I Just Spoke To Bill Gates For a Half Hour

I just wasted the last half hour talking to Bill Gates.

He was talking all about his philanthropy. He flattered me. He said “Billions of children are dying in Africa.”

Suffice to say, at the end of it, he encouraged me to make a donation to a charity that doesn’t really exist. “Maybe donate 80% of your assets.”

Fake Bill Gates! Shame!

I then informed everyone who I knew who was his “friend” that it was a fake Facebook account.

But it doesn’t stop me from being the idiot who wasted a half hour. What an idiot.

I am really a sucker all the time. I think it’s because I am overly optimistic. “Oh! if he’s talking about charity he probably is Bill Gates.” And…”I can’t believe I’m talking to Bill Gates!” Optimism and egoism.

You don’t need to donate 80% of anything. The way to be charitable is to start today: what can you do to make one person’s life better?

If you can ask, “Who did I help today?” at the end of every day, then you are in the top 1% of philanthropists in the world.

You can give all of your assets away. But assets are not money.

Assets can also be your kindness, your time, your ability to protect, a moment of thought for others. A phone call that encourages.

Just once a day. It compounds.

I never worry now about anything – because of 20 years of compounding kindness. I have created a net of good will. That is my asset.

The best way to avoid being discouraged is to encourage others.

Ugh. I’m so easy to scam.

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Meanwhile, onto more important topics:

What do you like better: “I am the Walrus?” or “Imagine?”

A reporter asked John Lennon: which music is better, the songs you did before you left the Beatles? Or the songs you made after you left the Beatles?

He said, “Are you asking is ‘I am the Walrus’ better than ‘Imagine?’ I never think about that. I just DO.”

Everyone wants to be a critic or a judge. Everyone wants to make the choices for you. The artist just does.

Artists do. Entrepreneurs do. Creatives do. Philanthropists Do.

Does this mean you have to get up every morning and work on your future famous painting or novel or business?

Not at all.

But Victor Frankl survived the concentration camp of the Holocaust by every day waking up and finding meaning in his life.

It’s the ENTIRE reason he survived when so many others died, including all of his family.

In other words: he lived longer. And he was happier.

The two meanings he found? One day, ‘I will see my wife again.” And one day, “I will write about this experience and help others.”

He had a reason to wake up in the morning, to survive until night. He did.

When the Andy Warhol museum opened up in the early 90s I went to the opening. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I entered.

Nine floors filled with art work. How could one person create so much in a lifetime, even though I knew he had many helpers.

Nine floors of art! Some art so small it could fit in your hand. Some were murals that filled up 50 foot walls.

All day, every day, he must have had a camera in his hand. Or at least a notebook to fill with ideas. Or a sketchpad to draw. Or….something! I don’t know.

He did.

Would I ever do that? I found myself in compare-despair, since I knew the answer was probably no.

People say, “It doesn’t matter. A billion years from now we’ll all be buried dust.”

Ok. But I will tell you when it does matter. Today it matters. And it matters to me. Don’t tell me about a billion years from now. Who cares?

If I waste today, I can’t help myself – I will feel it tonight.

I will feel like the cage in the zoo was open and I didn’t leave it. I didn’t seek out the freedom I deserve.

When I am doing something I love, I feel like nothing else in the world matters. I feel free.

And I feel connected to other people who are doing.

And I feel like I am improving my competence in something, It feels good.

If I wake up and say, “I’m going to do X” and I go to sleep and think “I did X”, then it doesn’t matter about a billion years from now.

It could be something creative. It could be a list of ten ideas. It could be an act of kindness. Something, anything – a small thumbprint I press down on society.

We are communal creatures. We are communal creators. The invisible connection of community is where energy is, life is.

It doesn’t even matter about yesterday. Or tomorrow.

I did. I do.

And I don’t care what people say – “I am the Walrus” is better.

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Is Donald Trump a Socialist?

The last time I called the President of the United States was in 1980. I needed to speak to him about something important. My birthday was coming up.

Jimmy Carter was President then. I wanted to visit with him and interview him.

I had been calling up every politician for months and trying to interview them. Some responded and some didn’t.

I kept calling the White House.

By the way, a weird thing happened to me the other day. I was trying to call my first wife to arrange schedules with my children.

I forgot her phone number. I had to actually email her and ask for her phone number.

But now, sitting here as I type this, as if it were yesterday I can remember the White House’s number from 1980. 202-456-1212. And no, I did not Google that.

