Tag: anxiety

Categories
Philosophy

The Debt Collector & The Heathen

The debt collector was incessant.

He wouldn’t go away. For a week, there he’d be, waiting outside school and becoming increasingly angry. Classic debt collector.

I was 9. He was 10, going on 11.

Adam was his name, and he liked football too. He was in his final year. It was a small school and only a few people played football. Adam was a midfielder and so was I. He wanted to go pro and so did I (either that or a fighter pilot). We were arch rivals and hated each other. 

Today’s game was intense. The score was 0 – 0. Just a moment left.

The whistle went. The end. A tie. Back to class.

“Penalties after school to decide the winner,” Adam said.

We all ran back inside to learn about gravity for the first time. 

Miss asked the class, “so if the earth’s spinning at 465 meters per second, then what holds us to the ground?”

A kid called Michael tentatively put his hand up.

“Yes Michael,” said Miss, “what do you think it is?”

“The carpet?” he answered.

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It was the penalty shoot out. The decider. Adam was up. He scored easily. I was next.

“Bet you miss,” he said.

“Oh yeah? No way.” I snapped.

“£2 says you miss,” Adam snapped back.

“Fine. £2.”

I stared intensely at the goal, decided where to aim, and ran. I struck the ball with all my might and willed it into the back of the net. It was not enough to want it, you had to will it. It flew and flew through the air, soaring calmly and beautifully like an eagle before gravity returned it to Earth. Beckham would’ve been jealous.

And then it went wide. Well wide. A miss.

We’d lost. Adam’s team had won. And now I owed him £2, which is a lot when you’re 9.

“Pay up, kid.” Adam shouted, as though he was Jack Nicholson in The Departed.

A deal was a deal. But I didn’t carry around that kind of cash. Are you crazy?

“Gotta go,” I said nervously, just before running away, “I have a swimming lesson.”

There was no such lesson that evening, though. The swimming lesson was an excuse to get out of having to deal with Adam. He was scary. Not someone to mess with. It was okay to mess with him on the pitch but not okay on the playground.

Adam suddenly went from football rival to savvy debt collector. And he wasn’t just a businessman. He was a business, man. Every day not paying Adam incurred an interest rate of 20p per day. Real loan shark rates. I had to think this through.

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Misslette The Singing Cowgirl started to tear up, soon after she demonstrated the art of yodelling in a small room in Texas.

“I could’ve taught Heathen 101,” she said, as the memories came flooding back. “I was a shining example of a Heathen. I did all sorts of things that I’m not proud of. But when I was serious, I cried out to God. And I said ‘If you are really God, prove it to me.’”

“And on September 28th 1992, at 7.10 in the morning, I was staring at my ceiling, and just thinking ‘my life is out of control, I can’t quit drinking’. My skin would burn, my nose would burn. I would have to wake up and put liquor in my coffee. I cried out to God and said ‘I need help. If you’re real, help me.’ And that morning, I heard the audible voice of God. And you know what He said to me? ‘DO NOT DRINK TODAY!’, that’s all He said. And it scared me to death.”

Anyone can feel like they’ve hit rock bottom. Whether it’s addiction, work, a debt collector, physical health, not getting picked to go pro, anxiety, depression or any other countless thing that is taboo and doesn’t get talked about.

Clearly those things suck. But when we notice them, even when our days have become bleak, we are presented an opportunity to act, clean up, move on and get better. Because regardless of the specifics or our beliefs, it’s easier to be moved to action from a personal experience, even if it’s a terrible one, than to be moved to action from anything else. So it’s not all bad, it’s just a learning experience.

“People can think I’m crazy all they want,” Misslette half-joked, “but 20 years later I still haven’t had another drink.”

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It was embarrassing, as a 9 year old, to a) lose at penalties and b) be a target atop a 10 year old’s debt collection list. So I didn’t dare tell anyone about the reason behind starting a very sudden refreshments company.

On the Saturday morning, I filled up a jug of water, then raided the cupboards at home and eventually found some plastic cups, a foldable table, and two bottles of concentrated juice. Throwing it all into a wheelbarrow, I walked to the nearest field.

The field had a footpath through it, which attracted a decent amount of leisurely walkers on a weekend. I unfolded the table, propped up a sign that read ‘Drinks For Walkers – £1 each’ in all capitals, and then sold 6 drinks to some thirsty walkers.

