Projecting Advice

Advice is so much easier to give to others. I am a huge believer in projection. One quote stuck out to me the other day from James Clear’s Atomic Habits calendar. It was about how you should stop comparing yourself to others, keep your eyes on your own paper, and don’t try to measure your own worth by others’ success.

I have given that advice out many times in some other form. I usually say “you are only competing against yourself. Measure progress against yourself.”

That’s so much easier said than done. I compare myself constantly. Oddly enough it was my wife who told me that I could write things like that, which is what inspired me to write this particular entry.

I want to write. But then I see people like Shea Serreno, whose writing I love, but he used to be a teacher, and he talks about that a lot. So I think to myself the writer that used to be an educator has already been done, and I could never be as good as him, so I should just stop.

I love the podcast Seeing Red with Will Leitch. I have one degree of separation from him but we don’t know each other. He writes for the New Yorker, the New York Times, Washington Post, and started Deadspin. You name it. He’s from central Illinois and is a Cardinals fan. That path is already taken. I can’t be the southern Illinois Cardinals fan writer.

It doesn’t matter that people have told me that my words resonate with them. How can I compete against them?

I then see how my ship has sailed. I used to host a radio show right before Graham Bensinger, who is now a nationally syndicated talk show host. I helped him land his first-ever advertiser on this tiny radio station in St. Louis. But I chose a different path. He went on.

I took a stand-up comedy class with a guy who now performs at the House of Blues. He had asked me if I wanted to do the next class with him. I declined. Could that have been a path to do stand-up on the side?

I was in radio and television as an undergrad. So was Jeff Dickerson, who ended up a national ESPN radio host. I had connected with him a couple of times when I was on the radio but never really pursued anything.

I did have a radio show in Memphis. I remember a listener writing to me once saying that it was the most entertaining and original show on the radio. Yeah, that was 2002. Before podcasts, and the internet. My stuff has been done so many times it’s been rendered meaningless. I could never be Bill Simmons. He is the legendary guy in sports and entertainment. I could have a smaller career but the ship has sailed.

Yes I am a writer, an author. But I sold a tiny number of copies, and it’s a niche. Only friends bought them.

It also took me several days to finally come to some kind of ending on this and post it. Well at least that part is done now. I’m posting it. I love contracting myself over and over. I just want writing to help one person, but then I’ll withhold thoughts for days.

At least this is posted now.