It wasn’t my fault, okay?

I was tucked away in a dark corner of a cozy Starbucks with a hot Americano. My goal was to disappear into the wall and finish work.

Two men came all the way across the room and plopped down at the very next table. One had short curly hair with a white button-up and jeans, the other a shaved head with glasses and a thoughtful expression.

After only a few minutes, I heard Mr. Curly over the music in my headphones:

“We’ll sell 5 million leotards this year.”

So yeah, I spied on them. Clearly their talk was going to be far more interesting than my current task.

Normally, I would start a conversation with them, but instead I sat quietly and listened to Mr. Curly mentor Mr. Glasses.

Little did he know he’d picked up a new student: Mr. Creepy-Internet-Writer-in-the-Corner.

Curly or Glasses, if you’re reading this — thanks for the insight

1. Curly — “We’ll sell 5 million leotards this year.”

Yes, leotards. The spandex garment that covers gymnasts everywhere.

Mr. Curly had a young niece or cousin or daughter who participated in the sport. He noticed a need. He started a company.

Though he gave the distinct impression he started and sold at least one company before, now those leotards are selling 5 million units, paying his bills, and earning him enough success to meet with strangers at 10:07 on a Wednesday morning.

I learned: The best ideas often don’t come from the Internet. They come from your surroundings.

2. Glasses — “I am so dumb that I am not afraid to navigate a complex talk.”

There was a reason Mr. Glasses was spending an hour on a weekday in a small coffee shop.

He had questions. He was dumb enough to think Mr. Curly might have answers.

I like Mr. Glasses a lot.

How do you navigate a complex talk? How do you deal when you aren’t the smartest person in the room?

You ask questions until you understand.

I learned: Pride will make you afraid. Ask the questions anyway. Mr. Glasses reminded me every time I try to seem smart, I learn nothing. Every time I embrace my stupidity, I learn a lot. Every time I ask “what’s that?” my knowledge bank increases.

3. Glasses — “I don’t understand why people here kind of guard their contacts.”

Me neither, Mr. Glasses. Me neither.

4. Curly — “People don’t realize sometimes the deal doesn’t need to be made.”

In 2016, I said yes to everything.

Start a freelance Snapchat filter business? YES!

Ghost write your book? YES!

Speak at your random event? YES!

Drive across town for coffee at your convenience? YES!

I don’t know why Mr. Curly is sought out by eager learners and I am sucking down a lukewarm coffee taking notes on his conversations, but I imagine one of the biggest reasons is because he has a more definite criteria for what he says “yes” to.

I learned: Saying no isn’t just for bad things. It’s also useful when good opportunities are not the best ones.

5. Glasses — “Do you think that is a good model?”

A good model.

Not “is that a good product?” Not “do you think I can get the right people?” No.

Mr. Curly didn’t ask about products or services or marketing or a logo or a website. He wanted to know about the system. Does it work for the first 100 customers? What about the first 1,000? Can you get paid? Will this business last?

I never figured out exactly what type of business Mr. Glasses was attempting.

Apparently it doesn’t matter.

I learned: Systems beat sweat.

(P.S. I hate that. I hate it because I’m much better at working than I am at thinking. The Internet raised me to be a productivity machine, but blind hustle is only okay if you don’t mind which direction you go.)

My new guru left, leaving me with jumbled thoughts and a quarter cup of cold caffeine.

Two tables over, a woman named Sarah is worried her boss is not happy with her work.

Sarah has at least one child, is in graduate school, and also works full time.

Her friend (whose name I didn’t catch) said this:

“You can’t kill yourself trying to please everyone.”

Thank you, Sarah’s friend.

If you liked this post, you’ll probably also like:

• Dear Young People Looking for a Career — Do This

Or, if you’re looking to move from a traditional career to something like Mr. Curly has:

• The 6-Step Guide to Selling Your Soul for Money

— TB

I Eavesdropped on a Millionaire For You. Here’s What I Learned. was originally published in Personal Growth on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“That’s not right,” she said, jabbing her finger at my screen.

“What?” I replied. “It can’t be wrong. I know it’s not. I asked the source directly.”

“No, no, the information is fine. How you wrote it is wrong.”

Naturally, the key for success is finding balance.

But if pessimism and optimism are both required, where’s the line? How would you handle that sort of schizophrenia?

Here’s my tactic.

I outsource my pessimism.

For this to work, two things need to happen:

1. I must wholeheartedly accept feedback from “pessimistic” people

The story at the beginning of this post was a conversation an editor had with me several years back.

Guess what?

She was right.

Artists are often tempted to say:

“You just don’t understand me!”

But the reality is, most people understand us all too well. When someone tells you your project isn’t ripe, accept it, do what needs to be done, and move on.

