How to Gain Clarity Through Articulation

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120
Chris Do
Published
June 17, 2020

Journaling is so important. We need to ask ourselves questions. Why aren't I accomplishing the goals I set for myself? Why do I feel like I have a bunch of goals? What's it going to take for me before I hire somebody? What are the conditions that have to be met for me to hire somebody? Commit yourself. Make it your intention to find out what it is that, you know.

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I don't know if it's allabout the question and allthese things.My theory is this is that.While we're in our ownworld, it's just us.We are having all kindsof crazy thoughts.And the thoughts are amorphous.They take the shape offeelings and emotionsand kind of gut instinct.Sometimes there'sa word in thereour limbic brain isworking or movingthrough life, just anemotional, irrational creature.When somebody bumps into uslike Dave, hey, what's going on?Yeah, so I got this question.Why do you think thator why do you say that?And in that moment, Davehas to then translateall that chemicalstuff that's goingon in his brain, his heart.He has to say something.And when he saysit, it becomes real.It takes a definiteform and a shape.Now Prior to that, thosethoughts change all the time.And it's pretty goodthat happens naturallybecause I'm sure we'renot always the Saintsthat we are when wewere in front of peoplelike we have crazykinds of impulses,thoughts, desires thatwe don't act upon.But when somebody forcesus to articulate that,to commit it to some form,in Word or in writing,or something else.Then it becomes real.And that's the first time.We know what we're thinking.That's why I put that quote outthere, I forget who wrote it,but it's like thereason why I writeis to know what I'mthinking about whata mind bomb that was.I thought, I knowwhat I'm thinking,therefore I'm writing.It's the opposite.You write to know what youthink because otherwise it'sa chemical soup andit's all crazy up there.So when we have the luxuryof having another person askus questions and it'simportant for me otherwise,I'm not sitting aroundtalking to myself.That would be aform of insanity.OK, so here's what we do.If we're just here byourselves, what we should dois get out a piece of paper.And this is why journalingis so important.Ask ourselves a question.Why aren't I accomplishingthe goals I set for myself?Jason's like, why do I feellike I have a bunch of goals?I'm getting nowhere.Is going to ask,what's it going to takefor me before I hire somebody?What are the conditionsthat have to bemet for me to hire somebody?Lauren's going towrite something like,how or what do I need to do toattract clients that are goingto pay me 20 to 30 thousand?Who are these people?Write it down.I know you wrote it,and it feels weirdthat if you knew it.Why don't you justthink it and do it?But now you've made it real.And then tell yourselfwhat the heck?Why aren't I doing thator what are the reasonsthat's why listsare so powerful?You took a big problem.You organize in your mind.You created somekind of hierarchyand you put it insequence and thenyou wrote it down whenboom, boom, boom, boom.And then you look atthat piece of paperand like, Oh my god, who'sthe genius who wrote this?Oh, it was me.And it's like for the firsttime, you see your thoughts.You don't need a whole group ofpeople to tell you what to do.That's why a lot of theteachers who give youprompts to think about.And then you answer them.What do you who do youascribe is to doingthe work and the value?You give the credit to theteacher who asked the question.But what did the teacherdo except for to makea thought real, to make itconcrete in front of you?You're the personwho gave it value,but you give thecredit away because youdidn't do it by yourself.This is a reallypowerful thing, guys.Sit down.Ask yourself some questions andframe the question carefully.Try to strip outjudgment and makesure you box yourself in sothat whatever you put downis close to the kind of solutionthat you're looking for.It's like a problem will defineas like half the solution,something like that.This is where themagic comes in.And there's some crazy,introspective questionsthat you can askyourself, what is itthat I don't knowabout this thing?What kind of question is that?What is it that I don'tknow what the thing islike if I knew, then I would,and then I'll sit here like,wait a minute.I don't know this,I don't know this,so now you're recognizingwhat you thoughtwas the unknownunknowns, but now you'vemade the unknowns known.It's crazy stuff.Now I'll give you one or twoexamples here in real life,this is what was happenedas I'm sweating here.What I won't do for you guys.Late night.OK a student saidsomething to me like, wow,did you see this person's workand being the hater I was on?Yeah what show it to me?They showed me this workis early on in my career.I'm probably four yearsout of school and feelingthe burn out, feeling inferiorto all these young people doinggreat work.And they showed me thiswork and I looked at it.And in my mind, I waslike, that's pretty dope.My external mind waslike, hey, let's whatever.I just said that like, you justplayed it out like whatever.And I asked the personwho's watching it?What do you like aboutthis person's work?What is it that's sointriguing to you?And I said, youknow, it's so fluid,like how one shotbecomes another shotand there are no edits.I'm like, oh, that's allthat really what you see?And so I remember sayingto that person next week,I'll teach you how to do that.And at that point,I had no clue,and even I wasn't evenaware of this thing.It just so happened that Iwas called in for jury dutyand I go to juryduty and, you know,there's a lot of sittingaround and waiting.I just sat down and Ireplayed in my mind,how do you make editsthat are seamless?And I wrote downsix or seven thingsand became theblueprint for whatI lectured on for 4and 1/2 years about howto create seamless transitionswhen designing sequences.I did it so well thatpeople started calling us.Our firm, our motionDesign Studio.And saying.Yeah, we want youto think about this,and we don't want any editpoints like the kind of stuffthat you guys do.So I'd even know that this issomething I knew until somebodyhad asked me that question.And this has happenedover and over again.If some of you guys havetaken the business boot camp,the Socratic sixwas on a plane trip.A short plane tripfrom Madrid and Madridfrom Dublin to Madridis a very short flight.I was just thinkingpeople were alwayswondering how the heckdo I overcome objections?I sat down and made a list.I'm like, oh, they're there.I think there are six of them.And that was draft number one.So you guys askyourself a question nowif that feels whollyunnatural to you.Guess what?You have a group of 300people who are alreadyasking questions all the time.Twitter is asking aninfinite number of questions.So is Cora.You guys go to Coraasking questions.Commit yourself.Make it your intention to findout what it is that, you know.You'll be surprised.So the real problem isjust coming up with a prop.What's a goodquestion to answer?You have a lot of helpbecause Google exists.With that, I'm going to pause,give you guys time to reflectand respond.Just to add to that,I think there'sa psychological trick you canuse where you address yourselfin the third person.So you emotionallydetach yourself from.You know, talking to yourselfso you don't so you'restepping outside of yourselfto talk to yourself,and maybe that's a goodapproach for the asking yourselfquestions.Excellent excellent suggestions.Our suggestion.Anybody else?If you haven't doneso already, I highlyrecommend you make writingas part of your daily or semidaily habit.It could be writing a tweet.That's enough, youcan start there.I like small commitments,things that I knowI can do that don't scare me.And then that tweet can turninto a shorter paragraphor two.

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