#davesdailychallenge (165): The Will. It has been months since I’ve published anything. One of the original reasons for this writing effort was to serve as a forcing function to produce good, creative content that would, hopefully, mean something to people who consume it. It was designed to be an exercise that would produce little victories every day and, eventually, a big victory. A few months back I looked at the mediums that I was using to publish my material such as facebook, instagram, twitter, etc…and knew that the value to noise ratio had completely changed. The 2016 election, and the vitriol it created among so many, produced a seemingly never-ending cascade of opinions, negativity, and wholesale discontent and I knew that nothing I communicated would be received in the manner I desired. Some of you might even remember the piece I wrote about communication filters and how they often serve to negate our most well intended messages. The frustration you all felt would have served as the filter to negate good work. I decided to put a temporary hold on publishing anything. It was a convenient excuse born out of what I thought were good intentions. I was bullshitting myself. It was resistance. It was taking the easy path. I saved an average of 1.5-2 hours every day. I could have easily used that time to still write but wait to publish. I didn’t. What is today’s “first post back” about then? It’s about engaging the will. Before you begin anything…before you walk in to the room…before you sit down to write…before you address your team…FIRST, engage the will. Your mindset is everything. You will need your will to break through the barriers, real or imagined, that life throws at you. I lost my will and went dark in an environment that doesn’t reward laziness. Over time I felt the resistance to sit down and write growing stronger and stronger. It was a fire-breathing, multi-headed beast that needed to be slain in the form of exactly 339 written words.