Tag Archives: business

Get off your high horse

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I try not to be self-absorbed when I am engaged with people. I also try to learn, to not have “expert’s paradigm” when I am talking to people in casual or business conversations, even if it’s a topic that I have a lot of experience in.

This amounts to being interested in the other person enough to learn about them and learn about what they know. It requires not assuming that I know more than them. It also involves a lack of talking about myself and what I know, until it’s truly appropriate.

This doesn’t work as well in today’s world. Perhaps people’s real world views are morphing into the “social media paradigm” where you have a very short time span to sell a persona or a knowledge set to someone. I swear 8 out of 10 people I meet consider themselves pros, or awesome in some other way, and if you don’t literally fight for attention you get demoted to a learner who knows less, has less or has done less. I watch people do this to each other all the time.

Thus is the way of our social hierarchy in the social media era world. What you look like, talk like, drive and have are somehow proportionate to your capabilities and experience. “If he was as good as he says he is, he wouldn’t be driving that.” “He doesn’t “look” like he knows that much.” And so on.

Sometimes, competitiveness is the tone, “You started working in this field in 2002? Oh, well I started working in it in 2001 so I’ve been around for ALL of it…” Instead of being cooperative, “Oh, what have you learned in that time?” and then they in turn try to learn what you’ve learned in that time. Sharing knowledge and ideas. What a concept.

Most often, I would say, people are just self-absorbed. They think they know a bunch of shit, probably more than you, and so they don’t even really listen when you talk. They are here to disseminate information because they know things.

It’s not that they even thought about competing with you, they just automatically consider themselves and their knowledge more important and there’s nothing you could say that would be that interesting to them, so you are tuned out. Their own voice is in their head rehearsing for their turn to talk.

Are you a student, or a know-it-all?

Sometimes just simply asking a question will cause the other person to automatically assume that they know more than you, and they will assume authority in the conversation. This is a tragedy. For example, you see someone doing a workout and posting about it on social media. Now, imagine you yourself have been working out a long time and you know quite a bit about the topic, but you are always curious and looking for new information so you ask them, “Hey, I see you are doing this workout. Where did you get the programming for that, and how is it working for you?” Instead of actually answering the question, they reply, “If you want to understand programming you have to start with [insert arbitrary favorite program here] and research the subject.” Often, they’ll even go on to instruct you or offer suggestions for what you should be doing, even though they have no idea what you know or what you want to accomplish. They are full of themselves. They lack listening skills. The question goes unanswered and another chance to assert social dominance has been exploited. End result, no one learns anything. 

What happened to the concepts of beginner’s mind and always being the student? Sad.

Even worse is the feeling that if you are paid to do a job, like being an instructor or trainer, then you can’t ask any “average” person questions because you are afraid it will make you look like you don’t already know what they know. You somehow think you’re supposed to know everything, so you can’t be seen being “weak” or taking “instruction” from an average person.

It’s a legitimate feeling because people judge you for the surface presentation you put out. Hell, that’s what this post is about. It’s a vicious cycle.

What is even more sad is that you are vulnerable to concealment even when you think you are protected. You can’t even give people a chance to learn who they are and what they’ve done when they are open about it. The one who wants to hide those facts from you? You’ll never see him or her coming. (If you are in the self-defense, tactical, or cool guy badass world and you act this way, your mindset is truly out of touch with your stated goals.)

Listen to people. Ask questions.

People are interesting, and there are a lot of people out there you could learn from. Many of them, though they may not look like it, have done way more shit than you will in 3 lifetimes.

My best conditioning coach–by far–was a fat, silver haired guy that always had a cigar hanging out of his mouth. By today’s standards, no one would even have a training conversation with that guy. The truth is he helped produce several world champions in his younger years (as a trainer for a U.S. Olympic team) and he knew how to pull the best out of every athlete he worked with.

The most capable class attendee I have ever had in terms of self-defense, and who I would put my money on in a street fight, was a skinny, gray haired Nicaraguan guy well into his 60’s that didn’t look like he could do shit. The guy was legitimately dangerous, and though he was small, he was strong as an ox. He grew up in the Revolution Era of a country at civil war. He knew a lot of things about violence and about survival.

Sometimes people are retired, or injured, or have changed careers or family situations and they don’t “appear” to be anything special, but they are. It doesn’t matter what business you are in, this is true in every profession.

And guess what? You aren’t that fucking special, and you probably don’t even know as much shit as you think you do. Putting on a good presentation doesn’t make you a special expert, nor does having popularity on social media, or making a bunch of money (especially if you flaunt it).

Many of the people who maintain these “perfect” images are deeply flawed, and if you look hard enough you will see it. Marital problems, financial problems, regrets, and some are just plain out miserable people seething with envy, jealousy, resentment, fear, cowardice. People can present however they choose to, if they are disciplined enough. Still doesn’t make it real.

