Daily Nehemiah – Nehemiah Wyant's Web Home

The Gift of Energy

It is possible for a person to walk into a room and the mood instantly change. We know people that are positive or negative and they can just change a room fast. Science may not be able to explain it, but certain people have certain energies.

Too often we feel the negative energies that people can put out there. One bad attitude ripples, and ripples. Soon because one person is having a bad day, everyone is having a bad day. I wonder if the path of negativity is just the easier road to take and that is why this happens. I don’t know why, but it seems often the default energy to throw around is a negative energy. While I think the default to most people is negative energy, we can make a shift to a more positive place.

No one needs to know that we are having a bad day. It does not serve us, or anyone else to let people know we’re having a bad day. In fact sharing this state and energy likely just perpetuates the bad day. What if we just consciously decide to only put out good energy?

I think a good person is conscious of the ripples they create. I think its good to create good ripples. With enough work and positive energy we can create powerful shifts. I think that is a cool thing to do. I’ve done it before. The energy doesn’t come back though, it has to be a gift.

I am in a place where I try to give this gift. I spend most of my time in the gym either working out or training others. I try very hard to give this gift around the gym. It does come back to me, but I won’t know how. I try and give good energy and lift up the room. I do want it to lead to more clients, I’m not an entirely altruistic being. I also give for the sake of giving.

I would like this giving to be selfless. It would be a beautiful thing to live in such a way. Living in a beautiful way is reward enough.

What is this gift I’m talking about? It is an energy. It is a shared passion. It is a gift of love and vision. I would like to better define what I try and give. I just have this thing I keep giving away, and it’s awesome, even if I don’t know the secret sauce to it.

I have true joy and passion, I can share that. I think these traits are too rare.

If we think about the energy and vibes we create, we can create the ones we want to. I think this is easy enough to do, we just have to think a little and have some self-awareness. I think it’s a good thing to walk into a room with the intention to fire the place up! Most people can probably manage to do this now and then. It’s like a fun game to play, “Let’s just make everyone happy in here!”

“A rising tide raises all ships.” I simply seek to be the tide.

Trying to Think Small

I have ambition. I want to do good and useful things. I want to do these things with some measure of scale. That could be considered thinking and dreaming big. Thinking big probably gets me in trouble more than it helps me. Thinking small has worked for many people before me, and I could receive the same benefits it has given others.

Many big things grow from small things. We are surrounded by big awesome things that started off far more modestly. In many of those cases it is questionable whether the people that started those things had any idea about how big things would get. Hardcore History might be the best podcast in the world. It is currently a series of 3-5 hour epic episodes talking about history. Some of these are multiparters, so you may get 20 hours of audio on one subject. The first episode of Hardcore History was only 17 minutes and a single part. I suspect the host Dan Carlin had no idea what his podcast would grow into. If he had started with the current format in mind, would he have even began in the first place? I think about the origins of Hardcore History a lot as I set forth with my own creative projects.

In moments of arrogance I forget that like Dan Carlin I can start small. If something so creative and awesome can start super small, then my projects can have similar paths. Starting small and thinking small in scope has benefits and I forget them. I forget that when things are small you can experiment and tinker. I spent 2 years working on my last software project, in the end I got to the point with it, that I couldn’t even make beneficial changes without huge efforts. The code base had gotten huge and had too much “baggage.” Given less scope, I might have been able to make a real business out of the project, instead it died a painful death. Being able to experiment is not the only benefit to thinking small though.

Small is a lot faster.

Small is cheap.

Small takes a lot fewer mental resources.

Thinking small may not actually be thinking as small as it appears. I think the chief benefit of thinking small is that it lets you do more things. I become paralyzed far too often by the scope of the things I want to accomplish. This makes it hard to get things off the ground. I have spent the last year writing a book, that no one has seen yet. I might have spent a whole year working on a book that no one may be all that into. I went big with this project, and it is by its nature going to take a while to get out in the open. Not every project needs to be that way. A smaller project might have allowed me to already be making money. Going small with a project would have just allowed me to do more faster. So sometimes we are forced to go big, sometimes we can go small.

I think that is the key, to go big and small. If I go only one direction I get in trouble. I am content to work in isolation on things for a long time. I can do the big project mentality. It does create a sense of dread though with new projects. I assume all projects will become huge, consuming, and a stressor. Feeling the weight of this impending size can make things hard to start. Things do not have to be that way. Sometimes small is good.

