“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” – Mary Oliver

Earlier this week Chris Guillebeau released a new (free) e-book called The Tower. As you’d expect from that chap, it’s pretty damn good and well worth reading.

Chris talks a lot about legacy projects in there. A legacy project is something we create that changes the world for the better and continues to have a positive impact long after we’re gone. Napoleon Hill’s legacy project was Think And Grow Rich. Michelangelo’s was the Sistine Chapel. Yours might be a website, or a community initiative, or your children.

One thing I have to disagree with Chris on though, is what he considers to be the purpose of life…

Instead of knowledge, pleasure, or happiness, the purpose of life is to create something meaningful that will endure after we’re gone.

I actually believe that life is inherently meaningless. You and I are but specks upon a speck in the universe. In the grand scheme of things, we don’t matter even a tiny bit. This became even more apparent to me upon reading A Short History of Nearly Everything, and learning such things as…

• 99.99 percent of all species that have ever lived on Earth are now extinct.
• Behaviorally modern human beings have existed for only about 0.0001 percent of the Earth’s history.
• The visible universe– the small fraction we know and can talk about — is a million million million million miles across (that’s a 1 with twenty-four 0′s after it).

So yeah, we’re pretty insignificant. If the Earth were to wither and die, and all of humanity ceased to exist, nobody would even notice all the newspapers stacking up on the doorstep. It would be like a single cell in our own bodies dying. No big deal.

But wait, don’t get all depressed just yet. There’s a beautiful paradox here:

Nothing we do matters, and yet it does

It matters in the sense that this one wild, precious and insignificant life of ours is the only way we get to experience the world, the universe, the hummus and the hubris. It’s our only guaranteed shot. As such, it’s wise to make the most of it.

And how do you do that?

Here’s where we get back to talking about legacy projects.

You see, although life is inherently meaningless, we humans have this nifty capability to assign meaning to our lives. And as smart dudes like Viktor Frankl have noted, a life assigned meaning is a life much more fulfilling.

In other words, you get to choose how meaningful your life is. Having a purpose makes your life better. It gives you direction. You wake up every day knowing what to do. And, more importantly, you know why you do what you do.

As I’ve written about before, my life purpose is to be the best person I can be, and to help and inspire others to become their best selves. A legacy project is a great way to turn such a purpose into something tangible. You get to see your progress and impact. You don’t waste away your days mired in mediocrity.

We’ve talked about big, ridiculous goals here before, but those are usually more of a personal nature. I want to circumnavigate the globe without flying and become fluent in the world’s five most widely spoken languages, but those goals don’t help anyone else much. At least not directly.

My legacy project is the work I do here at Disrupting the Rabblement. I hope that I’ll continue to improve as a writer, and that my articles will continue to help and empower people. I expect that if I hold a steady course with all this, I’ll end up having a significant positive impact in the lives of many.

All that to say: Having a self-assigned legacy project fulfills my self-assigned purpose, and makes my life much more enjoyable.

What’s your legacy project?

It’s a big question, so don’t feel bad if you can’t come up with an answer right away. Take your time and figure it out. Try different things, go different places, talk to different people.

Great advice from Mr. Guillebeau on this, too…

If you don’t know what to do at any given stage, start by creating something and giving something. Every day, wake up and think about these two things:

• What am I making today?
• Whom am I helping today?

Once again: What are you making? Who are you helping?

Here’s a little something I learned the hard way last week: German trains sometimes split in two.

What this means is that it’s very easy to board an eight-carriage train on the appropriate platform in Munich and not realize that, a few stops down the line, four of the carriages will detach and head for a completely different station than the one you were hoping to get to.

And then you find yourself sitting in one of those misleading carriages at the end of the line in a random German village, being approached by the driver who’s wondering why the hell you haven’t gotten off yet.

All I could do was laugh and shake my head, while the driver kindly revealed that another train would soon be arriving which would take me back the errant way I came.

Twas on that next train that I met a ticket checker named Frau. She would become my hero.

Frau didn’t have much English, but seemed to understand my predicament well enough: I was going to miss my scheduled connection to Zurich by at least an hour, and I didn’t know if there was another train headed that way later.

Frau quickly recruited another passenger to act as translator and started looking up train schedules on her little hand-held ticket checker gizmo. Ten minutes later, she was handing me a new itinerary, scribbled down on the back of my existing ticket in her own handwriting. Via the translator she explained that if I followed her instructions, I’d get to Zurich just a half hour behind schedule.

I almost hugged the woman.

The new itinerary involved six different trains, with an average of just four minutes between connections, and it all went off without a hitch. (Well, there was almost a hitch when I got off Frau’s train and rushed to the wrong platform to catch my next. Luckily, Frau was keeping an eye on me. She came across the station to set me right, noting that she’d written down all the platforms on the itinerary. Legend.)

Wherever you are

I write a lot on this blog about following your dreams and doing big things. And I will of course continue to write about such topics, because, in the words of Mr. Thoreau, too many people live lives of quiet desperation and go to their graves with their song still in them.

But it’s people like Frau who remind me that everyone’s capable of making a positive difference in the world right now, wherever they happen to be.

She was under no obligation to help me out. She could have just checked my ticket and gone about her day, left me to figure everything out by myself. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing in her job description saying she has to go out of her way to help novice travelers who don’t know one half of a train from the other. I imagine most of her fellow ticket checkers wouldn’t have bothered. Too much effort for too little pay.

It’s these everyday heroes like Frau that make the world a significantly better place. They take personal responsibility. They go above and beyond what’s expected of them. They figure that if they’re going to do something, they might as well do it to the best of their ability. As Robin Sharma would say, they lead without a title.

So, here’s my point…

To make a positive difference in the world, you don’t have to quit your job. You don’t have to move to a foreign country. You don’t have to set up your own non-profit. You don’t even have to be big on Twitter.

You can start right where you are.

Be a good neighbor. Be a good friend. Be a good parent. Take ownership of whatever job you find yourself in and do it as best you can.

All those little heroic deeds matter. And we’re all fully capable of them.

