The Nerdist Way: How to Reach the Next Level (In Real Life)

by Chris Hardwick

Sometimes relationships just don’t work no matter how much we want them to. Don’t purposely alienate people with your craft, but also don’t lose yourself trying to please everybody.

Remember, when you try to talk to everyone, you’re actually talking to NO ONE.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU THINK.

Your brain doesn’t mean to lead you in bad directions! It really has what it perceives to be your best interests at heart.

Founders Matt Besser, Matt Walsh, Ian Roberts, and Amy Poehler

EWWWWW

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.” I

NEVER EMAIL, TEXT, TWEET or CALL people while experiencing negative emotions!

hm.

your first draft doesn’t have to be your FINAL draft. And if you’re not crazy about something you’re laying down, just call it a placeholder until you get a better idea,

Come up with the dumbest, hackiest thing you can think of. (And don’t say, “Like your book?! Heh-heh.” I got my eye on you, Trolls!)

Once, I wouldn’t refresh my Web site design for MONTHS because I couldn’t decide between two shades of gray for the background (this was LITERALLY a gray area: #666666 vs. #999999).

Just go with the superior #696969

One way I’ve gotten around my indecision is by relying on a default word that I commit to each New Year.

The point is, own your decisions. It’s not even a mistake: Given all of the information you had, you made the best decision you could.

I finally had to construct a bullshit “if-then” situation so my brain would let it go. It went something like this: “Well, IF I had stayed at that event any later, THEN it’s possible a meteor may have fallen and killed me on the way home.” OF COURSE THAT IS HIGHLY IMPROBABLE. But it’s not 100 percent impossible either, and that’s how my brain gets tricked. It’s a weird, secular outgrowth of my Italian Catholic mother’s “everything happens for a reason” thing. (Though don’t free will and determinism create a universal paradox? Oh, never mind.) She would always say, “Well, if you had done that other thing, you might have died in a car accident on the way home, so don’t feel bad.” I added the meteor because large unexplained meteors in urban settings are funny to me for some reason.

Aw, man . . . Spring of ’11!!! Good times. [chestbump] [woop woop] [crying]).

YOU MAKE YOUR OWN LUCK.

Again. This sort of thinking can quickly veer into victim-blaming. Knowing what I know of the author, that doesn’t surprise me.

I’m certainly not suggesting that everything is your fault, but it’s good to adopt the mind-set that crappy things might happen anyway, so why give them any encouragement?

If you wish to achieve any kind of success in this life, do your best to surround yourself with an orgy of good choices

Kinda funny now that I think about it, though . . .)

GROSS!!! This guy was known as a sex pest even as a kid.

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. Literally.

Strive for excellence in something you love. When you commit yourself to a higher principle of excellence, there will always be at least one other option for you to fall back on.

You don’t have to be an ace with the ladies to pick up more ladies—you can excel at something entirely different and still get the action you so richly deserve.

Think of a situation in which you felt desperate and write down at least two options you might have had. If you can’t come up with any, stop feeling bad about it! There was nothing else you could do.

NEVER go online to self-diagnose. EVER. Don’t fucking do it.

lmao get fucked - informed self-diagnosis of mental conditions is fine

guess when I have the most anxiety? During periods when I slow down.

It’s easy to believe that panic is purely emotional, but it’s not. It’s physiological.

(sorry, Creation Museum).

the brain is just misfiring, bless it. It means well.

I know, coffee is a bitchin’ dominatrix that kicks your ass throughout the day with a twenty-ounce boot, but at what cost?

I wonder if there’s a different effect on panic attacks for those who find caffeine makes them calm and sleepy, rather than hyper and focused. I’m in the former camp but don’t get panic attacks often enough to know how they’re affected by caffeine.

Just think, if you had a panic attack five hundred years ago, they’d have thought you were possessed by some manner of dark spirit and you would’ve had the panic burned or bled out of you!

five hundred try fifteen

Most people breathe very shallowly, up in their chest, and this is very true of panicky types.

I bet there’s a connection between choir training and decreased anxiety - learning breathing techniques from an early age

But keeping that heart rate below NASCAR isn’t just for panic attacks anymore! It’s also good for quelling anger, hysteria, and just plain old stress (the vanilla of neuroses).

Rational: This roller coaster just separated from the track mid-loop. I am now afraid. Irrational: My foot’s asleep. It may be because of a crippling neurological disorder or some type of rare foot cancer.

Rational: I don’t think it’s safe to eat that bleach. Irrational: What if I fail at life???

Rational: I fear that if we jump into that lava, our skin will burn off. Irrational: Everything outside my house might kill me.

Rational fears keep us safe. Irrational fears...

Remember, if you hear hoof clops behind you, it’s probably a horse and not a zebra.

Unless you live on an African savanna, in which case you will probably be assaulted by goddamn zebras. (Zebrae?)

Worry—a gifted therapist once told me—is a misuse of your imagination. It

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.

Being afraid of one thing led me to be afraid of similar things.

When I was seventeen, I was in an elevator with my mom. The doors took quite a bit longer to open than they should have and I noticed my mom start to tense up. Apparently she had been stuck in an elevator as a young’un and didn’t much care for the experience. That tiny moment yanked a cord in my brain that started it like a speedboat: “Yeah . . . what if the doors didn’t open??

generational trauma!

Right on the precipice of panic, I caught myself. I remembered that most of this irrational fear stuff didn’t bother me anymore. I fished around in my emotional trunk and confirmed that, no, I didn’t seem to have this fear anymore.

every once in a while, I needed to reexamine my fears to affirm or deny their presence.

You ever notice how a lot of elderly folks seem quick to make judgments or stereotype . . . maybe even get a little racist as they age? I certainly don’t think that’s awesome but what could contribute to that is that we have a limited economy of energy.

Or it could be the way the entire system of society kills off those that are different (see: the AIDS crisis). Saving energy by snap judgements doesn’t mean “becoming racist.” Racist old people were always racist.

(Though I would have been smart enough to draw a sex opening on Wilson.)

WHY IS THIS GUY SO GROSS AND PERVY?!?

Psychology Today

> is against self-diagnosis > reads Psychology Today (home of “dark empath” type pseudoscience)

The message of this article streamlined all of my fears into one manageable mass. I wasn’t afraid of a bunch of different crap, I was afraid of ONE THING.

Write down all of the things you are afraid of. See if there’s a connection.

Write this down and read it when you’re in panic mode: “Hey! Wiener! You’re just having a panic attack! Count to twenty while breathing slowly! YOU ARE FINE.” Then add below it “Baaaaaaaaaaalls!” because that’s funny to see written down.

If you need to know the difference between “round and firmy” or “short and squirmy,” I am pretty skilled in those matters and would feel much more confident counseling you one-on-one as such.

Is….. this a sex joke?