I feel the pull towards doing a lot more small things. In fact as I plan the next year I am looking at doing man more small things. I might pick up a big project or two but the big stuff is not going to take over the small stuff. My hope is that doing some smaller projects will let grow some creativity and playfulness. The big idea is that I just need to remember its cool to start small and maybe someday I’ll stumble my way into having a really big thing on my hands like Hardcore History.

Daily Nehemiah 5, Not So Bad

Not so bad. It’s not so bad. I tell myself that kind of thing all the time. I think it gets me in trouble. “Not so bad” it lowers my standards. “Not so bad” allows me accept the unacceptable. “Not so bad” is part of what is breaking me.

“Not so bad” allows me to sit far too idle and not take the action I should. I have cultivated this ability to sit in pain and failure, and weather the storm. I can sit there, and just sit, instead of taking whatever massive action is needed to move out of the pain. This is the tough bastard side of “Not so bad.” There is a line between being tough and persistent, and being an idiot that is getting his head kicked in.

In matters of faith and morality, “Not so bad” is one of those tricky tools of the devil. Doing one wrong thing can be justified because it’s not as bad as another thing. To have faith there has to be some acceptance of a concept of sin and morality. There is combat of Truth versus Evil. “Not so bad” can provide a false rationalization that we are winning this battle when in fact we are not. I am doing lots of wrong things, but I’m doing a lot better than other people. “Not so bad.” It is easy to see how that kind of thinking can start to creep in.

“Not so bad” rarely stays not so bad. “Not so bad” has a funny way of growing and becoming a bit more. “Not so bad” is like an invasive species inside the human spirit. Years of putting up with “Not so bad” can do a lot of damage. Using these words is probably a cue that I need to evaluate if things are a little worse than I thought.

“Not so bad” are like magic words for me. I fool myself with them. Your magic words are probably something different. They are still a cue you are fooling yourself, and probably fooling yourself in completely different ways than I. Finding your magic words can just be a step in cutting through the nonsense you tell yourself, unless you’re doing “Not so bad” at that already.

Daily Nehemiah 4. Startup Pitching Rant

It amazes me watching pitch nights how many entrepreneurs and founders have trouble with some very simple things.

A lot of them give no call to action. They are asked to speak in front of a room of 100 people and they don’t have a way for me to signup for your service. If your service is not out, how do I follow you on Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest, or whatever the hell it is? Even better than that, is there an email list I can join so you’ll reach out when the product is ready. If you sell a physical product. Where the fuck is it. I go to a speech about a fashion product, and the founder was not wearing the product, and did not bring the product along. This was for a group of 30-40 people. If you got product. Bring the damn product. Even better, have a trunk full of the product out in the trunk of your car you can sell to me after the talk. Daymond John sold hats out front of the New York Collesium for $10, get your head out of your ass and hustle.

They don’t have a five minute pitch and can’t speak about their business. If you have been working on a thing for 2 years, then if I hand you a microphone, you should be able to get up and just pitch it in some coherent fashion.

Follow the fuck up. Send a damn email. I am a developer, you say you need code done and can’t proceed until you have more code. And when I talk to you and hand you my card, you never call me. I wanted to build your startup for fucking free but nope, you don’t care. I offered through a Tech group I was part of $15,000 to $30,000 worth of services to a nonprofit that had a list of needs it advertised at the end of its presentation. I said we could handle every one of those needs. No call. This group was having a profound impact on people in the community. They were passionate people really changing lives, but they were not business managers, didn’t understand accounting, financial stuff, web design, social media. We offered to take care of all that so they could scale and help more people. But nope they just never called.

Have some damn energy about you product/business. If you don’t want to be up in front of 100 random strangers pitching your shit in the early stage. Get the fuck out. 100 people came to hear about your damn unicorn. Fucking tell us all about its magic powers and it’s horn of bloody death. Hell if you’re bored about your thing, then we will probably be too.

If you are pitching your business, you are selling. Either to investors, potential partners, or customers. So sell.

Daily Nehemiah 3: Am I Bi-Winning?

