inspiration

House always wins

/ Stuart Danker / 13 Comments

In the game of life, it’s important to play the odds. Maybe you’re born with a shitty hand, but that doesn’t mean you can’t work on improving your chances.

Casinos are rich for a reason. Despite the tiny edge the house has, they still make a killing thanks to volume.

And while your life shouldn’t be compared to how much people spend at blackjack tables, you should know that the tiny improvements you make over time could very well result in a vastly different life.

Sure, banking on that overnight success might be the dream, but which is more likely? Winning the lottery? Or getting that promotion by improving your craft?

Instant success may or may not happen your entire lifetime. But taking small steps towards improvement is very much achievable. In fact, you could do something to improve your life this very moment.

Stack enough of those moments together and you’ll effectively create your own luck. In other words, the habit of collecting small wins increases your chances of winning the lottery.

Even if you don’t, at least you’ll have the spoils of your small wins to fall back on. And I wouldn’t be surprised if those small improvements total up to be more than a lottery’s worth of winnings.

Here’s how you build good habits

/ Stuart Danker / 12 Comments

You move the starting line backwards.

That means simply sitting at the keyboard for an hour if the goal is to write. Changing into your gym clothes and stepping out the door if it’s to run. Or just opening your textbook if it’s to study.

Don’t look too far ahead, don’t aim for the results. Good things rarely pay off immediately, anyway.

You’ll find the momentum from these starting tasks to be rather compelling in getting you to complete your tasks.

I’ve been reading Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey and it’s been a blast seeing how other creatives approach their craft.

That’s how I learned about Twyla Tharp, and this was how she described her routine.

“I begin each day of my life with a ritual. I wake up at 5:30 A.M., put on my workout clothes, my leg warmers, my sweatshirts, and my hat. I walk outside my Manhattan home, hail a taxi, and tell the driver to take me to the Pumping Iron gym at 91st Street and First Avenue, where I work out for two hours.

“The ritual is not the stretching and weight training I put my body through each morning at the gym; the ritual is the cab. The moment I tell the driver where to go I have completed the ritual.

“It’s a simple act, but doing it the same way each morning habitualises it—makes it repeatable, easy to do. It reduces the chance that I would skip it or do it differently. It is one more item in my arsenal of routines, and one less thing to think about.”

Here’s how I’ve been approaching my own routines:

  • I sit with the blank page first thing every morning, regardless of whether or not I have anything to write
  • I do 10 push-ups or squats without planning to work out
  • I wake up at six in the morning, walk downstairs, and make myself a cup of coffee, even if I plan to get more sleep

I don’t tell myself I need to write my best work. I don’t aim for any new physical records. I don’t even plan to get up early.

But by putting one foot across the starting line daily, I end up writing a thousand words, working out for an hour, getting a headstart to my day.

There’s also one hidden benefit: the pride of keeping your promises to self, no matter how small. And I guess that’s as good a finishing line as any.

How to record better ideas

/ Stuart Danker / 7 Comments

I’ve found that the best way to record your ideas whenever one passes your mind is to write them in their entirety. Catch the entire gist. Make it easier for future you.

Because distilling an entire thought into one sentence leaves out so much of the original context. Context that ceases to exist once you drench it with the passage of time.

So many entries on my ‘writing ideas’ list felt like great topics at the time, only to sound like a four-year-old’s thoughts later. Some examples being:

  • Sometimes you have shitty morning routines too and that’s okay
  • About alter ego
  • FREE. I know this word seems like spam, but…
  • Even if you have typos you are still going to be accepted
  • Someday you will hate me

The thing about these hundreds of ideas I collect every month is that I can’t, for the life of me, expand on them anymore. I would’ve, at the time of the mental spark, but not anymore. It’s as if an elf snuck into my text file and left inside jokes that only other elves would understand.

I’ve lost all context of the accompanying feelings during the thought-catching phase. And it’s those feelings that make the story, not the words. The failure to capture them in their entirety leaves me with exactly that. Random words.

Again, I gave future me too much credit. “He’ll figure it out,” I thought. “He’s smart.”

Well, who’s feeling stupid now?

At least I’ve learned my lesson. I started this piece with the sentence ‘how to record better ideas’. I closed the file, gave it a second thought, then added a second sentence for the benefit of future me.

One thing led to another, and here we are. Guess I’m not gonna forget this idea now.

People buy you, not the product

/ Stuart Danker / 16 Comments

I subscribed to an influencer’s workout programme once. Not because they offered anything special. But because I respected them as a person.

The programme was priced at USD20, and while I don’t regret making that purchase, I feel like I could’ve easily gotten that information for free.

But that’s not the point. It’s not about how cheaply I could scour the internet for information. They could’ve charged USD50 and I’d still have signed up. The real reason behind my subscription was because I liked them. I liked how they lived their life, and I liked their message.

That’s when it hit me—I buy things for the brand or personality, not just for the actual product.

Because every product available today will have its alternatives: writing courses, diapers, goat blood. Everything that can be sold will be offered by someone else.

The differentiator is who sells it. And that’s where the magic lies. The magic is in each and every one of us. It’s us being ourselves. Hemingway is already taken. So too is Michelle Obama. But you can be you. That’s something nobody else can ever emulate.

Remember that the next time you’re worried about your Etsy store or your online editing services.

The person behind the product is just as important—if not more—as the product itself.

The obstacle is the way

/ Stuart Danker / 11 Comments

We often look at obstacles as impediments to our goals. As the reasons why we can’t do what we want to.

It’s time to stop that. We need to look at it from a different perspective. Instead of an impediment, we need to view obstacles as flavouring.

Want to work out? That’s great. But say it rains on your running day. That’s when you enjoy a rain-flavoured run or, perhaps, more sensibly, a treadmill-flavoured one.

And let’s say you plan to do the groceries before the stores close. But your spouse has the car and is still stuck in traffic. Then, instead of a normal grocery run, you’re going to have to enjoy enjoy one with a dash of Uber riding and a pinch of lugging fresh produce around.

The tasks don’t become harder or easier. They just take on a different flavour.

One added benefit of acquiring new tastes is that they’ll no longer surprise you. And when the same situations present themselves, you’ll know exactly how to match the flavours according to your tastes.

Assuming you’ll arrive at your destination trouble-free is not a realistic path to base your goals off of.

Instead, accept that reaching your goals will require you to wend through forests and swamps, much like a treasure hunter would when maps were still a thing and GPS wasn’t invented yet.

You might opt for the mountain climb rather than the river swim, but you’ll still have to face something on your quest. The only way to not face hardship is by staying still. And I don’t need to tell you what happens when you do stay still.

Besides, the bigger the obstacle, the more badass your story.