The fastest way to succeed at something difficult is to find someone who’s already done it and get them to share all their secrets. For almost every challenge on my quest for 1%, there’s at least one person behind the scenes that I’m tapping for their wisdom. Sometimes it’s a friend, sometimes it’s a mentor, and sometimes it’s even you, my readers.

When I read in my local paper that someone in my neck of the woods had just completed one of my biggest goals, a trek up all of the Seven Summits, I had to get a hold of him.

Enter Steve Giesecke.

Earlier this year Steve reached the peak of Mt. Vinson in Antarctica, completing a 20-year journey that fewer than 300 people have ever finished. That’s a long time to chase a goal, but when you find one that brings you alive, following it for a lifetime can actually be a godsend.

I had no idea who Steve was at the time, but I was inspired and had to get to know him, so I sent him a message via Facebook and asked for an interview. He mentioned he was starting to get worn out with interviews—you get a lot of attention (sometimes unwanted) when you do something incredible—but he liked Advanced Riskology, so I got a free pass. Lucky me. And lucky you!

I’m really happy today to be able to present to you my 25-minute telephone interview with Steve about what it takes to achieve an overwhelming challenge. Our conversation centers around mountaineering—that’s where our common interest lies—but listen carefully, because the lessons Steve shares are universal to any big goal you might have.

Listen now:

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

Important Highlights:

• [1:05] Steve talks about his 20-year-long challenge.
• [3:10] The profound difference one moment in time can have on your entire life.
• [6:40] How do you prepare for something so big?
• [8:30] A conversation about how to catapult from a small challenge into a big one.
• [11:40] “If you stop to rest, you won’t make it.”
• [12:10] When should you turn around and call it quits?
• [14:00] How Steve recovered from a serious stomach illness on Everest without turning around.
• [16:20] At what cost?: Everything Steve sacrificed to meet his goal. Was it worth it?
• [19:30] Which of the seven mountains was the hardest?
• [22:30] What mountaineering has taught Steve about life in general.

We’re all climbing our own mountains in one way or another. How long are you willing to work to get to the top of yours? Let me know in the comments.

~~~~~

What if you just quit today? What if, all of a sudden, you made the snap decision to quit doing everything you don’t care about and started doing only what’s truly important to you?

What would life be like if you finally pulled the trigger? I think that’s a question worth asking yourself.

Of course, it wouldn’t really be a snap decision at all, right? You’ve been thinking about doing it for months. Maybe even years. What’s stopped you?

Was it some sort of responsibility?

Who do you really owe it to? Your family? I don’t have a family to take care of and I won’t pretend I know what it’s like to have one, but if you’re sticking it out in a job you hate or doing something else that makes you grit your teeth to keep up the status quo for the family’s sake, I just want you to ask yourself one simple question:

What example am I really setting? I don’t necessarily think there’s a right answer, but I think it’s worth asking.

Was it a lack of imagination?

Maybe you don’t know what you’d do with all the extra free time? Is that worth worrying about? Sometimes, you just have to jump before the net appears. If you’re lost on the road, it’s pretty hard to find your way from where you are. Usually, you have to make a turn off of the map before you’ll ever see which direction you’re actually supposed to head.

We all get 24 hours each day, and somehow we manage to fill them up no matter what happens. What direction would you head if you had some time to explore new time-fillers?

Was it a fear of the repercussions?

What will your friends think of you if you just quit? What will your boss think? What will your family think? Do you really care what any of them say? Internalize that question—the real answer below the surface might not be what you think it is.

The people you care about and who care about you might be shocked, but they’ll get over it, won’t they? If they won’t, are they worth caring about? That’s the hardest question.

The Art of Making Things Better

Why didn’t you just quit a long time ago? You really wanted to, didn’t you? I know, now you’re comfortable and things seem to be working out. If you stick it out just a little bit longer, something might come along to make things better.

• Maybe you’ll get a raise and then you’ll be happy.
• Maybe all that work you’re doing will finally pay off, even though you hate it.
• Maybe if you hide your feelings long enough, they’ll just go away.

That’s the conversation I had with myself for six years before things finally snapped. To be perfectly honest, I haven’t felt like the same person since. When I look at who I was just a few years ago and compare that person to the Tyler I know today, the two are almost unrecognizable.  Whenever I find myself complaining about something and wishing it were different, I try to remember that things get better when I actively make them better, not when I wait for them to get better on their own. That almost never happens.

• You’ll get the raise, but you won’t be any happier.
• The work will pay off, but you’ll still feel dead inside.
• People will stop asking if you’re okay, but it won’t be because you are.

The day I quit trying to motivate myself to do things I hated was the day I came back to life. I’m still alive, I’m not homeless (yet), and my family doesn’t ask if I’m doing okay anymore because they know I am.

Do I get it perfect every time? No, I still do dumb stuff that I wish I didn’t—that I wish I’d said no to—but I’m working on it, and things are trending towards “more awesome” all the time. That’s progress I can live with.

Fear is always worse than reality. I can conjure up a spectacular failure in my mind every time I try something new, but how many times do you think any of those catastrophes have ever come to light?

If you guessed zero, and I think you did, then you’re right. So, why do I continue to be scared and think about how terrible things could get every time I try something new? The answer is probably for the same reason it happens to most of us—living your own life really is scary and hard, but it’s worth it.

An Outside Perspective

Sometimes, an outside perspective—the view from someone who isn’t so wrapped up in your situation—is what you need to finally get over yourself. I need it on a regular basis, so that’s what I want to give you today—an outside perspective.

• If you quit your job, you’ll figure out how to make money again. The world demands it, so you will.
• If you quit that project today, you’ll start another one. Your ego demands it, so you will.
• If you walk out on that relationship that’s going nowhere, you’ll walk into a better one. Your soul demands it, so you will.

So, you know all that shit you hate doing? Stop it. Life is going to be okay, but not until you grant yourself permission to stop, because no one will grant it to you.

And once you stop, what will you start doing instead?

