Moderators and Abstainers: Two Approaches to Balance and Temptation

For the past four (almost five) months, I’ve spent most of my work hours writing an ebook. At first the book was about how to “master your money”. Then it became a treatise on financial independence. That morphed into a grander project about how to achieve financial and personal independence (and is the source of my year-long series of articles here at More Than Money). In the end, in its fourth iteration, the book turned into a manual on how to be the Chief Financial Officer of your own life.

I’m good at writing short pieces. I’ve been creating bite-sized blog posts of 500 or 1000 or 2000 words for years now, often on a daily schedule. But I’m less good at molding larger pieces of writing. I finished the first draft of my ebook on Wednesday afternoon, and it weighed in at 96 pages and just over 40,000 words. But getting to that final product felt like pulling my own teeth.

Part of the problem is I’m not good at balance. Try as I might (and I do try), I can’t figure out how to juggle all of the things I want to do in life. How does one learn guitar, study Spanish, go to the gym, cook healthy food, write weekly articles about money, all while writing a book? (Not to mention other miscellaneous tasks!) It’s tough. At least for me.

Eventually, I simply had to pull the plug on everything else, which is what I did when writing Your Money: The Missing Manual. At the end of January, frustrated because I couldn’t seem to finish the ebook, I stopped going to the gym, stopped practicing guitar, stopped studying Spanish. I got up every morning and wrote for eight or ten hours. The method worked, but I didn’t enjoy it.

Perhaps you’ll notice that this issue seems similar to others I’ve had in the past. Very similar.

To me, this “all or nothing” state of mind reminds me of how I got into (and out of) debt. It reminds me of how I gained (and lost) weight. And it reminds me of how I swore off alcohol for the month of January. For me, moderation is difficult. It’s tough to find balance.

As part of my ebook project, I’ve been conducting short audio interviews with some of my favorite folks. I interviewed Adam Baker about debt reduction, for example, Jean Chatzky about money rules, and Liz Weston about credit. In one interview, I talked to Gretchen Rubin about the relationship between money and happiness. During that conversation, we discussed the book she’s writing now, which is about habits.

For some, abstaining from cookies is the smart choice. Others can indulge in moderation.

Rubin says that not everyone is the same.

At one extreme, there are Abstainers. Abstainers tend to have an “all or nothing” approach to life. In order to reduce their alcohol consumption, they stop drinking. To refrain from eating cookies, they can’t have cookies in the house. Abstainers have trouble stopping something once they’ve started — but they’re not tempted by the things they’ve decided are off limits.

At the other extreme are Moderators. Moderators do better without absolutes and strict rules. Instead of swearing off cookies completely, they have one cookie on two or three nights per week. (Me? I’d eat the whole damn package!) They don’t need to go dry for a month to drink less — they simply drink less. Moderators enjoy an occasional indulgence and find that it actually strengthens their resolve instead of weakening it.

Here’s a short bit from my recent interview with Rubin in which she describes the difference between the two personality types.

Gretchen Rubin
For some people, it’s much easier to give something up all together than it is to indulge a little bit. And it’s very important to know this, because both sides try to convince each other. And Moderators – those are the people who can have a little bit – will often say things like, “You shouldn’t be so rigid with yourself. If you deny yourself everything you’ll fall off the wagon. It’s not healthy to always say no to yourself.”

But the thing is, for an Abstainer, it’s easier never to have French fries. It’s easier to never have sugar. It’s easier to say none that can manage it a little bit.

This is a good test for whether you’re an Abstainer or Moderator: Let’s say that I handed you – and here, J.D., I’ll ask you too – let’s say I handed you a bar of delicious chocolate and I said, “Hey, J.D., eat a square of that chocolate.” So you eat a square. And then I’m like, “Okay, hey, just put the rest of it in the drawer of your desk.”

For the rest of the day, would you be like, “Oh, my gosh. When am I gonna eat the rest of that chocolate bar?”

Or would you be like, “Oh, I had a little bit of something sweet. I don’t want anymore. I’ll have another square tomorrow.”

J.D. Roth
No.

