Tough Love: 101 Short Stories, Essays, and Insights to Improve Communication Skills

By Armani Talks

Tough Love is a collection of 101 short stories, essays, and insights to improve communication skills. Knowledge which has the most practical value is not easy to learn. Because it challenges a lot of pre-existing paradigms. Therefore, Tough Love introduces the readers to knowledge that will lead to becoming

• Language: English
• Publisher: Armani Talks
• Release date: Nov 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798868992148

Book preview

Authors Preface

Tough love has always been a compelling concept to me.

Under this type of love:

Some rise to the occasion.

Other’s crumble.

What is the difference between these 2 groups? It’s hard to notice from day-to-day activities. However, with big picture thinking, it all begins to click. The difference comes down to philosophy.

One group grows

The other group maintains.

For the latter, maintaining leads them to go up sometimes, middle sometimes, downwards sometimes. The longer they follow this philosophy, the more they see that they are not maintaining diddly squat. They are simply falling backwards into reality.

There are different viewpoints someone has in terms of their life. I view reality as a large information system.

The standards of success in an information system comes down to adding more content, making more connections & creating more meaning. In my opinion, this is a phenomenal way live life.

‘Wait, wait, wait… Armani. Create content, make connections, create more meaning? What the hell are you talking about?’

Oops.

Let me take it a few steps back.

Imagine you owned a media company that was responsible for chugging out 2-3 stories a week.

At first, you may think that is too many stories. But if I told you that was your only job and you didn’t have any other obligations, now 2-3 doesn’t sound half bad.

You decide to start a website where you blog the short stories. The first week, it feels like hell thinking of a topic. The last time you seriously wrote was in high school. Therefore, the neurons require more work.

One week passes.

Three stories are up and running on your blog.

In the beginning stages, there are no patterns among the stories. Just 3 random blog posts with nothing resembling one another.

Next week arrives.

Now it’s time to create 3 more stories. Once again, the neurons begin firing in your brain and you push through.

As more time goes on by, patterns begin to emerge.

On week 35, you notice that the current story you are writing links perfectly to a story you wrote in week 2. As you go back to read your story from week 2, you notice concepts that connect to a story that you wrote on week 15.

Connections are being made.

What seemed disparate in the beginning stages now shows unity. That’s what I mean when I say, ‘add content, create connections & generate more meaning.’

You own this media company.

We live in a media company.

One large story.

That’s where the concept of tough love comes into place. This concept is a force amplifier when it comes to bringing out our best selves.

Getting tough love from others is good.

Inflicting this form of love on yourself is great.

What is Tough Love?

This type of action has plenty of different meanings. I want to boil it down to a one-line haymaker:

Tough love is to bring out the best in yourself.

That’s the general way of saying it.

Here’s my poetic definition:

Tough love is setting your heart on FIRE.

A form of action that leads to fearlessness & focus.

Don’t you find it amazing that consciousness and concentration have the same number of letters?

‘Hm, I never noticed that.’

Well, now you do.

Consciousness is being aware.

Concentration is being focused.

The 2 are joined at the hip.

When you set your heart on fire, you are concentrated. This expands your consciousness, and the mind shifts from small time thinking to big time thinking.

Rather than identify as a story that is strictly looking out for your own narrative… Now you become the CREATOR of the media company who sees different stories connecting with one another. Entropy is lowering, connections are being made, meaning is being gathered.

As you work on this media company, there are more patterns that you notice.

Reality as we know it and the media company are not that different. All you are doing is expanding your consciousness more and more….

Story of Tough Love

In the earlier part of my life, I was a skinny kid. Others would often make me aware of how skinny I was.

Let’s say you went viral for doing something idiotic. The video ended up getting millions of views online.

Plenty of your friends and family members hit you up the next morning and send over the clip of you acting like an idiot. They ask, ‘is this you ???’

You’re mortified.

From there on out, every time you are interacting with someone, a part of you may be thinking, ‘are they aware of this embarrassing clip? Or do they know someone who knows? This interaction is going so well! Once they see me acting like an idiot, they will cut off all ties with me.’

