Embracing Uncertainty

I love to read a lot, and I mean a lot! I’m constantly diving into new books, starting new ones, finishing old ones constantly absorbing information from different areas from fiction to finance, the occult and nature. I developed this appetite as a voracious reader in school, spending a lot of time by myself playing music and getting lost in the pages of good prose or poetry and it has really helped in my personal development as a young man.

I was driven to look for knowledge in books because I lacked the direction afforded to most young men in the form of a role model or whatever have you – but no excuses here! I noticed that after reading a book I was in some way invigorated like I had discovered some new secret that no one else knew and I walked around with a little smug smirk on my face somehow feeling more self-confident full of self esteem. Has this ever happened to you?

I gravitated to more books about self-development and grand fictional stories of characters with strong principles and I would sometimes absorb those principles and attributes that I too wanted to cultivate – in a way it gave me power…but it also made me dependant and like a drug addict I was always searching for my next hit, where was it going to come from? Ayn Rand? Homer? Marcus Aurelius? Henry David Thoreau? Suits? (haha it’s true you can get knowledge from anywhere!)

Life is funny because you move through so many different cycles, learning lessons at the bottom when you felt that you were finished, and forgetting lessons at the top thinking the good times will keep rolling on. I am a devout believer in respecting the process because I believe that it is through repetition of a correct process that people begin to develop skills and I mean truly develop the skills that will propel them to something great or feeling great. Sadly, 95% of us never reach that stage of dedication, opting instead to take the easier path, the road that doesn’t tear at us, rip us apart, make us feel stupid, make us feel like failures, make us feel lost…and the list goes on and on. That’s okay though it’s human nature and it takes some extraordinary willpower to get there, but that’s why you’re reading this right 😉

The majority of people will never walk down the road less travel because it is UNCERTAIN and people hate uncertainty, we are hardwired to respond to leadership and respond to orders, it subconsciously takes the responsibility away from us and from our decisions because “someone else told us to do it”.

I found that I constantly went to books because I was looking for that exact thing, some sort of certainty some sort of guiding hand to help me along my journey, I, like many people was searching for assurance. I came to realise that the world is completely uncertain and the huge paradigm shift comes when we can accept that uncertainty and embrace it even using it to help guide us.

The answer lies within. It hit me that all this time searching for the shortcut or searching for the path to walk was me searching for certainty, searching for directions to take away the pain and embarrassment of failure. I had a huge change in perspective and a massive paradigm shift once I did this.

We are all scared of the future, most of us don’t even know what is going to happen. Some of us are in a job or a career that we question, unsure of what we are supposed to do next. Some of us leave it until tomorrow, but how soon tomorrow becomes never. Most of us are trigger shy because we are uncertain of what is going to happens. Most of us seek advice in the hopes of comforting us in our decisions, but those same people are in the same boats as us. Remember, this is your life and you are reading this because you are on the same wavelength as me, you are seeking change and looking for likeminded individuals in the hopes of removing some uncertainty! 

No one can predict the future and the harsh reality is that you could be here today gone tomorrow, really really really think about that. Most people are stuck in hypnosis believing that they will live forever, leaving their passions, dreams, business ideas until another day. Don’t get stuck in that loop because it is so hard to break out of once you are under the spell that mainstream society has cast upon you. Most people are already dead just going through the motions seeking cheap thrills to take their mind away from their mundane existence – it’s harsh language but I’m not going to sugar coat it for you. Don’t seek cheap thrills, seek a life that you want to live, seek the passions and the dreams that will make you feel alive.

Embrace uncertainty.

You will never stop the feeling of fear at doing new things.

It never goes away, it just gets easier to get started. 

Be prepared to fall, you will get up again.

Be prepared to make mistakes and face ridicule – there will be those that are scared of your willpower because they can’t take action themselves

Look inwards and clear your mind – trust you will get to where you want to go.

 

Be well,

The Shining Man

 

 

The Only Thing You Can Control is Yourself

I’ve decided to give The Shining Man a little bit of an update cosmetically and keep it much more simple, which goes hand-in-hand with how I like to live my life. Simplicity is king.