Gretchen Rubin
I would be haunted by the chocolate bar.

J.D. Roth
Yeah, me too.

Gretchen and I are Abstainers. This quality manifests itself in all aspects of my life, from work to food to money to love. It’s not necessarily a bad thing — but it is a thing. I need to be aware of this, and I need to know how to work with it to my advantage.

And, perhaps, I need to find ways to moderate this tendency. I don’t enjoy those times in my life during which I have to flip a switch and be “all or nothing” about something. I like it better when I can pretend that I’m a Moderator by drafting schedules, by deciding to develop habits and routines.

After I submitted my ebook manuscript to my editor on Wednesday, the first thing I did was sit down and draw up a schedule. Spanish in the morning! Followed by guitar practice! Then email and blog posts for Get Rich Slowly and More Than Money! Then the gym! Then more work in the afternoon!

I love the schedule. I love looking at it and imagining this ideal life where I adhere to a regular routine as if it were nothing. I know it would be good for me. But I also know that I don’t work that way. This sort of balance seems impossible to achieve. It’s a pipe dream.

Still, I’m going to try.

Right now, however, I’m going to take a long, hot bath while reading a comic book. In fact, maybe that’s what I’ll do all day…

Note: Photo by Kathleen Franklin.

The Lottery of Life

Note: Today, as with every Monday during 2014, I’m publishing a short “chapter” from my unpublished ebook about fear, happiness, and freedom. Astute readers will recognize that much this particular chapter appeared as blog post at this site last September.

My work nowadays involves meeting and chatting with folks from all walks of life. They email me to say, “Want to have lunch?” and I say, “Of course!” (After all, I’m all about the power of yes.) We talk about podcasts or travel or bicycling or comic books. Whatever strikes our fancy. When we’ve finished our tea or our Thai noodles, nothing seems to have happened — not on the outside, anyhow.

What’s happened, though, is that we’ve both received lottery tickets. By meeting and chatting and sharing ideas, we’ve been given tickets in the lottery of life.

Exchanging lottery tickets with Jim and Pete…

I also get a ticket whenever I try something new. (Because I now try new things all of the time, I’m accumulating a lot of lottery tickets.)

I get tickets when I say “yes” to things that are scary or difficult too. When I spoke at World Domination Summit in 2012 — something that scared the hell out of me! — I got a lottery ticket. When I flew to Ecuador last September to talk with people about Financial Independence, I got a lottery ticket. When I introduce myself to strangers or “important people”, I get a lottery ticket.

But note that these tickets are rarely handed to me. To get them, I have to take risks. I have to move outside my comfort zone. As much as I enjoy sitting on the couch in the evening watching “Downton Abbey” with Kim, neither one of us receives a lottery ticket for doing so. To get tickets, we have to do things.

Colleen earns a lottery ticket…

The prizes in this lottery are many and varied.

When I learned Spanish, for instance, I received a winning lottery ticket that has paid off in all sorts of ways. I made new friends (my tutor, my English student), traveled to new places (Perú, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador), read new authors, tried new food, watched new movies, and so much more.

When I was in Quito last fall, I rode the teleférico, the cable-car that carries visitors 4000 feet up the side of a nearby volcano. During the fifteen-minute ride, I chatted with two couples that spoke only Spanish. If I hadn’t learned Spanish, I couldn’t have understood them, much less conversed. But because I do speak Spanish, I enjoyed a pleasant chat about one couple’s life in Venezuela and the other couple’s life in Quito. Plus I garnered a restaurant recommendation for later that evening. yet another small prize I won simply because I took the time to learn another language.

Any time I do something — especially something new — there’s a chance my life will be vastly improved in the long run.

Not every meeting and not every experience pays off — in fact, some are disasters — but many do provide a reward. Often enough, those rewards are enormous. Winning lottery tickets are so common and so fruitful, in fact, that I’ve almost become addicted to playing the lottery of life. I relish making new acquaintances, going new places, and trying new things.

