Sometimes I read something that’s too good not to pass on. This is from Sahil Bloom’s The Friday Five, February 23, 2024.

In 2002, Charlie Rose interviewed Will Smith on his television show.

During the interview, Smith tells a story from his childhood about his father asking him and his little brother to rebuild a 16×30 wall on the front of his shop.

The task was understandably daunting for the two boys:

“I remember standing back looking at that wall saying, there’s gonna be a hole here, forever.”

But a year and a half of daily work later, they completed the wall. Reflecting on the experience, Will Smith offered a piece of timeless wisdom:

“You don’t try to build a wall…You don’t start by saying, I’m going to build the biggest, baddest wall that’s ever been built. You say, I’m going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid…you do that every single day, and soon you have a wall.”

This is a powerful mentality for life:

No matter how big the task or project may seem at the start, you just have to lay one brick.

The wall may be daunting, but today’s brick is all that matters.

Extraordinary results are simply the macro result of tens, hundreds, or thousands of tiny daily actions.

Remember: Small things become big things.

So today and all days, let’s lay one brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid… -Sahil Bloom, quoting Charlie Rose, emphasis mine

I wrote about this concept back in August of 2019. It’s worth today’s reminder. Here’s part of a poem from that blog:

Sometimes we don’t know what to do, but quitting is not an option. (2 Corinthians 4.8, Passion Translation)