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.
Yesterday I came up with a new mentality that really helped me with Valorant. I noticed that I wasn’t focused on taking fights and it was kind of hard to get kills.
So I decided to take a break, walk around and drink some water. And when I came back, I promised myself I would not peek until I felt that I was fully ready to take a fight.
Some really interesting ideas I saw when watching this video about aim training:
My main takeaways:
Aim training is not the main practice but rather isolates specific techniques such as hitting A D targets (people strafing from left to right) or flicking.
Sens and muscle memory doesn’t matter.
Sensitivity just changes what muscle groups you use and to be a good aimer you need to be able to use all muscle groups. Low sens is using the arm and wrist, high sens is using the wrist and fingers. When you know how to use all muscles groups by changing your sens around, when you stick to one sens you will have superior mouse control to use that sens in all situations.
Muscle memory doesn’t exist since you cannot memorize a specific shot, it is always changing depending on the game you are in.
Keep warmups really short. 5-10 minutes max for strictly a warmup and 10-15 minutes for a warmup + some longterm aim group/training.
If you warmup for an hour its a training session not a warmup. It causes you to be tired out and overthink the aiming.
Higher DPI mean lower input delay. 800-1600 is desired but it isn’t that important.
Raw reaction time doesn’t matter as much as awareness. If you don’t expect something, raw reaction time matters much more. 190-180 milliseconds is normal.
Higher sens is technically better because it is faster, but it is harder to be consistent and be in control
I am slowly getting back into things. After completely messing up my bedtime, getting it back, getting sick, losing my bedtime again, I am finally getting back into the swing of things.
I want to refocus on the things that I set out to focus on: Health, AI Consulting, Art Coaching.
I want to have an 11-12 PM bedtime, journaling at night, morning walking meditation, and morning todo list and blog post.
Today on my morning walk I contemplated rejection.
You know I always felt that working on yourself made you more prepared for life in general and I always felt my fear of rejection was holding me back from a lot of things in life, initially from getting a girlfriend, but later from being a life coach.
Recently I had the experience of meeting with a client for a free session for which they were super impressed by but when I sent them my rates, they did not respond. This immediately triggered the rejection wounds within me. I also just had an artist interview who was late to our conversation, did not agree to the full hour, and did not want to schedule another time to complete our conversation which triggered rejection wounds within me.
I feel scared that if I ask for things, people will reject me. I’m afraid it will be awkward to talk to them afterwards, I’m afraid how others will view me after getting rejected.
This morning I came up with a couple of nuggets to handle and process rejection:
Take up space: there is a part of me that wants to hide when people reject me. I want to take up as little space as possible. This concept is doing the opposite. I deserve to be here like everyone else. Take up space! Make the ask!
Enthusiastic yes: I don’t want people to feel pressured. I am going to follow the philosophy on the Prosperous Coach. It’s either an enthusiastic yes, or its a no. Maybe is a no. And tell them that. If they are not sure, they know where to find you.
Slow down: I realized this new revelation in Valorant has implications in life too. When I feel stressed about rejection and awkwardness, shame, and judgement, slow down. I usually try to speed up, to move past it. Slow way down, focus on what is going on before charging ahead.
Stay busy, focus on the process not the outcome: one thing that I noticed, when I’m busy doing what matters, I won’t care as much about anything else. I want to focus on health, coaching and consulting. Don’t let anyone’s rejection take away from that. It’s like what they say about cold calling. Focus on the process, not the outcomes (focus on improving your process for cold calling, not for the outcome of every call).
So something that I’ve been sort of obsessed with recently is how to face your problems head-on. In so many areas of my life, I struggle to do that. In my professional career, tasks that stress me out send me to my couch with my phone. When I don’t know what to say to my mom and my dad, I immediately turn on my audiobook, eager to dull the pain in my chest. When I am feeling stressed about a fight in Valorant, I rush and try to ignore the mounting feelings of anxiety.
I would really like to find a way to flip the script because it is so rewarding. When I do a task that I worry about, I feel energized, and not tired from work. When I focus on my feelings of anxiety in Valorant, I become much more aware of what my intuition is telling me, that I need to slow down and play the situation very carefully.
I think this is a really interesting concept. I want to make a bit of an amendment. In the video they talk about trying to get better problems, that being able to have money problems when you are rich vs money problems when you are poor is much better (where you invest, vs how to survive). But I kind of disagree. The problem of survival is ultimately a much more rewarding problem for me than where to invest.
