It is funny because I said no today to the real Profit in Peace challenge today to say yes to my own personal challenge that I created for myself. Today he had a bunch of giveaways and gave away a product for $1 but I realized that it is going to take too much of my attention away. I don’t even want it for $1, maybe not even for free.
I’m very stressed today for all the stuff I have to do for work, I’m very proud of myself for finding a really awesome amazing transition from work to gaming last night and always having a good peaceful nighttime, it is what I always wanted and I finally got it.
Today I need to post my update for the knee challenge, already have it recorded, but need to post it.
I also need to kick off things for the French challenge. No idea how that is going to go.
Finally, the Profit in Peace challenge sparked something in me. I realized that I bought Alex Hormozi’s book $100 Million Leads which will be SUPER helpful in building my coaching practice…actually will help me in my overall career as well. I think there is some super valuable information in there.
On top of that, now that I’m thinking of it, I have some other really good books for business and sales and coaching, Sell Like Crazy by Sabri Subi and The Prosperous Coach by Steve Chandler.
Lots of interesting things going on. I feel like really much more in balance than I have been in a long time.
Routine-wise, I’m better than I’ve ever been. I have a routine working hours, good bedtime, great winddown time, and a great morning routine. I’m keeping up with the breathing and I love yous and it is going great.
I suppose that only thing that I want more of is more friends and interactions outside myself.
Perhaps it will help when I get more time in the morning. Today I will really try to do some work outside of my apartment even if it isn’t in the morning.
She told me that I would have been ashamed to tell my family or my therapist. But it wasn’t true. It wasn’t true because I would have explained that I loved her.
I loved her when she told me that when I left she cried for so long she threw up. I knew then she must have seen something special in me just like I saw something special in her.
I loved her when she made me laugh and smile at the stupidest things. I loved her when we would banter back and forth with insults.
I loved her when she told me that I needed to tell her when I got to my hotel late in California because she was scared she would lose me.
I loved her when she sent me a playlist of songs, beautiful songs, handpicked by her.
I loved her when she tried. Even when I made her uncomfortable. Even when I was mad at her.
I loved her when she was tired and would open up about the things in her life that troubled her. Things about her family. Things about her life.
I loved her when she told me she read my blog every morning.
I loved her when I was needy. So annoyingly needy, but she was nothing but caring and reassuring.
I loved her when she would ask me why I was ignoring her, if I was driving and couldn’t respond right away.
I loved her when I came back from a meeting and would find so many messages from her, like gifts waiting to be opened.
I loved her when we used to talk on the phone for hours, and it never felt longer than a few minutes.
I loved her intelligence, her passion, her humor, her taste in music, her compassion and warmth, her emotions, her feminine side. She understood everything I said to her. Whether it was a dumb joke or my life philosophy. She had a deep emotional intelligence. She knew when she was avoiding the truth and what the truth was. She was immature at times. She gave up easily. She was self-destructive. She preferred to avoid her problems instead of dealing with them. She liked distractions. She was vindictive when she was angry. She liked to cry. She was embarrassed easily. I loved her for all of that.
She tells me now everything was a lie. What a beautiful lie to love.
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:
Walking to vent stress, find peace, ask tough questions, get answers
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:
Faster problem solving/solution creation skills
Intuition + precise logic for accurate but rapid decision making
Ability to think deeper with less effort
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:
How much do I think this work is worth?
How difficult intellectually was this work from 1-10?
What percentile do I place this work in terms of innovation?
Also, I want to spend 20 minutes watching the next part of the coaching session.
Finally, I want to go after the brand and posts in a directed way. I’ll use the syllabus method.
A reminder for the syllabus method:
Create a clear, ambitious, and exciting goal (something to inspire the angels)
Use Alex Hormozi mindset (don’t think about how to achieve it, think about what would make it impossible for you to not achieve it)
Break down those things into 3 steps
If the steps are still too big and nebulous, break those steps into 3 more steps, repeating step 2 and 3
Goal: Create an Instagram page that is able to bring my energy of coaching to all artists, something so clear and powerful it is easy for me to create posts (3 hrs)
Step 1: Develop Brand (1 hr)
Tap into coaching energy, write down ideas
Try looka and other ai brand generators
Develop style guide
Step 2: Ask Questions and Get Answers
Put myself in the mindset of posting videos, posts, etc
This is a recap of an exercise I did a few weeks ago. I was watching a ThinkMedia youtube video about how to succeed at youtube. He went through and exercise looking at 3 things in this order: passion, proficiency, and profit.
Basically, he said to make a list of all the things that you are passionate about, either things you like or things you hate, and things you do even if you weren’t getting paid to do it.
