Mind the Beginner

No, not a herring! Although that would be a valid answer.

Do you have huge plans in your life, great big things you want to accomplish, cutting down the mightiest tree with that herring no less? Did you ever actually try chopping down a huge tree? It’s very hard and backbreaking work. Cutting it down to size so you have firewood seems a good idea but again, it takes a lot of time to do that, even with the help of a chainsaw.It’s so much work in fact that you’re never going to do it in your life.

All those wondrous plans you have are those mighty trees. Every single one of them is a huge effort and because it’s an established fact that gen y people expect everything handed on a silver platter you’ll never cut those trees down. You don’t have what it takes, and just so you know, neither do I.

So we have ourselves a small problem don’t we, we want firewood, and lots of it, but we don’t want to chop down that huge tree. But as is the case with most forests, there are much smaller trees there too. Pick on something your own size, it’s much easier to chop down.

The small ones will do

Things get progressively worse though. You start out in life with your mind filled with small trees. These small trees represent everything you want to do in life. Do you recall what you wanted to do back in preschool? You either had unrealistic trees (Becoming an astronaut is quite unrealistic) of you had saplings. A quick swing and you realised what you wanted.

But then you got older, not only did bigger trees materialize in your forest-mind. But those saplings grew and grew too. Some of these saplings turn out to be misconceptions about how life works. A few put you on the wrong path altogether.

Start swinging

As with everything in life you have a choice here. It’s not the choice of starting to gather firewood, that’s just something you’ll have to do in life. It’s where you get it. Will you keep looking up at those huge trees, wishing you had what it takes to take down that tree. Style points are awarded if you chop it down with the herring. You either don’t have enough firewood, or you take down the smaller trees. One day your stamina will definitely be enough, and your skill honed to such a level that those mighty trees are no longer an issue.

But for now, don’t bother with those big ones, there is more than enough to do down here. Not only can you create a fulfilling feeling taking down a tree, but you prevent those small misconceptions from growing to big to handle.

And now real life

All this talking about trees is nice and all, but do you have any idea what I’m talking about here? A small translation seems a good idea:

You can not without considerable luck achieve those huge plans you have without taking on smaller challenges first to hone your skills. As for those misconceptions in life, the longer you let them grown the harder it will be to get rid of them.

What is your mightiest tree?

I had a very interesting lecture today on Artificial Intelligence, I’d like to share a few ideas from that lecture that inspired me. They were all about uncertainty and started out with two terms that seem to be the foundation of uncertainty in all endeavors:

Either uncertainty caused by ignorance, or by laziness

Ignorance is coupled with not knowing because you simply don’t have a way to get the knowledge. The winning numbers of the lottery is one such event where you’re simply always going to be ignorant of the truth. And if you somehow end up certain about a future lottery, please do drop a line…

On the other side of this coin is laziness or in other words getting certainty is just to much work. An example I got in lecture was centered around pathology. Lets say you’d be able to reach certainty in a medical diagnosis but you’d need to perform 2000 tests. On the other hand you could be 90% certain with just 20 tests. Now those numbers are fictional of course but you get the idea.

Uncertainty doesn’t change anything about the truth values. Statements are always true or false, it’s the agent who isn’t certain.

Read that line again please and realise what it means: truth by it’s very nature is complete, we (agents) are the ones who distort it, doubt it and often even reject it. This -does not- change the truth however, just our perception of it.

So far it’s black and white, now a small sidestep into fuzzy logic. A logic that allows for an infinite number of grayish colors. Take the statement “This car is fast”, while it’s certainly true for an Austin Martin, it’s “more true” for a Koenigsegg. Gradual truth if you want to think about it that way. By themselves both statements are true but one seems more true than the other now doesn’t it?
It’s a very down and dirty simplification of the truth about uncertainty but at least it provides a fresh perspective on how we think. After all, artificial intelligence tries (among other things) to make a machine act like a human would in the same situation.
Handling uncertainty comes down to a few pointers:

• Don’t be lazy (Do the 2000 tests)
• Keep the cost-benefit trade-off in mind though
• We can’t solve the ignorance problem. Relax about that

Asking yourself questions about what you think is always a good practice I might add. Uncertainty is one of those subjects that really benefits from regular scrutiny. A few questions that might help you here are:

• How uncertain are you at any given point?
• How certain do you want to be at that point?
• How does the uncertainty increase and decrease?

