Today I feel a bit like there is a lot of uncertainty. There is uncertainty with my coaching business and with my career as an AI consultant, but there are also lots of opportunities moving forward.
I want to strive to move forwards and not start to distract myself from the emotions via games and videos.
The first thing I want to tackle is sleep. That is my main priority today. I want to understand why I feel unfulfilled at night, like something wasn’t quite done.
My intuition tells me that I desire to create art. I don’t know why.
Perhaps my first step is to start working on art at 9:30 PM.
Before that I want to achieve something in Valorant, so I will need to do some gaming earlier in the day.
I also desire to work on myself more, I think it really helps to think about emotional development as work. When I think about it as vulnerability, it feels not productive. But when I think of it as emotional work, it takes on new meaning and purpose.
Ok so lets take a look at my two projects right now:
So for my AI Consulting plan, I want to stick to the plan, but the timeline has changed a bit.
I wanted this current goal (Be known, give preview of consulting) to finish by Feb 27th. That leaves 7 days to film, shoot, edit and get feedback.
UNIT ONE (ends 23rd): Shoot 3 videos
Spend total of 3 hours per video (9 hours total)
UNIT TWO (ends 24th): Write 2 LinkedIn posts
Spend total of 1.5 hrs per post (3 hrs total)
UNIT THREE (ends 26th): Get feedback, harden process
Looking at my goal for art coaching, I feel dissatisfied with my current structure on process for that. I feel I need to work on finding more ambitious and exciting goals at every step of the way (even if I have a lot of time to get there). I realized in order for the syllabus method to work, you need to have very ambitious exciting goal…then think about how to make it difficult to expect anything other than success.
So let’s revisit the master plan here.
Goal: Ramp up to an income of 8333 per month (100k per year) within one year
I want to choose a new goal…make 1500 per week in coaching.
I want to achieve this within the next 3 months.
UNIT ONE (1 month): Focus on my craft – become a coach I would hire for 1000 per month
Create plans (10 days, ends March 2nd)
Deeply understanding clients
Creating extreme focus and presence in life and sessions
Developing connections clients need
Materials and exercises to create and track strategy
Execute on plans (10 days, ends March 12th)
Research and refinement (10 days, ends March 22nd)
Interview other coaches
Read books
Further brainstorming
UNIT TWO (1 month): Build 100 hot leads – depends on having free stuff
Random try posting (10 days, ends April 1st)
Get feedback and do networking and outreach (10 days, ends April 11th)
Turn warm leads into hot leads with offer (10 days, ends April 21st)
UNIT THREE (1 month): Meld and combine top level coaching with leads machine
Talk about my clients achievements, use it to push their art (10 days, ends May 1st)
Clients have voice on my platform to talk about concepts in my coaching (10 days, ends May 11th)
Refine call for action to get warm leads to ask for my offer, then turn into hot leads (10 days, ends May 21st)
Okok, I finally have a good framework, but working on this framework makes me realize I really do need to work on free products in the meantime.
Goal: Create free products in 1 month
UNIT ONE (10 days, ends March 2nd): Complete research
Transcribe and think, what is the million dollar problem or breakthrough?
Collate results, come up with solutions
Research competition
UNIT TWO (10 days, ends March 12th): Develop products
Planning and gathering materials doing research
Create products
UNIT THREE (10 days, ends March 22nd): Continue development
I’m very much enamored with the idea of changing the way I work in this new world of contracting, freelancing, and entrepreneurship.
In this new world, the certainty of your career and job is no longer there – leaving both an opportunity and a problem depending on how you look at it.
The certainty that was filled by your job needs to be filled in some other way – and I propose that way is via a strong system of habits, routines, and mindsets that lead to strong health (both mental and physical) leading to high energy, happiness, and peace.
I like to think about this as the perpetual retreat – my ideal vacation or workshop where vast amounts of work is done not at the expense of one’s happiness or physical well being.
What I would love this perpetual vacation to look like:
Ideal working conditions (lots of light, spaces, nice temperature, comfy seats and pillows, people with common values)
Constant personal growth (always learning and progressing in areas I care about)
Strong support system (therapists, coaches)
Physical training (swimming, running, martial arts, weight training)
Natural sleep when possible (wake up when I feel like it, nap when I want to)
Next questions to figure out:
How will I balance naps with working enough hours?
