You Don't Need Permission

Are you waiting for someone to give you your big shot? STOP. Are you going to be "discovered" any day now? BULLSHIT.

Stop being a victim of circumstance and start making things happen on your own. Choose yourself.

You don't need to be original. You just need to be you. That's enough. The internet is big enough to hold you too. Start creating.

Want to be an actor? Start a YouTube channel.
Want to be a writer? Start a blog.
Want to be a podcaster? Start a podcast.

You don't need anyone's permission. You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. It won't happen over night. It may never happen. But, it definitely can't happen if you don't even try.

Practice is the mother of skill, so don't wait any longer. Become "so good they can't ignore you". Get yourself online and start creating art.

Who Are You Writing For

Who is your audience? Who are you trying to reach? What are you trying to accomplish?

I write for me.

I write to clear my mind. I write to solidify the ideas tumbling through my head. I write to to tell myself the things I need to hear.

And hopefully, I can write for you.

Change is Hard

You're not satisfied with your life. You want something different. You want change. But, then why is change so hard? Why can't you "just do it"? Because you're human and you're wired to fear change.

Change is hard because of fear, but that fear is misplaced.

Evolution designed you to seek out stability. Don't change what works. Don't rock the boat. You've managed to stay alive this long, so don't screw it up by trying something new. The problem is, the things you'd like to change can't kill you. You have a primal fear of a paper-tiger. The danger doesn't exist.

Starting a business won't kill you. Going broke might be embarrassing, but it won't kill you either. In fact, there's almost nothing you can do that is so bad that it isn't reversible.

There's also the fear of social-stigma. Many people have their identity wrapped up in their jobs and careers, and their mental model of you is likewise entangled in your job. In their mind, to change careers is to change identities.

This is scary.

When you attempt to change, your friends and family start pushing back. You no longer fit into the compartment they placed you in. You've created instability in their lives. They don't know what to expect from you anymore. You've spooked them. This is the cause of their negativity. But...

You are not your job. --Tyler Durden

It's usually not the action itself that is hard. It's the fear associated with taking the action that is hard. Recognize that this fear is misplaced and act.

You want your life to change without having to make any life changes, but this cannot be. Change can be painful. But it's the pain of growth. You can't be a standout and unremarkable at the same time.

Eagles don't fly under the radar. They're too busy being awesome to give a shit.

Stop Planning, Start Doing

How many hours have you spent planning to start your own business? How many books have you read? How many YouTube videos have you watched? How many hours were lost to these distractions?

Now...how many hours have you invested in taking positive action? Sadly, it's probably none. Not a single hour. You're not even stuck, because you never even got started.

Lack of change comes from a lack of action.

I know you're not ready yet. I'm not either. No one ever really is. Recognize this, and begin. It's all you can do.

"Just one more book. Then I'll be ready."

Bullshit. There's nothing in that book that you haven't already read somewhere else. It's a distraction. There is too much information, and you will never be able to read it all. Even if you could, it wouldn't adequately prepare you for your journey, because you can only learn by doing. Don't fall into the black hole of "more research". Start "failing forward".

Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it. --Steven Wright

Maintain Momentum

The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your days. So, to move forward in life, you must move forward each day.

Change requires action. So build the action habit by doing something each day.

If it's important, you should do it every day. It's the only way to build and maintain momentum, and momentum is what will carry you through the difficult times.

Take action every day, because success is in "doing the thing".

Baby steps. Walk before you run. You may fall down, but the payoff will be worth it.

Are you gaining or losing momentum?

You are your Habits

Humans are habit machines. We run on autopilot most of the time. Never fully present, never reevaluating the situation. We do today, what we did yesterday. In this way, your life can pass by without your notice. We are meat machines running old code.

We're also lazy. As long as things are working (and sometimes even when they're not) we just keep chugging along. There is tremendous momentum behind our habits, and when under stress, we revert to the habits already installed in our lives.

You are the sum total of your habits, so change your habits to change your life.

"But change is hard!"

The old habits are so deeply ingrained, that even the slightest stress in life causes us to abandon our current efforts and return to our old ways. You know this. It's happened to you before.

"I was dieting, but then I had a piece of pizza, so I ate everything in the house."
"I was going to the gym, but then it got hard, so I stopped."

When things get difficult, we quit, unless we've already built the habit. Personal growth is not easy. This is why it's so hard to change.

You'd like to be more discipline. You'd like to be able to stick with it, but you just can't. Neither can I. Nobody can. We're human. If it were easy everyone would do it. This isn't something to be ashamed about, it's just the fact of reality that we should recognize and plan around. So, what should you do?

Separate the habit formation process from the habit growth process. 

