1. The world is trying to keep you stupid. From bank fees to interest rates to miracle diets, people who are not educated are easier to get money from and easier to lead. Educate yourself as much as possible for wealth, independence, and happiness.

2. Do not have faith in institutions to educate you. By the time they build the curriculum, it’s likely that the system is outdated– sometimes utterly broken. You both learn and get respect from people worth getting it from by leading and doing, not by following.

3. Read as much as you can. Learn to speed read with high retention. Emerson Spartz taught me this while I was at a Summit Series event. If he reads 2-3 books a week, you can read one.

4. Connect with everyone, all the time. Be genuine about it. Learn to find something you like in each person, and then speak to that thing.

5. Don’t waste time being shy. Shyness is the belief that your emotions should be the arbitrators of your decision making process when the opposite is actually true.

6. If you feel weird about something during a relationship, that’s usually what you end up breaking up over.

7. Have as much contact as possible with older people. Personally, I met people at Podcamps. My friend Greg, at the age of 13, met his first future employer sitting next to him on a plane. The reason this is so valuable is because people your age don’t usually have the decision-making ability to help you very much. Also they know almost everything you will learn later, so ask them.

8. Find people that are cooler than you and hang out with them too. This and the corollary are both important: “don’t attempt to be average inside your group. Continuously attempt to be cooler than them (by doing cooler things, being more laid back, accepting, ambitious, etc.).”

9. You will become more conservative over time. This is just a fact. Those you surround yourself with create a kind of “bubble” that pushes you to support the status quo. For this reason, you need to do your craziest stuff NOW. Later on, you’ll become too afraid. Trust me.

10. Reduce all expenses as much as possible. I mean it. This creates a safety net that will allow you to do the crazier shit I mentioned above.

11. Instead of getting status through objects (which provide only temporary boosts), do it through experiences. In other words, a trip to Paris is a better choice than a new wardrobe. Studies show this also boosts happiness.

12. While you are living on the cheap, solve the money problem. Use the internet, because it’s like a cool little machine that helps you do your bidding. If you are currently living paycheck to paycheck, extend that to three weeks instead of two. Then, as you get better, you can think a month ahead, then three months, then six, and finally a year ahead. (The goal is to get to a point where you are thinking 5 years ahead.)

13. Learn to program.

14. Get a six-pack (or get thin, whatever your goal is) while you are young. Your hormones are in a better place to help you do this at a younger age. Don’t waste this opportunity, trust me.

15. Learn to cook. This will make everything much easier and it turns food from a chore + expensive habit into a pleasant + frugal one. I’m a big Jamie Oliver fan, but whatever you like is fine.

16. Sleep well. This and cooking will help with the six pack. If you think “I can sleep when I’m dead” or “I have too much to do to sleep,” I have news for you: you are INEFFICIENT, and sleep deprivation isn’t helping.

17. Get a reminder app for everything. Do not trust your own brain for your memory. Do not trust it for what you “feel like” you should be doing. Trust only the reminder app. I use RE.minder and Action Method.

18. Choose something huge to do, as well as allowing the waves of opportunity to help you along. If you don’t set goals, some stuff may happen, but if you do choose, lots more will.

19. Get known for one thing. Spend like 5 years doing it instead of flopping around all over the place. If you want to shift afterwards, go ahead. Like I said, choose something.

20. Don’t try to “fix” anyone. Instead, look for someone who isn’t broken.

(This post was inspired by an email question from Daniel. Photo by Tambako the Jaguar.)

It is natural for all human beings, in a normal society, to avoid eye contact. This is a result of living in close quarters, very close together, closer than we ever have in all of history.

Eye contact is a sign of intimacy. If a couple doesn’t have eye contact, they aren’t close. Lack of eye contact helps us feel comfortable in crowded spaces. Your iPhone helps with this a lot, without you even thinking about it.

Eye contact is a signal of complicity. If people have prolonged eye contact, they probably know each other and are involved (or want to be).

Eye contact is also a sign of power, and it’s this aspect in particular that we’re concerned with today.

If you have never outright thought about it, your eyes are probably very evasive. I figured this out about myself a long time ago. I would avoid eye contact, and by doing so, I’d both be avoiding intimacy and displaying inferiority over someone else.

You’ll notice that, when you look at someone and they look back, it gives you almost a feeling of defiance if you keep looking. If you look down, you are showing embarrassment. You’re almost apologetic with your eyes. Interesting, right?

Homework

Your homework for this weekend is to explicitly make eye contact with people you don’t know.

As you walk down the street, when you’d normally avoid eye contact with people who walk by you, look them straight in the eye.

Some won’t even look at you, while others will. But don’t worry about others’ reactions. You’re doing this for yourself.

If people look at you, just gaze back at them for a second. Don’t stare for like 10 seconds– in fact, you won’t need to because most people will look away instantly. As you watch this happen, keep in mind that this is what you used to do.

If you catch yourself looking away, don’t worry, you’re just practicing.

Easy thing to remember: don’t open your eyes wide open. This makes you look like a psycho. Instead, narrow your gaze. Another thing: eye contact means different things in different cultures. Remember this as you practice.

Good luck with your assignment. Report back in the comments when you’re done.

I’m a lucky guy. I know this.

I’ve been fortunate, over the years, to have many mentors, friends, and collaborators that care about me and my work. The people I’ve met, without question, are what helped me get where I am today.

I’m sure everyone that’s “made it” feels like they’ve done it themselves. But if they’re honest, they discover over the years that it isn’t true.

Now, I’ve begun to realize that I am who I am largely through the sum of the lucky breaks I’ve had. Most of those have to do with people I’ve met.

So I want to do a few things. One, I want to write this post in order to thank those people, who at one point were just strangers but are now friends. Number two, I want you to know how to get amazing people in your life. So after I list my peeps below and you go check them out, I’ll also offer some tips to help you get yours. Check it out.

Part I

CC Chapman. Before I ever did anything big online, my first big break occurred when I started podcasting in 2004. I was one of the first podcasters in the world, and definitely one of the most vocal. I had been doing it about a year and was introduced to a group called the Association of Music Podcasters. This is how I met CC Chapman. We didn’t get along at first (we argued over how to build a website), but as time went on, we become really good friends. Now I’ve known him 7 years.

CC introduced me to Podshow, who was run by Adam Curry, giving me my first big break on working on the web. I become one of the first professional podcasters in the world. In about a year I was producing enough income to live and then some. So thanks CC. You gave me my first break, and you changed my life. :)

Chris Brogan. I met Chris in 2006 at the first Podcamp in Boston, which he helped run alongside Chris Penn. I had come there with some other Canadians (Bob and Mark I think) and met a ton of people, one of whom was Chris Brogan, who I said hey to because he was wearing a t-shirt he had drawn himself. We got along and kept in touch.

He wasn’t the Chris Brogan at the time. He was just about to get hired by Jeff Pulver to run community for Network2 and the VoN Conference (which is how he met pretty much everyone). But we kept in touch, kept attending conferences together, and eventually started doing talks together and did a few ebooks. One of these turned into Trust Agents, a New York Times bestseller.

Chris also introduced me to Twitter, making me one of the service’s first 10,000 users, and has helped me more than I can imagine. The dude is sincerely a godsend, like if you realized that your significant other totally outclassed you in every way. Chris already knows that I appreciate him– I don’t need to tell anyone publicly– but I’ll say it anyway. Thanks Chris.

Seth Godin. I’ve actually only met Seth one time (we had noodles in NYC), but he had a big enough influence on me that he makes this list. We were introduced by Chris for a collaboration on the Domino Project, Seth’s publishing venture, which eventually became The Flinch.

For a very long time I had read Seth’s blog and his books. He was an early influence, particularly books like the Dip, Purple Cow and Linchpin. While I was doing my epic Spain trip I listened to The Dip on audiobook and thought “if only I could make my book this good.” When I got back, I told him that’s what I wanted to do.

With the Flinch he pushed me more ways than I can imagine. Seth was my editor, but he was so heavily invested I would almost call it a collaboration. He gave consistent feedback throughout the process. He would not settle for anything less than the best.

I think I lost a year of my life working on that book but I am so proud of it. It now reaches a huge number of new readers every day and is closer to being “my legacy” than anything else I’ve ever done. So thanks Seth. I couldn’t have done it without you.

Mitch Joel. As cheesy as it sounds, I met Mitch at a Toastmasters meeting. I started going there because I had begun to speak at conferences and was extremely bad at it, and he was practicing for his first big talk at The Power Within. I reviewed his talk in typical Toastmasters style and we have become closer with every passing year.

Mitch has been a constant like… I don’t want to say it, but– “mentor” to me. It’s weird because we walk on the same path, but he has so much more life experience than I have that he’s constantly helpful. He introduced me to Jim Levine, my agent (that I share with Chris), who got us our second big book deal, and he’s done a lot more that I can’t even begin to get into. Thanks Mitch.

Justin Evans. Now we’re getting into people who are not internet famous, but should be. The first one of those is Justin, who I met in Ontario California at the first Podcast Expo. He was meeting with Scoble for StartCooking.com. We hung out in a hotel room with CC, drinking really bad American beer and talking about how Stresslimitdesign worked harder than any other firm out there.

But that was only part of the story. Stresslimit worked harder because it’s one of the few small agencies filled with crazy, super smart people that regular agencies are too straight-laced to hire, and it’s because he’s one of the most ambitious, out of the box thinkers I’ve ever known. He’s also always in my corner. He introduced me to Greg Isenberg (below) and many of the artists and friends I have today. He and his wife support a whole community of artists with their work, the most famous of which include the bands [redacted] and [redacted].

You need someone like this. He’s in the background, and he’s quiet, but he has your back. The way this dude has designed his life is an inspiration. Thanks Justin.

Nicole Johnson. Nicole is like a secret weapon. People kind of talk about her in hushed whispers but I met her randomly in the lobby of a hotel at SXSW. Now she does something with Summit Series (I think?), something with Founders Fund (maybe??), and something else (probably everything???). Basically if you’re ever having dinner with a bunch of awesome people, anywhere in the world, it’s likely that Nicole both knows them all and has orchestrated the whole thing. The places this has happened before, just to me, include San Francisco amongst billionaires, Utah with the hipster-famous, and anywhere on the streets of New York and restaurants of Austin, TX. Oh and once in a limo in Paris, too.

Nicole has connected me with tons of people, from non-profits who help Thai children get out of the sex trade to the Thiel Foundation (for whom I am a mentor). And she does this for people every single day. Honestly, I’m kind of shocked she agreed to let me write about her. Thanks Nicole. :)

Greg Isenberg. I specifically told Greg to get his blog up because of this post. Greg had heard about me through Justin but we met only much later and with some trepidation. Neither was sure what to make of the other. But we progressively began hanging out more and it developed into really unique weekly chats.

Greg basically helps keep me hungry and foolish these days. He’s 23 and he’s done more than most people do by the time they’re 40. He’s gotten me involved in investing and put me at the table with a million smart people. He wants to change the world and it shows. He doesn’t let anyone stand in his way, ever, while remaining deeply loyal to family and business commitments. Great guy.

Greg has also connected me to a bunch of angel investors, VCs, tons of people from all over the tech community. This dude is up-and-coming. Get to know him. You’ll be glad you did. Thanks Greg.

Part II

Ok, so this post is already pretty damn long, but I can’t prevent myself from putting together a short list of things you may notice about these guys and my relationships with them.
A. I have value to each of these people. Not to be arrogant or anything, but for the few things I do, I actually do great work, and I have a history of it. I used to do one of the ballsiest podcasts out there, my writing speaks for itself, and I offer value to the people in my network, as anyone who knows me can attest. If I were a sycophant or a hanger-on, I would have been ousted by now. I am within these guys circles of trust because I’m offering something back.
B. I met almost all of these people at conferences. In almost all cases, I met these people in a totally cold social environment. In the case of Nicole and Chris, it was like “Hey, you seem cool.” “Yeah, you too. Let’s hang out.” BAM. In others it was mutual, trusted connection. But in almost all cases social media was not involved. When it was, it was only for a short while, until an in-person connection could occur.
C. I met each of these people as an equal. I almost never went into the situation asking for something. In fact, I notice that whenever I go in quasi-cold and asking, I almost always get refused. It could be that I’m not good enough at it. But what I tend to do is just “make it known” that I’m the guy for the job (or whatever). And it tends to just happen. This, by the way, is why I never walk up to speakers at conferences unless I have a warm introduction.
D. I am not their “type.” None of these guys are tattooed, pierced badasses who swear a lot. They are artists, entrepreneurs, writers and photographers who have their own work and their own style. I offer something different than these people do. I’m not saying “be me” – I’m saying “be yourself to the hilt.” Rock your thing, whatever that is. That’s what I did.