I got ahold of someone, a secretary, and asked if I could meet the President on my birthday. I didn’t live anywhere near the White House. But I knew if they said, “Yes”, I could convince my dad to take me there. I was going to turn 12 years old.

They were kind enough to not say “No” directly but they gave me reasons. “The hostages in Iran” and “the coal miner’s’ strike”. The President was very busy dealing with those situations.

I asked for Rex Scouten, the Chief Usher of the White House. He took my call. Eventually, on my birthday, he gave my dad and me a private tour of the entire White House.

Afterwards my dad said, “That’s it, ok? No more long distance calls. Focus on schoolwork.”

I never listened to him. Only a year later I joined a cult and started sneaking into NYC almost every day instead of going to school.

But that’s another story.

This race for President is a joke. But so is every race. What maniac would ever want to be President?

But the media reporting the story is just as bad. As one producer once told me, “We are just trying to fill up the space between advertisements”.

At least he was honest with me. As opposed to saying something like, “We need to report the news.”

A few months ago I wrote about Donald Trump. I said he was a scam and that he was saying outrageous things not to win votes but to actually weed out the people who would never like him so he would be left with the lowest common denominator who would be loyal to him.

I said he would cap out at 12% of the polls. I was dead wrong. I don’t know where he’s at now because I don’t read the news but I guess he is somewhere around 30 or 40% of Republicans.

I don’t know what this means. I have no interpretation.

But the other day I looked at the comments to this post on my blog. There were TWENTY TIMES as many comments on this post as compared to all of my other posts.

And the comments were mostly disgusting. People calling each other right wing republicans or left-wing liberals. People accusing me of associating with whores and drug dealers.

Just complete insanity. I wrote to one person and asked why he thought his method of cursing and accusing would win him any supporters in his argument.

He wrote back, “Only a whore would hang out with someone like you and your left-wing friends.”

I am not left wing. I don’t even have a right wing. I just fall to the ground without wings.

The only issue I actually care about, selfishly, is war. Since I have a 17 year old daughter, I do not believe any war at all through history can be justified.

I would rather go to war myself than have someone recruit my 17 year old. Other than that, there’s no real issue I care about.

But the media gets everything wrong. Trump is not a Republican any more than Bernie Sanders is. Anymore than Hilary Clinton is.

But the media needs labels to take short cuts. “He’s a radical fascist Republican” as an example. Now we think we know all we need to know.

I have no opinion on anyone running. As I wrote in another article, I think we need to do a big favor and just eliminate the Presidency. But then, unfortunately, People magazine would go out of business.

According to the standard definitions of these labels, I sort of realized he’s the exact opposite of the label the media gives him. He’s probably just as Socialist as Bernie Sanders.

I also don’t care about that. Sanders, Clinton, Trump. Whatever. None of these people are more important to me than my neighbor, or lover, or friends.

Happiness and well-being is found on the simple invisible connection between two people who love each other.

Not on the winner of a popularity contest.

But I get disgusted by the media who wants to pigeon hole and rise up the anger of everyone just so they can sell ads. It’s the only way they can compete against the rising (and better) news that can be found online.

Let’s look at some Trump socialist quotes:

– WEALTH TAX

On November 9, 1999, Trump said,

” I would impose a one-time 14.25% net worth tax on individuals and trusts with a net worth of over $10 million.”

This is not a Republican position at all. In fact, on September 6, 2014, Bernie Sanders was at the AFL-CIO convention and called for a national wealth tax.

– NATIONALIZED HEALTH CARE

On health care, Trump is more to the left of Barak Obama.

Here are some quotes:

“We must have universal healthcare”

From January 2000, he wrote: “The goal of health care reform should be a system that looks a lot like Canada. ”

I’m not sure any Republican would ever say that.

– CLOSING THE HEDGE FUND TAX LOOPHOLE

I won’t go into the details of this tax loophole or the arguments for or against. Maybe I am for it, maybe I’m against. I have no clue.

Suffice to say, Trump wants to close the loophole.

Here are the people who have directly praised Trump for this:

Elizabeth Warren, Warren Buffett, and Paul Krugman.

Nobody would accuse any of the above of being a right wing Republican. If anything, they are left-wing liberals.

Again, I am not saying any of these people are right or wrong. I’m just distressed at how quick the media is to make a label a target and then start firing bullets.

If we really want to be informed enough to avoid making decisions that could make or break us, the media has to get out of the sandbox and treat voters with respect.

