what is an intensive?

Is this you? Everyone tells you, "You're too

much". Everyone is afraid to tell you, "you're too much." you

get super excited and super into the things you're into. And

everything else, you couldn't care less. You go like hell and

you rest like the dead.

You get really, really excited about a hobby or an interest or

a practice or a thing. And then after a while, it's just not

interesting anymore. Your jobs are great for the first eight

months or so. And then you know all the things you need to know

to do your job and you're not into it anymore. And you get

bored and fidgety or you stop giving it your all and next

thing you know, either you're quitting or you're fired. And

then you start the cycle over and you don't exactly know why

it was a perfectly good job. You started your own company, maybe

because you did that one too many times. And now you just

wish you could do the thing that you love to do. And hand off all

of the fiddly bits that you hate. You hate the fiddly bits

in general, except the ones that you really, really get

satisfaction out of getting exactly exactly right. Speaking

of exactly right, you need to have exactly the right tools.

And by exactly I mean, the right pen, the right color, the right

paper, the right ink, the right breathing, the right music, the

right chair, the right table, everything has to be right.

Anything that's not quite right irritates you. Like the sound of

the refrigerator. You might have a diagnosis for autism or ADHD

or both. Or you might not. You might read those things a lot

and think "I'm sort of close maybe kind of, but not

entirely." When you meet the right person, you click and you

can talk for hours. But there are all these awkward silences

and other social spaces where you don't know quite why, but

you seem to have said too much again, oh no. Are you are being

direct and clear, and the other person is offended because you

were a little too direct or too clear. When you need to rest you

lie down, stop thinking about it, do

not engage, do not engage, do not engage until suddenly, one

day you wake up and you have a fully formed idea in your head.

And so you go go go and nobody knows where it came from. So

they all look at you. Like maybe you're not making the best

decisions all the time. Other people like you trust you, want

to go with you, want to jump ship to fly with you. Everyone

else wonders why you can't be more responsible, can't be more

steady, can't just show up and do the thing like everyone else.

Either, you are so brilliant that you started a company and

sold it for millions or you are so brilliant that you keep

hoping that you will sell a company for millions or that

your idea will take root because it will change the world when it

does. Or you're really, really struggling or some combination

of those things. You may have built the life that you thought

you were supposed to build. And it's not quite working for you,

you may have built the company that you thought you were

supposed to build. But everyone keeps getting mad at you. And

the culture is kind of wonky. And you can't really figure out

why. Or you built the perfect company for you because you had

to because it was the only way you could survive. And now the

problem is you can't be everywhere at once and how do

you replicate you in enough different places to keep your

company running? Maybe you hired, like me, one VA to VA red

VA blue VA and it took you a while to recognize that perhaps

you didn't need the kind of VA that everybody else needed. You

needed someone who could do different, who could do more,

who could keep up with you, but still be steady in a way that

you're not. So you eventually found them but it took you a lot

of time and money and energy and maybe you're afraid of

replicating that with the rest of your team or maybe you have

already replicated that with the rest of your team or maybe

you're afraid that this wonky tied-together-with-fishing-twine-and-spit

raft that you've made is going to fall apart as it starts to

scale and you're not sure what to do to make sure that it

doesn't do that. Maybe you love what you do. You love with a

passion, the ideas or the software or the service you're

providing. And you don't know why everybody else doesn't love

it too. They say they do. But speaking a language that makes

other people want to buy it is the thing That makes you tear

your hair out. Probably a lot of people think that you're really

interesting and a little bit eccentric. And some people think

that you're trying to show off, those are the people that you

have learned not to try to make friends with, because they just

get angrier, the more interesting you get, but you

can't help it, you're interested in almost everything except the

things that are completely boring that you can't be

bothered with. And when you're interested in something, you

just go deep diving with it. And then you become kind of an

expert, not really, not like,

maybe you go to school for it, but probably not. Because how

could you go to school for that many different things. So

instead, you just keep learning, and keep growing and keep

becoming, and you keep integrating all of that stuff

into your brain and into your work. Which is why when somebody

needs a solution for a problem in a crisis, you have the

solution in your pocket already, because you were thinking about

that three nights ago when you were laying there trying to fall

asleep. And now you have a solution have formed, ready to

be fully formed in the space that it needs to be fully formed

in to solve this problem right off the bat. And so everyone

loves you in a crisis, but then they wish you would just tone

down and shut up a little bit, so that they could go back to

their normal undisrupted life. But the fact is that you have

discovered that you are a disrupter everywhere you go. And

that is what makes you brilliant. And that is one of

your favorite things about you. And you just wish you could

spend more time with people who think that too. And someday,

you're gonna lead or you are leading. Or this is someday and

you are at the helm of something that is bigger and brighter and

bolder than you ever thought it could be. And you're super

excited. And you still know you're right in that way that

you always know that you're right, even when everybody

thinks that you're wrong, that kind of knowing that you're

right, that pisses people off. But also they have learned that

you are usually right when you think that you're right. And so

you are a little too sure of yourself sometimes. And

sometimes that means you fuck things up really badly. But most

of the time what it means most of the time, what it means is

that you're able to go places that nobody thinks anybody can

go. Because you know the connections, you can feel them

in your bones and blood, you know how this is part of that.

And that is part of everything, and everything is part of you.

And you link it all together and you create something new,

something wonderful, something beautiful. And now the key is it

has to fit into a world that isn't used to that much beauty,

that isn't used to that much boldness, that isn't used to

that much you. But you are enormous. You take up star

fields. And that is the way it should be. That is the thing

that you have to give the world, that is the thing that we,

intensives, have to give the world. And so we keep trying,

even when it's hard, even when it's frustrating. Even when we

fall into deep swaths of depression, that feel like

they're gonna swallow us in their waving. And then we find

that spark again. That little hope, that idea that nobody has

ever had before we're pretty sure or if they did, they didn't

manage execute it like this. And we get going again, we start

again, we begin again because that, that is what we do. That

is how we do. More ideas and more ideas and more ideas and

possibility, and a little bit of fertilizer, and we become the

plant that reaches for the sun

That's what an intensive is. And that's why I love us. Thanks for