From Chaos to Control

It’s not every day that a few sentences stop me in my tracks, but this morning, Paulo Coelho’s Maktub did exactly that. The passage reads:

The Master Says:

The masters of old used to create "characters" to help their disciples deal with the darker side of their personality. Many stories about the creation of such characters later became famous fairy tales.

The process is a simple one: you just have to place all your anxieties, fears, and disappointments in an invisible being who stands on your left side. He acts as the "villain" in your life, always suggesting ideas you would prefer not to have, but end p having. Once you have created such a character, it becomes easier to ignore his advice.

This extremely simple, which is why it works so well.

Reading this, I immediately thought of my Lesser Self .. the character I named Little Nicky.

Little Nicky isn’t just a concept or a metaphor for me; he’s become a daily sparring partner, a symbol of my excuses, fears, and bullshit reasons to NOT do something. He’s that pesky inner voice that tries to convince me to hit snooze instead of hitting the gym, that whispers doubts into my ear when I’m about to step into something challenging.

But Little Nicky isn’t new. His origin dates back to some of the most chaotic chapters of my life. There were days > weeks > months when he won more often than I did—times when his whispers led to bad decisions, and his influence kept me stuck in cycles I wanted to escape. Back then, I didn’t know I had the power to fight back.

When I first gave Little Nicky his name, it was almost a joke. But over time, he became something far more profound. Little Nicky was the perfect embodiment of everything holding me back: the self-doubt, the negative patterns, the comfort zone that promised safety but delivered stagnation.

I’ve written about my battles with Little Nicky—those moments only 3 minutes into a 60 minute training run when his voice got loud, or in the middle of a negotiation when he suggested, “Take the easy route.” Every morning, I face him. Some days, it’s a mental sparring match; other days, it’s an all-out war.

But every day, I slay him.

Paulo Coelho’s words reminded me why this process works: by naming him, by externalizing him, I’ve made it easier to distance myself from his voice. His advice doesn’t feel like my truth anymore—it’s just noise from the asshole on my left shoulder.

The real power of Little Nicky’s story lies in its universality. We all have a Little Nicky—a villain we battle in our heads. For some, it’s fear of failure. For others, it’s procrastination or negative self-talk. Whatever form it takes, I've found that naming it is the first step to defeating it .. to killing it.

For me, Little Nicky represents the contrast between who I used to be and my "Spartan Self" - the man/partner/friend/son/brother I strive to embody. My Spartan Self wakes up at 5 a.m., embraces hard challenges, and rejects the comfort of excuses. Every time I silence Little Nicky’s voice, I choose that higher version of myself.

And this morning his voice was pretty fucking loud and unavoidable as the assignment deal I wrote about earlier this week proverbially died on the vine when my buyers told me the math doesn't work for them any longer (after they learned of yet another lien/debt on the property surfaced) and they are not going to proceed.

Now I have to give the seller the news that we/I won't be closing.

Little Nicky loves this kind of shitty news because he knows it feeds fears. Good thing I already defeated him today and can comfortably share the news with the seller about the situation and see about creating a different and viable solution for him.

Even better, I unearthed another SubTo deal in a FB Investors group with much more promising numbers. More about that one later.