Fulmer Ned - The Hidden Power of F*cking Up

To everyone out there trying

Contents

(and Why Yoda Is Bullshit)

W e had to try.

The waves were much higherand far more frighteningthan they were supposed to be. A storm was brewing, and angry clouds gathered on the horizon, inching closer, as the turbulent waves thrashed our dingy life raft like a rag doll. Having already pulled themselves onto the raft, Ned and Eugene lifted Zach from the icy water. Then all three hoisted up Keith. For a moment, it seemed like the crisis was over. And then Keith started vomiting.

Every video has a plan, but this one wasnt going according to ours. Keith, a survival show aficionado, was supposed to save the day, uniting our fractured family and swooping in during the videos climax to lead our rescue. That was then, this was now, and Keith was lost to us. With each wave he fell deeper and deeper into an abyss of nausea. As the remaining three of us devised a new plan, he continued to heave into the water. The plan to film for six hours was dashed. We needed to get this video done and get our asses back to shore.

Thats when we saw the shark.

The more Keith hurled, the more fish gathered to eat it, like chum. Apologies for that image. First came bigger fish, and then the shark. Two of them, actually, both circling curiously beneath us and occasionally piercing the waters surface to see what all the commotion was about. With dorsal fins closing in on our boat, suddenly our death and dismemberment insurance paperwork felt very relevant. The plan had totally gone to shit. But we were still there, and our video wasnt about to shoot itself.

With two GoPros and some shitty microphones taped to our chests, we rushed to complete filming before Keith ran out of bodily fluids and the sharks decided to fill the voids in their own empty stomachs. Then we stabbed the bottom of the raft, flooding it, and sunk into the ocean beneath us.

Totally and completely fucking everything up? All in a days work.

In case it wasnt obvious, were The Try Guysthe lovable quartet best known for our videos in which we, well, try things. From zapping our bellies to simulate the pains of childbirth, to sparring with professional UFC fighters (whose stupid idea was that?), weve done everything in our power to pushnayannihilate our comfort zones and better understand the people and world around us. Now were here to pay it forward. Our latest try? This book youre holding (or listening to if youre an audiophile).

But this book is not about succeeding, and its certainly not about perfection. Its a book about living, about pushing boundaries, and about challenging yourself to reach heights once thought to be impossible. This is a book about embracing failure and riding it on a bumpy but ultimately upward trajectory. Because if our crazy journey has taught us anything, its that success isnt all its cracked up to be. In fact, the only way to truly experience all the wonderful, bizarre, satisfying, life-changing, mind-melting, Instagram-doesnt-even-do-it-justice things this world has to offer, is to fail.

In the pages that follow, were going to share a collection of philosophies that have guided us through making videos and, somewhere along the way, transformed us into better people. Well also be sharing some stories from our past for the first time ever, carefully handpicked to showcase just how much weve fucked up on our way to becoming the mostly well-adjusted gentlemen you see before you today. Together, well all become the best versions of ourselves.

Identifying your insecurities is the first step to self-improvement. Listen, its okay to not be cool. Believe it or not, were not cool either; see rest of book. But stick with us here: not being cool is what makes you cool. Where most self-help books are going to teach you how to be someone else, were going to teach you how to embrace who you already are. And then were going to lovingly knock you right out of your comfort zone. Together, well reassemble ourselves with the full potential weve always possessed. Watch out world, because the skys the limit, and even then we can go further.

For most of our young lives, we have zero responsibilities and develop amazing habits like not exercising, eating like crap, never cleaning up after ourselves, and procrastinating whenever given the opportunity (read: always). And then one day, BAM!, you wake up and realize your friends have all replaced their movie posters with framed art, the government is asking you to pay something called taxes, and youre just expected to know how to cook without burning the house down. But how, though? When did everyone learn how to live? Did we miss some clandestine meeting where everyone discovered the secrets of the universe? If you feel this way, youre not alone. We all do! And it might just get worse before it gets better.

Welcome to life. Youre going to fail.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF TRYING

Everything amazing ever created or accomplished by mankind was forged not via instant greatness, but rather by complete and total failure. Throughout this book we will be sharing some famous, infamous, and downright silly examples of tries throughout history. Hey, if these people never attempted anything scary, we wouldnt be talking about them, would we?

For example, at fifteen, Albert Einstein dropped out of school. A year later, he applied to another school but failed the entrance exam. After that hed only go on to develop the theory of relativity and be named Times Person of the Century. Show-off.

We believe failure is the most powerful tool in your arsenal to grow and change and learn. Failure is the building block of everything you want to achieve in life. If Try New Things is something weve been told since elementary school, we invite you to Fail On Purpose.

Remember The More You Know, those public service announcements that taught you about the dangers of crack cocaine or dry drowning? We try to live by the opposite credo: The Less You Know. You see, the more you think you know, the less you want to learnand learning leads to trying, trying leads to failing, and failing leads to growth. So anytime we think we know it all, we just try to step back and remind ourselves were idiots. Trust us, this is good advice.

The fear of failure is something weve all internalized over the years and its something we all need to unlearn. Think about how debilitating it is to take standardized tests or audition for a school musical or tell your crush how you feel. You arent afraid of the action itselfyoure afraid of not doing well, of being vulnerable. Thats why its even scarier when youre looking at that cast list or finally get a text back. For a moment, youre powerless to the whims of the world. But we move past it. And when failure motivates us to do better, thats when we really succeed. Its only when failure scares us away from trying again that weve truly been beaten. We have to work to change our perspective: failure is a step forward, not a step back.