I used to think I was unlucky. Good things happened to other people, and never to me. Everyone else had more fun than I did. Now, seven years since learning to say “yes” to life, I know the truth. Wishing won’t make you happy or wealthy, and good things don’t just happen. Luck isn’t magic or a gift from the gods.

You make your own luck.

Winning the Jackpot

Seven years ago, taught myself to say “yes” to the opportunities life presented. My newfound willingness to meet people and try things has paid off in some big ways.

In 2008, for instance, I received an email from a blog reader. He’d be in Portland the following week and wanted to know if I had time to meet for lunch. “Sure,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

I met the reader and his wife at a local Thai restaurant. We had a great conversation. I was impressed by his story and his drive. I gave him blogging tips. He told me stories about traveling the world. His wife showed me how to stretch my injured hamstring.

Over the next year, my new friend shared a couple of guest posts at Get Rich Slowly. He stayed at my house one night when he got stranded in Portland.

Eventually, this guy — whose name was Chris Guillebeau — moved to Portland. Our friendship grew. In 2010, I joined Chris for a train ride from Chicago to Portland. On that trip, he shared a crazy idea. “I want to create a conference and hold it in Portland. I want you to be on the planning team,” he said. For the next three years, I helped to organize the World Domination Summit, which has grown into a grand party for 3000 people.

Success breeds success. When you do something well, you open doors to new opportunities. When you fail to act, doors remain closed.

In my case, saying “yes” to lunch with one stranger has had a ripple effect that continues to spread throughout my entire life. Because of that one action, I’ve met hundreds of incredible people, some of whom have become close friends. I’ve traveled to Norway. I’ve spoken on stage before one thousand people. And so on. This very article — and the ebook I’m currently scrambling madly to finish — is a direct result of me overcoming my fears and taking a tiny risk. The downsides were negligible, but the payoff has been enormous.

This is only one example of the huge jackpots I’ve received from saying “yes” to opportunities that I would have ignored before. At times, it feels like I’ve won the lottery. In fact, the lottery is the perfect metaphor for what happens when you embrace new experiences and new opportunities.

The Power of Yes

For a long time, I was afraid to try new things, to meet new people, to do anything that might lead to failure. These fears confined me to a narrow comfort zone. I spent most of my time at home, reading books or playing videogames. When opportunities came to try new things, I usually ignored them. I made excuses. I wasn’t happy, but I was complacent. I was safe.

Then I read a book called Impro by Keith Johnstone. It changed my life.

Impro is a book about stage-acting, about improvisational theater, the kind of stuff you used to see on the TV show Whose Line Is It Anyway? I’m not an actor, nor do I want to become one, but several of the techniques described in the book were applicable to my everyday life.

In one section, for example, Johnstone explains that in order for a scene to flow, an actor has to take whatever situation arises and work with it. She needs to accept and build upon the actions of her fellow actors.

Once you learn to accept offers, then accidents can no longer interrupt the action. […] This attitude makes for something really amazing in the theater. The actor who will accept anything that happens seems supernatural; it’s the most marvelous thing about improvisation: you are suddenly in contact with people who are unbounded, whose imagination seems to function without limit.

I thought about this passage for days. “What if I did this in real life?” I wondered. “What if I accepted offers and stopped blocking them?” I began to note the things I blocked and accepted. To my surprise, I blocked things constantly – I made excuses to not do things because I was afraid of what might happen if I accepted.

When online acquaintances asked to meet for lunch. I’d refuse. I was scared they might think I was fat or stupid. (Or that they might be an axe murderer!)

When a local television station asked me to appear on their morning show as a financial expert, I was afraid of looking like a fool, so I refused.

When a friend wanted me to join him to watch live music at a local pub, I declined. I’d never been in a bar (yes, I’d led a sheltered life) and was nervous about what might happen.

When another friend asked me to bike with him from Portland to the Oregon Coast, I said no. It was a long way. It seemed difficult and dangerous.

These are only a handful of examples. In reality, I blocked things every day. I refused to try new foods. I didn’t like to go new places. And I didn’t want to try new things. Or, more precisely, I wanted to do all of this, but was afraid to try. Because I focused more on the possible negative outcomes than the potential rewards, I avoided taking even tiny risks.

