I didn’t understand what hit me. I mean, it happened so fast! One moment I was in the air, the next I was hitting the ground hard, a bit dazed and surprised at the same time. Wondering what happened to me, feeling my right knee, hip, and elbow in acute pain. Ow! That hurts.

What happened!? What’s all this about?

This, is a story of me making a fool of myself.

As with many stories, this one involves a girl. Mind you, I have no idea who she was. I don’t even remember her now. And I’m not blaming her for anything, although …

The story is quite basic and can be simplified as follows:
Boy sees pretty girl, boy gets distracted, boy makes a fool of himself, boy learns a lesson.

So, what happened?

I was just getting out and warming up on my habitual run, nothing special. In my head, thinking of jumping the fence I usually jump. Then I see this girl. She’s running, fit, nice legs, wearing shorts and a black t-shirt. She has a ponytail that is swishing from side to side, and has white headphones one. Probably of the Apple brand.

I’m coming up on that fence.

Then I think of how good I’d look jumping over that fence. I bet she doesn’t see many people do that.

The fence in closing in.

She really was pretty.

I jump and BAM! I’m on the ground. Did I fall?

What’s the first thing that pops in my head?

Come on, did you really hit the fence? Did I really do that? Well, you must have, you’re on the ground.

Am I fine? Can I move my legs, arms, hips. Yes. My sensitivity is fine. Blood flow is fine. Nothing is broken. Good.

I vaguely remember the girl stopping to see if I was all right, me answering “yeah I’m fine”, then thinking, no, not really and saying, “well I’m gonna take my time to get back up. ” She ran off.

So I lay there sitting in the dust contemplating the events that had just unfolded so quickly. And a little quote pops in my head: Pride cometh before the fall.

What a literal description. I laughed internally.

I slowly got back up, then walked back home, dusty with some blood on my knee, feeling my body ache with every step. I was both amused and frustrated for being so stupid.

Keep your focus. Don’t get distracted. Focus on the task at hand. I repeated internally.

So. Will boy learn? To be continued … in the following encounters with the opposite sex.

Does this remind you of times you’ve been stupid? Leave a comment and don’t be afraid to share 🙂

Here we go for a first edition of a What I Learned Doing week, where I sample some of the things I learned and applied this week.

-1-

A simple but effective question to evaluate your day is to ask:

What have I learned today?

-2-

Insulting someone, even jokingly isn’t worth it. Avoid it at all costs.

-3-

Exposing yourself to randomness and uncertainty is very valuable. Practically this means staying in a closed room all day, that is “safe” and “predictable” offers no significant chance to improve your life. Whereas going out and exposing yourself to randomness and uncertainty lets you take advantage of serendipitous opportunities and creates a very palpable excitement to life. You simply can’t wait to see what happens next. Saying yes to weird opportunities, and being a bit more spontaneous, has potentially very high upside and very little downside. Who knows who you might meet next?

-4-

“We’re all going to have the ‘I want to quit days’, but you cannot quit on those days.” 

(Nastia Liukin, c.f Impact Theory interview)

-5-

When you really think about everything that had to happen for you to exist at this very moment, you become unbelievably grateful to be alive. It’s nice to remind yourself of this one, since we so rapidly take life for granted.

-6-

“Don’t run after trains. […] Running after a train is only painful if you run after it. Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that’s what you are seeking. […] It is more difficult to be a loser in a game you set up yourself. “

(Nassim Nicolas Taleb author of Black Swan)

-7-

“The ultimate freedom we have is how we choose to respond to a situation.”

(Viktor Frankl author of Man’s Search For Meaning)

-8-

“To get what you want, you have to deserve what you want. The world is not yet a crazy enough place to reward a whole bunch of
undeserving people.”

(Charles T. Munger)

-9-

“Man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life: to life he can only respond by being responsible. […] According to logotherapy we can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering. 

(Viktor Frankl author of Man’s Search For Meaning)

-10-

Asking for a 10% discount off everything you buy is remarkably and surprisingly effective. Be it a cup of coffee, a sandwich, clothes or something else. Give it a try and see for yourself. (I barrowed this from Tim Ferriss)

Recently I had a conversation with a friend with 20 years more life experience than me. He remarked that, boys (me included) tend not to speak to girls, and vice versa. And that we were missing out on amazing people and opportunities to connect and develop relationships. I asked him how he behaved at 20 years of age and he admitted that he used to do the same thing. This underlines the fact that young people tend to suck at relationships.

This remark sparked a very interesting conversation. Here are some of the key ideas we discussed as well as some of my thoughts.

A couple basic observations:

• Boys and girls tend to not speak to one another that much.
• The best conversations you have tend to be with people much older than you or much younger.
• Gay people talk to a lot of girls and tend to have more interesting conversations.
• It’s easier to speak to someone you don’t have sexual interest for than to speak to someone you have sexual interest for.
• Most people want to feel connected.
• Most conversations you have tend to be superficial and unfulfilling.

Why does this happen?

Sex, An Impediment To Connection ?

What is common between a gay person that speaks with many women, an old man who speaks with young girls and a married man speaking with women?

Well, in all these interactions sex is off the table.

The gay person by definition doesn’t have sex with women. Young people aren’t generally sexually attracted to older people. Married people, or at least those that are monogamous, only have sex with there spouse.

What this enables is to move past sex and have more interesting conversations because each person isn’t concerned with how s/he is coming off to the other and then start to talk about stuff they actually want to talk about. They are both seeking connection but not the sexual kind because it is not possible. They don’t risk scaring off their “only” opportunity to have sex. Now this is obviously not true but in the moment it can feel like it. Evolutionarily speaking it was advantageous to worry about how others perceived you because there were only so many women in your community with whom you could reproduce with. So your brain makes you feel as if it were a life or death situation, where you have to be “perfect” or else your genes won’t survive. Whether or not it is true the brain doesn’t care.

Why do we have so many superficially unfulfilling conversations?

I’d argue that most people hate superficial conversations and that most want deep meaningful ones, but that most people think that not everyone wants that kind of connection. When you think about it, not many people like to speak about the weather, but almost everyone ends up speaking about the weather? Why is that? Well for sure it’s not that they want to speak about the weather. They want to connect. They want to have a conversation. Everyone craves connection. That’s why we love it so much when we finally meet someone with whom things just click and we can speak about anything with them.

Another key element is that a conversation is two sided. You need a minimum two people to have a conversation. Otherwise it’s called a monologue. It’s not all about you. You need another person. If that person isn’t open to conversing then there is no conversation. Some people want to be left alone, simply aren’t in the mood or have other more pressing problems to deal with than speaking with you.

Another impediment to fulfilling conversations is that we care too much what other people think. We end up not broaching subjects that really interest us for fear of how the other might react or perceive us. This is quite sad because most of the time this is exactly what the other person is dying for us to do.

We are bad conversationalists. Nobody ever taught us, this is how to have a healthy conversation.

We don’t listen. We’re always obsessed with how interesting our own ideas are that we never take the time to listen to what the other person is saying. Often we’re thinking of our own smart remark that we can’t wait to say once the other person finally shuts up. More often we just interrupt them to say what we want to say, because we can’t wait that long. We end up speaking to each other rather than with each other. It can actually be quite entertaining to watch people do this.

