Feeling Insecure? Use the 8 Mile Method

A lot of problems, conflict, resentment and aggressive behaviour usually come from our own insecurities. We're all insecure about something because we're all flawed in one way or another as human beings.

Many of us feel afraid and insecure because we're afraid that at some point, those flaws of ours will be exposed and used against us. Some will use them to make us feel bad about ourselves. Others who are more Machiavellian will use those flaws and insecurities to manipulate us to their advantage.

So how do we avoid our insecurities getting the best of us? Use the "8 Mile" method.

In the movie 8 Mile, Eminem's character had to go through several rap battles where freestyle rappers try to get the best of their opponents by insulting them to a beat, as creatively as possible.  *Spoiler alert*:  At the end of the movie Eminem's character, at the final rap battle, decides to point out all of his own flaws in public. Basically, he dissed himself before his opponent could do it.  By doing that he took away any ammunition that his opponent could use against him.

The first step is to take an honest look at ourselves in both the literal and proverbial mirrors. That honest look will allow us to identify our flaws. This not only gives us the choice of doing something to get rid of those flaws and improve ourselves. It also allows us to accept the fact that we have said flaws and take ownership of them.

Once we accept that we have our flaws and we start owning them, (or better yet, we start working on eliminating those flaws), these insecurities will slowly start disappearing.

The Myth of "Easy"

We've all probably heard our friends, colleagues and family members say things that are similar to the following:

"It's easier to skip the gym and not exercise."

"It's easier to spend and not to save money."

"It's too difficult to stay disciplined when it comes to eating healthy."

"It's easier to goof off instead of going to school and to learning a skill."

"It's difficult to get up and go to work. I'd rather sleep in and call in sick."

"It's easier to use an app to get McDonald's delivered to my door than to go grocery shopping and cooking myself a healthy meal."

"It's easier to plop on the couch next to my significant other and watch Netflix instead of taking the time to sit down and have a conversation."

In the short term, sure the examples above may seem like the "easier" options. I would make the argument that if you look at the long term, going for the "difficult" options are actually what will make your life easier in the future.

Here are a few examples:

What's easier? Regularly exercising to strengthen your body or being so weak in your old age that you're living in constant fear of falling down and not being able to get up?

What's easier? Eating a serving of vegetables at each meal, or having to go a doctor because you're so constipated that you've only pooped once in the last 3 days?

What's easier? Getting up and going to school and/or work every day or being homeless at 60 years old?

What's easier? Delaying that major purchase to put money away for your retirement or being in your 70s and not having enough money to buy both food AND medication?

What's easier?  Making the effort to have small, meaningful, daily conversations with your significant other or going through divorce proceedings?

What's easier?  Going to school and getting an education or being unable to pay your bills because you can't get a job due to your lack of credentials and training?

Sure, some of these examples are maybe a bit extreme or "strawman-ish" but you get the idea. A lot of what we're doing (or not doing) in the short term might feel like the "easier" thing to do, but if you take a long term look, what we're actually doing is choosing to make our life harder in the long term.  So the next time you hear your inner voice telling you to take the easy path, just ask yourself, if it really is easier in the long run.

How to Stay "Motivated"

Just to be clear I'm not a fan of "motivation" to help someone stick to whatever activity it is that they want to stick to.  Motivation can be OK to get you started but not really the best at getting you going when things get difficult.  Discipline and having an overall view of why you're doing something will always be better than looking at motivational quotes and videos on social media.

That said, for those who really want to stay "motivated", I would say that the best way is to constantly look for what you're not good at and finding ways to improve it.  Set an achievable goal and work on that weakness.

Let's take martial arts as an example.  If you think that you've gotten good at punches, make a goal to make your kicks better.  From that goal you can pick an aspect of kicking that you can improve.  You can try to improve your hip mobility and leg flexibility to kick higher; or maybe try to improve the speed of your kicks; or develop the reaction time to use your kicks as intercepting counter-attacks; or make the accuracy of your kicks better.

You get the idea.  The point is, be honest with yourself and find out what your weaknesses are. Then set a goal to improve on those weaknesses by breaking them up in smaller sub-goals.  Completing those smaller tasks will help you see that you're progressing and the pursuit of those "small wins" can be very helpful in keeping someone motivated.

