Heel, Toe

My mornings are broken. I'm working on fixing it.

Some combination of coffee, reading, writing, exercise, personal hygiene, then work.

They started feeling like a bowl of Greek yogurt where I pick out the best blueberries. Negotiated mornings end up with me doing what I want to do. I leave the must-do berries in the bowl. I'm good at that.

The routine. The rituals. Or the process. It matters. Maybe you're nodding right now because you agree or your finger is drifting to the close button because you've heard this before. Me too. What I hadn't considered was this.

The process matters more than the outcome.

When I was in my early 20s I read something like, "you should tell everyone your goal. Be loud about it. If you do that, you'll have more motivation to get it done."

I did that once and just thinking about it makes my head shake back and forth automatically in embarrassment.

Most people who hear about my time in the military think it happened right after 9-11. It didn't. That was two years later.

After 9-11 I went to the Marine Corps and started the process to become an officer. I'd join them for PT every week as we moved along. And I told everybody. At work. Personally. Anyone who would listen. I bought a sticker, "United States Marine Corps," and put it in the back window of that black Audi A4 so I could tell everyone behind me too. Red text, yellow outline. I can still see it.

I went into the future, grabbed an identity I hadn't earned yet, and brought it back. I was rewarding myself with an identity before the work.

We shouldn’t keep it all to ourselves. "They want to be on the journey with you," Princess Buttercup taught me. She's right. We should bring our closest people along. Big changes, dreams, failures. Your people deserve to know. And you might need them. But not everyone is your people.

When we kidnap a future identity and apply it to ourselves today, it makes us less likely to do the work that earns it.

A couple years later I did the complete opposite, which I also don't recommend. I enlisted in the Army and didn't tell a soul. Equally embarrassing.

A few people needed to know I was going in the Marine Corps. The rest needed to hear it when I earned that sticker and could call myself a Marine. I brought the outcome forward because it let me enjoy the mental sugar high without doing the work. I fell in love with the outcome and identity, not the process.

If you want to be a runner, don't go around telling people you're a runner. Tell the people closest to you that you're trying to be one and that you've been doing five runs a week. Ask them to check in on you. Help you push through.

Some things are worth sharing widely. You can bring a group of people in behind you and they'll hold you up. Building a company is one of those.

Two people close to me are building their own companies. Both hitting their stride. So good to see. Profitable. I've watched them both work the thousands of things it takes to build a profitable company. Not the commercial people put on LinkedIn but the documentary: payroll, SEO, closing the books, firing, hiring, down websites, working capital, and conflict.

I've never heard either one of them, not once, talk about the identity or the outcome. Sure, they talk about getting profitable but NEVER about an exit or Inc. Magazine cover story or anything remotely close. They're too busy doing the work. They're in the process. They've never introduced themselves as an entrepreneur, founder, or CEO. They don't talk about the thing they are building in the future sense. They talk about goals, but not an end state. They have a vision, but they are too experienced to say they know for sure. They know they are just making it up as they go.

They do talk about what they are doing today and next week. They talk about the problems they're chewing through. Then they wake up and solve them. They ask for help from the people closest to them, work the problems with their team, and things get better.

Then they hunt for more problems. They are hunters in the truest sense. Sensitive, aware, connected. In the woods. Quietly stalking along their path. Heel, toe. Heel, toe. No accolades, no pomp, no future identity brought back to today. Just the work.

I've watched both of them get better. Big problems a couple years ago are three minutes of work today. Or an eye roll. I don't know if they love building, but I do know they aren't in love with some outcome, some future identity. They haven't put the sticker on their car.

Much of what we do will not end up where we want. We try things. They go right and they go wrong. That's the whole reason the process matters more than the outcome. If you get good at the process, the failures aren't because you didn't do the work. They end up being something external. Ideally.

The older I get, the more comfortable I am with that. And even enjoy it. Rarely in the moment, usually looking back. Eventually, I recognize it as part of the process too.

Why didn't I become a Marine? The most generous answer is the universe was conspiring to have me do something else. The more accurate answer is I didn't want it bad enough. Why didn't I want it bad enough? Maybe because I'd already brought the identity forward. The process wasn't what I loved. I loved the sticker. I loved the idea. My ego wanted that eagle, globe and anchor on the car. Or maybe on my back. I was too immature to recognize what I was doing then — bringing the identity forward. Chasing the outcome without actually doing the work.

Hopefully, I won't make that mistake again. Today I'm just trying to be the quiet professional who loves the process, silently making my way toward something I want, or think I want. Keeping my people close to me.

Heel, toe. Heel, toe.

Take care, friend. Be good.

-kv