What if your whole life is an experiment?

What are you testing right now?

When was the last time you tried something new?

What if the reason you are here on this planet is to discover more of who you are and what you are, so that you can give yourself as a gift to the people you love and who love you?

Learn to risk in small areas of your life. This will give you the confidence to risk in bigger areas. Question the things you've always done.

These small risks build a tolerance for you to risk in bigger areas of your life, and expand your creativity. If you try new things, you'll risk real relationships and develop new friends, sit beside a stranger and you may find a best friend or a future partner in life or business. And there is a progression to this. It takes practice and time. That's why it's a 90-180 day process. If you read till the end there is a 7 day challenge to increase your creativity. If you don’t try something new this week after reading this newsletter, then I’ve failed.

I did this last week. I saw a guy in a blue pinstriped suit in front of a beach hut deli. His name was Steve, a lawyer from Massachusetts and a partner in his firm. I asked if I could sit with him. We talked for 10 minutes then we both went back to work.

I like a lot of things. For most of my life I wished I was different. that I could simply like one thing and be content. I played 7 different sports from 5-17. (Gymnastics, Baseball, Basketball, Swimming, Volleyball, and a bit of Martial Arts.) Learned Piano for 3 years, and now have played drums for 15 years. I've also worked out in many different styles. Body building, powerlifting, Calisthenics, Yoga, Pilates, Rock Climbing, 5x5, ATG knees over toes. Switching once ever 1-2 years.

Here is the key: Try new stuff.

Why You Fear Trying New Things:

What if I hate it?

I've spent the money and I'm not sure it'll be worth it.

Why try something new, uncomfortable, and unknown? (when I know I like this food/drink/car/place to travel?)

Sunk cost fallacy - I've invested so much in this, I can't stop now.

I have a degree in this field I can't switch now.

This decision is permanent, I won't ever be able to change it after I make it.

The other fear with trying new things is you hate to be bad at things. (Or you hate to have people see you be bad at things.) Either way it means you don't try new things, or you try them once and say you hate it. Sometimes you need to try something 3-5 times. And give yourself enough repetitions to start to absorb the new skill or idea. (rather than writing it off after the first attempt)

What if You Are Creative?

“In the same way bees create hives and ants create colonies, humans create futures.” - Erwin McManus

Develop a creative mind. (it’s a Practice) This is part two of a series: From outsider to insider in 90-180 days. (you'll have another piece of the puzzle). Here is part one.

Because if you are creative and experimenting it gives you the freedom to try things and test them.

Creativity is a process of intentional exposure to new stimuli.

"in simple terms, we've learned that creativity is always a recombinatory process. It's what happens when the brain takes in novel bits of data, combines it with older information, and uses the results to produce something startlingly new." - Art of the Impossible

This concept became real for me because of having coffee with a mentor of mine named Parker. At one of our coffee's he told me: "one month I decided to write exclusively with my left hand. Anytime I needed to write, I'd use my left rather than my right hand."

Parkers Rule:

Take what you need to do. Modify it 3-5%. Create a whole new experience.

He took the thing he already needed to do and found a way to do it slightly differently so he gained a new experience. Example: He needed to take notes. Instead of using his right hand, he used his left. When he needed to drive somewhere, he used an alternative route instead of his normal way. When he ordered coffee, he tried something new.

This is so simple, yet I'd never met someone who did this before.

After talking with him I started learning to write with my left hand and decided to do this for a month. My goal was to be able to take notes in class with my left hand within a month and a half. It was painstakingly slow in the beginning. Now (almost 2 years later) I have people who think I'm left handed.

He told me, there are 1000's of options of drinks at Starbucks. Yet most people order the same thing everyday or week. I could come here every day for years and not order the same thing.

Before I met him I didn't try new things. Before I met him I'd order the food or the drink I knew that I liked. He showed me how small a world I was living in by doing this. That there were all these new experiences available to me EVERYDAY, and I was saying no to them because I'd never seen an example like him before. (what if exposure to a new way of living is all it takes to change?)

