In the summer of 1980, a 12 year-old Willard Carroll Smith Jr. and his brother Harry stared incredulously at what stood before them…

There was a gaping hole – approximately 30 feet wide and 16 feet high – where the front of their father’s bakery used to be.

For one reason or another, their father had torn it down and now; he wanted them to rebuild it – by hand.

So that’s what they did, and every day, after school, Willard and his brother rebuilt their dad’s wall.

They started by laying one brick, perfectly. Then they laid another, and another, and another, ensuring each brick was laid as perfectly as the one that preceded it.

They laid bricks every day – for 18 months.

In hindsight, Willard would describe building that wall as an “impossible task”, but despite its difficulty, he and his brother persevered and a year and a half later, they laid their final brick.

Finally, after months of laboring, the Smith brothers had a wall, their wall.

As they gazed in astonishment at their “masterpiece”, their father walked over, knelt down and said something neither of them would ever forget…

“Don’t you ever tell me there’s something you can’t do”.

Start Laying Bricks

In life and work, we all have a “wall”; a habit we want to form, a behaviour we want to change, a goal we want to achieve, etc.

But in order to build that wall, we must lay “bricks”, in other words, perform reps and repetitions and focus on our next brick, our “next play”.

In an interview, 22 years later, Willard Carroll Smith Jr. said:

You don’t set out to build a wall. You don’t say ‘I’m going to build the biggest, baddest, greatest wall that’s ever been built.’ You don’t start there. 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. [1]

Saying no to an aggressive boss. Eating one portion of fruits and vegetables. Running to the next lamppost. Buying a web domain. Emailing a prospect. Scheduling what to do and when to do it.

This is how you build a wall. You count the right things. You count how many bricks you can lay as perfectly as a brick can be laid.

And while perfection is impossible, striving for it isn’t.

Your wall might feel insurmountable, but it’s not.

You only need to lay one brick to start building a wall.

P.S.

Who is Willard Carroll Smith Jr.? You might know him better as Academy Award-winning actor Will Smith.

Sources [1] Will Smith on Charlie Rose, (March 13, 2002), Available at [1] Will Smith on Charlie Rose, (March 13, 2002), Available at http://www.amazon.com/Charlie-Rose-March-13-2002/dp/B002Z795BG (Accessed March 30, 2015).

Did you enjoy this article? Please pass it onto others by clicking a social share button below.