The media in their grandiosity calls themselves “The 4th Branch of Government”. What a joke.

– TARIFFS

Trump has called for up to a 45% tariff on China. Bernie Sanders has consistently voted against any free trade agreement that will reduce or remove tariffs.

I get it. If you keep all trade in the US, then that theoretically means greater employment and profits opportunities in the United States.

This theory is dead wrong.

Just research the Smoot-Hawley tariffs which eventually led to the Great Depression.

But that’s not the point. All I’m saying is: Media – the organizations that have pledged to keep us informed – please get it right.

That said, I know you won’t. That’s why I prefer to read a good book than get “information”. And yes, information is in quotes because it’s ironic.

– RETIREMENT AGE

Both Trump and Bernie Sanders are opposed to raising the retirement age.

Fine. Again, I have no opinion. The retirement age is a fiction anyway once most jobs are transformed to freelancers over the next 10-20 years.

– ISOLATIONISM

Trump has been a bit confusing on this issue. But two things that are not confusing: he wants to reduce funding for NATIO. And withdrawing American bases from around the world.

Basically, leave America out of it, world. We don’t need to protect the world is what he is inadvertently saying.

I agree with this actually.

But who else agrees with this? Bernie Sanders has consistently been isolationist in his voting record and his infrequent public statements on foreign policy (“Let’s nation build at home”).

—-

If I paid attention any more to this race, I would be disgusted.

But I honestly don’t care. What I do care about is how many people with super strong opinions are consistently wrong.

When you are fed horse-sh*t, you sh*t horse-s**t.

And that’s what is happening. People open their mouthes and s**t pours out.

Where do they get it? From BS media or websites with no information or corrupt ads paid for by anonymous PACs. The entire system is corrupt.

And to vote is to acknowledge that the system is honest. Which it isn’t.

The people sitting on top are invisible. The names we hear (Clinton, Trump, Sanders) have been puppets for decades.

This is not conspiracy theory. It’s reality.

They have no new issues. They basically agree on everything. And nothing will ever change.

Which is why the average person needs to look inward and change for themselves rather than depend on a government that makes promises they can’t possibly implement and don’t even have the authority to.

Sanders and Trump probably agree on more economic and political issues than disagree.

Wealth tax, closing hedge fund loopholes, pro tariffs, anti-free trade, centralized government, nationalized health care, isolationism, and on and on. I left out several other issues because I got tired of writing this.

Trump = Sanders = socialism on all of these issues. I am not a socialist or a republican or a democrat. But who cares. Get it right before slinging mud or making up false labels.

Meanwhile, I do love Ivanka Trump. I think she’s smart and funny. I wish I had met her and married her ten years ago.

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How to Be the Luckiest Person Alive, Again

I am mentally ill. And I’m in a mid-life crisis. I’m dishonest. And I’m a horrible father. And I think with my dick.

Thanks to all the kind strangers these past few days who wrote me these insightful facts about myself.

Here is the evidence: I don’t spend all my money on useless things.
I don’t believe in college, or voting. I have never had credit card.

A lot of people didn’t like my article the other day about minimalism.

About the fact that I have two bags of ALL of my possessions in the world and I have no steady address. [see attached photo]

Comments ranged from what I said above to, “This douchebag should get a haircut” to “He is probably screwing crack whores”.

I hope none of these things are true. But if I am mentally ill I probably can’t tell. That’s the sad problem with mental illness.

I am not sleeping in the street, by the way, I just don’t feel like ever signing a lease or buying a home again. And yes, getting a haircut today.

America has a negative savings rate.

That means the average American spends more than they earn so they have to borrow money to buy the rest of the things they spend on.

Which means if you do the reverse of spending (throwing 99.9% of your things away), you are practically the opposite of average.

And what happens when you go the other way while everyone is running to catch the train leaving the station behind you?

People think you are crazy. People think you are missing the train. The train they rushed to get to.

People think you are having a crisis or you are depressed. People think you are less than them because you are not living their lifestyle.

If you stretch beyond what is normal, then you find out who you are.

I have never owned a credit card. So when I had to find an apartment recently and potentially sign a lease, I had a problem. I had no credit history.

My accountant had to write a letter. My lawyer had to write a letter. I had to show my bank statements. And I had to meet every other resident of the building.

I still had to explain why it was that unlike everyone else in America, I have never gotten into credit card debt.

