The Small Change in Perception That Can Change Your Life

Posted on October 22, 2011 by AJ Kessler

Who has a higher tolerance for pain: those who experience an acute injury, lots of pain at one time, or those who constantly suffer from pain?  The answer is counter-intuitive, and the potential reason is fascinating.

Dan Ariely has found that those who have suffered acute injuries have far higher pain tolerances than those who suffered less severe injuries.  This doesn’t mean that these people don’t feel pain, but they simply care less.  They literally just tolerate it better.  But curiously, Professor Ariely found that those with chronic injuries, the sort of injuries that would ultimately end their lives, had by far the lowest tolerance for pain.

Why?

Professor Ariely theorizes that those with acute injuries are better able to tolerate pain because they associate pain with improvement.  The pain of treatment or bandage removal or whatever all leads to them getting healthier.  It might hurt now, but the pain ultimately means you’ll be getting out of the hospital and back to life.  People with chronic pain associate pain with just getting closer and closer to the end.  The meaning of the pain, what the victim associates the pain with, either physical improvement or deterioration, is key.

This theory just sounds right, because we witness it in so many other areas of life.  Take Thomas Edison, for example: he’s famously attributed as saying that he didn’t fail 3000 times, but instead successfully found 3000 ways that a light bulb didn’t work.  Whether he said it or not, this attitude is the same sort demonstrated by acute pain sufferers.  If each failure is one step closer to knowing how to solve a problem, your tolerance for failure is going to be extraordinarily high.  On the other hand, if you’re like Andre Agassi, whose father berated him as a boy for missing shots on the tennis court, your attitude towards failure is totally different: any failure can be debilitating.

So, once again, it’s all about attitude.  If you can associate hard work, or long hours, or any part of the long slog required to produce good work, with tangible success, it makes it much easier to put in that work or those hours. If you can perceive pain as a good thing, as a signal of growth, you can tolerate just about anything. You’ll still feel it, but, since you know that the pain means you’re getting close to your goal, since you have some smaller tangible markers of success along the way, you won’t care about the pain.

Watch Professor Ariely discuss this here:
 

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How To Get Anyone To Help You Do Anything

Posted on October 20, 2011 by AJ Kessler

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”

– Antoine de Saint-Exupery

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How To Meet Your Heroes and Win Mentors

Posted on October 19, 2011 by AJ Kessler

Have you noticed that little kids can do just about anything they want?  There’s a mountain of stories about young kids getting an audience with some business or government leader simply because they wrote a letter.  Successful people, and people in power, love to do this sort of thing.  Any kid who shows a true, deep interest in something basically has a key to the world.

For some reason, a lot of people think this stops somewhere in your teens.  It doesn’t.  Reaching out to people, writing letters or emails and making phone calls works tremendously.  Your response rate isn’t going to be 100%, or even 50%, depending on you’re going after, but it’s going to be way higher than 0%.  All you have to do is show an interest in them or their work.  The more novel approach you take, the more interest you show in some generally overlooked part of their work, the more effective you’ll be.

Why would someone who’s rich and successful want to meet a kid who’s just out of school and couldn’t find his ass with both hands?  What does the rich successful guy get out of this?

Lots of things.  First of all, most successful people are nice.  They want to help people, especially those just starting out.  They were once there, and they remember what it was like.  It makes them feel good to help people.

Fine, you say.  But, what about those guys who aren’t so nice?  Here’s a secret about everyone on the planet, but one that holds particularly true for assholes: they love to talk about their own accomplishments.  I’ve scored meetings with and even befriended people who most of the world consider to be colossal pricks, just by being genuinely interested in what they have to say.  And they love it.  They’ll talk your ear off and you’ll be their new favorite person and they’ll want to help you.  They’ll actually find you wildly interesting, even if you just parrot things back, take notes, smile, and nod a lot.  (Note that you do actually have to be interested in what they have to say; this doesn’t work too well when you’re bullshitting.)  Seth Godin sums up this phenomena nicely, though I would argue that it applies to everyone, even those who aren’t super egotistical, at least some of the time:

It turns out that the best way to appear interesting to someone who cares a lot about himself is to be interested.

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Now’s The Best Time To Be Poor

Posted on October 18, 2011 by AJ Kessler

I don’t mean “now” in terms of the Gregorian calendar, though it’s unquestionably true that it’s better to be “poor” now than at any other time in history, but “now” in terms of whatever stage of life you’re at.

