When it comes to success perspective and attitude are everything.
When you hear the word ‘rank’ what comes to mind first?
Something that stinks, like a pile of used football jerseys and pads?
Or does a military, police, or business hierarchy come to mind? Colonel, Captain or CEO?
My particular thought about ‘rank’ today takes me back to the early, to mid-nineteen nineties, and Professional Bull Riding.
With only one bull coming to mind.
His name: Bodacious! “The Yellow Whale,” “The Master of Disaster,” “Unrideable.”
My kids and I would watch him on t.v., and my oldest son even had a Bodacious t-shirt. If you’ve never heard of that bull before… well… you have now.
“It’ll be a match,” Sullivan said. “With Terry Don West matched against him, it would be the rankest bull in the world and the rankest bull rider.” ~ Shawn Sullivan
(They considered bringing Bodacious out of retirement for a grudge match against West to break their 2-2 tie, West was injured before the match could take place and Bodacious was never bucked again.)
So how does a bull become rank? Through a scoring system. The bull and rider each receive a score for their part in the ride, the rider only scores if he makes the eight seconds, the bull gets a score every time according to his performance. Up to 50 points each.
How do they receive the points? By way of a panel of judges.
No, no.
There ya’ go.
Each judge has his, or her, own perspective on the ride, finished or not, on the rider, and on the bull, and they score each according to the standardized criteria as set by the professional association of bull riders.
And in the eyes of the cowboys, the harder a bull is to ride the more rank he is, regardless of score. So yet, another perspective.
To be successful at some thing, a thing, anything, requires this… mastering the repeatable steps required for that particular discipline.
Again I say, “If you want to be successful at baseball… don’t show up in hockey gear.”
I have had many different jobs, and many different job tasks, over the course of my working career and I have learned this… everything boils down to job specific, repeatable, routine steps, or movements, for that job or task.
Successful people realize the discipline they are in, they identify the basic routine steps, they learn those, and then they repeatably do those things that get the job done. And they progress and grow in that discipline.
It applies to everything. And I mean everything!
One thing I’ve seen though with people who, let’s say, languish in life, myself included, is that they think they are stuck, and believe they can’t learn a new skill, or identify a set of principles, that if applied to their lives would change their lives immensely.
So it is with my writing and capturing the experiences of becoming The Emerging Man, The Definite Dad, and Dave Bosquez – Author.
If you have been reading my last few posts, firstly, “Thank you,” secondly, they may have come off being a bit random at times, or searching. I like to call them contemplative.
If being successful requires keeping some kind of score, (or rank) and the score is administered by a professional body of judges, then as an author I need to learn the ‘successful steps’ of that discipline.
WARNING! This is where a perspective and attitude come into play.
Using my previous articles that discussed archery, chasing the arrow, and how to hit the bullseye, we will apply that principle, those successful steps, to today’s lesson of being, or becoming, a successful writer.
So in archery terms…
the target face: world wide distribution. Check! Attained through Amazon Books.
the aiming point: the gold center 10 ring = become a paid author.
the bow: KDP = Kindle Direct Publishing for indie authors, do it yourself, learn as you go.
the arrows: Killing Suicide, When We Were Lions, I Am Benaiah, and How Carter Got Better at Baseball.
A round of four arrows has been sent down range at the intended target. All have hit the aiming point of becoming a paid author.
In archery, each round of arrows provides information back to the archer, and they indicate what is working correctly, and, what if anything, may be incorrect, and needs chasing.
The ‘arrows,’ as ranked by Amazon, respective of their specific category, are as follows…
#1 How Carter Got Better at Baseball – rank #421 – category Coaching,
#2 Killing Suicide – rank #2,639 – category Suicide,
#3 I Am Benaiah – rank #7,217 – category Old Testament Commentary,
#4 When We Were Lions – rank #112,225 – category Memoirs,
and all four books combined, have an average ranking, among all books at 3.7 million. Yep, million.
Now before you get down and think, “That isn’t very good Dave,” do you know, or have a perspective of, the total quantity of books on Amazon right now?
Approximately 48.5 million books!
I’ll let Ken Harrelson, ‘The Hawk,’ let you know how I feel about my current success…
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