No B.S Friday: Only one in a hundred can even hear constructive criticism.

A little while ago I was trying to give some feedback to a difficult staff member.

I felt like it was probably time to let him go, but I’m a big believer in giving people the opportunity to take on feedback and grow and learn.

I’ve also learnt that its only one in a hundred who are actually capable of it, but those who can are total gems.

Anyway, it didn’t go so well.

And it actually got a bit aggressive.

“Hairy little frog scotum” I think he called me.

(He’s no longer working with us.)

And this is pretty normal as well. Not everyone can really take on feedback, especially when it gets past the level of purely technical skills.

We were talking social skills here, and he wasn’t very happy to learn that not everyone thought he was charming and endearing. “Miserable turd” is how another staff member described him.

And so, as I was trying to give feedback on his ability to be an effective human, he got his back up.

Now typically, people say that this is because in that moment they’re feeling insecure, and aggression is a common response to feelings of insecurity.

And I think that’s part of it.

But I also think part of it comes from shattering an illusion.

Like this guy genuinely thought he had tip-top social skills. That was the picture he had of himself. To shatter than picture was, for him, pretty full on.

It’s like this quote I’ve always loved:

“The nature of illusion is that it’s designed to make you feel good. About yourself, about your country, about where you’re going – in that sense it functions like a drug. Those who question that illusion are challenged not so much for the veracity of what they say, but for puncturing those feelings.”

— Journalist Chris Hedges

Now you can apply that to anything. Break someone’s illusion around how the world works or how wealth works or how power and politics works, and you get an addicts aggression.

But its especially true of the illusions we have about ourselves.

(and we all have them.)

But those illusions make us feel good about ourselves. They help us navigate the world and fortify our sense of self worth.

When they come under attack our strong, instinctual reaction is to fight. Is to push back.

And this is why, as you may have noticed, not that many people are all that happy to receive feedback, no matter how constructively its offered.

Just something I’ve noticed.

JG.

No B.S Friday: We think about emotions differently now. But most of us haven’t caught up.

“The only good emotion is a dead emotion.”

I think that pretty neatly sums up the our approach to life right the way through the 20th Century.

Emotions were tricksy things that served no useful purpose, and just got in the way of good old rational thinking.

And that was a convenient approach to take because there was so much buried trauma, that if you popped that cork it was likely to go off like a massive bottle of misery champagne.

But time moves on and the narrative shifts.

Now, it is good to be in touch with your emotions. We recognise there’s a power there, not only to guide us in life, but to allow us to really enjoy life itself.

And that’s great.

But have you defused your emotion-suppressing mechanisms?

In particular, have you disabled “distraction”?

Most of us are running the distraction sub-routine we learnt when we were kids. Distract. Forget. Hope it goes away.

You can see how it happens. “Distraction” is an important part of every parents tool-kit. You’re crying because mummy won’t let you play with her I-phone. But look, here’s a set of keys.

It works with young kids (from 2 to about 55) because they’re easily distracted, and because their emotions are so off the hook. It’d be draining if you tried to address every emotional turn. Sometimes it’s easier to distract them with something else and just go back to your gin and tonic.

Trouble is, we never grow out of this.

We learn that the appropriate response to hurt, and to disappointment in particular, is “not to dwell on it”. Don’t give your feelings any attention. Focus your thoughts somewhere else, and eventually they’ll go away.

“What is Johnny Depp up to now?!”

You miss out on a promotion, don’t worry about it. Just pretend like it never happened. Stiff upper lip chaps.

Maybe that has a place when you’re a toddler, but as an adult, you’re creating an emotionally deadened life for yourself. What’s worse, you’re missing an important opportunity to see in detail what really excites your heart.

When emotions come, ideally, we want to take the time to be with them, unpack them, understand them in detail.

If we can do this, then we have greater clarity about what makes us happy and fills us with joy. We have greater clarity about what we are called to do. We see the path before us in more definition.

It’s all super useful stuff.

But if you’re running a distraction sub-routine, then you miss all of this amazing info.

And life just has less colour.

So watch yourself. Watch for the ways you distract yourself from the things you are feeling. Watch yourself closely.

We all have work to do here.

JG.

No B.S Friday: Sometimes you have to see it slip through your fingers to know what you truly want.

I reckon there’s a lot of politicians waking up this week feeling pretty disappointed.

Some will be relieved. Scomo looked relieved. But many had a vision of their careers, and they just had those hope and visions dashed.

Many are probably wallowing in some profound disappointment right now.

We should envy them.

We should envy those who miss out on what they truly want. We should envy those feeling so much disappointment that it stings – that they wake up into a dull sadness before they even remember what’s wrong.

