I’m editing something at the moment. It is vast and baggy and getting it into shape is making my brain ache.
Editing is hard. I think it’s the toughest part of the writing process. So I often go to my desk with a rather chore-ish feeling of duty. Trudge, trudge, trudge; make the mess not a mess. (It’s such a spectacular mess because it’s several different files pushed together, from another area of my work, and I suddenly decided there probably was a book in there, but I’ve got to find it. It’s not a first draft that just needs a little pruning and polishing. It’s a great, undifferentiated mass of information.)
Anyway, the point of the story is that I thought I’d approach it with a slight shift in perception. It would be a voyage of discovery rather than an exhausting grind. I have absolutely no memory of what I wrote there, so I might surprise myself.
The moment I opened the huge file in this frame of mind, I came upon an unfinished fragment. It was obviously one of those ideas which didn’t quite fly, so I hadn’t given it to any of my clients. And it’s not at all important, so I could just have deleted it.
But it made me smile and I didn’t want to chuck it, so I’m going to give it to you. It may canter about here and have the sun on its back for a moment, before it goes into oblivion.
It’s actually got a fabulous idea at the heart of it, which I took from some random YouTube podcast fellow. This is: find the one thing that you are good at and do that. I love advice like this. It’s so plain that it’s almost laughably obvious, but it’s the kind of things we rushing modern humans forget. (Or at least this human forgets.)
But what really makes me laugh is that, after I get very excited about this idea, I rummage about for my One Good Thing, and I don’t come up with anything great and grand, like connecting with people, or writing deathlesss prose, or doing the meaning of life. I decide that my absolute best thing is - drumroll please - ‘being friends with my horses’.
No wonder my business model is a bit rickety. I’m laughing my head off. I can’t remember when I wrote that, with such certainty, but obviously my Ten-Year-Old Pony Girl was having a party. Bless her sweet socks. There are worse things to be good at.
Anyway, here it is. It comes to a very abrupt end, and I’m going to leave it unedited. I don’t really know why. It just feels so comical and authentic to me. (Friends with my horses!) And I hope it makes you smile.
‘I’m always looking for those moments when all the lights go on. Some people call them lightbulb moments; some people call them aha moments. They are when you hear something and it’s as if a whole load of rubbish has fallen off your brain and your eyes and your heart and you can see and think and feel clearly.
‘Now I get it,’ you say. ‘Now I understand.’
I like looking for the ideas that make me feel everything else falls into place. These are the ideas to go with the principles, with the foundations, with the basics. Because if you can get those dug in, then everything else follows.
And what I often find is that I’ll get them in unexpected places. I was having a rummage through my YouTube professors yesterday, in search of wisdom, and the algorithm suggested watching someone, and he’s one of the ones I don’t much care for because he’s so relentlessly positive and I find that a bit wearing. But he was interviewing a bloke I’d never heard of and something about it caught my eye so I pressed play.
The bloke I’d never heard of turned out to be a brand expert. I nearly turned off then. (I need to work a bit more on my whole not making assumptions thing.) But he was rather charming and not too shouty and not too positive and he said something which was entirely to do with business and brands and yet it made all my lights come on. I was like Piccadilly Circus on a Friday night.
It was so simple that I can hardly even write it. It’s going to look so bald and blatant on the page. But I can’t stop thinking about the lights, so I’m going to risk it for a biscuit.
It was: get really good at one thing.
Have your thing, was his song. Don’t try and be the company that does twelve things or the expert in eight things. Find one thing, and get absolutely brilliant at that, and be known for that.
And all the lights went on.
Not for my own work life, interestingly, although I did think vaguely that I could get a bit more focused. But for my life life. And my horse life. And my creative life.
Choose one thing, and do that, over and over until you have the glory of mastery, and be that person.
I am, I thought, the person who does…
What?
What is my one thing?
What is the thing that makes all the difference?
And here, off the top of my head, comes the answer. I am really, really good at being friends with my horses. I am a good companion. I take time to know them and I see them and I respect their emotions and their integrity and their agency. I scratch their sweet spots until I have no more strength in my arms.’
And there it is, my Cup of Coffee darlings. I hope you have One Good Thing which is equally whimsical and which makes you laugh. Because I suspect we all need one of those.