Work Energy

by Jim Harmer

  “Success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit … They confound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud.”

  —Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

  Earlier, I discussed not allowing a success story to write itself into your life. If you think of yourself as defined by your successes in business, sports, or anything else, your sense of identity will be lost, should your life change. I also shared a time when I came very close to allowing a failure to etch itself into my story, which would have been difficult to remove. Remember your new story: “I’ve taken some tough hits and lived through some worrisome situations, but somehow I always end up on top.”

  You may not see yourself that way. At some point along the way, you have allowed yourself to write a failure story. You understand the steps in this book and how following them could lead you to achieve greater heights than ever before, but somewhere within you there’s a feeling of “But that’s not me. I don’t finish the things I start. I want to do great things, but I tend to flame out right as I reach mediocrity.” You’re an underdog.

  This chapter is only for you. There are some people I love who feel as you do, and so I feel that I understand you. I wish I could sit down with you, knee to knee, and talk with you about where you’ve been and where you want to go. I’m rooting for you and I can show you that change is closer than your story will allow you to see right now.

  First, let’s talk about where you have been, and where I’ve been. Several years ago, I went on a photography trip to Ireland. Given that my business was entirely online and monetized through other means, I thought it would be a unique marketing tool to hold free, in-person photography trips in many different photogenic locations around the world. Most well-known photographers charged thousands of dollars for these trips, so I thought it might attract attention if I periodically held free workshops around the world. This one was in Ireland and a small group of people who followed me online joined me for the trip.

  As I looked for photo locations to shoot, the Dark Hedges kept popping up in my searches. The Dark Hedges are a group of trees lining a long, straight road leading up a hill. The trees are over 250 years old, and their limbs climb upward in contorted, wavy stretches.

  The Dark Hedges are a famous landmark. They have been photographed millions of times by tourists from around the world, and I’m told they appear in famous TV shows like Game of Thrones. I wanted to do something different. I wanted to stretch myself creatively and take a photo there that stood out from the rest.

  The photo I wanted to take was of a woman with a flaming torch wearing a dress befitting an older period of time where castles, kings, and queens ruled the land, standing in the middle of the old road leading through the Dark Hedges. Along with those with me on the trip, we began planning. We found a great model who could travel to the location with us for the shoot. We found the perfect dress and researched how to make a flaming torch on YouTube.

  Planning the shoot with the other photographers who lived in Europe was much more difficult than I imagined. I told them about my vision for the shoot multiple times, and they just couldn’t get excited about it. I kept telling them that a model in old clothes with a torch would be perfect, but they didn’t seem to like the idea. Finally, during one of our brainstorming sessions, I said, “You guys, we just have to do the shot of the model with the flaming torch.” There was an awkward silence for a minute and then they all started laughing when they realized what I meant. Apparently in Europe, a torch is what Americans would call a flashlight. They thought I wanted our model in period clothing to be holding a Maglite up to her face.

  Finally, the day of the shoot came, and we began with about an hour of prep work. After hair and makeup, and working through posing, we were only waiting for the perfect lighting. The flame on the torch was drowned out by the natural light, and I wanted her face to be partially lit by the warm yellow light of the torch. We waited for what photographers call an equalization point, when the brightness of the ambient light matches the artificial light source of the torch.

  Several buses full of tourists came to the rural location while we were there, and just as the last bus left, we began the shoot. The first few minutes went well and I got some shots I was starting to be happy with, but the torch had begun to flame out.

  We were trying to hurry while the light was right, so one of the people on the trip with me took the torch from the young model and brought over a can of gasoline to add flame to the torch. In a momentary lapse of thinking, he poured gas from the can straight onto the already-lit flame on the previously gas-soaked cloth on the stick. Immediately, the fire leapt up the stream of gasoline and shot straight into the can. The entire can burst into a flame right in his hands.

  If he had any time to think, he could have simply let go of the can and set it down on the pavement to let it safely burn out, but in a second momentary lapse of judgment, he flung the can somewhere unimaginable—into a thick pile of knee-high weeds beside the road. Yes, the road where the world-famous trees were.

  I could see the headlines. I was responsible for a forest fire that burned down a national treasure, and was going to spend years in an Irish prison being beat to a pulp by Conor McGregor. What a turn of events from only seconds before! My blood ran cold as the gravity of what had just happened sank in.

  The gas can landed upside down and a large flaming ball of gas gurgled out immediately when the can hit the ground. The fiery gasoline began running down the hill on the edge of the road. In a matter of seconds, the raging flame spanned 20 feet along the embankment.

  Everyone sprang into action. We poured out every water bottle on the flame, which seemed to drink the water without quenching its thirst. In fact, the water seemed to make it worse, as it mixed with the liquid of the gas and further spread it out. If you have ever seen a gasoline fire, you know the flame simply cannot be stopped like a simple wood fire. I positioned myself at the end of the flame to prevent it from spreading, and began stomping furiously on the flame to put it out. As soon as my boot lifted from a spot, the flame returned immediately. The gasoline burned so hot and long that there was nothing I could do to end the burning.

