Upgrade Yourself

There is nothing wrong with being ignorant.

Let us repeat that: there is nothing wrong with being ignorant. Whether you're ignorant about the difference between a 401k and a Roth IRA or why they are important, or whether you're ignorant about what the big psychological hurdle standing in your way of greatness is, it's okay.

We don't know about you, but often it feels like self-help books, or online courses, or going back to school when you're forty (or thirty, or twenty five, or anytime you're not 18) is some sort of character flaw. The rational is that you were too dumb/poor/incompetent/drugged up/whatever to learn whatever it is you were supposed to learn the first time.

This rational is one of the biggest crappy things that you can listen to. Seriously, this line of thinking will prevent you from learning and growing and really taking kick-ass control of your life.

Think about it this way: You grow up being told what to learn. You get tested on it, you learn it (short term, long term, whatever to pass), and then move on to new stuff. You graduate high school. College (if any) ends up being a big experimentation of you finding what you want to learn, but there's still a structure that helps feed you into different classes. There are prereqs, degree programs, a bunch of stuff that basically tells you what to learn. While you're busy trying to figure out which one of these is the best for you, you only have so much time and so much money to figure something out. So you rush, and panic, and maybe you don't get to try everything. You're too busy learning about astrophysics to learn how to market yourself and network, or maybe you're learning how to network but you don't have the time to learn how to replace your car engine or play the trumpet. Just because you learned a bunch of stuff doesn't mean you learned the stuff that you need or want to have learned.

Our point is that there is nothing wrong with being ignorant. We simply do not have the time to learn everything all at once, so logically there is going to be tons of stuff in our adult lives that we don't know very much about. However, there is something we can do about that.

One financial badass Monkey reads a lot from (Ramit Sethi, a true monster of a knowledge seeker) invests thousands of dollars in himself every year in courses, books, conferences, etc. etc. etc. The thing is, it's not just Ramit that invests in himself, it's basically every successful person. Some might try and hide the fact so they look "cooler," but regardless, successful people aren't afraid of doing what it takes to learn what they need to. Granted, you don't have to drop thousands of dollars, but you do have to take a lesson away from this - you need to invest in yourself.

Go to the self-help section in the library if you're feeling stuck in your art. Check out a book on finances if you have no idea how to deal with your money. Watch some online tutorials on how to build a silkscreen exposure unit or how to change your own oil. Take a class on archery, or on any topic that interests you at your local city college. Some classes are even free!

You see, if you're ignorant about something, educate yourself. In reality, we think that people at the top of their game will look down on us for trying to learn more and make ourselves stronger. The people who look down on us for reading self-help books when we know we have a problem or for spending hours reading coursework that will help us market ourselves better are really just envious and scared. They probably don't even know it, but deep down the reason why they feel the need to be all high-and-mighty is that they are afraid that you're going to surpass them.

In the end, who is the bigger fool? Someone with a problem who just ignores it and compounds the issue because they think they're above getting help, or someone with a problem who learns about it and figures out the way to overcome that problem?

Shutting Down the Heckler

Inside your head there is a voice. Where it came from isn't all that important, but it'll probably take on the voice of one of your greatest critics. Maybe your parents, maybe a teacher, someone perhaps who you thought was your friend but really isn't.

"You suck."

"You're doing it wrong."

"That totally didn't work."

Sound familiar? This butthole voice is what Seth Godin calls "The Heckler." While I think you should all go read Seth Godin's description here about The Heckler, we'll sum it for you in a sentence: "The Heckler is part of your primal, lizard brain that you can't ever really get rid of. If you fight, it will fight harder, and the only way to get rid of it is to disable it."

So, Monkey and Seal, how do you disable the Heckler? The Heckler is a big bully that takes pleasure in your resistance - it enjoys the fight, and is just waiting for you to tell it to shut up so you can yell louder. Using one simple phrase will take the wind out of the bastard's sails, making it weaker and quieter. That phrase is:

"So what?"

