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No BS: Whoa! I got a pandemic of hate-mail

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I’ve been getting a bit of hate-mail lately. Here’s what I think about it.

So I’ve been copping a bit of hate-mail lately.

This isn’t entirely new. I’m a hate-able guy. But it does seem to have picked up a bit lately.

And it’s coming at me from all directions. When I stuck my neck out for Black Lives Matter, I got attacked by conservatives. When I stuck the boot into Dan Andrews and Victoria’s Covid response, I got attacked by progressives. When I said you need to live for the moment because every moment could be your last, I got attacked by… actually I don’t know what they were on about.

Whatever. Come at me internet!

And I’m not here for sympathy. Sure, it might be nice if every now and then someone wrote in to say, “Up you go, Jon. Thanks for the laffs.” But it’s ok.

There are a few things that occur to me though.

The first is the number of messages that go something like, “I’ve been enjoying your blogs for four years now, but after that last email I set fire to my computer and I never want to hear from you again.”

Really? You’ve been vibing with what I’ve been saying for a few years, and then on the back of one email, bam, I’m blacklisted?

I’m ‘cancelled’?

I think I can get this. It feels like our very way of life is under attack right now. We feel we need to defend it in whatever way we can. As soon as there’s the first sign of rot in any aspect of our life, that aspect has to be cut out and destroyed as soon as possible.

There’s no room for second chances here.

It doesn’t matter if that rot is a charismatic entrepreneur with a provocative blog we’ve been enjoying for years. As soon as there’s any hint that this cancer is taking hold there too, boof, he’s gone.

I guess my response would be to say slow down and take a moment here. Your defensive drive doesn’t need to be so urgent. Yes, it feels like the world is falling apart, but it will be ok. We’ll find a way.

And the health of any cell is in its connections. I think its regrettable that we’ve become much more tribal in recent years. We’ve burrowed into social media thought bubbles, and the only voices we want to hear are the voices we like.

And I get how that happens too, but I do think it’s a good practice to keep yourself exposed to a variety of voices.

The more exposed your are to the political biome, the less likely you are to get hypo-allergenic reactions.

And my voice isn’t one you’re going to get anywhere else. I’m not pushing a political barrow. I’m just a guy who nerds out on property and wealth, with a personal mission to shake people out of their comfort zones.

I’m just ‘that guy’.

I’m not asking to be the voice of your inner-conscious. I’m not asking to speak for your most preciously held dreams and aspirations.

And you don’t want that from me either.

Just let me be ‘that guy’. Let me be a guy with a unique outlook on life and money and personal growth.

You’re not going to agree with everything I say. It’d be boring if you did. And that’s not what these blogs are for. I’m not here to feed you opinions you already have.

I’m here to give you an insight into the thinking of ‘that guy’. So you can reflect on it and go, isn’t it interesting that ‘that guy’ has ‘that opinion’? Isn’t the world a curious place?

And in that sense, ‘that guy’ is only here so you can learn more about yourself. You shouldn’t be reading me to know what I think. You should be reading me to get a clearer idea of what you think.

So look, hate on me all you want. Go nuts. But don’t bunker yourself just because you don’t like the voice you hear every couple of years or so.

Also, you all know these blogs go up on the website and the Facebook page right? If you’re going to have a spray, don’t waste it on my inbox.

Put it up on the web for everyone to see. There’s a bunch of people who will probably agree with you. And I might not respond to every comment, but I’ll definitely have a read.

I’ve been doing these blogs for 8 years now. It’s been great and I’m not planning to stop any time soon. And for everyone who’s stuck with me through that time, thanks for everything. I deeply appreciate it.

Yours, forever and ever

That Guy

No BS: Why you need this ‘spiritual discipline’

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If you’re too snatchy, you’re settling for second best.

Patience is a virtue. I mean that. It’s practically a spiritual discipline.

And it’s a discipline that’s worth developing.

I say that because when I look out at the world, I reckon most people are too ‘snatchy’.

That is, the universe offers them something a bit shiny, and they rush out and grab it.

They’ve got greedy hands.

This is a shame because once your hands are full, they’re full. You’re no longer in a position to receive.

And the first thing the universe offers you isn’t always the best thing it’s got.

It might be a job for example. You might be thinking its time for a career change, and you’ve sketched out in your mind exactly what you’re looking for.