…

The above message has been approved by the Saw Doctors. Or at least, these lyrics would seem to suggest as much…

So come all ye full-time small-town heroes

Cast away your inbred fears of

Standing out from all the rest

The cynics and the pessimists

The self-indulgent almost rich

The blatant hurlers on the ditch

Time is passing so come on

And face the ball, the game is on

…

And lastly, for anyone with a website or blog, or indeed for anyone interested in having a website or blog, I’ll be running a FREE online support session this weekend at some point. If you have any questions or need help with some troubleshooting, you won’t want to miss this. Sign up to the mailing list in the sidebar of my $50 Blogs site, and I’ll let you know exactly when it’s happening.

I quit my 9-to-5 job on the 19th of November, 2010. A little over a year ago today.

I’ll be honest: it’s been a tough year, much tougher than I thought it would be. Starting out, I fully expected that I’d be making more money within three months as an entrepreneur than I ever did as an employee, while working just a few hours per day.

Instead, this past year has seen me living mostly off my savings while working longer and harder than I ever did before.

But although these past twelve months have been tough, they’ve also been immensely rewarding. Having embraced the struggle, I now find myself right on the verge of living my dream lifestyle. In fact, I’m already living it in many ways:

• I’ve just earned $1000 for the second consecutive month, without a job.
• Within 24 hours last week, I had my first TV interview, presented a workshop on blogging, and did a live webinar with Jen Gresham.
• I’ve visited four foreign countries in the past seven weeks, spending a good chunk of time in each of them. Tonight I’ll hop on a sleeper train to Budapest Vienna.
• I regularly get to meet and hang out with great and inspiring people.

In short, my life is hugely fulfilling right now. Sometimes I stick on this song by Queen and dance around like a complete eejit. Those three minutes are a little tribute to my past self, the guy who made those sacrifices and put in the work so I can be where I am today, living this life I’m living.

I love that guy

Now, what about you?

Perhaps you find yourself in a similar position to me twelve months ago, a tough and uncertain road ahead, separating you from your dream lifestyle. The choice you have to make is whether you’ll let yourself be here in the exact same spot a year from now, no closer to that dream, or whether you’ll do what’s necessary to make it real.

The thing is, the next twelve months of your life are going to pass regardless. You can either use that time being a good friend to your future self, or you can arse around and be left with nothing to show for it.

A quick visualization exercise: Think back over the last month or so, and how you’ve spent that time. Now imagine where you’ll be a year from now if you continue to spend your time like that. What do you think will happen? Where are you likely to end up?

Is that where you want to be?

…

Leaving you with wise words from Darren Hardy…

“Do you know what successful and unsuccessful people have in common? Both hate to do what it takes to be successful. The difference is that successful people do it anyway.”

I was at a busy library in London a few weeks back when a quirky, middle-aged lady started chatting to me. About three minutes into the conversation she commented on the grand size of my nose. And then she poked at it once with her finger while laughing.

A few years ago, such an incident would have really upset me. I would have turned bright red and cursed that woman under my breath. Then I would have spent the rest of the day secretly seething, and feeling very self-conscious about my appearance.

But what actually happened a few weeks back was this: Nothing.

What I once would have perceived as an insult had no effect on me whatsoever. The conversation soon ended and I went on about my day quite happily.

Last week in Munich I had another (albeit small) opportunity to take offense, when a German chap mistakenly identified me as an Englishman…

- I’m actually from Ireland.

- Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.

- [smiling] Don’t worry, it’s very hard to offend me.

Tis true. It is very hard to offend me nowadays. In this post I want to share with you the type of mindset I’ve developed that makes me pretty much immune to insults.

And then you can go post nasty accusations in the comments to test me out

Refusing gifts

There’s a story about the Buddha that I like to keep in mind.

There was a man who constantly harassed and insulted the Buddha, throwing all sorts of verbal abuse at him. But the Buddha never seemed fazed by this. When someone asked why he didn’t take offense, he simply replied…

If someone gives you a gift and you refuse to accept it, to whom does the gift belong?

Last week in Frankfurt I was writing part of this very post while waiting for a train. An American woman approached and asked me for some spare change. When I returned a polite-but-firm no, she called me a jerk and moved on.

That was her gift, and I refused to accept it. I shook off the insult and got right back to work as if nothing had happened.

You always have a choice

I also like to keep in mind the words of Viktor Frankl in Man’s Search For Meaning.

Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust and went on to found logotherapy. In the book, he recounts his experiences in the Nazi concentration camps. He writes of the guards taking everything away from the prisoners, all of their human freedoms, in an effort to crush their spirit and destroy their will. But Frankl came to the realization that there was one thing that could not be taken away from him: his freedom to choose his reaction to what was happening to him. As Frankl himself put it:

Between stimulus and response lies man’s greatest power: the power to choose.

It’s easy to blame others for our misgivings.

– It’s his fault this happened!

– If only my boss wasn’t such a condescending bitch!

– I would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those pesky kids!

I see that as surrendering your power to choose. Even if you find yourself in a terrible situation, or if someone throws the mother of all insults your way, you still get to choose your response. Nobody can take away that power from you, but too often we surrender it ourselves.

Standing up for yourself

I should clarify that I’m not advocating you sit back and let people insult you repeatedly without response (sorry, Buddha). You have to stand up for yourself every now and then, lest folks start taking advantage of you and your unoffendability.

I was in a hostel in Munich last week, sharing a room with three other people. One of them had a real knack for waking me up. It was like he’d been preparing his whole life for that one task. He’d get up at 5am, turn on the light, and start making all sorts of noise as he got ready for the day, seemingly oblivious to the fact that there were other people in the room trying to sleep.

The first morning I let it go, choosing not to take offense. But the second morning, when it became apparent that this guy wasn’t going to figure out the whole empathy thing on his own, I called him on it. If I hadn’t, I knew I would have carried the resentment around with me for the rest of the day, and probably would have bitched about the guy behind his back.

Too many of us do this, methinks. We whine and complain about how other people mistreat us, but we never actually say anything to the offenders. Whining and complaining is pretty pointless in general, but it also becomes spineless when you haven’t brought up the issue with the offender first.

So, if you ever have cause to take issue with someone or something, instead of getting offended, take action to rectify the situation. If you’re watching a movie that sucks, stop watching and go do something else. If someone pisses you off, call them on it.

And if you can’t call them on it for whatever reason, the smart choice is to distance yourself from that person, or just learn to accept their behavior. No good comes from enduring an annoyance and building up all kinds of secret resentment.

