Break Through Your BS_Uncover Your Brain's Blind Spots and Unleash Your Inner Greatness

by Derek Doepker

  Your mind is your enemy – potentially. Potentially, it’s a great friend. The difference between the two potentials comes from the choices you must continuously make to either lead you to be controlled by your mind or put you in control of your mind.

  This is not a one-time decision. Your mind will constantly wrestle for control. Your knowledge and intellect alone won’t save you, because your intelligence is being wielded perhaps even more effectively by your mind to deceive you. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t use your intelligence or that it’s “bad.” You already know by now that nothing is inherently good or bad outside of context. However, you must discover another way to make choices that goes beyond your mind’s intelligence. You must use your mind but not rely solely on your mind.

  That starts with the choice you have here now… do you intend to lead your mind or are you going to be ruled by your mind?

  If you do not intend to lead your mind and therefore come from a place beyond your intellect, do not read further. While knowledge is not the “problem,” since it by itself has no choice, gaining more knowledge will only give your mind more ammunition to destroy yourself or others. This warning is real, and all you have to do is consider the countless ways you’ve been your own worst enemy to realize the element of truth it contains.

  “The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself.” – Plato

  Making Sense Out Of Nonsense

  Once upon a time in an ancient village, a young man dreams of adventure, but he has a great fear…

  If he ventures outside his homeland, he knows there are those out there who would wish to enslave him.

  Torn between his desire to explore the world freely and the fear that this will lead to his enslavement, he seeks out the village elder, a wise master, for advice.

  The wise old master listens empathetically to the boy’s plea.

  “Wise Master, I wish to have freedom, but I know there are those in the world outside my homeland who would shackle me up and take away my choice to live as I please once they see me. Can you help me?”

  The wise master questions the young man, “Do you realize if you wish to venture outside of your homeland, you cannot avoid those who would try to enslave you?”

  The young man replies, “Yes, master! I know those people cannot be avoided. But yet I also feel enslaved if I’m stuck in my homeland and never get to see the world. Is there any way I can explore the world without fear of being taken as a slave?”

  The master strokes his long beard and replies, “Yes… there is but one way. I can share with you the secret to living free if you wish.”

  The young man eagerly takes the old wise master up on the offer. “Show me the secret, please, Master!”

  The master takes the young man to a cabin.

  The wise master grabs the young man’s hands and proceeds to shackle them to the wall with heavy handcuffs.

  The young man is shocked.

  The young man protests, “What the eff!! This is total bullshit, dude! I wanted you to show me how to be free from enslavement, and you just shackled me to a wall!”

  The wise master looks at the young man and says, “You wanted the secret to being free from enslavement. If you want to travel free, I’m giving you exactly what you desire.”

  Pause the story here for a moment…

  How do you feel about what’s happening?

  Is the young man right in saying what the master did is bullshit?

  Is the master some sadistic a-hole who gets off on tormenting the young man?

  Or could it perhaps be the young man’s limited perspective that makes him accuse the master of bullshit, when it’s really the young man who doesn’t see the bigger picture?

  Grab your popcorn, and let’s see if the next part changes your mind about anything…

  Resume scene.

  The young man cries out for answers. “How is enslaving me keeping me from enslavement? This makes no sense!”

  The wise master replies, “You are enslaved, but only for a time. As you learn knowledge, you will be able to pick these locks. As you gain strength fighting against the shackles, eventually, you will be able to break free from these chains.”

  The young man begins to come around after realizing the old man doesn’t wish to keep him enslaved permanently. Still he wonders, “But why do I need to know how to pick locks and break chains?”

  The old master smiles. “Because young man, while you may not be able to avoid those who would shackle you, when you have the ability to break free from any shackle, no man can ever truly enslave you. Knowing this, you will be able to live free from both the enslavement of man’s shackles as well as the shackles of your own fear.”

  The young man got the lesson. He graciously accepted his position of temporary enslavement knowing that with time and effort, these shackles would serve him to give him the knowledge and strength to break free from any other shackles that may be placed upon him.

  Years later, with the master’s help and training, he learned to break free. For all the remaining years of his life, he traveled as a free man, neither remaining bound to those who shackled him nor fearing those who would try.

  Limitation = Liberation

  What’s your lesson from the story?

  The moral expressed in this story is that truth often comes in a perceived paradox or contradiction. The paradox of this story was that the key to not being enslaved is to be enslaved. To resolve the paradox, you simply add a little more distinction. The key to not being enslaved in the long-term is to allow yourself to be temporarily enslaved so you can learn to break free from enslavement.

  Once you have more power than the shackles, they cannot limit you. But to develop that greater power, you may need to put on shackles and fight against them. Breaking handcuffs is literally something strongmen develop the strength to do – and that strength is developed through fighting against resistance. You can’t develop the strength to break free from restraints without putting on restraints and fighting against them.