But then something comes a long that’s definitely an improvement on what you’re doing now – it’s a big step up – although it’s still not exactly what you’re looking for.

What do you do then?

Most people go for the snatch. They grab it and nail down that opportunity before it gets away.

There’s a fearful voice that comes in at this point. “Grab it now while the opportunities there. It might not be there tomorrow. You might never find anything this good again.”

The snatch comes from fear.

However, maybe what you really need to do here is be patient.

Maybe you just need to put your greedy hands in your pockets and see what the universe offers up next.

Patience is built on trust and abundance. It’s built on the belief that there are endless opportunities in the world, and it’s built on the trust that those opportunities are going to find their way to you at some point or another.

And in that sense, patience is built on a spiritual world view. Call it abundance or whatever you want, but it’s based on an idea about just what kind of rock it is we’re living on.

And that’s why I say patience is a spiritual discipline.

And it’s a discipline because it’s not something that comes naturally.

You’ve got billions of years of biological evolution telling you to grab what you can while you can.

You need to train yourself in the way of patience.

But it’s worth doing.

If you can disengage your greedy hands – if you can learn to stop snatching at the world – then you enter a much more receptive space.

For things to enter that space – to deeply enter – then they really need to be fully aligned with who you are and what you want.

The further and deeper they have to come, the more in alignment they have to be.

And so the more patient you can be, the more the universe really has to perfect what it offers you.

And perfect things are nice.

In fact, once you go there, once you see what the universe really has the ability to deliver, you’ll never settle for second best again.

So don’t settle, petal. And keep your greedy hands in your pockets.

JG.

No BS: Sack Andrews, save the state

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Dan Andrews has compromised our most important line of defence.

Victorians are pissed right now.

Of course we are. We’re going into another six weeks of lock down.

Six weeks!

I’m not going to be able to get coffee at my favourite dive for six weeks. I’m very grumpy about that.

And I’ve got it easier than anyone. What about the café owner? She was gearing up for a steady reopening. Now she’s throwing everything into reverse, and she’s really wondering if she’s got the guts to last it out… or the pockets.

And it’s a massive blow to the Victorian economy. Gareth Aird at Comm Bank reckons the lockdown is going to cost $1-2 billion…

… every week!

There’s a lot of businesses that were really banking on things getting back to normal. But that’s not going to happen, and I can tell you, a lot of them are wondering whether or not they’re just better off cutting their losses and walking away.

So it’s a huge blow. And after making so many sacrifices for so long (remember what I was saying about my coffee?) it’s a bitter blow.

But then what do we get?

A premier whose point fingers at the people – people who ‘didn’t do the right thing’. Victorians who had become ‘complacent’.

But then you look into it, and it seems that our latest outbreak – and here’s the chart in all its hideous glory:

It seems that when you look into it, it all comes down to our failed quarantine program.

Specifically, travellers returning to Australia had to do two weeks quarantine in a hotel. In other states, that quarantine was enforced by the police or the Australian defence force.

Not in Victoria though. We out-sourced it to an under-trained and under-resourced private security company.

But that strategy created a bunch of problems. Namely:

  • Security companies were being paid for workers who didn’t actually exist, or for shifts they didn’t actually do.
  • Under-staffed quarantine enforcement because we were effectively paying for ghosts.
  • The guards that did show up didn’t follow proper procedures – they shook hands, shared lighters, didn’t wear masks etc.
  • Some guards were sleeping on the job.
  • Some guards were sleeping with guests (rumour has it).
  • Guards switched shifts between hotels.
  • Some guards were moonlighting as Uber-drivers.

What a joke.

As an island nation with almost no community transmission, the hotel quarantine was our most important line of defence.

And it was compromised.

And now we’re paying the price.

But what’s worse, rather than just fess up and say that they messed up and that they shouldn’t have trusted the nations bio-security to a bunch of Uber drivers, Dan Andrews is trying to duck the issue altogether, palming it off to an Inquiry that’s due to report at the end of bloody September!

C’mon. Grow some balls would ya?

It’s an epic cock up, but just own it. If you said, “Look, we knew Corona was going to cost us a heap of money, so I just thought I could save a few bucks by getting some traffic controllers in to do the job,” I’d maybe be like, well, yeah, fair enough.