All homework is designed to be easy to do, and the purpose of homework, over time, is to help you live a better life. Homework will provoke you to do things you should probably be better at, but that you don’t normally do.

We’ll do this one small step at a time. All homework that I ask you to do, I’ve done too. So we’re in it together.

Every time you get your homework, you have the whole weekend to complete it, but the earlier you do it, the better. If you want, you can do it silently, or you can report back. Your call. Ok?

This week there is no homework. We’re only setting it up. But if you want an idea of what HOMEWORK may be like, check out Flinch, which I wrote last year alongside Seth Godin. It’s free.

Or, if you’ve already read it and done some homework, you can comment below.

See you next week.

1. I spent 6 years in call centres, from about 19 to 25, doing nothing with my life. Looked like shit, felt like shit. No achievements or lasting happiness whatsoever.

2. I believed that I could do everything I wanted alone, without a support structure. I believed in willpower instead of putting systems in place that would help me.

3. I was really anxious about calling my grandmother for a while. She’s 101 if you can believe it. Now I call her every three or four days. So much better. She told me last week that it really meant a lot to her that I called.

4. I am really bad at opening my mail. Like embarrassingly bad. Bills go unpaid, interest piles up. It’s sad.

5. For years I was constantly late, or no-show, to tons of appointments I had with friends or family. Then I would lie about it afterwards. I did this for years. Eventually I realized that no one believed my bullshit. I started respecting people’s time, but it took way too long.

6. While we wrote our first book together, my co-author Chris was blogging and meeting people every day. He became super huge as a result of it. By avoiding his regimen, I slowed my progress by like 2 years at least. Only now am I actually recovering. Huge waste.

7. When I was about 18 years old, I got a branding done– permanent scarification– for no particular reason. This isn’t a big deal but I can’t think of why I did it now, 14 years later. I’m going to get it covered with more tattoos eventually.

8. I quit art school at around age 19 to pursue a dot-com job. My dream then was to become a sculptor. That waited another 10 years to get started again, now I do some on the side and I’m learning to draw again. You know that thing they say, “youth is wasted on the young”? It’s totally true.

9. I didn’t really take care of my first dog when I was a kid. My mom ended up having to do it, pretty much, because nobody else did. We didn’t obedience train him either. There was a lot we could have done better. He had an ok life but deserved a better one.

10. I haven’t yet learned to cook, really, even though I’m better now than I ever have been. It only really started when I had to count calories. I actually spent ten years as a vegetarian without learning to cook. Imagine. What did I eat? I still have no idea. Very glad to be eating meat now though.

11. There were girls that I really liked back in the day that I had no courage to make a move on. Don’t get me wrong, I’m really happy with my girlfriend and everything, but it took me years to figure out that a girl wants you to make the move, not the other way around.

12. Every time I see somebody I respect, I never walk up to them. I’m always too shy. In reality, walking up and breaking the ice is always better because then you get to say hi (in a non-awkward way) the second time.

13. Hey guess what? None of this matters.

Life isn’t made up of the things you did wrong. It’s made of the things you did right.

I just spent probably three months finishing up my third book with Portfolio/Penguin. It was damn stressful but I’m glad we pushed ourselves. It’ll be out in October.

I’ve pretty much figured out that I can’t write several things at once, at least while caring about all of them. While this blog goes on, I love it and want to pour everything into it. While I have a book going, I suffer like hell to make it as good as I can. I probably lost a year of my life working on the Flinch, but it was worth it. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

About two years ago I was in Paris, renting a little apartment in the 16th arrondissement and reading Hélène Cixous, considered by some to be the best living writer in the French language. She said that all good writing needed to involve some little kind of death. I would say the same for any kind of valuable work.

If you aren’t dying for it, it’s bullshit. If you die with any life left in you, you’ve wasted it. You should die entirely empty and spent. That’s my view.

If there is anything I could wish upon you, that is it. I wish for you the ability to find work worth dying for, worth going to prison for, worth suffering for. It isn’t easy. But it’s worth it.

The problem with finding work to do that is at that level is that you literally avoid it. You will do anything to quit. You may even avoid finding it on purpose.

Just recently I thought up an idea so big that it did two things. One, it was such a big, ambitious idea that it made me terrified of failure. Second, it is so big and ambitious that it makes everything else feel small.

Both of these things, by themselves, aren’t problems. The problem is that the idea is one of those ideas that’s “just so crazy it might work.”

Do you have work like this? Where are you right now? What are you trying to be? Can I help? Please let me know.

1. An escalator that is helping you up.

2. A broken one that is not moving at all.

3. An escalator that is going down while you head up, making it harder to reach the top.

Lots of people are racing, and you want to win. Which race do you choose?

Yay, it’s Friday! Time to head home and relax after a week of hard work.

1. Enter the front door of your home. Toss off your shoes. Notice, lying beneath, a pair of boots you have worn only once. Shrug.

2. Turn on the television and sit on your Ikea couch. Attempt to relax. Awaken 20 minutes later, realizing that you’ve been passively flipping through channels. Turn off the TV, remove the batteries from your remote. Toss them in your Blendtec blender. Stop yourself moments away from doing something drastic.

3. Briefly fondle the iPhone in your pocket. Stop yourself, realizing you were about to do the exact same thing with Reddit as you just did with TV. Call and cancel your data plan in the nick of time.

4. Begin to wonder what people did before television and internet access. Observe the room around you, looking over the unread books and unwatched DVDs lining your dusty shelves. Consider shopping, then picture the unworn clothes occupying your cavernous walk-in closet.

5. Realize your imagination has turned all black and grey.

6. Suddenly recognize that you haven’t used your “spare” room… ever. Do the math and realize said room is costing you five or six hours of work per month. Take out a piece of paper and compare it to that trip to Japan you’ve been meaning to take. Stare at the math in disbelief. Stuff the paper in your mouth and begin to chew.

7. Realize that the brief emotional rush that accompanied the purchase of each item in your home is now gone, leaving only the object itself in its most basic, uninteresting form. The gorgeous, pastel designer couch has become simply a chair. A beautiful glass buffet is transformed into a mere table. A set of immaculate handmade dishes has aged into nothing but a bunch of plates. Your goose down duvet is actually just a blanket. Wince.

8. Glance down at your groceries and realize that the Doritos, Lay’s, and Ruffles you purchased are all just coloured corn and potatoes.

9. Open your credit card bill. Wide-eyed, discover how often you’ve confused shopping with actual extra-curricular activities. Consider joining a monastery.

10. Remember that time you went over to a party in a friend’s pseudo-abandoned loft. Recall the roommates, the self-made art and photos on the walls, the obscenely cheap rent, and the embraced simplicity.

11. Begin to make a quick list of the top 10 things you own in terms of how much they cost. With horror, make a second list of the top 10 things that make you happy. Sense the creeping dread as you realize there is no overlap between the two at all. Shudder in terror.

12. Decide to have a packing party like your friend suggested one time. Take the old sheets you never used from Crate & Barrel. Cover all your stuff with them. Endeavour not to uncover it unless you decide you need to use it. Realize suddenly that you would never use anything at all because you are never actually home.

13. Remember a time in childhood when you were more excited by ideas, love, travel, and people than by anything else. Realize that you have, somehow, bought into a new religion, and that malls, from the inside, look exactly like cathedrals.

14. Consider starting a fire.

15. Consider that, perhaps, you are more than just your stuff. Begin to take a long walk. Breathe.

16. Begin to relax. Give yourself the freedom to begin to dream again.

(In collaboration with Josh Millburn of TheMinimalists.com)

It kind of made me wonder: what did I really learn? Am I smarter than I used to be?

I started to wonder, and this is what happened. 140 characters per book, for 200 books… 200 things you may not know.

Are you curious? I sure was when I started. Here we go.

A Walk in the Woods

The Appalachian Trail is a trail in the woods that’s over 2000 miles long. In 1990, Bill Irwin became the first guy to ever walk it– BLIND.

The Millionaire Next Door

Those that are wealthy are not those who ACT wealthy. Those that look wealthy are usually in just debt, while the rich tend to act broke.

Blink

“Sometimes we’re right about things– especially when we’re experts. Other times we’re wrong.” With a bunch of examples.

How To Succeed in Anything by Really Trying

The three A’s of careers are Ability, Ambition, and Attitude. If you have those three down, you’re good.

The No BS Ruthless Management of People and Profits

If your employees suck, nobody is happy. So fire them– fast. Stop being so bleeding-hearted about it.

The Dip

The real rewards come to those who can outlast the competition. If you can do that while staying unique, you win.

The Little Red Book of Sales

People do business with people they like. So if make it easy to be someone they like, you’re a big part of the way there.

Crash Proof

The US is carrying massive amounts of debt. This may or may not reduce the value of the dollar over time, so invest to compensate for it.

On Writing Well

Simplicity matters. Clarity matters. “Writing improves in direct ratio to the number of things we can keep out of it.”

The Little Teal Book of Trust

Trust matters, but more importantly, Jeffrey Gitomer is a master salesman, and it is always possible to write a new take on an old subject.

Everything Bad is Good for You

Even culturally “stupid” things like reality TV can have lots of value. In fact media is getting more complex over time. Don’t dismiss it.

The Myth of Multitasking

Do one thing at a time or you’re wasting your time. Man, I could still really learn this lesson. So could you.

What Would Google Do?

Companies that embrace Google-like qualities win over “closed” companies. Free, open, etc. wins.

Old Masters and Young Geniuses

There are two ways to success. Either be young and have a huge insight, or get older and gradually improve.

Pow! Right Between the Eyes

Surprises create emotion. Emotions create memories. Information has nothing to do with convincing someone.

Emergency

Learn practical skills or you’ll regret it when you need them. Being useful matters.

Lance Armstrong: Every Second Counts

Persistence is everything. Ignore detractors and push forward no matter what.

Problem Solving 101

It’s easy to sell a little book to a bored guy in Chicago O’Hare airport… yeah, that’s all I remember.

Talent is Overrated

Work matters more than talent– this is like a much better version of Outliers. Focus on the work, always.

Culture Smart:Japan

There are at least 5 ways to talk to people in Japan, based on their status and yours. In America, we’re lucky to have social mobility.

Thank You and OK!

Even Zen Buddhists can be messed up. No single path will make you perfect.

The Way of Zen

Japanese Daruma dolls are really cool symbols for persistence. Keep real objects around you that remind you of your purpose.

Stumbling on Happiness

The stuff we think will make us happy usually doesn’t. We need to be clear on what those mistakes are or we waste a lot of time.

Not Always So

Enlightenment is about the practice, not the talking. You can’t intellectualize insight.

Walden

Simplify your life and you’ll appreciate what you have more. Yes, it’s that simple.

The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die

Most of the answers to happiness have been figured out by old people. Ask them, they’ll tell you.

Nudge

Simple environmental changes can radically alter behaviour. It’s how change happens. So don’t blame yourself or your weaknesses.

The Game

Girls like confidence, and confidence is hard to fake.

How To Sell

Girls apparently like jewelry too. But not as much as confidence.

Six Pixels of Separation

Mitch Joel is an under-appreciated asset to the whole social media community. This book has secretly outsold every single other social media book out there, by the way.

What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20

Frankly, this was not memorable. If you are reading a book and can’t come up with any significant quotes or ideas from it, you should probably stop. Trust me.

Mastering Your Hidden Self

Do yourself a favour and don’t read books about spirituality. They’re usually crap and are trying to sell you on something.

Man’s Search For Meaning

Between stimulus and response there is a space, and in that space lies our growth and our freedom. (This was the largest inspiration for my book The Flinch.)

