Mike Cernovich Presents Danger & Play

For those who want more out of life.

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  • Baldwin81

    Great video.

    A bunch of changes at once is a plan that’s set up to fail. Whereas one small thing per day creates good-habit momentum. It’s all inside, all organic, and then you look back months and years down the road and you realize that you’ve turned into a different person… but not really: you’re a better, ass-kicking version of yourself.

    • Danger & Play Blog

      Yep. I’m a big fan of the book “Switch: Switch: How to Change Things when Change is Hard,” which talks about how small changes can lead to big results. One of the best management/life books out there.

  • Good Looking Loser

    Great stuff – daily sense of accomplishment = motivation

    • Danger & Play Blog

      All day every day.

  • Jakub

    Hey Mike, you should check out this post on startgainingmomentum : http://www.startgainingmomentum.com/gain-momentum-winner-every-day/

    You are probably aware of the site since Ludvig did guest posts for B&D

    • Danger & Play Blog

      Site won’t load for me. It’s probably a good post, though. Ludvig is a smart guy.

      • Jakub

        Yeah, it says the website is offline for some reason. It was fine half an hour ago.

        Anyway, it touches on a lot of the same points as this post and the one you linked to, small victories, spread out over a long period of time= motivation.

        • Danger & Play Blog

          His site is probably getting big. I outgrew shared posting plans like Host Gator a few months ago. Time to upgrade, Ludwig!

  • Mike,

    I’ve loved Danger & Play ever since I stumbled onto it somewhere around 2011 but I’ve never bothered to comment as I didn’t think I had much to add to the quality already present in your writing and from the commenters.

    This post made me think of something though, and it’s something that’s stuck with me. I’ll share it below with a little preamble.

    One of my favorite writers is Henry Miller. In an interview he gave back in the 50’s he talked about the way he went about writing. The exact words escape me right now, but he said that even if a writer went about writing just one page a day for a year, at the end of the year he’d have a decent sized novel. Some of those days you know you’ll build up a head of steam and pass that quota, other days you’ll struggle to hit it, but the point was building the habit to get to the typewriter and create one little victory that snowballs into a greater one, the finished book.

    The minute I heard him say that I took it and applied it to my own work with illustration. I make my quota and I stick to it. Some days it’s a breeze, hours go by and I want to keep working. Other days it’s a slog. The point is the habit, the mindset, the putting-butt-in-chair and working.

    Thought I’d share. Thank you again for the incredible work you’re doing and for continuing to be an inspiration.

    • Danger & Play Blog

      Great comment; thank you. Yes, every book on writing says, “Write every day.” Yet how many guys who want to start a blog or write a book take that advice?

      I write 2,000 words every day. I edit that down to 500 to 1,000 words. Sometimes I edit it down to 0, but I always write 2,000 words.

      Once you start writing every day, you’ll always have material.

      • FlorianUlrich

        Thanks Mike. Here is how that worked for me so far: 6 months ago, I started writing 750+ words every morning. Always about the first three things in my mind that I am grateful for. Now, I regularly reach 1,000+ words each and every morning. I’ll probably get more in the future. I am a happy person.

        I use 750words.com, they give you little “badges” as additional motivation in the beginning. I don’t need them anymore, but they got me through the initial days.

        The mindset “every day a little bit” is a central topic of “The Slight Edge” by Jeff Olson. One of the most influential books for me this year.

        The 750+ words concept is also called “The Morning Pages” and comes from “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron.

        And last but not least – I think these “big events” that people look forward to are basically side effects of your continuous effort. Just as fancy microscopy pictures of fly heads or viruses you can often see in the News are NOT science. They are byproducts of the process.

        • I’ve been using 750 words for the last 4 years too. I sometimes worry I’ll get hacked and all of my life will be there to read…but most is just internal dialogue. I gotta check out this “Slight Edge”

          • FlorianUlrich

            Yes, let me know how you like the book. I am strangely not afraid750 words gets hacked. I can see your concern though. Though – I try to see it this way: I rather live my way and talk openly about it than die with the knowledge that I held back because of fear.
            One thing about using 750words.com – do you become more introvert the more you write about yourself? Or do you only become more introvert when you don’t also go out and meet friends?

          • Really digging the book so far. A different perspective from the “immersion” /”goal rotation” camp.

            Writing calms me down, so I’d say writing in 750 words clears my thoughts and make it easier for me to be sociable. I tend to use 750 words as a way of seeing repeated patterns in my internal dialogue- it helps me “see” when I’m having the same feelings/same thoughts/ and the circumstances.

