Do or do not; there is no try.
—Mahatma Gandhi
I knew this guy, Bill, and he had a big problem he believed he just couldn’t overcome. “There’s no way I’m going to get out of this,” he’d whine.
And I’d tell him, “Shut up, Bill. You’re a whiny loser. And do you know why? You don’t believe in yourself.”
So I took Bill out to a nightclub and told him, “I want you to find the most attractive woman here and get her number.”
“I don’t know—”
I slapped him. “That’s your inner hippie telling you to doubt yourself. And you’re going to pop that hippie in the mouth by doing this anyway. You’re Bill—a powerful man who can conquer himself—and this is a simple task for you. Do you believe that?”
“Yes, I do!” Bill said. And he walked over to a beautiful woman most other guys were too intimidated to approach. And because Bill believed in himself, the woman responded to Bill’s inner power, and soon he came back with her number.
Now that Bill knew he could achieve anything he put his mind to, his initial problem—beating a murder charge in court—was easy to overcome.
Which was pretty bad, actually, because the guy was guilty as sin. Ends up he’s a serial killer. I guess I really should look into the backgrounds of people before I help them; there are some crazy people out there.
Wait, did I track down that woman whose number he got and warn her? I think I did. . . .
Anyway, the point is that if you’re going to succeed at awesome and believe that the hippie trying to drag you down from the inside can be beaten silent, you’re going to need confidence. Doubt is just another name for that inner hippie trying to stop you from action. As we’ve said, hippies are lazy, and the hippie inside you knows he can continue to waste his life away if he can just break your confidence and keep you from acting out the awesomeness brewing inside you. So you have to shut up that hippie of doubt, and you will do that by fanning your confidence into a supernova that will melt the face off your inner hippie.
And this is why confidence is the cannon on your tank of awesome: It blows away the obstacles that keep you from being awesome. In a way, you need confidence to work on the other parts of being awesome—independence, gratitude, and ambition—because without confidence you might think you won’t succeed at those or that it won’t be worthwhile.
Hmm . . . Maybe I should have started with confidence in this book before I went on to talk about the other three.
No, what am I talking about? I know exactly what I’m doing. Confidence was the perfect part of the tank of awesome to end with.
Anyway, confidence is your cannon. Whatever stands in the way of your progress you will blow away with a depleted uranium shell of “Yes, I can!” Did you know that the modern tank shell contains no explosives? “Then how does it blow up enemy vehicles?” you’re probably wondering. It does it with its pure awesomeness (and lots of kinetic energy).* And that’s what you want your confidence to be: a projection of your inner awesomeness that can destroy anything in your way.
So the last thing you want is your inner hippie sticking flowers down that gun barrel. He will try to emasculate you, to break your confidence, and you can’t let him do this . . . unless you’re a serial killer. Then, you know, definitely don’t have confidence. In fact, please stop reading this book, as the knowledge contained within it will make you unstoppable, and we don’t want that. Well, I don’t want that.
As I’ve lectured you on how to be awesome, you may have thought of some people or things that are keeping you from being all you can be. I want you to list all those things. Go ahead and do it. This isn’t a trick.
Did you do it? Then you’re a whiny loser! This was a trick!
Focusing on external things holding you back is what your inner hippie wants, as he wants you to be a victim. He wants to lie about, going, “Woe is me! All the forces of the universe are against me! I can never achieve anything!” And then the one who is really victimizing you is yourself. There is no force out there that will hold you back as much as the hippie inside you.
So what do you do if there are things working against you, like racism, sexism, a disability, or me tricking you? It’s the same as with punching your inner hippie: You be awesome. You strike back at everything working against you by being the best you can be and having confidence in yourself despite whatever obstacles you face. You say things like, “I don’t care that you keep tricking me and calling me a loser in your book, Frank; I’m going to be so awesome that I’ll write a book ten times better than yours.”
No, wait; don’t say things like that. You’re not going to be able to write a better book than mine. That’s stupid.
Anyway, you’re never really a victim until you listen to your inner hippie about feeling sorry for yourself. Well, I guess you are a real victim if you’re being murdered by a serial killer. And if the serial killer is Bill, mea culpa.
You may be thinking, “You talk about the importance of confidence, but don’t hippies seem pretty confident at times?” Well, yes, they do, but only about preaching nonsense. In fact, it’s hard to beat a hippie’s confidence when it comes to talking about complete idiocy like how socialism will work or that SUVs are destroying the world or that hemp is super useful for absolutely everything. But this nonsense, of course, is just part of the hippie’s aggressive uselessness. When people are trying to accomplish things, the hippie just wants to lounge around and act like he knows things, when actually the only thing a hippie is an expert at is getting punched in the face.
But anyone can be confident in the garbage they spout—someone could even write a whole book of stuff they just totally made up—but that doesn’t help anyone. Instead, to get beyond your inner hippie, you need confidence in your ability. You need to be secure in what you’re able to accomplish, and this confidence is anathema to your inner hippie.
