The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective Minimalists

I answered a question on Quora: What are the small things you can do to have a good life? You can view the thread here. 

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It’s been three months since I threw everything out. I’ve lived in four different places. I haven’t paid rent anywhere. I always have benefited from the kindness of others.

That doesn’t mean I couch surf. But after 20 years of being good to people, I realized I had never let people be good to me. Now I am. I was too afraid to be in their debt. Now I’m not.

Some people say, “You must feel really free!”

Answer: I don’t. I’m surprised at how little I feel about how my life has changed. Am I more productive? I don’t think so. If anything, I’m not as interested in what I used to be productive at.

Are my relationships better? Definitely yes.

My one rule now on possessions: since I have only one travel bag and one computer bag, I don’t have much space. So if I buy something, I have to throw it out.

What if the good favor runs out and I have to rent a place? I won’t rent. I’ll just find an Airbnb for a few months. I will never own or rent again. I won’t own a car. I won’t buy books that don’t go on my kindle. I will never own more than three outfits.

What if I need a tennis racquet? Fair enough. I will try to borrow one. Else I might buy one. But it hasn’t happened yet. Often you can borrow one.

Many people think minimalism is about possessions. It isn’t at all. Having less possessions is a symptom of minimalism, but it’s not minimalism itself.

In fact, no more minimalism. Let’s call it emptiness and apply it to life.

I can’t measure “better” or “worse” but I certainly enjoy my life a lot more right now. Every day is either an adventure, or an opportunity to observe an adventure. There’s no in between any more.

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The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Minimalism (Emptiness)

1. Don’t Lie

Lying is the opposite of minimalism. You spin a complicated web between people and imaginary worlds that you have to keep track of.

For no purpose. The average person lies in every ten minutes of conversation. That’s a lot to keep track of. Keeping track of less is a better way to have emptiness. And it feels good.

2. No Gossip or Judging 

It’s hard enough for me to carry around my own self-esteem, let alone drag down the esteem of another.

Who am I to tell if someone else is doing good. It’s just a waste to gossip or judge. It’s junk food for the brain.

3. Be Curious

I already know about my life. I don’t know about yours. Every one of the eight billion people on the planet has been given one thing, at least, for me to learn.

It’s my job to watch, observe, ask, and learn that one thing. It’s not my job to lecture or talk.

4. Eat Less

Almost all the major killers in life: heart attacks, strokes, cancer, diabetes, are often caused by diet.

What do we know about diet? Nothing. Paleo? Vegan? Low-carb? High carb?

All of them seem right to me. My daughter is high-carb (fruit) and vegan. She’s super healthy. Many of my friends are low-carb/high protein (paleo). They seem super healthy.

I think the only thing everyone agrees on: processed sugars are bad.

Almost everything we eat has processes sugars. So just eat less of it. That’s the only thing we really seem to know.

I’ve been doing it. It seems to work.

5. No Internet 

If I go outside, I don’t like to bring my phone. I leave the entire world wide web at home.

Then I enjoy whatever it is I’m doing. What friends I’m with. What walk I’m taking. What games I’m playing. And I go home.

I make real connections instead of digital ones. This seems trite. But real is more solid than digital.

I’ve even stopped hanging out with people who look at their phone while talking to me. I don’t need to be with people who are ghosts right in front of me.

Did I miss something? Probably. Do I care? I kind of do. It makes me a little anxious to be honest.

But will I get over it. Yes I will.

Can people with 9-5 jobs leave the Internet at the office? Yes they can. In fact, breaks and “disconnections” are often correlated with higher success at the office.

6. Do Something You Enjoy

I like to go out to Union Square Park and play chess. I play Paul, who I have been playing since he played at Washington Square Park when I moved to the city in 1994.

I like to win. Sometimes I do. He is very good, though. I like the banter. I like the activity around me. I like listening to everyone making jokes. It makes me feel good in my chest and in my head.

I listen to my body. If it tells me I like something, then I try to do more of it. If it tells me, “I’m uncomfortable,” then I try to do less of it.

What if I don’t have time to go to a park?

