Practicing Courage

Byjack

Today I felt overwhelmed. Work felt like a huge heavy complicated mess.

Making a smoothie felt like it would be hard and painful (to walk around).

I played games to avoid the feelings…for hours.

I was so desperate for a solution I spend time with AI to work through the emotions.

First, the therapy led me to the wisdom that I needed to spend some time to feel the fears I was feeling:

  1. The fear of death – the great unknown of my injuries and with work
  2. The fear of inadequacy – letting my carefully maintained image of myself as successful and smart and talented crumble before me
  3. The fear of abandonment – feeling that if I let others know how bad of a place I am in, that they would know how defective I am

The fear of abandonment and being defective was so strong I felt I needed to remember a time when I felt safe and whole. And that led me back to New York, many years ago, approaching women on the street with a dating coach.

I felt free. It wasn’t until I thought about it more that I realized why. daygaming gave me a glimpse of ultimate self love. A time when you bare your soul on the street and allow people to reject you is the most freeing emotions of all time.

I will say though that daygaming also traumatized me. Majorly. After mulling it over some more I concluded the main difference was that when I was alone, I was scared. And instead of seeking support, I beat myself up and criticized myself.

I’ve been seeking the daygaming formula for freedom for so long I feel excited I figured out a part of it:

  1. Courage is the currency of self love. Ask yourself what the courageous thing to do is and make a decision to do it. If possible involve someone in on this decision (can be yourself).
  2. Let the energy carry the action. Instead of being spurred forward by pressure, feel the moment, let the tension of the moment stand your hair on your arm. Let the noisy energy of fear and anxiety make you feel alive, spur your action.
  3. If the fear becomes too great, seek comfort, reassurance from someone else, someone you trust (this can be yourself)

Follow what you feel.

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Sloths in a City in France

Byjack

Sloths in a City in France

When I was still able to walk

I remember her in a white dress

Softer than I imagined

Nervous like a little garment blowing about in the wind

I can see the train station where we first argued

The stones in the road where I sat

My knee hurting

She was there with me

The door with the dresser next to it

The WIFI on the little table

The blooming orange trees on the sunny streets

I remember going to Cannes

And having an argument

And its funny even that memory

Is a fond and warm one for me

A reminder of sunnier days

Someone you love

And the time we spent together

Holding hands

Like the first time on the train

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Snuggles

Byjack

Snuggles

I snuggle next to my little sloth

Her bright eyes shining at me

Laughter across her face

I feel the soft warmth of her

All around me when I kiss her cheek

She smells good

It’s nice to be held in her arms

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The Perpetual Vacation

Byjack

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:

  1. Ideal working conditions (lots of light, spaces, nice temperature, comfy seats and pillows, people with common values)
  2. Constant personal growth (always learning and progressing in areas I care about)
  3. Strong support system (therapists, coaches)
  4. Physical training (swimming, running, martial arts, weight training)
  5. Natural sleep when possible (wake up when I feel like it, nap when I want to)

Next questions to figure out:

  1. How will I balance naps with working enough hours?
  2. How do I balance free methods with paid assistance?
  3. How will I find the kind of coworking/community you would find at a retreat?
  4. 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.

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Learning Time: Rizz AI?

Byjack

Didn’t know what direction to take exactly but thought I’d watch some stuff.

Takeaways:

  1. When you find the people you want to work with be persistent about working with them
  2. If your competitor is not known, they don’t exist
  3. Presigned URLs vs base64 encoding images *want to research

Youtube Thumbnails

Byjack

I originally thought about using the thumbnails as a way to create worlds with drawing in almost taking a children’s book approach using it to create the sort of imagination, curiousity, and creativity I always aim to create in my artwork.

On second thought I feel I need to photos for my thumnails for the most part. Creative photos that have mystery and intrigue and magic and emotion. But photos not just drawings.

I was looking at children’s book covers for inspiration and I realized that when I see a beautiful children’s book cover, I expect the inside to be filled with those beautiful illustrations.

I want the cover to be a photo to something related to what is in the video so that there people get the world that they are looking for inside the “pages” of my video. The thumbnail is like a cover for a book.

Here are some inspiration:

Workpost 85: Health Challenge

Byjack

I’ve decided to start on my health challenge today. What does that mean?

  1. An emphasis on taking care of my mental and physical health above all
  2. Creating boundaries and emotionally processing any pushback around not making my health a priority
  3. Certain goals:
    • Jiujitsu for 2+ hours every day
    • Boxing on the days I can go
    • Cooking all of my meals
    • Bedtime at midnight
    • Reduced or elimination of all processed sugars
  4. Work comes after health, and is designed to be rejuvenating instead of draining

This health challenge will run from today until the 15th – the day when I travel home. Then I will work on adjusting and finding a new routine.

Today, I want to ponder two things:

  1. What do I want to post as a video explaining what I’m doing with my youtube challenge?
  2. How will I support myself healthwise while working to make it rejuvenating?

Youtube Video

  1. “It’s over. I failed”
  2. “Welcome back to the 21 day youtuber challenge, my name is Jack you are watching episode 17.”
  3. “In this challenge, I was supposed to post a video every day for 21 days, and it’s safe to say I failed.”
  4. “I haven’t posted for multiple days in a row, the last episode actually shot multiple days before I released it because it took so long to edit”
  5. “The reason is simple, it took 6 to 8 hours to create every video from the ideation, to the shooting, to the editing and that just isn’t sustainable”
  6. “If I think of the ideal pyramid of life, it looks something like this” (Health, work, youtube)
  7. “But recently it’s felt upside down”
  8. “So what’s next? I still want to do the challenge – posting the rest of the 21 videos exploring what I like to make videos about. After all, I have so many more ideas to try out”
  9. “But I’m not going to release them every day anymore”
  10. “Here are 10 things I can focus on now that I’m not releasing videos at such a frantic pace”
  11. “But in those little moments when I have time, I will keep making videos for this series, and hopefully it’ll be magical”

Working Plan

  1. Focus on only one thing at a time
  2. Process emotions around rushing or being in a hurry
  3. Create an appropriately prioritized to do list
  4. Take a lot of notes when taking a break so I can pick off where I left off
  5. Timed meditation and off screen time for stronger focus