Craig Constantine

I would dazzle you with brilliance

Published February 10, 2020 · All posts on Feb 10 ·

I like this life just the way it is,
And the castles all around me have been melting now for years
And it kills my brain to think of all the time I wasted here:
All the efforts, sweat and broken hearts, the screaming and the tears.
~ Danny Elfman from, Change on the album ‘Boingo’

Coherent words fail me, but I’ll try to convey this…

I came of age—cut my teeth so to speak—as Elfman… The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo… Oingo Boingo… and eventually just Boingo… blew the doors off what I thought music could be. Some of their later stuff is on par with Pink Floyd. Your mileage may vary; haters gonna’ hate and all that.

Visions— not memories, but visceral visions— Visions strike me when I listen to this music, (not just Change but a lot of it.) Riding in cars and trucks as a teenager… Going to bicycle races (both to race and to watch)… Lots of hard work with a boom-box or headphones… I once drove fence posts, by hand, around a small field powered by Oingo Boingo… I once saw them perform in a tiny hall, god-only-knows-where, in Manhattan, maybe in ’91 or ’92… I still have an Oingo Boingo shirt from, it might be, 1990?, that was given to me as a gift… I even have the double VHS of their final concert—and I know of noone with a VHS player any more…

Oh, God, here’s that question now! The one that makes me go insane!
I’d gladly tear my heart out if you never change!
Never change!
Never change!
Never change!
Never! Never! Never! Never!
Change…
~ Danny Elfman

Great music. Great memories.

Who do you want to be today? Who do you want to be?

Big changes for 2020

Published February 9, 2020 · All posts on Feb 9 ·

For the past 5 years, I’ve been passionately working on a project called Movers Mindset. I’ve been particular about keeping it separate from “me”—in the sense that I would think, “is this idea something I want to put into Movers Mindset or on my blog?” (It sounds weird, I know—why didn’t you tell me years ago?) This led me to wind up with multiple “outlets”; this blog, public Movers Mindset web site and the Forum. As part of my continued efforts to simplify, we’ve taken down the Movers Mindset public web site.

* We didnt literally turn it off, but it’s just a static page about the project, and it powers the technology to make the podcast work. There’ll be nothing new posted there, and everything that was there will slowly appear in the Forum.

The entire Movers Mindset project grew from conversations I started having as part of my personal journey rediscovering movement. The project started late in 2015, under a different name, and it was initially simply a web site that shared others’ writing. The project grew, and in 2017 I started a companion podcast involving a team of people. In 2019 I created the Movers Mindset Forum. I’ve worked extremely hard, but none of this would have been possible without so much help from so many people.

The Movers Mindset Forum

Everything Movers Mindset does, everything we create, all the people who work on the project for fair pay— Everything is made possible by people who value what we create and support our work by joining the Forum.

If you’re already a Forum member, thank you for your support.

If you do join the forum, you instantly gain access to everything. I hope you will consider supporting our work. To learn more, see Welcome! Join the Movers Mindset Forum .

A note about “access to everything”: I’ve a tremendous amount of stuff to repost into the Forum. I’ll be chipping away at it, but it will take months as I work through it. If there’s something in particular you’re looking for, let me know.

Podcast

The Movers Mindset podcast is available wherever you normally listen to podcasts. Just search for movers mindset and you should be set. You can also find a listing of the podcast episodes in the Movers Mindset Forum. See the topics tagged “podcast “.

The public topics for each episode have only the show summary. Forum members can see the members-only Podcasts category where everything else is actually posted.

Thank you!

I hope you find my blog, the Forum, or the podcast interesting. Please consider sharing if you do.