OK, don’t do that. Try listing ten things a day that you do enjoy. See how much of them you can do. If you can do something for one minute today, and figure out how to double it tomorrow, and double it the next week, then soon you will find something you are doing that you love.

Emptiness in life leaves room for the things you enjoy. You don’t need to have an adventure every day. Sometimes emptiness leaves room for the adventures to happen around you and you can watch and take delight in them.

7. Leave Room For Possibility

We do feel better when we do things we are competent in.

But when we are bogged down with millions of items in our closet… When we are bogged down with dreary responsibilities from a job… When we are trying to keep up with our TV shows, and our newspapers, and our meetings, and our coffees…

We remove “possibility” from our lives.

Are you interested in music? This is a possibility. “But I can’t play an instrument”. OK, but list ten other things about music you can do. Can you write reviews? Can you curate the best hits of the week. Can you find older things that people have forgotten and interview the songwriters?

Can you?…Can you?…Can you?

A life filled with everything leaves room for nothing.

A life filled with nothing, leaves room for everything.

That is possibility.

And possibility leads to competence, leads to better relationships, leads to freedom.

It’s been three months since I’ve thrown everything out. I’ve been stressed, anxious, happy, curious, sad.

Free.

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Are You A Civilian?

I was a civilian for a long time.

I worked in my cubicle, hoping to get a raise… a promotion. Sometimes the cubicle changed and it would be a new title, new company, new “friends,” new employee handbook. New boss to choose whether I flourished or suffered.

Sometimes the boss would look at me: his eyes over his glasses, like I was the worst interruption he had ever suffered. Sometimes he’d laugh at my jokes and I’d feel happy. Sometimes he’d praise me and I’d call home and tell my parents about it.

It wasn’t that he was bad. It wasn’t even I was so pathetic (I was though). But that’s civilian life. I was a civilian. Not aware of the bigger world out there. Not aware I could survive in it.

We have two zones: the comfort zone and the Other zone. Civilians live in the comfort zone.

Nothing wrong with that at all. It’s comfortable. It’s where we were raised to be. I tucked away the dreams of childhood so I could guarantee survival until death.

Being a civilian is a decent survival technique. Not the best. But decent. I wasn’t ashamed of it. I just wasn’t happy.

I wanted to get a book published. But I thought I needed a publisher to pronounce me talented. Only then would I succeed.

I wanted to sell my business. They liked me! I wanted to get a girlfriend. She likes me!

I’d wake up at 3am disgusted with myself. 1997. And in 2010. And in 1992. And in 2016.

Disgusted because I wanted these things from people. But also disgusted because I wasn’t getting what I wanted. Double disgust.

I was civilian because I didn’t believe I deserved anything. I didn’t believe I deserved money unless my boss, and his boss, and his boss, thought I deserved more money.

I didn’t believe I deserved to publish a book unless an intern, her boss, her editor, his publisher, her marketing team, those bookstores, and on and on, thought I deserved to have my words read.

I didn’t believe I was worth of someone loving me unless I had X, Y, and Z already in place before then.

I was ashamed when I didn’t get what I wanted. Was I a loser? So I’d put on the mask and pretend.

I was a civilian because I was focused on me getting validated. By who? I didn’t give a..

I’m not so sure I believe I deserve anything now either, to be honest. It’s really hard to have that kind of confidence.

So I stopped thinking about it. I don’t deserve anything. Who cares.

I had to build myself a better story. The theme of the story is who can I deliver value to? Even if it’s me.

Every story has a where. Every story has a who. Every story has a why how what.

When I sit down, every morning, I try to fill in those blanks. Where can I help someone. Who? Why? And so on.

Then spend the rest of the day doing it. Then I don’t have to worry about whether I deserve anything or not.

I did it! I didn’t deserve it. I did it!

I don’t know what it means to say… I’m not a civilian. There’s not really a good word for it.

But I see the people walking with their heads down in the rain at 8am in their suits, with their briefcase, with their uniform, with their eyes grayed over, on their way to work.

Everyone has something they wanted to create when they were kids. A painting, a book, a kiss, a secret agency, an evil plan, a laughter buried inside that never quite came out.