It’s been about a month since I’ve last written and for good reason too, I have been super busy working on a new business and that plus Sons of Midnight is taking up most of my time. I can safely say that 2013 will definitely be earmarked as a year to remember for me, so many things have happened and I am so grateful to have had these amazing life experiences.

Starting a new venture is really fulfilling, really draining and really scary but I am convinced that the best way to truly embody the principles of a Shining Man is to go out on a limb and try something. Entrepreneurs are THE coolest and baddest motherfuckers out there, they took a huge risk with their life and their capital and were probably faced with outright skepticism from the beginning, so kudos to you if you had a great support network. Entrepreneurs are the life blood of capitalism and help push society forward, which is why the most successful ones are the most handsomely paid – just google Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Joshua Kushner, Tony Zappos to name a few.

Enough about that though, today I wanted to write about self-control.

The concept of self control is THE central belief system that we must install in our heads, because without it all else fails. You must have the belief that the only thing you can control in this life, in this universe is yourself. You control your actions, you control your beliefs, you control your emotions and how you react to situations. Life is about probability and we have no idea what the universe has in store for us next, but the most important thing is that we are prepared by taking ourselves into our own hands.

Fortune favors the prepared mind – Louis Pasteur 

Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect – Ralph Waldo Emerson

The meeting of preparation with opportunity generates the offspring we call luck. – Tony Robbins

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation – Henry David Thoreau

Is there something that you really want, a life that you imagine for yourself now? In the future? In ten, twenty or thirty years? The most important thing is not IF it is possible but that you are moving in that direction. The only people that ask if are the people that can’t imagine making mistakes, can’t imagine failing and can’t endure pain. Don’t ask if but take the first step towards where you want to go. Success in life is little about how and more about that grit and determination in getting there, after all life is a journey and the journey that you take to get there is worth more in the end.

There are no rules in life, and lady luck will tend to throw us all curve balls which leads us to going to Plan B, Plan C, Plan D et cetera, life is not perfect and neither should your plan because I can guarantee that things WILL NOT go the way that you planned.

So what can you do?

1. You control your beliefs
2. You control your actions
3. You control your reactions

Those above three steps all build on each other because once you believe that you control your beliefs, everything will fall into place. Once you have that and start controlling your actions, your taking action will reinforce those beliefs which will allow you to control your reactions, which leads to a beautiful and positive self-reinforcing cycle of belief and action. No matter what anyone tells you, you CAN do it.

Are you trying to lose weight and boost your self-esteem – note not self-confidence but self-esteem

1. Realise that your current behaviours are unhealthy
2. Take the necessary action by starting to exercise and PUSH YOURSELF
3. Your good and positive emotions and your body transforming will reinforce 1 and 2.

Are you trying to hustle, be successful and ultimately become a boss?

1. Remember that YOU CAN DO IT and every one “starts from the bottom”
2. Think about a solution to a problem (if you are selling a product)
3. Educate yourself and build the skill-set or bring together a group of people with the skills that you don’t have
4. Start something new
5. When you begin to achieve success (however you want to define it) these actions will reinforce those beliefs.

This is why, to me, reading is so crucial to success. Most people say they can’t read or don’t have the attention span, but remember your brain is a muscle which means you have to train your brain to be able to sit down and read. Start small, start by reading a chapter every few days, then a chapter a day and soon enough you’ll be chomping through books. Did you know that some of the most successful people on earth are voracious readers. That exercise is an example of the system I was explaining above.

Reading has a special place in my heart because if you are trying to break free from your current state and you don’t know where to turn to first, read a book. Read an autobiography or a book about a successful person because chances are there is something in there that you can relate to and take lessons from. Remember that the person who wrote that book spent a considerable amount of their time to assimilate their life lessons and experience in a condensed and effective format to help you.

 

“Be – don’t try to become” – Osho

 
Yours always,

The Shining Man