Would you take simple over easy? Or easy over simple? What if you could have both simple and easy.
My favorite explanation of this comes from Click and Clack and their long-famous radio show about car maintenance. Here are their instructions to replace a car engine:
- Remove old engine.
- Insert new engine.
Simple, but not easy.
The mission of Thursday Thunder is simple: to deliver a weekly rumbling of power. In a sense, for me, it’s also easy: open a vein and bleed.*
For me, it’s both simple and easy. But gory analogies aside, it’s also a matter of perspective. If you have not been struck by lightning, it’s going to be a long wait for thunder. I have been struck by lightning in the form of clarity:
I know exactly where I’m going and how I’m going to get there.
I have been given an ongoing and seemingly unending rumbling of power and the only instructions I received were to share it. If you haven’t been struck or maybe have only had the equivalent of that static electricity when you walk on carpet in a dry climate and then your nephew Nolan touches you on the arm and there’s a shock, I want to help you grow that jolt–and the ensuing rumble of power.
A few sentences into this and it just came to me:
- Clarity is my lightning.
- Curiosity is my thunder.
Which is exactly the sort of tool I use to move forward. For me, writing pulls out, clears up and filters. In other words, had I not started this post, I can guarantee you I wouldn’t have arrived at such definitions for my Lightning and Thunder. Do you already know what they are for you?
Over the next 100 weeks, I’m going to bring it. I’m going to channel this overwhelming power to you as best I can. All you need to do is be open to receiving it. If you want brownie points, you act on it. An open mind. A curiosity. A hunger. A drive.
Let’s review:
- Simple, but not easy.
- Easy, but not simple.
- Simple and easy.
I don’t know about you, but I choose #3.
Simple: Write Every Day
Easy: Write One Day
Can easy turn into simple? Or would simpler turn into easy? Which one do you start with?
I ask a lot of questions. If I had all the answers, what fun would that be? That would kill curiosity–and we know what killed the cat … but it’s not going to kill us. Dare I say that it gives us life.
Every week I will do my best to spark and rumble. I will share knowledge or questions or maybe the occasional answer. Here are a few flashes of light that came across my sky this week.
- Write With Impact Episode #58: I came across someone who is further along the Write Every Day journey than I am. I am humbled and full of respect for Professor Joshua Spodek, Adjunct Professor of Leadership at New York University, who has been Writing Every Single Day since 2011. I’ll let you listen in on his findings and breakthroughs in the Write with Impact Podcast.
- The Power of Habit: Charles Duhigg has researched habits and how they can, let me just sum it up bluntly, make your life incredibly easier and simpler and thus: better. The audio book is an excellent excuse to walk your dog, but you can also hold it in your hands.
- If your book was available on audio, this might have happened to you. Finally, a real-world example of why we need to make sure our work is available in the format that our fans most readily would like to consume it. The dentist’s office does not come to mind, but surprise! Read on.
This has been week #1 of The Thunder. Thank you for allowing me to release some electricity on you. I hope it was that tingly leg asleep feeling and not the kind when you have to get up at the movie theater and your son is poking your leg and asking which leg it is and thinks it’s the funniest thing he’s ever experienced and all you want to do is amputate and stop the agony. Yeah, so the first one.
* PS: If you’re not into gore and the analogy of “opening a vein and bleeding” only made you cringe as to how this is possibly easy for me, this might suit you better: open your heart and exhale. Ah, much more peaceful.
Simple, but not easy.