Half Baked (Whole Hearted)

Did you guys know — the two of you actually reading this — that back in 2015 Mr. Beast recorded a sort of “capsule” video of himself that he scheduled to post on YouTube 10 years in the future? I’d heard about this a few times listening to podcasts but had never actually watched the video until today. First off, it’s a little cringy. He’s a high school kid who’s supposed to be studying for a history test but is instead recording a YouTube video talking about how 10 years in the future he hopes to have 1 million subscribers.

At the time of the recording he had 8k subscribers and 1.83 million total views — nothing to shake a stick at but a hell of a ways from his goal of 1 million subscribers. Could you imagine the response he would have gotten if he had posted that video the day he recorded it? While I’m sure he would have had some people in his corner rooting for his success, I can only imagine the number of people who would have absolutely roasted him. If I’m being honest, based upon that video alone I likely wouldn’t have put money on him succeeding.

Unless you live under a rock, you obviously know how wildly successful Mr. Beast has become. When that video released 10 years after the date of its recording, Mr. Beast had 443 million subscribers. If that doesn’t light you the f*ck up to go chase after your dreams, I don’t know what will.

This got me thinking about approaching new endeavors with a beginner’s mindset. This isn’t a novel idea and I most definitely didn’t come up with it, but it’s something I try to remind myself of regularly when I’m trying to learn or do something new.

It’s pretty self explanatory in nature but can be incredibly difficult to implement in practice. A beginner’s mindset is basically just embracing how much you suck at something when you first start out. As children, we did this on the daily — learning to walk, starting to read, doing algebra — we were all absolute trash when we tried these things for the first time. Over time though, we got better; some of us not so much at algebra but that’s a separate conversation.

A beginner is defined as “a person who is just starting to learn or do a specific activity, skill, or job for the first time. They are generally inexperienced, often referred to as a novice, and are in the initial stages of acquiring knowledge or mastering a new task.”

You’re not supposed to be great at something when you first start out. That’s part of being a beginner. So why do we get so uncomfortable with being bad at something that’s new to us? Maybe it’s due to evolutionary reasons and our desire to be accepted as part of a tribe for our own survival? Who knows.

Whatever the reason, I find it so incredibly useful to remind myself that feeling uncomfortable and sucking at something as a beginner is actually a good thing. It’s a sign that whatever it is we’re doing is growing and challenging us.

Looking at it from this perspective, I don’t ever want to get to a place where I’m feeling comfortable all the time. I want to continually push the limits of what I’m capable of and the person I might become.

That’s what I genuinely hope for you too. That you’re able to adopt a beginner’s mindset, embrace the suck, and never stop striving to achieve your full potential.

Well this has been fun but I’ve gotta go walk my crazy a** dogs now.

In case you’re interested in watching this Mr. Beast video for yourself, here’s a link!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0OkwXKcPSE