Sit down and do the who, what, where, when, why, and how today. Those six words are my best friends right now. They are my best friends every day because they get stronger and stronger.

Then that secret buried inside can be delivered. I need to deliver the secret to get the kiss. To get the reward. To come in from the cold. Mission accomplished.

Yes, they deserve to create and finish what their child hands started. And when they realize they deserve it, when they feel it all the way through even for a moment, they also won’t be civilians any more.

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What’s Love Got To Do With It?

I’ve had breakups in May, August, November, October, June, April, January (my birthday), July (I’m not much fun in the summer, it seems.

The worst is when they walk out the door and say, “see you later” and you never see them again.

The other go-to technique is when one side moves to another city (“see you soon!”) and then…you never see them again.

Those are not all of them. Just maybe the ones where I felt the most pain. Regardless of who was breaking who.

Honesty is not just with words. It’s of course with actions.

It’s also your own unique way of bringing your interpretation of beauty into the world.

You see beauty differently than me.

So I want to learn more ways to express myself. I want to tell you in as many ways as possible how I feel about you.

I went to a 4 hour course yesterday by David McCandless, author of the amazing book, “information is beautiful.” Why not spend a day with the world’s expert on how to tell a story from how we visualize data.

He said one way to generate an idea for a story is to ask, “what has betrayed you?”

He showed a graphic. He compiled a million status updates to see when couples are most likely to break up.

After Valentine’s day. Before summer. Before Christmas.

When are they least likely? On Christmas. Too cruel.

He told the story of a million sadnesses, of the story of love, in one graphic.

My sadnesses are all over the calendar. Every month has a memory of betrayal hidden in it.

Every month has a question in it. “Why did this happen?” And I go to sleep crying when I ask that – because there is never a good answer.

But I always find ways to move on. What’s another way to have meaning in my life than just a single connection with another person.

That’s the purpose of story. “When were you last betrayed? ”

Easy. I betray myself . Every day. Waking up. Thinking there is any other point in life other than just surrendering to what this moment has to offer.

Finding the hidden pockets of beauty in the moment. Studying the landscape of gratitude in the moment. Passing the person in the street and smiling. They smile back.

Surrender. At the end of the day I want to sign the sunset with my pen, like the day was a work of art I had created just for me.

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Photo credit: Pamela Sisson

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Ep. 171 – Ryan Holiday: The Powerful Enemy of Your Success

“You used to be arrogant,” I said.

He didn’t know.

I later decided it’s arrogant to call someone arrogant on your podcast. Or anywhere else.

I had a lot to learn.

It’s a good thing we had 90 minutes left in the studio. And dinner plans after.

“I’m sure other people must have told you that around that time,” I said, referring to when we first met a few years ago.

They didn’t.

My podcast guest, Ryan Holiday, dropped out of college at age 19. By age 22, he was the director of marketing for American Apparel. Twitter, YouTube, and Google all use his work as case studies.

Now he’s 28, a writer and owns his own business.

When I sold my first company, it completely destroyed me.

I know where I went wrong. Ryan’s new book, “Ego is the Enemy,” helped explain why.

This advice isn’t just for aspiring entrepreneurs or current business owners.

In this episode, I’ll tell you what I learned. And how you can avoid making the same common mistake.

Consider this interview a cheat sheet.

Listen now.

Or keep reading to learn 4 steps to avoiding the enemy of success: 

Step 1) Decide if it’s a “live time” or a “dead time”

Ryan Holiday had one year left at his job. He knew he was going to quit and start his own company.

He met with Robert Greene, his mentor and author of the national bestselling book, “The 48 Laws of Power.”

He told Ryan to make a decision.

“You can either be phoning it in at work, earning money and idly preparing, or this could be an active phase where you’re getting your research subsidized, you’re meeting people, (etc.),” he said.

Then he asked the one question that changed Ryan’s path for the next year: “Is this going to be live time for you or a dead time for you?”

Deciding is step one.

Step 2) Flip the switch

Ryan chose “live time.”

So I asked him, “How do you flip the switch? What’s the essence of making something a live time?”

He gave Malcolm X as an example. When people asked him, “What’s your alma mater?” he’d say, “Books.”