That’s a bit stupid, but I can see what you were trying to do there. You probably had a lot on your plate at the time.

But when you just try to sweep it all under the carpet with an Inquiry that’s going to take two months to tell us what we already know – that you f$%ked up – it’s pretty poor form.

And when you start pointing the finger at Victorians who have been doing a pretty bloody good job of towing the line if you ask me, then it just gets a bit disgusting.

Because the consequences here are massive.

The only thing between us and a full-blown health crisis is the public’s willingness to make sacrifices and do the right thing.

That requires a lot of good will. It requires a sense of fairness.

But when people are going into lockdown – and when businesses are shuttering – because the government muffed it and won’t own it, then that good will starts evaporating.

And that puts the state, and the nation, at incredible risk.

I think you’ve blown it Dan.

The community needs to be honoured for the sacrifices it’s made. It needs to feel that things are fair.

I think you gotta step down.

Dan Andrews has to resign.

JG.

No BS: How do we build a ‘face-mask’ economy?

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Covid is changing how we build economies… and that could be great news.

I know we’re still knee deep in this Corona business, but I’m starting to think about what things look like on the other side of this.

And I kind of think that globalisation, as we know it, is toast. It’s gone. It’s making way for something new altogether.

And the Australian economy is going to become an entirely different beast.

Take the export side of things for example.

A couple of weeks ago I said I was pretty chill on China. China had just slapped a ban on Aussie barley imports, but I wasn’t joining the chicken-littles in the media who had said we had just shot ourselves in the foot.

At the time, I told people to relax. Commodities are ‘fungible’ – if you don’t sell it to one country, you just sell it to another. It’s only a problem if total global commodity demand falls, and China chucking a hissy fit isn’t going to do that.

And what happened?

Well, a week after the ban, all the barley that was on its way to China is now on its way to somewhere else:

Australian barley on its way to China has been diverted mid route to Japan and the United Arab Emirates following China’s decision to impose punitive trade tariffs on the grain.

Four ships carrying Australian barley have changed course or cargo after rising trade tensions led to China — Australia’s biggest barley buyer — enforcing an 80 per cent tariff on the grain, costing regional communities at least $500m.

Grain exporters, including Australia’s biggest, Perth-based CBH, have been in talks with Japan, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and other countries to sell barley originally destined for China.

While new sales can take weeks to arrange, ships loaded with barley have changed course immediately.

So, for the record, I’m still chill.

And Covid is causing a shake-up in how much vulnerability we’re willing to accept in our supply chains.

Facemaks have become the emblem of this issue.

Facemasks are cheap. They cost almost nothing to make.

And like a lot of cheap things, we didn’t value them. We didn’t think about them. We just assumed that they would always be there.

And then they weren’t.

Covid had disrupted the global supply chains we relied on, and we ran dangerously close to running out.

We suddenly realised that we were vulnerable. We relied on other countries for facemasks, medicine and other essential medical supplies.

And in the middle of a health crisis, we couldn’t protect our doctors and nurses because we couldn’t source a 75 cent face mask.

It looks like we’ve dodged the bullet now, but that we have been an incredibly stupid and humiliating way for a great nation to become undone.

So there’s a new conversation happening. How do we tap the benefits that global trade can provide, without building ridiculous vulnerabilities into the system?

There’s a real chance that government industry policy could be radically different at the end of all this.

You’re already hearing it in relation to our gutted manufacturing sector.

So post-Covid, it’s going to be a very different economy.

An over-reliance on China is going to be replaced with a new-found passion for self-sufficiency.

And personally, I think that might be the best thing that could have happened.

JG.

No BS: Why you’re probably part of the herd

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The thing about herds is that no one thinks they’re herd…

Do you run with the herd?

No, of course you don’t. You don’t think of yourself as part of the herd. You’re not a fearful sheep or an instinct-driven cow.

You’re a free thinker. You walk your own path. They should name a fragrance after you.

And look, the fact that you’ve made it this far – the fact that you’re reading these blogs rather than nom’ing up whatever grass the main-stream media puts in front of your over-sized nose – that means you’re already inclined to independent thought and critical media consumption.

Good for you. That’s awesome.

But think about this: how many people self-identify as ‘herd’?

“I used to identify as gender non-binary, but now I identify as bovine.”