By the way, debt is not a bad thing. Debt is what fuels almost all small businesses. And small businesses are responsible for more than 50% of all job creation in the United States.

For me, though, I have mental problems when it comes to debt. I really am mentally ill.

When I saw my parents lose all of their money and then get severely depressed because of debt I decided never to have any debt.

It’s ok to have money in the bank and not spend it. I value my freedom more than anything. I value being able to create things. Being able to spend time with people I love.

People with debt can do those things as well. No judgment. But I can’t do it. I get anxious.

For me, this helps with freedom. If I lose all my money, as I have many times before (and written about in detail), I go back to what I always do.

I wrote several years ago about something called “The Daily Practice” that I do to bounce off bottom.

One time, I had lost all of my money for maybe the third time in a row. I asked myself, “What am I doing wrong ALL of the time? And what am I doing right when things are going well??”

And then I cried and pretended to be a psychic on Craigslist to meet women.

Bad idea.

But the then I figured out what I was doing on the way up. And I started doing it. Every day. Every single day.

It’s worked for me. I don’t know if it works for others. But I do it.

I wrote about it in great detail in my book, “Choose Yourself!” but in the past few years I’ve modified it a little.

I called the chapter, “How to be the Luckiest Person Alive.” And I really feel that way. Just like people in a mental institution think they are Jesus, I think I am the luckiest person alive.

My New Daily Practice

For context here is the old daily practice:

Every day, work on physical health, emotional health (strengthening your relationships), mental health (creativity), spiritual health (solving “difficult gratitude problems” and cultivating compassion).

If I just do this every day, I know I will bounce back very fast from any hardship.

It used to take me years to bounce back from a hardship. Like losing all my money. Or a ruined relationship.

Now I bounce back so fast people almost think I’m a sociopath about it. I guess better that than being depressed all the time.

When I’m depressed I end up face down in the gutter with cars heading in my direction.

But I have new things that I do that have helped me to bounce back and thrive even faster.

And the new daily practice:

The 1% Rule 

In each of the areas above try to improve 1% a day.

It turns out if you don’t improve, you decline. This is based on research in almost every area of life where there are peak performers: sports, music, chess, art, etc. I like to apply it to life in general.

My podcast with Anders Ericsson, who is the worlds greatest expert on peak performance (discoverer of the famous “10,000 hour rule” of world class performance), discusses this.

I want to be world class at life. But I’ll settle with better than yesterday.

Don’t Ask “Why?”

Every year, people will do things that seem irrationally bad. They will do those things TO us.

You can’t ask “Why?” If someone fires you from a job and you ask “Why?” They are not going to give you a good answer.

If someone lies to you or cheats on you or leaves you and you ask “Why? they will not give you an honest answer. Often there is no answer.

If a lion chases you, humans for four million years never asked “Why?” Actually, that’s totally not true. YOUR ANCESTORS never asked why.

Losers who died asked “Why?” But they don’t have living descendants.

Only in the past 100 years we have the luxury of “Why?” It’s a luxury we abuse.

Only ask “WHY?” when you can gain. Never ask it when you know there is no answer.

ABR

Always Be Reinventing. Reinvention never ends. Once we fall into a routine, we fall in a rut.

I appreciate articles like, “routines of successful people.” But life is too big to be stuck in a cage at the zoo.

A lion in the zoo has the same routine every day. But he is no longer king of the jungle.

It’s ok to experiment with your routine to see what works better.

I don’t mean have sex with crack whores. I mean, miss a bus because you performed an act of kindness.

Do it every day.

Its ok to say, I want to wander. I’m not a young person but I still want to wander in life. To experiment. To enjoy things. This is how I stay young.

I write these types of posts every day. I need to do other things also. I am trying to reinvent myself.

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I don’t know. Shit in your pants once in awhile and learn what it’s like to be alone.

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Ep. 162 – 7 Secrets of Mastery

You have no idea. None of us did. Until now.

Everything I’ve done for the past two years is unfolding before me.

I interviewed Dr. K Anders Ericsson. You know his work. He discovered the 10,000 hour rule.

The rule that says you can master anything with 10,000 hours of “dedicated practice.” But what we’ve been lead to believe is false. And it’s finally being corrected in Anders’ brilliant new book, Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise.

It uses thirty years of research to reveal what we never knew before.

I started this podcast two years ago. And I just realized what it’s actually about.

Everyone I interviewed has one thing in common: mastery.

Now, Anders reveals the science behind being the best at anything.

