Own Your Collection of Stories

Up in the top of my closet is a cardboard box full of VHS tapes and DVDs I've collected throughout my cinema-obsessed college years. I wasn't quite a Film major because there was no such thing at my college. I was just a Journalism major with a Cinema Studies minor. Which meant I sat in every film course I could, bleeding money and burning brain cells for my degree. 

And even though the cost was high, I can say I saw some amazing flicks, too many for me to even remember their obscure names or countries of origin. What I do know is they led me down holes, around corners, and deep into alleys. 

And with that came my own mini collection. Wherever I could find a store selling oddball cult movies, I snatched them up. I knew to keep my eye out for the Criterion Collection choices or blaxploitation classics like Blacula, or even the few releases on Tarantino's short-lived distribution company Rolling Thunder Pictures. Or Rolling Thunder itself would have been a treasure, a revenge epic about a returning Vietnam vet, Major Charles Rane, robbed by some greedy thugs and devastated when they destroy his hand and murder his wife and son. Fitted with a hook worthy of a military-trained pirate and a war buddy of equal intensity, Rane winds up taking no prisoners. 

That's the caliber of action I have stashed away in my closet, rotting on its own magnetic tape and seated, shiny discs. The cinema of Russ Meyer, a man who knew what he liked - big-breasted women in strong female roles. He kept the distribution rights for his films to himself, so now even though he has passed on, you can still only buy his movies from his estate. No Netflix or Amazon for him. 

Or Blood, Guts, Bullets, and Octane from the director of Smokin' Aces and The Grey, with a title so bad-ass I could not pass it up.

There is something of an achievement to collecting. Not only does it become a challenge of quantity, it is a testament to quality. It can be a practice in awareness, keeping your eyes open for the next big win, and meditating, realizing there is no true end, no closing the book. 

And even though my VHS tapes have no VCR to be played in and half of them might be full of static anyway, I can't release them back into the wild. Even though there are stacked back inside my closet, without play for years now, somehow I feel like they define me - my taste, my sense of humor, my quirkiness. 

The charm of our collections is much like the charm of our stories. We hang on to bits and pieces that mean something to us in our own weird way. We tell them to the people we trust or to show off at big, fancy parties. We share them when the time is right or sometimes too much. They showcase our flaws and obsessions. 

Radiolab has good stories. I've been blown away this past week, collecting, or should I say downloading, some of what they call Shorts. The Short that captured my attention the most of the bunch was Straight Outta Chevy Chase. Peter Rosenberg, DJ for Hot 97, the hip-hop radio station for the Greater New York area, was straight outta Chevy Chase, Massachusetts. He was a Jewish kid who grew up with a passion for hip-hop as it became more and more popular. He started with the Hot 97 crew in 2007. And in this Radiolab Short, he challenged the so-called rules of hip-hop when he dissed the current Queen of Hip-Hop Nicki Minaj when her songs leaned too far into the Pop realm. Without giving away the clash between the two, you can imagine the interesting discussion that can unfold when a genre of music surrounds itself with talk of race, class, and what it means to be real. 

Did Radiolab have a corner in the closet? When did they decide to build on Shorts? Hosts Jad and Robert often mention how they've been dying to tell this story or that, and obviously when they finally can, it's available for the world to download and enjoy. But how long are they sitting on the beginnings? When do they know it's "done"? I can only guess there is a secret vault of nuggets they both add to on the daily - gems of stories that aren't quite stories yet. Each of them just needs a little extra bit of something. 

When you pull back too, aren't they all bits? You could wake up and pivot into the unexpected. When everything is in flux, there are seeds of change floating everywhere. Take stock in what you have and what you don't, but never tell the story before you're sure you know how it goes.

The Problems with Personal Development

We can be better.

It's not that you're not good enough as it is, it's not that any of us can be perfect. It is the fact that there will always be problems and we need to deal with them. You can't wish away problems like you can't wish away the seasons, illness or death. They will happen. 

