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It’s a weird and glorious moment of self-awareness the day you realize that you are the warden rather than the prisoner of your emotions. The interesting thing about our minds is that if we don’t actively seize control of them, they default to autopilot.
Nerds get caught up in the minutiae because there is a tremendous and fulfilling sense of control in understanding every single detail of a thing more than any other living creature. The second important facet to a Nerd is his or her voluminous imagination and attraction to fantasy.
Events are inherently valueless. WE assign values to them. How you perceive something gives it its value.
One way to look at it is that if you’re not getting rejected a bunch, you may not be trying to innovate.
If you can believe you deserve good things and cultivate this skill of “putting yourself out there no matter what,” you will be ahead of 98 percent of the humans on this eroding rock.
Ask. Good. Questions. This may be the single most important thing you can do in your life. Instead of screaming “WTF???” every time something lame happens, ask more effective questions of yourself.
“What REALLY went wrong? How could I have made this better? Was the hitch an unforeseeable one? What can I learn from this to improve future iterations?” Stare your failure in the face and grill it. Don’t blink. Charlie never blinks.
This may be because once you have bombed, you realize that (1) it’s not as bad as you thought it would be, (2) you live through it, and (3) you can figure out how to fix it for next time.
No human ever became interesting by not failing. The more you fail and recover and improve, the better you are as a person. Ever meet someone who’s ALWAYS had EVERYTHING work out for them with ZERO struggle? They usually have the depth of a puddle. Or they don’t exist.
Ever meet someone who’s ALWAYS had EVERYTHING work out for them with ZERO struggle? They usually have the depth of a puddle. Or they don’t exist.
Puddle depth. Splash!
Remember, when you try to talk to everyone, you’re actually talking to NO ONE.
Everyone = No One!
You might have more or less, which I don’t know because I don’t live in your head. (Unless you’re a solipsist.)
A simple mantra that has guided me through the darkest whispers of autocerebral asphyxiation: YOU DON’T HAVE TO BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU THINK.
Bad brain!
He either just had a bad day or is generally unhappy. Happy people simply don’t go into slaughter mode over non-life-threatening situations.
Happy people simply don’t go into slaughter mode over non-life-threatening situations.
Must remind myself of this, for my sake and others'.
This is how it can work with your brain. When it angrily demands that you do something that you know isn’t good for you, you can literally say to yourself, “I hear you. I get what you’re saying. But what you’re asking of me will cause more damage for [this, this, and this reason], and I’m not going to do it.”
The key to the invisible door in The Wall is not to think of NOW as your only opportunity. Give yourself the freedom to take multiple passes at things.
You are the architect of your life. If your building materials are negativity and inactivity, then you are essentially building a tower made of shit that will come raining down on you in a brown storm of failure.
If you wish to achieve any kind of success in this life, do your best to surround yourself with an orgy of good choices (which you can only do once you accept that having choices is a good thing). This is how you create circumstantial luck.
Confidence in any scenario isn’t about trying to convince yourself, “Hey! I’m awesome squared!” It’s about feeling like you have options. Whenever you have at least one other option in life, you feel relaxed, safe, and cool because if the one thing doesn’t work out, you’re not going to die.
Keep this in my back pocket.
Worry—a gifted therapist once told me—is a misuse of your imagination.
In a pinch, focus on an external problem. If you can’t find one, think of something you are thankful for and focus on all ways that it is awesome. If you’re not thankful for anything, breathe slowly and focus on nothingness.
If you can do it responsibly, drinking is like pouring smiles on your brain!
“The right thing to do is to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Sweat-fruits, I call them, for no reason I can recall. Honor your work as if it were a person you respected.”
THE COMFORT OF REJECTION Having been socially ostracized since early childhood, most Nerds are very comfortable with rejection. Not that we love it or anything, it’s just that it’s familiar. Not getting rejected is unfamiliar, and we fear the unknown. It’s a dumb survival thing. Your short-term-planning lizard almonds will ALWAYS SEEK OUT COMFORT.
This rings a little true.
I think pursuing happiness is the wrong approach. That idea puts it into the future, and therefore in the wrong tense. You just need to BE happy—in the present—with who you are and what you have.
Nerds know they’re smarty-pantses—in fact, it’s part of how they define themselves, so sometimes we come from a place of “everyone is stupid but me.” This is shitty and wrong. It also leads to spontaneous emotional reactions to situations rather than calm, well-thought-out ones. Here’s a little trick to keep you from going from zero to yelly in 5.4 seconds: Whatever your first reaction is, make it your third.
In pursuing fitness, you’re pursuing knowledge of your body machine, comfort in your skin, and a natural confidence in your interaction with the world that will pull your shoulders back and allow you to expose your chest, a PRIME symbol of “shit’s cool.” I’m not telling you to become a ’roided-up monster, but I believe that everyone deserves a little “shit’s cool” in their life.
Effort, big or small, is always rewarded! Deem yourself worthy and embrace that, which you so deserve. —Trainer Tom
Everyone fucks up sometimes.
Collaboration opens you up to pretty much ANY field you’ve always wanted to try. Success in your life can come just as much from spotting talented people and forming partnerships.
As someone who tends toward being mercilessly hard on myself, I found that it was easy to let the “win” of successes vacate my conscious mind fairly quickly. I had a very “what have you done for me lately” relationship with myself,
Make your greatest hits list! Like yourself more.