They’re the lucky ones.

I’m serious. We should all pray to know profound disappointment a few times in our life.

Because I’m not sure you’ll be able to achieve really amazing things without it.

Now this isn’t just another “highs with the lows” idea. Disappointment is different. Disappointment is one of the ways we understand what it is we truly want.

Most of us spend our lives drifting. We have some idea of what we want, but not many of us take the time to lock it down – to clearly articulate it and hold a clear picture of it in our mind.

(Though on the road to success, perhaps nothing is so important.)

And if we are just drifting along with only vague ideas about what we truly want, sudden disappointment can come as a great teacher.

We miss out on a deal that was going to be our ticket. We miss out on a new job that sounded so much more exciting that our current one. Someone decides that they would just prefer the romantic company of someone else.

Ouch.

In these moments our hearts are stripped raw. They’re fully alive. The dull signals we normally get (muffled through the comforts of routine, heavy foods and tv) are replaced by intensity – the needle flapping wildly all over the red.

Here, in this moment, is a chance to get a full-bandwidth read on what it is our heart really wants. We don’t have to find a hill-top meditation spot to quietly tune in with ourselves. It’s coming in loud and clear. Almost too loud.

And so what’s there if we really listen? So we missed out on a job? What is it that we’re upset about missing out on? Was it the money? Was it a job that was more creatively exciting? Was it about getting out of this toxic cubicle farm and seeing more sun?

We’re able to get a clear read on what we really want. With that, we can start building strategies to make ourselves happier, right here and now. If it’s money, we can get some more mentoring to fast-track our investments. If it’s more sun, talk to the boss about working more from home in your lovely sun room.

Whatever. You get my point. When you have a clearer understanding of what it is you truly want, you can get more strategic about calling it into your life.

And really, there isn’t anything that a little sustained effort can’t achieve.

Disappointment then is a great teacher. Welcome him in and break open the nice packet of biscuits you have been saving for just this occasion.

JG.

No B.S Friday: If you want something done, who do you give it to?

Someone asked me the other day about what I’m looking for in a joint venture partner.

“Absolute stack loads of cash” is the first answer. That makes every project go smoothly.

Other than that, there’s a range of factors but there was one thought that jumped out at me. You know that saying, “If you want something done, give it to a busy person.”

There’s definitely an element of truth to this. If the choice is between someone who is doing lots of stuff and is pretty busy most the time, and someone who is doing nothing and is never busy, then yes. Definitely. Go with the busy person.

The level-up required between doing nothing and doing one thing is actually much bigger than it looks. The first step is the hardest.

In that way, the difference between zero things and 1 thing is way bigger than the difference between 10 things and 11 things.

That said, not all busy people are created equal.

Some people are just busy because they don’t have clear direction. They run around like a headless chook between one project and the next, never knowing how to settle.

You might get good work out of them for a while, but at some point they’ll probably get distracted and just move on.

And then there are other busy people who are too busy to make good decisions. They’re so flustered by everything on their to-do list that they never give each decision the time it deserves.

There’s actually a feedback loop between time and good decisions.

People who can take their time make better decisions.

Those people who make better decisions find themselves with more hours in the day, because they are focused and don’t have to mop up their own messes.

And because they have more hours in the day, they make better decisions… etc.

So this is what I’m looking for I reckon.

People who are busy – actually, let’s drop that. Let’s say ‘productive’. I’m looking for people who are productive – who are getting stuff done – without getting themselves in a flap about it.

If someone is getting stuff done, and they’re making it look easy, then I know that’s a person who has got their personal systems sorted, and is likely to keep on making good decisions.

I’ve got enough dramas in my life. I definitely don’t have time to motivate someone off the couch, and I don’t have time to manage someone who can’t manage their own time.

My time, and my money, is too precious for that.

JG.

No B.S Friday: Could you be getting more from your morning coffee?

I think most people are doing their coffee wrong.

Me, I like to snort it through my nose with a whirly straw.

The membranes in the nose are thinner so the caffeine has more direct access to your blood stream. The whirls in the straw centrifugally align the caffeine crystals.

I am quickly becoming famous. In a few years, when you hear about people taking their coffee “Melbourne style”, remember that it started with me.

Nah, I think people are doing coffee wrong because they waste a good chunk of that first lift in the caffeine high.

Coffee always feels good right. And if you’re like me, there’s this sweet spot in the first 30 mins to an hour straight afterwards where I’m feeling energised and excited about life.

That’s a gift. Ancient people’s had to do that through singing songs about pretty milkmaids and so on. We just get to main-line it, and access that experience for a few quick bucks.

