I don’t very often strike up conversations with random people. I’m more of a headphones-on-the-plane don’t talk to me type most of the time, but partially because I seem to have such bad luck with it. My wife, Jen, talks to everyone and has legitimate The Secret moments where a random number on a backpack leads her to a roommate of a long lost rugby friend, or whatever. My friend Melissa talks to strangers and has these amazing heartfelt conversations. I get this…

I had just given up trying to take a picture of the crazy sky before a summer storm in Philly the other night. They dynamic range and swirling of the dark clouds was incredible, but a photo just didn’t capture it. I turned around to walk the dogs back to a green area to pee, and I noticed a guy trying to do the same with his phone.

“Just doesn’t quite capture it, does it?”

“Nah, but I’m tryin.”

I let the dogs pace around a bit.

“Ya ever [garbled]?”

“What? Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

“Ya ever seen clouds like that?”

“I mean, well, sort of but yeah they’re pretty crazy looking.”

“Ya know why they look like that?”

“Uh, nope.”

“Those are chemtrail clouds.”

“Ohhhhhhh.”

“Yeah. They’re mixed with chemtrails, like poison and chemicals and stuff. I don’t remember the exact chemicals but yeah that’s how they control people.”

“Welp, probably a good time to get home then! See ya.”

That’s what happens when I talk to random people. Other people get heartwarming connections, I get crackpot conspiracy theories about mind control.

I will say this though, chemtrail guy reminded me of the power of belief. Now I don’t know what he gets out of this conspiracy belief and I don’t care to speculate.

But, I have met people who have believed empirically nonsense things to great effect. Let’s say soemone who lost 30 pounds on the blood type diet, which is an absolutely horseshit theory whereby you eat according to your blood type. There’s no evidence what so ever to support any connection between blood type and immune response to food, but nonetheless no matter what blood type you have common allergens or immuno-reactive foods are placed in the “avoid” category, and generally really beneficial things go in the “eat” category: such as dark leafy greens, cultured dairy, oily fish, fruits and so on.

So people really believe that this works and because of the strength of their convictions they adhere to it really closely – so it DOES work!

At least until some “expert” comes along to tell them how they’re wrong and it can’t possibly work.

And don’t think it’s just for fad diets. Placebo accounts for the success of a massive portion of surgeries performed every day – turns out sham surgery works just as well.

I’ve always offered that maybe biofeedback training doesn’t “really work”, and we won’t know until someone seeks to properly study it in a controlled manner, but if it gets people faster results with fewer injuries because they “believe” it works then I’m ok with that too, especially that it’s essentially free and comes with no costs of risk, or time, or lost opportunity.

I’m not saying you should go out and find the most woo thing you possibly can and become a true believer.

But, maybe sometimes a strong belief in a less than perfect dogma is better than wishy-washy adherence to the ideal.

Last week I recorded a fun podcast episode with my friend, Pat Flynn, in which we talked about essential skills and how important I think hobbies and skills are. I’m not sure when that podcast will drop, but I will be sure to let you know. Speaking of podcasts, the Die Living episode I recorded with the SOFLETE crew is up as well so download that here or wherever you usually get your podcast fix.

Anyway so we’re talking about skill and I suppose first of all it’s worth telling you why I think skill building is so important. Humans are by nature builders and makers. Many other mammals and animals walk, communicate, love, hump, and play. None of them build and make things to the extent that we do. There are of course other complex skills that don’t involve making things, but I’m especially fond of the alchemy involved in actually manifesting something real. Anyway.

Imagine you want to build a skill, where do you start? Let’s say you want to learn to cook.

The first place I go when I want to learn something new is the Internet. You can literally type into google “How to ________” with virtually anything in the blank and find a step-by-step guide for how to do it. Google: “How to grill a steak”

Now here’s the key point. Following this guide isn’t going to make you an expert. You’re not going to be a chef when you’re finished following the guide. In fact, it might not even turn out well at all. BUT you will have learned enough along the way to refine your question in the future.

Maybe it goes well and you learn that you need to make a side to go with your steak. So you type in “What sides go with steak? How to make creamed spinach?” Or you learn that you don’t like steak at all and you go on to figure out how to bake chicken.

Pretty soon you have a repertoire of a main course and several sides.

If you say, David, this all seems so obvious why are you telling me to just google things?

Well, I have a question for you, my friend. Why is it that every time I do some magical thing like make a ring, or make limoncello, or roast a pig, or weld pieces of steel using only my bare hands (not really) – why is it that people say “David, how did you know how to do that?”

The Internet friend, the Internet.

As with so many major 🔑s, sometimes the answer is simple, not complex.

Now, when that glorious repository of information and ignorant but willfully proffered opinions fails me I have another technique. But I’ll save that for another day.

“Do you all have a ball, or something? Shouldn’t you toss around a few passes?”

“We don’t have any balls. Actually we haven’t done a warm-up yet. You can write an email about us.”

Jen’s good friend and former teammate Devin was a little cocky. They were pretty sure that age and treachery (and skill) were going to carry them to the win in this semi-final match of this past weekend’s rugby tournament. After all, a few of these women (Jen included) had played on U.S. national teams and were very, very skilled and experienced rugby players. I said, “Well, if you lose this match it’s going to be a different email.”

After the game, Jen was bummed, some of her teammates were bummed. They’d been eliminated.

This email could be about how resting on what you’ve done in the past often isn’t enough to keep up with the right now. The practices you didn’t have last week matter more than the practices you made years ago. The warm-up and ball handling you skipped this morning might have been worthwhile.

But it’s not.

You see, the same kind of thing happened last year. They lost a game they should have probably won and they all (well, most) swore that it wouldn’t happen again, that this year they’d come prepared to win.

But their behaviors as a team didn’t line up with the intentions. Their intentions said, “We’ve still got it and we’re here to win.” Their behaviors said, “Eh, we’ll just show up, have fun, and hope for the best.”

So after a repeat of the same experience, it’s worth examining the intention instead of the behaviors. Usually behaviors reflect the true motivations, or at least the inertia of habits and intentions. If they want to win but they keep showing up unpracticed and unprepared, maybe what they really want is to just play a few games of rugby again for old time’s sake once a summer and that’s it.

And you know what? There’s nothing wrong with that.

What’s wrong is being frustrated by the mismatch of your intentions with your behaviors. If you didn’t put in the work to be prepared to be the winner, why are you upset you didn’t win? You got exactly what you should have expected. Something Jen and her teammates recognized and readily admitted immediately after the loss. Jen, and a few others, had prepared individually but they hadn’t practiced and prepared as a team.

It reminds me of one of my favorite parables, the scorpion and the frog. (My friend—we’ll call him A—is thinking about getting scorpion and frog hand tattoos. I think he should do it. A is like Paulie in Goodfellas: he’s made it and he doesn’t owe anybody anything, and probably will never have to ask anyone for anything for the rest of his life.) If you don’t know it, the story holds that a scorpion asks a frog to carry him across the river. The frog is afraid of being stung by the scorpion, but the scorpion convinces them that if that happened they’d both drown so it would not be in its best interest. Suitably convinced, the frog carries the scorpion across the river and is then stung, dooming them both. The scorpion says: “Don’t be so surprised, it’s in my nature to do so.”

In other words, when results match expectations, even when they don’t match your desires, if you want to feel better (you’ll do better when you feel better) then change your desires so they match the expectations.