Two months ago I started this website and made a commitment to myself to publish three times a week: Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The goal for every blog post is simple: to inspire and motivate you (the reader) to create your life’s work.
One month ago I made a commitment to myself to start, finish and ship my first major writing project. That project turned into my first eBook, The Art of Instigating, and its purpose is to expand on the core message of this website and my philosophy on creating worthwhile stuff.
To be honest with you, I had no idea what I was getting into with either of these two goals.
Publishing a quality blog post three days a week is way more grueling than I ever imagined. It takes hours to go from a mercurial idea for a potential blog post to the final published content.
It's arguably an insane, unsustainable endeavor.
And, for the eBook, I completely underestimated the difficulty and time necessary to craft something compelling, enjoyable, and, most importantly, useful.
I thought it was going to be easy. It wasn't.
In both cases, I should have failed.
Except that, in both cases (the blog posts and the eBook), it somehow worked out.
The point is this:
Maybe there is something to the insane audacity of big goals.
Maybe, by being just a bit mad, overestimating our own abilities, and underestimating the difficulty of a potential project, we tap into certain powers that otherwise lie dormant.
You see, any reasonable person would not commit to this kind of goal.
The reasonable person would see, quite plainly, the amount of effort and time needed to do something like this (and its lack of any kind of monetary return on investment) and pass.
The reasonable person would move on to something with some sort of security, guarantee, or certainty; something where they show up at a certain time to do what they're told until the bell rings and they can go home.
The reasonable person understands that only a madman would dive into uncertainty joyfully; only a madman would hazard the possibility of failure, setback, and defeat gratefully; only a madman would set audacious, unreasonable goals and expect to achieve them.
And that is why the madman is responsible for the achievement of all unreasonably audacious goals: because he does set them.
So be unreasonable, be a bit mad, and set your audacious goals.
Who knows, you might just bring them to life.
"The warrior knows that he is free to choose his desires, and he makes these decisions with courage, detachment and - sometimes - with just a touch of madness." - [Warrior of the Light]
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“there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things…” [Niccolo Machiavelli]
The instigator is the first to break the old by leading the new.
The instigator is the first to jump out of the helicopter; the first onto the beach; the first into the fray.
The instigator duels with order and dances with uncertainty.
The Art of Instigating is about taking the lead, not in spite of uncertainty, but because of it; it’s about doing the difficult thing not in spite of the difficulties, but because of them; it’s about daring greatly not in spite of the perils, but because things are perilous.
The instigator doesn’t dare anything in spite – he only dares because.
Don't miss the release of my upcoming book, The Art of Instigating; subscribe here.
On July 1st, 1916, in the early morning dusk, the whistle blew.
Thousands of men emerged from the trench line and charged into No Man’s Land.
The largest army the British had ever fielded began advancing across a poppy field in the hope of pushing the Germans out of their entrenched position and routing the German lines.
As the British advanced, German machine gun fire tore down wave after wave of British soldiers. At the end of the first day, the British had advanced only dozens of yards, and their casualties reached close to 60,000 men.
"there came a whistling and a crying. The men of the first wave climbed up the parapets, in tumult, darkness, and the presence of death, and having done with all pleasant things, advanced across No Man’s Land to begin the Battle of the Somme." [The Old Front Line]
So began the Battle of the Somme, a four and a half month battle of attrition, where each day, the whistle blew, and men went over the top.
Every day, when we tap into the creative part of our brain, we enter No Man’s Land.
The Enemy (that ruthless group of bad habits and negative self-talk propaganda) doesn't want us to make it across. The Enemy wants to cut us down before we reach our objective.
We fight for every inch of progress; every filled page, every shipped product, every filmed scene.
It’s not pretty moving through No Man’s Land. There will be casualties. Sometimes your work won’t make it. Sometimes the thing you poured your heart and soul into gets turned down by publishers, rejected by producers, or shot down by critics.
Sometimes, the end user – the person you made it for – hates it, or worse, dismisses it.
At times like these, it’s easy to give up. To forget why you started and simply quit. To say enough is enough and walk away.
It’s much harder, when that whistle blows, to go over the top one more time.
