DSPS is a sleeping disorder (Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome) and while I only found out it had a name years later, I started experiencing it around the time I entered high school (13 years old).

Here is a simple description of it:

The major feature of these disorders is a misalignment between the patient’s sleep pattern and the sleep pattern that is desired or regarded as the societal norm…. In most circadian rhythm sleep disorders, the underlying problem is that the patient cannot sleep when sleep is desired, needed or expected.

The symptoms are:

• Regardless of how sleep deprived you are, you are unable to fall asleep until very late
• Once you do fall asleep you can sleep for a normal amount of time, this differentiates it from other sleep disorders like insomnia
• There is a relatively severe to absolute inability to advance the sleep phase to earlier hours

I first started noticing this problem around the time I entered high school. I’d have to wake up fairly early (7am?) for school every day and of course it was difficult. This in itself was not remarkable. What was remarkable was that I would be unable to fall asleep before 2 or 3am any night, even after five days of little sleep.

So you can imagine Monday goes by on 4 hours of sleep. You aren’t feeling great. You should be tired the next night right? Nope…I would be exhausted all day, but as 9PM started to roll around I’d finally wake up for the day and start to get my best work done. Hours would just fly by like nothing. Even at 2 or 3 AM I was wide awake and could have easily kept going. But I knew I had to wake up in 4 hours and would force myself to go to bed.

The second day goes by on 4 hours of sleep. You feel even worse. Surely, tonight your body should be wanting to catch up on sleep right? Nope…same problem (you’re exhausted all day but start to wake up at night). Even when I would “go to bed” at 10 or 11PM to try and catch up, I would literally lie there awake in bed for hours and hours (until about 3AM) bored out of my mind.

The entire week goes by like this, each day getting worse and worse (in the morning and throughout the day) as you are in permanent jet lag, yet you can’t fall asleep any earlier.

The best way I can describe it is if you’ve ever had to wake up in the middle of the night and do something in a deep sleep. It’s like if you suddenly had to start getting up for work every day at 1AM.

I was on an entirely different schedule than the rest of the world, and couldn’t adjust no matter how hard I tried.

The Worst Part About It: People’s Perceptions

By far the worst part of DSPS is the societal stigma around it. Obviously, most people (even doctors) have never heard of it. It only affects 0.17% of the population. And most people when you tell them about it think it’s bullshit or that you’re lazy/making excuses.

“It’s just a habit you have to get into.”

“I find exercise/light reading helps me.”

“You just have to give up caffeine.”

Yes, I tried all these things and all of them help me fall asleep faster: at 3AM. That’s just what my body considers it’s normal bed time.

It can be frustrating at times because people make suggestions about it that come across as patronizing. Sometimes you just want to scream “duh! this has been messing with my life every day for the last 10 years, don’t you think I would have tried not drinking caffeine and saved myself the trouble 10 years ago!!!”

But obviously, you can’t blame other people. If I was in their shoes I probably wouldn’t believe it either. People invent all sorts of limitations which are entirely mental.

After reading every piece of literature I could find and trying dozens of treatments to fix it over the last 10 years, I’m fairly convinced that it is a genetic predisposition for me though and not psychosomatic (possibly still curable but I haven’t found anything reliable yet).

Perhaps the worst offenders in the “people’s perceptions” category for me was my parents. Throughout high school (and partially even to this day, I’m not really sure) they did not believe it or fully understand it.

Obviously, after a school week of sleeping four hours per night (and falling asleep again Friday night at 3AM) my body was DESPERATE to sleep a full 8-12 hours on the weekend till noon or later. My parents weren’t happy about this and believed it was a sign of laziness. They would play all sorts of games to get me up on time (I was not amused – again, imagine being woken up at the equivalent of 1AM after a week of sleep deprivation – I believe the North Koreans use similar tactics in labor camps! :).

To their credit, I know they only wanted the best for me, and they didn’t know. DSPS wasn’t even formally recognized as a sleeping disorder until 1981, a few years before I was born, so they had no way of knowing.

Still, it was tough.

A World Designed Without You In Mind

For a long time, I felt like one of those 7 foot basketball players where doorways and airplanes seats never fit you. The world was just not designed for me.

