Just One Joey: September 2016

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

30 Days Of Genius Blog: Jared Leto

A multi-hyphenate, artist, actor, musician, and entrepreneur, Jared Leto has been a leader in all endeavors he tackles. A true artist.

I have taken his interview on 30 Days of Genius with Chase Jarvis, extracted the information, and used it to answer common questions by readers just like you, who are looking to take their lives to the next level, or at least a different level than the one they are on.

Please enjoy.

How Do I Decide What To Do? Photography or Music?

Everything works together. It is all the same thing, an all-encompassing creative path. You don’t need to choose, you have already chosen art. It is a better time than ever to be on this path. You no longer have to ask permission to be an artist, you just create. Technology has given us all the permission we need. The “gatekeepers” are obsolete.

So create.

Experiment.

Experimenting is the foundation of art.

Andy Warhol said, “keep making art, let others decide if it is good or not. And while they are deciding, create more art.”

We all have the right to succeed or fail gloriously. Don’t pigeon-hole yourself to one medium, they all work together. My approach to acting is the same as it was with photography, sculpting, and painting.

It is all about the immersion. You need to figure out all of the aspects in order to dive deeper. The reward, contribution, and authenticity all exponentially increase the deeper you go. You never know where you are going to find the bit of information that will take you over the top, which is why you look everywhere, even in other artistic mediums.

You can express yourself in a lot of different ways, even failure. I have had mistakes that turned out to be great art. If I had known the error in my ways while creating I never would have uncovered the greatness, or as I like to call it, the Holy Mistake. I will take it a step further and say that I only have a little success because I have made a lot of mistakes. Failure leads to success which then leads to more failure. It’s a beautiful, tortuous cycle.

You have to put yourself out there, stretch yourself, your art, your learning, and your creating. It all works together for the collective good: Art.

Can I Just Create, Or Do I Need To Learn The Business?

Whether you like it or not, you will learn the business. It’s inevitable.

You will learn as you go through the process. From starting, to sharing, selling, repeating, then making a living, making it sustainable, who can help you, connecting with them, etc. It is self-fulfilling. Unless you want to create for creations sake, the business aspect will come. You might as well embrace it so you can get the most benefit out of it and not have to rely on others as much.

Quotes

“We all have the right to succeed or fail gloriously.”

“I only have a little success because I make a lot of mistakes.”

“Failure leads to success which inevitably leads to more failure.”

Jared Leto Links

Website

30 Seconds To Mars

Twitter

Chase Jarvis Links

Joey Links

Friday, September 23, 2016

The Accidental Stoic Pt. 5 - Practice Misfortune

(If you have already read one of the other parts, you can skip the intro. I wanted to make sure all readers had the background no matter which lesson they were starting on. Enjoy!).

I love Tim Ferriss.

I love Ryan Holiday.

When you go through something traumatic you find yourself looking for answers, grasping for knowledge.

You hate the way you feel.

You don’t know what to do yet, but you know you never want to feel this way again.

But what can you do?

You allow yourself to be teachable.

Allow yourself the opportunity to learn from your mistakes so you don’t have to relive them again.

Two of the people that I turned to were: Tim Ferriss and Ryan Holiday. They practice and preach Stoicism: the endurance of pain or hardship without a display of feelings and without complaint.

In these blogs I am going to break down 5 pillars of the philosophy (Time Is Brief, Overcome Adversity, Live A Life Of Character, Self-Awareness, and Practicing Misfortune), and explain how I became one without even knowing it. What a pleasant surprise! Nothing like having a goal and realizing you are already there!

I find the best way to allow yourself permission to be teachable is either acknowledging the desire and need to learn or finding yourself in stories about other people and applying it to your own life.

1. Practice Misfortune:

Poverty.

Little food.

Poor Clothing.

No comforts of home.

Become face to face with want.

Realize you can handle more than you thought.

Anxiety and fear are rooted in uncertainty. Show yourself that you can deal with the unknown.

This is the stoic practice that jumped out at me the most. Practicing misfortune is what started the whole idea of this Accidental Stoic series. I am not sure if anything addresses misfortune, at least in this sense, better than a tiny cell in a 150 year old prison (with another person).

Poverty? I had no money. I refused to have my wife put anything on “my books” other than for necessities. I wanted to feel every ounce of my punishment. I knew it would make me better and stronger on the other end. I didn’t want to try and mask the emotional turmoil I was in with Top Ramen, canned sausages, and chips like all the other idiots around me. I wanted the cement and bars in my veins. I wanted them to harden my heart so I would get out of there and be a machine. Concrete and steel. No more fucking around.

