Tag: Keep Going

Do Something Dumb 🤭 (Quote from Keep Going, by Austin Kleon)

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Thoughts on getting yourself back in motion and in the swing of things after a layoff.

Transcription

Do something dumb.

Hi I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

I’m coming out of this Omicron stuff for whatever it is in the air, and it’s a slow progression out of it because I still have a little bit of a scratchy throat.

Other than that, I feel fine.

Still a little bit tired here and there too, which is a weird, a weird sensation for me, I’m not usually that rundown, but coming out of it.

At the same time that I’m coming out of it, I noticed that there’s a lot of people that are kind of in their first initial dip off of the new year.

Everyone gets kind of gets the ball rolling to get out there and meet the new year and they’ve got their, you know, all their goals and everything else set.

It’s the first you know, we’re at least at the time of this recording, which is in early February. We’re at a point where it’s like, at that point where a lot of people haven’t been able to hit their goals, where they’re kind of at a low point.

And it’s like, oh, now what he and I wasn’t able to do what I wanted to do type of thing. And they’re not on track.

It’s tough to get back on track, it’s tough to get things moving. And sometimes the simplest thing to do is just something backing away from the initial goal and just getting out there doing something stupid.

Just doing something silly and just doing something just do anything. Just to get in the moment of the movement of doing again.

I was taking a look at this book. This is one I’ve brought up a few times here, keep going by Austin Kleon. And in his chapter on, Forget The Noun Do The Verb, he’s got a pretty good quote here is from Sala wit, he said you must practice being stupid, dumb, unthinking, empty. Try that, then you will be able to do try to do some bad work.

The worst thing that can that the worst thing you can think of and see what happens. But mainly relax and let everything go to hell.

You’re not responsible for the world, you’re only responsible for your work.

So do it and it’s just something to that about, just let it fly.

Just get out there and just get back into motion, wherever you’re at if you just need to keep going. Because like as title says, get out there, just start moving. And don’t get caught up in doing something exactly right.

Or perfectly, or hitting the entire major goal.

Just start the process.

If you start the process, I think you’ll be happy with the results in the long run.

First, it takes the doing and the energy of doing. It’s an interesting concept.

It’s so subtle and so simple, but it’s one of those things that can still escape us from time to time when we get off our path.

The only way to get back on isn’t to be super strong, but to ease yourself back into the process. So hopefully that’s helpful.

Go check out my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business. Especially if you’re a business owner or executive that’s looking to build on a long-term strategy for where you’re going.

So that you actually feel like you’re going somewhere productive.

9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business you get a free copy at AmazonProofBook.com It’s all I have for today.

You have a good day and we’ll be back tomorrow.

In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.

Metacognition and Your Business 🧠👀 (Power of Critical Thinking)

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Brian uses a fancy word to talk about critical thinking in your life and business.

Transcription

Metacognition and your business.

Hi I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

Today I want to talk about metacognition, which is basically the science of, you know, thinking about your thinking, okay. I love this topic, it’s one of my most favorite things to talk about is something having to do with our thinking.

And it all starts with us thinking about what we’re thinking, not about what we’re thinking, but thinking about our thinking or itself, thinking about the thinking process, thinking about how we think, why we think, and everything around that idea.

This is the most some of the most fascinating things that I’ve ever thought about. And considered and actually made some of the largest changes of my life based on the concept of metacognition.

Now I’ve never, honestly, I’ve never used the term metacognition, I think I may have looked at it once when I was taking psychology classes in college but forgot about it.

And just recently, I was looking at things all about thinking about your thinking, and that term came up. So I thought I thought that was interesting.

Besides the term itself, this is something that gets brought up a lot by Dan Sullivan.

If you ever listened to Dan Sullivan, you could find him on a whole lot of podcasts out there, including one of my favorites. So, Welcome To Cloudlandia, this was the one that was that’s hosted with Dean Jackson.

It was also previously called, The Joy of Procrastination.

I’ve discussed it before, Dan Sullivan is the one that heads up that he’s both the creator and the lead mind over at Strategic Coach, where they talk a lot about thinking and stepping back and looking at why we do the things we do and how we can make slight tweaks to be able to create different results in our life.

And this is another thing that came into my mind when I was going back and looking at this book, Keep Going. I’ve talked about this one before previously, keep going by Austin Lleon, Awesome book.

I love Austin’s books, they’re simple, they’re straightforward, very little to read on each page.

So you can make a whole lot of progress quickly and this the idea that he brings up, I don’t always agree with every last idea in here. But they’re definitely causing you to think about what you’re thinking.

This particular page I wanted to bring your attention to, he says pay attention to what you pay attention to. It’s really kind of a microcosm of thinking about your thinking. And I really liked what he says here, I wonder I wanted to read some of this for you.