Feel the Fear… And Do It Anyway

If you feel fear in non-dangerous situations, you should just go forward anyway. It’s rare that bad shit happens.

Blue Ocean Strategy

Low competition means it’s easier to win. Always search for the easiest, least competitive way.

What Should I Do With My Life?

Follow your passion or you’ll regret it. Speaking from experience, this is true.

Enough

Stuff doesn’t make you happy, but you’ll never stop thinking it will.

She Comes First

Lol. I can’t believe I’m admitting that I read this. It was good though. You should read it.

Purple Cow

Being remarkable means your customers will notice, and being noticed is the first step on the way to being successful.

50 50

Doing the impossible is often easier than you think. Most people don’t try to find the real limits– they just trust what others say.

Presentation Zen

Stop putting walls of text on your Powerpoint slides. Everyone knows this now, don’t they?

Getting Things Done

Having a system in place is necessary to facilitate completing lots of tasks. Otherwise, you get lost. But if it’s too complex, the system itself gets you lost.

Open and Shut

The Canadian government never would have let Obama win, or even run, because he’s an outsider. This stifles innovation from the Canadian system.

Rules of Thumb

Any lesson is easy to learn… but applying it is hard.

When I Say No, I Feel Guilty

Saying no to something is actually very hard, so learn social “techniques” to help you say no when it matters.

Crush It

Fact: It’s possible to talk into a microphone and have it be made into a bestselling book.

Status Anxiety

It’s programmed into our brains to seek higher status, and when we can’t do it, we feel like crap.

The Architecture of Happiness

Our physical environment is important. How we feel in a place influences our behaviour in it, so try to create a space you love.

Connected

Even if people are outside your social network, you influence them. In other words, humans aren’t like wolves, we’re like bees.

The Cluetrain Manifesto

Hyperlinks subvert hierarchies. (This sounds simple but it’s in fact very profound.)

Gambling Scams

Amazing book. Crazy stories. Most scams are about getting the mark to feel like they’re getting away with something, not the other way around.

Zen and the Art of Archery

Reading short books helps you get ahead on your reading list. Don’t underestimate this. :)

The Numerati

The world of the future will be controlled by those who have, and understand, the numbers. Intuition is no longer good enough.

Vagabonding

Traveling full-time is easier than expected. You, yes you, could probably do it… just not as you are now.

Hagakure

If you have trouble with a book, persevere anyway. It’s worth it.

Your Money or Your Life

Your spending habits are changeable. Stop letting them direct your life. What seems “essential” usually isn’t.

Of the Dawn of Freedom

Black people had it really bad, you guys. We are all lucky to be alive when we are right now.

Drive

Motivation from inside gets you moving. Motivation from outside stops you dead cold.

The Social Contract

There are implicit and explicit “contracts” that occur between people all the time, without people even talking about them.

Shop Class as Soulcraft

Working on things (vs, say, ideas) is rewarding, because you can see the results of your work and how it improves the world.

Escape From Cubicle Nation

Quit your horrible job. ASAP. Trust me.

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work

Unfortunately, all work sucks at least a little. But life is still good, so don’t worry about it too much.

The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius

Amazing things will happen, and terrible things will happen. Deal with both in the same way.

The Paleo Diet

Removing sugar and grains from your diet is one of the best things you can do for your health.

7 Days in the Art World

Art is all about personalities and technique is no longer that important. Often, big artists don’t even make their own work anymore.

Switch

Change is about working with three things: intellect, emotion, and environment. Get all three and change is easy.

Linchpin

I read this while in Cuba. This is the book I wish I had written. I was both impressed and upset when I read it because it was what I had wanted to do.

Simplicity

Simplicity is often harder than complexity, and often, there’s a lot of garbage that can just remain unsaid.

The Art of Eating In

If you’re doing it right, food in the house can be just as great as eating at restaurants. Take time to work on your cooking skills.

The Fighter’s Mind

People that fight intimately understand something that we do not.

The Greatest Salesman in the World

Mindset is everything.

The Creative Habit

One of the world’s most famous choreographers gets in a cab every morning to bring her to the gym to make sure she works out. In other words, high achievers have more than just “willpower” to make it happen.

Rework

Books that say a little are often way better than books that say a lot.

Do More Great Work

Getting people to do exercises makes them think about things more than if they just read about them.

Stranger in a Strange Land

Starting a cult is easy. :)

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

Think about your life as a story. How would you make it worth watching? Also, a character is what a character does. This is very important.

Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate

Zen Masters are just normal people that sit around a lot. They aren’t saints. I spent a month in a Zen monastery in Japan, so I know this is true.

Global Citizens

Don’t downgrade your standards for books just because you’re getting on a plane in New Zealand. Just garbage.

Ogilvy on Advertising

People used to be very gullible I think. A wall of text used to convince people… wait, maybe it still does?

Tao Te Ching

This book made me appreciate Chinese writing. The fashionable thing is to like the Japanese, but honestly I think ancient Chinese philosophical writing is far superior.

Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography

History will distort what your message is, or it will forget you. Focus on making the people near you happy instead of your “legacy” or whatever.

All Marketers Are Liars

The story you tell yourself (and others) is really important.

In Defence of Food

If it doesn’t need to be refrigerated, it may not actually be food. So never go through the aisles of a grocery store– go around the edges instead, where the fridges are.

I Am Not a Gadget

The web is making you into a commodity and narrowing your thinking without you knowing it.

5 Love Languages

Behind the things your spouse does is a way of thinking. Aligning yourself with that will help you understand them.

The Vegetarian Myth

I was a vegetarian/vegan for 10 years and there were lots of talking points I believed without researching them. So the lesson here is, read up on sound bites before repeating them.

The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King

Big bets either pay off or wipe you out. But even if they wipe you out, you can still come back from it.

A Brief History of Everything

Systems look very different from the inside than they do from the outside.

The Gift of Fear

Your instincts have been honed by millions of years of evolution. When your intuition tells you something, don’t ignore it.

Three Steps of the Ladder of Writing

In order for great art to emerge, you must suffer. (I have also experienced this firsthand.)

Se liberer du connu

Any habit, no matter how stupid, will end up with religious significance if unquestioned.

The Primal Blueprint

One book on the paleo diet is enough. Stop re-reading the same information over and over again. (This also applies to social media books.)

Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong

The French are best appreciated as a deeply distinct culture. They may have cars, McDonald’s, and shopping malls but they are not like you.

The Art of Non-Conformity

I could learn a lot from Chris Guillebeau. You can too.

UnMarketing

When things go viral, it’s because they touch upon emotion, not logic. This is actually a big message most web people forget.

The Happiness Project

It’s shocking how much this book has sold. I guess it goes to show what happens when you put “happiness” in the title. It’s good, but…

The Little Black Book of Connections

Your network is everything. Access to the right people accelerates everything you do.

The Paleo Solution

Another paleo book may not have been the right thing to do, but it does prove that presentation matters. This book is the best presented of all the ones I read.

Hamlet’s Blackberry

People have encountered new technology many times before, so looking to the past can help you understand how you should deal with it when it happens to you.

The End of Food

Unless it’s local and needs to be refrigerated, the food you eat had a terrifying ride to get to your plate.

Tactics

I think I’ve read enough Edward de Bono books. This was about success, but whatever. Why do I keep reading about the same things?

Maus

Old people have tons of amazing stories– but most of us don’t know them because we just don’t ask.

It’s Not Just Who You Know…

Pull other people up. Be considerate to everyone.

Good Calories Bad Calories

Native people all over the world, before being introduced to Western food, had significantly less chronic disease.

Making Ideas Happen

The productivity system you use must be available everywhere and give you your tasks only for today, not for next week.

Work the System

You should not be working inside your company putting out fires. You should be improving its efficiency instead. This book is like a better 4-Hour-Workweek.

Food Rules

When you name something a “rule,” everyone believes it even though it may not be true.

Foucault for Beginners

Michel Foucault was gay and came up with the panopticon.

A Treatise on Elegant Living

What you wear isn’t just surface– it also displays your personality and what matters to you.

Why We Get Fat

Science writers usually write a complicated book, and then a simple one after that. Always read one or the other. Never both.

The 4-Hour Body

Do the minimum possible to affect the largest possible change. Everything else is wasted energy (unless you want to master a discipline).

Emotional Intelligence 2.0

I was in Thailand while reading this. Skip it and go to Thailand instead.

What Technology Wants

Technology is a force and it’s going in a certain direction. If you work on the web, you need to understand what direction that is.

How I Became a Famous Novelist

Thailand again… this was the funniest book I ever read. It made me want to write other things than business books for the first time.

One Small Step Can Change Your Life

Large change is best done in small steps, because it doesn’t set off your emotional alarm system.

The Alchemist

Have a quest.

Program or Be Programmed

Most people on the web are writers, not programmers, and in so doing, they are less powerful than they could be.

As You Think (and other short books)

Writing down goals has power.

Poke the Box

Become a person that initiates. Others will follow.

What the Psychic Said to the Pilgrim

People give up extremely easily. If you don’t, you automatically win.

The Thank You Economy

Social media is all about basic human interactions, so being as human as possible means you have the most impact.

The Long Walk

All Stephen King books are about a regular thing that becomes evil. Carrie is a high school girl that becomes evil. Christine is a car that becomes evil. Cujo is a dog that becomes evil. The Long Walk is about a walk that becomes evil.

How to Get a Grip

Most self-improvement is in fact very basic to do. Stop kidding yourself.

Do the Work

Just sit on your ass and do it. It’s that “easy.”

Go Forth and Kick Some Ass

eBooks are quick to read and people will probably buy lots of them.

Against the Gods

Insurance companies (and others) understand risk in an extremely sophisticated way– but most individuals do not. They consider risky things safe, and safe things risky.

The God Delusion

Richard Dawkins is not nearly as much of an asshole as some think he is.

Five Little Pigs

Agatha Christie is the greatest fiction writer in the history of mankind. She is a master.

Rules for Aging

Amazing short book about important life lessons. Very funny.

The Places That Scare You

“Drop the storyline.”

Born Standing Up

Even if their movies are bad, celebrities usually aren’t idiots… especially the comedians. Also: read more biographies.

Born to Run

Marketing, especially when applied to things we have been doing for millions of years, can really screw things up. People with expensive shoes, for example, get more injuries than minimalist shoe runners.

The Dip

Wow, I read this twice! Well, this one was an audiobook, so I guess that’s different. Kind of like being on the Camino de Santiago with Seth Godin.

How to Win Friends and Influence People

After finishing this book, I realized that I should be reading it every single year. It’s that good.

A Whole New Mind

The mind necessary in the 21st century is not like the one we were taught to use. We need to learn to think and learn differently.

Getting Unstuck

Godin also recommended I read some Pema Chodron. He was right.

The War of Art

This is the perfect writing book. It’s so good it makes you never want to compete with it.

The Thing About Life is That One Day You’ll Be Dead

Sickness and aging happen very slowly, so you never actually notice it happening. Plan accordingly.

Your Dog is Your Mirror

Bad dogs aren’t bad for no reason. They have been with us for longer than any other animals, so they are uniquely attuned to our emotional states.

The Consolations of Philosophy

Most of our basic human problems have been solved a long time ago. If you start digging, you can solve them pretty easily.

When Things Fall Apart

Even though pain may seem catastrophic, it’s actually temporary. And again, “drop the storyline.”

Evil Plans

When you draw, you can say a lot with a little. I plan on drawing a lot of my work in 2012 and beyond.

Uncertainty

I read this because I was asked to blurb it, but it was actually a good primer.

Read This Before Our Next Meeting

Most time in offices is wasted. I heard the other day most people actually “work” around 2 hours per day. Meetings are partly responsible.

Purple Cow

When I read this for the second time, it was because I was trying to “distill” the Flinch. It worked.

Self-Reliance (Domino edition)

Always read the original.

The Power of Myth

Joseph Campbell, although not “undiscovered,” is still under-appreciated. The dude did things his own way in a time when conformity was the norm.

The 22 Laws of Marketing

Tim Ferriss was right. This book is simple yet awesome.

Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness

People who give you simple formulas are spoon-feeding you. Be skeptical.

L’art de la sieste

Some books are inappropriately titled. I thought this book was about napping, but it isn’t. It’s about people napping in paintings. No kidding.

End Malaria

The most easily marketed work is the one that is publicized collaboratively. In order to facilitate this, you should also write collaboratively. (See Godin’s What Matters Now for another example.)

The Pilgrimage

Universal themes in books never get old, and Paulo Coelho is a master. As he visited each town, I remembered how I felt while visiting them.

The Warrior Ethos

Throughout history, there have been cultures that have been hard, and others that have been soft. We are soft. The Spartans were hard.

5 Minds For the Future

The most appreciated people in the 21st century will be those who do the jobs that computers are bad at.

We Are All Weird

Find a little tribe that is like you, be yourself to them. Build yourself a business around it. (See also: 1000 True Fans.)

Accidental Genius

Freewriting unlocks ideas that your brain may never have otherwise encountered. Read this and try it for yourself.

Rum Socialism

I should go to Cuba again. You should too, probably. It’s going to change a lot soon. Foreigners just got the right to buy property there.

Falling While Sitting Down

You can radically change your writing and still keep a lot of your audience.

The Game Master

Yes, I still play Dungeons and Dragons. Yet there is little writing about how to write a game. This was a good one. You can download it here for a donation or for free.

Cognitive Surplus

When you free up a lot of your time, or give yourself many more options than before, your creativity and that of society is entirely transformed. Kickstarter and Sokap are great examples.

Willpower

Each fact in a book should be considered separetely. For example, Willpower says glucose depletion is a primary cause of making bad decisions. Not sure about that.

The Education of Millionaires

I should be going to more events. Summit Series, for example.

The Lean Startup

There is a methodology behind exploration of new concepts. Don’t just do it chaotically– have a method behind the madness.

Spark

Get advice from people who have been there before. Don’t reinvent the wheel.

Sway

This is a kind of Gladwell-style book, but much more interesting. I also learned here that there are about a million books about psychological errors that people make.

The Power of Eye Contact

It literally took me a year to finish this. I started in January and finished in December. Anyway, eye contact is important for relationships.

Never Eat Alone

You are not networking as much as you should be.

Strong Enough?

Incremental change can make you amazingly strong. (This applies to all areas of life.)

Think Twice

We make cognitive errors all the time without knowing it. Correcting them usually means big rewards.

How To Be a Man

In an anarchist state, manners would become the main substitute for laws. So be polite.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Many famous and well-respected writers have copied, or translated, other people’s works. See also: Hunter S. Thompson.

18 Minutes

Set your phone to ask you once an hour whether you’re being productive. Watch massive change occur.

Grouped

Influence on the web comes from working with regular people, not “influencers.”

Spent

Almost all decisions we make are influenced by our biology.

I’m looking for the best quotes from the entirety of this blog for an experiment I’m going to try out.

My theory is, I can take them, present them in a cool and unique way, and have them do really well on social networks– much better than they would do inside of a blog post.

I’d love your help to find them.

You’re probably new here– most of my readers have joined this site within the past month– so it’s highly likely that you’ve never visited my archives. There’s a lot of good stuff there.

I’d like to offer you the incentive to check them out.

So in one week, I’m going to give away between 5 and 10 prizes (not sure yet how many) for finding the best quotes from old posts on this blog.

They can be of any length and come from any post, but you’ll probably notice that anything before 2008 or so is not worth going through. (Just being honest.) :)

How to “enter”

Find a quote in an old post, and tweet it out mentioning my name, like so. Bam! You’re done!

Prizes!

To those who come find the best stuff, here’s my offer. Your choice of:

A Kindle Fire. The price for this baby is currently at $199. I’ll send you one! Yay!

A hardcover, signed version of my most recent book, the Flinch. There is no hardcover of this book available at any price, but I am printing a few for personal use and will send you one, signed, numbered, etc.

A one-hour phone conversation about your company or project. This can’t be bought either, but I have done things like this for large corporations at rates of near $1000 per hour. I’m, like, a total genius so this is huge too. If you want we can talk about kittens.

Something else? Honestly I haven’t thought this out that much, it’s kind of an experiment. Have something else you’d like? Add it in the comments and I’ll see what I can do. :)

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program. Thanks! :)

Everybody talks about it. Nobody does it.

If I’ve learned anything about the world by my age, it’s that most of the world, myself included, is composed of talkers, not doers.

There are very few exceptions to this rule. The good news is, you can be one if you want.

The ability to act is not something you’re born with. Change is a skill you can learn– as long as you have the guts to actually do it.

I’ve changed a lot in my life, but it’s not because I’m special. I just created special circumstances. Whatever you want is usually easier to get than you think, as long as you are willing to adapt and do what is necessary.

Now, most posts of this nature will give you little tips, maybe even 100 tips, in the hope that you’ll be impressed by how large the list is and just tweet the hell out of it. They do this because it works (my last one is currently getting 40,000 visits a day from Stumbleupon actually), but writing of that type also usually appeals to those who want simple answers, and that’s not what I’m interested in right now.

So I’ve decided to make this post ridiculously long instead. It weighs in at almost 5,000 words. You may want to go make some coffee.

By the way, I’m also going to say that I’m not going to be writing about this stuff for much longer. I’m starting to get referred to as a “self-help” guru, and honestly, I don’t like it at all. I also began to realize that once you start to talk about success, instead of be successful, you become a talker, and not a doer, which is counter to what I’m trying to do in life.

I’m starting to figure out that the way your time should be spent is largely like a pyramid, with a wide base of learning, with a smaller level of acting on top of it, which is directed by the learning, and then on top of that, an even smaller level of writing about it. If you begin to live your life differently than the pyramid should be built, it becomes unbalanced and topples over. But that’s another subject entirely.

Anyway, the point is, I can’t just snap my fingers and change you– nor would I want to if I could. But what I can do is give you guys a real primer on how change is done. This would be the learning part, as said above, but then you’ll need to go ahead and act in order for any change to occur. So I added in homework assignments. As long as you know this, and you’re willing to actually do them, then we can go forward.

Take the following as one guy’s experience, along with the proverbial grain of salt.

1. How to break bad patterns

The entire human brain is a complex pattern-recognition system that, at one point, was largely there to help you survive and reproduce. Patterns were recognized to help you react properly to a new stimulus, which kept you alive long enough to have as many kids as possible (after which, you could basically die as far as your genes were concerned).

The problem is, that’s no longer our biggest priority, at least as far as the conscious mind is concerned. Now we want to write books, and we want six-pack abs with only 4 hours of gym time, blah blah. We want to know ten languages and have a gorgeous, smart and successful significant other, etc. etc. Oh yeah, and we want to be happy.

The problem is that our whole brain is still largely designed to keep you alive until puberty, and then, when that moment happens you’re like “I’m a man” or whatever, your brain’s job is to get you to reproduce as often as possible, doing your part in the long-standing, subconscious war to stay in the gene pool.

In other words, your conscious brain is trying to do one thing, while the rest of your brain is trying to do another. Our brain is now maladapted to our goals, and its patterns are hard to break because, 100,000 years ago, learning about the world meant just surviving, which was fairly easy, and once that was under control, you could stop learning entirely because the forest you lived in wasn’t going to be changing anytime soon.

Now, our world is changing all the time, and in order to change ourselves, we need to ease into and embrace the coming chaos. Those that are most comfortable with change for change’s sake will adapt better to the future, and you can only get good at change by trying to do it, in small ways, on purpose.

In other words, you have to try and break your patterns and build new habits around them, constantly, because that’s how the world now works. You also have to gather infrastructure around you that helps you do this, because your brain is simply not built for it.

This, by the way, is central to my thinking about challenge, and how your reactions to any bet or dare will shape your future. You need to get good at challenges– in other words, at reacting to unexpected stimulus– if you are going to be capable of change.

Now, I know that some people would say that people’s problem with change is fear– I know that some people would argue that it’s the number one thing stopping most people– but I don’t actually think that’s true, on a conscious level. I think most people’s primary problems is that they literally forget to keep doing the thing they wanted to do. “Dammit,” they think, “I wanted to write today. I forgot. Oh well, tomorrow’s another day.” And then they forget tomorrow and they day after, and it’s all shot to hell until next New Year’s. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.

So while fear is a problem, building a habit of doing things that need to be done, whether you like them or not, is often a good first step. Let’s start by listing some ways to do that.

Find the moment where you have the most energy. For me this is usually early in the morning. I have a dog, so I may walk him, or my girlfriend may, but I keep all the lights turned off, launch Freedom on my computer (as it is on right now) and then write for one hour. I have no goal but to sit down and do it. This takes the pressure off. I know that if I don’t do it before I do anything else, it just doesn’t happen. I learned this the hard way.

Do the hardest things first. The way life works is that easy things will get done anyway. You look at your list of stuff and think, “what is going to be the most difficult thing to do?” If you work on this one first, you’ll discover that your day will get easier, and the rewards will get better as time goes on. So the first thing is hard, but next is easier, and then easier still, and so on until you have the most fun doing the easiest things on your task list.

Have a list of 5 things you want to do, maximum. Don’t start with 5 world-changing acts, though. Begin with one and do it for as little time as you can so it gets done. I know that Zenhabits recommends you start with 5 minutes a day, but I’ll often start with 15 or 30 minute chunks. It’s how I started drawing again, 10 years after dropping out of art school.

The goal is not to succeed. It is just to sit and do it. As I’ve said before, ugly is just a step on the way to beautiful. If you sit down and expect anything, you will freeze up. So just sit down with no expectations. Like the gym– the goal is just to go and do your best, not to deadlift 500 pounds, but to lift just a little more than last time. And even if you failed at that, it’s fine, because you’ll be doing it again next week. No rush. Just sit down and begin.

Homework assignment 1. I know you guys like homework, so here’s something for you to do right now. List the 5 most important things you can do to improve your day. Then, place them in order of difficulty, starting with the hardest. Next, set your alarm right now at one hour earlier than you’re used to waking up, and begin tomorrow morning with the hardest task you have.

DO NOT CONTINUE TO READ UNTIL YOU HAVE DONE THIS.

2. How to get back up again

While you are building habits, it is 100% certain that you will be failing, not just a few times, but often. This is because you’re doing new things, and new things are by definition hard to do.

But the point is never to look back at past failures, and even not to sulk in current ones, but to say “I’m going to start again right now.” In other words, it’s not about this current attempt and its success and failure. It’s about the process of doing it again no matter how horrible the previous attempt was.

I’m sure you know from experience that one of the most difficult things to deal with when making new habits is the realization that you have screwed up. A few days ago I was going out for a friend’s birthday and I was thinking “Ok, well I only have one more thing to do. I still have time though, I’ll do it later.” God, it’s amazing how often I still believe my own bullshit.

I know that, from reading this blog, some people seem to think that I am some paragon of industriousness. This is so far from the truth that it’s laughable. I’m actually one of the laziest people I know. I have the most excuses, among the most horrible habits of anyone I know, and I am sure that, in an alternate universe somewhere, I am either homeless, a janitor, or dead. I am not exaggerating. That I’ve gotten through all this is somewhat of a miracle.

I say this because I want you to know that I am not unlike you, and that you are not alone in your horribleness. We’re pretty much the same, I just happen to be observant enough to have learned a few lessons. One of the big ones is that I am no longer as concerned with failure.

The only real difference between you, the one that does nothing, and you the super successful multi-millionaire, is that the other guy gets up over and over again, like a boxer in the ring that needs to win the fight.

In life, you can just get knocked down and stay down forever with no real impending deadline. In sports, you can’t. There is a timer, and you can hear it as you are failing, and the only option is to get back up again. Since life does not work this way, I have taken an alternate stance, which is that no one is watching or even gives a damn. My failure is inconsequential and silent, so I can fail over and over again in my little cave while no one is watching, and then as I get better, I can get more public about my efforts and do better.

Produce horrible material on purpose. Whatever your work is, perfectionism is a killer. You just sit there thinking “I’m horrible at this,” totally paralyzed, unable to continue. *****

Give yourself several chances in a day. I read the book 18 Minutes earlier this year and it gave me a great tip to help me get up over and over again. I set up a timer now using the RE.minder app for iPhone that pings me once an hour to ask “Are you being productive?”

