If you woke up today wondering what busting your head open has to do with making money, you’re in luck. I’ve got just the story for you.
When it had happened I’d been spying on my sister. Again. Who spies on their own sister, you ask? Every brother in the history of the universe, that’s who.
And why? Well, she was out in the forest beside our house, and therefore obviously up to no good. Maybe I’d catch her making out with someone or find where she buried her victims. Or did I forget to mention she was an axe murderer?
Well she was. She was also a punching bag, my guardian angel, an enemy samurai, my best friend, a linebacker, a beanbag, and the most patient person ever, depending on my mood.
Instead of finding decomposing corpses, I got hit by Instant KarmaTM, tripped on my gangly adolescent size-eighty-billion feet, and went forehead-first into the only rock within a twelve-mile radius.
When I stood up, my bell was rung and I was wobbly, but overall I figured I’d make it.
That’s when my sister discovered me. She stopped in her tracks, went utterly pale, pointed at my head and shrieked like the abominable snowman fighting with a banshee inside a jet engine. It terrified me to my core.
I put my hand to my forehead, saw blood on it and experienced the longest half-second of my life as my synapses zapped and I reasoned out the following:
It’s just blood. But my sister’s a tough cookie, blood alone wouldn’t elicit a reaction like that. There must be brain matter. Oh shit there’s brain lobe on my face. Should I stuff it back in? NO! Don’t touch it. You’ll get pine needles on it. What if it dries out before the ambulance gets here? I can’t die yet. This can’t be happening. If I continue to bleed will I be paralyzed? I think I heard that somewhere.
Then my sister bolted. She ran like the wind, either leaving me to die alone or to get my parents.
And I wanted to bolt too, but what if it jostled my brain out? I froze, and my sister got further away, crying as she ran.
Then I thought what anyone would have thought, “Fuck this I want my daddy.”
And I bolted, too, thanking the stars I had a sister to follow.
We made it back to the house right about the same time, my sister hollering to get my mom’s attention.
“Mom! Mmmph aaaahhhh, ssdiif berglin and yerthl adsking!”
“What?” my mom said.
“Cjoaueru ad vy aefj!” sis hollered, making up for lost clarity with volume.
Mom grabbed me and put my head in the sink. My sobs echoed up at me as I watched my life-juice go down the drain.
Before long the bleeding stopped and I was left with embarrassment, a wicked headache and a trip to the ER.
Eleven stitches later I was back home. I was exhausted from spent adrenaline, but so happy to be alive, happy to have a sister, happy to have parents that didn’t scold me for being a dumbass.
Take this with you: Fear makes you stupid
When you stand still in life, or in business, or on a football field, or on the highway, or in the forest with your brain leaking out of your head, you collect things.
You collect doubts. You collect what-ifs. You collect very heavy thoughts and insecurities. You collect this negative sort of inertia that pushes against you.
These are bits of mystery. And mystery, being essentially a vacuum that needs to be filled, continues to attract things to it. It’s the most efficient magnet ever, and a bastard spiteful one at that.
Without acting, the Bastard Mystery Magnet continues to pull. Before you know it, your best ideas are covered with dust, mold and bubble gum wrappers.
What are your business plans? Is there something you’re avoiding? How’s your book coming along? How about that list of to-do items and the stack of emails?
Run at it. Go tackle it. Hit it head on and watch the mystery vanish like magic.
I avoided making a living online for eight years. Eight years. That’s nearly three-thousand days, and at least three thousand times I told myself, “Not today.” Three-thousand times I told myself I was too afraid, that I wasn’t ready, that I didn’t know enough.
Is there one particular thing you’re afraid of? Something you’re avoiding? You don’t need to tell me, but you certainly can if you wish. The comment area is yours if you want to say something publicly and be all sorts of accountable for. So go have a ball.
Get to it!
And don’t forget to subscribe! You won’t want to miss the next episode, where I’ll tell you about this one time I got really cold, ran into a tree, and shattered into a million pieces.
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