“There are far more activities and opportunities in the world than we have time and resources to invest in. And although many of them may be good, or even very good, the fact is that most are trivial and few are vital.” – Greg Mckeown, Essentialism
One of my biggest flaws as an entrepreneur (and a human) is simple distraction. I like shiny new things – which gives me enthusiasm to start a lot of different projects.
…And I’ve started a LOT of projects.
- Paleo Guides
- Apps
- Rooftop Bars
- Wordcount Tracking Tools
- Blogging Guides
- Travel Sites
- And a bunch of other ventures.
I tend to will most business ventures into existence, which works well for a period of time, but the flaws tend to be more apparent when the shininess wears off, and I find myself stretched between multiple projects while not serving any to the fullest capacity.
Lately, I’ve been cutting and slashing things out of my life that (while good and even very good sometimes) aren’t absolutely vital and don’t serve my higher goals.
And while part of me hates to admit it (Who likes to be told that their shiny new project is a distraction?), there’s a certain freedom in killing, selling or just throwing out your babies.
In fact, quite often, the things that you think were giving you more options or additional flexibility only held you back from going all in on the things that mattered.
I’ll be sharing a story on Friday about how I recently killed (well, sold really), one of my babies and what I’m doing in the future to focus less on the “good” projects and more on the “vital” ones.
Hey Joel,
really looking forward to reading how you managed to get rid of interesting but distracting side projects.
But I have to distract you once more… This desktop background saying Good afternoon, Joel on top of this post. How did you manage to get that? Is it a special App?
greeting
Steve
It’s a google chrome extension called “momentum” – try it out – it’s fantastic.
Thanks a lot, I will definitely give it a try!
Yeah, I gotta say Joel, I really dig and can relate to your mentality, and Impossible Ventures is like my dream, I mean to own one big company that owns smaller companies and that creates new products and what not. Like I.V. is my framework. But I have noticed that in trying to check out everything to do with Impossible Ventures that some things I was excited about came up short, with little or no information. Like ImpossibleTravel….I checked it for months without any info.
I did have a question though if you felt comfortable answering it…. besides your marketing/consulting gig, how much do you make off your residual income (Impossible Abs, the apps, etc.) a month…and do you allocate those funds for a specific thing or do they just go back into the business?
Haven’t talked about much of this publicly…yet – but it’s coming 🙂
I reinvest a lot back into the business. As for Impossible Travel – have you seen the compilation letter you can get daily at impossibletravel.com/live?