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Archives for June 26, 2018

How I Decided to Forgive Myself

June 26, 2018 By Edward Smith Leave a Comment

Forgiveness is Hard.

 

I’ve come far in my life: I was a nerdy, super shy kid. 

And now I’m a nerdy, introverted but not shy adult.

 

But I love the shit out of myself!

 

No, I’m not a narcissist. I’m not arrogant nor do I think myself above other people.  But I’ve learned to be very kind to myself over the years.

 

I didn’t glide myself here! I fought for every small step!  I wasn’t inherently smart:  I learned one thing at a time.  But I learned forgiveness early.

What is Forgiveness?

 

Forgiveness is giving loving-kindness to someone who did wrong.  It could be a moral wrong (unjustly firing someone or cheating on a spouse) or ethic wrong (scraping linked in for data when you know it it’s good) or a religious wrong (yup, not going here).

 

But the first question I always think is: Should I always forgive someone?

 

This is a question I’ve asked myself many times over the years. In many different ways.  I always envision someone like the Dalai Llama:  he could forgive anyone, right?

 

Could I be that person?  If someone murdered someone I knew, would I still give unconditional forgiveness?

 

Based on asking these type of questions, I decided on this kind of forgiveness:

 

I will always forgive if the party shows a willingness to change the behavior that caused ill.

 

Forgiveness with Purpose

 

Take a moment and ponder with me:

 

How many times do you think you will make a mistake in life?

 

Or said another way: how many times do you intend to learn new skills in life?  This is because new skills are often associated with some mistakes or failure.

 

I don’t care how good you think you are:  it’s going to happen.  It’s nothing to be afraid of.

 

But let’s say you’re not convinced fear is your friend.  Instead, every time you mess up you blame yourself like, “Get it together Ed!  Stop being an idiot!“

 

I understand this negative self talk because I had it for many years.  Shame can only live in darkness.  You have two choices.

 

First, What if instead you chose to hug yourself and say, “Ed, I know it feels bad to miss the train and be late to work, but I know you’ll get it next time!” and use that opportunity to SET YOUR INTENTION!

Or second, if you are vulnerable with a friend or family member they can play this role for you.  Often we magnify our own thoughts in our heads and sharing those thoughts not only strengthens a relationship but gives you more confidence as well.

 

This works for everything.

 

Examples of how I’ve used it before:

 

I failed a class in R: I accepted it was because I was new at it and imagined things I could do to get better at coding.

I got into Northwest University for grad school – AFTER they sent me a letter I was rejected and enrolled at Southern Methodist University:  I told myself it was out of my control and hugged myself thinking it was adventurous to try (this was my number one pick for Data Science School).

I applied to 12 different united grocery stores to try to get a job as a sixteen year old — they all rejected me:  I told my dad my frustration and sadness and stress and he told me I was sixteen!  And not to worry about it, it would work itself out.

I accidentally sent an email 63,000 times to the president of my company: I promised myself to have a new checklist and hugged myself over the hilarity of it all. When I told the president, he laughed the hardest of all.

 

Is Forgiving Yourself Silly?  Corny?

Well Yes. But do you like being mad or bitter at yourself?

 

Did you know your brain will forget painful things over time, but remember positive feelings?  That’s what it naturally does.

 

Did you know by being silly it’s impossible to take yourself too serious?  Our brain only feels one emotion at a time.  Also, if you start to smile at the silliness of hugging yourself, those endorphins will start flowing!

 

These are simple biohacks I take as an encouragement for loving myself and empowering forgiveness.

 

I would encourage you to try it:  If a little loving-kindness for yourself and increase your happinness for 20% of your lifespan, why not give it a try?

 

Actions:

  1. Write down a time where you really felt mad at yourself.  How long were you mad/upset?  Have you forgiven yourself?
  2. Now visualize what forgiving yourself might look like.  Do you have any strong objections?  Feel free to write your thoughts out.
  3. If you can’t imagine forgiving yourself, imagine the most loving person you know hugging you and forgiving you.  Sometimes we have to use our faith in other people if we haven’t built faith in ourselves.  Don’t be afraid!

How I Decided to Forgive Myself

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Filed Under: Emotions, Finding Your Potential, Goals and Dreams, Hacking Life With Habits, Health, Healthy Experiments, Learning and Self Awareness, Lifestyle, Planning, Productivity, Values Tagged With: failure, forgiveness, lovingkindness

How I Overcame the Feeling of Inferiority

June 26, 2018 By Edward Smith Leave a Comment

Have you ever felt inferior?

Do you consider yourself superior?

What basis do you compare yourself to others?

 

There is a healthy way and an unhealthy way.

 

What are you Worth?

 

How do you determine your worth?

 

Are you worth more than the person next to you on the bus?  Are you better (superior) or inferior (worse) than them?

 

I propose you are both equal.  You’re both humans and worthy of love.

 

But what about people that have fancy houses or are jerks towards others and arrogant about the knowledge they do have?

