For a long time, I thought I was going crazy. I’d convinced myself that something horribly wrong was about to happen. I thought I would be stabbed, shot, or arrested every time I left my apartment. I was sure that there was an impending disaster that would melt the social contract and pit my neighbors against me. I saw criminals and undercover cops everywhere I went. All that “world is coming to an end” talk — I bought into it.

Every moment was exhausting. I dreaded being around more than one person at a time. I eyed everyone like they were judging me, pitying me, or attempting to manipulate me. My attention was divided in every interaction: one half of me would pretend to be normal, while the other half would be trying to keep it together.

I could feel various parts of my face twitching, like I was about to crack. My hands shook constantly. It got so bad that when a friend came to visit me, I couldn’t drink a glass of water because it kept spilling just from me holding it.

I tried to behave like nothing was wrong, when all I wanted to do was lock myself in a room and curl up in a ball. If someone had tapped me in the chest, my body would have shattered. If someone had ordered me to cry, my face would have flooded. I felt fragile, weak, and hollow.

I was ashamed. I didn’t want to be around anyone – not because I stopped liking people, but because I didn’t want them to catch my weird energy. I wearily watched my girlfriend cry when I confided that I felt dead inside, all the time, and I didn’t know how to fix it.

I laid on the ground for 20 minutes one night, wondering whether I should call an ambulance. My heart was beating so hard and fast that I could actually hear it, and my left hand was going numb. My first panic attack.

…

My anxiety lasted for more than a year. It affected how I breathed, how I thought, how I ate, how I slept, and how I talked. I was serious and tired and afraid, all the time. I wanted so badly to return to my normal, lively, care-free, confident self. But I didn’t know how to shake it.

I tried everything to fix myself: meditation, yoga, high-intensity workouts, long runs, therapy, therapy books, keeping a journal, super clean diets, extended fasting, drugs, deep breathing exercises, prayer, etc. I even took a six-week course, made specifically for men who wanted to overcome anxiety. A few of these things helped, a lot of them didn’t. Some of them made things worse.

Then one day, I discovered the cure. When my mind processed it and recognized it was the solution, I started laughing. The answer had been so obvious all along.

In less than one month, I was back to my old self. The cure for my anxiety was free, fun, painless, and immediately effective. I have no fear that those feelings will ever return. If they do, I’ll be able to wipe them out right away.

I hope this post can help you eliminate your anxiety once and for all. It’s not nearly as hard as you think.

…

“Adults are just obsolete children.” – Dr. Seuss

Have you ever witnessed a little kid working out on a treadmill?

Or meeting up with a friend to chat over coffee?

Or wearing a suit and making cold-calls?

Or attending a networking conference to hand out their business cards?

HELL NO. That stuff is lame and boring. If you saw a kid doing any of those things, you would laugh and wonder what the hell was wrong with them.

Kids don’t run to get in shape; they run to feel the grass beneath their feet and the wind on their face.

Kids don’t have a chat over coffee; they pretend and make jokes and explore the outdoors.

Kids don’t go to work; they play their favorite games.

Kids don’t network; they bond with other fun kids while playing.

There is no ego. There is no guilt. There is no past to regret, and no future to worry about. They just play.

And that’s what I’d forgotten, what I’d been missing, all along.

…

Giving myself permission to PLAY was the cure for my anxiety. It was a subtle but powerful shift in how I viewed the world.

For two years, I had unknowingly prevented myself from playing. I am a workaholic, which can be pretty horrible when you work alone. No one tells you to stop or take a break, or that you’re burning yourself out. I’d find myself tethered to the internet all day, sitting in a chair for 10 hours and staring at a bright screen. Even when I was “finished,” I’d impulsively check email several times between midnight and 2 a.m. I know it’s dumb and unnecessary and “What could be so important?” and “You need your sleep,” but I did it anyways. I was oblivious to the fact that my nerves were being frayed for hours on end, and that I desperately needed fun face-to-face time with real human beings.

What made matters worse were the idiotic rituals I’d fallen into. Drinking coffee all day, then drinking alcohol with friends on the weekend. I didn’t get outside, I didn’t move enough, I didn’t sleep enough. My weeks were a cycle of over-stimulation and numbing.

I read Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul. The message of the book hit me like a brick wall – it explained what I’d been doing wrong this whole time. I had completely deprived myself of play for nearly two years! Even when I had been “playing” (doing fun activities with friends), I would still feel guilty or self-conscious. My mind was elsewhere: what I’d done wrong in the past, how I was compromising my future, and how I was wasting the present. I was so critical of how I was living my life that I couldn’t be in the moment.

Getting out of that mentality saved me. I remembered how happy I’d been growing up, even just years before, and I knew why I’d been that way: I’d always allowed myself to play.

…

“A lack of play should be treated like malnutrition: it’s a health risk to your body and mind.” – Stuart Brown

The real problem had been my state of mind. I’d become increasingly adept at rejecting any form of “non-productivity.” I couldn’t allow any form of play if it didn’t contribute to earning money or doing something “meaningful.” Even when I was with friends or doing something that was supposed to be fun, I couldn’t stop thinking about all the time I was wasting. I wasn’t being productive; I was losing valuable time. I had to get back to work!

What would the world do without me and my important work?!

Without realizing it, I became very serious, even though I’d never been serious in my entire life. I couldn’t play because that meant I wasn’t working, and I couldn’t really work because I always felt tired and jaded (because I never let myself play!) This resulted in me convincing myself that life was a miserable grind for adults, and that I needed to be very serious if I wanted to get through it. I approached everything this way, and treated my work as a form of self-imposed slavery.

Little did I know how limiting that mindset was, and how much it was hurting the work I was doing.

…

Play is what has driven and shaped every beautiful part of our culture. Concerts, books, cooking, sports, movies, fashion, art, games… We pay for these things so we can experience the fruits of another person’s PLAY. And the most virtuous form of work, according to some of our most revered and accomplished minds, belongs in the realm of play:

“I never did a day’s work in my life. It was all fun.” – Thomas Edison

“Play is the highest form of research.” – Albert Einstein

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” – Steve Jobs

“Without work, all life goes rotten, but when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.” – Albert Camus

“A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.” – François-René de Chateaubriand

I know a lot of really, really accomplished people. Some of them approach their work in this way — they play. Others are very methodical, rigid, and systematic. It doesn’t look like play – it is unquestionably work. And it took me a long time to finally realize… I do not function well in the latter group.

I HAVE to approach work as play, otherwise my work sucks. When I tackle a problem with a sense of play – voluntarily because I’m inherently attracted to it – my creativity and optimism and happiness soars. I become fascinated with the world. I fall in love with people. And whoever I’m working with helps me make the game more fun, and our positive energy becomes contagious.

I realized that nearly every important career decision I’d made had been rooted in play. All the cool jobs I got – and the very concept of FREE WORK – ultimately came from me viewing the work as a form of play. They were activities I didn’t need to be rewarded or paid for (even though I was), because they were fun. It didn’t feel like hard work because I got to “play” with cool people, I got to be challenged and learn a ton, and most of the time, it felt like it was just a game I’d made up. And that’s where my best work came from: the belief that I was creating and playing my own game.

Once I saw that I’d forgotten to treat my work as play, I knew what I had to do in order to fix it. It was simply a choice.

…

When I moved down to Austin, a friend introduced me to his buddy David via email, and suggested we should meet. David replied to me with the usual request: he asked if I wanted to grab coffee. I paused a moment, then wrote back:

“Hey David, good to meet you. This is an irregular request, but you want to meet up at a park and play catch? Haven’t done that in awhile and it’s a lot more stimulating than sitting around and drinking coffee.”

His response:

“SURE THING. Playing catch sounds like a f*ing blast! I’ll ping you in a bit and if we can’t do it today, let’s play ball tomorrow!”

And it was a blast. It removed the pressure of us having to talk and impress each other, so we could just focus on the game.

I used to feel a bit nervous on first dates. I had to be “on” for hours at a time. The last date I went on was great — the energy wasn’t uptight at all because we played around the whole time. We ordered whisky Shirley Temples, shot cherry stems through our straws at random people, and cracked jokes about the karaoke singers. There were no attempts to be cool or charming, or where this date might take us — it was all about making the moment fun.

That’s how I’m approaching my meetings and dates from now on: what games can we play together?

Life is funny. Back in college, I used to read Tucker Max’s site and think, “What a fun guy.” I’d go out with my friends and drink, and we’d try to create our own crazy stories. Now, Tucker is a close friend. We play homerun derby together every weekend. We come up with fun practical jokes we can pull.

I’m signing up for more improv classes. I’m scheduling travel. I’m having fun because I’m making play a priority. And you know what? I feel 1000 times better than I ever thought I would. I’m back to my normal self. I love life again.

…

Play is what we all LOVE to do. Play is where our subconscious naturally guides us. Play is the state where we are truly ourselves, once we let go of our egos and fear of looking stupid. Play immerses us in the moment, where we effortlessly slip into flow. Play allows us to imagine, to create, to bond with and understand each other. Play is what creates our strongest social circles.

And most importantly, play utterly destroys anxiety. Play gets you around other humans, face-to-face, and allows you to form a real connection with them. Play allows you to stop taking your life so damn seriously, so you can start living again.

Life was never supposed to feel so serious or scary in the first place! The people who try to convince you that it has to be that way just aren’t very good at playing. They’ve forgotten what it’s like. So have a laugh, remind them, then go find better playmates. Everyone is looking for someone to have fun with. Go out, create your own games, then get others to join in. Just play.

…

If you’re struggling with anxiety… Take a moment to ask yourself the following questions:

1. Am I allowing myself to have regular guilt-free play with friends?
2. Am I sitting and staring at a screen for most of the day?
3. Am I moving enough each day to exhaust myself (i.e. lifting heavy weights, sprinting, playing sports)?
4. Am I sleeping eight hours per night?

Those are the areas that will help your anxiety tremendously, once you’ve taken steps to fix them.

And if — like me — you realize you haven’t been allowing yourself to play, then go through your “Play History.” Write down all the activities that repeatedly brought you joy from your childhood, then start incorporating them back into your life. For me, it was: baseball (catch and homerun derby), pranks and practical jokes, learning and developing skills, travel, performing for an audience, and comedy.

You don’t need money to play. You don’t need more free time. You can always do it. Play is a state of mind – it is a way to approach the world.

It’s only a choice: Anxiety or Play. Take your pick.

