Mind the Beginner

How often have you heard the line “Fake it until you make it”? It’s a very common phrase used to create confidence and to make others perceive you as something you’re not. A better version of you or something. And now don’t get me started on what “better” is.

And that is exactly my problem with this. Why would you want to hide who you truly are from others? Claims of being authentic are nice and all, but why do you need to tell others you are authentic. It’s the same as me telling you I am a blogger. You have eyes don’t you? You have a brain, and you can think for yourself. I don’t need to tell you anything about me being authentic. Likewise why would you need to tell others what you are about or cover up who you really are.

Being Authentic

I could go on endlessly about authenticity but that’s exactly what I want you to stop doing. I don’t want you to fake anything or boast with all kinds of claims about who you secretly want to be. Being yourself is much more powerful because you no longer need to spend energy in pretending to be someone else you can use every bit of energy you have to good use in being who you are!

Stop faking

Who are you, and what have you done with the real you? How long have you been pretending to be someone you’re not just so people would like you or believe you. Wait a second, in order for people to believe you you have to lie to them? That is what faking it means, no matter how you look at it, it’s nothing more than a big lie. A means to an end you might say in defence. A great way to build confidence if you don’t have any yourself, or to get out of a cycle you’re in. Just pretend it’s not there right?

Reality check

Pretending is not reality, pretending is not the truth. As long as you present you will never realize what’s inside of you waiting to come out. Be authentic but do not make claims about it. Just keep your mouth shut and be who you actually are, we all have eyes and a brain, we’ll know the truth when we see it. And if we don’t, that’s our problem, not yours. Be you.

Who are you?

I don’t know where I’ve read it exactly (might have been Seth’s purple cow but I’m not sure) but on the Internet if people perceive you to be an expert in something, you are an expert.

Somehow I find this very dangerous, I’ve been blogging on several topics over the past months and already I have the feeling of people somehow looking up to me. Imagine the influence a blogger has who has been blogging for years.

Take myself for instance. For all you know I might be an elderly lady living in Canada somewhere bored out of my skull and in a flash of insanity decide to impersonate a 26 year old Dutch guy who’s into zen, personal development and lifestyle design.

Think about it, all you’ve seen from me is a single photo, I’ve never done a video blogpost, no podcasts or anything. Even the few people I’ve been talking to through google talk or twitter have never seen anything else than that one picture (no wait, a second picture of me in a suit which was also the picture I used on this blog a while back) and never heard my voice or anything.

How do you know I’m “the real deal”? How do you know I’m who I say I am. For that matter, how do you know who’s real on the Internet, who’s authentic. In most cases you’re limited to blind faith, you might get proof through a video blog, more pictures or other visuals and audio but can you every be certain? This is actually a recurring theme in zen. Only through experiencing for yourself can you be sure to some extent. Reading about it, hearsay, or whatever other channels won’t do it for you. It’s part of beginner’s mind, everything is new and what’s in front of you has never before been nor will it ever be again.

How do you know it’s hard to breathe on top of Mt. Everest, have you ever been there? It’s highly plausible, but you don’t actually know do you… If you start going to college with this attitude you’re in trouble, no textbook could ever teach you something, you’d have to experience everything for yourself.

“Breaking your neck and damaging your spinal cord on the C3 level will paralyze your respiratory muscles and without an iron lung, you will die”

“yeah right, that’s what you’re claiming, but is it true?”

“Allow me to demonstrate….”

-Famous last words of a medical student

Anyone can claim just about anything on the Internet and as soon as someone believes it, it’s true all of a sudden. It’s like the guy in a white coat and a stethoscope in a commercial. Somehow people think he’s a doctor and so what he’s saying is true. Dangerous.

You can’t do anything about it, everyone can claim anything, either you believe them or you don’t. But be sensible about it, if someone has something to gain by making a certain claim alarm bells should go off at the very least.

On the other hand you could trust in the honesty of other humans.

Who’s authentic on the Internet… … I’d like to believe I am but I can’t prove it beyond the shadow of a doubt without us meeting face to face and that would be a bit impractical now wouldn’t it (Traveling isn’t good for my old Canadian bones).

Are you who you claim to be? Are you authentic? How can you prove it?

Yesterday a tweet came along in my screen I really would like to share with you:

Amazing how often when we think we’re learning, we’re really not. We’re just seeking evidence to reinforce our current beliefs – Jonathan Mead

I would like to follow this quote with another one that I’ve taken from someone I believe is one of the most honest men on the planet.

I never leaned anything that I already “knew” – Peter Ralston

Peter Ralston is a martial arts teacher and in 1978, he became the first non-Asian to win a world martial arts tournament held in the Republic of China. The reason I tell you this is exactly the same reason he took part in this tournament. People didn’t believe what he was saying so he needed to prove his point. Would you take notice to what this guy was telling you if he was just a passer by on the street?