I do think that this is a powerful idea, and a way to reframe problems. My thoughts are as follows:
Avoiding problems comes from the fear of failure
We can address this by embracing failure
But we don’t want to just fail at anything…this is where choosing your problems come in
Instead of failing at a random problem, embrace failing and learning from a meaningful problem
Ex: I am afraid I don’t know how to respond to my parents
The meaningful problem here is to learn to create a bond with my parents while standing strong in my own life and boundaries
Accept failure and believe in my ability to learn from a failure at this problem
Essentially, turn every problem into a challenge
Another example: I don’t know what to do next in my demo build and it’s overwhelming and a lot of work
The meaningful problem here is finding how to be efficient at my job, and to work as a team without people pleasing to my own detriment (creating boundaries)
Accept failure at this and my ability to learn from that failure
So I’ve been thinking a lot about, well sales. This video sums it up pretty well.
I have been focusing on a lot of things recently, coaching, youtube, France and my girlfriend and on top of all of that, work and my day job in AI consulting. I recently decided to say fuck it for everything but three things:
My girlfriend and relationship – we don’t have much time together and I want to enjoy it
Exploring France – again not much time, amazing opportunity to relax and explore
Going crazy as an AI Consultant and bringing in a crazy amount of business
My relationship is going pretty good, and for France I don’t want to think about it, I just do whatever I want. So let’s focus on the last thing.
I want to do exactly what Mark Cuban said. I want to be the best-performing salesman at my job. I want to take that experience to build my coaching business. I want to use my success to do consulting like I do coaching and have a lot of fun. I want to use my success to request more pay.
I want to learn how to master content creation. Build a social media presence. Build my connections. Get the reputation and respect that I’ve always felt I deserved.
The main conundrum I’ve been facing is this:
How much information do I give away?
If I give away tons of free information, what are they hiring me for?
If I give away free 30 minute sessions, does that mean I will never talk to them ever again?
After some meditation, I came up with the following thoughts:
I can give away everything
For focusing on their specific problem. The most difficult thing is not to come up with a solution it is to come up with a solution to the right problem (just like coaching)
No, I can always talk to them again. In fact, I can give away unlimited 30-minute sessions. However, it isn’t about the 30 minutes in the session that costs me a lot. It is the 30 minutes of research that I need to do before the call. It is the structure of writing out a plan for them that is costing me more.
I can always have more conversations with less prep or even more 30 minute conversations with them.
In the future, if they pay for consulting, they are paying me to invest more deeply into their solution. That means more research outside of the calls. That means more knowledge of their product and aligning my goals with theirs (just like in coaching).
If I wanted to sell educational products, the cost for me and the added value for them would be in the way I packaged the information. Not the information itself. For example, a special website, platform, a book or an app.
There are three parts of a solving a problem:
Having the knowledge
Transferring it to someone
Using the knowledge to solve the problem
When you create free content, you are mostly some #1 and some #2. I use a lot of my current knowledge + a little research + some production (design, videography, writing).
When I get on random calls with people, it is a little #1 and a little #2. I’m using my current knowledge with no research, and trying my best to transfer it to someone on a call.
When I get on “free” high value calls with people, I’m doing some of #1 and some #2 and a tiny bit of #3. I do a lot of research, use my current knowledge, trying my best to transfer the knowledge, and might even implement a small deliverable (like a roadmap, plan, strategy, or diagnosis).
When I’m doing consulting for them, I’m doing a lot of #1 and a lot of #3 with some #2. I’m doing tons of research, using my own knowledge, leading the charge on actually solving the problem (either building it myself, finding the right solution to buy, or hiring the people needed to build it), and doing a bit of education.
When I’m selling an education solution, I am doing a lot of #1 and a lot of #2. I’m doing tons of research, and spending a lot of effort on transferring the knowledge.
I played with my brother and his friend who are in Gold 1 and Plat 1 respectively.
I feel that a huge part of the problems I run into in playing Valorant is self doubt.
When I get worried that I am playing with people better than me, instead of learning and adapting, I freeze up and cannot think properly and play worse than I would normally:
I make bad decisions
I don’t take time to aim and spray wildly
I push too fast
One way I’ve handled this is lowering my expectations for myself and my game but this is still an ongoing challenge for me.
I also played with a girl who wasn’t that good at the game on my slow laggy laptop. It was an interesting experience because at first, I did really bad, but I ended up getting so many kills. She wasn’t very good so I felt the people we were matched with were in iron (who I should easily beat) but I found it hard because it’s hard for me to flick onto their head with my laggy laptop. I always find it tough to play on the little f*cker.
Two ways that I adjusted:
Hold angles, stop pushing so fast
Make sure I isolate as much as possible. Even if I miss, I might not die if I don’t peek out to 3 or 4 enemies.
I feel like these lessons can pass over to my regular gaming PC.