Picking Your Own Shit: If your grass is brown, then you will ruin the greener grass on the other side. Origin. It came from Mexico when I was in my program, and it was from my counselor. So the backstory; everyone was down, the morale of everybody in my group in the upstairs house was down. Everyone was more or less complaining and bitching, and he could hear it and he could understand it. And he got tired of it, so he sat us all down in a circle and with a stern voice, you could tell he was serious, it wasn’t a joking manner or anything, and he said, “If everybody were to throw their shit, all their problems, everything, all your pity,” so, for me, it’s, “I lost my parents. I was adopted. I have abandonment issues,” whatever else it is, he’s like, “Throw it out. Throw it all. Throw it all into the center.
“And then if each of you get up,” because at this point in time, we knew everybody in my house, so I knew another friend’s problems and issues that they have with their parents or their family or with their health or whatever it is, or I know this person’s issues, what issues they’re dealing with, or whether addiction, or whatever it is, I know all their problems, and I also know my own, and he said, “if all of you guys got up and got to choose anybody’s problems, guaranteed you’d choose your own.” That had a drastic effect on me, a drastic effect. Because what he was basically saying is, “Picking your own shit.” So if the grass is brown, then you will ruin the greener grass on the other side. So what he was saying to me and saying to all of us was, “It’s up to you to make your brown grass green, because no matter where you are, whose problems you have, you choose your own. You do not want anyone else’s problems.”
So with that being said, if you perceive the grass being greener on the other side, that’s your fault, because if you get over there, you’re just going to ruin it, because you’re going to bring all your stuff with you. So if you want to change, you’ve got to change your brown grass and start watering it, make it green over on your side, because thinking of someone else, is never going to solve your problem. Because, in the end, you don’t want their problems, you want your own. So the only way you can have the greener grass is to take care of your own shit.
Choosing Someone Else’s Shit. These people are condescending, judging other people’s life. They gossip, always have to say their opinion. They’re envious. “If I had what he had, I would do …” Ungrateful. Nothing is ever enough. Now, let’s dig in deeper.
Condescending and judging other people’s life, choosing someone else’s shit. This is someone who chooses the grass is always greener on the other side. They’re condescending, so they’re always looking outward. It’s like this, here’s a story. I know everyone’s always heard this before. Two men walk into a car dealership. One’s in a beat up old pickup truck and the other one’s in a fancy sports car. They both walk in. Who are you going to choose to help? A lot of us would treat the one in the beat up truck, smelling funny, smells like horse manure, we might treat him differently than the person who spiffed up, smelling good, has the latest cologne on, nails done. We might treat him better, but in all actuality, we’re being condescending, because we don’t know why the old man with the beat up pickup truck came in that smells like horse manure. He might come in there ready to buy a truck, everything he has, has been and is paid in cash he doesn’t spend his money frivolously. He’s very frugal with his cash.
So he’s been thinking for a while on how to spend this, while the other person has been living above his means the entire time. So if you were to be condescending and judging other people’s lives, you would project success. You would project what you believe as success onto other people. Does that make sense? So just because you perceive that a Mercedes and cologne and a nice suit equals success then you would unconsciously service the person that looks like success to you and judge the person that does not look like success to you. Does that make sense? But if you grew up as a farmer in the middle of nowhere, then you’re judging in this same situation. It’d be a little bit different, but then you would perceive the rich, smells good guy as a sleazy slime ball but the old farmer that smells like horse manure, you’d relate more to them.
So you’d be condescending towards the person that has the suit on. Does that make sense? So it goes both ways. It’s not just one way. It goes both ways. So being condescending and judging other people’s lives and other people’s choices is choosing other people’s shit. You’re projecting your own thoughts onto other people, onto their lives. So you’re judging people based off of your beliefs, not theirs.