  Here’s the broad version of the paradox: In order to move closer to your goal, you must often move further from it... temporarily.

  The young man cannot be free from the fear of enslavement unless he knows what it’s like to be enslaved and break free from it. He must be enslaved temporarily to overcome both the fear and real risk of enslavement. You’ve heard it said you must face your fears to overcome them. This is an example of moving towards what you don’t want ultimately sets you free from it.

  Consider how this plays out in so many different ways…

  To make a muscle strong, one must first make it weak through training and resistance. Later, strength comes.

  To grow a business and make money, one may need to give away work or samples for free and lose money in order to gain trust and ultimately make money later.

  To have better relationships with others, one may spend more time with themselves alone in self-reflection and self-work.

  To have greater clarity and understanding, one may need to spend time in confusion and uncertainty as they explore new ideas they haven’t considered before.

  This doesn’t make any sense if you take a narrow perspective. To become physically stronger, I’m going to fatigue my muscles, break them down, become significantly weaker, and ultimately reach a point where it might be hard to walk down a flight of stairs after working my legs. #Genius

  If you didn’t see the bigger picture of eventually letting go of the resistance and allowing recovery and compensation, this would seem like the most ass-backwards thing in the world. “I want to be strong and capable of lifting heavy things, so let me work myself to exhaustion so that I can barely move my own arms and legs. That’s the ticket!”

  As illogical as it seems in the short-term, almost everyone universally accepts that making yourself physically stronger requires making yourself physically weaker – temporarily. The question is, do you realize this same principle is playing out in almost all
areas of life?

  The Slingshot Effect

  This moving away from what you want in order to get it, or moving towards what you don’t want in order to be free from it, is what I call the “slingshot effect.”

  With a slingshot, if you wish to propel something forward with a powerful amount of force, you create tension and resistance by moving the object in the exact opposite direction of where you want it to fly.

  It’s important to recognize this is about temporary tension. This part is critically important – you must be both willing to move away from what you want and also be willing to go towards what you want. Otherwise it’s like lifting weights to get stronger only to never put them down, walking around with dumbbells in your hand all day, and wondering why you can’t move your arms. It’s not about permanent pain or resistance, but temporary pain and resistance. You gotta know when to let go and allow yourself to enjoy the fruits of your labor or else you’ll torture yourself.

  This slingshot effect is playing out in virtually all areas of your life. The willingness to be uncomfortable in the short-term leads to far more comfort in the long-term. However, realize that not only does moving away from your goal potentially get you closer to it, but the opposite is also true. The desire to avoid pain by moving towards pleasure in the short-term often leads to far more pain and loss of pleasure in the long-term.

  Someone may say, “I don’t want to look at my bills and bank statements because it makes me uncomfortable.” They keep saying that and keep pulling the slingshot back away from pain. Then eventually something gives, the tension is released, and they’ve flown forward landing smack in the middle of overwhelming debt and financial ruin all because of their attempt to avoid discomfort and move towards comfort.

  A person says, “I don’t want to worry about my diet and its effect on my health. I’ll just keep eating these doughnuts because it feels good.” That choice keeps them moving away from pain in the short-term, but then boom! The tension is released. They’re shot flying forward into sickness and feeling like total shit as they finally face the consequences of that pain avoidance. Maybe the slingshot doesn’t release in a day, week, or even ten years, but eventually the tension is too much and it releases.

  Even if it doesn’t ever release, the sheer tension of holding onto the thought, “I know I can’t keep this up forever” makes the comfort provided by poor choices unfulfilling. Deep down inside, you know the slingshot effect exists without me having to tell you. That means that deep down inside, you know of behaviors you’re engaged in that bring you temporary comfort that could be setting you up for long-term devastation. The inner recognition of the slingshot effect may be why things that bring short-term gratification still feel “empty” while temporary discipline, even though not always fun, provides a rewarding feeling.

  Your brain will often bullshit you like this: If I want to avoid pain, I must avoid pain. If I want pleasure, I must go after pleasure.

  If I didn’t tell you about the slingshot effect, you might even think “Yeah, that’s totally the way things work.” You might even say, “Yeah, that’s logical, it’s common sense, and I already know that.”

  If I said, “To get stronger, get weaker.” “To avoid pain, put yourself in pain.” “To have success, fail.” Would you have been like, “Dayuuum, this Derek dude is crazy pants!” Can you now appreciate how even things that don’t make sense logically or are “wrong” can actually make total sense and be right from a bigger perspective?

  Of course, I’d imagine it’s not a revelation that you may need to give up short-term comfort for long-term comfort. Most of us realize that instant gratification isn’t the key to lasting gratification. You have an inner knowing about this already and probably even think about it in the areas of life you excel at. I just gave this phenomenon a cute name and the analogy to a slingshot so you will remember it consciously when it matters most – in all areas of life.

