James Fell - The Holy Sh*t Moment - How lasting change can happen in an instant

I remember my holy-shit moment, when everything became clear. It’s when your inner grizzly is released from its cage as a roaring beast ready to achieve your utmost potential. It can manifest in various ways and for a multitude of reasons, but the reality is, it happens! It happens all the time—Professor Miller asserts as many as one-third of people experience such life-changing events—and yet we ignore the possibility of it happening for us. Accepting the verifiable reality of this phenomenon is the first step in making it happen for you.

It happened for Lesley that day, years ago. She was still overweight, still smoked and drank, and she was still a rookie fencer possessing negligible skill, but in that instant of self-reevaluation, her true personality awakened and ultimately led her to the silver-medal win. Along the way to a much healthier body, this new sense of purpose alleviated her despair.

“I decided in that moment that I was serious about becoming an athlete,” she said.

The pounds fell off.

Escaping Quiet Desperation

Think of all the people throughout history who never had the chance to reveal their genius. Across the eons, most of humanity remained uneducated, toiling at physical labor to survive.

Henry David Thoreau wrote, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Women too. Women especially.

But times are a-changin’. Bob Dylan doesn’t want you to sink; he is telling you to start swimming. To quote from the Pixar film Up : “Adventure is out there!”

You have one shot at life, and it’s not over yet. Many will continue to log the days, months, and years until they begin the long, slow slide into a dirt nap, heart songs remaining unsung.

For this to work, you must desire more. You must thirst for adventure. You must be ready to rattle the cage of the inner grizzly bear and yell, “Wake up! It’s time to kick ass!”

Adventure can take myriad forms. Think of Lesley. Fat, drunk, inhaling cancer sticks, depressed, and going nowhere except continuing an unexceptional life, few if any marks made upon the world, no quests undertaken, no major life missions accomplished.

And picking up a sword changed all that.

As you read this book, I want you to continue to remind yourself that adventure is out there. Never in the history of bipeds walking the earth has there been greater opportunity to seize the day and kick its ass.

Start imagining now. The adventure begins in the synapses. Awaken the part of your brain telling you the path you’re on isn’t enough. Endeavor to find out who you truly are and the stuff you’re made of. Embrace creativity in this mission. No one imagined the old Lesley as a champion fencer. Just because the astronaut spaceship has sailed doesn’t mean there aren’t out-of-this-world opportunities for you to chase.

Think of all the days since you came into the world as part 1 of your life. Your job is to imagine a lofty, exciting, purposeful path of You, Part 2. And just like Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, the sequel is going to blow away the original. As we move together through the chapters of this book, that’s a big part of your job: creating a basic outline of this exciting sequel to the first part of your life.

My job is to awaken the power that inspires you to live it.

Daydream Believing

You may want to write this down.

Or … maybe … you don’t.

I can’t remember phone numbers worth shit anymore. That’s because I don’t have to. Used to be, I could glance at a number in the phone book, walk over to the phone, and dial it in. Not tap or punch. Dial. I’m that old.

Unless you’re a troglodyte, you know that’s not how we do it anymore. Now I can’t remember seven digits without repeating them a few times; I’m out of practice.

A 2011 study published in Science reveals Google has a negative effect on memory, and as we’ll learn, information gathering—cramming a bunch of stuff into memory—is an important part of inducing a life-changing moment. The study reports: “when people expect to have future access to information, they have lower rates of recall of the information itself.” For these purposes, that’s not good, because your brain needs to ponder things, twist them around a bit, and reorganize them in a way that makes sense. If your deep thoughts are consigned only to a notebook, your unconscious won’t be examining them.

“Having a notebook is fine, as long as these ideas also stay in your head,” said Mark Beeman, professor of psychology at Northwestern University and coauthor of The Eureka Factor. Beeman, who specializes in the neurology of creative thinking, explained that for generating a sudden insight, problems need to be turned over in your mind. And if a notebook takes these thoughts out of your brain and onto paper, it’s counterproductive. Conversely, if the act of writing imprints them upon your synapses, or you are meticulous about revisiting your notes to examine such musings, then perhaps it’s worthwhile. But a 2014 study published in Memory & Cognition says it might not help. Comparing two separate groups playing the card-matching game Concentration, the study found those who focused on memorizing did far better than those who made notes and then had the notes taken away.

For the course of the activities recommended in this book, I advise forgoing writing down every little thing in favor of pondering it, looking at new ideas from different angles using only your brain, and committing them to your gray matter for integration into solving of the problem What do I do with the rest of my life?

This isn’t about achieving the answer via steady, linear analysis, but about having massive insight suddenly pop into existence.

I don’t jot down such thoughts unless it’s to log a specific idea I wish to write about. For examining your life and what the future must hold, however, specificity isn’t usually the way. Beeman explained that for life-changing insight to strike, you need to have all the pieces of the puzzle floating in your brain at once.

It may take a while to gather enough information to achieve epiphany, and that’s okay. There is time: time to daydream, time to imagine the new course. Whenever you’re feeling pensive or have a few moments to envision the future stages of your life, engage in some free association and contemplate what possible paths you could take.

You don’t have to go it alone.

Talk it over with friends. Surf the internet. Log on to social media and see what other people are doing. Wheels need not be reinvented. Seek inspiration from others who have been where you are.

Perhaps consider fencing. It’s fun.

Take it all in, move it from the front of your brain to the back, then to the middle; put it on cerebral spin cycle for a bit, return it to the front, and see what gets spit out.

Sometimes a walk in the sunshine or an evening lying under the stars helps with the process.

Carved in Stone

You want to be like Lesley? Patience, grasshopper. Sudden change in one’s motivational level may happen in a moment, but the stage must first be set. Evidence reveals that you can stack the deck in your favor and make epiphany happen.

As a test, I made a significant one happen for myself while researching this book. There is an important aspect of my life I have tried to change many times, over years and years, always to no avail. But then I used some of the methods outlined in this book, and that was it. The desired change happened. I made the ground shift, and a major life change took place just like that. And it was easy!

That story is in chapter 10. This was not a small thing like making my bed every day or flossing my teeth. It was much bigger, and I have reaped tremendous benefits from the experience.