In 2016 I took a leap of faith, bought a plane ticket to New Zealand as a graduation gift to myself for finishing college, and cycled around the South Island of NZ. Without a plan of action, all I knew was that I needed some time to sit with my thoughts and process as much as I could during that time. Sixty-two days is a long time without music, internet, social media, etc. but I can say, 62 days went quickly and wasn’t enough time to unpack the 24 years of living I had experienced. Getting caught up in the social conditioning of America is a road map to safety. Well, being safe isn’t living, and I wanted to live. While pedaling through rainstorms, almost sliding off roads, and sharing cookies and tea with strangers, I started to feel alive.
I knew returning to the US would be a challenge to keep the stoke alive, but I did my best, ending up in a wide variety of seasonal jobs while launching a career in photography and writing. Now, six years have passed and I seem to be moving along quite well, so I wanted to share three of the most important life lessons I’ve learned to date. Check them out below:
1) Focus on long-term growth, meanwhile, recognize to grow over time you need to have a direction and perspective.
In a data-driven world, I’ve found the daily obsession around views, likes, follows, clicks, etc. to be intoxicating. In many ways, getting data drunk has been an obsession of mine. If data can’t show what’s going on, why even do it? Well, that is the wrong approach. Yes, day-to-day metrics show improvements and errors, but for a sustainable life, it is the trending slopes up, or down, that make the difference. Every day doesn’t need to be positive, and when there is a dip in the data, that’s an opportunity for growth. If a trend is upward, then you are growing. If the trend is down, zoom out, is it still down?
A view from Glacier Point of little Yosemite Valley in Yosemite National Park, CA
In the hopes of understanding long-term growth better, I have started to look at data in sets of a week, month, and year. A week is the smallest time frame because that is all that matters. If I go viral, that is a great hype for a day, but that isn’t long-term. Yes, I will analyze what made that video go viral, but what’s going to matter more is consistently showing up, day in and day out, dedicated to your direction.
A quick note, goals are the tasks required for you to continue in your direction. In many ways, a goal is simply a step, hop, or jump in your direction. Each time you achieve a goal, you take one step further down your path, towards your north star. Now, in the end, we are all just racing towards the end of our lives, so make sure the path you are walking is one that you enjoy! If it isn’t, then start rethinking, you only live this life once.
Perspective matters. When it comes to data trends, I focus on the average low. When I say that, I mean, I am focused on raising my bottom line. For example, I had a goal, back in 2017, for my website to have zero days with zero visits. At the time, I didn’t offer much and my blog was complete trash, so I wasn’t surprised that I was getting zero views, but that focus made me improve. All I wanted was a minimum of one view a day. Fast forward to 2018, my goal was to raise that bar to a minimum of 20 views a day. That is an upward trend. That is raising the minimum bar over time. On the flip side, the spikes feel great! They raise the average and make the numbers better for sales purposes, but they are short-lived.
Okay, okay, I have shared enough on business—because it is tangible—, let’s get back to what matters, the soft skills. As a human, we have an obligation to ourselves to always strive to do our best. Some days, our best is better than others, but the key is that when we look back on any day, we gave 100% of what we had that day to that day. I have stayed away from this example because there is no data, so now is the time to get touchy-feely. Long-term growth as a human means that we become a better person, this you can/will only be able to define for yourself. Do you need to improve your relationships, your love life, your focus, your…? The list can go on and on, but the key here is to pick a few goals so that you take the steps towards your direction. One of the best, and most morbid, ways to understand your direction, is to write your ideal obituary. Once you have this down, check-in as to where you are at, identify the gap, and get to work. As you do the work, your path will change, that is okay, but if you don’t start, you won’t know the current path isn’t for yourself. So, get started!
To wrap up this life lesson, if you manage your perspective and follow your direction, you’ll be in good shape. In today’s world, it is easy to get lost among the numbers, but, at the end of the day, what matters is that you are enjoying your time in harmony, trending upwards over time, and trying your best not to get caught up in the rat race! Work towards you might change, more on this in Life Lesson Three, but that is okay. Start working on yourself now and, over time, you will be on the correct path.
Journal Topic:
-Write your ideal obituary/how you wish people to remember you. If this is too morbid, write down four adjectives you want to be remembered as.
-Once you know how you want to be remembered, objectively write out where/who you are today.
-Lastly, compare the two, then start making changes (you might be surprised to find out you are already on your way!).
Enjoy the journey, but also make this life count!
2) Invest your time into projects with a shelf-life.
I was told this by a couple of established photographers, especially around the concept of a portfolio-building road trip, but the lesson did not sink in for many years. At first, I shook my head and agreed thinking to myself, “Of course, you want to invest in projects with a shelf-life, I mean who doesn’t want to create something that lasts?” Then I headed off on a trip to climb all of California’s 14,000-foot peaks in a single push with a buddy. We summited roughly half, gave many more an attempt, but ultimately this was a learning trip. Once done, I had to head back to some seasonal work, at the time this was substitute teaching, to make enough money to survive. While teaching, I edited, wrote, and submitted images. Nothing.
A tip to making work last is to shoot a “timeless” photograph, such as this one.
One month, two months, six months passed and there wasn’t much of a bite. I had heard back from Patagonia, they archived some images, but that was all. The images I had edited found their place on my social media feed and in a few blogs, but nothing to generate cash. A bit disappointed, I photographed surfing every day after teaching and took the day off if the swell was good. As time continued to pass, I submitted more surfing images, met some of the local pros, and tried to keep my head high. Occasionally, I would get the odd photo job, sometimes a yoga portrait session, sell a print, shoot a video job, or write some copy for somebody just to keep the dream alive. It was hard! Then, almost a year later, things started to pop!
