I want to write one last post about the Grow Taller Guru, Lance Ward and finally put a nail in the coffin on the Grow Taller Guru (GTG) case, and finally explain everything away using common sense, and reasonable science why his claims are not achievable.

So in the last few months I have been getting more and more messages from people who claim that Lance Ward, the Grow Taller Guru is not a scam but is real. The claim is that there are videos of his students or people who go through with his program who get results, most specifically the example of Michael and another YouTube height increase seeker, SkinTightFlash. (You can see his YouTube uploaded videos by clicking on his name to the left.) I actually recently wrote a post about the progress and the information I collected from watching almost all of SkinTightFlash’s videos and compressing all the important facts and numbers he stated on one post entitled “Reviewing A Height Increase Success Story By SkinTightFlash From Youtube, A Lance Ward Supporter“. So I don’t feel like I need to explain anymore about his situation and his progress.

So let’s look at Michael’s case. If we watch the videos for Michael’s progress, “How To Grow Taller – Day 1 of Michael’s Transformation” who was measured at 161.6 cms in the 1st video and than in the video “How To Increase Height After 20 – Day 90 of Michael’s Transformation + SU” at around 163.7 cms in the 2nd video, we can say that he increased around 2 cms in 90 days. From a quick look at his posture, and his feet positioning close to the ground, let’s assume that he is not cheating or trying to scam us but that the measurements are real. His positioning and posture suggests that he is trying to extend out his height to make sure it is at the maximum possible at that moment.

In the 2nd video linked Michael comes on to read from not a script but notes about his main points. He tried other products before but this one worked for him. He had tried insoles, lotions, and ointments before. Later on Michael would go into his reasons and his story for his desire for height. In his story about his past and his upbringing, he mentioned that he rarely ever exercised, ate unhealthily, and never working his body to be healthy and fit. he talks about how his relatives made fun of his body in terms of being overweight and short. Only very recently did he decide to incorporate exercise into his daily lifestyle and the exercises began with using Lance’s program of exercise routine.

Michael continues on to explain that the main reason why he wants to increase height is because of his desire to have a career in the entertainment industry. He talks about the “Haters” and “Sceptics” who want him to stop this program since they think Lance is cheating Michael out of his money by promising him something that will not work. Let me give my own opinion, and my final opinion, on Lance Ward at the end of this post.

He notes, and many of the views also notice, that he is getting healthier, fitting, and more muscular as the days go by. He says that Lance has become his friend, mentor, and coach. He makes the point that he never used to do “all this training and dieting” until Lance came along and changed his lifestyle to be more active, and healthier. Later he would talk about the need to be persistence and persevere past the pain and the suffering and focus on the end result. From the tone of his voice, let me give this Michael guy the benefit ofthe doubt and say that he reall does believe in this stuff. He is being honest in his thoughts, showing genuine intent, and is trying not to scam other people (unlike some people). So, he’s not lying, and at least believes in the program himself.

From a 3rd video “How To Grow Taller in a Week – Day 125 of Michael’s Transformation” he went up to 164 cms. In the 4th video “How To Grow Taller After Puberty – Day 130 of Michael’s Transformation” his recorded height seems to go up to 164.2 cms. On the 5th video “How To Grow Taller – Day 160 of Michael’s Transformation” the recorded height is around 164.3 cms. The 5th video “How To Get Taller – Day 260 of Michael’s Transformation” shows his height to be 164.4 cms. The last video I would talk about is “How To Get Taller – Day 300 of Michael’s Transformation” – where his measured height is around 164.3 cms. Overall, there is another dozen videos showing his height throughout 300 days but I chose to take some random data points but focused on taking more of the beginning and ending data of the time span.

I don’t want to spend 20-30 minutes putting all this data into Excel and graphing out an x-y plot to show Michael’s height progression but if we did, we would see that Michael has effectly hit his maximum height possible.

Analysis:

I am going to dissect Michael’s situation to such a level that it would be relatively easy to explain away why Lance’s method is not as effective as he claims. Originally Lance Ward claims that he can help you grow between 3-6 inches in only 90 days. That is in metric units around 7 cm-15 cm in height difference. With Michael, we see around a 2.2 cm of height difference between his initial measured height on day 1 to the height measured at the end of 300 days. What is clear from looking at Michael’s physique is that he is definitely getter healthier and more fit. You can see that his body does change and become broader, more muscular, and better shaped. Since Lance did put him through an exercise trainign program, this was bound to happen.

Overall, Singapore like many other developed rich cities in Asia, most people are not very active due to the fact that the environment they live is rather cramped and has little room to exercise well. This might explain why Michael in the beginning looked skinny and was not very healthy. From what I’ve seen of people in the upscale and high class of developed asian countries like Seoul, Shanghai, etc. they don’t get out much but stay indoors. These days the cities of Beijing and Shanghai has such a bad air pollution problem that most people are strongly advised to stay indoors and not go outdoors. Am I supposed to assume that everyone in these cities has a weight set and treadmill in their apartments and homes?

There is no doubt that in terms of health, overall life quality, and maybe also mental health has greatly improved due to Lance’s help and his exercise program. Michael at the end of 300 days looks stronger and buffer than in the beginning. However, has he really grown? From the looks of it, I would say that Michael has grown, but not to the degree that Lance claims he could get for people.

Like always, this again goes back to this concept or idea I created, called “Hidden Height“. Again, Hidden Height is the idea that within many people, they have not truly maximixed their full height potential that their current bone and vertebrate structure allows them to have. In many of the developed world, because we live such sedentary lives, we don’t actually stand up completely straight, develop bad posture, and our bad eating habits cause us to grow wider, around the waistline. With Michael’s situation, he says very clearly that before Lance, he almost NEVER exercised. It seems that the first time he ever really decided to live healthily and work out, was when he took up Lance’s program.

