The Work Before The Work

Much of our time is spent digesting and researching the newest and most effective ways to accomplish our work - or on how we collaborate as a team, how we might organize our days, our thinking, our habits.

This matters. I believe it matters deeply. I believe the fight against entropy and the decision to evolve on a consistent basis represents the best of what we have to offer.

I’m also interested in the work to be done before that work.

The inner work.

The tools, strategies, mindsets and habits most of us turn toward when we wish to improve are plentiful. Books, blogs, podcasts and courses promise improvement and change. The lessons from those sources are mostly good and, with practice, I believe nearly anyone can do nearly anything they decide to do.

The tools themselves have and will always exist. It's true a process is lifeless unless a life commits to its implementation. And it is those lives who commit to those processes which cause me to pause any time I examine the latest habit or life hack.

For tools to be employed well, for habits to take hold, there must be a readiness in the spirit. A calibration of the soul. This is the harder work - which is why we flock by the billions to digest the next groundbreaking method promising rapid self-improvement and uninhibited execution.

What echoes inside of you, though, have yet to be answered? What stillness and listening is still to be done? Where must you go alone before you can take us with you?

What work must you do before the work?