“Man is God’s plaything, and that is the best part of him. Therefore every man and woman should live life accordingly, and play the noblest games… What, then, is the right way of living? Life must be lived as play…” – Plato

Fast forward to late-2012: Jeff was running around Buenos Aires, being filmed by an Academy Award nominated director, while hanging up dozens of his swings throughout the city. Over 80 staff members and 200 extras were standing by on the shoot of Jeff’s global ad campaign:

I got to witness the entire plot of Jeff and his swings unfold (we were neighbors in San Francisco), and it was incredibly inspiring to see this small project transform into an international commercial, with the most recognized brand in the world. I asked him to share his story in this post. It’s a crazy ride, you don’t want to miss it…

Interview with Jeff Waldman

How did you originally come up with the idea to hang swings?

The actual details of the story are lost on me. I generally summarize that some friends and I had talked about it and the types of raw emotions it might invoke, but that I held onto it and finally pursued it sometime later. I’m generally that guy in the group, where we all might talk about rappelling off the town water tower, but I’m the only one who — weeks later — is still scheming on exactly how to do it.

What was it like to hang that first swing?

Surprising. I went out with my friend Jarrett and after we’d hung a few Bob joined up with his video camera. Jarrett and I expected it to be fun. We remembered what it was like to play on them as a kid. And we figured we’d get some looks.

We were not remotely prepared for just how pleasurable it would be; how the gentle arc and tug of gravity would be mesmerizing and meditative. We didn’t foresee just how many people would stop to watch and line up, asking to play. Really, we just didn’t know how fun it would be.

We were so far distanced from our childhood usage that the memory was a dull sensation. The actual experience instantly brought back much more vivid feelings and memories.

How long did it take you to realize there might be something more to this, and actually pursue it as a bigger project?

Once we hung the first few and saw the reactions I knew I’d hang more. Beyond that there was no real tipping point. It grew very organically in that I’d capitalize on the attention of one installation and try to use that attention to enable another. In that sense I was trying to grow it, but I was always surprised at the ever-increasing level of appeal.

What was the first big press piece you got? How did you get it?

The Wooster Collective is a street art blog. Probably the street art blog at the time of our first installation. I wrote a short synopsis that I knew was their style and appealed to their audience—something they could publish outright— and I sent that to them along with our first video:

“Inspired by Paris artist, Jerome G. Dermuth, we’ve taken on 7 (more to follow) swing installation in San Francisco as part of an ongoing Happiness Project aimed at loss of youth. The short video below shows the installation, scouting, and lots of footage of randoms using the swings with complete and utter joy as they relent to a push and some wind in their hair. Watch it through. The joy of an autistic kid’s father’s face as he gets on a swing for the first time in 40 years is our parting shot. It’s pure and simple bliss that’s sadly been long ignored and forgotten.”

This blurb mentioned an artist they were familiar with and linked to their original article where he installed a swing under a city bridge. It was packaged, quality content that was relevant to their interests and audience, so they ran it and those first few thousand views got the ball rolling.

How did you decide to hang up swings around Los Angeles?

That first video and article (as well as a few others which came later) were packed up and sent to The Awesome Foundation (TAF), who suggested that I would be favored for a grant and should apply. TAF chapters in various cities give a $1,000 grant each month to any artist, philanthropist, entrepreneur, etc., who wants to do something uniquely “awesome.”

The LA chapter selected my pitch and gave me the grant to hang 50 swings in their city, with the request that I also install a swing set at their award party.

I built the swing set in San Francisco, broke it down, and with the help of some friends, we assembled it on their roof in LA. Those same friends and I spent the weekend hanging the rest of the swings throughout the city.

How did you end up hitting the front page of Reddit? Was that somewhat orchestrated or did it happen on its own?

It was “orchestrated” in the sense that the goal was obviously to rank high on the front page, but Reddit is hard to game. Staying on the front page — and in the #1 spot — was as much about great content and luck as it was about orchestration.

I announced the project on the Los Angeles subreddit, solicited input, and gave updates on our progress. I then vetted the final video we created on there and in a few other smaller, more relevant subreddits to garner some support and validation:

Once that was done I waited until Tuesday, at a time when at least some schools were still in session, and submitted it to the main Videos subreddit around 7am PST. Then I went back to those original subreddits and showed them the x-post link to drag over some positive votes and attention.

After that I parked myself at the computer to answer any and all questions. Those first few dialogues on Reddit are important for two reasons:

1. Hive mind and group think mean that if the conversation starts positive it will more likely stay that way. Just the same, if the cynics show up and post only drivel and snark, readers will derive their opinions (and their votes) from that negativity. I wanted to steer that discourse as much as possible.
2. The “New” section of Reddit is awash in new posts, most of them bad. For that reason even good links have a hard time finding their way to the top. Posts with high upvote numbers move up and get noticed, but so do posts with lots of comments… especially because most of the news posts have zero comments. When people see a lone thread that has a dozen comments in a sea of zero discussion, they are likely to check it out. Get them to do that and upvotes and further dialogue are not too far behind. And while Reddit has a lot of features to prevent you from gaming their system with upvotes, it has none to stop you from having a conversation with yourself. 99.9% of the comments and my answering questions were with real people, but I may have helped fluff the first dozen or two with some friend’s accounts or some extras I keep around.

Then I kept the dialogue going. I continued to answer questions as long as the post was doing well. In doing so I made it legitimately more interesting, but also effectively doubled the number of comments and attracted readers who might have passed over a video with 300 comments, but were curious about the 1,000+ comment discussion going on with mine.

That attention, plus the quality content, equaled enough upvotes to keep it as the #1 post for about 11 hours, resulting in more than 200,000 Youtube views in 48 hours.

Youtube’s embedded view statistics

What was the reception like on Reddit?

There were a lot more emails than usual from fans. People who dug the project and wanted to get involved. The biggest advantage was being able to use small press pieces on blogs, along with a video that had “gone viral” and was validated on Reddit, and package all that up for larger press entities to see. I was trying to get as much attention as possible with this LA video to secure funding for Bolivia, and Reddit’s video views and attention was the biggest asset in that effort.

What made you want to continue hanging up swings, and take the project to another country?

My friend Drew had helped me in LA and we knew the video of that install would do well. We wondered what we could do with that attention and came around to the idea of exploring the project in a whole different culture and location. I’d been touting how primal an emotional vehicle these swings were, and how they cut through every social barrier, but I’d never put that to the test in a global sense. We considered a few places… the favelas of Brazil, Cuba… but eventually settled on Bolivia.

Why did you decide to use Kickstarter instead of asking for another grant?

We were about to release a video which we knew would be seen by a lot of people, so using it as a gateway to crowdfunding seemed like a perfect fit. We put the Kickstarter page at the end of the LA video, included it on the Reddit post and in all of the press. It was a natural match. About half or a third of our donations came from Reddit readers and the rest came from people who found out about the project in other articles and news peices. We made sure that all the fundraising stuff was in place before the LA video went live and then wasted no attention or time in getting it seen by as many people as possible. We hit our goal in two days, and raised 233% in donations by the end of the run.

I knew that Kickstarter’s featured projects– their “Picks” and “Popular” on their front page– were generated by an algorithm that took into account momentum, traffic, and popularity on the web. I wanted to hit that front page (who’s more likely to fund a project than a Kickstarter reader?) and that meant the push for views and press had to be urgent.

It worked. We released a fair amount of press, and combined with the Reddit post, we created a big push on social media that happened all at once. The spike in our Kickstarter page’s traffic and funding put it on the front page of the site within a couple days and it stayed there for some time. This is the reason you see more than 20% of our funding coming from people on Kickstarter (it’s not because they were searching for “swings”).

How did you prepare for your trip to Bolivia?

Drew moved up to San Francisco for the month prior so that he and I could spend time together filming to work out the kinks of our new equipment and our interpersonal workflow. We would go out and do things like film a little movie about a neighborhood (e.g. Russian Hill, Treasure Island, Forrest Day), just to practice camera work and filming with a purpose. It proved to be very valuable.

What was the hardest part about that trip? What would you have done differently?

Filming a full length documentary was a challenge that, in hindsight, I wouldn’t have undertaken. I went with Drew and our dedicated camera woman, Stacy, and a documentary wasn’t anything any of us had done. For some reason we thought that because we could film pretty pictures and set them to music, this would somehow translate to being able to create a full length movie with a coherent narrative. We had swung for the fences and in retrospect that was a mistake. I wish we’d just hung the swings and filmed it more casually so that we could piece together a highlight reel from the trip; something well within our wheelhouse.

How was it giving the TEDx Brisbane talk on the swings?

For me, it was prestigious. I’d never had a speaking engagement before. I’d been invited to one TEDx prior, for the same project, but couldn’t make it. So this was my first TEDx and as a huge fan of TED there was a fanboy component.

The talk itself was pretty easy. I’d just returned from Bolivia 5 days before. So I spoke about the previous installations for context, and then focused mostly on our recent trip. I wrapped it up by showing 5-minutes of brand new Bolivia footage, which we’d edited on our way home.

How did Coca-Cola find and approach you?

An ad guy in Brazil who does work for Coke was inspired, after seeing videos of my project, to create a whole campaign around “random acts of kindness.” It would feature other people and their projects from around the world.

Coke bought the idea and sometime later the producers and director called me. They worked at selling me on why this wasn’t “just some commercial” — they genuinely believed it could inspire some good. Their biggest selling points:

- The director had created the Oscar-nominated documentary Murderball,

- Six months of shooting (most commercials are shot in a few days) with real, passionate people in several countries around the world,

- $1.5 million budget (most commercials are $200-500k)

Finally, they asked me to sign on and come down to Argentina to film, which I agreed to. They had spent the past six months traveling through Europe, Africa, and the United States, filming the other people and their stories for the commercial. In May 2012, I met them in Buenos Aires for a week to film my part. I hung swings around the city with a 2nd unit camera crew, then we shot big, set-like scenes with the main crew in various plazas and parks of the city. The spots started airing in early 2013.

What is it like to have your own Coca-Cola commercial?

“Surreal” is probably the best way to describe it. The whole ordeal: Having this multi-country, multi-million dollar venture created from my project… Being on a 200-person film set, where everything there exists to get a shot of me throwing rope over a tree branch… Knowing that people watching TV in Algeria or Afghanistan have seen me hang a swing… Yeah. “Surreal” is the best way to describe it.