That trip I went on, started to get some traction. A magazine submission came back and was accepted, with 12 images and an essay. That was real validation. I received some money and had several spreads. Another month later, Patagonia licensed an image, then another. During that time, I had posted some of my favorite landscape images from that trip on my website as prints, those started to sell. That trip went from costing me a couple of thousand dollars to now being a profitable trip. As wild as it sounds, five years later, I am still licensing images from that trip. I am still selling prints. I am still writing digital articles with those images, about that trip.
So, while I didn’t understand what it meant to invest in projects that have a shelf-life at the moment, I was lucky enough to make my first trip count. While I didn’t know how to sell a project upfront, I did come to realize that there are ways to sell a trip once you finish. Honestly, I have grown to love creating projects and selling the work later. This kind of trip allows me to maintain the full creative license, but, this means there is a lot of self-disciplined work that has to be done following the trip.
Now, outside of photography, what does it mean to invest in a project with a shelf-life? The easiest way to express this is through a term called Mailbox Money. This means money comes in once the work is done. So, I will give some examples:
-Writing a Blog, if you can have advertisements on your blog, you are making money as people read your posts.
-Rental Properties, I agree, this might seem far-fetched for some, and I don’t have any rental properties, but if you are receiving rent each month, that is mailbox money… even if the rent is covering your mortgage ie building equity for yourself.
-Stock Dividends, once you own the stocks that pay a dividend, sick back and wait for your check. At first, this might be small, but over time this can grow if you invest correctly
-YouTube channel, once you publish the video, YouTube pays you after a certain amount of views. Find your niche and create videos, over time this will pay off!
-Books, online classes, print sales, NFT, all of these are great ways to generate income over time. You just need to create the asset first, then fulfill the request once purchased.
Journal Topic:
-List out 15 things you do that make you happy.
-Look at the list, and search each one on Google and YouTube, this will give you an example of the blogs and YouTube channels that exist, could you do that?
-Map out the process for you to start, then start taking steps! This will be your side hustle :-)
Not everything can be clear, so embrace the blurry side of life! Revist and revise along the way.
3) Revisit, revise, and update along the journey.
How often have you done something 100% right the first time? I don’t think I have ever done that! Heck, I am on my fourth version of this blog, second edit of this version, and still finding errors. Once we have started with a direction and recognized the important projects to focus on, the next step is revision. Refining our process, converting bad habits into good ones, and revisiting our compass to make sure we are headed in the correct direction along our journey. Let’s be real, that shiny thing over there is cool and I want it too. Heck, who doesn’t want that shiny thing over there? And, if we fall into our curiosity of that shinny thing, we should enjoy it. Recognize you might be off-course but start working your way back.
Andrew Muse enjoying the last bits of light after a full day of riding motorcycles along HWY 395 in CA.
Here is the dirty secret, starting is just that, starting. Once you begin, you will quickly recognize if what you started is for you. If it feels good, continue. If it doesn’t serve you, stop and revise. As you experiment with many different things, find the common thread of the ideas, actions, inactions to find the root of the path. Your path is unique to you, and you will never find it in the form of a blueprint. What you will find are emotions, feelings, intuitions, and data points all pushing/pulling you in a direction. As you wander that path, you are saying yes with each step. Each step forward is into the unknown, but that unknown will be filled with feelings. If the feelings are off, revise. Take a step back. Sit with the idea, flesh out new paths, then proceed.
This has been relatively meta, so let me break this down in a more concrete manner with a personal example. Once I returned from my bike trip to New Zealand, I was a bit lost and wandered for two(ish) years. The seasonal jobs allowed me freedom but did not pay much. Along the way, an Art Director, at Outward Bound, told me I should pursue a career in photography. At the time, I only shot for fun, but I took his advice and began developing my craft. I limited my time surfing and rock climbing so that I could photograph surfing and rock climbing. As I developed “my style” I realized I am not much of an action sports photographer, but more of a lifestyle shooter who conveyed the concept of fun. I was getting some jobs, but not much. A bit defeated, I started going back to the drawing board and re-found my love for writing (which was showing up in daily journaling practice as well as blog writing). At some point, I just offered to write a blog with photos to a client to tell the story. They said, “YES,” enthusiastically and immediately. That gave me the courage to offer this more often. I think the year was 2019, or 2020, but I went from one to two jobs a year to one job a month of photos and a blog. As that developed, I started to write two a month and now I am often writing/shooting 6-10 pieces a month! Kinda crazy!
I think this example directly sums up the power of these three life lessons. With direction and growth over time, I was able to develop a craft. At some point a few projects I invested in circled back around months later after a small revision in my approach. Then, BOOM! I started to thrive.
Journal Topic:
-List TEN things, both positive and negative, that you are currently doing that brings up emotions.
-Once ten are listed for both types of emotions, think of ways you could revise your position for the ten negative and think of ways you could deepen for the positive.
Life can feel overwhelming like wandering through the dunes of Death Valley.
Conclusion
Hopefully, there are a few nuggets of goodness in this for you, or at least these lessons got you thinking about your position in life. Please, take the time to dive into the journaling topics, reach out if you have any questions, and let me know what resonated with you. In the end, the goal of sharing my journey and my path is to provide some clarity for others that it is possible if you have a direction, invest in long-term projects, and revise along the way. You have the ability and the power within yourself to live a life of happiness. Go live that life!