  While there appears to be a contradiction in some of these statements like “be weak to be strong,” or “fail to succeed,” you can likely see now that they’re just incomplete statements. Partial truths. Everything is a partial truth.

  Keep in mind that these statements are not absolutes. Sometimes the way to move closer to your goal is to move closer to your goal. Sometimes the way to avoid pain is to avoid pain. I can’t just say, “Oh ok, I’m going to torture myself and automagically it’s going to lead to feeling pleasure later.” These seemingly contradictory statements are conditional on a number of factors – so it’s a simplification with plenty of caveats.

  However, I’m sure you can see many areas where you’ve “slingshotted” yourself into discomfort because you made yourself too comfortable, and “slingshotted” yourself into more comfort because you were willing to be a little uncomfortable for a moment. However, this pain/pleasure paradox is only one of many slingshot effects. As you continue through this book, you’ll see just how often this slingshot plays out, perhaps in ways you never imagined.

  Start to consider…

  What behaviors are you doing to be comfortable now that are potentially setting you up for pain down the road?

  If you knew what uncomfortable things you’re avoiding that would ultimately propel you to greater joy and fulfillment, what would these be?

  So now you have a choice to decide if you’re willing to move away from what you’ve been chasing and go into what you’ve been resisting.

  Are you willing to limit yourself so that you can be set free from your limitations?

  Are you willing to face what you’ve been trying to escape from so that you can actually be free?

  Are you willing to endure confusion, chaos, and uncertainty so that you can have true clarity?

  Are you willing to endure hardship, discomfort, and pain in order to have comfort and ease?

  Are you willing to embrace fear, suffering, and loss so that you can experience even greater joy, fulfillment, and love?

  When making your choices, remember this:

  You can either experience pain willingly or unwillingly, and pain that’s embraced by choice is much easier to tolerate than pain that must be endured by consequence.

  Choose Your Own Journey In BS Land

  This is a simple and potentially exciting, “choose-your-own-journey” story about “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” You choose your journey, I choose the outcome. Play along and you’ll be enlightened. Don’t play along, and you’ll still be enlightened… if you choose to be.

  You’re driving down the road in a car and come to a fork veering off to the left and the right.

  You don’t know where either side will take you.

  However, you hear scary sounds coming from both sides.

  You’re struck with fear.

  The left side looks scary, and you hear the sound of monsters coming from that side.

  The right side looks scary, and you hear the sound of monsters coming from that side.

  So now you have a choice.

  You can choose to go down the right side. There may or may not be monsters down there. You won’t know until you check it out.

  But then consider this, what’s the alternative?

  What other choice do you have?

  To drive down the left side with its potential monsters?

  Does it matter if you pick driving down the left or driving down the right side?

  Which choice do you make?

  Choose now and don’t overthink it. After all, this is just a made-up story, and I’ll tell you the made up consequences of your choice shortly.

  Got it?

  Are you really playing along?

  For realsies, make your choice…

  Ok, good. Here’s what happens.

  The consequence of driving down the left or right side is destruction as the monsters are waiting for you in either path and will destroy you. Staying where you’re at also leads to destruction as the monsters eventually come out from each side and destroy
you.

  The real question is, did you pick something else besides going to the left, right, or staying where you’re at? If not, why not?

  Did you choose to backtrack and take a different route altogether? Wouldn’t that be a pretty smart choice if it appears you’re headed for destruction? Or did you tell yourself the scary sounds are all just in your head, so you feel you need to choose to keep pushing forward in spite of fear even when your senses are clearly indicating there’s danger? Maybe you thought there’s no such thing as monsters, but isn’t that just an assumption? Haven’t you heard that you shouldn’t make assumptions?

  Did you choose to get out of your car and explore off-road? If not, why do you feel you need to stay in your car? Did you decide your car was or wasn’t capable of going off road? Who told you that? Could you have driven your car off the beaten path if you wanted to choose that?

  Did you choose that your car had a jetpack on it, and so you flew up above the scene to scope it out? Why not? Did I tell say you didn’t have a jetpack, or did you make that assumption? Why would you limit yourself? Who told you that a working jet propulsion system isn’t something you could choose to invent and have attached to your car in a totally freakin’ made-up story where YOU get to choose your journey?

  Did you choose to seek out counsel from someone who’s been down either side of the road? Did you get a map or search the internet to see where each path leads? Did you choose for that not to be a possibility, and if so, why would you limit yourself in a story in which you can choose your own journey?

  Did you feel you had a choice in how the story played out, or were you buying into what you felt “Derek’s version” was? Remember I only choose the consequences; you still get to choose your journey – any journey. When I told you not to overthink it, did you just go along with my command, or did you say, “Screw that, I’m going to think about this and have some fun using my imagination?”