I’m very much enamored with the idea of changing the way I work in this new world of contracting, freelancing, and entrepreneurship.
In this new world, the certainty of your career and job is no longer there – leaving both an opportunity and a problem depending on how you look at it.
The certainty that was filled by your job needs to be filled in some other way – and I propose that way is via a strong system of habits, routines, and mindsets that lead to strong health (both mental and physical) leading to high energy, happiness, and peace.
I like to think about this as the perpetual retreat – my ideal vacation or workshop where vast amounts of work is done not at the expense of one’s happiness or physical well being.
What I would love this perpetual vacation to look like:
Ideal working conditions (lots of light, spaces, nice temperature, comfy seats and pillows, people with common values)
Constant personal growth (always learning and progressing in areas I care about)
Strong support system (therapists, coaches)
Physical training (swimming, running, martial arts, weight training)
Natural sleep when possible (wake up when I feel like it, nap when I want to)
Next questions to figure out:
How will I balance naps with working enough hours?
How do I balance free methods with paid assistance?
How will I find the kind of coworking/community you would find at a retreat?
What do I bring more learning type energy out of meetings and working on projects that aren’t personal to me?
The initial thought I have about paid assistance is that if it enables me to earn more, then its a no brainer to get it. If it simply makes my experience more vacation-like, then it must fit into a budget.
“This is my Valorant jacket. I got it when I watched the world championship in LA a year ago. I love playing Valorant.”
“But this is the 21 day youtuber challenge”
“I’ve yet to figure out how to connect those two passions together. But that changes today”
“Hi everyone, my name is Jack, and this in the Youtuber challenge, the challenge where I post a video everyday, working not for views, but for the love of making videos”
“There are a bunch of things I’m super passionate about, but haven’t figured out how to connect to a Youtube video yet. And one of those things is gaming.”
“But here’s my problem with gaming. I like playing alone, I don’t like talking while I’m gaming, but I do feel like there are certain things I like to share after the game is done.”
“Here is the plan. I have fun gaming. In between, I’ll do a little bit of journaling, and afterwards, I’ll just edit a video that is fun for me”
I feel like total shit. I didn’t sleep well and the back of my eyes hurt and I’m tired and bleary and a little cold. It is taking everything to not play games all day. I feel what gives me anxiety in this house isn’t just the expectations from my parents…but also the amount of stuff. There is too much stuff to feel comfortable around here. To feel calm.
I have been thinking about this idea a lot. The idea of “Whatever you feel the world is withholding from you is what you withhold from the world.”
I feel that this can help with a lot of the turmoil in my mind.
Today is not the first day working on the Profit in Peace challenge, but it does FEEL like the first day I am living it.
Today is the first day when I dedicated my morning to finding my magical life. For some context of what that means:
Something that I still don’t really understand or feel comfortable with applying is the values that I believe in every day.
I think that writing honestly and focusing on myself in this blog every morning might actually hit all of these points:
Honesty – well, this blog isn’t called unfiltered for no reason! I do remind myself all the time of the “if they don’t like me please leave” mentality.
Imagination – for me, this blog is dedicated to all my imaginative parts: art, YouTube, philosophy, poetry etc.
Intuition – this is the place where doing things “my” way is celebrated and I tap into what is the best way to do something (according to my intuition) rather than how everyone else does it.
Empathy – this blog is a lot for my feelings where I process feelings through words, video, and images. It is a part of honesty too, honest emotion where this is my place to express everything imperfect.
I also like using the blog as my way of living out all my values and being the person I want to be because it really feels like I am sacrificing something to do this…in a good way.
JT Franco talks about if you aren’t willing to sacrifice for what you want, what you want becomes the sacrifice. In the end, I had no idea whether I would sacrifice time talking to my girlfriend, going on YouTube, working, playing games, or making YouTube videos. Those are the things I spend most of my day doing anyway. But none of those things seemed right. It was too blunt on an idea, how could you sacrifice all of YouTube? How could I sacrifice all of work?
But by sacrificing my mornings, in a way, I am also sacrificing all of those things. I resist the urge to listen to audiobooks, watch YouTube videos, check messages, or work in the morning. I dedicate all my time to working on my blog and all my challenges, thoughts, ideas, and philosophies.
I also feel a deep unease and anxiety keeping pace with me this morning:
I’m Afraid I My Boss Will Check
I’m afraid my boss will check
See I’m not working
It won’t matter that I have bigger dreams
it won’t matter if I did a bunch of planning
On the weekend
Feverishly, desperately trying to
Make my workday
Productive, efficient enough
To make up
To make it easy
For me to balance
I remember the look on his face
When I told him
I like to meditate
Skeptical
And
I also wonder
If finding my magic
Will make me feel sad and lonely
Like I did yesterday
I feel tired as I
Let go of trying to change the feeling
And accept it instead
Another anxiety that I have about this challenge or this “morning commitment” is just the sense of lack of clarity. I don’t know what I should be working on, or what I can work on. I think is the pressure of time. Or maybe its because I completed all the prework for the challenge and I don’t exactly have something to work on right now. I’m afraid every action is not “right”.
Is it the right thing to:
Work on challenge videos?
Work on editing videos?
Work on reaching out?
To focus on my body?
Wow there is so much here and I feel that I may be stalling. Scared to make a decision so I’m just rambling on a super long blog post that doesn’t really say anything in particular.
Well all I know right now is I feel like doing a bit of freewriting, fantasy writing or something of that nature. So I’ll go do that.
I was in Taichi class the other day and my instructor said something very interesting.
She told us that if you are leaning forward, then you are “giving too much”. And if you lean back too much, you are “accepting too much” and when someone gives you a compliment, all you need to do is say a simple thank you.
It is an very interesting concept in taichi, this idea of always being in balance, always sitting on your heels even when pushing forwards.
I really want to experiment and see how much I can apply this to things like Valorant or productivity.
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?
I have been struggling with making videos for some time. I feel that a video isn’t perfect, I immediately get very stressed out. I don’t know whether to refilm or not, I don’t know what to do with the existing footage.
Here is a process that I came up with when sitting with the feelings for a bit:
Acknowledge that part of you that feels that things are missing or could have been said better by coming up with ideas for a new video to shoot (that might be almost the same or different)
Feel the feelings of discomfort in feeling not perfect, slow down, nothing else is important
Search for what the video wants to be, just like searching for beauty in the world to paint
Focus on the areas that are most clear or exciting to you.
Paint in broad brushstrokes, you don’t need the best takes at first, just focus on laying down the footage so you can see the context of how everything relates to each other
Develop the video around the areas that are most clear and start to fill out the details
Focus on the transitions
While we are at it, maybe I can think of ideas for how I can approach filming a video:
Come up with a short writeup on what feels like the right flow
Come up with some concepts of what the shoot will look like
Set up the shoot and lighting
Do three takes, first take is a direct recitation of the script, but as the takes go on, let the video become what it wants to become
Or just do step 4 and call it a day. You don’t need a script, you don’t need a plan.
I wonder a lot sometimes on when I should make a video and when I should just restart (like in art). I think there is no right answer, but making a “mediocre” video is not for the artform of Youtube, it is because I am learning Youtube. Anything you want to learn will have many imperfect tries to succeed.