Also, I got paid for the commercial. As of March 2013, I’ve made over $100,000 ($6K to film the commercial, $85K in global residuals, $10K in Coca Cola’s speaking engagements). I never in a million years expected to get paid for anything related to this project, or any other passion project, for that matter. And I didn’t expect the first batch of checks (about $55K) to show up at my door. I thought I was going to be paid about $500, to be honest. I was very wrong.

Jeff’s first batch of royalty checks

It’s both shocking and incredibly wonderful. The unexpected income could not have come at a better time for me, as I was basically broke when I went down to film it. Well, “broke” is putting it lightly. “Tragically in debt from a lifetime of error and personal malfeasance” is probably a more precise description. So yeah, it was a fortunate turn of events.

What’s your favorite swing that you’ve hung up?

A year after Bolivia, living back in SF, I hadn’t hung a swing in months. I was burned out on it.

One day I called for some friends and we met at this giant tree I knew, with a lofty canopy that stretched way out. In Bolivia we’d found that if you had a branch that extended far enough away from the trunk, you could hang a single rope and put a triangle at the end to hold the seat. And with this setup, you could swing in giant circles and spins (or like a Foucault Pendulum in big, drifting arcs).

About 20 of us met out there, and we hung up this 50-foot tall single rope swing on that giant tree and spent the afternoon playing on it. There was picnic food and some people brought out beer and wine. We took turns pushing each other on this giant swing—the biggest and best I’ve ever hung—with no cameras or agenda. It was a really fun day and it got back to those core feelings that I always talked about in most of the interviews I’ve given on the project.

I remember you mentioning that you were torn, because a part of you felt that “at the end of the day, they’re just swings.” Do you still feel that way?

Some people get very caught up in the romance of the project. They get this idea that hanging swings is somehow revolutionary. I kind of laugh at that and at the idea that I’ve done so much and so well from this thing that is far from my own. But generally I’m just happy that I’m inspiring people to be a little less serious. In that sense, yeah, it is just a swing, but if putting one in a public space and getting adults on it convinces people to entertain their creative notions and get a little weird, then I guess the swing is not just a swing — it’s a gateway to artistic expression and youthful joy.

If someone wanted to start hanging swings around their city, what steps should they take? Advice they should heed?

Just do it. It’s fun, it’s easy, and it’s cheap (the cost of hanging up a single swing is $8.18 after taxes). But be aware that you’re essentially a vandal. No public or private land owner wants that liability, so either do it at home or accept that fact that while it seems like fun and games (and it is), some suit or a badge is going to tell you to cut it down.

Is there more to come for the swing project?

Maybe. I don’t think so at the moment, but then, I’ve thought the same thing along most stages of this and I’ve been wrong every time.

What projects are you working on now?

I’m still doing Coca-Cola work. I’ve been down to Mexico twice to give talks, consult, and most recently for an event where they had a few hundred people come and hang swings in the park for an afternoon.

Aside from that, I have little projects and personal creative endeavors that occupy my time (e.g. I created a free book exchange not long ago which is still going strong, and I’m still installing miniature doors around San Francisco). I have yet to find that next big thing though.

Which artists (or sites) do you get your inspiration from?

Too many to count, but here are a few who come to mind:

- Jason Eppink

- Mark Jenkins

- Brad Downey

- Dan Grayber

- Roa

- Reuben Margolin

- Jimmy Chin

- Dan Witz

- Adam Savage (Not because he’s a TV personality, but because I strongly relate to his innate obsessiveness.)

What’s next for Sir Waldman?

I’m going to eat some lunch. Today is left over carne asada, rice and some veggies. Beyond that, work on the documentary is still ongoing and astoundingly arduous.

What would you like me to plug?

Watch my Coke Commercial. If you like it, tell a friend to watch it. My hope is that if it plays well enough online it may actually air in the US someday. Right now it’s global, but not in the US, which for me personally, isn’t quite as helpful.

It highlights real people who have real, interesting projects, which I think is pretty cool. (It also shows fake people, with fake projects who buy people Cokes, which they added in — despite the director fighting against it — but hey, that’s capitalism.)

Aside from that, no plugs, no agenda. I haven’t done a press piece or an interview without one in a really long time and it’s been making me feel a little encumbered and dirty, so this is a pleasant change. Going over all this gave some good perspective. Australia, Bolivia, Mexico, Argentina… I went to all those places for free because of this thing. The travel, the opportunity, the money… it was really cool to revisit. It’s been good talking with you, Charlie Hoehn.

# # #

Charlie: I love Jeff’s story because it beautifully illustrates how much leverage and momentum one person can get with an idea these days. Jeff started with a single swing and a Flip camera in Golden Gate Park. Then he did it again, with several swings and a better camera. He posted a video on Youtube, promoted it to art blogs, and built up some awareness of his project. He got a $1,000 grant, hung up 50 picturesque swings throughout LA, created a great video, and hit the front page of Reddit. That resulted in $11,000 raised on Kickstarter, a month of hanging swings in Bolivia, a TEDx talk in Australia, then his own Coca-Cola commercial and a $100,000 payday.

I watched Jeff go through every step of this journey, and I couldn’t be more thrilled that he hit it big. He’s a very smart guy, web- and tech-savvy, and a natural MacGyver, but that doesn’t mean he’s the only one capable of pulling something like this off…

Anyone with passion and the ability to execute can follow the same blueprint as Jeff. But you can’t get started until you take that first step (or in Jeff’s case, hang that first swing). You don’t need a ton of time or a huge budget — Jeff had full-time jobs while he was pursuing this project, and he was in debt.

If you’ve resolved to a life of hating your job or being unemployed, there’s a very simple fix… Do something fun and interesting in your free time, then share it with like-minded people online! Take that first step towards building your idea, creating your art, writing your book, shooting your film, recording your song… Whatever it is, GIVE something you love to the world. Stop waiting around, expecting to be rewarded just for being here. You have every tool you need at your disposal. What are you waiting for?

The starting gun goes off everyday, the moment you open your eyes.

1. Send offers to work for free for every company in their industry (HORRIBLE idea)
2. Approach authors with free work

#1 is idiotic. You should not approach anyone unless you’re intimately familiar with their business, and are a genuine fan of their work/products. Doing free work isn’t about doling yourself out for slavery; it’s about selectively working with pros who can grant you hands-on learning and invaluable experience, in a field that’s meaningful to you.

#2 is also ill-advised. Even though approaching authors worked out for me and Ryan and Ben, I generally don’t advocate targeting the author niche. Writers are interesting people, but they typically don’t make much money. Most of them won’t be able to pay you once the free work comes to an end. Unless it’s an amazing once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, there are better uses of your time.

What I suggest in the e-book is approaching successful entrepreneurs. No matter what you’re interested in — photography, architecture, cooking, fashion, etc. — the people in your field who are earning the most are all successful entrepreneurs. They were all able to turn their skills into viable businesses, and have found ways to make their passion profitable.

It’s fine to work with a brilliant inventor or a gifted artist, but if they know nothing about sales or marketing or running a business, they are going to have a really tough time sustaining their hobby. And you will run the risk of never making money with them. You need to get your foot in the door with people who know what the hell they’re doing. And if they’ve already achieved some degree of success, they’re more likely to be successful again in the near future. Not a bad idea to hitch yourself onto a rising star. 

Every person I’ve done free work for has been a self-made entrepreneur, because that’s what I wanted to become. I was a genuine fan of their work, knew all about their past projects, and had done enough research to figure out what problems they were currently facing, and how I might be able to help. The fact that a bunch of these people were best-selling authors was somewhat incidental.  

Another reason I suggest working with entrepreneurs is because they are interested in changing the world at a fast pace. Their enthusiasm is contagious, and their work ethic is much stronger than your average employee at a big company. You will not regret the decision to expose yourself to their work process — you’ll absorb some of their DNA and make it your own. Even if you don’t want to become an entrepreneur yourself, you will still gain a lot from the experience.

# # #

So… where do you find successful entrepreneurs?

Think about the products / services you use regularly and love, or the companies that you buy from repeatedly throughout the year. Those businesses were created by entrepreneurs. You can do research on them and figure out which ones might be easy to approach and receptive to free work.

Of course, that task might seem too broad or difficult. And if you live in the mid-West, the only companies you can think of are Wal-Mart and Best Buy, so you’re out of luck there.

If you can’t think of any entrepreneurs, take a look at Kickstarter projects* that are ending soon.

[*In case you've been living under a rock: Kickstarter is a crowd-funding platform that allows people to raise money for creative projects. The site is three years old, and in 2012, they helped artists and entrepreneurs raise over $319 Million for their projects, from more than 2 million donors in 177 countries. KS is pretty awesome, and it's very effective.]

Kickstarter projects that have received over $100K in funding — or get 200%+ funding — clearly have some level of demand. The people who are running these projects are likely freaking out about having to fill all those orders, and are wondering how they’re going to pull this off. Many of them are under more pressure than they’ve ever dealt with. The sweet smell of opportunity is in the air…

If you find a project that you love, and the people running it seem like genuinely good folks who know what they’re doing (do your research- Google them!), then reach out and offer to help. First, tell them why you love what they’re doing (and don’t B.S. this part, it’s a waste of everyone’s time), and the potential you see — what you think it could become and how it could change the world in some way.

Then make them an offer: say you don’t normally discount your rates, but that you truly love what they’re doing, and think you could add some value. Say that you’d be willing to do ______ (sales, marketing, customer service, web design — whatever valuable skill you have) for two weeks at no charge. Lay out exactly why you’d love to do it, what you plan to do (give them a sample of your work), and how it will specifically benefit them. Then say if they like your work and you enjoy working together, then you can all discuss a more formal arrangement at the end of the two weeks. If they don’t like your work, they can scrap it, dismiss you on the spot, and there will be no hard feelings on your end.

You might balk at this and wonder, “Why on earth should I offer free work to an amateur entrepreneur / artist?”

For one, a lot of them are doing really cool stuff. I hear people complain all the time about not wanting to work for a soul-sucking boring company. Well, Kickstarter is a huge community of creative people working on things they’re passionate about. Some of them raise a TON of money, but are too inexperienced to pull it off, even though they might have a viable business on their hands.

If only they could find a talented partner to work with…

Why not figure out what their biggest problems and stumbling blocks are going to be, then reach out with an offer to help. If you can actually DELIVER what you’re promising, then they will have more to lose by not paying you than you’ll have to lose. They will want to keep you around.

I’m not making this strategy up. I’ve had a handful of friends reach out to total strangers on Kickstarter, and successfully find themselves working on stuff they loved. My buddy was sick of his 9-5 job at Wells Fargo, so he reached out to a filmmaker on Kickstarter. He ended up traveling around South America for a month, shooting footage, and ended up as a subject in the documentary. He said it was the best decision he’d ever made.

# # #

If you really want to work on something unique and meaningful, Kickstarter is a great place to find those opportunities. The web makes it so unbelievably easy to connect with like-minded people — it still astonishes me that so few of us actually take advantage of it! If I was able to connect and work with best-selling authors and successful entrepreneurs all around the country – from Colorado – then anyone can do it, from anywhere.

The goal is to work with people who can step up your game, help you develop skills that you want to master, present you with experiences you crave, and connect you with more folks who are just like them.

If you’re a young person who’s not sure what to do with their life, get off of Facebook/Reddit, and make a move towards doing something. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it doesn’t have to be a long-term play — it just has to be a step in the direction you want to go. Because once you’ve taken that first step, you’ll be able to see the second step. And then the third step. And eventually, you’ll have momentum, and you’ll have made huge progress. But you can’t climb a mountain until you take that first step…

And if you have to offer free work to take that first step, don’t hesitate — DO IT!

It’s been five years since I graduated from college, and I still hear the same complaints:

“The market is a nightmare. I’m competing against hundreds for jobs I don’t want.”

“I keep sending out my résumé, but nobody responds to me. I feel hopeless.”

“How am I supposed to have experience if no one will give me a chance in the first place?”

“I just want a job with decent pay that won’t make me hate my life.”

“I WANT MONEY!!!”

A big part of me truly sympathizes with every one of these sentiments. I’ve been there, and I remember the constant sense of desperation and urgency. When you’re unemployed, every moment feels like wasted time, like your future has been compromised. That mentality is no fun, and I do not miss it.

Fortunately, the days of worrying about those things are largely behind me. And guess what? You don’t have to worry so much either. You just need to know the levels of employment so you can assess where you are and continue making progress. That’s what I’ll be covering in this post.

But first, let’s talk about love…

Work is Love, Love is Work

Finding YOUR CALLING and finding your TRUE LOVE are two of our highest priorities. But given the state of our culture, you’d think they were impossible to achieve! Nearly everyone describes their job as “less than ideal,” and more than a third of American marriages end in divorce.

Why do the tasks of finding OUR CALLING and finding TRUE LOVE feel so clumsy, confusing, and nerve-wracking? Why, in today’s modern society, do so few of us have jobs and relationships that are both fulfilling and sustainable?

Finding YOUR CALLING and finding TRUE LOVE are the exact same process. And once you understand the progression, you can make the right moves, advance through each level, and eventually attain both goals. It won’t be fast or easy, but the path and its results are certain.

# # #

In this post, I’ve compared the two — YOUR CALLING and TRUE LOVE — to show their similarities. We’re all intimately familiar with the world of dating, relationships, and love — we start our learning at an early age. But our careers typically begin when we’re adults, so our development and understanding in this area begin much later in life. When you compare the two side-by-side, you’ll recognize what level you’re currently in, and how you should proceed.

Without further ado, here are “The 8 Levels of Employment” (a.k.a. The 8 Stages of Work and Love):

1. The Beginner

Welcome to the REAL WORLD / DATING SCENE! Take a look around. Exciting, isn’t it? Your possibilities appear to be endless…

After you’ve made a thorough assessment of the terrain, you notice that most of your options don’t seem so great. The most attractive ones are being swarmed by tons of other APPLICANTS / SUITORS. You consider making an attempt for one of them, but statistically you don’t stand a chance.

You work up the energy to APPLY FOR A JOB / START A CONVERSATION, but are disheartened when you don’t get much of a response. Being rejected and overlooked feels humiliating. You restrain your embarrassment and decide to press on, dismissing any who seem immediately interested in HIRING / DATING you. How repulsive- they’re more desperate than you!

You’ll meet others who are struggling, and parrot advice you’ve read on the best strategies for LANDING AN INTERVIEW / GETTING A DATE:

• Act like you don’t care
• Have other options
• Ask about their life, don’t talk about yours
• Just keep putting yourself out there
• It’s a numbers game

Your friends are equally insecure, equally inexperienced, and equally incompetent in this area. Yet none of you will admit that you have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re mostly just relieved that you’re not alone.

Now that you have a support group, your happiness and confidence goes back up. You all take cues from each other, and decide that the “shotgun approach” is your best bet. You hop on your laptop, get on a JOB / DATING site, and whip up a fancy RESUME / PROFILE. It feels a bit awkward bragging about yourself. You wonder, “What are they looking for? What do they respond to? What do they want me to be?” You fine-tune your writing so it’s exactly what you think they want. Most of what you wrote is puffed up to make you sound better than you really are, but who cares? Everyone does it.

Now it’s time to spam! You send a COVER LETTER / MESSAGE to every potential EMPLOYER / SINGLE PERSON and await the offers to pour in. Out of the dozens of messages you send, only a few of them respond. Then you never hear from them again. You can’t see it, but they’re being inundated by hundreds of people just like you. You are replaceable.

You notice that some people – who don’t seem to be very different from you — are far more successful. You observe their behavior, and they don’t appear to be trying. You resent them, because you are struggling so much. If only you knew their secrets…

You rationalize their success and excuse your own shortcomings. They have advantages that you don’t – they are better looking, smarter, and know all the right people. You have too much stacked against you.

Finally, you manage to land a JOB INTERVIEW / DATE. You rehearse what you’re going to talk about, and get all dressed up to make a good impression. Then it begins. You try to be cool and on-point, delivering all the answers you think they want to hear. Everything seems to be going well, and then you blow it. It becomes clear that you’re not really interested in fulfilling their needs — you just don’t want to be POOR / LONELY anymore. You get up and say your awkward good-bye.

What comes next? Do you wait three days before you contact them again? Should you say thanks and mention how you really seemed to hit it off? Should you wait for them to message you? What’s the proper etiquette here? Can’t both sides be honest? You’re desperate, they’re desperate — let’s make this happen! Or pretend it never happened… Better move on.

You wonder if you’re just a loser, a poor soul who’s doomed to be UNEMPLOYED / SINGLE for years to come. But how can that be? You’re working hard, you’re smart, and you’ve got so much to offer. You’re such a catch! Why doesn’t anyone recognize that?

If you grow cynical and decide to give up, this will be your final level. Game over.

2. The Amateur

Through some miraculous twist of fate, you’ve managed to find yourself in a FULL-TIME JOB / RELATIONSHIP. Your peers congratulate you, validating your belief that you have won. Of course, this probably wasn’t your first choice, but it certainly beats the alternative…

You’re mostly just relieved to be part of a COMPANY / COUPLE. You try to maintain poise (“just be cool man”), but you’re secretly worried that you’ll screw things up. You’re so worried that you fail to recognize that the other side is just as insecure and nervous as you are.

Eventually, you settle in and learn how to maintain the status quo. You start to think that you might have this whole CAREER / DATING thing figured out.

As time goes by, you begin defining yourself by your JOB / RELATIONSHIP. Your title has given you a sense of significance and purpose. You congratulate yourself for earning this role, and tell everyone how lucky you are to have found the JOB OF YOUR DREAMS / LOVE OF YOUR LIFE.

In reality, you are painfully insecure and terrified of losing. The blood drains from your face whenever you “screw up.” You apologize profusely and promise to never do it again. You’ll change, you swear! There’s no reason to FIRE / DUMP you… Please?

3. The Veteran

The JOB OF YOUR DREAMS / LOVE OF YOUR LIFE is not as great as you once thought. You gained some experience, but the magic has worn off. The excitement is gone. And now all you can focus on are the shortcomings.

Every week feels the same. Every interaction fills you with dread. You sigh and think, “This is it?” Soon, those thoughts turn into “Why am I still doing this?”

You battle temptation on a regular basis. The potential of YOUR CALLING / TRUE LOVE is getting harder to ignore. You feel that you are limiting yourself and compromising your life… but you’re not quite ready to leave. Going through the motions is fine for now. It’s better than the pain and uncertainty that will come with change…

Maybe things will get better. Doesn’t everyone deal with this? You can tolerate the situation for a little while longer. And someday, you’ll make the leap. Someday… but not today.

You grow resentful. It’s not your fault; they’re holding you back! You press their buttons, waiting for them to make a move. They look at you suspiciously, then you have a long talk and promise that everything’s fine — you just haven’t been yourself lately. All the while hoping for the ax, to be set free, to be granted permission to leave…

But it doesn’t happen. Instead, they say they are PROMOTING YOU / IN LOVE WITH YOU. The ultimate trump card has been thrown down. Do you stay, or do you go?

4. The Departed

You’re back where you started: UNEMPLOYED / SINGLE. Your depression and anxiety will kick in soon, along with fleeting bouts of relief and excitement.

If your identity was too wrapped up in your JOB / SIGNIFICANT OTHER, it will feel like the ground has fallen from underneath you. Your sense of purpose and significance has vanished, and you will undergo an internal crisis.

But there’s good news: Your first departure (the death of your former self) is always the toughest. It’s completely necessary for your growth — it gives you the emotional scar tissue that you’ll need when you inevitably go through this again. You’ll build up some resilience, and you’ll be able to recover that much faster next time.

Eventually, you’ll regain your emotional footing. You’ll look back on your old self and laugh. Why did you take everything so seriously? What were you so scared of? You could have left whenever you wanted!

If you’re wise, you’ll pause to assess the mistakes you made. You’ll admit that your old way of operating was flawed, and take steps to change your worst habits.

Then after you’ve recovered, you’ll wonder: “What should I do now?”

5. The Hustler

You’ve been running a fool’s errand, and the results are always the same: disappointment, missed expectations, and failure.

This time, things will be different. This time, you won’t get hurt. This time, you will be the victor.

You understand the game that’s being played. You know which rules can be broken. Only the hustlers and players will come out on top. JOBS / RELATIONSHIPS are for suckers. The only thing people really want is MONEY / SEX. Eliminate all the nonsense and focus on the desired outcome. Why pretend anything else matters?

You learn a new hustle that promises results. You emulate other hustlers, and hope that no one calls you out. And to your astonishment, it actually works! Not all the time, but a fair number of targets fall into your trap. You just had to pretend you were better than you actually were, and people would do exactly what you wanted them to! Who knew it could be this easy?

