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

by Derek Doepker

  Once I understood how motivation and fulfillment really worked, not only was I able to get myself to do just about anything I set my mind to, but I also actually enjoyed the process rather than having to force myself into action through willpower.

  Motivation is typically reduced to the simplistic idea that we want to gain pleasure and avoid pain, i.e., the carrot and the stick. It’s helpful to know that pain is roughly three times as strong as motivator as pleasure. I would also argue for the inclusion of a third motivator – love.

  We move away from pain and towards pleasure as humans. To choose to embrace pain or withhold pleasure for some greater good, even if it costs one their life, takes something beyond our most basic human motivations – it takes love.

  While this pain/pleasure framework can be useful, it begs the question, “What causes psychological pain or pleasure?” Thanks to the work of Tony Robbins and Cloé Madanes in the field of Human Needs Psychology, we can see human motivation narrowed down to a set of six human needs.

  These six human needs are:

  Certainty (safety, comfort)

  Variety (excitement, uncertainty)

  Connection

  Significance

  Growth

  Contribution

  To elaborate on why it’s hard for a person to get themselves to give something up, such as watching TV, in exchange for something else like working out, it’s because they feel the old behavior meets their needs to a greater degree than the new behavior. In other words, they’d feel a loss of pleasure and/or an increase of pain by sacrificing what they’re used to. This is especially true if the person associates the new behavior with something painful, as is often the case when thinking about exercise.

  You can choose to prioritize your needs differently, or you can choose to do different things than what you’re currently doing to meet your needs, but you can’t choose to not have any of these six needs.

  You can choose not to eat, but you can’t choose to avoid feeling hungry. The body’s need for food will force you to feel hungry. You may choose not to meet your needs, but the hunger to fulfill these emotional needs may eventually overwhelm your willpower, and you’d do crazy things to satisfy this hunger.

  Let’s consider this for a moment…

  If someone only feels connection by being in a relationship, they’ll stay in that relationship, even if it’s abusive, to keep meeting that need for connection. They’ll go against their ethics and values to keep meeting that need. To tell them to “get out of the relationship,” is like saying “starve yourself emotionally to death by not feeding your hunger for connection.”

  Would you willfully starve yourself to death?

  Would you stop eating rotten apples if that’s all you had to eat?

  Probably not…

  But what if you were given something else to eat?

  Would you eat nice apples instead of the rotten ones if given a choice?

  Of course!

  If a person was in an abusive relationship but eventually found plenty of other better ways to meet their need for connection, they’d run away from the relationship ASAP. They’d look back and wonder, “Why did I stay in that jacked-up relationship for so long?” Little did they know, the relationship was fulfilling a need, and they couldn’t stop eating that rotten apple until they found another apple to sustain them.

  So if you have set-in-stone needs, the choice you have is how to fulfill them. Since willpower alone won’t overcome a deep emotional drive, you must appreciate your needs and satisfy them in relatively healthy ways. Keep in mind, many needs can be satisfied not by changing what you do, but by changing the way you look at what you do. It’s not what you do that matters as much as how you feel about what you do that determines if your needs are met. How you feel about something often depends on how you frame it mentally.

  Healthy vs. Unhealthy Means of Meeting Needs

  What makes a behavior healthy or unhealthy?

  Is procrastination bad?

  Could it be that one person’s procrastination is another person’s deliberation?

  The simple answer is, procrastination is typically done out of a resistance to a behavior. “I hate cleaning. I’ll do it later.” Or attachment to another behavior. “I love this show on Netflix. I’ll clean later.”

  Procrastination is typically done habitually. It’s become a way of life. It’s not done out of conscious, deliberate choice, but rather by fear or conditioning. It’s sacrificing long-term gain in favor of short-term comfort. It’s an obvious slingshot waiting to happen of going towards “feeling good now,” only to be released into “feeling bad later.”

  Deliberation, on the other hand, is mindful. It’s conscious. It’s not done because one feels they “have to” wait, but rather because they’re proactively waiting and possibly even gathering information. One could act at the drop of a hat if the timing is right, whether they felt like it or not.

  Proactive isn’t always better than reactive. Activity isn’t always better than passivity. So long as these things are done with deliberate choice, they could be appropriate.

  The real danger is in slavery. Being a slave to your emotional appetites. Feeling like you’re making a choice, but it’s not really an empowered choice. It’s a choice to eat rotten apples simply because you don’t realize that there are better apples available to you. It’s a choice to eat rotten apples because they’re close, and the better apples are all the way over “there,” and it takes too much effort to get them.

  I heard from a woman who said she procrastinates because she’s waiting for the right timing. I asked if she knew what the right timing was. She didn’t. If you’re waiting for the right time, and you don’t know when the right time is, could it be the right time right now, and you not even know it? Does this sound like a constructive approach?