Seriously though. Who identifies as herd? Is there anyone out there who says, “My investment philosophy is to just do whatever I see everyone else doing and hope that it works out.”

Of course not. The interesting thing about the herd is that every individual within the herd thinks that they are acting independently and following their own self-interest.

Herd dynamics don’t emerge out of a shared, collective desire to be herd-like.

They emerge out of independent individual action spontaneously synchronising into herd-like behaviour.

So this creates a problem.

If you say that you act independently and don’t “follow the herd”, I would say that every individual in the herd would say the exact same thing.

So how do you know you are genuinely acting independently, and how do you know that you’re not, in fact, just one of the herd-lings with delusions of agency and independence?

Well, how do you?

This is tricky.

The people who buy late into every bubble – whether that was Bitcoin in 2017, or the Tech boom in 2000, or Tulips in the olden days – they didn’t think they were part of the herd.

They all thought they were part of the visionary or early-adopter cohorts

Same story with people who sell out right at the bottom of the cycle – at those moments of maximum panic.

They’re not thinking, “Well the herd is really panicking now. I better join them.”

They’re thinking that things are about to get whole lot worse, and that they better get out before the herd comes to the same conclusion and tramples them.

And this is the thing. When you’re herd, you don’t know you’re herd.

The antidote, I think, is education.

Education and more education.

The more you educate yourself – the more you get a feel for the landscape and learn who to listen to and who you can trust – the more inoculated you are to ‘herd think.’

The more of this experience you have – the more you come to understand your place in the herd. Are you one of the leaders and independent thinkers on the fringes? Or are you smack bang in the middle?

The market is about to test us. So far we haven’t seen anything that has spooked the market, but my bet is we will.

The herd is going to panic and freak out.

Time to ask yourself now. Am I going to go with them?

Or do I know myself and know where I stand?

JG

No BS: How I filter truth

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So many conspiracy theories out there right now. Here’s the second filter I use.

Okay, let’s start working our way through the conspiracy theories that are out there right now.

We’re a couple of posts into this now.

In the first post I showed you how our biology makes the pursuit of perfect truth incredibly difficult. In the second post I made the point that there’s so much information out there nowadays, that you need to be using filters to sort the plausible from the implausible.

There’s just too much out there to crunch all that data yourself.

On Wednesday I went through the Comfortably Numb Filter. Today let’s talk about the second one.

I call this one The Truman Filter.

I named this after the Truman show, where the show’s producers create an entirely artificial world for Truman to get about in.

My favourite scenes in the movie are when Truman breaks out of his usual patterns, and all the actors and everyone are desperately scrambling to keep the illusion up – to keep a consistent fabric of reality together.

You can see how hard it is to deceive just one person who’s gone a little bit off-script.

Now, some conspiracy theories want me to believe that this is happening, not just at an individual level, but at a global level.

Like, I have seen some people genuinely say that all the footage we’re seeing of the Corona virus – footage of hospitals, morgues etc, from every corner of the world – it’s all fake.

There is no virus, and what we are witnessing is a carefully crafted pantomime – an elaborate puppet show.

I think the people who believe this have never run a business and they’ve definitely never worked in events.

I run a business. Do you know how much time I give to managing my staff? It’s the lion’s share of the gig, really.

And I’ve got great staff, but man, it’s herding cats sometimes. There are so many places where my carefully crafted plans can fall over. Maybe I don’t explain myself clearly.

Maybe they don’t understand me properly. Maybe they lose focus when it comes time to do the job. Maybe something totally random just comes in and throws it all off beam.

So imagine trying to craft an illusion that fools 8 billion people. Gawd. Can you imagine working with that many actors? Actors for gawds sake. They’re totally useless.

Now people might say, that you don’t have to actually conduct the illusion. You just need to control the media.

But that’s just a question of scale. Do you know how many media outlets there are? And how many people they employ? Copy-writers, camera-people, sub-editors, editors, producers, managers – and we’re still not even in the C-suite yet.

You’re still talking about organising an insane number of people – with clockwork precision.

I just can’t buy it.

(And if media agencies were in on the act, why are their revenues falling and their business models falling apart? Mastheads that have been around for centuries are shutting down. You’re telling me that they can participate in a global conspiracy, but can’t figure out a way to make money in the digital era?)