You get a rush from your new powers. Just run the sequence, reap the rewards, rinse, and repeat. No more failures, no more getting hurt, and no more fear of losing. The days of being a sucker are over. Finally, you’ve got it all figured out…

Then just as quickly as it came, the magic disappears. You’re getting exactly what you thought you wanted, but it’s not fulfilling. You feel empty and dishonest. This isn’t the path to finding YOUR CALLING / TRUE LOVE. It’s just your way of escaping effort and avoiding pain.

You resent everyone who falls for your tricks – how could they be so stupid? But you can’t expose yourself, because then everyone will know you’re a fraud. If you want this show to continue, you’ll need to believe in your own bullshit. You consider it, though you’re not sure if you’ll be able to look yourself in the mirror…

Will this be your last stop, or are you going to keep moving?

6. The Determined

Enough is enough. You can’t keep pretending and playing games. You can’t keep hiding from the world, pulling strings from behind the curtain. If you have to manipulate and cheat to get what you want, you will never receive the fulfillment your heart desires.

If you’re going to find YOUR CALLING / TRUE LOVE, you must commit to the hardest work of all – becoming yourself.

Now is the time to search within. All the advice you’d taken had been flawed in some way or another. You never really gave your own instincts and intuition a real chance.

You will need to be vulnerable and honest, to uproot your defects, and rewire the bad thoughts that have been holding you back.

You accept your journey. There are no shortcuts. You must do the work.

Your path is simple and straightforward. You know exactly what you must do: give the world your greatest WORK / LOVE without expectation. You diligently press forward, politely dismissing every OPPORTUNITY / PERSON that will compromise your task.

At first, it feels difficult. You are not being rewarded. No one is paying attention. It’s just you, doing the work. You place your faith in the process, knowing that these gears grind slow but sure.

Then you run up against a wall. The reward for your efforts seems an awful lot like FAILURE / REJECTION, and you start feeling like a beginner again. You wonder if this whole process is worth it, and reminisce about the old path… How easy it would be to return to your former life… How tempting it is to retreat to the comfort of an old JOB / LOVER…

But you stay the course. You accept that FAILURE / REJECTION are an inevitable part of the process. They bless you with emotional calluses, which are necessary for all who walk this path.

7. The Magnet

One day, you feel different. You don’t really notice it at first, because it happened so gradually, but you’ve changed. Things seem to click into place. You move with purpose. You are electrified with energy.

You’ve discovered the wonders of flow. What once seemed difficult and unnatural now happens automatically. Your WORK / LOVE is second nature, just like breathing. The process becomes the reward, and the reward is to be yourself.

People respond to you in a new way. They’ve noticed the change, as well. You radiate an essence that naturally draws them in, as though your energy is magically rubbing off. Your confidence builds upon itself, you’re more comfortable in your own skin, and EMPLOYERS / MEMBERS OF THE OPPOSITE SEX are far more interested in you.

While you were working, the clouds of POVERTY / LONELINESS disappeared. Your days became playtime, and you learned to enjoy the ride. Everything you touch now turns to gold. Others watch in astonishment, wondering how you’re able to do it. If they only knew how easily they could be doing the same thing!

Your reputation builds as people whisper glowing reviews — how you’re head and shoulders above everyone else. Suddenly, demand for your presence soars, and you’re attracting more OFFERS / DATES than you know what to do with. You are now intimately aware of the paradox of social proof: Everyone wants you because everyone wants you. Eliminating your options brings you more options.

In a world of people who are simply trying to avoid the pain of POVERTY / LONELINESS, you stand out. You are the one who is perfectly content. You are the one who does it for the love of the game. You are the ultimate WORKER / PARTNER who makes the journey fun. It is a privilege to be at your side. You no longer need them; they need you.

And that’s when you realize how wrong you’d been all those years. It was never about résumés or interviews or networking… It was never about pick-up lines or fancy clothes or singles bars…

It was about giving your WORK / LOVE to the world without expectation, simply for the joy of doing it.

It was about determining your own worth, instead of depending on the limitations of others.

It was about letting go of the chase – the constant struggle to live up to other people’s expectations — so you could take control of your own LIVELIHOOD / HAPPINESS.

It was about developing an unshakable belief in the value of YOU, and not letting anyone else diminish it.

You’d always been enough. You only had to work on becoming the best version of yourself. Because you – the real you — was the person everyone wanted to WORK WITH / FALL IN LOVE WITH all along.

8. The Master

It’s no longer an act; you are totally comfortable with who you are. Your existence has purpose. You understand exactly why you get out of bed in the morning.

You do not believe that you have to fit into a mold to land a JOB / SIGNIFICANT OTHER, or that you need to live up to other people’s expectations. You know that you can only be your best by staying true to yourself, and that the people who matter most will love you for it. You have shed your insecurities and manipulative behaviors, and are completely honest and forthright with everyone. You expect the same treatment in return, and have little tolerance for anything less.

You are addicted to sharing your GIFTS / LOVE with others. The more VALUE / LOVE you bring to the world, the more WEALTH / LOVE flows back to you. If you hadn’t been so afraid of being POOR / HURT, you could have started so much earlier!

Word of your cause has spread, and the people who once showed a passing interest in you are now deeply devoted. You no longer worry about losing CUSTOMERS / LOVERS; you know that you have their undying loyalty. Your results remind others what they’re capable of, inspiring them to FOLLOW / OPEN their hearts.

You are the master of your destiny, the sculptor of your world. Your brain is no longer your worst enemy, but your disciplined partner. Your heart is no longer silenced; it is your navigator.

Then one day, when you’re immersed in the moment — lost in flow — and you’ve long since forgotten the struggle of MAKING MONEY / KEEPING LOVE, you see that the path you’d been on this whole time had lead you right back to yourself. There you are.

You are free.

# # #

The stages to finding your TRUE LOVE and YOUR CALLING are one and the same. They both require you to stop your endless rationalizations and excuses, and embrace what you’ve known all along.

In order to walk the path, you must let go of the desire for an outcome. The endless promises of future potential, of more money, of heaven… they are distractions. The process is what matters. It’s all that’s ever mattered. Every single day of your life has been judgment day.

There will never be an ideal place or a perfect time to open your heart and listen to your inner voice. That place has always been right here, and that moment has always been right now.

# # #

If you enjoyed this post… There will be more like it coming soon. Sign up for my newsletter to get early access, along with a free copy of Recession-Proof Graduate (my 30-page guide to landing the work you want).

And if you’re feeling stagnant in your job and struggling with what to do next…  There are two brilliant books that will help get you back on the right track and rejuvenate your motivation…

The first is The Icarus Deception by Seth Godin. This will de-school your brain from everything society told you was “the right way” to do things. It will also show you how much you’ve unknowingly limited your potential, and how to reverse the process.

The second is Mastery by Robert Greene. This book is incredible. It’s like being handed an exact blueprint for reaching your highest potential, mastering whatever field you choose, all while retaining your joy and love for life.

Both books are highly recommended and potentially life-changing. Do yourself a favor: spend the $30 and invest in you. What’s the worst that could happen?

.

After 15 years, the layout of Apple.com is still the same: prominently feature the latest product, with 3-4 little boxes below that highlight other recent products and company news. The homepage has become more evident and intuitive each year. Bigger pictures, less copy, bolder text, fewer items to click… It’s like a giant billboard. They stuck with a format that worked and continually refined it. [The two biggest changes: they moved the navigation bar to the top in 2000, then gave the entire site a facelift with the introduction of Leopard in 2007.]

It goes without saying that Apple’s strength is design, but their homepage deserves credit for being great for so long. Ever since its early days, Apple.com has moved in the direction of being more friendly, focused, simple, and beautiful.

…

Bonus: Take a look at how Microsoft, Dell, HP, IBM, and Sony’s homepages have evolved over the years. Much bigger redesigns.

…

If you liked this post… You might enjoy Should Apple use Google’s Hammer?

Many people will happily confirm this for you:

“You are missing something. You are incomplete. You’re not enough.”

Some are trying to sell you something, but many of them have that same feeling too, and they don’t want to be alone.

You begin searching for that something that you’re missing. Your purpose is to get that something so you can eventually be “enough.” There are levels you’ll need to complete first, and this will give you a sense of progress. That thing you’ve been missing is within your grasp…

Then, after a lot of hard work, you finally get it! It’s here! You’ve arrived…

But you don’t feel very different from how you’ve always felt. Then you begin to wonder if there is another something that you’re missing, and people say, “You’re not quitting already, are you? You’ve come so far!” So you think, okay, perhaps I’m still missing something. I’m still not enough. I’m still incomplete. There’s more work to be done.

So you put your head down again and double your efforts, because you need to get that something. And if you keep working, you’ll get there someday…

Someday, you’ll have the right amount of money, you’ll have the right job, you’ll have the right possessions and the right body and the right thoughts and the right skills and the right accomplishments and the right spirituality and the right love and the right marriage and the right kids and the right life.

Someday, if you keep working hard and playing our games, you can win.

You can be better than everyone else.

# # #

While you’re playing our games, you must always view yourself as a member of one of three groups: best, average, or worst. If you’re one of the best, you must keep that spot. And if you’re average, or one of the worst, you’ll need to work much harder so you can be one of the best. Also, in each group, there are “good guys” and “bad guys.” You are, naturally, one of the good guys. In these games, people are your pawns, allies, and competitors. They are not fellow humans; it is Us vs. Them.

You only have a few years to play, so you must work quickly to become one of “the best.” You will spend all of your energy trying to make your life fit a certain image, while assuring others that you’ve nearly achieved it. Accomplishments will be your fetish, and everyone will applaud as you successfully make your way through each level. Your spontaneity and openness and joy will be replaced with seriousness — the seriousness that’s driving you to achieve this ideal life you’ve mapped out in your head. You must not slow down, because everyone else is playing this game too, and they don’t like it when you don’t take it as seriously as they do. Remember: Your life is to be conquered and won. Enjoyment is incidental.

But the progress you make feels like treading water. Nothing is ever enough to feel like you’re truly a part of “the best” group. A feeling of guilt sinks in with the growing suspicion that you are permanently in debt, that you’ll always owe the world for your existence. There is a cost to being here, and your struggle to justify your entitled existence on this planet doesn’t feel adequate. No matter how you play the game, it’s not totally clear whether you’re doing it right. You begin to wonder, “Do other people understand the rules? Is everyone just faking it?”

One day, you’ll decide that it’s time to buckle down and really commit to winning this game, once and for all. You’ll proclaim that it’s your duty to earn your place, and this is the noble way to become one of “the best.” Everyone will pat you on the back for embracing your insanity, and you’ll find yourself congratulating and admiring those who take the game even more seriously than you do. If only you could be so serious! You’ll convince yourself that this life is not supposed to be so fun or spontaneous. It must be won methodically, with a well-executed strategy. Each day requires sacrifice, and you must remind others how good you are at making these sacrifices in order to become one of “the best.”