~~~~~

Image by: macwagen

No one else is quite like you. We all have a few things in common, but you’re different. You have some quirks that make people second guess you. You probably have some big ideas that people scratch their head at when you mention them.

When you get excited about something special to you, other people wonder what’s wrong.

Don’t worry, we get it. On any given day, my curiosity and never-ending questions get me out of just as many conversations as they get me into. When I tell people one of my dreams is to send a rocket to the moon, they’re either immediately uninterested (space is boring), or wonder why anyone would bother with something like that (obviously it would be a failure).

I’m a weirdo. On a good day, I’m proud of that. On a bad one, I’m a little ashamed. Regardless the date, though, the fact remains that I’m just different. We all are, and we get it.

I work from home and there are days when I don’t even go outside. Sometimes I get depressed and wonder if anyone really understands me or if they just smile and nod because they’re trying to be polite. I know you know the feeling.

Then, I show up at a café in Portland or Austin or San Francisco to find myself just one of dozens of weirdos—people just like me—who’ve come out to say hi and talk about weird stuff like riskology, mindfulness, digital influence, or purpose driven design.

All of a sudden, my quirks are interesting and people listen intently to my ideas and my dreams. And I listen to theirs with an equal fascination.

That’s when I realize I’m not alone.

That’s when I start to see there are others, just like me, who wonder everyday if they’re all by themselves and begin to realize they aren’t.

That’s why I made this video for you at the latest Riskologist Meetup in San Francisco. I’m really sorry if you weren’t able to make it, but I wanted you to know—just in case you’ve ever felt like no one really gets you and that you’re all alone in this world—you’re not.