Fighting your own creative battle? Let us know in the comments below.
p.s. if you're fighting alone, don't. Join the Resistance instead:
Almost 2,000 years ago, in 52 AD, dozens of Roman captives assembled in front of the emperor Claudius. These captives were about to take part in a major gladiatorial event – a mock naval battle.
The Roman captives gave a salute to the emperor before the “games” began:
“Nos morituri te salutamus (We who are about to die salute you).” [Lives of the Caesars]
By the end of the day, one thing was certain: they would all be dead.
The Arena of Creativity
It’s important to accept, before you start, that you will fail.
While the artist, writer, or entrepreneur won’t physically die like the gladiators before them (thankfully), their work most surely will (at one time or another).
Failure is an essential part of creation. Nothing is perfect in its first form (if it is, it’s probably not perfect). The greatest pieces of art went through revision after revision, draft after draft, scrapped copy after scrapped copy.
How will your project be any different?
Understanding that you will fail, that there will be setbacks, obstacles, and breaking points, shouldn’t be a discomforting thought. On the contrary, by understanding this in ADVANCE, we are better suited to deal with these struggles when they occur.
And they will occur.
Are you ready to enter the arena?
If you haven't had a chance, make sure you sign up for The Resistance Broadcast, a free newsletter with exclusive content. Don't miss it - your project depends on it:
Whether you recognize it or not, you’re at war.
This is not a conventional war:
The battle lines change every day. The warzone is rarely defined.
Sometimes the enemy is very clearly in front of you, pummeling you with everything they've got; other times, the enemy is lurking in the shadows right beside you, waiting for a moment of weakness before they attack.
And your allies aren't who you would expect – but they’re more powerful than you realize.
The warzone is not your physical environment – although the physical environment can help (or hinder) your campaign.
The enemy is not a person – in fact, the enemy is nothing external at all.
And your allies are not your friends or family, nor are they the people in the cubicle next to you at work.
This is a war fought in the neural trenches of your brain.
The enemy is the army of bad habits you've accumulated over the year – building and expanding its empire one brain-map territory at a time.
Your allies, if you choose to call upon them, are the virtuous and productive thoughts you put into your mind; they will support you when you are weak, and help you expand your territory when you are strong.
And you are the insurgent because you seek change, you desire improvement, and you want to build something of value.
You are outnumbered and outgunned.
The enemy controls nearly all brain map territory.
Your allies can help, but they can't fight the battle themselves; they need you to lead.
Will you choose to fight? Will you lead? Will you instigate?
You're at war whether you recognize it or not.
493 years ago, Cortez and an army of 600 soldiers landed on the shores of Central America and conquered an empire of over 5 million people.
His first order upon landing: destroy the ships.
Cortez knew if he kept the ships seaworthy, the men would believe they could escape if things went south. By destroying the ships, Cortez removed escape from the equation.
It was, quite literally, do or die.
This story pertains to each of us in a very important way.
It's difficult becoming exceptional at something.
But it is the difficulty in becoming exceptional that makes it worthwhile.
Being exceptional is valuable precisely because it’s hard, and painful, and tough, and most quit.
Let them. But not you.
If you have that gut feeling – that desire that never fades (the one that beat’s you up for not writing enough pages) – if you know deep down this is it; that you were made for this…
Then hit the shore, burn the boat, and take the beach.
I promise you this:
Everyone wants to be paid more.
Everyone wants a better job, a better life, and better abs.
Everyone wants to write a book, or sell a script, or become an entrepreneur.
Everybody wants...but so few choose.
When you consciously go beyond wanting to choosing, you've finally hit the shore.
When you commit, in the face of the enemy (negative self-talk spitting out status quo propaganda), to pursue what you want, no matter the cost, you burn the boat.
And when you start chipping away at the material, set deadlines for completion, and sit down every day to fill that empty page, you take the beach.
For those too frightened of such commitment, well, you're kind of like this little kid (click the video below)…
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p.s. what projects are you working on that give you heartache? How are you overcoming these fears and uncertainties? Have you fully committed? If yes, explain how. If not, let us know what's holding you back in the comments below.
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When will you start?
