Workpost 19: Rejection

Byjack March 14, 2024August 25, 2024

I am slowly getting back into things. After completely messing up my bedtime, getting it back, getting sick, losing my bedtime again, I am finally getting back into the swing of things.

I want to refocus on the things that I set out to focus on: Health, AI Consulting, Art Coaching.

I want to have an 11-12 PM bedtime, journaling at night, morning walking meditation, and morning todo list and blog post.

Today on my morning walk I contemplated rejection.

You know I always felt that working on yourself made you more prepared for life in general and I always felt my fear of rejection was holding me back from a lot of things in life, initially from getting a girlfriend, but later from being a life coach.

Recently I had the experience of meeting with a client for a free session for which they were super impressed by but when I sent them my rates, they did not respond. This immediately triggered the rejection wounds within me. I also just had an artist interview who was late to our conversation, did not agree to the full hour, and did not want to schedule another time to complete our conversation which triggered rejection wounds within me.

I feel scared that if I ask for things, people will reject me. I’m afraid it will be awkward to talk to them afterwards, I’m afraid how others will view me after getting rejected.

This morning I came up with a couple of nuggets to handle and process rejection:

Take up space: there is a part of me that wants to hide when people reject me. I want to take up as little space as possible. This concept is doing the opposite. I deserve to be here like everyone else. Take up space! Make the ask!
Enthusiastic yes: I don’t want people to feel pressured. I am going to follow the philosophy on the Prosperous Coach. It’s either an enthusiastic yes, or its a no. Maybe is a no. And tell them that. If they are not sure, they know where to find you.
Slow down: I realized this new revelation in Valorant has implications in life too. When I feel stressed about rejection and awkwardness, shame, and judgement, slow down. I usually try to speed up, to move past it. Slow way down, focus on what is going on before charging ahead.
Stay busy, focus on the process not the outcome: one thing that I noticed, when I’m busy doing what matters, I won’t care as much about anything else. I want to focus on health, coaching and consulting. Don’t let anyone’s rejection take away from that. It’s like what they say about cold calling. Focus on the process, not the outcomes (focus on improving your process for cold calling, not for the outcome of every call).

Workpost

Workpost 64: Slow Start

Byjack August 9, 2024August 25, 2024

These days I feel a bit lethargic. It might just be because I’m recovering from 5ks and need more rest than normal. I also just feel a lot of pressure overall. I see these mornings as a way for me to slowly set up my house, set up my mental space as a good place to work.

I like to go through my to do list, my calendar, and work things out.

On thing that occurs to me when I’m thinking through my to do list is that I’m way to ambitious and unfocused. The point of the to do list is to brain dump and really find the most important high priority thing (using emotional priority not logical priority).

And before I even think about prioritizing, I want to get back to building my house – you are in my house, take risks, be ok with silence, take your time.

Today my main goal is to finish my business cards and website for my art coaching.

Another main system or habit I want to institute, if I miss a time block to do something on my calendar, I delete the event and add it back to my to do list.

Workpost

Workpost 75: Recentering

Byjack September 15, 2024

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.

Workpost

Workpost 79: Taking it Easy

Byjack October 17, 2024October 17, 2024

I slept ok last night, so I’m feeling pretty ok overall.

However, I do feel a bit drained.

I want to take it easy today. I want to play some Valorant, do some jiujitsu, and try to mark things off my to do list if possible.

Maybe I can squeeze some drawing in as well.

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Privilege: The Tale of Two Airbnbs

Byjack December 1, 2022December 1, 2022

So I just changed Airbnbs in France and it made a massive mental difference.

The first Airbnb was fine. It looked nice and modern and was in the heart of the city. But the bed was uncomfortable and it was small and everything felt dark and closed.

The outside felt dirty and dark and the “main attraction” was the Carrefour (a french grocery that was extremely close by).

The second Airbnb was very different. It was over twice as large (55 m2 vs 20 m2), filled with natural light and greenery and was near a park (Jardin des Arenes de Cimiez) and a museum (Musee Matisse).