Why? As I said before, your inner hippie wants you to think things are out of your hands—that you’re a victim—so you don’t even try to undertake new things because you believe they’re beyond you. Then instead of doing anything useful, you’ll sit around and spout hippie nonsense like, “We don’t have to work; we can just tax the rich to pay for everything.” Hey, if you try to take my money, I will come after you and punch your face. And the government won’t be able to protect you, because I am unstoppable, since I have confidence in my ability to find people and punch them really hard to make them think twice about their nonsense.
And that’s what you need: confidence that you can pull off whatever you set your mind to. Unlike with having confidence in nonsense you prattle on about, confidence in your ability leads to results. It’s a confidence that keeps you moving forward, not lounging around, blathering about Karl Marx. Man, Karl Marx was such a stupid, long-haired hippie. If only someone had set him on the right path by punching him in the face, maybe he could have done something useful with his life—like maybe making duck calls like those guys from Duck Dynasty. He certainly had the beard for it.
Karl Marx pulling his blue plastic cup of iced tea out of his coat.
Anyway, don’t be like Karl Marx and have confidence in your stupid communist theories; put that confidence into your ability to get achievable results. Be more like Marx’s brother Groucho, who had confidence in his comedic ability.
In trying to break your confidence, you inner hippie will use a trick he’s never used before: logic and reason. Usually, the lazy, stupid hippie inside you would run from basic logic and reason, but here he’ll actually wield it in a bad-faith attempt to stop your awesome. “Just think rationally,” he’ll say. “You can’t do all these grand plans of yours.” He may even lay out a reasonable-sounding list of reasons you can’t succeed at whatever you are currently attempting. “You can’t make an army of dinosaurs with rocket launchers on them, because science can’t yet genetically resurrect dinosaurs. And even if it could, there’s no reason they’d follow your commands.”
Whatever you do, don’t listen. You need to just sucker-punch that hippie by loudly declaring, “Yes, I can!” and keep moving. Awesome does not slow down—your tank should just keep rolling forward no matter what—and thus there is no time for doubt.
But you may ask, “What if there are reasonable objections to what I’m trying to do?” Who cares? We’re not talking about being reasonable; we’re talking about being awesome.
In fact, confidence, when done right, should look like a form of insanity—but it’s not insanity. When you’re careening ahead in a rocket car of awesome, it’s mind-boggling to behold and may scare and confuse others. Should you be worried about the reactions of others? Of course not, because you’re confident, stupid! You know what you’re doing. Who cares what a bunch of losers think? And dinosaurs with rocket launchers on them are the key to military dominance in the twenty-first century and are completely feasible. If any scientists say otherwise, then fire them and get new ones. If you’re going to wear a white lab coat and then spend your entire day not making dinosaurs, your existence is completely pointless.
So as you march forward with confidence, if people yell, “You’re insane!” that just means you’re doing it right.
Of course, your inner hippie is going to do everything he can to make you stop believing in yourself. You can best punch back by accomplishing awesome things, but maybe you’ll need a little confidence boost before you can do that. Here are some ways to help build your confidence.
Talk to a mirror. Find a mirror, look yourself in the eye, and tell yourself how awesome you are. “I am a raging inferno of awesome. I am unstoppable. Countries—nay, worlds!—will bow before me. Anything I decide to do I can do better than anyone else.” If you feel yourself starting to raise an objection to any of this, yell, “Shut up!” Note, you’re not yelling shut up at yourself but at the hippie inside you trying to break you down. Maybe you should turn away from the mirror when yelling, “Shut up!” so as not to confuse yourself.
Talk to someone else. Of course, being confident in private is no real trick. So you need to do the mirror exercise, but this time while looking at someone else instead of a mirror. You can pick anyone—your boss, a girl you’re trying to pick up at a bar, a police officer—and just tell him or her you’re an unstoppable force of awesome. And if the person you’re telling it to looks like he or she is going to object, yell, “Shut up!” Make a threatening motion if necessary.
Positive visualization. You can also improve your confidence by focusing on succeeding. When you have a task to do, first spend some time imagining yourself doing that task. And then imagine that ninjas attack. Now you’re frantically working on the task while taking quick breaks to fend off ninja attackers—no, you’re performing the task with one hand while blocking and striking against your enemies with the other, because that is how unbelievably awesome you are. As you defeat the last ninja, you also finish your task better than anyone has ever done it before. Everyone basks in your glory. The mayor hands you the key to the city. The deli next door names a sandwich after you.
Walk on hot coals. Walking on hot coals has often been used as a confidence booster, because, you know, they’re really hot, and you normally wouldn’t walk on them, so if you do you’re like walking on stuff way hotter than you usually do, so—BOOM!—confidence. I don’t know if they’re supposed to be special coals or what, but . . . well, don’t overthink this, or you’re going to lose confidence. Just throw some hot coals down somewhere and walk on them.
Deep breathing. A simple confidence booster you can try anywhere, such as in the hospital getting your feet treated for third-degree burns, is to do some deep breathing. This is because relaxed people are confident people. If you know you will always succeed at everything, what do you ever have to worry about?