Can’t you just jump into a deep conversation?

No. You can’t. Unless you already have a great relationship with the person you are talking to, and even then you have to build up to it.

What would you do if a stranger asked you a really deep question out of the blue? Most likely you’d think they were weird and continue doing what you were doing, I mean who do they think they are interrupting you like that.

There is no short cut to small talk. As Benjamin Disraeli says “there is a certain acquaintance with trifling but amusing subjects which must be first attained”.

But once the talk is started you also must to be willing to say something interesting, dare to say something different or ask an unusually penetrating question.

What can we do about it?

Educate yourself about conversations. Learn from the best. Read books. Do the work.

Men need to realise that sexual desire isn’t something you get rid of. It’s something you move past. It’s an age old problem. 2000 years ago the stoics had some advice on this topic:

Marcus Aurelius has a specific quote that I like to revisit from time to time:

Start praying like this and you’ll see.
Not “some way to sleep with her” — but a way to stop wanting to.
Not “some way to get rid of him” — but a way to stop trying.
Not “some way to save my child” — but a way to lose your fear.
Redirect your prayers like that, and watch what happens.

Accept that you’ll feel desire and attraction and learn to move past that. Don’t get stuck in superficial appearances and perceptions. Instead move past them. To do that you can imagine the other person as unattractive. Something that also helps, is getting in the habit of seeing things for what they are. Don’t get all obsessed over sex, see it for what it really is. A rubbing of genitals, a slight seizure, a spurt of semen.

Realise connection is what you want and that sex is not necessarily the only way to get it.

David Deida has some thoughts on the leveraging of sexual desire: “allow women’s sexiness to help you discover and give your gift, rather than beguile you into cycles of stimulation and depletion”. Let the energy a woman give you fill you up and give expression to your gifts.

Realise you don’t need to be perfect. This is something that is really important. Realise anything you do can’t be perfect. You can always do your best though, and that should suffice.

Learn to listen. Don’t think of your smart, witty answer you can’t wait to blab out. Listen. Then if it is needed respond.

Realise that if you don’t interact with the opposite sex you’re literally missing out on half of the people in the world and a fantastic opportunity for growth.

Move from a scarcity mentality to an abundance mentality. Realise every interaction is an opportunity to practice being your best self and developing your communication and relationship skills. Also remember that there are as they say “many fish in the sea”. Or that “there is an other bus every 15 minutes”.

Additionally, pay attention to Benjamin Disraeli’s advice on relationships and seduction that encompasses several of the aforementioned ideas. Disraeli was a man who mastered communication:

Do not talk too much at present; do not try to talk. But whenever you speak, speak with self-possession. Speak in a subdued tone, and always look at the person whom you are addressing. Before one can engage in general conversation with any effect, there is a certain acquaintance with trifling but amusing subjects which must be first attained. You will soon pick up sufficient by listening and observing. Never argue. In society nothing must be discussed; give only results. If any person differ from you, bow and turn the conversation. In society never think; always be on the watch, or you will miss many opportunities and say many disagreeable things. Talk to women, talk to women as much as you can. This is the best school. This is the way to gain fluency, because you need not care what you say, and had better not be sensible. They, too, will rally you on many points and as they are women you will not be offended. Nothing is of so much importance and of so much use to a young man entering life as to be well criticised by women.

—ANDRÉ MAUROIS, DISRAELI, TRANSLATED BY HAMISH MILES

On some evening walks I take there is this little thing I do that  has some profound effect.

What I do is walk in a straight line on a path I know, in the dark, with my eyes closed. It’s quite disorienting at first.

I worry about drifting to one side of the path or running into something, even when I know there is nothing in front of me. I worry about where I’m trying to go. I worry about how far I am from my goal. I can get all mixed up in my own head. Paralysed by fear.

But with practice what I’m really doing is learning to take one step after the other. I’m learning to keep walking. One step at a time. At a steady pace. Not too fast. Cautious but continuous. I learn to be in the present moment. To trust that if I just keep moving forward I will eventually get to where I want to go. How far I have to go becomes irrelevant. It’s the process of taking one step after another that is important. Each time I get a little closer to my goal.

If I wander off to one side I feel the grass border. Then I adjust. And I keep walking.

Sometimes I want to look ahead in my imagination, but that only distracts me from the real task: putting one foot in front of the other without stopping.

To get to the ultimate goal I have to keep walking. Worrying or imagining the future leads me nowhere, it just makes me forget where I am right now. Looking at past steps doesn’t help me get to where I want. I just have to keep putting on foot in front of the other.

On the path I take there are a couple light sources. While I have my eyes closed I can still see variations in luminosity through my eye-lids. When I’m in the dark everything is okay. When I’m in the light everything is okay. But when I transition from one to the other, my mind gets agitated and fear arises. A shift from light to dark creates an instinctive reflex of wanting to stop. Usually if it gets darker it means there is an obstacle in the way. But in this instance I know there is none. So I learn to push through that fear and discomfort. The opposite is also true. When I’m going from the known darkness to a different uncertain light I feel fear, get uncomfortable, and push through it. One step after an other.

This practice forces me to be in the present moment and fully aware of my body and surrounding. I must relax and trust in my ability to adapt to unforeseen obstacles or events. I learn to just keep stepping.

In a way it resembles life. You’re going somewhere you can’t see. You constantly have to adjust your course when you hit the grass. You have to go through moments of lightness and darkness, each one temporary. And through it all, you have to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Relax and keep taking the next step. Never dwelling on past steps or looking too far ahead. And trusting that you will eventually get to where you want to go.

Join me in making those small consistent steps. Put one foot in front of the other. Then repeat.

What’s the real job of a teacher? What makes a teacher great?

The job of teaching is an ever changing one. It is never the same because you never teach the same thing to the same individual. It’s a job of constant adaptation, effort and dedication.

The job of a teacher is to create a safe environment in which the student can fail safely, repeatedly and at little to no consequences. So that the student may gain confidence in his ability to learn and try and adapt. So that he may forge his identity around being a learner.

A teacher’s job is to show a student that he can learn. To show him how learning works and to prepare him for life. A teachers job is not to transfer information. Information is a commodity. Anyone can google a subject and figure out facts and figures. And whatever a teacher may think, all the information a student learns for an exam he forgets after he’s taken the exam. It simply isn’t useful. What is useful though is the philosophy of learning the student picks up in the classroom. The mindset of learning. That is what teachers must always keep in mind at the back of their heads. That is what all there actions must reflect.

The teacher is a leader. He must teach by example. If the teacher isn’t willing to adapt, how will the student? If the teacher isn’t willing to take himself off his self-made pedestal how is the student going to learn? If the teacher isn’t willing to try new things how is the student going to be willing? If the teacher doesn’t know how to learn, how can he teach the student?

The teacher’s job is to show the student how to use the information how to reason around it, but it is more importantly to teach how to learn. Nobody cares about whether you remember your history lesson from high-school or that book you were supposed to read, or how much you got or that exam. What really matters is how you think. What your mindset is. Do you have confidence in your ability to learn? Do you know you can figure stuff out? Can you fend for yourself? Or were you told to sit down, shut up, and do as your told, to do it the way it’s always been done?

