Author: Nik

The first two months of the year went by in a blur. I don’t remember much of what I’ve done. I can’t tell you to what places I’ve been, my amazing birthday trip being the one exception. I spent some time sick, much time working, and almost all of it looking at screens — but it all went by so quickly! How?

The answer is awareness. Or rather, a lack of it. The more I allow my brain to frantically plow through vast seas of information, the way it likes to do, the less present I am — and the faster time seems to go by. But when I take frequent breaks, sit and think before I act, and approach each task or activity with intention, I never feel in a rush. Yet, ironically, I get more done.

You can do the same work in four undistracted hours that you can do in eight while constantly multitasking, but you’ll feel much better after the former than after the latter. You’ll remember where your time went and why, and you’ll have actually experienced its passage. This is self-awareness the habit, the practice, the cognitive state. The more you master it, the less your brain will pull you inadvertently into the future.

We cannot fast-forward the clock, but awareness still determines the perceived speed at which we are going. You only have one life. Make sure you’re there to live it.

The recycling movement doesn’t need you picketing for its cause. It needs you to recycle your trash.

In the same vein, it’s nice to talk about supporting artists and rooting for the creator economy, but do you actually watch your friend’s Youtube channel? Do you turn off your ad-blocker when you do it? Do you buy your friend’s book on the first day it is released, or do you put it off until later, and then it never happens? Do you make time to visit your friend’s art exhibition? Do you skip asking for a free ticket?

Nobody’s perfect. We’ve all skimmed off the top here and there. We’re busy. Worried about our own problems. And yes, at times, just lazy. But when a beautiful piece of art lands in your lap sent right from within your circle, don’t ignore it. The occasional $10 spent on the causes of the people you know and love goes much further than any philosophical debate at a star-studded gala event.

Support art where you meet it and go to bed knowing that, just like in separating the plastic from the glass, you’ve done enough.

The last thing CoolTrainerRyan needs is money. He’s 35, an accountant by day, but by night, he sits in his designated Pokémon workshop on his seven-acre estate — and on a card collection worth millions of dollars.

But the first time Ryan livestreams on Youtube after a few years of growing his channel to around 90,000 subscribers, something fascinating happens: Immediately, people start showering him in donations. $10 here, $20 there. A 50 from a kind stranger, even a 100 every now and then. Within minutes, he’s racked up hundreds of dollars, even after explicitly and repeatedly telling people to stop sending money. But why?

Is it the content of the stream, perhaps? The quality of what’s happening? I assure you, it is not. Ryan is streaming from an old iPhone, in vertical orientation, sitting on his couch with his friend and fellow Youtuber Sean aka PokéVault, mostly drinking whiskey. They’re chatting, laughing, cracking jokes. Only when he sees the money rolling in does Ryan actually start grabbing card packs to open — he feels guilty and doesn’t want to profit off the stream. What’s going on?

The next day, it is Ryan’s birthday — which happens to also be the day Pokémon was invented. Despite its poetic origin, the event to commemorate it is anything but: On his first “proper” livestream — the camera is set up in the right format this time — Ryan, Sean, and Nick, another Poketuber, spend the first 20 minutes just sitting at a makeshift table, eating burgers and fries.

Eventually, packs will be opened, viewers will be greeted, and other streamers visited, but all in all, the 3.5-hour stream is a hot mess. The friends talk over each other. Ryan keeps throwing around cards. There’s no structure or plan at all. Comments get skipped. Openings interrupted. The guys duck in and out of the stream. And yet again, the donations keep rolling. How can this be?

To explain all of this madness, it only takes one word: authenticity. When you watch CoolTrainerRyan, you get 100%, unfiltered authenticity. He curses. He gets mad at his bad luck. He throws hissy fits, calls out scammy Youtubers, and complains about his six cats. In other words, you’re watching a real human being. Not a manufactured character opening cards for kids like a cartoon figure on TV.

When Ryan is with his friends, that authenticity only gets amplified. That, too, is a phenomenon we can relate to. It’s much more fun to watch three grown men behave like children, dissing each other, cracking jokes, falling to the floor laughing, than it is to observe three show hosts, trying hard to be professional, waiting for something interesting to happen.

