Growing up in a small town in Kentucky, I knew a lot of people that hunted.

It always sounded so miserable to me.

Wake up before the sun was up.

Trudge outside in cold weather.

Climb a tree.

Wait.

I remember my friend Jay talking about how great it felt. “It isn’t even about getting a deer,” he would say. It was just about being out in the woods, alone with your thoughts. He’d be in a better mood for days after getting to spend time “hunting” – even if he never fired a shot.

I saw the same thing from my father and others when they talked about fishing.

Sure, catching fish was a bonus, but the act of fishing itself seemed to provide a tremendous value.

As a teenager, I didn’t get it. As an adult who is ever-so-slowly getting less bad at meditating, it finally clicked.

They weren’t hunting. 

They weren’t fishing. 

They were accidentally meditating.

Quiet.

Focused, but low intensity thought.

Mindful breathing.

Stillness.

Nature.

Did I just describe meditation or being in a deer stand?

The answer is both.

Your meditation is already happening on long drives, in a church, or even in a deer stand.

You just don’t call it by its proper name.

The number of people that are meditating but just don’t formally recognize it is larger than the number of people who pursue it with a focused attempt and its proper name.

I find the story of Chuck Feeney fascinating. Imagine working to accumulate a wealth level that few in history ever have, that most struggle even to understand – then giving it all away.

Feeney gave it all away before it was cool. Before Gates and Buffet led the charge to create the Giving Pledge.

I think there are a few lessons to be learned from these individuals. My theories:

1. There is a diminishing return on the satisfaction one receives through attaining more.
2. At a certain point, when one “has it all” (or at least access to it), they realize that the satisfaction received from helping others does not have the same diminishing return. The return is arguably exponential (or linear at its worst).
3. If true, the highest form of self-pleasure ultimately ends up being to help others. The purest form of hedonism ends up as altruism.

Now, here’s the giant leap. When it comes to achieving this level of self-pleasure, everyone can do what the billionaires are doing.

How?

Because it’s the numerator that matters, not the denominator, the satisfaction comes from knowing that you are giving what you are capable of giving. If you have an extra $100, $1,000, or $1,000,000 and choose to pursue the good of others over an incremental or meaningless gain for yourself, it’s the same thing.

You can achieve the same thing, the same feeling that billionaires do. 

By giving what you can.

If you like a particular author or movie director, you can be a fan of their early works, but not their late works.

If you like a particular author or movie director, you can be a fan of their lesser-known projects, but not their famous works.

You can even grow out of fandom. “I liked them when I first learned about the genre, but then I found other things that I liked more.”

These things are acceptable and normal.

The longer the artist is around and the more they produce, the odds are you won’t love everything they make.

You change. They change.

You have no obligation to maintain your fandom. It shows a more in-depth knowledge and respect for yourself (and the artist) when you clarify what you like.

The same is true for the organizations that we chose to identify and associate with.

You have no obligation to be a fan of their entire catalog.

It’s okay to say that you like or agree with 80% of what they produce.

You change. They change.

There is no obligation to remain a fan.

Hanlon’s razor states:

never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity

It’s helped me to keep my cool on more than one occasion. I’ve seen several versions of it, with both Wikipedia and Farnam Street providing versions that swap out “stupidity” with words such as “neglect,” “misunderstanding,” and “lethargy.”

I’m sure someone smarter than me has thought of this before, but I found adding one thing to this brilliant phrase helped me even more:

never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity or coincidence

Accidents happen, and at the moment, the acts that cause them can appear to be driven by malice.

Take a moment to recognize the non-zero chance that you may be the victim of a bad dice roll as opposed to a carefully planned act.

Good communication does not intentionally seek to hurt others, but it also does not intentionally seek to avoid doing so.

Poor communicators can be over-aggressive with their message, and it weakens the impact.

Poor communicators also can tone down a direct message to the point that it weakens the impact.

Speak kindly, but honestly.

This entry is more of a hypothesis that I will attempt to prove/disprove over time

• I believe in evolution.
• The modern form of humans is about 200,000 years old.
• For 99% of the time humans have existed, only the regional news was relevant and available.
• We have likely evolved to handle a deep understanding of local events that influence our fundamental needs (food, shelter, safety).
• Through the advances of writing, the printing press, radio, television, and now the internet, we’ve seen an exponential increase in:
  • The speed at which news becomes available
  • The distance at which news can travel to us
  • The number of sources that provide some version and interpretation of the news
  • The number of people who can access the news
• Our brains are not well-adapted to be able to respond to the constant influx of events.

There is a difference in the brain’s load/stress between “this has happened” and “this is happening.”

Self-talk is a powerful tool. As I’ve worked on it, I realized I had a real opportunity to think about the tone of voice I use with myself.

Optimal self-talk is not self-criticism. The tone should not be sharp or judgmental.

I’ve coached up countless underperformers. I’ve even coached people on how to coach.

But the voice and tone I used for self-talk was breaking all of the rules I’ve learned.

I was a crappy, borderline abusive self-coach with limited vocabulary and an overtly hostile tone.

If this hits home for you, you need to go back to the basics – and talk to yourself like you are a child.

Watch a loving mom or dad coaching a kid on how to hit a baseball for the first time.

Patience.

Optimism.

Praising even getting close.

Celebrating when the moment arrives and the bat hits the ball establishes norms that you should keep trying even though it is hard.

Self-talk should be the same, especially if you are trying something new. 

Or working on something that you are not good at.

Change the words of your self-talk.

Change the tone of your self-talk.

Take a step back and be a loving coach.