Imagine how hard it will be to stay in the present moment in this scenario. At a point, I was going through that…

Different people I interacted with seemed like they were judging me. It’s like they were being friendly one moment, and the next moment, they would be like, ‘yo, you’re so skinny, do you even eat?’

They would ask the question in a very judgmental tone.

My breaking point came during junior year of high school. This story involves a kid named Jared & his right-hand man, Thomas. We all sat in the back of class together.

This class didn’t have too many students. I would say 13 students with a lot of empty desks. Me, Jared, and Thomas sitting in the back of class helped us get to know each other.

You know how guys are. They tease and joke around a lot. Thomas was a big guy. He looked like a football player for college. Jared wasn’t all that big. He seemed roughly around my size.

Imagine my surprise when Jared says, ‘Armani, you are such a stick! Do you even workout? You should man, you look sick.’

This infuriated me.

I shot back at him saying that he didn’t have much credibility to talk. Yet, he pushed on and made fun of me some more.

Thomas joined in on our argument to say how Jared at least looked like he worked out. He said I looked like a flat-out stick.

Ah… picking sides I see.

Don’t you hate it when someone does that? Two people are arguing, and the third person has to pick a side rather than conducting a peace treaty.

Fuck you, Thomas.

I went back and forth with Jared for a while. After his 7th time calling me a stick, I called him Jerrica.

There’s a reason I specifically chose Jerrica.

Jared had curly hair that was very noticeable. The long locks made him look like a cartoon character.

One day, during our biology class, he fell a sleep with his head resting on the desk. As his head was on the table, the teacher thought it was a girl sleeping.

When the teacher said, ‘please wake up that girl,’ the entire class busted out in laughter.

After that point, a few people decided to call Jared, Jerrica, to remind him of his strange hairstyle. His hair was feminine for a boy.

This nickname would set Jared off. One time, he pushed a kid and made him fall. Another time, he kicked a kid in the stomach for calling him that name.

When I called him Jerrica to his face, he chose violence. He pushed me as hard as he could.

‘Did you fall?’

Surprisingly, no.

I maintained balance. It was enough balance to slightly push him back as well.

That’s when a pushing contest turned into a grappling contest. There was bad blood between both of us. This wasn’t a situation of 2 boys ‘horsing around.’

I was going for knockout. Wanted to see this piece of shit fall to the ground for calling me a stick. Based on the way Jared was grappling me, I could tell he was positioning himself to get a knockout as well.

No teacher in sight.

No clue where Ms. Reddington was.

Thomas was laughing nonstop.

This was before we had cellphones that could record long videos. That didn’t stop Thomas from pulling out his flip phone and recording his 9 second clips.

After grappling for a while, I was able to sneak out an arm and punch Jared right on the cheek bone. When he felt the contact, he retaliated with a punch right on my jaw. We continued to fight.

I wanted to knock this piece of shit out so bad.

But my breath was getting shorter.

I was running out of breath…

Jared gets me with another punch on the right side of my head. This punch was harder than the first one. Then a third punch to my chin.

I punch Jared clean on the nose.

The entire class erupts.

I’m assuming they thought we were joking around earlier. Now they knew we meant business.

As the tension was rising, Ms. Reddington walks in and yells:

‘Hey!!! Both of you, knock that off!!!’

Soon as we heard her voice, both of us immediately got in line.

I had gotten suspended a few months earlier for skipping class.

Jared had gotten suspended a few months earlier for fighting.

Another suspension would mean that we could get expelled.

Before we separated, Jared whispered, ‘fuck you, bitch. Watch your back.’

Class ended.

Where Tough Love Begins

I won’t lie…

For the rest of that year, I lived in fear.

Jared was a popular kid.

Plus, he was a hothead.

There were a few times I was waiting in the bus stop, and I thought he was going to come with a bat, or a group of people to attack me. This fear made the year feel like hell.

There was pressure.

This pressure was not something that I enjoyed.

Reality was giving me tough love.

It wanted me to set my heart on fire.

Be fearless.

How can I be fearless?

Reality gave mean an answer:

Fearlessness is not a state, it’s a process.

