The project you’re working on; the goals you set this year; the strategy you spent months planning – all of it will break.
This goes for everything tangible in this life:
The factory you built: at some point in the future, time and the elements will collapse it - another will come and take its place.
The product you crafted: someday the hardware will degrade and stop working correctly; the software will become buggy and obsolete; your brilliance will be a used trinket in the back of a storage space.
Those relationships you developed when you were in middle school: people change; you and your friends will move apart, or, if you do stay connected, your relationship will alter and morph.
People, places, projects: they all eventually break.
This shouldn't come as a shock – it’s simply restating a simple principle of life, one that we all intrinsically understand: nothing stays the same.
But – and here is the thing that might shock you – this is a good thing.
Life is good because things can break.
What would be the point of setting a goal with 100% certainty of its attainment? With the steps all laid out? With a guarantee that there will be no hiccups, setbacks or failures along the path? That everything you see before you is precisely how it will be when you get there - perfect, safe and everlasting?
If this were the case, if uncertainty (and thus the possibility of things breaking) were taken out of the equation, you would be left with exactly what you see, no more, no less.
There would be no struggle. There would be no dragons to slay. There would be no risk.
And if there were no risk there would be no need for courage or boldness.
In a world without dragons, there would be no heroes or champions.
In a world with no breaking, no uncertainty, no possibility of failure, there would be no struggle, no need to try (it would already be a guarantee), and ultimately no need for virtue.
We don't read the story of St. George because we know he wins.
We read the story of St. George because he might lose - things might break - and because of this his actions are courageous and bold.
If there were no chance of breaking, there would be no dragons to slay; just imitations easily ignored.
We don't build empires because we expect them to turn out exactly how we planned.
We don't build empires because they are guaranteed to work.
We don't build empires because we expect them to last forever.
We build empires because deep down in our hearts there is something goading us, something compelling us, something pushing us...
We build empires because deep down we must build...
We build empires because deep down we were made to be heroes and champions.
there is something in the universe more mystical than darkness, and stronger than strong fear. [G.K. Chesterton]
This something might just be our ability to struggle for something worthwhile, to fight and slay our dragons while they try to destroy us, and to build our empires even if they might break.
What empire are you building?
Subscribe to The Resistance Broadcast and get updates like this 3 days a week - Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and receive a free copy of my book The Art of Instigating.
Never fight alone. Join The Resistance.
When my thoughts beckon my tired body homeward I will resist the temptation to depart. I will try again. I will make one more attempt to close with victory, and if that fails I will make another. Never will I allow any day to end with a failure...I will persist until I succeed. [The Greatest Secret in the World]
If you could create one habit this new year, what would it be?
How powerful would it be if you created the habit of ending your day with a victory?
How many pages would you write this year?
How many sales would you close?
How much weight would you lose?
Whether in business, family, spiritual, or creative life, ending the day in victory has great power.
Forgot to write today? Finish one sentence before you go to sleep.
Was your day unusually busy and you missed your workout? Do a 3 minute workout of the day before you head to bed.
Were you unable to close a sale? Send off one more email or make one more call before you call it a day.
It's as simple as that:
Don't end the day in failure. End in victory.
Don't go to sleep until you have succeeded in completing the thing you promised yourself you would finish.
Keep your promises: especially the ones made to yourself.
And if you think one sentence, a simple 3 minute workout, or a single call won’t make a difference - it does.
Remember, it’s the small, tiny actions we take every day that create our empires.
Nothing is trivial when it comes to creating your life’s work – the greatest novel is composed of thousands of single words; the greatest athlete is the product of individual repetitions; the greatest salesman is nothing more than the accumulation of thousands of calls.
Never end the day with failure.
End the day in victory.
Persist until you succeed.
Never fight alone: Join the Resistance.
We think pain and pleasure or love and hate are opposites of one another.
We think of these emotions as opposite ends of the spectrum, as if each lies on either side of a single line.
pain --------------------------------- pleasure
love --------------------------------- hate
This couldn't be further from the truth.
In either case, they are simply variations of one another; unique but related; two sides of the same coin.
But they are not opposites.
In both cases, we are experiencing some kind of emotion. Whether you experience pain or pleasure, love or hate, you are still experiencing something. So the opposite of pain isn't pleasure, nor is the opposite of pleasure pain.
