Similar Posts

Workpost 39: Making the Most of It

Byjack

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:

  1. Walking to vent stress, find peace, ask tough questions, get answers
  2. 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:

  1. Faster problem solving/solution creation skills
  2. Intuition + precise logic for accurate but rapid decision making
  3. Ability to think deeper with less effort
  4. 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:

  1. How much do I think this work is worth?
  2. How difficult intellectually was this work from 1-10?
  3. What percentile do I place this work in terms of innovation?
  4. Gains in communication and charisma?

All That Matters Is Now

Byjack

I just made a little discovery about the nature of “should” and regret. What should I do, what should I have done, what is the perfect next move. They are interesting ideas but they can sometimes limit our understanding of the truth.

It doesn’t matter what happened in the past, or what will happen in the future, only how we feel about them now.

That is why everything is about processing feelings and even the permission exercise processes feelings about the future. Nothing matters but now.

It doesn’t even make sense to think about the future and the past because all we can control is the now.

Because nothing matters but the moment, we can process the past, we can process the future, and make our decision from where we are on how to feel the present. We can make decisions from the vantage point of now. We can do things now. We can feel now.

All that Matters is Now

I was scared of the past

Scared of what I might find

I was scared of the future

Scared of what I might do

But the place where I stand right now

With all the things that brought me to this moment

And all the paths that move on from here

Is all that matters

There is nothing I should do

There is only feeling what is

Only discovering

Acting

Understanding

Waiting

| | |

The Profit in Peace Challenge

Byjack

So here is the long and short of it.

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:

  1. What am I willing to give up and how will I go about giving it up?
  2. 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.

|

The Sales Funnel Challenge

Byjack

I’ve always wanted to take as many sales and marketing offers as possible. I don’t know whether or not they are scams or not. I don’t know which ones are useful or not. So I wanted to take all of them, and treat them all like challenges.

Today, I started one of the Challenges. I signed up for a book called “Sell Like Crazy” from King Kong marketing agency with founder Sabri Suby. The book is about building clients from facebook ads (something I can already see they are good at and I have an interest in). I want to try this out with my coaching business.

The reason why I started with this sales funnel is that they have a hilarious Facebook commercial and they also had a unique offer – a free (or almost free) book.

My thoughts so far:

  • Really well-shot and entertaining commercial, they are a good marketing agency.
  • Glassdoor makes me think they are legit
  • I’m excited about the free book
  • They are too salesy, they kept me on the funnel for like an HOUR and predictably tried to sell me something immediately afterwards
  • My idea of them definitely soured in the sales funnel because of the endless funnel and greedy money grabs

Excited to see where this will go!

Workpost 41: Enjoy Yourself

Byjack

Today I did a long breathwork meditation session after feeling extremely stressed out about three questions:

  1. Should I sign up for jiujitsu again?
  2. Should I do coaching again?
  3. Should I continue therapy?

And all the worrying stressful sub questions:

  1. What about the money for jiujitsu
  2. Jiujitsu is so hard to get good at
  3. People might not buy my coaching if I didn’t do something really big
  4. Therapy costs so much money is it worth it?

And after the meditation, one thing was clear to me. The answer to everything: take everything so much less serious. Have fun!!!

If you have fun doing jiujitsu, sign up for it, go to classes when you feel like it. Have an amazing time doing work. If you love coaching, do it whether or not people believe that you are a good coach or not.

Enjoy yourself. Indulge yourself in boba while working. Take breaks to play on the piano, to draw.

P.S. I did sign up for jiujitsu, and I intend to have fun learning tons of new martial arts.

Rental Car Nightmares

Byjack

A couple of weeks ago, I rented a car at National car rental. My sister returned it for me, and I got a shock in my email a few weeks later.

I immediate assumed this had to be a scam, or some sort of mistake. But the more I read, the more that I could tell this was actually legit. They had the right time, the right place and right company. They were charging me for $1295.81 for damages to the vehicle.

Looking at this deeper I noticed that the line items were VERY extensive, replaces door parts and handles. According to them, the car was HEAVILY damaged.

Looking at the pictures, I could barely see any of the damages they were indicating. It almost felt like they were offloading the cost of wear and tear on me.

Obviously I was LIVID.

  • I knew that there were some small marks on the car when I picked it up, but I never took any pictures.
  • I knew that no damage whatsoever happened when I had the car. I didn’t think any of this damage was on the car when I picked it up, but the damage in the photos are so subtle its hard for me to be sure.
  • I had rental insurance specifically for this car, but didn’t want to file a claim for something I didn’t do.
  • My sister had someone walk around the car and CONFIRM it was ok before she returned it. They parked it, and who knows what happened after that.
  • National has a service for their “Emerald Isle” premium members where you can pick up and drop off a car without ever seeing someone.
    • This now seemed like a LIABILITY not a PERK since now I can’t get them to acknowledge damage on the car.
    • I’m a new member and if they were going to be f*cking sticklers about this whole thing, they should have EXPLAINED it to me. I would have got them to sign off on EVERY F*CKING SCRATCH BEFORE AND AFTER returning the car.

So I went to chase down this problem:

  1. I called National Support, and they told me that I needed to call their damage unit. I asked them to make a note on my case so I wouldn’t have to repeat myself.
  2. After I called their damage unit, they redirected me to someone else.
  3. After getting to another person, they redirected me to someone else.
  4. The last person seemed to know what they were talking about, but I had repeat myself because she could not access any of the notes that National Support wrote down.

The last woman who oversaw the appeals to the damages told me the following information:

  • Generally its better if you take photos beforehand, however, in situations where the “damage” is so small it is easy to miss, you can appeal and they will dismiss it. They consider it human error.
  • She told me that my “damages” were definitely small enough that someone might have missed it before (so it may not be caused by me).
  • She agreed to waive all of the fees.

So my lessons learned from this whole experience:

  1. Always get rental car insurance just in case.
  2. Take a video when you pick up the car to prove the condition of the car beforehand. (It’s gonna be me in the parking lot being like “hey this is me in the parking lot picking up this car at X time” so they have proof I didn’t take the video at some other place or time)
  3. Take a video of the car when you return it.
  4. If they try to charge you for something really small and not visible in your videos, appeal, and they will probably dismiss it.
  5. It’s good to be a mix of legitimately angry (I was furious) but polite at the same time (I apologized in advance telling them I was very upset but I knew it wasn’t their fault personally). As a result, they were helpful and resolved my issue quickly.

A day later I got an email.