Transcript

Working #1124 · From Chad

0:01
Stay in your day, there's a story behind that.
0:05
This is your daily message from Chad #1124 to upgrade your
0:09
mental game today by telling yourself a better story.
0:12
Because the most important story you hear is the story you tell
0:14
yourself. This message is dedicated to the
0:16
hard working Luke Janish. Here's the upgrade.
0:20
The work in front of you may feel impossible, but upgraded
0:23
thinking knows the only work that exists is today's work.
0:27
Yesterday is spent. Tomorrow hasn't arrived.
0:30
Today is the only day you can actually work.
0:33
Here's the story. It was a hot summer day in 1980.
0:37
Will Smith was 11 years old. He and his younger brother Harry
0:41
stood staring at a hole where a wall used to be in front of
0:44
their father's shop. Their father had torn the wall
0:47
down himself. He didn't explain why.
0:50
He just gave his sons one instruction.
0:53
Build me a wall. Both boys thought it was
0:56
impossible. How could two kids build a wall?
0:59
But they didn't argue. Every day after school, they
1:02
went to the shop and laid bricks, one after the other, day
1:05
after day, for 18 months. And when they let laid the final
1:10
brick, their father came out and stood with them.
1:13
And the three of them looked at the wall in silence.
1:15
And then their father turned to his sons and said, Now don't you
1:19
ever tell me you can't do something again.
1:22
Years later, Will Smith explained what that wall taught
1:26
him. He said, quote, you don't set
1:28
out to build a wall. You don't start by saying, I'm
1:31
going to build the biggest, baddest wall there's ever been
1:33
built. You start by saying, I'm going
1:36
to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid.
1:40
And if you do that every single day, soon you'll have a wall.
1:46
Notice what the brick did. It shrank the impossible down to
1:50
the doable. The wall was overwhelming.
1:53
The brick was not. The boys couldn't build a wall,
1:57
but they could lay a brick. And a brick laid every day soon
2:00
becomes a wall. Mountaineer Nims Persia learned
2:04
the same lesson during his Gurkha selection.
2:07
Staring down weeks of brutal marches, he refused to let the
2:10
future crush him. His rule today I will give 100%
2:15
and survive. I'll worry about tomorrow when
2:18
tomorrow comes. Why dread the 37 mile March
2:22
ahead when you even haven't even finished today's 18?
2:26
The better story to tell yourself is I can't redo
2:29
yesterday. I can't work tomorrow.
2:32
So today I lay this brick as perfectly as I can.
2:37
Jesus said, don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will take
2:41
care of itself. Each day has enough trouble on
2:44
its own. Each day has enough bricks of
2:47
its own too. So stay in your day.
2:49
Don't grieve yesterday's work. Don't dread tomorrow's.
2:53
The only brick you can lay is the one in your hands right now.
2:57
Go lay your brick today. Tell me a story of doing today's
3:00
work to from chad.smith@gmail.com.
3:04
Send someone a text and ask them Are you working harder at
3:07
worrying or working? You can get a free copy of my
3:10
book, The Most Powerful Story in the World by going to from
3:12
chad.gumroad.com. The transcript of this message
3:16
and hundreds of others are always available at
3:18
www.fromchad.com.