I ended yesterday feeling as though I need to find direction for the energy I’m investing in my business. I was stressed and worried about money, and worried that I was spinning my wheels.

I’m unlike most people I know when it comes to seeking this kind of direction. I, like anybody, read things online to try to develop plans and designs about how to move forward and accomplish things.

The trouble with bigger questions is that the answers aren’t set in stone. They vary from person to person. Our tendency, as humans, to try to create a template for answering life’s questions is fallacious in that there are too many unaccounted-for variables for anyone to ever give the perfect answer.

But we look for patterns, as is our wont so that we can simplify the world around us and thereby live without massive confusion at even the mere prospect of fetching the mail.

What does that mean? It means that when I try to solve my life problems with the internet I typically don’t get far. I’ll usually make a strong start on something in some direction, then I peter out and eventually get back to square one or someplace like it.

I began my day remembering that I wanted to seek direction as I mentioned above. Instead of looking for more input, which is very natural for me and probably most people, I try to get as quiet as I can.

I’ve spent years meditating off and on and you could regard this as meditation.¹ For me, I like to do this by submerging the back half of my head underwater while lying in the bathtub. I do it such that my ears will be underwater. It’s the most quiet my life ever gets. Something about the stillness and the silence I find in the water like that allows me to think extremely clearly.²

I’m a guy that does a lot of thinking. Perhaps we all are people who do a lot of thinking—I’m not sure. But I know that the thinking I do has degrees of effectiveness. Never is there a higher degree of effectiveness than when I’m taking a bath with my ears underwater like this. I float, and I listen.

It’s important for me to acknowledge, even if I’m reluctant to do so, that I have a spiritual belief system. I believe in something and I call it God. I grew up in a church, but don’t really give much weight to that at this phase of my life, and haven’t for many years. I mention this in the interest of authenticity, but also to convey the complete message of what I do to think.

Once I’ve settled in the water, I say a short prayer, and I ask this thing I believe in to enable me to set aside everything I think I know for an open mind and a new experience. I ask it to help me see the truth of whatever I’m dealing with. Finally, I say in my mind, something to the effect of, “What would you have me focus on here?” and the intention, in this case, was centered on my work life.

Sometimes, in the past, I’ve done this and had things come up that weren’t pertinent to what I was seeking. Say I was seeking direction about work, I might get an intuition about my marriage, as an example.

Whether one believes in something greater than themselves, like a God or something or, if they don’t, I think there’s still value to this style of inquiry. Whether you regard it as self-inquiry or something more like I do, perhaps the results are similar.

Some interesting things came up. I’m a writer, self-admitted, and I’m also a collector, at least in an aspirational sense. The notion of content marketing for my real estate business is one I’ve long been interested in, and it snapped clear this morning in the bath that I just need to begin. I’ve spent months studying content marketing and nearly completing the Hubspot certification course on it, and I’ve read books and more books. But I haven’t begun. And that was part of the inspiration today, just that: begin. Make a beginning. Gather up some momentum, and then you can return to the fine details and fiddle and try your hand at perfecting later.

Even before that notion bubbled up (which I was very thrilled about, by the way, and felt massive relief compared to yesterday), one came first that was unexpected.³ My company is changing hands, and without breaching my NDA, I’ll say that there’s soon to be a new potential to generate revenue by means of recruiting agents to the company.⁴ This news was new last week, but the shift in perception in that I’m able to employ what I’ve learned about internet marketing on a national and global audience rather than a geo-local one is way cool and I’m pumped about it!

I keep a small notebook next to the tub on the floor and a hand towel so I can dry my hands and write legibly when ideas and things come up. In my experience, there’s a point of diminishing returns with this exercise. When I do it often, I don’t experience insight every time.⁵ When it’s irregular and I’m perplexed, it works for me.

This is the most important thing I could put down today, so I did. I feel fresh and relieved and I have felt that way all day. I was productive but not obsessive with my work. I read fiction for an hour. I worked on my novel for an hour. I spent time with my wife. I had an excellent day.

This is the reason why.

1. Mostly “off,” by the way. But not an insignificant amount of “on,” to be fair. ↩︎
2. I also have a hearing disorder called tinnitus which provides a constant ringing in my ears that’s amplified when I’m quiet and also when I think about it. The water doesn’t make it go away, but it gives me greater quiet and comfort than I’ve found otherwise. ↩︎
3. These things tend to be unexpected, which is why I do it. This works for me, and it’s deeply more satisfying and intimate and personal for me vs. rewinding and playing a how-to Youtube video a couple times, taking a bunch of notes, and making some half-measure effort to do some thing that worked for someone once. This feels fulfilling. That feels obligatory. ↩︎
4. Less than exciting at face value, but when I consider it, it’s an opportunity to have a global product that I can work to sell, and I can do so in a way that actually adds tremendous value for people. Looking at it through that lens excites me! ↩︎
5. However, I do believe that when I was doing this exercise daily for several months, if not more than a year, I was producing both narrative writing/editing and real estate sales like it was effortless. I had a spring of power and energy and fortune that made for a very exciting period of my life. Why did I stop? Why do we ever stop doing what’s good for us? ↩︎