I remember distinctly the moment I realized that I possessed the power to win the lottery. All I needed to do was purchase a single ticket, and my accumulated quota of luck would be siphoned off in exchange for an immediate financial windfall.

The Powerball was at record numbers (something like $400 Million), and the headlines were tantalizing: just 48 hours until the winning number would be drawn. Everyone, it seemed, was picking up tickets at the local convenience stores, because “you can’t win if you don’t play.”

I know how crazy it sounds, but I tell you this with full sincerity: I know that if I bought a lottery ticket, I would win the lottery.  But I would win by abusing my good luck for materialistic gains.

Between chapters

At the point in time of the aforementioned jackpot, I was going through something of a transition between chapters in my life. I had reluctantly left the comfortable (but stressful) home-based business I built up over the course of eleven years, and pursued the much less civilized, unpredictable lifestyle of a contractor in the oilfield. My marriage of ten years ended just a few months after that, and I was left with debt exceeding six figures.

Yet, I flourished during that transition period.  The challenges of the new career and the volatile, unpredictable lifestyle forced me to step up my game.

• I am lucky: I found a talent for the work I was tasked to do with minimal input or oversight, and I was consequently promoted rapidly.  I was lucky, too, in that I found real enjoyment in the work that I did.
• I am lucky:  I have a wonderful relationship with my family, and I have a circle of treasured friends.
• I am lucky:  I have had countless close-calls and near-misses working on an active drilling rig, and on the high-traffic roads of the oil patch. I remain unscathed and healthy.
• I am lucky:  I never believed in the concept of “falling in love” but after my divorce was finalized, I met an amazing coworker who shared my work ethic and life values, and who I indeed fell in love with.

A simple self-assessment tells me that I am already a lottery winner, just by blind virtue of when and where I was born.

My prettier half’s stance

When I discuss this with my RaeLea, she usually responds with a hint of incredulity. I cannot blame her for doing so!  After all, what manner of creature would make such a bold claim of prescience–and then pass it up?

“Who’s to say your luck would be exhausted if you won?”  She asks.

“It’s a hunch.  I don’t know, it just makes sense to me that when we earn karma, it should not be spent in such a way.”

“I am willing to take that chance,” she sometimes tells me.

I half jest: “That is why I am the one who is tasked with managing the luck in this relationship!”

It’s not as though I don’t appreciate money; I am an unapologetic capitalist, after all.  It’s also not that I didn’t believe that I could put such a windfall to good use, either.  I like to think that I would be sensible with my investments and that I would not allow my new fortune to become a misfortune.  But then again, isn’t that what every lottery winner believes?

Regardless, I will never confirm this admittedly wild thesis I have; I will never prove that this mystical belief I have shared with you today is actually real or simply the machinations of my overactive imagination.  To confirm this would mean purchasing a lottery ticket and I have too much to lose and comparatively little to gain by doing that.

I won’t squander my karma, and I won’t deplete my good luck because I would miss it when it is gone.

What about you?  If you believed that you would win a $400 Million dollar lottery, but that in so doing your karma might be damaged, would you purchase a lottery ticket anyway?

About a year ago, RaeLea and I met with our boss, who we contract with to provide wellsite geology and mudlogging services on drilling rigs in North Dakota’s oilfield. Kathy had just finished constructing a mammoth new headquarters for her business, and she offered to give us the grand tour before we convened in the conference room.

“Oh, that would be wonderful,” I admitted, “but we know you are very busy.”

Without hesitation, Kathy said, “I’m busy.  You two are busy.  Frank, we’re all busy. Come on, I’ll show you around.”

Kathy Neset is a businesswoman who, over the course of multiple decades of gritty persistence, built up her own burgeoning empire in a male-dominated industry, with a current market share of something like 40% of all drilling rigs in North Dakota.  She was appointed by the Governor to sit on the North Dakota Board of Higher Education, regularly is featured as a presenter at conferences, manages well over 100 employees and contractors, all while remaining active in several different trade and civic groups.

By my humble reckoning, Kathy is a titan of industry in North Dakota.  And yet, in a nonchalant statement she implied that her level of “busy” was not any different than my own.  That really hit home for me.

If I were to write a note over the years each time I have told someone “I’m too busy” when asked to do something, I would have a whole book’s worth of wordcount (my first novel is, incidentally, something I have been “too busy” to finish writing…for about two decades).

I’m trying to break myself of the habit of using “I’m too busy” or “I don’t have enough time” as an excuse for not accomplishing things which are important to me.  “I am too busy to work on that project today” needs to be an extinct statement.

After all, for being perpetually “too busy”, I magically find the time to binge-watch “House of Cards” (and consequently force my wife to endure listening to me quote Frank Underwood with my terrible attempt at a South Carolina accent).

So is it truly a lack of time which prevents me from working on the projects which move me closer to achieving my goals?  Or is uttering “I’m too busy” just another way of admitting that I possess poor time management skills?

I am reminded of a quote I mentioned before on this site, and which I remind myself of every day (because it emblazons the header of my Personal Journal):

Our priorities are what we do, not the things we say we do.

I recently listened to an interview with my self-publishing idol, Hugh Howey, in which the interviewer asked him how he was able to write so prolifically, all while working full-time before his writing career became self-sustaining. His answer:

“Basically by giving up video games and some TV shows and not going to the movies as often and things like that, I was spending my leisure time writing.“

Essentially, Hugh Howey refused to allow himself to be “too busy” to work on his life goal of becoming a published author.  That is so simple and yet so profound.