If you’re in your 20’s, it’s a great time to be poor.  You probably don’t have any dependents.  Your expenses are as low as they’ll ever be: your healthcare is (hopefully) dirt cheap, you can easily and comfortably live in a communal space, etc.  Maybe most importantly, everyone expects you to be poor.  There are no pretenses.  Your friends are all poor too, and society isn’t judging you based on your income or your possessions or even your profession.  Take advantage of this time.  You’ve got the ability to take on riskier projects and aggressively hone new skills.

When you hit your 30’s and 40’s, this seems to change.  People definitely start to judge you based on your profession and your income and your possessions.  It gets much harder to take risks.  But, it’s still easier to be poor in your 30’s or 40’s than it is in your 50’s or 60’s.  Take advantage of this time.  Chase down new skills and take on new projects as aggressively as you can.  Sock away money.  Ya, you might be judged for living frugally at this point, but you definitely don’t want to spend your money keeping up with your richer friends and be left broke when you’re 60.

And, if you’re in your 50’s or 60’s, you can take solace in two things.  First, it’s really the best time ever to be first-world “poor”.  Second, it’s never to late to master something.  There are so many examples of people who struggle their whole lives and finally break through.  I was recently reading about Tony Bennett, who ended up broke, divorced and nearly dead from a cocaine overdose in his 50’s after the music of his generation seemed to fall by the wayside.  But, he turned his life around, worked his ass off to mount a comeback, and finally got another record contract when he was 60 years old.  Anything’s possible.

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Warning: Practice Does Not Make Perfect

Posted on October 17, 2011 by AJ Kessler

Practice makes permanent.

Practice can sear technique into your brain and muscles.  It can enable you to do something without much conscious effort.

Obviously, that can be problematic.  If you practice sloppy technique, that’s going to become your default.  If you practice poor thinking or illogical problem solving, you’ll be in the habit of thinking poorly and making logical errors.  Not good.

Instead, we should listen to Vince Lombardi: if you want to master something, you need to practice it perfectly.  You obviously can’t start out practicing something perfectly, but practice doesn’t end when you perform it perfectly the first time.  It ends when you can perform it perfectly just about every time.

This takes a lot more effort, but frankly, not practicing at all is probably more beneficial than practicing poorly and forming harmful habits.

 

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How To Tell A Story People Can’t Turn Away From

Posted on October 16, 2011 by AJ Kessler

Great video from Ira Glass about how to turn even the most mundane story into something compelling:

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The Problem With Beginning

Posted on October 15, 2011 by AJ Kessler

The problem with starting any new creative endeavor is that you’re going to suck at it.  Even when you become a professional, depending on your field, most of your work is still going to suck.

There’s a terrible irony at play here: the people who are most likely to ultimately succeed are the ones with the best taste, but the ones with the best taste immediately recognize that their initial work product sucks, and thus are the most likely to quit at the beginning.

Great advice from Ira Glass:

 

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Use Oterap’s Principle To Live A Miserable Life

Posted on October 14, 2011 by AJ Kessler

Pareto’s principle states that a mere 20% of the causes produce 80% of the effects.  Cool, right?  People like Tim Ferriss, who made his name exploiting this principle to its fullest, have shown that you can produce extraordinary results by focusing your efforts on the small percentage of stuff that really matters.

There’s a flip side to this though.  Let’s call it Oterap’s Principal:

80% of the work will only get you 20% of the results.

90% of the work will only get you 10% of the results.

That math doesn’t seem right, does it?  Anyways, let’s break this down.  We can use any area of life as an example, but a job makes easy sense:

In any job, you need to show up and do the minimum of what’s required of you in order to not get fired.  If it’s loading pallets, you need to load a certain number of pallets per hour and show up at a certain time each day, for a certain number of days per year.  Do that, and you get to keep your job.  Do only that, and you get to load pallets for the rest of your life.  FYI, that’s a shitload of work, for not a huge benefit.  You get a regular paycheck, probably some health risks, and that’s about it.  Even if you meet the bare minimum requirements, if you’re the minimum viable worker in the factory, you’re still doing 90% of the work and getting just a fraction of the results of your labor.

If you’re working in an office, you could work the minimum required hours, do only what you’re assigned, or only work on the few things within your job description.  You’d keep your job, but you’re not moving up anytime soon.  And, you still have to show up every day.  You still have to wake up, commute, and then sit at your desk all day, whether you’re learning or producing something useful or just reading tweets in the bathroom stall.

The rub is that for barely any extra effort, you could produce outsized results.  If you thought about how you could make pallet loading more efficient, wrote up a proposal, and delivered it to the foreman, or did a bit of research outside your field each night and offered to help anybody in the office on any project they wanted, you’d stand to reap the 90% that was outside of your grasp before.

