Happy THUESDAY!
Apologies for my extreme absence. I’m not sure why I didn’t have to urge to write anything these past several weeks. Just wasn’t feelin’ it, ya know?
It might be because I have several projects going on and I was feeling a case of the overwhelms. Here are some projects that are/were concurrently happening:
Learning to do the splits
Learning to do a handstand (I had to switch to handstands because the splits were going to take longer)
A.I. planned every meal for a week (& I cooked them)
Running 5k every day in the dead of winter
A video about naps
A decluttering video (coming out tomorrow)
Getting into comic books (for “why do people like comic books”)
A trip to California for a video I’m going to do with Patreon CEO, Jack Conte
Real-life stuff like the holidays and being a dad
Oh yeah. And I got sick for a few weeks. Not great. It bothered my asthma.
Wow! Putting it in a list like that makes me realize why I have been putting aside this newsletter. I’m seriously realizing that right as I type this.
Yep, unfortunately, this newsletter takes a backseat to main channel video projects.
On the one hand, I’m like, “It’s just 15 minutes of typing stuff. You can always fit that in.”
But on the other hand, “All these projects leave little brain space to even think about what to write about. And I want to make this newsletter at least have some value.”
Anyway, soooo let’s throw some value into this post. Let’s talk about…. optimism? Sure, yeah. That.
Optimism
Just this morning I started thinking about optimism and realized I struggle with it more than I… realized. Apologies for using “realized” twice in that sentence.
The reason I started thinking about it was because I get occasional emails from Shortform. Shortform was a sponsor of one of my videos (I don’t remember which one) and they summarize self-helpy kinda books.
They aren’t sponsoring this newsletter but I DO like Shortform because, unlike other services like this, they go out of their way to put their own spin on each book and counter or reinforce arguments an author makes with OTHER books and their own research.
In some ways, you get a more full experience with their summaries than the actual book! And I like their counterarguments because I’m usually pretty skeptical about one person’s strict arguments about how to live your life, which many of these books seem to involve.
And in their latest email, one of the book summaries they promoted was “The Law of Success” by Napoleon Hill. What a name!!! It was published in 1928. Old stuff!
His main argument is that you’re controlled by your subconscious and your habitual thoughts inform your subconscious what to think. So if you’re constantly being negative your subconscious is going to make your life negative.
It’s basically, “Your vibe attracts your tribe.” Or just think happy thoughts and trick your subconscious to be happy and good things will happen.
It also goes on to talk about a collective higher consciousness that seems like a whole lot of hooey and I would like to ignore that, but…
It got me thinking about my thinking. And how I’m often struggling to work on the next project. I’m not as excited about making videos as I had been in the past and I wondered why that is.
I think it’s pessimism, or rather, my tendency to figure out everything wrong with everything.
I’m constantly thinking up new ideas for videos and I have a familiar cycle. I’ll LOVE the idea and eventually HATE it. Maybe hate is a strong word, but I’ll just see all the flaws in it. This is because it’s my job to find and fix all the flaws in everything I make. I have to analyze, write, edit, and make the best version of the things I do.
And being critical and fixing things so they work has always been at the core of who I am. It’s why I’ve been successful.
But it goes too far sometimes. It creates an environment of pessimism around the projects I make. I analyze it to death—to the point that it doesn’t seem like the video has any real value. Which makes me less excited to make the thing and less likely to give the thing the love it needs to be great.
In the early days of Wheezy Waiter, I never got to the point of analysis paralysis because I just made videos in a day. Pointlessness WAS the point.
But the way I work now has a more rigid schedule because I tell sponsors I’m going to have a video done at a certain time. And then I have more pressure to make that video good because there’s a time crunch and I don’t want the video to flop.
This forces me to analyze and find all the reasons it won’t work (because that’s who I am).
(also, to be clear, I don’t think sponsors are the problem. It’s also that these videos are more purpose-driven and longer. I put pressure on myself to make them have more value.)
And as I get older I have more experience, which gives me lots more red flags for possible pitfalls in all my projects. Maybe this is why people become more risk-averse as they get older?
But what I’m realizing today is that’s sort of the wrong approach. If I come at everything with a more optimistic mindset, my mood and excitement will MAKE the things good. Because if I’m optimistic I will be envigorated to do the work.
And I think about all the extremely successful people I know. They’re all very positive people! I knew them when they were not successful (or less successful) and they were ALWAYS positive, optimistic people. Their projects are going to work because their optimism will MAKE them work. Or if they fail, they just try something else.
Every project idea is flawed. But there are ways of making awesome stuff no matter the idea if you truly put your soul into it. I’m trying to remind myself that it doesn’t matter too much if the “next video” is just kinda silly. If I BELIEVE in it, it will have value.
I guess that’s my point. In general today I’m paying attention to my inner thoughts and noticing when they drift negatively and I’ve been course-correcting—literally telling myself that my next project is going to be awesome no matter what. And I feel great and I’m excited to work on it.
It’s probably the reason I finally decided to return to this newsletter. I didn’t know what I was going to write but I knew if I wrote honestly and believed in it, it would have some value.
Wooh!
Craig
I heard a talk recently that about the power of NEUTRAL thinking that I thought was a really smart spin on this. Being neutral is easier and it's also not negative, and it's more important to be not negative than fake-positive, especially if it involves deluding yourself.
I found this useful for those situations that are harder to spin as super positive. There's always a way to think about them that doesn't involve beating yourself up or is just pragmatic.
I was literally just thinking of this after watching a short video from Casey Neistat about decades long consistency!... I was consistently falling into the trap of negative drifting, and have to course correct deliberately!!
plus... being optimistic is a much better experience for those around you too. 😁