This guest post was written by Jonathan Figaro, who writes at JonathanFigaro.com.

“Procrastination is the thief of time”- Edward Young

1. Start Now

Since procrastination is the thief of time, You CAN’T wait until tomorrow, If you want to build an empire. You have to START NOW. Yesterday is for those who are stuck in FEAR. Today is for the risk takers and those who aren’t scared to make things happen. Yesterday dwellers are those Who will never be on the FORBES magazine cover.

“Vision is very important” Jay-z

2. Vision

What is vision? Okay, let me keep this quick like sand.  Seeing is believing. If you see something in your mind enough times YOU will believe it. With BELIEF comes Success in any idea you’ve formulated. The cliché is seeing is Believing, this is true. What we envision over and over again will happen whether good or bad.  Envision what you want to happen and let it happen.

“Your work ethic has to be to the ceiling. You’re gonna get out of this what you’re putting into it.” Birdman

3. Work

You will only reap what you have Sow. can’t expect a garden by planting only a few SEEDS!

(Interlude)

Hustling

“Listen Dave, where gonna put the money in the bag, stuff the rest of franklins in the safe so the cops can’t FIND it!”

Matthew slaps Dave in the face.

You listening!?!?

“Oh course I’m listening,! What the buck you think I’m doing here. Fiddling with my fingers! This is REAL LIFE, I AINT PLAYING NO GAMES!” Dave’s voice rose higher than marijuana smoke brain activity. He huffed, puffed and settled into a calming state of mind.

Matthew and Dave were both bent down. Knee high, waist low, like paying respects to a tombstone. Between them was 18 million dollars. Money covered the cabin like plywood. Faces of dead presidents never looked so good from this angle. Money so crispy it looked like a bucket of fried chicken. It was pilled so high Matthew had a problem seeing Dave from this angle.  The bills rubbed between their finger tips and spilled from three duffle bags the size of a king size bed. It was folded and weighted the same as gold bricks.  They kept counting until, they couldn’t count any more. They flopped down in exhaustion; television kept on mute but flashed in continuous updates. Six hour prior to this celebration, they entered the bank in black masks with semi automatic weapons.

They timed it for 3 minutes. One minute to unlock the safe, another to collect the dough and the last one was the window of opportunity to exit.

“Everybody get the BUCK down!” Matthew yelled.

Greg countered with a comment right after he Bruce Lee kicked the security guard, then Jackie Chan punch an old lady by accident. He ran behind the marble counter before the silent alarm could be played like a violin. The employee’s all panicked like an earthquake. They were dressed in their Sunday best. The men wore suits of depression and I hate my 9-5 t-shirts. The women wore skirts that showed more than necessary and enough cleavage to convince any lonely men to take a 98% interest rate bank loan.

Matthew tossed Gregg all three duffle bags while he broke the safe off the lock. Three years at engineering school, seemed to pay off.

“40 seconds!”  Matthew yells and the crowds of faces scrunch. Greg starts to pile up the bills like Mexican piles up lumber in the back of a Tahoe, very fast. He zips up the bags and almost trips over his own excitement.

Matthew and Greg had been hustling for such a long time and they finally found a way out of the life, a way out of their 9-5 jobs, baby mama drama, lack of designer wear, and overall brokenness. With nine million dollars apiece, they headed separate ways like the four black chicks in the movie Set It Off and used the money to create a new lifestyle.

Matthew and Greg wake up from their naps during Class. Their professor raises her voice, “Matthew, since you like sleeping so much, why don’t you tell me what is the square root of an F on your report card?” Greg nudges him and says, “Don’t answer”, he pauses before continuing, “That’s a trick question.” The class laughs, the teacher laughs and Matthew and Greg continue to Dream Big Dreams of one day getting out of the ghetto and making it… (Author’s interjection- the Legal way of course

Hustling Cont..

“Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real.” -Tupac

4. Dream

Winners dream. Are you a winner?

“I never allowed my fear to limit me.”- 50 Cent

5 .  Fear

If you’re scared, that’s good because now you know what to do and where to go. If fear tell you to go somewhere, go the opposite. Embrace life and reject fear. You can only grow through fear conquering.