Adam was waiting at school on Monday. I handed him the money, which had gone from £2 to £3 with interest.

“Yeah, whatever loser,” he said, irritated that he wouldn’t be able to keep profiteering, the savvy little shit. “Another penalty shoot out at the park tonight? Double or quits.”

“Can’t. Got a swimming lesson.”

We never spoke again, and then I quit football forever and spent the remaining £3 on stick-on biker tattoos.

Categories
Philosophy

Burnout: How To Cure It (With Lessons From Pjorn)

In my experience the stages of burnout go like this:

  1. Oh yes! I’m so excited to be starting this. Think of the possibilities!
  2. Hmmm. It’s not gaining as much traction as first hoped. But hey, life’s alright.
  3. Are these doubts going to subside? Ah forget that, let’s keep cracking on.
  4. We’re struggling, something just fell through, and I just spent all day mentally elsewhere (trying to think of every character from Sesame Street). 
  5. Shall we go to the pub for a beer and talk turnaround strategy?
  6. These blankets are so warm. I’m not getting out of bed. No. Stop it. Get up!
  7. Sorry guys I’m done. Too much stress. Can’t do this anymore.

True burnout has happened to me once. There were three of us building a company. Looking back now, it’s easy to see that by the end of it, none of us were content with what we were doing and were all on a track for the dreaded B. It was just a matter of who reached stage 7 first. 

This is not about doom and gloom though, quite the opposite. Occasionally burnout is well-needed, as there’s a few positives that happen as a result which are hard to see at the time. One positive is that taking action after becoming burnt out might lead us to seek experiences that are truly exciting and personally profound, and those experiences might lead to new things. For example, a good pal has been slowly making his way around the Pacific for over a year, working on farms, and teaching and volunteering on boats, and as a side-effect of that experience he’s now found permaculture as something that fires him up. It takes getting drained to learn about ourselves and our values sometimes.

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Another benefit of burnout is, as we now know what the signals are, they should be easier to spot and resolve in the future. Because whilst there’s a time for embracing it, there’s also a time for trying to stop it happening. 

These are the signals (IMO) that show we’re at risk of burning out:

  • If we only spend time working or sleeping, it’s bad news.
  • If we wake up and aren’t stoked more than three days in a row, it’s bad news.
  • If we convince ourselves that what we do is the be-all and end-all, it’s bad news.
  • If we struggle to generate new ideas, it’s bad news.
  • If we need a break two days after getting back from a break, it’s bad news. 
  • If we agree with stuff that we shouldn’t agree with just because we’re too drained, it’s bad news. 
  • If we start to become jaded, cynical and pessimistic, it’s bad news.

Hopefully you don’t have too many of those symptoms, but if you do, spotting them early offers the best chance of exterminating them. But how? What is the metaphorical burnout fire extinguisher? HERE is the (non-medical, ahem) CURE to burnout in one word: Fun. Play. Enjoyment. Oops that was three words.

The best thing to do to stop burnout is to take time to have fun and come back with a fresh mind and a new outlook. “Adults are just obsolete children”, said Dr. Seuss. Good one doc. See, now this post is medically proven. We can’t gain perspective when we’re ‘in it’ so the best way is to step back and play and enjoy doing something that’s completely unrelated to whatever is causing anxiety. Take a train to Hypothetiville without a phone. Strum on your ukulele. Do something that makes you laugh. Do one of those things where when you’re doing it you aren’t thinking about anything else and reach a flow-state. For Obama, putting balls on the golf course is a way of relaxing and gaining perspective. 

ukuleles_can_be_fun

Without realising it, sometimes everything can become very “serious”. A bubble of importance is created around what we do. That seems silly if we consider the benefits of “the non-serious”. Light-heartedness and fun don’t need to be justified, but we can justify them if we want as they have these side-effects: increased creativity, optimism, happiness, fascination, contentment. And those things lead to more focus and better work. So all in all smiles and fun and laughing are pretty vital. 

