Pete Michaud » Inspiration

Dominoes and the Price of Admission

Pete — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 19:00:17 +0000

I really wanted to quit my job. I was too afraid of the domino effect to do it though. Quitting my job meant not being able to pay my mortgage and take care of my family.

We get stuck because we start thinking about the domino effect. The fear that the changes we want are going to cause a cascade of changes we don’t want.

The sticking point here is that we spend all this time thinking about the aspects of our lives we want to change, but when we can’t figure out how to change those things without affecting anything else, we give up.

“Fuck yeah, fuck my boss! He can take my gray little Dilbert cubicle and shove it right up his ass!” sounds great until your car payment is due.

Leaving your verbally abusive wife sounds good until you think about finding a new place to live, and the reality of your growing waistline in the face of having to go out and date again. You stop thinking about it because it feels too painful.

Don’t do that.

Here’s what you do instead: write down the consequences of the thing you want to do and work backward to eliminate them. Get rid of the bills you’re afraid you can’t pay. While you can still afford to live in the bigger place, move into a smaller place. While you can still afford two cars, sell them and buy two bikes instead, or a clunker. Now you’re free to stay or quit without the fear of the domino effect.

It helps to think like the worst has already happened. Sit and imagine you’ve just been fired. What do you do? Do you start looking for ways to cut back expenses? Do you take some time off to relax? Do you look for a different job? Do those things now, before you leave your job: cut expenses like you’re destitute, take some time off, look for a different job (you really are a masochist, aren’t you?). Now those dominoes have no power over you.

Tah-dah! You’re free to quit your job.

Caveat: Price of Admission

There are circumstances in which you endure one thing in order to hang onto another thing, and that can be okay. I call it the “price of admission.” You might have a boyfriend who you love dearly, and he might drive you up the wall by constantly leaving his clothes on the floor. You pick them up and wash them. Price of admission.

If you’re facing something that you think might be a deal breaker but you’re not sure, then:

Ask yourself: What is causing my pain? I pick up dirty clothes because I want a clean room and my boyfriend leaves his shit everywhere.
Ask yourself: What do I get for my pain? In exchange for cleaning clothes on the floor and a small portion of my sanity, I get an intensely loving, sexy boyfriend.
Is what I get worth my pain? In other words, if someone proposed a deal to me to get the thing from question two in exchange for my pain, would I take the deal? Yes, I would take a kickass boyfriend in exchange for a life of uncertain laundry cleanliness.
No, the upside isn’t worth the downside. Then stop taking the deal: it’s a deal breaker.
Yes, the upside is worth the downside. Then you have two things to do. You must do the first. The second is up to your discretion and creativity:
1. Become 100% okay with whatever the bad thing is. Even if you wouldn’t generally choose to clean up clothes after a grown-ass man, you have chosen to clean up in this context. That word is important: cleaning the dirty clothes is now a choice that I made, not a situation that I’m victimized by. If you find it impossible to be okay with a situation, then stop kidding yourself: the upside really isn’t worth the downside, stop taking the deal.
2. Solve the problem in a different way. Hire a housekeeper. Problem solved.
Don’t let the domino effect stop you from making the changes you know you need to make for a life of passion and fire. Eliminate the power those dominoes have over you, or fully embrace the prices you deliberately choose to pay for the life you truly desire.

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You Suck At Everything

Pete — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 16:03:57 +0000

People are born with talents. You better hope you get one that’s impressive or lucrative, because otherwise you’re screwed.

Take these two artists for example:

Artist #1

Artist #2

I didn’t choose these two artists so I could pick on the first one though. I actually picked these two because they illustrate my point, and there’s something really interesting about both of these guys: they have the same name. It’s not impossible, but “Jonathan Hardesty” isn’t the most common name to share.

The Difference Between The Jonathan Hardestys

I want to show you another comparison. It’s the Jonathans’ self portraits.

Jonathan #1

Jonathan #2

What are the chances of these two artists’ names being identical?

100%

Jonathan #1 is from 2002. Jonathan #2 is from 2011, almost a decade later.

The Jonathans have the same DNA, the same mother, the same father. The difference between the two Jonathans is time, determination, and persistence. Talent doesn’t exist; get to work.

Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
-Calvin Coolidge

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Strong Man and Doer of Deeds

Pete — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 04:33:43 +0000

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

Theodore Roosevelt
“Citizenship in a Republic,”
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

Accomplish something today.

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Change the World, No Excuses

Pete — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 18:00:33 +0000

Thank you very much!!

Your blog was a little spark that ignite a fire inside me.

I don’t know if you remember, but my heart was destroyed, and the next day a I got an email from G8 (the best 8 universities in Australia) inviting me to apply for masters. It was something i have always wanted, but at that time, it could have been a sudoku or a puzzle, no difference.

I did all the paperwork to think of something else and now I’m leaving! I’ll get my master in crosscultural communication in USydney, with a scholarship that covers everything! I think it’s fate! or maybe the spark was always there and it just needed something to ignite.

Your blog did that to me. I looked for help and i found it in your blog. Thank you very much dude. Everything happens for a reason, I guess. Sometimes things need to be torn down and apart to build something new, better and more beautiful

I feel like super happy now

Thanks!

CB

Cristian Barrera has been a reader for a long time and this week he sent me that message.

When I get those types of messages my heart skips a beat, I feel a rush of blood in my neck, I feel alive. The effort I put into my work here on this site changes peoples’ lives. It empowers people to create themselves and build the reality they choose. I know I’m doing what I’m meant to do.

I could be a well-paid software engineer. My grandparents would be proud, they would understand what I do, and be able to explain it to their friends who would all be impressed knowing I had a Good Job™.

But I chose to build this site instead. I chose to do my breakthrough sessions instead. That wasn’t an easy choice, but it was the right choice.

Do you get messages like this from the people you work with? Are you changing lives? If not, then why the hell not?

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How to Choose Your Emotions

Pete — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 20:31:35 +0000

We think our emotions happen to us. The internal experience of an emotion makes it feel inevitable. Our language even tricks us: that phone bill made me angry.

But that’s an illusion.

To prove that our reactions and experiences are entirely within our control, I present one Thích Quảng Đức.

Thich Quang Duc Self-Immolates (Click to Enlarge)

Thích Quảng Đức, a Buddhist monk, burned himself alive in 1963. If you’re like me, your skin crawled and your heart jumped when you saw this picture. We project our expected internal experience on him, so we vicariously experience agony when we see him burning.

But look again, at his face, bubbling and flaking off his skull as it is. Serenity. Centered calm. Witnesses reported that he did not move a muscle or make a sound, until his burnt husk finally collapsed forward after about ten minutes of burning.

You should not expect that kind of adamantine self control from yourself. I’m sharing this with you to remind you that your experience of the world, and your reactions to it are entirely your choice.

The Script

Some asshole with chrome rims and no door handles cuts you off in traffic. The spurt of adrenaline constricts your chest, and your head throbs as you grip the steering wheel. Asshole, you yell.
Your room mate is playing his music at 1am again, and you’re frustrated.
A friend flakes on you for the second time in a row, you’re pissed, you feel disrespected.