If you found this article helpful, please share it with someone else on Twitter, Facebook and Stumbleupon. Thank you very much! =)

DISCUSSION QUESTION OR COMMENTS

Whats Your Hustle?

Always take note of the few people who give you real support.

Bring what you can bring to the table, and leave regrets behind.

Collect information throughout your life and you will be well-informed.

Don’t allow others to suck away your enthusiasm.

Energize those around you and they will reciprocate.

Functioning smoothly requires that “balance” that people are always mentioning.

Good people are regularly taken advantage of until they become not-so-good.

Hobbies have to be kept on the side until if/when you are ready to take them prime-time.

In this world, there is so much going on at the same time.

Just spend your time with people that treat you with respect, and set aside those who don’t.

Knowledge will help take you from where you are to a more desirable place(couple it with action).

Live as though you have to run everything in your life on your own, and allow others in after you are stable.

Make others glad for your presence by being valuable.

Never accept treatment that is not fitting for the effort you feel you are putting out, or it will show up repeatedly.

Only being yourself will lead you to a position that you are glad for.

People-pleasing, in order to seem nice, will not get you far.

Quit something before you invest much time in it is okay, but quitting something when you are close to completion is generally a bad idea.

Running sometimes is the only way to make something work, as walking will leave you out of the rankings.

Some of the best methods are found by experimentation, and not by attempts to force the system your way.

Trying is looked at disparagingly, so it is vital that you stick to implementing.

Usual methods can work out just fine for you, because you may be unusual enough to make their usage viable.

Very few have a solid control of their daily activities.

When you find something that works, repeat it until it doesn’t work, and you may find that it continues to work for longer than you could imagine.

X is the letter you may have wanted to see how I would use.

Your friends are only your friends if they don’t run for the hills during your difficult times.

Zeal and vigor only come when you can see a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

One item I am very good at is providing motivation.  I could have all the articles on this site be meant to provide motivation, but that would not allow for much variety.  What I will do in this article is, instead of discussing motivation as I do at times, I will provide it to you.

First, I don’t know exactly what you are wanting to do at this time.  I don’t know your next move of interest.  You may be wanting to get into a certain school, or change your job, or learn a language, or move to a new country, or acquire a fitting soul-mate, or get on Jeopardy, or so on.  There are too many of you readers of this site to target each of you specifically.  On a side note, if you want to build up your consumer base or subscriber base, always mention how big it already is, as people want to join in on popular items.

What I can do, though, is provide an example you can relate to.  I will be using the prominent hip hop vocalist Nate Dogg for this example.  He passed away recently, due to heart complications.  Now, let’s say you have wanted to be a successful rapper for a few years, and have put some rap videos up on YouTube, but haven’t really put forward the effort you know would take you to a viable career.  One such positive item from your reaching of a solid position as a rapper would have been that you could have had Nate Dogg recording the chorus to one of your songs.  Now that he has passed away, that opportunity is no longer available.  You can’t make a rap song with him as the chorus singer.

Opportunities Disappear Daily

Opportunities like this disappear every day.  Whether it is a person in your local city moving away, or a person changing what he does for work, or people switching to a new technology, opportunities that are quite fitting to you are being removed day by day.  Now, you might say that new ones are being added day by day, which is true, but regarding that point, society tends to only reward people for the opportunities they were earliest to get in on.  We love when someone takes a chance today, but that same person taking a chance a year after people had put hope in them might result in no positive response.  Know that people are always watching how much time it takes you to do something.  When you do something early on, many are even surprised by your efforts.  When you do it in a reasonable amount of time, people are glad you finished it, but it doesn’t have the same amount of passion associated with it.  When you finish something long after people expect you to have finished it, you will get reactions that include words like “finally” and “still”.

