I went further with the piano.

As a reward for doing my work work - the writing and the talk and editing bits, I let myself have five to ten minutes at a time to do some sort of physical task. It’s grounding.

With that in mind, I dove into door number three. Sadly, that wasn’t the end of my ADHD piano game. Now the damn thing doesn’t make a sound at all. I feel like Aesop’s dog seeing its own reflection.

I could have quit while I was ahead. I had a working piano. Now? Now I have a broken piano, another choice between a couple of options and limited time in my life.

Door number 1? That’s easy. Do nothing. Leave it there to hold clothes like so many treadmills and the like. It could merely exist as a furniture dinosaur. It may eventually outlast me, dwelling somewhere near a furnace or in an attic only to be discovered by the next owners of this space in a couple of decades.

Then the problem could be theirs.

Door number 2? Value Village. They’ll take anything and sell it. Someone with more time and patience than me could purchase it. Then it becomes someone elses problem.

Door number 3? List it. Sell it. Tell the people who are buying it what they are facing. That way I get paid fifty dollars to have someone else load it into their car and carry it away. That seems like the lazy person’s Value Village run.

Door number 4? Invest some more of my time attempting to fix it. I’ve become skilled in taking it apart - so much in fact that I’d likely speed the whole process up with a batter powered impact driver.

There comes a time in every project that you need to decide: Do I double down on what I’m doing? Or, do I sell for what I can and invest my time and attention elsewhere.

Time and attention are really the only scarce items in the world.

I’m grateful that you spend some of yours here with me every day.

How do you know whether to give up or keep going?

For the piano, this is easy. I enjoy the problem solving. I enjoy having a bit of a distraction. I still have the pleasure of attempting to make it work. It’s not taking all of my time nor draining me financially or emotionally or spiritually.

I’m going to keep going.

What are you doing where you have a choice to pack it in and count your gains / cut your losses or keep working at it.

What goes into making this choice for you?

As a creator, you have authority, the ability to be the author of what choices you make and how you make them.

What do you do with your broken piano?

Show up and Win!

Tickets are going like hotcakes. I expect that by the time you’re reading this, a waiting list will have emerged.

I’ve never had a waiting list for an event before. All of your support has been quite overwhelming.

So, once this one is sold out, I’ll start announcing a couple of other places that you can Show up and Win!

I’m thrilled and I do believe that this is going to be a really great experience for everyone!

Click on this yellow text to book a spot or get on the waitlist here.

Podcast:

This week on the podcast I interview Lisa Dewolfe. Lisa is a creator, a project manager and the owner of Happy Soul Dance Studio where Show up and Win takes place. She’s super rad and I think you’ll dig what she has to share about creativity and resilience.

Supporting the Foolsletter

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And?

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