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Seth Godin’s Linchpin is wonderful. I have it in print and in the Kindle version.

I discovered that the Kindle version isn’t the same as the print version.

Here’s a screen shot of an excerpt from the Kindle version:

Now look at this picture of the print version. There are three items in the list.

The universe explodes with possibilities when you read the third item on the list in the print version.

3. Start your own gig. Understand that an organization filled with linchpins is itself indispensable. Hire accordingly.

Linchpin, page 202 (in print, and not in the fucking Kindle version that Amazon fucked up).

I no longer trust Kindle.

Things are a distraction. They diffuse focus. Sell, give away, or trash as many things as needed to give yourself focus.

We have a shelf of cookbooks in the kitchen. Maybe one of them is used once a year. By keeping them, unused, we are lying to ourselves. We are telling ourselves that these books are important—when they are not. We are telling ourselves that we are cooks experimenting with new creations—when we are not.

These unused books reveal other lies we are telling ourselves, too. They present a facade to visitors: we are gourmands, skilled in the kitchen. I’m sure I could think of other lies we are telling ourselves by keeping the cookbooks. I will stop here.

Throw the cookbooks in the trash or donate them to Goodwill. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we tell ourselves the truth about ourselves. And the act of tossing books in the garbage will be an self-affirmation of who we are.

I am using “we” here because there are two of us in the house.

Practicing what I preach, I threw away a bag of buckwheat flour that has been sitting, unused, for about a year. Go me. I’m not going to toss out cookbooks until I get my wife’s buy-in.

“As a man thinketh . . . .”

That being true, your thoughts become exceedingly interesting. What are you thinking?

Positive or negative. I can either want X and or I can not want -X. Mathematically or logically, they are the same.

By spiritual impact, they are opposites.

“I want to be calm” and “I don’t want to be stressed” may seem interchangeable, but they are not.

A thought of “calm” introduces an image of calm in your head. A thought of “don’t stress” introduces an image of stress, then resistance to stress.

Which is preferable? The answer is obvious.

Action: every time you use the words “not“ or “no” or “don’t” immediately say to yourself “So, what do I want?”

Refocus your mind on what you’re running toward, instead of what you’re running away from.

the stuff you joke about (even ironically or whatever) has a way of shaping your reality so be careful and deliberate with that stuff. a lot of people out here fumbling their own bags by joking about outcomes they don’t want. you might as well joke about the outcomes you do want

https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1394772091660951555?s=20&t=yqQ90C8FTgEeztIHaXN_Fg

It’s another way of focusing, isn’t it?

And for fuck’s sake stop with the self-deprecating humor already. You’re focusing on what you don’t want when you put yourself down in order to make others laugh.

“What one thing am I doing wrong that I could fix, that I would fix?“

“Meditate on that long enough and you will get an answer. It won’t be one you want, but it will be the necessary one. “

Straight quote from Jordan Peterson.

You'll get an answer.

From The Diary of A CEO podcast with @SteveBartlettSC. pic.twitter.com/bQyJ6ioG1a

— Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) April 18, 2022

I finished re-reading You Are a Badass, by Jen Sincero. This is a focus technique. I have probably cycled through Meditations 20 times, just to keep the ideas alive.

Then I remembered the @visakanv emphasis on focus. Joke about the outcomes you want, etc.

And then I thought about a houseguest who left yesterday. His focus. And how all weekend I had to be aware and alert when he spoke, because mindset (a good one or a bad one) is contagious. I had to consciously reject (silently, in my head, of course) his statements of his reality. That is not my reality.

But oh God, mindset is contagious. Our houseguest has a back problem, for which he has had surgery. When he stands up, his back hurts. Once he is standing, everything is good.

Damned if my wife didn’t have the same pain by the end of the weekend when she stood up from sitting on the couch.

As a man thinketh.

I’m now thinking of the experience that Marcus Aurelius describes in Meditations, when his philosopher friend is ill but refuses to talk about his illness with his visitors, instead speaking only of philosophy. Presently, he recovers.

Be that man.

Focus your attention on what you want more of.

Everything I want already exists. Allow it to be. Allow it to come to me.

It’s amazing how many doors open up when you just say yes to stuff you don’t think you want to do. If a penny is on the sidewalk, pick it up.

It’s amazing how cluttered life becomes and how distracted you can be when you say yes to everything.

It’s amazing how focused and powerful you can become when you say no to almost everything. Suddenly all of your energy is aimed at a single target. The payoff is staggering and obvious.

Treat life like a big bag of marbles that you empty onto the kitchen table. Say yes.

The marbles roll this way and that. With minimal effort some of them stay in the middle of the table. Some roll towards the edge.

With minimal effort some can be shoved back to the middle. Others might be too fast to catch, and they fall off.

Balance your efforts. Let the marbles fall off that want to fall off. Focus on the few that remain solidly in the middle of the table. Let more and more marbles roll away until you have your few, your stable, your reliable marbles.

Now say no to new marbles.

It comes from the religious upbringing of my childhood. It’s astonishing how it has imprinted on me, even though I consciously rejected it in my teens. The Book of Revelation. And of course The Time of Trouble is coming, isn’t it? Persecution of the righteous, of God’s chosen people. Flee to the mountains!

And nuclear war. That was a pervasive background hum in my childhood. I remember thinking that I shouldn’t have children because why subject them to the horrors that were surely coming?

Money beliefs. These probably comes from residual, subconsciously passed-along subliminal beliefs from my parents, learned from their parents who experienced The Great Depression, and of course their own experiences as children themselves. Hunker down, be thrifty, there’s never enough and if there is enough now there won’t be in the future, probably, so hunker down. Sensible shoes!

I manufacture my own doomloops today. Political trends. Stupid economic policies creating inflation and possible economic crashes. Authoritarianism everywhere. Wars.

What IS this?

You see what you’re looking for, I guess. And what I see might even be real!

This is fear. All fear. Fear of dying. Fear of physical suffering at the hands of others. Fear of not having “enough.”

Interesting how all of those fears are so ill-defined, so woolly. They can mean anything. They can be anything I want them to be in the moment where I choose to feel bad.

When doomlooping, stop. Say to yourself, “Well, that’s a thought. There are other thoughts.” And then think a thought along the lines of gratitude, abundance, and clarity.

When you’re in the ditch, your first job is to get out of the ditch. Do so by focusing your attention on the good, on the specific, on gratitude.

As a practical* matter, there is enough for me and for everyone. I’m going to be OK. so are they.

* There may be theoretical limits, but they are so vast that neither I nor anyone else will ever reach them. Why fingerpaint with theories that matter not?