The opposite of both is numbness – it is indifference – it is nothing.
When a project breaks, we might experience anger at ourselves because we failed, fear that this case isn't unique and that we might never succeed, or jealousy of others for effortlessly accomplishing that which we suffer for daily to create.
When a goal comes to fruition, we might experience joy in its realization, pride that we have accomplished so much, or gratitude that we were given such an unlikely opportunity, with such an unlikely skill set, in such an unlikely environment, to make our dreams reality.
In either case, we are experiencing the emotions of someone who cares.
If you want to experience the latter, you must be willing to experience the former; that's the price you pay when you care, when you're invested in the outcome, when you're committed. But if you'd prefer to never feel the anger, fear, or jealousy of failure – the pain of failure – then you only have one option: become indifferent.
Stop caring.
Avoid commitment.
Indulge in the emotional morphine of indifference and all the pain goes away; and so does all the pleasure, all the happiness, all the joy.
You can't have one without the other.
That's the paradox; that's the battlefield; that's the choice.
"The opposite of love's indifference." [The Lumineers]
Never fight alone. Join the Resistance:
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Every person reading this has an opportunity.
As humans, we’ve each been gifted several extraordinary things:
Your job is simple: to use these extraordinary gifts.
Your purpose is to take your life, and using your talents, to build in the sandbox the only way you can.
It’s the uniqueness of your journey that makes it special.
It’s the uniqueness of your journey that means only you can decide how, when and why.
If you’re scared, unsure, or confused, that’s normal. The point is to do your creative, unique work anyway; to create something worthwhile, to instigate your life’s work, and to build your empire, even when things are scary, uncertain, and confusing.
If you’d like to, but you’re waiting on someone to give you more instruction, direction, or a map to follow, you’ve missed the point entirely.
So go make something.
Every person has a gift, and in their gift, lies their destiny. [Mighty Max]
BreakingYour life will get busy.
If not this week, then next week, or the week after that, or sometime in the future.
It's inevitable that things will eventually unhinge, problems will occur, or something unexpected will happen: life is uncertain.
And at some point in the future, your focus will shift entirely to the few urgent things right in front of you, and the less urgent (but often more important) projects will fall by the wayside.
When things get busy, projects and plans start breaking.
There are lots of people starting things every day.
This can seem overwhelming to the person looking to enter the arena. After all, with all this competition, what are the chances that you can make it - that you will succeed where so many fail?
Simple: there are lots of people starting, but very few finish, and even fewer ship.
The reason? Most people don't commit.
When things start breaking, they quit.
And because most quit, there's a lot less competition than you might imagine.
The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence... [Think and Grow Rich]
To build your empire, you don't have to be the most talented, the smartest, or the most creative.
All it requires is that you take one small action every day, no matter what.
All you need is grit - the resolve to finish, even (especially) when things start breaking.
The weakest person with grit will always outlast the strongest person with zero resolve.
So don't focus on creating the perfect schedule or setting up the most efficient and productive routine - life will get in the way.
Instead, focus on the one thing that really matters - the one thing you have complete control over - your work.
Do it every day and see your project through to the end, regardless of what life throws at you.
When things start breaking, have the resolve to finish; have grit.
Your life's work depends on it.
Never give in, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to a force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. [Winston Churchill]
Every entrepreneur, artist, inventor, warrior and explorer must be a little mad.
It takes someone just a slight bit off - someone a bit weird, unusual or odd - to lead without permission.
There’s no good reason to go against the grain, to try something that might not work, or to stand up and take ownership over your actions and results.
Instigating is completely inadvisable.
And because it’s inadvisable, nobody is doing it – at least nobody in their right mind.
And that’s exactly why we need it.
If the instigator wasn't mad he wouldn't set audacious goals, he wouldn't limit his options, and he wouldn't start for no other reason than “because.”
And he wouldn't be an instigator.
Without the instigator, we wouldn't have miraculous charities, inconceivable books, or incredible breweries.
Without the instigator, we wouldn't have change, growth or improvement.
And without madness, we wouldn't have the instigator.
So go on, be a little weird, be slightly off, be a bit mad.
We need it.
