Brianne Garcia

Drawing by Kitty Wong, an illustrator and fashion designer living in Hong Kong.  Follow her blog here, her lovely tumblr here, and shop these prints in her Society6 shop. And if you like this, there’s more to come. 

THIS WEEK’S PRINT AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE HERE. 

A few weeks ago, my father graced my inbox with a list he’s talked about for years: Zig Ziglar’s list of 100 things he learned on his way to the top. See my intro blog post to the illustration series here. And if you’re interested in seeing the list, just email me: bri.garcia7 @ gmail-dot-com. It’s worth keeping around.

Ironically, as I write this, I am a week late in posting my usual weekly Zig Ziglar collaboration post. Why? Because I’m learning what it means to be busy…REALLY, truly busy doing real work. For all the times I was “soooooo busy” in the past, I’m discovering that business itself – meetings, emails, tasks, errands – can happen to all of us, but “busy” with purpose – learning on the job, working towards a big goal by making many small ones and managing them closely –  is entirely exhilarating and altogether exhausting. Much respect to those who have families and careers they care deeply about, and still manage to keep ahold of their sanity.

This week’s pick from Zig Ziglar’s list is #25: “Direction literally creates time.” When Kitty sent this illustration over, she mentioned she was eager to see what I end up writing, since this one seemed a little vague. 

Please interpret as you will, but to me, this means that when we have a singular vision and focus, and devote ourselves to it unwaveringly, time will make itself available to us. It might not be time in a way we’re comfortable with – say, 5:00am on a day stacked with meetings – but windows of time reveal themselves to us, and it’s up to us to exploit them. 

There exist entire sections of sites (check out Lifehacker’s extensive list) and genres of books focused specifically on time management, but ultimately, we know when, how and where we get distracted, and the fanciest apps, tools and reminders still depend on us caring enough about our goals/focus/vision to NOT answer the emails in our bloated inboxes, keep our phones face down on our desks, and not let Twitter FOMO lure us into its depths.

If we approach our lives with the attitude of “time is money”, this could end badly, with us treating life’s precious moments like something we must quantify. However, when it comes to our life’s work,  I do believe we should treat our time like we would our $, and spend it wisely. 

This post by Jeremiah Owyang is short, sweet and to the point (no doubt because he recognizes the importance of our time reading his words):

Time is a limited resource. Unlike money, you can’t use money to make more money…

Everyone wants a piece of it. Like money, everyone wants time… 

So plan your day(s) as you do money. Here’s four simple ways to move forward: 1) Write —not a digital device— a list each day on a moleskin of what you want to accomplish. Even if it’s the same list from yesterday, the act of writing this down makes you process the upcoming. 2) Prioritize the lists, find items that can be done in sequence or things that can be replicated. 3) Items that stay on your lists for weeks may just have to come off 4) Check the items off as you do them, and review at end of day.

When we’re dedicated to our direction, we’re wiser about our time, and exploit the pockets of time we’d typically spend otherwise. Yes, sometimes this means obnoxiously early mornings or precious Sundays. But Zig didn’t explain this time as comfortable or cushy, he just said “time”. It’s out there, we just have to grab it and hold it close to our chests. 

Authenticity has become one of those new age buzz words that’s quickly losing its meaning. We think we once knew what it meant, but now it’s so nuanced and overused, that it’s probably time to reconsider it’s meaning. Hugh’s tweet last year “Authenticity is the new bullshit” sent some into hysterics because we are all seeing that line between authentic/ersatz bend and swerve in unexpected ways.

Highly recommend the daily newsletters from Gaping Void Art. Always insightful commentary on business, work, life and creativity. 

Aqua Notes: Because great ideas happen in the shower. 

(The real question is: where does one keep the pencils?)

Drawing by Kitty Wong, an illustrator and fashion designer living in Hong Kong.  Follow her blog here, her lovely tumblr here, and shop around in her Society6 shop. And if you like this, there’s more to come. 

A few weeks ago, my father graced my inbox with a list he’s talked about for years: Zig Ziglar’s list of 100 things he learned on his way to the top. See my intro blog post to the illustration series here. And if you’re interested in seeing the list, just email me: bri.garcia7 @ gmail-dot-com. It’s worth keeping around.

Yesterday, I went to an Objections Training with the founder of my company, at a startup he invested in. The 2 1/2 hour session was to help us sales and biz dev people get to objections faster, so that we don’t spend hours with a company who likely would never have done business with us to begin with. 

To wrap the session, he ended by mentioning a question asked by a middle school girl to Bill Gates: “How can I grow up and be a billionaire like you?” To which Gates answered (something along the lines of; take quotations with a grain of salt): “It’s easy. Find people who are really, really smart, and love working really, really hard” and surround yourself with them.

This reminded me of the post from last week a little bit: there’s a fallacy that our life’s work must also be our most intense passion.  And this is simply not the way to find fulfillment in our work and lives. We have to go through layers of discomfort, unease and anxiety to grow and improve our skills and gain knowledge. I’m in that process right now, myself, hence the 8am training. However, I also do find fulfillment and satisfaction in working with insanely intelligent people who push me just as much as I push myself, and see things in me I don’t yet see. It lights a fire and makes me really, really want and really, really like to work really, really hard.

So Zig Ziglar’s #1: “When we do more than we are paid to do, eventually we will be paid more for what we do.” 

And money? Well, it’s important. Sure. Here’s how it might buy us happiness. But if we follow the money, we’ll burn out eventually. As a wise man on Quora said:

Money is cheap. I mean, there’s a lot of it—trillions upon trillions of dollars floating around the world, largely made up of cash whose value is made up and ascribed to it, anyway. Don’t engineer your life around getting a slightly less tiny portion of this pile.

It is important to know your worth and work with those who pay you accordingly. But the types of people to chase a salary, well, those are probably also the types to spend their money quickly on Stuff. I see it happen all the time. I have a ton of wealthy friends, whether self-made or otherwise, who are miserable. Sure, I want to make lots of money – isn’t that human? – but, even if it makes me idealistic, I believe the riches follow the work, and by that time, we’ll be ready for it.