There’s a slightly raised residential curb across the street from where I grew up as a high school kid. For whatever reason, on a June evening I ambled barefoot across the street and sat on it alone. I don’t recall being sad. I think I was somehow starting to distance myself from my own adolescence. In just a week or so I would head to basic training at West Point and then on into my future. I just sat and let my mind go as I experienced growing older.
It's a specific “first draft” of planning for me, one that helps me frame where I started… and maybe where many of us started. Stay with me for just a little bit while I unpack that thought.
Did you have one of those moments in your life? Maybe it wasn’t as you exited high school or college but instead when you entered into employment, marriage or child rearing. Maybe it was the moment in time when you said to yourself, “I’m now an adult and I have to act like it!” (Even if you had NO idea what that meant. Ha!)
Those are first draft moments in life; they aren’t the finished moment in time. The term “first draft” is used in literature, songwriting or other creative enterprises to denote a start point, often with no specific end envisioned; just the start, sitting on that curb.
In time, I came to learn that what I intended to accomplish as I sat there was short-circuited by something far better. A second draft, a cleaner draft – one that truly made sense for my story or my song or my life.
During his tenure with The Beatles, George Harrison wrote this song; one so iconic that Rolling Stone Magazine soon labeled it #10 in the Beatles’ Top 100. It is beautiful.
Other artists performed it, but NOT ONE OTHER ARTIST included the following lyric from the original lines Harrison wrote:
“I look from the wings of the play you are staging, while my guitar gently weeps,
as I’m sitting here doing nothing but aging
... still my guitar gently weeps.”
Why did this lyric evaporate? Technically, it didn’t - it was recorded by Harrison.
However, the lyric was only in George Harrison’s first draft acoustical version. Later, he said this describing his song, “I opened this book and I saw ‘gently weeps.’ I shut the book and then I started the tune.” Apparently, that’s enough of an initial reason for a first draft version with first-blush lyrics, but not enough for a finished song. That inspiration came a bit later for all the lyrics…and the song became a classic.
Life’s first drafts are beautiful, if we’ll let them be something upon which to build. Ah, but new drafts? Maybe something even better is at work in you, now at your current age.
Here are three ideas you might consider when you’re looking at the possibility of a new first draft in your life:
- New Ideas - What new ideas do you have lingering in your mind? Is there a “curb” that you might benefit from, by stopping by and sitting on it to think?
- Outrageous Decision - Could your new first draft be something so outrageous that it seems to make no sense at your current age or position in life to even consider? Write it down; pencil it out.
- Friends - As you think about that special new first draft, who can you share your idea with to begin planning an approach to it? Write their names down, then ask them if your idea has merit. Consider their answers, then move forward if YOU see the merit.
Let’s unpack these three bullet points.
New Ideas
When literature and song tell us that there are three parts to life; the past, present and the future, they’re actually lying to us. There ARE only two parts – the years in the past and the current years of the present. The future isn’t real; it’s a whisper of a hope, a mirage on a very hot highway. Whoosh, and you’ve driven over it, into the present.
But that doesn’t mean, in the present, you’re unable to experience hope for things not yet seen. The key is to stay in the present and dream.
What people, places or things have mystical cords tied to your memory? Take a minute and grab a pen. Write one down, maybe two. Next to your idea, list what you thought you were most interested in – and YET somehow you missed it. Now, imagine that you had indeed gained that illusive thing of the past, hoping it would give you a future that was what you wanted. Then, finally, ask yourself what could have happened if you HAD gained your goal and maybe… lost your soul? Perhaps a marriage that would surely have gone south, a travel schedule that could have taken you to God-forsaken places and destroyed who you are. Or even worse; facing an early death because of that choice. Now, close your eyes and think about how good your life really is TODAY. “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present,” states the old saying.
What new first draft comes to mind, presently? Write it down and sit on your “curb” and start dreaming, planning and seeing what you CAN do today. Then keep on it. Do not give up. Ernest Hemingway had 47 draft endings for his book, A Farewell to Arms. Start with YOUR new first draft of your own creative idea and move forward.
Outrageous Decisions
When I was in my late thirties or early forties, I had a pastor chat with me about how I saw my future. I’d only told a handful of very close friends and some of my family about my deepest career desires and how I had fully sensed that God’s hand was on my path. (Believe me, it was a BHAG…a big, harry, audacious goal.) Blushing somewhat, I pulled back after the words escaped my mouth to see if he would nod nicely and be kind to me. He wasn’t. He looked at me and said, “You are deceived. You’re believing a lie and there’s no way you’ll ever attain that goal.”
My guess is he hadn’t heard of Tony Robbins. Ha!
His words, though sobering, were not said in anger towards me; and I eventually began to consider “What if he’s right?” I look back on those moments and I realize today that, far worse than the ragged-edged words he used, the greater concern for me was how I had ever even considered such a BHAG, without first asking people for help to achieve that goal? In short, I saw that because of my lack of planning I was living in the land of wishful thinking… and the pastor’s words ultimately helped me consider a new first draft for my life.
As a mature man, I look back and realize how effective my planning has been since that encounter with him. I’m actually thankful. My BHAG’s today are being accomplished; I’m enjoying life with my bride and loving the many new directions we are traveling. I’m coaching businessmen and women, writing and publishing books (and loving it!) as well as this newsletter, and producing a podcast. I truly love communicating with you and many others.
Friends
In researching this newsletter, I found a great fact about the book, With Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens. His friends persuaded him to change the final chapter because it was not the happy ending his readers were expecting. He did just that, then published the version with a happy ending.
Depend on our friends for solid advice. Ask them to help you move from your first draft to your next new draft. What will it be? What would you like to do? To be? To accomplish? (Not completely sure?) No problem, just start moving forward – because WHATEVER you start working on will, in fact, will be your first draft and you WILL change it!! ”Baby steps” - as funny as the scene from What About Bob is - the simple, personal decision to move small steps is accurate.
Let’s return to the first part of today’s newsletter about the curb.
A couple of years back, I returned to my parent’s home in So Cal with a portion of my family. We retook the pic of leaning on the car, but more importantly I walked with my granddaughter, Diddy, over to the curb I’d sat on alone almost five decades before. We sat down together and I asked her about her dreams, about her desires; and then I explained the significance of that curb in my own life. She listened intently. She got it! I can’t wait to see her first drafts!!
So, get on with living, creating, and enjoying the things in your life that may well be new first drafts. Just maybe they’ll be the start of your next new adventure.
More later,
Den
Den's Latest & Greatest
- Start your new first draft and email me about it. I’d love to hear your ideas and possibly give some feedback, as a friend.
- Look at ONE unfinished project in your life – and finish it. Don’t “think about doing it”, just do it now. It could be as simple as reorganizing your garage or workplace, just do it! Then, get back to me. Again, your success is my success!
- I’ve always wanted to thank an author after reading his (or her) book. I just never did… that is, until I recently finished Richard Norton Smith’s incredible book, An Ordinary Man, about President Gerald R. Ford. After I finished reading it, I contacted the author by his website and told him how much it meant to me. He responded with deep personal joy. Consider finishing a great book and thanking the author who wrote it.