Tell me your biggest struggle right now and I will help.

[Ether]

20 minutes ago, Viking said:

im extremely restless. I work out a lot but the energy is still there. i feel a lot of times a need to flex my muscles. I feel a lot of energy in my head and sometimes on the forehead. sometimes that energy becomes pleasant (joy like), but i feel restless and i dont want to do anything and want to do everything at once. i feel the need to eat a lot and it continues after i eat, like im never satisfied. that lack of satisfaction applies to everything.

Same happening to me, low energy\\numbness all days, most the time.

[Viking]

23 minutes ago, Ether said:

Same happening to me, low energy\\numbness all days, most the time.

wait wat? im too high energy

[Lorcan]

I find myself living a mediocre existence every day over and over again. It make me feel hollow inside

What happens is one day I decide to go full beast mode. So I go beast mode, I feel great, I feel motivated as fuck, I get shit done, cold showers for days, meditation, reading, exercise, but then uh-oh, I hit a bump in the road. I wake up on the floor at 4 o clock on the morning , its raining and cold outside and I gotta go for a run and I say to myself "Why the fuck am I doing this to myself" and I give up.

I have repeated this cycle of brute force beast modeing only to backslide at the end of it 3-4 times now.

How do I maintain beast-mode permanently?

[Amit]

How to find, what's meaningful for me ?

[Enizeo]

@Dan Arnautu Really good idea, much appreciated.

It's actually so funny that I just stumble across your post now too, because we had a quick chat quite a while ago, and (not being very active on this forum lately) I just revisited that and whatched your Beyond the Dark Sun cover

So, about my situation. I am facing great uncertainty at the moment. I study international business, which I do not really like. But it is not incredibly hard or time consuming, while at the same time paying my bills, because my father loves it and supports me quite a lot as long as I keep studying it. I will be done in around 2,5 years, half a year of which I will need to spend abroad for an internship.

My life purpose however, is to inspire and enable people to reach their full creative potential, music being my domain of mastery and by far the most important thing in my life. However, I discovered that somewhat late, starting to take it seriously (by learning guitar) just over a year ago.

So this leaves me in a strange situation. Having an abstract life purpose, but not having the skills to execute on it, and also not really knowing what it means concretely. At the moment I am also trainee of a financial services company, doing sales (mainly investment and insurance). It works somewhat like a franchise, so it's basically me having my own business. I do really like it and I think the work we do is important and ethical, so I planned on doing that as a day job while building my life purpose business.

More and more however I am finding out that this kind of day job will be very time and energy consuming in the future. So while I enjoy it and it will pay a lot of money at some point, it will propably stand in the way of my musical pursuits, especially considering that I am still studying on the side and also want time for personal development/spirituality. I am not sure though, maybe, since it's my own business, I will be able to manage the time component. I have asked the managers about that, and they told me I will be able to manage, I can't really trust them on that though, because they obviously want me to stay.

So now that you know my situation, what do you think I should do? What could the next steps in the direction of a music/teaching music business look like? Should I keep the job that I enjoy and learn a lot from, risking that it will hurt my life purpose (then having to quit my business after having invested all that time)? Should I even keep fucking studying, just for the sake of it (not that I hate it, but it doesn't seem very useful either)?

I just feel so lost, I need a direction, a path that I can walk head on. Actions that I can take daily.

Any feedback on that would be so helpful, I love you guys <3

[Enizeo]

@Lorcan Perhaps just flipping a switch and going 110% beast-mode just doesn't work for you. Since you do not have a real trigger to put you into beast-mode, it is just unnatural for you. Try this instead: Make a list of all the really basic things you need to work on. Pick one. Work on it everyday with a really comfortable amount of effort, but do that rigorously. Install the App "Loop - Habit Tracker" (on Android, don't know if it exists for iOS, but you'll find a similar one) to keep track of your progress.