So yeah, based on the Truman filter, if you’re asking me to believe that it’s all a charade and the virus isn’t happening at all, I’m not buying it.

And that’s not to say that the government story is the right story, or that the media never lies to us or tries to influence us, or there isn’t something else going on.

But the filter system isn’t there to uncover the truth. It’s there to filter out stories that are just implausible, so you can focus your energies elsewhere.

So yeah, that’s my first filter for you. The Truman filter. If a conspiracy theory asks you to believe that someone somewhere has organised thousands of people with clock-work precision, you can probably discard it.

Next time, the magical lizard filter.

JG.

No BS: why you can’t handle the truth

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Social media is heating up. Conspiracy theories are everywhere. I tell you what you can believe with total confidence.

The journalist Gary Webb once believed in a conspiracy theory.

He believed that the CIA was importing huge amounts of cocaine, selling it on the streets of America, and using the money to fund Contra rebels in Nicaragua.

Turns out the theory wasn’t just a theory though. It was fact. And it was the biggest scandal of the day.

Webb got no thanks for his efforts though, and he later committed suicide.

By shooting himself in the head.

Twice.

Welcome to the strange, murky world of conspiracy theories.

Now, what’s really going on with the Corona virus?

Like, really REALLY going on?

I can see things are starting to get pretty heated on the socials. In the early days of the virus, the narrative was more or less, ‘uncontested’. Now there are more and more voices questioning what’s going on.

That’s a good thing. If you never question anything, you’ll spending your whole life in a nice safe job, until one day you watch your entire life savings go up in smoke in a bot-driven market crash.

But, there’s a lot of stories out there – from the official to the fringe. They can’t all be true, so how do we make sense of everything that’s coming at us?

Over the next few blogs, that’s what I want to try and do. Give you a framework for making sense of the conspiracy theories that are out there, and sifting the reasonable from the nonsense.

Now, when I put it in the context of a binary between ‘reasonable’ and ‘nonsense’ it sounds like it’s an easy thing to do. Like the truth will somehow appear obvious and untainted when we look in the right place.

But humans are not geared up for ‘truth’.

Let’s look at that for a bit, because we need to understand what we’re dealing with.

Okay, so let me ask you, how do we experience ‘facts’?

Well, facts are our things that we have perceived with our senses. Either directly, or second hand – through images to our eyes or meaningful sounds to our ears.

But even this leaves room for a universe of the unknowable. Our senses have evolved. Early organisms didn’t have eyes or ears, but we do.

However, ears and eyes have been selected to help us survive in our environments. That is, they are specifically designed to help us eat, root and avoid angry things.

By design, they give us just enough information to do that. No more and no less.

And they could do more. Insects can see whole spectrums of colour that we can’t see, because it helps them navigate their niche. We can’t see that spectrum because it’s kind of irrelevant to us.

So there’s spectrum of light and sound. But there are world of possible media – Vibration? Quantum phasing? Spirit?

If the earth was inhabited by gentle ultraviolet spirit beings who ate beauty and had no impact at all on our ability to eat, root or avoid angry things, then we wouldn’t be able to see them, simply because there would have been no evolutionary advantage in being able to see them.

So this is the first point. Evolution determines what you are capable of perceiving.

You are never seeing the ‘whole’ truth. Your sense organs are just not designed to do that. That’s not what they were built for.

They were built for survival, not truth.

The same story goes with the information you perceive and the way you process it.

Your brain’s job, as detailed in the job description evolution gave it, is to give you a workable framework for getting about in the world.

The ‘accuracy’ of that framework, again, is kind of irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether it successfully helps you eat, root and avoid angry things.

So perhaps you believe that when trees wobble, it creates wind, and when trees really start wobbling, a storm is coming and you should take shelter.

It doesn’t matter that you’re ‘wrong’. The framework helps you survive, and that’s enough.

The ‘truth’ is only ever a second-order consideration.

This is something that is useful to acknowledge.

Your brain has only a loose commitment to the truth. It is interested in relevant and workable truths, not complete truths.

In fact, it’s geared to not spend too long over-thinking the truth. Once the brain has a workable framework, it actually starts resisting the impulse to do any more digging.

Once you have a workable framework, you actually, sub-consciously, start filtering out anything that might disturb your confidence in that framework.