Here’s 7 things I learned about how to become a PEAK performer:

A) Train to do things that you can’t do   

Laszlo Polgar raised three prodigies. But the prodigy is a myth.

He had three daughters. The Polgar sisters.

They were world class chess players. Two became world champions.

It’s almost unbelievable.

But they actually weren’t born with talent. Talent is a dangerous myth with the power to decrease motivation.

The Polgar sisters trained.

“That’s pretty compelling in retrospect,” Anders says.

Don’t let the myth of talent trap you.

Become compelling instead.

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B) There is no can’t

“People have been convinced that as an adult you’re pretty much fixed,” Anders says, “that there’s a limit on what you can do.”

They’re wrong.

Whenever you start something you start at zero.

Because you can’t do it… yet.

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C) Predict today. Just today

I don’t want to know my future. Predictions are dreams that become worries.

How do you change your life? I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what works for me.

Do things you love. Everyday.

And practice.

Improve 1% a day.

Practicing something you love takes away the pain.

And time passes.

Your future slips in. And you’re there with new skills. New opportunities. And a new future.

No predictions. Just presence.

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D) Follow your motivating source

Writing helps me sort things out. And allows me to help people.

Maybe you.

I hope.

That’s my motivating source.

I asked Anders, “How would you guide someone to find their area?”

He says look at the joy.
There’s a fountain inside. You have one. And if you follow it, you’ll always have something that flows.

You can use it to reach new levels, Anders says, “but that is ultimately not the reward itself.”

“For example, if you’re a musician and able to play in front of an audience, and actually feel how that audience is moved by your music, those are your driving forces.”

They’re “key to reaching exceptional levels,” he says.

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E) Get a teacher…

F) …the right teacher

All the greats had great teachers.

“You need a specialized teacher with accumulated knowledge,” Anders says.

First you learn the basics. Then practice. Get feedback. And advance.

Socrates, The Polgar Sisters, Michelangelo. They all reached mastery. And made unique contributions.

But you don’t need a teacher to do that. To make a difference.

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G) Learn by doing

You can’t really be capable of anything until you do it.

So you have to try.

Anders says, “Willingness to fail is at the heart.”

Find joy in the process.

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I was in one of studies mentioned in Anders’ book. It was on chess masters.

I’m proud of that. But there is one downside to mastery.

You can’t master it all.

Resources and Links:

• Read Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by Dr. K Anders Ericsson

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How Minimalism Brought Me Freedom and Joy

I have one bag of clothes, one backpack with a computer, iPad, and phone. I have zero other possessions.

Today I have no address. At this exact moment I am sitting in a restaurant and there’s no place for me to go to lie down.

By tonight I will find a place to lie down. Will that be my address? Probably not.

Am I minimalist? I don’t know. I don’t care. I don’t like that word. I live the way I like to live no matter what label it has.

At any moment, you are exactly where you want to be, for better or worse.

A lot of people get minimalism confused.

It’s not necessarily a good way to live. Or a free way to live for many people. It’s just the way I like to live.

I like to be a wanderer. Without knowing where I am going to end up. To explore with no goal. To love without expectation.

For now. Maybe not for later. Maybe not yesterday.

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“Does minimalism mean not having a lot of possessions?”

No, not at all. I think minimalism means having as little as you require. That means different things to everyone.

For me, having little means I don’t have to think about things that I own.

My brain is not so big. So now I can think about other things. I can explore other ways of living more easily.

Some people don’t like that. I know many people who love roots. Who love being sentimental towards items. This is fine. Who am I to judge?

The other day I threw out my college diploma that was in storage. I threw out everything I had in storage. The last objects left in my life.

At 48 years old I have nothing and nowhere. Other than the people I love and the experiences I love.

A friend asked me, “You worked hard for that diploma. Are you sure you want to throw it out?”

Yes. I’ve worked harder for other things since then. I don’t keep all of these things around either. They are gone.

Society tells us a diploma is a special life achievement. It isn’t. It’s yesterday. I don’t hold onto all the things society tells me to hold onto

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“How do you deal with kids if you are a minimalist?”

Like 50% of Americans or more, I’m divorced. I have two beautiful children with my first wife. I love my children very much.

I miss them almost constantly. I’m not minimalist if minimalism means having zero attachments. I’m attached to my kids.

I see them as much as I can. Sometimes they visit me (wherever I am) and sometimes I visit them. And some times they stay with me for an extended period of time.

