadership. His eight-by-seven concrete cell had no visitors. But his time alone invariably created margin for the development of his resolve.
• Branson didn’t turn to legions of fans when he mourned the loss of ventures that failed. From failed vodka and soda lines to failed websites and bridal stores, he’s had more failures than most. But the time he spent on the ground bred the confidence to go for his big wins.
• Churchill turned to scotch, not Facebook, during his attempts to keep England’s spirits up as Messerschmitts sailed over the channel. Yet he managed to inspire a nation to hold its morale up despite seemingly insurmountable odds.

That which makes loneliness bad, also makes it good: it’s a compass. It’s a call to action; to gather your thoughts, managers, or family together to connect.

Thoughts need to connect. That’s where ideas come from.

Teams need to connect. That’s what puts ideas into motion.

What makes you lonely? Go there and learn the lesson it’s trying to teach you.

It’s hard when someone passes.

Yet it challenges our meaningful work in meaningful ways:

The finiteness of life reminds us to work on things that matter. If you already do, congratulations, you’re in a rare minority. This is the “real 1%”. This isn’t to say every thing you do must always fill you with joy, or there won’t be non-essentialist tasks to come your way. But it does mean that you should keep your focus on the big picture, pursuing works with that in mind, be it a collective or individual goal.

Nature’s rhythm prompts us to remember the present. As a visionary, leader, and “doer of important things”, it’s so easy to live exclusively in the future. We‘re occasionally reminded that the future doesn’t contain us, or those we love dearly. If–as the Stoics said–nothing that is natural is evil, perhaps we can ‘get the message’ that the journey is to be relished. Indeed, it’s the only part of our work we ever truly have.

We’re not here for long. Make it matter.

Sometimes you can get both at the same time.

Oftentimes though, one comes at the expense of the other.

When the late Steve Jobs asked designer Rand to produce some logo options for his “NeXT” brand, Rand retorted, citing he will make only one. 

And that it will be the best one he can muster. It was an unpopular choice to challenge Jobs. But he earned him his respect. He moved from a consultant to a respected professional endorsed by the co-founder of Apple.

Many musicians, in pursuit of broader reach, will gladly endorse a sugar-water brand in exchange for funds to further develop their brand. Little do they know, for many musicians, that “brand development” simply results in the diluting and marginalization of their brand. They move from “undiscovered musician with a voice” to “just another voice on the radio”.

Sometimes we can choose both popularity and respect.

But when you have to choose, what’s it to be?

Facebook didn’t get ‘so big’ by trying to be ‘so big’ all at once.

If they had, we may all still be using MySpace.

They didn’t try to tackle the world. “MySpace Tom” had the world. Instead, they tackled NYU. That’s where they were based. That’s what they knew. They focused on serving those they could serve most effectively, first.

Once they won NYU, they went for other colleges. Then those college students did most of the work for Facebook, spreading the word for them for free, thanks to the network effect.

Whether or not you like the size, reach and power of Facebook isn’t the point. They’re big enough to influence politics, relationships, and the direction of our culture.

We can all make our work spread, if we choose to dedicate our work to a small enough body of people that care. If they care, they’ll help you with the rest.

Focus on scale if you want a headache. Or, focus on treating your people better if you want your work to spread.

Why should you do things differently when there are best practices you can follow?

We hear this a lot from business owners. Let’s put it another way:

Why should you stand out when you can blend in with everyone else?

Ah.

The iPod didn’t need a circular click-wheel. But it was delightful to use. And still is, if you still have one knocking around (or you still desperately try to keep one in circulation like I do!)

It’s competitors – things like the Zen and the Zune – we don’t remember those anymore. They did everything “right”, lots of storage, buttons to navigate the interface, good price… they followed every best practice.

Forgotten.

Let’s not throw best practices out simply because they’re best practices. But let’s remember they’re not so much “best practices” as they are “popular recommendations”.

The iPod’s job wasn’t to efficiently navigate music, but to delight people. What’s the job of your work? Are you designing it with that in mind?