Aha!!

I spent that year going to the gym and getting enrolled in Karate. Jared’s tough love resonated with me. He was right.

I was skinny.

Fragile.

Weak.

A man who cannot defend himself lives in fear.

Nah, there needs to be something done about it.

I tell you this story because I came to realize where tough love began.

‘Where was that?’

Tension.

There’s a level of tension that is felt in the heart.

A force that tells you that you need to do something.

It’s something that is experienced before it is articulated.

Since we are civilized now, most live the opposite way.

They articulate things, and never really experience it.

That’s how smart people move.

The book smart individuals.

With their fancy theory and their credentials.

Life hits everyone with tough love and only a few rise to the challenge. When the tough love hits, we have a choice:

Do we create connections and patterns, or do we only see disparate stories?

Remember the example I gave you earlier with the CREATOR of the media company?

I mentioned how the creator did not see connections in the beginning.

They saw the connections later.

Key word is later.

Second key word is connections.

I realized as a decade went by as to why that fight with Jared changed me for the best. After that fight, I came to see that he was right.

Maybe he wasn’t the biggest guy. He didn’t have the qualifications to talk to me like that. Yet, he was right about his criticism of me.

I was small.

I needed tough love to wake the fuck up.

Over 10 years later, fitness is a huge part of my life.

I added muscle since then.

Learned how to fight since then.

It’s more than physical. It’s the mind. I now know that the beliefs can alter attitude and the attitude can alter the body.

It’s time to wake up.

No more coddling.

Set the heart on fire.

How to Read This Book

I once had someone ask me if I was a motivational speaker. He had just stumbled across my YouTube channel and was getting familiar with my work.

No, I’m not a motivational speaker.

One of my best friends is in the motivational speaking field. I understand the discipline, grit, and consistency it takes to succeed in that field. Much respect to those speakers.

Still, no, I’m not a motivator.

Quite frankly, I don’t care if someone feels remotely motivated or not after reading these short stories. It’s more about shedding insight into the truth.

The cover of this book is of a heart set on FIRE.

Let me explain the symbols to you.

True knowledge is felt in the heart.

When you encounter it, it feels like you’ve known it all your life, and now you’re just becoming AWARE. That’s the purpose of education. To draw out what is already within.

That’s how people assess value in the first place.

It’s not the object, it’s the information that we extract from the object.

The book you are consuming right now may be from your digital device or a physical copy. If it’s digital, then you may be looking at a bunch of pixels and holding on a casing of a cellphone. If you are holding a paperback, then you are touching a glossy cover, with paper and scribbles on it.

What we extract is felt within. Knowledge that ties into your experience is felt in the HEART, not only in the head. My goal is to have you connect with certain passages in detail.

Even though you do not know me & I do not know you, we have a lot of similarities.

Mainstream entertainment talks about the different ways we are different. They get creative with that.

As you read this book, you’ll notice a lot of my experiences have similarities to yours. That’s the heart symbol. Value felt in your chest.

Fire represents truth.

Monks wear the orange robes because it symbolizes fire. The fire represents dispelling away all darkness, the ignorance. We aren’t taught a lot of practical tools in as simple way.

Either those practical tools are delivered in a complex way, or it’s never delivered at all.

Tough Love has 101 short stories, essays, and insights talking about a wide range of topics dealing with being a free thinker, reinventing yourself, social dynamics, cheat codes and secrets to build confidence and much more. The stories are meant to give you a wakeup call.

I never viewed myself as a motivator because I’m not here to amp you up. I consider myself a storyteller because I want my stories to resonate with you to help you gain crystal clear clarity.

Call it tough love or call it awakening you to a new reality. The word play is on you.

Set Yourself on Fire

We automatically focus on what we care about.

You don’t have to convince a person who loves television to focus on their television programs.

Now it’s a game of becoming curious about life.

The burning desire to know the truth is what propels human behavior to the next level.

At the beginning, I said reality is more fun when we view it as one big story. An information system that is constantly adding in new content, making more connections, creating more meaning.

‘For how long?’

For life.