Excellence Means You Can't Live a "Balanced Life"

In a previous post, I outlined the simple, 2-step formula to become good at anything:

1) Practice a lot
2) Put in a lot of conscious effort to what you're practicing

Here's a revised version of the formula, if you want to become THE BEST at anything:

1) Practice exponentially more than before
2) Practice with conscious effort and nearly singular focus

3) Be lucky

Assuming you have the luck required, you will also need to drastically increase the amount of practice you do.  Because of the increased amount of practice required, you'll have to sacrifice time for other things: social life, sleep, time with family, leisure activities, etc.  You are focused almost entirely on whatever it is you're trying to be the best at.

This is true no matter what profession or field you want to become the best at.  Whether you want to become the most renowned neurosurgeon, the funniest stand-up comedian, an Olympic gold medalist, the most successful CEO, an elite professional hockey player, the most published and cited academic, or a world-champion MMA fighter, you will have terrible "work-life balance".  You'll need to sacrifice a lot of time not only to reach the pinnacle of your field but also to stay at the elite level.

This goes beyond the level of a hobby. You can't clock out at 5pm. Having the goal of being the best at something for a certain amount of time will come at the expense of other things in your life. If the concept of "work-life balance" is important to you, you will never become part of the elite in your field.  The truth is, at one point or another, we all wanted to be excellent something.  Becoming excellent requires an unbalanced lifestyle. For most of us, living that way for a long time is unsustainable.

Your New Year's Resolutions Suck and You'll Never Keep Them

It's January 1st again. So we're going to hear our friends and loved-ones make resolutions. We're going to see the social media "motivational" posts talking about their resolutions.  We've heard it all before (or read it on our friends' social media):

This year, I resolve to:

• lose weight
• be more positive
• make 'self-care' a priority
• save more money
• make more money
• cut out 'toxic' people
• eat more healthy
• drink less alcohol
• drink more water
• exercise more
• be more fit

There's nothing wrong with setting goals.  I admire and respect people who take the steps required to better themselves and their lives. The problem with resolutions is that most are not SMART.

They're not specific and extremely vague.  Success and progress are difficult to measure because most people don't give themselves the proper steps to take to get their goals.  Most resolutions makers can be so overly enthusiastic and motivated that the goals they set for themselves aren't achievable and realistic. Even if you measure your progress, you realize that you can't reach your lofty goal and you end up getting discouraged.

Of course, most people making resolutions don't give themselves a proper time frame to achieve and succeed. Meaning that because they don't give themselves deadlines, they end up simply meandering instead of achieving what they set out to do.

Aside from the quality of the resolutions, if you really thought that whatever you're resolving to do was important, you wouldn't be waiting for an arbitrary day of the year to start doing it.  You'd be working on that goal right now.  You would have made it a priority already and adjusted your habits accordingly.  You already would have been looking for ways to stay focused and disciplined to achieve your goals. You wouldn't be relying on "motivational" pictures and videos while going on social media to tell everyone that "New year, new me" will so totally happen in 2020.

Become Good at Saying No

If you've ever taken an Intro to Economics class, you would have probably heard of the concept of "Opportunity Cost". Briefly, the opportunity cost of making a choice are the missed benefits of choosing one alternative over another.

Because everyone has limited time, energy and resources, that means that when you agree to do something, you will miss out on other things. By saying "Yes" to do one thing, you're indirectly saying "No" to doing other things.

This is why one of the most important (and difficult) skills everyone needs to develop is how to say "No". Whether it's a business opportunity or friends and family members asking you to do them favours, you will receive requests that will require you to give up a combination of your time, energy and resources.

When thinking about saying "Yes" to any of these requests out of guilt, an unhealthy need to please others or perhaps a miscalculation of financial gain, remember what you're potentially giving up. Just ask yourself how much whatever you're being asked to commit to is going to cost in terms of your sanity, time away from loved ones, your physical health and/or your financial well-being. Then you'll realize why "No" can be one of the most valuable words in your vocabulary.

Never be Afraid to Quit

We've all heard the adage: "Winners never quit.  Quitters never win."

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The better adage is: "You gotta know when to hold 'em. Know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away. And know when to run."

Yes, persistence and perseverance can get you far.  You can become very successful by sticking to something for a long time while trying to improve.  It's a skill that can help you in life.

However, knowing when and how to quit something is actually equally important.  At some point, we have to recognize when we're no longer able to improve on a situation despite the amount of resources you've sunk into it.

We all need to recognize the point when, despite any additional effort, failure is inevitable. When that happens, learn from your failure, quit, then divert your remaining resources and energy on other endeavours (or a modified version of the failed one). This is how quitting will lead to future success.

The (Potential) Benefits of Getting Bullied

For a brief time when I was about 10 or 11 years old, I got bullied. On a daily basis, a much larger kid, along with a couple of his buddies, threatened to beat me up if I didn't give him money.  Being a kid from a recently immigrated, not-very-well-off family, I didn't actually have any money to give him.  The experience induced a lot of anxiety whenever I had to go to school and I eventually told my parents.

Even before I got bullied, my parents somewhat prepared me and told me to expect to meet a-holes in the world who will eventually bully me.  It wasn't to scare me.  It was to prepare me so that I'm not surprised when it happens. They told me that when it happens, to stand my ground and not let any bullies push me around. I should try to talk the bully out of doing what he's doing, and if absolutely necessary, not be afraid to throw hands and fight back.

My parents never intervened. They never called my school or the bully's parents.  Eventually, after weeks of not acquiescing to my bully's threats and just standing up to him by saying no, the bullying stopped.  We thankfully never came to blows.  I think I eventually gained his respect because he saw I wasn't backing down from him. We never really became good friends, but everything was smooth sailing and he and his friends eventually left me alone.

...........................................................

Today, with the best of intentions, schools have anti-bullying programs.  Kids are encouraged to immediately report bullying behaviour (be it physical, verbal or online) to a teacher or an adult.  Some schools have zero tolerance policies on bullying and fighting.  While the spirit behind these rules are commendable, there are some weird arguments that can be made to say that in certain situations, bullying can have some positive effects on kids.

Bullying experiences acts as fuel for success
How many stories of accomplished people in all walks of life have started by being subjected to bullying?

At some point, a lot of great art has been produced in reaction to people being oppressed, being bullied and being put in adverse situations.  Many comedians will tell you that one of the reasons they learned to make people laugh was because they didn't want to get picked on.  Many authors have taken the pain they felt from bullying and put that into creating great works of literature.  The field of acting is filled with people who are constantly seeking validation from other people, especially from "the cool kids" who excluded them when they were younger.

Look into the biographies of some of the wealthiest and most successful professional athletes (especially professional fighters).  You'll see that part of the reason they started their sport was because they were bullied.

Former two-division UFC champion Georges St-Pierre has openly shared that being bullied at school is what started him in martial arts.

Bullying can teach kids conflict resolution skills
With zero-tolerance bullying policies, kids are told to immediately report any bullying to teachers and their parents.  On the surface, this sounds good.  Eventually, if things get bad, you will want an adult to intervene and stop the bullying behaviour.

Here's my problem with it.  If kids who are getting bullied decide to immediately go to an adult as directed, they won't necessarily learn how to resolve the conflict with bullies on their own.  Instead, they will learn that the first thing they need to do when there's a conflict is to look for an authority figure to defend them.

So what happens when these kids grow up to be adults?  What if they have an "intimidating" neighbour who's playing music too loudly at night?  Will they be more likely to call the landlord or the cops immediately to complain?  Or will they talk to the neighbour first and nicely ask to turn the music down?

What if it's just a co-worker being a bit rude or inappropriate in the office?  An adult who as a kid learned to go to an authority figure will immediately go to their boss or to HR instead of figuring out a way to confront the office bully in a way that will help make the bullying stop while trying to keep the working relationship healthy.

Bullying can help kids learn social skills
One factor (though not the only one) that causes kids to get bullied seems to be the fact that they're not as socially adept as their peers.  I'd hate to sound like a "victim-blamer", but most of the time, the kids that get bullied are the ones who haven't yet developed the social skills needed to make friends, making them easy targets for bullies.

This is where parental preparation can be helpful. Teaching kids to be friendly, interested, curious and unafraid of rejection will help them talk to other kids. That will help them start conversations, find common ground and make friends more easily. Building social skills early will prevent a kid from getting bullied.

On a large scale, a lot of the school programs have learned this is the case and have been slowly implementing social skill building workshops for kids.  The great thing about this is that it won't just prevent bullying but will also develop adults with better social skills in the future.

Final Thoughts

Now, I'm not an advocate of bullying.  It's a terrible experience that I wouldn't like any kid to feel.  In fact, the online bullying of today makes it so much more of a difficult experience because it's no longer confined to a specific time and place. It can now happen to anyone 24x7 with technology and social media. In many cases, extreme bullying has sadly led to suicides. In that sense bullying is toxic.

However, like with any poison, it's all in the dosage.  Bullying can provide the benefits mentioned above, but it has to be the right amount and the right intensity.  My thought is that it should be like weight training.  If you start with bullying that's too much for the kid to handle, they will simply be crushed by the psychological and physical trauma. This is where online bullying can be a problem because the bullying doesn't end when the kid leaves the school.

With just the right amount, paired with proper parental preparation and management of expectations, bullying can help a kid strengthen their minds, learn to deal with conflicts, with people in general, and maybe even motivate them to succeed in the future.  The difficult part is finding the right balance that will build someone up instead of destroying them.

How to Gain More Influence on Social Media Through Annoying Behaviour

We've all used social media.  The currency on all these sites are followers, clicks, views, likes, shares, retweets and number of comments.  If you have nothing of value to share on your social media, the best way to get these is by being annoying.

1) Post vague status updates (mainly on Facebook) about how you're feeling bad or sad or annoyed, etc, without explaining exactly what happened.  This is a great way to "get attention" and "concerned" comments asking if you're doing ok.  If you're a complete narcissist, it's an excellent way to fish for compliments from well-meaning people who want you to stop feeling bad about yourself.  Also, public comments showing concern will also make these well wishers look sympathetic to other people so they'll have incentive to be nice to you.

2) Write a self-righteous, virtue-signaling, social/economic/political/religious rant complaining about white people, cis-gender males, non-LGBTQ+ males, people with money, people who aren't vegan and basically people who won't respond because they're too busy running the world.  You will get social brownie points from the echo-chamber of people who think like you. The more sweepingly general and having the least amount of nuance in your post, the more angry reactions you'll get.  If you're doing this on Facebook, the algorithm will ultimately move your post to the top of the news feed because it's keeping eyeballs on the site / application. Bonus points if you can somehow claim to be a victim of whatever group of people you're railing against.

3) Repeat point 2 on Twitter.  Because of the character limit on Twitter, you can write your angry rant as multiple posts, numbering them.

4) The off-shoot of points 2 and 3 would be to write the virtue-signaling, self-righteous post against the people on the opposite end of the political spectrum.  You'll get just as much of a response from the other side.  You'll even get strong reactions from people who disagree with you.  Again, the social media platforms' algorithms will identify the post as being engaging and will therefore give it more views. If you go this route though, you have to be careful because the rant can end up being borderline racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic/xenophobic.  The platforms might flag you for "violating their terms of service". Of course, if that happens, you can use that to further strengthen your following by playing victim.  You can easily say that you're being censored and your right to freedom of speech is being violated.

5) "Humble-bragging".  In case you didn't know what that is, it's a bragging post about an being in a great event or being in a pic with someone famous disguised as being "blessed" or "grateful" or of course, "humbling".  A great example is a someone going to a TED talk, taking a selfie with one of the famous speakers and then posting it with a vapid quote talking about how lucky they are to be there.  We get it: you were able to gain access to an exclusive event and rubbed shoulders with some very influential people. You don't want to seem like you're showing off on your LinkedIn profile, so you write it with very obviously fake humility.

6) Be "on vacation" all year round. Whenever someone goes on vacation, they normally take their vacation pics and either post them all at once when they get back or they post everything on the day that they take the pics.  Instead of doing that, I suggest banking your best vacation photos and then post a different one or two daily on Instagram and Facebook.  Not only does this make you look like a well-traveled individual, it's also very attractive to people who are stuck in depressing office jobs, or who have to take long commutes on public transportation. This is especially true during the winter.  Great travel pics will get a bunch of likes especially if you start adding semi-motivational, humble-bragging quotes and hashtags.  Bonus points if you're a relatively attractive woman who can pose in a bikini on a sunny, white sand beach.

These are just a couple of tips that you can use if you're trying to build a social media following.  Get a critical mass of likes and followers and you can finally monetize your social media accounts by selling fit teas and supplements.

Go Take an Actual Vacation

Vacation mode: ON !!!

A recent article from QZ was discussing how our one or two-week vacations are way too short for people to decompress and relieve the stress from work-related burnout.  Some are even suggesting that you should just take longer breaks for every two hours of work during your day to be less stressed out.

Sure we can't be all like the Europeans who work for companies that allow 4 to 6 week vacations.

Instead, how about we, as North Americans, change the way that we treat vacations?  One of the worst things that I see are email "out-of-office" replies saying that the person is on vacation but that they will "monitor their emails and cell phones in case there's an urgent matter".

No wonder people are feeling stressed out.

Instead of keeping yourself electronically tethered to your desk, why not disconnect from work and spend time with your family and friends? What's the point of spending money on a flight, on hotels, museums and on booze on the beach if you're not even going to try to temporarily escape the pressures of your job?

Maybe you legitimately like your job and you don't really want to go on vacation.  Maybe you feel like you're pressured by your employer and the company's culture to stay connected almost 24/7.  Maybe the company's culture has no respect for work/life balance. Maybe you're a control freak who thinks that if you leave, people backing you up won't be competent enough to cover you for a couple of weeks.  Or worse, maybe you're scared that your colleagues won't notice that you're gone because you secretly think that your job is not really that valuable to the company in the first place.  Maybe you're just a really nice person who doesn't want to leave their colleagues hanging out to dry if something goes wrong while you're away.

Sadly many of us see taking vacations as a source of stress. Many people feel stressed before they leave because they do double duty to complete things in advance before they leave.  They also feel stressed immediately after coming back because of the work that's piled up while they were away.

This is why you have people backing you up. In all likelihood, unless your employer sucks at hiring, there should be enough competent and intelligent people who can help pick up the slack while you're away. Trust these colleagues of yours because they'll be trusting you to do the same for them when they go away for vacation.

And for high-achievers who really think that vacations can be detrimental to their businesses, just remember, you can't perform at your optimum level if you're not rested.  Vacations are meant to recharge your batteries so you can push even harder to succeed.  Unless your job has life-or-death consequences, you really shouldn't be allowing anyone to interrupt your vacation.

So enjoy the beach, the lake, the woods, the new city that you're visiting, the taste of the new foods you'll try and/or the historic monuments that you'll see.  You're allowed to leave work for a while and actually enjoy your life.

True Body Positivity and Self-Love

The body positivity movement as we know it right now tells us that we shouldn't let society dictate how we should feel about our physical bodies.  According to this movement, we should accept all bodies, no matter the shape, size or appearance.

It's a nice thought.  There's nothing wrong with being happy with ourselves.  And yes, we shouldn't let magazines and social media determine what our bodies should look like.

HOWEVER...

The danger is that people who could be physically and mentally healthier will use this as an excuse.  It makes it easier for people who are unhealthy and obese to say that what their body looks like doesn't matter because they should be accepted while ignoring the negative effects of their bad diet and lack of exercise.

If we really were about loving our bodies, we would do our best to keep them functioning at optimal levels.  We should love our bodies so much that we want to keep our muscles relatively strong throughout our entire lives.  If we really loved our bodies we should want to be able to keep a certain level of mobility and flexibility in our joints and tendons as we get older.  Real body positivity and self-love means trying to prevent future diseases by paying attention to what we put in it.

Truly being "body-positive" and being honest about loving our bodies means that we shouldn't accept an unhealthy, physical status quo.  While our physical bodies will never be "perfect", we should be doing everything we can to keep that body as healthy as possible until we die.

How to Quickly Lose Body Fat and Gain Muscle Mass with Minimal Effort

Because summer's coming fast, you're vain, insecure, and you want to look great when it's time to wear less clothing in public...

The warm weather is coming but you've gained all that winter weight. You want to know the secret to getting that beach body fast. What can you do to lose all that fat you've gained over the winter and look great for "bikini season"?

Absolutely nothing.

You can starve yourself all you want in the next 6 to 8 weeks. You can run for miles daily. You can lift the heaviest kettlebells and do hundreds of "kipping pull ups".

You can try. You'll fail.

Even if you were "motivated" by the upcoming warm weather, you might binge on extreme workouts and crash diets for a short period of time. You're more likely to injure yourself because you tried to push yourself when your body is completely out of shape. And yeah a crash diet can cause weight loss, but as soon as you stop you'll simply regain all the weight, if not more.

Remember, if you weren’t disciplined enough to train hard and eat well during the winter, you sure as hell won’t have the discipline in the spring. Getting your "summer body" takes years of discipline and hard work. There’s no such thing as quickly getting in shape with minimal effort.