Realize that there are no consequences. Almost everything that sucks stays in the draft stage anyway, and the stuff that doesn’t (and is public) has almost no social consequences at all. I have a friend who’s one of those dating coaches, and he always says that the perceived social consequences of talking to strangers is always WAY worse than actually doing it. Whatever errors we make are diluted into the fabric of society, so the larger the fabric is, the smaller the error seems.

Homework assignment 2. Carry around a smartphone, or alarm, that reminds you every hour (9 to 5) to get your ass back to work. Sit down first thing in the morning and write, draw, go to the gym, or create something, no matter how bad the result is. Do it for a given time period, begin before you stress out about it, and continue until the anxiety has subsided.

DO NOT CONTINUE TO READ UNTIL YOU HAVE DONE THIS. SERIOUSLY.

Ok, we’ve gotten past the basic stuff.

You’ll notice so far that what we’ve been talking about is largely an issue of philosophy. The first assumption is something along the lines of: “You are naturally weak. If you want to become strong, use society’s infrastructures and your own willpower to strengthen the structure around you.”

The second conclusion you come to is: “If you fall, the environment you fall into is safer than it has ever been. If life was at one point nasty, brutish, and short, it is now long, diplomatic, and peaceful. Failing is therefore easier. So is getting back up.”

If you follow these, the next conclusion must therefore become “I have a structure around me to make things easier than they’ve ever been. And even when they are hard and I fail, nothing much happens. So there is really no reason for me to be afraid at all.”

I’ve actually written a whole free book about this (that you should download!) so I won’t elaborate, but one reason that many people can’t change is because they simply can’t handle the flinch– a reflexive almost physiological response to exiting the safe zone. This may happen even though they know, consciously, that their safe zone is huge. In this case, it’s not the conscious mind that matters. It’s the emotional one.

So you have to start convincing your emotional brain that beating the flinch is no big deal, and you can only really do this by having visited the other side. In other words, the intellectual part of the equation will only get you so far.

You can’t just think it. You need to feel it.

How do you do this? Each person’s methods will differ. I can tell you that having epileptic seizures, getting tattooed, pierced, and branded over and over again from the age of 18 until now (32), helped a lot. I can tell you that learning to talk to strangers helped a lot, as does (badly planned) travel, which helps me deal with unexpected circumstances as they arise. The more you leap into the unknown, the more you discover that the unexpected is rarely something you need to actually worry about. You ease into surprises and learn to deal with them as they come instead of reflexively avoiding them.

As you discover this, you’ll see that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, a virtuous circle that builds confidence upon confidence in layers, like armour or calluses.

But each type of armour is actually quite specific. You don’t lose your fear of getting jumped unless you prepare for getting jumped beforehand, and you don’t lose social anxiety unless someone teaches you what to do, and what not to do.

So losing the flinch isn’t just about jumping into the unknown; it’s also about learning what technique works in the new environment you’re leaping into. Swimming helps you deal with being in the water, but nowhere else, while fighting helps you learn to deal with fights, etc.

Write down the worst case scenario. I picked this one up from Tim Ferriss. While you’re in a safe place (i.e. not under pressure), look at what’s going to happen and ask yourself what the worst possible conclusion is. You ask someone out, they say no, or worse, maybe they laugh. You’re embarrassed, and in a few days you’re over it and laughing with your buddies. Or, you ask for a raise and your boss says no.

Recognize that pain evaporates quickly. The brain is wired to associate pain with death. Most pain, however, is insignificant and doesn’t last– either it vanishes quickly or, in the off chance where it’s longer-lasting, it’s dull and can easily be ignored. Realize that pain is a temporary, vestigial reaction created by evolution in an environment where a single scrape could mean death by infection. Then recognize that we have antibiotics and move forward anyway.

Deal with discomfort as it comes; don’t predict it. As I write this I have turned my internet connection off with an app called Freedom. I do this because it makes me more productive, but I also notice that being disconnected from the web feels awkward, and it makes me way more nervous than I should. I keep thinking “when is my hour up,” or “I’ll just check my phone,” etc., because this process of writing for one hour (minimum) per day leaves me struggling to find things to talk about. But it also means that I’m getting better at discomfort, every day, the same way you adjust to a cold shower after a few seconds of being in the water. And as the hour finishes, I can feel myself internally saying “thank God it’s over.” Now think about this: if I can’t deal with that tiny discomfort, how will I deal with anything else that happens out in the real world?

Homework assignment 3. Find several daily practice that makes you uncomfortable. Go to the gym and put yourself (safely) under as much weight as possible. Meditate every day for as long as you can stand it– no email, no phone, no clock– until your alarm says you can get up. Start with ten minutes and do it right after your biggest task of the day (as discussed above).

YEP… DO NOT CONTINUE TO READ UNTIL YOU HAVE DONE THIS.

4. Raise all hurdles.

I’m going to guess that, in your social circle, you don’t have that many people you hang out with that make you feel like utter, worthless garbage. I don’t mean a psychotic ex or something, I mean someone that is working harder than you, has more money than you, is happier and better with people than you, all that stuff.

A lot of change has to do with watching your blind spots. Returning to old habits is easy when you have no one watching you, calling you on your bullshit when you fall back into your old ways of thinking. You need someone, or many people, who’ll call you on it, who will tell you the truth when you need to hear it. If this is someone you hire, that’s fine, and if it’s someone close to you, like your spouse or friend, that’s fine too. But they have to be able to both tell you the truth, help you raise the bar, and be in your corner at the same time. This is not an easy person to find.

About a month ago my friend Mitch and I got together for sushi. He told me that it’s rare, for people at his level (and mine) to have someone call him out, to tell him he’s wrong. I feel the same way. People around you don’t want to rock the boat, but if you’re like me, you’re surrounded by supporters and no one is telling you you’re not good enough– which is actually what you want to hear. This, by the way, is why I love that I’m going to TED this month. Simply put, I know that five days of feeling like garbage about my accomplishments will do wonders for me.

Anyway, the point of this was that, the next day after I called him on his BS, as he had asked, he produced a 15,000-word book proposal. It was almost instantly sold to Hachette by our agent and became this book.

So the question is, what would it take for you to produce that much amazing material, that fast?

Stay in over your head at all times. If you’ve ever wondered why my blog has the name that it does, you now have your answer. “In over your head” should be the state you are always reaching towards– not knowing entirely what you’re doing, having taken on too much, being too ambitious because you’ve made ridiculous promises, etc. All these things are good because they will make you extremely resourceful. You need to find ways to over-promise so that you begin to freak out, at least a little.

Have regular meetings with people way above your level. I just got introduced to Paulo Coelho via my co-author Chris Brogan. I love his work, as many do, but unfortunately doesn’t make me feel like garbage because he is so above my level that I can’t even relate to his experience and success. So while I’m extremely pleased to be speaking to him (stay tuned for that), in terms of raising the bar, it doesn’t quite cut it.

What you need are people that are close enough to your level, in age, intelligence, and resources, but who have done much more with them. When I remember that Gary Vaynerchuk is only 35, for example, now that makes me feel like garbage. When Mitch gets more speaking engagements than I do, same thing. When Greg is flying to New York (again) to meet high-up VCs to get his company sold, and I suddenly remember that he’s fucking 23 years old, that makes me feel like garbage. So find people like this. Buy them lunch if you have to, whatever it takes.

Incidentally, I’d like to mention that accomplishments alone can’t carry you. After a while, I have a feeling you’ll get burned out on them– that the bar will get raised so high, and you’ll have done so much, that you simply don’t care anymore and just want to produce good work. That is a good thing, of course, and you shouldn’t just be driven by accomplishments, but it genuinely does help me, so that’s why I’m telling you that.

Expose yourself to ideas you don’t understand. People often write or produce ideas and then don’t draw them to their logical conclusion. You can often see people trying to emulate the Seth Godin style of post, for example, because they think that style works since he’s the most popular marketing blogger, etc. But the reality is that these people are having simple ideas, writing them down and going “wow! I’m done,” when they’ve in fact just begun.

Ryan Holiday wrote a post a while ago which is relevant here (see How to digest books above your level). This is important because pushing things past their usual end point is the only way you will ever come across conclusions that others haven’t yet had. Last week I spoke to Gad Saad, who basically invented evolutionary psychology as it relates to consumer behaviour, by combining ideas that had been discussed elsewhere but had simply not been put together before. His work is considered a breakthrough in the understanding of how human beings make buying decisions.

Homework assignment 4. Start reading more. Read biographies of people you have heard of and respect– not necessarily Nobel laureates or geniuses, but people who are like you that you respect. If you’re from Iowa, pick someone else from Iowa. If you’re a web entrepreneur, find people at your level but that have done more with it.

DO NOT CONTINUE TO READ UNTIL YOU HAVE DONE THIS.

5. Change is cyclical.

We’ve come almost full circle at this point. You’ll notice that once your bars get raised, and you can build habits that help construct new skill sets to help you reach them, you will continue to expand your horizons exponentially compared to where they were used to.

I wrote this post, by the way, by using the exact set of things I wrote about here. I could not have written 5,000 words about this without having a daily writing habit. I could not have finished it without being ok with seeing this post fall flat (which it might). I’m ok with it falling flat because I have seen posts I have worked hard on fall flat before, and besides a little disappointment, I did not die… I was fine.

But you can definitely see the process, now, of how normal people become extraordinary through changing their behaviour alone. Then, after behaviour changes, the mind usually changes with it, leading to more confidence, which expands your reach even further, etc, all in a giant cycle.

The sad part about all this is that some people simply are not willing to put themselves inside the system to make it happen. Most people feel as if they are doing it, but they often are not. What they really need to be doing is stop listening to themselves as if they knew what was best for them. The reality is, they don’t. Only when you recognize this can you make change happen.

Conclusion

Ok, this is all fine and good, but the final question is, what should you really be changing towards? Maybe you’re not happy with where you are, and you want to go somewhere else, but why do you even want to go there? What’s the goal, and will you be happier when you get there? You don’t know, so you may not want to change.

I suspect that the real answer to this is that it simply does not matter where you go. Remember, you’re not looking to be perfect. You’re only looking for a small improvement over your current state, and as long as you’re ok with fumbling on your way there, you should just start moving immediately and deal with the decisions as they come.

With that in mind I should say that I really don’t know how to finish this post. It’s by far the largest post I’ve ever written, practically like a mini-book, and I’d just like to finish it so I can go ahead with my drawing, cleaning out my inbox, and everything else I need to do today before I can go out and see my friend Justin without any guilt on my mind.

So thank you very much for reading all the way through. I hope this helps. Please leave me a comment if you have any questions and I’ll do my best to answer all of them. Oh, and please subscribe using the form below. Thanks. :)

“Thank you my friend I have never met. […] I found your blog post “fuck the internet” on a day I was in a bad way.

[…] You know what the best part is? You didn’t even charge me a dime. Thank you so much. I could never have heard what you had to say if you were charging admission. I would be glad to pay you now but I’m currently broke. :) I’m going be doing real good real soon and I will help you out if you need it then.

I get a lot of emails from people, it’s true. But this one really hit home.

Some people I know charge $300 an hour for their time doing basically what I do on this site for free. I met a guy last week who charges $15,000 a year or something for mentoring a few people. I hear they’re very good at it too.

I actually could do these things. I know that I could because I kind of do already with some people that I know– I just do it for free– but I know that people would pay. Sometimes I’ll get an email going “are you coaching so-and-so? I can hear your voice coming out of his mouth,” and I’ll reply, “we talk every little while, yeah,” or “he reads my blog I think.” Not that I’m saying that I influence everyone with a voice like mine, not at all.

Anyway, I had a conversation with someone last week where they kind of hinted that I have “issues around money” or whatever (I’m paraphrasing) because I would rather get a great book out for free to 100,000 people than make a dollar or two per copy and sell 10% of that number. It’s the truth though, and I’m not sure it’s because I’m awkward about it, I just really believe that amazing stuff should be available for free. This is the internet, I figure you can charge if you want as long as you’re ok with competing with free.

