Today is my first break from work in what seems like forever. I have a couple of things planned for the break, hanging out with family, spending some time gaming, and hopefully sneaking in a few calls with my girlfriend.
I also want to spend some significant time on my Instagram and business.
I’ve been thinking a lot about boundaries and how to let go of taking responsibility for other emotions, and I’ve been thinking again on this idea of believing in everyone’s power over themselves.
I feel that when you feel that people don’t have the resiliency to handle situations, or the ability to overcome situations, or at the very least, learn from them, that is when you start to take responsibility for their emotions. How could you not, if you have the ability to handle your emotions, but they are not able to handle theirs? Sometimes, you need to just trust in the process. If they need to complain, get hurt, work through their feelings, something you need to trust in their process.
Yesterday I was vlogging a guy \asked me if I was a YouTuber, and he asked me all these questions like what my channel was about and how many subscribers I had.
I felt REALLY self-conscious because I AM a YouTuber, but not a famous or successful one and I feel like I’m disappointing people when I tell them that I have three hundred subs. I realized a few things when I felt the feelings of shame:
People LOVE the idea of youtube, you don’t need to be big for people to be excited about it. Sure some people will judge you but I think most people like the idea that you are trying to succeed and are probably curious enough to look me up and subscribe. In fact, isn’t that what I want? People who are legitimately interested in my journey subscribing to me?
I’m always REALLY self-conscious when people stare at me when I’m vlogging and I always try to solve the problem by either NOT vlogging or trying to ignore the embarrassment. I realized that there is a third better option. Any time I’m feeling embarrassed, I should just feel the feelings until the right path becomes clear to me. Usually, I feel so uncomfortable I will do ANYTHING to avoid the feeling, but I should just embrace it as I should do in any uncomfortable situation.
Today I woke up feeling pretty awful from going to bed at 4AM last night.
I was feeling super overwhelmed with many many things in my life.
Today, I chose to wake up slowly, get to work slowly, and here are some of the mentalities that helped me:
Cleaning is incredibly healing. Any time of cleaning, cleaning your workspace, your body, your clothes, it all is very therapeutic.
What can I do for future Jack. This is the Matthew McConnehey’s idea of leaving breadcrumbs. Instead of the common idea of letting your future self deal with a problem (let future Jack deal with the dishes, let future Jack deal with talking to this person) think about what you can do now to make your future self happier. This can look like everything from cleaning, to setting up a super nice workspace, cooking yourself a really good meal.
Focus on challenge and growth. I think oftentimes I get overwhelmed because I think about how hard things are. What helps me is thinking about everything in terms of challenge and growth. How can I challenge myself? What can I do to grow?
Live in the hierarchy of being true to oneself. I was talking to a friend the other day about hierarchies and choosing the right one (don’t compete in a hierarchy you don’t believe in such as money). I want to compete and live in a hierarchy of being honest and true to myself.
I still feel a quite a bit of stress of the difficult conversations I’m anticipating, and the difficult tasks I have in front of me.
This morning I had a very slow start. Seems to be the same for a lot of days.
I really really focused on the idea that everything could be turned into an advantage. And today, I realized that the reason why I have slow starts is because my stomach burns, aches, and has gnawing empty pain. It is so bad, it is hard to focus and feel motivated to work.
The opportunity this morning is to devise some techniques to help with my stomach and be able to test it with the worst possible conditions. In other words, if the techniques work now, they will work anytime.
I tried this video first, and it was pretty helpful.
Then I tried this video which was helpful, but too boring to finish:
Finally, I tried drinking hot tea, which seemed to help some as well.’
And then, even though my stomach starting feeling better, I ran into another problem with avengance.
This problem was simple. Absolutely no motivation to do anything, being that I still felt tired and overwhelmed. Instead, I wanted to play games and watch tv shows.
I’m going to take the same approach here: use this as an opportunity to test out some new ideas with productivity.
So I have many many techniques in this area already, but I want to innovate further today in a different direction instead of meditation, letting go, focus, etc.
I want to look at why, even in my overwhelmed state, do I want to play Valorant and Fallout Shelter, and how I can fundamentally apply the same things to the things I want to do.