Nobody cares

Published February 8, 2020 · All posts on Feb 8 ·

But won’t other people think I’m weird if I don’t drink? Will they think I’m a goody-two-shoes? A self-righteous killjoy?” Maybe. But I’ve found that those types are bores. So they’re not worth your time anyway. The GOOD news is that the vast majority of people don’t give a rat’s rear-end if you drink or not, if you order a salad or fries, or if your suit fits and your shoes are shined. They don’t care. We’re all wrapped up in our own little worlds that most people don’t even notice. You could walk into a fancy cocktail lounge in a gorilla suit, order a club soda with lime, and no one would notice you or your drink. And if they DO notice? I’ve actually experienced quite a lot of envy from them. Genuinely not wanting a drink is a bit of a superpower. That, and I get funnier and more handsome the drunker they get. Ta-da.
~ Joe Weber from, Why I’m Thankful I Had a Drinking Problem

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I haven’t linked to anything from Art of Manliness in ages. First, it’s not “manliness” the way you’re [probably] thinking—it’s about what does it really mean to be a man. 10-plus years ago, AoM in general was where I found a bunch of interesting articles that made me start rethinking, well, everything. So it’s fun to link to AoM just for nostalgia’s sake, even if this is a guest post. I digress.

The article is superficially about abstaining from alcohol, and more specifically about the author’s journey back from the brink of alcoholism. It’s got great anecdotes and advice. If you drink, (at all,) you’ll likely enjoy it. But more generally, abstinence is a super-tool for gaining control over anything. I’ve been using fasting and other restrictions to slowly gain control over my relationship with food. If there’s something you think you overindulge in, try flexing your abstinence muscles a bit. Works wonders.

Stillness

Published February 7, 2020 · All posts on Feb 7 ·

I don’t agree with those who plunge headlong into the middle of the flood and who, accepting a turbulent life, struggle daily in great spirit with difficult circumstances. The wise person will endure that, but won’t choose it—choosing to be at peace, rather than at war.
~ Seneca

This is about choice, not about ability.

I am able to rush around accepting challenges, to fix things which are broken, to help people who seem in need, to build neat things out of bits of technology, to arrange little social events with friends or family rarely seen, to seek out new experiences, to try to do all the things…

But I’m slowly learning to choose not to. I’m slowly learning to choose peace.

Please stop laughing at me

Published February 6, 2020 · All posts on Feb 6

It’s pretty safe to say, that when you finally come up with your million-dollar idea, nobody is going to understand it at first. They many not laugh in your face outright, but they’ll probably scratch their heads, at least.
~ Hugh MacLeod

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…except it probably should be “…with [my] two-dollar idea…”, but anyway.

It’s been crystal clear to me for years, that my Movers Mindset project is not understood. In the beginning that was frustrating; I felt like it was so obviously awesome, that it was insulting that people didn’t understand what I was trying to do. After a few years of learning, I’ve let go of—or at least, I often manage to let go of… but sometimes still have to remind myself— After a few years of learning, I’ve let go of trying to shout louder.

These days, I try to step back often and look at everything in my life and assess whether or not it brings me joy or is inherently necessary to enable things that bring me joy. It’s a happy day when I find something that takes up my time and which I dislike and which I don’t need to be doing. I’ve no compunctions chucking stuff over the transom.

Try erasing the whiteboard

Published February 5, 2020 · All posts on Feb 5 ·

You know what the best thing about being an entrepreneur is? That you never have to experience self-doubt, the way people with normal day jobs do.
Ha. I was just kidding. Actually, as an entrepreneur, you have self-doubt coming out of your pores like cold sweat. And that’s on a good day.
~ Hugh MacLeod

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A “local maximum” is a nearby, tall hill. If you find you’re standing in a puddle and the water is rising, walking uphill is a great idea. This will lead you to a local maximum. “Local” means a maximum which you can find by simply heading ”up” from where you are.

Imagine you have a project under discussion. You and your team are thinking, talking and writing [and editing and erasing bits here and there] on the whiteboard as you capture the project you are imagining. Because you have some perspective— because you can see the entire idea as it’s laid out on the board, you can probably find a maximum better than just a “local” one. You can notice broad connections, and realize that (for example) if you do some extra bit of that’s-not-obvious work, then these two far-apart pieces will give us this new feature. Hey! …that’s better, and it’s not a simple improvement—that is, it’s not simply directly up out of this rising puddle of water.

But it’s still a local maximum. Sure, it’s not the one immediately adjacent to the puddle. But it’s still a maximum in the context of what’s on the board.

