All of this is the same if you swap out the words money or approval with nearly anything else people desire. A desire to have fun. A desire to contribute. A desire to be safe. A desire to challenge yourself to grow. We all share these desires and can be motivated by almost all of them simultaneously in the things we choose to do.
The principle is it’s important to be honest with ourselves and others by the words we use. It shapes our thinking.
There’s a very significant difference between being told “You care about what people think,” and being told “You just care about what people think,” or “You only care about money.” One single, simple, little word makes all the difference between bullshit and truth.
It’s only from a place of honesty that you can make a truly empowered choice.
Here’s some BS-free, straight-up honesty: I do give a shit about what people think and feel about me. I want people who read my books to like the books and like me. I hope everyone in this world things I’m “the man.” I want all hot women to think I’m irresistibly sexy, but not get too crazy about me to where it’s weird, but just kind of sort of in the back of my head have it be where I can think, “Yeah, she digs me” when I see a hot girl. #KeepinItReal #RadicalHonesty
Yet I also know that by writing this book, some people are going to think I’m an idiot. I’m going to open myself up to criticism. I’m going to have people leave me a bad review, write hate emails to me, and tell me how I’m a horrible person who uses needless hashtags in my writing like a dumbass. #IDoWhatIWant #DealWithIt
So how can I give a shit about people’s approval, and yet still be able to put myself out there and risk rejection and hatred? How do I essentially get myself to not give a shit about what people think when I, and everybody else if we’re honest with ourselves, give a shit about what people think? How do you not give a shit when you can’t help but to give a shit?
The secret is that I give approximately 91.3 shits about what my fans think compared to 1.9 (not quite two) shits about what my haters think.
Here’s an analogy…
Let’s say you have $100.
Do you give a shit about it?
If you’re like most people, you do.
I know I do. I’m all about it.
It doesn’t matter if you’re “greedy” about money. Let’s just say that’s a nice chunk of change to give to charity. The point is that there’s value there to deserve shits being given.
So I have this hundred dollars, and someone wants to snag it from me.
Aw. Hell. Naw.
I ain’t lettin’ that shit fly.
I will defend my hundred bucks because I give a shit about it. I will hold it tight.
I’m not going to let someone take it. I definitely won’t throw it away. I won’t even waste it on overly expensive drinks when I can buy my own beer way cheaper than at this bar, thank you very much.
Why?
Because I give a shit about it.
But then someone comes along and makes an offer…
They say, “Hey Derek, would you give up your $100 for this Lamborghini?”
“$100 for a Lamborghini? Pssh… I don’t give a shit about this $100! Take my money!”
I couldn’t throw my money at them fast enough.
Hell, I would offer them another $100 as a tip for hooking me up with the deal of a lifetime.
I just said that I gave a shit about $100, but how quickly would I not give a shit about $100 in light of finding something that matters more.
Trading something of lesser value for something of more value may seem like basic economics 101. You didn’t need to read this book to realize you’ll give up something of lesser value for something else of greater value. So where am I going with this?
When I traded in the $100, it felt like I didn’t give a shit about it. I might have even uttered the words “I don’t give a shit about this $100!” when I saw the Lamborghini. But that would be bullshit.
If you saw me throw $100 at someone, and let’s say you didn’t realize I was just offered a Lamborghini, you might think, “Wow! Derek really doesn’t give a shit about $100. He would just throw that money at this guy.”
Did I actually stop giving a shit about the $100 altogether at that point? Did the money cease to have value to me? In reality, I would still give a shit about $100 no matter what I’m offered for it. I may just give way more of a shit about something else – in this case a Lamborghini. I’m focusing on what I give more of a shit about.
The way to not give a shit about something is to give way more of a shit about something else.
This is obvious when you can see it from my perspective as I tell a story, but think about the people you admire. Do you ever look at someone and go, “I wish I was like them. They’re so carefree. They don’t worry about what people think about them. They do what they want. They’re fearless. They’re bold, brave, and intelligent. They’re great.”
Well, now you know better…
It’s true that they might not worry too much about what people think. They might not let fear stop them. They might not care too much about the things many people worry about. Their greatness makes them seem superhuman.
But they’re not. They’re just like you in some ways. They do care about what people think. They worry about their fears. They wonder if their mistakes will cause them to lose what they love. But they’ve found something they care about more. They’ve trained themselves to tap into a power within, a power to care so much more about something beyond themselves that their own worries and petty fears, while still there, have become as insignificant as a $100 seems compared to a Lamborghini.
Your attempt to “not give a shit” about anything won’t ever work because your brain doesn’t know how to choose “not doing XYZ.” If you decide not to do something, you are, in reality, choosing to do something else. It’s always a proactive process.