And because there is no magic bullet to your problems, there is only one way to handle them - be better. Personal development guru Jim Rohn used to recommend not wishing for less problems, but wishing for more skills. 

And yet there are some people in this world that ignore this reality. They might accept the endless problems but they constantly complain and point them out to the rest of the world without doing anything. Some, arguably worse, don't even see problems with solutions. They dream of a utopia where problems float away for no rhyme or reason. 

There is serious denial in believing that you don't need to work on yourself to better deal with the problems around you. The backlash is everywhere. There are people in this world that pull back from personal development. They discourage you from writing out your goals. They question your adventures. They shake their heads in disbelief.

And I know, I've done it myself. To myself. 

Writing notes from a podcast while on the subway I could feel the eyes of the person sitting next to me, staring down at my phone with the folds of skin on his forehead crunching together. "What is he doing," I can feel him asking himself, almost annoyed and aggravated that I would stand to make myself better, making notes like "Meditation is as deep and as powerful a tool as any I can possibly describe" from Josh Waitzkin, the chess world champion and inspiration for the book and film Searching for Bobby Fischer.

What is the big deal? What is the backlash? Why is there such a stigma with wanting to improve yourself? I have some ideas.

Success is easy and it's not. 

It's simple to see why it's not. The models of success we're given are beyond our grasp - Bill Gates, Michael Phelps, Warren Buffett, Steve Jobs, Michael Jordan. They appear larger than life, talented from birth. But if we take an extra second to ponder it, we know it's not true. We just know they put in enormous amounts of work to craft their genius.

And yet, success is easy. Why? For exactly the same reason. We dress it up with tips and tricks, but the truth can't be said more clearly than through the words of Jim Rohn: "Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day." That's some boring shit right there. Most of us are successful brushing our teeth every morning and eating some kind of dinner every night. Big deal. The real success is preparing yourself for the challenges down the road and meeting them with everything you have and have practiced for. You don't arrive crowned champion, it is a test. Or as Ryan Holiday, former Director of Marketing for American Apparel and author of The Obstacle is The Way, has this to say: "Make it happen. Nobody cares what it will take, what problems this causes for you, what personal stuff you have going on. Just get it done." 

White Guys in Suits

The Eighties were a weird time. And the story we seem to still tell ourselves is personal development is white guys in suits doing workshops. You can envision the over-excited, high-volume figurehead on the stage, shouting down to businesspeople mantras and acronyms while they drank it in, dreaming of their salaries jumping each year. 

Cliches abound and we need to get past it. Personal development is not a white man in a power suit. Personal development is not just about numbers - bonuses, salaries, or sales figures. It doesn't mean you have to step on people to get anywhere. You're competing with no one but yourself. This is the truth.

You're Scared

When it comes down to you, why not be better? You're scared. It is never as simple as self-help authors say it is. You need to act. It's easy and it's not. And if you do manage to reach the top of the mountain, you'll find yourself oddly alone. Or so you think.

George Bernard Shaw wrote, "There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it." We stay in our bubble because we're afraid of what's outside. We prefer safety to the amazing wonders we can find pushing ourselves to become someone we don't even recognize - a powerhouse of potential.

Where does that leave us? Was there ever a leg to stand on against making yourself into someone better? You know it's not easy and you know it's not hard. It is whatever you make it. 

There is no denying there will always be problems, so why not swallow that painfully simple truth and enjoy working on the solutions? After all, we're in this together, for better or worse.

Reading Wrong Since Second Grade

Every time someone asks me what I'm reading, I panic. 

The reaction started back as far as I can remember. Second grade. Mrs. Goodwin said we could pick up extra credit if we completed reading comprehension quizzes once our original assignments in math or science were done. Extra credit meant something somewhat collectible like trading cards, which I was all about even before Pokemon convinced me that I gotta catch 'em all.

I sprinted through the math and science. No problem. Then I rifled through the box of quizzes up for grabs. Each was a thin cardboard sheet - one side a short story, the other a dozen or so questions about the main idea and other details. Simple stuff, right? Well, I was dogshit at it. Even for a second-grader. I purposely set the bar low for myself and grabbed the easy blue-colored ones, knowing full well that orange was a bitch to complete. And I still didn't do well. No collectibles this time around.