What happens if, after you are done— after you’ve got the best solution you can image— What happens if you note the key features that are the “must haves”, and then you entirely erase the board. (This is a metaphor. If you do this for real, definitely take a photo before erasing!)

Now take your blank board and write in the things you identified as the key parts before you erased. Now build the thing again.

Did you get the exact same thing you had before? If not, what exactly is missing, or added, in the new version? Is this version better, or worse? What if you’re whiteboarding about something that you cannot reset and start over— You can easily erase the whiteboard, but not the actual thing. Can you learn something from doing the “erase the whiteboard” exercise that would enable you do something not normally obvious…

…to head down the hill, off your current local maximum, to a hill you can’t see from where you currently are. What if that other hill had all the current great stuff—not everything, but the great parts—and it had something else?

When life is short

Published February 4, 2020 · All posts on Feb 4 ·

Relentlessly prune bullshit, don’t wait to do things that matter, and savor the time you have. That’s what you do when life is short.
~ Paul Graham

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When no one can take your time

Published February 3, 2020 · All posts on Feb 3

When nobody can take anyone else’s time through a system, people end up with more time to themselves. When you have more time to yourself, you end up doing better work and more work. You can get a lot more stuff done in a given day than maybe you could in another organization that has six times as many people but 20 times as many meetings, 30 times less time during the day to yourself. So we try to avoid anything that breaks days into smaller and smaller chunks.
~ Jason Fried from, Working Smaller, Slower, and Smarter

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There’s a critical bit of culture however which must be in place it to work: People have to know their responsibilities and have to “pull” work towards themselves. Everyone has to know their own area and has to take responsibility. This is very different from the usual [that is, dysfunctional,] workspace where everyone shows up, and their boss—or worse, everyone—tells them what to do. In the team where people take responsibility and take work, everyone has to understand the mission. Everyone has to understand the vision of what they are trying to co-create. Everyone hast to empathize with their teammates.

Focus your attention

Published February 2, 2020 · All posts on Feb 2 ·

One of the most powerful things you can do as a human being in our hyperconnected, 24/7 media world is say: “I don’t know.” Or, more provocatively: “I don’t care.” Most of society seems to have taken it as a commandment that one must know about every single current event, watch every episode of every critically acclaimed television series, follow the news religiously, and present themselves to others as an informed and worldly individual.
~ Ryan Holiday from, The Daily Stoic, p39.

Stoicism is a terrific tool. (It’s not about suppressing your emotions.) One of the practices is to pay attention to where your attention is. If I know I’m not going to do anything with this information—this news show, this political argument, this batshit-crazy conspiracy theory, this story, that solicitation, this bit of entertainment, that bit of distraction . . . If I know I’m not going to do anything with this information, then it turns out that it is trivial to not be distracted by things. People think I’m ignoring things, or that I’ve not noticed things. I’m simply choosing where to allocate my attention, (and therefore my time and efforts.) I choose to be in control of where my attention is placed. Only then can I apply it where it will do good.

What in your life can demand your attention? Are you okay with each of things that you just thought of?

Commitment

Published February 1, 2020 · All posts on Feb 1 ·

If someone were to ask me to identify the single primary quality that an artist or entrepreneur should cultivate in himself, I would say depth of commitment. Because depth of commitment either embodies all the other virtues or establishes the fertile field in which they can take root and grow. Depth of commitment presupposes courage, passion, recklessness, capacity for self-discipline, and the ability to have fun. It implies perseverance.
~ Steven Pressfield

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Commitment doesn’t increase in a smooth fashion. One moment things are as they are, and then you catch a glimpse of how they could be. A glimpse of how they should be… how they must be! When it happens, it’s like cresting a hill after a long walk up a tedious slope. In a flash you forget the thousand gnats and brambles you endured on the climb. There’s nothing for it but to charge down the hill into the valley. This is the valley. This is the solution. This is the way the work should have been done from the beginning. You ignore the shadow which you can clearly see lies at the very bottom of the valley. You ignore the far slope certain you won’t have to climb that hill. Surely nothing better could be found beyond. Surely all the work of all those previous hills was worth the effort to reach this valley.