After reading Impro, I made a resolution. Instead of saying “no” to the things that scared me, I’d say “yes” instead.

Whenever somebody asked me to do something, I agreed (as long as it wasn’t illegal and didn’t violate my personal code of conduct). I put this new philosophy into practice in lots of ways, both big and small.

When people asked me to lunch, I said yes.
When people contacted me to make media appearances or do public speaking gigs, I said yes.
When friends asked me to go see their favorite bands or to spend the evening chatting at a bar, I said yes.

As a result of my campaign to “just say yes”, I’ve met hundreds of interesting people and done lots of amazing things. I’ve eaten guinea pig in Perú and grubs in Zimbabwe. I’ve climbed mountains in Bolivia and snorkeled in Ecuador. I’ve learned to love both coffee and beer, two beverages I thought that I hated. I’ve learned to ride a motorcycle. I’ve shot a gun. I’ve gone skydiving and bungie-jumping. I wrote and published a book. I sold my website. I took a monthly column in a major monthly magazine.

These things might seem minor to natural extroverts, but I’m not a natural extrovert. I’m an introvert. These were big steps for me. These experiences were new and scary, and I wouldn’t have had them if I hadn’t forced myself to say yes.

Note: Long-time readers are well aware that I first wrote about the power of yes nearly seven years ago. As we continue this year-long exploration of fear, happiness, and freedom, we’ll inevitably retrace some familiar territory. That’s okay. It’s good to see how these old insights fit into a larger whole.

The Power of Resilience

Seth Godin wrote recently about three ways to deal with the future: accuracy, resilience, and denial.

In Godin’s paradigm, accuracy is predicting correctly what will happen tomorrow, and is the most rewarding way to deal with the future. The problem, of course, is that’s tough to make accurate predictions. You have to invest a lot of time and/or money, have access to inside information, or be lucky to get things right.

Denial, on the other hand “is the strategy of assuming that the future will be just like today”. Like it or not, you live in a world of change. The people and places around you are constantly evolving, and as much as you like the status quo, you can’t assume things will remain the same forever.

If you accept that (a) things change and (b) you cannot predict what will happen, then the most effective strategy for dealing with the future is to foster resilience. Instead of betting on a single outcome, you prepare for a range of possible results.

Godin argues that our society fosters a “winner-take-all” mentality that emphasizes accuracy over resilience. This benefits the few who have made accurate predictions, but penalizes everyone else. And it forces many people to take the path of denial, where they don’t prepare for the future at all because they realize there’s no way they can reliably guess what the future will be.

Like Godin, I believe that successful people foster resilience. Recently at Get Rich Slowly, I wrote about financial resilience, the ability to bounce back from unexpected financial blows.

In psychology, adaptability refers to how well a person can adjust herself to changed circumstances. Because we live in a constantly changing universe, your ability and willingness to adapt is a barometer that measures both your ability to thrive and your capacity for happiness.

So, don’t simply assume that tomorrow will be like today. And don’t try to guess precisely what the future will hold. Instead, prepare for a range of likely outcomes. Be open to alternatives and new ideas. Allow yourself to grow in unexpected directions. Doing so will ultimately bring you a happier, more fulfilling life.

Long Way Round

My desire to travel was originally inspired by books. The television show The Amazing Race, however, goosed me into action. I loved seeing the different countries and cultures teams visited as they raced around the world (“…for one million dollars!”)

After I began my own series of travel adventures, however, I realized the “reality” shown on the Race wasn’t very real. Early seasons spent some time lingering over people and locales, and contestants experienced some cultural clashes, but as time wore on, the producers de-emphasized this stuff and the countries became convenient backdrops to stunts and challenges. (Last season seemed to be better, I should note.)

I’d kind of given up hope of finding a television show that actually imparted a sense of what it’s like to travel to other countries. Everything is too produced: glossy, slick, selective, exaggerated, unreal.