Gossip, always has to say their opinion. So this is more or less the person on the soap box that just always has to talk, or the person that, if you want gossip, they’re the ones to go to. They can tell you everything about everybody else’s life. It is their life’s mission to know everything about everybody else. They’re meddling in other people’s lives, other people’s shit, and then they always have an opinion about somebody else’s life.
But if you were to ask them about their life, they might not have much of an opinion. So they’re choosing to live in someone else’s shit. Well, this person’s choosing to live in multiple other people’s lives. But when you do that, you’re not choosing your own life. So you’re never going to progress if you’re worried and gossiping about everybody else.
Envious. If I had what he had, I would do this, or I would do that. I have heard this in every instance of my life. So when I turned 18 and I went broke. Part of the reason why people didn’t like me is because I went broke, and in their mentality, they would say, “Well, if I had that type of money, I would have never went broke.” So they were very condescending towards me and a lot of gossip towards me. Everyone always had an opinion about what happened, even though they might not have been the most helpful on the decision making,
They were all living in someone else’s shit. They were all living in my life, judging my life, very condescending towards me judging my life without knowing anything about me. Everyone had an opinion about me and everyone was envious about what I had, but no one takes into consideration the struggle that I went through. I didn’t know anybody. I was dropped off in the middle of nowhere basically and said, “Fend for yourself. Here’s some money.” But then people would be envious of that. It never made any sense to me. I lost my mom and my dad, I lost everything that I’ve ever known, and people are envious of that and said, “If I was in that situation, I would have done something different.” We’ll never know, but that’s where envious gets you, is you’re thinking of one minute situation.
You’re looking at it, “Well, if I had the money, I would have done something different,” but you’re not taking into consideration everything that led up to me losing the money. Does that make sense? And the truth of the matter is, if you did have the money, you’d probably be broke too, because, hm, there’s a reason you don’t have the money. Because if you had the necessary skills in order to make that money, then you’d have that money. But since you don’t have that money, you don’t have the necessary skills in order to do that. And we’re using money, but it’s a euphemism for whatever you want to add into the blank. Good looks, the body, whatever it is, envious of somebody else’s body. But they don’t take into consideration how many hours this person put in to looking like this. So when you’re choosing to live in someone else’s shit, you’re only deciding to live in a small section of the reality of that person’s life.
Ungrateful. When you’re living in a world that’s not yours, when you’re living in the TV, when you’re condescending, you’re judging other people’s lives because you’re basing other people’s life on what you perceive as success, when you’re gossiping and you always have an opinion about somebody else’s decisions, when you’re envious about other people’s success or other people’s struggle or whatever it is, you can be envious about just about anything, it creates an environment where you’re very ungrateful and nothing is ever going to be enough. No one will ever be able to love you enough. No one will be able to give you enough, because you’re not living in your world. Your life is always going to be miserable because you’re always looking at the grass over there over the fence that’s greener.
So no matter what someone does for you, they could give you that same exact grass, the same pool, the same jacuzzi, the same cars, the same everything that that other grass has, but if you choose to live in other people’s life, by consequence, you’re going to be ungrateful and your grass is going to be brown, and over there, the grass over there, is always going to be greener, no matter what you have. Does that make sense? So you’re never going to be happy, because the grass is always greener on the other side no matter if you already have everything over there or not. And that stems from choosing to live in other people’s shit. Dealing with your shit means that you’re focused, not worried about how other people are doing, focused on growing internally and externally, you’re private, you do not need approval from others to act, mind your own business. You’re humble, has no need to prove to the world how great you are, and you’re grateful, understands great fortune can change at a dime, takes time to appreciate and self-reflect on trials and tribulations.
Dealing With Your Own Shit. Focused, not worried about how other people are doing, focused on growing internally and externally.
All right, if you’ve read to this point and you remember in. “A Man Can’t Be A Man Without A Plan”, in order to do this, you have to be:
Focused. You have to not worry about keeping up with the Joneses, because by keeping up with the Joneses, if you’re not financially there, you’re going to hurt yourself for the long term. It’s not all about today. You’ve got to think about tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that. You’ve got to be focused on a larger goal than immediate gratification. So in order to do that, you have to be focused on growing internally and externally. You can’t do that if you’re focused on other people. You can only grow internally and externally if you focus on yourself.