There’s a guy called Bjorn from Sweden, he was in a documentary that was on the other day. You probably know him but I’ll leave it as a riddle to see if you can work it out. When he was starting out, he’d go off to a cabin in the woods and write songs with the goal of becoming a pro musician. His songs became hits quickly and because of that he was able to keep going to the cabin in the woods and keep writing cheesy love songs and keep having fun doing it. Bjorn’s initial efforts paid off rapidly, which isn’t the case for most people. He was obviously skilled and had dedication, but that’s the case for lots of people. Luck played a part. 

The thing about luck is that most of the time people don’t get lucky the first time around. That’s just how probability works. Other than rare exceptions, the only way to get lucky is to stay in the game long enough so the odds of probability increase. (n.b. this is not a good approach for gambling addicts).

So because first-time luck is rare, there’s probably a single Bjorn to a thousand Pjorn’s. Who’s Pjorn? I’ve got no idea. Pjorn is just a guy chasing a dream of a creative career, building something from scratch and trying to carve a path in the world. Only at some point he will probably come face-to-face with the dreaded burnout, and he might quit and stop having fun. There’s a lot of BS out there that would now say that perhaps if Pjorn had just kept going just a little bit, he would’ve made it happen. But that might not be true. No-one other than Pjorn has a valid opinion. Pjorn is the best judge of when to give up and move on. Quitting when you become burned out is totally fine if it’s the right thing to do. Pjorn knows more than anyone when enough is enough.

The thing that Pjorn should remember – regardless of whether he’s burnt out and quits, or tries to extinguish his burnout before it becomes an issue by having fun every day – is that stuff takes time. That doesn’t mean he has to stick to doing the exact same thing for years and years if it becomes a drag. It just means he needs be flexible and willingly sign up to the long haul and trust that things take time. For people like Pjorn, the long haul is the only approach that comes with decent odds. It takes time to increase experience and skill, but probably more importantly it takes time to increase the odds. Whether those are correlated is another matter.

beaches_can_be_fun

Burnout doesn’t mean we need to run away entirely, although there can be benefits in doing that. It can be less dramatic, and simply a time to re-assess whether what we’re doing each day is what we really should be doing each day. No-one other than the burnt truly knows what to do.

It took a long time to move on from my burnout. There’s a horrible dark period that happens during and after it which isn’t enjoyable at all unless you actively remember to step back and have fun. But I’m grateful it happened, as whilst we can learn from stuff that’s comfortable, it’s really the uncomfortable that teaches us the lessons we won’t forget. 

I don’t want burnout to happen again any time soon, but sometimes wonder what would happen if it did. What would be the actionable result of going back to that place? Would it be an escape? Perhaps it would be a big walk with a rucksack full of ramen. It’s impossible to say. But for now, being settled, having fun, looking out for symptoms of burnout and trying to kill them, and being content in the knowledge that things take time is quite OK.

Maybe that’s growth. Maybe that’s the conclusion Pjorn reached too.

Categories
Interviews Philosophy

9 Realisations on Anxiety, Persistence, Challenges & More

It’s a highly unlikely thing that they’d be shouting. Armed robbers wouldn’t care. They’d probably want wallets and a code to a safe or to find nearby car keys and laptops. Maybe an escape route that avoided Liam Neeson. If they did want all that they’d probably be quite disappointed. But let’s stretch our imaginations for a second. If an aggressive dude was holding a gun to my temple and screaming, ‘if you could only choose one part of last year to do again what would it be’, then I wouldn’t say the bike trip. Or the locations it took place in. Or the foggy mornings and quiet nights. Or anything like that.

To whittle it down to one thing, as per their ridiculous, somewhat improbable and weird-crazy armed robber demands, the answer would be: having the opportunity to talk to a bunch of radfolks™. Because of the moments that were shared and the wisdom that every single person had to offer in their own unique and always badass way. I’ve been delving into the archives over the last few days and came across some things that I’d forgotten about but are valuable.

Things that make a lot of sense but are sometimes overlooked. Easy to forget when you want to get somewhere fast. Easy to forget when you fail or succeed. Easy to forget when your nerves kick in. Easy to forget when you over-focus on one aspect of your life and let others slide. And easy to forget when you get frustrated by thinking you don’t have any of this sh*t figured out and then wrongly assuming others don’t question it all too.