            I tend to write in 750 words only when things are taking a downturn in my life though. Maybe I should take a hint from that book and start writing everyday again!

      • Excellent tip. When I got the idea for my Zendevil site, I wrote 8-12 hours every day for two weeks straight. I hardly ate or did workouts during that time period. Now I got material coming up for over a year – but I am still writing daily.

    • anon1

      you know i was thinking about this quote:

      ” Life is a series of failures punctuated by brief successes.”

      pretty depressing quote right?

      well i thought about it some more and decided that basically life, the interesting bit that we come to respect is not the standing on the mountain top, but the struggle we took to get up there.

      you gotta make those points in between your goals little wins. every day is a win.

      the greed, the desire, the passion to covet a goal or an achievement, is actually more fun than the point at which you attain your goal.

      thats why a lot of people feel content to fantasise about a goal rather than working towards it.

      the reality as you said is that “people don’t rise to the occasion, they fall to the level of their training”. if you work every day, training yourself to illustrate no matter what, you are going to reach your goal because thats what you trained yourself to do.

  • Ed

    A lot of people seem to get confused with being inspired and feeling inspired. There’s nothing wrong with watching those inspirational highlight reels and feeling inspired. But the difference to being inspired as opposed to just feeling inspired is taking action.

    I don’t have much to add about taking small steps everyday, except to say that everything I ever got good at was mostly the result of consistant miniscule improvements over time.

  • I think of those people and instances that have wronged me. No matter how small, if I am crossed, embarrassed, etc – I close my eyes and focus on that moment. I take a deep breath and my adrenaline usually kicks into high key. Whether I am working out, or doing something creative, this tends to do the trick. Finding the ability to push through even when you don’t feel like it is a crucial step in developing a killer edge and become a productivity monster.

  • Martin

    Nice points.
    “Everybody loves to win, how many love to train?”
    My swimming coach put that quote from Mark Spitz on the board one day and I’ve always remembered it.

  • Aaron

    I want to say motivation is not just the will to do something but to have the discipline to do so. A lot of guys ask me, “how do you say motivated to go the gym?” How are you so motivated to finish your assessments so quick?”. It’s not just one emotion or a one-view mindset. Motivation is the combination of will and discipline. Who the fuck is motivated all day, every day to go to the gym? Fuck that. One must have the vision and be disciplined to stay ‘motivated’.

  • Costello

    For me, it is about seeing how far I have come. That’s a frame of reference I can apply moving forward. For instance: I have become more muscular, but I am not at the level I demand from myself. I keep hitting the gym because I have spent enough time to know the process works and I know the process demands consistency.

    The motivation to start does not come as naturally. Without a reference point, I have to find another source of motivation. I’d call it a process of immersion before momentum is orchestrated. I throw myself into a process until I see change, I do this without hesitation if possible. Once I see the slightest improvement I know I can use it as a platform and that is when I start incrementally adding value, thus gaining momentum. My blog efforts are an example of this. Through immersion I have already gained the knowledge to actually construct the site that I have witnessed positive development. To pick one thing specifically, I knew nothing about SEO. Now I have a rudimentary idea of how to write a post with it in mind. Then I wrote my about page, and used that as a testbed for SEO. Then I’ll start transferring my drafts to posts and so on. I think I am finally making use of my abilities again.

    I can see why you do this Mike. How I have deprived myself of a creative platform like this for so long is a mystery. I look forward to seeing where the process takes me.

  • KeepQuestioningTheWorld

    Whilst this is a motivational video, it has some very deep messages about why you should take the “hard road” instead of taking the easy one.

    Don’t just watch this video, use it to get in the correct mindset and combine it with Mike’s mindset techniques so you can return to the same mindset when you need it.

  • Johnny

    Mike,
    How do people overcome bad things like homelessness or being near suicidally depressed?

    Have seen guys over 30 who were losers radically
    Change or do you think an old
    Dog can’t learn many new tricks?

  • Gman

    A great book that expands on this topic is The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson.

    http://www.amazon.ca/The-Slight-Edge-Secret-Successful/dp/0967285550

  • This kind of explains how I got addicted to the gym. I started doing strength training and got addicted to the progress. By getting addicted to a single aspect of the training, I was able to ignore the unpleasant sides of it: the chaos and pain of using friction to tear apart and rebuild my body. Waking up and hitting the gym every morning is a small victory in and of itself. I’ve been working on applying this to my writing. writing everyday, getting feedback from a variety of people and posting it online to get critiqued.

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