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Profit in Peace 8: Day Four

Byjack

I feel really tired today. I really like this course but I’m having a couple of worries:

  • I don’t know what products to sell because I like utilitarian stuff, things to make things and all those items, quality matters a lot and there are existing players
  • For more complex items, I don’t know if my RFQ will require a lot of work (cad models and blueprints)

Anyway, excited to see what happens today.

Thoughts and questions:

  • Money is like soldiers
    • There was a village that borrowed soldiers from other villages until they became an empire…they become Rome
  • “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” – Einstein

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Profit in Peace 12: Peace Disrupted

Byjack

My peace today was disrupted by work early. It is nice to have time to talk about strategic leadership things. I usually don’t have that much time during the week.

However, it’s not the type of morning that I aim to repeat.

I intend on reclaiming as much peace as I can in this 20 minute span.

I feel that respect is a really important need for me in work, and I feel that this need was not met at my previous job, it remains to be seen whether or not it is met enough in this job. I have my doubts to be sure.

Today, I woke up feeling much better, even though I went to bed a bit late. It’s because, on top of journaling, I also did cupping on my body to unblock anything that was blocked. Turned red on my chest, I guess a lot of blockages there specifically.

I feel with the level of stress this morning with no peace and no running I’m feeling surprisingly good.

I wonder how to push back on blatant hostility and disrespect in a way that I want to. I suppose some rage journaling should help and maybe my coaching mindset.

Today I want to focus on making a video on how to handle lack of respect in the workplace.

I don’t know how that is going to go but that’s what I want to do.

Perhaps I need to meditate on it some more.

Maybe finally watching another 20 minutes of the coaching call will be nice as well.

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My Two Year Plan

Byjack

Here is my dream life:

  • Part time accountant: 2.2k-3.2k
  • Full time videographer: 4.3k-6.4k
  • Full time editor: 4.8k-6.9k
  • Apartment or down payment on house: 3k
  • Art studio 2k
  • Massage everyday: 1.7k-3.6k
  • Therapist 2 times a week: 2.8k
  • High end business coach: 4k
  • Eat out at a nice dinner 3 times per week: 1.2k
  • 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:

  1. What should I focus on first?
  2. How do I divide what I want to do into steps?
  3. What should I focus on, AI or Art Coaching?
  4. Should I even do AI consulting?
  5. Should I try to find a partner for AI consulting? Should I wait until I find a partner to do anything?
  6. How do I want to legally set up my companies?
  7. How do I make my life easier?
  8. How do I market my businesses?
  9. What is something that I’m missing?
  10. How do I make my art coaching business succeed in a way that doesn’t destroy my peace?
  11. How do I maintain my AI expertise? How do I make progress without being overwhelmed and unfocused?
  12. What will make my life more fun while making big strides in my businesses?
  13. Is there something I can start succeeding at today?
  14. Am I aiming at the right goals? Are they too small? Too large?
  15. What can I do today to rapidly speed up my progress?
  16. 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?
  17. Is there a small shift I can make that will have a massive impact on my income/success?
  18. 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?
  19. What should I do today that will make me happier and more successful?

My intuitive answers:

  1. 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
  2. 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
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. 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
  6. How do I want to legally set up my companies?
    • Depends on how easy it is to change, the benefits of separating them, etc.
  7. How do I make my life easier?
    • Stop doing everything alone, work with other people
  8. How do I market my businesses?
    • Ask other people for ideas
  9. What is something that I’m missing?
    • You are missing a business coach/mentor
  10. 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
  11. 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
  12. 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
  13. Is there something I can start succeeding at today?
    • Yes, focus on the fundamentals, they are the most important part
  14. 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
  15. What can I do today to rapidly speed up my progress?
    • Meditate
    • Sleep as much as possible
    • Find a mastermind
  16. 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
  17. 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
  18. 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
  19. What should I do today that will make me happier and more successful?
    • Remember your mission(s) and focus on them
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Additional Thoughts on Affirmative Action and Personal Decision Making

Byjack

The types of biases:

1. Cognitive Dissonance

2. Spotlight Effect

3. Anchoring Effect

4. The Halo Effect

5. Gambler’s Fallacy

6. Contrast Effect

7. Confirmation Bias

8. Baader-Meinhoff Phenomenon

9. Zeigarnik Effect

10. Paradox of Choice

More biases:

11. Survivorship Bias

12. Self Serving Bias

13. Fundamental Attribution Error

14. Hindsight Bias

15. Availability Bias

16. Availability Cascade

17. Sunk Cost Fallacy

18. Framing Effect

19. Clustering Illusion

20. Exponential Growth

21. Barnum Effect

Ideas for these biases:

  • Create a selection process (for college, group or job)
  • Use for cold hard thinking areas (stocks)
  • Use in logic games (Valorant, Chess)
  • Take advantage of bias to do careful marketing

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Profit in Peace 14: Looking For A Solution

Byjack

Ok, it has been three days and every single day this week, my peace has been disrupted. Things are blowing up at work yet again and I don’t have the space and time that I need to think and introspect and work on my own things.