My list was:
Making money
Finding leverage
Valorant
Corporate life (hate)
Coaching
Challenges
Superhuman abilities
Graphic novels
Children’s books, fantasy
Health
AI
Surface level thinking (hate)
Then, he said to take that list of things and think about what we have at least 1 year of proficiency in, where we have been doing that thing semi-successfully. So I narrowed down my list to:
Making money
Valorant
Feeling stuck in life
Deeper thinking
Coaching
Health
AI
Then, he said to narrow down that further into things that we could build an audience around, something people need or would want to buy. Here was my list:
How to get started with a business
How to aim
How to get unstuck in life
How to unlock your potential
How to repair your body
How to use AI to improve your life
I don’t know if I have any interest pursuing youtube in this way, but it was an interesting exercise to reflect on.
I felt very lonely today, so I watched two videos. I figured that whenever my knee feels bad I do research, but I don’t do a lot of research when I feel lonely.
Major ideas that might help me from this post:
Think about how to help others to feel less lonely. It’s weird that I always think about who can make me feel less lonely, but I actually don’t need other people for that. Helping others will help me feel less lonely.
Emotional perfectionism definately sounds like me. Thinking about how it might be possible for me to connect with people even if they aren’t perfect friends and fill all my needs makes it a lot easier to connect with people.
This one really really really helped me because it answered one of my questions, why am I distracting myself all the time and going on YouTube videos and playing games. The simple thing is, I’m not a good friend to myself.
Main takeaways:
A good friend is honest in a loving gentle way. Be honest with yourself in a compassionate way.
A good friend is encouraging and pushes you to be a better version of yourself. Remind yourself what you are capable of, believe in yourself. Encourage yourself to be a good man, a strong man, despite what others want you to do.
For some reason, the idea of being a good man makes me feel really really calm for some reason. I know I have been fighting myself and that’s why I’m on my phone all the time.
I wanted to spend some time thinking more about my ideal friend:
Someone who is accepting of me, a good listener, empathetic
Someone who wants to go on adventures with me
Someone who encourages me to dream big, believe in myself
I am completely confused and upset by how this girl that I play Valorant went from having so much fun to always getting annoyed and mad.
Facts that I know:
Used to beg me to play constantly, only stopped because I was too busy with work so I said no all the time
Used to laugh and think I was very funny in games
At first, was resistant to smurfing, but after she was convinced, had a ton of fun trolling on smurfs including doing frenzy only challenge
Used to be afraid to talk in voice chat, only talked to me
Spent all her time talking to me on Valorant and ignored her relationship because of how much she liked playing with me
She used to be my favorite person to play with for several months:
Was always fun and chill
Could make jokes or talk about deep stuff
Made me feel special because she only wanted to play with me
Would actually listen to strats unlike some girls who would get defensive when given any feedback
Was very smart and improved a great deal in the time we played
However, somehow, after months of having lots and lots of fun, everything has taken a dramatic turn:
Gets annoyed when she isn’t doing well and takes the game very seriously
Gets annoyed when I’m taking the game too seriously but also gets mad when I goof off
Wants everyone to be mean and toxic yet gets upset when people are toxic back
Is mad when I’m goofing off and think I’m somehow trying very hard to be funny
Claims that unrated it doesn’t matter if she wins or loses but gets mad when she loses
Claims smurfs don’t matter but somehow gets mad when she loses on a smurf
Somehow is able to have fun with other people and refuses to play with me now
Cannot seem to remember any of our happy times and insists that she never had fun
Some factors that I think may contribute:
May have been taught by someone that being slow and boring is a very bad thing, seems to be overly concerned with it and projects onto other people
May feel a really strong pressure to do well, seemed to take the game extremely seriously after her friend started playing on it
May also feel a great deal of pressure to play well and be less toxic around me because she wants it to work out, the pressure may cause her to do worse, and be even more toxic
May feel a sense of superiority or arrogance? When we first started playing, she kept telling me she was afraid I would stop playing with her because she was lower elo than me. I never did, but always wondered if she would stop playing with me if she got better than me.
Altogether I can’t really make sense of this phenomenon and it does bother me a great deal. I suppose on some level I must accept that something about Valorant and playing with me triggers her in some deep way and that I shouldn’t let that stop me from having fun. It does make me sad that things have changed so dramatically and I lost my favorite Valorant buddy.
Valorant has become significantly less fun for me now. It almost feels like work, instead of a game that I loved. There was a period of time when I was playing with her that I truly let go of the need to win and actually just had fun. I don’t know what I need to do to get that feeling back. I hope she finds a way to have fun as well, but it breaks my heart that it isn’t with me.