I don’t want to sound condescending but every single trainer and fitness “guru” in the world can push, give orders, and coach a unhealthy living bad posture, slouching person to work out to a better body. Give me 2 months with a lazy person who is out of shape and I can turn him into healthy with a slimmer, more muscular body. But that is NOT the point. Lossing weight, gaining muscle, and becoming healthier was never the goal. Millions, if not billions of people around the world can get themselves to loose wight. What is clearly almost impossible is getting people to increase in height.

As I said before, many people, actually a good percentage of the population in society, can grow taller, but they will only grow up to a certain point, and completely plateau because they have gained their “Hidden Height“. That plateau for 99.9% of the people is around the 2-3 cm mark. Before they were a sloth, who leaned down a lot, slouched working in front of a computer most of the day, and that means that their lifestyle caused them to progressively over time loss a little bit of height every month. After 5 years, they would find themselves maybe 1-1.5 cm shorter if measured during the same time each day. Michael has hit his plateau, and used up all of his “Hidden Height“.

It may seem counter-intuitive at first but if you sit down and think over the common sense, it would make sense. Here is a rough outline on the height potential of people with different types of lifestyle.

• Person who has never exercises before, slouches a lot, and is overweight, obese –> They can gain upward of 3 cms, maybe even 4 cms if they really push and use traction devices.

• Person who has only occasionally exercise and slightly overweight –> They can gain upward of around 2 cm, 2.5 cms if they are lucky.

• Person who regularly exercises  –> The maximum they can gain is maybe 1-2 cm in real extra height.

• A person who does yoga, and stetches –> They can get only 0.5-0.1 cm of extra height since they have already been using up their “hidden height”.

• A high level athletes who exercises regularly –> They will get maybe 0-0.5 cms

All that this correlation of height increase shows is that if you come from a lower level, in the beginning, you will see a greater difference in the change if you go through with the program. Duh, common sense. 

“Hidden Height” is potential height that they have never actualized.

Very few people have reached a fitness level where they really have pushed to their heigh potential. Bruce Lee measured himself at 5′ 7.5″ (171 cms). There is absolutely no way in hell Bruce Lee would ever gain any height no matter what exercise program he used. He already has exercised and trained his body to their maximum ability, which the bones allow. The same can be said for Olympic level gymnasts and people who do yoga. If you area already healthy and doing exercises, you will NOT gain height. If you have been living an unhealthy lifestyle devoid of any exercise, you WILL see height increase, and a substantial one too, possible up to 3 cms. But that is It. SkinTightFlash gained around 3 cm of height. However his overweight body and slouching torso suggest that he might be able to gain 1 -2more cm but I don’t think he will get any more unless he does something dramatic. With Michael, his skinny frame shows that his body is not compressing much vertebrate. All that Lance has done was get michael to develop enough fitness in his torso to give him better posture and have a stronger core. I once wrote a post suggesting that is might be possible to reduce the height loss throughout the day if a person had a stronger core of muscles holding up the top torso.

At some level, I think Lance knows that what I say is absolutely true. You can not get an average person with no slough or scoliosis in their back to increase their height by 3 inches.

What Michael has done is grow taller, but his height was always there. He has been able to get it to be realized through an exercise program. If we wanted to get technically, Lance Ward can claim that his protege and friend Michael from Singapore using his Grow Taller program did grow maybe 2 cms taller, but I would be able to get Michael the same results if I worked with him for the same amount of time and developed a reasonable exercise program with a lot of stretching and vertebrate decompression.

Note #1: Something else to note is his hair. Michael’s hair style changes a lot throughout the year of 300 days. In some videos I notice that he is not completely pressing the height measuring machine fully down, but only lightly putting the device on the top of his hair, but not his real head. Years ago, when I was doing my routines, I was obsessed enough to shave my head bald to remove that barrier which would cause measurement error. What I would guess is that in some videos, Michael is either intentionally or unintentionally not completely pushing the device fully down to his head. This can account for even upward of 0.5-1 cm of height gain we see in the measuring device.

Note #2: Certain asian males have stronger, thicker hair than their caucasian male counterparts. This means that if they cut their hair really short, their short hair will stick up completely and not fall to the side. The device would not be effective in showing their real height since the flat horizontal measuring “ruler’ will only touch the hair ends as the flat surface drops down, not the actual head. This leads to an inaccurate height measurement. From the Wikipedia article on human hair…”Asian hair typically has a round fiber and is quite straight.” From ScienceMag.com …”The cross-sectional area of East Asian hair fibers averages about 30% larger than that of Africans and 50% larger than that of Europeans”

From more sources, “Asian hair has twice the diameter and a much thicker cuticle than Caucasian hair. Most hair types have around five  layers of cuticles while Asian hair has closer to ten….Asian’s have anywhere between 80,000 and 140,000 scalp hairs but, typically, they have fewer hairs per square centimetre than Caucasians. (They also tend to have less body and facial hair.) However, because the individual hair shafts are thicker, it gives the impression of greater hair density.”

For the pictures I found from the internet, Note that Yao Ming’s hair when cute really short causes his hair to stand completely up. It does not fall down due to how thick and sturdy certain asian male hair are. This may be why Yao Ming looks even TALLER than he already is. His hair makes him look a possible 1-2 inches taller. On the left we see a natural real blonde, a swedish female which light blue/green/hazel eyes. From looking at the roots, her eyebrows, and even the micro hairs on her face, we note that she is not like so many bottle bleach blondes we find in say Hollywood but has natural fair blonde hair color. Note how her hair is rather thin and falls on the side. If her hair was cut to be short, her hair would not stand up.

