Advice, Smiling & Ego

Ladies and gentlemen!

In this week’s newsletter we’re taking on a different style.

Instead of a 10 minute psychological deep dive, I thought I’d briefly share 3 things I’ve learned this week.

1 about social skills.

1 about mental health.

1 personal thing I’ve realised.

1.) Why advice sucks.

One of my favourite sayings over the past 7 years has been Al Pacino’s words in the film the devil’s advocate “the worst vice is advice.”

And it turns out this is sound social skills wisdom.

I’ve been reading communication expert Robert Bolton’s book ‘People Skills’ again this week and in a chapter about listening he comments on why advice sucks:

"Advice is often a basic insult to the intelligence of the other person. It implies a lack of confidence in the capacity of the person with the problem to understand and cope with his or her own difficulties. As Norman Kagan puts it, "In essence, we implicitly say to someone, 'You have been making a "big deal" out of a problem whose solution is immediately apparent to me - how stupid you are!'"

Consider a conversation between two friends:

David: “My work has been killing me recently. And Maria (girlfriend) has been busy too so we’ve hardly spent anytime together. Plus I’ve skipped the gym 5 times this week.”

Jamie: “That’s an easy one to solve, I’d…”

Instead of listening and allowing the other person to vent we advise so we can solve their problem to make ourselves feel good.

But as Bolton elaborates:

"The advisor is unaware of the complexities, feelings, and the many other factors that lie hidden beneath the surface."

I once met a Buddhist man on a train to Paris who he taught me something about advice I’ll never forget. He said when you give advice to someone you point your finger at them. But what you don’t notice is there are 3 fingers pointed back towards you. So when you give advice, you adopt 3 times more responsibility for the issue than the other person.

So bite your tongue.

Hear the other person out.

Let them vent while you hold space for them.

Appreciate things are complicated and people don’t always want solutions.

As the economist Dag Hammarskjold said: "not knowing the question, it was easy for him to give the answer."

2.) Smiling works.

Two weeks ago I finished reading an excellent book about depression. It’s called the upward spiral by Alex Korb PHD.

One of the chapters is dedicated to biofeedback, which is our brain’s ability to change based on what the body is doing. And he spoke about the importance of smiling for influencing how we feel.

But wait... I know what you're thinking.

“Lewis! You’ve gone all positive psychology on us! Don’t tell us to just smile and all our problems will go away!” Look, I’m no more of a positivity junkie than you, but if a brother in a book says something might help then I’m all ears.

To the science:

When you smile your brain senses the flexing of the zygomatic major muscles and thinks “we’re smiling? Well that must mean we’re happy about something.”

Another muscle called the corrugator supercilii, which causes our foreheads to frown, also signals to our brain whether we’re happy or not.

So the life hack is; wear sunglasses to prevent frowning and give yourself a cheeky grin every now and then to boost yourself into a better mood.

(I wouldn’t recommend something like this if it didn’t work. I've noticed I frown 90% of the time and shifting that number to, say 50%, has brought a great change to my mood.  Trust me.)

“Don’t trust who says trust me.” - unknown.

3.) To be or to do?

On a more personal note...

I’ve felt overwhelmed this week.

The channel has been blowing up in a way I haven’t seen before with 3 videos getting lots of views.

And I've felt… weird.

As I saw the views and subscribers rack up by the thousands each day I began to become overwhelmed with the number of eyeballs on the channel.

It’s a paradox; you upload videos to help as many people as possible, those people come, but then you start to doubt yourself.

“Why would anyone listen to me?”

“What if the next video is a disaster?”

“Do I actually know what I’m talking about?”

I’ve dealt with imposter syndrome many times and I’ve learned to use it as a tool.

The way I see it: the more I doubt my ability to teach, the more I feel the need to learn so I can teach well. Meaning my doubt helps me become a better teacher.

But there’s a limit.

Doubting yourself all the time soon leads you nowhere but feeling burned out whilst perpetuating a consistent lack of self-worth.

So Tuesday night, before I went to bed, I read one of my favourite books, one I frequently return to when things are "going well"; ego is the enemy by Ryan Holiday.

In one of the chapters Holiday speaks about a decision we all have to make; to be or to do?

If we choose the former, to be, we chase recognition, validation, fame and the headline story. In other words - external rewards.

If we choose the latter, to do, we pursue the reward of the work itself, keeping our head down and keeping the main thing the main thing. Avoiding distractions, ego and the temptation to "tell ourselves a story" that this is what we'd planned all along.

Over the years there have been a few nuggets of wisdom I've come across which refuse to be proven untrue. And the main one for me is:

Effort > results.

If you act in hope that external rewards will justify your self-worth, you're setting yourself up for nothing but volatility.

Money. Fame. Other people's validation or compliments.

Because guess what...

You have no control over externals.

One day one of my videos blows up. The next day I upload one and no one watches it. If I put my self-worth in the views I get, I'm signing my mental health away to the fluctuations of something I have no control over.

And that never ends well.

So...

The work is the reward.

The externals are a bonus.

I say all of this because my biggest fear is ego. I've seen it destroy so many great people over the years and I know I have an ego as much as you.

So this week has only highlighted the importance of keeping my ego in check even more.

Because it's only ego that could destabilise me from the very things that stabilise me:

• Stillness.
• Humility.
• Learning.
• Teaching.
• Sanity.
• Clarity.
• Love.
• A growth mindset.
• God.

And for you, maybe your list looks somewhat similar or very different. It doesn't matter, it's your list.

Robert Greene taught me its during periods of success that we need to be most aware. Because it’s when we sit back in comfort that our ego takes over and everything crumbles around us.

So after I finished reading that chapter in ego is the enemy, I closed the book, turned my lamp off, and realised; choosing between “to be or to do” isn’t a choice we make once. My god I wish it was a "decide once" issue. But it's not.

It’s a choice we’ll have to make every time our efforts begin to pay off.

To be or to do?

May we always choose the latter.

Quote of the week: