LegendaryLife Blog

An interesting and unique situation hits me every week or so with my woodworking site, WoodMarvels.com,is when ever I launch something really cool… that was fun… what do I do next?

It can always be better

One thing I really hate doing is going back on old work because once something is done, in my mind, it stays DONE! That being said, as soon as something is produced, whether it’s a book, model or soundtrack or even animation and launched… a few weeks later you look back and what you though was amazing just isn’t as much anymore. Call it a perfectionists attitude but it has always been there since I was a child. Luckily, I can easily take the lessons learned from my “almost perfect” projects and apply it to completely different projects so progress happens at a far quicker pace as a result.

Example of learning

I built a medieval castle wall model a little over a year go (animation below) and it looked ok but I though afterwards that it was simply too complicated and assembly could be far better improved… it was also way too small!

Within a week of launching this product which I thought was amazing, I already started an a major refresh that just collected dust for almost a year, during that time, I got into on-demand manufacturing, developed close to 100 wooden marvels for my site and worked with several other designers… all teaching me very valuable lessons. The result of this is that two weeks ago I realized this was just sitting there and needed to get finished.

Yes, much better! A dramatic improvement in every way except one, it seems a little lonely, so now I got to give this medieval castle walls B model some other things like homes to go into the courtyard and a few other accessories to turn it from cool to amazing. I have ideas for a Medieval Castle that fits right inside but right now, I will just sit on the sidelines and see what kind of reception this model gets.

Striving for success!

One trait that I have both experienced myself and seen or read in other successful people is that they seem to have this attitude that things can always be better. From Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos who meticulously oversees every aspect of his company to Sir Richard Brandson who hasn’t met a crazy idea he wasn’t willing to at least give a go for… once they are done something cool… they start again on the path of finding that next cool thing while carefully watching what they had built previously.

The Bottom Line

Reaching success is an exercise in futility as the journey never really ends.