Resources That Have Helped Shape My Thinking
“Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless and add what is specifically your own.”― Bruce Lee
I honestly don’t know where I’d be today without the creation of YouTube.
You get to learn from the world’s greatest thinkers, hear the best music, rewatch just your favorite parts of movies.
We’re so lucky to have this resource at the push of a button.
In this, the 30th Day of my 30-Day Fishbowl Series (which actually took about 40 days) I wanted to share some of the biggest influences on the way that I think and how I navigate through life.
My hope is, as I said in the Prologue, that I will expose you to ideas and people that you may have been familiar with that will pull you out of your old world and onto a higher plane.
That may be a big and unreasonable thing to wish, but hey, it worked for me so I thought I would give it a try…plus it’s fun to be unreasonable:)
Alan Watts
Alan Watts has helped evolve how I see and interact with life perhaps more than anyone else. I stumbled upon YouTube videos where people put his lectures to chillstep music and I would listen to them while I drove through LA traffic to calm me down.
His videos are the ones I most often send to friends who are feeling depressed or overwhelmed.
This is one of my favorite pieces of wisdom from him.
Stoicism
The purpose of philosophy thinking about how to live. And stoicism has helped shape my thinking in countless ways.
In fact, where someone might say “I’m a Muslim” or “I’m a Buddhist”, I would be inclined to say “I’m a Stoic”.
Many people think stoics feel no emotions, but that’s not it. Stoicism is about dealing with your motions. It’s about perspective, how to deal with life’s ups and downs and how to live a good life.
Eckhart Tolle
I revisit Tolle especially when I am suffering from worry, heartache, regret or yet-unfulfilled expectations.
He is most famous for his lectures on being present and observing your thoughts, not being your thoughts.
As I think dealing with suffering is the key to unlocking an incredible life, I feel this video is a good introduction.
Academy of Ideas
I came across the Academy of Ideas just this year. The brothers who put this channel together do a brilliant job of taking an idea on life and then pulling in thoughts from multiple authors, philosophers, scientists and artists to give the topic a rounded viewpoint.
They focus a lot on philosophy and psychology, with many references to Friedrich Nietzsche and Carl Jung.
This is just my take, but I would say their overall hope is to help their viewers understand existence, to understand why people behave the way they do, and how to not waste your own life.
Casey Neistat
Casey has played a huge influence on my approach to life because of how humble his beginnings were and through pure action, he bucked the system, did his own thing, lives a massive life and gets paid for it.
I think this message sums up his entire approach to life: Do what you can’t.
Richard Feynman
I love watching physics lectures — or at least listening to them.
First of all, they’re calming and I don’t usually know what they’re talking about so I can have them on in the background while I’m working without being distracted.
But the thing about physics is it uses pure logic to break down the simplest things in life, thereby revealing that there is so much beyond our simple assumptions.
Essentially, I love physics for what I learn, but more than that, I love it because it teaches me how to think.
Richard Feynman is the king of breaking complex ideas down in a way that a child could understand and then helping you see from a different perspective.
Robert Greene
Perhaps I like Robert Greene so much because of how he came to be successful.
Much like me, he was a jack of all trades, master of none. And that was an insecurity I had for a long time — that I would just try things and experience them, but it never amounted to anything substantial. I never “accomplished” anything.
But in this video, Greene not only illustrates, but recommends that people approach life and learning with the idea that everything they experience will eventually add up to a result they didn’t expect, but which will make them completely unique and valuable.
Also, he writes about human nature, which is integral to my work as a coach.
Charlie Munger
Warren Buffett is the more famous and wealthy of the two faces of Berkshire Hathaway, but Munger is the one I’ve learned the most from.
Over his life, he has developed a method of psychology based on pure observation and he presents his ideas very humorously.
Most influential for me are his “mental models” — a latticework of explanations about how things work. Mental models give you a structure on how to deal with people and events and the more you have, the better decisions you’ll make.
Tim Ferriss
Ferriss has played a big role in my life because he challenges people’s assumptions.
Like a scientist, he breaks things down into their smallest parts to get you thinking about how you can learn, afford, start things you thought were out of your reach.
He shows you not just what to learn, but how to learn and how to be effective.
He challenges people to put forth a little effort that might scare them in order to get a hold of people who are impossible to contact.
He gathers ideas from the top performers in the world and has them describe how they did it in terms that a normal human can understand and take action on.
Yoda
I’ve broken this down in an earlier blog post, but this little green guy has always been a mentor of mine (at least for the first three films, lol).
Challenging assumptions, self-belief, adversity — his one clips sums up so much wisdom.
Sum Up
This Fishbowl Series has been invaluable to helping me cope with time in quarantine.
It’s given me something to start and finish every day. It’s allowed me the opportunity to share my ideas and how I think. It’s been hard.
And it’s provided me with the chance to hopefully help my readers by sharing with them ideas, perspectives and people that have radically changed my life for the better.
I thank you so much for taking the time to read what I’ve written and to watch all the videos I’ve posted.
I truly hope that even one thing will strike a chord in you that helps you see things differently, that it’s okay to play more often, that you can take yourself less seriously, act on your dreams, or anything else that improves your life.
I’ll leave you with these words from my favorite film director and creative inspiration, Taika Waititi, where he is describing his film, What We Do In the Shadows, it’s about…
“…what you do with the short time you‘ve got in life. Whether you’re living your lives like you should be — using up all that time. Or if you’re living like a vampire. Especially these days, people don’t have a real sense that we’re running out of time. I wanna, ya know, get as many cool things done before I check out.” — Taika Waititi
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This article is Day 30 of the 30-Day Fishbowl Series
You can start the series by clicking HERE.
