Choose Yourself! (7 page)

Anyway, this isn’t advice for the one-hundred-thousand-plus people this past year who typed “I want to die” into Google and ended up on my blog. Some of them probably need real help from a therapist or doctor.

But this is what I did when I wanted to die.
Every one of these things.
At least one item a day. And here I am. I am still alive.

WHAT IF I’M IN A CRISIS?

Before we hit the stories in the rest of this book, we have to handle the situation when we’re actually on the floor and it seems like there is no way up. We can’t do the full daily practice, no less our “one thing per day,” if we can’t even get off the floor.

Sometimes flossing one tooth to start isn’t enough. Sometimes you’re in agony, your teeth are about to fall out, and you don’t want dentures. Flossing will have to wait.

I’ve been in that situation. And I’m not talking metaphorically, I’m talking about my actual teeth being in such bad shape they were about to fall out. But I’m also talking about when life hits a little too hard, a little too fast (okay, now I’m talking metaphorically).

Sometimes it’s enough to just climb out of bed. To be grateful for the abundance already in our lives. And abundance is a tricky thing. Right now, look around, and list the areas where you are abundant. If you are in the middle of a rainstorm, there is an abundance of water. Think of the bounty that can be grown with that water. If you are in a traffic jam, there is an abundance of cars. Think of the human achievement those cars represent in our short history on this planet. Turn despair on its head.

With each obstacle, turn it into a moment where you can reflect on the bounty that is in your life.

I RECENTLY GOT THE FOLLOWING E-MAIL:

“So…I’m slowly starving to death, I have –$90 in the bank account, rent is due in 8 days, and I have no chance of paying it. I started two media businesses that failed miserably and no one wants to hire me. What should I do?”

My response:

“That sucks. And I mean it. I’ve been there. And not so long ago. It fucking sucks. Sorry for the language. You didn’t use bad language in your e-mail so I apologize.

If I tell you what worked for me, would you try to do it? Even if it won’t work (you’re not going to pay your rent in 8 days. That ship has probably sailed but who knows.).

It’s all going to sound corny. Because you are in a fight-or-flight mental state. And if something says, “Slow down,” your body and mind will want to reject it.

A)
Can you call some people today and tell them you are grateful for them. Because this is the abundance in your life. You’re old enough that no matter what has happened in the past, there are people you are grateful for. Please call them. Family, friends, ex-clients, ex-lovers. Whoever. And tell them why you are grateful for them. What you learned from them. Why you love them.

B)
You are very lucky. You have time on your hands. Can you try to spend one afternoon volunteering? You’re probably spending a god-awful amount of time thinking about yourself. Just one afternoon, volunteer someplace else. Please. This is abundance also. You have two hands and two legs and a brain. People with less need your help.

C)
See a doctor. I know you aren’t sick. But you probably aren’t sleeping. You need to sleep. Ten hours a day. Maybe nine. But no less than nine. There are so many benefits to sleep. Google it and see. It’s amazing how I don’t have to list the benefits anymore. They are somewhere on that THING, Google. Doctors help you sleep. There are various pills that work. Don’t get addicted to them. Just use them until the crisis is over. Anyway, I’m not a doctor. The doctor will tell you that. Ask for Klonopin and see what they say. Don’t forget: YOU ARE NOT DEPRESSED. It’s perfectly reasonable to be upset in your situation. But you are anxious. So an anti-anxiety pill will help you sleep.

D)
You have to exercise. Even just take a walk. Twenty minutes of exercise a day. How come? I have no clue. But it works. Ugh, it brings to mind when I was worried about rent checks and divorce checks and girlfriend checks and my checks and I had nothing and I would exercise and it would feel like shit. But you have to do it. Your body is getting constantly mugged right now, triggering that fight or flight. So you have to work it off somehow. Exercise, eat well, and sleep. Else your body will be upset and then you will feel worse.

I just gave you a lot of things to do. Which is hard. Because who needs more shit on their plate. So you have to replace some things with these things. No news. No TV. No junk food. No dinner if you can avoid it (eat a late lunch and a late breakfast. And why not—you’re not at a job).

