An (Incomplete) Guide to Life: Meditations on the Flyleaf

An (Incomplete) Guide to Life:

 Meditations on the Flyleaf

Pocket Guide

by

Fernando Giannotti

This is not an original work

I hope some of what lies in this book are my own thoughts, but many are no doubt from people who have influenced me, either directly or through their work

I hope you enjoy 

Three Keys to Happiness:

1.  Something meaningful to work on

2.  Someone to love more than you love yourself

      3. A future to believe in

Maturity is defined by two main factors:

1.  The depth of your empathy

2.  Taking responsibility for yourself and

your actions

5 Pillars of Daily Health:

1.  Sleep

2.  Eating Healthy

3.  Exercise

4.  Socializing with People

      5. Meditation

The Right Time is Now

You are going to die someday

 

Later often turns into never

 

The right time is most often now

Don’t let later turn into never

Embrace Not Knowing

Nobody really knows what they are doing.  Everyone is doing their best and just making it up as they go along.  Your parents, professors, CEOs of companies, and the President of the United States of America don’t really know what they are doing, they are just doing the best they can 

You can either be freaked out by this or you can choose to be Liberated by it

We all are just doing the best we can and making the best decisions with what we have

Develop yourself and your problem-solving abilities, then trust yourself to figure it out when a problem inevitably arises in the future

5 Seconds of Insane Courage

You really only need 5 seconds of insane courage.  5 seconds is enough time to make a decision.  Making a decision is, mentally, the most difficult part of any undertaking.  You don’t have to be courageous for a year or however long it takes to finish the undertaking.  You just have to be courageous long enough to make and commit to the decision.  The next time you are worried that you aren’t strong enough to do something, remember you only need to be courageous for 5 seconds

48 Hour Rule

Whenever possible, wait 48 hours before responding to that email, event, or person that aggravated you.  48 hours is enough time for the most intense emotions to have run their course.  If you are still as mad after 48 hours, then it is a serious reaction for you.  This rule has saved me from sending many regretful emails.

If you breakup with someone, institute a 48 hour no contact rule.  Do not call, text, or use social media with them for 48 hours.  Wait until your craziest emotions have subsided after 48 hours.  It could perhaps save you from embarrassing yourself 

Levels of Happiness

Two General Levels of Happiness:

1.  Surface Level Happiness

Derived from exterior sensory experiences like food, concerts, parties, etc

No reason not to be Surface Level Happy, unless you don’t have the psychological safety of meeting your basic, foundational needs

2.  Deeper Levels of Happiness 

Derived from interior experiences like a loving relationship, long-term goal attainment, meaningful work  

No hacks or shortcuts for Deeper Level Happiness

Deeper Level Happiness takes time to create and build.  A Deeper Level Happiness hole cannot be filled with Surface Level Happiness experiences

3 Axioms I Like

1.        Actions express priorities

2.        Ideas are easy.  Execution is everything

3.        Prosecute Your Ideas with Clarity of Vision and Flexibility of Process

3   Crucial Skills to Develop

1.    Autodidacticism

We live in a constantly changing dynamic world.  You will need to learn many, many, many new things without a teacher

            2. Empathy 

Empathy is a super power.  With it you can relate to and understand people.  You will be happier and find people less frustrating

            3. Story Telling

You can have a great idea, but if you can’t convince anyone to follow it, what use is it? 

The Duty of Being an Adult

When you are a kid everything is astonishing, everything is new and so your brain is awake and turned on, you are constantly learning something new, learning how the world works, and so the muscle of your brain is activated.  As you get older and your brain figures out the patterns of how the world works; this is how you make money, this is how you graduate from school, this is how you get a mortgage, this is how you have kids, this is how you go to work everyday, you know how to check out.  The routine is the enemy of time.  Routine makes time fly by.  Once your brain establishes a routine the alertness goes away, the fascination with the way the world works goes away, your brain checks out 

Getting out of your routine with new experiences and dynamic people wakes up your brain.  Your brain becomes fascinated again 

I want to be aware of everyday I’m alive.  I want to make it to 100 and be exhausted because I have been alive and awake every single day.  That’s the duty of being an adult.  When you are a kid, everything is new, so you don’t have to work for it, you’re astonished by everything.  Once you’re an adult, that’s a choice.  You choose adventure for your own life.  It’s about getting out of your routine.  And that can look like anything.  It turns your 100 years on this planet into 1000

Without a Goal You Can’t Score

Goals/Purpose:

·     If you want to figure out what you want to do or how you want to spend your time, do something you hate.  You will spend your time fantasizing about what you would rather be doing.  Do something you hate like shoveling manure or washing dishes