It’s why science tends to move in lurches – frameworks need to become completely untenable before we’ll invest the precious resources needed to create a new one.

And that’s all before we touch on social media thought bubbles, confirmation bias and the tendency to believe anything that ‘feels’ right.

So that’s the second point. Not only are you imperfectly equipped to perceive truth, you are imperfectly equipped to understand truth.

It’s an uphill battle all the way.

I’m saying all this because I think we all need to relax a little bit.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed right now because you don’t know what the truth is or who to believe, that’s ok. You not designed for ‘truth’. It’s still available to you, but you’re fighting your biology.

So take it easy. Find what’s workable for you. That’s what your ancestors would have done.

The second point is that if you’re shouting at strangers on the internet because they’re too stupid to see the truths that you see, maybe dial it back a bit.

First, while it’s possible that you have a grasp on the whole truth, it’s probably unlikely. Second, if you’re getting frustrated that people can’t embrace your truths overnight, it’s most likely because there’s a billion years of evolution getting in the way.

Go easy on them. They’re sophisticated monkeys trying to do the best they can… just like you are.

So take it easy Australia. Either way, we’re all in this together.

Now, I haven’t told you what I think yet…

More on that next week.

JG.

No BS: unemployed at Easter

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This is a strange new Easter. But there’s something timeless to hold on to.

Unemployment can come as a shock.

Like, it can be brutal.

There’s the financial reality, and that’s what hits you first. Holy sh!t. How am I going to pay for everything?

Most people aren’t set up to be able to take a massive pay cut, especially one that has come on as suddenly as this crisis has.

And for a lot of people this is going to be a wildly new experience. Some people have become accustomed to precarious employment. They’re used to rolling cycles of casual and contract work, punctuated with random periods of unemployment.

But for a lot of people, this is going to be the first time they’ve been unemployed, ever.

It’s been over 25 years now since Australia had any real unemployment – when there are ten workers for every opening, and people just start giving up on ever finding work.

Not many of us hold the cultural memory of what it’s like in times of high unemployment.

And so I wonder if we’re ready.

Because after the financial shock, comes the self-worth shock.

Chilling on the couch stops being fun after a couple of weeks (probably less if you’re self-isolating with kids!) And you have a little too much time for introspection, and asking questions like, “What’s wrong with me? Why is everyone rejecting me? What skills do I actually have anyway? Who would ever want to employ me? Will I ever work again?”

This can become a hole that it can take a long while to find your way out of.

I’m not sure that we, as individuals but also as a society, are ready for this.

So here comes Uncle Jon’s Easter Message.

This all got me thinking about forgiveness.

Self-judgement is the cancer that eats at your self-worth. No one is judging you for losing your job because of a global pandemic. But that doesn’t matter. Because it is what you are saying about yourself – quietly at first, but eventually with vicious rage and loathing.

Our own minds can be a terrible enemy – a brutal tyrant.

And once the judgement virus spreads through the brain, we become imprisoned in ideas of right and wrong and painful self-consciousness.

So, what’s the antidote?

Forgiveness.

It is knowing that the cleansing fire of forgiveness is available to us, in every moment of every day, if we simply let it in.

It is knowing that the prison walls of right and wrong and judgement can not hold us. There is a wide world beyond them, that we can simply step into, any time we choose.

It’s your mind. You have control.

And when I look at the life of Jesus Christ, it is this message that really stands out for me. He was willing to let himself be nailed to a cross just to remind us that forgiveness is only ever an intention, a prayer away.

To make sure that we never forgot it.

Epic.

So Easter is probably a good time to remember this. And if you’re one of the good folks who have suddenly found themselves unemployed, remember this. Anchor the intention now, before the demons of self-doubt and judgement start wearing you down, and make it impossible.

May God and his good son keep them from you.

Happy strange old Easter everyone.

JG.

No BS: Get powerful discipline in 2020

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You shouldn’t have to force it

Are you feeling like you could achieve more if you only had a little more discipline?
 
For most of us the problem is not about figuring out what we need to do. It’s just doing it.
 
Take losing weight for example. The science is pretty simple. If you consume more energy than you burn, you put on weight. So you either consume less, or burn more.
 
But almost exactly like socialism, it’s great in theory, and easier said than done.
 
Most of know we should eat better and exercise more, but it’s still very hard to do.
 