Competition Is Omnipresent

Here is another reason for you to take that next step.  Someone else is vying for whatever you are vying for, whether it be a position in some organization, a certain experience, or a certain person, and so if you don’t reach for it, and you see someone else acquire what you were seeking, it will keep you down for at least a little while.  Competition is in the air at all times, even present in those who say things like “not everything has to be competitive”.  Current technological innovations and lifestyle sometimes make us forget how competitive our society remains.

If you focus on the negatives of any venture or risk you have in mind, you won’t take a step forward on them.  Enthusiasm and action comes from a focus on positives, and rarely, if ever, comes from an avoidance of negatives.  The chance of being able to repair a certain type of liver ailment and be known as a medical pioneer is the kind of positive that a doctor can work with.  On the other hand, an employee who stays in the office for 15 more minutes mostly to not get fired for leaving early has about as much enthusiasm as a pencil for those 15 minutes.

Accounting Example

Let’s say you want to become an accountant, or if are already an accountant, want to set up a partnership with another set of accountants or close a deal with a big client.  Regardless of which stage you are at, the positives are the only aspect which will propel you forward.  These include having a stable job that you are interested in, moving to a more domineering framework with other accountants, and getting a large profit from that client.  Focusing on these is the modus operandi to have.

If, instead, your focus is on the struggles of accountants, or the effects of the economy on potential customers, or that others won’t want to partner up with you because you aren’t professional enough, or that the big client might resist your efforts and find a new accountant, you won’t be propelled to make any headway.  Negatives don’t charge up our mind.  Positives give us the feeling that we can conquer a new frontier.

Look At Your Past Achievement

Take a look at what has gotten you to carry out some of the biggest feats of your past.  There may even be some that you don’t think you could repeat now, but at that time, you had the will to study that hard or work that hard or stand strong against people or make a real change in your habits because you had the prize in your sights.  I know that I have persevered when I had a visual concept of what the result would look and feel like.  You can make almost anything look appealing by focusing on the positives or unappealing by focusing on the negatives.  You might as well use this information to your advantage for some goal you have.

Where You Focus Gets Larger

A point about this is that when you focus on the positives, the negatives become smaller, or someone else helps with them, or some of them go away, or they become more manageable, or so on.  The big bad scary negatives of any endeavor lose their anguish-causing battery power when you look beyond them.  In this way, your thoughts are like a magnifying glass that makes whatever they are about more prominent.

If you get a thought to run a marathon, think about the health benefits and impressive results.  Don’t think, or yet, over-think, about the pain during the gradually longer and longer preparation runs, or having to get up early for them, or about getting a poor time.  If you get a thought to sign up for a dance class, think about how you will gain a skill you can use all the time, and how you will be more confident and willing to take part in future events containing dance.  These positives will get you to sign up and show up, and after that, the process is well within your reach.

photo credit: włodi

Song lyrics have more relevance than we give them credit for.  Music is ubiquitous, and most of it has lyrics.  Apple went into the music industry with the iPod because the market for music is basically everyone.  One of Twitter’s top trending topics is #nowplaying, which is what people use to list what they are currently listening to.  In this short interview video with President Obama, the interviewer was asking him about if there was potential to use hip hop for betterment of society.  This is done through insightful lyrics that lift listeners.  The following are some lyrics that are meaningful to me, and some commentary regarding them:

“…it’s hard gettin’ good, easy to do evil” – Akon

Just like it is much easier to lose someone’s trust, than to build it, it is easy to do bad things, but takes a lot of effort to remain in the “good” category.  Being labeled as “bad” takes a minute of doing the wrong thing, while being labeled as “good” requires setting example after example of picking the good-natured path.

Take a look at some folks who aim to stay on the path of “good”.  Even if direct attacks on them are not so visible, indirect pressure on them to give up those efforts is always there.  Good after good after good makes those who tried shortcut paths of some type look like they missed the concept, so they hope for some error or break in the good.

TV news shows don’t show much good because it is more likely to make more viewers feel bad about themselves.  This is what keeps programming on the lowest-common-denominator level, for the most part, unless there is some story of good that is too large to ignore without looking like an uninformed station.  The local inventive engineer or winning student is left out of the news, and another story about obesity is presented(not that obesity isn’t a big issue, but there is a difference between playing to the feelings of viewers and actually helping to solve the problem).

