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Workpost 32: The Power of Belief
I saw this anime recapped last night and I felt it was really inspiring. It was about a guy who needs to create an unprofitable company in order to win money in a game. But in not fearing failure and instead trying to embrace it, he found it hard to not succeed. Obviously this is fiction, and people would find it easy to fail in real life, but there is a part of this that rings true for me.
When you aren’t afraid of failure, it is hard to stave off success. Everything is about having a strong mindset.
Today I want to just focus on the main ideas I said in my previous post:
- You’re in my house
- Take time, be patient
- Be ok with silence
- Take risks
- Anything is possible
What We Owe Ourselves
I’ve been making everything a workpost these days. Because I like it. I like feeling the pride that I’m getting work done. But today, I’m going to try something a little different.
I want to write a little different. Not as a workpost, but a journal entry or maybe an essay.
I want to try writing with more of my emotions, seeking to express and be understood rather just recording my thoughts.
Today I felt very angry with myself. I felt like a failure. It’s been days and every day feels like a repeat of the same nightmare. Wake up, work, play Valorant, go to bed.
The deadline for my entrepreneurship endeavor feels like it is creeping closer and closer, and nothing feels like it is getting done. I feel like I’m drowning under the waves of my anxiety and stress. What if three months pass, and I get nothing done, just like I’ve gotten nothing done in the last 3 months?
In times like this, I feel desperate for answers. I search and I search for some answer to hold onto, some insight that will unlock my mind and set me free from this torment.
The answers didn’t come cleanly. But they did come.
First, I thought about my worries and wins. I wrote them down.
I thought about how really big goals aren’t completed by thinking about the goals, but about who you want to become, and being that person every day.
I thought about how focus was about letting things go, being ok with certain things slipping away.
I remembered my theories: connection theory, and flow theory. I used flow theory to feel my discomfort and soothe myself. Flow theory told me to hold my arms up in the wide circle, almost as if I was giving a hug to an imaginary friend. I needed to do this when I felt the feeling of letting myself down. Like I needed to hold myself and remind myself that I really cared.
I asked myself what I was willing to give myself, what I was willing to do today in order to prove to myself that I cared. And I wrote this:
Website Copy Draft
The path to greatness doesn’t have to be a lonely one
Have you always wanted to write a book, create a comic book, or start a youtube channel?
I specialize in helping people who are retired start one their second career…a career in creative expression.
I believe that there are 3 pillars to success in creating any artistic masterpiece – structure, creativity, and emotional honesty.
Master all three and you will have a work that will feel honest, raw, playful, and beautiful.
But it’s a lonely path to seek this on your own.
That’s where I come in.
With a unique background of both art and engineering, I uniquely understand the feeling and structure, and psychology required to complete the masterpiece of a lifetime. I won multiple awards for art as a child, and got a full scholarship to college for fine art. I am versed in multiple forms of art be it painting, videography, writing, music, and dance. I also studied mechanical engineering and have won awards in the corporate setting for my dedication to the details, practicality, and results orientation.
Together, I can help you express what it is that you want to express in a beautiful, deep, and artistic way.
Tomorrow, I will ask myself the same question. What am I willing to do for myself, my future me.
Back Home
After almost 3 months away from home, I’m finally back and I’m reminded of the life I built here. Peaceful, open, free, and lonely. There are so many possibilities and spaciousness to fill my life with wonderful things.
Today I want to focus my time in building the life that I want to live in the next few months when I will be transitioning to a part time role in my day job in order to spend more time on coaching and building my life up.
Here are some things I want to do:
- Unpack
- Clean & Tidy
- Cut my nails
- Look into Gi Doctors
- Look into a sleep study
- Spend some time with the gf
- Cook food
- Plan my trip with my brother and sister
- Cross off any remaining things on my todo list
Basically, I want to have a clean slate for the next stage of things such as:
- Finding a part time gig where I can exercise without hurting myself
- Signing back up for jiujitsu
- Editing youtube shorts of coaching sessions
- Setting up more coaching sessions
- Working on sales plays for AI consulting
- Researching into buying a house
I went for a morning walk and I wanted to express some appreciation that I gained from my journeys.
Parents House, appreciations for:
- Health
- Cooking
- Playing games with my brother