Teachers in high school would routinely harass me for not being alert. I remember actually having hallucinations (the medical term for this is a microsleep) while sitting in class fairly often – a common symptom of extreme sleep deprivation. I didn’t know this wasn’t normal. I figured everyone just “spaces out” sometimes. It’s a really bizarre feeling to have your eyes open while dreaming. You are frozen, almost paralyzed, for 10 seconds or so in a trance until you jerk back suddenly to reality.

College was better, I was able to schedule many of my classes in the afternoon. However, not all of them. Early morning exams were difficult. There is well documented evidence about the negative effects of sleep deprivation, namely:

• Mental acuity decreases significantly
• Healing – a 2007 study showed a 20% decrease in white blood cell count in sleep deprived rats as compared to a control group
• A variety of accidents including the Exxon Valdez spill and Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown have been linked to sleep deprived workers

I remember one time in college I went to the gym (it was a small weight room and nobody else was there). I was laying on the incline bench, and put down a set of weights. A moment later I woke up and looked at my watch. An hour and a half had gone by. I had fallen asleep in the middle of the gym without even knowing it.

There were other incidents as well. In the mornings driving to school I would sometimes fall asleep at stop lights. When it turned green people would honk behind me and I’d wake back up. Obviously not the safest way to drive.

Again, all I can compare it to is imagine having to wake up at 1am to take an exam. You probably wouldn’t do quite as well, right?

This is probably what bothers me about it the most: I feel like I was cheated out of a lot of learning especially in high school (and partially in college). I mean, everything considered I still did pretty well, but if that’s how I did being under under extreme sleep deprivation EVERY DAY, just imagine how much I could have accomplished fully rested! Imagine the energy, connections, opportunities, clubs, etc. Ah well…

Discovering I Wasn’t The Only One

Years later (it was toward the end of college) I had become somewhat of a student on sleep disorders during my free time. I had read extensively on it and tried a number of experiments to try and correct it (including polyphasic sleeping, expensive light therapy devices which worked but didn’t have a long term effect, chronotherapy, and others).

One day I came across this wikipedia article on DSPS and I was absolutely STUNNED. It felt like it was describing me perfectly and as I read it, I thought “my God, someone else actually knows about this and has it…and there is a name for it”. It sounds silly but I think the most important thing I realized was that I WASN’T CRAZY.

My entire life up to that point I had always wondered if people were right, maybe I was just lazy or kidding myself. Finding this article at least brought some validity to my own experiences, and let me know there were people out their actively researching it.

Thank God for the internet. It allowed me to self diagnose what would have easily gone unrecognized by a dozen doctors due to it’s obscurity (DSPS is frequently mis-diagnosed as insomnia or depression, often involving the prescription of psychoactive drugs – thankfully that didn’t happen).

Despite my excitement over the article, I was somewhat disheartened to learn that even with the best treatments available today (light therapy, melatonin, etc) it is still largely incurable with 90% of patients seeing a relapse within 1 year. At least I knew I wasn’t alone.

Update 1: A new theory I have on this is that light from staring at a computer monitor can worsen this or even be the main cause of DSPS.  It is essentially light therapy, but at the wrong time.  Anecdotally, lots of computer scientists I know seem to have delayed sleep schedules, but I don’t have any hard evidence of this so it remains just a theory.  If you have any experience with it let me know in the comments.

Update 2: I sometimes take melatonin now to fall asleep earlier and reset my sleep cycle if it gets too out of wack.  A 3mg dose is somewhat effective, 6mg more so.  I’m afraid of taking it on a regular basis and building tolerance to it though so I use it only rarely.

Adapting To Life

I’ve had to admit lately that a big part of the reason I’m an entrepreneur is that I have DSPS. It allows me to keep any hours I want, which still means sleeping at 3am (but I actually get to sleep as late as I want now – the full 7-9 hours I need). With this setup I am able to function 100% normally as a productive adult, and I’m very thankful for that.

My brief stint in corporate America was not easy (once again under constant sleep deprivation unlike in college where it was about half and half). It certainly wasn’t the only factor in my decision to break free (I happen to really appreciate having complete freedom for example, and I think it’s a better way to build wealth) but it certainly affected my decision.

So these days, having DSPS is NOT much of a handicap and the past is….well, the past. You can’t change it so no use worring about it.

