Be A F***ing Weirdo

“Tetris taught me that trying to fit in will make you disappear.” — A Smart Person

I am weird.

That is not something I have ever admitted to anyone.

I don’t fit in.

I never have.

But I tried.

I’m glad I wasn’t able to.

Now I don’t have to worry about disappearing. I can embrace what makes me unique, be comfortable in my own skin, and just be a happy fucking weirdo.

Finally!

The Roller Coaster Ride

Man, I have been all over the place.

I’ve been loud, quiet, funny, a drunk, a rock star, an introvert, and extrovert, a loser, and a party animal.

I tried all the hats on, have done everything, and in the end, I just needed to be me.

Who Is Me?

A nerd. A boring, homebody. A dad that works every day of the week, who loves his job, and loves spending time with his family. Everything is scheduled. Everything has a place. Everything has a purpose. It is family TV night on Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday. I get up at 5am every day of the week. I have the same routine every single morning: water, meditate, journal, coffee, read, poop, run. 

Then I work. I write, film, create, build, win, lose, learn, and repeat. All day. Every day.

I am boring.

In fact, I am the most boring person I know, and I am totally cool with it.

I don’t like going out. I am usually falling asleep on the couch at 830pm.

I have friends that I would do absolutely anything for, that I talk to once a month, if that, and see a couple times a year. Why? Because I don’t like hanging out. It feels unproductive to me. I get restless. I need action. I need productivity.

Instead of fighting it because it is something I am “supposed” to do, I just don’t.

Fuck it. I will just be me thank you very much.

I have two drinks a night, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and that’s it. Usually Guinness, or the discontinued Firestone Wookey Jack (R.I.P.) or a nice Cab (Ste. Michelle — WA).

That’s it.

See? I told you I was boring.

Be You. Be Happy.

Who are you?

Do you even know?

Not who you think you should be. Not who you think others think you should be.

You.

What do you hide?

What do you like that others don’t?

What makes you different?

Just for the record, I don’t really want to know if it’s some weird ass shit. This isn’t a sexual thing we are talking about. I mean, like, “A Bad Case of The Stripes” kind of weird. You know, lima beans. 

Don’t go overboard my friend.

There are so many things that are not “The Norm.” Everyone should be x,y,z. The heroes have as much of a checklist as the antiheroes. If you a cool, there is a checklist. If you are a geek, there is a checklist. What if you are cool in some areas and a nerd in others? We’ve all seen Rudolf, right? 

What if you are trapped in an elf’s outfit and you are really a dentist?

You have to be you.

Your happiness depends on it.

Brian Koppelman has a beautiful theory that when you suppress who you really are it turns in to a cancer. If you ignore who you are you (subconsciously or not) get mad at yourself and it starts manifesting itself in horrible ways. Anger, sadness, acting out, doing crazy things, all pulling yourself even further away from yourself.

What are you suppressing?

And why?

Are you giving people too much power? Or are you not giving yourself enough?

Find some heroes. Find people that are different and embraced it.

I wrote the blog for a Chase Jarvis series called 30 Days Of Genius. If you are looking to chart your own path, there are some amazing people he interviewed that would be a perfect starting point. Or just look people up. People like: Caterina Fake, Austin Kleon, Neil Strauss, James Altucher, Stephan Sagmeister, Ramit Sethi, and Brian Solis.

There are people out there that did it their own way, on their own path.

Connect with these people. If you take someone else’s path, you are only walking away from yourself.

There are weirdos out there, just like you, just like me. They embrace what makes them different. 

They understand that fitting in is blending in is disappearing.

Do you want to disappear?

Be someone else?

Or would you rather be a beautiful, wonderful, happy, fucking weirdo?

Joey

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The Hardest Thing To Teach

Part of the reason why I write is to force myself to lay out my philosophies on life for my daughter. 

Not to be morbid, but we are all going to die one day. When that is, no one knows. The more I write, the more she will have for later, (if we don’t get the chance to do it while I am still here).

That’s it.

That’s my big secret.

This is all so she has everything in writing. All the advice I want to give her, but might never get the chance.

One Thing

There are certain things I want to teach her, qualities I want her to have. Things I know will allow her to be an awesome adult. Kill it at work, be a great mother, a wonderful wife, and a good human being. Things like: grit, hard work, humility, compassion, insight, reflection, etc. Like any parent, I want my daughter to be amazing.

The thing I want her to learn the most, the one that will allow her to open up all of those other qualities is, I think, the hardest one to accomplish: Not caring what other people think. I mean ZERO regard for what other people think.

Why is this so hard?

Because it is a precarious balance between self-awareness, humility and ego.

She has to be able to not care what people think because she is so self-aware, so observant, so well-thought-out, so intentional, and so sure of herself, that she know exactly what she is doing and why she is doing it, even if it doesn’t necessarily make sense to other people.

Not worry about others’ perception at all.

But it has to come from a place of power not weakness.