And slowly, you forget, and you start to believe that this is all very real; that the outcomes of everything you do just have to be leading to an important… something.

But you’re not sure what that “something” is anymore. It’s changed its shape so many times, and you don’t even know if these rules will get you there.

Everything starts to feel like a game, even people. You tell someone you love them — not out of honesty — but because you feel like it’s the right thing to say, or because it will help you win some other game. Perhaps you can win your own game of being the nicest person you know. Or maybe you want to win the game of not being alone. You become a genuine fake. And when you actually feel real love, you dare not say it because of the problems it could create. You’ve been told that once you say it, you need to follow through, and that’s one more game you’ll need to win. For the rest of your life, you must align your feelings and behaviors with those words. Those are the rules! And what if your words are rejected? What if they laugh at you? You will lose that game, and you’ll need to start over.

And as the years pass, you completely forget that they are all just games, that you’re playing by rules that someone else made up. The rules are only important because we’ve all agreed to abide by them and wear ourselves down in the pursuit of becoming one of “the best.” Of finding our missing something.

You start to develop this dreadful idea that adults are refusing to allow themselves what they really want — to just play and laugh and help one another, without any of the seriousness that comes with the games. You start to think we’ve all conditioned ourselves to believe that the rules are everything, because none of us want to be average. We don’t want to die as one of “the worst.”

So until we can become one of “the best,” we will hold our heads high, and strike down those who stand in our way.

# # #

The games start to get old. They aren’t as much fun once you see you’re running through an endless cycle of bigger and louder. You know that participating in a relentless competition to be one of “the best” is crazy. You see that no one is better than anyone else; we’ve all just been growing in and reacting to different environments that are out of our control.

Still, we try to convince each other that these games are all heading somewhere really wonderful and important for us. So we keep playing and playing and playing…

It’s too late to stop, because you are afraid of breaking the rules. You’ve wanted to win these games for so long, but there are people who are ready to throw you into a lower group. And we pay them to enforce these rules, and tell us when we are losing the game.

A teacher writes in red pen on your paper, and you think “I’m a failure!”

A boss fires you, and you think “I’m a loser!”

A doctor says your body has turned against you, and you think “I’m diseased!”

A police officer shows up at your door, and you think “I’m a criminal!”

A soldier fires a gun, and you think “I’m the enemy!”

A priest reads from a book, and you think “I’m a sinner!”

All of them reinforcing the notion that you’re still missing something, that you are still not enough. That in spite of all you did, you still managed to fail. And above all, to fear what happens to those who aren’t one of “the best.”

So you fall back in line. You keep trying to beat the scam, while you attempt to mend your now broken self. Then one day, the games finally beat you.

And that’s the moment, when you can see the whole scene for what it really is, and… it’s funny. It’s crazy and weird… but it’s actually funny.

But now’s not the time. You must be reverent and solemn and serious and you must not laugh at our seriousness. You must shed a tear for your sins to show how sorry you are. You must wear yourself out and take our pills in order to get better. You must feel guilty about breaking the rules and admit that you’re a son-of-a-bitch. You must believe that your life is being supervised by someone who is always disappointed in you. You must numb yourself into oblivion with food and drugs and TV shows until you no longer remember what it’s like to be healthy or vulnerable or creative or loving. You must grind out your daily existence until your soul is crushed, and you become a wisp of the child you once were.

And you must remember that you cannot win these games, because these games will never end.

# # #

You are not missing anything. You are not incomplete. You are not broken. The endless search for something more, for that thing you’ve been lacking, is like looking behind a mirror. You’re chasing your own tail.

And you are not winning or losing any sort of game. There’s no true “progress” to be earned by you or anyone else, because you have always been enough. You are fundamentally acceptable as you are. You are IT. You simply refuse to accept that there’s nothing more to become, EVER, because that’s the culture you were raised in, and the games are very important to us. We let them define who we are.

Every hoop you choose to jump through gives you a sense that you’re moving forward, but your chase will never end — there will always be a new game waiting for you at the finish line.

Eventually, you have to figure out how to free yourself from the struggle of becoming something more. To let go and just… be.

Life is not supposed to be viewed as an endless competition, and it’s not supposed to be taken so damn seriously, no matter what anyone says. There is no “best” way to live, you can’t make mistakes (even though you can still be punished), and there is definitely no such thing as “them.”

This is all just a crazy dream. It’s a ride. And not one second of it has ever been in your control, no matter how much your ego rationalized it or how convincing your life appeared. Every moment has been uncalculated; there is no past to regret, and no perfect future to carefully plan for. There’s only now.

When you can really remember that and feel it, you start to let go of the struggle. You can stop playing games, and avoid the perils of personal progress. You can just be.

And that’s when your life starts being fun again. That’s when you can reclaim it as your own.

# # #

Many thanks to Alan Watts for inspiration and my shameless cribbing. [Photo by Dave Morrow]

Tomorrow, the Illuminati and Bilderberg group will announce the apocalypse. All of your preparation will finally pay off as hell occupies earth for one week, and ends in rapture.

Oil fields will burn, crops will wither, and rivers will run dry. Chaos will ensue as transportation and food production comes to a halt. Grocery stores will be emptied, guns will be fired, stock markets will crash, and gold will soar to an all-time high. All media outlets will be used to spread fear, then the power will be shut off. Cell phones and the internet will no longer work. You will be on your own.

Your neighbors will pillage, holding you at gunpoint while they steal your food and trinkets. Police will freely employ brute force, imprisoning anyone who steps out of line. Governments around the world will deploy their weapons, citizens will be gunned down by drones, and major cities will be left in ruin.

Panic and distrust will take root in the ashes of fallen empires. Those who survive will be imprisoned by the New World Order. Every corruption and conspiracy will be fully exposed, and all of your suspicions — that the system is set to enslave you, and people are ultimately self-interested parasites — will be proven correct.

Strangely, you won’t feel fear or despair. You will feel relief and validation. Because a part of you wanted to see us fall. You wanted to see the world crumble to pieces, because it would confirm the frightening forecast you’d come to believe.

Most of all, it would justify the trade-off you’d made: to live your life in fear.

The end of the world would excuse you for never giving anything back, for not trying, for being too paralyzed to ever contribute anything meaningful. “If the whole exercise was futile and rigged from the beginning, what’s the point of playing?”

Well now everyone else can be fearful right along with you. You weren’t so crazy after all!

Of course, the end of the world should have never determined your strategy in the first place. Because all of your preparation — storing food, buying guns, exchanging money — will be in vain. It will never feel like you’ve done enough because nothing can ensure your survival; you will eventually die. You just want to die in less pain than everyone else.

There’s nothing wrong with being skeptical and planning for a long winter, but fear shouldn’t color your world and dictate your time. Preparing to be the best loser isn’t a strategy — your heart is already set on the worst outcome. In your endless search to discover what’s going to screw you over and ruin your life, you fail to see that it’s YOU, right now.

Societies are always rising and falling. If you say “the end is near” long enough, you’ll eventually be proven correct. But until the end of the world actually arrives, the event isn’t real. A truck could hit you today, and you would miss the apocalypse completely. All you have is this moment, which is your opportunity to solve a problem, to know yourself, to create, to love, to live. This opportunity will be with you for the rest of your life, no matter what the circumstances are.

And you can never embrace that until you confront yourself:

You’ve been too scared to try. The idea of the apocalypse was your excuse to give up before the game was over.

Negotiate It is a personal finance/productivity app that helps you save money. It shows you exactly what to say to operators in order to lower your cable and cell phone bills, or get your overdraft and credit card fees waived. The app also gives you a list of company phone numbers, a call log to keep track of your savings, reminders for when to re-negotiate, and more.

You can read all about our process for making this app in my guest post on Ramit Sethi’s blog. The post is super detailed, and worthwhile for anyone who’s considered creating an app.

And here’s a 3-minute video on how Negotiate It works:

Want to help us out? Ramit and I are trying to crack the Top 10 in iTunes’ Paid Productivity category (we need roughly 1,300 downloads), so anyone who downloads the app and signs up for Ramit’s newsletter (see bottom of post here) will get a few cool bonus gifts:

• 45-minute video of me discussing app marketing with Chad Mureta (bestselling author of ‘App Empire‘), where we go in-depth on my initial launch strategy for Negotiate It. Chad’s been very successful in the app industry (he developed over 50 apps with more than 40 million global downloads), while my experience has been in marketing bestselling books.
• Original marketing strategy I put together for Negotiate It. You can read this while watching the video, where Chad and I discuss which of my assumptions were right and wrong.
• The proposal for Negotiate It that I sent to Ramit a few years ago. It’s a good example of how you can convince your boss to give you the “green light” for a project you want to execute.

I’m very happy and relieved that I was able to see this project through to completion. There were countless issues that came with developing an app (which you can read about in the guest post) but it was a fantastic learning experience.

This is my first online product that I’ve charged money for, so if you’d like to see more from me, cast your vote by downloading Negotiate It!

###

I’ve had countless ideas over the years, but I’ve abandoned nearly all of them. When I was younger, I had the energy to try almost anything that popped into my head. My efforts were solid, but I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I didn’t know any successful entrepreneurs so I had to rely on books and the web while I tried to piece things together.

I flopped over and over and over. I tried teaming up with friends, thinking we’d have better luck together. No dice. Just the blind leading the blind. Finally, I realized I needed to be working with people who actually had a track record and knew how to do this stuff if I ever wanted to pull it off myself.

My ability to say “No” to my own ideas slowly improved. I learned that the “light bulb rush” – where I’m struck with my own brilliance – was fleeting, and usually went away as soon as I talked to a smart person or did five minutes of research.

I’m now intimately familiar with how much effort it takes to execute a lucrative idea. The elation of pursuit is healthily balanced with the length of the road ahead. The lesson I had to learn over and over: you have to truly care about something in order to see it through, because you can’t do great work when your sole motivation is a pot of gold.

I thought it’d be fun to do a purge of some of my “jump to conclusions mat” ideas that I’ve let go over the years. You’re obviously welcome to borrow or emulate any of them. Just know two things: (1) a lot of these ideas sucked for reasons I didn’t initially understand, and (2) execution is EVERYTHING. The greatest idea in the world is worth nothing without vision, passion, and perseverance.