There is so much I want to accomplish in life, and such a limited time span to get it done. I am not going to lean on that tired excuse anymore.  I am NOT too busy to achieve my goals.

If you enjoyed this, you might also like: three simple tricks that actually work, getting fit without a gym, and the trait that might be holding you back.

This must have been what it felt like to be God.  To have complete control. To end life on a whim.  I was nine years old when I experienced this power, and I wielded it to dreadful effect.

I don’t think I was evil, even though my actions were certainly cruel.  I was just a thoughtless child. Besides, I am reformed now, and I have made my recompense.  I hope I have done enough to make up for what I did.  [Read more…]

Storytelling isn’t just about entertaining audiences. Good storytelling connects with readers on an emotional level. This connection between the reader and writer can even compel readers to take action.

The pairing of stories with a call-to-action is a well-established truism in the marketing world. The most effective advertisements and marketing campaigns use storytelling to engage the audience with the ultimate intent being an actionable one:  usually, to make a purchase.

I recently bore witness to the development of a clever example of this sort of effective storytelling in a volunteer-created campaign at our local animal shelter. My sister, Beth, has a huge heart and is passionate about animal welfare.  She volunteers her time at the shelter, and she told me about some of the animals that have been languishing for months in confinement without being adopted.

Evidently, black cats have a markedly lower probability of being adopted (people have a difficult time seeing their expressions). Older cats are almost always more difficult to find new homes for (everyone wants kittens).

Beth told me about one of the cats, “Sweetie” who is an older female that had been at the shelter since May. This cat was visibly depressed and withdrawn, possibly a byproduct of a past abuse and thus distrust of humans.  As a big fan of animals myself, this story broke my heart, and I suggested to Beth that she work to tap into that set of emotions by sharing the backstory of these cats.

It turns out, the animal shelter was coincidentally kicking around trying just such a technique.  (I’m admittedly naive, as I’ve since recognized that this storytelling technique has been used to great effect by other animal shelters, for years).

Being a talented writer and graphic artist, Beth took that seed of an idea and cultivated a set of simple but effective ads.  She used a mix of her trademark wit and personification of the “unwanted pets” to really wrench the hearts of potential adoptees.

Here are a few examples (click them for a larger version):

As I mentioned, some of these animals had been at the shelter for months, with diminishing hopes of finding a loving home.  The reaction to these “personal interest” micro-stories was swift. Within a handful of days of posting the above ads, all of these animals found homes.

It’s no wonder that storytelling is used by marketers of organizations big or small, commercial or nonprofit:  it works!

Note: This is an article that we wrote a while back for a website dedicated to personal evolution. We decided to shut down that website so we could focus our efforts here, creating modern fantasy fiction.

It was just a couple years into my website development career when I began to recognize that my clients could be sorted into two camps:  those who prioritized pragmatism, and those who prioritized perfection.

The more pragmatic clients embraced quick turnaround.  They knew that their websites were living creatures that should never remain stagnant. These clients expected to make frequent updates to their sites, and so they tended to worry less about “pixel perfect” work and aimed instead to get their message online quickly and accurately, so they could use their resources to serve their own customers better. Pragmatists tend to be better decision makers, and thus more effective business leaders.

For the perfectionist clients, I noticed that they tended to fixate on the most mundane details. They spent hours discussing which style of bullet points to use, line spacing, and tweaking the color pallet and images for their website.  They believed that their pursuit of perfection was a badge of pride. I felt that it was a symptom of wastefulness, focusing on the trivial while losing focus on the big picture.  No visitors to their website would ever even notice those details–customers want accurate, easy-to-find information that is presented in an intuitive manner.  

It is just shy of blasphemy to suggest that the pursuit of perfection is an obstacle to success–but that is exactly what I believe!

This seems to hold true for all manner of creators:  whether they write, build furniture, create art, or develop websites.  It seems natural for people to applaud perfection, but to pursue perfection is to squander resources.

Satisfaction Today is Better than Perfection Tomorrow.

Sometimes you have to be willing to admit that “good enough” really is good enough!  This isn’t a matter of accepting mediocrity.  It is a matter of finding that sensible point where continued effort will yield diminishing returns–and then mustering the willpower to STOP.

It is my observation that we often use the Pursuit of Perfection as an excuse for indecisiveness which can lead to paralysis. Instead of launching a project and moving on to the next item on the list, we become stuck in place.

Even though I know this to be true, sometimes I find that I am guilty of this same mentality of pursuing perfection.  I will spend hours editing a simple blog post that might get seen by no more than a few dozen loyal readers.  Sure, I want to present my ideas with clarity and I take pride in my work, but at some point it becomes a huge impediment to progress–to actually publishing the damn article.

Pursuing perfection means compromising quality over the long run.

The pursuit of perfection means raising the bar and thus the barrier to entry. It means decreasing quantity of output.  Ironically, the pursuit of perfection means decreasing quality too. The single best way I can become a better writer is to write more.  

I am no literary genius, but I won’t even have a chance to find out what I am capable of if I fixate on achieving that elusive, mythical objective of Perfection.  

I am betting you probably have a project which you have gotten bogged down with because you have been trying to make it perfect. If so, I challenge you to step back from the project and ask yourself if that extra, small gain is worth the time investment.  Most likely the best answer will be, “this is good enough!”  Put a bow on it, and move on to your next task.