[Disclaimer & Warning: All of the advice provided does not represent the opinions of real medical professionals but only the ideas and theories of amateur researchers in the biological and pharmaceutical sciences. If you choose to buy supplements, food, or any form of “drug” due to the advice of this website/webpage you do so at your own risks. Me and my team at Natural Height Growth will not be held liable for any illness, injury, and even possible death that can result from you taking the recommended substances]

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This question is something I realized that had to be answered as clearly and precisely as possible because I realized while I was reformatting the website that there is still a large amount of disconnect and lack of understanding between me and the other researchers who contribute to the website and and the readers and visitors who come to the website hoping to find a solution to this issue.

It is generally assumed that the main group of people who come to this website who are looking for a solution to their height increase problem are probably past the age of possible natural growth. The growth plates are closed and completely calcified.

This is why this website has been mainly devoted to finding a solution for this group of people. Sure, along the way we have found many other interesting and useful knowledge, like…

• How to regenerate teeth using electrical application.
• How to heal teeth cavities using natural, simple to get products and chemicals.
• How to shorten the time for bone fracture healing.
• How to treat intervertebral disk ruptures like herniated disks and bulging disks.
• How to increase bone mass and density for reduced risks of arthritis and joint pain.
• How to help people with open growth plates grow taller.
• And a few more interesting things, as well as write posts on how to improve our minds like Mind Hacks posts and how to improve other parts of our body with Body Hacks posts.

There is currently, at this time of 1/22/2013 only three supplements listed which I and other researchers like Tyler from HeightQuest.com seem to think from extensive research that there is a real chance that they can lead to at least a little bit of height increase. For me, I am looking at whether the compound has pro-chondrogenesis qualities can assist in some way towards chondrocyte proliferation or hypertrophy, or can somehow increase in number the amount of connective tissue that would determine the overall height of the human body.

1. Astragalus – Dosage: Unknown at this time (Possible reason for effectiveness)
2. Glucosamine Sulphate – Dosage: 1000 mg -2000 mg daily – (Possible reason for effectiveness)
3. Hyaluronic Acid – Dosage: – Unknown at this time (Possible reason for effectiveness)

For a very simple summary on why each of these compounds has potential to possibly lead to height increase even for people who are past physical maturity is that

• Astragalus –  seems to show from studies to be able to boost the production of telomerase, which will keep the rate of telomere shortening low, which means that overall the rate at which cells which can still proliferate further will be extended, which includes the chondrocytes.
• Glucosamine Sulphate – is marketed to support the structure and function of joints and the marketing is targeted to people suffering from osteoarthritis so increased amounts can lead to either or both articular cartilage thickening or decreased rate of articular cartilage damage and thinning. From Wikipedia…

“If glucosamine sulfate actually is proven to be effective in patients with osteoarthritis, it may result from anti-inflammatory activity, stimulation of proteoglycan synthesis, decrease in catabolic activity of chondrocytes inhibiting the synthesis of proteolytic enzymes and other substances that contribute to cartilage integrity, or have no effect at all….As a substrate of the GAG matrix, glucosamine is postulated to stimulate synovial production of hyaluronic acid or possibly to inhibit liposomal enzymes.”

• Hyaluronic Acid – is a type of glycoaminoglycan which is an important component of articular cartilage, where it is present as a coat around each cell (chondrocyte) so any increase should lead to chondrocyte protection and also synovial joint extracellular fluid being increased in volume expanding any joints.

For the longer, more detailed posts on the research behind each of these compounds, click on the link “Possible reason for effectiveness” beside the supplement’s name above. A full list of all the possible height increase supplements you can take, including if you are still growing and have open growth plates is available in the section called “Supplements Guide“.

Sometimes I find new ideas for posts from the traffic sources I see on the people who find this site from searching other supplements or techniques to grow taller. That was originally what lead me to certain ideas on height increase like using the MFiii and wrote the post “Height Increase Using MFIII“. The whole idea for me back then sounded strange and I never fully made a conclusive opinion on it. The source for the MFiii was sheep placenta (supposedly) and it contained stem cells. At the time I wrote the post, I was not very knowledgeable on how it would be possible to increase height except to take a shot at making the best educated objective guess on its possible effectiveness.

However, the traffic sources yesterday showed that a person was looking for another type of height increase and grow taller supplement which I have never seen before, something called “Double Action V  Growth Enhancer Supplement, Gain Height and Taller“. When I tried to see where the supplement was being sold at, it was found to be sold on Ebay HERE and the cost of the supplement was very high. The bottle seems to carry 180 pill tablets at 350 mg of active ingredient at a price of $80. The product seems to be sold and tailored for people based in Japan so I would guess that the product is also made and distributed only for Japanese people.  It is branded as a dietary supplement.

Analysis: What is most interesting is that at the bottom is a clipping of the chart which shows 7 people who took this dietary supplement and got on average around 10 cms of height increase. That is almost 4 inches. The most interesting thing is that these people are in their 20s, and even a couple are in their 30s. Although I can’t read Japanese, I can guess that this product being sold on Ebay is being branded as a pill that is for people who are passed the natural growing phase to increase in height again. This is the big claim that many other scams do. When you claim this type of revolutionary technological product, there must be some substantial scientific evidence backing it up. There are names of people in the chart. The seller’s name is hi-hawaii, and HERE is his online profile. Overall, the seller has a 99.9% rating which means that he/she is good at doing the shipping, distribution, and accounts receivables. The rating is not to rate that the products were good or effective, but only that the seller could get their products to the buyer at a fast, easy way. It seems from a quick look that hi-hawaii is mainly focused on selling cosmetic and body image enhancer products, all of them Japan derived or created. From the item distribution process, we see that the payment style is through PayPal, which is extremely good for the seller. The return policy is 14 days, and the buyer has to pay the shipping costs. If I remember the cost of international shipping, I am almost positive that the cost of shipping international to return such an item would be extremely high, so even if a person did buy a product and found it bad, they probably wouldn’t want to spend additional money to send the product back to get their money back. The hassle, cost, and effort that would be required to return this item, with only 14 days probably after the first day of payment received, means that the seller is not giving the buyer any time limit to ever get the refund ever at all. I was always going to claim that whoever is selling this product is a seller with bad practices because they are selling a product that can never work, but it seems that the return/refund policy and process is also near impossible so they are doing something immoral too. I personally don’t like the business practices of the seller and I judge that because they claim such a dietary supplement to be able to give on average 4 inches of extra height for people in their 20-30s that they are also selling a bad and ineffective product.

