How To Succeed At Really Difficult Stuff

Byjack

I was pondering today on the subject of doing anything really really difficult and I came across a realization.

People often go after really difficult stuff in the wrong way. By difficult things I mean anything that has a high degree of complexity and a steep learning curve. This might be mastering a new skill like the piano, playing a difficult game, getting big on youtube, or starting a new business.

People often try to get results too quickly. They immediately try to focus on success instead of having fun and its not productive. They move into what I call the “WORK” phase too fast. The “WORK” phase is characterized by the following:

  1. You are doing something “for real”. This can mean trying to make a business profitable or striking it out for real as a professional YouTuber.
  2. You want to execute a game plan for success. Success is a major focus, and failure is going to cost you something.

 

Instead of jumping into the “WORK” phase, with ANYTHING with a high degree of difficulty, you need to first go through a “LEARNING” phase.

This “LEARNING” phase is characterized by a couple of things:

  1. You have to be completely ok with failing and failing badly and over and over.
  2. You should focus exclusively on finding what you like about the thing you are doing (having fun).
  3. Exploring the thing, feeling out foundations should be the focus.

 

This is because success requires two things:

  1. Solid fundamentals borne from experience and mastery of the fundamentals
  2. Huge amounts of motivation due to the amount of hardship and failure you will experience.

 

The problem is, the “WORK” phase, when you have to perform and get results (make money off of your new business idea, perform on the piano, gain rank in the game) usually is not very fun. It is hard to build a good foundation or get motivation when you are so scared of failing.

The solution is clearly to not skip the “LEARNING” phase. Make sure you REALLY REALLY love the thing first, that you have tons and tons of fun, that you start to succeed without even trying before you start to TRY to perform when you switch over to the “WORK” phase. Maybe this means you start to make money off of the business you started, without even thinking about the business plan, or you start to rise in rank without even trying.

My visualization on the correct path for success.

The key part of the “LEARNING” phase is fun. Finding what you like about something is probably one of the most critical ingredients to success because motivation can pretty much overcome ANY obstacle.

Finding fun is both simple and difficult. Simple because all you need to do, is think about what makes you happy. Difficult because it is sometimes hard to pin down what makes you happy. You have to try many things. For me, letting yourself fail, is critical to having fun. With too much pressure, there is absolutely no room for play. I start every endeavor with the mantra, “I accept failure, it is ok/good to let myself fail”.

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League Challenge Rough Cut

Byjack
Like
  • Love the energy throughout
  • Love the beginning
  • Love the day title cards
Work On?
  • Maybe more music that is different
  • Try to make it more clear that it was the first game
  • Maybe make it more clear what is happened? (I’m the guy with the green highlight, screen turns dark, I’m dead)
  • Maybe explain my strategies in improving in league more? (Practice tool)
  • Maybe explain how league works more? (Explain mini games)
  • Break up the footage or shorten it more, might be slow at times.
  • Maybe explain that it was a two day challenge earlier?
Specifics
  1. 0:05 better grade
  2. 0:19 better grade, harder cutting
  3. 0:32 harder cutting, feels slow
  4. 0:53 timing feels off, out of sync with music
  5. 1:41 great energy but need something to transition better
  6. 8:30 more kinetic editing on final words
  7. 2:48 need to fade sound out from voice to cut off extra words
Thoughts
  • Need to draw inspiration from other league youtubers who post highlights (maybe Professor Akali?)
  • Take a step back, and work on something else for a bit, maybe my business idea. Need some time away to see what I want to do next clearly.
  • Get specific feedback from multiple people.
Gameplan

Overall, I feel like this is an excellent rough cut, great pacing and energy but it lacks polish.

To work on the polish I will:

  • Break down portions I need to work on and split them out to perfect them
  • Work with my brother or someone else by my side in order to make it easier

I’m Afraid To Let Go

Byjack
I’m Afraid To Let Go

One day you will see
How you were so focused
On self-soothing
On finding your comfort alone
You forget that you ignored
A man who loved you
For a game
So trivial
You may lose interest in the next month
For you, it’s a question of winning
Of being right or wrong
But for me
It’s a question of love
I wonder
If I have so little self-respect
To spend so much time
Money
Effort
To cheer you up
Just for you to go back to the game
And put me second
Or perhaps this is what love is
And I should keep believing
That you just need
More time
To see
That you can let yourself
Need me

Letting The Empress Take The Wheel

Byjack

My sister and I have this joke about the empress. According to a tarrot reading, my sister needs to rely more on her “inner empress”. What does this mean? Well apparently the emperor card stands for searching out and controlling the world, while the empress waits for the world to come to her.

This actually is in line with a thought process I had myself about being yourself.

Feeling free to be yourself = happiness. Feeling like you cannot be yourself is the root of ALL unhappiness. But how to be yourself is another very difficult story.

One way is a method I like to call, “Letting the empress take the wheel”.

All The Nice People You Meet While On The Road

Byjack

There are so many nice people I meet along the road if I’m just being myself and open to people.