Even when I got to Soledad and got a job, I made $0.09 an hour. Just enough for toothpaste, floss, and deodorant at the commissary once a month.

They don’t serve you much food. I was hungry all the time. My first day out I went to In N Out and couldn’t even finish a hamburger. I got full too fast. This was a single burger too. No double-double or anything. That’s how much my stomach had shrunk.

Now I fast once a quarter, 5 days at a time, for physical and mental health reasons. On top of that there are a lot of advantages to not being a slave to your stomach.

Poor clothing? You mean my set of blues for chow and my basketball shorts and white t-shirt for everything else? Or my PIA issued converse-style sneakers? Yeah. Poor clothing, check!

No comforts of home? That’s easy, wasn’t home. No family. No friends. Nothing. 10 minutes phone calls at the end of the day, if the phones were working, if they decided to give us yard, that’s it.

All I wanted to do was be home. See my wife and daughter. BBQ with my parents. Go to my in-laws on Sundays. That’s it. Get home, show everyone that this will not defeat me, and that I will be better than ever. That is something I still think about every day. Show everyone that no matter how fucked you are, you can pull yourself out. I want that for my daughter more than anything. Show her that you only lose if you give up.

I never thought I would have made it through prison. Why would I? There are people that wanted me there because they didn’t think I would make it either. But I did, and I did it well. I’m not afraid of going back. I can do prison. That is not something I am proud of, but it’s something I know I can do.

If I can deal with prison, and all the crazy shit that happens there, what can’t I handle out here?

Exactly. Absolutely nothing.

That’s what happens to people after traumatic events. Wars, attacks, tornadoes, hurricanes. They catch a glimpse of their true strength, the types of things they can make it through, and it’s a power surge.

That’s the real reason the Greatest Generation is the greatest generation, they were tested. Mentally, physically, emotionally, everything. Basically a whole generation of men and women had to go to war, had to deal with war. If you made it back, after seeing what you saw, after doing what you did, what the hell can compare back in real life? Absolutely nothing.

Look at really great people. I mean REALLY great. They all had to make it through something. The greatest people of our generation had to deal with something traumatic that allowed them to tap in to their potential, their strength, and their greatness. None of them would be who they are without it.

This was my trauma.

This was my insight.

This is what I can compare every difficult thing to for the rest of my life.

Nothing will be as bad as San Quentin, and I was able to go through that at 34. That gives me about

50 years of ammo.

Wish I could have gotten that insight on purpose.

But accidents aren’t always bad.

The Accidental Stoic Pt. 4 - Develop Self-Awareness

(If you have already read one of the other parts, you can skip the intro. I wanted to make sure all readers had the background no matter which lesson they were starting on. Enjoy!).

I love Tim Ferriss.

I love Ryan Holiday.

When you go through something traumatic you find yourself looking for answers, grasping for knowledge.

You hate the way you feel.

You don’t know what to do yet, but you know you never want to feel this way again.

But what can you do?

You allow yourself to be teachable.

Allow yourself the opportunity to learn from your mistakes so you don’t have to relive them again.

Two of the people that I turned to were: Tim Ferriss and Ryan Holiday. They practice and preach Stoicism: the endurance of pain or hardship without a display of feelings and without complaint.

4. Develop Self-Awareness:

Overcome destructive emotions.

Recognize that all emotions come from within.

Life after failure: With no failure there is no growth.

Do not place blame outside yourself.

Remember how small you are.

I honestly don’t know how to develop this on purpose. It’s the epitome of accident.

We are horrible judges of ourselves.

We are our best advocates, our worst critics, we go on the defensive when criticized by others, we fail to see our own weaknesses. Basically, we are a mess.

How many of us know exactly what we need to change, and just don’t do it? We know the next step, the best course of action, the thing we are supposed to do, the thing we are not supposed to do, but we just don’t. We make excuses, we distance ourselves from the situations, from it’s reality, and we don’t change.

A huge benefit to messing up is the (lethal) dose of reality.

It’s like chemotherapy in the 1960s. Reality can kill you. Even if it doesn’t it will bring you close enough to feel like it. If you are lucky enough that it doesn’t, you are good as new, maybe even better.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?