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On The Process, Anxiety & Confidence – by Nick Thune, Comedian

“You look around, and it’s a business where there is no sure path, so it’s hard to realise that it’s this marathon where everybody’s kind of running their own pace. And it’s not about winning, it’s just about getting to the end and pacing yourself out for it. And that’s a thought that you have to look back into when you feel that way. I feel that constantly. I can be really overly confident sometimes, and I know that’s gotten me in trouble before, and sometimes I’ll be so insecure that it gets me in trouble. It’s a weird battle that you’re constantly fighting back and forth.

At 16 my mom put me in with one of their friends who’s a therapist. I just remember the simplest thing he told me is that at any moment you can change your attitude. It’s actually one of the most simple things. And a lot of the time it’s just changing the way you’re thinking about one thing. Like – anxiety is also anticipation, and excitement. If you’re nervous about something, what if you were excited about it? It’s actually the same feeling in your body. And I don’t know if this is actually true – I just remember hearing it and wanting to believe it so bad that I made it true – but the feeling of anxiety in your body is physically the same feeling as excitement, your brain is just choosing to look at it the way you’re choosing to look at it. And that’s something I focus on a lot.”

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On What You Do Every Days & Making Things – by Dora Sullivan, Mayor of Cape Charles, Virginia

“I think the thing that people miss is the fact that it’s not so much about what you do every day. In Greece you could see a street sweeper, and that’s his day job, but it’s what you do after the fact. It’s your circle of friends. It’s family. It’s the rescue dog. And then you’ve gotta dream. It’s so good to dream. So I make things. I look like a bag lady. I go to the beach and pick up driftwood, rocks, glass, fishing lures. I found half an oar the other day. And then I make something. It’s therapy, and it’s the thrill of the hunt and the smell of the sea. At some point, you’re going to have to do one of those dreams. You’re going to have to do something on that list, or you’ll catch yourself in your own lie because you didn’t do it.”

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On Good Energy, Paying It Forward & Challenging Yourself – by Brad Haith, Cross Country Walker

“At 14 years old I was in trouble a lot, and that trouble led up until the age of 16. That landed me in jail until I was 26. After 10 years in prison, when I got out I decided to change my life. And this must come with some insight of wanting to change, so I grabbed a bag, and I wanted to help people. I always loved helping people. So I decided to walk and give out the energy I had that was holding inside me. I had a small backpack, and no food or anything. I just wanted to give out some good energy and break away, like a release from where I was, and travel. It changed my life. I shook every hand I could shake, and met everyone from just about every nationality.

The interesting point in my journey was – it didn’t only change my life, I hope that I changed other peoples lives as well. I think passing it on is important, because once I have received what I have received, it’s not fair for me to hold it in for myself. I think it’s good to share it. My childhood was in jail. Prison. Penitentiary. And it was tougher, rougher. I didn’t have a life. This is why I believe in positive energy, and good natured people. Because when you do something good, it comes back. It’s the cycle of life, I believe. In 13 years I was not hurt once, and I’ve met everyone from all walks of life.

Always challenge yourself. Always. Because it gives a meaning in ones life to always challenge yourself.”

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On Being Tired Of It All & Where To Find Inspiration – by Sierra Noble, Singer Songwriter

“I think that it’s those times where you’re having a bad day and you’re tired and you look in the mirror and it’s just like ‘I look like crap, I feel horrible, I’m exhausted, I don’t feel like doing the show’. It’s in those moments of vulnerability and in a way, openness, that I’m always reminded. When I do the show and afterward go out and meet people, it’s really easy to convince yourself that you feel alone and tired of all of it, but it’s also really easy to open yourself up to connecting with people anywhere, and it doesn’t have to be anyone that you know. It can be a 10 second genuine exchange with a human being, that can completely recharge your being.  And I’ve realized that life is really fulfilled by connection, and humans thrive in connection. And if we cut ourselves off, whether it be our own doing or whether we’re cut off by other reasons, that’s when we stop thriving.

Honestly, not thinking about it is the best thing you can do, and staying open – keeping your heart and mind open. And if you’re even this much drawn to something, go in that direction, check it out, go through the door, check out the room, if it’s cool sit in it for 5 minutes. Be like ‘what’s gonna happen? I don’t know. Oh nothing happened. Next door.’ I find that I get the most stuck when I think about it too much. It’s the same with writers block and all that. People rack their brains for inspiration, when that’s not where you find inspiration. Inspiration isn’t often in our brains, it’s around us, and we have to just stop and listen to the universe around us.”