The Stoic approach to insult management

I recently read a great book about Stoicism as a practical philosophy of life. There was a whole chapter on how to deal with insults. I’ll share with you here a few of my key takeaways.

Let’s say someone insults you intentionally. Their goal is to upset you. The best way to handle that is to simply refuse to become upset. This not only stumps your insulter, but it also makes them feel completely powerless. It’s like someone trying to kill you by shooting you point blank in the chest. How do you think they’d feel if the bullet just bounced off, superman style, and you responded with nothing more than a raised eyebrow?

If someone is trying to hurt you with an insult, it can also help to imagine that they’re a child. Because, really, such insults are childish. If you’re at a friend’s dinner party and his 3-year-old son comes up to you and calls you a poo poo head, you’re probably going to look at him in amusement, maybe ruffle his hair and then return to the adult conversation. You wouldn’t take the insult seriously.

Unless, that is, you are actually a poo poo head, and not all that comfortable being one.

Which brings me to another point: Sometimes we find ourselves taken aback by insults because there’s some truth to them, because they poke at our insecurities. Like if you’re losing your hair and someone makes a bald joke at your expense. In such a scenario, realize that your reaction says more about you than it does about the severity of the insult. If you have a solid foundation of self-assurance and are comfortable with your appearance, you won’t take offense.

See, if you’re really sensitive about your hair loss, that’s entirely your issue to deal with. Instead of wishing people would stop mentioning your receding hairline (out of your control), you could just learn to be comfortable rocking the bald dome (within your control).

“Anytime we think the problem is ‘out there,’ that thought is the problem.” – Stephen Covey

Likewise, if someone calls you fat and you get offended by it, I suspect that you’re not truly comfortable with your weight. Instead of resenting that person, you should use their words as a launch pad for exploring your relationship with your body, and making it a healthier one.

The Stoics actually welcomed insults, for two reasons.

The first is best summed up by these words from Antisthenes (who was technically a Cynic and not a Stoic, but I digress)…

“Pay attention to your enemies, for they are the first to discover your mistakes.”

The idea here is that insults can act as signposts. If there’s a grain of truth to them, then they help point us in the direction of our faults and insecurities, and we can get busy working on those and improving ourselves.

The second reason Stoics welcomed insults was because they believed they helped build a kind of immunity against criticism. A man who has been criticized regularly in the past is likely to shrug off future insults as no big deal, while a man who has never been insulted before will surely be left reeling when someone first likens him to donkey appendage.

Along these lines, a Stoic named Cato purposely used to go against the norms of fashion in ancient Rome, shunning the popular light purple tunic in favor of simpler, darker attire. As explained in the aforementioned book…

Cato did this not because he “sought vainglory”; on the contrary, he dressed differently in order to accustom himself “to be ashamed only of what was really shameful, and to ignore men’s low opinion of other things.”

This mindset has definitely proven beneficial to me. I used to get upset by negative comments here on the blog, or by people disagreeing with me. But not so much anymore.

I encourage foks to put themselves out there online, and in the real world, because you learn how to deal with other people not liking with you, or disagreeing with you, or thinking you’re a complete asshole. I believe it’s important to learn how to handle that. You’re inviting criticism, sure, but I see it as hardening myself against criticism, building a thicker skin.

Again, imagine the guy who never puts himself out there, never puts himeself in a position to be criticized. What happens when he falls into an unavoidable situation where criticism is inevitable?

Easy: He crumbles.

It’s (usually) nothing to do with you

Nowadays I tend to feel sorry for people who insult me. Granted, pity isn’t always my initial reaction, but give me a few seconds and I can usually reign myself in and realize that I don’t have to take offense.

Some people seem to be put out by the fact that I don’t drink, and they act a little shitty towards me because of it. I met a girl in England who openly mocked me about not drinking, and I understood perfectly once I saw her realtionship with alcohol. It wasn’t healthy, and she knew it. My teetotalling ways shone an unflattering light on her drinking habits, and she resented me for that. The quick and easy way for her to feel better about herself was to write me off as a weirdo, worthy of her best insults.

I once parted ways with a girlfriend, and a few months later she told me she was glad we broke up because I was “too free thinking and in love with the world.” She wasn’t being cruel — I’m pretty sure she didn’t mean it as an insult at all — but those words really hurt me at the time. Being free thinking and in love with the world are two of my favorite things about myself, and there was someone telling me that they disliked those qualities.

It took me a while, but I eventually came to realize that those words said more about my ex than they did about me. As long as I was happy with my world-loving, free-thinking ways, it didn’t much matter what she thought.

With that realization, I was able to let go of the hurt.

Fuck, and such

Some of us insist on getting really offended by profanities, like the word fuck. As my buddy Trevor notes, this makes little sense…

The only reason [some] words are bad is because we MAKE them bad… some people have chosen to interpret the noise of the air pressure of the consonant f, followed by the vocal chords making an uh, then more air pressure of the consents ck, as poison to their ears.

And that’s really what it comes down to: a choice. Nobody can offend you without your permission. If you choose to interpret a word as offensive, that’s entirely your business.

Some people get upset when I use naughty words on this blog, or when I write about taboo subjects. Or they’ll get offended just because my opinion is different to theirs. And to those people I say: You do realize that thousands of children in the world are needlessly starving to death every day, right? If you’re going to take offense to something, I recommend you start there, not with what some random dude writes on the Internet, that little thing you disagree with, or wish your sensitive eyes hadn’t seen.

Stephen Fry said it best…

“If I had a large amount of money I should found a hospital for those whose grip upon the world is so tenuous that they can be severely offended by words and phrases yet remain all unoffended by the injustice, violence and oppression that howls daily”

(It must be noted though that Mr. Fry surely has accumulated a large fortune at this stage, yet still no such hospital. Color me disappointed.)

Now, all that said, I don’t advocate people go around shouting profanities from the rooftops. Best be considerate and refrain from asking little old ladies how their motherfucking day is going.

Practical steps for dealing with insults

Alright, I feel a bit of a summation is in order. Here’s a step-by-step approach to dealing with insults that I’ve found particularly effective.

1. Pause

When someone throws an insult your way, the first thing you need to do is take a moment. Just breathe. Don’t respond right away. Most people immediately let their lizard brain loose to respond to insults, fighting fire with fire, and that’s how they get themselves in trouble and say or do things they later regret.