Right?

Because your soul demands it

Published January 31, 2020 · All posts on Jan 31 ·

So I make it really simple. I’d say art is: “That which you have no choice but to do, because your soul demands it”.
Yes, it’s a fairly flawed definition. But it illustrates something that most people don’t get about artists or entrepreneurs. We do it, because if we don’t, life feels empty. The downside being, it doesn’t exactly come with an easy life.
~ Hugh MacLeod

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I’ve found it very difficult to distinguish, “I started this thing therefore I must finish this thing, and I must do it well,” from, “I must finish this thing, and I must do it well.” Notice the missing, “I started this thing therefore…” I have a lot of ideas, several of which I often believe are totally not utter crap. So I start on them.

But once I’ve begun, it gets very hard to tell why I am continuing. What exactly indicates when my soul demands I should continue?

I think about whatever thing I’m currently working on all the time. So I can’t simply use, “does it hold my attention?” It sure feels like I absolutely must continue this thing! Meanwhile, I’ve a long list of things that consumed my attention and energy at one point, but which today are lost from sight in the rearview mirror.

Lately I’ve been experimenting with taking holidays by trying to set something down. This requires immense effort in the beginning; I usally have to cold-turkey-quit to get away from my passion project du jour. Sometimes, day by day, the urge to pick it back up fades and I feel like maybe that project should be left in the rear view mirror. I suppose that my soul doesn’t actually demand it because I hope that my soul wouldn’t just give up after a few days.

Questions today. None of them elucidating. ymmv.

Have you even tried?

Published January 30, 2020 · All posts on Jan 30

I call bullshit. You already found your passion, you’re just ignoring it. Seriously, you’re awake 16 hours a day, what the fuck do you do with your time? You’re doing something, obviously. You’re talking about something. There’s some topic or activity or idea that dominates a significant amount of your free time, your conversations, your web browsing, and it dominates them without you consciously pursuing it or looking for it.
It’s right there in front of you, you’re just avoiding it. For whatever reason, you’re avoiding it. You’re telling yourself, “Oh well, yeah, I love comic books but that doesn’t count. You can’t make money with comic books.”
Fuck you, have you even tried?
~ Mark Manson, from Screw Finding Your Passion

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…and I thought I had my irreverence dial turned to 11!

There’s also a terrific Mexican proverb: The appearance of the bull changes when you enter the ring. The matador’s point of view is different from the spectator’s.

What I’d like to draw attention to today, is skin in the game.

Have you ever had to make the decision to lay someone off? Why do you think you understand that last round of layoffs at Giant Company? Have you ever created something? Why do you think you understand the creative process of this painter? Have you ever entirely owned and operated a cafe? Why do you think your suggesting for, ‘ya know what you should have on the menu…’ has any value?

I’m not implying I’ve done any of the hypotheticals above.

But I can tell you that I long ago stopped giving unsolicited advice when I don’t have, and have never had, skin in the game I was about to advise on.

So, where do you have skin in the game? …and what are you going to do now that I’ve drawn your attention to it?

The difficulty setting

Published January 29, 2020 · All posts on Jan 29 ·

But a strong work ethic will keep on opening doors for you, again and again, for years to come.
~ Hugh MacLeod, from «https://www.gapingvoid.com/blog/2018/04/05/its-not-what-you-do-its-how-you-do-it/»

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MacLeod’s point about work ethic is spot-on. A certain type and quantity of work ethic is necessary for success; however you wish to define success for yourself, you’ll need work ethic to succeed. It’s necessary.

But it’s not sufficient. The game of life has initial difficulty settings, and we each have little control over that.

Are you born in a country that protects your rights? Are you raised by people who care for you, and create an environment where you flourish? Were you lucky enough to inherit good DNA (as opposed to having a genetic disorder)? Did you grow up in a safe and healthy community (or did people steal your things, threaten you with violence, etc.)?

Work ethic and initiative can enable you to overcome almost all of the challenges the random initial conditions of life might set up for you. You can even change the difficulty level of your own game. But it’s harder.