Last but not least there is always the trade-off between Utility and probability: How strongly do we want/need some result (utility) and how certain are we to get it? (probability) A probability of 100% although very nice is very hard to come by. Is it always necessary to reach this value? I sure don’t hope so, imagine the costs that would bring, and is the benefit really that big? Also imagine the stress it would bring if we always wanted the truth and would not accept any amount of uncertainty.

It’s always good to want less uncertainty and seeing as the truth is out there we can choose to go look for it. Don’t be lazy, accept ignorance and above all don’t worry if you don’t have perfect certainty yet.

If it’s not ignorance that’s stopping you you’ll get the truth in the end if you are prepared to make the costs.

Happy hunting

Last Friday I had a quick 6 tweet chat with Cath Duncan from Mineyourresources about the concepts of learning, change and discomfort. It put me on a train of thought that also brought to mind a quote I posted earlier from Leito Atreides (yes, Dune):

Without change something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.

Cath and I agreed that when you know how your mind & body habitually reacts to change,  and don’t fear that, then change can be quite comfortable. In that case it’s called learning and the more discomfort of mind & body you can endure the more you learn.

Or in other words, wake up that sleeper, hand him a strong cup of coffee and snap to it.

Somewhere down the line learning got a bad taste to it. Learning was something you did in school and was no fun at all. The same went for reading, an activity related to learning and so it’s no fun. That you’re reading this blog tells me that you at least don’t mind reading and probably have no hard feelings against learning as well.

Learning however, is giving your mind a really hard time. All those new things it’s got to master, making sence of things that seem nonsensical on all fronts except what our higher reasoning thinks about it. But our brain does not get that. Take learning to play the guitar for instance. You know you want to make music, all your brain gets is that you’re trying to make your fingers do things it’s not used to do and it hurts your fingertips. Anyone in their right mind would not do something that they know will inflict pain or other forms of discomfort. It takes some effort to get your brain to do those things that are outside its comfort zone.

See your brain a bit like a muscle. Or rather, see it exactly like a muscle. If you use it and push it, it will get stronger. Using your brain can be done in a lot of ways of course. Take your pick:

• Learn a new language
• Play an instrument
• Go an entire day without using your dominant hand
• Try a new type of food
• Start a blog
• Read a good book
• Rearrange all the furniture in your room
• Take up caligraphy
• Install a different OS on your computer
• Break a habit
• Take up touch typing (for the pro’s: on a Dvorak or Colemak layout)
• Basically anything that will change the status quo

The status quo is the sleeper

Keep the brain awake and always find new ways to make your brain a bit uncomfortable. It can handle it and will adapt.

Before I start this blogpost let me apologize. I haven’t been able to write a weekly update this weekend on the state of my blogchallenge. As it stands my weekends are filled to the brim with things I need to do in real life and even though this blog is important to me, real life still has some priority.

That being said, let’s start with the new blogpost for today. An interesting concept called security by obscurity. You can interpret this in various ways. There’s the law, which is definitely something obscure and something people tend to use against each other even though they don’t know what the law actually says. Copyright agencies use this all the time trying to intimidate people into submission and so securing their assets. Over here in the Netherlands it’s perfectly legal to download music for instance, but hardly anyone knows that because a local group is trying to prevent that knowledge from spreading. Piratebay is legal here, they don’t offer anything that’s copyright protected now do they? They only offer torrents.They facilitate piracy, but if we look at things that way we can sue The huge hambuger empires for facilitating obesity and car manufacturers for producing huge pieces of metal that can kill.

It’s not what’s offered, it’s what you make of it.