The idea that you can be better than ever is what keeps you pushing through. I remember sitting in my cell, hell, sitting at home, before I ever got to San Quentin, and knowing, this will never happen again. I will never be that person again. Not just a cheating piece of shit, but any of the negative things. I was going to be a machine.

It was like a self-awareness atom bomb. I audited my whole life. Where could I be better? What should I stop doing? What should I do more of? How can I get better? Audit, audit, audit.

I became consumed with self-awareness. Granted, in the darker days, it was not great. I was so self-aware of my past that I was not functioning well in the present. But I got passed it, and focused on the present and future.

That drive, that hatred of my former self is inevitably going to make me better than I was before.

Failure is not an option, learning is growing, complaining will get you nothing, believe in yourself, blah blah blah. It flipped a switch. I had to consistently check myself, audit my thoughts, behavior, my whole day from the time I got up to the time I went to bed, Monday through Sunday, 365. There was 5% better somewhere, 3% somewhere, I just needed to find it.

I honestly don’t know how I would have been able to have this focus and insight without the failure.

Everything became so obvious. The heat from the blast melted down everything to it’s core, it’s truth. Everything was looking me in the eye. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

It allowed me to realize that I am the center of all of my issues. There is no one to blame but me. No one can make me angry, no one can make me happy. I choose to do good or bad. I choose to work better and smarter, or I don’t. I am the master of my emotions, my thinking, my body, and my decisions. That means doing things that help with physical as well as mental health: meditation, sleep, healthy eating, fitness, reading, etc. Practicing positive self-talk. Constantly refining and adjusting to be more effective, more efficient, striving to get better and better.

Because I was able to see my weaknesses, I could reinforce the areas that needed it.

Another thing I realized through introspection is that we are small.

No one wants to think things will function without them. Work, family, friends, anything. But the truth is things will function without you. Why? Because they have to.

Everyone talks about the greatest generation, the pain tolerance of women, all these things that one group can do that the other can’t. It’s all bullshit. No one really knows what they are capable of until they have to do it. If men gave birth, men would give birth and women would have the lower pain tolerance. That’s not the way it is, but there is not much of an option either.

Some of the best stories in history, war stories, come from men and women that were put in situations we couldn’t even imagine, and they survived to tell their story. Were they heroic? Of course. Were they superhuman? Spawned from a tougher generation? No. They were put in a situation where they either lived or died. They lived. I am sure if they had a choice, they never would have been there in the first place. But once you’re there, you either fight or lie down. That could be you. It could be me.

We don’t know. We have never been tested like that.

We can all be just as good and just as bad as the next person. There are moments where we are great.

There are moments where we are weak.

It is a blessing to be humbled. To feel weak. To be a loser. To be a piece of shit. It allows you to evaluate yourself honestly, the hardest thing for humans to do.

Self-awareness requires effort and honesty.

Unless you put yourself in a situation where you find it accidentally.

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

The Adapt Or Die Economy

Jobs, jobs, jobs.

Such a huge part of every election is jobs.

We need more jobs!!

“They took rrrr jobs!” — South Park

We need a leader that will help create jobs!!

Aaahhhh, silly dreamers.

Taxes and Tariffs? Do you really think that is going to bring jobs back?

They are gone because they are no longer necessary.

You may no longer be necessary.

It’s sad, but painfully true.

There are two options: cry, or learn/do something new.

The reality is your jobs are gone because they are obsolete. It’s either that or money. No matter what the taxes are, it will always be cheaper to have workers in South America or Asia, always.

You think a company is going to keep it real? Keep it American?

Please.

It’s all about input and output. How much does it cost to make our crap, and how much can we sell are crap for? Period.

The only jobs you can count on are the jobs that they can’t do anywhere else. The jobs that need to be here. The jobs of today. You know it is a “yesterday” job when it isn't’ here anymore. That’s hint #1.

Blue collar work? Tech from yesterday? Come on. Just because you had a job doesn’t mean that job should always be available. Be reasonable here. What did you tell your kid when they wanted to stay out later on a Friday night? Not an option. Same thing here, except the economy is your daddy.

Pretty sure cart making diminished after Henry Ford’s assembly line.

“They took rrr jobs!!”

I bet a lot of CD player companies hated the iPod.

“They took rrrrr jobs!”

Waaaaah!

Can you imagine if cart companies and CD player companies demanded that the government created more jobs in their sector? It sounds ridiculous, but it is exactly what’s going on here.