·     An acting exercise to figure out what you really value. Put yourself in the mental state that you will die in 48 hours.  Don’t just think about it, really feel it.  Then ask yourself, how would you spend your last 48 hours alive?  (Warning: This will ruin your next few days if done properly)  Whatever your answer is to that hypothetical scenario, spend your time and money on those people/things.  We hear stories about people who had a life-threatening illness or event like cancer that made them appreciate what was truly important to them in life.  Why wait for a terrible event to remind us?  We should live each day in accordance with who/what is most important to us   

·     Trust your gut and just go with it.  Especially if your gut is telling you to do something and you don’t want to do it, that is the best sign you should do it

Narratives

The idea of a narrative, especially how to construct and deconstruct a narrative, is very important to understand people.  We view the world through the lens of a narrative or story.  We relate to others and ourselves in narratives.  We tell stories about others and ourselves to other people and to explain why events happened as they did.  When we tell each other about events, we naturally relate things in a narrative form 

Humans have been using narratives to explain the world and tell stories from cave paintings to the Greeks to Shakespeare to the Coen brothers.  We really don’t understand human nature any better than the Greeks and Romans or Shakespeare.  We have advanced technologically, but our understanding of human nature remains the same, which is why Greek tragedies and Shakespeare’s plays remain so relevant and strike an accord with viewers today.  Narratives are timeless 

In the same way that narratives worked for the Greeks, Shakespeare, and modern movie makers, the narrative will work for you.  They all employed the same basic narrative structure when stripped down to the absolute basics: the three-act play.  The first act introduces the setting and main characters.  The second act contains the central conflict and puts the protagonist in their darkest position.  The third act contains the resolution to the conflict.  Humans have been employing some variation of the three-act play in narratives for our entire history   

Our lives unfold in a series of narratives that add up to a larger, overarching narrative.  Unlike most narratives, we have a degree of control over our narratives and the narrative of our life.  You get to decide what narrative you give yourself.  Certain aspects of the narrative we don’t get to change, like where you’re born or who your parents are, but you do get control over so much else 

Write a narrative you want for yourself and then go make it a reality

Micro-Narratives

Using Narratives in a Crisis

When a crisis happens, we get knocked out of our current micro-narrative (a narrative for the specific task or job at hand that is smaller in scope than the larger narrative of our life).  There is comfort in knowing a narrative.  We intuitively, even if not consciously, know the structure of how events should unfold.  We know who the main characters are, what conflict and sub-conflicts are or will be present, and we can see the path towards the resolution.  There is comfort in knowing this structure.   But when a crisis happens, suddenly the structure we thought existed is no longer true, our narrative has been changed by the crisis and a new narrative has formed.  We don’t know where in the new narrative we or who the main characters are or other information about the narrative.  In short, we lose our orientation, which causes large amounts of distress.  We need a quick way to reorient ourselves a figure out where in this new narrative we are currently.         

So when something happens to you, something terrible, and you get knocked out of your narrative and are disoriented, say ok I’m in the conflict or act two.  This provides an immediate place in the narrative to insert yourself in and reorient yourself.  You know the conflict and you know the next step is the resolution, then figure out the setting and the characters. 

Also, ask yourself, is this event or crisis, merely a sub-conflict in your larger narrative?  What act am I in now?  A crisis happens, and you stop and say, ok, I’m in act() of this micro narrative

Miscellaneous Thoughts

·     Be deliberate about who you listen to, pick the voices you listen to very carefully, especially in a crisis.  Curate a great group of people, your inner circle, to listen to, not just for criticism but for praise as well.  You wouldn’t listen to criticism from someone you don’t admire or who doesn’t know who they are, so why would you accept praise from someone you don’t admire or who doesn’t know who they are? 

   

·     If you want great discussions with people full of new ideas, cultivate a personal atmosphere of psychological safety.  People will feel safe sharing incomplete ideas with you.  People need to feel that you will give their ideas the chance to be heard without shooting them down

     For an idea to come to maturity, there is a process.  Any moron can kill a fledgling idea, but an intelligent person gives it room to grow and develop, to see if anything can come from it.  You need psychological safety for that idea to develop and grow or for someone to even bring it up, they have to feel safe.  Teams need this when it comes to problem solving 

·     Remind yourself weekly (or whatever time horizon is good for you) what is important to you.  It is not enough to write it down, we often write it down, then it wears off, then we forget, then when the time comes we do not make a decision based on our values.  We need to remind ourselves of our values, especially when creating and establishing new ones

 

·     A seed needs the right environment to grow into an oak tree.  Within the seed it contains the right knowledge to become a tree, but it needs the right environment to flourish.  The idea of balance between inward and outward definitions of success.  You can’t seek validation primarily from external sources for yourself, it’s not healthy, but you can’t ignore and avoid the outside world either.  You can spend years meditating and defining yourself by your own internal metrics, but you can’t avoid the external world entirely, it does affect you and your life