We get it, and we’re glad you’re here. You’re not alone.

~~~~~

Image by: Slightlynorth

My fellow riskologists,

It’s time again to sit down and look at exactly what it takes to do what less than 1% of the world will ever do. In my quest for 1%, I do a lot of work behind the scenes, and this is where I highlight what’s happened the last month to inch closer and closer to achieving my biggest goals.

If you’re new here, you might want to get familiar with the 1% Club before continuing. This will make a lot more sense.

We started this new monthly debriefing format last month, and a lot of people told me they liked it. So, we’re going to keep it up. If you have big goals for yourself, this is a good place to learn more about what it takes to achieve them.

As always, thanks for being here. I appreciate the support of each and every one of you. You’re like my second family. Let’s dive right in.

Reaching Milestones in March

Just one month in and we’re already running into a “problem”— no 1% Club items were completed this month! Of course, that’s not really a problem, and I expected it all along.

Over the course of these updates, there are going to be lots of times when I don’t get to cross something off of the list. I have big goals and most of them take longer than a month to complete. This is normal and okay. The important thing to remember is that breaking a big goal into smaller pieces is essential to finishing an otherwise daunting task.

As they say, the way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.

Even though there were no glorious victories in March, I did make significant progress towards several of my biggest goals.

The Seven Summits Club

Logistically, things are in place for me to make my way up the first two of the seven summit; I just need to show up and do it. In order to make sure I’m ready for the challenge and, to some extent, the altitude, I’ve confirmed a few practice climbs in the coming months before I set out in June.

This month, I’ll be climbing Mt. Hood with a partner I met on the Cascade Climbers message board last year. Mt. Hood is actually smaller than Mt. Adams, which I summited last year, but it should be more technically challenging, and I’ll  get a chance to do some light roped travel, which will be good practice for Mt. Elbrus in Russia. That means, on certain parts of the route, we’ll tether ourselves together with a length of rope as a safety measure. I need more practice with ropes and knot tying, so I’m looking forward to that.

In May, I’ll execute a fairly simple climb of The South Sister in Central Oregon, just to keep my climbing muscles ready for the work they’ll do in June and July.

Note: If you’re headed toward a big goal, I think it’s important to remember that the most necessary steps are not always the biggest ones. Mt. Hood is a step down for me in terms of altitude, but it will be a chance to hone my technical skills.

Don’t just reach for the next big step; reach for the right one.

To date, I’ve completed 3 practice climbs and have reached 0 of the 7 summits.

The Seven Continents Club

Climbing two big peaks in a month’s time, in actuality, probably won’t be that taxing. I expect to recover from those fairly quickly (though I could be wrong). The big challenge on my upcoming trip will be completing the two marathons I have planned.

Training began, in earnest, this month, and at the time of this writing, my longest training run has been 15 miles. I’ll work my way up to 25 before I depart for Africa. I’m being very careful to train slowly and properly for these races, unlike the way I trained for my first one last year in Eugene, Oregon.

I’m confident that I could complete one—and probably even both of them—in my current state, but I enjoy the training and it’s good insurance against a catastrophe overseas, where a breakdown would be devastating and quite costly because it could produce a domino effect that would ruin the whole trip.

I believe in taking strong, calculated risks just as much as I believe in throwing caution to the wind. They’re different strategies for different applications. In this case, I’ll do what I can to ensure success to the best of my ability.

One critical factor I still need to sort out is the actual course for my marathon in Warsaw, Poland. There are no scheduled races when I’ll be in town, so I plan to set my own course—a marathon of one! Before that, though, I need to clarify where I’ll be staying; the course needs to be near my accomodations, so that’s where I’ll focus my energy next.

Note: Work backward from your goals until you have something you can do right now without waiting on anything else. That’s usually the best place to focus your energy.

That said, if you know where in Warsaw it’s possible to run, uninterrupted, for 26.2 miles, I’m open to suggestions.

To date, I’ve completed 1 of 7 marathons.

Free Mountaineering Gear

Last month, I mentioned that one way to get the gear I need to climb these big mountains is to solicit gear from manufacturers in exchange for a review of their equipment here on Advanced Riskology.

I finally started on that last week and currently have 6 requests out to different companies for the most expensive equipment I’ll need. I still have about 10 or 15 to send, but they take a little time to do well, so I’m working my way backwards from the priciest pieces to the less expensive.

I’m testing a few different tactics as I do this, and I’m pretty excited to see how it turns out. If it ends up being a positive experience, I’ll write a comprehensive article about how to do it. Either way, I’ll be updating here about the experience.

To date, I haven’t received any gear as a result of this experiment, but I have received one substantial discount code.

The Road Ahead

Steady focus is an important part of my philosophy, but so is looking ahead and working on new and exciting things. As many of you know by now, I suffer from an acute case of “shiny object syndrome.” I’m easily distracted by new ideas, so I’m careful about balancing my efforts between sustaining what’s already underway and also exploring new opportunities.

That said, I usually lean towards having too much going on than not enough. For me, chaos is more comfortable than stagnation. Here’s what I’m starting to focus on more as time permits:

Sell a Business for $1,000,000

I’m proud of what I’ve been able to create here at Advanced Riskology in less than a year, and I’m looking forward to ramping things up again in the next month or two as I start on my next revenue project—a course on creating a risk-free business (more details to come soon).

However, Advanced Riskology will never be a sellable business because it’s too closely attached to me. The site wouldn’t really work without me here to run it. I don’t consider this a problem because I knew it would be this way going in and I have no intention of ever selling this site, but it’s a problem many personal businesses unknowingly have until they realize they want out.

To create an business that can be sold for $1 million—the amount I’ve determined will create financial independence for me and my future family—will mean finding a repeatable and scalable business that can exist without me in the day to day operations.

It’s no simple task, but I’m beginning to put more and more brain power towards it, and learning from people who’ve done it has already proven helpful. I have a lot of ideas, none of which are directly related to Advanced Riskology or it’s mission, so the next task is to narrow down the best ideas and find a way to inject the AR spirit into it.

Finding synergy between projects is probably my only hope of maintaining sanity as I start to add more to my plate. This is a good idea for any maximalist.

Pilot a Ship

Honestly, I have very little to say about this. I don’t know yet how I’ll go about it, but this is on my radar right now because it feels like one of the easiest things to accomplish—no reason not to pick off some low-hanging fruit, right?

This is the classic snowball method. Pick something easy and pursue it. Before long, you find ways to parlay that into much bigger things.

Potential Changes to the 1% Club

I hadn’t planned on it when I wrote the list, but I always knew it was possible I may outgrow certain challenges or become less interested in others before I got to them. Things change; that’s life.

I feel that starting to happen now, and it’s possible that, in the coming months, I may change course by subtracting a few things from the list and adding a few others. I could simply stay the course for the sake of consistency, but consistency is foolish if the course isn’t right.

Consistency is important, but so is being adaptable to change. I haven’t decided yet if I’ll make any changes to the list, but I do feel them coming, and I refuse to maintain a foolish consistency simply to maintain a commitment.

Stay tuned on this as I’ll need a little bit of meditation to decide what the best course of action is. This may be a good topic to dive into in a future article because I get a lot of emails from people who aren’t sure if they should change course or not and making a decision can be difficult.

Around the Riskology Lab

Just to wrap things up, here’s a little update on the big site changes I announced last month:

Advanced Riskology Domain Switch

This is still happening and will likely take place in the next few weeks. If everything goes according to plan, you won’t even notice the switch. Actually working on this mini-project is not exciting at all, but I am excited about the difference it will make in strengthening the overall message of the site.

New Community Forum

This is also currently in the works and will launch shortly after the domain switch. I’m excited about this development and look forward to telling you more about it as we get closer to launch as it will be a big change.

I’m not saying much now, but here’s a hint: commenting will be going away entirely in favor of a much better forum discussion model. This is going to be really cool and much better than how commenting currently works.

Riskologist of the Month

This month’s featured riskologist is Elise Villareal. Elise is a long-time Advanced Riskology reader who’s up to some very cool things, like biking across the U.S.A. this summer to raise money for affordable housing through the great Bike & Build program.  Learn more about Elise on her Bike and Build profile and, if you’re up for it, help her raise some awareness for a great cause.

I’m constantly blown away by all the cool things AR readers are up to. If you want to nominate yourself or someone  you know to be featured in a future update, send me a message.

Yours in risk taking,

