My peace today was disrupted by work early. It is nice to have time to talk about strategic leadership things. I usually don’t have that much time during the week.
However, it’s not the type of morning that I aim to repeat.
I intend on reclaiming as much peace as I can in this 20 minute span.
I feel that respect is a really important need for me in work, and I feel that this need was not met at my previous job, it remains to be seen whether or not it is met enough in this job. I have my doubts to be sure.
Today, I woke up feeling much better, even though I went to bed a bit late. It’s because, on top of journaling, I also did cupping on my body to unblock anything that was blocked. Turned red on my chest, I guess a lot of blockages there specifically.
I feel with the level of stress this morning with no peace and no running I’m feeling surprisingly good.
I wonder how to push back on blatant hostility and disrespect in a way that I want to. I suppose some rage journaling should help and maybe my coaching mindset.
Today I want to focus on making a video on how to handle lack of respect in the workplace.
I don’t know how that is going to go but that’s what I want to do.
Perhaps I need to meditate on it some more.
Maybe finally watching another 20 minutes of the coaching call will be nice as well.
I decided today that I need to close out the Valorant challenge for a couple of reasons:
Firstly, most importantly, the challenge is over! I think it is important to have specific success/end criteria for every challenge because then it gives a distinct goal to focus on and allows for new challenges to take its place. My original goal for Valorant was to get to Plat in a month. It instead took maybe over a year, but there is no doubt that I completed the challenge. I have been solidly in Plat 1 for months now and just recently solo-queued up to Plat 2. Before there was a reason to keep the challenge going because I kept dropping back down to Gold, but now I think this challenge is well and truly finished.
Secondly, I noticed that I started posting shorter and less thought-out posts about Valorant. Since the challenge is essentially over and my goal has been achieved, it has completely lost focus…which is why it is important for old challenges to end and new challenges to start. Since my posts about Valorant have evolved into less focused thoughts along my journey in Valorant, I can remove the label of “challenge” and continue making posts of observations and thoughts in my overall Valorant journey. I will always challenge myself in Valorant and it will continue to be a long-term goal to learn from the game and grow as a player and as a person. I don’t need a challenge to denote that ambition because this entire blog is that ambitious. Challenges are meant to be smaller focused time and goal bound tools and structures.
Finally, I have new challenges I want to focus on. I have my art and creative challenge coming up, my jiujitsu challenge, and my sleep challenge. All of those challenges require time and effort and the less distractions and pressure I have, the easier it will be to complete those challenges. I will almost certainly start a new Valorant challenge in the future and I need to set a precedent for that now by closing out old and dead/completed challenges like cobwebs in the mental attic.
P.S. For old times sake, here are my latest strategies in Valorant that got me to Plat 2.
Have a purpose/gameplan every round
Look for multikills, not just killing and running – this gives you awareness even if you end up getting one kill and dipping
Focus on what mindset works for you
To expand on number 3, the main mindsets I like to use:
Flicking mindset (good for if you are feeling lots of energy and quite relaxed). Keep your mouse hand loose and imagine flicking on the enemies. Visualize centering all of the enemies on your screen.
Cart of rails mindset (good for very careful and deliberate clean peeks). Imagine you are sitting in a cart on rails and you want to do a driveby shooting. Your railway car can move left and right but not up or down, and will stop the second your crosshair covers the head of an enemy. Anticipate to see them opposite the direction you peek (moving to the right, anticipate on the left).
Adjust crosshair mindest (good if your micro adjustments are off). After seeing the enemy, focus on the space between your crosshair and their head and use intuitive movement to close that gap, whether it is strafing or moving the mouse.
So it is goodbye for now for the Valorant challenge, but we will probably be back at some point to compile data about this whole challenge and do a couple of retrospectives.
Today I feel tired. My kidneys ache. They feel bloated and stagnated. My stomach feels slow. My head iches on the top. My eyes are dry. I feel burning inflammation up my back and spine. My skin is flaking on my face.
These past few days have felt exhausting, extremely stressful, and demoralizing. Last night, I asked myself the question, how do I get out of this.
I didn’t know the answer then, but my answer today during my walk was to take my stress seriously.
And just now, I had a realization that I have the systems developed to do extraordinary things. I just need to utilize them and follow their principals.
