{"id":38151,"date":"2010-08-30T04:00:18","date_gmt":"2010-08-30T11:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/getrichslowly.org\/blog\/?p=38151"},"modified":"2019-07-23T00:53:59","modified_gmt":"2019-07-23T07:53:59","slug":"action-not-words-the-difference-between-talkers-and-doers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/action-not-words-the-difference-between-talkers-and-doers\/","title":{"rendered":"Action not words: The difference between talkers and doers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s Sunday morning and I should be editing articles in advance of my upcoming vacation. Instead, I just got done playing another game of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/downshifting-the-first-day-of-the-rest-of-my-life\/\">Starcraft II<\/a>. Since the game was released on July 27th, I&#8217;ve played <i>many<\/i> games of Starcraft II. In fact, I&#8217;ve played at least 150 games of Starcraft II. (I know this because the game keeps track of your record. I played 50 training matches, and have since won 47 and lost 42 against human opponents, putting me near the top of my division in the &#8220;Silver League&#8221;. Plus I&#8217;ve played some single-player games.)<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" title=\"My Starcraft II ranking as of noon on Sunday, August 29th.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/scranking.jpg\" alt=\"My Starcraft II ranking as of noon on Sunday, August 29th.\" width=\"500\" height=\"21\"\/><\/div>\n<p>How much time has playing 150 games of Starcraft II sucked from my life? At about 30 minutes per game, it&#8217;s safe to say I&#8217;ve spent about 80 hours over the past month \u2014 or about 20 hours per week \u2014 building virtual armies and blowing stuff up.<\/p>\n<p>Now on the surface, there&#8217;s nothing wrong with me having a little fun. I&#8217;ve been waiting for this game for almost twelve years. Plus, I&#8217;ve been working hard for the past two years, and I&#8217;ve been stressed because of it. I deserve some time off, and have intentionally been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/downshifting-the-first-day-of-the-rest-of-my-life\/\">downshifting to a simpler life<\/a>, one that gives me time for computer games.<\/p>\n<p><i>However<\/i>, having said that, in this case there&#8217;s a problem. Recently my game-playing \u2014 I&#8217;ve also been obsessed with <a href=\"https:\/\/carcassonneapp.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Carcassonne<\/a> on the iPad (getting close to the global <a href=\"https:\/\/carcassonneapp.com\/global-top-100.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">top 100 list<\/a>!) \u2014 has been obsessive, and has come at a price.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I haven&#8217;t been cycling (though I have been going to the gym).<\/li>\n<li>I haven&#8217;t been doing my work around the house.<\/li>\n<li>I haven&#8217;t been studying my French. (One of my goals was too be able to speak a bit of French before our upcoming trip to Paris.)<\/li>\n<li>I haven&#8217;t been prepping my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.animalintelligence.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Animal Intelligence<\/a> blog for re-launch (which is still scheduled for Wednesday!).<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;ve been scrambling to get articles ready for Get Rich Slowly.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I <i>say<\/i> I&#8217;m going to do all of these things, but I never do. Instead I play computer games. Basically, I&#8217;ve turned into the old J.D. \u2014 the J.D. of five years ago. I&#8217;ve become a Talker instead of a Doer.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"talkers-vs-doers\"><\/span>Talkers vs. Doers<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Five years ago, I was full of hot air. Well, that and I was clinically depressed. And lazy. This was not a good combination for Getting Things Done. I talked a lot about the things I wanted to do, but I never did them. I found reasons not to. I even had trouble keeping up my end of the household chores, which my wife found very frustrating.<\/p>\n<p>I was a Talker.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe you know somebody like this. A Talker seems to know the solutions to everything, has great plans on how he&#8217;s going to make money or get a new job. But the funny thing is, the Talker never acts on his solutions and his great plans. And he never gets that new job. He&#8217;s out of work or stuck in a job he hates. To everyone else, it&#8217;s clear that the Talker is full of hot air, but <i>he<\/i> believes he&#8217;s bluffing everyone along, or conflates talking with doing. When confronted, a Talker always has excuses for not getting things done: he doesn&#8217;t have time, he doesn&#8217;t have the skills, the odds are stacked against him. When a Talker <i>does<\/i> do something, he often takes a shortcut.<\/p>\n<p>That, my friends, was the man I used to be.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/0142000280\/?tag=grsorg-20\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: 0;\" title=\"Getting Things Done\" src=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/gtdcoverTN.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"67\" height=\"100\" align=\"right\" hspace=\"5\" vspace=\"3\"\/><\/a>But something changed in the autumn of 2005. I began to read a lot of books. Not just <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/building-a-personal-finance-library-25-of-the-best-books-about-money\/\">personal finance books<\/a> (though, as you know, I read plenty of those), but also self-help books and success manuals. I read <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/0380810336\/?tag=grsorg-20\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><i>Feeling Good<\/i><\/a> to deal with my depression, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/0671027034\/?tag=grsorg-20\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><i>How to Win Friends and Influence People<\/i><\/a> to learn how to talk with people, and so on. And gradually I began to take the advice in these books to heart.<\/p>\n<p>I began to take small steps, began to be more active in my world. Instead of just talking about doing things, I did them. I stopped looking for shortcuts \u2014 I had been a <i>huge<\/i> fan of shortcuts \u2014 and started actually doing the work required to get things done. Shockingly, this worked. By doing the work, I got the expected results. By doing instead of talking, things started to happen.<\/p>\n<p>I became a Doer.<\/p>\n<div class=\"highlight\"><i>&#8220;We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.&#8221; \u2014 Will Durant, though often <a href=\" https:\/\/en.wikiquote.org\/wiki\/Aristotle\">misattributed to Aristotle<\/a><\/i><\/div>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"we-are-what-we-repeatedly-do\"><\/span>We are What We Repeatedly Do<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Author Kevin J. Anderson has a <i>fantastic<\/i> post on his blog about the similarities between the Olympics and writing. Here&#8217;s a lengthy excerpt:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I&#8217;ve had many people tell me, \u201cOh, writing is easy. Anybody can do it if they just sit down and put their minds to it.\u201d Here&#8217;s how the conversation goes:<\/p>\n<p>Somebody at a book-signing: \u201cI&#8217;ve always wanted to be a writer. I could write a novel.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Me: \u201cOh? Why haven&#8217;t you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Person: \u201cI just don&#8217;t have the time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Me: \u201cHmm. Nobody gives me the time, either. I have to make the time, set priorities, discipline myself to get my writing done each day, no matter how tired I am. I worked a full-time regular job while I wrote my first novels, scraping out an hour here or there in evenings and weekends. That&#8217;s how I&#8217;ve become a successful author.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Person: \u201cYeah, right. I think you&#8217;re just lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n[&#8230;]\n<p>I&#8217;ve wanted to be a writer since I was five years old. I sat in my dad&#8217;s study and plunked out my first \u201cnovel\u201d on a manual typewriter when I was eight. By the age of ten, I had saved up enough money to buy either a bicycle (like a normal kid), or my own typewriter. I chose the typewriter. I got my first rejection slip by the time I was 13, had my first story published when I was 16 (after I had gathered 80 rejection slips), and sold my first novel by the time I was 25.<\/p>\n<p>I have a trophy in my office proclaiming me to be \u201cThe Writer with No Future\u201d because I could produce more rejection slips by weight than any other writer at an entire conference. My files now bulge with more than 800 rejections. On the other hand, I also have 100 books published, 46 of which have been national or international bestsellers, I&#8217;ve got a shelf full of awards, and my work has been translated into 30 languages. I&#8217;ve written more than twelve million words, so far.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Anderson is a Doer. He doesn&#8217;t just talk about writing \u2014 he writes. He writes over and over and over again. Through the sheer act of writing, he became a writer.<\/p>\n<div class=\"highlight\"><i><b>Note:<\/b><\/i> <b>Anderson&#8217;s entire post is awesome. <a href=\"http:\/\/kjablog.com\/olympics-and-writing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Go read it now.<\/a><\/b> My article will still be here when you finish.