Last weekend, however, Kim and I discovered Long Way Round, a show from 2004 that follows actors Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman as they ride motorcycles around the world from London to New York. The series, which is available on Netflix streaming, is not glossy and slick and over-produced. Instead, it provides a fantastic sense of what it’s like to spend time in foreign places with foreign people.

Here’s the official trailer:

That doesn’t really sell it, I know. It shows prep stuff and not actual travel. The actual travel is fun. For most of the show, they’re not riding on asphalt. They’re riding their motorbikes through dirt and sand and marsh and rivers. They fall down constantly. It’s brutal.

Along the way, they see some amazing places, the likes of which we’re never exposed to in the U.S. What’s it like in southern Russia? In Mongolia? In Kazakhstan? McGregor and Boorman (and their team) film it. And they film their interactions with the people they meet, who are mostly warm and welcoming.

Here’s a scene where some Mongolian farmers welcome the crew to their home to try a local delicacy, animal testicles:

And here’s one where they meet abandoned children who live in the sewers of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia:

We’ve seen five of the nine episodes so far, and are eager to watch the rest. When we’ve finished Long Way Round, we’ll watch the sequel, Long Way Down, which follows McGregor and Boorman as they ride from northern Scotland to the southern tip of Africa.

If you’re interested in travel or motorcycles, I recommend this series. If you’re interested in both, I recommend it highly.

Bonus! I just found another clip on Vimeo. Apparently this is behind-the-scenes footage of a bit we haven’t watched yet.

What Alcohol Does to My Body

During the month of January, Kim and I are conducting two simultaneous experiments. First, we’re not eating carbohydrates. Second, we’re not drinking alcohol.

The “no alcohol” experiment is for me. Last January, at the request of my therapist, I went dry. I also cut out caffeine and any drinks that contained calories. Basically, the only thing I allowed myself to drink was water. At the end of the month, I felt — and looked — great. Slowly, however, I reintroduced caffeine and alcohol (and milk and juice) into my diet. By the end of 2013, I felt like I was drinking too much again, so I decided to do another dry month. Kim agreed to join me so that there’d be less temptation.

Meanwhile, Kim’s naturopath has been begging her to cut carbohydrates from her diet. She’s found that tough to do because I eat a lot of carbs.

Note: Although I tend toward a high-protein “paleo” diet, I find the modern trend toward demonization of carbohydrates, well, silly. I can understand how simple sugar might be bad (especially processed stuff, such as HFCS), but you’ll never convince me that it’s better for me to eat a steak than it is to eat a banana. Likewise, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a piece of whole-grain bread or eating a potato for dinner.

Because Kim agreed to do no alcohol with me, I agreed to do no carbs with her, but with a caveat: My current fitness program calls for three “super shakes” a day, and those include fruit. I haven’t given those up.

For nearly three weeks, we held strong with no alcohol. We’ve done fairly well with the no carbs thing too. On occasion, one of us will have a piece of whole-grain toast with almond butter, but the only major deviation came last Saturday, when I ate a cookie with my lunch. (One interesting and unsurprising finding: On the days I have my super shakes, I don’t crave carbs. On the days I don’t have them, I do. And if I go two days without a super shake? I crave carbs intensely.)

Note: In retrospect, it was dumb to give up both alcohol and carbs in the same month. We should have spent a month without one, and then spent the next month without the other. Lesson learned.

Well, yesterday we biked into Portland to visit the science museum. After we finished, we stopped to have a late lunch at Olympic Provisions. By mutual agreement, we ordered mimosas to go with our meal. Later, at home, Kim opened a bottle of red wine to use in a beef stew. Because we’d already had mimosas (slippery slope!), we decided to drink the rest of the wine.

Obviously, we didn’t drink a lot of alcohol yesterday. We had three drinks each over a period of several hours. We went to bed at 9:30 so that Kim could get up for work at five in the morning.

Here’s where things get interesting.

Though we fell asleep quickly, neither one of us slept well. This is par for the course with alcohol. As a depressant, it does make sleep easier to come by. However, the quality of that sleep tends to be poor.

