My Glorious History of Humiliating Failure

Posted on April 8, 2011 by Audacious Lach

Picard and Riker, facepalm

Note: This is the question. Check out the answer.

Failure sucks.

It’s frustrating, often gut-wrenching, potentially embarrassing and always disappointing.

If you’re alive, you’ve probably failed.

You probably didn’t like it.

It probably seemed like a pretty shitty experience at the time.

You probably felt like a loser.

Welcome to the club.

You’ve no doubt heard well intentioned rhetoric about failure as a stepping stone. Sadly, it’s become a cheap cliché. Easy to pay lip service to, but much harder to actually live when it means being scared or humbled all over again.

Admitting failure can be tough too. It’s scary to lay it all out, plain as day, how much and how often you’ve fallen short. How thoroughly inept or inadequate you’ve felt. Intellectually we know (or are told) it’s part of a process, but it can still land a pretty devastating blow on your self esteem.

Of course the devastation is self-inflicted. In order to judge ourselves inadequate we’ve first got to have some preconceived notion of what adequacy looks like. It’s the preconceptions which are faulty not our capabilities. It’s the expectations we should question, not our innate worthiness as human beings.

I know the preconceptions are faulty because it turns out there’s actually a very strong correlation between suckage and awesomeness. I was genuinely awed, and even comforted this week to learn how much failure Derek Sivers had weathered in a single year. Is it any coincidence that his successes are equally epic?

Makes sense. Anything worth doing means stretching well beyond your present capability, and that means—for a time at least—you’re going to suck at it. That’s okay. And it has to be, because it’s pretty much a law of the universe.

Earlier Emilie asked me to contribute a story to her compilation of spectacular, life-shattering failures. And, ironically, I kind of failed at it. I contributed some abstract, general thoughts on failure while cleverly avoiding telling a personal story. Thought I’d rectify that.

So, here’s my glorious (if somewhat abridged) history of humiliating failures. Don’t judge em, celebrate em.

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The Complete List of Absolute, Unalterable, Unquestionable, Inescapable Rules of Life

Posted on March 22, 2011 by Audacious Lach

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How to Swim With Sharks Without Sleeping With The Fishes

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Audacious Lach

Chuck Noris Sees You

If you can see Chuck Norris, Chuck Norris can see you. If you can’t see Chuck Norris, you may be only seconds away from death.
Chuck Norris Facts

I never really understood the meaning of those words until today. I always thought they were just fable. A story frazzled parents told their kids in order to scare them to sleep. But staring into the steely eyes of a cold-blooded killing machine changes a man.

Yeah, I’ve seen Chuck Norris. Only I’m not talking about the Texas Ranger. I’m talking about Chuck Norris, the 7 foot, 230 pound Sand Tiger Shark at Siam Ocean World—so dubbed by me, in honor of his deathly steel gaze and deadly round-house kicking ability (okay, so I may have made up the part about the round-house).

Alright, I’m exaggerating just a smidge. I’ll be the first to admit—there isn’t any real danger here. It’s a controlled environment inhabited only by non-aggressive (and presumably, well-fed) marine predators.

But it’s not so much about confronting real danger as it is about confronting irrational fear. The fears we all have that keep us from living life to the full. The fears that keep us from expanding to our potential. Those are the fears that need smashing.

Even though when I get on a commercial airliner, I know intellectually that the chances that I’m going to a horrible, fiery death are infintecimal, there’s still a little voice that asks—what if?

And even though I know it would be commercial suicide for a multi-million dollar tourist attraction to offer an experience that had even the slightest chance of resulting in maimed, lacerated tourist corpses, there’s still a little voice that says—but you can never be too sure… (this is Thailand, after all)

So I decided it would be a good idea to bone up on my shark-repellant jujitsu skills—just in case.

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No More Mr. Nice Guy

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Audacious Lach
Bad Mother Fucker

Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.
Rumi

You may have noticed something odd around here during the last month or so. For a blog about Fear Smashing, there hasn’t been much of that going on. At least, not that’s been reported. Actually, I’ve been a bit stuck on something for the last couple of weeks. A dilemma. And I’ve been wracking my brain for an answer.

I’ve always had this thing about perfectionism. I want everything to be flawless and exemplary. And it’s kind of a drag. So, here are the fears up for elimination this week:

  1. Being raw and unrehearsed
  2. Putting my foot in my mouth
  3. Alienating my audience (this will involve your participation)

See, there’s going to be some changes around here.

The original premiss of this blog is a chronicle of fear smashing: I do shit that scares me; and you guys get to watch (and hopefully be inspired to go out and conquer the world). Hence, the list.

Only, there’s a little problem. Doing Epic Shit doesn’t always happen over a weekend. It takes time. It takes preparation. There’s a reason it’s called EPIC after all; and as much as I might like to, I can’t actually jump out of a airplane (even a proverbial one) every day of the week.

So, I had to fill in the gaps a little. I had to get a little theoretical.

Now, I’m all for the odd bit of philosophical meandering; and based on the feedback I’ve received over the last several weeks—some of those posts made a very real impact on people. I love that. I love being able to make a difference in someone’s life. And I love all the positive feedback you guys were kind enough to share. That’s what makes this so hard to do.

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How To Change Your World Part 4: From Thought to Action

Posted on January 22, 2011 by Audacious Lach
Bon Voyage

Bon Voyage

It’s no use waiting for your ship to come in, unless you’ve sent one out.
Belgian Proverb

Well, here we are. The fourth and final episode of the audacious series How to Change Your World. This is the action end of it, so let’s get straight down to biznes.

What do we really have here?

I’ve said a bunch of warm, fuzzy stuff about feeling good and letting go and going with the flow. Perhaps that’s comforting to you. Perhaps it stimulated your curiosity or your spiritual awareness. Ahh… sweet bliss.

But! you protest. This series is called How to Change Your World. So far you haven’t shown me how to change anything besides the way I feel.

Well, leaving aside for a moment that how you feel is the single most important factor in your quality of life—you’re quite right. I haven’t. So I’m going to rectify that right now.

In this fourth and final installment we’ll look at the missing piece of the puzzle. The link between thinking and acting and how to actually effect massive change in your physical reality.

How to get shit done

I’m sure by now you’ve heard of the secret key to effecting massive change in the world. It’s all the rage. Everybody’s talking about it. It’s like really, really popular among the movers and shakers.

It’s called taking action.

And if I hear one more thing about it, I’m going to take some decisive action of my own on that mother!#%*&er.

Blahdy blah, blah, blah. We all know taking action is the key to change. But what is the key to taking action? After all, if it were really that simple we’d all be Tony Robbins or Gary Vaynerchuk.

Action is great when—like the guys I just mentioned—you’re already in the zone. But if you’re not in the zone, all the rhetoric about powering through and working your ass off does more harm than good. It just exacerbates your sense of frustration. So, let’s get back to the fundamentals. Starting right here:

Um: what is an action, anyhow?

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How to Change Your World, Part 3: Going With the Flow

Posted on January 10, 2011 by Audacious Lach

Ride the River

The stream delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go.
Richard Bach, Illusions

Welcome back to Part 3 of the brilliant, illuminating, transcendental series: How to Change Your World.

In case you haven’t noticed by now, this series is all about the power of thought. Specifically: the deliberate, conscious choosing of your thought.

  • Part 1, was the why—so you can set the course of your life.
  • Part 2, was the what—focusing on what feels good.

You can think of this part, as the how.

If you haven’t read the first two parts already, now would be a good time to do so. They are a ripping good read and come highly recommended.

You got an inkling of the how in the previous part, when I told you to choose your thoughts based on how they feel so you let go of the emotional resistance that is keeping you from moving forward.

But this isn’t always as easy as it sounds. After all, you’ve been practising that resistance a long time. And when you practice something for a long time, it gets easier. That is to say, unless you make a concerted effort to change that habit, you’re going to continue to be resistant by default (that’s bad).

What we need, is a way to make feeling good easier so you consistently choose feeling good over being resistant—make sense?

In this part, we’re going to delve deeper down the cognitive rabbit hole to learn the fine art of dancing with thought. We’re going to learn how to go with the flow.

Wait. Isn’t This Looser Talk?

Hold on. Going with the flow? Isn’t that just code for drifting through life with no real direction or purpose? That doesn’t sound like purposeful living to me. That sounds like sugar coated mediocrity. To make things happen you have to tear down the barriers and hustle.

Is this you?

Well, if it is, let me clear up a little misunderstanding:

Going with the flow doesn’t mean you don’t have goals.
It doesn’t mean you don’t have direction.
It doesn’t even mean you don’t have ambition.
It just means you don’t have resistance.

It means you don’t fight yourself every step of the way with fears and doubts and unreasonable expectations. You do what feels good. You take your cues from intuition. And you trust in the process. You work in harmony with your environment—rather than trying to conquer it.

Sounds good, doesn’t it?

But what does it really mean, when the rubber hits the road? Glad you asked…

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How to Change Your World, Part 2: Choosing To Be Free

Posted on January 3, 2011 by Audacious Lach
Bottlenosed Dolphins in Honduras

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

The way to develop decisiveness is to start right where you are, with the very next question you face.
Napoleon Hill

This is part 2 of an epic new series on How to Change Your World.

In our last exciting episode…

  • You learned of your real-life superpower (to think).
  • You saw that thought is the parent of every action—and of inaction.
  • You saw that the ability to consciously, deliberately choose your thought is the difference between success and failure, between happiness and misery and between greatness and mediocrity.
  • And you saw that by harnessing and directing this superpower, you have the ability to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds and create the whatever circumstances you choose.

Great. Are we enlightened yet?

Patience young grasshopper.

