Adding Stuff

I got asked recently how many irons I had in the fire. I'm used to giving the quick rundown to friends and family of what's going on, but I hadn't sat down to write out a comprehensive anytime soon, if ever.

It was a lot.

I'm not going to list them all because that's not the point, but what IS the point is how I went from where I was three, five, ten years ago, a place with many fewer things happening, to right now.

It is easy to look at someone doing a lot of things and feel a panic, like they have some insurmountable edge on the rest of the world. How do they do it all? More importantly, how did they get all those things going in the first place?

The secret is that a long list of things going on always starts with just one thing. Then you add something. Then another. Then another. You say yes to stuff. You get better, faster, more efficient. You keep the bar as low as is reasonable given circumstances and expectations. You keep kicking the cans down the road, especially once that initial wave of enthusiasm has passed.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to just focus on the next thing, and to add just one thing at a time until each is settled in your routine and sense of self. Want to start a podcast? Do it. But wait to do the collaboration with that person you admire until you get the podcast settled.

Some people like to do fewer things exceptionally well. If that is you, that's great. It's not me. I like to have lots of eggs, and lots of baskets, and to constantly be establishing more. I figure even if a few break, it's a net gain. (Take that metaphor with as much generosity as you can muster).  But you don't make it happen, or lead a happy life, by starting everything at once. At the same time, it's important to recognize that just one angle of attack is less likely to succeed than ten. Particularly since they are not acting separately, each working out or not as it happens, but rather synergistically, where each additional thing I do pulls more energy into the whole conglomeration.

So wherever you are on your journey, take stock. What is the obvious next move? What is the next move after that? Map it out. Then go and make it happen. Don't wait to get it perfect before beginning, but just start and adjust and then adjust some more. Experiment. Iterate. Pivot. Explore new things and let others fall away. Keep adding things to the mix. And before you know it, you too will have a lot of irons in the fire.

Just what to do with them is another discussion altogether.