So take a moment. With time and practice, that moment will become shorter, because you’ll train yourself to instinctively respond in an appropriate manner.

2. Consider the intent

Don’t even worry about whether there’s any truth to the insult just yet. Consider the intent instead. If you can figure that out, it’s easier to come up with an appropriate response.

3. Respond

If the other person is intentionally trying to insult you, or at least that’s what you suspect, there are a few things you can do.

One is to just completely ignore the insult, to pretend you didn’t even hear it. Just act like whatever was said isn’t even worth acknowledging because it’s so ridiculous.

But there is a danger to that. As noted earlier, sometimes you need to stand up for yourself and call someone out when they insult you. Because if you don’t, they may receive the message that you’re a pushover, willing to be their verbal punching bag whenever they need someone to pick on.

My approach is to ignore the first insult. If that doesn’t work, and the person persists in trying to insult me, then I call them out. You can say something like, “Yeah, I heard you the first time.” Say it while looking them in the eye and with an amused look on your face, and hold that for a few seconds before going on to talk about something else.

Another way to call them out is to name the game. Ask them, “You wouldn’t be trying to offend me now, would you?” Or say, “Wow, my view on that really makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t it?”

Again, you remain calm and appear as though you’re amused by the childish game they’re playing. Because insults are a childish game after all, and you’re above that. So let them know.

You can also respond to an insult with self-deprecation. If someone tries to make a joke at your expense, you add to the joke. Again, you’re sending the message that you can’t be messed with, that you don’t take offense to silly things.

4. Contemplate

Here’s where we switch from talking about outer response to inner response. Inner is more important, because on the outside you can fake a good response to an insult, or a good non-response, but you may end up secretly seething about it for months or even years afterwards.

And that’s not good. You don’t just want to appear unoffendable. You actually want to be unoffendable.

As mentioned, I don’t worry about whether there’s any truth to the insult when it happens (unless it’s an obvious falsehood and I can easily dismiss it). Instead, I focus on delivering an appropriate response and save the contemplation for later, usually when I’m alone and have adequate time to think. Only then will I consider if the insult actually has any basis in reality, and if it points to an issue I need to address. If not, I can just forget about it.

I’ve found that nowadays it’s almost impossible for me to get offended by false accusations. I’m secure enough in myself and I live in line with my values. If someone tells me I’m a terrible person, I know it’s not true.

And if there is some truth to an insult fired my way, I take that Stoic approach and try use it to my advantage. Not only does it help me discover parts of myself I need to work on, but it’s also good practice for handling whatever future criticism the world sends my way.

How do you handle insults?

This was a pretty long and comprehensive post, but I’m sure you fine folks can teach me a thing or two about handling insults via the comments. Have at ‘em.

Can’t see the video? Click here.

I used to be the kind of guy who would always finish what he started. Take books for example. Even if I found myself reading a book I hated, one that was giving me no enjoyment whatsoever, I would force myself to keep reading and finish it.

Because conventional wisdom told me that was the right thing to do.

I didn’t want to be a quitter. After all, quitters never win and winners never quit.

Right?

Well nowadays I find myself quitting all sorts of things, often abandoning projects before they’re complete. And it’s not just because I have a short attention sp…

(Just kidding.)

I’ve become comfortable abandoning projects because I realize that it’s rarely worth sticking it out til the end if you’re not enjoying the process. Why would I force myself to keep reading a bad book when I can can just drop it and go read something that I’m more likely to enjoy?

Now sure, sometimes it’s worth sticking it out. If you quit everything as soon as the going gets tough, you never amount to much. So my criticism of conventional wisdom shouldn’t be taken as absolute. The point is that we should be wary of abiding blindly. We need to question whether or not such nuggets are applicable to our given situation.

With that in mind, here’s me poking holes in 21 other bits of conventional wisdom…

1. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t

Like the rat in this story, we often stick with the crappy, familiar situation because we’re afraid to embrace uncertainty. The logic goes, “Yeah, I hate my job and I have no friends, but at least I can rely on three hours of good ol’ Xbox every evening.”

I’ve found though that the devil I don’t know rarely turns out to be as scary as I imagined him to be, and oftentimes I find that he never even existed in the first place.

2. Never mix business and pleasure

If your bottom line in business is to make money, then I can see how this makes perfect sense. You’d have to be ruthless and not worry about upsetting people. But personally, I’d rather earn less money doing work I love with people I respect and admire. Zillion sum game and all of that.

3. There’s no such thing as a free lunch

Sure there is. I had one just last week.

4. Always have a backup plan

Over to Chris Guillebeau for this one…

You’ll hear something like “Airplane pilots always have a Plan B,” as if it’s an open-and-shut case that you’re wrong to chart a course without considering the contingencies. And when you are presented with such logic, you are expected to say: “Oh, you’re right! It really is better to play it safe. Gosh.”

But hold on a minute. Personally, I want my pilot to safely land the damn plane. Assuming that’s Plan A, I’m happy to stick with it. Anything else doesn’t sound like a good plan to me.

5. All good things must come to an end

All things must come to an end, not just the good things. And while that may sound depressing at first, keeping it in mind helps me appreciate the good moments while they’re happening, and reminds me that the bad times won’t last forever.

6. Better safe than sorry

This is the mantra of procrastinators everywhere. If you don’t try, you can’t fail. But as Tynan reminds us, “You can’t get what you want in life without taking risks.”

Besides, that sorry, as unlikely as it usually is, always stings less than the regret of not giving it a shot.

7. The clothes maketh the man

Even as a minimalist, I concede that it feels good to dress well and own nice things. The problem occurs when you begin to derive your sense of self-worth from such material objects. Be wary of anyone who judges you by your khakis, and be careful not to judge likewise yourself.

8. Don’t burn your bridges

Sometimes burning your bridges is the best thing you can do, because it leaves you no option but to move forward.

9. An eye for an eye

I was walking through the narrow streets of the Red Light District here in Amsterdam on Tuesday when a guy on a moped almost ran into a pedestrian. They were both young men, full of bravado. They started mouthing off at each other and before I turned the corner I saw that they had come toe to toe, ready to fight. I couldn’t help but think that a truly courageous man in that situation would have simply walked away.

As Ghandi said, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

10. Good men are hard to find

Only if you believe that to be the case. The more I put myself out there, and the more I expect to connect with like-minded people, the easier I seem to find them (or they find me).