It still affects me in small ways…for example I never schedule early flights and don’t attend meetings before noon if it can at all be avoided. I absolutely despise alarm clocks and consider it a matter of personal pride that I don’t own one and only ever use one (my cell phone) a few times a year for special events.

The occasional one day of sleep deprivation is manageable for special events where I need to get up early. Its the multiple days in a row that are really bad and cause the microsleeps (hallucinations), so those are luckily a thing of the past.

So that’s it. I’ll just close by saying that this post is not a “poor me” cry for help. On the contrary, if this is the worst genetic disorder life has to throw at me I’m home free – I got an easy one and it barely affects me at all today. Also, for some people it apparently fades out later in life. Older people naturally sleep less, so it may (or may not) go away on it’s own.

If you have any sort of similar health problem read the next paragraph:

Lots of people take a negative attitude toward these things and say “great, 0.17% of the population gets this and of course I’M the one to get it!” But that’s bullshit, there are tons of diseases/disorders you probably have a 0.17% of getting, and adding them all up means you have a pretty good chance of having SOMETHING if not lots of them. DSPS is much better than a lot of problems I can think of having, and I feel EXTREMELY lucky to have been born with all the other advantages I have in life. I’ve got zero room for whining on something like this.

But I thought I’d post it out there for a few reasons:

1. A lot of entrepreneurs I’ve met seem to have this, and don’t know they have it. They might feel like I did (like something is wrong with them) and this will help them to understand it. And…
2. So that if you ever invite me to a morning meeting, you’ll understand when I don’t show up… :)

Until next time, keep breaking free!
Brian Armstrong

E! decided to produce a show called Hot Girls In Scary Places.

Yes, you guessed it…this is literally a show where some cute girls go into haunted houses carrying pink flashlights. And….well, they film it.

Somebody actually had to pitch this idea to a room full of executives and somebody signed off on it, thinking it was a good idea, presumably investing a lot of money in it. I mean, can you imagine how this meeting went?

“Ok…well it’s sort of a show about haunted houses.”

“Jim, I just don’t know…I mean it’s needs something raw and fresh, it’s gotta pop on screen.”

“What if we add hot girls?”

“Done!”

Have you ever seen the movie Idiocracy? It actually really reminds me of that…a future in which entertainment is so dumbed down that you can produce an entire TV show with just clips of a guy getting hit in the crotch.

Speaking of which….I’m pretty sure Spike TV has a show that is even closer to that, which is basically about things blowing up. I think it’s actually called “Things Blowing Up” or something like that.

Other signs of our coming intellectual demise?

The other day the news reported that a vampire skull was discovered.

Now this is totally false of course (there was some indication that the people who buried the body thought it was a vampire – which is not really newsworthy – we’ve been well aware that lots of cultures have believed in vampires, just like people burned witches in Winston-Salem etc).

But that is not how the news reported it of course…they strongly implied an actual vampire skull was discovered merely for the sensational value and to get people to keep watching. It was completely intellectually dishonest.

Anyway, as I wrote about a while back the news is an utter waste of time and if you are watching it for any other reason than entertainment value you are kidding yourself.

Mark my words: TV is going to go the way of the Newspaper here pretty soon. When your average YouTube clip produces by some people with zero budget and a little free time is of higher quality than 90% of professionally produced television, people are going to stop watching.

Even today, you can install the StumbleUpon toolbar in your web browser and tell it what topics you are interested in. Then you can “stumble” across different video clips – the results are often better then watching television. Give it a try!

This is what it’s like when you’re creating a business. There’s the initial burst of excitement when you come up with the idea and another surge in momentum when you make your first few sales. (At this point, you’re so dang cocky that you have too much wine at Thanksgiving dinner and pointedly remind your mother-in-law about how rude she was to dismiss your start-up idea and how, when you’re making millions of dollars, there will be nothing for her — she can bloody well eat frozen government cheese.)

As the business progresses, you start trying to turn all the various knobs on your fancy radio set in order to get better reception or to find a station you like. And fortunately, in business, we founders have a lot of knobs to play with. There’s price. Location. Employees. Marketing. Advertising. Return policies. Trade shows. Products. Search-engine optimization. And every item in your budget.