  I trenched out an area with my boot in the dirt to keep all other weeds away, and ran madly back and forth along the flames until they caught the bottom of my pants on fire and began melting the rubber bottoms of my Merrell boots.

  Passersby stopped at the sight and one of the people on the trip went over to them and told them we were filming a scene for Game of Thrones and had the situation under control. I couldn’t imagine how he could even think of a joke at that moment.

  The fire burned and burned and nothing seemed to slow it from finishing out what it had begun. Yet, after unimaginably long minutes battling the flames, we began to make progress. The fire was dying down. Fortunately, it had rained just a few hours earlier and as the gasoline burned out, I was shocked to see that the weeds did not even appear to be singed. I could not believe it. Fifteen minutes earlier I was fairly sure I would spend a significant portion of my adult life in an Irish prison, and now it looked as if nothing had ever happened.

  We remained at the scene for over an hour after the final flame went out to be absolutely certain the fire was completely and entirely stopped. We cleaned up the area perfectly so that not even any burned grass remained to tell the tale. It looked as if nothing had happened. Somehow, that raging fire disappeared with the gasoline, and the wet grass never caught. We were incredibly fortunate that we’d set up our model in a spot between the trees and the fire was never closer than 40 feet from a tree. The group left, but we assigned two people in our group to remain there for an additional two hours to further assure that not a single ember could possibly still have been hot.

  I didn’t calm down for a week. I could barely breathe for days. I can’t express how relieved I was to get on an airplane headed home from Ireland.

  There’s a poi
nt to sharing the most frightening moment of my life. Here it is: Please tell me just one time—ever—in your entire life, when you worried and stewed over something and it actually turned out as bad or worse than you had imagined. Okay—it may only have happened once or twice that you worried about something that actually was worth worrying about. Even then, worrying didn’t help solve the problem.

  How many nights as a teenager did you worry over a test the next day? Do you remember getting stomachaches as you stressed about math class the next day? Given time and life experience, you undoubtedly can now see how unnecessary that fear was. The test that felt so monumentally vital to you at the time isn’t even notable in your life’s story today.

  Yes, you may have stressed and worried about a crumbling marriage and in the end it was actually horrible. You weren’t able to save the marriage and suffered a crushing divorce. Yet here you are. Remember? “You’ve lived through some tough stuff, and somehow you always make it through.”

  Yes, you may have stressed and worried about your job and in the end you did actually get laid off or fired. Yet here you are. Maybe you’ve found better work and an improved financial situation, or you soon will.

  You almost certainly have written a failure story that is not accurate. We always see things far worse than they actually are, and the successes that eluded you were likely so close to your grasp that it was by an inch that you missed them. Yes, the result of a divorce, bankruptcy, heart attack, or other catastrophic failure may have changed your life; however, the action that caused those failures was likely extremely minor. It was a few poor choices at key moments. You actually weren’t miles away from success; you were so close you could taste it, but one or two small things kept it from you.

  The point is that success and failure swing on a tight hinge. If it hadn’t rained an hour before that photo shoot, things may have ended as badly as I imagined. If you hadn’t done that one marketing campaign, your business may have dried up and you may have needed to close your doors. If, that one time, you had decided to give in to weakness and smoked that cigarette, you may still be addicted today. If you had gone on just one more day flirting with that woman or man at work, it could have led to the destruction of your marriage.

  Most of our successes come not from heroic efforts of raw willpower and self-discipline for prolonged periods, but are determined by very simple choices at critical moments. The same can be said of our failures, which usually are the result of a few key missteps that cause you to narrowly miss your goal. If you feel there is a failure story written in your soul, rest assured the failure was likely because of something so easily preventable that you will have no trouble changing your story going forward.

  Building a Goal Muscle

  We see people achieving incredible things each day, thanks to the ease of our communication. Our phones are only a few taps away from showing us the best-looking people on the planet through Instagram, the most gorgeous homes through Pinterest, the most genius business decisions through podcast interviews, the most incredible music through Spotify, and your neighbor down the street who goes on exotic vacations with his model wife every two weeks through Facebook.

  The message I keep hearing is that social media is dangerous to our mental health, and I 100% agree. Yet a small change to our attitudes can yield an entirely different result. What if we began to see the path to all incredible successes as beginning with a very small success?

  There is a neighborhood my wife and I have always enjoyed driving through. The houses are massive modern castles of 10,000-plus square feet, with beautifully manicured lawns and a perfect location near Boise, Idaho. Every time I drive through that neighborhood, I feel inspired. I don’t feel even slightly jealous or beat down. Quite the opposite, I take inspiration from seeing the heights people have achieved. Yet I think most people would not feel that way. The reason it builds me up when that may tear others down is because I have a 100% belief that I can achieve any level of financial success I want. I have already gone from literally owning nothing that couldn’t fit in a single suitcase to becoming a multimillionaire. It actually feels like a relief to see people ahead of me so I know what’s possible. It’s exciting.

