Self-Reliance

The essence of Self-Reliance?

TRUST THYSELF. Every heart vibrates to that iron string.

Which begs the question: Do YOU trust yourself?

What does your soul whisper to you in your quiet moments? Are you living in integrity with that?

As Emerson says, “These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world.”

Which begs another question…

Are you deliberately CREATING those quiet moments in your well-architected Masterpiece Days so you and your highest Self can actually hang out?

Or, are you constantly blowing your consciousness up with a ton of reality TV and a never-ending drip of push notifications featuring the irrelevant and often absurd?

Recall that you are the average of the five people with whom you spend the most time.

Then, make sure that the #1 person on your list of five includes Your Highest Self. Schedule time to connect with him or her every.single.day. (For me, as we’ve discussed many times, it’s first thing in the morning. Starting with turning off the electronics/entertainment the night before, getting a good night of sleep. Waking up early and energized. Meditation, a little movement, some Journaling on my highest ideals. Then letting that energy flow through me in a Note like this. You couldn’t pay me to NOT do that.)

Or, I suppose you could prioritize hanging out with reality TV stars or some fictional characters who’re crushing it in that must-watch TV Show. (Hah.)

In any case, let’s trust ourselves.

And, let’s remember that if want to be able to trust ourselves, we must know ourselves.

Emerson is so epically quotable. Where to begin there?

First, we need embrace the fact that, to be self-reliant we must be willing to not conform. If you haven’t noticed, our world is a little nuts. Simply going with the flow isn’t a sign of your optimal state of well-being. Which reminds me of Krishnamurti who once said: “It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

What matters? The integrity of your own mind.

Of course, when we have the courage to actually trust ourselves and pursue the integrity of our own minds, we better be ready to endure the consequences. As Emerson says: “For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure.” Which is why he also says: “And truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity, and has ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster.”

So, again, back to you.

How’s the integrity of your own mind?

Any disintegration in there?

What’s one little thing you can do to trust yourself just a little more today?

Pop quiz: What are you going after?

Greatness or mediocrity? … Well, which one is it?

Know that you doing what YOU think is right while being able to trust that impulse EVEN IF people around you don’t like it (and/or you) might just serve as the whole distinction between greatness and mediocrity (or “meanness” as Emerson calls it).

We will always find those who think they know what our duty is better than we do. And, those people will typically get a little upset when you don’t follow *their* path.

Which, again, is why we need to be willing to trust ourselves and not conform for the sake of making others feel comfortable. Guess what? Modern neuroscience agrees.

In his great book Iconoclast, Gregory Berns (who is one of the world’s leading pioneers in the field of neuroeconomics) walks us through the three primary ingredients to becoming an iconoclast. (Check out this +1 for more: How to Be an Iconoclast.)

First, we need to be willing to and have the capacity to see the world differently. That requires us to step out of the echo chamber of social media and news and actually THINK. To achieve THAT original perspective, we need to prioritize that quiet, one-on-one time with Your Highest Self we talked about in the first idea.

Then, you need to be willing to present a new vision for the world (or your part in it). And guess what happens when you do that? The world tends to whip you with its displeasure. People don’t like change. They push back on those who push things forward. Therefore, Berns tells us that we need to learn how to tame our amygadalae and deal with our fears and the pressures we feel to conform. (But only if we want to be iconoclasts and not mediocre.)

Finally, to make a positive difference in the world, we need to be good, trustworthy people. Being “self-reliant” doesn’t mean being a lone ranger doing it all on your own. NOTHING great is created alone. Period. The healthy iconoclast knows this and does the right thing because it’s the right thing, building a high level of trust over the long run such that his/her ideas can take root.

So, how are you doing on your Iconoclast checklist?

Seeing the world in a novel way (+ creating conditions to make that possible)? Willing + able to share your views without your amygdala stopping you in your tracks while being a good person?