You can read the rest of the article here.

Inside it, I’ve written down (over the last year or so) the reasons why I must become financially independent working for myself.

There are about 20 reasons (some of them personal), but for example, I know that I can never really contribute to the world if I have to spend 40 hours a week working for someone else. There just isn’t enough time. I also know that it is the only way I’ll be able to travel the world for a year and continue to earn money. These are important goals in my mind.

Why is it so important to have a reason you MUST? Well, if it’s just something you WANT, instead of a MUST, then when you hit the first setback (and there will be many) you’ll give up.

What is your reason? Is it spending more time with your kids? Is it building your dream house? Is it being financially able to provide for your family? Whatever it is please take a moment to write it down (in the comments if it isn’t too personal). If you don’t write it down, it doesn’t count.

That way, when you hit your first setback and stop to ask yourself “why am I doing this?”, you’ll have an answer.

Most people get it backwards. They come up with a way to make money first, and then try to add the value in as an afterthought.

Do you see why this is putting the cart before the horse:

• I want to sell subscriptions to the “premium” content of my website. What do you think people would be willing to pay for?
• I’d like to write a book. What would be a marketable topic that people are interested in these days?
• We need to sell the next version of our operating system (*cough* vista *cough*). What features can we add in there so people will think it’s worth it?

When you think about making money first, it corrupts your ability to make the most valuable product because you’ve already decided your course of action. You never stop the ask, “is this even the best way to help people?”

One of the reasons I think Google is so successful is that, believe it or not, they don’t focus on making money. The most surprising thing I saw when I visited Google a few years back is that if you want to get approval to work on a new product there, you will NEVER be asked “how is this going to make money?” They really don’t care because they know if it actually does help people do something faster, easier, or in a less painful way then it will become popular. And there are numerous ways to monetize a popular product.

In fact, I was surprised that they even called them “products” because they had no plans to make money with them up front (“projects” probably would have been a better name).

Do you think that ever happens at traditional companies like GE, Ford, and Microsoft? Hell no. They are doing tons of market research, feasibility studies, price point analysis, and net present values to see if a product can make money.

The irony of it is that if you get the first part right and actually do create something that is valuable, the money part will take care of itself.

Who have you taken advice from and why does their advice work for your specific type of business? It is important to figure out what exactly works for you and why, so that we can find the right path for each of us.

Here are my thoughts:

I have a simple rule for this that I try to follow: Only take advice from people who have already done it.

You wouldn’t have a fat trainer at the gym. But that is what most people do with business. They ask their friends and family who have never started a successful business in their lives.

Instead you should ask rich people. Entrepreneurs who have been successful so you can model what they did and see their mindset.

Regarding finding what works for you, I’ve often made the mistake of trying to do it “my own way” too soon.

I think when first starting out you should just copy what a successful person is doing, even if you think it won’t work or is wrong. Only later, after you’ve become more experienced can you start to innovate and find your own style.

Think of it like martial arts. You COULD come in untrained and think you will beat a black belt by doing it your own way. And you will get creamed. But if you study with the greats for many years, incorporating a little of each of them into yourself, then and only then after many years can you start to develop your own style. Your own style comes later with mastery, not at the beginning.

Business is definitely a complex skill just like playing the violin, building a race car, or getting a black belt. You can get the basics in probably a few years by studying the greats. You can master it in probably a few decades or even a lifetime.

I’ll probably be promoting more threads from the forum that I find particularly interesting.

Life is full of little situations that you encounter regularly. Some people don’t see these for the opportunities that they are: a chance to stand out, be different, and be memorable.

They’re a way to quickly built rapport with someone so they can think back later and say “Brian…hmm, yeah he was the guy who does [BLANK]” or “Barbara, oh yeah she is the gal who said [BLANK]“. You stood out enough to be remembered.

By breaking out of your comfort zone and doing something a little different than everyone else you can connect with new people on a regular basis.

The article covers three common social situations that come up and how you can use them to your advantage:

1. What to do when people ask: “How’s it going?”
2. Handshakes
3. The two most common small talk questions: “What do you do?” and “Where are you from?”

Check it out by clicking here. Maybe it can help you meet that next entrepreneur or mentor.