Another way of looking at security by obscurity is on a personal level. More often than not we tend to be vague about our goals, intentions and plans. Just because it feels safe somehow. Writing down a plan, using the SMART method for instance, makes it final. It’s now crystal clear and we can’t hide behind not knowing anymore. All the steps are there, all we have to do is follow them…

..and that’s scary as hell.

Somehow we find security in not knowing, and what’s more. The more we know, the more re realize that we don’t know anything. In the end we live all our lives with obscurity and uncertainty, and find security in not knowing. With knowledge comes responsibility and as I’ve said before humans are lazy. If we can avoid responsibility we will, because it means we can relax a bit more and slack. Knowledge also is power however, power to take control over your own life, and even the lives of others. Power to influence things and to predict possible outcomes.

It’s this ability to predict outcome that will offer you a sense of security as soon as you get out of the safety bubble of obscurity and start learning. As said, it’s scary as hell at first, but the more you’re out there the more comfortable it will get and slowly obscurity won’t seem so safe any more. Okay, so now you have a problem. Doing nothing and letting things be obscure is no longer safe so you’ll have to keep learning and working hard to stay with that sense of security. Hard work in stead of slacking, and both result in a feeling of security. These two being equal (minus the work) would you rather know or let things be obscure?

I just thought you’d like to know.

Cath Duncan from mineyourresources.com made a comment a while back on one of my blogposts (What all the “get rich” Blogs don’t tell you) I’d going to have a closer look at today:

I totally agree that action is what makes the difference in results – even imperfect action. In improv storytelling they have the mantra “it’s all about having as many goes as possible, rather than trying to have 1 perfect go,” and I think this is a great mantra for life, and one of the foundational ideas in Agile Living. – Cath

If you’ve been reading about personal development for a while this will sound very familiar. It’s true in all paths of life actually. Practice makes perfect but better yet failure is the way to perfection as paradoxical as it might seem at first glance.

Embrace failure as the path to success and don’t get paralyzed by your thoughts while waiting for things to unfold and happened like you want them to. They almost never happen like you thought they would.

Failure to meditate

Somehow this all makes me thing of my every day practice of meditation. More often than not it seems a total waste of time. I’m sitting there and thinking of all sorts of things while counting my breaths on auto pilot. The thought crosses my mind to just get up and stop this charade. Stop pretending to be meditating and doing it perfectly. But you know what. I’m actually meditating, although not perfectly. I just fake it untill I make it. There you have it. My meditation is fake, I’m a fraud, I’ve been meditation for little over a year now, spending roughly 130 hours in meditation so far. Can I call myself an expert on the subject? Hardly… Have I failed miserably to meditate the way I want to be meditating? Most certainly!

You could call me an expert at failure. I have over 130 solid hours of failure under my belt, and that’s only in meditation. Or you could call my entire life a failure, in which case I’ve had over 2 million hours worth of experience on the subject. By Malcom Gladwell’s 10,000 hour theory I’m an expert at failure many times over.
And guess what, so are you!

The expert failure

Yes my dear reader, you’re an expert at failing. That’s the bonus of not being content with your own life and reading about personal development and lifestyle design. You wouldn’t be reading about these things if you were totally content with your life now would you?

What’s the value you might think by now, why is being an expert failure useful in my life. Well, the failures we had in our early days were simple: If we failed in staying upright we might bump our heads. Later if we failed to write legible we could fail a test. Failing to apply the brakes when driving created a nice dent in the car. A simple failure got bigger and bigger consequences over time as we got better at spotting what could go wrong. By the time you graduated you had enough experience in failure to spot things before they went wrong and correct them.

If you didn’t learn from mistakes you’d be wearing a crash helmet, not be allowed to drive, couldn’t complete an education and certainly couldn’t develop your person or design your lifestyle. Your life might not be perfect right now, but be happy about it. Perfection would mean you can’t learn anything anymore and what a bore that would be.

• Embrace failure, it’s your best friend in life. Seek imperfection in everything you do. Learn from it and be happy that you failed.

