The Art of Instigating<\/a>]<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe 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.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s 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\u2019s work if you're not aware of it.<\/p>\n
Without the brain stem, we can\u2019t live (hence, the brain stem is invincible).<\/p>\n
But without outsmarting<\/em> the brain stem, we can\u2019t create our life\u2019s work.<\/strong><\/p>\nOutsmarting the brain stem is simple if we understand two basic facts:<\/p>\n
1)\u00a0\u00a0 The brain stem\u2019s existence is to preserve itself<\/em><\/p>\n2)\u00a0\u00a0 The brain stem is living thousands of years in the past<\/em><\/p>\nWhen we understand these two basic facts \u2013 that the brain stem\u2019s motivating factor is self-preservation and that it\u2019s living in the past \u2013 we can develop a fighting style that outwits and beats the Enemy.<\/p>\n
Since the brain stem\u2019s purpose is self-preservation, it hates anything that might expose us.<\/em><\/p>\nThat\u2019s why it\u2019s so hard to produce creative work; when we do something extraordinary, when we become the outlier, we stand out from the pack.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nAnd standing out from the pack does not<\/strong> improve our survival rate.<\/p>\nBecause the brain stem is living thousands of years in the past, it\u00a0doesn't\u00a0understand that standing out from the pack today is actually nonlethal<\/em>.<\/p>\nToday, 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.<\/p>\n
No amount of rational thought will convince it otherwise.<\/em><\/p>\nThe brain stem is unforgiving and irrational.<\/p>\n
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.<\/strong><\/p>\nIt\u2019s hard; it\u2019s scary; you might not make it.<\/em><\/p>\nSo how do you outsmart and beat the Commanding General of the Enemy?<\/p>\n
You do it anyway.<\/p>\n
To beat the Enemy, to outsmart the brain stem, all you have to do is get to work.<\/em><\/p>\nWhen you take action<\/em>, go to work<\/em>, and start creating<\/em>, the bull**** of the Enemy goes away.<\/p>\nBut it will come back.<\/p>\n
It always does.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s why taking action every day<\/strong> is so important.<\/p>\nNo matter how many times you go up against a monster, it never gets less scary.<\/em><\/p>\nBut\u00a0every time\u00a0you willingly go up against the monster, you become stronger.<\/strong><\/p>\nWhen it comes to instigating your life's work, creating something worthwhile, and building your empire, your goal is to become the strongest.<\/strong><\/p>\nSo go be the strongest.<\/p>\n
Get to work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In\u00a0the first part of this series, I described the conventional forces of the Enemy \u2013 the Army of Bad Habits\u00a0(the largest of Enemy forces) In the second part of this series, I explained the unconventional force of the Enemy: Negative Self-Talk Propaganda\u00a0(the most insidious of Enemy forces). In this third part of the series, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[234],"tags":[301,304,341,375,417,425,426,432],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tommorkes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tommorkes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tommorkes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tommorkes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tommorkes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tommorkes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tommorkes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tommorkes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tommorkes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}