~~~~~

Images by: jercraigs, rocket ship, andre.vanrooyen

You think back to some of the bigger trials and challenges and realize how much easier things could have been if you’d known what you just now read.

That’s what I thought to myself last weekend as I worked my way through Jenny Blake’s new book, Life After College: The Complete Guide to Getting What You Want. Of course, this book didn’t exist ten years ago, so there’s nothing I could have done about that, but it exists now, and even though I think I’ve done an alright job of figuring things out on my own in the meantime, I’m pretty happy to have run across a resource like this.

Life After College is really more of a workbook than a novel or how-to guide. This isn’t the kind of book you read through in an afternoon, put down, and say, “That was nice.” It’s one where you get out the pen and start writing in the margins on every other page.

Of course, you can’t always avoid learning your lessons the hard way, and sometimes you don’t even want to. But, when a good opportunity comes along—and it costs less than $9—take it, I say.

You don’t need to be a college student or twenty-something to learn a valuable lesson from a book that was written for one just like you don’t need to be a monk to learn about meditation or a banker to learn about money. Getting what you want is an applicable endeavor at any age or position in life and the strategies for doing it are timeless.

Also, I’m not affiliated with Life After College, so I don’t get anything for recommending it. I just think it’s a book worth reading and, more importantly, putting to use regardless where you are in life.