You can choose to make your appetite for approval or connection, or any of your other needs, less significant, but you can’t eliminate that appetite. It’s hard-wired. You can most definitely give “less” of a shit by comparison, but not “no shits.” Just .00001 shits perhaps at minimum.
Attempting to not give a shit about something fundamental to your human needs won’t work. You can only choose something else that meets your needs more.
Honey, I Shrunk The Bullshit
Giving more of a shit about something to give less of a shit about something else sounds good in theory, but you may have noticed a problem…
Do you wonder…?
What if giving a shit about something else just makes me give a shit about 189 things instead of 188 things, and now I’m just feeling even more overwhelmed? Isn’t my problem that I give too much of a shit about so many things already? What if I don’t know what I should value more with so many desirable options, and I’m torn by giving a shit about so many different things?
If you’re really concerned about this, you’re A) likely mostly in the feminine energy and B) haven’t learned the proactive art and science of choosing to make things insignificant – whether temporarily or permanently.
When I say feminine, I don’t mean a physical woman, as this can apply to men, and I definitely don’t mean this as an insult. The feminine nature makes even little things significant. To an extreme, it “blows things out of proportion.”
Typically women embody the feminine energy more than men, and this means that when they’re unbalanced, everything becomes a big deal, and they give a shit about so much stuff, it’s overwhelming and at times unmanageable. They don’t have as many barriers in their brain to compartmentalize stuff, so giving a shit about one thing spills over to the other things they give a shit about. It’s easy to become conflicted, over-burdened, and feeling like there is a constant tug-o-war, sometimes in 18 different directions, about what matters most.
The masculine is much better at “not giving a shit,” or in reality giving less of a shit, because the masculine n
aturally embodies making things insignificant. When unbalanced, important things become unimportant. “Oh, that pain in my arm, it’s no big deal. I don’t need to see a doctor. I don’t need to get help. It doesn’t matter if I watch TV instead of being present with my family. As long as I’m physically here, it doesn’t matter if I’m not emotionally here.”
Too much of making things overly insignificant has an equal potential for destruction as making things overly significant. Either imbalance is destructive. Either imbalance is enslaving.
If nature indicates anything to us, it’s that harmony comes with a balance of masculine and feminine. If you only made things significant, you’d overwhelm yourself with too many important things. If you just try to make things insignificant, you’d stop caring about anything at all, including what’s really important.
People will rarely reach either extreme, but they can get damned close. It shows up in the feminine who is frazzled beyond belief and has lost her head, or gone to the opposite, being depressed, because she “can’t win” and has given up trying. It shows up in the masculine who is almost completely apathetic and emotionless, or the opposite, being aggressive and destructive, because he’s stopped caring about others and the consequences of his actions.
You already balance these two energies every time you make a choice. Choice is when you say “yes” to one thing (what you’ve made more significant) and “no” to everything else (what you’ve made less significant) in that moment.
The trick is to realize that just because you make something more or less significant for a moment, it doesn’t mean it remains that way. This is the critical BS that must be overcome, and this is what I keep harping on in this book.
Just because you make breathing insignificant, say when you’re underwater, doesn’t mean “breathing is insignificant.” It also doesn’t mean “breathing is significant.”
Breathing. Is. Just. Breathing.
It’s simply an act that has no “good” or “bad” until you consider the situation. This is why it’s important to be able to make something significant at times, and also insignificant at other times.
I will repeat this often, because you and I will both likely forget it, and we’ll pay the price for it, unless we keep reminding ourselves of it. Hell, this book is mostly an attempt to remind myself of it, and in turn, help you too.
Now apply this ability to make things insignificant to anything.
Mistakes. Are. Just. Mistakes.
Fear. Is. Just. Fear.
Talking. Is. Just. Talking.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re giving a speech to thousands of people or having a conversation with a friend telling them your old high school pal just passed away... “Talking. Is. Just. Talking.” You’ve done it before so many times, why should this be any different? It’s “not a big deal.”
What I’m doing with this subtle use of language is taking all the context away from these things. I’m stripping the actions down to their most basic parts. I’m “shrinking significance” so to speak.
It’s like saying, “A human being is just a bunch of atoms and molecules.”
Is this true? Sure… from one perspective. But from another perspective, aren’t I making human beings seem pretty insignificant? From this line of thinking, I could go, “It’s not a big deal to blow up a bunch of atoms and molecules, and since human beings are just a bunch of atoms and molecules, it’s OK to blow them up.”
This is the extreme form of “shrinking significance.” The imbalanced form. The natural masculine tendency to make things insignificant is why men, who often embody the masculine, are more likely to end up in jail, start wars, and commit acts of aggression. The masculine types pretty much universally like to blow shit up. The masculine embodies the energy of death and destruction, but even destruction is needed to pave the way for new creation. #AnotherStoryForAnotherBook #EverythingHasItsPlace
While the possibility for this “shrinking significance” to be taken to the extreme exists like all things, can you see how, in the right situation, this ability to make things insignificant could be a useful skill to have?