He didn’t just rot in jail. He invested in himself. And read everyday.

“He copied the dictionary by hand,” Ryan said. “That’s [why] he was such an articulate person.”

At every point in life, you can choose if it’s a “live time” or a “dead time.”

“You could call your friend and complain about how your other friend was rude, or you could call your friend and have a deep, provoking conversation about what you want to do with your life,” Ryan said.

It’s a choice.

Ryan gives you specific examples on how to maximize your time on today’s podcast. Jump to (1:24:00) to hear them now.

3) Be aware of the enemy

I sold my first company for millions of dollars. I just assumed, “Oh, I have money in the bank. I sold a business. I must be smart at everything.”

Sometimes, I can’t write about success because I don’t know if I’ve ever had any. I look at other people and don’t see success either.

I see people working. I see people with mixed priorities and broken hearts. You want to choose yourself. And do what you love. But then something says, “What if you fail?”

That’s the enemy.

“Ego says you are the car that you drive. It says you’re how much money you have in the bank… It takes all these things to heart or to head,” Ryan said.

And it stops you.

4) Understand the opposite

In his new book, Ryan says there’s one formula for true success: practice the opposite of ego. There are three parts to this:

1. Be humble in your aspirations
2. Be gracious in your success
3. And be resilient in your failures

“Humility says, ‘This success doesn’t say anything about me as a person, but also when I fail it doesn’t say anything about me either,’” Ryan said.

I failed after every success because I wasn’t aware of the enemy.

Or the antidote.

Now I know a good life is made up of “live times.”

Laughing is “live time.” Being with people you love is “live time.”

Writing 10 ideas a day is “live time.”

Getting sleep is “live time.”

But let me warn you. If your “live time” means starting your own business, don’t let it destroy you… like I once did.

Listen to my podcast with Ryan Holiday. You’ll hear his choose yourself story and learn more about how to practice the opposite of ego.

Resources and Links:

• Read Ryan Holiday’s books:
  • “Ego is the Enemy“
  • “The Obstacle is the Way“
  • “Growth Hacker Marketing: A Primer on the Future of PR, Marketing, and Advertising“
  •  “Trust Me I’m Lying“
• Also mentioned, “The 48 Laws of Power” by Robert Greene
• Visit his website here and sign up for his newsletter
• Follow him on Facebook & Twitter

• Listen to my last interview with Ryan:
  • Ep 108 – Ryan Holiday Shares His Keys to Success

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The Middle Class Is Dead (uber)

He was going to scare me and beat me into submission and I was nervous because he looked like he could take his belt off and slap me right across the face with it. He used to manage a trillion dollars or so for the richest family in the world. The kind of family that 100 years ago would throw dimes at poor people and call it charity back when it was fashionable to do so.

Why was I visiting him? Because that’s what I do. I visit people.

“Come over here,” he said to me, “and look at that building. Or that one. Or that one.” We looked. “What do you see?” he asked me. I don’t know what I saw. Buildings. New York City is a vertical city, I thought.

“I’ll tell you,” he said. “The floors are empty. That’s the Citigroup building over there. That’s probably some ad agency there. That’s a bank or a law firm over there. All empty desks, empty floors, empty buildings.

“The middle class has been hollowed out. There’s no need for paper shufflers anymore. No need for middle management. It’s either outsourced to China or technology takes care of it. Millions of people in middle management, in middle class jobs will be fired or replaced by cheap labor and technology and there’s nothing anybody can do about it.

“This doesn’t mean people are getting poorer,” he said, “In fact, more people entered the upper class last year than ever before. But it does mean the gap is spreading between upper class and lower class and there’s no way to stop it.”

I grew up middle class. I lived in a suburb. We lived on a square block. The square block was one of 30 square blocks.

Every day at 8 am the garage doors opened, unleashing an army of Vice-Presidents of companies based in New York. My dad always had a deal he was working on. “Next month it should happen,” he would say. He said that for 20 straight years. Everything was postponed until next month. Vacations. “Next month will be huge.” I had fantasies about next month. What I would buy. Maybe I would take a limo to school so the kids on the bus would stop beating on me. Maybe I would give strategic advice to the kids who wore plaid shirts and sold drugs and got girls pregnant. I had fantasies. Next month.