You’re probably not responsible for more than a handful of people (children, parents, family, etc.) You do not need to sacrifice yourself for others. But if you have extra time, extra resources, extra skill, extra knowledge, or extra ability, what happens to the world if you choose to try to change the difficulty setting for others?

Herky-jerky breakthroughs

Published January 28, 2020 · All posts on Jan 28 ·

The trajectory is not a smoothly-ascending curve, but a herky-jerky spasm-fest marked by seeming dead-ends, plateaus, dark nights of the soul, intervals of boredom and stasis, not to mention bouts of terror, despair and self-doubt, which are followed, if we’re lucky, by quantum leaps to the next level.
In other words, we advance by breakthroughs.
~ Steven Pressfield, from How We Get Better, Part Two

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The key is to turn around and look back at how far you’ve progressed. Set goals, plan, and take aim by looking ahead. But when you want to assess your progress, do not look at the goal. I spent far too much time looking at my goals and invariably saying, “I surpassed the goal… I should have set a bigger goal. I could have done more.” …or saying, “I fell short of the goal. I suck.” Both of which are dangerously negative.

Instead, leave markers along your journey—you can look at your earlier writing, look at your earlier paintings, reminisce with a friend, etc. Look at the markers you’ve left along the way and think, “look how far I’ve come!”

This is the only way I’ve found to maintain a positive outlook.

Think of a goal you currently have; something you’ve been working on for a while. When was the last time you looked back to assess your progress?

What versus how

Published January 27, 2020 · All posts on Jan 27 ·

When you find yourself stuck on some decision, figure out if you are stuck on the ‘what’ or the ‘how’. Every situation is different, but here are some examples:

Thinking about marriage: You’re likely to be stuck on the ‘what’. Should I get married? Should I marry this person? You’re stuck on what should I do. If you decide to get married, it’s quite simple. You probably need a marriage license and a simple legal ceremony. The how you get married is almost always very easy.

Thinking about quitting college: You’re likely to be stuck on the ‘what’. Should I quit? Should I continue? How you quit is very easy; go to the Registrar’s office, and they’ll give you a form. (Actually, you could simply walk away and they’ll do the quitting for you.)

Thinking about changing jobs: You’re likely stuck on the ‘how’. I don’t like this job; I’d like that other career. Straightforward what I should do. But how do I do that? Existing family commitments, monetary support, contracts with your employer… So how you change jobs is hard.

Side hustles: I want to start a side-project working on my passion. How do I do that in my spare time? How do I create a business? How do I find some funding. Again, the what is easy and the how is hard.

It isn’t that being stuck on one versus the other is better or worse. But figuring out which you are stuck on—hopefully it’s one and not both—will clarify your thinking and will show you the type of help you should seek.

I know what I want to do, but I don’t know how to do it.

I don’t know what I want to do, but I know how to do it.

When you’re stuck, figure out where your “don’t” lies. Then figure out who you can ask for guidance to help you remove your “don’t” so you’re left with:

I know what I want to do, and I know how to do it.

§25 – Fun days

Published January 26, 2020 · All posts on Jan 26

This entry is part 37 of 37 in the series Study inspired by Pakour & Art du Déplacement by V. Thibault

Chapter 25, starts with, “You are feeling crappy.” Why, yes. Yes I am.

I know how to train hard. I know how to play and have fun. I have complete freedom in what I do with my days. Complete. There is not a single responsibility I have which I have not freely chosen to take on; freely chosen in both the sense that I was under no obligation to choose it, and that I felt it was a worthwhile responsibilit to take on. Sometimes I train, sometimes I play. This shit? I’ve got this shit figured out.

Problem: If I’m having fun, afterwards I feel guilty because the things I’m responsible for are not getting done. Always. Every time. It’s a disease of the mind that undercuts everthing I ever manage to accomplish. There’s no point telling me that this thinking/guilt is wrong; I am well aware. There’s no point trying to help me get things done. (It’s not possible to finish everything.) There’s no point telling me to relax/unwind/have-fun. (That’s the space where the problem rears it’s ugly head.)