How do I balance free methods with paid assistance?
How will I find the kind of coworking/community you would find at a retreat?
What do I bring more learning type energy out of meetings and working on projects that aren’t personal to me?
The initial thought I have about paid assistance is that if it enables me to earn more, then its a no brainer to get it. If it simply makes my experience more vacation-like, then it must fit into a budget.
I saw an ad on Facebook. It was talking about making money as an introvert and making money without giving up your inner peace.
I immediately signed up. It was about 20 dollars.
Now I have done a bunch of the exercises for the prework of the challenge and here are my reflections.
Some major questions that I have right now:
What am I willing to give up and how will I go about giving it up?
How do I live my values every day in a way that is in flow and not forced or mechanical?
I have some initial ideas.
First, I was thinking originally about what I wanted to give up in terms of things like YouTube, or socializing. But recently it made a lot more sense for me to think about time. Specifically, I wanted to dedicate my entire morning to succeeding at these goals.
From the time I wake up, I usually am doing what JT Franco calls “buffalo brain” (the idea of being one of the herd that moves without thinking). I listen to audiobooks, and watch YouTube videos. I don’t eat breakfast or drink water. I keep the blinds closed. I feel awful and I don’t feel the feelings.
Someone once said (might be Melinda Gates) that the first few hours of the day are the most important because they set the stage for the entire day to come. If I want to give up anything, I want to give up my mornings to getting up, drinking water, feeling my body, and going downstairs into the lounge to write on my blog and work on achieving my dreams.
Middle of the day has to be reserved for work and for talking to my girlfriend. End of the day has to be reserved for me time. Being alone, taking time, creating art, and letting the magic of nighttime take over.
This is what I’m thinking roughly:
7/8 AM – 9/10 AM: Dedicated to living the magical life
9/10 AM – 12 PM: Dedicated to doing the impossible at work
12 PM – 1/2 PM: Lunch, meditation
1/2 PM – 5 PM: Work, performing at the highest levels
5 PM – 7 PM: Misc time
7 PM – 11 PM: Alone time, creativity, play
During the weekend, work will be removed, leaving more time for dedication to my magical life. I think it will look something like this:
7/8 AM – 12 PM: Dedicated to living the magical life
12pm – 7 PM: Misc time
7 PM – 11 PM: Alone time, creativity, play
With this balance, it seems that my breakdown is this:
Weekday
1-3 hours per day on living magical life
5-7 hours of work
4 hours of alone-time/play
2 hours of miscellaneous time
Weekend
4-5 hours per day on living magical life
4 hours of alone-time/play
7 hours of miscellaneous time
I suspect, I will have to do careful planning during the weekend, in order to perform at the absolute highest levels of work and potentially spend less time there.
In terms of living out my beliefs of empathy, intuition/following feelings, creativity/imagination, and honesty. I’m not entirely sure what actions I need to take to feel that I am in congruence with my values.
My main thought right now is about taking risks, breathing through difficult emotions and sensations, and following connection theory.
So things have been interesting recently. I have a lot of outlets in which to express my thoughts in: Instagram, video, blog post, journal, and slack channel. I don’t know where to post what. But I recently realized that I am taking my blog waaay too seriously. This blog is meant to be a place where I am boldly myself, but also giving me a staging ground to work things out, not come up with the final product. It is my place to draft out ideas, write poems about how I feel, try out videos that I’m not yet ready to publish. It is a place where I’m being unafraidly myself.
With that being said, I wanted to work out some of my thoughts with Instagram on this blog post. I have three Instagram accounts with an idea for a fourth one:
personal account
art account
coaching account
+ valorant account.
I’m going to take a stab at dividing purpose of different outlets:
Instagram – personal
Place to relax and talk to friends
Ask for help, suggestions
Practice challenges
Instagram – art
Place to work on art
Build worlds, characters
Find beauty
Ask about works in progress
Instagram – coaching
Place to remind myself different life lessons
Homepage for coaching, where I direct everyone
Write down what helps me reconnect with art
Instagram – valorant
Place to create training videos for myself to become the best
Reclaim mental
I don’t really know what the purpose of the slack channel is as current. Perhaps I can use it as a place to repost things that I post in different areas.