When I think about drawing on my drawing tablet I feel overwhelmed high in my chest.
I feel really really scared that everything I do will be frustrating and not good or artistic.
Let me start with some inktober sketches.
What strikes me when I draw is that art for me, even just plain linework, is all about discovery, all about uncovering the truth or the world underneath the scribbles. It doesn’t matter if I don’t see the world at first, it emerges from within the shapes.
I mean this style is definitely me, I guess I worry that if I try to refine it, it will lose the liveliness in here. At the same time, I’m not sure I want the business card to be this messy and a part of my wants it to look more like a tarrot card. I imagined a swashbuckling kid with big aviator goggles and a bunch of dripping paint brushes.
Results from day 3 while tired and a little stressed.
Match 1
Reflections:
My mind is kind of sluggish, but this way of working where I’m warming up, then taking breaks to walk is genuinely very relaxing. I don’t feel tired at all from the work.
Result Calculation:
How much do I think this work is worth? I feel this work was worth less maybe $100. I feel like there were some programmer heavy tasks in here but not a huge amount was accomplished.
How difficult intellectually was this work from 1-10? I’d say this work was middling difficulty. Maybe around a 4. It was deceptively simple in the sense that it’s very basic information added, but takes a bit of thinking.
What percentile do I place this work in terms of innovation? 5%. Not very innovative, business as usual.
Gains in communication and charisma? Fair gains in communication and charisma, it is amazing to be able to show some of the information that I exposed in the data.
Match 2
Reflections:
I tried to do some chess as a mental warmup, but I feel like it left me drained, perhaps next time as a mental warmup, I can try playing chess for creativity not for the win
Overall I felt my energy draining in this match. I felt pretty tired.
I did some extra work after the match and I feel pretty tired. I felt I needed to squeeze that extra bit out.
Result Calculation:
How much do I think this work is worth? $120. It was pretty not special, some of the work I did programmatically could have been done by someone very cheap, but overall I ran tests that required a lot of deep level troubleshooting that is not easy.
How difficult intellectually was this work from 1-10? 6-7. It was debugging which can be extremely difficult, especially for someone who doesn’t know my code.
What percentile do I place this work in terms of innovation? 5% I don’t know if anything got innovated here.
Gains in communication and charisma? Good gains, gets me much closer to the final goal of presenting results.
Match 3
Reflections:
Focused a lot on thinking smart not hard
I noticed that taking a break is important, staying on the train of thought only makes you want to choose the easiest path, not the most intelligent
Changed work time to 15 minutes
Still need to let go of going fast in the warmup
Like to dance on the breaks
Result Calculation:
How much do I think this work is worth? $150. I was able to output results which is worth a ton, but to just hire someone to do this step, it’s probably less money. There was a lot of data and data manipulation involved as well as some troubleshooting.
How difficult intellectually was this work from 1-10? The output file is quite complex. I give it a 7 in intellectual difficulty. Not achievable by people of lower intelligence, but easy for people of high intelligence.
What percentile do I place this work in terms of innovation? 10% Not much was innovative, the data is quite interesting though.
Gains in communication and charisma? I laid the groundwork for much better result communication, I think it was great.
I feel really tired today. I am worried about my sleep cycle. At least I went to bed 30 minutes earlier than I did the night before at 1:30 AM. I really feel I need more sleep than that to be healthy.
I suppose I can commit to taking a nap today.
Something I was wondering, is if I put positive, confident people on a pedestal. I mean, they can’t be that great right? I like how calm I can feel around them, but I can get that anywhere. In fact, one of the ways that I want to develop myself as a coach is to live more by the coaching mindset (you’re in my house, be patient, take risks, be ok with silence). If I live by that mindset 24/7, not only will I get more clients, I will also feel more calm in everything that I do.
Ok now onto the projects:
Goal: Shoot 3 videos, spend 3 hours on each. I have 2 days to do this.
I think today this will be my primary focus.
The videos I want to choose are:
Can AI be used to create a cure?
Today I’m going to try to use AI to cure all diseases.
How do cures work?
What part of the process can AI help?
What skills are still needed in the age of AI?
AI can do everything, write essays, create art, open doors, and even create videos
Where does that leave you?
Today I’m going to figure out what humans still need to know in the age of AI
How can AI be used to develop innovative products?
Let’s say you got a product – reliable, affordable, but a little boring
Today I’m going to use AI to develop an innovative product
Ok, so in doing this exercise I realize that I have to pivot. none of these ideas are going to take 3 hours to make. I need to choose something that is really really fast to make.
My new top 3:
GPT Prompt: Ask AI to explain a really difficult concept to you on a 2nd grade level
Do you want the be the world’s smartest man…or woman?
Today I’m going to use AI to enhance my intelligence with one simple prompt
Explain it to me like I’m in 2nd grade
GPT Prompt: Take everything in your fridge and ask for recipes
Can I cook like Gordon Ramsey with nothing in my fridge?
Today I’m challenging myself to cook like a high dining chef using one simple prompt
Give me a high-dining recipe
GPT Prompt: Take a boardgame and invent new rules
Monopoly is boring
Let’s make it insane with one simple prompt
Use the monopoly boardgame and make it more skill based
Ok time for Goal 2.
UNIT ONE: Focus on my craft – become a coach I would hire for 1000 per month | Day 1 Create plans
1 hr of meditation every day
1 hr of speaking to other people about this every day
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?
It’s been a few days after my deadline of September 12th.
I haven’t created business cards for my art coaching business. I haven’t learned the principles of javascript or front-end development or created a game.
The other day a friend was asking me about how to start a side gig and I had so much to tell him, yet these days I’m feeling a bit down and undermotivated.
A few realizations are perking me up a little.
Realization 1: My coaching program is not overvalued.
I want to charge $25,000 per year for my coaching program to help someone create a masterpiece. Before even pitching it to anyone, I felt like this was too big of an ask, I should lower my rates etc.
But as I thought about it deeper a few things occurred to me:
I will be spending a lot of time with a client. I plan on spending 2 hr every other week with clients on formal coaching sessions, but that’s not it. My entire professional attention and all my skills are aimed at helping my clients succeed. So outside of formal coaching sessions (in person if I can manage it). I will be taking calls emails, and setting up times to do virtual sessions. My goal is not to be a doctor you see for checkups or an art class you regularly go to. My goal is to understand your art inside and out, and be a true partner, mentor, strategist, and guide in your process. I think $25,000 for a year is an absolute crazy steal for that.
I’m not focused on getting clients that are poorer or don’t really have the funds. That would be both unethical and a bad fit. I already offer another class that can satisfy that demographic of people where it is more like a regular class, albeit a somewhat vetted and serious class (and not serious at the same time). I’m focused on the people who have the money and the passion to back it up, and we can spend some time to do something special. For someone retired with several millions of dollars, this will be nothing to them as long as they want it enough.
Realization 2: The process is complicated, but I have my blog
The whole point of this blog is be a place where I can incrementally work on works of progress and get better at things over time, instead of getting the final version all at once. If I don’t use this blog, I can also use my google drive, google docs, and slides to draft out things step by step and track overall progress in the blog.