Many of the positive habits you desire to incorporate in your life are also stressful in someway. This makes changing doubly hard. Your trying to (1) change your default behaviors (2) from something pleasurable to something less pleasurable (for the moment).

"Mediating is time consuming."

"Eating well is a chore."

"Exercising is tiring."

The key is to make the habit change as easy as possible for as long as possible. The new habit should be fully installed in your life, before it becomes an additional source of stress. Identify the simplest and easiest possible way to practice your habit.

For dieting this could be just reading the nutrition facts on the food you already eat. Don't change what you eat, just become aware of what's going into your body.

For working this could be just physically going to the gym without even exercising. Don't make things hard yet. After a few days of arriving at the gym and leaving, you'll be itching to start doing something, but don't! This is dangerous. Do not push yourself yet. The habit isn't there. You will burn out before you've changed momentum.

Only after at least thirty continuous days of habit building, should you begin to engage in the growth process of your habit. Growth should also be done in a very slow and controlled way. Constantly making small improvements gives you more time for the habit to form and builds up tons of self-confidence by "winning" every day.

Growth happens via the principle of progressive overload. Start small. Progress slowly. Do just a little more than yesterday.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. -- Will Durant

Pick good habits, because they will define you.

Failure is a Lie

Sometimes certain words get used so much that we stop evaluating what they actually mean and instead substitute some culturally appropriated pseudo-definition. "Failure" is one of these words. We talk about failure all the time. We're deathly afraid of it. But what is it?

To conquer "failure" we must first define it.

"Failure" isn't a noun. It's not a person, place, or thing. "Failure" is a bundle of conflicting emotions and ideas with no clear meaning. "Failure" is a generic thought-terminating place holder for some deeper unnamed fear in hiding. "Failure" is a fuzzy idea that makes us stop thinking and start worrying. This response is the result of learned cultural conditioning, but you have the power to reprogram your mental associations. That means you can change your response to "failure"!

There are no failures, there are only results! -- Tony Robbins

"Failure" is nothing more than getting a different outcome then you desired. That's it. It's a result. An outcome. A data point. Nothing more. So, you don't "fail". You get outcomes. You aren't a "failure". You're a person who acted and got a result.

The road to success is paved with results. Take action and adjust course along the way.

"Failure" equals "results". In your mind, change all occurrences of "failure" to "results". Burn this association in to your brain. Say it out loud. Write it down. Repeat it to yourself until you dream about it: "There are no failures, there are only results".

"Failure" is a lie, because it doesn't actually exist. It's "garbage in" that leads to "garbage out". You cannot fail. You act and you get results.

Take action now and get results today.

Ship Every Day

You should ship every day. You should ship every day. You should ship everyday.

If it is important, do it every day. If it's not important, don't do it at all. -- Dan Gable

"Shipping" is Seth Godin's moniker for releasing your work out into the wild. This is the hardest thing in the world. It's a battle that must be fought anew each day. And it's the only thing that matters.

If a tree falls in the the woods, but no one is around to hear it, does it make any noise? Who cares? If you build something awesome, but never share it with anyone, did you really build anything? Who cares?

Work left "unshipped" is a waste of energy. You cared enough to create something. Have the courage to share it. Your work deserves better. You deserve better. Ship your work.

Shipping is hard. That's why so few do it. And that's how you know it needs to be done. The hardest things to do are always the things that we most need to do. You need to "ship" so you can grow, and you need to grow so that you can "ship".

You can't soar with the eagles and fly under the radar at the same time.

Ship every day.

The Heavy Lifting of Success

I've always been a fitness junky. When I was in high-school, I made my parents drive me to school early so that I could lift weights before and after school. I read the muscle magazines and scoured the internet for advice. I read books and lifted lots of weights. I had a little success, but nothing to write home about.

I didn't get results because I didn't understand the fundamentals. My efforts were haphazard and directionless.

The reason that there's so much advice is that it's all bad. Everything seems to work for a little while, until it doesn't. But don't worry, there'll be another "perfect program" you can buy to solve your problems. If you learned the real keys to success, the fundamentals, there would be nothing left to sell you. And a steady stream of disinformation and flashy marketing will obscure the fundamentals from you even if you should happen to stumble upon them accidentally. The fitness industry is plagued by too much information and too little understanding.

Here's the "secret" to weightlifting...there is no secret. Results are a function of persistent hard work. Progressive overload: lifting more weight over time. This is hard (That's why so few people do it!) but it's the only thing that actually works.

Success is no different. There are entire blogs and book shelves dedicated to self-help and achieving success. It's an industry. Everyone has a solution for you to buy, and they all seem to work...for a little while. Until they don't. Most of this information is superficial "I'll pump you up!" moto-bation. Too much information. All fluff. No fundamentals.