 

Still equally worthy of love.

 

It is never useful for you to compare yourself based on your skills/attributes/popularity for a sense of worth. 

 

I am not a better person because I know SQL and can build predictive models.  Nor am I less worthy of a person than someone like Andrew Ng who is at the top of the machine learning field.

 

It is NOT beneficial for me to compare myself on terms of what type of person I am. Andrew’s skill in machine learning doesn’t make me more or less of a person.

 

But what IS beneficial is to compare yourself on attributes or skills you want to acquire:  For me, Andrew Ng has an intuitive way of explaining machine learning that I lack.  I admire Brendon Burchard’s sheer level of energy he brings to a room.  Comparing in this way allows you to explore things you want to become, lack or even have achieved in life. 

 

Awareness in Who You Want to Be

 

Awareness is always the first step. 

 

Let’s consider examples from my work life: I went through these ideas in stages. 

 

First, it was, “I’m an analyst!”  I was just happy to be an analyst (after working in call centers for 4 years).  I only worked with one other analyst and he did very little work, so my experience of where I fit on the scale of analysts was pretty limited.  Everyone at work thought I was really good at my job and really nice. 

 

Ed trivia!  I liked to bring all the people taking calls cookies every Monday since I knew Mondays were the worst days.

 

And I was very happy with this for several years.

 

 I analyzed call volume.

 

 I continued to expand my skill in excel Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and Microsoft  Access Databases and essentially automated my job over time. 

 

My boss gave me positive feedback once saying, “It’s like sci-fii technology!” when I showed him how quickly my new hacky excel macros processed the data compared to the old manual process that took 2 days. I started to feel superior — like I was the best analyst out there!

 

And, then, I got a job at a company called Hastings Entertainment.  New company and new analyst standards.  What I thought I knew was mostly wrong.

 

Microsoft Access wasn’t really a “real” database and excel VBA wasn’t really used all that much.  It was all about email systems and SQL (structured query language).  I realized I had a very limited scope as an analyst.  One of my greatest fears was that since I was a call center person, someone would “prove” I didn’t deserve to be an analyst.

 

I was SO nervous when I first started.  My wife got me the job:  she mentioned the things I did at my previous job in the hearing of the HR director and the HR Director asked for my resume.  I didn’t know SQL and didn’t know if they would teach it to me, so I tried to learn it from this russian website: http://www.sql-ex.com/ before they even hired me!  I’m a nerd like that.

 

I really felt inferior:  it was like started from scratch all over again. I didn’t know any of the systems or key skills, so I just started learning everything from scratch again.  But I also didn’t know the growth mindset — I was just growing my experience to match a wider breadth of analytics.  If current Ed could talk to past Ed he’d just say focus on one skill at a time and celebrate as you grow each one.  This way you recognize you’re getting closer to the admired goal.

 

This happened again a bit later:  I enrolled in a course in the programming language R.  This REALLY exposed me to other analysts across the world. 

I failed the class, too.

This convinced me where I really sat on the scale of analysts across the world.  I realized I was a goldfish playing in a big ocean. It was the first time I exposed myself in a significant way to what analysts across the world were doing.

 

So, how do we deal with this?  I can guarantee everyone reading this has felt inferior at one point or another.  I’m sure most of you have also felt superior, too.

 

I realized after going through these things that the only way comparisons can help is helping you know where you are on the growth scale.  In most cases, you really shouldn’t care.  I use these 2 questions to guide my thinking:

 

  • Does this person do something I admire or would like to do in my life?
  • Do they have something I lack or what like to improve in myself?

 

 

If the answer is yes to either question, write it down!  Reflect on what about that person you like and instead of feeling frustrated or sad, think about how your future self could incorporate what you like about that person.  Or if the person is getting on your nerves, reflect on how you can avoid that trait in your future self.  Get it on the roadmap!

 

Awareness is incredibly valuable. 

 

If I did not have awareness, I would likely still be a call center analyst today instead of a data scientist and wouldn’t nearly be as knowledgeable or good at my job.  And you wouldn’t be reading those hopefully having an epiphany about your life 🙂

Actions:

  1. Think about someone who made you feel inferior lately?  Write down what about them made you feel that way.
  2. Write a paragraph about one small way you could grow yourself to be closer to the thing you wrote down.
  3. Do it!

How I Overcame the Feeling of Inferiority

 

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Filed Under: Emotions, Finding Your Potential, Goals and Dreams, Hacking Life With Habits, Health, Healthy Experiments, Learning and Self Awareness, Lifestyle, Planning, Productivity, Relationships, Values Tagged With: growth, hope, inferior

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I believe in no bullshit.

I’m Ed and I’m glad you’re here 🤩

I'm Ed

I love learning, self-improvement, and helping people grow!

I want to send you the 3 ideas that changed my life. 

They let me grow from a Call Center Role to a Data Scientist!

 

Will You Join Me?