We need a champion.

Not an armor-clad fearless warrior. Not a perfect white-winged angel. Not a fountain-of-all-knowledge genius of a guru.

A champion. One who has suffered, struggled, practiced and worked their way to the front. One who still doesn’t know everything. One who still bleeds.

When we share our stories with the marketplace, perfection won’t earn us trust. We can’t relate to perfect. The world we live in isn’t perfect. Perfect people won’t know how to solve our problems.

But one who knows the struggle, who can articulate it like we can, who is willing to put themselves out there and help us? That’s someone we feel we can trust.

When representing ourselves in the marketplace – when you’re manicuring your profiles and getting your photos just right – are you representing yourself as our champion, or something we can’t relate to?

The deals roll in. It’s your turn. She says yes.

You grinded for a while. You worked on your skills, made the calls, kept pressing Publish.

For a long time, it felt like it wasn’t working, that it may never work, not for you. But still, you persevered through the doubt and nay-sayers. You let the mistakes teach you and you were able to hold on through the long dry stretches of nothing.

When all of a sudden, it started working. Now you’re on your way.

This may have been you in the past, or it has yet to be you. This is all of us, on most bodies of work that matter. This is how it works.

We choose to go wide or deep.

Kasparov went deep into chess. That’s why he’s the world champion.

Deep Blue went wide into chess. That’s why it beat Kasparov, using brute-force calculations rather than by actually playing chess.

Most sales people go wide into prospecting. That’s why you get so much spam in your email, your LinkedIn inbox, and Facebook feed.

People you do business with go deep into prospecting. That’s why you only got a few messages from them, but they were hyper-focused around you and your world, not around what they’re selling.

Going deep needs humans. To care more. To learn the market’s pain. To understand how to play the game.

We can choose wide or deep either. But one choice will be automated away. The other will be a breath of fresh air.

I had to renew my passport today. From abroad. It’ll be 4-5 weeks until my new one arrives.

It’s a funny feeling, being grounded, when you’re used to traveling. I keep my bag ever-ready for wherever you need to go, each pocket and segment carefully cleaned and considered. Yet I can’t go anywhere.

That little burgundy book with “Passport” written on the front is the main thing people to see to determine whether or not they believe me when I travel. Green cards and things aside, that little burgundy book shows where I’ve been, who I am, whether or not I’m “safe”. When mine is burgundy and theirs is navy, I’m not “one of you”. I’m different. But a different that you seem to trust.

The marketplace is like this.

A few colors, words and pictures and we have made our assumptions about you. About what you might think, believe, stand for.

We call it a brand.

“Brand” sounds static, visual, a description of who we are. Really, a brand is about where we can go. About whether we’re like you or not. It’s used for movement. My brand enables me to connect with certain types of people. So does yours.

It’s not easy, but we get to choose what passport we have. What’s yours, and where does it enable you to go?

We know that work made for everyone is made for no one.

We can deduce then, that the fewer people it’s made for, the more it’s made for those fewer. The more likely they’ll become passionate about the work, eager for more, less likely to consider an alternative.

But for some reason, this scares us.

Targeting fewer means… fewer people will say yes.

And yet, we want people to be passionate about our work, eager for more, less likely to consider an alternative.

So herein lies the decision we must all make: will we let each piece of work we produce be brave enough to say “this may be not be for you”? Or will we trade that passion for the passive glances of those it wasn’t made for?-

You probably ponder where your company could go next, sometimes.

What opportunities are out there that you could leverage. The tools you might use, or messages you might share.

The loudest voices online may lull you into following a well-trodden path. “Install this on your site.” “Be a guru, make a course.” “Make more funnels, make more offers.”

A question we don’t often ask ourselves is, “Would you be proud if you did?”

Perhaps you’d have runaway success as a pushy online marketer with a last-minute (not really) course opt-in available to a “limited number of VIPs” (anyone who’ll sign up).