Congratulations to Jenny, a long time e-friend (in internet years) for writing such a powerful book. I only hope that when I get around to writing one myself, I’ll create something half as good.

~~~~~

If you’d like a copy of Life After College for free, I have a fun idea. I’m giving away my own copy with all of the worksheets filled out so that you can get a glance at how I plan to get what I want from my life.

If you want a chance to win, just retweet this article and be sure to include @tylertervooren in your tweet so that I don’t miss it. I’ll pick a random winner by tomorrow evening and ship a copy anywhere in the world.

Something strange starts to happen once you make the decision to commit to something—an idea, a business, a challenge. Try as you might to make everyone like you, the opposite starts to come to manifest itself. Trolls, dreamzappers, and angry critics start to show up to derail your plans.

This usually happens after you start to get a little attention. In the beginning, you have to navigate the murky waters of finding your supporters amongst friends and family. Once you see a little success, though, even the friends that were hesitant to get behind you start to come around. Also, that’s when the haters show up.

They’re usually anonymous, never make it out of the red zone on the crankiness meter, and seem to have an endless amount of time to spend telling you how much they dislike you and what you’re doing.

It’s not all bad news, though; the phenomenon is a double edged sword. Yes, you have a whole new faction of devoted haters that need to be ignored, but they’re also a just a very small percentage of the people who are now paying attention to you. They swoop in after your success, making themselves the loudest of the bunch. Meanwhile, a silent majority of amazing, supportive people are standing in the background, ready to propel you even further forward if you ask them to help.

Indeed, having a small audience of haters is a good problem to have; it means you’re probably doing something interesting.

The opposite of love is not hate; it’s indifference. As a general rule, I’m much happier to have a team of detractors to ignore than a world of people ignoring me. That’s a trade I’m more than willing to make. If you are or ever plan to follow your dream, it’s good to get comfortable with this.

Just like clockwork, any time Advanced Riskology gets a little attention from a major media source or big social network like Stumbleupon, I get an inbox full of hate mail. I affectionately refer to this as “payday” because, despite having to sift through a lot of really hurtful emails, it also means at least ten times as many incredible people are busy going through my archive, getting to know me.

If there’s one good thing to keep in mind during these times, it’s that many of your biggest fans and greatest supporters are also quite silent. They don’t send emails often, and they don’t always leave comments on your site. They’re just happy every time you do something and include them in it.

Sometimes it’s fun to play along and watch these trolls’ anger expand, but it’s not very productive. Other times, it’s totally depressing and makes you want to curl up into a ball and hide in your bathroom with a tub ice cream. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a way to make that very productive either. In both cases, you short-change your true fans and feed the trolls even more fuel.

The best answer, then, is also the simplest: stay the course.

Keep creating like you always have and let the cards fall where they may. If you’re doing it right, the scales will eventually tip in your favor anyway.

The only way to get more people to fall in love with your work is to simultaneously get more people to hate it as well because it tests their assumptions about who they are and how they think.

Keeping that in mind, here are nine of my favorite strategies for creating my best work possible, getting more hate mail and, of course, attracting more like-minded people that will support me when I occasionally do succumb to the bathroom-fetal-position-ice-cream-tub coping mechanism.

1. Create specifically for a small group of people.

When you pinpoint who you’re talking to and speak directly to them, you become a million times more useful, helpful, and interesting to that group. They feel like you really understand them. You also piss off some people who don’t fit into that group. Instead of just moving on like everyone else, they leave comments and write emails letting you know just how upset they are that you left them out.

Feel free to ignore them or let them know you can’t help, but whatever you do, don’t start creating for them. You can never make them happy and you’ll alienate the people who love you. The more hate mail you get, the better you’re probably doing.

2. Acknowledge critics, but ignore their negativity.

When you really connect with the right people and start getting hate mail from the angry mob, one of the best ways to really piss them off (and, incidentally, help them the most) is to kill them with kindness. Acknowledge that you can’t please everyone and even refer them to others with differing opinions from yours. They’re angry at you and looking for a fight. Best to help them out by referring them away.

For bonus points, send them to someone you don’t like. May God have mercy.

3. Try to be yourself.

Nothing will piss off your biggest critics like being undeniably and unapologetically authentic. The more real you are and the more comfortable you get with yourself, the angrier they’ll be that you’re not like them. It’s threatening and they’ll let you know it by writing angry emails and posting nasty things about you on their blogs.

You’re on the right track. Keep it up!

4. Do more of what they hate.

Sometimes your critics will be very articulate. They’ll write paragraph upon paragraph to you explaining exactly what you do that upsets them so much. If you want to become wildly popular with your tribe and get the additional benefit of really inflaming your critics, do more of that! Take what that small group of people loves you for and leverage it like crazy.

5. Be completely honest.

I cannot tell you just how upsetting it is to some people when you’re completely honest and constantly tell the truth. It feels so real that they’re only explanation is that you must be a liar and trying to put one over on them. They can see right through you! Of course, honesty is what will endear you to everyone else, so go ahead and stick with it to get the double benefit of great people that love you and pissed off critics.

6. Do something even remotely interesting.

You can be confident that if you ever decide to do something even remotely interesting, you’ll be going up against a small army of perpetually unsatisfied people that think you’re a) crazy, b) an attention whore, c) a fraud, or d) all of the above. You’ll also find a few people that find you inspiring and appreciate the encouragement you give them to do their own interesting things.

There is no sweet without bitter, though, so learn to appreciate the hate mail. It means you’re onto something.

7. Ask people what they want and give it to them.

What’s the best way to help people that support you? Ask them what they want and give to them. So then, what’s the best way to piss off your critics? Ask the people who support you what they want and give it to them. You see, no matter what length you go to help people, your critics will be happy to point out the flaws in anything you offer, even if those flaws were put there intentionally to keep them away! Never mind them. They’re not who you were trying to help anyway, and they’re not a good indicator of whether you were successful or not.

What are the people you’re actually trying to help saying about it?

8. Have an opinion about something.

“Opinions are like assholes. Everyone’s got one and they all stink.” That was my physics teacher’s favorite saying in high school. Well, it’s kind of true. We all think opinions stink when they don’t agree with ours, but we love them when they do. When you stick your neck out and take a stand on something, you’ll find your supporters rally behind you. You’ll also find that your critics slay you for it. There’s no way to avoid it, so it’s probably best not to waste your time trying and watering down your true ideas.

If you never take a stand, you’ll be boring and they’ll slay you for that, too. With those as your two options, you might as well make your opinion known.

9. Sell anything.

If you have a knack for something and can help a lot of people by offering your expertise and experience, it makes perfect sense to create a product or service from it in order to support yourself. Let it be known, though, that your critics do not agree. They prefer to tear apart everything you do for free and having to pay for something to get mad about would be an inconvenience.

Luckily, if you keep your community in mind while you’re developing it, they’ll actually thank you for it and support you even more. Don’t worry about the critics. They won’t buy your stuff anyway, and if they do, they’ll complain about it. I recommend steering these people away as much as possible. They’ll cost you in the short and long run.