“Foolish pride is what held me together through the years…I never sat back feeling sorry for myself” – Jay-Z

These are two lines that carry a strong message from one song.  A lot of winners we know of now were not always labeled as “winners” by the populace, or at least by their current supporters, so they needed “foolish pride” to power through the period until they got that support.  Michael Jordan talked about how he always had to hear about how he was good, but not as good as some player like Magic Johnson, and so he needed this type of foolish or unfounded pride to fuel him to show everyone up.  There is always that period of time where people don’t think you have what it takes, regardless of which category you look to achieve in, and although some support can come to you, it speeds you up to provide some of your own(even if it seems foolish).

The line about not sitting back feeling sorry for yourself is another relevant one.  It is better to take come crazy action than to sit back feeling helpless or regretful.  You have to keep this in mind, and keep it easy to process.  Repeat it a few times for the next time you feel sorry for yourself in some fashion.  It is better to play your table like a drum with your hands, or fold a paper into a paper airplane, or toss a tennis ball up in the air repeatedly, than to sit in regret.  Sitting in regret is a lose-lose item as far as action and enjoyment.  Throwing a tennis ball up in the air to yourself is at least enjoyable.

“I keep my eye on the prize then pursue it, chase it like a cheetah…” – Ice Cube

A big part of the message here is about your focus.  The prize has to always be in the back of your mind for you to have the vigor to work toward it.  If you forget about it, also known as “taking your eye off of the ball”, you might be fine until when you remember the prize, and then time has gone by already.  Reminding yourself of the prize or prizes every day is one of the only ways to keep focus.  Find me a person who works hard without thinking of the impending results or rewards, and I will show you a talking walnut.

When you not only chase your prize, but chase it with the speed of a cheetah, you have a real chance of attaining it.  Chasing your prize slowly brings a lot of small problems to you along the way.  Depending on how slowly you chase it, people will start to present doubt of your achievement potential into your own mind.  If some big company throws a networking conference every year, and decides to slow down their marketing efforts by instead throwing one every two years, loads of people will start to comment about how the company is losing speed, ability, or vigor.  That never helps.  The quicker your pace, the less you have to deal with what I call “unsupport”, and once you cross the “tipping point” of achievement, the lack of support won’t matter much.

“There’s only two types of people in the world, the ones that entertain and the ones that observe” – Britney Spears

I don’t think this lyric could be any more of a call-to-action.  I can’t imagine many folks hear or read it and want to join the side of the observers.  It’s hard to envision a biography being written about someone who always observed others, and who didn’t contribute in their own fashion.  If Britney Spears didn’t continue her musical creations and tours, and was just a “fan” on various artists pages on MySpace, this lyric wouldn’t even be hers to present.

The bar for creation should be set much lower than we usually first think.  We assume that our creations have to be spectacular, so we don’t even get started, because we don’t see ourselves making something spectacular; at the same time, someone else doesn’t care if they make something spectacular, and starts making things, and eventually gets the experience needed to make something spectacular.  If you need to remember it this way, low-quality creations trump uncreated creations.

I can show that doing something is better than doing nothing.  When you do nothing, out of worry of being attacked, you get no attacks on you, but you also have gone nowhere.  It is like putting nothing in a pot and cooking it.  An hour later, you have a heated nothing.  On the other hand, when you do something, some people will support you, and some will attack you, but at least you now have more support that you didn’t have earlier.  Attacks can be ignored, but support can’t be self-generated.

Do you have any lyrics that are powerful to you that you would like to mention?  You can point them out in a comment, and then maybe let us know what the lyrics mean to you.

A Van Gogh Creation called Irises

Here in this article I will discuss a reason that is a cause for motivation.  The underlying theme for this article is that you have to be constantly producing, because that does so much for others that you can’t underestimate it.  I have lots of examples here so you can see why you have to keep outputting.  One example is in the painting picture above, which is one by Van Gogh, which may have just been another along the way for him, but which is now another very valuable creation of his.