Things I Want To Do
Consulting work
Linkedin posts
Coaching work
Working out
Before I forget, here are some additional mindsets I can add the useful pile:
Walking to vent stress, find peace, ask tough questions, get answers
Workpost is to innovate something
Main Reasons Why I Want to Play Valorant
Can work on a specific skill like aim, movement, gamesense
Want to level up really quick and be a top player
Inspired by demon1, tenz, oxy, and aspas – want to be the best as well
Like working with a team, getting clutch plays off, good vibes
Main Reasons Why I Want to Play Fallout Shelter
Get control of my vault
Satisfaction in optimizing my vault
Satisfaction in leveling people up, and getting new weapons
Why It Is difficult to get the same feeling with work?
There is no specific simple skill to work on
Nothing I want to level up in
No one to inspire me
No team to work with
Don’t feel in complete ownership of the project
In a hurry to get it done
What skills am I excited want to work on in terms of work?
Faster problem solving skills
Intuition + precise logic for accurate but rapid decision making
Ability to think deeper with less effort
Memory and recall with less energy
What do I want to level up in terms of rank?
Money
Intellect
Thought leadership
Communication and charisma
Who do I draw inspiration from?
Elon Musk
Alex Hormozi
Khalid Sharara
How might I work off my team more?
Showing off the results of my work
How might I feel more in control of my work?
Understand that charisma, leadership are part of what I need to own and protect my work, just because there are other players involved doesn’t mean I don’t own it
Using all this information, I want to develop a unit of work, called a “game” or “match” to simulate what I do in Valorant. In Valorant you play a match with a clear objective, and you warm up before the game, and take breaks after the game.
Game Structure
Warmup: 15 minutes
Use to do list, practice one skill at a time:
Faster problem solving/solution creation skills
Intuition + precise logic for accurate but rapid decision making
Ability to think deeper with less effort
Memory and recall with less energy
Main game: 45 minutes
Fights:
Capture questions and answers.
Level up in:
Money
Intellect
Thought leadership
Communication and charisma
Result Calculation:
How much do I think this work is worth?
How difficult intellectually was this work from 1-10?
What percentile do I place this work in terms of innovation?
Why do I no longer feel any motivation to do coaching? Is it because I’m scared to propose a $20,000 product? Am I scared to start a community?
And so I went for a walk. On my walk, I determined that it was because I desire to focus more than anything. Currently, I am focusing on posting for 50 days on LinkedIn and it’s taking a lot of energy. I need to be able to have fewer things on my plate.
However, when I sat down to write this journal. I realized that I’ve lost my way in these posts. I no longer do the hard work to grow and articulate how I am feeling. When I did, my poem revealed to me that I feel extremely lost and scattered in my mind. I’ve forgotten the helpful intentions I use to set myself into the mode of preparing my day:
You are in my house
Take your time, be patient
Be ok with silence
Take risks
My house is a place where anything is possible
Connection theory + flow theory
When I immerse myself in these intentions, I feel the distinct taste of possibility coming back to me and my world is opened wide enough to do the planning that I want to do in these posts.
Today I want to continue the work of yesterday and I want to focus on three things:
Today I went for a walk. It was cold, but amazing otherwise, I felt happy.
I realized that I don’t feel like myself because I feel so lonely. I miss feeling safe with people that I trust, who understand me. I think about how I lost my art. My dreams, my worlds. And I think more about this artist part of me and I realize I also lost the romantic part of me.
There was always a softer side to me. It wasn’t always about attachment theory and working on myself. I don’t regret going down that path at all, but I feel sad for the Jack who was left behind. The Jack who cries when he listens to the story of two sisters stuck in a Chicago together and one feels she betrayed the other one because she left her alone to sleep in the same bed as the flight attendant: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/175/babysitting/act-two-17
For me, even by telling the story, shows the depth of their love. They cared enough for these moments to be some of the most important in their life.
I think I always sought out a love story of my own. This is what I loved about college. So many opportunities for my love story to happen. This is why I wanted to learn daygaming, I just loved the idea of meeting someone on the street.
It’s why I liked the idea of dating my current girlfriend. Everything about it felt like a movie. Dating a girl on the other side of the world, and traveling to meet her in person. Finding my little sloth despite everything working against us.
I don’t want to forget the romantic in me. I want to be around people who see the magic like I do, and I feel safe around. People who allow me to get out of the fear and anxiety response long enough to feel more deeply. People who accept my story, who want to hear the truth, not what they want to hear. After all, a story about people being fake happy about everything is not a romantic one.
I think this is at least one part of the art that I’m missing. Art is one part exploring worlds, another part allowing you to feel deeply and effortlessly. Maybe another part is vulnerability, of pain.
This is what “high” art is missing. Feelings are lost behind academic musings. Worlds are exchanged for high philosophy. Pain is exchanged for numb confusion.