Here’s the pebble you must grasp:

There is a question to be answered; and the answer determines the direction of your entire life. It’s a question that is staring you in the face in every moment of your existence. And to ignore it, is to renounce your supreme power and dominion.

The question is this:

Which thought, should you choose!?

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How To Find True Happiness in 2011

Posted on December 31, 2010 by Audacious Lach
Sydney Harbour at New Years

Happy New Year!

In daylights, in sunsets
In midnights, in cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife
In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, a year in the life?
Seasons of Love, RENT

This was to be part 2 of the new series on How To Change Your World. But, the season being what it is, I decided to defer that in order to better mark the occasion. While the contrarian in me has always dismissed the notion of leaving resolutions to new year, there’s few things I love more than a fresh beginning. And inspired by several comrades who have taken the lead in new year’s epic goal setting, I couldn’t help but say a few words on the matter. So, just indulge me this once and then we’ll return to our regular, scheduled program, Okay?

The real power of goals

There’s no question of the value of goal setting. In fact, just about everyone who’s ever accomplished anything is adamant about the supreme importance of having goals. And this is common knowledge.

But I rather think that the main value and power of goals is not what we suppose it to be.

Most conventional wisdom you’ll find on goal achievement describes making plans of action. You’ll be encouraged to break it into small, manageable steps, set timeframes, think about your resource allocation etcetera, etcetera.

And this is all well and good for your run of the mill project. It’s really not where it’s at. Because any goal worth having will require you to look beyond your present resources and competencies. It will require you to stretch your thinking.

By far the greater power of having a goal is not the in how but the why.  A goal serves to focus your attention. It forces you to discover greater clarity about what it is that you want. It causes you to become intentional. And that’s what really compels you to move towards your end.

The planning—the action steps: these are just details; and they are largely mechanical. The real changes happen before you get to them.

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How to Change Your World, Part 1: Your First, Last and Only Power

Posted on December 28, 2010 by Audacious Lach
Stone Buddha

Making the World

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change what I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.
The Serenity Prayer

Are you the player? Or the pawn?

Just how much power do you actually have to change the circumstances of your life? To make it the way you want it?

You want to believe that you’re in control; that you are the captain of your own soul; that you have to power to choose your fate. But of all the myriad events and circumstances that impact upon your experience, what fraction of them do you consciously design?

If there is a science to getting what you want then it can only operate within the scope of things over which you have control. To look elsewhere is madness. Because if the direction of your life is dependant upon things over which you have no power then you are not the captain but a leaf blowing in the wind.

Regardless of where you stand philosophically, one thing is undeniable: All of your power is in the present moment. You can’t act in the past or in the future. You can only act now. And what is it, exactly that you can accomplish right now, in this instant? What exactly can you do?

You can’t control:

  • The weather,
  • The economy,
  • The job market,
  • The lotto numbers,
  • The distribution of wealth in the world,
  • The state of the rainforest,
  • What happened yesterday,
  • Who’s fault it is,
  • Your government,
  • Your boss,
  • Your spouse,
  • What anyone else says or does or thinks about you,
  • The price of gasoline, or
  • The price of tea in China.

All of that is completely out of your hands.

No. Here’s what you get to decide:

Which thought you’re going to focus on, right now.

That’s it. That’s the sum total of your dominion as a human being. That’s all you ever get to choose. It’s what Viktor Frankl called “the last human freedom”: the one that remains after all others have been taken away (Viktor figured that out while being held prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. And yes, he survived).

Does that reality discourage you? Does it make you feel a little inadequate or insecure? You shouldn’t. Because that remarkable ability—to think—truly is the most magnificent and powerful force in the universe. That single faculty gives you the ability to reinvent yourself in every moment, and remake your entire world.

You’re about to see how.

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Phoenix Challenge 2: Skydive

Posted on December 17, 2010 by Audacious Lach
Skydiving over Pattaya, Thailand

In The Moment

Lach’s first law of living deep: if you can’t think about it at terminal velocity, it’s probably not that important.

“Don’t hold onto my hands. I need my hands to deploy the parachute. If you hold onto my hands, I will bite your ear off”.

Pradeep’s feedback style is tough but fair. After all, at 220 kph free fall, there’s not a lot of time for drawn out explanations. That little nugget of advice capped off my briefing.

“Okay, I just have one question about…”

“Don’t worry. I will be telling you twice more in the plane”.

Worried? Who said I was worried? Skydiving is statistically safer than driving, right? That’s why they make you sign a waiver explaining that in the highly unlikely event of total catastrophic failure—it’s your own damn business. But, in the immortal words of Clint Eastwood:

If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster.

There would be time enough for shopping later. Right now I needed to get suited up. My jump master picked out a harness and helped me into it. I’m kind of hazy on the discussion at this point. My engineer brain was busy studying the stitching and wondering what kind of quality assurance process these things go through. For all the remarkable technology that would be employed to lift us to 13,000 feet and bring us safely back to earth, my life was basically going to depend on this buckle.

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