I wrote that introductory paragraph a couple of days ago and am now continuing.  On a side note, I recommend doing things smoothly from start to finish, because when you stop, you have to then re-start, crossing friction again.

What You Create Is Someone Else’s Thing That They Enjoy

Here is a big thing that sends a motivating message.  When you create something like text, audio, video, a product, or put out a service, you’re giving someone else their desired thing.  I have many examples of this.

For example, take Puff Daddy.  He is prolific, and keeps producing material all the time.  Were he not as prolific, he might not have created the song Come With Me for the Godzilla soundtrack, which was one of my favorite songs at one point.  To me, that was a favorite song, and to him, it was another creation along the way.  In the same way, what you produce is likely to become someone else’s favorite item in some respect.

These hits that you can create come from constant outputting.  You end up doing something for someone or another person along the way.

Wallpaper Example

David Turnbull from DavidTurnbull.com recently made a wallpaper that you can see and use here.  This is an offhand kind of creation that he put out as he continue to keep trying new things while building up his repertoire.  It is now my desktop wallpaper.  Had he not made it, I wouldn’t have such a cool wallpaper.  It also gives some cool ideas to me about what is able to be done with a message and an image.

The next creation you make can become someone’s wallpaper, in that way.  It could be the song they listen to for a while, like one that a person I know had made a while back.  It could become the article they come back to every few days, or the service they really want to make use of regularly.

This is what I recommend thinking about next time an issue of motivation comes up for you.  Just like you have your favorite X or Y or Z in various categories of interest, you can create someone else’s item of popular usage.

The Benefit Of Being Prolific

Not only does this remind you of why creating is so valuable, but it shows why being prolific is relevant.  If you create 10 different items, you may have 1 or 2 great items in those 10.  If you create 100, with added variety and side items, maybe you will have 15 hits in those 100, and they could be of different types.  Your ratio of hits goes up with the more you do, as you get a better idea of what you do that gives others joy, good feeling, or something relevant to smoothing out their routine.

Creating Puts You Way Up There

Eckhart Tolle posted this quote on Twitter: “90% of the world waits for change to happen on the outside so they can reflect it, but that is no accomplishment.”  The percentage might be an estimate, but think to yourself that just creating material puts you ahead of 90% of others who wait to receive it.  This would put you up there as way above average.  It might seem like there are loads of creators out there in each field, but fields look disproportionately full of engaged people because everything you see was produced by a creator.  All the non-creators put out nothing, so you don’t see how much was not put out by them.

An engineer looks like they are the single genius engineer until another engineer rises up to their level with their own invention or skill.  It is good to see the blank spaces and openings that are available, and fill them in with your material.

One current and one future Wall Street Journal bestselling author

A few days ago, I met Gary Vaynerchuk, whose book Crush It got on the bestseller list according to the Wall Street Journal, and it was great to hear what he had to say about various topics of entrepreneurship, social media, and how to work with one’s passion.  He had a huge room on the second floor of the bookstore full of people glad to listen in during his speech and following question/answer session.  There are a couple of points from the discussion that I would like to bring up here.

Patience Levels Separate Competitors

One of the concepts that Gary has brought up many times is patience.  He pointed out that most folks aren’t patient enough to follow through on something like building their online venture, like he did with Wine Library or his book Crush It, and most members of the audience silently agreed that this was one of their main weaknesses.  It was like Gary was telling the crowd “this is why you are failing”, and the crowd then knew the problem and solution were now in their hands, and was their responsibility.  I completely agree with this concept.  The person who quits doing something after 10 minutes might get no results, while the person who persists to complete that item in 45 minutes gets all the learning and glory that comes with completion.

How Can Patience Be Built?

Patience, like hunger, which I will speak about later, and specifically, enough patience to get something done, is only maintained by a small minority of people.  Folks in this category look at others incredulously, wondering why they can’t continue a task for more than 10 minutes without resorting to some sort of leisure activity.

What Keeps You From Getting Stuck At A Point During The Process?