<\/div>\n<p>People often ask me about the secret to this blog&#8217;s success. &#8220;How did you get so many readers?&#8221; they ask. &#8220;How can I do the same?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>My answer is similar to Anderson&#8217;s. There aren&#8217;t any secrets. Write and post great content on a regular basis for a long, long time. In short, you can&#8217;t just <i>talk<\/i> about building a great blog; you also have to put in the work. Simple, right? But it&#8217;s not easy.<\/p>\n<p>(I appreciate the folks who come up to me and say, &#8220;You know, J.D., I don&#8217;t know how you do it. I tried to keep a blog for a few months. It was <i>hard<\/i>.&#8221; Yes, it is. It&#8217;s work, just like anything else.)<\/p>\n<p><b>If there&#8217;s something you want to be or do, the best way to become that thing is to actually take steps toward it<\/b>, to move in that direction. Don&#8217;t just talk about it, but <i>do<\/i> something. It doesn&#8217;t have to be a big thing. Just take a small step in the right direction every single day.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to get out of debt, take small steps toward becoming debt-free. If you want to save for a trip to Africa, save a little bit at a time. If you want to get a new job, make moves in that direction. But take action. That&#8217;s the most important step.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"action-not-words\"><\/span>Action Not Words<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Of course, there&#8217;s more to getting stuff than just taking action. It&#8217;s one thing to say you want to become a commercial airline pilot and another to actually do it. Here are some of the things I learned as I made the move from Talker do Doer:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b><i>Make<\/i> time for the things you want to do.<\/b> One of the keys to getting things done is setting aside time for the things you want to accomplish. You have to <i>make<\/i> time to get stuff done. As the Kevin J. Anderson article I mentioned above demonstrates, you don&#8217;t just become a best-selling author or an Olympic athlete. Talking doesn&#8217;t make it so. You have to carve out time to do this stuff. You have to put your <a href=\"https:\/\/zenhabits.net\/big-rocks-first-double-your-productivity-this-week\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Big Rocks<\/a> first and fit the small stuff in around them.<\/li>\n<li><b>Have a goal in mind.<\/b> I truly believe that the biggest reason I used to struggle with getting stuff done is that I didn&#8217;t have any sort of plan. I had no goals. Goals give you purpose. It wasn&#8217;t until I became committed to digging out of debt that I was able to actually start moving in the right direction. Part of my current problem is that I&#8217;ve recently achieved a bunch of big goals, but now have nothing planned for the future.<\/li>\n<li><b>Don&#8217;t take on too much.<\/b> While it&#8217;s important to set goals, don&#8217;t take on too many tasks at once. I try to set just one or two major goals at a time. Any more and I find I can&#8217;t pursue any of them effectively. This year, my one goal is to lose 50 pounds. I&#8217;m on pace to do that. Why? Because I don&#8217;t have anything else on my schedule competing for time. This is my Big Rock.<\/li>\n<li><b>Don&#8217;t let failures deter you.<\/b> This is huge. One of the reasons I used to talk so much without acting is that I was afraid of failure. I&#8217;m not sure where I learned to be afraid of defeat, but that&#8217;s the way I was. And when I <i>did<\/i> try something but failed, I&#8217;d give up. This is no way to get stuff done. Talkers let fear of failure keep them on the sideline; Doers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/building-confidence\/\">overcome fear<\/a> and move on, and when they fail, they simply try again.<\/li>\n<li><b>Don&#8217;t find reasons that something <i>can&#8217;t<\/i> be done; instead, find ways that something <i>can<\/i> be done.<\/b> This is a pet peeve of mine. I hate when people come to me for advice, but when I give it, they tell me all of the reasons it won&#8217;t work for their circumstances. (This often happens when I suggest people take a second job to boost their income, for example.) One of the biggest difference between successful people and those who aren&#8217;t is that the successful don&#8217;t make excuses. If something looks difficult or impossible, they find ways to make it happen anyhow.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In the past five years, <b>I&#8217;ve learned that I can <i>do<\/i> anything I set my mind to.