11. If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all

As a former, chronic people-pleaser, I used to abide by this all the time, so scared I was of saying something that might cause someone to dislike me. I’ve since realized that nothing I say or do will ever be good enough for everyone, and so I just try to speak and act my truth as best I can. With that, at the very least, I know I’ll like myself.

12. It’s a good horse that never stumbles

I’d assume he’s a very young horse if he’s never stumbled. Just give him time. Because bad things happen to everyone. It’s how you handle those things that determines the quality of your life.

13. The customer is always right

Nobody is always right. I don’t care if your customer is the pope, you still gotta stand up for yourself and not let him take advantage of your generous ass.

(Totally didn’t intend to make a joke about the pope and bum sex there, I swear. I’ve obviously been reading way too much Ashley Ambirge.)

14. All’s well that ends well

I don’t believe the end always justifies the means. You can lie, cheat and steal to get ahead in life, but that’s a shitty way of doing it.

15. Knowledge is power

I’d say that without action, knowledge is pretty useless. Take the book Think And Grow Rich for example. It’s hard to argue against the information in there. The formula it lays out is pretty much guaranteed to lead to success. But the vast majority of people who read such a book aren’t willing to turn that knowledge into action, and so they stay stuck where they are.

The same is true of me. Pretty sure I know lots of things I could do that would take my business to the next level. But knowing isn’t enough. I need to do the work.

16. Money can’t buy happiness

As Michael Norton explains in the video below, “If you think money can’t buy happiness, you’re not spending it right.”

Can’t see the video? Click here.

17. All good things come to those who wait

I’m a big fan of not waiting. If you want something, take action now. At the very least, get the ball rolling in the right direction. Yeah, you may have to be patient and give it some time, but don’t just sit on your hands and expect it to happen on its own.

18. Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today

In the same vein as “finish what you’ve started,” this one might be more useful rephrased as, “Never put off until tomorrow what you can avoid doing altogether.”

19. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks

I say it’s never too late. I’m obviously still quite young, but I believe I’ve learned many more important lessons as a self-directed student than I ever did in school. When you have the interest, you can learn plenty of new tricks, no matter what age you are.

20. Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves

I’m no finance expert, but I agree with Ramit Sethi: “You can’t out-frugal your way to rich.” Because while there’s only so much you can cut back on your expenses, there’s no limit to how much you can earn.

So instead of worrying about the pennies, to me it makes more sense to go after big wins. Which is why most of my pitches on oDesk are for a few big jobs that pay serious money, rather than lots of little jobs that pay next to nothing.

21. Think before you speak

As I found out from my two-week flirting experiment here in Amsterdam (lots more about that next week, by the way), thinking is often my worst enemy. Instead of walking up and starting a conversation with someone I found attractive, I often held back trying to first think up of the perfect line to open with. And then the moment would be lost and I’d never get to talk with her.

More important than thinking before you speak is to trust yourself, and know that even if you say something stupid and the girl ends up thinking you’re a complete tool, it really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

Your turn

What other bits of conventional wisdom do you think we should be wary of? And which are just flat-out wrong? Here’s a big list for inspiration. Share your thoughts in the comments.

…

P.S. I’m finally moving on from Amsterdam, after three great weeks in the Dutch capital. This weekend will take me to Frankfurt. Next week, I’m not quite sure. Any recommendations for places to visit between Frankfurt and Zurich?

Can’t see the video? Click here.

Today is the day.

While most of you are reading this, I’ll be on my way to Dublin, where I’m scheduled to take a ferry to England this eve. It’s the official start of my round the world trip without flying, a trip that’s likely to take a few years and change me greatly.

I’m pretty calm considering. I thought I’d be extremely anxious right about now, but I’m doing fine. Methinks I’ve gotten used to taking big leaps.

There was the leap back in 2004 when my uber-shy self moved solo to the United States without knowing a soul. There was the leap back in 2007 when I moved to New Orleans to follow my favorite basketball team. Last year I took another big leap by leaving my 9-to-5 in NOLA and moving back to Ireland to get started with this self-employed vagabond lifestyle dealio. More recently, I took a leap to go live in Spain, and then lots of little leaps to return home.

Here are a few things I’ve learned from all that leaping, lessons that are helping me not freak out right now…

1. Taking the leap isn’t as scary as your lizard brain will have you believe. It will always be terrifying until you do it, and then it quickly becomes your new normal.
2. Things generally work out okay, even when bad shit happens.
3. People are generally good.
4. Whether you leap or stay put, you’re going to piss off someone. Just remember that the most important person to keep happy is yourself, because you’ll always be stuck with you.
5. You can have everything that you want, but you can’t have it all at the same time.
6. Persistence and experimentation will take you wherever you want to go.
7. You can’t run away from your own bad habits. Hard work and self-discipline will always be required to fix those. Fix them early on and you save yourself a lot of frustration and self-loathing.
8. You can’t be happy in the future. You can’t be happy in the past. If you can’t be happy in the moment, you never will be.
9. Security is not about having things. It’s about being able to handle things. (Thanks, Jacob.)
10. It’s much easier to land on your feet if you surround yourself with good people who get what you’re trying to do (even better if they’re doing similar themselves).
11. You can find such people online. They’re just as real as the dude next door.
12. Set yourself deadlines. Announce them publicly.
13. “We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret and disappointment.” – Jim Rohn (via CG)
14. Always be proactive. Boredom is for lazy people.
15. Playing it safe is the riskiest thing you can do.
16. What works for someone else may not work for you, and vice versa. You’ll only know for sure by giving it a shot.
17. No ask, no get. You might have to change how you ask and who you ask, but you must keep asking.
18. Feel lucky.
19. Share as much value as you can. Not only does it feel good in itself, but it usually comes back to you in unexpected ways.
20. Define what success means to you. Recognize and enjoy it once you get there.
21. Don’t take yourself too seriously. At the end of the day, we’re all a bunch of monkeys

Have you taken many leaps yourself? What have you learned from them?

…

Leaving you with a recent Slieverue sunrise. I’ll see my next when I return via the West.

