I give Style (Neil Strauss) and Tucker Max credit for this.
1. Be realistic.
Know what you can and cannot do. Trying to dunk when you’re a 5’6 Asian guy is possible. But don’t expect to make it to the Lakers (I guess you can try though. That way when you don’t make it you can at least say that you gave it a real shot and there’s nothing weighing down on your mind). But remember, just because you think you’re amazing doesn’t make it so. Remember the Lake Wobegon Effect*.
*90% of people think they are smarter and better at communicating than the average person. The obvious problem is that if 90% are better than average, what does average really mean?
2. If you didn’t succeed, it is always your fault.
This is an important rule for two reasons.
1. It usually is.
What’s more realistic, you didn’t study enough to get an A on the test, or that the teacher purposely made an impossible test to make innocent kids suffer while she laughs about it to her other professor friends as they toast to having a whole class flunk a course just to be major douchebags? Ockham’s Razor*, gentlemen.
2. Even if it isn’t, you’re on your way to knowing what to change.
If you blame someone else, you wash your hands of guilt and keep doing what you’re doing. You don’t expand your perspectives. But if you change things, you might end up with better (or worse) results. Tinker a bit with your abilities.
*The possibility with the least amount of variables (the “simplest” possibility) is statistically the most likely to be right.
3. Familiar ground is enemy ground.
Who is more likely to dominate in life, the person who does the same thing every day or the person who tries something new every day? Who knows more about the world? Try the new flavors. “Give me the usual” should be the last resort.
This also applies to your social life. Make sure you have more than one sphere of friends. If all you have is one club, or one fraternity, or your floor, then your views are probably pretty narrow. Embrace change. This is how innovation and discovery happen.
An important note: Be open minded. Never dismiss an idea until you try it, unless it involves homicide or something. Then it really depends on who you’re killing.
4. Make sure that you know what you know.
Don’t just accept what you’ve been instructed to do or believe. Chances are most of you are doing what you’re doing in college due to some type of pressure from family (a doctor or a lawyer is NOT the highest paying job in the world). Just remember that your parents are not 100% satisfied with their lives, so they are probably trying to live some of their own aspirations through you. So “doing what’s good for you” might not actually be what’s good for you. Everyone deceives. Authority is no exception.
Remember that a lot of what you’ve been taught was wrong. Columbus’s crew wasn’t the first Europeans in the New World. Actually, neither was Vespucci. And none of the educated elites actually thought the world was flat at that point in time.
Side note: Your memory is not legitimate proof of knowing something. Try to have more proof than that. Smart people in white labcoats say that about 10% of our memories, due to cryptomnesia and confabulation, did not actually happen in real life. Apparently human margin of error is higher than Wikipedia’s.
5. There are more Sith than Jedi.
There are not enough resources in the world to satisfy all 6.7 billion people. Therefore, you have to fight for what you want, because you need more than your fair share to live a comfortable life. With this in mind, helping people that aren’t your family or close friend is therefore hurting your chances at survival and replication (the two goals of any biological being). So basically, you need to hang a carrot on a string if you want anyone to do anything for you. If you’re unwilling to embrace the Lucifer Effect*, just refer to the Milgram experiment** (among countless other similar findings).
*People get more and more evil as they get more experienced at life, because evil is awesome. Just ask yourself why Heath Ledger’s Joker got so much more attention than Batman (besides….um….yeah).
**People are willing to hurt innocent people as long as someone tells them to.
Note: I am not telling you to be evil. I’m just saying that you’re better off assuming people don’t give a damn about your needs. It’s damn near impossible to succeed all by yourself, so have something real to offer people.
6. Shift perspectives.
You go out one night and you meet a cute girl. You hit it off pretty well. Just as you’re ready to leave the place with her, her friend comes and tells her not to go with you. You can do two things from this point.
1. Call her friend a cockblock and a bitch (spoiler alert! You’re going home alone).
2. Understand from her point of view that she is concerned for her friend’s safety. Talk to her friend for a bit and reassure her that you’re not some psychopath that wants to chop her to pieces. Give her your number and have her call you if she feels that her friend might be in trouble.