More blogposts, related to this subject:

Taking a chance, it is worth the risk

Settling for perfection

Today I’d like to address a huge issue I’ve been fighting with all my life. A problem that through reading other blogs and talking to people seems to be a quite common problem: Not having the guts to take responsibility. I’m responsible for my own life, my own happiness and my own accomplishments in this life right? But I keep waiting for others to solve issues for me.

Take the Project Mojave for instance, now that I’ve found a probably viable niche I haven’t done anything to further the development. I’m scared shitless of the unknown and somehow the act of being in the project seems by itself a guarantee to success. (”If you do these simple steps you’ll get there”).. So I hang around and wait for the steps to happen. Laying responsibility outside myself. If I don’t do anything, nothing will happen. So I need to reclaim the responsibility.

I’m not making much sense here so let me try it from a different angle.

Playing the Blues

Beginning guitar players are constantly looking to buy a better guitar and amplifier. As if just the act of owning such a “perfect” instrument will make them a better player. “If only I can buy such and such… I’ll be so much better at it.” Likewise with gaming mice, running shoes, backpacks, Project Mojave. Maybe their hero is using a certain item and now they must have that thing too, being convinced that owning this item will instantly transform them. Of course the marketing divisions realize this and churn out “signature” items all the time. (Especially true in the guitar market.)

So it is with me and Project Mojave at the moment. There mere act of being in there should earn me money and my freedom. (Or so my subconscious is trying to convince me at all times, so I don’t have to actually do anything.) We shall not discuss the fact that I own several guitars and a stack of perfectly good books that -if I ever do more than just own them and really start to work though them- will make me quite proficient on a guitar.

Realizing you’re stuck in these patterns is the first step towards dealing with them. But how do you deal with them. This is where my problem is at. I don’t have a clue on how to deal with this issue other than to write about it and hope for an external ass kicking. As I’m writing this I also realize that the ass kicking should come from the inside. I should be angry at myself or disappointed or something, beating myself up about it.

Beating yourself up as reward

But that’s not going to be very fruitful. Beating yourself up about something won’t make you want to do it more right? I should reward myself for the things that I am doing, creating a positive feeling associated with those things I want to be doing.

So here is how I’m going to deal with the issue:

1. Write this blog post and let you know that I have this problem
2. See whatever external virtual ass kicking this brings (and perhaps some useful suggestions)
3. Make an inventory of all the things I want to accomplish
4. Define them according to “SMART”
5. Break everything down to manageable steps. (I think this is the most important step)
6. Schedule these small steps. (Using google calender)
7. Doing the small steps and reporting back
8. Looking for people who can help me with this. (I’ve already found someone who is going to help me get through those guitar books.)

If we boil that down a bit we can make this list usable by everyone:

Commit by telling others

Get their reactions

Inventory goals

Define goals through “SMART”

Break down into manageable steps

Schedule small steps

Doing the steps and reporting back

Find people to help with the steps

Well, there you have it. My eight step plan to claiming responsibility over my own life. Now to make the inventory… and celebrate every step of the way.

As promised yesterday I’m going to give you another great resource: a list of fears those aspiring to become location independent suffer from and a list of the fears the already independent suffer from.

There are a few recurring themes in these two lists that were composed using the recent Location Independent and Digital Nomad Survey.

Without to much beating around the bush I’m going to give you the results, broken down into a few categories. This post might be rather boring to the casual reader but I’m sure there are plenty of you who see this lost for what it is, a treasure, a wealth of information that you can use. So what exactly are the fears that live in our community?