…

Want to learn more about my round the world trip without flying? Check this post. If you’d like to learn more about Disrupting the Rabblement, or become a part of the legendary rabble rousing community we’ve got growing here, two things you can do:

1) Join my mailing list via the form below. You’ll get new articles from me twice weekly, and exclusive access to my monthly traffic and finance reports, which detail how I’m growing this site and transitioning to sustainable self-employment.

2) Check out the free Disrupting the Rabblement manifesto. It’s all about thinking for yourself, living your dreams, and pissing off zombies. 44 pages of freedom, and you can download it here.

Can’t see the video? Click here.

“…your birthday exists in relation to another day, a day that is impossible to know: we pass silently, every year, over the anniversary of our death.” – Thomas Hardy

Drop the petty shit. Do things that matter. Because some day you’ll be dead. And you don’t want to have spent your life mired in meaningless mediocrity.

This isn’t a new message. But it is a true message. And this isn’t bad news. This should set you free. We all die, but not all of us truly live.

What you gonna do?

…

P.S. This is my 200th post. My first was almost two years ago. Many thanks for your kind attention.

Can’t see the video? Click here.

As this blog continues to grow steadily, I find myself getting more and more emails from readers (which is great by the way, keep them coming). I’ve noticed that one topic comes up over and over again.

Parents.

Seems there are a lot of us out there who have big dreams, who want to do something meaningful with our lives, away from the safe and forgettable… but we’re worried about what our parents will think.

We’re worried about abandoning them. We’re worried about disappointing them. We’re worried that, if we are to trust our guts and follow our hearts, that we may end up being disowned by the very people we owe our lives to.

What to do?

I’m lucky

I’ll state right up front that I’m not the best person to address this issue, since methinks I have it pretty easy compared to most.

See, while my parents aren’t exactly thrilled with the lifestyle I’ve chosen for myself — if my mother had it her way I’d marry a nice Irish girl and build a house next door — they haven’t offered up much resistance to it. As long as I’m happy and not hurting anyone, they’re pretty cool with however I choose to live my life.

I’m also fortunate in that my two older brothers have built houses very close to home, so my parents won’t be all alone or lacking in support as they grow older and less independent.

Oh, and I’ve never been a parent myself, so I have no idea what it’s like to have my kid abandon apparent sanity and chase a crazy dream.

So yeah, I can’t really tell you anything here from personal experience. But I’ll share my perspective anyways. Hopefully it helps.

Mr. and Mrs. Coelho

When folks email me about the parent issue, I like to bring up Paulo Coelho.

You’ve heard of him, right? One of the most successful authors alive today, he’s sold several billion books (give or take) worldwide. He doesn’t just write, he inspires. The world is undoubtedly a better place for him and his work.

But flash back to when Paulo was a teenager, and his parents had him committed to a mental institution. On three separate occasions.

Why?

Because he wanted to be a writer.

See, Mr. and Mrs. Coelho didn’t think “writer” was a practical career choice. They were full sure that their son would end up starving in a slum somewhere if he pursued his passion, and so they tried to talk him out of it. When he wouldn’t listen, a trip to the local nuthouse for a little electro-shock therapy seemed in order.

Thankfully, Paulo resisted his parents resistance and managed to become his best self anyways.

But what if the young Brazilian had succumbed to all that opposition and given up on his dream? What if he’d been a good son and obeyed his parents? Sure, he’d probably have become a successful lawyer and helped a lot of people anyway, but he would have had nowhere near the positive impact that he’s been able to achieve through his writing.

Fact is, the world today would be a little less bright had Paulo been a parent pleaser.

But here’s what I love most about Coelho’s story. When asked if he’d forgiven his parents for how they treated them, he responded…

I did not need to forgive them, because I never blamed them for what happened. From their own point-of-view, they were trying to help me to get the discipline necessary to accomplish my deeds as an adult, and to forget the “dreams of a teenager.”

Why your parents don’t want you to be you

When parents offer resistance, I believe it’s for four primary reasons.

1) They want to protect you

The higher you set your aspirations, the bigger the potential for disappointment. Your parents don’t want to see you fall. They want you to succeed at everything and never get hurt. Of course, the world doesn’t work that way. Shield a kid from pain and she’ll never really live.

I truly believe that going all out to achieve your dream is reward enough in itself, even if you never quite reach it. Just in that journey you’ll feel alive more than you ever have before.

2) The fear of change

We’re all a little selfish, and we all resist change. Many parents don’t want their kids deviating from the norm because then the parents themselves will have to figure out a new reality, a different and uncomfortable reality where their kid doesn’t follow the rules and act predictably.

But hey, everything changes. Nothing stays the same. We adapt or we die.

3) That unflattering light

Then there’s the possibility that you going off and living your biggest dream will shine an unflattering light on the unfulfilling life your parents might lead. Because when we see someone else doing something that we’re too scared or lazy to do, it’s easy to feel bad about ourselves, and to resent that someone for “making” us feel that way.

Usually this will be subconscious if it’s there at all. So expect it, and forgive it. It comes from a place of low self-worth, of regret and despair. It’s nothing to do with you.

4) They really do need you

If you’re an only child or somehow your parents’ life support system, you can’t just drop everything and head off into the world to chase your biggest dream, leaving your parents to fend for themselves. I totally get and respect that. Giving up your own ambitions to care for loved ones is nothing short of heroic.

You need to be careful here though. I get the impression that many sons and daughters tell themselves that their parents can’t live without them, when in fact that’s just a convenient excuse to keep them from taking a scary leap.

Momma doesn’t always know best

A friend of mine dropped out of school at sixteen. His mother, herself a school teacher, almost killed the chap. She wanted him to follow in the footsteps of her eldest son, who had finished top of his class in high school, aced all four years at a fancy university to secure a prestigious degree, and landed a damn spiffy desk job before his grad hat hit the ground.

Fast forward a decade, and the eldest had abandoned the corporate life. The big paycheck didn’t compensate for all the uninspiring work and mountains of stress. He found himself much happier helping out his uncle laying hardwood floors, prestigious degree be damned.

And by that time, his younger brother (the dropout) had become highly-successful running his own garage, showing remarkable business smarts while turning his passion for everything on four wheels into an auto repair shop. He’s more artist than mechanic.

So one son did everything momma wanted, while the other listened to his gut and went his own way. They both ended up in their happy place, but the eldest needed a big detour to get there. Gotta be careful who you take directions from.