Of course, this perspective thing applies to a lot of situations, not just guys looking to score.
7. Accept criticism, if it is useful.
If you’re playing basketball and someone tells you that you suck and you genuinely fail at life and that you should go throw yourself in front of a train, you have the right to tell him to go fuck himself. But if several independent sources tell you that your shots arch to the right, you know what to work on, don’t you?
Side note: You can also blame the Coriolis Effect on this one, unless you live in Australia or something.
8. Balls > Brains.
I know a lot of people that are really smart. They can reason out just about anything in their heads and their brains have the power to melt most people into a pile of sludge. But they spend 95% of their lives indoors and they have a purity score of about 95% (puritytest.net, if you happen to have too much time on your hands). These people are called engineers, and they (typically) don’t have the courage to do anything outside their comfort zone. Thus, how successful can they be? Successful people took risks to get there.
Here’s a quick way to obliterate your fears. Try to follow along.
When you’re trying to muster up the courage to do something, there’s a little voice in your head telling you that you suck and you will fail. Of all the people in the world, your own head seems to have the most beef with you. That guy…is not your friend. So next time that voice talks to you, imagine it in the voice of someone you dislike or can’t take seriously (Goofy is a pretty popular choice). Suddenly, “you can’t do it because you suck” doesn’t sound nearly as convincing, does it? Now get the voice of your role model (if you don’t have one, get one) and make him tell you that you got this in the bag. I know this sounds dumb, but it’s pretty effective. Shrinks use it on their patients. There. Now you have professionals backing you.
9. Listen. Learn.
It’s easy to talk, but it’s important to listen as well. That way you can learn instead of just talking all the time. “A fool doesn’t learn from his mistakes. A smart man does. But a genius learns from the mistakes of others.”
Also, read books. Pop culture references will make more sense. I can’t begin to emphasize how many jokes in The Simpsons or Family Guy is based on literary sources. Worst case scenario is you can feel superior to philistines and you get to be condescending to them (fun as hell, no joke).
10. Be the change that you want to see.
If you want a job, do you look for one or wait for one to come to you? If you want to hang out with your friends, should you call them or sit on the couch watching SpongeBob? If you want to make more friends, should you go join a club or sit in your room and pick your nose? Opportunities are made. Be proactive. They don’t just come at you. You can’t reasonably expect to win tickets to the Titanic by playing a card game. Actually, that’s probably not the best example. I think I recall him dying at the end of the movie.
11. Apply what you learn.
You know those psych/soc majors that learn a lot about the human mind, but can’t seem to apply it when talking to people?
They fail. Don’t fail too. Use what you learn. Just knowing it is not enough. Understand, break it down into pieces, apply it to other scenarios, and discuss what the piece of knowledge implies. Bloom’s Taxonomy the hell out of life.
Game Theory is probably the most important thing you can ever learn if you’re over 18. The author Robert Greene is your best friend.
Because if you can’t apply it, why learn it?
12. Have confidence.
You know those people that sound soft-spoken and shy and have no confidence in their voices? It makes me just want to trample all over them, because better me than someone who seriously wanted to hurt them. Anyway, make sure you talk as though you know you’re right. I’m not saying to be an asshole and dismiss all other opinions that aren’t your own, because this should be applied to tone (and I guess posture) only. The good salesman assumes the deal is already made. It’s not “would you like to buy my product?” It’s “how much of my product are you willing to buy?”
On a related note, you cannot be confident in your beliefs (unless you’re perfectly willing to look like an idiot) without having logical backing to your thoughts. If you hate alcohol, why? Is it because it is “bad for you”? If that’s so, why not hate bacon and cheese too? Is it because it robs people of their social skills and makes them dependent on it for social interaction? If that’s so, why not hate Facebook and WoW too? Does it push people into “immoral behavior”? What exactly is “immoral”? Know why you believe what you believe.
Keep on rocking.
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