All these are normal reactions. These are the kind of reactions your parents demonstrated to you while you were growing up. Your friends and family won’t think twice if you react like that.

But the normalcy and inevitably of these reactions is an illusion. You’re just running a script, a program, that’s been passed on to you, that you haven’t thought hard enough about to stop.

But now you will.

The Choice

The limbic system is the seat of emotions in the brain. Even though our internal experience as humans seems like it takes place in the frontal lobe, with language and rational thought, the limbic system is the older, more powerful part of us. It’s the reason we can’t resist chocolate. It’s the reason rape turns our stomachs, or turns us on. It’s the reason that guy cutting you off in traffic makes you so very upset.

When people talk about choices, they usually mean a rational choice: analyze your options, then choose the one that makes the most sense. You don’t feel like emotions are a choice because they aren’t… a rational-level choice.

Emotions are a limbic-level choice, and you can’t make a limbic-level choice the same way you’d make a rational level choice. If you try to rationally choose not to be upset at your loud room mate, you will fail. The limbic system doesn’t respond to reason. The limbic system only responds to sensation and chemistry.

Think of your limbic system as a machine that you can put an experience into, and get a feeling out of. Loud noise in, frustration out.

Training Your Limbic System

Before you can train your limbic system, you have to know that experiencing, remembering, and imagining are virtually identical cognitive processes.

So a dog scares you when you’re a child, and every time you remember that experience, you are scared as if it’s happening to you again. That reinforces your limbic-level idea that dogs are scary. That’s how phobias develop: an early experience gets trapped in an echo chamber until it becomes an overwhelming emotional burden.

The good thing about how this works is that just like your early experience planted an emotional seed, you can deliberately choose new experiences that will plant a similar emotional seeds that can “echo” and grow in your mind.

If that’s not feasible for your situation, you can imagine or remember differently—remember that those are almost identical to experiencing.

Desensitization

The first option I mentioned is to deliberately experience your fears in a safe context. People afraid of spiders can conquer that fear by looking at pictures of spiders, then video of spiders, then real spiders. Then touching the spiders.

People afraid of approaching hot women cure their fear by approaching anyone at all, then women they aren’t interested in, then hot women.

What’s happening is that your limbic system is learning that nothing bad happens in these contexts. The more you do it, the more that safety is anchored, the more that well-being is associated with the experience.

It doesn’t matter that you already “know” that spiders are mostly harmless. You have to feel it.

Emotional Anchoring

This is a big topic that spans most of NLP, but I’ll give you a broad overview. The goal is to use “anchors” to trigger a desirable emotional response.

Anchors can be any action or thought. Maybe for you, going back to your parents’ house and eating a meal your mom cooked triggers a deep sense of safety and love. An NBA star might feel a rush of confidence and competence as he steps onto the court.

These are rituals that trigger emotional responses because of past experiences.

The basic steps to creating an anchor are:

Choose an emotion you want to be able to call up at any time.
Relax deeply by breathing and clearing your mind.
Remember a time when you truly felt the emotion you chose. Put yourself back in that moment, remember how you felt, how did everything look to you? how did it feel, smell, taste? Don’t skimp here, you must really feel this emotion deeply.
While fully in that relaxed state of remembering and imagining, perform some ritual. Squeeze your left hand into a fist, say some unusual combination of words, imagine yourself bathed in light. Whatever you want, it’s up to you.

Perform the steps again for the same emotion and ritual, but this time with a different experience. The more you do it, the more heavily the emotion will be anchored.

So you’ve anchored serenity and joy into a phrase: the world is beautiful. Next time a jerk cuts you off, the adrenaline still spurts, but you focus and you say: the world is beautiful. You feel better instantly.

Over and over, on your commute, you’re cut off, and each time you say: the world is beautiful. Eventually you’ll condition your mind to react with serenity and joy when you’re cut off in traffic, without even invoking the anchor.

If you don’t think that’s possible, remember Thích Quảng Đức. A lifetime of anchoring serenity and detachment through meditation. Not even being burned alive could shake him. You can choose to be joyful in your life.

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How to Break Your Limits

Pete — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 10:00:20 +0000

Gema is 23 years old and might be gay. She’s not sure. (Not news.)

The problem about being maybe-gay is that Gema lives with her hyper-conservative parents, and has no legal rights as an unmarried Muslim woman in Indonesia.

She was in a bind. Her parents expect her to find a nice boy (of their choosing probably), get married, and make lots of babies. At 23, she’s older than any of her sisters or cousins were when they all got married, and the family is starting to look bad to their friends.

But Gema wants to get educated, wants to experiment with girls, wants to be her own person. Then, and only then, she might consider settling down with a nice boy. Or girl, maybe.

But she’s stuck. She must live with her parents until she’s married to a boy. She’s never had sex with a boy, nor will she be able to until marriage. But she’s also never felt attracted to a boy. The couple of times she’s had sex with girls have been fraught with shame and doubt.

Most countries expect immigrants to have a college education, something out of Gema’s reach. Even if that weren’t true, any visa she could get would require parental consent.

She has no options.

You knew there was a punchline…

When Gema told me her story, the first question I asked her was what the age of majority is in Indonesia. She didn’t really know what that meant, but she knew that people were considered adults at 18 in Indonesia.

I told her I had good news for her.

First, I told her, you are a legal adult in your country. I know you think your parents have control over you legally, but they actually don’t. The idea that you stay with your parents and listen to them until you’re married is purely a cultural constraint, not a legal constraint. That means that if you choose to, you may leave your parents’ house whenever you want. You are free.

I also told her that an Indonesian adult does not need parental consent to obtain a visa. Again, she’s free to make her own choices.

Finally I told her, you are not responsible for the choices or feelings of your family members. You cannot make them happy, and you also cannot make them sad. The way they respond to your actions is entirely their choice. If they choose to feel shame as a result of you living the life you want, that is not your fault. It is entirely up to them. You are only responsible for your own choices, not for the choices of your family.

Then, she lived happily ever after.

Just Kidding

Gema politely thanked me, but restated her position:

There’s no law, she said, that specifically prevents me from moving out. But there’s also no law that specifically frees me. She said Indonesia just doesn’t have any law about the parent/child relationship as it relates to the age of the child. She told me that if she said “I’m over 18, so I’m free to decide my own life,” her parents tell her to shut up, they are an Eastern family, and she’s talking nonsense.

So I do what I always do when faced with an inscrutable question: I scrute it. I dug into the Indonesian constitution and law.

I told her that Chapter 10 of the Indonesian constitution guarantees that all citizens (Gema is an adult citizen) have the right to choose education, work, citizenship, and where they live. They also have the right, according to chapter 10, to express their opinion, to have freedom of thought and conscience, religion, and they have the right to not be falsely imprisoned or enslaved.

I explained to her that “age of majority” is the age when children legally cease to be minors and assume control over their persons, actions and decisions, thereby terminating the legal control and legal responsibilities of their parents over and for them.