But what do most people do with that high?

If you ask me, most people blow it. They take that high and plough it into hussling for the bus or checking their work emails.

And it is true that caffeine gives you a productivity boost, and so it is tempting to use that boost to get through a tough part of the day.

(If the first 30mins are the worst part of your day, you need a new job dude. Time to become independently wealthy.)

Anyway, the point is most of us take that joyous uplift and then try to twist it into a downward drive into productivity.

That’s a shame.

It’s a shame because there’s a moment of joy here that you’re denying yourself. If you didn’t try to twist your lift into productive output, there’d be an opportunity to feel good and grin like an idiot for no real reason.

Are you going to deny yourself that? And for what? To delete 67 irrelevant emails?

You bastard. You’re being an evil prick. To yourself!

But it’s a missed opportunity because the universe responds to high vibes and positive vibrations.

You know the drill here. When you’re feeling good, you’re resonating in a way that attracts more good to you.

So one, it’s a shame to twist out of this good. Two, it’s a shame to use coffee to trick yourself into feeling good about emails, attracting more emails to you.

And three, there’s an opportunity to feel good here about the things you really want.

So when that coffee high hits, go to your big ticket dreams. What are you trying to call in?

How good is it going to feel to quit work? How good will it feel to take the kids skiing? How good will it feel to pay off the mortgage completely?

How good will it feel to get guitar lessons and have the time to master it? How good will it feel to really get the garden cranking? How good will it feel to spend any damn morning you choose, in bed til ten, cuddling your wife?

Let the high of coffee amplify the vibrational power of your dreaming.

This is how you do coffee.

Don’t twist your lift into more work! God no.

Give yourself permission to feel good for absolutely no reason.

JG.

No B.S Friday: What unlocked the potential for peace in the human mind?

I spent a lot of time at Sunday school when I was a kid looking at the image of Christ – all scrawny and beautiful – nailed to a cross.

It’s a potent image.

There’s a great scene in the TV show Vikings where the Vikings are ransacking a monastery, and they come across a wood carving of Christ on the cross for the first time. They stare at it for a while. It confuses them. And then they smash it to pieces with an axe.

Yeah. Vikings!

In that moment I could really get how strange the Christ figure would have been to them. They were a spiritual people as well, but the Gods they worshiped were heroes too – great warriors and conquerors. Thor was so mighty, Hollywood had to come to Australia to find someone tough enough to play him.

So who was this scrawny dude, miserably nailed to a cross? And why did the Saxons worship him?

I think it’s easy to forget just what an unusual age we’re living in. These are exceptionally peaceful times – on any measure.

Sure there are still wars and crime and murders on all sorts of horrible things, but these are at an all time low.

If you’re an adult male, the chances that you’ll die in your sleep of old age, and not some violent death at the hands of one of your enemies, is the best it’s ever been.

In medieval England, you could go to the theatre and watch a cat, tied to a stake, set on fire.

Not a dramatization of a burning cat. An actual cat, set on actual fire.

It was part of the programming. 7.00 -7.30, puppetry show for the kids. 7.30 – 8.00, kitty torture.

Today, it’s unthinkable. But it wasn’t really that long ago that we used to find amusement in acts of shameless cruelty – that we used to think that cruel was funny.

But at some point we became “peace-loving.”

We stopped glorifying war and violence. It took millennia to achieve, but now if our leaders want to take us to war, they have to do it at least in the name of peace – ridding the world of weapons of mass destruction, and bombing them into freedom etc.

That’s a new thing. In past times they could have done it simply because war is awesome and conquering others was glorious.

We have come a long way.

And the image of Christ on the cross has a lot to do with it, I reckon.

Because for the first time in history, we had a lightning rod for the best aspects of humanity, and the necessary ingredients for peace.

It was not a figure that glorified power and strength and kicking holes in the sky. It was a figure that showed us the power of self-sacrifice and commitment.

Even though he was being nailed to a cross, he never turned his back on the sacrifice he was called to make.

This is a powerful idea. Selflessness in the face of hardship.

And it’s the foundation of compromise, charity, playing nicely…

… and peace.

And so this is what I’ll be remembering this Easter. We live in an amazing, peaceful age. But that peace is always and ever built on a commitment to something bigger than ourselves.

Have a peaceful and joyous Easter everyone.

JG.

No B.S Friday: More radical responsibility – this time about relaxation.

If you think relaxation is what happens when all the jobs are done, you’re in trouble.

Now, some people do live this way.

Some people are just living vanilla lives, going along to their day job, doing the things, and coming home.

When they get home, they’re like, “Well, I have nothing left to do. I’ll just relax. Where’s the remote?”