That's really the question, isn't it?
It's not a matter of what to do; if you’re reading this, deep down in your gut there is something calling you. Go do that.
It’s not a matter of how to do it; want to know how to create a blog? It’s free online. Want to know how publish a book? It’s free online. Want to know how to create a business selling shoes? You guessed it – free online. Pick a direction and go with it.
It’s not a matter of whether it can be done; it's your choice, there are books and people that can show you successful ways to do it, and even the seemingly impossible is proven possible (again, and again, and again).
No, the question you have to ask yourself is: when will you start?
You either start now or you don't.
Anything else is an attempt to rationalize fear and justify hiding.
Start now.
In the first stage of instigating, life takes it easy on you.
In the beginning, you have beginners luck on your side.
You get lucky by running into someone who wants to promote your product, or a clever blog post you write takes off, or you add 50lbs to your bench-press in the first month back at the gym.
You can do no wrong, and the constant positive feedback from friends and family energizes you and makes doing the work easy.
Until...the next product run doesn't sell, or the next 100 blog posts go nowhere, or you plateau at that first month’s bench-press weight for the next 6 months.
In the second stage of instigating, the reality of the path you're on becomes clear. During the second stage of instigating, life will throw everything it’s got at you to get you to fold.
It wants to break you like Ivan wants to break Rocky:
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The setbacks and failures during this period will make you question everything.
You recognize your own shortcomings and question your ability to progress.
You finally understand the distance you have to cover to get where you want to be and it's a longer and more confusing journey than you anticipated – and you question your ability to finish.
You thought your initial enthusiasm would get you through the bad days, but you didn't expect those lows to be quite so low – and you question whether you should just throw in the towel.
Here’s the real question: Do you quit and go back, or do you stick it out?
This isn't a rhetorical question.
There’s nothing that makes the latter nobler; learning to suffer is something the masses have excelled at for centuries, so what? And there is nothing that makes quitting, in and of itself, unvirtuous (quitting binge drinking, smoking meth, or beating your spouse are all things that many would agree are great things to quit)
The truth is this: there are some things worth quitting.
And sometimes we need to test and expand and explore a path before we realize it’s wrong.
Picasso never would have painted if he hadn't quit writing.
Abraham Lincoln never would have been president if he hadn't quit law.
Mark Zuckerberg never would have created Facebook if he hadn't quit developing Synapse.
Some of the most successful people in the world quit so they can focus on something else.
So if you need to quit, quit.
There is no shame in walking away from an endeavor if you realize you can’t be the best in the world at it.
"In a free market, we reward the exceptional." - Seth Godin [The Dip]
But remember this: anything worthwhile is difficult.
Anything worth doing is confusing, and uncertain, and brutal, and disheartening, and depressing, and painful, and (sometimes) bloody.
Anything worthy of your time and effort will make you (at times) want to pull your hair out, give up and walk away.
It's during this time, when you know you're doing something worthwhile, that the following advice is so applicable:
"when you reach the emotional quit point, grit your teeth and go one step further - one more attempt, one more day. Edison was right; in many cases one more step would either solve the problem or advance you enough to see the finish line, which would produce a second wind." - Tim Sanders [Today We Are Rich]
The point of quitting the journey you're on isn't to escape the journey itself - you can't run away from it - it's so that you commit to the right journey.
If you decide to quit, quit so that you can be the best in the world at something else.
What’s your journey? Thinking of quitting, or have you already quit to move on to something better? Share your comments below.
p.s. if you find this article intense, it’s because this stuff is mental warfare. Nobody should fight alone – subscribe to my newsletter and join the small but growing army of instigators (aka The Resistance). And remember: if you’re reading this, you are The Resistance.
Right now, as you read this, the nerves in your brain are battling one another for territorial command of brain space.
In fact, if you continue to read this (and all the other blog posts I write), you’re helping one side dominate the other (the nerves associated with reading, learning and instigating).
Who are these nerves fighting?
They’re fighting the multitude of bad habits you've accumulated over the years. Things like smoking, comfort eating, spending money you don’t have, staying home instead of going for a run, watching tv instead of writing…the list goes on (and on, and on).