Analysis #2: The glycine, L-Arginine, and GABA are the amino acids which some people say do help increase height, but only for people who are still growing. The St. John’s is a traditional medicinal extract with healing properties but no connection with height increase. The coral calcium and calcium shell is for the Calcium which is reasonable. The collagen peptides might be good in possibly make the articular cartilage become thicker and maybe reduce the possibility of articular cartilage deterioration and damage over time, however that does not mean that the articular cartilage will increase even by 0.5 cm for height over time. The soy protein is for the protein content which would be helpful for a person who was still young enough to get the effects. The vitamin mix would be worth it just to get  a complete vitamin nutritional value and the daily recommended amounts. The fact that the directions say that the directions asks a person to take 6 pills a day means that the idea might be to overload the body with the protein, calcium, protein, and vitamins. I don’t know what such effects would be but I would guess that the body would at come point, to keep the homeostasis, would reach a saturation or level of diminishing returns on the effect of these vitamins and nutrients. Any excess proteins, amino acids, calcium, etc. might get flushed by the blood and lymphatic system out through the urine and blood stream out of the body. If this product was rebranded for just children who are still growing, or children in countries where growth is stunted due to lack of nutrition, it would probably work if the ingredients list is real and accurate. However the pill is branded for and shows its effects for people already past physical maturity. It won’t work for that demographic so it is ineffective.

From the sales page on Ebay…

Double Action V  Growth Enhancer Supplement, Gain Height and Taller – 63g (350 mg x 180 Tablets)

Gain your Height

Suitable for someone who are serious about wanting to gain your height.

Ingredients: Giycine, GABA, St.John, Coral Calcium, L-Arginine, Collagen Peptides, Calsium Shell, Soy Protein, Vitamin Mix

How to use :

Take 6 tables a day before bed time. (with warm water)

Should start with small quantity at first and increase it.

Recommend :

Sleep before 11p.m.

Avoid Alcohol, coffe, tea, soda  and smoking.

Exercises like basketball, jogging, jumping,swiming, pilates,yoga,pilates, stretching every day.

Keeping Condition :

Avoid sun light,away from children and keep in dry area.

Please avoid for who get allergy from ingredients or when you pregnant or during feeding.

This is samples of people who took this supplement for 3 months, age 18-36, height start at 159.3 – 169.8 cm. and gain height 3.1 -17.1 cm. (average 10.2 cm.),but please consider that how height can you grow, it depends on each indiviual person.

Since I have been posting monthly reports about the volume and details of traffic that has been going through the website I felt that I would like to inform the regular readers that just yesterday the amount of traffic that this website has been receiving went through a dramatic increase. From my guess it would seem that the news of the Acromegalic giant Tanya Angus caused the website to get an huge surge in the amount of traffic it has been regularly getting.

It seems that news broke out to a lot of the major news stations in the US about the fact that Tanya Angus passed away on the 14th of Jan. and a lot of people picked up that news and wanted to find out more details about her.

I was informed about the news of her passing from TheTallestMan.com and managed to get the news out a least a few hours before some of the other major news and journalists reported it with “The Death Of Acromegalic Giant Tanya Angus”

This time however I am a lot more prepared for it than last time, where the traffic increased by over 14 fold, from only 100 total visitors to 1400 in one day. I wrote about this phenomena with the website in the post “Website Traffic Went Through The Roof, Into The Stratosphere And Increased By Over 1000%“. In seemed that at the time, which was a little over a month after the website was started and the post was “Tanya Angus Is Proof That Height Increase Is Possible After Epiphyseal Plate Ossification” which managed to get ranked on the first page of google.

This time the traffic went from around 900-950 total daily visitors to almost 2,950 total visitors yesterday, a 3 fold increase in traffic. As always, I take the data from the website tracking software Clicky.

As for other technical details, I wanted to inform the readers that I have noticed that the website has reach a level of slowness on its uploading and page transitions which is extremely slow. I had stated before that I would hire a dev to fix the website speed problem. I tried to go with another approach before buying the Thesis WordPress theme that has been touted by so many other internet celebrities but after trying to figure out CSS and how to program and edit the template of the Thesis theme, I decided that I would leave the website format the way it is for now. In conclusion, I decided not to change the front end of the website, but get a real technical expert to go into the back end and figure out why the database and queries are causing so much problem. All my issues were first informed to the website hosting service’s and it seems that this is the best option to increase the speed of the website at this time. It seems that the website is now been more expensive to operate/ run due to more technical issues that are appearing.

When I was going through my list of websites today I came across an amazingly well written list of “truths” on the humor site Cracked.com that I felt had to be reposted on this website for the benefit of the readers. This article is one of those articles that really manages to remove all the bullshit that I feel so many people try to sweep under the rug of social niceties which never manages to reveal what the world is really like.