If you've ever been taunted, or teased, or a victim of bullying, the immediate, primal urge is to react against the insults. You refute the disparaging claim or you try and throw it back at the bully. However, as it is the nature of a bully, it will take pleasure in your obvious reaction and will continue on its bully ways of attacking you. However, it stops being fun for the bully when you don't react, or care.

Instead of "No, my painting doesn't suck, yours sucks!" it's "My painting sucks? So what?" Its the exact opposite reaction the Heckler needs to continue on the fight.

"That brushstroke doesn't work. So what?"

"I messed up in that last routine. So what?"

"I didn't win that competition. So what?"

Now we don't want you to turn into some self-effacing downer that's just all negative. By saying "So what?" the goal is not to get down about whatever deficiency (imaginary or real) that your inner Heckler is bringing up. The goal is to realize that whether the Heckler is right or wrong, it's not the end of the world.

The skies won't rain blood just because you missed a note in that last solo. The earth won't implode because you didn't render those hands enough. The sun won't die just because your proportions are off.

If we have the fortitude and imagination to dream, we also have the imagination to whip up illusions of grandeur where we become painfully inadequate compared to Everyone Else. However, even when we are at the height of our careers and a huge mistake could cost us everything, we still tend to overreact to mistakes and to exaggerate what Everyone Else thinks about us.

If you're an aircraft controller, the stakes are high. Planes could crash, people could die. If you're a painter, most likely you are not going to be put in a situation where your performance is a life or death situation. The Heckler is telling you that it's the end of the world, that your imperfection (perfection is overrated anyway, remember?) is a huge deal. It's not. You screwed up. So what? Learn from it and grow. There are no mistakes, just opportunities for growth.

The point of disabling the Heckler is not to stop criticism. The point of disabling the Heckler is taking the work-stopping, genius-interrupting, creativity-killing emotional sucker punch that comes with the taunts of the Heckler and taking the poison out of them. Criticism is good, it helps you grow, but if you take it personally and shut down, then all it's doing is getting in your way of living up to your true potential of making something magical and wonderful.

Deadlines Can Be Your Friend

Deadlines are a mixed bag for Monkey + Seal. While they serve to create an endpoint to a project, they can be really stressful and emotionally taxing. We think it all depends on how you use deadline and the boundaries that you set.

For personal work, deadlines can help push you to focus and prioritize more on a specific project that will force you to really work on something. Since many times personal pieces are done for you, sometimes it is not clear when you're really "done" with a piece. If you are a photo-realistic painter, this may not apply as you're done when it looks like a photo, but if you have a stylistic approach, this is oftentimes a bit more of a blurry line.

By forcing yourself to work within a specified time frame, if you're the type of person that needs structure, you can squeeze out some amazing stuff in a short period of time. While this does not work for everyone, if you find yourself being more productive when you're in a time crunch (procrastinators, anyone?) setting deadlines can be a really positive thing. It may even push you to experiment (for better or worse) in trying new techniques and mediums that you may not have thought about before.

However, if you're the type that does not create well under pressure, then deadlines can be very rough on you. The pressure to create and to produce can be overwhelming, so much so that even if you want to start early, you may find yourself psyching yourself out until the last possible minute when you realize that you don't have any more time to spare.

Sometimes you just don't have enough time to do your best work and you end up turning in something less than par, or even something that you're a bit embarrassed by. In these cases, we like to focus on that fact that as long as you do your best given the circumstances, you shouldn't beat yourself up so much. Like we've said before, as long as you take something away from every experience, it's not the end of the world. If you failed to execute an illustration in the way that you wanted to, you now know that given x hours, you cannot produce what you were trying to. You now know what does not work, so at least when a client asks you "Can you produce X in Y amount of time" you'll know how to answer.

Deadlines can definitely help push you to your best and to give you an action plan of prioritization for any project. But they only work if you set proper guidelines and boundaries and stick to them. In the end, time may be your worst enemy, but if you take the experience as an imperfect victory instead of a loss, you'll be all the closer to mastering the clock.