I would say get rid of the worries, but that’s really hard. I can say, whenever you worry, replace it with thoughts of abundance. Sometimes this works. But it’s really hard to do and most people find it corny.

Please do the things on my list, though. They are all equally important. You might not see it now but if you do this list, things will be better. Please write me back in eight days and tell me what happened. But make sure you do the things on my list.”

Eight days later he wrote back, “Thanks! Guess what? I paid the rent. I’m still alive.”

That’s it. I didn’t ask for details. Sometimes emergency procedures are required. But then you have to get back to living. You have to get back to the basics of how to survive. Let’s see some examples.

CHOOSE YOURSELF TO LIVE

Kamal Ravikant went missing. We had been corresponding for more than a year, ever since I started my blog. I’m very grateful for the great friends I have met through my blog. It has been a totally unexpected but much appreciated benefit of writing.

After hundreds of e-mails back and forth during the prior year, I was finally visiting San Francisco and was getting all set to meet Kamal. But he didn’t show up for our planned breakfast. His brother, Naval, called him a few times. “He’s at home,” Naval said, “but he’s not picking up. His illness must be overwhelming him today.” Naval had a GPS specifically attached to where Kamal was.

Kamal was very sick and getting worse. This had been going on for months. Some days he couldn’t move or wake up. Other days he had enough energy to go outside but only for minutes and then he had to go back inside. Kamal’s sickness was chronic. The doctors couldn’t help him; he was infinitely tired, feverish, in pain, and it was getting worse.

I knew from our correspondence that Kamal had been going through a hard time before he got sick. His company, which had once been doing well enough to raise a significant amount of money, was faltering, perhaps failing. He had recently broken off a relationship. A close friend had died.

Often when we attach our happiness to external goals: financial success, relationship success, etc., we get disappointed. Even when things work out, everything cycles, and the happiness is often fleeting.

When those goals break, the external pain immediately gets reflected into our internal bodies. Our emotions break. We feel sad, disappointed, and in pain. We cling to the past happiness, or our hoped-for goals, which now have to change. It can feel like your arm is being torn off your body.

But Kamal was trying to hold it all together to be fair to everyone within his company—the employees, the investors, and the customers. He was clinging to the past, depending on the future. Clinging to everything and everyone except for his own happiness in the present.

His emotional body couldn’t handle it anymore. His emotional arms and legs were torn off. And then his physical body broke. He completely broke down. I noticed he had dropped out of touch a few months earlier and I hadn’t seen his comments on the blog in a while. “What’s going on?” I wrote him. “I’m sick,” was his reply. He dropped out.

For several months he was out of action. Then he started writing again and telling me what was going on in his life. He started commenting on the blog again and interacting with the great community developing there. He was alive again. We finally ended up meeting.

“How’d you get better?” I asked. “What happened?”

“I’ll tell you the secret,” he said, “I thought I was going to die. I was just lying in bed and couldn’t move, I had a high fever, and was in too much pain. I really thought I was going to die. Finally,
I just started saying over and over again, ‘I love myself.’”

As Kamal then wrote about his experience in the now-successful book,
Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It
:

And I got better. My body started healing faster. My state of mind grew lighter. But the thing I never expected or imagined, life got better. But not just better, things happened that were fantastically out of my reach. This I couldn’t have dreamed of […] I found myself using the word ‘magic’ to describe what was happening. And through it all I kept repeating to myself, ‘I love myself. I love myself. I love myself.’

In the book Kamal describes his transition from sickness into health and the other magical things that happened to him. He also gives a series of techniques and practices so you can try this for yourself. And finally he answers the dreaded question, what happens if you don’t love yourself? Can you still get this magic into your life?

“Think about it,” he said to me months later when we met in New York. “When someone is in love, they almost magically look better. I needed to be in love with myself to feel better. So much of what had happened had weighed on me until I collapsed. Now I needed to love myself. It became a mantra for me.”

