A Gauntlet of Your Own Design

You’re going to have to do the work before someone pays you. Plain and simple. 

In some cases, you have to pay to do the work you want to be doing before someone pays you. This is called college. In other cases, you have to fill in for your boss on maternity leave. She’ll be the one getting the paychecks for the work you’re doing. The only time this isn’t true is in extreme edge cases of talent and opportunity, nepotism, or in entry level jobs. 

If you’re going to have to do the work before someone pays you anyway, you might as well get started now. You might as well do something you love. You might as well take a gauntlet of your own design. 

I have a friend who did this. He was considering going back to school to get an MBA after he realized the work he studied for in undergrad wasn’t for him anymore. Instead of applying for schools and loans to get his MBA, he decided to wait a year, and instead, read one business book each week. He probably spent $1,000 on 50 books, instead of 100 times that on a famous college. By the end of it, he started a business, and a YouTube channel to support it, and now has 20k+ subscribers, and consistently sells out of his product drops. 

This “gauntlet” approach is sort of what I’m doing with my blog this year. I decided to publish every single day for the entire year. It doesn’t matter what I have going on, or what gets in the way. I publish because I want to be a writer, and this is my gauntlet. 

If you want to do something, pick up a gauntlet of your own design.