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Your brain is lying to you and preventing you from finding the right path in life

Your brain is lying to you and preventing you from finding the right path in life

searchingforsumthin 4 Comments

It’s nuts what BULLSHIT your brain tells you to get you to act or think something. My latest thing is worrying about money when I’m 90 – assuming I even make it that far. I ran some errands earlier to restock on allergy medicine and on the way, I listened to Seth Godin’s guest appearance on the Tim Ferris podcast. As usual, Seth nails point after point about branding, business education and life.

Your brain is lying. It always does that

One of the things Seth talks a lot about is why – knowing your purpose and understanding what it is you are contributing to the world. Wow, I have struggled with that forever! What am I here for? What’s my mission? What am I contributing to this world or am I just taking up space? Part of the answer for me is my family, being a great dad, husband, and son  but what is my greater good exactly?

One might think that my ~10 years in the non-profit world would have led to some sense of purpose. But I was either too disconnected, too asleep or too numb to notice and that time has passed. I didn’t find myself or my purpose inside a non-profit which is too bad because there is so much good work to be done.

So after the past 2 years transformation, meditation, tai-chi and reflection I’m once again thinking about this question of purpose. Now that I’ve woken the hell up a bit, what’s next?

What’s the right path in life?

Can I find fulfillment and joy in simply being present and alive and taking things as they come? I feel anxious about that because I have so many professional ambitions – most of it related to money I’m sure. And titles and power.

And yet thankfully, something inside me is telling me to slow down and that the idea of finding fulfillment and joy in being present is the right answer. My ambition has led to hell. For me, it’s been a road paved with pain and suffering – and more importantly, a road I’ve already been down multiple times. Maybe I’ll actually ignore my damn dirty lying brain, get out of my head and into my heart this time.

Maybe this time, I’ll try something different. Maybe this time, I’ll actually ignore my damn dirty lying brain, get out of my head and into my heart. Wouldn’t that be a change!

What about you – is your brain liar like mine?

The Problem with Hustle

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If you listen carefully and look around a bit you’ll see a fairly persistent meme and a collection of entrepreneur’s and bloggers espousing a “hustle” lifestyle. If you haven’t bumped into these people yet, there is a collection of entrepreneurs who are hustling all the time, all day, every day. Bragging on social media about working 120+ hour weeks and starting multiple businesses. They write blogs (like this one but, umm, popular?), books, make Youtube videos, have Instagram and Snapchat followers and generally are always on.

For a long time I admired these people. To be honest, I had no idea if they were actually making money or how they were able to sustain such an intense pace. I felt for a long time that I wanted this lifestyle. I read their books, blogs and learned “Getting Things Done.” I posted photos of my travels and humble-bragged about Platinum Status on some fucking airline and fancy hotel upgrades at some other fucking hotel.

Now, for true entrepreneurs I do believe that the true hustle mentality is the best and likely only way to survive and thrive. I get it. Success is damn hard. I take nothing from those talented and dedicated people. Building a successful business is nothing to take lightly. So if that’s your bag, kudos! Go make a million billion dollars with your trillion Facebook fans and your millions of views on your insightful, or funny, or smart videos. If that’s for you, go get em! But beware the bullshit. And remember that life is short, even if it feels like it may last forever.

My awakening has jolted me in many ways. In particular, it’s helped me realize that part of my being unconscious was falling into what I now call the #hustle fantasy.

Here’s how it worked for me, your mileage may vary. It’s the anti-Hustle:

  1. You are ambitious, smart and like money. Who doesn’t like money, right?
  2. You believe that everyone (you in particular) have the talent and drive to copy whatever flavor of successful, famous business man/woman is out there and make a sack of money.
  3. You  spend your time reading and learning from them but find that when you go to apply the lessons, they either don’t work as expected. Or, you  realize you’ve been RUNNING DOWN THE WRONG FUCKING PATH.
  4. You resist because you know what, money is good. Success is good. And shit, money + success = happiness. right?
  5. You forget who you are and become this other person, working in a job you hate, or a career that is clearly wrong. Shit goes wrong. You fight, or worse, ignore your family. You don’t get rich.
  6. You hit the wall.
  7. You wake up one day and if you are lucky, realize you’ve been asleep, dream-walking through life, doing your finest job at ignoring your true self.
  8. You come to a one of likely many decision points to do something about it. Maybe you do, or maybe you don’t. But don’t lie to yourself as if what’s going on isn’t real. Your misery isn’t going on holiday and you can’t buy a Tesla to make it all feel better. Your kids are grown up and your wife, if she’s still around is a total stranger. Even worse, YOU are a stranger to YOURSELF.

What is happening to me, right now, at this moment is that I’ve decided I’m not going to take this shit anymore. I’m waking up. I’m awake. And I refuse to go back to sleep. I’m not perfect, no way, not even close. Sometimes I’m at dinner and not present with my family – but it’s a bad habit now, and not who I am anymore.

Hustling isn’t the problem

Let me be clear. There is no problem with hustle. If you find your passion, your calling and your dream, hustle is like breathing. It’s why true entrepreneurs soak up 18 hour days and come back for more. But don’t be an idiot. Hustle is also what con-artists do, they hustle you out of your money and your time. And you if this blog post resonates with you I have some good news and some bad news for you.

The bad news is that you may be hustling yourself – conning yourself. Lying to yourself that the money makes it all right. Or the travel benefits. Or the job title. Good luck with that. It’s not real. You’ve been hustled.

The good news is that you can wake the fuck up. But the first step is the hardest. You have to realize you are asleep in the first place.

So are you hustling yourself out of the beautiful life you deserve?

Life is occasion, rise to it

The Examined Life

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Zach Braff made a movie called “Wish I Was Here” in which the main character, loosely based on himself is a struggling actor who refuses to give up his dream. His family endures his dream and everyone bends over backwards to help him make it as he examines his life.

I’ve never felt that strongly about anything in my life. I wonder what it’s like to be willing to die for a dream. It makes me feel weak and lame that I don’t have that *thing* that drives me in that way. Part of the reason this site is called “Searching for Sumthin” is exactly that search.

The movie, which admittedly I have only seen once when it first came out in 2014 has stuck with me and is now representative of the question I’ve been asking everyone I meet about their art.

The blog post I wrote “What is Your Art” is a big part of the examined life. Understanding yourself deeply enough to answer this question seems like a wonderful place to start the examination. You can pick your poison in terms of who to read – Buddhists, Tony Robbins, Steve Pavlina – they are all great and all have wisdom and bits that will help guide your journey.

But in the end, it feels like introspection and honesty with yourself is the key here. Examining your life requires stripping away all the bullshit and getting right down to it. Here are 5 great questions I’m asking myself to help take this to the next level. These questions are by no means complete and are simply to get your brain moving.

The Examined Life Starter Questions

  1. What activity or thing would you do full time, without pay for 6 months, or a year? Or forever.
  2. What did you dream about when you were a kid?
  3. If you went to college – why did you go, really? And if you didn’t go, why did you make that decision?
  4. Do you believe in God? If so, why and if not, why?
  5. Do you like yourself?

There are a million other questions we could all ask but start here. I have spent a bunch of time considering the first 3 and am working on the last 2 actively. It’s not easy to examine your life. Being honest with yourself can be hard to do!

The examined life can feel like a silly exercise, but it’s the key to understanding yourself and finding you way home.