Hey all,
I wanted to share a piece of life advice I've been thinking about throughout this summer:
Have some audacity. Be a little disrespectful.
Now, when I say be disrespectful, I don't mean it in a social sense. Generally, being respectful and kind to others is a better way to live your life (although I hope you already know that.)
What I mean is that you should stop respecting other people's skills so much. Especially when you want to start something new.
Because I think that for a lot of people (me included), there's a pretty high mental barrier we have to climb before we start a new hobby, enter a new community, or just engage with anything that doesn't line up with what we're good at. For me, (especially with more creative things) there's always that underlying fear of failure and embarrassment that I have to suppress for me to start something I want to do (like writing these emails).
That fear can be paralyzing, and it can be easy to think that you will never get to the level of the people you admire: the leader of that club, the YouTuber who's teaching you, or the professional you idolize.
To counteract that, I find it's really helpful for me to return (at least a little) to that "Yeah, I could do better" audacious confidence people have when they watch professional athletes do something stupid.
It's a bit like the Dunning-Krueger effect in reverse. Sometimes, you just gotta push yourself back up the stupidity hill to get some confidence back and feel a little invincible. Getting yourself to stop thinking of all the intricacies of a subject can be very helpful in gaining the will to try something new.
In that way, you get your inspiring end goal and a series of relatively easy things to learn one after another. You won't realize how far you've climbed until you look up or down.
Because you know what, it's better not to know everything about your hobbies before you start them. It's okay to ignore the fact that you don't know anything.
Be a little disrespectful to your masters. At least if you think you can be like them, you'll start on that path toward surpassing them.
- Want to be a really good cook? Say "Yeah, I could do better than Gordon Ramsay" and just start cooking random stuff.
- "Oh, but you don't know what tempering, chaunk, or engastration are (apparently these are real cooking techniques) - it'll take 10 years to learn all that." Whatever, you'll learn it when you get to it.
- Want to start doing YouTube? Say "Okay, I'll just get good with my camera" first, and forget about editing, scriptwriting, and lighting till later. You'll learn it when you get to it.
What I'm saying is for a lot of things, you just have to get started. And if it takes a little bit of unfounded confidence, anger, or disrespect so be it - you're just doing what works for you. Plus, once you have some experience and skill, then you can readjust your attitude to give some respect where it's due and learn the advanced stuff from the greats.
Have fun testing your limits, and have a great week!
Ethan
Things I'm Enjoying:
📚 Books - Both Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon and The Psychology of Morgan Housel were big influences on me during the last month, and I especially gained a lot from their ideas around risk-taking and trying new things. If that sounds interesting to you, check them out!
👨💻 Tech - I've had a Kindle Paperwhite for around 3 months now and I would say it's been one of the best recent investments I've made. For one, it's lightweight, has discounts for books, and streamlines the book-buying process which definitely helps reduce the bar of effort for me to read. And funnily enough, I think I focus better reading on my Kindle because it kind of looks like my iPhone, just without all the other distractions it comes with. So, if you have the chance, I would pick one up (especially if it ever goes on sale for like $120 when I got mine).
💻 Website - Realtime Colors. Color theory is hard so I've made a lot of use from Realtime Colors in creating potential colors for this website's color scheme. Unfortunately, I don't have Ghost's "Creator" plan yet so I've had to settle for this blue and off-white scheme, but I will probably use Realtime Colors again when I upgrade to add more flair and cohesion.