Don’t mistake this post as me being upset about someone doing this to me. That shit has been happening and will continue to happen my whole life. I like to keep quality people in my circle, and if you are self-absorbed and full of yourself then you are self-selected out of my circle. If you have anything valuable to say, I’ll listen from a distance. But it’s like everyone does it to everyone, anymore.

What does upset me is how much society suffers and how much our communities suffer because we can’t be real with each other, because everyone has to be damn “expert” or a “pro”.

It upsets me that innovative, creative people are afraid to be vocal or do things because they will be judged harshly. If the old guys that have experience aren’t respected because they don’t look cool, then how can a new guy with no experience survive that social thrashing? (And I’m not even touching on the bullies and trolls, that’s a whole different topic.) They are forced to play the persona game, where substance doesn’t matter as much as your IG game and your wittiness on FB and Twitter.

We all lose

This is my encouragement to you to take the time to actually learn from one another. If someone is trying to learn a new skill, don’t assume they don’t have ANY developed skills. Don’t be afraid to learn a new skill or to ask questions about other people’s views, even if it is what you are an “expert” in. And don’t demote someone’s social rank because they asked a question. Maybe they have a bunch of answers and experience and just want to hear your perspective. Maybe they know more than you because they aren’t afraid to ask questions.

If you are engaging with someone and they don’t ask one follow up question about any of your statements, or about you, they just talk at you, then that person has little interest in you or what you are saying. They are too busy thinking about themselves. It’s not hard to tell.

Take the time to actually listen to someone talk. Ask questions about what they are saying about themselves, ENGAGE with them. You just might start learning things again.

Being self-absorbed is a failure, and it’s one from which we all experience the resultant net loss.

Blog Entry: What Do We Really Want?

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In March of 2017, I was in a lot of pain and uncertainty. I was moving into a little apartment in Ohio, going through a painful divorce, quitting my corporate job, and just tired of hating everything about my life.

In March of 2018, I just self-published my first book and made enough off of the first week sales to move to a personal retreat in Central Florida.

How did this happen? It happened because I made it happen. I decided to change my life, because no one was going to change it for me. It’s not like I wasn’t working hard before. No, I’ve been doing this “change my life with hard work” thing for over 20 years, one failed hustle, after failed job, after failed marriage, after failed business, after another. But, this run through, something was different. When I sat down to make a plan this time, I was cutting everyone out, burning down everything that obligated me, and starting with me first. As James Altucher likes to say, I chose myself. It’s not that it was selfish, rather it was empirically the best decision to make. Time and again it was proven to me that I had made bad choices in relationships, partners, jobs and associations, and all for the wrong reasons. Sometimes we need to get to the root of what we really want.

In pursuit of what we want (or think we want) we will entangle ourselves into all manners of messes that will take us sometimes years to painfully extract from: lifestyles, business partnerships, marriages, job obligations…the list goes on. We often find ourselves in these situations because the answers to our happiness were believed to be found outside of ourselves, rather than from within.

Please, allow me to explain why this is not the standard spiel about “finding happiness inside of you,” because frankly that is bullshit. It takes a mix of being self-aware about what you really want, and then doing the work to see progress towards it happening outside of you. Happiness is not only progress and reward, it’s those things moving towards what our soul really wants while in an atmosphere that is nurturing to that progress. And guess what? You have to create that atmosphere to find it in the balanced way that we seek. So, you inherently have the problem of starting out without that nurturing atmosphere, without the progress and reward. That space describes my life from the middle of 2016 through 2017.

It’s simply that our life needs to be grounded in what we truly want, NOT in a means to that end. This is the difference between finding fulfillment in something outside of yourself vs finding fulfillment by manifesting yourself through the world around you. This applies specifically if you consider yourself a purpose driven entrepreneur or creator in any way, but also in a general sense to anyone trying to live a valued life.

For me, I wanted to live a life inspired to create, with the all important freedom of time to do the creating. In order to achieve that, I had to start where I was at, not where I wished I was. I downsized my life, gave away thousands of dollars worth of “stuff” and moved into a small apartment. I made way less money, at first, and used my time to develop myself and my idea of a valued life. I stayed away from relationships and defeated the notion that I “needed” a girlfriend/wife to be happy. I set goals: write and publish my first book, grow my business to a national level, and facilitate a move to a place that inspired my life. I reached those goals. All of them, including the move. For me, right now, that place is Florida. I made it a mandatory change that I would eat well, exercise very seriously for my health and well being, and spend more time in a relaxed state rather than a stressed, worried and unhappy state no matter what I had to give up.

And it was hard. Some  days, it was incredibly hard. At times, you can’t see the goal, you can’t see progress, you feel like you’re being stupid about unrealistic goals, and there is no one there to support you. You have to support yourself with sheer discipline. When the goal gets blurry, discipline is the only thing you have on that day. Discipline, and a desire to leave the unhappiness of a life that is not value driven. I did it. I am seeing progress and change. The world around me is brightening up. My life is starting to inspire me. Now, incrementally I will move towards the goal while living the valued life along the way. I won’t sacrifice anymore by lying to myself like “I will live this life that I absolutely hate to get to the other side.” Too much damage is accumulated that way. Too much time lost in unentangling ourselves from such messes.

Make the hard decisions to go through the brutal tasks of removing those entanglements today, and you will sooner be on your way to a better, value added life. Find the things you really want to do, what would make you most happy, and start working towards building it from the ground up. Your life should be rewarding, fulfilling, and provide a great marketing backdrop for your personal brand. Your home base should fuel you, recharge you, and most of all it should not consume you away from your dreams. I would be better served living my own life on my terms, and showing the world who I am from the backdrop of my inspiring life where I am not enslaved to things I do not like but rather am able to create and serve others at my leisure.

But, you have to know what you really want, and you have to believe in yourself to keep going and make it happen.

Varg Freeborn

Blog Entry: The Right Path

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At some point, probably in my second marriage, I figured out that if you constantly feel like you are swimming upstream, and logs and debris are slamming into your face, knocking you back and threatening to drown you, you most likely are not on the right path for your life. This isn’t always an easy distinction to make. It is true that sometimes things are meant to be fought for, and the struggle is the precise experience we need for growth. But there are times when your plans just aren’t the plans that will bring you peace and prosperity (or whatever it is that you value most and are not getting.)

When I was running the nightmare otherwise known as my music store business some years ago, it was quite literally like swimming upstream against a fast moving river full of huge logs smashing me in the face. All day long. Every day. This went on for 3 years, but it felt like a lifetime. At times, it threatened to consume me, including landing me in the hospital for 4 days, only to get a diagnosis of anxiety and likely depression.  It was terrible. But I had a dream, a big dream. I wanted to be the best, and build great custom guitars, and make a lot of money, and prove all of my detractors wrong. The worse it got, the more people talked shit, the more angrily I pushed forward to prove the world wrong. But I also honestly believed in myself and truly believed that this was the avenue I could use to change the quality of life for those that I loved. That was way more important than vengeance.

It was, in many ways, a great triumph. I had started a business literally from nothing. I rented a storefront with no money down in exchange for fixing the place up, and basically had a month to earn the first month’s rent. I turned that into a store with tens of thousands of dollars of inventory in just a year or two. That is not an easy feat and I am damn fucking proud of that. But, it just wasn’t to be. After 3 years of a little triumph and a lot more defeat, I made a decision to abandon ship and close it down. In the end, my heart truly was not in it. I didn’t really see myself getting a truly valued life out of it. The potential earning ceiling was low, and the effort would always be critically high.

Furthermore, it wasn’t a great contribution to the world that enriched my soul. I was simply performing service work for increasingly entitled, whiney musicians and other people with more money than musical drive. It was terribly unfulfilling work with often shitty customers and even shittier people as competition, which made the frustrations and hardships outweigh any real reason to pursue it. So, I changed gears, let it go down as pretty much an unenjoyable experience and I moved on. I sold part of the business to my tech and I was done.

Learn to drop it, let go, and put even more love into the next project

In order for me to grow, I stood right back up the very next day and filed the paperwork for the next business, which happens to be the one that I still successfully run several years later. I had done this a few times before, from my custom car shop to the fitness training business, for example. You just have to keep moving. You just can not quit.

The work that I do now is very fulfilling. Even with that, I know that the current configuration is not the ultimate goal. Hell, that’s why you are reading this blog, as I begin to experiment with new directions here. My current business (at the time of this writing) was founded upon teaching violence and educating people on the darker capabilities of humans. While that is a noble cause, it’s not what I want to spend the rest of my life thinking about. But it has been the best work experience of my life to date, and it is clearly opening more doors for me to pursue helping people in other ways outside of just fighting.

You will notice the difference immediately

Literally, it was an immediately noticeable difference when I changed streams. I went from constant struggle and turmoil, to no turmoil, by just changing business plans and verticals. I’m not saying it’s been “easy”. Of course, it’s a business and it has taken the unending hard work and sacrifice that any business takes to be successful. What’s missing are the logs smashing me in the face: the ungrateful customers, the nasty low-level competition, the constant financial deficit, and so on.

When you are on the right path, not only are you not getting smashed in the face everyday, but opportunities will open up and branch off of the path you are on. This can help in determining whether you are in that flow, or not.

As far back as I can remember, I have always wanted to be a writer and a speaker. I never quite understood how someone can make a living at that, until I had enough experiences to begin having interesting things to write and speak about. My training business morphed from teaching people how to fight, into speaking at seminars, and to writing a book, and now is transitioning into writing, teaching and speaking on more positive life subjects. The doors are opening as a direct result of the platform that I built for myself in the violence education vertical, which I built with the help of the experience I gained in the custom car business, the fitness training business, and the countless jobs I was an employee at.

I’m not trying to drive home a precise point with this article, just throwing a thought or two into my blog encouraging you to examine the turmoil you are experiencing and to follow your heart. Our plans don’t always end up looking like what we thought they would, but if you follow your heart, life can be good. Sometimes, it ends up way better than your best “plan” could ever be.