I’m not making a secret out of the fact that I’m doing fine financially, and I understand that not everyone can experiment with this. That’s fine. But even if I had sold millions of books I would still probably give much of them away or find a way to give them away for free. I just think it’s the right thing to do.

Free worked for Paulo Coelho. He seeded torrents of his own work and it increased sales.

Free worked for Vice magazine– nobody would have paid for that– and now it’s ubiquitous.

Free worked for Angry Birds. Now people play it for more than 1 million hours per day.

But it’s not just about free. It’s more than that. Soon, it’s going to be GREAT + FREE.

And how in God’s name do you compete against that?

Sometimes I’ll walk into a bookstore and consider whether I’ll want to buy something. I’ll sit there, and consider it for a while.

What do the blurbs say?

Does it look like it’s an easy read?

Is it a bestseller?

All these questions enter your head.

Here, in Chicago O’Hare airport where I write this from, a book retails for about 25$. It also weighs a few pounds. So even if I’m interested in a few books, and I’m ready to spend $50 bucks, at most I’ll be buying one book.

As I’ve discussed before, ebooks turn this all around.

Last month, I put out a short ebook through Seth Godin’s Domino Project. The price was zero, and it was promoted by pretty much every blogger out there.

I’m told a book is a national bestseller when it sells around 15,000 copies. This is considered a phenomenon, causing at minimum a blip on the national radar, versus most books, which don’t blip at all.

So what happens when you put a promotion machine in place, and give people no resistance to buying whatsoever? Well, the results are dramatic.

In the past month and a half, more copies of The Flinch were sent out than copies of Trust Agents, our previous book, over a whole two years. In the first day alone, Amazon showed over 15,000 copies were released, and it’s now sitting around 75,000.

Today we’re going to try that again.

Colin Wright and Joshua Millburn, two friends of mine, are trying the experiment. Alongside the Flinch, their books will be free for the next three days only (click on their names to get them). Already, only a few hours in, Joshua’s book has hit #1 in the short story category. Who knows how far it’ll go?

So back to the question at hand. What is the real price of free? Well, it isn’t a dollar sign.

It’s an opportunity cost.

What would you give for the opportunity to be in front of fifteen, seventy-five, or even a hundred thousand people?

Think carefully. We’re actually in a very unique time. Soon, the market will be flooded. You won’t have this chance for long.

1. True wisdom and insight is always free.

2. Give your power over to no one.

3. Going into the unknown is how you expand what is known.

4. Get a library card.

5. Spend more time around people that both challenge and respect you.

6. Remain skeptical forever.

7. Fight for what matters.

8. There is a method that works. Find it.

9. Join a movement.

10. Drink your coffee black.

11. Never let anyone photoshop a picture of you. It creates a false sense of self-confidence.

12. Read more. Especially things you disagree with.

13. Get used to feeling stupid. It’s a sign of growth.

14. It’s easy for people to talk a good game, so watch how they behave instead.

15. Learn something from everyone.

16. Find things that inspire you and pursue them, even if there’s no money in it.

17. Starve if you have to, for as long as you need to.

18. Survive on a little just to prove you can do it.

19. Get one big success at an early age. It’ll help build your confidence for bigger things.

20. Do what you say you’ll do. No one is reliable anymore.

21. Be comfortable with abandonment, even of parts of your identity.

22. Learn a new language.

23. Eat more protein.

24. Keep people around you that will tell you the truth.

25. Genius gets you nowhere. Execution is everything.

26. If given the choice of equity or cash, always take cash.

27. Meet new people as often as possible. Offer to help them.

28. Don’t discriminate. Connect anyone in your network to anyone else.

29. If you can’t do a pull-up, you have a problem.

30. Nobody likes a know-it-all.

31. Get a passport. Fill it up with stamps no one has ever seen.

32. Quit your horrible job.

33. Read biographies. It’s like having access to the best mentors in history.

34. Go to bed, and wake up, early. No one will bother you, letting your best work emerge.

35. Scare yourself a little bit every day. It will expand your inner map.

36. Learn to climb trees.

37. Don’t buy a lot of stuff, and only buy the stuff you really love.

38. Be humble and curious.

39. Twitter followers don’t keep you warm at night.

40. Be as useful as you can in as many circumstances as possible.

41. Show up.

42. Repeat people’s names when you meet them.

43. Turn internet access off your phone. Wifi is fine.

44. Get a deck of Oblique Strategies cards. Use them.

45. Make your home a place where you feel safe.

46. Take people up on bets. Make more bets yourself.

47. Take cold showers. They’re better than coffee.

48. Learn to enjoy hunger.

49. Make everything either shorter, or longer, than it needs to be.

50. Always remember those who helped you. Deliver two or three times as much value back.

51. But also, help people who have never helped you, and can’t.

52. When you know that pain is temporary, it affects all of your decisions.

53. Get a tattoo. Don’t worry about regret.

54. Commit to things, regularly, that are far beyond your ability.

55. Meet with friends more often than you think you have to.

56. Learn to meditate. Go on a retreat if you have to.

57. Your stories are both more and less interesting than you think.

58. Learn to really listen.

59. Walk more.

60. Ugly is just a step on the way to beautiful.

61. Get to know your neighbours.

62. Don’t take anything personally, ever.

63. Consider avoiding school. Go to lots of conferences instead.

64. As soon as you can, buy some art.

65. Apologize more than you need to.

66. Find out if there will be food there.

67. A good haircut changes everything.

68. Read Man’s Search For Meaning.

69. Say no to projects you don’t care about.

70. Do things that are uncool. Later on, they usually end up becoming cool anyway.

71. Find your voice.

72. Have some manners.

73. Learn to play chess, go, and bridge. They’ll keep you from going senile.

74. Learn about the Tetrapharmakos.

75. Find ways to cheat the system– just don’t cheat people.

76. Be like Jesus, not like his followers. (This applies to all of them.)

77. At least once, date someone that’s out of your league.

78. Examine your jealousy. You’ll learn a lot about yourself.

79. Good connections are about people, not social networks.

80. Address small problems. They will become big problems.

81. Dress like a cooler version of yourself.

82. Yes, there is such a thing as bad press.

83. Add “adventurer” to your Twitter bio. Then, become one.

84. If the internet is the best thing in your life, you have a serious problem.

85. Give away your best work for free.

86. Find mentors. Just don’t call them that.

87. Actually write on your blog. Nobody cares if it’s hard.

88. Download Freedom. Use it for an hour every day.

89. Join a gym. Lift the heaviest you can. (This applies to girls too.)

90. Do some freewriting. It helps you think things through.

91. When you’re having supper with rich people, pick up the cheque.

92. Learn how to speak in public.

93. If you see someone who needs help, stop asking yourself if they need help. Instead, just help.

94. Bring a bottle of wine.

95. The best conversations are had side by side, not one in front of the other.

96. Protect your hearing. Trust me.

97. Do what’s most important first thing in the morning, before you check email.

98. Everyone feels like they’re not good enough. It’s not just you.

99. Courage is a learned skill.

100. Go to Iceland. It’s worth it.

Hi Chris. :)

You’ve traveled to almost 175 countries. You go to places where you don’t know the language over and over again, which tends to make people nervous. You also teach people to quit their job for a living, which almost everyone is anxious about.

Are you nervous about these things? Do you remember a time where you ever were?

Yes and no. In some ways, I’m a nervous wreck with everything I do… I just do it anyway.

In other ways, I’m the world’s most nonchalant and unprepared traveler. It would actually be good if I prepared more than I do, since I’m always forgetting things, booking the wrong tickets, leaving my iPhone in coffee shops, and so on. But again, I just keep pressing forward, for better or worse.

As for teaching people to quit their jobs, that originally began from my own lack of experience at holding down any sort of job. I was a terrible employee and not good at working for anyone other than myself.

I feel like I can relate a lot to that. A lot of other people probably do too, but they’re not in the situation where they just say “screw it” and buy the ticket/get on the plane/quit. What helps you get through that moment?

Well, there are a lot of popular stories of people saying “screw it” and making big changes all at once, and they can be inspiring. But as you mention, not everyone can do that, and some people have legitimate obstacles or concerns that may take a while to resolve.

On my book tour last year I told a lot of different reader stories and tried to pay attention to which ones resonated the best with audiences. Probably the most popular story was about a guy in North Carolina who had a family and a “good” day job. He wanted to make some changes but couldn’t just abandon it all and move to Thailand, you know?

So instead of jumping ship, and instead of just going on with his self-described boring life, he started making a series of small changes. They began with what he called “Life Experiments”—just doing things differently, like going to the art museum during his lunch break, taking up a new hobby of photography, and so on.

Then he started traveling for work, and instead of going to Paris for a three-week commitment on his own, he found a way to take his wife and their three daughters. This way, the whole family had a fun and interesting cross-cultural experience.

Upon returning to the U.S., he eventually started consulting and is now completely self-employed. But the moral of the story, at least how he told it to me, is that the greatest change actually came from the beginning, the life experiments that helped him become more comfortable with doing things differently. With this story in mind, I always encourage people who can’t say “screw it” to start saying “What small things can I change right now?”

There’s a great book about that out there, I think it’s called One Small Step Can Change Your Life. It’s about small changes being more effective because they don’t set off alarms.

When I talk about it in the Flinch, I actually say the opposite. Let your alarms go off and realize that they’re not working well for you at all. They’re ineffective. Your fear is supposed to protect you, but it chokes you instead. For most things, our internal alarm system is defective.

During your book tour, how did you make people feel that they were capable of changing their programming?

Yeah, that’s good—I agree that fear can be a deadly force. When we’re being honest, I think most of us would admit that we’ve let fear make too many decisions for us. That’s certainly been the case for me, at least until I became aware of it.

I don’t think anyone can make people feel they are capable of changing their programming, or at least I don’t think I can. But it does help to provide examples: hey, look at this guy. He used to be just like you, but now he’s a totally different person. What did he do to bring him to this new place?

Especially when you’re a writer or otherwise doing something publicly, the danger is in assuming that everyone wants to be you. Sometimes this is self-inflected, other times some people may actually phrase it that way themselves: “I want to do what you do.” I always try to put the emphasis, and therefore the burden of change, back on that person: “Really? What exactly do you want to do? What’s stopping you?”

Right, what they actually want to be is just an idealized version of themselves, and you try to help them see that.

Just a final question: what is it that’s currently stopping you now? What is that thing that you still have some kind of anxiety about, if anything? How do you fight it?

Good question. I’m coming to the end of my quest to visit every country in the world, and that fact scares me a little. It’s funny because my wife, along with several other smart people, have been asking me for a while now: “What are you going to do when this is over?”

And for a long time, I didn’t understand the question. “What do you mean?” I’d say. “I’ll keep traveling, keep writing, and keep working on my business stuff.”

All of these things are true, but I think the people who asked were right in assuming that there is still a bigger question. In one way or another, I’ve been on the road for much of the time over the past decade. It’s become a big part of my identity. So all of a sudden, I feel a sense of loss and uncertainty, along with the anxiety you mention.

It’s certainly a good problem to have, compared to sucking down candy bars in a cubicle somewhere, but I honestly don’t know what I’ll do to fight it. For now I just keep traveling. ***

—

PS: I get inspired a lot by conversations I have with people. The Flinch was inspired by a moment I had with Jonathan Fields. This conversation actually helped me put together an idea for a book I’d been kicking around. Stay tuned.

Btw, Chris just came out with a guide to publishing (not an affiliate link). Check it out, I found it extremely informative. :)

Hey, you. Yes, you.

Do yourself a favour. This year, for once, I have a suggestion, and I’d like you to take it.

This year, this once, it’s time you used your New Year’s resolution properly for a change.

Stop screwing around with your I’m-going-to-lose-10-pounds, buy-a-treadmill bullshit. Stop with the 7-Minute-Abs, the “I’m going to blog every day” thing that everyone is doing right now. And your “I’m going to quit smoking for real this time” is not convincing anyone.

It is time for you to recognize that what you’re doing is not working.

“Great,” you may be thinking. “I agree.” Now, perhaps you will go and find people in your life who can give you a gentle talking to, such as your spouse or friends. They’ll set you straight. They can say, “come on man, you can do it,” and that’s helpful and good.

