Badassery Magazine November 2017 Issue 18 | Page 43

the Beast, ask for help when
you need it, and pursue your
goals relentlessly. You WILL
achieve, it’s just a matter of how
and when.
If you have a huge goal you are
working towards it but no results
are happening, you don’t just
quit. You then have two choic-
es: work harder or work dif-
ferently. Nobody knows which
is the right strategy except you –
and perhaps your business coach
and your Mastermind group – at
the center of it. I know I can
work harder to get more things
done in a timely manner, I know
I can do more to market myself
as a writer, as an independent
publisher and a teacher of vari-
ous courses that I offer, but I al-
low distractions to take my focus
off occasionally. I also know that
sometimes, no matter how hard
I’ve worked, I don’t see fruits of
my labor and that’s when I know
I need to change up what I’ve
been doing, that I need to work
differently. So our forked road is
not whether to continue on with
the same ol’ same ol’ methods
versus quitting; the forked road
is between work harder or work
differently. Pick one route and
move on. With my first attempt
hiking on Kilimanjaro, I went as
far as I could without getting to
the point of (irreversibly) losing
too much oxygen in my blood or
losing my digits from frostbite;
but with my next summiting
attempt, I know how to work
differently. Next time – perhaps
a year from now – I will already
know what tools and preparation
I can bring in order to keep my-
self a lot warmer as the climate
at 19,000 feet is unforgiving; I
will know what things I can do
to combat exhaustion now that
I understand to what extent I
could be exposed to the fatigue
and how little sleep I’d get; I will
know how many hours it will
take from the last base camp to
the summit and what I need to
do physically and mentally with
each 1,000 feet of elevation in
order to make it to the top. So
in other words, I will choose the
route of working differently when
I tackle this mountain in Africa
again next time. Same thing
with publishing: I’ve learned
mistakes along the way when my
books were released in March, so
next time with the release of my
third book, I will know to imple-
ment a better timeline of ask-
ing for book reviewers for their
time; I know which printers I
can solicit better quotes to print
author’s copies; I know where I
can get more editors’
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