I hope to talk to them every day for the rest of my life. If they lived with me I probably wouldn’t be able to live the way I do and I probably wouldn’t want to.

But life has delivered me to this shore. So I pick myself up and explore the jungle on this new island.

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“Do you have to get off the internet to be a minimalist?”

Sometimes. For four million years we were “disconnected.” For 20 years we have been “connected.”

I have 238,795 unread emails in my inbox. Emails are a suggestion but not an obligation.

Love and spirituality and gratitude are found in personal connection. Not in an email response.

Sometimes I might return an email ten years later. Those are fun. I pretend like I just got the email a second ago and I return it, “Sure I’ll meet you for coffee tomorrow!” I get fun responses.

I never answer the phone. I have no voicemail. My phone number is 203-512-2161. Try it and see.

I go on Twitter one hour a week to do a Q&A every Thursday from 3:30 – 4:30 EST. I’ve been doing that for six years.. I post articles on Facebook but don’t really use it for anything else.

I have a kindle app on my iPad mini and read all of my books there.

I understand real books are beautiful. So I go to bookstores for hours and read them. But I won’t own them because they won’t fit in my one bag.

I never read random articles on the Internet unless they are by people I know. Mostly I read books I love.

A friend asked me, when he heard all of this, “But aren’t you afraid you’re going to miss some information?”

I asked him, “What information?”

99% of information we read, we forget anyway. The best way to remember is to “DO.”

Otherwise, I look at nothing online.

Experiences happen when you disconnect. And I choose experiences over goods or information.

---

“Does minimalism mean having few emotional attachments?”

I love my friends. I love my children. I love talking to people at a party or a dinner or an event and learning from them.

Love is minimalism. Desire, possession, and control are not minimalism.

Minimalism of things? No. Minimalism of fear, anxiety, stress, mourning.

I don’t like any intrigue. I don’t like to gossip about people.

When I do that, I feel like I am carrying those people in my backpack. So the more I gossip, the heavier my baggage is.

I don’t like feeling bad if someone doesn’t like me. That’s also baggage. I try to leave that behind.

And we’re all different. You never really know why someone is doing the things they are doing.

Sometimes its for deeply sad reasons. Sometimes they are projecting. Sometimes they had a bad day, or a bad life. Sometimes It’s for reasons we’ll never understand.

“Why did they do this?” or “Why is this happening to me?” won’t fit in my one bag.

Did I check the box on physical health, emotional health, creativity, and compassion today?

Those items don’t need to fit in my bag. They are gone by end of day. I’ll find them again tomorrow.

How do you get rid of an attachment that is in your baggage? I don’t really know.

I certainly carry around extra baggage. So I just get back to the four items I said above starting with physical health.

Then I always find my baggage is a little lighter.

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“Does minimalism mean having no accomplishments?”

No. If anything, the more you accomplish, the more you can afford to get rid of the things society uses to hold you down.

Or, the reverse. Either way.

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“Is minimalism healthy?”

Yes. Sometimes. For instance, I don’t like to eat more than I need. Although going extreme on that becomes an obligation to carry around.

I don’t like to have experiences that are unhealthy.

For me, experiences are always more important than material goods. A story is more important than a gift.

A material good might not fit in my bag. But a joyful experience is lighter than an atom.

I get to look forward to it beforehand. I get to have it. I get to remember it forever afterwards and learn from it and love it. And it weighs nothing.

What if an experience is not so joyful.

One thing I know: joy is a choice inside and not an emotion given to you.

Sometimes I make the wrong choice. I can’t help it. But sometimes I make the right one. I hope today I will.

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“What are minimalist emotions?”

Love, joy, wonder, curiosity, friendship connection. These are things you give away. Not take from others.

Emotions that can’t fit in my bag: possession, control, anxiety, fear.

I don’t include anger. Anger is just fear clothed. When I’m angry I try to find the underlying fear. Get naked with it.

Am I good at this? Not really. I try to get better.

If I judge myself for something I did wrong then I just did two things I don’t like to do: the wrong thing, and the judging.

Minimalism is about not judging yourself or others.

---

“You have to have goals to succeed! How can you be a minimalist with goals?”

Goals are ways the mind tries to control you. “I need X to be happy.”

When I feel like I need something outside of me to be happy, I have to make room in my bag for it.

I don’t have enough room. I have some shirts and pants and toothpaste and a few other things. Goals don’t fit.