When I was on the plane to Napa Valley I sat next to a couple. The girl got really excited when I wanted to draw with my fountain pen because her boyfriend said she loves that stuff and was an art major like me. I couldn’t get the ink of the pen and but got ink over my hands. She gave me her wet wipe in order to wipe ink off my hands. Her boyfriend lent me a pen when I asked for one to draw with. She braided her hair to show me how braids work because I wanted to draw a character with a huge braid. She offered me her chips when I said I was hungry. She was teasing me so much and was so friendly it actually got a bit awkward with her boyfriend who didn’t seem so pleased.

When I was hiking on Napa Valley, I told a couple that it was worth the view but I had to come back down because I didn’t bring any water. The girl asked me if I wanted any of her water, and asked me if I had to cup to pour it into. Then she and her boyfriend tried to help me find a water fountain.

Also when I was in Napa Valley, I forgot to bring a pen with me to draw with. I asked the girl at the front if I could borrow or buy one. She pulled out a packet of pens and just gave me one.

When I was in Austin looking at apartments, the girl who was showing me apartments told me about how Oracle was buying the apartment complex and that she wasn’t supposed to tell me. She told me I had a really nice vibe. I feel bad because I may have gotten her in trouble because when we got back to the office, I asked her about the Oracle acquisition REALLY loudly because I forgot and she put a finger to her lips and looked really nervous. I was mortified.

When I was in Houston taking photos on the rooftop, I was feeling awkward because everyone there was in their own groups talking and they are all from Citi bank but I was taking photos by myself with a tripod. When I got in the elevator, two girls were telling me how they saw me shooting photos. “You got some good shots right? We saw you,” they told me. One girl said she was calling me the other girl’s brother since she also takes pictures. She asked me whether I lived in the area, and I told her no that I was visiting from DC.

When I went to a Chinese restaurant in Houston and I was struggling to figure out what to order, the waiter came up and asked me what I wanted to order. He asked me if I was Chinese, and I responded in Chinese. He asked me if I was born in China or the US and I told him I was born in Denmark and he said it was a nice place. He said he was from Hong Kong. “I can make something Chinese style for you”, he said and made me a custom dish with eggplant, chicken and string beans. I asked him to take a picture with me, for the memories. He agreed and asked me mine name. He told me his name but I only remember his surname (Leung).

I think back to the guy who asked me yesterday whether or not I was a Youtuber and I think I was so busy being self-conscious and embarrassed, that I closed off the chance that he could have also been a nice person. Even after I told him I had 300 subs, he said to me to keep up the good work. I was just so embarrassed I got out of there as quickly as I could.

On Vlogging In Public

Byjack

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.

 

Tactics For Sleeping In A Hotel Room

Byjack

I love love love traveling but one thing I cannot stand is sleeping well in hotels.

Hotels rooms always feel:

  • Too stuffy somehow, not enough circulation (I hate that you cannot open the window)
  • Too cold
  • The mattress doesn’t feel firm enough
  • Blankets aren’t soft or warm and fluffy (they are thin and scratchy)

I strategized last night to get the best nights sleep and here are the things I did:

  • Ate dinner in the lobby where the air circulation was better and feels like more fresh oxygen
  • Turn the heat up as high as it would go (78 degrees F)
  • Made the bed as comfortable as possible moving the blankets and pillows around to create a nice nest
  • Took a shower, then went back down to the lobby to unwind 
  • Feel asleep in the lobby then went back to the room to sleep

I feel like this actually was a REALLY good routine but I didn’t sleep well because the spicy wings I ate the day before made my stomach uncomfortable. I’m going to try to see if tonight I can fall asleep like in a coma.

Five Things I Love About Women (That Has NOTHING To Do With Appearance)

Byjack

I’m thinking about how women (while often are beautiful and sexy) are not valued for anything beyond their looks or given any affirmation.

For my entire life, I liked having girls as friends, companions, and coworkers because I like being around them (and it has nothing to do with appearance). Here 5 things I like:

  1. I really respect the intelligence and work ethic some women have. They are not arrogant or assume they know everything, which I feel makes someone even smarter since they are faster and better at learning from their mistakes and recognizing that someone is more knowledgable than them (some men are terrible at this to their own downfall).
  2. Women can be easier to connect to on an emotional level. I don’t have to pretend to be strong around women. I can talk about my childhood, when people make me angry, or make me feel embarrassed or sad.
  3. Some women love talking about relationships in an emotionally well-rounded way. I like to talk more about physical attraction or meeting specific criteria. I want to gush about someone I really like.
  4. Some women are really into aesthetics and art. Fashion and beauty isn’t a clinical “I gotta hit the gym to get big” kind of thing. It’s your personal taste and expression of yourself and your feelings.
  5. Some women can be extremely supportive. I like it when you have someone to vent to or recognize when something is making you uncomfortable.

 

There are many other things as well, women can be down to earth, or wild and adventurous. They can be welcoming and extroverted, or quiet and introspective. But overall, it just feels more balanced being with women. They understand my logic mixed with emotion and feeling. They aren’t as competitive and are more caring.

Here is me rambling about it for 13 minutes straight. Ramble ramble.