“Next month” never happened. And eventually my dad got depressed. He would break out into tears in the supermarket. I had to go home from college to visit him and he kept asking me, “What’s wrong with me?” A company had bought the scraps of his bankrupt company and when he got depressed he was let go and lived off the mental disability insurance. He never worked again and died 15 years later.

I can’t remember any conversations I had with him between 1988 and 2002 except for the last conversation.

In December 2002, after losing $15 million I finally reached the point where I had $0. I got scared. I would break into tears in the supermarket. My dad could sing that song that has that line, “My boy, he’s just like me.”

But, seriously, I was scared. What if I needed diapers or something over the weekend? I had a newly minted citizen of the United States living in my house whose face looked like me and shat in her pants on a regular basis while crying. What if I needed to clean that shit.

The following week I was going to sell for a massive loss the apartment I was living in. The deal was done but not concluded. And I had zero money for food or anything. I was scared because for many years I had been wealthy. But I didn’t treat the money right. I was very mean to it and it finally abandoned me when my apologies were as useless as whispers.

I called up my parents and asked them for a few hundred dollars. I said I would drive 60 miles to them that night, pick up the money, and then drive back on Monday and give them back the cash. I just wanted money in case I needed it for an emergency. Two years earlier I would’ve flown a helicopter to them and bought them a house or two if I wanted. Now I was worried about getting baby food. I had no friends to ask. I was embarrassed to ask my sisters. I had nobody else to call.

They said “no.” I won’t get into the details. There was yelling. Someone said some things. I hung up the phone. They tried calling back. I didn’t pick up.

For six months after, my dad tried sending me messages. Sometimes through email. He’d see me on TV. “Nice job.” I was trying to get my life back together. Things were happening. I was getting off the floor. I didn’t want anything negative in my life. I never responded to him. Never called him back. Then he had a stroke and never spoke or moved again and died two years later. He was rejected further treatment when his medical insurance ran out. I couldn’t afford to do anything about it. I had a family to feed. I was middle class. But with a twist.

How do I know that the middle class is on its way out?

Among other things, I’m on the board of directors now of a temp staffing company. This past 12 months they had $700 million in revenues. The year before they had $400 million in revenues.

Meanwhile, thousands of startups have been invested in. So temp staffing is on the rise and startups are on the rise.

And the middle class, according to my friend in the vertical palace, is being hollowed out.

It’s true. I see it from the front lines. There’s nothing we can do about it. It’s a tidal wave and we are just a tiny island of history that is being overwhelmed.

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I Took A Photo Every Day And Here’s What I Found…

Note: I am doing a photo-of-the-day on my Instagram… please see my other photos there, critique and follow me there if you want.

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June 3, 2016: Psychic

“My grandmother told me she always saw angels around me. She told me I would be a psychic. When I see people now I either feel positive energy or negative energy. Sometimes I even feel if someone is going to kill himself. One man went through a breakup that was very bad. I saved his life. What energy do I see from you? Very good.”

But maybe she was just being nice.
Her son came over and they hugged.
I said , “Are you psychic too?”

He laughed and said, “No, I’m bipolar.”

“Do you take medication?”

He said, “Yeah, alcohol and drugs.”

He and his mom, the psychic, hugged again and laughed.
Sometimes I wish I grew up in a family of laughter and angels.

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June 4, 2016: Blood

We passed an old man who fell on the sidewalk and was bleeding all over his face and legs.

His wife was helping him sit up. He was crying.
Police were there. An ambulance was on the way.
I wanted to take a picture. My friend said, “Too soon.”

Which is sort of funny because once it’s no longer too soon, there’s no more blood.
Blood is when people fall and need to come back. When a partner helps them. When they cry.

That’s the story I like to tell.
But anyway, homeless kids drugged out on a sidewalk.
No blood.

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June 5, 2016: 100 Dollars

I got a woman pregnant, who then got an abortion (I wished she hadn’t) and then dumped me.

Afterwards, many many years ago, I went to this bookstore on court street in Brooklyn. Piles and piles of books in no order, on the floor, pages ripped out, grumpy man running the place.

