I was thinking about the concept of how Alex Hormzi approaches learning. The idea that you purpose things in a way expecting to fail at first, but you pursue them in such a way that you make it hard for you to fail. That the chances that you will fail is lower than the chances of success.
I was thinking about what made emotional or spiritual success. And that brought me to a few different ideas. They all centered around one thing, the relationship with oneself. I believe that the relationship that you have with yourself dictates the freedom and happiness you have in life. Some ways in which I am not a kind or loving friend or parent to myself are:
Thinking my needs are not important, especially if they make it less convenient for other people
Shaming myself and comparing myself to other people
Lashing out at myself when I’m not the best or successful
Yelling at myself for making mistakes
Putting on the pressure that if I’m not stressed I will not perform
Being disgusted by my weakness
What if I took this idea from Alex Hormzi? What if I accepted I am going to be a shit friend and parent to myself but I am going to ask myself what I need to do to make it harder to be unkind and unloving toward myself than it is to be kind and loving?
Well, what would the most loving parent do for me?
Value my emotions and encourage me to explore them
Hold me close when I’m upset or feeling weak and vulnerable
I am the most important person in their life, they will drop everything if I need them
Be interested in hearing about new adventures and failures and lessons
Does not see me as a static person but as a sum of everything I’ve been, where I’m now, and where I’m headed
Guide me when I’m feeling lost or need to defend myself
I want to know how I can make it impossible for me to not do that for myself.
Some ideas come to mind:
Create a meditative time to watch my own content (read my journals, watch my videos, listen to my recordings). It feels like 1,4 and especially 5. As a side effect, this can create GREAT opportunities for understanding what kinds of videos I can make.
Write down and read my thoughts when I feel lost, scared, angry, ashamed or frustrated. Create a place to feel hurt. This can hit at 1,3, and 4, and maybe 6 if I write responses to things I write.
Work on dance therapy especially the following elements: allowing the world to hold you, inward closing comfort, sensual movement and touch, outward releasing movement
I don’t know how to come up with a strategy on how to mix this in with my life yet but some of my ideas includes:
Using therapists as a safe space to practice
Using people who are close as a way to practice
Using camera off meetings as a way to practice
Using youtube videos and coaching as a way to practice
Yesterday I returned to Valorant and I wanted to learn a few things since being washed before I get back fully into the Valorant grind.
I want to learn how to have comfortable hand positioning
I want to have greater certainty of where all the enemies are at any point in time and a clearer understanding of the game
Class One: Hand positioning (90 minutes)
UNIT ONE: Figure out why
UNIT TWO: Explore Movements
UNIT THREE: Explore aids and relief
Class Two: Greater certainty (3 hrs)
UNIT ONE: Document VOD areas of stress and find equivalent situations in ranked
UNIT TWO: Try to predict decision making
UNIT THREE: Document another VOD
Class One: Hand positioning (90 minutes)
UNIT ONE: Figure out why
I’d say I have a little golfers elbow along with just muscle fatigue. No carpal tunnel syndrome or trigger finger syndrome thankfully.
UNIT TWO: Explore Movements
My perfect position seems to be legs balanced on the floor, chest forwards, armrest angled outwards and level with the desk and pushed backward so I can sit farther forwards.
The results on my sheriff-only account:
I feel mild soreness in my hand and forearm. My whole body feels a bit cramped as well. Overall, massive improvement.
I used a new aiming mentality, which I call the “Zoom In” Method where you pretend you are zooming into where your crosshair is and on the target, sort of getting mental blinders on. It seems to help especially with aiming for very far shots.
Then I played a rank match:
My “greater certainly” class was me looking up at how Som played vs me.
I was really helpful to see the util usage. I ended up using a lot of this information in future matches.
However, I spiraled after playing ranked because I was so frustrated with how I was performing. I ended up playing non-stop from Friday until Sunday sleeping not as much as I would like and always livid from anger that all my opponents were so hard to beat.
Today in looking into how to increase strength and mobility into the tendons and ligaments, I made an exciting discovery and change in direction.
I’ve heard of the Knees Over Toes Guy ever since I went to Thai Massage and the massage therapist told me that he helped a lot with his knee injuries from doing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
I know this challenge was to make my knee stronger just for going to Zion National Park, but this changes things completely.