He says your attention is one of the most valuable things you possess, which is why everyone wants to steal it from you. First, you must protect it. And then you must point it in the right direction.

As they say in the movies, careful where you point that thing. What you choose to pay attention to is the stuff your life and work will be made of my experience is what I agree to attend to psychologist William James wrote in 1890, only those things which I notice shaped my mind.

We pay attention to the things we really care about. But sometimes what we really care about is hidden from us.

I keep a daily diary for many reasons. But the main one is that it helps me pay attention to my life, by sitting down every morning and writing about my life. I pay attention to it. And over time, I have a record of what I’ve paid attention to.

And he goes on and on about the importance of diary or journal writing. Great stuff.

I think the first step is to realize I think we all to some extent or another think about what we’re thinking, think about how we think, think about our thinking and some context, but probably we don’t do it enough and we don’t question it enough.

We don’t question what where thoughts are coming from or whether they’re necessary or whether they’re habitual and everything else and how to go about either maneuvering around them, ignoring them, backing up from them, questioning them, you know, how do you go about doing that, but the first step I think is really paying attention to what you pay attention to.

That comes on a moment-by-moment basis. But it also comes at looking at it on a daily basis and whatever you need to be able to do that.

One of the things that I do is I got it. The easiest way for me to be able to work person through this process, because I’m a business strategist. So I work with different people that own businesses and help them get from point A, where they’re at, to point B where they want to be, right?

And to get you just focused on that point, and taking you day by day and said, Okay, why were we not able to make this step from here to here, what’s getting in our way?

That brings us all back to mindset. And the people that I work with the best of the people that are most open, about digging in there, into their own brain, watching what you’re doing on a daily basis, watching your thoughts on a daily basis, watching your emotions on a daily basis, and not getting obsessed about it.

But quite the opposite, just having enough perspective where you notice it, if you could just start noticing things, your whole life will start changing, I can pinpoint a period of time when I started noticing my thoughts.

And over time, I’ve gotten better and better and better.

At least I hope I’ve gotten better at backing away, and not getting caught up with it with all the things that I’m going through. But in the best-case scenario, being subjective to it. I mean, being objective to it, excuse me, at little Freudian slip there being objective to it being just far enough away, that I don’t have to claim it.

And I can just kind of watch it and see it and see where it leads me and not get take so much credit for everything that goes through your brain as if you intentionally meant for it to be there, right?

I know there’s a little bit of a deeper thing. But if you could start just noticing things, it’ll make a huge difference, of course to your entire life, and then initial and then eventually it’ll, it’ll result in better business, which is what we try and promote here.

So if you really want to build a better business, go check out my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business. These are more wide range concepts of ways that you can change your business in the long run. These aren’t going to make huge dramatic changes overnight. This is more long-term strategic changes. 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business.

You could buy it anywhere but you can also get a free copy at AmazonProofBook.com.

We’ll be back here tomorrow night. In the meantime, get out there, start noticing things and let the magic happen.

Do You Have A ‘Bliss Station’?

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Some thoughts about having a ‘Bliss Station’ from Austin Kleon’s book, Keep Going.

Amazon-Proof Your Business➡️ https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook/

Transcription

Do you have a bliss station?

Hi, I’m Brian Pombo. Welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

I went back to this book, we were talking about this yesterday, Keep Going, by Austin Kleon.

And found a good quote that kind of plays into what we were talking about yesterday, about, you know, how to stay creative and keep motivated. And this is from Joseph Campbell, the power of myth.

Okay, Joseph Campbell’s the one that wrote a lot about mythology and everything and inspired George Lucas to do Star Wars and so forth. And this what he’s, he calls a bliss station.

This is a quote from him, he said, “You must have a room for a certain hour a day. Where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are. You don’t know what you owe anybody. You don’t know what anybody owes you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation.”

At first, you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen. I really like that idea. And it’s a simple concept.

First, having a place is nice, like I spoke about yesterday, I have my office, which is said as kind of a creative incubator, where I’ve surrounded myself with things that inspire me.

And I continue to put things up that inspire me and get me going surround myself with books and other things that I can pick up in a moment’s notice and be somewhat inspired by but there’s a deeper thing there where he talked about time.

And even Austin talks a lot on in this about how even if you just if even if you don’t have enough space for a physical space, if you have that time space, if you have a little bit of time set aside. It doesn’t matter if you’re sitting in the bathroom, to get away from the kids. But having a little bit of time every day, that you just separate, and you’re not filled with everything else that we’re filled with all day long.

All the ideas and lists and everything else. Just take some time to yourself every day to just kind of settle to just kind of simmer a little to just kind of, you know, be and there’s really something important to that.

And I’d like to know if how if you have a place or a time of day, or a place and a time of day that you’re able to just kind of sit and be I’d love to find out what you think about that. If you’ve done that. If you’ve done it in the past.

Are you currently doing it and what is it for you? Leave a comment.