Did you have a teacher who encouraged your efforts and not your results? A teacher that went above and beyond to explain something you didn’t understand? A teacher who showed you your capabilities and strengths and how you can use them? A teacher who lead by example? A teacher who made associations to everyday things? Who encouraged you to say something even though it might not be the right answer? Did he value learning over having the right answer? Did your teacher make you want to come back to his classroom?

That’s what a real teacher is supposed to do.  If you aren’t at the service of your students you aren’t a teacher. If you’re here only for a pay check you aren’t a teacher.

A teacher is here to learn and to teach you how to learn. A teacher is here to explain things simply. To make you understand and give you the foundations you’ll need for the rest of your life. At teacher is there to give you confidence in your abilities by allowing you to fail safely. And as a bonus, a teacher can teach you a couple things about his or her specialty. But that is possible only when he has taught you to learn. Otherwise he only wastes his time.

Have you ever had a great teacher? If so, name them in the comments and take the time to thank them.

Have you ever wanted to learn better and faster? Is there a language you wish you could learn? A thing you wish you could just do if you knew how to learn better?  Wouldn’t your life be easier if you could learn better?

Well today I want to talk to you about the world class learner and how we can model him. For that I’ll be talking about the best learners on the planet: babies.

Everyone is born a baby and everyone is an amazing learner when they’re born. The issue is that we’re often robbed of this amazing gift by people who call themselves adults, conform to societal standards of mediocrity and think themselves superior to these helpless young blobs of flesh.

Learning is instinct.

When you are born you are in the ideal conditions to be a learner. You leverage the power of necessity. Either you learn or you die. Babies don’t even have a choice of whether or not to learn. They just learn. And they learn faster than anyone because of this. You never hear them complain. They persevere in ways that can seem superhuman to modern day adults. They don’t have a choice of whether they have to learn to walk, or talk, or dress or live. They just learn it. And they learn by doing. By experimenting and trying new things all the time. Thankfully babies don’t think about what they’re doing. It’s an instinct. It is a deep seated thing in our wiring. It’s what makes us humans. Our adaptability and malleability at birth. Our neuroplasticity. We can literally learn anything.

Now for you, reading this right now, learning is also an instinct. Some of us have simply lost touch of this little untold fact. Your job is to get in touch with that primal instinct.

Babies and young children are the most lively and curious bundles of energy you will ever find. They just suck it all in. They absorb everything like a sponge. They are unstoppable learners. They are shameless. There self-esteem is through the roof and they persevere. This can be incredibly tiring for the unaccustomed adult, who then tell you to slow down, not do this, stop talking, and do what everybody else is doing.

Now consider the fact that that was once you !

Consider that you have the potential to learn anything you set your mind to. Babies don’t know the meaning of the words success and failure. They just know to follow their instinct and learn.

These two words, success and failure are perhaps two of the most misunderstood words of our language. They are both powerful and devastatingly dangerous when non properly handled. You can learn more about this here.

So if you want to learn faster and more effectively you have to model world class learners.

You have to model babies. 

Be curious. Try things. Do a lot of things. Mess up a lot. Learn. Adapt. Change. Don’t complain. Figure it out. Go on instinct. Be playful. Don’t have an ego. Do what “adults” would consider as humiliating. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Have fun. Adopt the mindset of a learner. Have a growth mindset.

You were once a baby and did all this without thinking. You have already done this once. You can do it again. You are a born learner and you can learn anything you want. So get in touch with the baby inside you. That is the power inside everyone.

Are you going to let your power stay dormant? Or are you going to choose to wake up the learner inside you?

Have fun and experiment.

Never Stop Growing

Have you ever beat yourself over because you wanted to ask something but you didn’t. And then went on to ask yourself, what if… what if I had asked the question? What would have happened?

This is something I’m working on a lot lately. Learning to ask for what I want.

The principle is simple. Ask for what you want. You’ll be surprised how often you actually get what you want.

When you want something, don’t downsize you’re proposition. Or try to seem more acceptable. Never assume the answer to your question. Ask it. You never know. They might actually say yes.

It’s about learning to stay unconcerned with what others think and acting.

Learn to stop making assumptions. Once you actually realise how much stuff you assume, it will be eye opening. A lot of the time I assume the answer is going to be no, so I don’t ask the question. In effect, I’m right, the answer is no. But now, more and more, when I catch myself assuming the answer will be no, I take a step back, and ask myself Do I know for a fact that the person will say no? Virtually every time I cannot be 100% certain. That then sparks another question: What if they said yes? Then, I ask what do I have to loose by asking?

Usually the outcome of asking my question has a potentially very high upside for a very limited downside, if there even is one at all. I am then logically bound to act.

We all have to face random excuses that we might conjure up, but if you have nothing to loose and everything to gain, you simply have to act and get over with it.

Don’t concern yourself with the opinons of others. If they like it. Good. If they don’t. Good. Why would you get upset? You simply gained information. Adapt to this new information if necessary or move on. Don’t apologise for asking a question.

It’s a simple formula:

1. You want something.
2. You ask for it.
3. You either get it or you don’t.

Scratch your own itch. Ask that question. Don’t wait for someone else to do it for you. Solve your own problem.

The more you do this the more confident you get at asking for what you want. It’s no big deal when you think about it. But we always make it a big deal in our heads.

Give it a try.

Next time you want something. Ask for it. Unapologetically. Wait for the answer. See what you get. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Today I want to talk about the process I went through to overcome depression and what I learned along the way. I want to stress the fact that it is a process. There is no quick fix. It always takes time.

This is a somewhat autobiographical account of my 2 years after high school and my struggle to figure myself out. I talk about the mindset I had, the challenges I faced and the strategies I used to overcome them.

Whether you think this concerns you or not, though my context may be different from yours you may come to find many similarities with your path.

Context

Let me set the stage for you, this part is a bit long but is necessary to explain the state of mind I had at the time.

I’m 17 years old. I just finished high school. I’ve almost always had excellent grades and thrive in school. I was first of my class nine years straight with minimal work. I’m told I have abilities others don’t, that I’m special. I don’t care, all I hear is an excuse to justify my academic success. And, that so called “success” I find meaningless. I don’t have much of a social life. I love sport, I row.

I have no prospects for the future. I don’t know what I want to do. I just know I’m a good student. My parents see I have potential. I’m advised to try medical school. I see it as a challenge. The first year of med school (in France) is apparently very hard and selective. You work one year and at the end only about 15% make the cut. To me this is basic academics, a little challenge, the sort of thing I know how to do. I strategise, research methods of work and optimise for efficiency. I move to a new town, stop rowing and learn what it’s like to actually work long hours. I work out of my 9 sq. meter (96 sq ft) dorm room, stay disciplined and finish in the top half of accepted students. I pass onto my 2nd year.

Now all is well in the world, I’m a second year med student, strangers congratulate me for something I don’t consider of much value, tell me it must have been hard and that I’m courageous. I brush it all off because it wasn’t that hard for me and I don’t obsess over past achievements. What’s done is done. Let’s move on to something else. I socialise very little, have no goal, no friends, I dread the question Do you know what you want to do later?, I have no fucking clue and think I’m supposed to know. I don’t. It makes me feel bad for not knowing. Something must be wrong with me.