France, appreciation for:
- Walking
- Beauty of old buildings
- Cuddling
My happiest times in my parent’s house were eating food, and spending time with my brother and parents.
My happiest times in France were spending time with my girlfriend and coming up with crazy schemes.
I was also stressed in both places. In my parent’s house, it was being watched by my parents. In France, I felt very unsafe. Unsafe in stores, on the streets, unsafe in the Airbnb (afraid to break or spill things), unsafe while working (afraid not to be productive).
I think safety is something I want to work on as France is somewhere I would like to feel more at home at.
Knowing When You Are in Danger
What was really striking about this commentary is about how amateurs play chess vs grandmasters, and how grandmasters play vs computers.
This is interesting because Hans Neiman was accused and proven multiple times of being a chess cheater, someone who uses chess engines to play certain critical moves.
If he actually is, his gameplay is more similar to an AI moving rather than a human.
What is interesting about that is that human seem to react a lot to emotional threats, when they are not actually in danger, thus putting themselves in greater danger.
I can relate to this a lot in Valorant, and I wonder if understanding the greater picture better in Valorant will help me understand how much danger I am in, and not unnecessarily put myself in more danger by peeking just because I feel threatened.
The Key to Focus and Meditation: Forever Technique
I’ve been thinking about focus for some time now. I think about focus when I procrastinate. I think about focus when I mindlessly watch youtube videos while feeling anxious about upcoming work or projects. I’ve come up with theories about focus being about limiting the number of input (sensory deprivation and tidiness being great focus techniques) and how focus is different from concentration (when you use willpower to keep your mind constrained to one goal).
My thoughts on focus have recently coalesced on a different approach to focus. I first experienced this feeling with working out in my knee challenge. I realized that when I was feeling uncomfortable with exercise or just simply bored, I would start feeling really antsy and found it difficult to focus on the workout.
The solution was to tell myself that I would be doing this workout not for 10, 20 minutes. Not for 60 minutes. I told myself, I would be working on this workout forever. This mindset shift changed my outlook completely. Instead of rushing or feeling anxious and annoyed, I felt suddenly calm, and totally focused on what I was doing and what I was feeling.
I tested this mindset out recently when I was meditating and it seemed to be a shortcut to the meditative mindset. Instead of trying to escape painful or uncomfortable feelings, I assumed that these feelings would last forever. I would find myself slipping into a deep meditative state much much faster.
Paired with the taoist emptiness technique or mindset, I think this could be very useful in addressing the challenges I face a lot of these days with being overwhelmed and stressed.
I wonder if this is a big difference between kids and adults and why when we get older, we also seem to be less in the moment. When we are counting the minutes and seconds, constantly looking over our shoulder for the next task, instead of focusing on the one in front of us, we can lose the focus we are looking for in our lives.
Sova Fanart 5: Class Unit 2 Day 2
UNIT TWO: Dynamic Figure Drawing | Day 2 – Copy a pose from memory, trace, and correct original
I am going to interpret this as just using real life references.
Again, since we had so much success last night we are going to break things down again.
Suggested time: 90 minutes (30 minutes per unit, 10 minutes per part)
Unit 1: Gather images
- Part 1: Look for reference photo sources
- Part 2: Brainstorm action poses
- Part 3: Brainstorm perspective poses
Unit 2: From memory
- Part 1: Pose 1
- Part 2: Pose 2
- Part 3: Pose 3
Unit 3: From life
- Part 1: Pose 1
- Part 2: Pose 2
- Part 3: Pose 3
Unit 1: Gather images
Part 1: Look for reference photo sources

10 Best Free Pose Reference Sites For Figure Drawing – Improveyourdrawings.com
Part 2&3: Brainstorm action and perspective poses
023 Male Action Pose — Characterdesigns.com
011 Gun Action Pose Male Model — Characterdesigns.com
*Not a pose, but a really cool course I might want to check out
(155) The 6 Types of Joints – Human Anatomy for Artists – YouTube
Now I need to decide on the specific poses I want to try:






Unit 2 & 3: From memory & life
So the poses I most want to choose in order of precedence are:
- Pose 7
- Pose 3
- Pose 1
- Pose 2
- Pose 6
- Pose 8
- Pose 5
I’m going to try the first four (7, 3, 1, 2).
Part 1: Pose 7


Part 2: Pose 3



Part 3: Pose 1



Part 4: Pose 2



Overall Takeaways
Rough Sketch
- Recreate the pose as itself instead of memorizing the image
- Visualize the twist of the torso
- Try to visualize the space they are holding with their arms (like a beach ball) and space with their feet (like a pyramid)
Refined Sketch
- Focus on the different sides of body parts, what side is facing where
- Mark the attachment point of the neck