The Knees Over Toes Guy has a program that costs about $50 per month. I decided to try it out as part of this challenge…but also as part of a bigger effort to regain my life. For the longest time, I have been searching for something that would let me be active again in life. Specifically, I want to get back into martial arts and work on Jiu Jitsu, wrestling and striking. I know that is completely impossible right now since I can’t even sleep on my side without pain in my knee.
This guy has renewed hope in me because apparently he was struggling with knee pain for 10 years and has had 6 surgeries and now is able to play basketball with zero pain even though he is pushing his body farther than ever (now dunks the ball).
This of course, changes my approach to the challenge and I need to rewrite my syllabus. I didn’t want to get rid of the syllabus because that is what has created such happiness and progress in all my challenges, but this is an excellent opportunity to improve the process. I have always felt that rigidly following something even when it isn’t the best path anymore is inefficient and wastes time. Being able to adapt the syllabus when you feel a major shift (not just all the time for no reason) makes a lot of sense.
There is a major shift that needs to happen because I realized that the current syllabus is not perfect due to the fact that even day 1 I realized that all exercises involve muscles, fascia and ligaments and tendons, yet they are all spread out over days in the syllabus and that makes no sense.
So here is my revised syllabus:
Days until Zion: 8
UNIT 2: Testing Knees Over Toes
Day 1 – Surface Tissues
UNIT 2: Testing Knees Over Toes
Day 1 – Day 5 – ATG workouts (Zero Program)
UNIT 3: Recovery
Day 1 – Cooling and antioxidation Day 2 – Cleansing and Fasting Day 3 – Fortifying and Nutrition
Fly first class to a destination with a plus one, with a nice airbnb every month: 5k
Organic high quality groceries: 1k
Nice quality clothes: 1k-2.3k
Total: 28.2k-41.4k
Per Year: 338.4k-496.8k
If I wanted to save 50%: 676.8k-993.6k
Before taxes that would be: 1.091M-1.601M
Meaning each month I would have to bring in: 90.1k-133.4k per month
I realize that this is more of an end goal. To get to the place I want to be right now, I don’t need to make enough to save 50%. That can come later. I highly suspect that having a great business coach, massages, and a therapist will enable me to double and triple my income.
So lets take another look at the numbers. What is the bare minimum I need to get into this lifestyle?
338.4k per year -> 531.8k before taxes
44.3k per month
If we were to operate on the Parrado Principal just for coaching:
80% from group coaching: 355 group coaching clients | 20% from one on one: 6 one on one clients
80% from art coaching: 425.4k | 20% from AI consulting 106.4k
Questions for myself:
What should I focus on first?
How do I divide what I want to do into steps?
What should I focus on, AI or Art Coaching?
Should I even do AI consulting?
Should I try to find a partner for AI consulting? Should I wait until I find a partner to do anything?
How do I want to legally set up my companies?
How do I make my life easier?
How do I market my businesses?
What is something that I’m missing?
How do I make my art coaching business succeed in a way that doesn’t destroy my peace?
How do I maintain my AI expertise? How do I make progress without being overwhelmed and unfocused?
What will make my life more fun while making big strides in my businesses?
Is there something I can start succeeding at today?
Am I aiming at the right goals? Are they too small? Too large?
What can I do today to rapidly speed up my progress?
If I wanted to make a lot of money, enough to live on in the next year, and I wanted to make this money in a month with my current skillset, what should I do?
Is there a small shift I can make that will have a massive impact on my income/success?
What should I be hiring someone else to do? What things will have a good return on my investment, make me money not lose money?
What should I do today that will make me happier and more successful?
My intuitive answers:
What should I focus on first?
You want to focus on the fundamentals: sleep, meditation, food, emotional processing
The stronger the fundamentals are, the more you will be able to handle anything
How do I divide what I want to do into steps?
Picture some of your immediate goals that make you feel excited, give you energy, make them small enough to understand, and work on meeting those goals first
What should I focus on, AI or Art Coaching?
It depends on what you want to do, to create a large business, AI makes more sense
For creating a smaller business, focus on Art Coaching
Should I even do AI consulting?