But there’s a problem. None of these people can really tell you the truth. They can’t call you on your bullshit right to your face, because that would be rude, and you might get angry at them. There are social consequences, shockingly.

But here’s the magic. On the internet, I can do whatever the hell I want. I can tell you the truth, because you don’t know me, and you probably never will. That, my friends, is freedom. I’m going to use it.

It’s time you snapped the fuck out of it. I’m here to help.

Enough screwing around. Let’s start with a few questions.

Q1. Do you know which five opinions of yours, right now, are 100% wrong?

Have you ever noticed how no one ever thinks they are wrong about anything, ever? “But I might be wrong about that” may just be the most rarely uttered sentence, ever– and when it is, it’s never about things that matter. Yet at any given moment, you can examine your opinions and ask yourself “which one of these am I wrong about?”

Of course, most people will answer “none.” Most people never think they’re wrong about anything.

Now ask yourself, is it truly possible that I am totally right about everything I think, right now?

Or is it more likely, and stick with me on this one, that you are totally wrong about a lot of things all of the time, but that you never examine your blind spots so you have no fucking clue what you’re doing right or wrong at all?!

Somewhere out there, there is a man or woman just like you, just as smart as you are, just as clever and good-looking, who has the exact opposite political views, or who thinks that Ayn Rand is the greatest philosopher of our time, or something.

Yet, these people are not idiots. In fact, it is highly possible that, quite counter-intuitively, the idiot is you. So the first step in all of this is to consider that it’s possible that you are wrong– not a little, but a lot– in fact, that you’re fucking everything up and that you need a wakeup call. You need to get bitch-slapped, regularly, and put your arrogant ass in its place.

I include myself in that group, of course.

Q2. Hey, so how’s that method working out for you?

I know! I’ve got this new habit I want to implement and I’m going to try it the exact same way that I tried it last year, except harder! Super good idea brah, let’s do it.

If you’re the average dude, with an average system and average efforts, how do you think your results will be? You got it: average. Should this surprise you? No.

Here’s the thing: average is bullshit. You think it’s fine because you’re also surrounded by average dudes, so any small difference makes you feel good about yourself. But you need to stop fucking around. It’s still average, you know it, and you’re better than that.

Get yourself a goddamn system. Read 18 Minutes, or Making Ideas Happen, or Getting Things Done, or Bit Literacy (free!), or anything else for that matter. Get a fucking clue. Get out of your usual habits and do something different or you will get nowhere.

Q3. Do you know what effort feels like?

This is a call-out to all of my friends on Twitter who are doing the same thing they were doing three years ago. You know who you are.

Here’s a question. When was the last time your body and your mind were totally screaming because you didn’t want to do something? When was the last time you felt that you had to do something, because you knew it was important, but it was too much work, too much emotional labour, and further, even if you did do it, you don’t even know how?

Then, how did it feel when you did it anyway? Yes, exactly.

This, my friends, is the ideal state. I call it the ring, because it’s the place where the fight actually happens. Those that enter are fighters, challengers, and champions– people who push their boundaries and make things happen. You cannot remain in the ring forever, because it is immensely difficult, but if you never go there, you will never have breakthroughs. Otherwise, your life will be a comfortable carriage ride all the way to the grave.

Q4. When was the last time you questioned your direction?

I just recently tested my genetic code on 23andMe. The results came back, and one thing that popped out is that I have higher possible chance of living to the age of 100 than most people. In other words, I have a long life to lead. I eat really well, exercise, fast 16 hours a day, and generally inform myself about health, so I have a feeling I’ll be doing alright and have a lot of time.

I do not believe, however, that this potential long lifespan (or anything else) allows me to feel like I have the right to fuck around and waste my life. You can choose to ready, fire, aim if you want, but remember to adjust afterwards because you may be going in the totally wrong direction.

My father, a career counsellor, used to tell me that people had on average 7 careers in your lifetime. In other words, there’s plenty of time to change and you should consider it! For example, after 15 years or so off and dropping out of art school, I am spending more time drawing, sculpting, etc, than I have in a decade. It’s challenging but it feels good, and good accidents can happen. Haruki Murakami, one of the most respected living writers in the world, started off writing while he owned a bar. He was just trying it out.

This should also be a sign to those of you who are choosing careers based on their potential future earnings. Stop being such a tool. Go do something you actually care about– trust me, I’ve had enough conversations with successful yet miserable people. Success and money are ruts that are just as hard to get out of as being in a miserable job for 5 years.

Q5. How are you going to be changing the world?

Here’s my final point– for now, at least. I’ve spent a lot of time around authors over the past little while and I’ve started to figure out that almost all of them have one primary thing to say, a single idea that they are really about. Seth Godin could be “be remarkable,” applied to multiple different formats. Tim Ferriss: “most effort is wasted– do what matters.” Pema Chodron: “Drop the storyline.” I could do this all day.

Here’s the thing: authors have to write down their ideas and express them differently. It’s their job and they have to work at it, so they get many ideas in their head and stick with those that matter to them (or sometimes those that sell– sigh). Point being, even non-authors need to figure this one thing out. But most never think about it. They plod along without much direction or grand goal at all– and if it is, it’s often rather selfish.

Again, I include myself in this.

Here is my suggestion: If you had a TED talk, or some other grand idea, how would you present it? Think about it. This is your one chance. How would you use it?

Or, optionally, if you had to leave something behind, if you were going to die and be entirely forgotten but could change one thing, what one thing would that be? Would you be like Bill W and start something to help alcoholics all over the world? Would you solve a technical problem or a social one? Think about it. Or write about it, it’ll help you figure it out.

Ok, now that you have the answer, or at least you’re thinking about it, here’s the real focus.

Q6. Why would you work on anything else but what actually matters?

I leave you with that. Please subscribe below.

For most, the man needs no introduction. But in case you do, here’s one anyway.

Leo Babauta is the founder of ZenHabits, a massively popular blog that is considered by Time Magazine to be one of the top 25 blogs in the world. This is already enough to make him interesting, but actually, there’s more.

In November of 2011, Leo completed the Goruck challenge, a 15-20 mile behemoth that pushes you to every limit you thought you had.

The connection to The Flinch seemed natural. If you read it, you’ll definitely love this.

Tell me about the Goruck challenge, and why you decided to do it.

They say if you have to ask, it can’t be explained. And so of course I’ll try to explain it: if you hear about the challenge — 12+ hours of grueling physical tasks with a 55-lb. backpack on your back — and you think it sounds like fun, you’re probably right for it.

It’s kind of like getting a taste of what the Special Forces guys do in training, but without the weapons. Weighted pushups, lunges, bear crawls, hiking, running, carrying logs, carrying your teammates … this is the kind of thing I wanted to try. I’m not into the military aspect, but I am into physical challenges, and especially into mental challenges. This was, at its deepest level, a mental challenge: you have to find it in you to not quit when it sucks really bad, to help your teammate when he’s falling down, to motivate your team to meet its missions. I found out a lot about myself.

I know they say “it’s all mental,” and I know from Crossfit, walking the Camino, etc, that it’s true, but there’s also real physical challenge there. How do you know you can do it?

You don’t know, and that’s the scary part. You should be able to run/hike with a weighted backpack (let’s say 30-lbs.) for a couple hours at least. You should be able to do a bunch of pushups, squats, lunges, and bear crawls. You should be able to sprint and run up hills. It requires strength, so practice carrying people on your back and shoulders.

If you can do all that, you should be OK physically. But it will still suck at times, and you’ll want to quit, no matter how physically prepared you are. You have to make it through the suck. You have to embrace the suck.

Now we’re talking. Ok, describe the moment where the suck occurs. How does it feel when it happens? How do you convince yourself to go on?

You’re cold and wet and you’ve been crawling on the sand for hours with your heavy pack biting into your shoulders and your knees are bloody and your shoulders want to collapse, and you don’t know when this will end. Your mind has been complaining constantly, “Why are we doing this? What’s the worst that would happen if we just quit and walked away? What are we trying to prove? Is it worth it? You could go home and sleep. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

And it’s incredibly tempting to give in to your mind, because it is very convincing. We are very very good at rationalizing, especially in the face of pain. It’s painful, and you want the pain to end, and you want to just rest. This is what happens when it starts to suck. And that was just the beginning of the suck — there were many other such moments along the way.

I would convince myself to go on first by being aware of what my mind was doing. I would watch my mind as an outside observer, and laugh at my mind and its rationalizations. Then I would pay attention to the ground in front of my face, the waves on the beach washing up near my body, the incredible view of the Golden Gate Bridge lit up at night, and think, “I am incredibly lucky.” I would feel the pain and the tiredness, and think, “What a wonderful thing it is to feel.” And then I would say, “Just one more step. We can re-evaluate after one more step.” Then I’d repeat that after that one step. It also helped that I had a team relying on me, and that I couldn’t just quit or I’d let them down.

I lived in a Japanese temple for a while where I did that. To delay the decision to stop meditating, I would say, “I will decide in exactly 30 minutes.” And then after that time: “Well, that wasn’t that bad, I could do that again.”

True, it works for anything. It helped me too when I started marathon training — you inevitably want to stop running, but if you just go a few more steps, you’ll be fine.

What I’m trying to figure out is how to make people resistant to the BS of that inner voice. To do it, you need a certain distance from yourself. How did you learn to do it? Were you born that way?

I learned it when I wanted to quit smoking, and the urges would be so strong and the rationalizations would nearly always beat me. I would tell myself, “Just get past this one urge.” I didn’t even need to go the whole day, just that one urge.

Before I learned this, I would give in to any urge. But when you realize the urge is there — you become self-aware — you learn that you can watch it, and listen to your inner voice. The inner voice is extremely intelligent, and the worst part is that we are usually not aware that it’s speaking. We just listen to it without being conscious of it. And it is talking all day long. Most people don’t realize how persistent and powerful it is.

Running really helped me to learn to listen to it, but not heed it. I run without an iPod, which means it’s just me, the outdoors, and my mind. So I pay attention to the nature around me, but also I have nothing to listen to but my mind. So I listen. And it talks, constantly.

Meditation helped strengthen this skill. Meditation is the same as running — you have nothing to pay attention to but your breathing, your body, and your mind. And your mind is very active. So you watch it, and you learn to be this observer, and it’s fascinating if you stick with it.

I’ve started to think that people should be doing difficult things on purpose, if only to train them to be able to push past their usual habits and internal programming. Do you agree? What other internal walls have you been able to push past?

I haven’t found this to be necessary myself, though I’m not saying you’re wrong. I do things in baby steps, so that change is easy. I find it much more sustainable than trying to do things that are really difficult.

I also think people are already doing difficult things in their routines — it’s incredibly unpleasant to be in a job you hate, to be overweight and unhealthy, to be deeply in debt. I know because I’ve done those things, but I felt stuck in this difficult life. The baby steps helped me to get out of the routine, to change my internal programming with micro changes.

As for other internal walls … one that I’ve been exploring is giving up goals. I’m very much programmed to be goal-oriented, and I think a lot of us are. When I first considered giving up goals, I thought it was impossible and stupid. But slowly I’ve been learning that it’s a much better way of thinking, at least for me.

Explain “giving up goals.” Did it help you complete the Goruck or was that something separate?

As I looked deeper into what’s necessary and what’s not, I started to question the need for goals — are they really essential? What would happen if you gave them up? Are they really the driving force behind what we accomplish? I’ve found that they are unnecessary — without goals, you’ll still work on things you’re passionate about, and do fun fitness activities and other things that excite you.

Goals take credit for our accomplishments, but our passion and interest is what really make things happen. Goals also add a lot of administration — goal setting, tracking, making sure you’re sticking to the goal, finding next actions, etc. Goals stress us out — if we’re not on track or don’t reach them, are we failures? Goals also fix us on a certain path, when in truth there are many possible paths and staying on one predetermined path with a fixed destination is an artificial limitation that’s completely unnecessary and unnatural.

When you remove this limitation, you are freed to do anything.