And look, that’s ok. If that works for you, great.

But it’s only going to work for you if you’re content with the vanilla story of working for 50 years and then retiring into a modest retirement.

And just to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with that. But it’s not what I dreamt of for my life. And if you’re here reading this, then I know it’s not the life you’re dreaming of either.

You’re dreaming of independent wealth. You’re dreaming of living life on your own terms. You’re dreaming of half-baked philosophy dished up in a blog every Friday. That’s why you’re here.

And if that’s what you want, then you’re going to be living a life of proactive engagement.

Your to-do list is not defined by your boss, and the time clock. You’re to-do list is defined by your ambition. It is defined by the projects and the deals you need to do to live the life you want.

Now, as you drop into this mode – of living life proactively – you begin to notice something. The to-do list never empties.

That’s still the case for me now. I have more wealth than I can poke a diamond-encrusted walking stick at, but I still have dreams and I still have ambition.

Those dreams and ambitions still fill my to-do list.

They fill it to overflowing.

And so if I waited until all the jobs were done until I could relax, I would be waiting forever and forever and forever.

What does this mean?

Well, it means that if you’re going to be proactive with life, then you have to be proactive with relaxation.

You can’t wait for life to serve you up with moments of relaxation. You have to get out there and make them happen.

You have to make relaxation a discipline.

Because we can’t be on all the time. It’s not healthy. Our minds can’t be wound up all the time.

It’s like imagine a bicep muscle. It the muscle was ‘on’ all the time – if it was tensed all the time – it would soon break down and create all sorts of problems through the rest of the body.

It’s the same story with the mind. It can’t be on all the time. It’s not designed to be on all the time. It’s designed to move through rhythms of engagement and relaxation.

So we need to have a commitment to relaxation. We need to have commitment to relaxation as a productivity practice.

And we need to turn that commitment into a discipline, and that discipline into a habit.

And like all things, chill-time is your responsibility.

JG.

No B.S Friday: Don’t let panic pull you from your power.

“Hey. Slow down. Let it come to you. Don’t reach for it.”

I was staying at some swanky resort somewhere a few years ago, and it had these amazing tennis courts. Tennis isn’t really my thing. I’ve got more foot-eye coordination than hand-eye, but these courts were a marvel.

And, you could get a half hour or hour lesson with the resident tennis pro, so I thought, why not? You never know when having a passable back hand might come in handy.

(It used to be that business meetings happened on the golf course or at the tennis club. Now, I’m told, it’s executive road cycling, but buggered if I’m getting into all that lycra.)

So we’re batting balls back and forth.

At some point the pro says, “Don’t reach for it. You’re reaching for it.”

At first I’m like, “Mate, what are you on about? I’ve got a racquet and I’m trying to hit the ball. Of course I’m reaching for it.”

But he said, “Slow down. You’ve got more time than you think.”

I don’t remember exactly what he said, but this was the central gist. I was rushing things. I was too keen. I was out of my element on the tennis court, and so I was compensating by trying to get ahead of the ball.

I was trying to rush out and meet the ball because I didn’t have the confidence to let the ball come to me. I was trying to deal with the problem before it got on top of me.

I was trying to deal with it while it was still ‘out there’. Before it was ‘in here’.

And so I was reaching for it. The racquet was too far in front of me. This messes up your swing in a few ways. Because you’re racquet is early, you tend to hook the ball. If you want to hit it straight, then you kind of have to break your wrist back to change the angle so it’s pointing in a straight line.

Early swing + late wrist = inconsistent mess.

The other thing that happens is that when your arms are flailing about ‘out there’, you’ve got no power. Power, I’m told, comes from the hips.

(My power certainly comes from my hips. Hey..? Ladies..?)

Most of the drive comes from the legs and from the torque in the torso. The arms are just sauce on the hotdog.

So your power zone is close in – where the legs and torso are doing the work. It’s not ‘out there’ where you’ve got nothing but your 2-minute noodle arms to work with.

And so the secret to a powerful (and more consistent) shot is to wait on it. It’s to let the ball get close in – almost terrifyingly close in. Let it come to you.

And I think there’s an important life lesson here.

Wait on it. Let it get close in. Let it come into your power zone.

. I know I still find it tempting in the early stages of a deal to try and reach for it. To get things happening quickly, rush things along. I don’t want to miss out.

But I’m out of my power zone there. I’m reaching for it. I can over-commit and over-pay. I can get a bit careless with the numbers.

FOMO busts my mojo.

I know I’m much better off if I let things get a little scary. Let them get close in where I feel a little vulnerable. Like it’s moving out of my control.