Each time you create meaning from concepts which seemed disparate, each time your world view shifts just a little. Little is gargantuan in the world of perception.

Tough love or no love.

Some crumble under the pressure. Those who have a chip on their shoulder use the pressure as a reality check to keep waking up to different gradients of existence.

Allow these 101 short stories, essays, and insights to be your wakeup call.

Set yourself on FIRE and come back as a new person.

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The Secret Of Discipline

The secret of discipline is:

Discipline.

At first, this seems like a fortune cookie type response. Seems like the response is energized with sarcasm.

Yet, that's not how it should be perceived.

You can't really explain discipline to someone who does not exhibit it. Why?

Because discipline stretches past language.

Language consists of words which help us make sense of the natural world.

To make sense of the natural world, we require tools.

The tools can be tangible, like machines.

The tools can be intangible, like math & language.

Ultimately, these tools are meant to give us a BETTER understanding of the natural world.

The natural world is the world of dualities.

Dualities come down to this OR that thinking.

-Good or bad.

-Right or wrong.

-Pleasure or pain. 

-Profit or nonprofit.

This is where we have a problem with describing discipline.

'Why do you say that?'

Because discipline extends PAST dualities.

Discipline is the act of showing up DESPITE the good or the bad.

Which gives discipline an infinite context.

The infinite cannot be fully broken down into words.

Why?

Because words represent the natural world.

Dualities. And dualities are bound to the conditions of space, time & causation.

Infinite implies something PAST the realm of space, time & causation. Which makes describing infinity an impossible task.

Although fully describing infinity is impossible with the use of words, we can still get a peak.

This is why people who are smart talk in analogies & stories. These people understand that the grand truth cannot be broken down into words alone.

However, we can form associations.

Associations will give us the best bet of getting close to infinity. Even if we can't describe it, we can make it clearer to our minds & the minds of others.

All this ties into discipline because the word comes ALIVE when you embody it in some way shape or form.

Anything that relates to infinity must ultimately be experienced.

I could tell people all day about how a daily email list will allow them to understand that 'writers block' is an illusion. But they will never get it.

By get it, I mean realize it.

It's a truth. There is 0 doubt in their mind because they have felt it for themselves.

That's the beauty of discipline. It allows you to showcase your human potential to the world.

Rather than pondering on the human potential alone.

The only secret to discipline all along was discipline itself.

You have to get involved in a certain activity over & over again.

Some days you feel like doing it.

Other days you do not feel like doing it.

Duality.

But if you show up anyways, that's when you TRANSCEND duality.

When you transcend duality, you start to REALIZE what it means when I say that infinity cannot be fully described.

It must only be experienced. 

Trick To Creativity

The trick to creativity is speed & reduction of time. I realized this trick when I first began doing Toastmasters Table Topics.

Thought it was crazy to be given a random topic, plan out the speech & deliver it on the spot. I thought it was impossible.

However, some of the greatest speeches I heard in Toastmasters were from Table Topics. They were even better than a lot of the planned speeches.

Less time allows you to write more with the subconscious mind.

Reduction in time & speed are earned though. Need to put in your reps. Or you need to have a spotlight put over you where you have no choice but to execute. Sort of like in Toastmasters when a crowd is waiting to hear your words.

Planning too much stifles the flow. It has you leading with the conscious mind. The conscious mind is cool and all. But the subconscious mind has you producing better art.

Creativity helps us connect with our intuition.

Too much logic takes us away from our animal sides. Has us over thinking our trained instincts away. Makes us too domesticated.

If I suddenly throw a basketball at your face, are you going to be like, 'Hm... should I move my head left, or right?'

Nah, you will move where your body moves.

That's the intelligence of the body.

Once you have a rough idea of how to do the task, begin shaving off the time it takes to produce. You'll continue to surprise yourself.

Over and over again...

Creativity turns your mind from a galaxy to a universe.

And you only unlock the universe qualities of your mind when you have faith that you have the power to do so.

The Biggest Mistake While Talking To Strangers

Talking to strangers is a tad bit daunting, isn't it? You have no clue who this person is & don't know if it's worth facing a possible rejection.

To make matters worse, you have