What’s awesome? What needs work? Rock it.

P.S. The part about how easy it is to trust yourself and rock it when you’re alone vis-a-vis how hard it is when you’re in the crowd reminds me of Marcus Aurelius. In Meditations he says: “Men seek for seclusion in the wilderness, by the seashore, or in the mountains — a dream you have cherished too fondly yourself. But such fancies are wholly unworthy of a philosopher, since at any moment you choose you can retire within yourself. Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul; above all, he possesses resources in himself, which he need only contemplate to secure immediate ease of mind — the ease that is but another word for a well-ordered spirit. Avail yourself often, then, of this retirement and so continually renew yourself.”

I don’t even know what to say about that other than: “That’s worth a re-read.”

And, if you’re like one of the investors in my prior business (who happened to be a billionaire), you might want to memorize this part so you can recite it at will and remind yourself of the power of remaining flexible in your thinking:

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.—’Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’—Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”

In our coaching sessions, Phil Stutz and I talk about the importance of remaining flexible and experimenting and being willing to fail and course correct.

He compared it to the way a guided missile works—knowing its target and constantly adjusting course based on incoming data in pursuit of that target.

It’s called “cybernetics.” Maxwell Maltz wrote a whole book on it called Psycho-Cybernetics. He puts it this way: “The word ‘Cybernetics’ comes from a Greek word which means literally, ‘the steersman.’ Servo-mechanisms are so constructed that they automatically ‘steer’ their way to a goal, target, or ‘answer.’ When we conceive of the human brain and nervous system as a form of servo-mechanism, operating with Cybernetic principles, we gain a new insight into the why and wherefore of human behavior. I choose to call this new concept ‘Psycho-Cybernetics’: the principles of Cybernetics as applied to the human brain.”

For our purposes today, let’s know who we are and what we want. Speak what we believe in hard words today AND be willing to speak what we believe in hard words tomorrow—even if it contradicts everything we said today as we navigate our way to our ultimate destination.

btw: If you want to have that level of open-mindedness, I HIGHLY recommend an incredibly solid foundation and a very big, humble heart and openness to being wrong. The more dynamic our lives are, the more important we ground ourselves in the very basic fundamentals of Optimizing. Eat. Move. Sleep. Focus. Breathe. Repeat.

As I said in the intro, I could pretty much comment on every passage of the essay. I can pretty much comment on every LINE in this passage. Let’s do a speed round, shall we?

The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag of a hundred tacks. ← Alas, so is your life. We want a straight line of awesome from “Here” to “There” but it doesn’t work like that. We zig. We zag. From a distance those lines straighten themselves out. So, relax. Keep steering.

Greatness appeals to the future. ← What future is pulling you?

The force of character is cumulative. All the foregone days of virtue work their health into this. What makes the majesty of the heroes of the senate and the field, which so fills the imagination? The consciousness of a train of great days and victories behind. ← Who are YOUR heroes?

Can you see that the force of their character (and yours) is cumulative? Their radiance is a function of TON of great Masterpiece Days and moment-to-moment victories behind them.

I love that. For the moment, let’s imagine that YOU are that “sot.” Let’s imagine that the current version of you is expressing just a fraction of your infinite potential. Which, for the record, we can bet is pretty much true regardless of your current level of awesome. :)

With that in mind, let’s have fun waking up, exercising our reason, and trying on our new royal personalities. And, as we do that, let’s know that science supports this approach. In fact, Richard Wiseman (Britain’s official professor in “the Public Understanding of Psychology”) encourages us to play a similar game in The As If Principle.

He says: “It might be helpful to think of your old personality as being on vacation for two weeks, so you have an opportunity to act like a different person. It is important, however, that you play out your new role twenty-four hours a day, even when you’re alone. The As If principle will cause you to feel like a new person, and the new you will soon become part of your actual identity.”

So, high fives to the Royal You. Have an amazing, Self-Reliant day, will ya?