The Land Of Opportunity

What happened to us?

This is the land of immigrants.

The land of opportunity.

The land of inventions.

The land of hitting a dead end and finding a new route.

Thomas Edison, George Washington Carver, Rockefeller, Steve Jobs, Gary Vaynerchuk, Ben

Franklin.

That’s us. Those are our people. Always keep moving, keep learning, and keep pushing.

Now we are the land of excuses.

The land of entitlement.

The land of waiting for someone to help us.

A reality check:

There are jobs that just aren’t options any more. Companies either don’t need them, or they need less

of you to do it.

There is nothing wrong with that.

It is the way it has been since the beginning of time.

Mike The Caveman lost his job when Jenny The Cavewoman learned how to make fire easier. Jenny lost her job to Marco, the caveman that never let the fire go out. Innovation. Adaptation. It’s a wonderful thing.

As long as you are in the right mindset.

What mindset is that?

The Lifelong Learner

The world can only pass you by if you let it.

Can you imagine someone in a race just stopping? Then getting mad when they start losing?

That’s us right now.

It may not be you specifically.

Or for people with horrible grammar, pacifically, but there are a TON of people out there that are just chilling in the middle of the track, getting mad because they are losing.

Suckers.

You need to open your eyes and stop trying to hang on to what is comfortable. Is it easier to just stand there? Hell yes. But you are going to lose. It just happens.

Learn how to take your skills are reapply them. If you like renovation shows, you can re-purpose your skills. It’s a big job. It’s scary. But what are your options? Exactly. None.

Trumps is not going to save jobs.

Hillary is not going to save jobs.

There is only one person that can do that, you.

How?

The same way Americans have always done it.

Learning something new.

Developing skills.

Out thinking your competitors.

Busting you’re a**.

Move/relocate/migrate.

Remember, the goal is survival. Put your family in the best position to win. If that means moving, move. It is means going back to school, go back to school. Get your edumacation on.

This is the land of opportunity.

It’s manifest destiny.

Things are out there, and they are just waiting for you to go get them.

So go.

Stop being a p***y and get out there.

Now.

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Lyrics & Your Brain

The psychological implication of words is enormous.

Words we hear in the morning can subconsciously guide our behavior throughout the rest of the day.

Happy song = good mood.

Sad song = bad mood.

Songs about anger, cheating, drinking, or drugs can take us somewhere we weren’t aware of, and probably don’t want to go.

Science & Stuff

Did you know that if you just looked at a list of negative words, it can dramatically affect your blood pressure and mood? It can increase anxiety, deepen depression, and release stress hormones in to not only your brain, but to the person speaking the words as well?

50% of you are saying, “oh wow.”

The other 50% are saying, “bulls***!”

Your brain can’t “not” think of something. When you are discussing things like: poverty, sadness, death, illness, they all cause our brains to react in a negative way. Just think about when you see a sad movie. Nothing happened to you, but you don’t feel great afterwards do you? No one walked out of Schindler’s List skipping and smiling (I hope).

Why does that happen? Because what we ingest with our eyes, and ears, the things we let come out of our mouths, have a huge impact on us.

If you are about to take a test, or have a big interview, you will do worse if you tell yourself to not fail, don’t screw it up, don’t be an idiot. Why? Because how does your brain interpret not failing? Not screwing up? Not being an idiot? It doesn’t! It locks in on: failing, screwing up, and idiocy. Guess what? You just f***ed up that meeting or test!

Now that we have some background, let’s get to the point.

Music

It’s important to know what you are taking in. From food to music. Good in, good out.

I absolutely believe we can change the outcomes of our days by what we take in. I am going to focus on music because it is such a huge part of our lives.

Can what we listen to truly affect us?

If so, what are we listening to? What is our music setting us up for?

Let’s find out.

I am going to look up the top 5 songs on iTunes for today (9/19/16) and I am going to pull out the “power” words from the lyrics. Let’s see how they will be guiding our brains after listening to them.

Disclaimer: This is no reflection on the lyrics themselves. Most of these have beautiful words and wording. This is just about thoughts and reactions.