That hit her like a ton of bricks. I saw the light flash across her face. She looked confused for a moment before widening her eyes. The law is on her side. She is not stuck. She is an autonomous person.

Gema immediately applied and was accepted for a work visa in Singapore. She might even meet a cute girl there.

You Are Gema

Gema had been “stuck” for years, laboring under this false restriction. She had a limiting belief, that her parents could control her every move, and that she was powerless to stop them.

For Gema, freedom was one google search away—just a quick glance through the actual laws she thought chained her down. Just a few minutes and Gema’s old chains were broken. Those chains were in her mind the whole time.

But I didn’t tell you this story because I think you particularly care about an Indonesian woman named Gema. I told you this story because you are Gema. We are all Gema, in our own ways.

Consider your desires, and think about why you haven’t fulfilled them yet. What limitations have you built for yourself that prevent you from being fulfilled?

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Stop Apologizing

Pete — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 10:00:30 +0000

This is a note to self. I’m pretty good at not apologizing for who and what I am, but this whole energy work thing got my panties in a bunch.

Half of my friends think energy work is obvious. A fact of nature, and of life. The other half unsubscribed from my e-mail list after the essay went out. That’s okay.

Jenny Bones linked me to a discussion that I really needed to see between Susan Johnstone and Bridget Pilloud about the term “woo-woo” which is identical to my term “hippy shit.” It means “out there” stuff like energy work.

They agree that the term is self-apologetic. A preemptive pejorative that we apply to our own model of the world—after all, if we look down on ourselves first, we hope to rob others of the power to look down on us as well. It’s hard to make fun of someone who is trying so hard to make fun of themselves.

Authentically Weird

We think authenticity sounds noble because we imagine we’ll be authentically brave, smart, strong, compassionate. Authentically successful. Authentically palatable.

But authenticity is trickier than that. If you’re a smart person you will inevitably come to conclusions that will confuse, alienate, and upset some other people. Smart people end up on fringes because they ask a lot of questions and demand the answers. That’s how business coaches begin offering astrology services.

If you’re not pissing people off, you’re not trying hard enough. Or you’re not honest enough with yourself. Don’t apologize for who you are.

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Fear Doesn’t Stop

Pete — Mon, 23 May 2011 15:56:20 +0000

If you live in the fantasy that life will start once you are no longer afraid, you will be playing the waiting game forever.

That’s a quote from the beautiful and brainy Dr. Brenner of A Flourishing Life. She touches on a hugely important point in a recent post: fear isn’t conquered by forcing yourself to stop feeling it, then getting on with your life. Fear is conquered by feeling it, looking straight into its eyes, and moving forward anyway.

What have you been waiting to feel secure about? Stop waiting, just jump in.

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Authenticity Alienates (That’s Okay)

Pete — Sat, 21 May 2011 03:18:14 +0000

I could brand myself as a business blog and I’d be credible since my retirement story is the the kind of thing that the blogosphere loves to jerk off to. I could talk about technology like I did when I was Ken Sharpe. I could talk about cognitive biases, or philosophy. The list continues.

I’m not comfortable branding myself in any of those ways. I keep revisiting my about page because it causes me dissonance—my most popular posts are practical, about customers, procrastination, entrepreneurship, but my about page makes me sound like a self help hippy.

But I never change it because I read over those words and they ring true. It turns out that I secretly am a hippy.

I do have a fire.

My deepest desire is to ignite that fire in others, and I want them to break out of their generic existence to spread that fire to others as well. Every time I write a productivity essay that gets a bunch of traffic from StumbleUpon, I’m disappointed because I know I’m missing my real target.

But the posts I write that hint at passion and fire don’t go anywhere. A few people read them and don’t comment, and Google doesn’t like them either. And for good reason: they are tepid. They only hint at what I’m talking about. They don’t bust out of your monitor and scream: “look at me motherfucker! Here is my blazing fury, feel it!”

My Fear

I’m not powerless or ignorant though, I know exactly why this is true. I’m afraid of alienating the people who love to hear productivity tips.

I think they won’t appreciate my thoughts about Prana and Chakras and energetic beings. Energy work.

What a fucking crackpot, this guy believes in that hippy bullshit.

I feel defensive even publicly admitting I am involved with it. Wait a minute, before you judge me, let me remind you that I’m a rationalist at heart, and I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t have evidence.

Energy Flow

Energy work is the kind of thing that you’re right to be skeptical about, but that you can’t deny once you’ve seen it. Even my woman, who is already into New Age crap, didn’t really believe it as more than a convenient metaphor for body chemicals.

Then I did a session to clear an energy block in her solar plexus.

If you had been in the room watching, you would have seen me speaking soothingly to a very relaxed woman, running my hands on and over her body. Because of the size of the block I cleared for her, my soothing talk and gentle touch was followed by her labored breathing, then painful moaning, and eventually agonized writhing and crying.

She felt the energetic cruft and goop breaking up, spreading through her body, and blasting out of her pores, her mouth, her ears. As the healer, I felt the dark brownish, goopy energy infect my own, and I worked to clear it from both of our energetic bodies as it was expelled from the block. I heaved and wretched, my heart felt like it was being stabbed, I cried.

Then, like a kidney stone fully passed, it stopped. The block was clear, her energy body shined brightly from the light within once more, and my woman, no worse for the wear, felt an otherworldly calm and lightness like she’d never felt. The feeling of well-being persists, we talked about this morning. She apologized to me for ever doubting.

This shit is real.

Of course there are bullshit artists ready to sell you ear candles and palm readings. Much of the New Age movement is fluff, and I’ll be the first to call them on it. Conspiracy theorists think the government is run by alien lizards, but that doesn’t mean the government doesn’t exist. Phone psychics may be trained in cold reading, but that doesn’t mean your energetic field doesn’t have information that some people (like me) can perceive.

I don’t pretend to know the mechanisms at play, or even to have a full picture of how it all works in practice, but I know that the basic ideas of prana and chakras are correct because I am able to see, feel, and manipulate them. I can check with similar people who confirm what I’m seeing. When I’m given permission, I look into a person’s mind and see what they thought were dark secrets, and I lay them out in the light.

Hypernatural

It began as insight into other peoples’ thoughts, progressed to seeing visible energy move across and between living things, and blossomed into a more robust understanding of human beings.

I’m not talking about souls or duality at all (I don’t believe in the supernatural, the concept is incoherent), I’m talking about hypernatural phenomena.

Stuff that exists in reality, along with rocks and cell phones, but that we don’t really understand yet. Stuff that a huge and growing population knows is out there from personal experience, but that hasn’t quite been connected to modern science yet (for a number of reasons that I expect to explore here).

The dissonance and fear have festered long enough. I’ve been beating around the bush since very near the beginning of my writing here. Now it’s out.

Alienating with the Truth

I’m sure that owning my unusual beliefs will alienate some people. I’d encourage regular readers who are put off by this to at least give me the benefit of the doubt: you’ve read from me in the past because you think I have some insight, so if I push you past a comfort zone, stay with me to see where I’m going. I think I’ve earned that. If nothing else, ignoring my thoughts on “energy” means missing out on a tremendously useful tool for harnessing the power of your mind, even if I’m totally out to lunch on the real mechanism at work (I’m not, but that’s for you to decide).