The only solution— scratch that. The only progress I’ve made is to give up on things. (For example, years ago I gave up on reading science-fiction. I gave away stacks of books and I only look back occassionally to doublecheck that I don’t miss it.) I just keep hacking and slashing and saying “no” to as many things as I can.

I’m hoping some day to be able to enjoy life, without the guilt.

The arbiter of truth

Published January 25, 2020 · All posts on Jan 25 ·

What is the arbiter of truth? Some things might be unknowable, and some questions might be unanswerable. But for everything else, what is the arbiter of truth?

The really big questions— Why are we here? What’s the meaning of life? The really big questions may not have answers. But for everything else, what is the arbiter of truth?

How do you decide if you have the correct answer to a question?

How do you decide what to do next? You just finished something and time is marching on; what will you do with the next moment?

How do you decide what to not do? Suppose some topic interests you; how do you decide how much time you should spend on it?

Difficult questions, certainly. Can you think of any questions which are more important than these?

If not, what are you doing to work on finding answers to these questions?

Retreat and reflection

Published January 24, 2020 · All posts on Jan 24 ·

In this place, you remove yourself from the busy world and find space for quiet. For reflection. For contemplation, setting intentions, reviewing how things have gone. For gratitude and appreciation for life.
You might meditate, relax, read, journal. You might take a walk in nature, or find solitude. You might just mindfully enjoy the space.
~ Leo Babauta, from The Practice of Using December for Retreat, Reflection & Letting Go

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What I like about this prompting from Babauta is that it’s about creating space for retreat and reflection; it’s not about necessarily going to some specific, special place. I’ve spent several years arranging and rearranging my life to create space for retreat and reflection in my daily life. It’s not easy. It hasn’t been easy. …on me or on those around me. I had gotten to the place I was gradually by taking small steps, day after day, in the wrong direction. So turning around was difficult, and beginning to walk back was close to impossible.

But it was possible. It is possible.

Do you have 5 minutes every day where you can retreat and reflect? If you don’t, try it for a few days. Set aside a specific time and work to arrange your life (including the people in your life) to make that small space sacred.

Self-improvement

Published January 23, 2020 · All posts on Jan 23 ·

If you’re the sort of person for whom success in life means stepping outside the comfort zone that your parents and high school counselor charted out for you, if you’re willing to explore spaces of consciousness and relationships that other people warn you about, if you compare yourself only to who you were yesterday and not to who someone else is today…
~ Jacobian from, Is Rationalist Self-Improvement Real?

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Wait. Wat?! Some people think self-improvement isn’t real?

I mean, if you are not using your rational faculties to improve yourself… Honestly, that’s redundant; How could one improve oneself without using rationality? I suppose one could just make random changes, (which seems to be what a lot of people do,) but as soon as you observe and reflect, then you are engaging your rationality. To be human is to be all the things the animals are, and to have the ability to be—to various degrees at various times—rational.

There’s a reason I really like the three words: Observation. Reflection. Efficacy.

Being a listener

Published January 22, 2020 · All posts on Jan 22 ·

It feels different to be a true listener. You fall into a different brain state—calmer, because you have no stray thoughts blooming in your head—but intensely alert to what the other person is saying. You lose track of time because you are actively following the point the other person has brought up, trying to comprehend what she means and if it relates to other points she’s brought up. Your brain may jump to conclusions, but you’re continually recognizing when that happens, letting it go, and getting a better grip on what the speaker really intends to communicate.
~ Indi Young, from A New Way To Listen

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This agrees with my experience conducting interviews for the podcast. I’ve now spent several hundred hours intentionally practicing listening. I’ve learned a lot of different things in the process of interviewing and creating a podcast, but what I’ve learned about listening has proven by far the most valuable. Learning how to listen changes every interaction with another person.

Occasionally I wonder if I can sort out some small set of actionable advice from my experience thus far. I haven’t been able to yet, and I think it’s because the act of being able to objectively review your interactions is necessary. It’s one thing to have a conversation, but when it’s recorded and you can return later to review what you said, and what you thought you heard, that’s mind-altering.

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