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On Your Previous Self & Being Good At Something – by Andrew Sinkov, VP Marketing at Evernote

“I don’t think you can actually give your previous self any advice, because if I gave myself advice, I wouldn’t be the person that I am now. So I think the best advice is to just keep on doing what you’re doing.

I think everybody’s good at something. Most people that aren’t sure where they need to go haven’t identified the thing that they’re good at. Everybody has a skill or a passion that really gets them going. And it’s translating that into something real-world that is actually useful and applicable. I think often people don’t realise what they’re actually good at, or what their skills are and what makes them different from the people that are standing next to them, and I think it’s exploring that, and finding an outlet for it. It’s just identifying in yourself the thing that really makes you happy, and finding that there are opportunities out there in all industries that allow you to do that.”

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On Imposter Syndrome, Success & The Edge Of Competency – by Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress

“What I see more amongst entrepreneurs who are friends, is the ‘I shouldn’t be here’ – more impostor syndrome. It’s not that you’re scared of success, it’s that sometimes you can really reach a level of success that you feel like you’re not ready for yet, or a level of responsibility. The truth is that none of us have really done this before. And when you accept that, and just do your best, or try your hardest and learn as much as you can, I feel like when you rise to those challenges, that it’s very satisfying, because you’re constantly at the edge of your competence.”

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On Persistence, Risk & Betting On Yourself – by Ruben Fleischer, Film Director

“There’s friends I can think of that were way funnier than me, or way more talented. And I think they were afraid to take the risk. Whereas for me, the one talent I think I have more than anything else is persistence. I just won’t give up. And so when I was trying to be a director, and I put myself $35,000 in debt trying to do that, but I was determined that it was going to work out. I wasn’t going to stop until I’d figured it out. It just was unfathomable. Once I said, ‘I’m going to start directing’, and I just stopped working for other people, and shot short films and low-budget music videos, that’s when nothing was handed to me. I just kept on shooting, shooting, shooting, shooting, and then gradually people started to pay attention, and then it kept just growing very organically. And it has because it’s been almost 10 years now, starting from a $50 music video to features for studios.

There’s a million directions to go – I think that’s the trickiest part. But the more you know where you wanna be, the more people can help you get there. Otherwise, if you truly don’t know, I think you’ve just gotta go experience as much as you can. And if you have an inclination to something, try it and see if it suits you, and if it doesn’t, keep it moving and see what’s next. There’s a lot of successful people who can tell you that they didn’t find it right away, and that it came later in life or that they kind of stumbled into it. A lot of people just happen across it. That was certainly the case for me.”

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On Figuring Out How To Make It Work & Having Support – by Eileen Gittins, CEO of Blurb Inc

“Do something you love. I don’t care what it is. If you love it, you will figure out a way to make the rest of your life work with that. I have to be in it and love that thing. It’s like artists – seriously – where they can’t not paint. A musician can’t not make music. If you can find anything where you feel that way about it, just do it. Because that will work out in the end. You just have to ride it and just know that it’s a journey – it’s not a straight line – and be prepared for that. And have support around you. Family, friends, partners, spouses, whatever – who are in it with you. It’s too hard to do by yourself, you have to have people in it with you.”

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On There Being Nothing That Stops You – by John Canfield, founder of High Above Designs

“A good friend had a ski company and was thinking about making a pack. He said to me, whilst I was still working at my former business, ‘look I need a prototype made’. And I agreed to do it, and I also prefaced it with him that I really didn’t know what I was doing. He was like, ‘that’s OK, you can learn’ and from his entrepreneurial standpoint it was; what you need to know, you will learn.

So he gave me this project, and right as that project started I was fired from my last job for bringing my dog into work. I remember calling him and being like ‘Dan, I’m so screwed. I don’t have a sewing machine to use anymore’. I didn’t have one at home. And he said ‘You should go get one’. And I remember thinking, that’s so simple. His spirit was saying there’s nothing that stops you, there are things that slow you down, and it’s the way you deal with them and the way you move past them. And that was an eye-opener for me.”

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