I got lost in the pages and cried.

Today, by coincidence, I pass by and he is selling the store. “Why are you selling the place?”

“Ahhh, go away. No questions. I’m tired.”

“How much if I want to buy all the books in there?”

He said, “100 dollars. There are about 3000 books in there. But You have to get everything out yourself.”

I looked at them. I don’t know what I thought. I was thinking feelings instead of thoughts.

“No thanks,” I said.

“Go away.” As he took a dollar bill and gave a customer a book.

So I did. And like the last time I had been there, I walked away sad.

Another dead future.

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Junes 6, 2016: Blessed

I found an iPad in a cab. The owner, Xian Horn, came down to get it.
What do you do?

She said, “I help people who have some disadvantages in their lives reclaim their beauty and self esteem.
How can I do that?
It’s a practice every day. Find the light around you. Stay away from the darkness.”
It turns out we had many friends in common by coincidence.
I live off of coincidences.
At the end maybe I made a mistake.
I said, how long have you been disabled?

“I’m not disabled,”
She said, “I’m blessed.”

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June 7, 2016: A Photograph of a Photograph of a Photograph

I had to know what was going on.

This group of people were sitting tightly together, all laughing and having fun.
I walked into the middle. “What are you guys doing?”

I want a group of people I can just hang out and laugh and relax and get to know and have fun.
The guy in the middle, with the hat, laughed and said, “Nothing.” And they all laughed with him.

Is it bad to say I was jealous? That I will never have a similar moment?

So I wanted to take a picture of a moment I will never own except on camera.
“Can I take your picture?”

One guy said, “Only if I can take yours.” You can see him behind the group taking mine.
Then @pamela.sisson took a picture of him taking a picture of me taking a picture of them.
The three of us were documenting.
The man with the smile is living.

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June 8,2016

They were all laughing and I was at another table reading a book about the polio outbreak in Newark in 1944.

I asked the waitress, “Why are they so happy?”

She said, “I don’t know.”

I’m shy. But if I don’t ask then I will never know.
I went over to their table.
“You guys seem so happy.”

He laughed and said, “Thank you!”

I asked, “How come you are so happy?”

He said, when we woke we read the obituaries first thing. We weren’t there!
The whole table started laughing.

“Why are you a sikh,” I asked. Referring to his beard and headwear.
I said, “Perhaps inappropriately, you don’t look like you are from India.”

“We like it,” he said. “We like to meditate and Sikhs say you are not Hindu, you are not Muslim, not anything. You are simply a child of God.”
I went back to my table. So many people die at 25 but then keep going through the motions until they are 75.
I hope I never wake up and read my own obituary.

 

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June 9, 2016: Inventor

I overheard him talking to a guy. “We sold two million on HSN, then…”

He described invention after invention and how well each did.
I texted a friend right then, I don’t know how to ask him about it. He’s eating breakfast.
@pamela.sisson wrote back, “Do it!” so I did.

“I wanted to be a rabbi, ” he said. “But it’s a very noble, selfless life. Sometimes it might be hard to raise a family.”

So, he said, I made a skin cream. All organic. Carrots, etc in it. It’s in Walgreens, CVS, Target. We sold that company and I stayed making more products.
How come nobody has made a waterproof scarf before?
He laughed, “I don’t know. Makes sense, right?”
Have you had products that failed?
“Many. But you keep trying and trying to get your costs back and you keep inventing new things.”
He showed me a purse for glasses, phones, keys, and am rfid blocker to “Protect your credit card info. We sold 100,000 of these.”

He showed me a clothes hanger but, “it’s for jewelry.”

Why not a jewelry box? “Women want to see what they own.”

He showed me invention after invention. The wait staff gathered around to see. For each invention, someone said, “I need that.”

Sometimes be in a rabbi is noble. Sometimes being an inventor is.

It might rain later. I’m now thinking I need a scarf.

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June 10,2016: Searching For Bobby Fischer

In 1957, Bill Lombardy became the World Junior Chess champion.
In 1972 he was Bobby Fischer’s coach in the world championship Fischet-Spassky match in Reykjavik.
Yesterday, I ran into him in Union Square.