Success is just like weightlifting. Here's the "secret" to success...there is no secret. Results are a function of persistent hard work. Progressive action: doing more and producing more over time. This is hard, but it's the only thing that actually works.

If you're looking for how to start, the answer is just as simple (and tough)...take action. Start small, and grow little by little each day. That's it. The key to progressive growth is to start small. In weight lifting that means to begin without weights. For success that means "shipping" when the stakes are low.

Beginning with low stakes allows you to win each time you ship, and winning is addictive. Taking action each day and winning is critical to building the action habit. By the time the stakes actually matter, you'll have accumulated hundreds of practice reps. You'll have built your mind and body. You'll be more than ready...you'll be worthy.

The most effective success program, or weight lifting program, is the one you stick to. Different disciplines with the same fundamentals.

Be consistent. Build a habit. Push yourself incrementally over time.

Be your own Guru

I recently watched the Netflix documentary "I'm not your guru" about Tony Robbins and his "Date with Destiny" retreat. It was fascinating. The retreat seems kind of over the top and corny at first, almost like a cult, but then you start to understand why it feels that way. Because...it is a cult.

It's a cult of change and empowerment. People are there to change their lives, so it makes sense that the environment is engineered to do just that. It's benevolent brainwashing designed to get you to take the actions that will change your life. That is after all, why people are there. So, drink the cool-aid.

Brainwashing isn't bad if it takes you where you want to go. Positive self-affirmations are nothing more than ritual chants for very tiny cults.

While the crazy atmosphere may help with the brainwashing, the real work at Tony's seminar comes back to the basics: introspection, personal honesty, and immediate action.

In every area of life, it's always the people who've mastered the fundamentals that make the biggest waves. Tony isn't magic. He's just mastered the fundamentals and he help others apply them to themselves.

What's your real problem? What should you do about it? Do it now!

Watching Tony work you can see this in action. All he does is ask questions. Good through provoking questions. And he keeps asking them until he gets to the bottom. This is Five Whys applied to humans, because the first answer is never the core issue. It's a superficial symptom of your "root cause" problem. Keep going deeper. You'll know when you've hit bottom.

Why is it so easy to see other people's problems, but not our own? Selective ignorance. Ultimately, we know what our problems are. We're just to afraid to confront them.

To conquer our limiting beliefs and pain, we must first identify them.

After Tony leads someone to their root problems he doesn't offer them a solution. There is no solution that he could offer. It's always the person, the "self" that provides the help, since no one knows us better than ourselves. We are the ultimate source of information and solutions to our own life problems. They're there if we would only just look inside.

Deep down, we know what needs to be done.

Finally, Tony uses "tough love" to make people take action. Sometimes we need a push in the right direction to make us grow. Tony provides that push, and maybe more than one, until action is taken. That's it. That's all Tony does.

Tony's techniques aren't magic. They aren't even special. It's problem solving applied to humans. Cold, hard problem solving and immediate action. It's not easy or pleasant, but nothing that really works is.

Don’t confuse the complex with the difficult. Most situations are simple--many are just emotionally difficult to act upon. -- Tim Ferriss

Be your own guru today:

1. Identify your real problem.
2. Identify the best solution.
3. Fucking, do it.

The Self-Help Delusion

"Self-Help" a phrase that has lost its original meaning only to be replaced by a mirage. A lie. Maybe if I read one more book, or stay up reading one more blog post, then I'll know the secret. Then the stars will align. Then I can act.

Bullshit.

There's a reason that it's called "self" help.  You are the one who has to actually do the work. It can only come from within.

You are the "self" in "self help".

It's so easy to treat that phrase like a magical incantation, rather than the cold hard description that it is. It's a thought terminating cliche. A pretentious dodge. The smart man's way to pussy out without realizing that he's being a pussy. It's not "selfhelp". It's "help" you do by and for "yourself".

These books are not the solution to your problem, they are your problem. No amount of reading and preparation can replace action. I know, because I've been reading "self help" books for several years now, and guess what, nobody has come to rescue me.

All the time spent reading and preparing is little better than watching TV. Either way you're sitting on your butt not changing the world. Like any addicting substance, these books offer one thing and deliver another. They haven't freed you, they've trapped you.

"Just one more "hit" of motivation. That's all I need. Then I'll be ready to do something." More bullshit.

You are empowered the very moment you decide to claim your power to act. (It's what I'm doing right now.) You must help yourself, because you are the only one who can do it.

A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week. -- General Patton

Nothing else matters if you don't take action, so put the book down and get to work.