In progressing the latter stages of our newest three SA units this week, I had several car trips to pick up small items, sort TVs and wifi etc. My car buddy was Mark Manson on audible as I listened to his book “The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life.
For anyone who’s read it you’ll know that Manson provides a fresh, and different perspective on personal development. The summary on goodreads sums it up nicely saying that he, ‘makes the argument, backed both by academic research and well-timed poop jokes, that improving our lives hinges not on our ability to turn lemons into lemonade, but on learning to stomach lemons better.’
Listening to the book as I drove to and fro and build TV stands, the main theme from the first half of the book jumped out and made clear sense so I wanted to share it. And it’s this, that ‘pain serves a purpose’.
What does this mean exactly?
To quote Mark, “Everybody wants to have an amazing job and financial independence — but not everyone is willing to suffer through 60-hour work weeks, long commutes, obnoxious paperwork, to navigate arbitrary corporate hierarchies and the blasé confines of an infinite cubicle hell. People want to be rich without the risk, with the delayed gratification necessary to accumulate wealth.”
It reminded me of the overarching lesson of balance between support and challenge that we learned from Dr John Demartini at the Glasgow Breakthrough Event last summer.
What determines your success is “What pain do you want to sustain?”
Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives end up.
“People want to start their own business or become financially independent. But you don’t end up a successful entrepreneur unless you find a way to love the risk, the uncertainty, the repeated failures, and working insane hours on something you have no idea whether will be successful or not. Some people are wired for that sort of pain, and those are the ones who succeed.”
Years ago I invested in my education to learn how to trade on the stock market – to conduct in depth fundamental analysis on companies and technical chart analysis for optimal trade entry and exit. I was enamoured with the lure of financial freedom through stock market trading in just a few hours each day. Yet, I never made the consistent effort to embed and execute these learnings. The truth is, I don’t enjoy the pain that comes with doing the in depth trade research and management daily, it’s not for me. And that’s OK, I’m fine with it. Instead I pay for help to invest in the stock market now.
On the other hand, Chris and I are both very much on the same page that we are willing to invest in our property education, apply what we learn and take the small, consistent steps, over time, towards growing a successful property business. Because that’s the sort of pain and stress we enjoy sustaining. It’s directly linked to our highest values, not just in the pleasures, but in the stress and pain because they serve as a vehicle to becoming our best selves.
Manson reminds us that there’s a lot of self development advice out there that says, “You’ve just got to want it enough!”
That’s only partly true. Everybody wants something. And everybody wants something badly enough. They just aren’t being honest with themselves about what they actually want that bad. In other words people are in love with the end result but are they in love with the process? If they’re not in love with the process then will likely never get to reaching the really big results.
So, What pain do you want to sustain? Mark Manson calls it the, “the question that can change your life.”
Because that answer will actually get you somewhere.
https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062457714/the-subtle-art-of-not-giving-a-fck