If he waits for the ideal moment, he will never set off. The Warrior requires a touch of madness to take the next step. [Paulo Coelho]
Today I thought I’d try something a little different.
Instead of writing a mindblowing and inspiring blog post (at least that’s my intention with every post I write), I decided to interview a successful entrepreneur, published author and good friend of mine, Al Pittampalli.
This is the first in a series of interviews I'm doing with some really incredible people.
I'm calling it "In The Trenches: The Resistance Broadcast Interview Series"
You can probably guess the type of content we talk about, but I will say this: it's all about those people who are doing creative work, fighting the Enemy daily to build their empire, and making big things happen. The guests will include entrepreneurs, founders, CEO's, authors, bloggers, philosophers, scientists, and psychologists (among others).
You can press play below to listen to the interview immediately (it's hosted via dropbox and anyone should be able to access it - let me know if you have any problems):
UPDATE -- this interview has been republished on my podcast "In The Trenches." Click here to listen to my interview with Al Pittampalli on "In The Trenches" here.
Al knows what it means to instigate and lead, and, if you’re looking to create something from scratch successfully (aspiring writers and entrepreneurs take note), I promise this interview will blow your mind and inspire you.
There are some truly profound pieces of wisdom in here and you really need to hear them from someone who’s in the trenches and knows what it means to fight and strive for something.
So click this link to start listening.
A little more about Al Pittampalli:
Al is the founder of The Modern Meeting Company and a self-proclaimed meeting culture warrior. He's on a mission to change the way organizations hold meetings, make decisions, and coordinate action (and when you listen to the interview, you’ll see he’s most certainly doing just that).
Al is a published author. His book Read This Before Our Next Meeting was published by Seth Godin’s Domino Project, and during the week of its release it was the most popular Kindle book in the world.
Al has been featured in Forbes, the Telegraph, Huffington Post, CBS Money Watch, and many others publications.
You can read his blog and find out more about him and his company at his website: www.modernmeetingstandard.com
Al is a sought-after speaker and writer and an all-around awesome guy.
Here are just a few of the subjects we touch on:
I hope you enjoy the interview.
*note: I had originally recorded the interview on a better recording system, but that version ended up crashing on me, so what you’re listening to is the unedited, unabridged, backup version. There’s nothing sexy about it, but I think the sound quality is good enough to sit through and enjoy.
Definitely give the interview a listen and pick up Al’s book – you won’t regret it.
I’d like to hear your feedback too – let me know in the comments below or shoot me an email and let me know if you want to hear more interviews like this one!
p.s. If you haven't subscribed to The Resistance Broadcast, click the link below and receive a free copy of my book The Art of Instigating, as well as broadcasts (newsletter publications) 3 times a week - Monday, Wednesday and Friday - to help you build your empire.
In the first part of this series, I described the conventional forces of the Enemy – the Army of Bad Habits (the largest of Enemy forces)
In the second part of this series, I explained the unconventional force of the Enemy: Negative Self-Talk Propaganda (the most insidious of Enemy forces).
In this third part of the series, we will examine who leads these Enemy forces, why he is invincible, and what we can do to outwit and beat him.
The leader of the Enemy forces isn't your boss or your competitor; it’s not the world conspiring against you; it’s not your bad luck or your genetics.
The leader of the Enemy is nothing external at all.
The leader of the Enemy is the battle-hardened, combat-veteran Commanding General: your brain stem.
The brain stem is that small part of your brain, way in the back, which connects to the spinal column.
“The brain stem is the Commanding General of the Army of Bad Habits, and it will stop at nothing to keep you from creating your life’s work.” [The Art of Instigating]
The brain stem is the conduit from your brain to the rest of your body, and it controls life-sustaining, essential functions, including your heart beat and central nervous system.
That’s right: the same thing that is essential for your existence controls the Enemy, seeks to destroy your worthwhile project and will put a halt to your life’s work if you're not aware of it.
Without the brain stem, we can’t live (hence, the brain stem is invincible).
But without outsmarting the brain stem, we can’t create our life’s work.
Outsmarting the brain stem is simple if we understand two basic facts:
1) The brain stem’s existence is to preserve itself
2) The brain stem is living thousands of years in the past
When we understand these two basic facts – that the brain stem’s motivating factor is self-preservation and that it’s living in the past – we can develop a fighting style that outwits and beats the Enemy.
