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.
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)
The good thing about instigating is that so few people actually instigate, you’re competition is pretty limited.
This make success (in any venture) possible and way more probable than you might expect.
The bad thing about instigating is that so few people actually instigate, you’re not going to have very much company on your way to the top (or once you reach the top).
The hard part when starting any worthwhile project isn’t the competition – they are few and far between (and often imaginary). The hard part is trying to get there by yourself, because for large parts of the journey, you’re on your own.
The Enemy knows this.
And the Enemy will do everything in its power to break you down and get you to quit.
The Enemy will use fear and uncertainty to cloud your mind and confuse your goals. The Enemy will hit you when you’re weakest – when you haven’t had success in a while – and get you to question yourself (“why am I even doing this?”), critique yourself (“this isn’t good enough”), and ultimately beat yourself (“I can’t do this anymore”).
The Enemy can use these tactics because you’re alone, and it knows that when you’re alone you’re most susceptible to one of the Enemy’s most effective attacks: 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.
The Enemy uses negative self-talk propaganda against us any time we’re doing something courageous.
“In order for there to be courage, of course, there must be risk. It doesn’t take courage to open the refrigerator, because there’s no downside.” [The Icarus Deception]
And fighting alone to create your life’s work is the riskiest thing you can do.
The thing to remember is this:
The Enemy can’t fight (effectively), when we’re engaged in our worthwhile project because it means we’re taking back brain map territory.
“The actions we perform more often, the movements we practice more consistently, and the senses we employ more frequently, begin to control more brain map territory.” [The Art of Instigating]
As long as we're taking back territory, we keep the Enemy at bay.
The key is to know the Enemy will attack us in predictable ways, to anticipate this ahead of time and plan for how we will deal with it, and, when the time comes, to follow through with our plan.
The best way to beat the Enemy’s negative self-talk propaganda isn’t to think happy thoughts.
It’s not to repeat motivational quotes to yourself in the hopes of creating a positive mental attitude.
It’s not even to imagine how good you feel as if you’ve already accomplished your goal in the hopes of attracting the solution to you.
No, none of these will help you beat the Enemy.
The only way to beat the Enemy and overcome negative self-talk propaganda is this:
Get to work.
The negative self-talk propaganda in your head will fade when you sit down to write your next page, build the next part of your business, or initiate your project's next move.
And that's it - that's all there is.
Get to work and you'll beat the Enemy.
Simple, but not easy.
New? Join the Resistance:
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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People complain about blue collar workers being out of work (they are), or finding a way to bring manufacturing back (you can’t), or some other way to revitalize our 20th century view of the middle-class.
Sorry, it's gone. It's not coming back.
In a crowded marketplace, fitting in is failing. In a busy marketplace, not standing out is the same as being invisible. – Seth Godin (Purple Cow)
Why would I hire someone for $10.00 an hour when I can outsource for $1.50 (and still receive comparable quality work)? When the only task I need accomplished is menial and brainless – a commodity – why would I pay a premium?
On the other hand, if that employee can move on his own, develop and execute his own plans, instigate and start projects, create and ship his own work - why wouldn't I pay a premium. Why wouldn't I pay top dollar for someone with the brains and courage to expand the brand, product or service on his own, with minimal guidance from upper management?
In the 20th century, the majority of workers made a compromise; they accepted minimal wages in exchange for brainless, consistent work. The offer was compelling – show up to a certain location, at a certain time, for a certain duration, day after day, and in exchange you don't have to think to earn a wage (and you might even get healthcare and a 401k).
The industrial age created a robot factory of average employees. The factory setting (and factory mentality) worked during the industrial age. It won’t work now.
Once again, those jobs aren't coming back (no amount of federal quantitative easing could fix that - and that only sets us up for some painful inflation down the road).
If all you offer is the commodity of your time, guess what? So do millions of people around the world.
There is no reason (for an employer OR the customer) to pay a premium for a commodity.
So what now?
Stand out, be disruptive, be someone who can connect the dots on their own and can start without guidance. The only way to thrive in the new economy is to be an instigator.
Here's the catch: We can't tell you how. If we could, we wouldn't need you.
p.s. if you like this article, you'll love my book: The Art of Instigating.