A couple of big wins:

  1. As per my sleep challenge, my sleep routine has never been better. I’m sticking to the 11 PM bedtime and go to sleep before 11:30 PM. I enjoy the nighttime winddown with journaling and cupping.
  2. My morning routine remains steadfast and strong. Even though sometimes I only have 30 minutes, or I have to get up at 4 AM, every single morning, I get up and check in with my emotions. I’ve added the breathing, I love you, and left handing brushing routine and it has been going well.
  3. I have a pretty clear boundary where I end work around 5 PM, and I don’t really stray very much from that.

So today’s challenge is not about working to further my coaching practice in any way, to work on reviewing VODs or editing my Instagram page or Instagram videos. It is simply about how to transform the chaos and stress that dominate the middle of my day and transform it into peace.

I have the French challenge coming up, and I want to be able to reliably work on that without being pulled all sorts of directions.

A little of introspection and meditation about it reveals to me that the reason why I’m so stressed is because I’m trying to control things that are out of my control. However, I feel the need to control things because I feel that there are many things threatening my boundaries.

The key maybe to have strong clear boundaries and needs, and to work on communicating them and to let go of controlling everything else.

Boundaries & Needs:

  1. I need my own time, I do not want to work any later than 5 consistently or earlier than 9 consistently.
  2. I need to be treated with respect, for my time and opinions to be valued, my accomplishments and skills recognized.
  3. I want to be honest to myself and others.
  4. I want to work with integrity and empathy.
  5. I want to operate with the idea that anything is possible.

What I would like to do today, is before going into any meeting, remind myself of these boundaries and needs and ask myself, what is out of my control, what is within my control.

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Profit in Peace 6: Day Two

Byjack

Today is the second day in the Profit in Peace Challenge live sessions. I feel really tired. I was dreading this so much.

Questions/thoughts:

  • Calling Amazon a startup sounds like a scammy thing to say
  • I’m so tired of forced enthusiasm
  • I like this analogy
    • If you and your friend start a hot dog stand, and your friend is better than you at cooking, beat him by finding a starving crowd
    • The right bait for the right fish
  • Knowing your customer is about knowing your customer like you know your loved ones when buying Christmas presents
  • Introvert advantage is knowing yourself and knowing what you want
  • Become aware of your own patterns
  • Go to your favorite room in your house, pretend you have 100,000 dollars. Do a window shopping spree.
  • Think about how to create words that describe the whole niche but not specific, hard to find results
  • Pinterest is where people look at what they want to buy, amazon is where people search for the actual item
  • Pinterest > Etsy in 6 months > Amazon 6 months
  • Pinterest extra is an extension that you can use to see the number of saves
  • We are looking for at least 40% margin
  • Six Ps checklist
    • Popularity
      • Look for search volume on amazon (at least 20 thousand)
      • Cerbro reverse product search to find searches
    • Powerplay
      • How much of a difference can we make in this niche
      • Do we have a unique product
      • Is there a dead end search?
    • Persona
      • Do we understand who is this for?
      • Pinterest and internal research
    • Profit
      • Helium10 x ray tool
      • Find supplier on alibaba
      • Look and see how much it takes to manufacture
      • Then do a profitability calculator on a product with a similar size and weight since amazon charges based on size and weight for shipping
      • Need at least a 40% margin because other costs will bring the margin down to 25-30%
    • Practicality
      • Is it practical for you to pay for the costs of sourcing and making your product
    • Powerhouse
      • What is the second and third idea and are they cohesive ideas?
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Profit in Peace 15: Workplace Reflections

Byjack

I had quite a stressful workday as I expected but I wanted to jot down a couple of reflections today:

  1. Reminding myself of my boundaries (time, respect, honesty, empathy, and possibility) really helped
  2. It also helped to note down what I cannot control before every major meeting (usually something related to how someone felt about me)
  3. I noticed that keeping pace with my todo list was helpful:
    1. Keep all tasks that come to mind in my todo list (use it as a mental trashcan to throw all my worries)
    2. Reorder todo list to whatever I am working on right now (move something to the top if I am currently working on it)
    3. Do tasks immediately if they are low-effort
    4. Do sweeps (try to do everything on the todo list)
  4. Focus also helped
    1. Close as many tabs as possible
    2. Focus on one thing at a time

I was thinking about how to transition from work to Valorant more effectively since I usually start to feel dead and I end up watching youtube and ordering food and that kind of makes it hard for me to stay sharp when gaming and I end up feeling even more stressed and awful.

I think cleaning is a really good transition point. Cleaning reduces stress and is a great way to transition slowly…if I’m worried that there will still be a call coming in and I might have to go back to work, cleaning makes it easy to go back to work without feeling like I am not ready to transition to the next thing. In fact, if I clean, even if I go back to work, I will still be more ready to game after the work is done because my space is now clean.

I also like the idea of a mental dump to write down everything you are thinking about at the end of the day so that you can pick it up at any point today or tomorrow or the day after.

Finally, I like to look at the schedule for the next day and mentally prepare for it to know what you can do today to give you a lot of spaciousness tomorrow.