Three Types Of Not Caring

1. The Egomaniac

2. The Pre-Emptive Defensive

3. The Rock

The first two are extreme examples. I think most of us fall in to a combination of the two, which usually manifests itself as ego. We shoot ourselves in the foot by acting either too big or too small in a given situation. We are either blindly over-confident or feeble in our abilities, and that eventually bites us in the a**. We either don’t try at all, don’t take the chance when we have the opportunity, don’t speak up when we should, or get in to something we have no business being in and getting b**** slapped. Not literally of course. Well, maybe literally in some cases.

The Egomaniac: You all know people like this. They think they are always right (in a bad way), they can’t handle hearing no, they remove people from their lives that disagree with them, they are narcissistic, probably run through friends regularly, always mad at someone, generally not fun to be around. It’s all about them, all the time.

Being an egomaniac is not synonymous with failing, but how you win is just as important as winning. If you win because you are a prick, and don’t listen to anyone else, you may be successful, but I guarantee you will not be as successful as you could be. These people, generally not self-reflective, not great listeners, which means they are not good collaborators, have a ceiling. They can only go so high because of their ego.

The Pre-Emptive Defensive: The best way I can describe this is the gothic punk rocker in the movie Big Daddy. He walks around in all black, sticking out like a sore thumb, confidence in his stride like he gets it and no one else does, but as soon as Sandler’s character calls him on it, “you’re mad at your father, you’re not mad at me,” his whole façade crumbles in to a pile of tears.

There are people that are confident and really don’t care what you think, and there people that try to push you away at the beginning because they care about what you think so much, they don’t want to have an honest evaluation. This comes in the form of how you dress, like a “gutter” punk for instance, or how you act. The person that always says something inappropriate and then acts like they are too abrasive for the room is doing the same thing as the person with the Mohawk and studded jacket. Push you away so you can’t evaluate them honestly. They don’t want to take the risk of putting themselves out there and being rejected.

Again, a little more difficult to tell that the egomaniac, but if you keep an eye on them you will understand if it comes from confidence or insecurity. One thing that I look at with punk rockers, if you really are an individual and don’t care what people think, why are you dressing exactly like all the other “anti” establishment punk rockers? I want my punks to look like Bad Religion and NOFX. They could be filling your gas tank, building a computer, or teaching at UC Berkeley. You can’t tell because they aren’t wearing a uniform. Or, they have confidence.

The Rock: This is where we all should aspire to be. This is where I want my daughter. This is all about knowing you strengths and weaknesses. You work from your strengths and bring in people to offset your weaknesses. You know exactly who you are. You have a strong moral character, you understand the work involved in success and are willing to do it, you pick a profession that actually fits you not one that sounds good or looks good, and you put yourself in a place of learning and openness to receive the goodness that is coming your way.

Bottom line is you know who you are. This allows you to connect with things that fit you and to pass on things that don’t. You aren’t swayed by the wind or pushed by the ocean because you are a rock. 

You are not going anywhere.

You can listen, evaluate, push away, say no, adjust, learn, respect, and grind. That is a winning combination in any arena.

The Start

It all starts with confidence.

True confidence.

One that is earned through self-reflection, evaluation, discipline, hard work, love, and respect.

One that is earned by taking people and yourself head on, asking the difficult questions, making the difficult sacrifices, and coming out better in the end.

Wouldn’t we all be better because of this?

Shouldn’t we want this for ourselves?

Shouldn’t we want this for our kids?

Then let’s learn it for us so we can give it to them.

It may be the greatest gift you can ever give them: confidence.

Joey

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Be Your Own Victory Story

Hello?

Are you there?

Of course you are.

You Are Still Here

Have you ever had a bad day?

Ever been devastated?

Think back on the three worst days of your life. I am sure there were points during that day when you saw absolutely no way out. As much as you tried to see the positive, tried to gather some meaning from whatever you were going through, you just couldn’t see it. You were in a dark place. Pitch black. No way out.

But you are still here.

As much as it felt like it would never come, you made it to the next day. You felt like you were going to die, but you opened your eyes, and it was a new day. The sun was up. The stars were gone. And you were still here.

You Are The Victory

We like to look to others for motivation.

“If they can do it, I can do it!”

What we need to realize is our own stories should be all the motivation we need. All the positive we need when we are trying to pull ourselves out of the darkness.

Why?

Because you have already done it. In fact, you have done it over and over, yet you still doubt your strength and resilience when the next issue arises.

You ARE the victory. You ARE the story you should be telling yourself. The one that picks you up when you are down.

Why?

Because you CAN do it.

How do I know?

Because you ALWAYS do it.

As long as you keep pushing, keep fighting, and keep grinding, the darkness will break way to light. It always does. As long as you keep digging, you will get there. The same way you did it last time, the time before that, and most importantly, the next time.

Remember

The next time you feel down. The next time you are having a bad day and can’t see the silver lining, remember who you are. Remember what you have been through. How you have persevered. How you have gone from darkness to light when there was no hope. No one else did that for you, you did that yourself. It was your will, your heart, and your strength that pulled you out. You don’t need the motivations of anyone else, you have it all within yourself.

I would tell you to be the victory, but you already are. You just need to recognize it.

Take a look.

It’s a beautiful thing.

Joey

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