What are Jonathan and Peter talking about here. 

A huge problem that we all suffer from. We’re stuck in our ways. Not only in the form of micro habits but also in how we feel things, react, talk and think. We percieve everything in the world through a filter that we have created ourselves, a filter that by it’s very nature hides the truth from us. 

We might think we understand something but what is there to understand about moving your body. You can’t learn a martial art by reading about it. You need to go past the filter or in other words:

The power of transforming the body lies in the experience of the body, not in our thoughts, opinions and beliefs. If we make a distinction between those two activities, we can progress towards mastery in any endeavor – Peter Ralston

What’s more, we need someone with authority to tell us we are wrong or we won’t believe it. But even in this there is a filter, who has authority in our filter? The only way to get rid of that filter is to really experience what is going on. I’ll give you an example, one that’s perfect to illustrate Peter’s teaching style:

If you have some martial arts experience you’ll probably “know” that the centre of gravity on the human body is somewhere below the navel. You can take this for the truth or you can experience it. So what Peter did was take a strong stick and together with several students he balanced on of the students on the stick in all three axis. They concluded that indeed the centre of gravity in this student was in the lower abdomen, just below the navel.

Although science has provided us with a lot of “truths”, religion has done the same and so have popular media. They all help build our filter, a filter by which we tend to see everything as wrong or right without taking the time to experience it and form our own opinnion. Those with authority (in our oppinion) lead and we follow blindly.

All to often we just want to reinforce what we already “know”. But that’s not learning now is it.

You there, sitting at your screen, looking at this text. What the hell are you doing, staring at a screen and reading this text. As if the act of reading by itself will change your life.

All those self help, personal growth and success instantly blogs are lying to you. Zen habits? Useless! Blogmastermind? Don’t make me laugh. All those stories about setting up a payed member site and raking in six digits a year. Just that, stories and marketing. Designed to lure you in and and to keep you coming back. RSS feeds, mailing lists, their sole purpose is to feed you more info and through advertisement, affiliate programs and memberships earn the smarter guy on the other end some (or a lot of) money. The latest of them being “Project Mojave”, even Jonathan Mead over at Illuminated Mind got sucked into this one and is now “Director of Ass Kicking” apparently.

That is exactly what you need right now! A kick… How many blogposts have you read about setting up an online business. How many bloggers are you following who write about this? Is the Tim’s Four hour workweek in your bookcase? Along side Seth’s Purple cow, Ramit’s I will teach you to be rich and all those other books that tell you how to do things. I should probably kick you myself but that is the problem with Internet. I can’t actually kick you for reading all that!

…

So, now I probably got your attention, if you are one of the few who is still reading this. Why am I pissed? It’s simple, you’re only learning what you should do. That’s all that reading does for you. It let’s you learn how to do it. But the simple fact that you are reading this blogposts states clearly that even though you know how to do it you are not doing it right now!

Close this screen and start doing what you have learned. Don’t spend another minute reading all the info and stop being amazed that these people got so successful. What sets them apart from you is the ability to not only learn but to act it out, even if they don’t know every detail. Although they do fear the unknown they respond with  ”I’ll figure it out while doing it” in stead of “I need to learn more before I get started”. The guys over at Project Mojave have learned some skills and now they want to sell you those skills. Where did they get them? Probably through the same books and same blogs you read. They threw in some common sense though and did some serious research. Now they expect you to buy in to what they have to offer and buy their nice little package so you can learn more, and more….. and more…. but will you ever act on it? I sure hope so otherwise you’ll have made another author some money and didn’t get anything back from it other than more information and dreams about how things can be if you just do so and so.

What are you waiting for, shut down this screen, get off your chair and start actually making a difference right now! I’ll still be here tomorrow and so will this blog, the minutes you spent reading this blogpost are gone forever. Were those minutes of your life worth it?

Don’t just read and learn. Reading is useless! Stop reading and start doing what you know!

This all being said and after reading the liberation manifesto written by Jonathan for the Project I can tell you he does manage to kick virtual ass in there. They might just really be on to something. Although they have posted a “success” video log on their site please do remain critical and ask yourself “Is this genuine or did they ask someone to make up a story just to get things rolling?”. There is great potential on the web to make a side income, many have done so. However, for every one person that succeeds there are countless who don’t make it. Be ruthlessly honest and do what you believe to be right. It’s damn hard work and ever a  ”get rich quick” scheme. There is no such thing as easy money. However concerning making money (earning a living/dying) the paradigm has shifted considerably because of Internet.

If I offended anyone with this post I’m truly sorry, I’m just trying to make a point here and I hope that writing about it this way actually got the message across. I’m sure all the people I wrote about are nice and honest people and actually do want to help you achieve financial independence or a better life with healthier (financial) habits.

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