Note: This is an excerpt from the draft of an upcoming book about the journey to becoming a deep person.
The deep people you know and admire are interesting and brilliant.
I’ve thought about how to be fully yourself, maximally using your intellect, and be considered interesting (even brilliant) by others. What do you do to stand out? What practices, done consistently well, make you a compelling and trustworthy character? What avenues should you take and what traps to avoid?
I’m barely treading in the foothills of possibilities. Still, here are my recommendations:
Decide to be this way. No hiding, no excuses, willing to be different. Pre-decide that you’ll be ok if many people misunderstand you. You risk being ruled by fear of others until you make this decision.
Do things better than others. Execute at a consistently high level, working to your strengths. Focusing on fewer things improves your excellence with what you deliver.
Be fantastically curious about multiple domains. Ask questions. Follow-up with more questions. This is true for people you meet in person, or dead authors, or historical events. Don’t name yourself a problem solver; think of your identity as an explorer across a landscape of possibilities.
Care for yourself as a discoverer, inventor, and creator. Feed your mind and body with good-for-you food. Sleep well. Exercise your body so your mind gets what it needs, including toughness and resilience. Develop rhythms of hard work and breaks. This is investing in yourself.
Make plans, then act. Revise plans. Repeat. Navigate forward, adjusting your traveling vector without surrendering. Be willing to be bad at something so you can (with feedback) become good at it. Focus on what you can control, within your domain. Waste no energy on what you cannot control, but influence by words and example.
Help others and encourage them. Develop and nurture relationships for they are the stuff of a thriving life. Draw near to people who are also curious, questioning, and seeking wisdom.
Be different without being frightful to others. The person who follows a trend is in a herd. Find opportunities to lead.
Stay hungry and stay lean. Travel light, dropping unhelpful mental and physical baggage. Don’t allow your passion to settle after a success but go on to the next thing.
Savor steady 1% improvements while looking for occasional big leaps. Abandon perfection as the only goal while striving for it. Share your work and listen for feedback. This is the way of mastery.
Get outside, breathe deeply. Walk. Get away from screens and fancy technology. Move.
Do hard things to develop self-control. Lack of self-control sabotages your potential. Measure how many decisions you make which are about your comfort.
Treat every experience as input for your creative output. Capture notes, make connections, explore metaphors.
Tap into Wisdom. The world didn’t begin when you arrived. Seek Lady Wisdom. Learn from others. Take C.S. Lewis’ advice: Read at least two old books (pre-Gutenberg preferred) for every contemporary book you read. Dive deep for principles, and the tactics will take care of themselves.
Be responsible. Do the work. Be a professional, especially with the basics of your craft. Excuses are lies you tell yourself.
Be unsurprised at the foibles and sins of others, even as you aim to be trustworthy and true to them.
Devote yourself to a consistent creative practice, with rituals, and (ideally) hold your workspace as sacred. (HT: Steven Pressfield) Create and teach others as a means of learning and reinforcing.
Cultivate self-respect; crush pride. Measure yourself by yourself, not others. Are you better today than yesterday? Are you on the correct vector? Neither lie nor boast. Celebrate the work of others. You are part of a Larger Story, accountable to higher Power.
Treasure a dynamic, changing world. A static world has no learning, no adaptation, no resilience and no renewal.
Reframe fears as a guide to where you’re supposed to act. Replace worry with a focus on being resourceful.
Start. There is no ‘someday’ or ‘somebody else.’