5. I Hate You, I Love You by gnash. This song is about cheating. When you listen to it, you are going to be put in to a cycle of thoughts about people you shouldn’t have messed around with and did, people you shouldn’t be messing around with and are, or people you haven’t messed around with but want to. How do you think that’s is going to go for you? Starting the day thinking about cheating? Or, thinking about being cheated on? All the pain that comes from that. Hell, that can get you worked up whether or not you have ever been cheated on. There is nothing beautiful about cheating. It’s ugly. Done in the dark, on the low, out of the light, ugliness.

You take what you hear, and what you see, and your body and mind react. Is this what you want to react to? Cheating? Destroying trust? Breaking hearts? Turmoil? Pain?

4. Gold by Kiiara. Full disclaimer, I had to look these lyrics up. I had no idea what the hell she was saying. And even “fuller” disclaimer, I read the lyrics and I still don’t really know what the hell she is talking about. Anyhoo, I have the general idea, I think. She is going out with an a**hole. What does that do for you? Makes you think about all the a**holes you went out with. It might get you angry all over again. You might look at your current relationship and think they are an a**hole! Maybe they would tell you if the “roof was burning,” but maybe they didn’t tell you something else. Now you are mad. Gold teeth? Tasting like money? I don’t know, but it sounds tacky and ugly, so now you are thinking about tacky ugly stuff. Let’s not skip the fact that she humped the dudes’ brother. He was a “good replacement for you.” Now you are listening to a cheater, in a bad relationship, and she can’t let him go. Have a good day!!

We have only done two songs, and both are talking about being in s*** relationships and sticking with them. Empowering? Uplifting? Me thinks no.

3. My Way, by Calvin Harris. “You were the one thing in my way.” This sounds empowering. He uses the word “were,” as in, not any more. But, he says that he made his move, it was all about the other person, and now he is far removed from everything. That’s no bueno. We are now 3 for 3 on love being stupid. Loving the wrong person, love not working out, etc. Is there any wonder why the divorce rate is so high? The first 3 songs are about s*** relationships. 2 of them involving cheating. Yikes!!

These are all seeds being planted in our brains. Whether you know it or not, these are affecting your relationships. They are digging up old, painful memories. Honestly, there are no good memories or imagery that can come from any of these songs. Calvin’s is close, but he is basically saying following his heart F’ed him over.

What are we doing to ourselves?

2. Heathens, by twenty one pilots. I just imagine someone listening to this on the subway, on the way to work in the morning. “You’ll never know the freakshow/psycholpath/murderer next to you.” What a great way to say good morning!! Paranoia! Being wary of groups that you don’t belong to. With all the attacks by groups around the world, this isn’t exactly reassuring. This song creates feelings of tension, anxiety and fear. I am sure it would be great with your buddies on Friday, but this is a F everyone else kind of song when you are by yourself. Everyone is the enemy. Everyone is suspicious. I am dangerous. I am not to be f’ed with. And all of this, with your morning coffee. Sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays.

Closer, by The Chainsmokers. You don’t need the girl. She spends more than she makes, which means she is superficial and focused on her image. She is a thief, she is an ex, but they still bang. Again, bad relationship. People being used. People taking themselves too lightly, lacking values. People living with a general disrespect of themselves, and you are taking it all in. Their words, their thoughts, become your thoughts, potentially your words, and your actions.

Each time your hear something bad, you become more and more immune to it. It can be drinking, cheating, drugs, anything. You hear it and become desensitized to it. If you are desensitized hearing it, you are desensitized seeing it, then thinking it, then sooner or later you are doing it. You are what you consume, who you are around, the things you take in through your eyes and ears. Think about that. It’s time to listen with more of a purpose.

What Does This All Mean?

I don’t think that any of you reading this are like any of the people in these songs. That being said, these songs inject the thought process of these people, who are not like you, in to your head. That’s where I see the issue arising.

The scariest part is it’s cyclical.

If you are sad and you listen to Counting Crows (circa 1994), there is no way you will feel better. Again, amazing lyrics, beautiful songs, but you are not coming out of that funk with Mr. Duritz and company. Hell, even if you aren’t sad, CC is bringing you down. You feed your brain what it eventually produces. It hears and sees sad, it produces sad. Make sense?

Example:

I am white as f***. But when I was riding around in 1998 listening to DMX, you would have thought I was a damn Ruff Rider. Saying crazy s***. Doing crazy s***. I was an idiot. Talking tougher than I was. Repping my “hood” like I wasn’t from the damn suburbs in Silicon Valley. It was ridiculous looking back on it. Just to be clear, I was not one of those white boys that dropped the N word because I listened to DMX, Busta Rhymes or Andre Nickatina. Always hated those idiots that did that. But I was still an idiot. The words came in, they looked around, made themselves and home, and settled down.