Or maybe you’d make a killing by releasing those in your care into the hands of mostly-true-but-not-really email sequences that go above and beyond what they ever really wanted to hear from you.

But would you be proud if you did?

Our work is precious. It’s an opportunity to show the world what we’re all about. It’s an opportunity to show ourselves what we’re all about.

The market is starving for people who tell the truth. Make us – and yourself – proud. We’ll all reward you for it.

In my conversations with entrepreneurs on a (mostly) daily basis, I’ve noticed many share the strain of progress.

The strain is this: “I should be further along than I am.” “Things should be like that, yet they’re like this.”

That little word – ‘should’ – is where all the tension lies. We seemingly get it from comparing what others claim their efforts produce, or how a culture defines success, then comparing our reality to that aspiration.

There’s a beauty in the realization that what others say isn’t necessarily true, what culture defines as success isn’t universally correct, and there’s no right or wrong answer to your journey.

The alternative, of course, is to live with the curse of believing others are always better than you, smarter than you, faster than you and more fulfilled than you.

Progress is found in the pursuit of meaningful work as it was designed. You’re the designer. Not Entrepreneur Magazine, not your church or community, not your Instagram feed.

You.

Somewhere along the way, we stopped looking at the visitor. At what they’re looking for. At helping them get what they need. At leading them forward without friction, with a heart of service and an eagerness to create change.

Somewhere along the way, all that turned into looking at one’s self. At negotiating for email addresses. At ‘hacking’ one’s way to better open rates. At coercing people to ‘ascend’ toward what the company wants them to do, rather than what is truly best for the visitor.

It’s getting worse.

Turns out, a great way to stand out is to listen to what those we wish to serve actually want, and give them that, instead.

How’s that for a ‘hack’?

We’ve become wary of others online.

We’re pressured to ‘like’ the post and opt-in for the upgrade. We will definitely be retargeted with ads.

We don’t like that.

Have we asked too much for the ‘like’ or the ‘share’? Have we incentivized and further incentivized people into no longer wanting to tell their friends, wary of our intentions?

Yes. Yes we have.

It’s rare to receive an email from a friend telling me about a great product they’ve seen or post they’ve read, that was written manually and unprompted from that friend. Normally, it’s an automated thing, coercing me into seeing what my buddy did on a social network.

“Permission marketing” is losing its permission

And yet, when Basecamp announces that they won’t track us or push us, we like that. We want to share it with our friends. Or when Jay Abraham releases his “50 Shade of Jay” series of insights and expertise for free, no opt-in required, without any expectation of us to repay the favor, we like that. We want to share it with our friends.

Sometimes, we need to ask for permission to send something to someone. Sometimes, something is worth opting in for – perhaps to be notified of something important, or to help someone get in touch with us or serve us more fully.

But many other times, we don’t need to ask for permission anymore: we can simply give gifts. We can choose to leave them on the doorstep, and walk away.

We like that. We want to share it with our friends.

There are times when we all want to point the finger.

A teammate drops the ball but struggles to take responsibility.

A client issues support tickets about things that were their own fault.

A deal falls through because of a last-minute stakeholder that “doesn’t get it”.

You choose who has control to make change happen.

You’re pointing at them.

The teammate, if pointed at, now has the power to fix the problem, or not. Nothing you can do about it if you give up the control to make change happen. Point at yourself, though, and you’ll enable yourself to lead that person to become their best self. One where they can see what they couldn’t previously.

The unruly client, if pointed at, now has the power to continue their unbridled ticket-making. If they are to decide, they’ll decide based on what they understand. Point at yourself, though, and you’ll enable yourself to better educate that client, revealing things they hadn’t seen before.

The lost deal, if pointed at, now has the power to be repeated in your future. “It’s another bad prospect,” you’ll cry, with increasing frequency. Point at yourself, though, and you’ll enable yourself to learn to better equip your team, your process, and those you wish to serve, with the understanding of what greatness really looks like.

“Pointing the finger” assigns control, not blame. Who’s it to be?