  When I asked her about it, she said that the real issue was that she feared making a mistake. This is a clear sign of being attached to comfort.

  The paradoxical key to freedom from this enslavement by your emotional appetites is discipline.

  “Discipline = Freedom” – Jocko Willink

  What kind of discipline would free a person from their appetites?

  You’ll learn a few techniques in this book…

  But one is simply the discipline to redirect your mind and get yourself to feel short-term pain to slingshot into long-term ease.

  Do you hold off on doing something you want to do because you fear making a mistake that would be uncomfortable?

  Ask yourself, “What is this fear costing you? What is this attachment to comfort costing you? What have you missed out on in life because you weren’t willing to make a mistake? Haven’t you still made mistakes regardless? If you keep playing small, what will your life look like a year from now? What about five years from now? What’s it going to feel like to look back on your life, see all the things you could have done and didn’t, and regret it? How many people are going to suffer because you aren’t willing to step it up, be bold, and take some risks?”

  Let it sink in…

  Feel. The. Pain.

  If you make your comfort zone uncomfortable by literally thinking about what it’s costing you, your desire for comfort, rather than causing you to play it safe, will get you to act and step out of your comfort zone. You’re fighting fire with fire, baby.

  The easiest way to break out of your comfort zone is to make it really uncomfortable.

  What do many people try to do instead?

  They try to fight against their needs. They try to resist them.

  “I shouldn’t be so attached to comfort… I should be willing to take risks…”

  Then they feel bad about themselves for not having the courage to act in spite of fear.

  What if the way to act in spite of fear is to actually appreciate how fear my serve you?

  What if the very thing that could destroy you, your fear, could be turned into your friend to set you free?


  “Hold Your Breath,” And Turn Fear Into Your Friend

  You’ve heard it said “act in spite of fear.”

  I say “act in the spirit of fear.”

  Let your fear fuel you.

  Be deathly afraid of what will happen if you don’t step into your greatness.

  Shiver in terror at the idea of mediocrity.

  Tremble at the thought of how disastrous it would be for yourself, your loved ones, and the rest of the world if you don’t become the warrior you are meant to be.

  But you wonder…

  “What if people don’t like me?”

  “What if it hurts?”

  “What if I fail?

  That’s your bullshitting mind playing the “what if” game.

  Keep playing the “what if” game…

  But play it on your terms.

  “What if clinging to the illusion of safety causes me to lose what matters most?”

  “What if I realize what could have been only after it's too late?”

  “What if playing small is the worst mistake of all?”

  You lead your mind.

  You choose how to play the game.

  When you do this…

  Your fear will not own you, you will lead your fear.

  The fear will be as strong as ever…

  But rather than your fear being in front of you pushing back towards mediocrity...

  You have chosen to direct this fear behind you where it pushes you faster than ever into your greatness.

  Your fear will be the very force that propels you to break through the barrier of your bullshit.

  This is how you can play the game.

  This is how you can make fear your friend…

  If you choose.

  If only but for a moment…

  While you hold your breath…

  Until you come up for air…

  Don’t forget to breathe again…

  How To Not Give A Shit

  If you said, “I don’t give a shit about what people think about me,” I’d call you a lying liar pants.

  I can say this with almost absolute certainty.

  Why?

  Because biologically speaking, it’s part of our survival needs to be accepted in society. If you were cast out of a tribe into the wilderness that means danger and potential death. So a little thing in your brain says, “I should be liked and approved of by other people in order to maximize my chances of survival. If I’m an outcast, then that would be dangerous.”

  The common fear of public speaking isn’t so stupid when you realize this. Well… it is kind of stupid, but one’s brain may go, “If I embarrass myself, people won’t like me. If people don’t like me, I won’t get support from others. If I don’t get support from others in a life or death situation, that’s risky. Risky equals greater chance for death.”

  You probably won’t increase your risks of dying the slightest degree from a bad public speech, but your brain can make a lot of connections, that from a certain perspective, do make sense. Of course, it’s still totally a BS story that a bad public speech would lead to people not liking someone and refusing to help them, but the idea of losing the approval of others is a very real risk to your brain.

  But what happens if someone says to you, “You want people to like you!”

  Do you defend against it and go, “I don’t care! Whateva! I do what I want! It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks about me! I just do me, and you can take it or leave it!”

  Or do you sheepishly admit, “Ugh! Yeah, I do care about what people think of me. I’m such a baby! I know I shouldn’t care what other people think about me, but I do!”

  Both of these responses are bullshit for very different reasons.

  The first response may come from someone who’s repressed their desire for connection. The desire still lingers deep inside though. Maybe they don’t even literally think or feel all that much concern about the opinions of others, but with the right trigger, it can be unleashed.

  The second response is honest, but did you catch the bullshit?

  “I shouldn’t care what other people think about me.”

