Vali2003

There’s another issue that I’d like y’alls help with. I have a job (only 20 hours per month) at my university as a work student for a quite renowned sociology professor. It’s really a good position in terms of connections. I only got it because I wrote an A+ paper for somebody who works with her. The thing is, the work is quite shit. Basically, I do whatever is too annoying for her. That’s not a problem for me per se. But the nature of this work is that it‘s little tasks that can just come in per e-mail at any point of the week. Then, maybe there’s something that’s super urgent, or there is a lot of work all of a sudden when there was nothing the last two weeks. It’s unpredictable, and always different tasks. Which makes 20 hours of this much more exhausting than 20 hours at Starbucks, for example, where you’re in your grove and have fixed work times. My contract has now ended. She wants me to continue working, but I’m unsure if I should. The connection would be good for my bachelors thesis, as she could be my supervisor. However, it also takes time and energy away from my business. But then also, it’s only 20 hours per month. What do you think?

Is it possible that the servers are working better again?

I’m really enjoying the whole process though. I’m hoping to gather a lot of feedback from my free clients that will help me improve my product. It will make paid work much easier. Especially if I have some testimonials. Man, I have some great plans for making really compelling testimonials. Alex Hormozi has an amazing guide on that. The only issue is that Uni is starting back up, so this whole thing will become more difficult. I can still do it. I really need to work on my capacity for work and be strategic. I think 4-5 hours of deep work per day is the maximum I can reach. This is work, where I’m learning something new, difficult. Right now, this would be writing cold-outreach messages. But as I get more practice, it won’t be deep work anymore. Sometimes I’ll have to use my deep work hours for Uni, that’s ok. But I should try to put as many of them as possible in my business to learn the new, hard skills — learning sales, closing deals, writing social media posts sooner or later, improving my service, writing my offers and so forth. I’m thinking too far ahead… I’ll figure this out when the time comes.

Outreaching is really new to me. I reach out to people via e-mail, IG, FB, maybe WhatsApp, whatever I get from them. I would also cold-call them, but it’s a bit difficult as I’m targeting people in the U.S. and have a German phone number. It definitely feels a bit sketchy to reach out to people out of the blue. However, I’ve already had an insight how I can be less salesy. Just try to be as honest as possible. Of course it’s not 100% honesty. There’s some sort of compromise involved. But generally, trying to be honest makes messages seem more authentic — because they are!

I started outreaching to the first clients today. I’m offering them my service for free, in return for feedback and optionally a testimonial. Precisely, I’m offering them a dedicated landing page (+ hosting it for 45 days) and a five day e-mail course. It’s quite a lot of work for me, but I think it will be worth it. I’ll do this for two to three people, and then I’ll transition to paid work.

I’ll try putting the timer on a time that I think is possible at a more normal pace.

I love coffee, but I just can’t drink that shit. One small espresso has effects on me that are similar to 20ug LSD. It stimulates me so much, it’s incredible. Not in a positive way though. I just feel jittery and like I’m rushing everything. Of course it’s also sort of a concentration boost, but I just don’t like the feeling. It’s too much. And I will feel it almost the entire day afterwards. I definitely feel it for like 5-6 hours. Aditionally, I bought a little pretty timer that I want to use for working. I thought, I’d always set it on the time that the next task likely takes, and then I have a bit of a challenge to complete it in that time. It works, in that I’m less distracted, but it also makes me do everything very fast. And that feels kinda shit. Anyways, this plus coffee was just too much.

Would’ve fallen asleep twice already now, but each time, someone in my shared flat making noise woke me up. Has to be one of the most annoying things ever, this. Especially if you’re wide-awake afterwards.

It’s hard not using the forum, honestly, because I love this place. But I know this is the better solution for me.

I have to really focus now, on getting my room properly set up. I still don’t have a desk, lol, so I do all my work sitting on the floor. It’s a bit annoying because I’d much rather work on my business and I don’t care all that much about my room. But I know the smarter thing is to do it nicely. A workspace that I love will do a world of a difference. Gotta bite the bullet now and be patient. It’ll take about 2-3 more days since I have to paint one of my walls.

