Brilliant Life Advice from Will Arnett: You Can Choose Your Own Weather

Most of us know Will Arnett as the voice behind goofy characters like Lego Batman, BoJack Horseman, and Mr. Perkins in Despicable Me.

If you’re anything like me, you probably wouldn’t expect philosophical wisdom to flow from the mouth of Lego Batman.

But Will Arnett is much deeper than his comedic work implies. He recently appeared on an episode of the podcast Armchair Expert, hosted by his friend and fellow actor Dax Shepard. In that episode, Arnett offers some brilliant Stoic wisdom:

“You just get what you put out there. If I’m thinking about the lack of something, I get more ‘lack of’…

If you say, ‘Things are gonna be hard for me,’ then guess what? Things are gonna be hard for you…

My starting point is: I’m happy no matter what. I create my own weather. So as long as I’m happy no matter what, everything else is just kinda noise…How you feel is a direct result of what you think about. The only thing you can control is what you think about.”

“I create my own weather.” Gosh, I love that.

Arnett’s life has not been free of difficulty. He battled alcoholism for years, endured two divorces including one to actress Amy Poehler in 2016, and has dealt with several career setbacks.

And yet, he has found that his own mental forecast each day matters more than the meteorologist’s forecast. He uses meditation, relentless optimism, and focused attention to choose joy, even during difficult circumstances.

Hearing Arnett’s view on life reminds me of the work of Viktor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who survived several Nazi concentration camps and relayed his experiences in the book Man’s Search for Meaning.

Frankl says that one of the things that got him through the concentration camps was his determination to maintain a positive attitude.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” -Viktor Frankl

Frankl explained that we choose how we respond to others: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Example stimuli: You lose your job. Your spouse walks out on you. You fail an important exam. Your best friend betrays you. Your car is stolen.

In any of these situations, the majority of humans would immediately connect the stimulus (horrible event) to a given response (horrible attitude). Anger. Confusion. Frustration. Sadness. Helplessness.

Our brains effortlessly make that connection, but Will Arnett and Viktor Frankl say our circumstances do not — or at least should not — define our behavior.

It’s our CHOICE how to respond to those situations.
There is a gap between stimulus and response.
We get to choose how to fill that gap.

“Remind yourself that the only thing you can truly control is you — and your reaction to what the world throws at you.” -Patrick M. Regan

It’s not easy to override our default response to difficult situations. When someone cuts us off in traffic, our pre-programmed human response is anger or frustration. When a key client leaves us for a competitor, it’s easy to immediately worry about the loss of revenue or bemoan the fact that the client never should have left.

In order to take advantage of the stimulus/response gap — in order to create our own weather — we need to become much more self-aware. We need to discipline ourselves to focus on what is within our control and what is not. We need to develop the character, patience, and optimism to recognize that all is not lost.

There are a multitude of things that can help us develop this meteorological mental toughness:

• Journaling
• Meditation
• Reading philosophy
• Opening ourselves to feedback and advice
• Reminding ourselves what is within our control

Regardless of what is happening around you in the world today (political turmoil, civil unrest, job insecurity, etc.), you can choose how to respond. You can decide how much joy you will exhibit, how much stress you will carry with you, and how you will show up in the world today.

You can choose whether you’ll have a “good day” or a “bad day.”
You can choose your own weather.

What’s your mental forecast for today — sunny or rainy?