I personally don’t know what other people believe in or what values they hold on to but I have personally had to change my life philosophy on some painful experiences. Einstein once made the famous quote “The most important question to ask is whether the universe is friendly or not“. Due to how the human mind and thus behavior act towards this fundamental belief, a feedback mechanism is created that will correct for one’s beliefs, whether dispproving previously held assumptions or validating those original thoughts. When we watch nature and how it behaves, I would have to say that overall, the universe does not care whether it is friendly or not, it just “is” and will always “be”. Like almost everything that happens, almost everything has no nature that would allow it to be so sentient that it can choose to be either friendly or malicious. It really comes down to the individual’s way of interpreting the forces of the universe.

What psychologists who have done repeated testing have shown is that people who are more cynical, negative, and pessimistic are actually far more accurate at predicting what will happen in situations than people who are optimistic and trustworthy. However, other psychological testing have shown that people who are more optimistic, trustworthy, and helpful on average have a happier, healthier, longer life than the people who are cynical, negative, and pessimistic. This shows that overall, one’s personal leaning towards any one side will lead to certain benefits and certain weaknesses.

When people say things like “life is not fair”, what they are really saying is that the existence or reality we live in will not submit to our individualistic desires for equality or justice in the way we think it should be. Reality and our expectations of what we desire are diverging apart from each other. so the real question is, “Will you continue to fight the world the way it is and hope and will it using your psychic mental energy it will change or will you actually decide to at least be willing to give a shot and make a real honest effort in changing it?” 

This post I read has been “liked” by people on Facebook over 255,00o times, has been viewed almost 6 million times, and over 2,300 google+ members sharing it and over 7300 comments. So it is an amazing post where everyone felt a need to throw in their own opinion about this article which many, MANY people felt was worth sharing and talking about. I hope the readers will find this post helpful and useful in life.

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6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person

By:David Wong December 17, 2012 5,750,351 views

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2013, motherfuckers. Yeah! LET’S DO THIS.“Do what?” you ask. I DON’T KNOW. LET’S FIGURE THAT OUT TOGETHER, MOTHERFUCKERS. 

Feel free to stop reading this if your career is going great, you’re thrilled with your life and you’re happy with your relationships. Enjoy the rest of your day, friend, this article is not for you. You’re doing a great job, we’re all proud of you. So you don’t feel like you wasted your click, here’s a picture of Lenny Kravitz wearing a gigantic scarf.For the rest of you, I want you to try something: Name five impressive things about yourself. Write them down or just shout them out loud to the room. But here’s the catch — you’re not allowed to list anything you are (i.e., I’m a nice guy, I’m honest), but instead can only list things that you do (i.e., I just won a national chess tournament, I make the best chili in Massachusetts). If you found that difficult, well, this is for you, and you are going to fucking hate hearing it. My only defense is that this is what I wish somebody had said to me around 1995 or so.

#6. The World Only Cares About What It Can Get from You

Let’s say that the person you love the most has just been shot. He or she is lying in the street, bleeding and screaming. A guy rushes up and says, “Step aside.” He looks over your loved one’s bullet wound and pulls out a pocket knife — he’s going to operate right there in the street.

You ask, “Are you a doctor?”

The guy says, “No.”

You say, “But you know what you’re doing, right? You’re an old Army medic, or …”

At this point the guy becomes annoyed. He tells you that he is a nice guy, he is honest, he is always on time. He tells you that he is a great son to his mother and has a rich life full of fulfilling hobbies, and he boasts that he never uses foul language.

Confused, you say, “How does any of that fucking matter when my (wife/husband/best friend/parent) is lying here bleeding! I need somebody who knows how to operate on bullet wounds! Can you do that or not?!?”

Now the man becomes agitated — why are you being shallow and selfish? Do you not care about any of his other good qualities? Didn’t you just hear him say that he always remembers his girlfriend’s birthday? In light of all of the good things he does, does it really matter if he knows how to perform surgery?

In that panicked moment, you will take your bloody hands and shake him by the shoulders, screaming, “Yes, I’m saying that none of that other shit matters, because in this specific situation, I just need somebody who can stop the bleeding, you crazy fucking asshole.”

So here is my terrible truth about the adult world: You are in that very situation every single day. Only you are the confused guy with the pocket knife. All of society is the bleeding gunshot victim.

If you want to know why society seems to shun you, or why you seem to get no respect, it’s because society is full of people who need things. They need houses built, they need food to eat, they need entertainment, they need fulfilling sexual relationships. You arrived at the scene of that emergency, holding your pocket knife, by virtue of your birth — the moment you came into the world, you became part of a system designed purely to see to people’s needs.

Either you will go about the task of seeing to those needs by learning a unique set of skills, or the world will reject you, no matter how kind, giving and polite you are. You will be poor, you will be alone, you will be left out in the cold.

Does that seem mean, or crass, or materialistic? What about love and kindness — don’t those things matter? Of course. As long as they result in you doing things for people that they can’t get elsewhere. For you see …

#5. The Hippies Were Wrong

For those of you who can’t watch videos, it’s the famous speech Alec Baldwin gives in the cinematic masterpiece Glengarry Glenn Ross. Baldwin’s character — whom you assume is the villain — addresses a room full of dudes and tears them a new asshole, telling them that they’re all about to be fired unless they “close” the sales they’ve been assigned:

“Nice guy? I don’t give a shit. Good father? Fuck you! Go home and play with your kids. If you want to work here, close.”

It’s brutal, rude and borderline sociopathic, and also it is an honest and accurate expression of what the world is going to expect from you. The difference is that, in the real world, people consider it so wrong to talk to you that way that they’ve decided it’s better to simply let you keep failing.

That scene changed my life. I’d program my alarm clock to play it for me every morning if I knew how. Alec Baldwin was nominated for an Oscar for that movie and that’s the only scene he’s in. As smarter people have pointed out, the genius of that speech is that half of the people who watch it think that the point of the scene is “Wow, what must it be like to have such an asshole boss?” and the other half think, “Fuck yes, let’s go out and sell some goddamned real estate!”

