Feeling stuck?

Improvement is not linear but staggering and fleeting and some days, cruel. IMPROVEMENT IS NOT LINEAR –– IT'S STAGGERING AND FLEETING AND SOME DAYS, CRUEL. TL;DR... I've been doing quite a bit of housekeeping over here: updating [my personal site]( rolling out a [referral program]( and implementing a new customer onboarding sequence. Naturally, with this housekeeping, I've run into a few spiders. That being said, my apologies if you received a welcome email over the past few days. This was a hiccup in the system. Additionally, I'm working out some kinks in the referral program –– specifically where the "referral counter" is concerned –– I'll have more to share on this later next week. But, don't worry, your referrals will be rewarded, I'm just having some technical difficulties displaying them in real-time. NOW BACK TO STICKY NOTES... I think we tend to romanticize the prodigy because watching these generational few create and perform and exist with such unfathomable and unworldly talent, leaves us feeling closer to God or some higher power. At least this is the feeling that overtakes me when I witness an athlete leap forty-five inches off the ground or gaze upon a 500-year-old masterpiece carved from marble with nothing but a hammer and chisel or listen to Beethoven’s legendary “Ode to Joy” which was written when the composer was completely and entirely deaf. I know it’s a bit ignorant to say but when I experience talent of this kind, I can’t chalk it up alone to evolution but divine intervention. However, the generational prodigy, in any given athletic or craft, is a dangerous and wicked inspiration to budding athletes, artists, writers and musicians who possess talent, deep within themselves, but must work harder and longer to tap into it. For the rest of us, improvement in craft is not linear but staggering and fleeting and some days, cruel. For the rest of us, improvement in craft doesn’t resemble a spaceship slingshotting to the moon but a rickety airplane desperately attempting to take flight. My fear is that “the rest of us”, will set down our pen or brush or guitar, discouraged, before we’ve had the chance to leave the ground. In working-class France, when an apprentice got hurt or his body buckled from exhaustion, the more experienced veteran workers would say… “It is the trade entering his body.” It’s a tragedy that athletes, artists, writers and musicians don’t have this perspective as they pursue their crafts today. It’s a tragedy that talent, these days, is something to be expected rather than earned. The past few months, I’ve been training Muay-Thai, Boxing and Krav Maga. It didn’t take long for me to realize I wasn’t destined to be the next Muhammad Ali. But, I kept working and working and working, four and sometimes five days a week. One day, I hyper-extended my knee and was forced to take rest for a couple of weeks. When I returned, I was striking harder and faster than I had before. After my last session in the ring, I watched my boxing coach shake out his arms and shoulders and hands, smiling… “You’re hitting harder.” It was the phenomenon the tradesmen in working-class France were referring to so long ago. It was the trade entering the body. If you’re reading this, please, give yourself enough time for your trade to enter your body. Cheers, Cole P.S. In case you lost it, here's your referral link 👉🏾 [You better dog-ear this one.]( 2,698 students and counting... Three, maybe four years ago, I released [a course on copywriting](. The hope, originally, was to create something that students could get through in less than an afternoon and return to, again and again. To date, [Snow Cones]( has been taken by 2,698 students in over two dozen countries. It's helped marketers, writers, entrepreneurs and snow cone vendors of all shapes and sizes hone their writing chops and have a hell of a lot of fun in the process. If you've yet to take the course –– or guide rather –– stop what you're doing, crack open your piggy bank and hit that black button down below. [I found your pen.]( Bangers, only. In journalism, there is a tragedy called “burying the lede”. It’s when the journalist loses the reader because they’ve placed the hook somewhere deep down at the bottom of the story. Folks tend to commit this same sin. But, with their careers. They’ll compile a hundred items on their proverbial to-do lists and bury the only “to-do” that will actually move their career forward at the bottom of the page. Most of the success we’re after can be realized by nailing that one “to-do”. I have a note on my phone that goes off every day at 9 a.m. CDT that reads… “Bangers Only” It’s a reminder not to spend my 40-hours working on menial tasks but on “bangers”. It’s a reminder to spend my time working on my own “Pancho & Lefty”… “Where is my mind?”… “Welcome to the jungle”… “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down”… “Midnight Train to Georgia” and so on. Naval Ravikant, the founder of AngelList, uses the metaphor of lions and cows. Cows graze all day on a to-do list so long it could choke a horse. Lions, on the other hand, choose a target and then –– bang. Work like a lion. Work like Towns Van Zant. Work like The Pixies. Work like Guns N’ Roses. Work like Kris Kristofferson. Work like Gladys Knight. “Bangers Only”. [Don't bury the lede.]( THE TIGER RULE. I read somewhere once that tigers have a hit rate of 10%. So, for every ten attempts they make at a hunt, they walk home with dinner once. I then thought about the physical specimen that is a tiger; about how they weigh upwards of 700 lbs, about how they can jump 20 feet in the air, about how they can run at speeds of 40 mph, about how they can bat their paws so hard and so fast they can knock a bull’s jaw clean off its head. Then, I thought about how silly it is for humans to think we can average a higher “hit rate” than tigers; how silly it is for humans to think we can go after something once and expect to walk home, grinning, with dinner in our mouths. And, so I would never recommend anyone to go after something thirteen times or twelve times or even eleven times. But, I would say that if you haven’t gone after something you really want ten times, you’d be a damn fool to count yourself out. The difference, of course, between tigers and humans is that tigers don’t have the luxury of walking home with their tails tucked between their legs if they eat dirt nine times in a row... [They'll starve.]( Copyright © 2022 Honey Copy, All rights reserved. A while back you opted into a weekly email called "Sticky Notes". Remember? If not, you can always unsubscribe below... and risk breaking this writer's heart. Our mailing address is: Honey Copy 3116 N. Central Park Unit #1Chicago, IL 60618 [Add us to your address book]( Want to change how you receive these emails? You can [update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe from this list](.