You're doing everything right — you've just got your location wrong
Or, a bit of a fun story about the importance of where
I pulled into the gardening center expecting to be greeted with champagne, but it never came.
It was my big day. My first solo assignment of loading and delivering a truck bed of mulch to a client. For the weeks prior, I’d spent countless hours learning how to operate what’s known in certain circles as an ‘earth-moving’ tractor to effectively move big things.
The boss’s right-hand man called me ‘delicate’ pretty regularly.
I didn’t fight that. He drank a lot. But he wasn’t far off. At the age of 16, I wasn’t exactly the handiest of young men. I’d put at least a half-dozen dents in the side of the company truck while practicing learning how to effectively move big things.
“I’m gonna show them!” I said to myself. “I’m gonna prove them wrong!” And to my surprise, on that fateful morning, I’d actually gotten things right. I handled the gear shifts with ease. My once bumpy technique fell into a smooth rhythm. Even with the prying eyes burning into me, I moved a pile of mulch from tractor to truck 19 times without making a single mistake. The delivery went equally well. The ton of mulch I’d dumped landed perfectly in the center of the client’s driveway.
Coolio was on the radio on the drive back. I turned it up. It had indeed been a fantastic voyage. My boss and his sidekick Captain Overalls could kiss my ass.
The two of them were waiting for me when I got back. Standing in front of the shop sporting stern faces with their arms crossed.
“What’s up?” I asked as I pulled in expecting their hard facades to eventually crumble into heartfelt smiles.
“Son, I don’t know what grade you’re in,” my boss said while tossing a shovel into the bed of the truck. “But I was under the impression you could at least read!”
All the work I’d done.
All the time I’d spent getting my precious hands dirty.
All the hours I’d put in learning how to operate an earth-moving tractor.
I’d come a long way since I’d begun working there. I’d gotten somewhat decent at my job. But none of that mattered as on my drive back the clients had called wondering why in the hell I’d dumped their load of mulch in their neighbor's driveway.
‘Delicate’ would have been considered a great compliment compared to the plethora of adjectives Captain Overalls hurled at me for the rest of the day.
He didn’t let up for a second as he watched me pile after pile of mulch from one driveway to the other in my feeble attempt to effectively move big things.
Don’t botch the end game by skimping on location
I was talking to a friend earlier this year. She’s not in the mulch moving business. But as someone with dreams of being a widely-read writer, she too is trying to effectively move big things.
She’s put in the work.
Her voice is strong.
Her lessons are unique.
“What am I missing?” she asked, frustrated her stories weren’t spreading and equally annoyed when seeing stories from other people that were. “I’ve seen what’s hot and most of it’s not!”
I read through her work. She wasn’t lying. It was good. Better than most. “It’s not you,” I concluded. “Your work is tight. You’re just dumping your load in the wrong place.”
Despite not getting any traction on the platform she had her heart set on making a home, today she’s grown out a solid newsletter and is in talks for a potential book deal.
Same person.
Same work.
Widely different results.
My friend isn’t the only person I know who has experienced this. It happens a lot. A writer gets down on themselves. They begin to think they aren’t good enough. They begin to think they’ll never break through the noise. But instead of constantly questioning what they are doing — they set aside some time to think about where they should be doing it and their work grows legs.
Despite the seemingly never-ending string of dark days some of us are experiencing, the world still has a few bright spots. Just a few years ago, we had to search long and hard for a door to knock on and hold our breath while the gatekeepers discussed whether or not they’d let us in. However, today, not only are new potential eyes a few clicks away but new doors are being made for writers every day.
This doesn’t mean changing your ‘where’ will immediately turn your work from red to green. It could be you’re not good enough yet. It could be you need to practice a little longer.
But maybe you are doing everything right.
Maybe your work is already tight.
Maybe the only thing holding you back from effectively moving big things is tinkering with finding the right location to dump your load.
If you enjoyed this post, you may like my book — Shy by Design: 12 Timeless Principles to Quietly Stand Out.
Here’s what Julio Vincent Gambuto (award-winning moviemaker filmmaker author of the best-seller Please Unsubscribe, Thanks!) had to say about it —
“In a world that incentivizes and exploits our loudness, Shy by Design is an important call for us to cultivate our quirks, own our story, and value our unique voice.”
Thank you for your support.
My best to you and yours.
—Michael
This is so true and all boils down to a principle you talk about in your book, which to live a little bravely and try new things. Location is a big deal, because our flesh and blood need for safety and security will keep steering us back to familiar territory instead of risking a change of the location of our actual bodies, or even things like where we write, or speak up. Trying something new is such an underrated life hack, and good writer practice.
Very Beautiful. It takes great courage to be a caring man, or woman. Without this, the world would lose its gentle and important subtleties ~ and its beauty. Often shy (and aware) people are uncomfortable with added scrutiny, for they already scrutinize themselves as a result of self awareness and empathy. Captain O has his place and so do you. Thanks.