For those not in this minority group, with satisfactory patience in place, the route to gain patience is a difficult one.  The key point of concern for those is when they spend 10 minutes doing something, and then quitting occurs.  It is at that point that you have to look at what caused you to quit.  Was it a distraction you allowed yourself to see or come into contact with?  A big reason for built-in patience is having a routine that is free of most distractions and energy- absorbing activities.  This leaves you the mental fortitude to use to take a task – from quitting at 10 minutes in – to taking it to completion.  I have to stress that time is not the important issue, but that it is about how you spend that time.  I just use 10 minutes and 50 minutes as an example to represent different points along an activity in a more obvious way.

People Have Their Set Standard Level Of Patience

If you have 10 random people start an activity at the same time, and progress through various difficult steps of it, you will see a spectrum of examples of patience.  The same person who is more patient than another in that single example will completely outdo them in all their undertakings, because it will help them get further through a task, to the points where rewards arrive.  I have long stressed the point that personalities are fairly fixed in place, and to supplement with similar material I read recently, Alex Shalman wrote an article, starting off with: “I strongly believe that how you do one thing is how you do everything.”.

Hunger Is A Vital Component

As far as having a hunger to do something, that is something we often say that someone either shows that they have, or lacks and is unable to synthetically.  How do you make someone who has an orange reach for an orange?  Gary said that younger folks are soft in comparison to those who are older, and that message was partly directed at the hunger that the younger generation may now lack.  A person who has a lot provided to them has much less impetus to go and get more, as that drive and determination comes from an urge.  For those who have less, that urge is more naturally there, while those who already have a life of abundance will have to search for the urges they have to get even more.  Our minds work very poorly when we already have what we want to get by working on something.  I also once wrote an article that had a part in it about what Arnold Schwarzenegger said about hunger.

I am looking forward to seeing what you think about these two key components of success.  Can someone increase their hunger if they already have more than most?  What holds someone back from having hunger to take on some opportunity?

If you don’t see the impact you are able to have on many people, that is a choice you are making to cover up your eyes.  The opportunity is right there for you to influence or bring change to multitudes of people, directly or indirectly.  Once you accept that you can have a large impact, and then implement action to make that impact, you are able to cause a positive or negative effect.  I would implore you to head for the positive direction, because although having a negative influence still includes your presence as a leader being validated, it can end up leading other people down the wrong path.

Your Effort Can Have A Widespread Impact

A recent example of where my actions caused quite a bit of action to follow is with my 100 Ways To Show Boldness article, which was inspired by Luciano’s eBook talking about this post.  It got spread around quite a bit, and then my friend Mike King from Learn This, who had seen it, followed it up with his own(and then another), and challenged some other writers to make their own.  This was followed by Arswino and Dragos creating their own lists, which got spread around through various sites.  I am not taking any credit for their work, as they are the ones who created their own posts, but I am pointing out the intrinsic value of putting time in on your own terms, as you can then feel that your time that you put in alone then caused a chain of events to occur that might not have occurred had you not done so.  It brings more value to what you are doing.

Sometimes You Should Focus Only On Your Own Thoughts

When I was writing the article/post, I only had focus on it, and was using JDarkRoom as I tend to do now to have my monitor be a full screen of black with the text from writing in green.  For that hour or two while I was writing and creating the list, I wasn’t thinking about impact or effect.  I was writing as though the rest of the world wasn’t there.  This is where your largest impact can come into play.  Those items you do in your own mental world are the best ones you can transmit to others.  The whole point of avoiding distractions during creation of writing or audio or video or brainstorming is that we want to work internally.  There is plenty of time later to be part of the group, but your impact comes from preparing or putting in effort before you meet up or communicate with the group.

A Shortage Of Supporters Is Not A Bad Sign

When you see yourself doing something where you feel you are the only one doing it, you just might be on the right track to a special position.  When you feel like you are doing something similar to what you have seen, you can take a look to see if there is something more individual that you could do.  Creating music is more fulfilling, and has a larger impact upon completion, when you do it from scratch, as opposed to building off of someone else’s work, as you will continually be settling for a compromise between your creation methods and their work that you are building off of.