“They say I withdrew from chess, ” he said. “That’s BS. Chess withdrew from ME.” In 1957 he became the only person ever to win the world junior championship undefeated. 11-0.

In 1972, he helped Fischer analyze 14 adjourned games to help Fischer win the world championship.
My dad once told me when Lombardy came into the chess club he would be the only good looking person there.

“He looked like a movie star.” Grandmaster William Lombardy. “The rich take all the land, right?…..and now they pushed me from chess.” He turned to keep watching the backgammon game next to us.
I walked away.

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Ep. 170 – Gary Gulman: The Evolution of Talent (in 3 steps)

I was trying to cheer someone up. “The sun feels nice,” I said.

“I don’t even notice those things,” he said.

He was depressed. But I thought I could help.

They say you can’t make everybody happy. But really, you can’t make anybody happy.

I know this. But it doesn’t always stop me from trying.

Six months ago, I did my first stand-up show. Now I have a new experiment. I take one photo a day. And I tell a story.

But I haven’t stopped thinking about stand-up. And I want to get better.

So I interviewed Gary Gulman. He’s one of my favorite comedians. Top two. Him and Louis C.K.

I’ll throw Amy Schumer into the mix. Top three.

Gary started 23 years ago. And I’ve watched his Netflix special, “It’s About Time” twice (so far).

The best way to learn anything is to study the masters.

Studying Gary taught me there are three steps to developing talent in anything:

Step 1: Start somewhere

Gary first tried stand-up in 1993. But that’s not how he got started.

Before that, he watched comedy. He repeated jokes to friends and got laughs. That’s how all successes start. You just do it for fun.

That’s how Derek Sivers started CD Baby and how AirBnB began. They were experiments.

Gary only had five minutes on stage.

“Back then I did impressions,” he said.

He did one of Seinfeld and Kramer playing basketball.

But “within a year, I had decided my impressions were not very good.”

That’s step 2: Evolve.

Doubt is a leader. It can take you away from what you don’t love and into what you do love.

“That’s how I got on the track I’m on now,” he says.

If you’re “good,” you’ll just sit back. And someone who’s no good will get better.

• They’ll get a mentor
• They’ll reinvent themselves
• They’ll practice for 10,000+ hours
• They build a love for it

If the “good” ones don’t evolve, they’ll remain just that… good.

Step 3: Tell your story

“I have symptoms of depression,” he said. “I almost feel like I’m moving in slow motion. There doesn’t seem to be any amount of sleep that satisfies me.”

I can’t sugar coat it. It sounds miserable. But it’s also the source of his comedy.

“I guess if I didn’t have a depressive view of the world, I wouldn’t have the premises to go off,” he said.

“But at the same time, if I didn’t have the depressive nature, I would have more confidence and more energy to write more and maybe expand into more acting or podcasting or writing a book.”

It’s a balance.

“On the days you get out of it, how do you get yourself out of it?” I asked.

There was a long pause.

“Or have you never gotten out of it?” I asked.

I wanted to find out what works for him.

And it came back to helping people.

“Stand-up comedy gave me a lot of reward,” he said, “as far as making people feel a little bit better and forgetting about their problems for a short time.”

He turns pain into humor, which morphs back into pain.

That pain becomes a bit. And that bit becomes a laugh.

You can’t make people happy. But if you tell your story, maybe you can make them laugh.

Resources and Links:

• Watch Gary’s Netflix special “It’s About Time” (It’s hilarious. Highly recommended)
• See him live and check out his upcoming tour dates
• Follow Gary on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
• Watch more comedy on Gary’s YouTube channel 

Also mentioned:

• Gary’s favorite comedians:
• Gary’s book recommendation for people interested in comedy: “True Story: A Novel” by Bill Maher
• Gary’s favorite comedy-related documentaries:
  • “Comedian” featuring Jerry Seinfeld
  • “When Stand Up Stood Out” fearing Steven Wright andDenis Leary

The post Ep. 170 – Gary Gulman: The Evolution of Talent (in 3 steps) appeared first on Altucher Confidential.

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