And so we think the key to unlocking our potential is more discipline.
 
But let’s think about discipline for a minute.
 
When you hear the word discipline, like most people, you think about austere monk or warrior practices to “deny the body” and build an iron like will.
 
Discipline is built by standing in freezing cold mountain water while your Zen master hits you with a bamboo cane.
 
Or its built by letting your troupe commander yell insults at you until you’ve done so many push-ups you throw up through your nose.
 
And look. That is a road to discipline. If you’re willing to sign up to that kind of punishment and abuse – it will have a profound affect on your discipline.
 
But for most of us it isn’t practical and it’s not the only way to build discipline.
 
The way I see it, and the way I build discipline in my own life, discipline is only ever a question of one or two things.
 
It’s either about motivation, or it’s about focus.

Think about it like this.
 
Imagine tomorrow you need to get up at 3.30am.
 
How much will-power is that going to take? Probably quite a lot, right? You’re going to have to really exercise that discipline muscle.
 
Now imagine that I tell you the reason why you’re going to have to get up at 3.30am is because 1980s Elle McPherson is coming around to give you a shoulder rub.
 
Suddenly the whole picture changes. If you’re like me, suddenly you don’t need to exercise any discipline at all. In fact, I’ll be getting up at 2.30am to wax my shoulders and bathe them in goat’s milk.
 
I find myself very, very motivated.
 
When you have the right motivation, it stops being a question of discipline or will power at all. You only need discipline to do the things you don’t want to do.
 
And so if someone tells me their struggling with discipline, I think what they’re really saying is they’re struggling with their motivation.
 
And this is where goal-setting, vision boards, mastermind groups and all that come into their own. They keep you motivated. They keep you inspired. They keep you driven.
 
Ok, let’s come back to our story. The alarm goes off at 2.30am. You half-open your eyes into the darkness, and think, ‘what am I doing?’ You hit the snooze button.
 
What happened? You forgot that 1980s Elle McPherson was on her way over. You dropped your focus.
 
And this is something I see a lot at this time of year. People get themselves motivated and excited and set some New Year resolutions in place.
 
And then in a few weeks, the busyness of life starts to take over. They forget what path they’re on. Why am I getting up at 6am to go for a jog? Did I really say no chocolate this year? What was I thinking?
 
When you lose your focus and disconnect from your motivation, you lose your discipline.
 
And so I reckon, for most things in life, this is the way to be disciplined about something.

  1. Connect with the motivation behind the action. Create a vision so exciting and compelling that it spring-board’s you into action.
  2. Once you have that motivation, hang on to it. Stay focused. Build habits that regularly connect you to your motivation – vision-baords etc.

 And really, that should do it.
 
You shouldn’t have to drag yourself towards the life you want. The vision of the life you want should be so compelling and so front-of-centre that it pulls you towards it with irresistible force.
 
So stay motivated and stay focused.
 
Or I’ll hit you with a bamboo cane.

No B.S. Friday: Slaying energy vampires…

by

I haven’t been taking enough care with the company I keep. I need to follow this advice.

Be careful who you share your soul with.

Not everyone is going to get it. 

Not everyone is going to see the vision you have. Not everyone will be able to see it all coming together, you – in the full richness of your life, your dreams taking shape in the wake of your hands. 

Not everyone is going to be able to see that. 

They will say your crazy. An idealist. A dreamer.

I’ve heard it all before. 

And not everyone is going to be able to support you in your dreams, even if they can see what you are trying to create. 

To many people, your success is scary. It’s a challenge to the victimhood stories they are telling themselves – the mythology of a horrible universe where there’s never enough and there’s no possible way to succeed. 

People need those stories. Otherwise they’d be forced to take responsibility and forced to take action. 

They’d much rather see you fail. They’d much rather talk you out of your dreams than actually have to do anything with their lives. 

You don’t need that. 

I really mean that, you don’t need that in your life. Nobody does. 

And you know who they are. It’s like they pull a plug in your belly, and your energy just drains away whenever they are around. 

Keep these people at a distance. Don’t share your soul with them. Don’t invite them into your inner world. 

You have enough on your plate with your own fears, your own insecurities, your own doubts. 

You already have the fight of your life on your hands. You need every ounce of energy you can muster. 

There’s no room for energy vampires. Keep them at a distance.

And careful the company you keep.