I gave him all the answers, how to get strong, how to hit the weights. I offered all sorts of help, all he had to do was show up. Anything I could do I offered. He won’t do any of it. I gave him all the answers and he will choose to fail. I hope I am wrong. He doesn’t want it, he wants to look like he wants it.

How many times have I been offered and given the same degree of help by others? Do I have all the answers? Do I know how to do the things I am trying to do? Have people helped me and given me all the answers? Do I have everything I need for massive success served to me on a silver platter? Do I choose not to do anything about it? Do I not want it? Do I want to lose?

Recognizing help when it is presented is a skill. Giving up things like pride and just taking help is a skill too. Loving things like pride more than winning, well that is just stupid.

Do I want to win? Or do I want to look like I want to win?

Daily Nehemiah 2

Thoughts on obsessions and balance…

So I have managed to take my enthusiasm for lifting weights and turn it into a product. I am now working to turn that app and product into an actual business. As a result I spend 90% of my waking time thinking in some way about lifting weights.

I am spending a large amount of time either lifting weights, writing code to make a weightlifting app, or learning more about lifting weights. Most of the time this is pretty cool.

I have moments of feeling unbalanced. I do have some contract work I am doing, so that is an escape from the world of lifting weights. I watch some tv too. These things help. But other than that, pretty much everything is about lifting weights.

My entire life revolves around the concept of lifting progressively heavier objects. The question I constantly ask myself is “How does this thing I am doing help me or others bench press 400 pounds?” Passion has moved into obsession.

I can live with being obsessed. In general I am very happy with working on these things. I do see how this obsession can turn sour fast if I’m not careful.

The other night I started to write out a 4 year powerlifting training cycle do see where I might be able to take my lifting. I’m not sure what that says about my mindset, but it happened. It is getting harder for me to focus and talk about anything other than lifting or building this business up. I have no true hobbies at the moment, I workout, and I work.

More worrisome than all the super focus weirdness is that fact that I am starting to suffer real life performance issues. I am progressively getting more tired. My code and writing is more sloppy and not wanting to flow at all. In the gym I am having to put in a lot more effort and energy into hitting big weights. I feel like I am stuck in an infinite loop here. I think this narrow focus and obsession has got to be a contributing factor to my performance issues. Obsession has taken hold, luckily I am seeing that, because that means I can attempt to manage it.

This whole path has turned my outlets and hobbies and turned them into work, or something work related. I got nothing else. I wouldn’t really advise this path to anyone else. If you’re going to turn hobbies or passions into a business, you got to have something else going on long term. Short term obsession probably can work. Making your life all about one thing though, well that wakes up the crazy.

Being so single minded is just not good, and I have been learning that the last few weeks. I suspect in the coming days I need to try and branch out and experience a bit more of life and not be so obsessed. I’ll figure something out, things are in motion. My best advice is that this obsession can sneak up on you fast. Part of pushing yourself seems to be that you got to make sure you don’t push yourself off the cliff.

Daily Nehemiah No. 1: Savage Impulses

“I can’t explain it to you if you’ve never felt it.” I was trying to explain to someone the addictive quality of weightlifting. They couldn’t understand why bench pressing more mattered, even if no one ever finds out how much I bench press. They couldn’t understand why after injury after injury, I find myself back in the gym, grabbing a bar, and doing physical feats of stupidity. Yes I know it’s stupid to keep going back under that bar, but I am going to keep doing it. There is some savage impulse that leads me back to the gym. This savage impulse can manifest itself in different ways. Some have it with business, some with their art, some have it in a competitive sport.

This impulse is what they didn’t understand, it wasn’t so much that I like to lift heavy things. Their mind was wired for balance, for maturity, for calm. Something is broken in my brain, I have trouble doing balance. This trait shows itself all through my life, not just in the gym. When I am into something, I become a maniac, dabbling is hard, I want in deep. My impulse is to go overboard. My impulse is to ignore the rest of life when I’m dialed in. It’s hard to choose where I’m dialed in. When I ignore the impulses it never works out well for me. Seeking balance for me, is just seeking failure, I can’t do balance.

I have found indulging these impulses and mindsets leads to happiness and success. This indulgence can feel like a super power. It’s not normal, it has no balance, and is not fun all the time. I have learned how to embrace it. There is some savage weird stuff in my brain, and I’m going to run with that for a while.