"Showing up is a strategy. Showing up every day is a superpower!" - Futurist Jim Carroll
This is part 1 of a short 6-part series. Writing my newest book sent me deep into my own archives - thousands of morning posts, going back 10 years. I came out with a conviction: the ideas that keep coming back are the ones that matter most. So I'm revisiting them - because sometimes the most useful thing a futurist can do is check what still holds true.
I've spent decades watching companies win and companies fail, and I can tell you the difference is almost never intelligence.
The winners aren't smarter. They're just more relentless.
I've been chewing on that word for a long time. All the way back in 2016, I built an entire mantra around it:
"Expect velocity. Plan for acceleration. Structure for intensity. Execute relentlessly." (2016)
I liked it so much I ran it again in 2017. Twice. Some ideas deserve repeating!
"Relentless optimism! Mindset matters!" (2017)
"Start each and every day with relentless optimism. Immediately banish any signs of pessimism!" (2017)
Here's what I've learned about relentlessness: it isn't intensity. Intensity is easy - anyone can sprint for a week.
Relentlessness is showing up on the mornings when you don't feel like it, when nothing seems to be moving, when the payoff is nowhere in sight.
Every organization I've watched transform itself did it the same way - not with one bold stroke, but with an unreasonable, unglamorous consistency.
They decided what mattered, and then they did it again the next day.
And the next.
I've seen people do it too - managing to make the effort, day in day out, to do the things they need to do to get through it - whatever 'it' is.
They show up.
That's the whole secret, and almost nobody wants to hear it, because it doesn't sound like magic.
It becomes magic.
It just takes a few thousand mornings to get there.
Showing up? It's magic. It's a superpower. It's what works.
What are you going to show up for today?