At one point in the stream, Ryan throws a card up so hard, he damages his new ceiling. At another, Sean finds a baby frog under a shelf, holds it into the camera, and spends the next 15 minutes hunting for animals. This is not a livestream. It is real life. That’s why it’s interesting, and that’s why people keep sending Ryan money even though he doesn’t need it.

Whatever art you’re making, ensure it’s always you who’s still making it. Don’t get lost in trying too hard to manufacture something people will like. Live your life one honest day at a time, because if you do, whether the cameras are rolling or not doesn’t matter. You’ll have the same, genuine experiences with friends, family, and the community you serve — and any donations you receive for your cause will only be the icing on top of the cake.

Last Monday, I summarized a book about communication. It’s a 1,200-word piece. The word “conversation” appears 21 times. That might not sound like much, but imagine talking to someone for five minutes, and in those five minutes, they use the word “conversation” 21 times. It’s a lot.

In that same piece, I used the word “discussion” four times. I also used the word “exchange,” but only once. So it’s not like I lacked creativity. I lacked discipline. Why? Because thinking of new words to express the same idea is hard, and if you rely on sheer will to do it, you will fail. That’s why opening a thesaurus — a dictionary for synonyms, if you will — is one of the biggest acts of service you can perform for your readers.

On a better Monday, I’d have kept a tab with a thesaurus open during my editing. I’d have used the word “conversation” less to begin with, and I’d have replaced it with beautiful terms like “dialogue,” “discourse,” or “debate” wherever it piled up a little too frequently.

This kind of creativity takes zero genius thought. It’s a matter of effort and effort alone. As long as you’re willing to spend 15 seconds browsing synonyms and picking one that’s appropriate — and to do so time and again — you’ll reap this precious activity’s rewards: Your writing will be three times more colorful, twice as nuanced, and you will look like a genius despite simply being dedicated.

The English language has 171,476 words. To get through everyday life, we rely on a mere 3,000 of them. It’s a myth that we only use 20% of our brain, but it seems we are using only 2% of our language. That’s a shame for our “conversations,” but in our writing, it’s an outright disgrace.

Open a thesaurus. Use synonyms.

It was a small candleholder inside a glass display offering all kinds of decorative products. One of those cylindric ones with text on them that you can read once you put a tealight inside. Here’s what it said: “Family — We may not have everything we want, but together, we are all we need.”

What a great definition! Who those people are and when you start using the word, that’s up to you. But in the end, as long as you feel whole together, all bases will be covered.

Life is about connections, not possessions — and the best way to decorate a room is to fill it with hugs and roaring laughter.

“Nothing over nonsense” was one of the first lessons that emerged from my theme, “Rise,” this year. It might be painful to watch an income stream trickle slowly towards zero while you’re figuring out what’s next, what’s better, but sometimes, that’s superior to frantically trying to save something not worth saving.

This week, I learned another: Ask for your true worth.

My writing course was the most expensive product I had ever sold. It started from around $200. I had no problem asking for that much, since it was filled with over 100 lessons, a solid 15 hours, of writing experience and lessons acquired over many years. That course sold hundreds of units in its lifetime and made around $70,000.

In hindsight, I should have priced it higher. It was worth a lot more still — but it was also the closest I ever came to asking for my true worth. Everything else I’ve done, from my books to the Four Minute Books membership to my writing on Medium, was far too cheap for its value.

One of my most-read articles on Medium, for example, made $11,873. That sounds like a lot for one essay, and it is. But that essay was viewed almost a million times, and more than 250,000 people actually read the nine-minute piece. That means everyone who read it paid, in essence, less than five cents for a truly glorious dose of inspiration. No one would ask me to sell it directly to people for that much. Even the idea feels insulting. And if I took as little as $1 for it, that’d still make it worth 20 times as much as I was actually paid.