Or, as the Last Psychiatrist blog put it:

“If you were in that room, some of you would understand this as a work, but feed off the energy of the message anyway, welcome the coach’s cursing at you, ‘this guy is awesome!’; while some of you would take it personally, this guy is a jerk, you have no right to talk to me like that, or — the standard maneuver when narcissism is confronted with a greater power — quietly seethe and fantasize about finding information that will out him as a hypocrite. So satisfying.”

That excerpt is from an insightful critique of “hipsters” and why they seem to have so much trouble getting jobs (that doesn’t begin to do it justice, go read the whole thing), and the point is that the difference in those two attitudes — bitter vs. motivated — largely determines whether or not you’ll succeed in the world. For instance, some people want to respond to that speech with Tyler Durden’s line from Fight Club: “You are not your job.”

But, well, actually, you totally are. Granted, your “job” and your means of employment might not be the same thing, but in both cases you are nothing more than the sum total of your useful skills. For instance, being a good mother is a job that requires a skill. It’s something a person can do that is useful to other members of society. But make no mistake: Your “job” — the useful thing you do for other people — is all you are.

There is a reason why surgeons get more respect than comedy writers. There is a reason mechanics get more respect than unemployed hipsters. There is a reason your job will become your label if your death makes the news (“NFL Linebacker Dies in Murder/Suicide”). Tyler said, “You are not your job,” but he also founded and ran a successful soap company and became the head of an international social and political movement. He was totally his job.

Or think of it this way: Remember when Chick-fil-A came out against gay marriage? And how despite the protests, the company continues to sell millions of sandwiches every day? It’s not because the country agrees with them; it’s because they do their job of making delicious sandwiches well. And that’s all that matters.

You don’t have to like it. I don’t like it when it rains on my birthday. It rains anyway. Clouds form and precipitation happens. People have needs and thus assign value to the people who meet them. These are simple mechanisms of the universe and they do not respond to our wishes.

If you protest that you’re not a shallow capitalist materialist and that you disagree that money is everything, I can only say: Who said anything about money? You’re missing the larger point.

#4. What You Produce Does Not Have to Make Money, But It Does Have to Benefit People

Let’s try a non-money example so you don’t get hung up on that. The demographic that Cracked writes for is heavy on 20-something males. So on our message boards and in my many inboxes I read several dozen stories a year from miserable, lonely guys who insist that women won’t come near them despite the fact that they are just the nicest guys in the world. I can explain what is wrong with this mindset, but it would probably be better if I let Alec Baldwin explain it:

In this case, Baldwin is playing the part of the attractive women in your life. They won’t put it as bluntly as he does — society has trained us not to be this honest with people — but the equation is the same. “Nice guy? Who gives a shit? If you want to work here, close.”

So, what do you bring to the table? Because the Zooey Deschanel lookalike in the bookstore that you’ve been daydreaming about moisturizes her face for an hour every night and feels guilty when she eats anything other than salad for lunch. She’s going to be a surgeon in 10 years. What do you do?

“What, so you’re saying that I can’t get girls like that unless I have a nice job and make lots of money?”

No, your brain jumps to that conclusion so you have an excuse to write off everyone who rejects you by thinking that they’re just being shallow and selfish. I’m asking what do you offer? Are you smart? Funny? Interesting? Talented? Ambitious? Creative? OK, now what do you do to demonstrate those attributes to the world? Don’t say that you’re a nice guy — that’s the bare minimum. Pretty girls have guys being nice to them 36 times a day. The patient is bleeding in the street. Do you know how to operate or not?

“Well, I’m not sexist or racist or greedy or shallow or abusive! Not like those other douchebags!”

I’m sorry, I know that this is hard to hear, but if all you can do is list a bunch of faults you don’t have, then back the fuck away from the patient. There’s a witty, handsome guy with a promising career ready to step in and operate.

Does that break your heart? OK, so now what? Are you going to mope about it, or are you going to learn how to do surgery? It’s up to you, but don’t complain about how girls fall for jerks; they fall for those jerks because those jerks have other things they can offer. “But I’m a great listener!” Are you? Because you’re willing to sit quietly in exchange for the chance to be in the proximity of a pretty girl (and spend every second imagining how soft her skin must be)? Well guess what, there’s another guy in her life who also knows how to do that, and he can play the guitar. Saying that you’re a nice guy is like a restaurant whose only selling point is that the food doesn’t make you sick. You’re like a new movie whose title is This Movie Is in English, and its tagline is “The actors are clearly visible.”

I think this is why you can be a “nice guy” and still feel terrible about yourself. Specifically …

#3. You Hate Yourself Because You Don’t Do Anything

“So, what, you’re saying that I should pick up a book on how to get girls?”

Only if step one in the book is “Start making yourself into the type of person girls want to be around.”

Because that’s the step that gets skipped — it’s always “How can I get a job?” and not “How can I become the type of person employers want?” It’s “How can I get pretty girls to like me?” instead of “How can I become the type of person that pretty girls like?” See, because that second one could very well require giving up many of your favorite hobbies and paying more attention to your appearance, and God knows what else. You might even have to change your personality.

“But why can’t I find someone who just likes me for me?” you ask. The answer is because humans need things. The victim is bleeding, and all you can do is look down and complain that there aren’t more gunshot wounds that just fix themselves?

Everyone who watched that video instantly became a little happier, although not all for the same reasons. Can you do that for people? Why not? What’s stopping you from strapping on your proverbial thong and cape and taking to your proverbial stage and flapping your proverbial penis at people? That guy knows the secret to winning at human life: that doing … whatever you call that … was better than not doing it.