Let’s look at the aspiring Location Independent first:

In the knowledge department:

• A lack of knowledge (how to’s)
• Failure (this one comes back dozens of times)
• That this doesn’t work out
• Worry that I will have given up everything for something that isn’t as great as I have built it up to be
• Being less well informed (currently working in a newsroom)

Travel:

• Encountering legal issues abroad
• Being so enamored with a foreign place that I won’t be disciplined enough to work
• What to do with all my stuff, I’m not a light packer
• Getting taken advantage of
• Loosing focus or loosing interest in my work in favor of travel
• I will have to reduce my wardrobe!
• Being stranded
• Safety in third world countries
• Political unrest

Regarding money and business:

• Not having/earning enough money (a common fear)
• Failing to maintain that income/long term income stability (another common fear)
• Not being able to handle state-side matters
• The business drying up
• Losing clients
• Having no nest-egg for retirement
• Procrastination
• Money management (don’t want to rely on relatives for that)
• Connections and communication
• Not being able to get on the Internet

Social and family issues:

• Not being home quick enough if a loved one is dying (This actually is my biggest fear)
• Being away from family
• Solitude/loneliness/home sick/being isolated and alone
• Never finding a partner/inability to form deep relationships
• No home base to come back to and relax
• Feelings of detachment
• Lack of face to face social interaction with colleagues
• Being away from my children
• That my wife will get tired of the travel
• That my spouse won’t be happy
• Leaving family behind
• Getting sick or getting into trouble and not having my family with me
• That my fiance will not truly believe we can achieve this life and that ultimately it will lead to the breakdown of our relationship
• Keeping in touch with friends and family
• Judgemental family
• People’s reactions

Other issues:

• Taking to long to get back to it (former LIP)
• Not getting to the point of LIP
• Health insurance
• Being your own safety net
• Work taking over
• Missing out on the fun things that I’m doing right now
• Being forced to return home against my will and search for depressing work in a depressed economy

So far the list of the aspiring location independent. There are a few recurring themes in this list don’t you think? A quick scan tells me it boils down to knowledge (and lack of), insecurity in travel and earnings, loneliness, being away from family and friends and the fear of being unplugged (no Internet).

Now let’s have a look at the fears the Location Independent suffer from. Yes, these people suffer from fear too, they live the life we dream of, is that life a nightmare? I think not, as we saw yesterday it’s hard work though but worth it. There are a few fears here as well that keep coming back. Here is the list, again in a few categories:

Money issues:

• The costs and not making enough income
• Not having the income anymore and having to stop traveling
• Making expensive mistakes
• The money tap will stop
• Not making enough money to fund our old age

The Business

• Being out of touch when a client needs me
• Lack of trust (and therefore business) from clients
• Others thinking I’m not working because I’m not “on site”
• Losing it

Technical dependency:

• Internet failures/hackers
• Forgetting a power cord – seriously
• The Internet dies
• Loss of equipment leading to loss of work information
• Laptop crashing

The downside of the location and travel:

• Large scale disasters and being stuck in a third world country
• Visas.
• Brisbane’s abysmal broadband service
• A plane crash
• Border control
• Health issues in developing countries
• The weather
• Visa issues: That I live abroad illegally and get deported
• That we’ll get bored with it, or that life will become nothing more than cheap thrills and excitements, but bring not lasting joy
• Getting comfortable and settling (yes it’s a fear)
• Finding myself unable to stop someday

Social and family issues:

• It’s extraordinarily difficult to feel as if you have established roots when you’re always uprooting yourself to seek new experience. Permanence is a foreign feeling. Maintaining personal relationships requires extra care and attention, particularly when it comes to love and romantic relationships. The lifestyle itself creates no fear – only anticipation of a fresh new day.
• Not being part of a community
• Stability of family life
• Losing friends who aren’t living the same way
• Losing contact with local community and friends
• Having to head home because of a family emergency
• My partner not being able to go somewhere with me
• Never stopping and being looked at like a weirdo by my peers back home
• Loosing the ability to maintain long-term relationships
• To estrange from family an friends
• Lack of community
• That we lose connection with any social network, and cause our son to be deprived of meaningful friendships with other kids (especially any who understand what we’re doing, and why)

Other issues

• A loss of motivation or burnout
• Losing important mail

Atually, if we look at this second list there are remarcabe similarities although I’ve used slightly different categories. Money problems, loosing the business or clients, computer/internet problems, the practical problems of travel and the lack of social interaction with the home front.