There was no reason why I would be so bad. I was always a good student. There wasn't even the Internet around to blame on my eyes' inability to stay focused reading one line at a time, left to right. No. There was one simple story and I could not grasp it. I read it, sure, and I enjoyed it, probably, but ask me for a main idea and my mind went blank. Just extra credit in a void.

And here I am 27 years old, still somewhat unable to carry on a conversation about a story I hold in my hands, fifty pages in, colorful sticky notes hanging out the side.

But I'm learning.

I'll tell you how with an example. I just finished The Obstacle is The Way by Ryan Holiday. And when people want to make conversation more than about the weather, they ask for a book when usually the title says plenty. "Whatcha reading?" (They want my thoughts! ) My mind went blank, except for a handful of general undefined and uncoordinated details:

One.

"Well, The Obstacle is The Way is all about how we can use our failures, which are endless and inevitable, to propel us to success if we embrace them as being natural."

Not a bad starting off point if I do say so myself, but then again you could have gathered 95% of that from reading the book jacket. Damn.

Two.

"It's written by Ryan Holiday, former Director of Marketing for American Apparel, accomplished author, and he's our age!" 

Impressive, definitely. Does it say much to the book? Nope. What does American Apparel and his other books say about this one? Nothing on the surface. Double damn.

Three.

"It's a lot about Stoicism, the ancient philosophy."

Um, I don't know about you but Stoicism means nothing much to me either. What is Stoicism? The truth is the weakness remains - after reading the whole book, I'm not quite sure how to define it. 

In retrospect, reading is like some kind of intellectual blackout for me. I'm just grabbing for bits and pieces after I flip the last page, hoping for some kind of coherence. 

We're taking the time to read some words with our eyeballs and crunch the ideas with our minds, why not make something of it? Devour it. Digest it. And make your own judgments. If someone asks you about the book, saying it's "good" is not good enough. "Good" is boring. "Good" is lazy.

Charlie Munger, business partner of world-famous investor Warren Buffett, boiled down the significance of reading to the success of their habits: "We read a lot. I don't know anyone who's wise who doesn't read a lot. But that's not enough: You have to have a temperament to grab ideas and do sensible things. Most people don't grab the right ideas or don't know what to do with them."

And so how do we do it? The Farnam Street Blog delivered the goods of a scholarly study that said you're better off remembering a book's content in the long run by reading 10 pages and writing out a summary than by reading 10 pages four times in a row and trying to memorize it. 

I don't need to give you a summary of The Obstacle is The Way because the important part is that it speaks directly to the heart of the matter. Holiday starts the book with a process for recognizing and replacing perceptions. The biggest perception switch we need is right there in the title. Obstacles are not meant to be avoided or destroyed. It's impossible. Obstacles are opportunities in every circumstance. Reading can be your obstacle, page after page, processing ideas and making them your own. You choose your own opportunity. There is always something to learn.

No one is quizzing you for extra credit any more. You should be reading for a reason. We don't have to become encyclopedias or experts with bullet points and flowcharts just because we took the time to scan words in ink. Hell, we have Google. You could just enjoy the book because it made you feel a certain way. Or it could speak to a certain feeling or a moment in your life. Or it changed your view of the world around you. If anything, it should move you and you should be able to say something about it. Like anything else worth a damn in this life.

Advice from Writers for Writers

Every week, James Altucher hosts a Q&A session on Twitter about anything and everything he can comment on. It has become a highlight to my Thursdays in between shifts at work. I want everyone to leave me be as I frantically click to reveal more questions and answers in real-time. I like to participate in the conversation if  I can add something to the answer.

If I can ever muster a legit question, I fire it off and, God bless 'em, James has answered every one since with a gem of his own knowledge of failures and successes. 

And this week I was blessed with answers from both James and author Ryan Holiday on the nature of writing.