Both of us slept hot. I tend to sleep hot by nature, and that can be a challenge. We recently had to return a new mattress because I felt like I was burning up every night. Our new mattress has been fine. I can tell my body’s putting off heat, but the bed pulls it away from me. Well, last night I wasn’t uncomfortable, but I was definitely warm. I actually thought we’d left the thermostat set too high, but that wasn’t the case. Instead, as often happens, my body was trying to burn off the “poison” of the alcohol as I slept.

My mind is slow this morning. I’m not dumb, but I’m sluggish. It’s hard for me to concentrate, even after taking my ADHD meds.
At my morning weigh-in, I was a pound heavier than I ought to have been, and my gut was about a centimeter wider than expected. Plus, my face looked puffy. (This is another common side effect when I drink.)

After nineteen days of not drinking, three glasses of wine were enough to create noticeable after-effects the morning after.

Kim and I didn’t have time to talk much before she left for work, but I suspect I know what we’re going to decide. We both like wine (and I like whisky), so there’s little chance that we’ll ever give up alcohol entirely. But I can see both of us drastically cutting back our consumption. We might, for instance, drink only on Fridays and Saturdays or when we’re on vacation.

For me, there are two larger issues at stake.

First, and most importantly, I want to live a long and healthy life. Despite the occasional research that shows modest benefits to drinking a small amount of red wine every day, alcohol consumption in general has a strong negative correlation with longevity and quality of life. On a personal level, I’ve experienced three great weeks of physical fitness. My body feels and looks great, and I think a lot of that is because I haven’t been drinking.

Second, I know that my work suffers when I drink. I’m slow to get going in the morning, my mind works more slowly, and I have trouble focusing. This is true even if I’ve only had a couple of glasses of wine the night before, but it’s especially true if I’ve been hanging out with friends, and not monitoring my alcohol consumption.

This blog post isn’t meant to convince you to give up beer or wine or cocktails. Far from it. My goal is to put down in print the effects I’ve noticed in myself so that I can refer back to them in the future. I want this to be a motivational tool. I want to be the best person I can be — mentally and physically — and apparently reducing my alcohol intake is a great way to do that.

If It Bleeds, It Leads

If our lives are filled with fear, that may be due in part to the prevalence of internet, television, and radio. Our fears are fueled by the modern mass media, which makes money by highlighting extreme and unusual events.

Here, for instance, is the front page from Saturday’s on-line edition of USA Today:

Headlines from the 18 January 2014 edition of USA Today

Human trafficking! Attacks on Americans! Identity thieves! Remains of dead boy! Elsewhere on the front page, there are stories about extreme weather, a new truck that burst into flames, the background of a high-school gunman, a gay teacher forced to resign, and so on. And this is a normal, uneventful day.

Note: I’ve written before that when it comes to investing, it pays to ignore financial news. Studies show that investors who receive no news perform better than those who receive a constant stream of information. Likewise, the people I know who pay less attention to current events tend to be happier than those who consume a regular diet of news. This is merely anecdotal, I know, but maybe ignorance really is bliss.

If you pay attention to the news, you might think terrorist attacks are common, bicycles unsafe, and that it’s dangerous to let children play unattended in the yard. Yet statistically, terrorist attacks are exceedingly rare, riding a bike increases your life expectancy, and your children are safer outdoors than you were when you roamed the streets twenty or thirty years ago.

The events in the news are newsworthy only because they’re the exception, not the rule. They’re statistical outliers. Yet because we’re fed these stories daily, we think these things happen all of the time. As a result, we’re afraid to live normal lives.

I have a friend who’s reluctant to leave her home. Because she’s been assaulted in the past — an unfortunate event, but a statistically unlikely one — she lives in fear of being assaulted in the future. It’s true that by appearing in public, my friend runs the risk of being assaulted again. It’s far more likely, however, that doing things outside the house would bring her pleasure and fulfillment.

To some degree, each of us is like my friend — but not as extreme. We are all filled with fears, and these fears hold us back.

To live a richer, more fulfilling life — a life without regret — you must first overcome your fears. You can start by exposing yourself to new experiences, by interacting with your environment and allowing it to change you.

It all begins with the power of “yes”.

