James Barry

My Blog is My House

by | Oct 14, 2021 | Mindset

I launched this blog for one reason: To make a change.

Life had become stagnant.

Reactive, instead of proactive.

Four years out of college, I felt like I had made zero life progress. One failed career and one failed business.

I felt like a boat lost in the ocean, thrown around by waves. A captain who had lost control of their ship.

Publishing my writing was an attempt to regain that control.

At first, I just did it every week. It was something I had committed to.

Only after writing for a few months, I realized what I had done.

I had put a stake in the ground. Placed the first cornerstone of a new house I was building. A house that was uniquely mine, designed by my hand, to reflect who I was and more importantly, who I wanted to be.

A year ago, I felt like I was flailing around daily, trying to hold onto anything.

Today, I am still doing that. I’m still the same person, but now I have the foundations of a house that I can add to, each and every day.

I don’t know what the house will eventually look like. I don’t even know what it will look like a year from now, but I know that the only way to get there is to keep on building. Keep on writing, keep on learning, and keep on keeping on.

The Porous Empire & Power of Time

by | Oct 7, 2021 | Time Allocation

In the 1700s, the Porous Empire was expanding.

But not through the traditional means… of war and of blood.

They were expanding via surplus. Buying out their neighbors land from underneath them and ushering in a new age of technological innovation.

Most neighboring states quickly complied. Why wouldn’t they?

They would make outrageous demands – which were always met.

Until one day they came upon a state which demanded nothing.

The Governor, Lopt, told them “We shall not sell our land to you, there is nothing more valuable than that”.

Lopt held his ground for weeks. He was offered jewels, power, government positions, but he turned them all down.

That was… until the Boy King of Porous arrived.

He told Lopt that he would fulfill any request, as long as they received their land in return.

The alternative would be the complete annihilation of Lopt and his people.

So Lopt complied and asked for one thing – “One kernel of corn” this year. 2 kernels of corn the next year. 4 the following, and so on and so forth.

The young king laughed and shouted “Fine! Your request is granted. Have your petty kernels”.

The next day, a servant showed up with one kernel in his hand.

He kept coming by every year until the 6th year – When he brought the corn in a small coin bag.

Dropping it at on the ground he laughed “This is what you exchanged for your land for?” and promptly left.

On the 12th year, the servant came with a larger bag weighing in at just over 1lb.

On the 18th year, a new servant came, this one two 40lb bags of corn over his back.

The year after, two servants came. 160lbs of corn total.

As the years progressed, the corn started coming by the truckload.

On the 25th year, 5 tons of corn arrived.

By this time, Lopt had grown old and had watched the wealth of Porous Empire slowly deteriorate over the years.

Their mines overmined.

Their oceans overfished.

Their fields over-tilled.

On the 29th year, the corn came by train. One rail car.

By the 35th year, there were 60 rail cars filled with 5350 tons of corn.

The corn didn’t pile up though. Lopt began selling it back to the nation, enriching himself and his people.

On the 39th year, 85,000 tons of corn were delivered in 950 separate rail cars. 6 separate trains were required.

Then, on the 40th year, only one train car arrived.

Out of it stepped an old and wizened king King of Porous, now in his early 50s.

He told Lopt that he couldn’t send the corn this year. There just was not enough.

In exchange for breaking his promise, he returned the land and left defeated.

Lopt knew one thing the boy king didn’t: The power of time.

With enough time, something as small as a kernel of corn can grow large enough to defeat an empire.

Write About What Is Unique To You

by | Sep 30, 2021 | Random Musings

When I first began writing, I wrote about everything.

Books I had read, life experiences, random thoughts, etc. Even wrote about my 10 favorite beers.

Which was fine, but I wanted to be a great writer.

I STILL want to be great writer.

Specifically, I want people to read, appreciate, and share my writing.

I think that one of the easiest ways to do this is to write about topics you’re an expert in.

Seems hard, but the good news is: Everybody is an expert in some topic.

Let’s use the following three writers as an example:

All of these authors come from unremarkable backgrounds:

  • J.D. Vance – Grew up in Rust Belt of Ohio with “hillbilly” roots.
  • Scott Adams – Spent 16 years working in the corporate world.
  • David Goggins – Had an abusive father and was raised in a single-parent household.

We’ll call these backgrounds “Experience A”.

Yet they all went on to do something impressive:

  • J.D. Vance – Went to Yale Law School.
  • Scott Adams – Woke up at 4am daily to practice drawing comics.
  • David Goggins – Became a Navy Seal and ultramarathon runner.

We’ll call this Experience 2:

These three authors combined these backgrounds with their unique experiences. They identified the different parts of their lives that overlapped, and wrote about that topic. Visually, it looks something like the following:

For me, I publish my best writing on LinkedIn.

This blog is more of an experiment than anything else. I write about whatever I want. There is no Venn Diagram.

On LinkedIn though, I write for impressions and reach. It’s my job.

With over 100+ trial posts, I noticed that I developed a niche:

Job Hunting/Recruitment + Career Satisfaction + Sales = Wriitng About Career Advice

The job hunting knowledge comes from working for 5 years and my industry (recruitment).

I understand career satisfaction because I was unhappy in my first job in finance, and now I love what I do.

My sales knowledge comes from doing sales for 5 years. Getting a job requires that you sell yourself.

Here is what my writing Venn Diagram looks like:

Individually, none of these experience are unique.

But combined, they give me a unique perspective that I want to share with others.

And most importantly, a perspective that others want to hear.

Assuming You Know Nothing is a Power Stance

by | Sep 22, 2021 | Time Allocation

The world is full of information.

So much so, that it’s easy to think you know everything.

Such as this collection of random facts:

  1. The ratio of ants to humans is 1 million to 1. For every 1 million ants, there is one human.
  2. The tallest building in the world is currently (at the date of writing this) The Burj Khalifa, at 2,717 ft.
  3. There are 6,500 dialects spoken across the world. (English and Mandarin are far and away the top two).

All data is seemingly at our fingertips. All we need is a smartphone and a nearby Starbucks.

But, there is a much larger collection of data that is not at our fingertips.

In fact, it doesn’t exist anywhere except inside people’s brains.

Hidden knowledge that never comes up.

Long-ago experiences, not readily shared.

Relationships between people that you never knew existed.

As humans, we are constantly creating information, whether we mean to or not.

Even as the amount of data in the world grows exponentially, the vast majority of it isn’t captured. It never will be.

Once you internalize this, you will realize that you need to assume you know nothing.

Because in most cases, you don’t know.

So if you want to be correct.

You must first accept that you know nothing.

Why You Should, and Shouldn’t, Write Consistently

by | Sep 17, 2021 | Time Allocation

Whether you should write consistently is an often debated topic.

Some believe writers can’t publish quality material if they have to adhere to a strict schedule.

Others have built giant empires by publishing their writing consistently. Some even daily.

The thing about consistency though, is it is not about your readers (most of the time). If you put out quality material, it will be consumed (assuming you’re distributing it correctly).

Consistency instead, is all about you.

It’s about building a new skill. Step by step. Brick by brick.

It’s about creating a system or a process to reliably produce ideas.

Consistency ensures that you can get through the highs, the lows, and everything in-between.

Consistency ensures that you don’t give up along the way.

Developing any new skill is hard, especially because if you care about becoming good, it will hurt when you are in fact bad.

So when you’re developing a new skill, practice it consistently.

When you’ve developed that skill, that is when you can take your time and make something great.