I’m also sure that sharing my beliefs and knowledge will attract many others who otherwise would not have resonated with my work—it will be the kick that many long-time readers need to see that they aren’t alone, and it’ll bring other readers into the fold.

My Fire

When I say there’s a fire inside me, that I’m ignited, I’m not being poetic. I’m saying that I literally have an energetic fire burning in my chest, pushing its way out, inspiring and compelling me to spread it.

When I tell you to throw yourself onto the fire, I mean that inner fire of love, passion, and courage that has the power to scour your bones of fear, doubt, and pain. I’m talking to about setting yourself on fire with possibility, connecting to your purpose, and creating a meaningful life.

If you’re with me, I have so much gratitude for you. If you’re not sure, stay here and watch, see what happens. I have amazing things in store.

Throw yourself onto the fire. This is your sign.

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Positive Psychology

Pete — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 18:42:09 +0000

People who are trying to improve themselves by thinking about the way they think often ask the questions:

What’s wrong? and How can I fix it?

Which is a more useful tool than thinking about nothing and doing nothing. So honor yourself for that.

But they say what we focus on becomes our reality. So when we focus on all our problems, our self image becomes a collection of problems in various stages of being solved. Our eating disorder, our confidence issues, our personal finances: all problems that we work to solve and that come to define us.

But you and I are not really a series of shortcomings. We are perfect and complete. So let’s shift our focus by first getting really clear about what we want.

1. Create a vision for what you want in your life: love, adventure, money…

Then…

2. Look at examples of people who have what you want. Find out how they got there, find out how they live their daily lives.

Finally…

3. Do that.

Instead of trying to figure out what you’re doing wrong, look at what successful people are doing right, then do more of that.

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Don’t Find Happy, Be Happy

Pete — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 05:00:03 +0000

You are perfect and complete.

This has happened to me twice now, so I need to share it. The first time was with a Christian missionary in Kansas City. The second time, exactly like the first, was with a Hare Krisha devotee in St. Augustine. I like the second version better.

Giorgio (like Giorgio Armani, he said. I met him once, in Rome, he said.) approached me on the street and told me I should consider being a Hare Krishna devotee (there is a longer story here, I’ll tell it soon). I towered over him, which is unusual for me. The teeth he still had were the color of corn. He was wearing the kind of baseball hat you see tribal natives wear on national geographic. He said I had the “devotee” look about me. I took his pamphlet and listened to him talk about being “really” Italian, not like those guys in New York, he said.

Eventually he popped the question. He said, you know I’m a healer. I once healed a woman with stage 4, terminal cancer, he said. She had days to live, and I prayed over her, then she was better. How can you explain that, he asked.

I’ve heard this before, I know where he’s going.

I could pray over you, completely restore you, he said. That’s when I cut him off.

I earned this eye patch. I love my scars. You can’t buy body modifications like this. These are like tattoos from god.

If I could go back through time, I would push my cute, little, seven-year-old self right under that truck tire all over again. I’d leave my shattered skull and cheek bones ground into the dirt of my drive way. I’d retrace my steps as a child through suicidal depression, through the private hell of not having the guts to off myself when I was eight, even though I desperately wanted to. I’d trace those steps straight back out into the light of perspective. I’d dive again into deep well of compassion, empathy, and self-knowledge that I had to cultivate and draw on to come out the other side.

My scars represent all that to me, and I wouldn’t want them any other way. My scars are perfect, my vision is perfect, if different.

Contentment is something you choose, not something you obtain. Chase dreams, by all means. If you don’t match yourself, then strive if you want. But don’t chase faith healers because you think you need a magic nose job to make yourself happy. Look at that picture above and ask yourself: is that the picture of someone who needs a miracle? Plastic surgery?

Or is it of someone who is perfect and complete in himself?

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Brené Brown on Vulnerability

Pete — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 22:31:30 +0000

This video is awesome because Brené teaches you how to be vulnerable and fearless, empathic and passionate. It touches on most of the subjects I talk about on this blog.

She teaches us to love ourselves and create deep connections with other people. She’s talking about basic human needs, she’s talking about our reason for existing.

You need to watch this, it’s 20 minutes well-spent. I’m going to follow up with several essays that dive into these subjects further in the coming weeks.

Let me know what you think!

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Randy Pausch: Make Your Dreams Reality

Pete — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 04:42:44 +0000

Randy Pausch, pancreatic cancer victim, reminds us in his last lecture to stop our whining because happiness is a choice we make day by day.

You only have one chance to make your dreams a reality, so do it.

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Now is the Time for Risk

Pete — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 15:25:30 +0000

“We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood — it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, “Too late.”
Martin Luther King Jr.

There are so many reasons you don’t move forward like you want to. So many fears that make action just a little bit out of reach. So many soft surfaces and warm feelings that keep you fat and happy… just a little bit longer.

Those perilous risks will always be there. The cold comfort of mediocrity will never stop calling. The torrent of reasons not to act will rush headlong against you for the rest of your life.

No one looks back and thanks their lucky stars that they played it safe. In retrospect everyone including you will look back and regret not taking risks.

Imagine yourself as an elderly person on a park bench, thinking back to this moment. Imagine feeling the regret of having had the opportunity as a young man or woman to grab life and live the hell of it, but letting that opportunity slip away into the deluge of life’s fears and temptations.

If only I could go back for one moment, you think, to tell myself: go live it, don’t wait. Do it now, or you will grow to old age with regrets in your heart and not enough time to make it right.

Wish granted: here’s the second chance you yearned for on that park bench. Don’t wait for regret to hit. Come back to this moment, right now, and grab it.

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Get Off Your Cross And Fight

Pete — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 10:00:06 +0000

On Friday I attended the first Jacksonville PB&J (Party, Benefits & Jam). PB&J brings people together every two months to raise money for a local charity. This time we raised money for The Sanctuary on 8th Street, a place to develop inner city youth.

Al Letson was a speaker there, and he talked about the poetry slams he has been doing for years. I’d never really listened to one before, but he quoted several other poets, and the power of those words blew me away.

The writing is punchy, taut, visceral—everything I aspire to as a writer.

One quote in particular spoke to me, so the next morning I scoured the internet for the poet and the poem. Roger Bonair-Agard, an accomplished poet originally from Trinidad, had spoken the words in 1999 at a national poetry slam in Chicago.

I uploaded the video for the audio I eventually found, and I wrote a transcript so you can hang on every delicious word.

At 31 I learned that Lena is short for Magdalene, one of those enigmas of biblical lore. Whore found religion.

I have often questioned her motives, this love of Jesus Christ, this holy supplication to the son of man. And I think about Lena, my grandmother. Great big woman, skin of ashy obsidian, and hair whitened with the burden of conviction—and I wonder about this business of weeping and foot washing.