I was in a safe environment all my life. The school system is easy for me, so I set a goal of 18/20, and figured out how to achieve it with minimal effort, spending my time rowing, watching youtube videos and discovering personal development. The first year of medicine, has an external goal that couldn’t be clearer, pass the first year. I aim for top 25 students and resort to figuring out what I need to do. (I didn’t end up in top 25 but I got my year anyway). Easy peasy.

Now though, in 2nd year I have no clear goal, there is no pressure to perform, all you need is 10/20 to pass. There is this test in 6 years but that’s too far off and I don’t even know if I want to be a doctor. I obsess over the question Why the hell am I in med school?

I’m big on personal development and try to figure myself out. Taking personality tests and various other tests that give me no particular practical guidance. I’m looking for something or someone to tell me what to do. I stumble on the follow your passion advice. That messes me up because I don’t have one. I don’t feel good enough and I feel worthless. As you might have guessed, at this point I’ve been doing this for a full year, it wasn’t a great time to go through. I became a living hell. I’m studying stuff I find a bit interesting but it needs to be a passion? Well I definitely don’t have it, I actually find it rather boring because all you do is learn, digest and vomit your knowledge  into some dehumanising multiple choice questions twice a year. I don’t know what I want. I want someone to tell me what to do, why and how, but no one does. How frustrating.

Depressed

I start going berserk. I’m an ass with my parents and I still don’t know what to do. I isolate myself. Around Christmas I’m bored beyond my days and decide to start continuous writing. More on that later.
I decide to isolate myself further, believing it would be interesting to see how I react to staying in a room for 12 hours doing nothing but siting or writing my thoughts. (It wasn’t very interesting). I resort to an old habit of adolescent impulses, watching pornography, to get some chemical boost that lasts about ten seconds but makes you feel like shit and ashamed for a couple minutes before you rationalise it somehow. Eventually I get sick of pornography and decide to never do it again. I’m disgusted with myself. I’m working just to pass, but I hate that mentality. I’ve always wanted to excel and now I’m settling for 10/20? I see absolutely no point in working to be the best for just some stupid grade. I feel terrible most of the time and put on a happy face for class and when I have to socialise. Nobody cares what I feel. Progressively I work less and less. By the second semester of 2nd year, I’m all cooped up in my small room, binging on TV show and movies, reading books, masturbating and in my free time I study a little just so I pass, because I would hate to do this again for another year. Everybody seems perfect and seems to have no problems, while I seem to be the only one in my world who is full of shit. I’m what one might call depressed.

Looking back I probably thought it couldn’t get any worse. But as you can guess, I would have been wrong.

Progressive Painful Awareness

As I said I’m into personal development, and as you might have seen I had quite a lot to develop. Up till now I was doing all this in a semi-conscious way. I started journaling in my first year, a practice I recommend. I would read my journal occasionally. Eventually, complaining all the time and feeling like shit becomes tiresome and you have to recognise you have a problem. I don’t know when I realised I had one, I must have known all along but I certainly didn’t want to admit it if I did.

Often realising you were deluded is worse than actually being deluded. But that is a necessary step to change.

Clarification

Then, one day in March, March 22nd 2017 to be exact I was laying on my bed in my room alone and I started contemplating my situation. My loneliness was quite acute. I understood intuitively that loneliness means you need to connect but I didn’t do much about it.

Then I contemplated talking to someone about my situation. And that terrified me. My reaction intrigued me, so I kept digging. I could barely think straight it got me so emotional. And I was only thinking about talking to someone. I had some sense to jot down my thoughts on paper, here is the progression my thoughts took (I was talking to myself). Notice how I don’t censure what I’m thinking but I seek to clarify what I was feeling. I got curious and tried my best to keep a positive mindset (focused on improving) even though what I was experiencing wasn’t very pleasant.

• Everyone’s life seems cool, well, amazing, yours doesn’t. It seems boring, aimless, goalless, meaningless. Perception
• I’m afraid of people. I’m stressed for nothing. I want to socialise, yet not with people who seem different.
• No one loves me.
• You want to cry? Don’t.
• I’m lost. The best way to discover a town is to get lost? 
• Is this some identity crisis?
• I want to stretch  to reach a new level, but I don’t see the level.
• Who do I turn to if I want to talk?
• I feel like I’m going to explode !
• I just need to talk. The real thing I need is to be listened to.
• I’m terrified because I’ve never opened up to express how I feel to anyone.
• I’m scared shitless of doing this in front of someone I don’t really know. It puts me in a position of vulnerability and it’s really uncomfortable.
• I’m scared to death to express negative emotion to a person because I don’t control the outcome, the uncertainty freaks me out.
• I’m totally self conscious of how I could be perceived.
• One of the very things that makes us human terrifies me.
• I’m afraid of how  I’ll be judged even though I know intellectually that people have empathy.
• I must be willing to be uncomfortable to grow.
• I’m afraid of being emotionally hurt, of showing vulnerability.
• The more I do it, the more I hope I’ll get comfortable being uncomfortable.
• I really like discipline and self-control but I don’t know what vulnerability is.
• It might seem trivial but for me this is the most uncomfortable thing I can think of right now.
• Time has made me good at displaying, at saying it’s all good. I’m not sure it’s the best way.
• It takes serious guts to be willing to be vulnerable, to display emotion and hope you will be accepted, not rejected.

That was one of the most excruciatingly painful and alleviating conversation I’ve had with myself. It was the first time I allowed myself to cry.

Thinking I was onto something I typed vulnerability into Google and found Brené Brown’s TED talk. It basically repeated what I’d just stumbled upon.

Digging for clarity. This exercise I did when I found vulnerability, was about clarifying and being curious as to what I was feeling, I was doing my best to be non judgemental, always trying to pinpoint exactly what I was feeling, all the while keeping a positive and hopeful outlook on the future. The goal was not to dig myself deeper into my grave. It was to look at the grave I had already started digging, to better be able to get out of it.

The Process of Taking Action

You might think that now all was well and I lived happily ever after, but that’s not who things tend to work out. Fortunately I had the good idea of writing all this down. That’s about all I did. I let it sit. I did nothing.

Eventually I came back to look at it again, figured it was stupid and dropped it. After a couples times I thought it might actually be worth a try since all else had failed. So what did I do? No, I didn’t go talk to someone, I bought Brené’ Brown’s book Daring Greatly. (That is some high level procrastination at work). I read it a bit. Dropped it. Then gave it a shot. I summoned all the courage I had and confronted my parents. That brought up some of the most awkward, embarrassing and raw emotional conversations ever. I’d never cried so much. The conversations that have followed since then have been some of the most interesting and connected I’ve ever had.

And those were definitely not comfortable conversations. But they were mandatory. I persevered in my efforts, because only effort counts, and it payed off.

But things don’t stop there. Remember, it’s a process and it takes serious effort and courage to accept yourself and look at yourself clearly.