Slowly you can increase the amount of effort you put in everyday. Do not go to fast. Do not build to many habits at once (I would say two to three habits at the same time is the absolute maximum). After one habit is in place (the app will tell you the habit strengh in percent), go to the next thing to work on.

Starting that right now, and as we are in a similar situation (As I know from your other post), let's start this method together. If you accept my challenge, I'm going to send you a private message next week to hold you accountable

[Raphael]

17 hours ago, Dan Arnautu said:

In what way is the existential crisis manifesting?

 

Having a hard time to conciliate that life is completely useless and no matter what I'm doing I will die with the fact that as Nathaniel Branden said "Your life is important. Honor it. Fight for your highest possibilities" and that I should take actions to make myself feel better, have a life purpose, create and contribute to making awesome things happen in the worl

17 hours ago, Dan Arnautu said:

Don't know about the youtube thing. If you get into youtube for quick money, you are gonna be seriously disappointed. Starting a youtube channel is no different from starting a business. In this case it will take twice the amount of time and effort you think it will take.

As a long term thing, yea, it would work, but if you need money right now, I suggest you look elsewhere. You need to give lots of free value, on a consistent basis, for a long period of time, before you can see even a small income.

2

2

I know that starting any new kind of business is challenging, I'm not expecting that to be easy at all.
Why will it take twice the amount of time that I think it will take? Where should I look elsewhere?

I have heard several times that one of the fastest ways to become financially independent is to create a blog and/or youtube channel; deliver free content regularly, and sell quality affiliates information products and/or my own information products at an expensive price, but still affordable.

Concerning the money itself, I live in a country where $ 700 - 800 is enough to live financially independent. After having stable revenues in this range, the next goal would be to increase them.

17 hours ago, Dan Arnautu said:

Why would you want to be around people like that in the first place? Find new friends and peers. I too never felt fully integrated anywhere, but that should not stop us from continuing to search for like-minded people.

 

I find this kind of conversations more interesting, I usually get bored when people spend most of their time speaking about nonsignificant things. I hate small talk.

17 hours ago, Dan Arnautu said:

Also, people will respect you more if you are able to stand by a different opinion (in the context in which you calibrate that opinion to the people you are talking to). People are attracted to polarizing figures and people who live on their edge. 

 

I didn't think of that this way, but most of the time it was more like they didn't appreciate me because I was different. However, it's quite interesting, thanks, for the insight.

17 hours ago, Dan Arnautu said:

If you want to get into deep conversations with basically ANYONE,  just start to ask them open ended questions about what is most dear to them. Ask them about their biggest struggles, proudest moments, favorite people in their life etc. You can even ask a bum these questions and you would be surprised by the answers. And by the law of reciprocity, they would be more open to listen to your opinion if you genuinely listened to what they have to say for more than 10 minutes. Most people don't do that.

2

Same as before, and I also remember a pretty powerful experience where I had a deep talk with a homeless man in the street. After that, we became friends and he even invites me to a restaurant and pays for me.

17 hours ago, Dan Arnautu said:

Their jokes are tests to see if you are strong. It's nothing personal. As David Buss says, this is called derogation of competitors. They just want to see if you thrown off-center by those remarks. If you are, you failed their tests and they will perceive you as weak. If you start to defend against what they say by explaining yourself or get serious and use angry comebacks, they win.

If you pass the tests on the other hand, by not taking their remarks seriously and laughing them off, they will stop and start to see you as strong, and they won't test you anymore.

1

I don't get it. It's like the most counter-intuitive thing ever for me right now.

I don't understand why they need to test if I'm weak or strong. It seems to have something to do with the need of power.

Are they even conscious that they are doing this to "test me"?
What if I stand for myself in this kind of situations and say no?
Why is this not strong?
Should I then accept everything like washing their dishes?
I this is the solution, how do I do that?

17 hours ago, Dan Arnautu said:

I understand. Be careful, because that will turn your communication style into a passive-aggressive one. You will accumulate resentment, you will eventually blow up, and then the cycle will start over and over again.

