The Most Inspiring Martial Art
Feels like an embodiment of my life philosophy in a martial art form.
Moving slow, following intuition. Feels like magic.
The Perpetual Vacation
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.
Learning Time: Rizz AI?
Didn’t know what direction to take exactly but thought I’d watch some stuff.
Takeaways:
- When you find the people you want to work with be persistent about working with them
- If your competitor is not known, they don’t exist
- Presigned URLs vs base64 encoding images *want to research
Learning Time: Young Founders and Opensource AI Ideas
I’ve been feeling extremely behind in AI and entrepreneurship and I’ve been feeling a desire to catch up.
But at the same time, I don’t want to get too overwhelmed and manic about my learning process and want to take it one step at a time.
Here is a catchup on the latest videos I’ve watched:
Youtube Thumbnails
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
I’ve decided to start on my health challenge today. What does that mean?
- An emphasis on taking care of my mental and physical health above all
- Creating boundaries and emotionally processing any pushback around not making my health a priority
- 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
- 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:
- What do I want to post as a video explaining what I’m doing with my youtube challenge?
- How will I support myself healthwise while working to make it rejuvenating?
Youtube Video
- “It’s over. I failed”
- “Welcome back to the 21 day youtuber challenge, my name is Jack you are watching episode 17.”
- “In this challenge, I was supposed to post a video every day for 21 days, and it’s safe to say I failed.”
- “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”
- “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”
- “If I think of the ideal pyramid of life, it looks something like this” (Health, work, youtube)
- “But recently it’s felt upside down”
- “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”
- “But I’m not going to release them every day anymore”
- “Here are 10 things I can focus on now that I’m not releasing videos at such a frantic pace”
- “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
- Focus on only one thing at a time
- Process emotions around rushing or being in a hurry
- Create an appropriately prioritized to do list
- Take a lot of notes when taking a break so I can pick off where I left off
- Timed meditation and off screen time for stronger focus
Workpost 84: Focus
I’ve been feeling really out of sorts recently. Not going to bed at a reasonable time. Not brushing my teeth. Not eating well. And it all comes down to pressure. Pressure to post youtube videos. Pressure to perform at work. Pressure to rest my eyes. Pressure to do jiujitsu.
I feel beyond overwhelmed and turn to the only outlet I saw…gaming.
It’s almost as if my unconscious mind felt I really needed to meet my need to succeed and the fastest and easiest way with the lowest chance of failure is to win a game. Makes sense I guess.
In any case, I would like to return to a couple of core tenants.
- Extreme focus to deal with the overwhelm. I only need to focus on one thing at a time.
- Being there for myself. Asking myself every step of the day, what can I do to be there for myself.
In keeping with the tenant of focus, here are the priorities in order:
- Health – let myself take care of myself
- Getting work done for my job (to the degree where I feel comfortable)
- Youtube
Workpost 83: Making a Gaming Video
Need to shoot a gaming video today
- “I got a bit of a dilemma”
- “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”