I’d love to have a conversation on this and simple idea today. But if you’d like some deeper ideas and long term strategies that you can use in your business, go check out, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business. It’s my new book.

You can get it at AmazonProofBook.com. We’ll be back here tomorrow night. In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.

How to Get & Stay Motivated

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Some words of motivation from Austin Kleon’s book, Keep Going.

Amazon-Proof Your Business➡️ https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook/

Transcription

How to get and stay motivated.

I am Brian Pombo.

Welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

Earlier today I was, well, just not that long ago, I was looking over at my wife and I said, I don’t feel like doing a video tonight. I really don’t.

But it was one of those things where I knew…..every time I’ve ever really felt that way. I know that if I just get in the spot where I sit every night and have a chat with you that something would come. And it did.

And it’s actually a topic that I’m rather fond of. It’s something that I can actually put an entire course together on, which is the concept of the things that keep me motivated, the things that keep me focused, because I am one of the least focused people you’ve ever met.

Now when I’ve got something I’m focused on, when I am focused, I am super focused, I’m laser focused. And you can’t get me, I’m a pitbull, I won’t let go.

But something is getting focused to begin with. And all that comes back to motivation.

For me, it all comes back to motivation.

There’s a few things that play into it.

I was holding this book up, Keep Going, by Austin Kleon. I love this guy’s books. I love them just because I can flip to any page and just about every time get something that will get me going and in there is a little bit of a secret.

But here’s a great quote that I refound says, tell me, to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are. From José Ortega y Gasse.

What you’re paying attention to affects your motivation, your mood, all of that.

And so it’s something to keep in mind. And so I purposefully try to surround myself with things that are positive and keep me motivated.

Even if not just directly looking at them, I get it. But if it just takes a little bit of a move, like I’ve got a bookshelf full of books, that just about any time I can pull something off and get an idea off of or get a little bit of motivation.

These are great books, because there’s just little quotes on every page, and little ideas, quick ideas, and I go through and I highlight them, so I can even find the ones I liked the best, the quickest.

That idea, tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are.

That’s so subtle, and simple. But very, very, very important.

Because it’s what you pay attention to, you’re paying your attention, you’re giving your time and your awareness toward something. And depending on where that’s at is where your motivation is, is where your level of motivation is.

So something simple like that, just having the items around you, that gets you motivated, helps I keep them tend to keep them all near in this office.

So that when I need to be in work mode, when I need to be motivated, I just come in here. And it doesn’t take much of a look around it because you get used to things after awhile.

But it doesn’t take much of me moving a few things around before I’m like Okay, back in it back at it. I’m back on focus and paying attention to what I need to do.

So just being in here, just a few minutes. Got me back in a point where I can get behind here and have a quick discussion with you.

Here’s the other thing that made it makes a huge difference, though, habits.

I’ve talked a lot about this before. It took me years and years and years to really fully understand it maybe I don’t fully understand it yet. Maybe I’m still learning.

But to really appreciate the role that habits play. The fact that I sit here every night, and that I mean, it’s no accident.

I know this is not the most engaging talk on online is to have me sitting in the exact same spot every time. But for me, this is how I get myself to get on camera every night and go the next step and go the next step and go the next step.

It’s having the habit of doing it the same way every time as much as possible. Always having something different, bringing something different to the table.

But having that habit. It makes it it’s it’s the concept from the Slight Edge, the book, The Slight Edge, by Jeff Olson.

It’s a little thing that’s easy to do, but it’s also a little thing that’s easy not to do. But once you’re doing it when you’re in the habit of doing something, it’s often easier just to do it than to not do it.

Because if you don’t do it, there’s this this itch, that it’s like, oh, I really ought to do it, I really ought to do it, I really do.

And it’s just easier just to get rid of the edge. So here I am with you again.

It’s not that I don’t love seeing you I do. But you got to remember, everything, no matter how good it is. There’s always going to be a point at which you want to do something slightly different.

You want to move things around, you want to try something out, I just want to try skipping and I it’s been a while since I’ve skipped tonight, you know, we’re over 500 videos here. And just about all those are consistent night after night, day after day.

Coming to you with an idea. Tonight’s a very simple idea. But it’s also one that’s it’s played me my entire life.

And it’s something I’ve gotten better and better and better at and there’s other tricks, but those two ideas and surrounding yourself with things that motivate you. And also getting in proper habits that put you into a situation where you can win makes a big difference.

Hopefully that’s helpful to you. Hey, if you want a couple of tips, nine to be exact, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business. Go check out my book, you get a free copy of AmazonProofBook.com we’ll be back here tomorrow night. In the meantime, you get out there and just let the magic happen.

Embrace Your Prison

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http://DreamBizChat.com

Keep going. Embrace your prison.