Until next time, keep breaking free!
Brian Armtrong

About half way up the last run I hit what looked like a dead end. The next handhold above me was WAY out of reach. The piece of rock I was holding onto with my hands was right around my waist…but I couldn’t reach anything above it, just a smooth rock face.

How was I going to go up?

It seemed like I’d have to put my left foot where my hands were (near my waist) and stand up on my left foot. But with nothing for my hands to hold at that point, I’d surely fall backwards, right?

I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to work, but with encouragement from below I decided to give it a go. I’d start to step up…and then stop. Then I’d start again just a few inches, and quickly retreat back to my handhold.

It just felt terribly unnatural…i mean, imagine how it would feel if you tried climbing to the top of a high ladder with no hands. Then take the last step with just one foot, where the rung of the ladder was about an inch wide with no hands. Yeah…it felt sort of like that. It just wasn’t going to work, I could FEEL myself starting to fall.

I belayed back down to the ground convinced that this one was beyond my abilities. Then a strange thing happened: James went up the same route, got to the point where I was stuck, stepped up on his left foot with no hands while hugging the wall, and somehow didn’t fall backwards. Damn! That broke my theory.

Being the competitive person I am, I was none too happy about this. I decided to try it again. This time, the same feelings in my head were all saying “this is not working, you’re falling, you’re falling, NO YOU’RE REALLY FALLING NOW!” but I forced myself to ignore them, and kept inching up on that left leg. Lo and behold, I DIDN’T fall and managed to reach the next handhold.

I was as surprised as anyone. I’ve never done a complete 180 from “I am absolutely sure this is impossible” to “I am absolutely sure this IS possible” so quickly.

It occurred to me that most things worth doing in life play out like this the first time you try it…including starting a business.

• It’s going to feel very unnatural the first time you try it
• What at first seems impossible, later is not only possible but can become easy
• Having more experienced people around you can be an amazing motivator

I bet the first time you make a million dollars it’s the hardest. It probably doesn’t even seem possible at first. But then you see someone else do it right in front of your eyes and it changes everything.

It’s titled “How To Take Criticism Like Donald Trump“.

Welcome LifeHack.org readers!

I’ve noticed lately that people aren’t very good at handling criticism, even when they’ve asked for it.

Our natural tendency when given advice or criticism is to become defensive and upset. We try to convince the person they’re wrong (or at least to see it from our perspective) which, ironically, has the exact opposite of the intended effect.

Know what the single most effective way is to disarm criticism? Agree with it.

To read more head on over to LifeHack.org.

But that’s ok. Today I thought I’d share a similar tip. It is utterly simple, I use it often, and it really works.

We all feel sad at times. It can even happen for no apparent reason at all! One day you might just be driving along and wonder to yourself, “why am I feeling so down, this is weird and there is no reason I should feel this way”. Or you may have a legitimate reason.

Regardless, I’ve discovered a little trick that is counterintuitive and can make you feel better right away: give someone a genuine compliment totally out of the blue.

I think this works because it takes the focus off of you. It makes you realize that if you are sitting there feeling sorry for yourself, then it probably happens to other people too. So why not start thinking about someone else for a change and help them out! Ironically, you do end up helping yourself out in the process…it just happens indirectly by thinking about other people instead.

About a month ago I went running with two friends. Usually I feel “high” after running. Supposedly it releases endorphins or something like that. But that day for some reason I didn’t. On the drive home, I decided to stop thinking about myself and try it out since I knew it had worked in the past.

Now if you’re like me, it can feel a little weird giving someone a huge compliment out of the blue. So I cheated and sent a text message. To one of my female friends I had just ran with I sent “nice job today you are getting faster, keep it up!” She is always the slow one in the group and I knew that would make her feel better.

When my buddy Marshal finally landed a meeting with some potential buyers for his company, I sent him a quick note “Hey super star, all the hard work has finally paid off…you deserve it!”. He walked in more confident.

After a party one time I sent a message to a friend the next day: “by the way, I meant to tell you last night you looked incredibly classy… seriously you were radiating, not sure what it was but keep it up!” She pretty much melted.

Try it out next time you’re feeling sad. Give someone a compliment that is:

• Genuine
• Huge
• and Out of the Blue

Till next time, keep breaking free!
Brian Armstrong