Too Many Good Things Happening At Once?
You don’t know for sure when things start to change.
Sometimes you can point to a moment, a word, a conversation or experience when you made a decision.
Took a step.
Revealed a truth, or became aware of one.
Awareness is the point of change, but you don’t always know when the awareness comes. It can grow slowly inside of you for years, decades. Then one day, you take the giant leap.
To everyone else, it seems sudden. Unexpected, unforeseen.
But it’s been growing inside of you for so long. It is the natural next step. It is your only possible move.
It is the blooming of a seed that was planted long ago.
It is growth.-Annie Mueller
I read this Daniel Piazzza email in February and it resonated with me so much because it happened to me.
There will be a time in your “come up” when things start to work out.
Perhaps you get that first big deal. Maybe you don’t get paid a huge amount — but it will be just enough to shift your perception of how much your time is worth.
Maybe you get that first feature in major media. Yeah, it’s Huffington Post, not the New York Times. But this is a big deal for you. You’d never been mentioned in anything before, and now you’re somewhere that everybody can see you.
These are small wins that feel like huge wins in the beginning.
Eventually, things start to compound. You graduate from teetering on the rim of failure to a cautious confidence. You’re coming into your power now.
I would say 3 months after I left school, I started my first rounds of businesses.
I noticed the college friends that were still talking to me at the time kept saying “hey” you are doing big things.
Then I got on the Huffington Post in 2016. I became a contributor.
According to (I forget where I saw this) The most important thing you can have as a marketer, musician and anything is a STARVING CROWD.
If you want to succeed as a marketer, the most important thing you can have is a big list of “starving” people who need your “cookie.”
I noticed when I started working with other people in other cities and word got out about it, I started getting phone calls from people in Indianapolis.
Oh lawdz.
These are the same people who haven’t called you months, and when they think you on to something, they want a piece of that COOKIE. However, for each one of these major accomplishments and the validation they welcomed, were years upon years upon years of quiet hard work that nobody saw.
And not only did nobody see it, but many people condemned it.
I cannot tell you how many times I was made fun of in high school for playing World of Warcraft.
I cannot explain to you how many people, people I thought would be more supportive, questioned my discipline in the gym.
They took one look at my scrawny physique and essentially said, “Why are you even trying?”
And I cannot tell you, seriously, how many people laughed in my face when I told them I was going to college to study creative writing.
…But then as soon as you become an e-famous gamer, as soon as you look like someone on the cover of a fitness magazine, as soon as you start jet-setting around living your dream, suddenly everybody wants a piece.
Suddenly everyone is supportive.
Suddenly everyone wants to know how they too can suddenly do it. -@Nicolas Cole
But beware of “Opportunity Hoarding.”
As you begin to shine brighter, others will be attracted to you like a moth to light.
They’ll see that you’re doing something different than everybody else around them. They’ll see that there’s something different about you. Maybe they won’t be able to place a finger on it. But they’ll recognize it in you.
And you’ll recognize that they recognize it. All of the sudden, you’ll begin getting more opportunities than ever before.
Sometimes, the opportunities will be old “deactivated” friends who decide to activate themselves after 7 years and see if you’re available for coffee because they just remembered they happened to live in LA now too.
Sometimes, the opportunities will come in the form of others on the journey, looking for you to pull them out of a rut, or give them advice.
Sometimes, the opportunities might be legitimate business deals or partnerships to help you grow.
There will be thousands of opportunities, but not all of them are created equally. In the early stages of entrepreneurial growth, especially as you become just good enough to get noticed, you’ll begin to get a lot of offers from others to help them with their projects. They see a burgeoning superstar and want to siphon off some of that power.
In your lust to succeed, you might try to take on all opportunities that come your way. I call this “Opportunity Hoarding.”
It makes sense.
People are coming to you offering money, connections or potentially useful tools and you want to take advantage of everything you possibly can to pull yourself up from the bottom. You’re barely floating above the ground now and you’re willing to fill that void any way you can.
“Just give me work”, is the phrase that comes to mind. You’re hungry.
But beware, my friend. The more opportunities you try to take on at once, the more likely you are to lose one, or all, of them.
See, opportunities are just that. They aren’t guaranteed. They require work on your end to see them bear fruit. Opportunities are potential wins that you create for yourself through hard work. So in order to cash in on them, you’re going to have to work. Daniel DiPiazza
This happened to me and it still is. I’m getting 100s of LinkedIn messages. Then when I get 50 done, 50 more come in. Humbling and crazy!
I cannot take them all. The most business projects I’ve ever done at a time is 4 (and that was pushing it). Some opportunities were REALLY good, but wrong timing. I had some in the past couple of months that were excellent. I revisited the 2017 and 2018 opportunities first.
What I won’t do? Is 50 things at once.
In the past couple of months, I pulled back on posting guitar covers to release more music with collaborations.
Because you will NEVER succeed until you commit to make it happen REGARDLESS of all the reasons your mind says you can’t.
And when you stop lying to yourself…
And start doing the fundamental work you need to do to succeed.
Things can happen, and they happen FAST.-Andrew Argue
You can’t work on everything.
As I read what Daniel Dipiazza says below it’s challenging as a Gemini.
At least you can’t do good work on too many projects at one time without significantly decreasing the quality on the other things you’re working on.
It’s the same reason a driver loses 20–30% of their attention when using a phone while operating a vehicle. The more “programs” you have running in the background of your mind at once, the fewer resources you have to commit to whatever you’re actively thinking about in the foreground.
Opportunity Hoarding feels great because there’s this sense that the more projects we work on, the more overall potential our life has.
“I have this project running. And that side project. And that other thing.”
My question: if you took the energy from that “side project” and that “other thing” and poured it all into the main project, wouldn’t you see better results overall, much more quickly?
I think you would.
Worry less about how many things you have on your plate. You don’t get bonus points for doing a lot of things “sorta well.”
See how much you can get done if you only have one thing to focus on. And don’t worry about needing to hoard opportunities for fear that they’ll go away.
The ones you’re meant to have will be there when you are ready, and you’re much more likely to do a better job if you have the time and clarity to focus on them exclusively.
And that focus will lead to even more opportunities.
I’ve worked on multiple things before and I won’t lie. It isn’t easy. My limit is 4 projects at a time.
In school if I take 1 class/hour at a time, it’s definitely better for focus instead of twenty hours. TRUST ME.
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Hello There! I’m Alesha! I’ve been involved in different businesses in several different capacities from being ceo, coo, co-founder, and more. I’ve learned so much from creating businesses, and I look forward to all the learning experiences I will have from starting new ventures. 2019 I’m excited to announce that I’m going to add more businesses to my portfolio. STAY TUNED! I’m going to introduce them sometime next year!
With one business I was involved with, we made it possible to install a little device with customized hardware and a SaaS solution implemented to the router, the business owner was able see live data about social media info collected.
With another company, we had professional internet marketing company that focus on digital marketing campaigns, services and jobs such as SEO, PPC, Online Reputation Management, and social media marketing.
With EYT, I oversaw day-to-day operations and keeping the CEO apprised of significant events;Yes I actually talk with my business partner on a daily basis. I created operations strategy and policies; Communicated strategy and policy to employees and interns; Fostering employee alignment with corporate goals; and overseeing human resource management. I also delegated tasks to my team.
With Bones’ Custom Guitar. We created custom guitars for musicians with imported wood. No one Bones’ guitar is the same.
The Wish Benefit Concert is a concert founded by Ayana Carter, Mel Sexton and Alesha Peterson. It’s privately held at Riley Hospital For Children.