32 Ideas I’ve Abandoned

High School (2000-04)

1. Pop Rock Gum. My friend and I wondered why Pop Rocks didn’t make their own gum, so we experimented with mixing Bubblicious and Pop Rocks together. Our first few batches felt like chewing broken glass, but we eventually nailed a winning recipe. We started selling it for $0.50 a piece to classmates, and were making $30 per day at one point. I wrote in to Bubblicious and Pop Rocks headquarters about our results… and never heard back from either of them. A few years later, Pop Rocks started making their own gum (not as good as ours was!)

2. Flashing brake lights. We’re taught to pump the brakes to warn the cars behind us if we’ll be making a sudden stop. This is stupid in most cases, because you’re compromising your ability to stop in hopes of not getting rear-ended; the likelihood of a crash is high either way. I met with InventHelp — a pretty shady company, from what I’ve read — to discuss how to patent a brake light that flashes when the driver pushes the brakes with great force (the rep I spoke with was exceptionally proud that he’d helped bring the spinning lollipop concept to market). I was forced to retreat when I saw the patent price tag, plus I had no clue how to actually strike a deal with a major car company. The idea’s been done but clearly never went mainstream.

3. Sports reels and family reunion videos. I made a bunch of videos for high school sports teams, families, organizations, etc., and ended up selling the videos on DVD. Customers loved them, but the amount of money made did not justify the insane amount of work required. There’s a reason videographers charge a lot, and why they stick to weddings for their bread and butter.

4. Connect Four for TI-83 Plus. I created a working version of Connect Four on my calculator and tried selling it to classmates. No one was willing to pay, so I gave it away. Everyone already had easy access to free games that were even better than mine.

College (2004-08)

5. LIT Drink. Long Island Iced Tea pre-packaged in a Red Bull-sized can (here’s the sell sheet). I had this idea while I was in New Zealand, after seeing how well the Jack Daniels and Coke drinks sold in bars. Long Islands sold really well in Fort Collins, but if you wanted to make one yourself, it cost at least $100 for all the ingredients. There wasn’t much on the market: Salvador’s made a cheap (and gross) pre-mixed Long Island that came in 4-pack of mini-plastic bottles, and there were 750 mL bottles that bartenders used (minus the sweetening ingredients). I remember waking up early to call distilleries on the East Coast to see if it was possible to license the idea (it’s not), and my friend and I arranged a meeting with a former Mike’s Hard Lemonade exec. He warned us that as soon as we had traction with the brand, one of the bigger alcohol companies would come in, make a cheaper product, and dominate the market first.

6. Training Week Meals. Subscription recipe service for high school and college athletes. The athlete selects their health goals, and the site provides a weekly grocery list and recipes – compiled by professional athletes, expert nutritionists, or their coaches – along with detailed nutrition facts for each meal. Potential to partner with supplement and vitamin companies, local grocery stores, catering companies, etc.

7. Artist community. Artists upload photos and videos of their art (furniture, paintings, etc.). Fans get to vote on ideas for things to create, and those items are put on sale exclusively to the fans – for bidding or flat-rate.

8. YourCore. Customizable homepage with drag-and-drop widgets. My friend and I started designing this idea, and hired a local coder to assemble the site. Unfortunately, the result was underwhelming, and – like so many other naïve college students – we assumed ads would eventually fund our endeavor. Then NetVibes and iGoogle came out, so we abandoned ship.

9. Been Here Do This. Fun activity ideas for tourists and study abroad students. Users could mark areas of the map, describe activity, and post photos. Basically a niche version of Yelp. I tried creating this myself in Dreamweaver and quickly learned what a nightmare it was to make websites.

10. Custom beer pong tables. After making one with my roommates and getting positive feedback, we considered creating others and selling them… except none of our friends were willing to pay. (Sidenote: I also wanted to do beer branding for soldiers — Brewjitsu, Nicolas Rage, and Ale Qaeda)

Post-College (2008-Present)

11. The MacGuff. My friend Aidan and I started building an online film school in 2008 (along with a blog called The Projectionist), even though neither of us were experts on the topic. We were able to recruit a few really talented people from Hollywood to be members, then we sat by idly, waiting for them to create content for us. What a horribly deranged assumption! Communities take a ton of work to get up and running, and they depend on compelling content, strong ties, and leadership. We had none of those elements.

12. ‘Think and Grow Rich’ of Parenting Books. Interviews with successful parents of society’s biggest contributors, finding common factors in how their children were raised, what values were instilled, etc. This would probably do pretty well, but I’m not the target market.

13. Custom Nootropics. Subscription service for smart drug supplements which allows you to adjust quantities for each ingredient. You can save your favorite formulas, see which ingredients synthesize properly, etc. Too many health and legal issues to deal with here. Not worth the hassle, and I’m not a big fan of nootropics anyways.

14. Travel-friendly suitcase. A carry-on bag that ejects your laptop at the press of a button. I hate having to whip out my laptop at airport security, but this idea is too gimmicky and not that practical. There are already laptop-friendly bags on the market. I also don’t travel enough to justify caring about this too much.

15. CleanSlate. Homeless people are EVERYWHERE in San Francisco, and the disparity between them and the brilliant minds walking by to go work at their tech startups seemed particularly crazy one day. I thought I had something that might improve the issue (which you can read about here), but after doing more research and talking with friends who’d spent a lot of time in homeless shelters, I saw that tech alone will never come close to repairing this problem. The systems that truly help the homeless are holistic, and require an incredible amount of resources.

16. Facebook Idiots. I made a site where users could submit screenshots of their friends posting funny things on Facebook. I lost enthusiasm for the concept after about ten minutes. Two weeks after I killed the site, Lamebook (much better name) was born.

17. Standing desk kits. I drew up a bunch of concepts for this, but couldn’t come up with anything compelling. Wiring and the need for desk drawers makes this somewhat difficult. And while the market is growing, the demand still isn’t really there. I also thought about just making an e-book with stretches and exercises that focus on alleviating prolonged sitting.

18. Frozen Paleo foods. At the time, I couldn’t find any frozen Paleo dinners in Whole Foods, and my roommates and I were lazy when it came to cooking. I’m not sure there are enough Paleo enthusiasts at this point… Nevertheless, Amy’s Organic is going to be a billion dollar company within a few years, and they started with a frozen potpie.

19. Gadget Club. Similar to Trunk Club — monthly package for early adopter males, giving them access to the latest gadgets. Amazon basically does this with their Vine program. Could also do this for jewelry, books, movies, etc.

20. Natural cures e-books for niche pain points. Tooth pains, acne, etc.  This would be profitable because you’re targeting desperate buyers and could show before/after photos, but it would require a lot of work and SEO. No enthusiasm for this project at all.

21. Daily deals site for college students. You could offer: concert tickets, munchies, health foods, video games, gadgets, beer making kits, Halloween costumes, pizza coupons, discounts at local restaurants, posters, and a delivery service. This could do really well, especially if you start small (focus on dorms, figure out most wanted items, get people on subscription, etc.)

22. Snorricams. You know those shots in ‘Requiem for a Dream’ where the camera has a steady close-up on the person’s face while they’re moving around? The device that makes that shot possible is called the Snorricam, and you can’t buy them – you have to make your own. Because it’s a specialty item with low demand, this could never be profitable unless you did a line extension and offered a ton of other camera rigs.

23. Medical tourism site. Connect uninsured people with reputable doctors and surgeons overseas, handle their itinerary, and earn a commission. This reeks of complications, plus most people aren’t even aware of the concept of medical tourism. Way too much hassle.

24. CDBaby for film. Monthly subscription to high-quality independent films. I still like this concept and hope someone pulls it off.

25. Best Man Online Crash Course. Videos and checklists to throw a great bachelor party and dominate your best man speech. Could easily charge $50-200 for this.

26. DIY Bamboo Bike DVD. My friend and I tested this concept on eBay (before creating the product) to see if anyone would buy it. Two people did over the course of a couple weeks, which wasn’t enough demand.

27. Delicious for learning. You bookmark an article, and gain points when other people click your bookmark and save it to their account (i.e. you’re rewarded for directing others to valuable content).

28. Startup bank. Escrow system that automates payments for startup equity splits. Each founder/employee/advisor enters in their banking information, and the site pays proper percentages quarterly or after specific milestones.

29. Envato for iPhone/iPad. Marketplace of creative assets for mobile app developers.

Mobile Apps

30. FlyBuy. Mobile app that lists all of your frequent flier miles, displaying the number of points you have next to each program. When you hit a threshold, the app notifies you that you’ve earned a free flight. Plenty of partnership and advertising opportunities here. This idea was executed brilliantly by MileWise, which I highly recommend.

21. Astrology compatibility app. Compatibility sites are always popular and result in fun conversations, and Facebook allows you to instantly extract a complete list of your friends’ birthdays. This app would allow you to see your match level with your friends based on your sign.

32. FanCast. Celebrities can send 30-second voicemails and videos straight to their fans. Enable localized targeting so they can personalize messages to different cities while touring (e.g. Send a message for people to buy tickets to tomorrow night’s concert, or send a thank you message for attending). This could be white-labeled and made into an app for individual bands and celebrities.

Ideas are a dime-a-dozen, and it hinders your progress when you hold a thought too close to your chest. Your vision, passion, and perseverance are what will change the world.

###

Here are some great resources to spark your creative juices:

• Springwise. One of my favorite sources of inspiration, offering daily posts on new business ideas and trends.
• Kickstarter. See which ideas get funded by the masses.
• Quirky. This site can help bring your ideas to life.
• How to create a million dollar business this weekend. Comprehensive step-by-step post, written by Noah Kagan (founder of AppSumo, Gambit, early employee of Facebook and Mint).
• One Simple Idea. Awesome book on how to license your ideas, written by Stephen Key (inventor whose products have sold in Wal-Mart, 7-Eleven, Disney Stores and theme parks).
• Shark Tank. One of my all-time favorite shows.

Here’s my 18-minute talk:

And here’s my slide deck:

I decided early on to leave out some of the more topical and “obvious” mistakes, like taking on colossal debt, or going to college in the first place. That type of advice isn’t very helpful because our choices about higher education are not strictly rational…

Students take out massive loans in hopes of a better future, while dismissing the greater likelihood of a compromised one. And people go to college because it’s still very strongly enforced as the best possible career move by our society, our parents, and our peers.

I didn’t want to give a talk that pointed out flaws in a decision they’d already made. Instead, I opted to give them advice I would have wanted to hear before starting college.