You might want to do some visualization while breathing. I like to imagine when I inhale that I’m pulling all the power of the earth into my body. And when I exhale, I’m casting my inner hippie out of my body. By the end of my breathing exercise, I feel like I’m bursting with power—like I could explode at any second and take out a city block. But that’s just how I relax; you may relax differently, like by thinking of a beach or something.
Smile. Confident people smile. When you know you’re the personification of awesome that can destroy problems like a sledgehammer can destroy Fabergé eggs, why wouldn’t you smile? So one idea is to smile like you’re confident to make yourself feel confident.
Now, there is a particular smile for that. You go too big on the smile, and the smile is more like, “I have this great plan to poison the water supply in Gotham City!” Instead, you want more of a slight, cocky smile—the kind Han Solo would have when spouting nonsense about parsecs to gullible farm boys. The kind of smile that says, “Yeah, I’m better than you, and I know it.” If people start glaring at you like, “I want to wipe that stupid smile off his arrogant face!” then you’ve got it right.
So do you think you’re confident now?
If you are confident, you will have responded to that question with “What do you mean, ‘think’?! I know I’m confident. In fact, I don’t even need this stupid book anymore; I can do everything myself!”
Did you answer that way? Good. And don’t throw this book away. If you’re this far into it, you might as well finish.
So now that you know you’re confident, you need to test yourself by facing your greatest fear. Remember: You’re confident, so you should fear nothing. And you need to prove it.
Let’s say you have a phobia of spiders. Then you need to find a whole bunch of spiders and just grab a handful and eat them. Now spiders are scared of you, because you eat spiders! Though I don’t know if spiders can be poisonous and you shouldn’t eat them. Maybe you should look that up first.
Nah. Looking stuff up will just allow time for fear to grow. Quickly, go eat some spiders!
And if you’re afraid of heights, then you need to go skydiving.
Actually, no, that’s a stupid idea, because you’ll just become less and less scared the closer you get to the ground. Oh, go walk a tightrope. Do that one.
Of course, your inner hippie is going to scream at you when you face your fears. He doesn’t want you to be this confident person who can take on anything, because then you have no excuses anymore. When you’re facing your greatest fear, once again you’re really taking on that hippie inside you who fills you with doubt. But you need to suplex him. Into a bunch of spiders’ nests. Because he was the one who had the fear, not you. You’re a tank of awesome, and tanks fear nothing. Except antitank aircraft.
Hmm. Maybe we need a fifth part of being awesome that can be a surface-to-air missile battery . . .
Nah. We’re good.
In this chapter, we learned:
• There is a serial killer on the loose.
• Confidence is a cannon that can blow things up with the power of your delusions.
• Something about not being a victim.
• Don’t have the type of confidence where you talk nonsense, but instead where you do nonsense and call it awesome, I guess.
• Basically be insane, but that’s sort of been the theme of this whole book.
• There are a number of ways to practice confidence, but I’m kind of doubtful about all of them.
• Eat spiders, even though they may or may not be poisonous.
Since you’ve now finished building your tank of awesome, in the next chapter we’ll focus on living a hippie-free life.
Remember a time you were really confident. How did you feel then? Why can’t you feel that way all the time? Are you stupid or something?
Why do you think we develop phobias? Shouldn’t we focus more on making other things develop phobias of us?
If you help someone and it turns out he’s a serial killer, does that count as a good deed? I mean legally, like if you had a community service requirement to fill.
Q. Aren’t there some things you shouldn’t be confident about? For instance, if you’re five feet tall, you’re not going to win a dunking competition.
A. What are you talking about? You’ll just have to jump higher to do it.
Q. But I mean there are just some things that are unrealistic—
A. I’ll just stop you there. If you want my permission to fail at anything, I’m not going to give it. Shut up, hippie. There is no “impossible”; there are just things you’re still in the process of figuring out. And you will. Because confidence.
Q. Can’t the confidence you describe be dangerous, especially if it’s confidence to do something that in fact could lead to grave harm?
A. That’s just the inner hippie in your head trying to pretend to use logic to discourage you.
Q. Or maybe it’s just the logic in my head logically discouraging me.
A. Well, you can’t be sure, so just ignore anything your mind says.
Q. And I don’t get the whole walk-on-hot-coals thing; why go out of your way to do something dangerous like that when there are plenty of non-hot places to walk?
A. Because it helps you build confidence! Also, it could be useful if maybe a volcano goes off near you and you need to escape, but the only path to escape is over hot coals, and you don’t have shoes.
Q. That seems unlikely.
A. Your face seems unlikely.
Q. The way you came back with a petty insult perhaps shows you don’t have confidence in your own opinions.
A. Hey, don’t try to psychoanalyze me. Many have tried before, and I always got my money back in the end.
Q. Any update on Bill the serial killer?
A. Oh, I wouldn’t worry about him. Serial killers always mess up and get caught . . . you know, after they kill enough times.