~~~~~

Image by: Babbletrish

The other day, I got an email from a reader asking, “How do you get motivated to do the things you don’t want to do, but have to in order to be successful?” It’s actually a question I hear semi-frequently, so I think it’s safe to assume a lot of people wonder about that.

If you’ve been reading for awhile, you know how I feel about hard work; I think it’s the most important ingredient in successful risk-taking. The reason most calculated risks fail is a lack of commitment.

Yes, over time, persistence beats talent, but only if you’re motivated to be persistent. There are a lot of things about writing and maintaining a business that I simply don’t enjoy and cannot get motivated to do—accounting, schmoozing, trying to be a salesman, things like that. If I try for too long, I burn out and give up.

So, instead, I just don’t do those things anymore. At all. You’d think everything would fall apart but, surprisingly, it doesn’t.

We’ve been doing business the same way for so long that it’s common to think there’s only one valid path to follow, but the truth is quite different. What if, instead of trying to force yourself to do things you hate in order to “make it,” you poured all your energy into the things you actually enjoy. Can you truly say you’ve made it if you build your life around doing things you don’t enjoy?

Business as Usual

“Business as usual” is an interesting phrase. We all use it on a regular basis, but depending on who you’re talking to, the connotation is completely different. There’s a huge swath of the business world that still believes the only way to start a company and make money on your own is to get a loan or venture capital, hire a business development team (whatever that is) and work around the clock until you can either retire or get acquired.

Offices, printers, graphs and charts, accountants, and tax strategies are just part of the game. That’s “business as usual,” and to them, it’s a beautiful thing. To me, it’s horrifying. Business as usual makes me cringe; I can’t fathom spending my days reading reports, talking to accountants, and doing other business as usual stuff.

I’d have never made my first $100 on my own, let alone my first $1,000, or even anything at all if I’d continued to think that’s what’s required to make it. Instead, I just did whatever I felt like.

The Alternative “Do What You Feel Like” Method

Think about what your little business would look like if you just did whatever the hell you wanted to.  At first, the idea is pretty scary, right? Everything would fall apart, you’d be penniless, toothless, and you’d eventually die alone under a bridge, yeah?

Okay, maybe not that bad, but I bet that’s where you were headed. I headed there too, but when I actually tested that assumption, I was wrong. In fact, the opposite was true.

The more I focus on doing what I want and ignoring the boring business as usual stuff, the better Advanced Riskology seems to do.

I think this is because what I end up doing I actually do very well. When I put my energy into what I care about, the business does better and people seem to care more and be more interested. Plus, I’m really productive when I work like that. I actually look forward to working, so there’s no hesitation or resigned acceptance of having to “just power through it.”

If I spend much time worrying about business as usual, I end up spending a ridiculous amount of time just convincing myself to get started working. When I finally do, the results are usually lackluster.

Why try to motivate yourself to do something you don’t want to if there’s an endless supply of work to be done that you actually enjoy? The only reason I can see is an assumption that things would fall apart if you didn’t. If that’s gone, what’s left?

The Unintended Consequences

I don’t want to be too flippant and sound like the world is all roses when you make this shift. It’s been an incredibly positive change for me, but there are some unintended consequences. Their real effects, though, are a matter of perspective.

I could have had a smaller tax bill this year if I’d done a better job accounting for the business side of AR. In fact, if I’d focused entirely on that, it could have been zero because I wouldn’t have made any money.

I could have more business contacts by now if I’d spent more time reaching out to other bloggers and business folks. But, I’m pretty happy with the contacts I have now since most of them came to me and I didn’t have to do a lot of work to make them. I think this is because I focused on what I enjoy and do best, and people were drawn to that.

***

Sometimes I still have a hard time with this; I’m not perfect. In fact, I’m writing this article from a hostel in Austin, Texas (and now I’m in San Francisco) because I thought it was important to go to big conferences and try to meet big, important people. Luckily, I realized the folly of that about halfway through my trip, sold my conference pass to some guy on Craigslist, and started meeting up with interesting people, regardless of who they were, outside the conference. That’s much more Tyler like and, as a result, I met a lot of great people like Scott Young and Matt Frazier and had a much better time.

I don’t think it’s a bad idea to implement strategies that could help your business grow, but I do think it’s probably a bad idea to do so at the expense of your own happiness.

Business should be fun, and I’m cautious around anyone that thinks it’s only about the sacrifice. If you want sacrifice, get a job you hate; the paychecks are more stable. If you want to enjoy your work, focus on doing what you actually care about. The result might actually surprise you.

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Image by: Okinawa Soba

When I was in high school, I was a pretty good wrestler. In fact, leading up to the state tournament my senior year, I was ranked first. According to the polls, I was supposed to win.

I wanted to win, too. Badly. I’d worked my ass off for seven years to get to the top.

I didn’t win. In fact, I didn’t even make it to the finals. I had one bad match early on that spiraled into a few more, and by the end of the tournament, I ended up in eighth place.

Standing on the podium, I looked up at the seven people above me, three of which I’d previously beaten, and all I felt was anger. I pictured myself at the top where I thought I belonged, and I was so overcome with envy that I couldn’t even look at all the cameras flashing pictures around me.

That was a bad day. I wish I could say I never experienced that again, but the truth is that I deal with jealousy on a regular basis. Nowadays, I have a much better system in place for handling it, but the feeling still comes, just as it did years ago.

The more I think about it, the more I believe that jealousy can make or break a person, family, relationship, or even a life. It’s a common emotion that’s not often dealt with productively.

I also think it’s counterproductive to ignore it. Why push away something real, even if it’s undesirable? Rather than ignore yourself and how you feel, why not own it and put it to work?

Picking Up the Trash

Jealousy is garbage and needs to be dealt with. When you see a piece of litter next to a trash can, do you pick it up and put it in the bin, or do you walk by it, thinking that your life will be easier if you just ignore it.

If you ignore it, does that mean it doesn’t exist? How many pieces of trash will be there the next time you walk by? If a tree falls in the forest, but no one is around, does it make a sound? That’s a stupid question—of course it does. If you push the garbage away, you simply delay the inevitable until it’s too big to be tamed.

And how do you feel if you pick that piece of trash up and toss it in the bin? What feelings do you have about yourself as a person and a citizen when you do something to improve the world?

That’s what I thought.

So it is with jealousy and the rest of life’s problems. Fixing it is just like picking up a piece of trash. The quicker you do it, the better your life becomes, and the easier it gets to handle when it shows up again. You start to build a habit that transforms a negative characteristic into a defining part of your new life.

You actually start to change the neurons in your brain.

Synapses start to fire differently, and the roadmap through your cerebellum begins to transform so that where once there were frustrating dead ends, now there are superhighways of creativity. Is it easy to adopt this new way of thinking? No. But is it worth it? I’d say so; it’s helped me a lot.

Transforming Jealousy

Here are a few solutions to the jealousy problem that work well for me. Take what works for you and leave the rest:

1. Crush it with gratitude.

Finding gratitude for the amazing life you already have is the best way I know how to deal with jealousy. A quick dose of reality can show just how much you have and how little you need to worry about what others have or what they achieve.

2. Morph it into curiosity.

I think the word “uninteresting” is one of the most useless in all the English language. I used to get bored when I was presented with something that didn’t exactly match my current identity, but since I’ve learned the usefulness of curiosity, I haven’t been bored for even one second of my life.

I’m not exaggerating, either. It’s been over three years since I’ve even thought about the idea of boredom and, today, I am endlessly fascinated by just about anything. Being able to dissect my own jealousy to understand what motivates it and find ways to work with it productively has completely changed my life.

3. Accept it as a legitimate human emotion.

If you feel it, it’s real and you shouldn’t be ashamed of it. You don’t need to go around telling people how jealous you are and how awesome it is, but you don’t need to apologize or feel bad about experiencing a normal part of life. Everyone else deals with it, too.  And you don’t need anyone else’s validation; you’re good enough.

Get over your own fear and assumptions of inadequacy and start being comfortable just being you already.

4. Seek more of it by surrounding yourself with amazing people.

Probably the most powerful discovery I’ve made for myself in my entire life is one of proximity—you end up just like the people you most often surround yourself with.

Today, I try to surround myself with people that are at least ten times more awesome than me. That makes me jealous as hell on a regular basis, but so what? I’m exposing myself to the people that will help shape me into who I really want to be. I’m over it.

5. Harness its most useful aspects.

If jealousy is a normal human feeling and you can’t avoid it, then maybe it’s actually useful for something. Use that curiosity we talked about earlier to really understand your jealousy so that you can harness the parts of it that compel you to work to be a better person, and avoid the parts that plunge you into depression or cause you to lash out at people.

Jealousy itself is benign. How you act on it is what makes or breaks you.

6. Embrace the idea of abundance.

In a world of seemingly endless scarcity, this one is hard, but it’s also life changing. Eliminate the idea from your mind that in order for you to win, someone else has to lose. Eliminate the idea that there’s a limited amount of success to be achieved or that there’s a limited group of people that can have it.

Liberate yourself from those beliefs and replace them with the truth: that anyone can achieve great things, that seeing others at the top of their game lays a better foundation for you to build on, and that the success you have can inspire the success of a limitless amount of others without ever taking anything away from you.

Evolve your brain and solve your own jealousy problem.

Do you ever have to cope with jealosy? What method do you use to deal with it?

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Image by: Stéfan

I’m an anticipation junkie. I think I actually get more enjoyment from the excitement that builds up before doing something than actually do it.  The marathon I ran last year in Eugene, Oregon is a prime example. Every second of training added to the excitement that built up inside me. The day before the race, I could hardly think straight; my mind was fixed on visualizing myself running the course.

I could see myself sweating and grunting. I pictured the water stands and running by them, knocking over five cups as I grabbed one to splash in my face like they do on TV. I saw myself crossing the finish line and collapsing in exhaustion. It was glorious.

Of course, the actual event was fun, but not really anything like what I’d planned in my head. I drank a few waters, ran a steady pace, and then fell down at the finish line to puke on the track in front of hundreds of spectators. To say the least, I’d seen better days.

This is how a lot of my big plans turn out, and I’m perfectly okay with that. I enjoy the anticipation just as much as I enjoy the event itself or the memories that follow it. In fact, I don’t think I’d be lying if I said the actual event is the least enjoyable part of the whole experience.

During the build up, I get to create a dreamscape and visualize a momentous achievement. Afterwards, I hang onto the best parts of the experience and the bad pieces slowly fade away—or at least soften enough to be looked back on fondly.

When you have a vivid imagination, what’s the use in reality, right?

All the same, anticipation is a dangerous game. To utilize it safely, you need to make sure you actually have something to anticipate. If you want to enjoy anticipation, it has to be tied to a real event that will actually happen. Day dreaming has its merits—I try to make time for it every day—but I also try to remember that day dreaming won’t physically take me anywhere. Only acting on those dreams and putting one foot in front of the other will.

For a long time, I hated anticipation.

I was caught up with instant gratification and I wanted everything now. This was because I had no follow through. I dreamed up fantastic scenarios for my life, and then abandoned them as meaningless daydreams. Anticipation was frustrating because I didn’t really have anything to look forward to; I didn’t act on any of my dreams.

The only way I got any satisfaction was by buying something small or doing something insignificant to satisfy a craving—to give myself a taste of what could be if I’d just commit to an idea. Of course, that satisfaction passed quickly and then it was onto the next thing.

So far, the 1% Club is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, but not because the things on it are the best experiences I’ll have. If I weren’t 100% committed to completing all these wacky challenges, it would just be another exercise in frustrating dreams. In committing to climb mountains, run marathons, live homeless, etc., the act of working to accomplish them becomes a more meaningful exercise. I know they’re going to happen and I can see them taking shape, so I don’t get depressed when I think about it like I used to.

Doing something big is important, but overall, it’s a small fraction of the whole experience.

I think it’s important to dream impossible things, but don’t simply wait for them to happen. The universe only aligns for you when you show that you’re willing to meet it half way.

Dreams don’t change your life, you do.

So what are you anticipating? And what are you doing to make sure it’ll actually happen? Share your story in the comments.

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Image by: nicole.pierce.photgraphy

• What’s the biggest risk you’ve ever taken?
• What one thing would you attempt if you knew you couldn’t fail?

As I travel around the world, I’ll be carrying a camcorder and stopping strangers on the street wherever I go, asking them these questions. To start, I went around my hometown of Portland, Oregon and collected answers from men and women of all age, race, and background. Here’s what they had to say:

I didn’t quite know what to expect or if I’d even be able to convince anyone to talk to me, but I was surprised by the results. I did get “no” a lot, but I also got “yes” quite a bit, too.

Some answers were really interesting. Others were fairly dull. Some people were really proud of themselves and others were a little ashamed. From “drinking and driving” to “cliff diving,” and from “running for senate” to “opening an addiction center,” Portland showed a diversity of dreams and experiences that makes me really curious about how different people come to have the hopes and dreams that they do.

I can’t wait to dive deeper into this project as I get around to more and more cities. If you’re at all interested in how every day people like you and me look at risk taking, I recommend you watch the video and stay tuned for more updates.

Thanks, Portland, for piquing my curiosity.

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Side note: I’m wandering around Austin, Texas today filming more of these for the next installment, so I may be absent from the comments most of the day. Talk amongst yourselves.

If you’re in Austin for SxSw and want to meet up, get a hold of me on Twitter.