Honoring your parents

I feel my biggest loyalty lies with the world at large, and the potential I have to make it a better place, to reach as many people as possible in my lifetime and leave them better than I found them.

If you want to truly honor your loved ones, go out in the world and live your absolute best and brightest, make the most of that gift your parents gave you. And you have to be okay with the fact that they may always resent you for doing so, and you have to forgive them that resentment.

The alternative is for you to live your life the way your parents expect you to and never reach your dreams. And if you do that, it’s not just you who suffers, but everyone who stands to benefit from the gifts your best self has to offer.

I also like to believe that there’s an abundance of love in the world, and if my parents were to suddenly disown me for some reason, that other, more supportive people would step up to take their place.

They say family is everything, but I don’t believe you have to be related to someone by blood to have an extremely strong and fulfilling connection with them. On the flip side, many of us have family members who are terrible people and do nothing but drag us down. It’s just not smart trying to remain loyal to folks like that.

Have your parents ever held you back?

Like I said, I don’t have much in the way of personal experience to draw on here, so I’m interested to hear from others in the comments. How have you dealt with parental resistance?

Can’t see the video? Click here.

The above video sees me interviewing Jacob Sokol about his excellent new guide called Living on Purpose (more details at the bottom of the post). I love chatting with Jacob and checking out his blog because the guy absolutely oozes enthusiasm for life, and that shit’s contagious

To keep the interview relatively short and sweet, I wanted to hone in on one specific section of Jacob’s guide, the part where he tackles the subject of worry. Listing a few of the key points here:

• Worry is a sneaky and subtle type of fear.
• Worry only takes place in future psychological time. It doesn’t actually exist. It’s ALL in your mind.
• Nothing good comes from worrying. Not only does it drain you mentally, but it often acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy and sends signals to your mind to make what you’re thinking about appear.
• The only cure for worry is to take action. Or, if it’s something you can’t control, the only sane thing to do is forget about it.
• Studies show that 90% of the things we worry about never happen anyway.
• Your fear is NEVER as scary as it seems. Action builds confidence and confidence kills fears.
• You’re gonna be all right.

My take on worry

I’m actually gonna disagree with Jacob a little on this.

I don’t believe worry to be an entirely bad thing. As Jacob notes in his guide, worry is a type of fear, but fear can sometimes serve us well. That apprehension and tightness often moves us out of harm’s way, or urges us to sneak a precautionary peek before we leap. For example, I’m pretty scared of getting gang raped in prison, and so I go out of my way to avoid criminal behavior and batting my eyelashes at horny gangs of big hairy men.

There is a line though, and once across it you find yourself living in slavery. No longer does your fear act as a signpost and provoke you to take courageous action. Instead, you find yourself stressed out and paralyzed, the fear owning you. You worry endlessly and no good comes of it. When you’re at that point, life pretty much sucks.

The cure

And here’s where I agree with Jacob completely: If you’re scared of something, taking action will always bring the fear down a few notches.

If you’re worried about losing your job, get busy building your skillset and developing a side-business to supplement your regular income. Then you won’t be so screwed when the layoffs hit.

If you’re worried about what that hot piece of ass will think of you, go talk to them and find out, then you’ll know for sure and can stop guessing. Go flirt with a thousand more hot asses and you’ll eventually develop an immunity to the first impressions of complete strangers. You’ll roll with the occasional rejection and keep your head held high.

See, worry is good when it inspires you to get up off your own hot ass and do something. But you can’t dwell on it; It shouldn’t take long for that worry to be transformed into action. Every second you wait is a waste of time and energy.

The things you can’t control

I like the serenity prayer that Alcoholics Anonymous uses (feel free to paraphrase the G-man out of it if he makes you uncomfortable):

“God, Grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Sometimes we just have to accept that a situation is shit and that we’re not yet in a position to make it any less shitty. Worrying about such things does nothing but stress you out and make you less than your best while the inevitable happens anyway. Better to forget about it and focus your energy and attention within your circle of influence.

My worries

Lately, I find myself biting my fingernails. Again.

I had the habit all my life up until about three years ago, when I finally managed to quit. I was in New Orleans at the time, living my basketball dream, pretty settled, growing ever-more comfortable in my own skin. But now I’ve gone and pushed myself way out of my comfort zone with this whole self-employed vagabond lifestyle, one which I’m still working hard to make sustainable. So I worry, and the nailbiting appears to be the physical manifestation of that.

But it’s okay. I don’t believe I’ve crossed the line just yet. My worries are still working for me, and not the other way around. They keep me sharp and act as solid signposts. I feel strongly that I’m moving in the right direction, taking the right actions, getting a little more confident every day.

Your worries

If you find yourself fretting, don’t beat yourself up about it. When you push step out of your comfort zone, you’re going to worry. The key is to know where to draw that line.

Recognize when your worry is working for you (helping you to stay on top of things), and when it’s holding you back (stressing you out and keeping you stuck). When you find yourself dealing with the latter, either take action, or let it go.

That’s the best you can do.

…

Living On Purpose (and my best offer ever)

Here’s the skinny on Jacob’s guide: It’s 150+ pages all about how to live your best life, written by a guy who’s been living his for some time now. To be completely up front with you, I haven’t even finished reading it yet. There’s so much good stuff in there, no filler, that I’m taking my time to go through it all properly.

Living on Purpose won’t be for everybody, but if you’re looking for a comprehensive guide that shows you the type of mindset you need to really thrive and enjoy the bejaysus out of your days, then you should check it out. Jacob’s gone the extra mile and provided audio and video versions of the guide, too, so you can absorb the material however you want.

But before I link it up, I want to sweeten this deal for you, o legendary Disrupting the Rabblement reader. I’m feeling mighty generous as I get ready to head to Cork for my cousin’s wedding, so if you go ahead and buy Living on Purpose via the affiliate link below, you’ll also get FREE lifetime access to my Course In Courage, PLUS a $47 discount off the base price of a $50 Blog. To avail of the goodness, all you need to do is forward along the email receipt from your purchase of Living on Purpose to himself [at] ndoherty [dot] com.

So yeah, that’s $94 of value I’m throwing in there. The offer will remain open until midnight GMT on Sunday (September 4th). Forward me that receipt before then and I’ll get you hooked you up. Oh, and if you have no real need for a $50 blog right now, I’d urge you not to cash in on that discount right away; Keep it in your back pocket and I’ll honor it at a later date, no expiration.