On the 31st of May, being dissatisfied and bored I had the idea of looking back at the continuous writing I did a couple months prior. I would write two pages of whatever came to my mind, every morning for a couple weeks. I’d underline things that stood out. After reading about 20 days of content I was starting to get disturbed. I was so disgusted and outraged by what I was reading that I remember clearly thinking that if I ever met this person I would avoid him like the plague. That seriously shook me, because this person was me. I couldn’t believe how deluded and blind to my situation I was. I was stunned. I went to my parents and just cried. That was one of the scariest things, to realise I could get to such a state mentally that I didn’t realise what was happening and kept digging myself deeper and deeper in the ground.

I realised that the actions I was taking now were way beyond my old comfort level. This was a clear sign of progress. Things needed to take their natural course.

Conclusion

Since then the road has been rocky and I’ve focused on building myself up. I now tend the garden of my thoughts with utmost care. Learning to accept yourself truly, completely and without judgement is one of the most challenging and rewarding of practices. Internalising goals and foregoing external ones is also challenging at first but gets easier every day. I am immensely grateful to my parents and brother who have been there and tolerated me, all along this bumpy ride.

I kept waiting for someone to help me, show me the way or tell me what to do, but thankfully no one did. No one came to help me. I had to help myself. Out of necessity. Not having someone tell you what to do can be both depressing and empowering. It is daunting to feel lost, but once you realise you get to decide whatever you want, that you get to choose your standards, heroes and goals, then are you truly empowered. You don’t know what will happen in the future but you become confident in your ability to figure it out.

Realising what self-awareness is takes time and gaining clarity takes courage. The courage to ask questions and look at the answers clearly. Asking for help and showing weakness can be the greatest show of strength.

The darkness makes the light that much brighter.

I believe that getting lost has helped me discover one of the greatest gems of human existence: our ability to connect through vulnerability.

Here is a thought I have found useful lately:

Each day, before you go to sleep, be willing to die.

Be okay with it. Content with your day’s work and all that you’ve done before. Do not go to sleep without accepting death. Learn to let go. However hard it may seem, remind yourself that you could die and that, if you do, there is nothing you can do about it.

Accept what is worrying you. Accept yourself. See things for what they are, with the correct perspective. The thought of Death usually helps with that. Practice full acceptance and letting go.

If you wake up, be grateful. Be grateful for more time. For another shot at improving, at being better that you were yesterday and living fully.

Die and be born each night. Be like the sun. Birth. Death. Natural parts of Life. An unending cycle. You are part of it, accept it, welcome it.

If you cling to Life without accepting Death, ask yourself: Am I holding on to this?

If you think this way, gratitude is inevitable, complaining is out of the question, and you will be more fulfilled.

As you go to sleep, die.
Then, if you wake up, be born.

Keep Death close.

From June 27th 9:34 pm to June 30th 9:34 pm I decided to fast. To be clear by fasting I mean not eating. I still drank water. Here is a overview of my first 3 day fast and what I experienced.

I wanted to fast to see how my body would react to having no food and mostly to challenge myself and see how I handled mild suffering.

First of all I established clear rules. I would not to break the fast unless absolutely necessary for safety reasons. But since it’s only three days the likelihood of serious issues was very slim. The worst I could expect was intense headache and hunger as well as fatigue.

I took some notes to record my experience.

Hour 13:
Perfectly fine. It’s like waking after a good night’s sleep.

Hour 23:
I notice a dry taste in my mouth, a persisting after taste.

Day 1 :
Overall, good physical shape, took a walk without difficulty, mental faculties great, physical faculties a bit lessened. I’m not hungry.

Hour 40:
I notice my breath is different. I don’t mind.

Hour 46:
My brother notices a smell that is bad. He can’t seem to figure out what it is.

Hour 47:
My dad says I can eat. I refuse smiling.

Day 2:
Great. Nothing special. I took a walk. I feel energised and fully functioning. My urine is more concentrated. No poop today.

Hour 53:
It’s the middle of the night, I can’t sleep. I’m tired. I have a headache. I remark that it’s probably related to the fast. How perceptive, right? The fatigue is unlike any I’ve ever experienced before. I actually feel good even great, but my body is saying that it’s exhausted. I find this contradiction interesting. I can’t do much. I’m sitting on the floor cross legged, wearing a hoodie and sweatpants. My head is hanging from fatigue. I’m spacing out. Unfocused. I’m tired. I’d like a little more comfort, but right now I don’t care, I just want to sleep.

Apparently, I fell asleep.

Hour 63:
It was a sluggish morning. I didn’t have much force at all. I don’t feel particularly hungry but I’m physically tired. I notice that my stomach is rumbling and gargling occasionally.

My dad notices my fatigue and again offers food. I refuse. At this point it’s pretty easy to refuse. Besides, I would be betraying myself if I accepted. That would mean I would know I quit for only 9 hours left when I’ve already done 63.

Hour 64:
I get lightheaded and my vision blurs when I get up too quickly. I have to remind myself to wait a couple seconds when I get up. This will happen more times throughout the day. My mind is buzzing and I want to get to where I want to go quickly but I tend to forget that my body isn’t in it’s usual state.

Note: When you get up quickly, the blood from your head is going towards your body due to acceleration and gravity. You literally have less blood in your brain, hence the lightheadedness and blurry vision. You have to be careful because if you get up too quickly and start running around you could pass out.

Hour 67:
I look at the time. It’s only 4:30 p.m. It feels like it’s 7 or 8 p.m.. I’m starting to look forward to break fast. Time seems to be moving very slowly.

Hour 70:
Again my brother notices a bad smell, this time he figures out it’s coming from me. He avoids me. I want to know if it’s really my breath. I lean over to my mom who is on the couch and ask her to smell my breath. She refuses. I lean back. A couple seconds later she remarks with disgust, “it smells like toilets!” I laugh. I would like a better description but don’t get any.

I look up bad breath during fasting and apparently the smell is due to the lack of saliva in your mouth. It’s absence turns your mouth into a breading ground for bacteria, hence the smell.

T-15 minutes:
It’s almost time. I set up what I’m going to eat. I go take a tiny walk to distract myself a little longer.

Hour 72:
Breakfast time ! Finally, I get to eat. I start out slowly, I expect a sudden fatigue but it doesn’t come. This happened to me a couple times when I’d fasted and not drank for 24 hours. It seems that drinking might prevent this kind of fatigue.

T+1:
I feel great. It’s good to eat again.

T+3:
Now I’m getting really tired. I should probably go to sleep.

Day 3:
Yesss! I did it! Clearly this was the most interesting day of the fast. Mentally I was feeling great. But physically I was drained. I basically spent the day being a couch potato. Distracting myself or occupying myself.

T+12:
I haven’t slept this good in a long time.

Overall impression.
Great experience. It wasn’t that difficult. Clearly the third day was the most interesting. The intense fatigue in the middle of the night was surprising. The overall contradiction between mental energy and physical energy was amusing. It’s a great way to experience that the body really adapts to every situation and that we don’t need to eat all the time. I will do it again. I recommend it. It’s also a great way to observe yourself in discomfort and observe your self talk and discipline.

I’m nineteen years old and impatient. The young are naturally impatient. The old are naturally more patient. What the young need most is patience.

I recognise this. A good analogy of the way patience feels like for me now, is this phrase:

“God give me patience, and give it to me right now!”

Patience is necessary.

Patience is valuable.

Patience leverages time—our greatest asset.

We are so used to having things right now.
Patience is contrary to what we are used to.