I’ve decided, not to use the forum and YT at all from Monday to Friday. But I still allow myself to watch a bit of a sitcom before sleeping, listening to podcasts, to music etc. This is quite balanced and I think will work out better than anything I’ve tried before. I’ve probably done about 10 dopamine detoxes before — some as long as thirty days — and I’ve learned quite a lot about how to properly do it (for me). This is not a detox, however, it’s a permanent change. I will reassess how it works in two weeks and then I may tweak some stuff. I currently do not have a time limit for the weekend so we’ll de how that works.

@Leo Gura I agree that genetics matter more than anything else (and drugs of course in normal competitions). We only have to look as far as our boy (Dr.) Mike, to see that bodybuilding is purely insecure egos. He talked in videos about the horrible side-effects steroids have for him: strong anxiety feeling less intelligent constant rage grrr And, he hasn’t even got his bodybuilding pro-card… He’s even said that he hates training. Why does he still do it? Ego. Additionally, he has now started going down the cosmetic surgery train. First one is done and the next couple are already planned. I see this getting quite ugly (hopefully not literally).

What about natural bodybuilders?

There was one very positive development today: I’m finally able to believe that I can succeed. It feels tangible now, and possible. Before, I always had a lot of doubt whether a new online business could even work in this AI-age. But I’ve realized that this thought is quite detached from reality.

My social media use has been annoying though. Tomorrow morning, I’ll decide how I’ll deal with that. There’s not time to mess around.

I feel I’m making progress with my business. Not in terms of being very close to having paying clients yet, but in terms of discovering effective principles and aligning with them.

I’ve rediscovered the Sedona Method. Aka just letting go of stuff. It’s so simple yet powerful. It works really well for me, especially if I let go of the same feeling several times, in close proximity. I’ll try to keep in mind that it exists for the future, but probably I’ll forget about it again soon.

I don’t understand why you have this opinion. Why do you see weightlifting as such a simpleton thing that it doesn’t require nuance or scientific understanding? I mean, I get if it’s aimed at casual lifters who overcomplicate things, but there’s levels to it. Do you think professional bodybuilders could get into the shapes they get into without science?

@Carl-Richard Maybe he wanted to post this all along, but he was stuck doing very slow, controlled, enormous deep stretch RDLs all day and all night long…

He has an another, new Instagram post where he explains more in-depth what happened. Apparently the uploaded file on the university website, really was just a draft. But, the version that Milo (the person who did the first answer video with Mike) uploaded was even older than that one, even though it was supposed to be the final draft, which would clear away all the haters and doubters. Now, his doctoral advisor found the real final draft and it’s uploaded in the caption of Milo’s video… I’m even tempted to believe him, but that’s because I’m an absolute idiot. He should be granted no, to little trust after this.

Truth wins in the end. I wonder what the final reason was to go this route now, though.

Still lots of things to improve with my sleep as well. Making it colder and darker in my room are the two main things.

It’s nuts how good I feel when I consistently sleep well.

I highly recommend reading the book How to Become a Straight-A Student by Cal Newport. It‘s a fantastic book on how to succeed at university, without being a grinder — a person that spends all day in the library. He interviewed many of the most successful students from Ivy-league colleges, who don‘t spend their entire day studying. The book is a collection of their methods. I don’t think AI changes that much in terms of studying.

My three day social media detox ended today at 6PM. And… right away I spent too much time here on this forum. The thing is, especially if I engage with posts, they become incredibly magnetic to me. I check them way too often, look for answers etc. It has to do with my need for approval. At the moment, I’m doing a three day social media detox at the beginning of the month and at the half-point. But I need to find a solution that is more permanent. Less of this up and down. Most of my social media problems come from this forum, YT-Shorts, and YT-videos. So these are the ones I need to limit. I also sometimes watch some Netflix before bed, but that’s not a problem for me. I could say that I limit my use of this forum (except for this journal) to 0 minutes during workdays and 60 minutes during the weekends. And I’d do the same with YT. This way, I think I’d get away almost completely from my addiction, while not having to cut myself off from it completely. Maybe I can lock YT via my phone so that I can only use it on the weekends and then have a time limit of 60 minutes. I’ll flesh this out tomorrow. Am too tired now.