Compiling this list we end up with a shortlist of fears:

A lack of knowledge

Not making enough money/security of income

Being stuck or getting into trouble abroad

Not having an internet connection

Social interaction/family ties

I actually believe these five fears sum up all the issues the entire community suffers from in one way or the other. There are however enough LIP’s who claim not to have any fears at all.

There you have it, the list of 86 fears of the Location Independant and Digital Nomad community.

Do you feel uncomfortable looking at this image? Most people would, but not all for the same reasons. Some might have a fear of being trampled or not being able to move but others just don’t like to interact.

At any given party where do you stand? Do you talk to everyone in the room or do you stand somewhere to the side looking round, feeling uncomfortable and wishing the night to end. I can tell you, I was that guy a long time. Just standing by the side and watching people having fun, talking with each other. Observing had an advantage, you could learn from others passively. But passive learning is never as good as actual experience.

Using the knowledge of listening as I described in my earlier post you don’t have to stand there and do nothing but it might take a step that you have been dreading all your life: talk to strangers. The simplest approach is often the best, just say hello. In time you’ll learn how to do that without feeling weird or making the impression of a psycho. And the more you say hello the easier it gets. Don’t overwhelm people but show genuine interest. Everyone has a story they like to tell you so let them. They feel good because they get to tell their story again and you can practice talking (and listening) Go out there and practice and you’ll quickly notice that you can talk to just about anyone.

Why would you want to be more social:

Social people are richer (I just won’t define rich here

Social people live longer This becomes very clear at old age, the elderly who don’t get visits anymore and become socially isolated quickly begin to go downhill. But it’s not only at old age that this happens. Anyone who does not have a lot of social interaction becomes unhealthy in one way or the other. Okay, Social interaction might not be a good idea in Mexico right now. I doubt people in social isolation will even notice the swine flu.

Social people get more opportunities Who knows, the stranger you talk to might just be an entrepreneur looking for a partner. Maybe that person works at a great small firm that’s looking to expand, he got the job to investigate this and he’s so enthusiastic about it he just can’t help talking about it.

Social people tend to attract other people What I want to say here is that if you’re the life of the party or the person everyone should meet you eventually end up not having to say hi anymore, people will come to you to meet you. They take the opportunities and all other benefit with them. And it all begins with getting out of your perceived safe haven of social isolation and saying “Hi!” with enthusiasm.

Social people are more confident (or are perceived that way at least)

I’d like to give you an assignment for the remainder of the week: Say hello to everyone you see, and make eye contact with. Don’t discriminate in who you talk to, discriminating is a sign that you might have a fear of talking to that “type” of person. Take every opportunity you have, you can practice listening at the same time.

“In order to engage in life fully, we sometimes have to subject ourselves to small, calculated risks. And though we can’t control anyone else’s behaviour, we can learn to control ours to minimize those risks.”

This is a quote from Neil Strauss’ book Emergency. (Page 385 if you want the context) and I found it rather thought provoking. In daily life, what are the risks we take every single day. I gave it a hard thought while taking a long ride on my motorcycle and realized that just by taking that ride I was taking risks I didn’t have to. 

But although I didn’t have to, I wanted to take this risk. I thoroughly enjoy riding my motorcycle in the warm spring sunset and I’m not alone in this. I spotted at least thirty other riders and as is the custom with “bikers” you wave at one another, just to acknowledge what all bikers know: that riding is better than driving. But in order to wave you need to let go of the handlebar for a second. Going 60 mph and letting go of the handlebar with one hand to wave. A calculated risk if you ask me. Less dangerous than eating a snack in the car or using your mobile. That is not the only risk in riding a motorcycle, they are everywhere. But as in the quote, we can learn to control our own behaviour and minimize the risks involved. You won’t see me waving while cornering or overtaking. Use your own judgement to control your behaviour. But, also look around what risks are considered “normal” and what is excessive. Are you overly cautious or are you taking more risks than you should?