  People who have written a failure story have a difficult time feeling that way. They may momentarily, but in the long run they feel beaten down by the success of others.

  Here’s why: Most of the goals you make are the goals you’ve also seen other people achieve. You see people saying they have a goal of losing 20 pounds, so when it’s time for you to make a goal, you select 20 pounds. You see people wanting to be totally debt-free, so that’s the goal you choose. You see people wanting to be successful entrepreneurs, so that’s the goal you set.

  Those people can set those goals because they have built a muscle for achieving goals. You have not yet built that muscle. Not yet. Right now, you’re an underdog. That’s the secret to why you try and fail and fail and fail. That’s why success always seems just outside your grasp. All that frustration, all those worries, all that hopelessness and feeling like you could simply never measure up, and now you know why. You’ve been trying to bench-press 300 pounds without ever bench-pressing 100 pounds.

  Some people are goal animals. I have my failures too, but sometimes I can be one of those goal animals. I decided I wanted to break a world record in something, so I just picked up and did it one day. I flipped through a world record book and found the longest distance anyone has ever traveled while shooting tiddlywinks. You remember tiddlywinks. It’s the game your grandma played where you have two plastic coins. One lies on the ground and the other in your hand. You pinch the wink on the ground with the plastic coin in your hand and it makes the one on the ground hop forward a few inches. I did it for 2.5 miles and broke the world record. Then I broke a record again by making the most light orbs ever captured in a single photograph. I’m a goal animal. I love it. When I see something I want to do, I just go do it.

  You’re going to become a goal animal over the course of the next few weeks, but your goals won’t be breaking dumb records just for the sake of doing so. You’ll build a goal-achieving muscle that you can use to help you crush any goal in your path.

  For now, however, you wonder why you can’t seem to achieve anything. You can’t follow through on your easy goal to read the Bible cover-to-cover this year, or even to just once be the one picked for the promotion or to be in the spotlight. Just once.

  Don’t make goals like goal animals do. Make underdog goals. That’s how you build your goal muscle. I’ll show you exactly how to do it in the action step.

  Action Step Ten: Set an Underdog Goal and Achieve It

  Over the next few weeks, I want you to set simple goals that will not be accomplished without effort, but which will train you to expect a result from your work.

  Here are a few examples.

  Save $40 by not wasting money on stupid stuff during the week. Each time you don’t spend on something that you normally would, you open up the notes app on your phone and write it down as a credit into your imaginary account. Then go out on Saturday and buy something frivolous that you’d like.

  If the spark of enjoyment and trust between you and your significant other isn’t what it once was, set a goal to do something about it this week. Call him or her on the phone right now—even if you are in the same house already—and ask for a date on Saturday night. Actually perform work to make a change this week. Pick up a nice new dress or dress shirt and lay it on the bed the morning of the date with a note letting them know you think they’d look great in it. Recreate your first date or go somewhere you normally wouldn’t. When you have five free minutes during the week, Google some deep conversation starters and open the notes app on your phone to write down the questions you’d like to ask during dinner. Allow yourself to see that you can put work into something and see an actual, tangible result from it in a short period of time.

  Lose two pounds in the next seven days. No, this isn’t a start
ing place for losing more. Don’t think about the future. Just two pounds. Just lose two pounds. Just prove to yourself that you can make the number on the scale do whatever you tell it to do. Losing two pounds in a week isn’t hard, but it will not happen unless you choose to work on it. So you’ll grow a goal muscle that trains your mind to expect a result from work.

  Set a goal to learn only four chords on the guitar. Only four. Those are the only four chords you need to know to play “Time of Your Life” on the guitar. The purpose is not to give you a starting place for learning the guitar. The goal is to play the song, and to do so you simply need to memorize four chords. It will take a few hours this week, but at the end of the week you will have an ability that you currently don’t. You’ll see a tangible result.

  It is important that you do not view these goals as stepping-stones. These goals do not have value for what they could become if you did them on a grander scale. This goal has more value than anything else because the purpose is to change you. You will become a different person by developing the goal muscle. In biblical terms, your goal muscle is simply called faith, and you can move mountains with it when you become the kind of person that God can trust with His miracles. Develop your goal muscle.

  Rachel Hollis, in her excellent book Girl, Wash Your Face, calls this “keeping a promise to yourself.” We are dependable to everyone else in our lives, but when we need to keep a promise to ourselves (such as sticking with a goal today), we lie to ourselves and let ourselves down. We aren’t dependable to ourselves, and so we consistently fail.

  You’re going to be a goal animal! Just doing this simple exercise of making a tiny goal where you can see a tangible result in one week and actually doing it can completely change your life. Soon enough, the rock-solid abs on your friend in her Facebook photo won’t tear you down—it’ll inspire you. It won’t feel out of reach. It’ll feel exciting to see what can be done and you’ll know you can have it any time you want it. The only reason seeing others succeed is hard is because you believe you can’t have it. Building your goal muscle is how you change that belief.