johnmaconline

All the inspirational posters talk about not giving up.

But they’re wrong. Sometimes you should give up.

But not because it’s hard, or uncomfortable, or you can’t yet find a solution. 

You should give up when it’s wrong — the wrong path, outcome, or the ends don’t justify the means.

Giving up is the best approach when it’s wrong. 

Sometimes it’s, “Hey, look at that over there.”

A spectator. Observer. Unengaged. 

Sometimes it’s, “Hey, let’s go over there. Let’s go that way. Let’s get there. Come with me.”

Sometimes it helps to point. 

I’ve been a renter. College, just out of college, and many vacations over the years in many locations.

I’ve been an owner of rental properties. College apartments and single-family homes. 

As a renter, I just showed up, kept the place nice, paid my bills, and called the landlord when there was a problem that needed fixing. 

As the owner, I cared. Deeply. About everything. Even things I didn’t cause. The pipes. The paint. The neighbors. The future value of the place. I couldn’t just show up.

Same thing happens with work.

You can rent your role. Check the boxes. Wait to be told. Clock in, clock out.

Or you can own it.

Solve problems that might not be technically your problem. Put yourself on the hook. Show up like your name is on the building.

You can tell who’s renting and who owns it.

AI won’t ever take the job of the owners. 

You call it a “first draft” for a reason.

It’s the raw footage, not the edited version. It’s the napkin, not the document. It’s some tiles laid out on floor in front of you, not the cut and glued pattern on the wall. 

You don’t have to make your first draft the final plan. It’s a starting point. A vehicle to get your thoughts down. A catalyst to help you think about it and see where it might go. 

Write the garbage version. Say it badly. Build the barely-functional prototype. 

The first draft allows you to play. You can rethink it. You can change directions. You can change your mind. 

You don’t have to show the public.

But you gotta start laying bricks. 

If you’re a broadcaster, you never want dead air. 

Dead air indicates a problem. Something technical, procedural, or even human. The producer panics. The talker scrambles. The audience wonders. 

That silence screams loudly — what’s wrong?

But in your life, dead air is a signal.

Dead air gives you a chance to listen, breathe, think, feel, and allow the next thing to rise. 

Embrace the dead air. 

The cutback, sometimes called putting his foot in the ground by announcers searching for new descriptions, is a fundamental tool of the running back.

Everybody and everything is flowing to the right — the lineman blocking, the running back following,  defenders pursuing. The play unfolding like a river flowing. 

And then BLAM. 

He plants his right foot. Defies inertia. Cuts hard left. Against the flowing water. 

If he’s picked the right moment and executed it correctly, the defenders don’t have a chance against the river that’s already flowing. 

Because now it’s chaos. Defenders legs and bodies still moving right as they reach back to the left. The blockers keep them flowing. The angles collapse. 

The cutback wasn’t part of the plan. 

But he saw something and made a split-second decision. An opening. An opportunity. Or maybe he saw that the plan was going to fail miserably. It was going nowhere. A loss of yards. 

And he had the guts to cut back.

Sometimes you gotta take that opportunity. Even if it doesn’t score. 

Trust your eyes. Trust your knowledge. Trust your people. Trust yourself. 

Keep your eyes open for the cutback opportunity. 

You can probably have it your way. 

It might even feel good or comfortable in the moment, or make you feel like you’ve accomplished whatever you set out to do. 

It’s also usually easy to say, “This is how I want it.”

But what would it take to have it our way? Or making it possible for them to have it their way?

You can build something — a business, an organization, a family, a marriage — around that. 

We do it all the time, especially as parents.

We say we can’t afford it. Whatever it is. Could be money. Could be time. 

We say it because it’s irrefutable. It’s a get of out jail free card. But it’s usually not quite true. 

What we really mean is we don’t want to prioritize the money or time. We’d rather spend it on something else. 

It’s healthy to occasionally rethink our priorities. 

From one or even several perspectives, this is the first and only question that matters.

Will somebody pay you for what you made?
Or, will somebody pay you for what you do?

This is what the market asks. Investors, bosses, even friends and family. We’ve normalized getting paid as a measure of what it’s — and you’re — worth. If you’re “in business,” then this is the question at the top of your mind.

And fair enough. Our system is built upon the exchange of money.

It’s an important question, but is it the most important? 

Here are some other important questions that need to be asked:

Will it make a difference?
Will it build trust?
Will it help someone?
Will it teach me something?
Will it get me in the room I want to be in?
Will it make me proud five months or years from now?
Will it attract the kind of people I want to work with?
Will it challenge the status quo?
Will it create a new system?
Will it make me better?
Will it make someone else better?
Will it make the system better?
Will it get me out of my comfort zone?
Will it make others want to talk about it?
Will it build community?

These questions get at the heart of the matter — what’s your signal? The signal is your work. Your impact. The dent you make in the world.

Profit isn’t the signal itself, but it rides on top of it. It modulates it. Amplifies it. Distorts it. Sometimes overtakes it.

But the signal is still yours to send. It’s the heart of the matter.

So yeah, we should ask, “Will it make money?”

Just don’t stop there because snake oil makes money if you know how to sell it.

But it poisons the well.