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I started reading Rory Vaden’s book Take The Stairs today. It’s a book about success and self-discipline. Within the first few pages I already wanted to turn it off (listening on audio) because he was talking to me. My first instinct has always been to look for an easier way. A shortcut. In school, I’d always create my own math shortcuts so that I wouldn’t have to show my work. I didn’t understand how if I could figure it out in my head why I needed to do the work on paper. It didn’t make sense to me… until now. It wasn’t about the solution, it was about the work. It wasn’t about the destination it was about the journey and the steps it took to get there.

Hard work is avoided because it’s hard. I don’t want to do the hard work but If I want the destination, I have to show my work. Showing your work is intentional. It’s a practice. It’s a discipline. It’s something that I’ve never felt like doing. But I understand that If I want to define the destination, I have to choose to wake up and make the decision to do the things I don’t feel like doing, everyday, for the rest of my life, to get there.

We live in a calculator culture. We want to race to the solution without doing any of the work. No I’m not going to stop using a calculator but I am going to stop pretending that instead of showing my work, I can punch in a few numbers, hit a button to get my answer. Success is: Hard work paired with intentionality focused on your definition of success. No calculators allowed. Show your work.
how to be successful

We know all of this. It’s not rocket science. We know what we have to do to be successful in every area of our life: work, health, fitness, relationships, finance. But as Rory Vaden says, “We know what we should do… we just never get around to it.” When I heard that this morning, I wrote this in my notebook in BIG, BOLD, “look at me” letters:

Get Around To It.

Happy Monday!

Chris

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There was a time when we were a notch lower on the food chain. A time when we had to be on high alert and understand the real danger that lies ahead. Lions, tigers, bears, oh my CRAP so much to be scared of! In that time, danger was real. We had to hunt for our food and fight for our lives.

Now though, we wake up on a soft bed. We transition to a nice warm shower. Some of us transition to our soft desk chairs in our home office. Others into our air-conditioned car on the way to work. There are no lions here. No real life-threatening reason to be afraid. Yet we are. We know the things we have to do to make our lives better. We know the things we have to make our work better, we just don’t do them. We put them off as if we’re scared of them. Why is that?

That’s a question Julien Smith asks in The Flinch. He argues that the same primal fear that is meant to protect us from real danger is still alive and well and it’s keeping us from doing our best work. When faced with a conflict or struggle, our brain literally has the same “Flinch” reaction as it would if we were being charged by a lion. We know what we have to do, we are just literally too afraid of being eaten by the lion to do it!

So what do we do about it? We intentionally experience “The Flinch.”

Remember the “Uncomfortable Challenge” from a few months ago? Where I poured cold water over my head in 19° weather? Yeah, that will give you “the flinch.” So will taking an improv class or giving a speech. The more we experience that flight response that tells us to run from the lion, the more we can remind ourselves that there is no lion; Only cold water (With a warm house nearby), only a room full of people who understand your nervousness, only work that needs to done. When we get used to that feeling, we can recognize it and lean into it realizing there’s no real danger. Then we can really make something awesome.

“You will never be entirely comfortable. This is the truth behind the champion – he is always fighting something. To do otherwise is to settle.”
― Julien Smith, The Flinch

You know that scene in the Matrix where Neo is talking to the kid about how to bend the spoon with his mind? Neo tries to bend the spoon but fails.

The boy says: “Do not try and bend the spoon. That’s impossible. Instead… only try to realize the truth.”

Neo: “What truth?”

Boy: “There is no spoon.”

Neo: “There is no spoon?”

Boy: “Then you’ll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.”
The flinch, Julien Smith, chris creed

Exactly that! (Sort of…) The fear of the lion will never go away because it’s hardwired into our DNA but we can learn to use it to our advantage. We use it by reminding ourselves: There is no lion.

If you want to read more about The Flinch, you can download Julien’s book for FREE. That’s right $0. It’s a quick read and a swift kick in the ass that we all need.

Happy Friday!

Chris

Question:
Can you identify your biggest Flinch triggers? What makes hesitate most when you go to do it?

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  • Mark Brown - Love everything about this post – thank you for the reminder on the reality of things!ReplyCancel

Jen and I were talking with a friend yesterday about what we see coming up down the road for us. Something we talk about frequently but never really nail it down with any cohesiveness. So we jab on for a bit dancing around things, when Jen says: “Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff we’d love to do that’s just too scary to put into words.” We laughed but she’s right and it’s true. And also, it’s ok.

Is your adventure too scary to put into words? Does the wilderness you’re staring at look so vast that you’re not sure you could ever make it through alive? I get it. When we get to these places of uncertainty, it’s normal to pause. It’s normal to stare into the void and wonder what’s inside. But what happens next is not normal. What happens next is what will separate you from the average observer. Yes it’s scary. Yes it might not work. But here’s to the wilderness.
fearlessness, bravery

It’s normal to have that feeling because fear is a healthy reminder that what we’re about to do might be dangerous. But it might also be awesome. Fearlessness is not a requirement of making stuff that changes the world but Bravery is. It might be too scary for words right now but what happens next might be awesome. The words will come when they come. For now, just step in. Here’s to the wilderness!

Happy Thursday folks!

Chris

Question:
If your wilderness is NOT (or is) too scary for words right now, I’d love to hear about it! What can you do today to get started?