“But I’m not good at anything!” Well, I have good news — throw enough hours of repetition at it and you can get sort of good at anything. I was the world’s shittiest writer when I was an infant. I was only slightly better at 25. But while I was failing miserably at my career, I wrote in my spare time for eight straight years, an article a week, before I ever made real money off it. It took 13 years for me to get good enough to make theNew York Times best-seller list. It took me probably 20,000 hours of practice to sand the edges off my sucking.

Don’t like the prospect of pouring all of that time into a skill? Well, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that the sheer act of practicing will help you come out of your shell — I got through years of tedious office work because I knew that I was learning a unique skill on the side. People quit because it takes too long to see results, because they can’t figure out that the process is the result.

The bad news is that you have no other choice. If you want to work here, close.

Because in my non-expert opinion, you don’t hate yourself because you have low self-esteem, or because other people were mean to you. You hate yourself because you don’t do anything. Not even you can just “love you for you” — that’s why you’re miserable and sending me private messages asking me what I think you should do with your life.

Do the math: How much of your time is spent consuming things other people made (TV, music, video games, websites) versus making your own? Only one of those adds to your value as a human being.

And if you hate hearing this and are responding with something you heard as a kid that sounds like “It’s what’s on the inside that matters!” then I can only say …

#2. What You Are Inside Only Matters Because of What It Makes You Do

Being in the business I’m in, I know dozens of aspiring writers. They think of themselves as writers, they introduce themselves as writers at parties, they know that deep inside, they have the heart of a writer. The only thing they’re missing is that minor final step, where they actually fucking write things.

But really, does that matter? Is “writing things” all that important when deciding who is and who is not truly a “writer”?

For the love of God, yes.

See, there’s a common defense to everything I’ve said so far, and to every critical voice in your life. It’s the thing your ego is saying to you in order to prevent you from having to do the hard work of improving: “I know I’m a good person on the inside.” It may also be phrased as “I know who I am” or “I just have to be me.”

Don’t get me wrong; who you are inside is everything — the guy who built a house for his family from scratch did it because of who he was inside. Every bad thing you’ve ever done has started with a bad impulse, some thought ricocheting around inside your skull until you had to act on it. And every good thing you’ve done is the same — “who you are inside” is the metaphorical dirt from which your fruit grows.

But here’s what everyone needs to know, and what many of you can’t accept:

“You” are nothing but the fruit.

Nobody cares about your dirt. “Who you are inside” is meaningless aside from what it produces for other people.

Inside, you have great compassion for poor people. Great. Does that result in you doing anything about it? Do you hear about some terrible tragedy in your community and say, “Oh, those poor children. Let them know that they are in my thoughts”? Because fuck you if so — find out what they need and help provide it. A hundred million people watched that Kony video, virtually all of whom kept those poor African children “in their thoughts.” What did the collective power of those good thoughts provide? Jack fucking shit. Children die every day because millions of us tell ourselves that caring is just as good as doing. It’s an internal mechanism controlled by the lazy part of your brain to keep you from actually doing work.

How many of you are walking around right now saying, “She/he would love me if she/he only knew what an interesting person I am!” Really? How do all of your interesting thoughts and ideas manifest themselves in the world? What do they cause you to do? If your dream girl or guy had a hidden camera that followed you around for a month, would they be impressed with what they saw? Remember, they can’t read your mind — they can only observe. Would they want to be a part of that life?

Because all I’m asking you to do is apply the same standard to yourself that you apply to everyone else. Don’t you have that annoying Christian friend whose only offer to help anyone ever is to “pray for them”? Doesn’t it drive you nuts? I’m not even commenting on whether or not prayer works; it doesn’t change the fact that they chose the one type of help that doesn’t require them to get off the sofa. They abstain from every vice, they think clean thoughts, their internal dirt is as pure as can be, but what fruit grows from it? And they should know this better than anybody — I stole the fruit metaphor from the Bible. Jesus said something to the effect of “a tree is judged by its fruit” over and over and over. Granted, Jesus never said, “If you want to work here, close.” No, he said, “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

The people didn’t react well to being told that, just as the salesmen didn’t react well to Alec Baldwin telling them that they needed to grow some balls or resign themselves to shining his shoes. Which brings us to the final point …

#1. Everything Inside You Will Fight Improvement

The human mind is a miracle, and you will never see it spring more beautifully into action than when it is fighting against evidence that it needs to change. Your psyche is equipped with layer after layer of defense mechanisms designed to shoot down anything that might keep things from staying exactly where they are — ask any addict.

So even now, some of you reading this are feeling your brain bombard you with knee-jerk reasons to reject it. From experience, I can say that these seem to come in the form of …

*Intentionally Interpreting Any Criticism as an Insult

“Who is he to call me lazy and worthless! A good person would never talk to me like this! He wrote this whole thing just to feel superior to me and to make me feel bad about my life! I’m going to think up my own insult to even the score!”

*Focusing on the Messenger to Avoid Hearing the Message

“Who is THIS guy to tell ME how to live? Oh, like he’s so high and mighty! It’s just some dumb writer on the Internet! I’m going to go dig up something on him that reassures me that he’s stupid, and that everything he’s saying is stupid! This guy is so pretentious, it makes me puke! I watched his old rap video on YouTube and thought his rhymes sucked!”

*Focusing on the Tone to Avoid Hearing the Content

“I’m going to dig through here until I find a joke that is offensive when taken out of context, and then talk and think only about that! I’ve heard that a single offensive word can render an entire book invisible!”

*Revising Your Own History

“Things aren’t so bad! I know that I was threatening suicide last month, but I’m feeling better now! It’s entirely possible that if I just keep doing exactly what I’m doing, eventually things will work out! I’ll get my big break, and if I keep doing favors for that pretty girl, eventually she’ll come around!”