The difference in mentality was so massive I was floored. In the first Airbnb I felt:

Depressed
Unmotivated to work
Tired
Not feeling like I’m on vacation

While in the new Airbnb I felt:

Like I was on vacation
Full of energy and enthusiasm
Ready to get work done
Feeling creative and relaxed

The interesting thing was, that my girlfriend told me that the new Airbnb was in a much much nicer and richer neighborhood and this got me thinking. This is the definition of privilege – the ability to grow up in an environment that nurtures you and gives you energy instead of sucking it away.

I’ve never believed in leveling the playing field for the sake of fairness because fairness is both a subjective and impossible standard to meet. Instead, I’ve been interested in creating a more productive society as a whole and I think that by creating better spaces for all of society people would feel more energetic and productive. I only experienced the change in physical space, in greenery and natural light and calm and quiet. What would happen if you were able to get a better mental environment, with more supportive loving people? This is why children in single-family homes and substance abuse have it so hard in getting ahead. They don’t have the mental environment to live up to their full potential.

This has a couple of implications for me:

Money is not everything, but it is important in getting you into a good environment
Don’t skimp out on rent or places to stay on vacation, the environment is everything
Surround yourself with nurturing people who help you feel peaceful and energetic
Take care of yourself and the space around you

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Preparation is 90% Doing is 10%

Byjack January 31, 2023

So I’ve started to believe this theory after my Sales Health Challenge and worked on warming up so much. I’ve also been thinking about Matthew McConaughey’s thoughts on leaving breadcrumbs for yourself. It recently solidified for when I was trying to make it easier for me to go to bed ontime by making my sleeping and brushing my teeth area really nice and comfy. I realized that I didn’t want to cook because my kitchen was a mess.

Some ideas from this theory:

If you don’t want to sleep, make your bedroom the most amazing place
If you don’t want to brush your teeth, make your bathroom the most amazing place
If you don’t want to cook, make your kitchen clean, beautiful and with lots of room to work
Warmup, meditate 90% of time, work 10% of time
If working on the computer is hard, clean out all the tabs, make room and make your workspace beautiful
Spend 90% of the time learning how to make money, make money 10% of the time (Alex Hormzi)

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How to Face Things Head On

Byjack April 23, 2023

So something that I’ve been sort of obsessed with recently is how to face your problems head-on. In so many areas of my life, I struggle to do that. In my professional career, tasks that stress me out send me to my couch with my phone. When I don’t know what to say to my mom and my dad, I immediately turn on my audiobook, eager to dull the pain in my chest. When I am feeling stressed about a fight in Valorant, I rush and try to ignore the mounting feelings of anxiety.

I would really like to find a way to flip the script because it is so rewarding. When I do a task that I worry about, I feel energized, and not tired from work. When I focus on my feelings of anxiety in Valorant, I become much more aware of what my intuition is telling me, that I need to slow down and play the situation very carefully.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SgkiR5tSmo&ab_channel=TheOutcome

I think this is a really interesting concept. I want to make a bit of an amendment. In the video they talk about trying to get better problems, that being able to have money problems when you are rich vs money problems when you are poor is much better (where you invest, vs how to survive). But I kind of disagree. The problem of survival is ultimately a much more rewarding problem for me than where to invest.

I do think that this is a powerful idea, and a way to reframe problems. My thoughts are as follows:

Avoiding problems comes from the fear of failure
We can address this by embracing failure
But we don’t want to just fail at anything…this is where choosing your problems come in
Instead of failing at a random problem, embrace failing and learning from a meaningful problem
Ex: I am afraid I don’t know how to respond to my parents
- The meaningful problem here is to learn to create a bond with my parents while standing strong in my own life and boundaries
- Accept failure and believe in my ability to learn from a failure at this problem
Essentially, turn every problem into a challenge
Another example: I don’t know what to do next in my demo build and it’s overwhelming and a lot of work
- The meaningful problem here is finding how to be efficient at my job, and to work as a team without people pleasing to my own detriment (creating boundaries)
- Accept failure at this and my ability to learn from that failure

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