But I can only remember her iron hand and rigid schedules—her admonition on catching me day dreaming on the outhouse roof:

“Get down off that thing, boy, you have your book to study. What kind of man do you expect to become?”

I recall her jacking up of my equally stern grandfather, informing him of the folly of any repeated attempts to hit her—never does Mary Magdalene come to mind. Not in the helpless, weeping for the crucified way, not in the convenient Catholic depictions of feminine frailty, of morals and spirit.

I know of a Magdalene with fight. More Joan of Arc than Maid Marian, more Sojourner Truth than damsel in distress.

And I want to tell the withering, two-dimensional ghost crouched and crumpled at the foot of the cross:

“Get up and fight, woman. Wake up and live, if you love him. Jack up the Pontious Pilate and refuse surrender.”

At 3 I was beaten for disrespect of my grandfather. At 8, because I was satisfied with only a 75 in math. Because she knew, having fought battles based purely on conviction, that she was preparing a man for the holiest of crucifications. There would be no washing of feet here. No flimsy eruption of tears. Only the austerity of a warrior, and a Puritan insistence on perfection and effort.

The creases through her aged jowls softening only when she thought I needed to eat to get strong.

“Son, you look thin, come and get some food. Eat something.”

A name orients one to his universe, the Lakotas believed. So a change of name meant a chance for improvement in the lot of a child who was not doing well.

So having learned the root of my grandmother’s name, I cannot summon the sympathy for Mary Magdalene, cannot help her weep tears of distress. Only wish I could retroactivate a name change for her. Show her my grandmother dragging 30 pound sacks of coffee, her swollen leg behind her, and rising from her death bed to fight her daughter’s battles.

One day, if I am worthy of her expectations, I will become a man worth crucifying. And all her beatings, her lessons, her Puritanism and superhuman strength will have taught me that surrender is not an option.

On that day, I expect to see standing at the foot of whatever urban cross they fashion, all 5’10″ of Lena, pointing one huge, gnarled finger at me. The shining authority of her eyes coming from the black forest of her flesh, the white electricity of her hair, lips trembling in rage:

“Get down off that thing, boy, and fight! What kind of man do you intend to become?”

Sometimes we all need a reminder to get off our crosses and fight to become a person worth crucifying.

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Today You, Tomorrow Me

Pete — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 13:47:22 +0000

Rhoner shares a story about the kindness of strangers. It’s a little rough around the edges since it’s essentially a forum post, but it was enough to make me misty.

Just about every time I see someone [stranded on the side of the road] I stop. I kind of got out of the habit in the last couple of years, moved to a big city and all that, my girlfriend wasn’t too stoked on the practice. Then some shit happened to me that changed me and I am back to offering rides habitually. …

This past year I have had 3 instances of car trouble. A blow out on a freeway, a bunch of blown fuses and an out of gas situation. All of them were while driving other people’s cars which, for some reason, makes it worse on an emotional level. It makes it worse on a practical level as well, what with the fact that I carry things like a jack and extra fuses in my car, and know enough not to park, facing downhill, on a steep incline with less than a gallon of fuel.

Anyway, each of these times this shit happened I was DISGUSTED with how people would not bother to help me. I spent hours on the side of the freeway waiting, watching roadside assistance vehicles blow past me, for AAA to show. The 4 gas stations I asked for a gas can at told me that they couldn’t loan them out “for my safety” but I could buy a really shitty 1-gallon one with no cap for $15. It was enough, each time, to make you say shit like “this country is going to hell in a handbasket.”

But you know who came to my rescue all three times? Immigrants. Mexican immigrants. None of them spoke a lick of the language. But one of those dudes had a profound affect on me.

He was the guy that stopped to help me with a blow out with his whole family of 6 in tow. I was on the side of the road for close to 4 hours. Big jeep, blown rear tire, had a spare but no jack. I had signs in the windows of the car, big signs that said NEED A JACK and offered money. No dice. Right as I am about to give up and just hitch out there a van pulls over and dude bounds out. He sizes the situation up and calls for his youngest daughter who speaks english. He conveys through her that he has a jack but it is too small for the Jeep so we will need to brace it. He produces a saw from the van and cuts a log out of a downed tree on the side of the road. We rolled it over, put his jack on top, and bam, in business. I start taking the wheel off and, if you can believe it, I broke his tire iron. It was one of those collapsible ones and I wasn’t careful and I snapped the head I needed clean off. Fuck.

No worries, he runs to the van, gives it to his wife and she is gone in a flash, down the road to buy a tire iron. She is back in 15 minutes, we finish the job with a little sweat and cussing (stupid log was starting to give), and I am a very happy man. We are both filthy and sweaty. The wife produces a large water jug for us to wash our hands in. I tried to put a 20 in the man’s hand but he wouldn’t take it so I instead gave it to his wife as quietly as I could. I thanked them up one side and down the other. I asked the little girl where they lived, thinking maybe I could send them a gift for being so awesome. She says they live in Mexico. They are here so mommy and daddy can pick peaches for the next few weeks. After that they are going to pick cherries then go back home. She asks if I have had lunch and when I told her no she gave me a tamale from their cooler, the best fucking tamale I have ever had.

So, to clarify, a family that is undoubtedly poorer than you, me, and just about everyone else on that stretch of road, working on a seasonal basis where time is money, took an hour or two out of their day to help some strange dude on the side of the road when people in tow trucks were just passing me by. Wow…

But we aren’t done yet. I thank them again and walk back to my car and open the foil on the tamale cause I am starving at this point and what do I find inside? My fucking $20 bill! I whirl around and run up to the van and the guy rolls his window down. He sees the $20 in my hand and just shaking his head no like he won’t take it. All I can think to say is “Por Favor, Por Favor, Por Favor” with my hands out. Dude just smiles, shakes his head and, with what looked like great concentration, tried his hardest to speak to me in English:

“Today you…. tomorrow me.”

Rolled up his window, drove away, his daughter waving to me in the rear view. I sat in my car eating the best fucking tamale of all time and I just cried. Like a little girl. It has been a rough year and nothing has broke my way. This was so out of left field I just couldn’t deal.

In the 5 months since I have changed a couple of tires, given a few rides to gas stations and, once, went 50 miles out of my way to get a girl to an airport. I won’t accept money. Every time I tell them the same thing when we are through:

“Today you…. tomorrow me.”

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The Bomb and the Bystander

How to Get Your Wallet Back

Pete — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 10:00:31 +0000

This is a story of empathy brought you by StoryCorps, a radio show that shares stories from ordinary people. Julio Diaz, the storyteller, gives us a shining case in point about choosing love over fear, just like in “No Such Thing as Monsters”. The acceptable response was anger and violence, but Julio chose love and empathy. Listen to his story below, or read the transcript.

Julio Diaz gets his wallet back 2 minutes, 14 seconds "Julio Diaz gets his wallet back"

Transcript of the audio:

So I get off the train, I’m walking toward the stairs, and this young teenager pulls out a knife. He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, “here you go.”

He starts to leave and as he’s walking away, I’m like, “hey, wait a minute, you forgot something. If you’re going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm.”

