I read this book a little while ago called “Ignore Everybody” by Hugh MacLeod and its stuck with me for a while. Kind of a catchy title, but all he’s saying is when you are doing something new and original, people won’t understand so you really can’t listen to any advice someone might have to give. In my own life I’ve actually taken it a step further and ignore everybody pretty much by default now. I used to give everybody the benefit of the doubt but I find it is just far too time consuming to do that, since everybody these days is full of verbal diarrhea. The internet has given everybody and their mom a voice and opinion on every subject imaginable. Now you have people walking around who think they know everything. They’ll read an article on how organic food isn’t actually healthier to eat so they are smug knowing they never bought organic foods before. They’ll watch a documentary claiming climate change is a big sham and so decide its ok to drive through the city in their big hummer to show off their status. Backwards rationalization, that’s what I’ll call it and leave it at that.
I used to try to persuade people to see things my way. Now, I don’t even bother. I just ignore. In fact, when I hear a fool speak, I don’t even answer them. Because if I did, it would just be two fools battling it out for ego validating supremacy. I do love to engage in thought provoking conversation, but I find it harder and harder to come by these days. My friend David said to me a little while ago after hearing me get heated up over something stupid people were doing (I don’t even remember what), “Martin, you know you are different from 99% of the people out there, so what are you going to do about it?”. I was stumped, I didn’t know how to answer that question. That’s when I figured out yeah, I have to ignore most of this stupidity. I am personally a huge fan of intelligence, but it is so hard to come by these days. There is a lot of misinformation being thrown out there by big corporations, misdirection even, to try and make you buy their product. In a ridonkulously consumerist world, its a very effective strategy if you are the average person. But let me ask you something, are you that person? Wouldn’t you rather trust yourself? Do you? Do you trust in your own intelligence? Do you trust in your own abilities? Do you trust your own instincts?
Don’t read one article and preach it as dogma (I would say never preach anything as dogma…always challenge your beliefs). Don’t even read two. Studies can so easily be manipulated and I would caution you to not be fooled. Never confuse correlation and causality. Pay attention to controlled studies, not observational studies which have enormous, enormous room for manipulation (The sky was cloudy on both days I got an A+ on my English paper, therefore to get an A+ the sky must be cloudy). Control studies can be repeated, over and over and over again with the same results. That’s when you say, “ok, this one might be legit”. This is why something like climate change is so hotly debated and difficult to tackle. Its a lot of fuzzy science. But is that fair to not do anything about it? I would think its more laziness and irresponsibility than anything else.
Don’t ever let somebody tell you that you are wrong at something, whether its to get a flu shot for your kid, or whether or not if its immoral to eat harmless animals or anything else for that matter. Just ignore it, and go with what feels right to you. That’s why I can’t even watch mainstream media anymore. TV just force feeds bs down your throat and you eat it and puke it back out like a bulimic who’s had way too much to drink. Apparently something is going on with Tiger Woods these days, and I’m thinking to myself, “Are you serious? Of all the ridiculously important topics in the world you care about this garbage?!?” (Don’t ever judge a man who’s shoes you’ve never walked in.) Am I misinformed by cutting out mainstream media? Hardly, I’m probably more informed than most people but that’s because I TRUST MY INTELLIGENCE to filter through the junk and ignore the rest.
I’m a confident individual. I believe in myself more than anybody will ever believe in me (there’s too many people in my life and yours putting labels and constraints and judgements and negativity on you, so why would you do that to yourself? everybody else is already doing it). And I fall, and I bleed, and I get pissed off at myself and I cry. But I always, always, pigheadedly persist and get up. As Michael Jordan would say, “I fail over and over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed.” I wear my heart on my sleeve and I’m super emotional. I’m a massive, major, over the top walking contradiction. But that’s me. I treat the CEO of a fortune 500 company the same way I treat a homeless person: with the same amount of respect that I would want to be treated with (at least at the beginning until you’ve either gained more or lost it all). Sometimes it works very well, other times I can get scorched. But I just have to trust that I was made of a combination of a billion million trillion factors through a remarkable chain of events in our evolution, ancestry, and time to be exactly how I am. You and I both are living examples of a breathing miracle. Trust it man, seriously. I see far too many of my friends and family who just don’t trust in themselves and listen to nonsense instead of ignoring it. If they only saw what I saw, they’d be killing it.
I want to say that nobody can possibly do everything on their own. I rely on a very select group of amazing individuals, and am always looking out for more. So I don’t want to say ignore everybody all the time. When is it a good time to listen? There are a few moments that come to mind. When you need to model someone who has already done it, then his advice on that topic would be worth listening to. I pay attention to friends who make a living running their online businesses, for example. When you are getting real, legit constructive feedback, positive or negative, that is a very good thing to listen to. I especially appreciate the brutal honesty, like when I was writing some essays for MBA applications, I had some friends put the hammer down (But they kept saying sorry, which drove me nuts. Don’t apologize, just let me have it.) When you are emotionally compromised, whether its love, anger, hatred, jealousy, or whatever, ask for some help from a neutral friend. I find this last one the hardest of them all. I had this happen to me recently, and my buddy really put things down logically for me. But emotion always overrides logic, so even though I knew he was right, I seriously struggled with the decision (happy ending: I took the advice). Shutting down my heart is the worst, most difficult thing I’ve ever done. It hurts more than betrayal and heart break by far. It just sucks, but when its the right thing to do, its the right thing to do.
Tune into your instincts by being hyper vigilant in your surroundings, fully engaged in what you are doing, and completely present in the moment. Killer instincts can be trained. Don’t do stupid things though that your untrained instincts would lead you to believe like being overly irrational because of paranoia. Good instincts will help reduce chronic stress, remove that nagging voice in your head and improve decision making. You don’t have to listen to someone who has a phd. In fact, ignore the labels completely. We live in a very interesting time in our history. Right now, we have something nobody has ever had that has evened the playing field. We have the Internet. With just a few keystrokes and the click of a button, you can be as knowledgeable as any ‘expert’ in the field (like I said earlier, after you’ve filtered through the junk). Put me in a room of health and nutrition gurus, and I’ll be fine. Throw me in any rock climbing gym, and I’ll hold my own. You get the point. Trust yourself, ignore everybody else. Its better that way.