Growing internally, that’s your brain or your mind, how to articulate words, maybe learn another language, what you put into your system, internal growth. External growth, we can work on our exercise, our finances, our business, we have to mind and be focused, have goals for our internal goals, and also our external goals. Now, when you have those set up, you’re going to be so focused on accomplishing what you need to focus on for yourself, you won’t have time to worry about other people. And that’s the goal, is to be focused on yourself, focused on changing your brown grass into green grass.
Private, does not need approval from others to act. Mine’s his own business. I’ve observed why a lot of people don’t try, they need the approval of others, someone to hold their hand and be like, “Yes, it’s going to be okay.”
And I’m not going to lie, for me, during my 20s, and when I was younger, when I first was getting out in the world, it was pretty scary. I didn’t know what was going on. And then I just went broke. So it was a little bit scary. I needed someone to hold my hand. I wasn’t as private as maybe I should have been, and that had grave consequences, telling other people my business. I never really acted for myself to build myself. I wasn’t private. I wasn’t minding my own business. I was trying to incorporate everybody into my business. I was being as public as possible, and that helped me lose all my money and be alone, because when you’re extremely public and you’re not private, you’re giving everybody too much information about yourself and you’re not minding your business because everyone will have an opinion on what they perceive is the best for you.
And just like when dealing with not being able to deal with your shit and the gossip and the opinions and everything, when you’re not private, you’re opening yourself up for all of the negativity, the envy, the jealousy, the gossip, whatever it is. You’re opening yourself up to it because you’re searching for other people’s approval. But not everybody deserves to know your business. And that’s also with a couple chapters back, understand the environment on which you’re in. Be private with the people you should be private with and be open with the people that you should be open with. So let me give you an example. When I was 18 years old, if you read the story then you’ll know what I’m talking about, after I went broke, I should have been private with all the people around me about whether or not I had money, and I should have been very public with my uncle and my bank about what happened and told them I needed help to go to school.
Being private in certain environments is exactly what you need to do. You don’t need to seek the approval of people that aren’t going to benefit you. So by seeking the approval of people who were not out for my best interests, they approved me in things that were for their best interests, but not mine. But if I had instead been private and minded my own business with everybody who was not out for my best interest, and in turn, reached out to the people who were for my best interests and were public with them, then they would have guided me to enhance and to grow my own business, which I’m using my own business as my own personal internal and external growth.
Being humble, has no need to prove the world how great they are. It’s funny, the richest people in the world, they might have Lamborghini’s, Ferrari’s, Bentley’s, they probably do, I mean, if they have enough money, they probably have three or four of them, but you never really see them in the flash.
Now, we’ll go back to a story from those 12 years. I was living at my mom’s brother’s house, so I was living in Atherton, and my uncle told me, I was talking about a diamond earring and jewelry and everything, he’s like, “Yeah, Erik, it’s real nice. It’s real nice. It’s flashy. But it’s also trashy.” Now, here’s somebody who could buyer a Ferrari whenever he wanted. He owned car dealerships, so cars and everything was nothing. However, he was trying to instill in me to be humble. “Don’t rub it in other people’s face that you have more than them.” Why would you give people a reason to be envious of you? You don’t have to. People will know how great you are by the impact you have. If you have a trashy but flashy impact, then that’s how you’re going to be remembered. But if you have a humble and great impact, then that’s how you’re going to be remembered.