He’s looking at me like, what’s going on here? He asked me, “Well, why are you doing this?”

I’m like, “Well, I don’t know man. If you’re willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was go get dinner, and if you really want to join me, hey, you’re more than welcome.” So I’m like, “Look, you can follow me if you want.” I just felt, maybe he really needs help.

So, we go into the diner where I normally eat, we sit down in the booth, and the manager comes by, the dishwashers come by, the waiters come by to say hi. The kid was like “Man, you know everybody here, do you own this place?”

I’m like, “No, I just eat here a lot.”

He’s like, “But you’re even nice to the dishwasher!”

I’m like, “Well, haven’t you been taught you should be nice to everybody?”

So he’s like, “Yeah, but I didn’t think people actually behaved that way.”

So I just asked him in the end, I’m like, “What is it that you want out of life?”

He just had almost a sad face. Either he couldn’t answer me or he didn’t want to.

The bill came and I look at him, and I’m like, “Look, I guess you’re going to have to pay for this bill, because you have my money and I can’t pay for this, so… If you give me my wallet back, I’ll gladly treat you.”

He didn’t even think about it, he’s like “Yeah, okay, here you go.” He gave me my wallet back.

And I gave him $20, I figured maybe it’ll help him, I don’t know. And when I gave him the $20, I asked him to give me something in return: his knife. And he gave it to me.

It’s funny because when I told my mom about what happened, no mom wants to hear this but, she said, you were always the type of kid that if someone asked you the time you’d give them your watch. I don’t know, I figure that if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It’s as simple as it gets in this complicated world.

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Stop Thinking and Do It

Pete — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 20:04:16 +0000

It’s important to think and plan for situations that you expect to encounter in your life, but thinking and planning can never come close to actually experiencing the situation first hand.

You can’t learn to program by reading a book—you can only prepare yourself to learn to program. You have to actually program to learn.

You can’t learn to write by reading the Elements of Style. You have to write to learn to write.

You can talk about acting boldly and fearlessly, and you can imagine that’s what you’d do when push comes to shove, but until you put yourself in the situation that will test your courage and resolve you will never really know, and you’ll never really grow.

You may be surprised at the ways you screw it up at first, but the good news is that with enough work and maybe enough groveling, you can go back and make it right.

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: go out and do it. Whatever your “it” is, stop thinking about it, and go do it right now.

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The Rules of Improv

Pete — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 00:46:42 +0000

After many years of being a fan and going through workshops, I recently auditioned for, and was cast in an improv troupe that does weekly shows in downtown Jacksonville. The reason I got involved was that it was just fun—I laughed until I cried, and the workshops energized me. Somewhere in between all that fun and energy though, I accidentally found some profound life lessons.

The first thing people say when I tell them about improv or they see a show is “I could never do that.” That’s always followed by either “I’m not quick enough” or “I’m not funny enough.” But that’s not true.

They already do improv. Everyone does improv.

Do you have a script for your life, or do you make it up as you go along? Do you have conversations, take actions, and make discoveries because the director of the production told you to, or just because you’re living your life the best way you know how?

Yes, everyone does improv.

But in improv class you learn the rules of improv. It may seem counter-intuitive to have rules for making stuff up on the spot. The reality is that there are no wrong choices in improv. The rules are there to help you make interesting choices. The rules lead naturally to you being quick and sometimes funny. They encourage you to make profound and interesting connections. They foster personal revelations and discoveries.

And the reason I’m sharing these rules with you here is that you are an improv actor. These rules are for improv, so they are also rules for your life. Life, as in improv, has no wrong choices, just more or less entertaining, interesting, and profound choices.

Here are the rules:

Yes, and…

The rule of “yes, and” is maybe the most fundamental rule of improv. When you’re on the stage, and your partner says or does something, he is right. Always, always, always right. He’s right even if he’s wrong.

Whatever he says, you say “yes.”

Then you build on what he said by adding new ideas and information. That’s the “and”. Here’s an example.

Pointless:

Partner: We finally made it to the moon in this submarine!
You: Submarines can’t go to the moon, you idiot.

Interesting:

Partner: We finally made it to the moon in this submarine!
You: It took us many months, comrade, but it was worth it in the end! I just wish we had brought something other than baked beans with us…

The first example is called blocking or denial: you reject your partner’s idea. It’s a particularly egregious example because you rejected the moon submarine and didn’t even bother to suggest an alternative. Where does the scene go from here?

What if your default response was “yes, and” when talking to your significant other? Your boss? Your clients?

Listen Well

The absolute, most important skill in improv is not quickness or energy, or even knowing the rules: it’s listening. It’s deeply listening to your scene partner, and trying to understand what’s being said, from text to subtext. It’s seeing where your partner’s ideas are going, and more importantly where they could go.

You can say “yes” without listening, but you can’t say “and” unless you really understand what your partner is saying.

By far the worst improvisers are those who don’t pay attention. They don’t get the hints that you give them, they ignore your ideas, and force their own into the scene.

It makes for a dull scene. It’s not fun.

The magic is in paying close enough attention to the other person to really understand them and to make connections with them.

How much time do you spend listening instead of forcing people and situations to fit your ideas?

Be Real

Stepping out of character in pursuit of a quick laugh will suck the energy right out of a scene. The audience can smell insincerity like bad cologne. The bullshit also forces your scene partner to do awkward acrobatics to compensate for the vacuum in substance your blunder leaves.

Being real means honesty to others but more so honesty to yourself. It means reacting genuinely instead of a calculated or pretentious way.

When an actor knows his character well enough to let that character act and react through him naturally, scenes will fall into place and profound connections will be made.

Improv students second guess their characters and over think themselves into weak reactions.

It’s the same as the voice inside you that’s so afraid of being judged that it hides you from the world until there really isn’t anything of you left except that fearful voice itself, calculating in the darkness what your next move will be to avoid discomfort or embarrassment. What would happen if you silenced that voice?

Do you know your own character well enough to allow that inner character to act and react naturally?

Commit

Commitment is about deciding on a course of action, then following it through to the very end.

It means that if you are a hyperactively pungent motivational speaker, you own it. There’s no relief by winking to the audience—hey guys, no seriously, I’m normal—you own your character and you make it work.

The nice thing about improv is that you can commit, for a scene at a time, to a course of action that may or may not work. The direction may fail to be funny or interesting, but it won’t fail because you didn’t try. You saw it through the end, earnestly trying to find what works in whatever course you’ve chosen.

What if you fully committed to whatever course you chose, even if just for a time. What if you never just let a project fizzle, what if you pushed everything you tried to the outer limits of its potential?

It means not explaining a side project as “some silly, little thing you’re doing on the side,” so that you can lie to yourself later about how important it was to you or save face in front of people you think will judge you for your pipe dreams. It means explaining the long term vision of that project and owning that it’s a real passion that you’re going to work hard to materialize.

It takes a keen observer to know when the “scene” has ended in life, and your commitment is complete, but it’s not worth over thinking all the possibly failure modes of just trying. Just do it.

