Practice Looking Stupid
It’s important to practice looking stupid. It’s just a muscle that you need to exercise so that it isn’t strained when you need to use it. You will look stupid, and the more you put yourself and your work out there for others to judge, the more often you’ll look stupid.
The fool is the precursor to the master. If you’re not willing to be the fool, and look like a fool, then you’ll never be the master. Every master of every craft was once a fool, making mistakes and looking stupid. The great barrier to development occurs when you are unwilling to look like a fool. If you can’t look stupid, then you can never show your work or demonstrate your craft because it WILL be criticized, especially in its earlier stages.
Here is an excerpt from my last newsletter:
“When I started working out as a freshman I could barely bench 100 pounds. By my senior year I had set a max bench of 265. Now, let’s do the math. If my arm / chest strength increased 265% over the course of 3 years…”
My math in this is completely wrong and I’m a business teacher. 100 to 265 is an increase of 165%, not 265%. I do this sort of math (calculating percentages) every day in the classes I teach, but I was writing fast, almost late for work, and I made a blunder. Later that day it hit me. I was about to look stupid.
Fortunately, I’ve practiced looking stupid. Actually, I’ve practiced it a lot. The reason I’ve practiced it so regularly throughout my life is because I have the unfortunate personality combination of being recklessly ambitious and extremely impatient. This means that I throw half-assed work together and fling it out into the world expecting massive results.
I’ve practiced looking stupid so much that it is second nature to me now. At this point I barely realize if someone is mocking me, and if they are, I usually laugh at myself with them.
“That was dumb! How silly of me! Oh well, I’ll fix it next time!”
The more you practice looking stupid by putting yourself and your work out there for people to criticize, the less it bothers you. When I was 25 I sold my first business and bought a tour van, which I drove to Seattle to try to become a rockstar. After a long and frustrating year I finally had my band in a professional studio to make the album that was going to be our breakthrough. We hired a professional videography team to film our “soon to be viral” music video.
When it was released, I got trashed in the comments. Just absolutely ridiculed by hundreds of anonymous strangers.
The one comment that really hurt was, “Cobain wannabe douche.”
I couldn’t figure out why it hurt so bad, until I realized it was true. I was a “Cobain wannabe douche.”
I abandoned that project entirely and moved to Mexico, where I connected with a much more authentic version of myself, one that is a wanderer and adventurer, an enthusiastic optimist and free spirit. Ever since, my music and my message have been authentic and true.
This transformation, that changed my life from being a copycat, to being myself, only occurred because I was willing to look stupid. If I hadn’t thrown myself into the furious wrath of a thousand internet couch critics, I never would have been broken as a copycat. If I was never broken as a copycat, I could never have been remade as myself.
There is truth to the saying that “criticism only comes from below.” The reason it only comes from below is because the people above you are too busy to care about what you’re doing. The people with time on their hands, looking to spread their own misery, are the ones that get a kick out of trying to drag you down. You can’t let that happen. Haters need to be your motivators. The best way to make sure you have that mentality is by practicing looking as stupid as possible as often as possible.
The more you look stupid, the more you get mocked, the more free you become to say and do whatever you want. After all, you’ve already been taking criticism for everything, what’s a little more? Who cares at this point? This is the bulletproof attitude.
I will always listen to advice and input from experts in my field. As a musician, if someone who works in music has something to tell me, I listen, even if it hurts. As a teacher, if a more experienced teacher has lesson plans that I can use, I use them. But if it’s just some person with no experience in my craft, with no idea what they’re talking about, then throw it at me man! I will laugh that someone is wasting time out of their day to attempt to have an effect on me.
The reality is that there is a window of opportunity for criticism and “haters.” At the very beginning stages you are the most vulnerable. Your self-confidence is very easily snuffed out. As you progress you get stronger in your own self-belief. There is a crossover point, where not only is your self-belief strong, but you have enough actual proof behind you, that it becomes very difficult for people to logically criticize you or find flaws in what you’re doing. There’s just too much evidence stacked up against them. They will still throw emotional insults at you, but that’s just an opportunity for a good chuckle. (And be grateful you’re not them!)
Whatever you do, don’t fear the spotlight. If you avoid opportunities to look stupid. Yes, that’s right. Looking stupid is a HUGE opportunity. And if you avoid those opportunities, your fear of it happening will only grow over time, until the idea of someone mocking you becomes a crippling handicap, stopping you from pursuing your own journey of self-development.
The reality is, that while some self-development can happen in the shadows, the majority of it happens in the light. Your work is meant to be shared. People will express distaste for it. Some of that is preference. Some of it is misery wanting company. None if it needs to bother you. Seek it out, so you can practice it not bothering you.