Becoming more assertive will help you with that, because you will start to clearly and firmly establish boundaries, and frustration and other negative emotions won't be able to build up in you. People won't say or do anything to you, that you don't invite them to do. They will push your buttons until they hit the boundary. If you don't consciously set that boundary, they will walk over you like a doormat because you let them.

 

I have already experience that several times. It's like I am very calm and say nothing for a long period of time, then they push my buttons too far, and then I explode in rage and furiousness.

But I also had an experience where I did nothing, stay calm, and control myself no matter what. I found out that they will slowly stop because they got bored of not seeing me reacting.

17 hours ago, Dan Arnautu said:

If they say something about your mother and you laugh it off, they will see it as being ok. To set the boundary, you don't have to give an ugly comeback. You just need to say something like: "I know you meant that in a funny way, but I don't feel right when people talk about my mother like that. I would appreciate if you would stop. (or "please don't do that again. Thanks") ".  

If you say it like that, they won't become defensive or aggressive. You just communicated how you feel when something talks about your mother like that. If they don't want to respect the boundary that you then set, cut those people out of your life or limit your exposure to them. But 99% of the time, the phrase above will work.

 

I will try this one if I get in a dislikable situation. Thank you.

Edited March 12, 2018 by Raphael

[Dan Arnautu]

@Viking Try and do some activities that keep you in a state of flow. I'm talking about those activities that get you so immersed in them that you forget to eat. For me that is learning a new song on the guitar, recording, filming, reading, doing a course etc. For you those activities will probably differ.

More often than not, activities that require mental energy can exhaust you even more than physical activity. I too got into the trap of exhausting my body in order to bring the energy down, but it did not work that well.

Also, from personal experience, I saw that you can relieve things like restlessness, jitters, lust, excitement, stage fright etc. with The Sedona Method too. Positive emotions can and should also be let go of when they affect your work (for example excitement for an upcoming event).

Learning to sit with the restlessness and release it consciously is a great thing.

[Dan Arnautu]

@Ether Low energy is a more difficult topic, because there can be even more than a dozen reasons. Reasons include:

• A lazy thyroid
• No physical activity (yea, physical activity actually give you much more energy, not less)
  • As a rule of thumb, I think every single individual should have 3 hours of their week dedicated to a kind of higher intensity form of exercise
    • The exercise can be of your choice and preference (it can range from calisthenics, rock climbing, swimming, bodybuilding, sprinting, olympic weightlifting to basketball, yoga asanas, boxing, jiu-jitsu etc.) - the key is that it should be high intensity
• Unhealthy diet
  • You should not eat heavy carbs in the middle of the day. They will give you a big crash
    • Healthy snack that gives you energy ----> peanut butter on a slice of apple
    • Snack that drains your energy and makes you lazy ----> a bar of chocolate or any kind of pastry
      • eat these only at night or when you don't have a lot of hard work to do
• Lack of sleep
• A very busy mind
• Experiencing a lot of negative emotions throughout the day (ex. anxiety, fear, worry etc.)
  • don't underestimate these - they can drain you so much that you can't even get out of bed in the morning
• Many many others

[Dan Arnautu]

16 hours ago, Lorcan said:

I find myself living a mediocre existence every day over and over again. It make me feel hollow inside

What happens is one day I decide to go full beast mode. So I go beast mode, I feel great, I feel motivated as fuck, I get shit done, cold showers for days, meditation, reading, exercise, but then uh-oh, I hit a bump in the road. I wake up on the floor at 4 o clock on the morning , its raining and cold outside and I gotta go for a run and I say to myself "Why the fuck am I doing this to myself" and I give up.

I have repeated this cycle of brute force beast modeing only to backslide at the end of it 3-4 times now.

How do I maintain beast-mode permanently?

Punishing and should-ing all over yourself won't help in any way. What you are experiencing is the so called mighty yo-yo effect. This happens most often when people diet. They overeat one day, and in order to compensate they just starve themselves the next day, and then the cycle repeats because they are so hungry.

