Emerson and I recently got into puzzles.

We started with a 100-piece, little-kids’ puzzle of The World. 🌎

Then we went to a little-older-kids’ 100-piece puzzle featuring… Dinosaurs. 🦖

From there we rocked a 200-piece puzzle featuring Blackbeard’s Battle. (As you might’ve guessed, that one had a pirate ship battling another ship at sea. Arrrr!) 🏴‍☠️

From there, it was time for a 300-piece Underwater Adventure. 🐠

Then we stepped up our puzzle game and went for a 500-piece (adult puzzle) featuring an animal scene from The Serengeti. 🦒 🦁

THEN…

We walked into the little family-run toy store in Ojai called Serendipity and told our friend Joe we were ready for a 1,000-piece puzzle. This one featured The Cove complete with an underwater scene of various fish, beautiful blue skies and matching water. 😲

And…

We got to work.

Now…

I’m not a big puzzle guy but everyone knows how you start a puzzle right?

Q: After finding the right place to actually work on your puzzle, what’s the recommended first thing to do? (Yes, I actually Google-studied this as we ramped up the difficulty level. lol. 🤓)

A: You find the edge pieces.

Right?

Well… Guess what?

The SAME thing holds true with building the puzzle that is our lives.

We need to START with the edge pieces.

We need to find the basic fundamentals that hold the whole puzzle together.

When you’re starting a 1,000- (or 10,000-!) piece puzzle, you don’t start with the hardest part of the puzzle.

Right?

You know what I’m talking about—those sections of pure, identical sky blue that make you want to pull your hair out. (Hah.)

You save the super-crazy-tricky parts for the VERY END after you’ve systematically hammered the easier parts.

Right?

Again…

The SAME thing holds true with building the puzzle that is our lives.

That’s Today’s +1.

How are your edge pieces?

Are you jumping ahead and trying to figure out the super-crazy-tricky parts of your life-puzzle before you’ve got your edge pieces all Optimized?

Here’s to clean, bright-line borders that make the rest of the puzzle so much more fun to build.

Oh!

btw.

Remember those chairs and campfires we needed to rebuild every morning?

Same rules apply with our life-puzzles. We need to get to rebuild them every day.

Happy puzzle-Optimizing!

+1. +1. +1.

P.S. Have I mentioned that our 2020 Heroic Mastery Series and Heroic Coach programs start soon? Yep. What’s YOUR Optimized life-puzzle look like for 2020 and the next decade? Let’s design it and build it. Together!

The Puzzle of Life #1013

And How to Build It

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This +1 Inspired by:

Coming Alive

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This +1 Inspired by:

Coming Alive