I have interests and things that I love to do. If I get better at those things each day (or try to) I feel good.

When I have less things in my bag, I feel more free. Did I get 1% more “free” today, whatever free means?

When I spend time with friends, I find joy in the connection. Sometimes the only thing we need in life is not a goal achieved but a hand to hold.

These three above items catapult me to achieve every goal I never had.

It’s magic.

---

“Should I sell my house and get a smaller house?”

No. Or…I don’t know. Don’t do it for a label. If you like your house, keep it. If you like your job, keep it.

Figure out the 10-15 things you want in your bag before you die tomorrow.

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“What’s the first step I should take? Should I throw things out?”

I have no clue.

This is the problem with self-help books. They seem to be written by someone on a pedestal giving advice without having any blemishes.

I have too many blemishes to give advice. I am a homeless man with no address, with some failures and some successes and no possessions.

Today I can start over. Or today I can ask too many times: “Why?”

But there’s one thing I can do: I can always help someone else. That makes my day and life lighter.

Anyone can have miracles in their life.

Miracles don’t happen. Miracles are given.

---

“If you are a minimalist how come sometimes you have really long articles?”

Because I don’t care what you think about me.

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Ep. 161 – Charles Duhigg: Be Smarter, Better, Faster… And Most of All Be Free

Before writing this, I closed my eyes. I allowed myself to rest. I went from, “think, think, think” to nothing.

And nothing felt good.

Nothing worked.

Nothing is my success. Today.

I used to have another kind of success. 

I was a hedge fund manager, web developer, producer, investor, corporate employee, CEO, writer.

I still do some of these jobs.

But not because “they” tell me to.

I look back and see desperation. I was desperate to secure my future. My income. My relationships.

There was always a risk of getting fired.

I knew my then-wife could decide she didn’t love me anymore. My kids could, too.

I was shrinking. Physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually shrinking.

I thought if I was miserable, “they” would help me.

They didn’t.

I bled out on the floor.  And then I chose myself.

Now I do the daily practice.

I experiment. I find what works for me. And I write about it. Because advice is autobiography.

But something is still stopping me.

And, if you’ve read to here, I bet there’s something stopping you.

If you learn one thing today, I hope it’s this: experiment everyday.

The steps are:

1. Experiment
2. Pay Attention
3. Experiment

And if it doesn’t work out how you imagined, then you’ll have a better story.

I got evicted last week.

The same day, I did this interview with Charles Duhigg. You’ll hear it in the podcast.

Charles is a Pulitzer Prize winner and the author of two New York Times bestselling books, The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

Renting doesn’t work for me. But I tried it. It was a successful experiment with a failed result.

I’m finding what works for me everyday. Charles says that’s what the most productive people do. They cycle through systems.

Charles cycled. He wasn’t always smarter, better, faster.

“I would come home every night and tell my wife, ‘If this is what success feels like, sign me up for failure.’ It was killing me,” he says.

“It’s very easy to lose sight of the ‘why,’” he says. “[We] lose track of why we’re doing something, how it links up to our deepest values or our biggest aspirations… what we actually want to do with our life.”

This interview might teach you something about experimenting, or focussing, or motivation.

Or it might teach you nothing.
But, nothing is a lesson, too.

 

Resources and Links:

• Read Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg
• Read The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg
• Follow Charles on Facebook & Twitter
• Read his New York Times articles including his Pulitzer Prize winning work on The iEconomy
• Visit charlesduhhig.com to read his blog and find out about his book tour

Also mentioned:

• Malcom Gladwell’s writing style
• Freakenomics writing style

The post Ep. 161 – Charles Duhigg: Be Smarter, Better, Faster… And Most of All Be Free appeared first on Altucher Confidential.

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Brunch and Pirates

I ordered pancakes and he told me about the last time he was shot in the head.

The bullet went through the top of my head, he said.

Then he leaned down and showed me the entry point.

Then, he said, it went out through the back of my ear.

He twisted around, pointed to the back of his ear.

Afterwards, he said, I lost my speech, I was partially paralyzed, I was in the hospital for two years. When I was in the hospital, the diamond dealer I had been protecting when I was shot visited me with a huge bag of money and –

---

Hold on.

That’s not the story I want to tell.

---

Earlier that day. 

I met Ursa because her boss hired me to protect his ship from pirates, he told me.

Wait – why would pirates be after Vikram’s ship?