So, don’t follow Oterap’s Principle.  If you’re already doing 90% of the work, like most people are, spend a few extra minutes each day to figure out where that extra 10% is and what you can do to harness it.  This will let you grasp the 90% you’re missing out on.  Once you figure that out, it’ll be easy enough to follow Pareto’s Principle, if you want to.

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How To Ruin Your Life

Posted on October 13, 2011 by AJ Kessler

It can ruin your life only if it ruins your character.  Otherwise it cannot harm you — inside or out.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations Book 4.8

A little preachy and smarmy for us modern folk?  Maybe.  But it’s still true.  And, often hard to accept sometimes.  If your best friend or spouse dies, isn’t your life over?  If your business fails and your wife leaves you and you’re broke, isn’t your life ruined?  It must certainly feel that way.

But, if you’ve managed to hang onto your character, all of these things are replaceable, to an extent.  You can’t ever get your wife or friend back, but you can make new friends and marry again.  You can certainly start a new business and get back to where you were, financially.

If you’re character is intact, that means your network is intact.  Your friends will still be there for you.  Your name will still carry weight.  Nobody will remember that you failed.  But if, on your way down, you do a bunch of stuff that’s morally reprehensible, or even morally questionable, then you’re fucked.  That’s when your network abandons you.  That’s what people will remember.

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Yes, It Matters, Even If No One Sees

Posted on October 12, 2011 by AJ Kessler

For the first thirty years of your life,
you make your habits.

For the last thirty years of your life,
your habits make you.

– Old Hindu Proverb

We tell kids that their homework is important, even when we know the task itself is not.  Most of the time, the real task is learning how to learn.  Most of the time, the biggest benefit of otherwise meaningless work is building the right habits.

This doesn’t stop in grade school.  It’s important to do it right, even if no one will ever see it.  If you get in the habit of being sloppy, someday you’ll be sloppy when it matters, ironically because you won’t be sharp enough to tell ahead of time when it’s going to matter.

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When To Finish

Posted on October 11, 2011 by AJ Kessler

We talked last week about the importance of quitting.  Now, not paradoxically, we should talk about when to finish.

Mastery is important.  It not only makes you a master of something, it teaches you how to learn and it builds confidence since you’ve proven you can accomplish something difficult.  But, you’ll never master anything if you quit.  No shit, right?

The problem is that it’s always easiest to quit at the beginning, but it’s also best to quit at the beginning.  If you know you’re never going to like something, or that you’ll never be good at it, it’s best to waste as little time as possible.  But everybody sucks at the beginning of something new.  Seriously.  Most people really, really suck.  If you’re a professional who makes his living doing something creative, most of your work still sucks.  That’s just the way it goes.  It’s hard to know when your suck is attributable to your lack of experience or your lack of ability.

And so, you should finish at least the first project you start in any field, even if it sucks, unless you are 100% sure you never want to do anything in that field again.  If you’re thinking about taking up photography as a hobby, you shoot some film, and in the middle of your first shoot you think “This sucks.  I never ever want to do this again.  I’d sell my camera for a loaf of bread right now.”  Fine.  Quit.  Don’t develop the film.  Cut your losses and move onto your next idea.

But, you’re not allowed to quit if you think “Well, this is harder than I thought.  All my pictures suck.  I thought this would be more fun.”  Develop those shots.  Get them printed.  Dissect them.  Try to learn from the mistakes.  Finish that little project.

This will benefit you in four ways:

  1. You now have a finished product that you can point to.  “Ya, I did that.”  Even if the final product sucks, you’ll always be able to point to that photo on the wall and say “Ya, produced some photography back in the day.”
  2. Maybe it won’t suck.  You won’t know until you’ve finished the product.
  3. Regardless of the results, finishing something carries with it some satisfaction.  Maybe you’ll discover that, even though it wasn’t as fun as you thought it was going to be, there are some other benefits that you really enjoy.  Maybe you get something out of the later steps that’s totally worth the rest of the not-so-fun effort.
  4. Regardless of the results, the process might expose some other area you are interest in or do have aptitude for.  Maybe you hate photography but discover you love nature and hiking as a result of your foray.  Maybe you hate taking pictures but figure out you love developing them, or post processing, or design work, or framing, or selling.

Quit when you’re miserable.  Quit when you’re incapable.  Quit when you know you don’t want to do it anymore.

Finish when it’s uncomfortable.  Finish when it pushes your ability.  Finish when you’re not sure if it’s for you.