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You ever think: “I wish I was doing more awesome stuff.” I’ve been thinking on this idea a lot. The truth is, I don’t think we need to be doing more awesome stuff, I think we just need to be doing more stuff. You can’t do more awesome stuff without the “more” part or the “stuff” part. Do “more stuff,” and the “stuff” will get more awesome. Don’t make it all random (although some randomness is good) but the more you do, the more you find yourself in situations where awesome happens.

 

The Awesome Virus:
is an infective agent that typically consists of combinations of dreaming and doing. It is too small to be seen at it’s beginning but is able to multiply with more life and more doing and from being around other infected hosts.

how to be more awesomeWanna do more awesome stuff? Do more stuff and be around more people who do stuff too. So go places. Go to conferences. Meet awesome people. Change your routines. The people you see doing awesome stuff didn’t get to do those things by waiting for them. The gods of awesome didn’t show them favor and decide to leave you out. What happens is they freaking chase after the awesome every single day. And if you start chasing awesome, eventually you’ll catch it. Catch it like a virus. A virus can only multiply and spread in living cells of it’s host. Life is a requirement to catch this virus. Go ahead. Do more life.

Happy Wednesday!

Chris

Question:
Do you know someone who has the awesome virus? Go hang out with them. Today.

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Last summer I read an awesome book on habits called The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. I loved this book because I like books that go into the science behind why we do what we do as humans and how we can influence it. The main idea in this book is The Habit Loop. The Habit Loop is how habits are made. You first have a cue that makes you start the loop, then the routine (the “habit”), then some sort of reward. Habit loops are why we don’t have to think about how to brush our teeth, drive a car, or tie our shoes. The cool thing is our brains set up these habit loops all on their own. The bad news is that our brain doesn’t know if it’s setting up a bad habit loop or a good one.

When you understand what’s really happening in your brain when it comes to habits, you can make intentional changes to affect the results you’re getting. So if we want to change a habit, we identify the cue and reward, and we change the routine. So say you have a habit if eating cookies late at night. The cue is “it’s late at night.” “I want to eat cookies” is the routine. The reward is the sweetness and deliciousness of cookies! So we replace our cookies with sugar snap peas. When it get’s late, we go grab the sugar snap peas where the cookies used to be. The little bit of sweet can help feed the reward center. Soon, your brain will be letting you know when it’s sugar snap pea time instead of cookie time!

“The Golden Rule of Habit Change: You can’t extinguish a bad habit, you can only change it.”
― Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

If you want to form a new habit, here’s what Duhigg calls “THE FRAMEWORK” for doing that : “• Identify the routine • Experiment with rewards • Isolate the cue • Have a plan” :

1. Identify and be consistent in the routine
What do you want to do? Start running? Start reading more? At the start at least, do it at the same time and make it a time you can always do it. Or go to the same place everyday or just have “a place” where you always go. (Will you run/read everyday? Every other day? Where will you go?) Be consistent.

2. Identify experiment with the reward
The reward is what will keep our brains wanting more so make sure you know what it is. Maybe with reading it’s making it to the next chapter. With running, maybe it’s the endorphin release or feeling better. See which works best and makes you want to keep coming back 🙂

3. Isolate the cue
Want to start running in the morning? Put your running shoes by your bed and put them on first thing.
Want to read more? Start listening to audiobooks in the car. That way every time you get in the car, your brain will think it’s reading time.

4. Have a plan
Knowing all these things isn’t enough. Repeating the loop consistently over time is where real change will occur. Have a plan and be consistent.

power of habit

“Champions don’t do extraordinary things,” [Tony] Dungy would explain. “They do ordinary things, but they do them without thinking, too fast for the other team to react. They follow the habits they’ve learned.”
― Charles Duhigg, The Power Of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life And Business

I use a habit loop to make sure I’m creatively fresh. Before I go to a shoot, I do something similar as a cue every time to let my brain know what’s about to happen. It usually looks like this:

1. Stop looking at social media 2 days before.

2. Do something intentional the day before (Hiking, movies, hanging out with friends)

3. Listen to music/podcasts on the morning of the shoot to intentionally feed my brain. (One of these podcasts usually :))

Those are the cues. The routine is going to the shoot and shooting. The reward is making work that I’m proud of. I get my brain ready so that it knows what’s coming and it gets sucked back into that habit loop over and over. I truly believe that creativity is less about knowing exactly what to make and more about intentionally preparing your brain for what comes next. So telling our brains what to latch on to, what’s important, is essential and the habit loop provides us a framework to do that.

If you interested in the reading more on habits, you can find this book here:

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

Remember this: Growth is not automatic. It takes intentional daily decisions to be the person you want to be.
Yes it’s true that our brains form habits all on their own. We don’t have to think to brush our teeth or put a car in reverse. (Awesome. Thanks brain!) But if our brains can’t decide if a habit is good or bad, we have to decide. We have to decide if we need to change it or not. They form automatically but that doesn’t mean we can’t do something about it 🙂

Happy Tuesday!

Chris

 

 

 

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  • Chris Crimmins - Thanks Chris for the review of the book. It is interesting how much of our lives is a series of processes that if defined, can be redirected. Developing a why or leverage that will demand we change habits is the other fuel to the fire. Thanks for following this path of self discovery and sharing it with us.ReplyCancel

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