2. I must trust those people

Here is another piece of “pessimistic” feedback I received lately:

“This post gives off so many “life guru” vibes; quackery.”

I honestly do appreciate Peter from the Internet’s feedback. I know it’s a thought with pure intent which comes from his beliefs.

Will I allow his feedback to affect my work?

Absolutely not.

Would I accept that feedback if it came from one of my closest friends?

You bet.

As a matter of fact, someone I trust once told me:

“Todd, what you are saying makes no sense. Do it this way.”

I did. My results tripled. Had I written him off as a grumpy pessimist, that never happens.

Kyle, thanks so much for remind us of the need for balance.

— TB

Thanks so much for the heads up. I’ve got it working now.

Here’s the link again if you’d still like to click it :)

Thank you for being so eloquent ❤

— TB

The toilet. He was asking about the toilet.

“What does it say on the sign that leads to the toilet?”

126 choir kids just stood there, dumbfounded. We had no idea what our conductor was talking about.

“The blue sign by the door,” he continued. “Who can tell me what it says?”

A small voice from the middle of the tenor section:

“Men?”

Our inquisitor smiled. We were about to understand.

“Yes. It says men. It does NOT say ‘boys.’ The second you decided to leave your parents’ house and come to school is the second you became men and women.

I need you to stop acting like boys and girls.”

Every graduation season, I am reminded of this moment, reminded of the instant when the gauntlet was thrown. “Will you rise to the challenge?” my professor asked.

Yes. Yes, I will.

“When I was a child I reasoned like a child… but when I became a man I put the ways of childhood behind me.”

1. Stop calling yourself a kid

Your language dominates your thoughts. Your thoughts dominate your beliefs. Words have power. Honestly, as crazy as it sounds, it might be beneficial to say these words in the mirror:

“I am an adult.”

“I am an adult.”

“I am an adult.”

Saying things like this out loud is very weird. Best I can tell, though, it works.

(See also: 9 Mantras that Changed My Life Forever)

2. Take full responsibility for your life

Every situation you find yourself in from the second you turn 18 forward is 100% caused by you.

That probably sounds scary, but the good news is this — the more you are willing to take responsibility for, the more freedom you can have.

3. Do what you say you are going to do

At work — This isn’t about under-promising and over-delivering. I actually hate that philosophy. That’s what people say in case they don’t have the energy to over-deliver.

It really doesn’t matter what level you promise, so long as you execute on it.

In relationships — We tell little lies all the time. “I’d love to hang out!” “I think I can make it.” “I’ve missed you so much.”

Most of these lies are well-meaning. We are trying to be polite. In reality, though, we don’t often set aside the hours in the day to catch up with the high school friend we saw at the grocery store.

It really doesn’t matter if you agree to hang out or not, so long as you follow through on it.

With yourself — I used to be miserable at this. Baby steps were the only option. I would literally congratulate myself for publishing a 300-word post.

Then my brain said “See, I told you I was a stud! Now give me a little more.”

I followed the instructions.

Self-discipline is probably the most fulfilling discipline.

It doesn’t really matter how much you aspire to in life, so long as you pursue it.

4. Avoid irreversible life choices

Crippling Student Debt — 100% avoidable

Getting someone pregnant — 100% avoidable

DUI/DWI — 100% avoidable

“It’s a lot easier to go forward than it is to go back. Every step in life has the potential to become a chain if it comes at the wrong time.”

— My Mom

5. Have some freaking friends

Many of us in America have traded camaraderie for careers. It’s a problem.

We seem to have a weird rule that your job should be enough.

Your job will never be enough.

6. Systems beat sweat

You can work very hard in life and still die broke. In all aspects of your life, find a system that works for it.

• Financially, auto-transfer a certain percentage to a savings account the second your paycheck comes.
• Spiritually, build in dedicated time to be grateful for what you have.
• Creatively, write new ideas as often as possible. Your ideas are more valuable than your time.
• Physically, meal prep whenever you can so you have something on hand other than Cheetos.

(See also — My Daily Microjournaling Practice — which tackles 2 of these 4)

7. Pay your bills

Honestly, I used to be wishy washy about this. Then I stumbled across a Jim Rohn lecture:

“Don’t say ‘I’m behind on my bills.’ Say ‘I’m behind on my promises.’”

Ugh.

No matter how unethical or crooked I think my lenders are, the fact is I signed up to use their money. They are my daddy. This is a subset of rule 3. Your debts are promises.

Don’t fall behind on your promises.

8. Smile

9. 30 x 30 x 30 Rule

If you do just 30 seconds more of what you love day after day, you will likely be much more fulfilled at the end of a year.

If you spend 30 consecutive days acting on an interest and don’t hate it, you have likely found a potential career. (If you do hate it, at least you explored the option.)