Every single one of these actions represents a series of nervous system input (reaching for a cigarette, lighting up, inhaling deeply, etc.). The more consistent time you spend on an activity, the larger its brain territory becomes.
“If we stop exercising our mental skills, we do not just forget them: the brain map space for those skills is turned over to the skills we practice instead.”
Norman Droidge [The Brain That Changes Itself]
Over the course of 20 years of bad eating habits, you have terrain completely dominated by the enemy.
Every time we repeat a bad habit, it gains more control over the map. The territory expands and the territorial lines strengthen.
On the flip side, you may have good habits you'd like to cultivate or new habits you'd like to start (workout more, eat healthier, learn a new language, write a book, start a business), but they control so little territory it’s like trying to take over China as the commander of Monaco.
The reason it’s so hard is because we’ve had the habit of starting ground out of us.
If you’re like most people, the habit of hiding replaced your natural instinct to start. Instead of being encouraged to instigate, we became masters at hiding. We’ve had lots of practice too: hiding in the back of class; hiding from advanced placement; hiding by taking 7 years to graduate college with a bachelor’s degree; hiding by going with the crowd, never trying to stand out, and never testing the limits of our own abilities.
This habit of hiding (of avoiding starting at all costs) is costing us our sanity, our happiness, and our self-respect.
We want desperately to begin, to build good habits, but we’re fighting decades of bad habit. By now, our maps are almost entirely controlled by our bad habits. Trying to reconquer the territory is a serious undertaking, something that takes more than a day and more than good intentions.
If you want to take back control of your brain territory, you have to understand you don’t have the upper hand, all momentum is in the opposite direction, and you will be fighting an uphill battle.
To take back territory, you need to play by the rules of the brain map insurgent:
Don’t try to regain control over every territory at once. It won’t happen. You’ll lose focus and your bad habits will crush you. Focus on one specific area. Use the power of concentrated effort to break through enemy lines in order to gain a foothold before you move on to something else.
If you want to eat healthier, manipulate your environment to make it easier. Get rid of junk food. Never go shopping for food hungry. Only keep food in the house that you consider healthy (sorry, no hiding snacks).
For the first few weeks, focus all your effort on getting control of this territory before moving on to something else.
The only way to break through enemy lines and expand friendly territory is through consistent, daily action over the course of 4 weeks. That’s right, 28 days. This is the amount of time it takes for the neural pathways to strengthen and for the action to go from an activity to muscle memory.
After 4 weeks, it doesn’t mean that you stop doing the activity – and it doesn’t mean the new muscle memory has become effortless habit. It simply means you’ve developed strong synapse connections, allowing you to more easily repeat the activity. So keep going even after 4 weeks!
Brain maps are topographical, meaning the portions of the body’s surface that are close together are mapped close together in the brain.
Similarly, when we perform an action that requires multiple motor movements (or multiple sensory inputs), the brain maps these neural pathways close together. Running, for example, requires multiple inputs from various body parts, but the composite action is mapped locally on the brain.
You can apply this knowledge by building good habits on top of other good habits. Have you already created a habit out of waking up early? Expand on this good habit by sitting down for 10 minutes to write before work. Your brain will begin associating early rising with writing.
After 28 days, expand topographically again: spend 30 minutes writing, or focus on making a healthy meal before you sit down to write, or after writing, go for a quick 15 minute run.
Understanding the brain, how neural pathways strengthen and weaken, and how focus and repetition expand brain map territory, is the science behind what I talk about on this blog and the cornerstone to my concept of the art of instigating.
The habit of starting is a real thing. There are very real neural pathways that develop your brain map territory, and the habit of starting (like the habit of working out or eating healthy) requires that we practice every day to maintain and expand that territory.
If you don’t develop the habit of starting, you won’t be successful – period.
Every single successful person in the world (whether you measure success in terms of money, fame, happiness, or by some other criterion) has developed the habit of starting – they’ve made instigating a way of life.
Empires aren’t built in a day.
We build empires one day at a time, one habit at a time, one successful action at a time.
Create the habit of starting, learn the art of instigating, and build the empire you’ve always wanted to build.
Don’t wait. Start now.