Music Has So Much Power

What we take in through our eyes and ears has so much influence over us.

It’s a vicious cycle if we allow it.

We take it in, we think about it, and before we know it, it is coming out of our mouths, it is seeping through our actions. We are it and it is us.

Think about your music. Rap, country, pop, whatever. What are they talking about? What are they putting in your brain? What are you allowing to put in your brain? Drugs? Drug dealing? Drinking? Cheating? Good relationships? Bad relationships? Violence? Fear?

You are what you eat.

You are what you watch.

You are what you listen to.

It’s time to do all of those things with purpose. So we can become who we want.

Saturday, September 17, 2016

30 Days Of Genius Blog: Kelly Starrett

There has never been a time when humans were more focused on their bodies. Muscles, tissues, the brain, recovery, etc. We are breaking it down and focusing on it like never before. Just like everything else, understanding the basics is the foundation to a healthy body. Small knowledge leads to large knowledge the same way small problems lead to big problems. Understand the micro of your body, to get it producing at the macro.

Please enjoy.

What Does My Body Have To Do With “Big C” Creativity?

One word: EVERYTHING

It’s all connected.

Your body tells your brain what to think.

Smile, you will feel happier.

Slouch in your seat all day at work. When do you slouch normally? When you are sad, or depressed, or feeling vulnerable. When you sit like that all day at work, you are telling your brain you are sad, which means your brain starts thinking sad. You breathe differently, and your body works differently.

Sad people store fat more, and are unhealthier. And that all can start with your posture! Think about that!

It’s all reciprocal. Your body and mind are a team. They talk to each other.

Standing tells your brain that you need to focus, pay attention, because things going on are important.

How do you work all day? Are you sitting or standing?

Do you have a tough time getting through the day? Might want to try standing.

Is Sitting Really That Bad?

I’ll put it this way, it’s more dangerous than bears.

That sounds funny, but it’s true, at least by the numbers.

People lose sight of the fact that we are physical machines. Our bodies are a work of art. We just finished the Olympics in Rio. All of those movements, from swimming to gymnastics, long distance running to weightlifting, all of those are using our full range of motion. Basically speaking, our bodies are supposed to do those things! Think about that as you knees creak getting up from the couch, and you can’t get your arms above your head to get the cookies off the top shelf. (by the way, pain is not normal. Don’t trick yourself in to thinking it is your age. It is because you are not treating your body right).

This all comes from a sedentary lifestyle. We need to move more. In fact, when we are not moving, we are not being who we are supposed to be.

Sitting is the new smoking.

We need to intentionally move more, and intentionally take care of this “machine” that we have.

From sleep to stress, posture to tissue work, we need to take care of ourselves. Our bodies are an amazing gift that gives back to us the better we take care of it.

How Do I Take Better Care Of My Body?

Move more. What else can you do? Take the stairs? Walk to the store? When can you work in more movement?

Here is a fun little fact, non-exercise movement actually burns more calories than exercise. Those little step counting gadgets don’t seem so lame now do they?

Find 10 things you can do to be more active each day than you are right now.

You will feel better and be healthier the more you move. Your lymphatic system, a major defense in your immune system, needs the muscles to move in order to pump blood through them. They are not a part of the cardiovascular system. Ever notice that your more active friends don’t get as sick as much? That’s why!

Make your environment work for you. Don’t make it easy. Throw away the chair at your desk. If there is not chair, you have to stand!

A lot of this is more about undoing a lot of bad habits than gaining good ones. You conditioned yourself to be sedentary, you need to undo that.

Eat healthy.

Sleep well. I don’t mean take Ambien, Benadryl, alcohol, or smoking weed to go to bed. I mean real, naturally good sleep. Cold room, blackout curtains, no phones in the room, only clocks with red lights, limiting caffeine after noon, using eye masks and earplugs. That kind of sleep.

Notice where you are stressed and fix it. Stress is like carrying around a 50lb backpack. You may be able to handle it, but it is still weighing you down.

The Benefits To Health

You can focus more, pay better attention, your productivity will go up, you will feel better which means you will feel better, you will perform better, and best of all, it’s free.

Just remember that little problems lead to big problems. Feet, ankles, knees, hips, and back are all connected. Issues in any of those areas can lead to issues in all of those areas.