Since the brain stem’s purpose is self-preservation, it hates anything that might expose us.
That’s why it’s so hard to produce creative work; when we do something extraordinary, when we become the outlier, we stand out from the pack.
And standing out from the pack does not improve our survival rate.
Because the brain stem is living thousands of years in the past, it doesn't understand that standing out from the pack today is actually nonlethal.
Today, we can separate ourselves by being great at what we do with no threat of being destroyed by wild, man-eating animals, but our brain stem doesn't understand that.
No amount of rational thought will convince it otherwise.
The brain stem is unforgiving and irrational.
For the brain stem, shipping your product to market and exposing yourself to criticism is like taking on a monster-sized, man-killing wolf with nothing but your bare hands.
It’s hard; it’s scary; you might not make it.
So how do you outsmart and beat the Commanding General of the Enemy?
You do it anyway.
To beat the Enemy, to outsmart the brain stem, all you have to do is get to work.
When you take action, go to work, and start creating, the bull**** of the Enemy goes away.
But it will come back.
It always does.
And that’s why taking action every day is so important.
No matter how many times you go up against a monster, it never gets less scary.
But every time you willingly go up against the monster, you become stronger.
When it comes to instigating your life's work, creating something worthwhile, and building your empire, your goal is to become the strongest.
So go be the strongest.
Get to work.
This is part 2 of a 3 part series explaining the Enemy (the thing stopping us from creating our epic work). You can read part one here. If you are new, read my new book: The Art of Instigating; this article will make more sense, I promise.
In the first part of this series, I explained the conventional forces of the Enemy: the Army of Bad Habits (the accumulation of years of individual actions, repeated daily and consistently).
Fighting the Army of Bad Habits isn’t easy, but it’s also the simplest to understand and identify.
The unconventional force of the Enemy is much harder to understand and identify.
The Enemy’s unconventional force is one that uses subterfuge to confuse us into giving up on a project right at the start, or bailing on our project near the end.
It gets us when and where we’re weakest.
The Enemy’s unconventional force is negative self-talk propaganda.
“Negative self-talk propaganda is all the terrible, unproductive, fruitless, worthless, silly things we say to ourselves when we’re building something worthwhile.” [Tom’s Blog]
Self-talk originates in the rational part of our brain (the left side of the brain; although exactly where our rational thoughts come from is still being debated and a topic for another post).
These thoughts are negative because they don’t help you create anything.
Negative self-talk propaganda will rationalize why you shouldn't do anything inventive, productive, or creative for as long as you live.
And, in fact, negative self-talk propaganda will try its hardest to out-rationalize your positive, ambitious side by explaining why anything you decide to create will fail; why anything you long to build will just enter the abyss of unsuccessful; why no matter how hard you try, it will all be in vain.
If you’re hoping for a rational reason why you should instigate, you might as well stop looking, stop instigating, and start following orders, instructions, and rules.
There is nothing rational about building your empire or creating something from scratch and without permission (or at least nothing to out-rationalize why you SHOULDN’T do these things).
The negative self-talk propaganda in your head is very, very good at rationalization; its entire existence is based on subterfuge and undermining your productive thoughts.
It’s propaganda because we've learned, over time, what society (school, family, work, etc.) thinks we should do, and those memories affect and change our internal monologue.
This propaganda is the negative things we say to ourselves as we try to build something epic, something we've seen others do but we know we can do better, or something unique but we’re not sure how others might take it.
It’s propaganda because it’s not true.
Anything you thought could be done can be done.
Anything you think you could do better can be done better.
Anything unique you want to bring to the world deserves to be brought into existence.
Negative self-talk propaganda can’t be destroyed; it can’t be killed and buried like we all wish it could.
It exists, and we have to deal with it every day for as long as we live – no amount of therapy will get rid of it.
The way to deal with negative self-talk propaganda is simple:
Negative self-talk propaganda HATES when we take our lives into our own hands, develop our goals, and ship them to the market.
It hates it because it can’t do anything about the persistent effort we give to a singular endeavor.
If you think you should quit, if you think it might not work, if you think it’s stupid…do it anyway.
Go to work.
You’ll find (very quickly) the negative self-talk propaganda fades….
