Press the Send Button
“Nothing happens unless first a dream.”
- Carl Sandburg
With a dream to be an author someday in the future, I am a book lover. I read a lot of books. I fell in love with books and became a book addict. Reading becomes my second life. I read in the morning, before going to work; I read on the bus, while traveling to work; I read at night, before going to bed. If you come to me and talk about books, we could rap about books the entire day.
By reading, I gain a tremendous amount of knowledge. And most surprisingly, I make friends with numerous famous authors. You might wonder how I can make friends with them. It is easy; the answer is - to read their books. Every good writer writes as he talks. He tries to communicate with you in his own words expressing his thoughts. This is an interactive process in which he uses his words to engage with you. Every single word earns its place. He puts all of his effort into opening up himself. Being naked and showing you the vulnerability which he doesn’t do to a Hi - Bye friend. Once you read a book, if you like the author and want to be friends with him. You can. Before choosing who deserves to be in your world, the author makes a gentle gesture to you first. He knows he might suffer from rejection which ruins his day. Giving him a hug and sharing what you think of his writing are the greatest rewards of his. Without this kind of speechless communication, a book can’t be done.
So, here I am. I am shameless to claim I am a good writer too. I might not have the proper grammar and fancy words. But my intention is crystal clear: share my thoughts with you. This is what a friend does to a friend. Isn’t it?
In the ocean of good writers, I swim in their words and get to know their minds. Occasionally, one out of ten, his performance is too amazing to a point that I can’t even take my eyes off for a second until the curtain is down. Sometimes, a short show, with only a few chapters and less than a hundred pages, is able to turn my world upside down.
On the stage, dancing and singing, he is the king of the world. In the first song, you think that he is doing his best already; he had no way to do another great song like that. Somehow the next song sneaks in at the end of the first song. The second song comes in as a mix! He just doesn’t want to let you stop. You start to gear down and act like a silly kid and scream at the top of your lungs. You keep screaming until you realize that you haven’t yet had dinner, and you are feeling hungry. But the hunger for food is no bigger than the hunger for good songs. You just keep screaming and think that you have never seen a great performance like this. The king keeps singing and singing till the last song. Your brain spins and becomes totally blank. You scream to a point that you don’t realize your sore throat. You can’t say a word. But you don’t want to let go of your hero. You run to the stage front and fight over other fans to shake hands with him.
I have been doing this for years in my reading journey. If I read an extraordinary book which can make my world upside down, I will contact the author and ask for help.
So, the story began. I contacted my favorite authors in every possible way. As you can imagine, famous authors are basically celebrities. As they sing on the stage, you could only immerse yourself with his echoes down at the auditorium, even if you are standing and screaming at the front row. However, among all these crazy fans, being one of them yourself, you could always spot some lucky ones who could have that slight handshake you deadly want.
Looking at them, my jealousy grew as an action signal, why can’t I be the one who has that goddamn handshake? I asked myself what is the difference between us. The answer is nothing. The stranger and I are both just a nobody. Both of us deserve to pursue our dreams. We are no different. The only difference is that he takes INITIATIVE and ACTION.
Along the way going after my role models, I have always seen the hateful competitor. “Why is he able to make it, instead of me?” I kept asking. INITIATIVE is the answer. Without it, you go nowhere, you will become another nobody and slowly die, stepping into the grave with mountain guilt, and asking the question you should have asked a few decades earlier: why don’t I take INITIATIVE and ACTION?
So, I took both INITIATIVE and ACTION.
Here comes my hero. He isn’t a nobody. He is famous in the musician, entrepreneur, and the writer world. He’s a TED speaker. Google his name: Derek Sivers; You’ll see tons of information about him. If you want to know him in a more direct way, read his blog: sivers.org.
As a 20ish nobody, I made enough money to get by, but somehow I felt stuck. I felt like a walking dead. I constantly asked myself this question: how can I turn things around?
I put my head down and hustled in a corporate job. I worked really hard as a copywriter in a digital marketing company. I put my best in the job, but I didn’t feel happy. I had a sense that I am a stupid hamster running on a treadmill - running to nowhere.
“How can I turn things around?” is a question I constantly asked all these years. How could I escape from the running treadmill and grow my wings and fly to the promised land? The picture of me flying over the sky was so vivid. I was flying with ecstasy in the cloud, even though I was actually a stupid hamster in reality. Suddenly, the breeze turned to strong wind after heavy rain. Hong Kong was experiencing a typhoon which was strong enough to give me an unexpected day-off. Yeah!
The moment I woke up I checked my iPhone to ensure I didn't have to head over to the office to work. In turn, lying in the bed, I looked at the ceiling and asked again, “how can I turn things around?” No treadmill today; I was a hamster taking a rest in my cave instead. As usual, I jumped into the ocean of books. I flipped through the list of books on my Kindle. Anything You Want, written by Derek, caught my attention. I read the book again and felt as resilient as the last hundred times. In fact, I bought both the electronic and audio version for the book. I can’t remember how many times I had read and listened to this book. Few hundred times, at the very least.
No “yes.” Either “HELL YEAH!” or “no.”
You can use this same rule on yourself if you’re often over-committed or too scattered. If you’re not saying “HELL YEAH!” about something, say “no.” When deciding whether to do something, if you feel anything less than “Wow! That would be amazing! Absolutely! Hell yeah!!” - then say “no.” When you say no to most things, you leave room in your life to throw yourself completely into that rare thing that makes you say “HELL YEAH!” Every event you get invited to. Every request to start a new project. If you’re not saying “Hell Yeah” about it, say “no.” We’re all busy. We’ve all taken on too much. Saying yes to less is the way out.
Sounds sophisticated, huh? This was something I wanted to share with you. This was something I learned from Derek’s book - Anything You Want.
If you learn something from someone who wishes to awaken the giant within you, but you don’t apply it in your life, that person would feel sad. I feel the same way Derek does. Ask the following question more often “Is this a Hell Yeah in action?”. You will achieve inner peace like a saint. I had this feeling after I learned this simple trick. I automatically say “no” to numerous requests from the outside world and leave room to throw myself completely into the rare thing that makes me say “Hell Yeah!”
I have been stuck with the question “How can I turn things around?” for too long. I kept looking for an answer with faith. Failed and failed again. I have done a thousand things in the way that Thomas Edison did with the invention of the light bulb. I failed a thousand times with a thousand different tryouts. Was I devastated? Yes, I was. But the wisdom of Thomas Edison was telling me that 1,000 failures equals 1,000 data I could tweak. You’ll finally turn that bulb on with light which you have dreamed of, if you don’t give up.
“How can I turn things around?” led to 1,001 attempts to turn the bulb on and a more brilliant question “What if I ask my hero for advice?” Just one piece of valuable advice is far better than thousands of unsolicited advice. But I was timid; Derek is not the one standing on the top of the mountain; he is flying above the cloud.
Luckily I learned another lesson from one of Derek’s close friends: Tim Ferris. I’ll repeat something Tim had advocated you might consider tattooing on your forehead: what we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do. That phone call, that conversation, that email, whatever the action might be - it is the fear of unknown outcomes that prevents us from doing what we need to do.
So I thought long and hard to come up with a nobody scenario with an open-ended question and put together a thoughtful email.
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To: derek@sivers.org.
From: nobody@20ish.org
Subject: Hell Yeah! Derek
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And pressed the send button which could change my life later……
Read the next chapter: Ask Good Questions
Or table of contents: Brick by Brick