When I did the Goruck Challenge, I didn’t have “finish challenge” as a goal. I just wanted to have fun doing a new challenge. It didn’t matter to me if I finished or not. However, when I felt like quitting, I decided to stick it out through the urge to quit, to explore what that’s like. I think it’s a really interesting experiment, pushing past these urges to quit, and so that’s what I did. So yes, it did help me to finish.

“Free to do anything.” That is the perfect final sentence.

Last question: After all this progress you’ve made, is there anything you still feel any anxiety about? What do you still have problems with, if anything?

Sure, I have all the same insecurities as anyone else. I get anxious about unfamiliar social situations, public speaking, will people like my writing, am I good enough to write fiction? I have fears, about financial security and being alone and whether my life is meaningless.

The key I think is whether I let those insecurities and fears stop me from doing the things I love. I’m learning to watch those feelings, like an outside observer, and realize that they are not a part of me, but just something that happens. They are natural phenomena, like the sun rising or leaves changing color, but they are not who I am. So I watch, and let them happen, and don’t let them define me or what I do.

Find out more about Leo here.

Read The Flinch, for free, here.

Today my new book, The Flinch, is launched on Seth Godin’s Domino Project.

It’s about how to push your own barriers and how to do things that scare you.

Writing the book was hardest thing I’ve ever done, and as an experiment, it’s available for free.

With the help of Seth, Chris Brogan, and many others, I made something so far beyond my usual capacities that it actually shocks me.

Godin called it: “a surprise, a confrontation, a book that will push you, scare you and possibly stick with you for years to come.”

If it’s even that good, the question then becomes, how can you, the reader, make something so great that even you are unsure of how it was made?

7 Steps to the Best Work of Your Life

1. Burn your bridges. I was conscious of the fact that I would never get a chance to publish under Godin’s Domino Project again. I knew that if I screwed it up, I was done. You do your best work with your back against the wall, when you are uncomfortable and you put yourself in freefall, on purpose.

2. Grow an eye in the back of your head. Your blind spots, whether they are laziness or settling for anything sub-par, will kill you. I had people the entire way telling me to make it better, over and over again, until I practically cried and didn’t know how.

3. Be willing to suffer. Forget about the “starving artist” myth. Starving is easy– deprogramming is hard. Because you are a human being, you are programmed to settle in one way or another, and breaking that programming will hurt. Get used to it– it’s the only way to make something exceptional.

4. Be comfortable making something that people will hate. No one will love your work unless it has an opinion– and with an opinion come those that disagree. The first person outside of our little circle that saw the work did not like it at all, perhaps even hated it. This is also how I knew that I had something that some people would fight for.

5. Consider the future. In the future, books either cost $50 or $0. They are frictionless and those that travel the fastest and spread the widest, win. Make your work as close to the future as possible– but only 6 months, not 18 months. If you’re too far in the future, it’s possible no one will get it.

6. Sharpen your idea. This part is damn hard. Only when the idea became “the flinch” did I know that I had an idea that was sharp enough to travel. Every other idea had too much friction, too much difficulty to be expressed. When the idea marketplace is saturated (and it is now, more than ever), your idea needs to be more graspable than ever before, because you only get one chance.

7. All content must be spreadable. Quotes in 140 characters. Links in the text. New phrases that stick in people’s minds. Everything must be a part of your “marketing campaign”– even in a book that’s basically unsellable. The best quote from Godin on this was, “make it a poem that doesn’t rhyme.” There is so much information out there now that your work can no longer simply be commerce– it must also be art.

As of today, you can download the Flinch for free. I hope it you like it– if you liked this post, you will definitely enjoy it.

Every little while, technology is democratized to a point where everyone is once again put on equal footing.

It happened at the printing press. It happened with blogs. It happened with podcasting, and it happened with Twitter. It happens a little bit at a time, and as it does, I’m amazed by the average person’s ability to step up to the plate. Normal, supposedly non-qualified people become journalists, entertainers, or musicians. Everyone proves themselves capable, often despite the misgivings of those in the ivory towers.

Well, it’s about to happen again. I’m starting to see it now, and you probably are too.

The iPhone iPod has been out for ten years, and it’s reached a point of such ubiquity that everyone now also has an e-reader. They can push any text to their phone pretty much instantly.

So, this is about the time everyone starts to write books.

This is the time we all become authors.

I can start to see it already. The Domino Project is in full gear. I just received word that Chris Moore published his first book on his experiences in Cuba, direct to Amazon, for three bucks. Joshua just published his own, of short stories, since quitting his job. James Altucher continues to self-publish his work instead of going through mainstream publishers. And let’s not forget Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff, whose most recent, Transistor Rodeo, got its movie rights optioned recently.

So, I was sitting having breakfast with Greg Isenberg the other day when this gem occurred to me: at one point, the internet was nerdy and uncool. Now it is hip and super popular. Those that got in early on the web, won. Those that got in late, not so much.

So our job is now to find the new uncool thing immediately. And right now, self-publishing via Kindle is definitely one of those uncool things.

No prestige, no money, no gatekeepers. Everything that goes the way of the vanity press is supposedly low-quality, but is it really? Soon, we won’t think so. Everyone will be doing it, and you’ll wonder why you never got in on it back then.

We’re all going to be peers. It’ll be about sales and reviews, not about advances. It’ll be about cutting out the middleman. Bloggers, and others with powerful platforms, will realize they don’t need the middleman at all (or rather, that Amazon has become the new middleman, and they do a better job).

Now onto what happens to authors themselves, and their work.

First, friction for a purchase is drastically reduced by a deeply discounted price point. $2.99 for fifty thousand words will significantly impact sales.

Second, a book no longer sits there on your desk. Anyone with an iPhone can hold 1,000 of them. So your most recently read/opened books become your RSS reader, with new things popping up all the time.

Third, add numbers 1 and 2 above and you naturally get many more unfinished books than you’re used to seeing– that is to say, readers not bothering to finish books. You don’t see the unfinished books at the bottom of your Kindle list, so you never finish them, and the price point means you didn’t waste much. New books on the top of the pile end up being tried out instead of old ones getting finished.

Fourth, this means shorter books end up dominating. Seth Godin has it right here.

Fifth, the ebook (or whatever we end up calling it) ends up becoming the midpoint between the blog post and the book. Some authors (many, actually) may stay here since it’ll provide them with enough income to survive and a direct connection to their audience. I’m thinking the Ev Bogue and Gwen Bell types.

Sixth, publishers naturally need to adapt– and they end up at the top of the market, grabbing the best of the ebook markets and offering them great deals (the way publishers like Wiley do with bloggers now).

Sidenote, all of these things are happening already. This post isn’t about the future at all; it’s about the present. Hope you’re ready!

Games are useful. Games are fun. Yet, somehow, gamification itself has become the butt of almost every internet joke I’ve heard recently.

It isn’t because games aren’t useful. They are and they can change the world. It’s because gamification is being wasted on the most useless, time wasting crap I’ve ever seen.

Because of this, I feel that gamification is perhaps the most offensive thing to hit the internet in the past couple of years. I will attempt to explain why in the next few paragraphs, hopefully inspiring you, the reader or game designer, to do something better with games than more foursquare logins, Farmville XP, or any other nonsense you are currently hoping to ensnare your users with.

First, my qualifications: I have been a player of video games, RPGs, city-wide games of tag, iPhone games, and more for almost my entire life. But more importantly, I have been a D&D Dungeon Master (™) for over 20 years. In this, I am an eternal student, but I have hopefully developed some sense of what makes things fun, and why people keep coming back. So I am “qualified” to talk about games, as absurd as that statement should be.

But this is actually about more than that. It isn’t about designing better games, or saying that gamification is dead or alive or whatever statement can help sell papers. It’s about saying that gamification is a mercenary industry/profession that sells itself to the highest bidder, when what they should be doing is changing the world.

Are you a gamer? Are you a game designer? Are you currently designing bullshit badges for users that don’t give a fuck, or worse, that they care so much they’re ignoring real life? In that case, I have a clarion call I hope you will hear.

Stop trying to make games better. They are fine. It’s life that is broken. Start fixing that.

Our schools are broken. They churn out people with little initiative who can’t find jobs anyway. The system is no longer levelling people up properly.

Rewards are being disproportionately placed in the wrong hands. Our smartest people go into banking because they receive massive compensation and no downside. They are the min-maxers, the munchkins of our world; they have found the loopholes and been led down the wrong path because of it.

Occupy Wall Street is full of people who want the game world to work better. But no one is fixing it because they’re too busy on their own personal World of Warcraft. This is bullshit and it’s killing us.

Our games are rigged in the wrong direction. This is so obvious is needs no further argument, so I will move on to people that are doing it correctly, and what further steps we can take to solve this.

There are people whose understanding of games is helping real life in small ways– helping understand behaviour and guiding it towards more useful things. Chore Wars or my friend Kyle’s company High Score House is an example. They help people do better at the thing they suck at most right now– life.

Yet the majority of our institutions are broken, giving us no way to get better at the things that matter most. We are natural pattern recognition machines that get very good at understanding and hacking simple systems, so when we’re given a new job, we immediately figure out how much we can slack off, for example, the same way we know how to get a good report card by doing the smallest amount of work possible.

We are naturally detecting which games matter and which don’t– and we are figuring out that most of our life is the fundamental equivalent of gold farming. It’s pointless and it’s fucking sad.

FACT. No one has a fundamental method for teaching people what matters in life and what does not. No one knows how to teach people what the important games are, and how to win at them. Most people on the internet are still buying bullshit $47 make-money-online programs, time and time again, or spending time trying to vote their dog up on cleverly designed marketing campaigns. (Even I’m guilty of this.)

Very few people are doing this for doing something that’s fundamentally good.

No one is systematically guiding people through the dungeon of life, intelligently and for free. Everyone is trying to turn gamification into the thing that helps keep their website stickier. It’s disgusting.

However, there is a culture out there, one that has survived for a long time, in which people are designing games and running people through them, for free. These people take hours, sometimes dozens of hours out of their weeks in order to help their friends have fun. This culture is largely non-profit and runs like Wikipedia. Most attempts to monetize this audience fail because they just want to help their friends have fun.

These people are role-players and the people who design for their world: Dungeon Masters. But even they spent their time in imaginary worlds, making fun stuff for their friends, yet mostly sit on the sidelines in helping to make a difference in their community around them.

The reason this is important is because it proves that there is an initiative in human beings to design things for their friends, to help them enjoy themselves week after week.

But if there are people who do this around the world, everywhere in every language, for free, why are those who are trying to improve the game of the real world relegated to its backwaters, with social workers, teachers, and after-school program leaders being paid nothing, given no social status or benefits?

We need actual mentors, but backed by systems that we know function well because of our experimentation inside of the game systems we have come to know and love.

We already know that some people want and love to teach others, but their systems are broken. Gamers understand how to create and fix system.

Gamers love to create mazes and run people through them, but the points don’t matter. We need to put them in a place where what they do makes a real difference.

What we need are Dungeon Masters for the real world.

Edit: Let me give you an idea of what I mean. The world is filled with systems that children need to go through in order to level up. They are fundamental and easy and everyone knows them.

Swimming: Most people who learn how to swim learn wrong and couldn’t save themselves in a bad situation if they tried. This is a fundamental skill that has a curriculum, but is no longer serving people properly.

Math: Math is a basic set of skills that everyone needs. They’re given it in school and yet many people can no longer do calculations in their head, if they ever could. Another life skill that people are lacking yet don’t know they need.

Advanced skills: And this is just the beginning. Most people don’t know how to see a profitable business idea if they spot one. They don’t know how to make good habits stick. They don’t know to build confidence. They don’t know how to meet a nice girl. They basically don’t know how to learn many of the most important skills, and there is no guide for helping them learn.

Here are skills I’d be more than happy to learn from a qualified person in a game environment.

• Investing
• Swimming
• Cooking
• Advanced social skills
• Writing

The list goes on and on.

In a game world, you start with something easy, and you learn as you go on. You gain experience points, and you progress along a pre-set path that will eventually guide you to be able to get through the next level, use your skills in a better way, etc.

Some people have succeeded at this, but most have not. It is those that have had some success in life (whatever form it takes) whose job it is to design the game for those yet to come.