<\/b> Get out of debt? After I stopped talking and started doing, I got out of debt quicker than I thought possible. Losing 50 pounds? Well, I&#8217;m not there yet, but I&#8217;ve lost <i>over 30 pounds<\/i> since January 1st \u2014 but it didn&#8217;t happen until I stopped talking about it and started working hard to make it happen. Learning French? Well, there&#8217;s one where my talk outpaces my action right now, and it&#8217;s a perfect example of what I mean when I say actions speak louder than words. I don&#8217;t study my French as much as I should, so basically all I can do is count and tell you what color my clothes are. (&#8220;J&#8217;ai deux chemise noir.&#8221;)<\/p>\n<p>For five years, my doing slowly increased until this past winter it reached a frenzied pace. I was burning myself out. I was writing and speaking and working and exercising and&#8230;well, it seemed like I never had a spare moment. This was the dark side of doing, and it&#8217;s what triggered <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/downshifting-the-first-day-of-the-rest-of-my-life\/\">my desire to downshift<\/a>. It&#8217;s what led the pendulum swinging too far in the direction of Starcraft II.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"finding-a-solution\"><\/span>Finding a Solution<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>So what&#8217;s the solution to my current problem? How can I stop playing computer games so much? How can I stop just being a Talker and become a Doer again? Well, making this public confession is a first step. But the thing that I think will really help is the &#8220;decision tree&#8221; I came up with the other day. Whenever the urge to game strikes, I&#8217;m going to ask myself the following questions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Have I exercised today?<\/li>\n<li>Are the house and yard tidy?<\/li>\n<li>Have I run all of my errands?<\/li>\n<li>Have I written and\/or edited at least <i>two<\/i> articles for Get Rich Slowly?<\/li>\n<li>Does my inbox have fewer than 20 messages?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><i>If<\/i> I can answer &#8220;yes&#8221; to these five questions, <i>then<\/i> it&#8217;s okay to play Starcraft II or Carcassonne. But if I answer &#8220;no&#8221; to even one of these questions, I need to have the discipline to let the gaming go. I believe this will help me strike a balance. It&#8217;ll help me return to the world of Doing again. Because you know what? Life is a lot more fun as a Doer than a Talker.<\/p>\n<div class=\"highlight\"><i><b>Note:<\/b><\/i> At the risk of creating more Talkers in the GRS audience, I&#8217;d just like to point out that the <a href=\"https:\/\/carcassonneapp.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Carcassonne app<\/a> is outstanding. If you&#8217;ve played the board game, you <i>must<\/i> play the iPhone\/iPad version. The ability to play \u2014 <i>gulp<\/i> \u2014 dozens of games in a matter of days lets you see just how rich and complex this game is. This adaptation is perfect in every way.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s Sunday morning and I should be editing articles in advance of my upcoming vacation. Instead, I just got done playing another game of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/downshifting-the-first-day-of-the-rest-of-my-life\/\">Starcraft II<\/a>. Since the game was released on July 27th, I&#8217;ve played <i>many<\/i> games of Starcraft II. In fact, I&#8217;ve played at least 150 games of Starcraft II. (I know this because the game keeps track of your record. I played 50 training matches, and have since won 47 and lost 42 against human opponents, putting me near the top of my division in the &#8220;Silver League&#8221;. Plus I&#8217;ve played some single-player games.)<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" title=\"My Starcraft II ranking as of noon on Sunday, August 29th.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/scranking.jpg\" alt=\"My Starcraft II ranking as of noon on Sunday, August 29th.\" width=\"500\" height=\"21\"\/><\/div>\n<p>How much time has playing 150 games of Starcraft II sucked from my life? At about 30 minutes per game, it&#8217;s safe to say I&#8217;ve spent about 80 hours over the past month \u2014 or about 20 hours per week \u2014 building virtual armies and blowing stuff up.<\/p>\n<p>Now on the surface, there&#8217;s nothing wrong with me having a little fun. I&#8217;ve been waiting for this game for almost twelve years. Plus, I&#8217;ve been working hard for the past two years, and I&#8217;ve been stressed because of it. I deserve some time off, and have intentionally been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/downshifting-the-first-day-of-the-rest-of-my-life\/\">downshifting to a simpler life<\/a>, one that gives me time for computer games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3287,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[31919],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38151"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38151\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}