What's the solution?

The solution is integrating what you want into your LIFESTYLE. Making it sustainable. For example the term diet needs to be replaced by nutrition. Diet is something that you do for a short period of time, until you achieve your goal, and then you usually get right back to your starting point because you haven't found a way to fully integrate healthy nutrition into your life.

To maintain a permanent beast-mode, you just need to put a lot of healthy habits in place, make successful behaviors automatic. Elon Musk runs three international companies, but he does not have any more discipline than you or me. He used discipline at first to instill one habit, and when it became automatic he moved on to another one and applied discipline there. You won't ever have so much discipline that you can change more than 1 or 2 habits at once (and 2 is really pushing it already).

Give 66 days for each habit. Don't try to do cold showers, AND start to read, AND start to exercise, AND start to meditate, AND start to wake up at 4 a.m. when you are not used to any of those. You are just asking for trouble. We are looking for sustainability here.

In 12 months you can put 6 to 12 healthy habits into place, depending on their complexity. I'm doing that right now with waking up at 8 a.m. every morning. I'm doing that for 66 days and then I'm moving to another habit. With 10 years of doing this kind of work you will be like a force of nature. 

Habits that I've already put on autopilot include:

• Tracking macros
• Exercising 3x a week
• Doing yoga 3x a week
• Reading/Researching
• Releasing emotions

Now I don't need to convince myself to do these things. They are like tying my shoes or picking up my cup of coffee to drink. I don't have to think about them. They are set in stone, like going to class or going to work.

You cannot brute force this process. Homeostasis is too strong. Removing one bad habit or putting in place a good one will take all of your discipline, energy and will. So plan for the long term. Do one at a time.

See what is the most high value habit for you to do right now and start doing that for 66 days, and then move to another, and then another. You will be beast-mode all of the time by the end of the year that way. 

What I want you to do:

• Download and print the sheet attached below. Write on it what habit you want to remove or put in place. Hang the sheet  somewhere visible in your house and check one box each day. It will motivate you to really put the habit you want in place.
• Tell me which habit you have chosen and send me a private message to give me an update of your progress at the end of the challenge. 
• Also, tell me if you are up for the challenge in the first place. 
  • Note: A few people here already took the challenge, so we are doing this together. We are keeping each other accountable. Let's go!

Good luck!

TheONEThing_66DayChallenge_Calendar2.pdf

[Dan Arnautu]

@Amit You try lots of things, you see which ones you like, which ones you don't. You fail hundreds of times, get up again and again until you find that thing. You introspect, contemplate on what you want, what you find most meaningful in life, what you want to be doing everyday for the rest of your life, who you want to be around etc.

This is a very difficult thing to find out. You will need to do thousands of hours of work to find that. I can't give you the answer to that.

But remember, you only have to succeed once, so it does not matter how many times you failed.

Take Leo's Life Purpose course. That's the best thing on the market right now in order to find what you really want and what is meaningful to you.

Good luck, Amit.

[Shin]

Fucking boxes lol

 

Enjoy your new full time job bro 

 

 

On 08/03/2018 at 0:21 PM, Charlotte said:

@Shin  

 

On 08/03/2018 at 0:21 PM, Charlotte said:

@ShinSh

[Ether]

@Dan Arnautu Thank you.

[Dan Arnautu]

15 hours ago, Enizeo said:

So now that you know my situation, what do you think I should do? What could the next steps in the direction of a music/teaching music business look like? Should I keep the job that I enjoy and learn a lot from, risking that it will hurt my life purpose (then having to quit my business after having invested all that time)? Should I even keep fucking studying, just for the sake of it (not that I hate it, but it doesn't seem very useful either)?

I just feel so lost, I need a direction, a path that I can walk head on. Actions that I can take daily.

Any feedback on that would be so helpful, I love you guys <3

If I were you, I would quit business school.

In The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman, the author makes a very compelling argument on how business schools fail us and why you don't need to get an MBA, and also he tells you all you need to know about business.