The four mistakes you’ll make in college are:

1. The evidence. Most students graduate with very little to show from their four years. If you ask for proof that they attended college, they’ll either point to their degree or their Facebook profile. What all students should create while they’re in school is a blog or portfolio (yourname.com) where they can highlight their interests, knowledge, skills, and work. Your personal website can become a magnet for interesting opportunities, opening doors that you didn’t know existed, and it will give you enough leverage to create your own occupation/title. In other words, if you build the right evidence while you’re in college, you’ll have much greater control over your career path.
2. Being a student. There’s a big difference between a student and a “seeker.” A student is a prisoner. They are forced into an institution they don’t want to be in, and try to figure out the most painless way to serve their time. A seeker remains curious and interested, and pursues learning for the sake of attaining wisdom/enlightenment. They don’t need permission to learn, nor are they learning solely to get out of the institution. They show up because the process of learning enriches their life; it’s not a forced activity. Unfortunately, formal schooling makes it very difficult to instill and retain this mindset, because we are conditioned — for more than a decade — to wait for permission to learn someone else’s agenda. Your job in college is to cultivate and protect your love for self-directed learning.
3. The lifestyle. A few weeks before the TEDx event, my roommate told me a great story about a friend of ours who’d partied the night before one of his finals. It had me in tears laughing and coincidentally illustrated one of the points I’d wanted to make, so I decided to use it in my speech.
4. “I’m gonna live forever!” I talk about the random moment I recognized my mortality during my sophomore year, and tie up the speech with one of my favorite videos, “Music and Life” (narration by Alan Watts, animation by Trey Parker and Matt Stone).

There were several “mistakes you’ll make in college” I considered including, but I ended up combining them with other points or removing them entirely. Here are a few more “mistakes” that didn’t make the final cut:

• Going for the degree. A college degree isn’t a magical golden ticket that grants you responsibilities and a quality life; it’s a $19 booklet and a fancy piece of paper which signifies your solid performances on tests (somewhat ironically, I lost my degree a few years ago). Focus on forming quality relationships with people you respect, work on things that are meaningful to you, and don’t sweat the credentials so much.
• Beating the system. There were a few courses I didn’t set foot in for months. In one of my business classes, I would walk in, sign the participation clipboard, then immediately walk out. For two weeks, I didn’t attend any classes while I took a cross-country road trip. My grades never slipped, and I took pride in thinking I’d “beat the system.” But even though I delighted in successfully breaking other people’s rules, I failed to recognize that I was still always playing by them. Instead of constantly trying to figure out ways to break THEIR rules and avoid THEIR work, I should have spent more time creating MY rules and doing MY work. Your education shouldn’t be about scheming and avoiding stuff; it should be about finding the few things you’ll actually want to show up for.
• Thinking you’ll retire from your “one big idea.” I heard a lot of people say something to this effect while I was in school. The notion is still fairly pervasive: to sell whatever it is you’ve built, then spend the rest of your life enjoying the fruits of your short-lived labor. Again, your career should not be founded on the goal of a quick escape; it should be about creating a life that you can proudly embrace.

I filmed and reviewed footage of each practice rehearsal for this speech, fine-tuning my body language, inflection, volume, pacing, pauses, emotional range, gestures, etc. It was far from perfect (I stumbled quite a bit at the beginning), but I didn’t pace around like a caged animal this time, nor did the adrenaline make my voice shake.

The easiest parts of the speech were the stories; I barely had to rehearse them because they were memorable and allowed me to improvise. The trickiest parts were the random thoughts and statistics I clumsily wove into the narrative (e.g. “This was the first year that unemployed people with college degrees outnumbered unemployed people with high school degrees or less”). Those details hurt the message because I had to work harder to remember the wording, which resulted in a few ‘deer in the headlights’ moments. But overall, I’m happy with the end result.

I initially turned down the offer to give this talk, after convincing myself that my words would be quickly forgotten. I truthfully couldn’t remember any of the guest speakers I’d heard while I was in high school. The only one who stood out was a girl who had gone into excruciating detail about the time she was raped in college (yikes), but that was memorable because I had really low blood sugar. My body was drenched with sweat and I was trying not to faint while she described the assault. My friends sitting nearby thought I was wildly uncomfortable with the content of her speech; the sad reality was that I’d skipped breakfast.

After giving it some thought, I decided to commit to doing this speech. I’m glad I did. It’s always exhilarating and rewarding to deliver your ideas to a receptive audience. All the students seemed energetic and happy to be at the event, in spite of it being the end of a hot summer day.

Then just before the season began, it came to an end. And I remember the exact day I killed my shoulder.

During gym class, my teacher and I decided it’d be fun to throw full court shots with a basketball. I did this for nearly an hour, in a not-so-subtle effort to impress one of the girls in the class.

I’d developed bursitis and could no longer throw without feeling a sharp stab of pain. I had multiple rounds of rehab, deep tissue massages, acupunture, electrotherapy, and cortisone shots. Nothing helped. I didn’t tell anyone how I’d hurt my shoulder. The idiocy was humiliating.

I sat out every game my senior year. In an effort to stave off my boredom (baseball is fun to play, not to watch), I started taking pictures and videos of the games with my favorite gadget, the Sony DSC-T1. By the end of the year, I had a bunch of fun photos and footage of the season. I packaged the best shots into a slideshow we played at our final banquet dinner:

It was the beginning of a new hobby that I’d quickly fallen in love with. And while I’d completely ripped off ESPN’S “Images of the Century,” I didn’t care. The days I’d spent making that video were so much fun, and it was incredibly rewarding to see teammates and family members well up with tears when they saw it. I still loved the game, and had found a new way to express it.

I have so, so many memories from those 12 years…

I remember my first practice at 4 years old, being outside for 3 hours in the cold wind, and wanting to play catch when I got home. I remember getting hit in the face with a fly ball at the next practice. My coach called my mom to ask how I was, and I kept whispering through swollen lips, “Tell him I quit!”

I remember the first time I pitched. I hit a batter in the back, and walked him down to first base to make sure he was okay. (I soon learned to relish drilling any batter that crowded the plate.)

I remember being in complete shock during my first pitching lesson, when I was told my form was terrible. It was the first strong criticism I’d ever received for something I thought I was doing perfectly. I took it very personally.

I remember my neighbors restraining their rage during my backyard games of homerun derby. The tennis balls would randomly bounce off their rooftops for hours. I vowed to reward their patience if I ever made it to the pros.

I remember being slightly terrified my freshmen year in high school, playing against kids who had gone through puberty, who were hitting the ball so hard I thought it’d kill me.

I remember the smell of Icy Hot, sunflower seeds, Big League Chew, and Gatorade. I remember the irritating pinch of leather and worn-out sheepskin inside my glove. I remember hating every time I had to use a bat with those stupid graffiti-style decals, and the awful sound metal cleats made on concrete.

I remember the greatest feeling was hitting a line drive between left and center field with a wood bat that’d been doused with pine tar. A close second was striking a batter out swinging with a high-inside fastball. The absolute worst feeling was getting struck out looking.

I remember getting my front teeth knocked out by a baseball, the 11 shots of Novocain, the root canals, and wearing multiple sets of temporary crowns that looked like Chiclets. I learned to never stand near the catcher in the bullpen.

I remember my aunt being most impressed with my ability to catch the ball each time the catcher threw it back to me. I remember my sister yelling at the ump, “We know you’re blind, we’ve seen your wife!”

I remember the last inning of a close game, and our third baseman calling to me between batters: “Charlie! A bird just landed on the field!” I was so thrown off by the remark that I completely lost focus, and we lost the game.

I remember all the tournaments in Steamboat Springs, Pueblo, Idaho, and Arizona. I remember our team fooling around during one of the games, while the opposing team — and their parents — were taking it very seriously. They were enraged that we seemed to be mocking their efforts. I was called in, and the ball slipped from my hand on the first pitch. It hit the batter square in the head. This was the only time I was more concerned about what would happen in the parking lot than who would win.

I remember clearly seeing the results of practicing correctly. Hitting off a tee for hours every day – an insanely boring drill – resulted in some of the best hits I ever had. It established a simple truth: you can get really good at anything with focused repetitions. (“Practice does not make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect.”)

I remember getting picked off at first base THREE TIMES in one game. I remember how many times the ball went through my legs. I remember how many curve balls I swung at and missed. I remember no one calling for the fly ball, and watching it drop to the ground. I remember making multiple errors in my first game playing up, and all of my older teammates sarcastically clapping as I entered the dugout.

I remember so many errors, walks, balks, and strikeouts. I remember winning games we were expected to lose, and losing games we should have won. I remember the frustration that evaporated as quickly as it came. It was just a game…

For 12 years of my life, I practiced throwing, catching, and hitting a ball. Then it stopped, as it does for countless people each year, and I was left to fill the void with something else.

Everyone who plays knows that it comes to an end. Many of the pros get so invested in that one aspect of their life that they’re completely lost when it stops. The question to ask is, where will you go when that day inevitably arrives? How will you reinvent your identity once it’s stripped away?

Baseball taught me that today is preparation for tomorrow, and that the score was never the point. It was my constant reminder that I would never reach mastery; I would always make mistakes, and needed to get comfortable with failing. And when I could no longer play, it was an opportunity to move on and find something else I loved. Above everything else, baseball showed me the importance of resilience. In that sense, it was the perfect game.

My dad was the one who taught me how to play. He coached me for years, took me to the batting cages, paid for lessons, loaded the tee, kept score throughout high school, and footed the bill for my new teeth. Of the several hundred games I played, I remember him missing only a few.

One of his favorite memories (which I do not remember) was of me driving in the winning run when I was 5 years old. Everyone cheered, the coach lifted me up on his shoulders, and I yelled out, “Dad, what did I do?!”

His favorite memory:

Playing catch in the backyard. You never, ever got tired of playing catch. I hope one day you get to experience the feeling that I had whenever I would walk through the door from work and you would hand me my glove and ask me to play. There are few things better for a dad.

###

A final sad note: One of my high school teammates, Shane Wise, was recently attacked in downtown Denver. He’s been in the hospital for over a month, recovering from severe head injuries — fractures to his face, skull, and bleeding in his brain. He is uninsured, and the bills are mounting.

This awful incident couldn’t have happened to a nicer person, and given that he recently became a father, he and his family are in a very unfortunate position.

If anything I’ve written has ever helped you in some way, please consider this a chance to return the favor:

Take two minutes to help with Shane’s hospital bills.

Even $20 will be $20 less that he’ll have to pay.