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How To Set A Goal

Posted on October 10, 2011 by AJ Kessler

Most people set horrible goals. Because of this, they never even get close to reaching them.

“Lose 10 pounds.”

“Earn $100,000 next year.”

“Spend more time with my family.”

If you set goals like this, you have a 0% chance of accomplishing them.

You won’t do it.

The problem with each of these goals is that they’re too amorphous.  There’s no structure.  “Lose 10 pounds” sounds great, but it’s so easy to talk yourself out of it.  “I can skip the gym today because I didn’t eat much and I’ll do an extra 30 minutes tomorrow.”  Sound familiar?  “I really need to stay at the office and get this project done, so I’ll just see my kids on Saturday.”  Everybody’s done this, because everybody’s made shitty goals at one point or another.

Winners figure it out: you don’t need a goal, you need a system.

“I’m going to the gym from 5:00-6:30 every MWF and Saturday.  I’m going to eat a chicken breast with rice and broccoli every weeknight.  Anytime I get hungry, I will have a handful of nuts and a stick of gum.”  Boom.  Done.  10 pounds gone in two months.  You’ve now got a plan that you can actually act on instead of some fairytale you keep delaying every time you see a candy dish or drive by a McDonalds.

“I’m going to start freelancing to earn an extra $30k in addition to my salary this year.  I’m going to teach X.  Week 1, I’m going to create my first set of materials.  Week 2, I’m going go canvas my old high school and talk to teachers until I find three clients who will pay me $50 per hour for 2 hours per week.”  Boom.  After two weeks, you’ll actually be on your way to an extra $30k per year for six hours of work per week.

“Monday, I’m sending out an email that says I will no longer be in the office after 5pm due to family obligations.”  Boom.  Now you can see your kids every night.

This isn’t rocket science, but it does take work.  You actually have to sit down and think about what steps you’re going to take to meet your goal.  Sometimes this 30 seconds or so will make you realize you’re not willing to do what it takes to accomplish your goal.  Fine, move on to the next one.  But for those things you do want to pursue, that 30 seconds of planning will be the most disproportionately beneficial work you’ll do.

 

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“You Can’t Compete On My Level”

Posted on October 9, 2011 by AJ Kessler

Someone said that to me today.

It’s 100% true.

He’s been doing this for 30 years, and he’s goddamned good at it.  Unlike most people, he doesn’t have 1 year of experience 30 times over, or even 5 years of experience 6 times over.  He’s truly got 30 years of experience.

There’s simply no way I can compete with that.  And really, I never will be able to compete with that, because, until he’s dead or quits, he’ll always have 30 years more experience than I will.

But, he’ll never have something I have.  He’ll never have my youth.  He’ll never have the time I have.  He’s got a family and employees to support.  He’s got little league games and graduations and charity events to attend.  He’s got a million different people and obligations sucking at his time.

There’s no point in trying to compete with him on experience.  I’ll never win.

There’s plenty of people don’t need that experience but do need their hand held.  There’s plenty of people who need to be able to call somebody and talk to them at any time.  There’s plenty of people who need somebody to pour all their energy into their problem and make them feel special.

Those are the people he’ll never be able to please.

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The Necessity of No

Posted on October 9, 2011 by AJ Kessler

Most people saw the iPad as a revolutionary, unexpected device.  Some people thought it would never sell, or that it was a useless, stupid device.

But, journalists and people on tech blogs and forums had been clamoring for Apple to sell a tablet for years.  Every time Apple held an event, they waited breathlessly, hoping this would be the one where the fabled tablet was announced.  For literally three or four years, those people were disappointed.

Jobs obviously saw the market potential.  He undoubtedly heard the crowd of Apple fans yearning for a tablet.  But he said no.  Why?  Probably be cause he knew the technology wasn’t there yet.  He said no because Apple’s core ideal is to make fantastic consumer products.  People didn’t just want a computer in the form of a tablet.  The Newton showed that pretty clearly.  They wanted Apple to breathe its magic on something to make it a great experience.

Right now, I’ve got a ton of things I want to accomplish.  Each one of these things, by itself, is doable in the amount of time I have to dedicate to a project.  But the list has grown to about 20 now.  This gets to be debilitating.  Not only is it impossible to get any meaningful work done if you’re thinking about 20 different things at once, it’s impossible to start.

The solution is to say no.  Make a list of everything you want to accomplish, put them in order of importance, or feasibility, or likelihood of success, and then say no to everything but number one.  Once you accomplish number one, you can move on to number two.  There’ll be time for 2-20 later.

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