They bombed his house

I’m angry.

Fuming actually.

I was listening to Alex Hormozi YouTube video the other day.

He said something about his early days of entrepreneurship that stuck out:

It brought me back to this day in 6th grade.

As I got ready for school, I started crying.

Although my friends were great, sitting in class was mental and spiritual torture.

I emotionally numbed myself to get through every day.

Any time I questioned it, teachers and parents would say this and it always pissed me off:

That’s just the way it is.

When I graduated, I was more resentful than relieved.

But…

What if I didn’t have all this anger and pain?

The Power of Negative Emotion

By nature, society is unkind to negative emotions.

They’re something to be “worked on in therapy.”

To an extent, it’s true.

You know their destructive power when unchecked.

But denying them is equally foolish.

Your rob yourself of great power to change your life for the better.

Heartbreak drove me to sign up for a marathon.

Anger drove me to get in shape.

Pain drove me to explore alternatives to the traditional route.

Negative emotion is a catalyst for growth.

To make significant change in your life, you must accept of the totality of your emotional experience.

You can use negative emotions to drive positive change.

But don’t just take my word for it, let’s look at one of the most influential figures of the 20th century.

They bombed his house

On the 57th day of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Martin Luther King Jr. was giving a speech at a local church.

…until he got word that a Klansmen set off a makeshift bomb at the front of his house, while his wife and 10 week old daughter were inside (luckily they were okay).

In the aftermath, a small crowd of Black folks started gathering on his lawn.

Some of them had knives.

Others had guns.

The mayor and police tried desperately to calm them down, promising to investigate (they never did).

They were ready to fight.

But one guy kept his cool.

MLK steeled himself, slowly walking up to what was left of his front porch, and told them:

If you have weapons, take them home.

He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword.

We are not advocating violence.

We want to love our enemies.

To be clear: MLK was the angriest man in America.

But instead of using that anger for violence, he channeled it into his resolve.

MLK used anger to commit further to non-violence.

He used his negative emotions for the greater good.

And so can you.

How To Use Negative Emotion For Good

I was overweight for most of my life.

I’d get short of breath just tying my shoes.

I paid little attention to my health and barely.

Today, I’m fitter than ever.

I see time at school as pivotal to making me who I am today (school still sucks though).

This took years of changing my actions. I had to learn how to eat right, lift w/ correct form, run using a program, and worked with a kickass trainer.

But I also shifted my perspective. I went from believing I’d be depressed forever to realizing I have the power to improve (and royally fuck up) my life.

This is my framework for working through negative emotion.

Get a pen and paper out for this one.

Step 1: Actually Allow Yourself to Feel the Negative Emotion

Most people don’t make it to this step.

They feel any negative emotion and immediately think “ah, emotion bad, eat ice cream” in an attempt to get rid of it.

All this does is make it worse.

If you’re one of these people, just put the vape down man.

Learn to sit with it.

Literally sit there and don’t do anything. Let yourself get hit by it.

You’ll be shocked to realize how much you’ve been numbing yourself.

Step 2: Identify it

When you go so long trying to repress or avoid negative emotion, you start sucking at identifying it.

Are you feeling anger?

Frustration?

Sadness?

All of the above?

Write it down.

Step 3: Get Super Curious About it (Find The Cause)

Reframe your negative emotion not as “bad,” but as signal and tune in.

Why is this there?

Why am I feeling this?

What’s causing this?

Something’s going wrong in and it usually comes down to 2 things:

1. You’re doing something wrong: You have self destructive habits, maybe you keep getting yourself into shitty relationships or you keep binge eating ice cream (me!),

2. You’re viewing something wrong. The way you’re thinking or framing it in your mind is wrong, maybe life is trying to teach you a lesson but you’re not listening.

Step 4: Take Tiny Action

Here’s a pitfall you want to avoid:

You want to make drastic changes to your life.

So you take drastic measures.

All this leads to is burnout, disappointment, and ending up right back where you started.

Trust me, I’ve done it countless times.

Instead of drastic changes, do the opposite:

Make it so tiny you feel dumb not doing it.

If you want to start journaling, don’t even try to write 1 page.

Write 1 sentence.

Bump it up over time.

I started this newsletter because I believe in the Way of the Polymath:

Radical acceptance of your curiosity and unique interests.

On a deeper level, you’re integrating all aspects of yourself: light and dark.

In doing so, you get access to a power that will:

• make you stupid rich

• have badass friends

• killer relationship

• jacked as fuck

You can’t do that without accepting your entire emotional experience.

MLK Jr. was a prolific orator and dedicated theologian.

He combined his unique skills w/ his anger and love for his Black brothers and sisters.

Only when you face your deepest truths, the ugly and beautiful, can you finally live.

That’s it.

Do me a favor, yeah?

Shoot me a reply and let me know what you think of this.

See you next week!

Aaron