If you plan on taking 30 years to build exactly the life you want, you will have much more patience for the little bumps along the way.

10. You are the chosen one

Your experiences — you and only you have them. Embrace them.

Your dreams — you and only you have them. Follow them.

Your family — you and only you have them. Love them.

Your potential — you and only you have it. Chase it.

Your story — you and only you have it. Tell it.

If you liked this, you will probably like also like this post:

• Dear Young People Looking for a Career: Do This

You may also like my book, which I’m giving away for the price of an email address:

• The Ultimate Guide to Infinite Ideas

— TB

How to Grow Up and Take Control of Your Life was originally published in Personal Growth on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Here’s something we need to clear up right off the bat.

Success comes through sustained effort.

(The key word in that sentence is not “effort.” It’s “sustained.”)

When I started writing online in January 2015, I could only squeeze out one miserable post a week. I felt lame. The big boys of the industry were publishing 4 or 5 times in 7 days.

But I had tried that frequency before. All those times, I burnt out.

Once you burn out, it’s over.

You will say:

“I’ll get back to this one day,” and then you never do.

“I just need a break,” but that break stretches on for weeks, months, and years.

So slowly but surely, I wrote. It felt like everyone else was racing by. What I didn’t realize was this: for every week I continued, dozens of other people quit.

For 41 posts, nothing much happened.

The 42nd post changed my life.

Consistency beats talent, good intentions, and — if I’m completely honest — it often beats quality.

When you are consistent, you often win by default.

“Most people knock on the door of their dreams once, then run away before anyone has a chance to the open the door.

But if you keep knocking, persistently and endlessly, eventually the door will open.”

— Les Brown

P.S.

No matter what industry you are in, a big key to consistency is the continuous generation of new thoughts and ideas.

I’m an artist, which means my idea process is everything. I’ve recorded it in this ebook — The Ultimate Guide to Infinite Ideas — which you can get for the price of an email.

Download your copy here.

Much love,

— TB

Consistency Will Make You Feel Like a Loser was originally published in Personal Growth on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The best way to fight airy-fairy “self-help” suggestions are wage war with practicality. Here are my top 5 ways to do that:

1. Adjust your goals into your existing life, not the other way around.

Every time I’ve failed at something, it’s because I tried to squeeze it into an area of my life where it just won’t fit.

Start small. I know you’ll want to go all in, but go all in on something little at first, then get bigger. This gives you the immediate feedback of completing a small victory, while also building the groundwork to to more.

Be honest. Every time you lie to yourself, a 6-year-old drops her ice cream in the sand. If you have 6 kids under the age of 10, you aren’t going to have hours and hours of time to work on that novel.

Use what you have. Do what you can.

2. Set Your Own Standards

Whether you are in a corporate environment, school, or a self-employed role, there will be folks who will think you’re doing too much.

Maybe you are, maybe you aren’t. I don’t know.

What I do know is that if you set your own bar by the actions of other people, you will get the life they have, not the life you want.

Paint a clear vision for what you want (no matter how outlandish), break out the steps small enough to fit into your existing life (remember rule #1?), and then follow them.

Period.

3. Don’t look back

Consistency trumps erratic bursts of effort.

If you say you’re going to write on Monday, don’t give yourself any excuses. Whether it’s at 5:00 A.M. or 11 P.M., get it in. You can do it.

BUT.

If you miss a day, do not punish yourself. Write next Monday. Do not allow 1 day to ruin the next 364.

4. Do it for somebody else.

Up until I realized I wanted to marry my wife, I was a Simpsons-watching, carb-chomping, late-sleeping college kid. But when I realized Kate would probably prefer a husband who didn’t constantly have pizza sauce on his pants, I started to shape up.

Tapping into the needs of others can motivate you. You can only do so much for yourself, after all. I mean come on, how much money or fame do you actually need?

There’s an important caveat here — What I don’t mean is “chase the goals someone else wants for you.”

Remember, this is your life. You set your own bar. Just make sure your goals serve other people as well.

5. Love yourself. Forgive Yourself.

At the end of the day, guilt, shame, and regret are probably the most crippling emotions. I know people who wake up hating themselves. Maybe you’re one of them.

But I have to tell you something — You’ve got to live with yourself for a really, really, really long time.

You are uniquely created for something with exactly your set of abilities, background, and talent. I know that much is true.

Do everything you can as well as you can, remember that something is better than nothing, and move on.

You’ll get another shot tomorrow.

Hey I’m Todd, and I wrote a book called “The Ultimate Guide to Infinite Ideas.”

If that sounds interesting to you, you can get it for exactly $0 and an email address.

Do that right here.

5 Practical Life Improvements for Self-Help Haters was originally published in Personal Growth on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Here are two points we need to recognize:

1. It’s okay to be an artist with business goals.

I worry most artists believe money is evil and business people are all crooks. To engage in any form of capitalism is surely a betrayal of what art is, right?