(Thank you Flagler, you are a scholar and a gentleman, the essay wouldn’t have been the same without you.)

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The Art Gallery That Exists

Pete — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 15:40:37 +0000

The other day I was out with my wife at Starbucks drinking a peppermint tea (I love peppermint). We sat talking about nerdy things like whether a cure for aging would change cultural norms surrounding suicide or affect people’s risk aversion in a statistically significant way.

“That’s funny,” she said.
“Hm?”
“The art on the wall behind you, I thought it was cute, they got some middle schoolers to hang their art up.”

I looked, and I saw what was funny. It wasn’t middle school art, it was a local artist selling her work. Flat, watercolor portraits and semi-abstract, still life paintings hung frameless above the couches.

It was amusing for a moment, but then I remembered how much hate mail I get along with support for my writing here and for my other projects.

It’s easy to talk smack about someone who puts their work up in public

It’s easy to talk smack about someone who puts their work up in public. That artist put together a body of work and got a local business to display it. It took dedication, talent, and perseverance to create her makeshift art gallery. Where was my gallery that would allow me to sit in judgment of her accomplishments?

I’ve said it before: the gallery that exists is better than the perfect gallery that doesn’t. Good for her for creating something and putting it into the world.

It’s not just about paintings or writing though. Everyone has a gallery of their own in their heart. Does your gallery exist?

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No Such Thing as Monsters

Pete — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 12:00:09 +0000

I had a powerful moment of transformation as a child that I’m going to share with you because it’s an important lesson about psychological scripts, empathy, and the essential humanity of all people.

In fifth grade, my scars were still horror movie material. My skull was indented, my eye socket hadn’t been fully rebuilt yet, and skin from my thigh covered a large portion of my face and head. I tried to grow my hair out to cover it, but I ended up looking like Jr. Comb-over Frankenstein.

I used to get a lot of shit from my classmates, and I didn’t respond well to it back then (I was only 10). I’d lash out impotently and end up getting myself in trouble instead of my classmates.

A turning point was on a class trip. We rode a bus from our school in northern Kentucky to the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama—a six hour drive. Part way through that long haul, the back of the bus conversation turned to me.

The kids decided it was funny to try to keep their distance from me because my scars were so “monstrous,” like I was something from a horror movie that you’d fall over yourself to get away from.

I could only be compared to Quasimodo and the Swamp Thing so much before it was bound to express as resentment and low self esteem

As a boy of 10, I was ill equipped to respond. On one hand, I was getting off on being the center of attention, which was rare. On the other, the taunting was tearing me up inside. I could only be compared to Quasimodo and the Swamp Thing so much before it was bound to express as resentment and low self esteem.

So I played along. I’d approach someone hands outstretched, playing my part, and watching them recoil in horror. I’d make ghoul noises and lunge, as everyone jumped backward like I was a ravenous animal.

As the sinking feeling in my belly became too much too bear, I finally sat in the aisle seat right next to a girl named Megan, trapping her between the window and I. Playing along, she clawed at the window, feigning horror.

Then something just snapped inside me.

A voice welled up, as if from my future self. I spoke quietly enough so that only she could really hear me even though we were surrounded by cackling fifth graders. Without any kind of anger or desperation or negativity in my voice, and looking directly into her eyes, I said: “Megan, this isn’t funny. My scars aren’t that bad. I’m a person too. I’m a kid just like you.”

She stopped dead, and looked right back at me—really looked. She said “You’re right, I’m sorry. Your scars really aren’t that bad.”

As if infected by my calm, Megan announced with some uncharacteristic authority that the game was over. Everyone settled down on cue.

That moment affects how I interact with people to this day, on several levels.

No matter how callous, rude, arrogant, spiteful, or negative someone is, everyone craves deep human connection.

If you create that judgement and angst free context for a connection to form, normally looking into someone’s eyes and speaking from your heart is enough to break the spell of whatever script they are playing in their head—to connect on a genuine level.

Even if you are the victim of that person’s bad behavior, remember that they are playing a part in their head that makes sense to them and would probably make sense to you if you were in their shoes. Remember that, and use that empathy to create calm and understanding instead of anger and defensiveness.

The other aspect of what happened that affects me profoundly is my new perspective. In that moment I made the conscious decision to let go of anger and victimhood. I decided to forgive people who maybe screw up but who mostly are also just trying to do the best they can. I decided to just be the best person I knew how to be, and help others do the same, even if they were way out of line.

You’ll play the role of the victim and that of the persecutor during your lifetime. That’s almost inevitable. The choice you have to make is between anger and calm. Connection or separation. Between fear and love.

When you’re faced with that choice, I hope you remember my experience.

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Is Your Face Real?

Why you should fly Cubana

Pete — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 15:03:30 +0000

Carl Hoffman recently caught my attention by traveling the world using whatever means the local population used to travel, including rickety airplanes, dilapidated trains, and roach infested ferries.

The thing that struck me about this relatively affluent American who traveled the world this way was that he just decided to do it one day. He decided to do something daring and perhaps dangerous, and he didn’t fabricate a bunch of fake prerequisites or excuses that prevented him from making it happen. He wanted to do it, so he made it happen.

There was something that drew me in about his story that I didn’t quite understand until read this interview from Worldhum.com:

Did traveling this way change the way you see travel, or change the way you see the world?

It reinforced the notion that we have nothing to fear. That fear stops us from experiencing so many wondrous things. [Emphasis mine.]

There it is, the missing element that drew me to Carl. We have nothing to fear. Grab life by the scruff and live the hell out of it.

(Here’s a link to Carl’s book, The Lunatic Express, about his travel experiences, including flying Cubana, the most dangerous airline in the world.)

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It’s Easy When You Do It

Pete — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:00:07 +0000

It’s easy to over think plans—getting caught in a cycle of thinking instead of acting. Fears and doubts loom large because they are in the present, and any positive outcome is in some far off future.

In that spirit, a bit of inspiration from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (affiliate link):

We walk past ski shops into a restaurant where we see on the walls huge photographs of the route we will take up. And up and up, over one of the highest paved roads in the world. I feel some anxiety about this, which I realize is irrational and try to get rid of by talking about the road to the others. There’s no way to fall off. No danger to the motorcycle. Just a memory of places where you could throw a stone and it would drop thousands of feet before coming to rest and somehow associating that stone with the cycle and rider.

They finish their coffee and, after puttering around, get going.

The asphalt of the road is much wider and safer than it occurred in memory. On a cycle you have all sorts of extra room. John and Sylvia take the hairpin turns up ahead and then come back above us, facing us, and have smiles. Soon we take the turn and see their backs again. Then another turn for them and we meet them again, laughing. It’s so hard when contemplated in advance, and so easy when you do it.

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The Short Trajectory of Prodigy

Pete — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 15:10:10 +0000

A prodigy is very young and highly skilled in whatever field they practice.

The concept is demoralizing because it builds a wall separating prodigy from mortal.

It’s like the superstar effect: what’s the point of even competing when you have toddlers running around juggling fire and reciting the Iliad in ancient Greek?