He made it so simple: What's the worst that can happen? you try something new and if you don't like it you learned something about yourself. But, what if you try something new and you find that you like it even better than anything you've tried before? Then you've also learned something new and learned more about yourself and what you like and don't like.

It's the (perceived) guaranteed safety vs the risk of a huge reward. Try new things, it will unlock your ability to connect with more people. You'll have a wider base of experiences to be able to relate to new people you meet.

The problem with creativity

It can't be manufactured in a moment when you need it. Developing strength and capacity before the moment it's needed is necessary.

Negative space in design is what makes makes pieces powerful. just like in metal it's the silence that makes the breakdowns so much more impactful.

Space equals power.

Sometimes you don't know you have creativity or capacity until you solve something without even thinking about it.

I didn't realize I was creative until I developed friendships with two friends. When I wasn’t around they’d tell me, “Daniel would have had a creative idea around this.”

She struggled to climb the wall.

One time there was this 6 foot wall from a beach in Santa cruz. And for me it's really easy to pull myself up a wall that's about the same size as me. I've developed strength that is functional so anytime I need to climb something, I usually can. And because that's so normal to me I forget that others couldn't do that. Until I saw someone else trying to get up that wall and couldn't. When I saw this I knew I could help, so I climbed the wall and helped her climb the wall to get up and off the beach.

In the moment of need, is not the moment to develop strength.

Living Parkers Rule will cost you your comfort. It also is an investment of time and money, because you may try a bunch of different things and find out you don't like (some of) them. It means I've eaten and paid for food, that was just okay. I've ordered drinks that were pretty meh. I've also found my FAVORITE food because of this. I've tried something I wasn't sure about and found out it's amazing.

Experiment with your life. There are going to be things that work really well and things that don't. Keep moving. Despite the fear, pain, and your own humanity and weakness, you'll improve over time. (not overnight)

There is new world waiting for you.

Life can be as marvelous or mundane as you make it.

Those are words I said for the first time when I was in the Galapagos in Ecuador. I was at the end of a 2 month long trip living in Ecuador that I almost didn't do. I had to quit 2 jobs, I didn't know exactly what the future held. It's so easy to be stuck in routine. To do the same thing day after day, week after week. and have the next year of your life look exactly the same.

If you've read this far, that's not what you want.

Risk is required for return. To try something new requires an inherent level of risk, because life has no guaranteed outcomes. Even the "Safe" options are not guaranteed. They may feel safe, or comfortable, yet they aren't. I made a commitment on that beach to continue to choose the marvelous over the mundane. Given the option I'll risk the new experience. I'll ask the girl out. I'll jump off the bridge or out of an airplane. I'll leave the comfort of the known to build something in the unknown. Stepping out onto nothing, trusting that I'll land on something.

The worst thing that can happen:

Defining the three levels of success can help you in a conversation and in trying something new.

1. What's the worst case scenario

2. What am I hoping to Achieve (core objective)

3. If today were my birthday and I could have anything I wanted, what might that look like?

7 Ways to Try New things using Parker’s Rule: (this week)

Day 1 Challenge: When driving somewhere you need to go today give yourself the extra time to take an alternative route in google maps or apple maps.

Day 2 Challenge: If you buy coffee, try a new drink.

Day 3 Challenge: Try brushing your teethe with your non-dominant hand

Day 4 challenge: Try writing with your non-dominant hand

Day 5 Challenge: Smile at a stranger (Read the Newsletter called sitting with strangers)

Day 6 Challenge: Wave at a stranger

Day 7 Challenge: Sit beside a stranger (ask first)

Bonus Challenge: If you knew you were going to move in the next 3-6 months, What are the things you’d want to try, visit, or do that you haven’t done yet where you currently live?

1. Make a list of 5-10 things

2. choose the one you’ve wanted to do most

3. plan a time in the next 3 months to do it.

Two Newsletters if you want more depth behind these ideas:

1. Creativity is a practice

2. Sitting With Strangers