The irony, of course, is that if we pay less, we perceive less value. It’s much easier to talk down a $20 product than a $200 product. After all, it makes you look like a fool for spending that much on a mistake. Plus, the math messes with our heads.

With my writing course, the price also established important boundaries. People could easily identify whether they could afford it or not, and there was little haggling over the price. Everyone wants a deal on a $20 fruit basket, but no one asks for 5% off on a Gucci handbag. One feels like a smart play, the other is just embarrassing.

I’ve spent a long time trying to be the guy who gives away everything for next to nothing, and so far, that has never led to a sustainable source of income. I think I’m done trying. I’d rather have a lasting business than a good-samaritan reputation, because if giving away your last shirt leaves you without anything to give, then how much good will you ultimately really do?

People don’t appreciate cheap pricing on good value as much as they appreciate fair pricing on great value. Stop selling yourself short, and ask for your true worth.

When you’re sick on Monday, it feels almost impossible to imagine that, by Sunday, you’ll be well enough to go on a five-hour train ride. Almost. In that “almost” lives the little bit of perceived probability you need to fill your seemingly unlikely vision with color.

Because of course, in reality, it is far from impossible to recover from a cold within a week. You’ve done it plenty of times. In fact, it is a more likely outcome than not improving at all — but right now, your bedridden brain just won’t allow you to see it.

Like many things, imagination is worth the most when it’s hardest to practice. Have faith, and continue to book tickets against the odds.

When you can speak only in a whisper, you’ll think twice as long about what you’ll say, if anything. My voice has been gone for a day, likely due to the flu, and I’m already adjusting my speaking habits.

It doesn’t take much for the simple things to be taken away, and it’s not your most prized possessions that must take a hit for you to deeply shift your perspective. Remove a man’s ability to eat what he wants, to hear, see, or feel things touching his skin, and he’ll adapt quickly and drastically, even if the change is only temporary.

What are you taking for granted that might not be granted to you tomorrow? And how would you adjust if that gift were truly gone for a week? What about a lifetime?

Seneca once said that “nothing ought to be unexpected by us.” We should “send our minds forward in advance to meet all problems, and we should consider not what is wont to happen, but what can happen.” Anticipate the unlikely but possible, and learn from it before you have to.

When the two Viking worshippers Ubbe and Floki finally reunite in a strange new land after being apart for years, Ubbe asks his old friend: “Are the gods here? Have you seen them?”

Having spent a lifetime trying to please Odin and co. without much result, Floki can only scoff: “Don’t bother me with that. What business is that of mine? I am an ant, toiling on the forest floor. I see only the leaf above my head. That leaf brings me some relief from the sun.”

Like Floki once used to, Ubbe thirsts for knowledge. But after seeing knowledge be of little use and even less permanence time and again, Floki reminds him of the only fact that matters: the present. “You don’t need to know anything,” he tells him. “It’s not important. Let the past go.”

How much time do we spend wondering: “What if I had done this differently? What motive lies behind that person’s actions? Why is what used to work no longer working?” In reality, none of it matters.

We are ants, toiling on the forest floor. When there’s a leaf above our heads, we walk into its shadow, and we enjoy some relief from the sun. And when there isn’t? Then we keep toiling away. Sooner or later, a new leaf will appear.

When you catch yourself spending too much time in your head, ask: “Do I really need to know?” Chances are, the answer is “No.” You just need to return to the present, pick up the next blade of grass, and be on your way.

The good thing about a crisis is that it inhabits so much of your mental space, you won’t have time to indulge some of your usual mistakes.

An urgent deadline with a last-minute reboot might get you so focused on work, you forget to eat here and there, leading to less snacking. An upcoming performance with high stakes might make you cut your drinking by 50%, seemingly without effort.

The real win, however, is maintaining your crisis benefits after the crisis has subsided. Can you emerge from a career disaster or financial setback not just with a better job or healthier bank account, but also as a more loving mother, fitter runner, or less frequent nail-biter? Of course you can!

Never waste a good crisis, they say. Why? Because in solving a dilemma, you may eliminate more problems than just the one staring you square in the face. Use the momentum, and rise stronger than ever before.