I have good news about that though, that I’ll get to in a moment, but first me talk about lasers and dogs:

Humans are good at tracing trajectories. If you point at something, I can see what you’re pointing at because I can imagine the invisible laser coming out of your finger tip and hitting whatever it is. We also see the invisible lines tracing the paths of balls or birds traveling through the sky.

It’s instinctual for us; we don’t have to teach kids “pointing comprehension” in school. It’s so natural that we take it for granted, as if nature shoots invisible laser beams out of things that hint at direction.

It’s not natural though; it’s a quite sophisticated bit of processing. Dogs can’t do it. You point at a ball, they lick your finger. There’s no laser. Remember that: there’s no laser.

Back to the prodigies.

I was coloring my baby sister with magic markers and shoving bugs in my nose at that age. I’m doomed when that kid grows up.

You look at these kids and realize they have mastered a skill that takes adults years, maybe decades, to learn. As naturally as a fish cuts through water, the trajectory software in your brain says: they are as good as I am after 1 year, so they will be 30 times better when they are adults. I was coloring my baby sister with magic markers and shoving bugs in my nose at that age. I’m doomed when that kid grows up. I have to compete with him and he’ll be 30 times better than I am.

That’s what we think, and that moment is when the wall separating you from prodigies is built in your mind. Here’s that good news I promised: it’s not true.

Human trajectory software is broken. Actually that’s not true, it’s fine, but it’s optimized to figure out where to throw a rock so that it hits a moving gazelle. We just try to use it for things we shouldn’t use it for, including abstract concepts like “skill level”.

The truth is that prodigies, when they exist at all (instead of just being marketing gimmicks like they normally are), don’t turn out to extremely high performing adults. The laser beam you imagined little Einstein would ride toward greatness doesn’t exist (and for the record, Einstein was considered a normal, if not dull child).

Those kids you hear about graduating college before they hit puberty? Where are they now? They are probably maladjusted for one thing, and for another they are probably just average adult performers.

The dog is right in this case. There is no laser. There is no wall separating you from prodigal superstars.

I’ll leave you with a quote from Malcolm Gladwell via the APS Observer:

…the story of two buildings. One is built ahead of schedule, and one is being built in New York City and comes in two years late and several million dollars over budget. Does anyone really care, 10 years down the road, which building was built early and which building was built late? … But somehow I think when it comes to children we feel the other way, that we get obsessed with schedules, and not with buildings.

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Pete Michaud Techzing Interview

Pete — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 16:16:54 +0000

I had a great interview with Jason and Justin at TechZing.

Click here to listen to the interview →
Click here to read a transcript of the interview →

We covered quite a bit of ground in the interview:

The details of the business that allowed me to “retire” at 25
My business strategy and philosophy
My future projects and goals
My eye patch (1:30)
Also mentioned Max Klein and his concept of 400 $1 ideas, Eliezer Yudkowsky and his prolific writing about cognition and AI (1:45), Seth Godin and his quippy insights, plus Patrick McKenzie and his BingoCardCreator business (1:25).

Click here to listen to the interview →
Click here to read a transcript of the interview →

A couple things I want to correct for the record—they are just details, but I don’t want them to bite me later:

I actually didn’t major in statistics, even though I took a couple statistics courses while majoring in business. I am a math enthusiast, but my wife is the one with a math degree! I think Justin’s point was that I brought an analytical approach to life and business which worked for me.
Dr. Yakuboff did offer to waive his surgeon’s fee at a time when my parents couldn’t afford any more. It’s my understanding that the insurance came through at the last moment, so he never needed to do work pro bono even though the offer was there. I might be wrong about that, he might have done it pro bono, but I was only 8 or 9 at the time, so I’m not sure.
Ironically, I have to rely on witness accounts of the immediate aftermath of my accident. Some people like my mom report that I died, but in the course of researching a book I wrote with my wife, Dr. Yakuboff said in an interview that my heart never stopped, which means I didn’t literally die. He’s probably right, he is in a position to know, although he didn’t see me until about 45 minutes after the accident. The important thing for me, whether I did or not, is that I grew up believing and internalizing that I died. My outlook was affected as though I had died, even if the witness evidence suggests that I didn’t. That’s a mouthful in an interview, so I left it alone. Just for the record!

I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed doing it!

Click here to listen to the interview →
Click here to read a transcript of the interview →

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Techzing Interview Tuesday March 23rd

Pete — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 17:17:25 +0000

TechZing, “News and views from the front-line of tech & startups”, was crazy enough to invite me to do an interview tomorrow at 6:30pm EST. I’m not sure when it will be available for listening, but I’ll be sure to let you know when it’s up.

We’ll be talking about my publishing company, Kenrose Media, and how less than a year of unglamorous work (read: flailing) granted me financial freedom at age 25. We’ll also talk about fear, clarity, and reaching your goals.

here I am, naked and vulnerable before you, in soul-deep honesty

On a personal note, I had strange, heartbreaking weekend. The details are boring, but let me leave you with this: you should be brutally, radically honest with someone you care about today. Whatever dark secret you’re carrying, whatever burden you think will lead them to reject you, just let it go. Say: I’m terrified to tell you this, but here I am, naked and vulnerable before you, in soul-deep honesty.

I think that simple action may change the course of your life.

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Ira Glass on the Creative Gap

Pete — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:00:20 +0000

If you don’t know Ira Glass, you should. If you don’t know Ira’s show, This American Life, you should.

This message is about how creative people need to really stick with what they are doing. He’s talking to people who work in TV, but it applies to everyone who produces.

A few excerpts:

Most everyone I know who does interesting, creative work went through a phase of years where they had really good taste and they knew what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be. They knew it fell short.

Everybody goes through that. For you to go through it—if you’re going through it right now, if you’re just getting out of that phase, or if you’re just starting off and you’re entering into that phase—you’ve got to know that’s totally normal. The most important possible thing you could do is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline, so that every week or every month you know you’re going to finish one story. Whatever it’s going to be…

It takes a while. It’s going to take you a while. It’s normal to take a while. You just have to fight your way through that. You will be fierce. You will be a warrior. And you will make things that aren’t as good as you know in your heart you want them to be. And you’ll just make one after another.

On a personal note, I have been writing for years. We don’t even have to count daily writing in online forums since I was 12. This is my third serious blog. I’ve worked on three novels and over a dozen nonfiction titles for general audiences. Years. If you go back to something like my Ken Sharpe writing, you can tell it’s my writing, but it’s terrible.

Just now I feel like I’m getting to the point where I can write something passable. Just now I feel like I am at a level where I can begin to understand how other really strong writers can suck people in with words. In a few years maybe I’ll be as good as they are.

If you’re not happy with your current work—your writing, your art, your business, whatever creative field you’re in—then the best thing you can do is keep doing it, a lot.

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Don’t You Dare Waste Your Fucking Time

Pete — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:27:38 +0000

Gabrielle Bouliane, the woman in this video, was diagnosed with stage four cancer and died on January 29th, 2010.

Funny how death washes away the bullshit.

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