Tenacity vs. Talent

It’s interesting to watch people react when I tell them I’m learning to play the guitar at age 44. Some folks are excited, but most people say something like: “Oh, I couldn’t do that. I have no talent for music.”

I usually just nod my head and move the conversation along, but what I’m really thinking is, “Talent has nothing to do with it.”

You see, I suck at music. Kim and Kris will tell you that I cannot carry a tune. My rhythmic sense is almost non-existent, which makes it tough for me to keep time. (That’s also why I’m a bad dancer.) I haven’t done anything musical in 25 years — but that hasn’t stopped me from diving into guitar.

There are two reasons I’m willing to tackle this project despite my lack of talent:

First, I’m no longer afraid of failure. It used to be that fear prevented me from pursuing all sorts of things I wanted to try, even simple things like learning to play an instrument or speak a foreign language. I didn’t want to look like a fool. Today, I don’t care. Do I have a thick American accent when I talk with the shopkeeper in Quito? So what? At least I’m making an effort. Does my rendition of “Amazing Grace” sound like the song was written only in quarter notes? So what? I know that I have to sound bad today to sound good tomorrow.

Second, I know that successful people are successful because of their effort, not because of their innate ability. For this insight, I have to thank Malcolm Gladwell. In his book Outliers, Gladwell offers numerous examples of people — Bill Gates and The Beatles, for instance — who succeeded not because they were born gifted but because they spent tons of time honing their abilities. Gladwell popularized research that shows it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. That’s a long time.

So, I’m happy to pluck away at the guitar despite a lack of innate talent. The failure doesn’t bother me, and I know that the more time I spend at it, the better I’ll become.

In fact, further reading has revealed that while it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at a skill, it usually takes just 500 hours to become competent. (And then continued practice to maintain the skill.)

I’ve spent about 500 hours learning Spanish. No surprise then that I can carry on a conversation with a native speaker, even if I’m not great at it. I’m only about five hours into my guitar journey, but I hope to reach 500 hours by the end of this year.

The bottom line is this: If you want to learn a new skill, tenacity matters far more than talent. And if you disqualify yourself before you begin because you think talent’s the most important piece of the puzzle, well then you’ll never get good at anything, will you?

The Source of Fear

Our lives are filled with fear.

Some of our fears are physical. We’re afraid of spiders, snakes, and dogs. We’re afraid of heights, crowds, and enclosed spaces. We’re scared to jump out of airplanes (or even to fly in them), to go swimming, or to touch a drop of blood. We’re afraid we might be mugged.

Some of our fears are psychological. We’re afraid of failure, darkness, and being alone. We’re afraid of the future. We’re afraid of death. We’re frightened of being judged by others, and scared to ask someone for a date.

Some fears are rational. I, for instance, am scared of bears. This is a healthy, rational fear. Bears will eat you. When you ignore your fear of bears, you can up like Timothy Treadwell, the man profiled in the film Grizzly Man. (Sorry if that’s a spoiler for anyone.)

If you’re walking alone at night and a thug demands your money while holding a gun to your head, you’ll feel afraid, and rightly so. This is a natural, rational fear.

These healthy fears have a biological basis, and are the product of millions of years of evolution. A fear of snakes (or bears) has helped the human race to survive. A fear of heights keeps you from spending too much time in places where you might fall to your death.

But sometimes rational fears can become irrational or excessive. It’s one thing to be nervous while walking on the edge of a crumbling cliff high above a river; it’s another to suffer a panic attack on the seventeenth floor of a well-constructed, glass-enclosed office building. (Or to worry about a bear attack in Paris!)

Still other fears are mostly (or completely) irrational, and yet they’re very common. An estimated 75% of all people experience some degree of anxiety when speaking in public. I’m one of them. I’m aware of no biological basis to be afraid of giving a speech in front of 500 strangers, yet doing so would make most of us sweat and stammer.

Healthy, rational fears keep you alert and alive. Irrational fears and anxieties prevent you from enjoying everything life has to offer.

In the coming weeks, we’ll talk about how to overcome fear, how to channel those negative feelings into something positive.