Be Watchful Of The Direction Of Your Influence

In another example, I am an administrator in a 200-300 person online community, and a goal I have there is to have a positive impact on the members of the community.  This impact is almost tangible.  Being in a position of authority, and doing a good thing can result in ten people doing that same good thing.  When Oprah recommends a book, she can recommend one with no substance, or recommend one with educational value or a solid message inside of it.  Because of her strong presence, either book would be read, but the potential is there for her to have an impact on the knowledge of many of her viewers.

A task of yours will only remains as focused and directed as you maintain it. The minute you start joking around with the concepts that are the foundation of the task, it becomes more likely to crumble. Playfulness and focused effort don’t mix too well. Here I discuss why you want to stay serious when in the middle of a task, and the problems that can be caused by even a short bit of relaxation or feeling of content during the process:

Studying For A Question-Based Exam Example

Let’s say you are studying for a certification or higher learning examination.  You have spent the last two weeks working through practice questions in a Kaplan study booklet or an online course.  Your focus has been maintained up until this point.  You could now become content with your recent studious success, and do any of the following things:

• start studying less because “you’ve already come so far”
• talk condescendingly to others who haven’t studied as hard as you in the past couple of weeks
• take much longer breaks between studying times just to absorb your good position without continuing it
• let yourself get distracted during study time
• do the practice questions without time constraints even though the test would have a time limit

The Slippery Slope Away From Seriousness

When you start to take it easy with even a small action that lacks focus, you head down a path where you end up working less diligently, and without as much concern for the results.  You have to take each question seriously, one-by-one, until you get done with a set.  People who joke about things they are doing usually don’t get far in doing them.  I can’t think of one successful individual that makes low-level jokes about anything, because making a joke about what you are doing shows others that you think you are in a good enough position where you don’t have to continue to work as hard.

Your Position Will Match Your Level Of Seriousness

The person who is “too serious” for their current position will move up to the next position, and the next one, until they get to a point where the people around them don’t see them as “too serious”, in comparison to themselves.  The more you joke about what you are doing, the more likely it is that you move down a level or two.  Often-praised traits that are had like unflappability or determination don’t come from relaxing at the first sign of success.  This doesn’t mean to turn into an individual that has no choice in relation to pursuing your interests, but that you don’t want to show deviation from the pursuit.  Deviation lets people know you are not fully focused on your goals, which will prevent them from fully supporting you, just as a woman will turn down a man who shows indecision in pursuing her.

When you make a sandwich, you have the bread, and then you have the main ingredients of it.  As you are making it, you will likely maintain motivation to add each ingredient up to a certain point.  The difference between stopping at the stage where the sandwich is done as far as required components, and adding those final touch ingredients like cilantro, makes a world of difference to how you will perceive the meal.  The same is true of anything else you do.

The Finishing Touches Can Be Worth Half Of The Perceived Value

The last items you add to finalize your project are likely the first things about it that others notice.  You might submit your finished product, thinking that all the time and effort you spent on its foundation will be publicly appreciated by your audience, but a minor item you leave off will leave people with the impression that the whole product is not to be treated and/or purchased like a final release.

PowerPoint Example

Let’s say you are making a PowerPoint presentation, and have created thirty slides full of data, picture, and explanations.  Your slide-show is 90% done before you add final touches like background colors and specially-designed images to the introductory slides.  This is where motivation can come to a halt.  What you need to process at this point is that people will view your slide-show as 50% incomplete if you don’t spend these final 30 minutes to complete the finishing touches.

The Little Things Set You Apart

It is likely that the foundational components of your project are also present in your competitor’s creation.  From the viewpoint of a third party, there is little that separates you from your competition until it comes to the extra level of material you present, along with added finishing touches.  You want to make it so that there is something relevant about your creation for people to mention to others other than “It looks like X is missing”.

The cilantro and squeeze of lemon to finalize your sandwich, or choice image and inventive title to finalize your article, or relevant concluding joke to end your presentation on a positive note, are all items that you have to make the time to add in, or people will later be searching their minds to remember what you did.