You gain patience with time. But that seems like a waste of time. Trading time for patience?

And yet, you cannot accelerate the process. You need to let it happen. How frustrating for a young mind to grasp. Always wanting to go faster.

You can’t buy patience. You can only gain patience with time.

Our perception of time is different for one another.

When you talk to a fifty year old, to him nineteen years isn’t much. Talk with an eighty year old and it’s even less. If you complain about something taking a couple years, they laugh. One year to me is over 5% of my life. One year to them is 2% and 1,25% respectively. That is significantly faster.

Time is necessary to make great things.

Trust that your efforts will pay off over time.

Today I’m going to show you how I get out of a lousy mental state in a matter of seconds!

A lousy mental state is a state that feels bad, like depression, frustration, anger, sadness, being pissed off or being annoyed.

The most important thing to understand is focus.

Focus is super important.

Focus determines what you pay attention to.

If you focus on something specific with all your attention everything else blurs to the background. Only the object being focused on stays in sight.

When I am in a lousy state if I indulge in this state and don’t do anything about it, it just spirals out of control and gets worse. I simply feel terrible. It seems like it’s never going to stop.

But once you understand that it’s all a matter of focus and perspective you can change your state in seconds. Literally!

What I like to do when I find myself in this kind of state is to take a piece of paper and start writing what I’m feeling, describing what the state I’m in feels like. This forces me to focus on description. And in a matter of three or four sentences everything changes almost instantly. If you don’t believe me I don’t blame you, I couldn’t believe it myself when I did it the first couple times. But when you see the results it’s amazing! You may need to write a little more than four sentences but it is well worth it.

Another thing that works extremely well is changing your physiology. If your sitting, get up, run around, do some kind of physical exercise, do something goofy, something that forces you to change your state.

With practice, once you get used to doing this you’ll be able to shift your state faster and faster. This is a habit. You need to cultivate it.

The next time you feel down, unmotivated or depressed, simply remember that all you need to do is shift your focus.

I have realised something that I’ve actually known for a while but have never wanted to face. The fact that I’ve deceived myself big time. The fact that I believed I can have something without putting in the work. After falling for this trap over and over many times, I am beginning to see this illusion with a clarity I have never had before.
Believing I can make $1000 simply by paying $1000. Believing I can buy clarity, that I can buy self-knowledge. That I can pay for information and that that information alone will give me what I want without me ever having to put in the work. The fantasy of the get-rich-quick scheme, of everything falling into place with no effort what so ever on my part. The illusion of short term rewards. The illusion that somehow it will all work out even if I do nothing.

I realise this might seem completely absurd and stupid, that it’s easy to think that any rational person would never think like that, but it doesn’t work like that. This is real. This is a serious thing. Millions fall for this idea that you can have something for nothing. It’s such a seductive idea. An illusion you don’t even see. A matrix.

Realising this leaves an acrid taste in my mouth, a taste of disgust. How could you ever fall prey to such an illusion? To such foolish thinking?
It feels disempowering when in fact it is empowering; it gives me the control. I control my efforts.

This feels so bad because it forces me to wake up and see that I was sleeping. To see that I’ve been fooling myself and that I have fucked up.

It is actually hard to admit because it means looking at myself for real. Seeing how badly I’ve messed up. That I’ve been misleading myself. That I thought everything would just be handed to me, a job, money, a fulfilling life. But that is an illusion!

Now comes the scary part. I have realised this and now I fear falling down the same downward spiralling staircase called illusion and fantasy because it is the easy thing to do.

It’s soooo easy! Terrifyingly easy!

All I have to do is … well … nothing. All I have to do is keep doing what I’ve been doing up until now. Avoiding the problem. To continue believing in the fantasy because it is reassuring and so much easier than dealing with the problem and facing the reality. To distract myself with movies, fluffy ideas and total nonsense. Shattering a fantasy you’ve taken comfort in for so long is painful. Not pleasant at all. Scary even.

But  it is a necessity now. I need to get out of this illusion. To stay clear of this easy, quick solution that is not a solution. To think long-term instead of short-term. To figure out how to get out of this illusion for good. Because one thing is for sure, if I do nothing, I will be lead astray once more.

Writing this article is a first step for me. What are you doing to get out of this?

There is this quirk in human nature that doesn’t serve us. The fact that we are wired for instant gratification. The easy route is the easiest to do. The one that gives pleasure right now. And often, the easy route is not the best choice. We fall for the fantasy of the quick fix, the immediate solution, the possibility of not having to work to get what we want, and ultimately we get nowhere.

How do we go against millions of years of evolutionary programming designed to keep us alive?

This is something I am struggling with constantly, that I have thought about a lot recently and have discussed previously. Reading Homo Deus and The 48 Laws of Power have sparked some interesting ideas. Here is my take on how we can deal with this.

From a evolutionary perspective this makes sense. Your main goal is to survive and continually perpetuate the species. To do that, you need to take care of immediate needs such as hunger, thirst and sexual drive.

But today, survival isn’t as big of a concern as it was thousands of years ago. Or even a couple centuries ago. Food and water are abundant. Medical advances increase life expectancy. You’re more likely to die from overeating than from starvation.

In our modern world survival is taken care of. It’s easy. The problem then is what do you do next?

If you live your life only to survive, it doesn’t have much meaning. And if there is no meaning, why keep on living? You have to create meaning. It’s up to you. You can’t expect someone else to do it for you. 

You want something. The catch is, you need to improve to get that. You know what you need to do (Even when you say you don’t, you actually have an idea of the first steps you can take). But you don’t do anything. It’s so much easier. Change is easy to understand, but very difficult to make happen. Insecurities, fears and worries rise to the surface and do everything they can to stop you from changing. Often they succeeds and you are left in a spot that is no better than where you started. Nothing changed. You’re in the same place. But you still want more. How paradoxical.

Can you imagine? Sacrificing short term pleasure, something you can have right now, for some uncertain possibility in the distant future? How absurd, right? Who in there right mind would want go forego something they are sure to have for something that isn’t even certain? Well, I believe that thinking is fundamentally flawed.

Though I do agree the future is uncertain, I believe it is worth thinking long term. To plan, to sacrifice immediate gratification for delayed gratification.

This is counter intuitive and certainly uncomfortable. The problem that comes up is that we are not wired to do that. We are programmed to think short term—it feels good. Thinking long term doesn’t. It goes against millions of years of evolutionary programming designed to help you stay alive, procreate and avoid danger.

The challenge then is choosing long term over short term. This choice, in and of itself, is a long term decision as we will see further on.

Choosing discomfort over comfort; new over old; pain over immediate pleasure for delayed gratification. Resisting temptation. Choosing change over sameness; hard versus easy; growth over stagnation; and ultimately Life over Death.

Over the years many studies have shown that delayed gratification is more beneficial to us humans. Most notable being the Stanford marshmallow experiment, in which children were told that if they resist eating a marshmallow for 15 minutes they could have a second one. Later studies showed that there was a correlation between resisting the temptation of immediate gratification and better life situations.

What will you choose? And yes, this is a choice, it is not an innate skill, it is something you can learn to do. You need to train yourself to choose wisely. You need to change your perception.