Right??

There are actually several artists with business sense. They are making better art at a bigger scale than most people could possibly dream of.

You may have heard of these:

• Steven King
• Spike Lee
• Lil Wayne
• James Cameron
• George Lucas

You have only heard of these people because of their talent AND their business acumen.

I once said to my friend:

“I almost feel guilty making money.”

He said:

“Todd, if you don’t make money, you will never be able to create the art you are capable of because you will never free up the time to do so.”

I think he’s onto something.

2. It’s NOT okay for the conception of art to be driven by business goals

What matters is the source of the spark.

The artist who spends his time trying to identify what is popular and replicate that, you will always be behind the curve.

It’s the nature of being a follower.

The artist is never behind the curve and, in fact, is probably unaware a curve even exists, choosing to spend her time instead on that squiggly line she just found in the corner.

J.K. Rowling didn’t think “Boy, you know what I think would be a smashing best-seller? A 12-year-old with who runs around saying Latin-rooted words and waving a stick!”

No, she wrote was her in her heart. The idea came first, not the market.

The businessman who follows trends ends up wealthy.

But the artist who follows trends ends up empty.

One thing artists and business people have in common…

…is ideas.

Whether you are trying to play the game and make some money, dive within yourself to create your best art, or perform a mixture of the two, you must have ideas to exist.

I’m giving away my book — The Ultimate Guide to Infinite Ideas — away for the price of an email address.

You can get that right here.

— TB

Attention, people of Medium. I need you to get 100% mentally prepared for this insight because it will knock your socks off.

In fact, you might want to get a piece of paper and a pencil because I am going to rip the mask off mankind and reveal to you one of the deep, dark secrets of the universe.

Behold, the key to becoming instantly likeable:

Treat other people like human beings.

I know, right? Mind-boggling.

Now, I’m going to write approximately 257 more words as to why and how I came to this conclusion, but really, if you want to just tune out after this, I understand.

Here is an example of how the average conversation goes in my corporate office day job:

Person 1: “Hey, [name of Person 2], how’s it going?”

Person 2: *smiles* “It’s going pretty well.”

Person 1: “Boy, [day of week], am I right?”

Person 2: “Haha yeah. Pretty good for a [day of week].”

This conversation happens thousands of times a day. The dialog is the same, the characters interchangeable. You probably know the conversation, in which you could achieve the same amount of intimacy by walking around with a cardboard cutouts of yourself.

One day, I met Pat.

Pat is my IT guy. He’s also a master gardener, an accomplished Indian cook (although he’s as white as a snowstorm), and he once traded a can of Colt 45 to a homeless man in exchange for a row of sausages.

Do you know why I know all these things?

Because despite the bizarre facade most of us put up, Pat treats other people like human beings. Yes, he asks you how your day is going, but it’s different. He actually cares about the answer. He remembers what you told him last time and follows up.

And then — get this — he’ll share some of his life experiences with you. He shares his hobbies and hopes and dreams. He shares his thoughts (this can get scary) and his weird home science experiments.

Everyone loves him.

Not because he’s incredibly successful (although he is good), not because he’s outstandingly attractive (although I guess he’s kind cute in that geeky, scruffy, awkward way), but because in a world flooded with thinly veiled indifference, Pat takes the time to actually care.

Maybe that’s the point of it all.

If you enjoyed this, you will probably also like:

• Shift Your Mindset By Saying Less of These 4 Things

Keep up to date by signing up for the newsletter. (and yes, I’ve got the obligatory free things waiting for ;)

— TB

How to Become Instantly Likeable was originally published in Personal Growth on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Here’s something we need to clear up right off the bat.

Success comes through sustained effort.

(The key word in that sentence is not “effort.” It’s “sustained.”)

When I started writing online in January 2015, I could only squeeze out one miserable post a week. I felt lame. The big boys of the industry were publishing 4 or 5 times in 7 days.

But I had tried that frequency before. All those times, I burnt out.

Once you burn out, it’s over.

You will say:

“I’ll get back to this one day,” and then you never do.

“I just need a break,” but that break stretches on for weeks, months, and years.

So slowly but surely, I wrote. It felt like everyone else was racing by. What I didn’t realize was this: for every week I continued, dozens of other people quit.

For 41 posts, nothing much happened.

The 42nd post changed my life.

Consistency beats talent, good intentions, and — if I’m completely honest — it often beats quality.

When you are consistent, you often win by default.

Kyle, you’ve reminded me of another quote:

“Most people knock on the door of their dreams once, then run away before anyone has a chance to the open the door.

But if you keep knocking, persistently and endlessly, eventually the door will open.”

— Les Brown

Thanks for the reminder,

— TB