In The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris, the author also tells us the story where it proved to be a much better investment to take all the money that he would have payed for tuition in college (a few hundred thousand dollars) and use it to give himself a similar education by putting the money elsewhere (traveling, paying coaches, starting actual businesses with the money etc). 

In the book Drop Out and Get Schooled by Patrick-Bet David, you will also learn how the education system failed us, who should go to college, who shouldn't and why. You will find many statistics there also. 

In the book The Virgin Way by Richard Branson, Richard also puts a very high emphasis on how business schools do things wrong and what should have been there in the first place.

If you want to see why or if you should quit, read those books. The books will make your decision much clearer and more informed.

If you were studying law, or medicine, or hardcore things like that where a degree is absolutely mandatory, yeah, I would have recommended that you stay in college. But if I were you, I wouldn't spend another minute there. What your peers would think about this won't matter after your success. But the opportunity cost and time spent in college when you could be doing something more high yield things matters. Because you don't get that time or money back.

But you know your situation best. I gave you some resources and info on how to make your decision taking easier, but you are still the one who has to do it.

 

You said that your life purpose is still vague. As you have a job already, buy the life purpose course and do it. It's worth the money. This will give you a clear direction and will keep you centered and grounded.

 

Now for the job. 

I say keep the job for now and ideally, get one with flexible hours or one that you can do from anywhere. To be able to transition to your creative and entrepreneurial pursuits full time, a job with flexible hours is usually a must, because one with inflexible hours can usually make you lose opportunities and will slow down the transition to what you want to do, a lot.

For example, a job with a fixed schedule won't let you go on tour with a band if the opportunity presents itself, or take care of an urgent problem in your business when it arises. You don't want that.

• Either way, have a job until you make the full transition to the career you want. Quitting your job when you don't have any other source of income, (or an unreliable one at that) is a very stupid idea.

 

I can't tell you which actions to do daily because you haven't figured out your end goal yet. Take the life purpose course, or set a preliminary goal that you can strive towards, reverse engineer the process and start working towards that goal?

 

Contemplate the situation like this. Let's say you have the goal.

Ask yourself:

• What is the one thing I can do this year to achieve x goal?
• What is the one thing I can do this month to achieve x goal?
• What is the one thing I can do this week, that will help me achieve the monthly goal?
• What is the one thing I can do today, that can help me achieve my weekly goal?
• What is the one thing I can do right now, so that I can achieve today's goal?

This is how you figure out what you need to do daily. But you need the goal first.

Now it's up to you to take the decisions, set the goals, figure out your life purpose, take action on the job part etc. I gave you the tools and knowledge that will help you do all of those things.

Let me know if there is anything else I can help you with.

Good luck!

Edited March 12, 2018 by Dan Arnautu

[Viking]

@Dan Arnautu thanks

[Dan Arnautu]

7 hours ago, Raphael said:

Having a hard time to conciliate that life is completely useless and no matter what I'm doing I will die with the fact that as Nathaniel Branden said "Your life is important. Honor it. Fight for your highest possibilities" and that I should take actions to make myself feel better, have a life purpose, create and contribute to making awesome things happen in the world.

Well, that just means that life is an endless possibility. You are already here, so your only choice is... Will you live a passionate and exciting life or will you live a sad and mediocre one?

There is this quote I read from Alan Watts, that says: ”The more a thing tends to be permanent, the more it tends to be lifeless.”

So live your life to the fullest extent. There are so many things to do, so many things to see, to hear, to feel. Take solace in that.

7 hours ago, Raphael said:

I know that starting any new kind of business is challenging, I'm not expecting that to be easy at all.
Why will it take twice the amount of time that I think it will take? Where should I look elsewhere?

I have heard several times that one of the fastest ways to become financially independent is to create a blog and/or youtube channel; deliver free content regularly, and sell quality affiliates information products and/or my own information products at an expensive price, but still affordable.