That means being ok with getting gazumped if that’s what happens. It means being able to get up from the table and walk away.

But let it come. And then once it has come to you, once all the ducks are in a row, bam. Strike with clean decisiveness.

There’s a pro-tip for you.

JG.

No B.S Friday: Every religion has to answer this, but most don’t.

There’s one great question that every religion and every philosophy has to wrestle with:

Why.

More specifically, why is the world such a sh!tshow?

I mean, look around the world right now. War and untold displacement in the Ukraine. Floods in NSW and Queensland. And that’s on top of all the chaos of Covid.

And that’s just the newscycle this week.

How many murders and wars and famines and diseases never make it on to the front pages?

Human experience is anchored in suffering.

Yes, there is beauty and love and tasty things to eat.

But these are just garnishes on the great big bowl of suffering that life serves up to us all.

And why?

I mean, if you believe in a God, it’s hard to escape the idea that he’s a bit of a sick bastard.

Why create an entire universe calibrated to extract squeaks of suffering out of poor little humans?

Why design humans in such a way that they keep inflicting suffering on each other… and themselves.

If there is an intelligent creator, what’s the game plan here? What the hell is God getting at?

I think there are three possible answers.

One, there just is no God. This is all just a random collection of random atoms smashing into each other in ways that make interesting, but random patterns.

Maybe. You can’t disprove it. But I don’t feel it in my bones to be true.

The second option is that human suffering is just irrelevant. There are things going on here that we just don’t understand, and humans and their suffering are neither here nor there.

Like, maybe God is making a cake, and we are like grains of wheat, complaining about being ground up to make flour.

Again, possible, but I don’t find it particular satisfying, and I don’t feel that it squares away with a sense that I do have an immortal soul.

So the last answer that leaves me with is the idea that our suffering is central and an important part of the process.

Maybe we are the eyes and ears with which the Creator experiences his creation, and maybe what he wants to drink from the cup of the human soul is a particular cocktail: four fifths suffering, 1 part beauty.

Maybe beauty on its own is too sweet and cloy.

Maybe it only becomes something worth savouring when it is served in the context of suffering – in the context of impermanence, where everything and everyone we ever loved will be taken away.

And so maybe our role then is to not build dam walls against the onslaught of suffering and woe – to try and cultivate a garden of joy behind a walled fortress that keeps everything else out.

Maybe our role is to brew that strange cocktail within us – a savouring of joy with a base liqueur of suffering.

To savour what we can when we can, with full presence and full permission.

And maybe then – maybe – things might start to feel like they make sense.

JG.

No B.S Friday: There are two types of patience, but only one leads to success.

Patience isn’t always a virtue.

Waiting in line at Hungry Jacks? Yes. Patience is a virtue then, thank you.

But waiting for the world to stop jerking you around and to sort you out financially? No. Patience isn’t a virtue then at all.

I find it useful to distinguish between what I call “passive patience” and “active patience.”

I think a lot of people get hooked on passive patience. It’s Cinderella patience.

It’s that ability to stick out a crap situation – to just hold on and hope that your fairy god-mother comes along at some point.

It’s swallowing your pride and settling into a job you hate.

It’s letting your in-laws boss you around because surely they’ll have to come around eventually, right?

Or it’s just fighting that whimpering voice inside of you that says “there must be more than this,” as you go off to slog your way through another 8-hr shift on the customer service front desk.

Passive patience is passive, but it also takes work. You have to fight yourself. You have to swallow your anger and your pride, until it lives in your belly as constipation or cancer.

You have to deny your inner child. You have to deny your dreams. You have to deny that painfully obvious reality that we, as humans, are just capable of so much more than this.

But we do it. We get it done. We have a phenomenal ability to spend decades in a world drained of all its colour.

But we do it.

But passive patience is toxic patience. Remember that.

Active patience on the other hand is profoundly healthy and powerful.

Active patience is the ability to recognise that most things worth having require some form of sacrifice and hard work.

And so active patience is that ability to keep your head down and to keep chipping away at your goals, week in, week out, edging closer day after day.

It’s the kind of patience that keeps you to your diet, even though the needle on the scale hasn’t moved since yesterday.

It’s the patience that holds your child through their tantrums, knowing that loving attention will be better for them in the long run than flushing their head in the toilet, as much as you want to do that right now.

And it’s the patience that holds you through self-education, into your first deal that makes a modest profit of $10K, and the next one that makes $30K, until finally you’re ready to do that deal that finally helps you quit work for good.

That’s the patience that can move mountains.

So yes, patience can be a virtue.

But it can also be toxic and soul-destroying.

So I ask you… are you being patient?

Are you being the right kind of patient?

JG.