Humans react to two different stimuli, pain and pleasure. and the important point is that we will do more to avoid pain than to experience pleasure. So, if you want to start thinking long term instead of short term you have to leverage this behaviour. You have to imagine the short term behaviour as painful and make long term behaviour more appealing. Especially the consequences of these behaviours.

Choosing the easy route for me represents indecision, complacency, stagnation, decay, absence of meaning, anxiety, depression and ultimately death.

Long term, however, represents growth, opportunity, challenge, meaning, struggle, delayed gratification which is more pleasurable, work, the journey and ultimately a fulfilled life.

You need to repeat this to yourself constantly. You have to believe it. It has to become a part of your gut. Deep in the marrow of your bones. A habit of thought.

The trap is to be overwhelmed by the possibility of pleasure right now and be blinded to the consequences of these acts.

I don’t think life is supposed to be easy and pleasurable. I believe it is to challenge you, to make you push past failure, past pain and come out of experiences having grown and experienced what it means to be alive. Life to me has more meaning with the struggle than without. It is the force that resists you that ultimately benefits you if you choose to push back instead of succumbing to the force, cowering, settling for mediocre. We have need for resistance. You can even experience a kind of perverse pleasure from going through pain.

But to get to a state where you choose long-term over short-term repeatedly takes time. It takes repetition. And a lot of it. You need to start practicing these decisions more consciously. To ask yourself when faced with a decision, if it will benefit you in the long run, or if it is mere self-indulgence and destructive behaviour.

The thing is that it can be very hard to tell two apart. It can be deceptively seductive to choose pleasure. You might not even what to admit it to yourself.

The first step then is becoming aware of your choices. For if you are not aware there is no way you will ever change. It starts with awareness. Then progressively, you start to change, little by little. There is no quick fix. You need patience. This can be very frustrating. It’s a dilemma between understanding that you need patience but still wanting it now. This is particularly frustrating the younger you are because time doesn’t pass at the same speed. I am aware that what I am talking about is long term and that it takes a lot of effort. That is why it is very probable you will do nothing after reading this. But I am also aware that if you want it, you will recognise what you need to do and start doing it. That is why it is said that a student cannot be taught unless he is ready to be taught. Similarly, you cannot change unless you are ready to change.

Ultimately it’s a question of life or death, even if it may not seem like it. And that is why it is so difficult to change, it doesn’t seem to be a question of life and death. So if you want to change, make it a matter of life or death. Another thing to keep in mind is that as long a something doesn’t appear necessary, you won’t do it. Necessity spurs action. That is why people it dire circumstances will fight more, that is why a soldier will fight three times more vigorously if it is a matter literally of survival. You decide how you perceive world. You decide what you want. If you want to change, perceive it as a matter of life and death.

So what do you choose? Long-term or short-term?

If you’d like some more help deciding between the two I wrote a post on How To Choose Between Instant Gratification And Delayed Gratification that could be of service.

I would love to know your thoughts in the comments below. Do you agree, disagree? Do you have anything to add?

Today I’d like to share with you what I consider to be one of the most important traps that exists, the biggest self-deception of goal setting that nobody talks about.

Idea : The half-way mark is not the half-way mark.

I will be using physical goals to illustrate this principle, because these are the easiest to grasp, but this totally applies to goal setting in general.

You have a goal :

• 2000 meters
• A marathon
• 10k
• 100 meters
• 100 push ups
• Any other goal of your choice

So, you’ve prepared, trained and are ready. You start.

What happens when you get to the half-way mark ? Have you ever thought about it ?

Do you think, I’ve only got half of the way to go ? or This is unbearable how did I ever get myself into this ? or This is easy, the rest of this race is a piece of cake, or What am I going to eat after the race ? or I can’t possibly finish, I’m going to explode before the end.

I can tell you, I’ve thought all of this before during races. And I still do occasionally. The best thing I have found to remedy this is to focus immediately on your goal and to let go of those distracting thoughts.

But today I’d like to examine one of those thoughts in particular, the first one :
When you pass the half way mark, you’ve only got half of the way to go, right ?

Well I have found that to be one of the biggest self-deceptions you could pull off.

If you have 2000 meters, or even 100 push ups to do, it is natural to assume 1000 meters or 50 push ups is the half-way mark, and thus that you only have to repeat what you have done another time to finish. From a numerical stand point it’s true.

But it’s not true from a more practical point of view, here’s why.

Recently I started doing 100 push ups in the morning again. And I can tell you that for now it is difficult. But I must finish the 100 push ups. And I get to observe myself and my thinking as it varies throughout the challenge of reaching my goal. I had the same experiences when rowing or running.

And, what I found was that 50 push ups are easy, but once I pass 50 it gets hard all of a sudden.

And I also noticed I kept telling myself you’re half way there it’s almost over. But this never helped. And I kept thinking it.

Believing that you’ve done half the race at the half-way mark is terrible thinking psychologically speaking.

You deceive yourself into thinking the effort you put in to do 50 push ups is is going to be the same amount of effort doubled to do 100. That simply isn’t true.

I can assure you, the effort needed to go from 0 to 50 is not equal to the effort need to get from 50 to 100.

For me, 50 to 80 is the most difficult mentally, then 80 to 100 is the most difficult physically.

And both of those difficulties I didn’t have before 50.

When you get to the half-way mark, you believe the effort that got you there is the effort that will get you to the finish line. You see that it wasn’t that bad, so you relax, you become complacent, and ultimately you lose, because you realize that wasn’t true.

When you pass the half-way mark you need to shift gears and step up your game—both mentally and physically.

I believe the 80/20 Pareto principle applies to goal setting and races of any kind.

When in a race I would rejoice when passing the half-way mark, and tell myself that I had only half left. But when you think about it, since you have only experienced half of the race, if you tell yourself there is only half left, you tell you mind that you only really have a fourth left. Even when you mean half, you subtly tell you brain it’s only a fourth. Everything we do we compare to what we have experienced.

And then, when you pass the three quarter mark you feel your getting to the limits of you capabilities, that it’s getting too much, and if you aren’t ready for it, you crack.

The next best thing to think would be to tell yourself, let’s do it again, or one more time, instead of only half left, but even that would be wrong.

What seems the best option to me is to think that the real half-way mark is the 80% mark.

I have come to dread the 50% mark, but I look forward to the 80% because i know that from then on it’s much easier, you think of what you’ve accomplished (80%) and compare it to what’s left (20%) and you feel good because you know you can do that.

Sport is a mental game. 20% physical, 80% mental. You had better train your mental game and be careful how and what you think about. Life is a mental game too. The same thoughts apply there too.

And depending on the intensity of the race or task, you may find that the half-way point is more like 90 or 95%

The 50% mark is when doubt creeps in. And that can destroy you. It’s the first kind of resistance you will encounter. Then, once you get to the 80% mark you start feeling the toughest resistance of all. Your body starts complaining, you start getting bored, you procrastinate, you want to go do something else. But here you can compare what you’ve accomplished to what is left and 80 trumps 20 every time.

So remember the half-way mark is not the 50% mark, it’s the 80% mark.

A race isn’t won because you completed the distance first. A race is one because your mind won. Your mind won over your body. Your mind pushed it’s limits, it’s perception is enlarged. You learned something new. That is when you win.