Systems in place:
Daily walk to ponder questions I am stressed about
Daily workpost to grow myself, plan for greatness
Clean space to deal with stress, clean place = clean mind
Meal prep strategy for healthy cheap meals with little stress – fridge containers, tacos, lettuce wraps
Whiteboards to write strategies
Off computer working systems (working while walking, running errands, working out, eating out)
Todo list strategy – focus on one thing at a time, prioritize
Clean after working hours to transition, decompress
Crawling to get cardio in small space
Walking backwards and tibialus for knee
Hanging for shoulders and posture
Working out after and before meals for better absorption, muscle growth, and recovery
Journaling to ask myself questions at night
Walking with no effort
I have absolutely everything I need to build a life where I can do almost anything I want, achieve anything I want.
Right now, I want to focus on two things: recovery and priming
Priming are stuff like cleaning, wiping off my whiteboards, clearing out tabs, filling markers, mealprep, todo list grooming
Recovery means lots of sleep, rest, hydration, and exercise. Specifically paying attention to anytime I want to game to see if I feel stressed or uncomfortable, taking a break when that happens.
To top off this post, I want to attach something that I want to erase from my whiteboard, but want to save forever:
Reasons Why I’m Ready
I’ve developed very deep and powerful life theories (flow, connection) → these theories can give anyone direction in darkness, I forget them but they come back when I need them
When faced with pain I’ve always come out stronger (ACL) → pain is the greatest teacher
I’ve proven that I can complete hard challenges (knee, sova) → I can achieve the challenges I set my mind to
I can solve problems few people can solve (triage, nikola) → normal rules don’t apply
I’m deeply attuned to emotions (coaching, art, philosophy) → makes it much easier to connect with people
I used to walk up to girls on the street → Nothing is something I can’t handle. There is nothing that I can’t ask for
No matter how badly I fail there are people who still love me
The point is not to get there, be productive or succeed, the point is to find a meaningful problem, problems we want to solve → we will never have no problems but we can choose which problems we want to contend with
Happiness doesn’t come from acing the past but seizing the now → its never too late to be happyIt’s near too late to fix it with a degree in engineering and parents who don’t mess with me
I have lots of assets and saving and a degree in engineering and parents and a sister all with money saved
“This is my Valorant jacket. I got it when I watched the world championship in LA a year ago. I love playing Valorant.”
“But this is the 21 day youtuber challenge”
“I’ve yet to figure out how to connect those two passions together. But that changes today”
“Hi everyone, my name is Jack, and this in the Youtuber challenge, the challenge where I post a video everyday, working not for views, but for the love of making videos”
“There are a bunch of things I’m super passionate about, but haven’t figured out how to connect to a Youtube video yet. And one of those things is gaming.”
“But here’s my problem with gaming. I like playing alone, I don’t like talking while I’m gaming, but I do feel like there are certain things I like to share after the game is done.”
“Here is the plan. I have fun gaming. In between, I’ll do a little bit of journaling, and afterwards, I’ll just edit a video that is fun for me”
I’m just feeling exhausted and I wonder what it takes to get well rested again. Maybe I can try to take a nap. Right now my physical health is the most important things to me. My eyes ache. My back aches. My sinuses ache.
The main issues that I’m working through is trying to understand what I am selling for coaching and also what I am selling for AI. For coaching I figured out the high price which is 25,000 for helping someone make their dream (creative) project a reality, whether it is a book, video, painting, etc.
I’ve been told multiple times to look for things that might be more affordable, but I actually thought about it a lot and I don’t think I can think of anything like that.
I just want to work on coaching a few clients who want to do something really special, beautiful, and profound.
Turning my attention to AI, I want to do something similar. Make the impossible possible. Provide 10x value, charge high prices.
I’ve been doing my Valorant challenge for about four months now and I haven’t seen much progress.
I think there are a couple of changes that needs to happen.
I need to be kinder to myself. I don’t have much time for gaming and this is my very first FPS game. I have already improved by quite a lot in the time given.
I need to be a lot more focused on learning and make the learning less effort. I will try to play only one ranked game every day on my main and VOD review that.
I need to focus the rest of my time with having fun with Valorant. Creating more motivation is important.
I am going to get more outside help, will get more people to review my gameplay with me.
I am going to make a list of things I actually like doing on Valorant:
