In The Problem – Part One, I wrote about how I used to be a crack junkie.
(Note to self, must find a better description than this or my SEO is going to be very wonky).
And about how it’s the number one problem I see entrepreneurs come up against – the addiction to the buzz and adrenaline of being in business which means you’re constantly seeking the next high and chasing that feeling you think of as ‘being alive.’
Here are 8 ways to know you’re a crack junkie:
1) Your bookshelf/hard-drive are groaning and if you ever took a really proper look at your finance you would see that the biggest chunk of your outgoings is spent on supporting your habit – in other words – products and programs all designed to help you go bigger, better and definitely faster.
2) The thought of spending 12 months without buying single marketing program or attending a single crack party/’inspirational event’ brings you out in chills
3) If your husband/wife rolls their eyes when (if) you tell them you indulged again and when they ask ‘how much does this one cost?’, you lie
4) You can’t sleep at night because your mind is racing with new business ideas
5) You’re constantly seeking the answer to ‘What’s next?’ so that you can relax
6) You work through lunch and you stick your kids in front of their computers so you can get back onto yours because of FOMO on that next potential sale/ how-to-make-six-figures ad you might miss on your Facebook feed.
7) When you’re at an event with any other entrepreneurs, you gravitate towards your fellow crack addicts and ignore the rest because they’re ‘boring’. In fact you might invest in a VIP ticket so you don’t have to mix with the ‘normals’ at all.
8) When you get caught up in the receiving end of a launch sequence, you feel an actual physical craving for the product, and you know you can’t rest until you get your hands on it. Then when you do buy it, you exhale in relief………for about 3 weeks……..then the craving kicks in again.
In essence, you’re always ‘on’, you’re running on high alert and it’s impossible for you to chill out.
The problem here though, is that you can’t get enough of what you don’t really want.
You can seek that high forever, but it’s never going to be enough.
We’ll come back to that one tomorrow.
Here’s the second part of the problem.
You’re totally compelled by your own thinking.
It looks like what you think is true.
And when your addictive thinking arises (“just one more”…..), you feel like that voice in your head is a statement of fact and an unquestionable demand.
The craving, unsettled feeling looks like it has to be dealt with.
Relief from the feeling has to be found by taking action.
You have no idea your thinking is optional.
Bob, our dealer, shows up, gives us advice, and we say ‘Sit down, Bob and tell me how it really is’. We sit him down, listen to what looks like his wise words of counsel and then say ‘Uh, OK Bob, whatever you say’ and off we go to do as he bids.
Or we might have a bit of a scrap with him to fight him off, but that never ends well.
(Read this post for more about Bob).
We indulge in our thinking.
Given that
1) Going faster is better
2) You need to know the next business idea now because otherwise how will you know the money’s coming in
3) Being buzzed up is the state you want to be in when you’re doing your business thing
4) You need a vision board to excite you and remind you why you’re in this game in the first time if your body should try to take a break, or god-forbid your mind should be in shitty state one day when you wake up
5) You should be going out of your comfort zone
6) Bigger is always better. So is faster
7) If you’re not growing, you’re contracting
8) If you’re not winning, you’re a loser
9) If you don’t crack Facebook ads, you’re doomed to failure
(This list is endless, btw)
….then you’re better off getting off your lazy arse and getting your hands on some crack to get you through the day.
The problem is none of 1 to 8 above is true, but you think it is.
Those look like statements of fact if you have no idea that
1. Those ‘facts’ are created by our thinking. They’re not true, they’re just what we have got used to thinking is true – and supported by our crack taking, internet-marketing/ social media-fuelled culture
2. Our thinking is transient if we’d just let it be. You don’t HAVE to think any of the above. If you’d just stop hanging on to those ‘facts’ so tightly, new ones would come along that might actually serve you better
3. You don’t have to worry, worry, worry all the fucking time because there’s a way better resource than our thinking that we can rely on that most crack addicts have NO idea that exists
In essence, you don’t have to believe what you think.
It all looks real, but none of it’s true.
“WTF?”
Don’t worry, we’ll go into it more over the next few days.
Chill the fuck out.
In fact, that’s probably the only bit of advice you need right now.
Should have saved myself 856 words.
And made do with just one ‘fuck’ instead of about twenty.
