By Daniel Becerra

Remember a couple of articles ago when I mentioned something Nick shared with me on our way to San Francisco a while back? He said to me: “You gotta be careful with the meanings you give to words, they can fuck you up”. (Yes, Nick Krygier, ladies and gentlemen). I was aware of this to a certain extent, but since that day the words have rang true everytime I speak. On this ocassion, I would like to share with you one of the greatest and simplest insights of growth. It’s so simple that it can be written in one paragraph or even one sentence, but since I like to make big deals and write much, I’ll do that.

On the first Lifestyle Challenge Ian and I created, there seemed to be one major obstacle - besides us having no clear idea of what we were doing - the major obstacle was that we did not focus on helping you realize the difference between hard and challenging. For instance, someone would say: “I do all the journaling, but all the other tasks are hard and I don’t have time for them” or they would say “I don’t know where to find the girls to talk to” and so on. I don’t blame you guys. We all tend to associate certain words with certain meanings and the more of that particular meaning we give to that particular word, the more you convince yourself that what you think has to be right. For instance, if you told yourself you won’t have time to stop a stranger for a picture or to tell a girl “Thank You Honey” after she serves you (assuming she works behind a counter or restaurant) then chances are that you will make that happen. You will design your time, so that you don’t have time for it! or even worse, to sell yourself into believing that you didn’t have time for it! You will begin saying: “Well, I wanted to approach her the right away and that may be taken a bit of time, which I didn’t have, so I guess it’s okay to not do it”. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like me a couple of months ago.

The truth is the following: Approaching a girl or taking a picture with a stranger is not hard. Your perception of that event is hard. Not the events themselves. Just like 200 pounds on its own is not heavy, but rather your perception of it is what is heavy. While it may be heavy for you, it may be nothing for a well-beefed up dude. No event or act on its own is hard, but some of them are certainly challenging. They are not challenging to pull off either (not on their own) - they are challenging because it takes a challenge to get yourself into a state that will allow YOU to pursue your desired outcome. THAT is the challenge.

Talking to a girl is not a challenge. Asking for her number is not a challenge. Exercising or reading a book are not challenges on their own. Any one can do that, yes? We all have the skills and intelligence to say: “What’s your name?”, “What’s your number?” and so on. So none of these things are challenging, the challenge is on getting yourself to believe it. The challenge is on getting yourself motivated even when nothing seems to work on your favor. THAT is the challenge. A much greater challenge is to get yourself motivated every single day of your life. Talk about a challenge!

To prove that the challenge is on getting yourself to believe it, I’ll ask you to reflect upon this simple thought: “Have you ever had success in seducing and marveling a woman? At the very least, success in identifying with her?” All of you have, at least once. If you did it once, you’ll be able to do it again. And when you did it, it’s not because you had the skill for that particular moment. It’s not that. What you DID have for that particular moment was the state Awasn’t the skill, it was you being able to believe that you could pull off that skill. Athletes do it all the time. They fail at times, not because they don’t have the skill, but because they are not in the appropriate state. Look at Michael Jordan, greatest basketball player of all times, he missed and quite a bit, and he definitely did not lack the skill, but he failed when he couldn’t get himself on state and he won when he DID get on state.

It is clear now that doing the tasks are not hard, they are challenging. And that the challenge is not in the task itself, but rather in you believing that you can do it. My friend, don’t you give this only-reading non-sense a lot of time. Don’t just read, think as you read. Don’t you just read to memory, act it out and go from there. Think to realize and live it out. What a difference! (That’s actually a quote by Charlie Tremendous Jones, just a bit modified). Think as you read. Get excited about this realization and begin living. There lies another challenge: LIVING. When you LIVE, you LEAD. That’s your goal and dream after all, isn’t it? Talk about hitting two birds with one rock!

Are you getting excited and enthusiasm about learning from your failures? About life in general? About this website? About yourself? Are you?

Words: Daniel Becerra. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook

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