  Ever hear that bullshit in any type of “empowering” self-help advice?

  “Stop caring about what other people think, and just approve of yourself!”

  It’s not bad advice from a certain perspective. There’s truth to it. But it’s like saying you “shouldn’t” make assumptions or “shouldn’t” be judgmental. You can’t help but to make assumptions or be judgmental. The key is to judge your judgments and assume your assumptions are occasionally false. To get rid of them altogether though is impossible, impractical, and at times, just freakin’ stupid.

  Assuming, judging, labeling, looking for patterns, filtering out information – all of these things are what your brain is designed to do. There’d be something wrong with you if you didn’t do these things. You couldn’t function in the world without making assumptions or judgments. Don’t you assume when you go to a store, buy food, and eat it that it will sustain you and not be laced with poison that results in instant death? You’d drive yourself crazy trying not to ever make any type of assumptions.

  In much the same way, you’re designed to want people’s approval, or at least a connection with other people and things. Swap person for animals if you’re the type that’s lost your faith in humanity and has resorted to getting connection from your cats. It’s cool. I love cats. Sometimes more than people. I don’t blame you.

  If someone said to me, “Derek, you write books because you just want to make money!”

  If I were to respond, “I don’t give a shit about making money from my books, I just want to help people and fulfill my mission of empowerment!”

  Who’s bullshitting, them or me?

  The answer is both of us would be bullshitting.

  Look at the first statement very closely.

  You write books because you just want to make money.

  Do you see the “tell” of bullshit?

  It’s just a single word.

  The bullshit has nothing to do with the accusation of wanting to make money. I do want to make money.

  The accusation that I “just” want to make money is making it all about money. Clearly people can have more than one reason for doing things. In my case, it really isn’t just about making money. I do care about fulfilling my mission and empowerment.

  Do you realize the word “just” can subtly be an “all or nothing” word? “You just want approval.” “They’re just doing that because they’re idiots.” “He’s just no good, and that’s all there is to it.” It makes it all about one thing and nothing else.

  How many times in life is something all or nothing? Don’t we typically have more than one motivation for doing something even if there’s just one primary motivation?

  However, I’d be bullshitting too if I said, “I don’t give a shit about making money.” A part of me really does care about making money from my books. In fact, it’s making money from my books that in part helps me help more people and therefore fulfill my mission. Making money and fulfilling my mission don’t contradict each other, they actually complement each other. Saying “I don’t give a shit” implies it doesn’t matter at all. It does matter, it’s just that it’s not all the matters – or even what matters most.

  You can see the bullshit in the statement “I just want to help people and fulfill my mission of empowerment!” Now maybe this could be true for someone in theory… but in reality I would also say that a very small reason why I’m writing the book is because people may think it’s cool that I’m an author. I certainly have a part of my ego that likes feeling significant in that way. I don’t know if chicks dig it, but I still cross my fingers and hope they do. Either way, that’s also why I play guitar, so I got that covered. #MultiTalented #CoveringMyBases

  The reason I point this out is because “justing” things could be a sign of BS. Of course, it’s all a matter of interpretation. A
nd as you’ll find out later, using the word “just” can be a very effective means for breaking through BS.

  Be very careful when you accuse yourself or others of doing something just for one reason alone. As you can see by now with our human needs, we have multiple reasons for doing things that can seemingly contradict one another.

  If you’re in the habit of bullshitting yourself, you’ll probably bullshit others too. If you bullshit others, you’re creating a habit of bullshitting yourself.

  How could one respond to the accusation, “You just want to make money!” without using bullshit?

  The response could be, “Yes, I want to make money. No, I don’t just want to make money. Other things are important to. Money isn’t the primary reason I do it, but it is an important reason. It’s one factor, and if I didn’t make money, I’d still probably do this to some degree, but not nearly as much as I do because money matters to me enough to be a factor that I weigh in deciding what I do. It’s not always the most important factor, but it’s still an important one. If my circumstances changed, and money became even more important, then I may stop doing this in favor of doing what makes me money so I can support myself.”

  That’s a long drawn out way of saying, “It’s not all or nothing.” You’ll notice though how long it takes to explain the fuller truth. The length of time to explain all that shit with various nuances and caveats is why we usually simplify things at the cost of a greater truth. There’s a time for elaboration and distinction, and then there’s a time for cutting to the chase and hoping people are smart enough to fill in the gaps. Be mindful though those gaps almost always get some BS thrown into them.

  Let’s not bullshit ourselves and say money isn’t important, because in our world, it means buying food and putting a roof over your head. Money = survival for many people. However, does that mean money is all that matters?

  Some people go the other way and say, “Money doesn’t matter. If you really believe in something, you’d do it for free.” There’s so much bullshit to this, it gets its own damn chapter. So I won’t dive into it here.