*Pretending That Any Self-Improvement Would Somehow Be Selling Out Your True Self

“Oh, so I guess I’m supposed to get rid of all of my manga and instead go to the gym for six hours a day and get a spray tan like those Jersey Shore douchebags? Because THAT IS THE ONLY OTHER OPTION.”

And so on. Remember, misery is comfortable. It’s why so many people prefer it. Happiness takes effort.

Also, courage. It’s incredibly comforting to know that as long as you don’t create anything in your life, then nobody can attack the thing you created.

It’s so much easier to just sit back and criticize other people’s creations. This movie is stupid. That couple’s kids are brats. That other couple’s relationship is a mess. That rich guy is shallow. This restaurant sucks. This Internet writer is an asshole. I’d better leave a mean comment demanding that the website fire him. See, I created something.

Oh, wait, did I forget to mention that part? Yeah, whatever you try to build or create — be it a poem, or a new skill, or a new relationship — you will find yourself immediately surrounded by non-creators who trash it. Maybe not to your face, but they’ll do it. Your drunk friends do not want you to get sober. Your fat friends do not want you to start a fitness regimen. Your jobless friends do not want to see you embark on a career.

Just remember, they’re only expressing their own fear, since trashing other people’s work is another excuse to do nothing. “Why should I create anything when the things other people create suck? I would totally have written a novel by now, but I’m going to wait for something good, I don’t want to write the next Twilight!” As long as they never produce anything, it will forever be perfect and beyond reproach. Or if they do produce something, they’ll make sure they do it with detached irony. They’ll make it intentionally bad to make it clear to everyone else that this isn’t their real effort. Their real effort would have been amazing. Not like the shit you made.

Read our article comments — when they get nasty, it’s always from the same angle: Cracked needs to fire this columnist. This asshole needs to stop writing. Don’t make any more videos. It always boils down to “Stop creating. This is different from what I would have made, and the attention you’re getting is making me feel bad about myself.”

Don’t be that person. If you are that person, don’t be that person any more. This is what’s making people hate you. This is what’s making you hate yourself.

So how about this: one year. The end of 2013, that’s our deadline. Or a year from whenever you read this. While other people are telling you “Let’s make a New Year’s resolution to lose 15 pounds this year!” I’m going to say let’s pledge to do fucking anything — add any skill, any improvement to your human tool set, and get good enough at it to impress people. Don’t ask me what — hell, pick something at random if you don’t know. Take a class in karate, or ballroom dancing, or pottery. Learn to bake. Build a birdhouse. Learn massage. Learn a programming language. Film a porno. Adopt a superhero persona and fight crime. Start a YouTube vlog. Write for Cracked.

But the key is, I don’t want you to focus on something great that you’re going to make happen to you (“I’m going to find a girlfriend, I’m going to make lots of money …”). I want you to purely focus on giving yourself a skill that would make you ever so slightly more interesting and valuable to other people.

“I don’t have the money to take a cooking class.” Then fucking Google “how to cook.” They’ve even filtered out the porn now, it’s easier than ever. Damn it, you have to kill those excuses. Or they will kill you.

If you want to make note of your project in the forum thread or the comments and check in this time next year, knock yourself out. I’ll be curious to see if even one person actually does this, but if so we’ll look back, not just on whether or not we actually followed through, but why. You have nothing to lose, and the world needs you. Here’s a video of a corgi rolling down some stairs.

As I was going through my usual list of websites I always read, I found out from TheTallestMan.com that our beloved giant Tanya Angus has passed away some in the last 12 hours. The source comes from The Daily UK

She was 34 and seemed to have died from a heart failure. From the source, it states…

Tanya’s Insulin-like Growth Factor levels, which had fallen from 3,000 at the worst of her condition to just 283, had started to creep back up into the 500’s. The normal range for a healthy person is around 250.

It is thought the extreme pressure on her body, caused by 12 years of coping with her huge size,  caused her heart to fail.

A notice on Tanya’s website, which has inspired and helped acromegaly sufferers around the world, reads simply: ‘It is with deep sorrow that we announce the passing on of our beloved Tanya Angus at 12.25am on January 14, 2013, due to her heart and TIA. RIP dear one’

Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA) is a type of mini-stroke, caused when the blood flow to the brain stops for a period of time.

Tanya had suffered a number of TIAs in recent years.

As a person who has tried to study the gigantism and acromegaly condition before, Tanya Angus was one of the most rarest of cases where her condition was even more unique than other cases of Pituitary Gigantism. She had the most extreme form of acromegaly ever documented.

I had in at least two other posts mentioned the strange possibility that her condition proves that even after growth plate closure, you can still increase in size, due to the fact that she started exhibiting the pituitary condition and started to grow taller again at the age of 21 (from source). It states that she was just 5′ 8″ and 130 lbs. She would eventually reach 6′ 11″ and over 400 lbs in weight. However that claim was always challenged due to the inconclusive nature of the senescence of the growth plates.

What is conclusive is that her heart, lungs, and joints all grew due to the excess hGH.

I have on occasion write posts about the passing of other giants like Yao Defen with post “Former Tallest Women In The World Yao Defen Died” . We have to remember that sometimes being taller is not better. Being bigger does come with its own set of problems and disadvantages since the world is designed for people smaller. It turns out that people like Igor Vovkovinskiy have an extremely hard time finding big enough shoes and any shoes he does find cost thousands of dollars. I know that I personally have had an insanely hard time finding big enough shoes (and pants) in my current country of residence due to my feet size.

As we continue on in our epic search for a way to increase our height and grow taller, I hope we can put everything in life in perspective in not losing sight of what really matters and is important in life. We may not be tall, but we are alive and can still find ways to enjoy our life.