Make It Look Easy

The Casual and the Try Hard

Who’s a try hard? Raise your mouse hand high.

I know I am.

To learn a skill with brevity , one must, “try hard.” Intense focus is paramount. If you don’t try hard, you are trying casual. And casual doesn’t create the momentum you’ll need to grasp the narrow ledge.

Casual as a lifestyle breeds sloth and apathy. Neither will get you laid, or rich, or fit, or healthy.

If you casually grasp for fundamentals you will remain blind to the unknown. Every angle you explore creates a new web of ideas and possibility.

Think of the poor actor: “Be a Thai Ladyboy!” Except, he doesn’t know what a Thai Ladyboy is. He’s never interacted with one. So he’s a stunted actor. He loses because he was casual in his quest for knowledge.

If you don’t try hard at work, you won’t get a promotion. If you don’t try hard with your art, you will make bad art.

Trying hard is good

But the problem with effort in art is public perception. Say you are trying to sell yourself to attractive women. Here’s the paradox: If you’re learning charm, you’re lame and weird, but if you teach charm, you’re interesting and cool.

If you want to understand groupthink, social proof and perception, post your ideas on www.reddit.com, the hive mind. Powerful and scary information there.

If you are incredibly smart and a high academic achiever you are, “gifted,” and, “genius.”

If you stay home and study fourteen hours a day you are a, “nerd,” and, “anti-social.”

“But I’m not supposed to care what people think, right?”

Yes and no. You should not let your self-esteem be affected by validation or lack thereof. But you should be conscious of other’s perceptions, because your image is a tool. In business, relationships, pickup and dating, you have an image that matters.

If I run around telling everyone to read my books, I look like a try hard. If someone else runs around telling people to read my books, I’m a talented writer.

If I walk into a bar and hit on every girl in the room, I’m a try hard. If I walk in and approach one girl, then other girls notice and send me approach invitations with eye contact, I’m attractive and desirable.

The key: make it look effortless, whatever it is.

Practice in silence with blood and tears – perform as an effortless virtuoso.