At least for a time.
As with everything worth doing, the Enemy will always be there to try and break us down.
Don’t let it.
Instigate your life’s work.
Continue reading Part 3: THE ENEMY DEFINED (PART 3: THE COMMANDING GENERAL OF THE ENEMY)
Note: if you haven’t read The Art of Instigating, read that first. Grab a copy for free by clicking here. It’s short and sweet, I promise.
When it comes to doing creative, courageous work, there are forces at work that act against us.
Any time we strive to create something from scratch and without permission, we go to war with the Enemy.
The Enemy is composed of two major fighting units: conventional forces (the Army of Bad Habits we’ve accumulated over the years), and unconventional forces (the voice in our head that feeds us negative self-talk propaganda).
These units are led by a hardened combat veteran that wants nothing more than to see your creative work fail: the brain stem.
To fight the Enemy, we must understand the Enemy.
We will start with the Army of Bad Habits (arguably the simplest to identify, although not necessarily the easiest to defeat).
The Army of Bad Habits is nothing more than the accumulation of years of individual negative actions repeated consistently over time.
These actions, over the course of that time, have gained brain map territory and strengthened their trench lines (neural networks).
Now, anytime we do something counter to those bad habits, it’s like trying to take down Goliath as David (but we’re stone-less and blindfolded).
Try as we might to change a bad habit, or replace a bad habit with a good habit, we still have the Enemy’s neural network deeply rooted in our brain map territory.
This is essential to understand: you will never entirely rid yourself of your bad habit, nor entirely rid yourself of the desire (no matter how faint) to repeat the bad habit.
No matter how often you repeat a good habit, it will never become fixed and automatic (but it will become easier).
The same principle that allows us to create new habits (the plasticity of the brain) is the same principle that allows old habits to strengthen and remain, to some degree, in our brain map territory.
A habit does not mean automatic and thoughtless: a habit is simply muscle memory.
We can choose to strengthen a good habit each day, or we can regress and act on the old, bad habit again (thus strengthening the old neural networks of that bad habit, no matter how many years it’s been dormant).
That’s why the person in Alcoholics Anonymous admits to being an alcoholic, but fights daily to remain sober (and, therefore, fights daily never to resume the old lifestyle, never to repeat the old, bad habit).
The plasticity of the brain is both a blessing and a curse this way.
It’s a blessing because it means we can always, ALWAYS change, no matter how far we’ve fallen, regressed, or deteriorated.
It doesn’t matter if you failed to become the person you wanted to become, or failed to write the book you dreamed of writing, or failed to start the business you envisioned years ago; every single one of these failures is nothing more than a roadblock, obstacle, or setback – none of these failures are hardwired in the brain, nor do they define us.
If we choose, we can create new habits, destroy the deep rooted bad habits, and get to work on instigating our life’s work.
You can, in fact, teach an old dog new tricks.
But only if the old dog WANTS to learn new tricks.
And here’s the curse of plasticity: nothing about creating new habits is easy.
There’s no quick fix. There’s no magic genie waiting to grant your wish at the snap of a finger.
If you continue to perpetuate your old ways, to reinforce your bad habits, the Enemy gets stronger.
The Army of Bad Habits will continue to fight to strengthen their trench lines and gain more brain map territory.
This is a war that lasts an entire lifetime, and it’s a war each and every one of us fights.
Any person looking to create something from scratch, without permission, is entering the warzone.
There are no gifted people without struggles or problems; there are no talented people that create freely and easily. That gifted, talented, and supposedly carefree inventor, designer, writer, entrepreneur, or athlete you see is fictional.
They care – and they fight, just like you and I.
There are no breaks – just our own actions, our own thoughts, and our own work.
Remember, we can break old habits and we can create new habits, no matter how old we are. That’s the beauty of brain plasticity.
But it also means, the longer we wait, the harder that fight becomes.
So pick up arms and start fighting (sit down at your desk and get to work; go to the gym and workout; throw out your processed, junk food and fill your fridge with healthy food; stop avoiding and start making calls...you get the idea).
Why?
Because your life’s work depends on it.
Continue reading part 2: THE ENEMY DEFINED (PART 2: NEGATIVE SELF-TALK PROPAGANDA)