We’ll use a great one, Malcolm X. Part of the reason why he was assassinated is because of envy. However, what, 40, 50, 60 years later, we still listen and learn from what he was saying, not because he was trying to prove to the world how great he was, on the contrary, he was extremely humble in everything that he did. And that’s how he’s remembered, at least in my book. He was trying to make a change. He wasn’t telling everybody how great Malcolm X was. Now, we remember him as being a great person. He wasn’t Muhammad Ali. Muhammad Ali would always tell everybody, “I’m Muhammad Ali. I float like a butterfly and I sting like a bee.” But we understand that that was a persona and it worked for him, but we don’t need to tell everybody how great we are. We can be amazing and great and be humble at the same time.
Grateful, understands great fortune can change at a dime, takes time to appreciate and self-reflect on trial and triumphs. A lot, a mouthful. Now, dealing with your own shit has a lot to do with being grateful and not just grateful for the good things in life. You have to be grateful for the things in life that you didn’t want to happen. I didn’t want my parents to die, I didn’t want to go through all these programs, but I went through them. Now, I can have a pity party about it, or I can be grateful it happened. I’m not happy. Don’t misinterpret what I’m saying by saying I’m happy my mom and dad died and I’m happy that I went through hell, because most definitely I am not. However, I made it through. When you’re climbing that mountain, and life is a mountain, when you’re climbing and you’re climbing and you’re climbing, and it’s very difficult, if you can make it to the top and you can make it to where you have peace, you need to be grateful that now you have peace.
The struggles are what you went through. Don’t forget but always remember the lessons and be grateful that you now have the lessons. Understands great fortune can change at a dime. That has a lot to do with being grateful. If you’ve had and you’ve lost, and then you have again, you watch that money and you watch your life a little different. You understand the risk a little better. You understand having a 10 to 20 to 30 to 40 year plan, as opposed to just having a plan for this afternoon, because you know the importance of being prepared for things unforeseen. Takes time to appreciate and self-reflect on trial and triumphs. This is like meditation, and it’s being honest with yourself. If you’re not honest with yourself and you don’t study your failures, you’re never get over them. You’re just going to continuously repeat the same thing that didn’t work the time before and the time before that.
So self-reflection on your trials, you’re looking for things that did not work. How did you feel? What were you thinking? Who was around you? Was it warm or was it cold outside? Were you wearing a jacket? Were you wearing a tank top? You might not think that each and every variable affects us, but it does. The more we understand about the brain, the more we’re understanding how the smallest nuances can change our opinion and change our thinking. So when you’re self-reflecting on yourself, and even when you look at your triumphs, don’t look at your triumphs as a celebration, look at it as an experiment that went correct. But then you also want to analyze your triumphs, because just because it went correct, does not mean you didn’t make mistakes. Let me use it as analogy. Let’s say you win the basketball game, you win the soccer match, you win the football game by one touchdown, one goal, one point.
You won, you triumphed, you won the championship, but if you don’t go back and look at all your mistakes and what you did in each situation that, as we remember, great fortune can change at a dime. If we don’t look at our triumphs and figure out how we can be more efficient even when we won, then we’re leaving ourselves wide open to having great fortune change at a dime. Does that make sense? So when you’re being grateful, part of being grateful is looking at how it happened, not being arrogant and thinking that you’re the greatest, because that’s the fastest, easiest way for you to lose it. You have to be grateful. One, you have to be focused on what you’re doing. You have to be private. Don’t tell everybody your business. You have to be humble so that you’re accepting new information and not trying to tell everybody how great you are, and you have to be grateful in order to understand how fast things can change, and to not only reflect when you lose, but also reflect when you win.
Because that same victory can be a loss the next time, if you’re not humble and you’re not grateful. All right, our next one is going to be fun. I’ll see you there.
Table Of Contents
- Live In The Here And Now
- Walk With A Purpose
- All You Need Is 2 Dollars
- A Man Can’t Be A Man Without A Plan
- Does It Hurt Yet
- Be Careful When You Are Using Someone That Person Could Be Using You
- Use Em, Abuse Em & Lose Em: A Zero Sum Game
- Picking your own shit
- I hate people – people are stuupid
- I stay ready It keeps me from having to get ready
- Be Selfish
- Either You Do Or You Don’t