Use foam rollers, volleyballs, or anything else you can find. Move it around your body. Roll around on it. Wherever it hurts, that’s where you need work. Pain to compression is not normal. Give yourself little massages every day, loosen your body up feel better.

Quotes

“If we don’t move, we aren’t being who were are supposed to be.”

“Practice should become the standard.”

“Intentionally move more.”

Kelly Starrett Links

Website

Books

YouTube page

Chase Jarvis Links

Joey Links

Friday, September 16, 2016

We Are Scared. The Media Told Us So.

Did you hear the good news?

Probably not.

You never hear that.

I mean, unless you are around a Jehovah’s Witness.

But that’s old news, really. Depending on your religious affiliations, it’s not news at all.

We are usually talking about something bad we heard on the news.

Hurricanes

Flooding

Bombings

Killings

Cover-ups

Presidential nominees and how they will be horrible

Russia

North Korea

Etc.

Are we walking the dog or is the dog walking us?

I am inclined to say that the media is driving the car here, but what if they are just giving us what we want?

Do We Want To Be Scared?

It seems ridiculous, why in the world would anyone want to be scared?

Yet we seem to be driven by it.

Or are we driven to it?

There is a quote in the new, amazing, book, Presuasion, but Robert Cialdini: “The press may not be successful most of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling them what to think about.” I agree and disagree with that. I think it does tell us what to think about, especially since we are going to them for information. But, whatever they say becomes our scope, both for what is important and (depending on their spin) how to feel about it.

Example: If I turn on “World News Tonight” with David Muir, and he says, “Earthquake caused by fracking in Texas levels homes,” I am thinking, “holy s***, those poor people, and fracking is horrible.” So the next day, when they show two shacks that collapsed, and tell you that the earthquake was a 3.2, I still have that feeling of “holy s***” because of my initial reaction. Unless the “new” news delivers that same pop of excitement and emotion, the original feelings are going to be locked in.

Have you ever noticed that people who watch different news sources are worried about different things?

If you watch FOX News you are worried about immigration and all the illegals running rampant, raping and killing people, or Hillary’s dire health and her emails.

If you watch CNN or MSNBC you are worried about Trump’s, well, everything, Russia, and positive spins on Wikileaks, etc.

We all live in the same country, with the same “news,” but we get completely different stories, or the same stories with completely different results.

No wonder we are so divided right now. Mr. Fox News is worried about one thing while Mr. CNN is worried about other stuff, each one looking at the other wondering why they are worried about “that.”

The man walks the dog.

The dog walks the man.

So who is leading who?

Science And Stuff

1. Anything that draws focused attention leads observers to overestimate it’s importance.

2. Violence, with its associated threat to safety, has always been able to draw human attention.

3. Above all else, animals are designed to react to threats of physical harm. Our chemistry changes, our focus is heightened, and our adrenaline spikes to make sure we are able to decide and react quickly in order to survive.

4. When we feel a threat, everything else comes second.

That’s the news in a nutshell.

They are taking advantage of our “lizard brain.” That, by the way, is the “and stuff” part of this section, not the science. Just want to make that clear.

But it is who we are. We have had thousands of years of evolution, and developments that have allowed us to get to this place at this time. Media manipulation is relatively new. When we feel a threat, is it real or is it portrayed as real? We can’t always tell. We hear something fearful and our biology takes over. Thousands of years of survival is making us more aware, more on edge, and left focusing on something that may or may not be true, even when it is presented as such.

Are We Scared? Or Does The Media Make Us Scared?

They take our psychology, our biology, and use it against us. While we turn on the TV, or check the news feed, we are allowing them to treat us like puppets.

What would happen if you paid zero attention to the news for a week?

Absolutely nothing.

Zika, killer bees, earthquakes, ISIS, illegal immigrants, all those things that are causing us to s*** our pants every day would still be there. The difference? We would realize that it is not something that we need to worry about. They force us to worry about them, and we let them.

If we didn’t focus on the hyped issues, we could then turn our attention to the things that actually do affect us, our home, our neighborhood, or our community. The things that actually matter, instead of the things they tell us matter.

I am not saying that it is not important to know certain things that are going on in the world, but we focus on things we have no control over while the things we do have control over sit idly by with no attention.

Stop letting the news dictate your fears. Stop being a puppet.

You are messing up your pants for nothing.

Turn it off and live a real life, your life.