You learn more from your failures than you do from your successes.

When you fail it feels bad, it can even hurt. But there is always something to learn. You simply have to look for it. I think failure teaches you more than success precisely because it feels bad. It hurts, so you don’t want to make the same mistake anymore. You have to do something about it to not get hurt the next time. So you adjust. If you win all the time, there isn’t that same necessity to improve, you can become complacent. That is a trap. Success can easily go to your head.

In a race if you finish fourth and aren’t on the podium, you’re not going to be happy about it, especially if the third place was right under your nose. You’re going to want the podium even more.

You make a mistake. You get hurt or ruin something. Accept what happened. Then, learn from it. The other alternative is to bitch about your losing and identify as a loser. That is obviously the more destructive attitude. Rather identify as a learner.

You’re allowed to feel bad. But it’s your resilience, your ability to get back up and try again, that makes you great. It’s not how high you go. The man who wins a gold medal once but then stops, doesn’t have the same character as the man who finishes last, comes again, improves, looses again, comes back for more and progressively works his way up the podium.

When you loose you have to come back for more. Fear of failure is normal, but unnecessary if you embrace it.  As Mark Twain once said:

“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”

Success and failure are win/win situations. If you win, it’s a win. If you loose, it’s a win. You can perceive it as a loss but I find it most helpful to think of it as a win. You get to learn something.

If you lose money, think of it as a win. What ever you lose, think of it as a win. Figure out what is there to be learned. There is always something to be learned. Always. It may not always feel like there is something, but there is. You need to find it. It may be a while before you recognise what you learned. You have to be open to learning.

We only hear what listen to.

We learn much more rapidly when we fail, because we have to adapt. Success can become comfortable and turn into complacency, thus stifling your growth. When you succeed, you can look for that thing you can improve or that you didn’t do as well as you wanted. But before you do that you have to celebrate your success.

So remember, there is always something to learn. It’s your job to figure out what that is.

We live in an information age. Information is available quicker, and more easily than ever before. There is so much content. The Youtube statistics for May 2017 were 300 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute! That’s more than the TV industry creates. There are billions of posts on social media platforms every day!

With so much information it’s easy to start drifting and drowning if there is no way to deal with it. Most of you readers won’t even finish reading this post, you’ll be on to the next piece of information.

It’s so easy to get lost online, to get lost consuming. That’s the trap. You’ve probably already experienced it. You watch one video, then another, and another; you read a blog post, go to Facebook, back to Youtube, Instagram, Snapchat, and all of a sudden your day is done and you don’t remember anything because you’ve spent your time doing mostly meaningless stuff.

Our attention is what is sold to advertisers. Everyone is vying for it. creating distractions to get a hold of it.

There goes another day of your life, and you’re never getting it back. Another twenty-four hours where you gave away your attention to others, instead of using it strategically, for your goals.

Then you get frustrated because there is so much information.

And then . . .

Alert! Alert! Information overload! You feel overwhelmed! You can’t control it! You know something has to change. But you need the info, right?

Do you really? Is it not mostly your ego telling you you need more info? Seeking information all the time is a form of procrastination.

Information is not the problem. Information is more abundant than ever before. As said at the beginning of this post, it’s the information age. Information isn’t as valuable as it used to be.

What is valuable is your attention and your work. That’s why advertiser’s pay for your attention and why you are paid to create value.

So if information isn’t the problem what is? Seriously, if we have access to incredible amounts of information, why aren’t we in drastically better situations compared to a few decades ago?

The thing is, we are still human, and humans make stuff, they do. What is lacking is action. We have so much info the problem is that it consumes our attention non stop if we aren’t careful. We don’t have any left to make stuff. We need to filter information. We have to filter through the pile of crap. We can’t just consume everything and anything. We need to be picky. What is important to you? Do you really care what that celebrity said? Or how that other person you don’t know is living their life?

There is no problem with consuming all the time if that’s your thing. But if you want to be doing stuff and using your time as best you can, it might be a good idea to question what is happening to your attention and how you’re using it.

So, if you’re like me and you want to do things, have an impact on the world and help people, rather than consume content all day, how about you go do something that doesn’t consist of passive consumption.

If you actually finished this reading this post and didn’t skip to the end, I congratulate you. And whether or not you skipped to the end I thank you for your attention. Now share this post and go make something.

Here I my main take aways from New York City. Keep in mind that this is what I experienced so you might experience things differently.

You have to see NY at night. It can be day at night. That is specific to time square at night. It’s  unbelievably bright with all the advertising panels. It’s quite a sight to behold. That’s when you understand why it’s called the city that never sleeps.

Getting around on foot can be tiring quite quickly. It’s a big city. Use the subway. Stay away from the cabs, they’re expensive. A bike or something else is a good idea. The bike is an amazing energy saver.

Central park is a refreshing bit of nature in the middle of a city of skyscrapers, building of steel, concrete and glass.

When it rains, people stay inside.

When you buy something you need to ADD TAX. In Europe I’m used to paying the price I see on the tag. The added tax is quite annoying because it feels like customer manipulation. You think your gonna pay 3 x 25 = $75 but they charge you $83. You don’t understand, then your remember: Tax.

The skyline is very impressive.

The Anastasia musical is great.

So are the Museum of Modern Art and of Natural History.

Today’s post is short sweet and simple.

Simplicity is often the best way to make a point.

The fluff is unnecessary. I’m going to end this post here otherwise my point is going to be too fluffy.

Keep it simple.

Sometimes you just don’t feel like doing it. Whatever it may be. Right now, I don’t feel like writing this post. But I made a commitment to do 30 days at least. I can’t break that commitment.

The thing is, when you don’t feel like it, you just have to start. That is something that took me a while to learn. And now I use it as often as I can. Once you start, you build momentum, and momentum keeps you going. At the beginning of this post, I had no idea what to write about. So I just started by saying I didn’t feel like it. Then, all of a sudden, I have a paragraph. I start getting in the flow. Now, it’s much easier.

The blank page can be intimidating. But it doesn’t have to stay that way. Write one word and the page isn’t blank anymore. Do one thing and you’ve successfully gotten out of your head and into doing mode. You can either think about everything you want to do, have elaborate debates in your head of the pros and cons, or you can simply do something.

When you do something, don’t set your expectations very high. The entry cost has to be minimal. The bar has to be as low as possible. That way it’s easy for you to reach for it. Once you’ve got a grip on it, move it a little higher. And then, a little higher still. The little steps count. If starting isn’t easy you won’t do it. So make it easy. As easy as you can think of. Don’t worry if it seems ridiculous, just do it, no one will ever know.

Also, never expect your stuff to be perfect. It never will. Accept that it will probably suck at first; that it might be terrible. It will probably suck for a while. You have to be willing to be vulnerable.

Vulnerability is uncomfortable. And like anything that is uncomfortable our natural instinct is to stay away from it. If you want to grow, lean into your vulnerability, get uncomfortable, admit you might be wrong and that what you do might not be the best.

Then, be grateful that you took action. What you have produced might be terrible, but at least you made something, instead of endlessly thinking about it. You can come back tomorrow and make it better. And as you keep this in mind, don’t forget that tomorrow isn’t guaranteed, so appreciate today.