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The Way of the Nerd

Practical Advice for Impractical People

Ken Goldstein

Translation of the Tao Te Ching used in this book was found on the Internet and described as “Public Domain” by its author j.h.mcdonald

“One who is filled with the Tao is like a newborn child”

-Lao Tzu

A Letter from Wizard World founder and CEO Gareb Shamus

Ken Goldstein and I were introduced by a producer friend of mine while he was playing host to thousands of people at the launch party for planetillogica.com at Comic Con in 2009. When we started talking it was as if we’d been friends our whole life and had much to catch up on. That night was the first I’d heard of his idea for this book, which at the time was with an established New York publisher.

Our next encounter was at a Comic Con a year later, an hour before the party Planet illogica was producing for the launch of Peter Tangen’s Real Life Super Hero Project. This time we exchanged contacts and kept in touch.

He and I had a casual business type relationship until December of that year, when my plan to spend the holidays with a girl in LA went awry ten hours after I landed. I’m not going to go in to details about what happened but I will say that after what seemed like a great start to a romantic week, things quickly went from sexy to crazy. I found myself driving back to my hotel in the middle of the night with a great story to tell and none of my boys in New York awake to share it with. So I called Ken.

I recounted the events of the night in a very honest way, which he thought was hilarious. We bonded on the self effacing Jew thing and since Ken was ending the year in what he called, “stillness,” which I came to find out was him sitting on his couch playing Modern Warfare 2 and watching classic Westerns on Netflix with his dog, Charles Le Chien, I got him off the couch and out of his house. We became each other’s holiday wingman.

I've been to LA a hundred times but never Ken Goldstein’s LA- which if you have the chance to experience, I highly recommend. Through our time together on our various adventures, we learned so much about each other and became new best friends. Our connection was the way we looked at the world, at business, and our taste in pop culture (and girls); our bond was our desire to share with the world our access to cool stuff. Before New Years, I decided to make him my Bureau Chief of Games, Girls, Gadgets and Gear for all things Wizard World and that we should publish The Way of the Nerd: Practical Advice for Impractical People.

I’m so proud that Wizard World’s first novel is the story of Ken’s life and that in this book he has chosen to share with us the spiritual and business tools he uses to reach his goals from what he calls his virtual Batman Utility Belt.

Wizard World is the producer of the largest American Comic Con Tour & publisher of Wizard World Digital. Gareb is among the foremost experts in the world on pop culture.

Introduction

I am a lot of things but if I were forced to define myself in two words they would be nerd and Taoist.

To me a nerd is someone who does what is right for them despite the opinion of other people; A Taoist is someone who exists of this world but not in this world.A master of nothing, a Taoist lives blissfully on the precipice of abundance by performing a daily practice of letting go as directed by the 81 instructions, or verses, from Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu’s masterpiece the Tao Te Ching.

About the time I picked up my first copy of the Tao, which contained a simple English translation of Lao’s writings, I had just owned my nerdiness by walking out of what everyone around me considered a very nice life. The first sentence of the Tao, "That which is named is not the Tao,” spoke to me and said,

“Hey, this life you’re living, you’ve defined it as
“all right” but is it really the one you want?
Keep reading and I’ll show you the way…”

After that first revelation, that I was living a compromised life, I decided to commit a full year to study and practice the Tao Te Ching in every aspect of my daily existence. With each verse consumed I slowly reprogrammed my thoughts so that every lesson became a breakthrough and a sign that I was absolutely, and finally, on the right path.

Happiness, I discovered early on in my study, is not something you get after you reach a goal, but what you are. Being unhappy, or unsuccessful, is completely your choice because everything about you is about your perception. If you choose to believe something is causing you pain, sadness or standing in the way of something you want to achieve that's totally up to you. Every problem can easily be seen as an opportunity if you're looking at it through Tao tainted eyes.

One of my favorite takeaways so far from my study of the Tao is when my mind goes to a dark place, I should simply enjoy it for what it is - a prelude to a happy place.

Yes, the Tao is what is commonly referred to as the "yin and the yang" of life.

Among the most remarkable lessons I now live by:

By doing less, I accomplish more.

By eliminating the should-a factor from my day-to-day life, I sleep better and am more productive.

Pain, sadness, fear, stress and anxiety

are not only my choice but my key to happiness.

Money is energy and the more I worry about it, the less I have.

I can’t change anyone but myself.

By changing myself everything changes.

I’m not my things.

I’m not defined by what someone else thinks I am.

Everything that goes right or wrong in my life is because of me.

To avoid chaos I simply choose not to engage in it.

Every bad situation is an opportunity to learn; every good situation is a chance to do right by someone else.

For every bad thought, you are one good thought away

from being back on track.

People who have nothing to say to me need to be heard.

There is no right way only what is right for me.

Mouth open me; Mouth closed, the Tao

If I want something in my life, I must truly not want it. And then I must be able to see it clearly then let go.When it appears, I can only appreciate it for the sign it is and not try and own it. When it disappears, I can only be thankful for the lesson it taught me.

In this book I’ve chosen to share with you anecdotes from my life that best explain how I achieved what I have in the world of “form.” I show you how all of us who’ve reached our goals use the Tao whether we realize it or not. Had I discovered Lao Tzu’s ‘guide to life’ at 20 rather than 40 I probably could have spared myself at lot of heartache.

Every journey has its twists and turns, and I see now that with every accomplishment I’ve managed to achieve what I was really doing was letting go to a force that I’d not yet been able to grasp.

There are lots of translations of the original Chinese text and I recommend you acquire as many as possible, because with each one I studied I found new insight on old ideas.

So now I present to you The Way of the Nerd: Practical Advice for Impractical People, my story of finding myself. I’m at the age now where the study of my own life is all about interpretation. I hope you find some of your truth in my story.

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Breaking up with My Bad Self

Verse 1 of the Tao Te Ching

The Tao that can be described is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be spoken is not the eternal Name.

The nameless is the boundary of Heaven and Earth.
The named is the mother of creation.

Freed from desire, you can see the hidden mystery.
By having desire, you can only see what is visibly real.

Yet mystery and reality emerge from the same source.

This source is called darkness.

Darkness born from darkness.
The beginning of all understanding.

The Way of the Nerd 1:

Stop trying to control things in your life. Just let them be.

Just let the creatures, places, and things in your life be what they are- reflections of where you’re at in your life. If you have someone that loves you, you are love. If you’re in conflict with a partner or parent, you are causing it.
If the home you live in has stopped being inspiring, blame yourself, love the lesson and then make a move.

Describe your favorite color without referencing another color. Compare a welcomed smell without mentioning another scent. Explain the feeling of being in a perfect moment without talking about the creatures, place or objects that surrounded you.

The best things in life have no explanation, so why do we try so hard to label everything? So we can experience ownership?

Ownership attaches an emotion and an expectation. Expectation leads to conflict in most every situation.

Trying to ‘own’ something doesn’t really make it yours. You may have paid for the right to squat on a piece of land, but you can’t purchase the earth beneath it. Likewise, labeling a partner doesn’t make that person your possession. How can you own another person?

So why do we struggle to have ownership titles for the things that are in our lives?

What is in our life is temporary because we are temporary in this life.

What is in your life now is just that: in your life now.

Lao Tzu chose to open the Tao Te Ching with a directive to release yourself from the burden and confines of a world of labels and just be. If he’d stopped at the first verse, we’d still be studying the Tao today and he’d still be celebrated as the originating source of all self-help teachings because the opening of the Tao Te Ching is the basic message behind it all -just be.

In that simple opening line, Lao Tzu is telling us to experience all that life has to offer as it comes. Be a student of the reaction the world has to you; learn, grow, expand and experience. If things are coming your way, you’re on the right path. If things aren’t, you are probably toxic.

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