Chapter 20
We are all lazier then we want to be. We are all less talented, less beautiful, less rich, and less powerful. There is not one single person in my life, and I would bet $1 million in your life, who has it perfectly dialed in and firing on all cylinders. Each of us has doubts and insecurities that constantly try to pull us back from doing something more with our lives. Fear of looking stupid, of failing, of what other people will think or say cripples us in our pursuit of trying to do something just a little bit more interesting with life than we are currently doing. When all of those thoughts start dancing in your head, when the voices work themselves up into a fever pitch shouting over and over again “you aren't good enough,” I want you to step back and say out loud: “Who gives a shit?” Seriously. Who gives a shit? Who gives a shit about what other people think or say? Who gives a shit if they don't think you have enough talent, or that your ideas are insane, or that you are uneducated or low class or delusional or narcissistic or any other of one million things that someone can think or say about you? Who. Gives. A. Shit.
Then I want you to answer that question and I want you to answer it out loud. The answer is simple: “Not me!” The sooner you can get to a place where you just don't give a shit about what others think of you, the sooner you will be in a place of confidence and freedom. Confidence to pursue whatever it is you want and the freedom to create what ever you want to create. There is so much more all of us can do if we just stop giving a shit about what everybody else thinks.
I mean, if all of these other people are so damn smart regarding how we live our lives, then why the hell aren't they doing better in theirs? It is because they too are making shit up as they go, and for the most part do not appreciably know any more than you or I. That doesn't mean it will stop them from offering their opinions with rock‐solid certainty or be quick to offer you advice on shit they know nothing about. What it does mean is that we can care far less about other people's opinions of what we are trying to do with our lives, period.
I hold no illusions that getting to this place is as simple as snapping your fingers and shouting “Who gives a shit!?” It is a start, but only that. To find any lasting success we need tangible things that we can do or practice on a constant basis that give us the psychological and emotional strength to push through these very real mental barriers. The concepts that we explored in this book are practices that you can put into action today. With a group or by yourself, these techniques start to build up our mental muscles, which we can use to create new and interesting paths in our lives. And just like going to the gym, you will experience a certain amount of pain as you initially develop these muscles. Just like going to an actual gym, the pain fades quickly. I actually think it fades far more quickly than blasting your quads or shredding your pecks. When you allow yourself to try new things, especially things that you have always wanted to do, the rush that you get from taking those positive steps quickly begins to suppress those initial feelings of pain.
The crazy thing in all of this is that when you can truly get yourself to a place where you just don't particularly give a shit about what others think about you, the more they are drawn to you. When other people realize that you do not need their approval to believe in yourself and to take action on the things that you want to do, they tend to stop offering their opinions and start to become curious about what it is you are trying to accomplish. People tend to become far more positively engaged in what you are doing when they realize that being critical has no effect on you.
Does this mean you should be a complete dick, never listening to other people's ideas or searching out those who have more experience than you do in a certain topic? Quite the opposite. As we have already discussed, the first step in being able to make shit up is being able to listen to other people. And being a constant dick only pushes people away from you. There are already enough assholes in the world, I am certainly not advocating for more.
What I am trying to say, in a very crass and crude manner, is that we need to become comfortable with disregarding other people's opinions when they run counter to our efforts to positively attempt new things. By not giving a shit, or at least less of a shit, about what others think, we give ourselves permission to experience and achieve far more in our lives.
Some of the concepts in this book may seem like semantics. What real difference does it make if I say “Yes but” as opposed to “Yes and”? If I say no to someone's idea, am I really destroying their ability to ever come up with another one? I don't think so. And yet, it really is unbelievable the results you get when you start using these kind of positive phrases in your personal and professional relationships. Hey, maybe you are just a natural bummer of a person, always ready to see or say something negative. So here is a list of some positive words and phrases that you can start to use in your everyday dialogue:
· Yes and
· We should
· Cool, let's
· What if
· We can
· Agreed,
· You are right
· Fantastic idea
· I love that
· So awesome
· Pretty damn good
· Outstanding
People will be drawn to you simply because of the fact that people are drawn to positive energy. Positivity is hope, and hope is the thing that keeps us alive. It gets us out of bed in the morning. Hope for a better day, a better outcome. New possibilities and a greater future live in hope. If you can ignite a flicker of hope in someone else, even if it is in their subconscious, then they will be drawn closer into your orbit. The more people you are exposed to, the more ideas you will be exposed to. Somewhere in these new ideas is the spark you are looking for, to ignite your imagination and attempt something new.
Making shit up, for me, has meant many different things. It has been an art that I have practiced onstage, working with others to try to make people laugh. It has meant making this art my job, making a living building a company around the premise that if we are willing to try and fail, then we give ourselves the chance to do something far greater than we ever imagined. It has meant listening to other people and trying to understand their points of view and embrace their talents, which in turn benefits my own.
In a completely contradictory statement, making shit up has also meant not listening to other people when I felt that their views and opinions were not being offered to help me find a way forward, but rather to stop me from pursuing something far greater for myself.
We are all just making shit up as we go. If we start to embrace this concept and actually look at it as a positive, we can begin to not only embrace the crazy shit life throws at us but to actually take control of the chaos and doubts and fears that each one of us has on a daily basis.
Instead of “making shit up” being code for not knowing what we are doing, it now becomes an empowering practice where we no longer let those fears and doubts stop us from reaching for something more meaningful in our lives. The art of making shit up is simply the art of proactively living life, a life where we are more encouraging of ourselves, more forgiving. A life where we allow ourselves the chance to do something more than we or anyone else thought possible.
So get out there and make some shit up, I guarantee you will surprise yourself with what that crazy f'ing mind of yours can come up with. If you can imagine it, you can make it happen in some way, shape, or form. Best I can tell, we only get one go‐around on this rock, so we might as well take our shots while we can. If we do, then at the very least we will be able to look back at some point and say we did some pretty cool shit.