As someone explained to me the other day, the word
mantra
has two parts (in Sanskrit): “man”—thoughtfulness with zeal, and “tra”—to protect. So by saying “I love myself” over and over, Kamal was protecting the thought, nourishing it, and the love was nourishing the rest of his body, his emotions, his mind, and his spirit.

Kamal is now completely recovered. He also figured out the situation with his business, and when I saw him in New York City it was as if a gigantic weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

How did he publish his book? He didn’t need a publisher to choose him. He didn’t need an editor to say, “It has to be 200 pages.” He didn’t need a marketing expert to put it in a few bookstores, where it would waste away. The same way he chose himself to LIVE (by forming his own personal Daily Practice) he chose himself to write and, to this day, continues a pattern of choosing himself for success. His book went on to become a bestseller. And he did it all himself. Just like Tucker Max did. Just like I do, and did with this book. Here’s how you can do it:

HOW DO I SELF-PUBLISH?

There are lots of variations on the path to self-publishing; this is the one Kamal and I have both used.

WRITE THE BOOK. Kamal wrote his in a few weeks and made it forty pages (nobody had to give him permission to make it a smaller book). For my last two, I took some blog posts, rewrote parts of them, added original material, new chapters, and created an overall arc related to what the books were about to give them a trajectory, or a direction. It doesn’t matter where you get your ideas or how you write them, just do it. That said, you probably already have the basic material.

CREATESPACE. Both Kamal and I used CreateSpace because they are owned by Amazon—where we were going to sell our books—and have excellent customer service. They let you pick the size of your book, and then have Microsoft Word templates that you download to format your book within. Kamal did his all himself. I did my first book by myself, as well. But for my second book, for a small fee, I hired someone (Alexanderbecker.net) to format the book, create the book design, and create the final PDF, which I uploaded. He also checked grammar, made proactive suggestions on font (sans serif instead of serif), and was overall just extremely helpful.

UPLOAD THE PDF. CreateSpace approves it, picks an ISBN number, sends you a proof, and then you get to approve the proof.

WITHIN DAYS, IT’S AVAILABLE on Amazon. And you’re a published author. It’s print-on-demand as a paperback. And by the way, your total costs at this point: $0. (Plus whatever you used to design your cover.)

KINDLE. All of the above (from CreateSpace) was free. Kamal had a friend design his cover as a favor. If I didn’t hire Alex to make the cover, I could’ve used one of the million possible CreateSpace covers (I did that for my first book) and the entire publishing in paperback would be free. But with Kindle, CreateSpace charges $70 and they take care of everything until it’s uploaded to the Kindle store. Now your book is available in paperback
and
Kindle editions.

MARKETING AND PROMOTIONS. You’re in charge of your own marketing and promotions (as opposed to a book publisher). This might sound daunting at first, but self-publishing is the essence of creative entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurs can’t use the excuse that “I don’t have time, I’m running a business.” This is your business. Entrepreneurs make time. Like the publishing process itself, marketing and promotions can take many forms as well, depending on your goals, so this is just what Kamal and I did.

Kamal reached out to his entire network. He had various friends (including me) blog about it. Bestselling author Tim Ferris tweeted how Kamal’s book brought him out of a funk. Before you know it, Kamal’s book was a bestseller and, as of this writing almost a year later, it’s still selling strong.

I did a bunch of different things.

1. I gave away the first twenty copies or so to readers of my blog who asked for one. Many of them then posted good reviews on Amazon to get the ball rolling.
   
2. I handed out the books at speaking engagements.
   
3. I wrote a blog post about how the book is different from the blog and why I chose to go the self-publishing route.
   
4. I wrote guests posts for blogs like Techcrunch, which helped immensely and for which I’m very grateful.
   
5. I used my social networks: Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Google+, Quora, and Pinterest.
   

If you have a story to tell or a service to offer (it doesn’t matter what), love yourself enough to choose yourself. Take control of your work, your life, your art. The tools are out there. Now you just need to use the tools inside yourself.