Every ship that passes through that zone is watched by Somalian pirates. There are four types of ships there: huge shipping boats, military vessels, luxury boats, or bad guys.

And if you are someone’s play yacht, the bad guys will definitely get you, he said.

So how could you protect a boat? Why would anyone hire you.

Because of my training, he said.

You have to understand what happens, he said. The Somalians are paying off the line handlers at the Suez Canal to see what boats might have ransom potential or money on board. To even get through the Suez Canal costs about $55,000 so already they know there is money involved.

What’s a line handler, I asked, and he explained. Then he continued.

The line handlers will tell the pirates – here’s a 145 foot long yacht with X on board and no protection and it’s leaving on this date and will be in your area in five days.

The Somalian pirates get info on every boat leaving the Suez Canal and they attack anyone who is easy.

So our job is to simply stand all over the boat as the ship is pulling past the line handlers and display all of our weapons. Then they can see that the ship is protected.

The Somalians are hungry. There’s no food in Northern Somalia. They don’t want to waste time on someone who is going to shoot back. Usually. So if they hear the boat is protected then most of the time our job is done.

Have you ever come into conflict with any of the pirates?

Yeah, he said, here’s what they do.

They have a mother ship that stays about 20 miles ahead of you once you get into their area.

The mother ship will send two small boats that will move quickly around you, one on each side, and tie-up your props underneath the boat so you can’t move, and then they board from the back. They will usually kill everyone.

How can you do anything about that?

Ha. We have very sophisticated equipment. We can see every body on the ship 20 miles away via infrared.

Believe me, we know they are there. But we continue on course because we don’t want them to know we know.

Then when they send out their boats, once the boats are five miles away, we take out an Ashby, shoot a few rounds of titanium bullets with phosphorus tracers mixed in. They can see the tracers and know we have serious weaponry on board.

Does that dissuade them?

I’ve taken hundreds of boats out of the Suez Canal. 98% of the time the pirates go away. Twice the boats kept coming.

Wait a second. I’m confused. Why would the pirates keep coming when you’ve clearly demonstrated you can destroy them.

These guys are hungry. This is all they have. They have no food and they are high on a drug called cat leaf. I have no idea why the two boats that have made an attempt on us actually did it but they did.

So what happened?

I had six guys working with me. We had thousands of rounds of ammunition . We let the boats get close. Then we fire everything we have on them.

Did anyone get killed?

The last time this happened, we killed all nine pirates on the boats. We were only able to recover three of the bodies because this is the sort of ammo that will rip people apart.

But by maritime law we have to recover what we can and drop off the bodies at the nearest port.

We also have to wear video cameras, GoPro, so that we can show that we followed the law every step of the way.

For instance, sometimes the pirates fake a fire on their boat so they can radio “Mayday”.

By maritime law, if you get a MayDay you are required to assist. So how we act in those situations to determine someone is a bad guy is critical.

Were you ever scared?

Listen. If anyone ever tells you they were not scared when they were under attack by pirates is lying to you.

If someone is trying to kill you, you’re going to get scared, no matter what your training is.

Were you ever shot during any of these?

No

Wait, Ursa said, tell him about that time you were shot because of the diamonds!

---

It’s funny, I said to him, the entire situation is thick with incredible violence, fear, and tension.

But success for both you OR the pirates is entirely about how many risks you take care of in advance. It’s all about risk control.

I said, nobody wants to shoot. Risk avoidance starts for you, and them, hundreds of miles away when you are standing on deck with your weapons and they are bribing the line handlers.

Then you use technology to discover if anything bad is in your way. And they avoid putting their main ship in jeopardy by using smaller ships.

They also try to incapacitate you before a single shot is fired. And you try to scare them when they are too far to be hit but close enough to know what type of weapons you have.

That’s right, he said, it’s all about avoiding risks. Nobody wants trouble.

I’m trying to apply this to my own life. We all do things that are scary or risky or out of our comfort zone.

But it seems like 80% of success is devoted to avoiding the risks even when you know you are going to be doing something scary and uncomfortable. And then the payoffs are huge.

That is correct, he said. He started digging into his pancakes. I had been making him talk too much.

---

It’s like chess, Ursa said.

Yes, he said, Think about it. Chess is a game developed so kings could simulate war.

There’s a saying in chess, I said, that the threat is stronger than the execution.

That’s exactly it, he said.

But wait, said his wife, what about the saying, ‘Good at chess, but bad at life’, have you ever heard that saying?

---

Yes…,

I said.

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