Hi, I’m Brian Pombo welcome back to the Brian J. Pombo Live. We’re here live again. You’re in Grants Pass, Oregon. Coming to you today, live from the Orange Office in central Grant’s Pass proper.

And I wanted to talk today about this book, Austin Kleon’s book, Keep Going.

I’ve reviewed Austin’s books before. This one just showed up in the mail. I’m already a chapter in. I got a couple books for Christmas, so I got it. I got a couple, Amazon cards and so bought a few books, so I’m all giddy with excitement that these are great because they’re so quick to read, Austin’s books.

I spoke before about Steal Like An Artist and Show Your Work. Two of my favorites. I’m already into this one and I love it. It’s 10 ways to stay creative in good times and bad.

It’s all about creativity.

And when I was growing up, creativity was always described for artistic people. So anybody that was creativity had to do with art or music or things of that sort. It was never meant to mean everything.

For me, creativity is everything.

Creativity is communication. It’s doing what we’re doing right here. It’s putting out content, it’s developing marketing, it’s helping people to create the life they want using business, which is what I do as a business strategist and you might notice I’m dressed a little more formal today.

I had a presentation earlier today with a bunch of my friends. Hi there. If any of you are watching, this book is good for everybody though. This book across the board, whether you’re in business or not, if you want to be more creative, if you want to keep your creative juices flowing, this is a great way of doing it.

I’m going to review. I’m going to tell you just about the first chapter that I read here. The first chapter is all about Groundhog’s Day.

If you remember that movie and he says, every day is Groundhog Day.

I’m not sure if this is showing up backwards to you. On my side, it looks like it’s right. So that’s all that matters.

Every day is Groundhog Day. And it’s a great concept because the whole idea is that routine is a constant anyway. So if you remember in the movie Groundhog Day, he has a day that’s repeating over and over and over again. And he’s the only one that realizes that he’s going through all the same motions every single day.

It’s an analogy for life.

It’s really neat how it comes about throughout that movie. If you haven’t seen in a long time, go and watch it. It’s one of the classics and one of the things he starts doing is building up a routine to be able to survive it.

He has certain things that he does every day and he knows what’s going to happen. He knows somewhat what’s going to happen. So he starts taking advantage of them and starts building up a routine for himself just so he could survive without going crazy.

In the same sense, we all kind of have to do that because we’re kind of all put into motion in our lives of having certain things that happen at certain times. That, you know, we’ve got days of the week and on certain days we have work and uncertain days we don’t have work and we’re all tossed into this world and we kind of have to have routine in some way.

Even if you’re self employed, even if you run things on your own and can kind of have your own day to yourself, you still need some type of routine just to keep things moving along.

He talks about this, it’s a little bit like having a prison that living will really, I mean, living the life we live in work, we’re stuck to certain laws of physics and everything else in a sense that there’s a prison like thing to it.

But what happens when you can design it yourself?

What happens when you decide when you’re going to exercise, what time you’re going to get up, what time you’re going to go to bed as an adult, you should have a relative amount of control over those things. And I know I can speak for myself. Growing up, I always resented having to be told what to do. What to say and meeting deadlines for school and everything. And so when I went off on my own, started doing my own thing, I bristled against deadlines, I bristled against routine and fought it every chance I got.

What I started learning is that I needed a routine.

I needed some type of routine to kind of capture things. And he says it really nicely here. He says a little imprisonment if it’s of your own making can set you free rather than restricting your freedom or routine gives you freedom by protecting you from the ups and downs of life and helping you take advantage of your limited time, energy and talent.

A routine establishes good habits that can lead to your best work.

Also the other way around, if you think about habits help you to create routine and it continues to go and go. And he also mentioned that, it gives you a chance to be able to step away from it once in awhile you can always step out of your routine and you have something to step away from.

But if you’re under control, if you take responsibility for your life and really take hold and develop your own routines, you can help maintain your creative juices in a sense, so great book.

Keep going by Austin Kleon, at least so far I’ve read the first chapter but I have no doubt the rest of it’s good too. I’ll let you know if there’s anything I disagree with it in it, but so far really great book.

Hey, if you are looking to help establish a routine, it’s the beginning of the year right now and if you’re really looking to get a jumpstart and start taking control of your business and taking control of where you’re going from here on out, leave everything behind from last year.

Then I applaud you and I recommend you do it with as much gusto as possible. If you are looking for some help in any of those areas and you think I might be of help, go to BrianJPombo.com and go and check out my options for you there.

And hopefully we can chat some time. If you are in the self-reliance field, I have a very special offer for you. It’s a free concept I call the Dream Business Transformation. You can find that at DreamBizChat.com the link is in the description, regardless of where you’re watching listening to this, it’s DreamBizChat.com though, you can just type it in, go and check it out and come back tomorrow.

We’re back here every day, probably not here in the Orange Office. We’ll probably be back at the headquarters, but in the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.