You might be the roadblock.

Dear friend,

A few months ago we were dog-sitting. This is starting to happen frequently and we love opening our tiny little house to our loved ones four-legged friends. I let the dogs in the backyard to play. And they did. Hard. Teeth gnashing. Grunts grunting. Legs flying. Zoom zoom. Nip nip. Pant pant.

I opened the door and our dog went running straight in. The other dog stood and looked at me. I promised treats. I promised pets. I waved my arm into the house like an idiot. I commanded come. And he just kept looking at me.

I closed the door, went about my business for a few minutes, and then returned for an identical episode. Exasperated, I stepped out of the doorway and voila! Our guest traipsed right inside.

As these things go, I immediately forgot what I learned and our next play session ended with exactly the same standoff at the door. Our guest looking at me. Me offering the golden ticket. And then he looked down at my legs, through my legs. He raised his eyebrows and muttered “Dude, I can’t fit.”

You see, our guest is about twice as wide as our dog. He’s clumsy. Our dog is lean, athletic, reckless. He hasn’t yet paid any price for bumping into things because he’s agile and strong enough to go over, around, or through them. He’s also comfortable with me so bumping my legs to get inside is no big deal. Our guest was in a strange place, with a strange man, being asked to move through a space he didn’t understand.

Our creative ideas operate on the same premise. They come in all shapes and sizes. Like us, they can’t see themselves from the outside. They don’t know they can fit through the doorway. That the blank page they’re destined for is the exact right size. The idea certainly can’t tell what it’s destined for, or what kind of afternoon it might have inside the air conditioned house.

As the creator, we have to toe the line between shepherding it inside and standing aside so it can expand into the space we’ve made for it.

It won’t work every time, but if we’re fighting, and we’re tired of it, we have to remember there are other options. We can: step out of the doorway and see what happens; close the door and come back in 5 minutes; agree that outside is better and go play; grab the collar and drag instead of asking; provide a treat.

The one thing we can’t do is keep trying the same frustrating thing.

We are goal-oriented machines. Our creative projects are goal-oriented machines. The dog is a goal-oriented machine. The tricky part is defining the goal, honoring it, and tracking it as it changes in time and space.

If stepping out of the doorway gets the dog inside, good for you. If you want to spend more minutes stuck, good for you.

After all: if you settle, that’s on you.

Yours,
JT

P.S. Here’s a short list of principles at play in this piece:

  1. Nassim Taleb – if it’s working, keep doing it
  2. Scott Adams – manage your energy before all else
  3. Naval Ravikant – there are always options: accept, reject, modify
  4. Kamal Ravikant – life happens to/for/through you
  5. Psycho-Cybernetics – you have to be able to see success in your mind’s eye before you can achieve success
    • “feel the good feeling before you hit the shot.”
    • Travis Kelce: “I’m just gonna be out here visualizing my success.”

P.P.S. Books that I think vibe:

  • Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic
  • Scott Adams’s How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big
  • Kamal Ravikant’s Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It
  • Maxwell Martz’s Psycho-Cybernetics