Doing squats with five hundreds pounds on my back is just a matter of bending my hips and legs and then extending them. It’s only a little pain. It’s just for a minute. It ain’t nuthin’ but a g thang baby.
All of these statements are making something that could be considered significant, insignificant.
And this, my BS-busting friend, is a nice skill to have.
To apply “significance shrinking,” learn these words:
Just
Only
That
There
Those
Small, tiny, little, and so on.
Whatever seems like a big deal will be less significant if you use the words “just” or “only.”
“It’s just for five minutes.” “It’s only one phone call.” “Let’s just do it.”
That, there, and those, (as opposed to this, here, and these) are all words the create distance between you and an object.
What seems more significant…?
“This book you’re reading here...”
Or
“That book you’re reading there.”
Notice how the first one feels more intimate? Closer? More significant?
Using language that creates distance, nothing more than a mental trick, makes something seem less daunting. If you feel intimidated by something, try adding distance from it. Unless, of course, feeling intimidated serves a practical function in the situation you’re in.
“I’ll just go ahead and make that little phone call to Mom.”
“I only need to hop in the gym and do that workout for a bit.”
“I only need go knock out that little job interview and then I can go enjoy this amazing restaurant.”
You can read how to use a variation of this technique for easily overcoming overwhelm in an article I wrote here: http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/3-magic-words-overcome-overwhelm
This, like any skill, will be useful in some situations, harmful in others. How do you know when it’s helpful or harmful? Learn what’s called for in a particular situation through education.
In a situation that calls for dominance and authority, “Can we just do this little thing please?” isn’t as authoritative. In a situation that calls for easing the burden of a request, “Let’s go ahead and just schedule that meeting right now” could go a long way to minimizing friction.
Learn the skills of your environment. If you have no idea WTF an environment calls for, fear not. You will be enlightened on how to handle the unknown by the end of this book.
Extreme vs Moderate
Is the nighttime extreme?
There’s no sun out at night. Without the sun, plants don’t get light. Without the plants getting light, photosynthesis doesn’t happen. Without the plants getting energy, they die. Without any plants, we don’t get oxygen, and we all die!
So let me ask you again, is the night “extreme?” Does the night actually kill us?
It’s only “extreme” if you don’t realize the day is coming to balance it out.
Let’s make it more practical.
Is not eating any food extreme?
Can you answer that without knowing for how long?
What about fasting for a day?
Some call that extreme, others realize it can be healthy. Some fast for a week and don’t eat at all. I hear some people say “That’s crazy,” while others are like, “Pssh, a one-week fast is child’s play.”
In order to be a better receiver, a Native American shaman said he was told not to give anything for a year and only receive. Is that extreme? But what is a year to a lifetime? Isn’t it all relative to a bigger picture?
Balance cannot be seen in a snapshot. You can only see balance over the course of time. If something is “in balance,” if it stays that way, eventually it will be out of balance. If the day stayed day and never turned to ni
ght, it would throw our whole world out of balance. Day must move to night and the night must move to day to be balanced.
Balance is an act, not an outcome.
Why does this matter?
Because you’re constantly trying to balance seemingly opposing human needs, but you can never be in balance. You can only be “balancing.”
Things are constantly shifting around you and within you. Nothing remains the same. The moment you find balance, if you keep doing what created that balance, you will be taken out of balance eventually.
Now it may be true that generally speaking, it’s a good practice to ease into things and make changes and adjustments respecting a gradual gradient. Relationships are often best eased into, not asking someone to marry you on the first date. Exercise is often best eased into, not running a marathon the first day of deciding to exercise after ten years. Then making gradual adjustments so the body can handle it. A sale in business is often best made as a steady process, not asking someone to buy the moment you see them by saying, “Hey! Nice to meet you! There’s this book by this guy named Derek Doepker and it’s totes awesome so buy it now!” Ease into it first before pushing my book on them. #IWillTrainYouWell
However, just like nothing is “good” or “bad” outside of context, nothing is “extreme” or “moderate” outside of context. This means sometimes you need to go as fast, as hard, as extreme as possible to get to the other side of your BS.
When teaching racecar driving, students are told to speed up going into turns, because to slow down is to lose traction. You have to sometimes be willing to speed up, to go as fast as possible when approaching a wall, and do what you fear the most to break through. Sometimes you’ve got to jump into the deep end, and sometimes you just need to dip your toes in the pool and ease in gradually. To buy into only one approach or the other is to buy into the idea that breathing or not breathing is the best. You must be able to do both.
This means the idea of a “slow, steady, balanced” approach is sometimes total bullshit. The best way to break through BS at times may be to go to the extreme.
Break Through Your BS_Uncover Your Brain's Blind Spots and Unleash Your Inner Greatness Page 10