Instagram or Facebook?

Twitter or LinkedIn?

Direct message sequences or sponsored posts?

Story ads or newsfeed ads?

Comment engagement or group engagement?

There is no perfect, one-size-fits-all, clean-and-tidy golden channel. There are simply other people also using the internet, usually with the same goals as you.

Can you help them solve a real problem? Prove it. It’s your ability to understand and serve people that makes the difference, not the channel you choose.

I have a few bones to pick with the term ‘entrepreneur’.

As a job description, that is.

###1 What do you DO?

A job description describes your craft, your body of work, what you bring to the cause.

‘Entrepreneur’ rightly suggests someone who creates things that didn’t exist before… but designers, developers, copywriters, engineers, and architectures all do that, too, don’t they?

I consider myself in many ways to be a designer, for instance; I design businesses, I design systems, I design teams, and I do so with the heart of a designer. Others may do those very same things with the heart of a developer. Or one of a negotiator. Or of an artist.

‘Entrepreneur’ doesn’t describe what you do well enough. What do you DO?

##**#2 Only the founders are allowed to use it **

Core team members, regardless of when they joined, all contribute massively toward the vision of a meaningful body of work or the company that produces it.

They wouldn’t be considered ‘entrepreneurs’ though, because they didn’t start it. At best, they’d be considered to be a ‘late-stage co-founder’, or something equally esoteric.

Great companies are great because of the great people in it and the great systems and works they produce, together. They’re all important, not just the person who started it.

##**#3 The title can be used without doing anything **

You know the ones. You’ve seen them on Instagram. A feed full of picture quotes and a head full of dreams.

But no action. And we’re okay with that.

But when someone calls themselves an artist, or an engineer, we expect more. “What have you painted?” “What tools do you use?” “Can I see your works?” “Have you sold any?” All sorts of questions start to emerge. Dreaming doesn’t count as action. Action counts as action.

Think about the title you assign to your work.

Being ‘all in’ carries stigmas.

It tends to mean you’re obsessed. Obsessed with your idea. Or obsessed with working long hours. Something negative.

Is there a non-workaholic, essentialist place on the scale between being average and being reckless with yourself?

##**Doing work that matters? **

If the work you’ve enrolled in is worthy of the time and life it needs from you, congratulations.

Being ‘all in’ is about bringing the best of you to the things that you do. Not relative to income or opportunity, but relative to you. You don’t need a promotion, deal or pay rise to do your best work. You need only choose.

We choose to marginalize ourselves by counting beans and cursing stars, or to be proud of a healthy-yet-full day of commitment and craft.

##**Not doing work that matters? **

If the work you’ve enrolled in is not worthy of your time and the life it needs from you, I’m sorry to hear that.

You may want to do something about that.

But until you do, we still get to choose what kind of a person we want to be: someone who brings your very best to the opportunities of the day, or someone who begrudgingly does the minimum until something shinier comes along.

Workaholism isn’t the point (it’s actually a pretty bad idea). Income isn’t the point either (it doesn’t control our effort, we do).

Are you the type of person who goes ‘all in’?

Are some hours better for working than others?

You may work better-but-fewer hours, get more done, but feel guilty for finishing early… and fill the remaining time with busywork. You may work lesser-but-more hours, get less done, but pat yourself on the back for the ‘hustle’ of how many hours you worked.

“Productivity hours” aren’t actually hours at all. Rather, they’re a form of output, like horsepower is to cars.

A horse creates 1 horsepower. A Ford Mustang (2019) creates 460 horsepower. A regular cubicle worker creates 1 productivity hour. How many do you create?

If you can produce 2 productivity hours, that muscle could run circles around those with less motivation and focus.

Nobody would argue that a Ford Fiesta (120hp) is more powerful than that Mustang just because you left the engine running four times as long.

If you’re doing work that matters, remember, it’s not about time. Your meaningful work doesn’t need idle time, it needs you to be excellent then to get some rest.