I just got to New Jersey. I effectively got my driver’s license, moved cross country, and went to a football game all within the same 72-hour period.
Today, I got everything under the same roof for the first time: The dogs, the bags, whatever. While I am unpacking I have been unable to write back to emails. Rest assured, I’ll be with you tomorrow.
But until then, I need to tell you guys you’re being too hard on yourself.
Let me tell you all something:
You don’t read these emails because I am smarter than you. You read these emails because I am dumber than you.
Many of you are Type A personalities. Go-getters. Honors Roll students. Star athletes. Scholarship recipients. Rising star in the office. Head honcho of the PTA.
I feel sorry for all of you.
No one lets you fail, ever. You have to be Mr. or Mrs. Perfect constantly.
I am a great lover of live music. I’ve gone to jazz clubs in Seoul, San Jose, and Harlem. In these dens, you meet many aspiring singers in the crowd or at the bar.
What’s sad to me is how many of them want to perform live but never do so.
They can remember the exact person who told them they couldn’t sing. They can tell you at what age it happened. They can tell you the words that person used verbatim.
Intelligent people internalize. They blame themselves. They commiserate.
I need you to get dumb.
I’m tone deaf. You can’t get me to stop singing. Why? I’m socially retarded.
No, really. I have a superpower, erm…”disability.”
I have choked in front of packed crowds when I battled rapped. Hundreds of thousands of people have watched me blow up deep in live poker tournaments.
No one remembers me. No one cares. I barely remember. Everything passes in time.
I work with so many of you personally, and I hear how you beat up on yourself. It’s hard to stomach.
“I screwed up so bad when I was deep…”
“…I never seem to do the right thing…”
“…Everything I try doesn’t work…”
Who said you had to be perfect all the time?
Why do you think Rocky is the most famous fictional boxer? Did you ever even see the original movie? His girlfriend is a geek from a pet shop. The child he tries to give advice to tells him to F off. He talks with slurred speech, and you can barely understand him through his thick Philly accent. His face has partial paralysis. HE LOSES THE F***ING FIGHT AT THE END.
Why do you think we remember Rocky?
Because he never quits.
He looks the champ right in the eye and says, “if you want to stop me you’re going to have to kill me.”
We admire men and women like that in our culture, regardless of whether they succeed or fail. Because the truth is, 99% of us never even make a half-assed attempt at attaining our true potential.
Do you know how many people have told me they want to write a book? It blows my mind how I can tell people, “I’ve published multiple books” and they’ll respond with, “Oh yeah? Well, I’m thinking of writing a book.”
Who in the world hasn’t thought of writing a book? What on God’s green Earth is that supposed to mean to me? Are you really comparing my waking up at 6:00 AM every morning for a year to your thinking of doing something?
Hey, those are some mean abs you got there. But you know what? I’m thinking of doing some sit-ups tomorrow.
I have so much more respect for the failed playwright who is waiting tables than the asshole who plays like he’s in the trenches.
And here is why I have no sympathy: ANYONE can write a book.
If I put a gun to your head and said, “you have 72 hours to write a 200-page book” and I let everyone you love watch you through Plexiglass I know for a fact you’d write 200 pages. You’d make a ton of mistakes. The structure would be terrible. But you’d hand me the rough draft for a book on hour 63 while you cried and asked how I got into your house.
The truth is most of you don’t want to stumble at all. My God. Your parents were so overbearing. They made you feel like you could never make a mistake.
This is wholly unrealistic. Imagine you had to walk 12 hours a day for seven days a week through a city. What are the chances you’d trip on a sidewalk sometime that week?
Your chances of tripping at some point would be 100%.
Yet, you’re living life 24 hours a day, and you’re not dealing with sidewalks. Yet, you find a way to hate yourself every week for making an inevitable mistake.
Have you ever seen someone fall down on the street and started laughing at them? No? Why?
Because you’d be an asshole, that’s why.
Well, anyone who mocks you for falling down while you walk this path in life is an asshole too. No different than a jackass who’d giggle at an old lady slipping in the crosswalk. Why would you care what they think?
Today, let’s change things.
I hereby give you permission to be dumb. To make mistakes.
Just be sure to make a lot of them.