Sound good? Alright, have at that affiliate link…

Living on Purpose by Jacob Sokol

Can’t see the video? Click here.

Human beings have a remarkable capacity to take things that are related to each other and stick them in separate airtight compartments so they don’t rub up against each other and cause them much pain. We’re all familiar with the man who goes to church on Sunday morning, believing that he loves God and God’s creation and his fellow human beings, but who, on Monday morning, has no trouble with his company’s policy of dumping toxic waste in a local stream. He can do this because he has his religion in one compartment and his work in another… It is a very comfortable way to operate, but integrity it is not.

The word integrity comes from the same root as integrate. It means to achieve wholeness, which is the opposite of compartmentalize. Compartmentalization is easy. Integrity is painful. But without it there can be no wholeness. Integrity requires that we be fully open to the conflicting forces and ideas and stresses of life.

– M. Scott Peck, Further Along the Road Less Traveled

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about integrity lately, and below I want to share with you a few things running through my brain. First though, I’d like to emphasize that I definitely don’t consider myself to be some master of integrity. I believe we’re all hypocrites to some extent, regularly choosing to turn a blind eye to our own inconsistencies, or else being completely unaware of them in the first place.

And that’s okay. We can’t be perfect. Hell, even Scotty P above struggled with integrity. He wrote so much in his lifetime about truth and love and trust, but apparently cheated so frequently during his 40-year marriage that his wife eventually divorced his ass.

So methinks this life dealio is too big and complex for us to truly wrap our tiny minds around everything and act with integrity 24/7. My aim is simply to do the best that I can and hopefully become a little less hypocritical every day.

Alright, let’s dive in…

Eating dog

I believe there’s a disconnect there when folks are perfectly fine with eating cows and chickens but not dogs. To me, that’s like famous people getting away with crimes that regular people would go to jail for; just because they’re popular doesn’t mean they should get special treatment.

So if you’re going to eat meat, I say go for it, but with that choice made you can’t seriously cite morality as your reason for passing up a leg of Lassie.

Along similar lines, I see a disconnect when folks are uncomfortable with hunting but have no problem buying steak and eggs at the supermarket. More often than not, those packaged products come from factory farms where the animals are crammed together and fed unnatural food all their lives. At least that deer your uncle shot lived wild and free before meeting a sudden end.

Now I’m not saying you should go track and kill a wild pig every time you’re jonesing for a pork chop, but I do think you should be at least willing to kill an animal yourself if you’re prepared to eat it. That to me is integrity.

(Hat tip to this post on Milt’s site for getting my wheels turning on the above.)

Piracy (not the Arrrrrgggghhh! kind)

I used to have more than six thousand MP3′s on my computer, all downloaded illegally. A few years back I deleted the entire collection, but today I again find myself with some illegal tracks in my iTunes, and every so often I’ll rip audio from a YouTube video and transfer it to my phone.

My laptop crashed back in January and I lost all the Adobe applications I’d been able to keep from my old 9-to-5. I’d downloaded cracked versions of Photoshop and the like before — literally thousands of dollars worth of software — but this time I decided not to go that route, opting to do without until I could afford the retail price. Still, when friends emailed me serial numbers to unlock the expired trial version of Photoshop, I went ahead and tried them.

Given all the above, it would be fantastically hypocritical of me to condemn piracy, so I’ll try to avoid that. I have become aware though of the compartmentalization I’ve got going on here, and I’ve been striving to move more towards integrity for a while now.

I believe self-employment has helped. Through that I’ve developed a much greater appreciation for the creative act. It feels good when people pay fair price for a product I create or a service I provide. It’s nice to be rewarded for the value you contribute to the world. To ensure I’m acting with integrity then, I should be willing to pay fair price for the value I receive from others. Going back to the Photoshop example, an individual license would cost me $800. Is that a fair price? I think so. That’s some pretty kick-ass software right there. Gimp just doesn’t cut it for me.

I’m also a big believer in the abundance mindset, and trying to save money by using free software or downloading the expensive stuff illegally doesn’t fit with that. How can I expect people to pay top dollar for my products and services when I’m not willing to spend top dollar on something myself? I’m hoping for abundance, but my actions scream scarcity. Integrity: not so much, but I’m working on it.

Investing in others

I’ve held back on signing up for several online courses over the past few months. Part of it was to save money, and part of it was because I held the belief that I could learn more from my own trial and error than I could from any online course. I still think those are pretty good reasons, but I was missing something big.

See, I have my own online course (currently closed to new members, but reopening next week), and not many people have signed up for it since the initial launch back in March. The disconnect is that I was expecting folks to sign up for my course while I was actively avoiding signing up for anyone else’s. Integrity lacking.

I was also missing the whole investment part. When someone signs up for my online course, they’re essentially investing in me, taking a leap and sending the message that they believe in what I’m doing and the value I can provide. As a result, I feel invested in them. They’ve demonstrated that they want me to succeed, and so I can’t help but root for them to succeed, too. As such, I check in with them every so often via email, read and comment on their blogs, and generally just try to help them out however I can. (This is especially true for those folks who really make the most of my course, doing such things as taking recommended action or posting in the forum.)

For some reason it took me a while to realize that I’d receive a similar investment from others when I sign up for and contribute to their courses. There I was trying to form solid connections with some specific people online, without ever actually investing real money in their projects. The message I was sending was, “Hey, I believe in what you’re doing, but not enough to pay for it. Wanna be my friend?”

So now I’m starting to look at online courses as investments. I’m not about to go splash out on a dozen of them, but there are two in particular that I intend to sign up for this month and become deeply involved with. I expect the information in those courses will be phenomenal, but for me the real value will be sending a clear message that I believe in what those folks are doing. The next step will be giving them some good reasons to return the favor.

How’s your integrity hanging?

What do you compartmentalize? Have you identified any areas where your integrity is lacking? As noted at the start of this post, we’re all hypocrites at some level, so don’t go beating yourself up about any disconnect you notice within yourself. Just try to close those gaps a little more every day.

…

P.S. My latest finance report will be posted this weekend for email subscribers only. In there I detail everything I earned and spent in July, and reveal how much money I have left to my name. To ensure you don’t miss it, scroll down a bit and do the subscribe thing.