Yes of course, there is a really good business opportunity here
If you mean at the same time as Art coaching, the answer is it depends, you will have to pick a priority
Should I try to find a partner for AI consulting? Should I wait until I find a partner to do anything?
No you shouldn’t wait, you can start by yourself
Yes, you should look for a partner while you are looking for clients, you are developing a network for both
How do I want to legally set up my companies?
Depends on how easy it is to change, the benefits of separating them, etc.
How do I make my life easier?
Stop doing everything alone, work with other people
How do I market my businesses?
Ask other people for ideas
What is something that I’m missing?
You are missing a business coach/mentor
How do I make my art coaching business succeed in a way that doesn’t destroy my peace?
You write about your challenges and experiences, to approach the business like an opportunity for personal growth
How do I maintain my AI expertise? How do I make progress without being overwhelmed and unfocused?
The best way is if you could connect the art coaching with AI and AI with art coaching, if you could find a way for them to be symbiotic, that would be the easiest way
The other way is to find a simple and easy way to make money from AI
What will make my life more fun while making big strides in my businesses?
I think maybe posting about your process/journey on social media
Hosting events and meeting people
Speaking at events
Creating strong boundaries for doing other things unrelated to business
Is there something I can start succeeding at today?
Yes, focus on the fundamentals, they are the most important part
Am I aiming at the right goals? Are they too small? Too large?
I think you are focused on the right goals, but maybe it is too early to be thinking about timelines, just create a bunch of attainable goals and work through them with no timeline in mind
What can I do today to rapidly speed up my progress?
Meditate
Sleep as much as possible
Find a mastermind
If I wanted to make a lot of money, enough to live on in the next year, and I wanted to make this money in a month with my current skillset, what should I do?
Teaching people would probably be the best way, that is probably your strongest skillset at the moment
Probably not the best use of your time for your goals
Is there a small shift I can make that will have a massive impact on my income/success?
Yes, write down goals and look at them everyday
What should I be hiring someone else to do? What things will have a good return on my investment, make me money not lose money?
Finding a good video editor or social media manager
Marketing is key and you need to work with people to get good at it
What should I do today that will make me happier and more successful?
I’ve been thinking so long about the fear of failure and embracing pain since the fear of failure holds me back in almost every area of life.
David Goggins is famous for being someone who has made his thing embracing pain.
It’s interesting because I always wrote people like Goggins off, and I still feel like he is missing the subtle touch, the emotional and artistic, but I actually think he is onto something,
Some of the main takeaways:
Embracing showing how messed up you are don’t care what anyone thinks
Everyone is messed up, if they are judging you, they are just better at hiding it than you
Use every naysayer as motivation
When you embrace your faults, you will find the who you really are and pursue that
Self discipline is creating self respect
This self discipline thing has always been interesting to me because I’ve heard this before. But I don’t really understand it. Isn’t discipline yelling at yourself?
The embracing failures and not hiding your failures to see what you really want to be is really telling to me as well. I always wonder what I should do, but I can wonder what I could do. And being willing to show everything wrong with me just will get me closer to clarity on who I am.
I just came up with a sort of solution for the issue of continuing a healthy sleep cycle while ending the challenge.
It is sparked by something my dad said to me. He told me that life is a marathon not a short race. You have to think of things in the longterm in order to stay healthy.
I was thinking about this because I have a technique I use when I need to do something that takes time and patience. For example, if I feel antsy while working at the gym, I ask myself, “when will this be over?” and I start looking at the clock and feeling impatient.
I address with a technique that I call the Forever method. It’s called the forever method because I answer that question with “imagine it will go on forever”. And not in a bad way. In a way that is comforting. This is your new life…and I can let go of figuring out how to rush onto the next thing. I can just focus on the present moment, and focus on doing the movements in a way that I CAN do it forever. That means with good form, without pushing myself too hard.
I realized I can think about life the same way:
Bedtime that I can sustain forever
Working hours that I can sustain forever
Eating in a way that I can sustain forever
This makes a lot of sense for maintaining boundaries. Often we tell ourselves, oh, I will just bear this insult for today, I will just work a little harder today. But in those situations, we are violating our own boundaries. Which means we will build up resentment. It is NOT something you can sustain forever.
So as I close out this challenge, I plan to live in a way that will enable me to live forever.