Any entrepreneurial effort is also a risk, the stakes can be high and the possibility of failure are real. Are the rewards worth the effort and the risk? I think they are. It’s hard work and a path filled with setbacks but in the end there is nothing that quite beats the rush of the startup, it’s highly addictive though. Take this blog for example, it’s a startup of sorts and it’s a great feeling to see the number of subscribers and readers grow day by day, knowing that this is a direct result of your own work, you alone are responsible in the end, failure is all yours, success is all yours too. Although success in blogging could never happen without your readers, they are your friends and can break you just as easily as they have made you. The risks involved with starting this blog are minimal, there is no monetary commitments yet (for me) , and likewise no monetary rewards (for me, yet). 

The chance to have your own business, or even your own blog is something everyone should try. Don’t get in to deep and spend thousands of dollars on it. Look into the possibilities to start a small side business that won’t cost to much and enjoy the rollercoaster of startup and the joy of every single cent you make. Find out if you enjoy the thrills or if the risk is to great and you can’t stand the feeling. Either way, take the chance if you can and find out. To many people out there have the dream of being an entrepreneur and only a small percentage of those really give it a go. Blogging on a free wordpress hosted blog is a great way to experience your first startup and get a feeling for marketing. After that, the steps to investing some money seem less daunting. 

Start monetizing your blog, offer your skills to others for a modest fee, try a small drop-shipping business. Give it a go and find out if it’s what you thought it was. 

…This is one of the reasons for me to start blogging, I dreamed about it and in stead of just dreaming, I acted on the dream and now that dream is reality… Engaging in life fully and not standing at the sidelines dreaming of what could be. Take the chance! 

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Once more I look at my mountains and realize that they are tall. I can imagine myself standing on top and being on top of the world. I can dream about it and most of all I can be positive about it.

But let’s be honest, does being positive get you up there? Absolutely not! Being positive is just dreaming, you dream being up there while you lay in bed or on the couch watching some mindless TV show. “One day I’ll be up there you’ll see!”

Yes, one day… with that attitude that day will be when your body has disintegrated to dust and a speck of that dust carried on the wind might land on top of that mountain just by sheer luck. Stop lying to yourself! The only way someone gets up there is by working very hard, making long days, investing their time and doing the very best they can. You won’t get up there if you work four hours a week, you won’t get there by doing less, there is no magic trick. You’re not even assured of getting there by doing exactly the same thing as you idol.

If a best-selling author tells you you should read certain books, Amazon will be very happy with that writes because we all immediately start reading those books. If your idol wears certain shoes, how many of you will buy those shoes just so you can imitate him? Dress like the one who made it and maybe, just maybe, that success will be yours as well? Play on the signature guitar of your hero and you’ll soon be playing just as good? Dream on!

There is a reason some people are at the top of their niche or the best of their field. They got there first. No other blog will ever be able to challenge icanhascheeseburger. The owners of that blog make thousands of dollars a day just because they had the brilliant idea and monetized it. No other blog can do that anymore because it has been done and it will be seen as an imitation.

So why do we want to imitate others? The chance to be successful that way are slim at best. The way to get to the top of a mountain is to find one that hasn’t been climbed yet, one that is yours for the climbing without the crowds. The problem with our dreaming is that most of the time we dream of being someone else. That’s the easy dream we don’t need to be creative. We just think to ourselves “I want to be like that person, I want to live his life”. It will not get us there however. This is a fault in our thinking that helps sell all those signature guitars, replica racing helmets and any brand of clothing that “they” wear. There is a phenomenon called social proof. It’s the idea that if everyone is doing something it must be right. I wonder how many people actually buy something because their friends have bought it.

So what do we do about this problem? We dream our own dreams, create our own mountain to climb and be positive about that. Be realistic and dream about that goal in our life, not the goal someone else reached and who we envy.

Don’t wish you were this or that person you idolize. Be yourself and follow your own path to your own top.

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