You get tired of exhausting semantics, dancing around you like summer flies that buzz ever so slowly around your head but which you cannot rid of no matter how many times you swat at them.

You get tired of a trillion lights flashing at you, screaming for you to just become ever distracted in an already visually cluttered world. The blaring TV. The brightly lit iPhone. The blinking lights on the freeway to nowhere.

You get tired of annoying people trying to sell you their latest eBook, their latest consultant package that promises nothing short of the entire world at the palm of your hand, their life insurance package that you must buy for fear of impending death without financial purpose or gain, their latest exercise gadget that gives you rock-hard abs that will break anyone’s hands.

You get tired. Just … simply … tired.

Let’s cut the bullcrap, shall we?

This is how you do it.

1. Be straightforward.

There’s a time and place to be the big man or woman around town.

You can trumpet loud and clear your hot-sounding, big-shot title (Senior Global Integrated Data Management Consultant who drives quantifiable business value through cooperative partner initiatives? huh?), but who you are and how you conduct yourself and your work are far more important than what is on your business card.

My business card doesn’t have any titles or labels. Just my name, email and website. (and now, I simply don’t hand them out. You want my card? Look me in the eyes. Hi. This is me. Nice to meet you.)

I know myself. And I know I’m constantly evolving as a person. One day I may be a writer (like now), the next day I may be an urban graffiti artist, climbing railroad tracks and dodging the po-po’s. Though I identify much with writing, I do not want to be limited by labels.

You don’t have much to lose by being straightforward.

Cut the bullcrap that’s on your business card, your resume, your CV, your e-mails, your papers, your essays, your blog posts, your conversations, your meetings, your projects.

And say it like it is by showing up.

2. Be honest about your weaknesses.

Steven D. Levitt, co-author of Freakonomics, professor of economics at University of Chicago and recipient of the John Bates Clark medal, claims he doesn’t understand economics or math, for that matter. He doesn’t have the slightest clue if and when the stock market will drop, what the price of gasoline will be in 2020, or why the economy is the way it is. He also says he’s the weakest human being alive and constantly asks his wife to open spaghetti jars at home.

But you know what he is though?

He’s honest. About his weaknesses, that’s for certain. But Steven’s strengths in brilliant research, a natural thirst and curiosity about how the world works, and his constant learning overshadows his weaknesses.

What are your weaknesses you ought to address today?

My weakness: physical image. It’s not that I necessarily want to impress others by how I look on the outside. It’s more of when I look in the mirror, I am trying hard to impress myself. And this can be destructive if taken to an extreme. I’ve dealt with self-image problems ever since an adolescent (who doesn’t?) and it just so happened to be something I still struggle with in adulthood. But I realize this weakness and am working hard to remain ever strong, ever confident, ever poised on the inside, so that it may reflect naturally on the outside. I think I’m making progress.

Be honest about your weaknesses. You don’t need to answer to someone, you just need to answer to yourself.

3. Never, EVER stop learning.

Jim Rohn, one of America’s foremost business philosophers, has this to say about learning: “Don’t wish it were easier; wish you were better. Don’t wish for less problems; wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenges; wish for more wisdom.”

But don’t just stop there, at the wishing part.

Do start learning. Do start reading. Do start actively making yourself a better person today.

Do stop with the nonsense about where you are in your life. Do stop with the bullshit you feed yourself everyday, thinking that the world owes you one and everyone around you are just people with IOUs they haven’t fulfilled yet.

You cannot grow if you’ve filled your head with ridiculousness all day long.

TV.
Gossip magazines.
Negative friends.
Destructive relationships.
Uninspiring environments.

You want to cut the bullcrap? Start with yourself. Get out there and start learning.

Education does not come to those who wait patiently with a sharpened No. 2 pencil ready for life’s examinations. Education comes to those who will stop at nothing to continually learn, no matter what age, no matter what background, no matter what circumstances.

Roland G. Fryer, the Harvard economist studying black underachievement, was a young black boy in Daytona Beach, who had everything against him. His mother abandoned him when he was young. His father beat him incessantly and without mercy. By his teens, Roland became a full-fledged gangster.

But he never gave up. He never ceased his pursuit for a better life. He acquired new skills, he read, he discovered his passions in life, and that didn’t include going to jail or getting killed.

Roland cut through all of life’s bullshit and stopped serving himself at the buffet of self-pity in order that he can make a name for himself, despite his early circumstances.

And speaking of self-pity …

4. Take a close look at yourself. Who the hell are you?

Do you wallow in your own self-righteous, glorified pit of woe-is-me apathy? Do you wade in the pool of regret? Do you swim in the streams of ignorance?

Why don’t you get out of the damn water and cut the bullshit already.

No one will define who you are. You must do so yourself. Waiting for someone to tell you who you are, to tell you exactly how you should run your business, to tell you why you must be this and must do that, won’t get you closer to self-discovery.

If you don’t buy into who you are, no amount of talk or money or consultation will determine the person that’s staring at you in the mirror.

Self-pity gets you nowhere except wasted time. And guess whose time we’re wasting? That’s right. Yours.

**

Mindless jibber jabber about David and Victoria Beckham’s latest ad or Justin Bieber’s newest haircut won’t land you that freelance gig or that hot date.

Crap is crap. You can see it, smell it, taste it, hear it, feel it, from a hundred feet away.

It’s enough that we’re bombarded by it from every direction, every day. But us emanating it from the very pores (and core) of who we are? That’s simply too damn much.

Cut through the noise, show me your true self.

I want to look into your eyes and feel you. Wouldn’t you want the same when you look into mine?