Concerning the money itself, I live in a country where $ 700 - 800 is enough to live financially independent. After having stable revenues in this range, the next goal would be to increase them.

The idea that it will take twice the amount of time that you think it will take before you gain traction and start to profit is a pretty well known, let's say business law, that most successful business CEO's can confirm. Just read the biographies of successful entrepreneurs and even youtubers. Paypal and Tesla were on the verge of bankruptcy many times, but they got over that and are now at the forefront of their niche.

The most popular youtubers usually say that for the first three to four years when they were not making any money. They were posting videos for mostly chirping crickets. Just a few people. But they kept at it, built credibility and made very successful brands eventually. Can you do it way faster than that? Yeah, sure, but it's not a guarantee. I know youtubers that hit 200.000 subscribers and even a million subscribers in less than a year. But those are the exceptions. And that usually happens only for very accesible niches by the general population. Even a bum can laugh at a prank, but the average american won't care about quantum physics. See what I mean?

And there is risk involved either way, which is why you should exercise caution. 

You will want to quit many times. You will ask yourself if the effort is actually worth the reward. You will constantly doubt yourself. But those that push through these usually get what they deserve.

You can try to do this for the short term, but unless you have a vast experience in your field already, bring something new to the table, or have a very unique style (and even then), don't be surprised when the market punches you in the face.

As a rule of thumb, don't start a product until you have your first 1000 true fans: http://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans/

The process for building your youtube channel and making money:

1. Acquire your first 1000 true fans
2. Ask them what are their biggest sticking points/problems are
3. Build a product around that
4. Reinvest the money from the product/service in your audience
5. Repeat this cycle to infinity

There is a much more advanced and detailed model of this scheme, but the one above will be enough for you to focus on for now.

7 hours ago, Raphael said:

I don't get it. It's like the most counter-intuitive thing ever for me right now.

I don't understand why they need to test if I'm weak or strong. It seems to have something to do with the need of power.

Are they even conscious that they are doing this to "test me"?
What if I stand for myself in this kind of situations and say no?
Why is this not strong?
Should I then accept everything like washing their dishes?
I this is the solution, how do I do that?

This is rooted in evolution and biology. Think of wolf packs. Wolves will fight each other to see who is the alpha in the group, the one fit to lead the pack. Same with humans, but it's more nuanced.

They will test for a variety of reasons.

• To see if you threaten someone's alpha position (aka if you are someone they should be worried about) in the group
• To see if you are strong enough to be part of the pack
• To see if you are a threat when it comes to resources. If you are an alpha, most women, resources, food etc. will flock to you and not to them. They don't want that.
• To establish control in the work place
• Many others

Read:

• How to be a 3% Man by Corey Wayne
• The Way of The Superior Man by David Deida
• The Red Queen by Matt Ridley

Also:

• Search on youtube for Corey Waynes's videos on alpha behavior and the power dynamic with other men

You can't avoid these tests ANYWHERE. It's in our genes. You will have to learn to identify them and respond to them appropriately.

When someone makes fun of your nose for example, it's not really about the nose. They want to see if you are insecure about it. The want to see if it will trigger you emotionally, if it will throw you off-balance.

If you respond with, yeah, I hate my nose and maybe start to cry or throw comebacks... you failed the test... hard. If on the other hand you say jokingly that you got it for a discount from the supermarket last week and self-amuse and they see that the remark doesn't affect you one bit, not only will they start to perceive you as strong and not test you again, they will start to respect you and see you as a valuable ally.

As with the dishes, if it's not your job to do them, don't do them, simple as that. If a manager forces you to do them when it's someone else's job, file a report at the manager's boss or quit working there. Yeah, some people will just be extreme assholes and there's nothing you can do about that. In that case, you just need find a more favorable environment.

But if you pass the initial tests right, you will be able to say that you won't do them and they will comply with your response. But if you started off as weak and remained that way for a long time, it will be very hard for you to change their perception. It can be done, but it will take time.

7 hours ago, Raphael said:

I have already experience that several times. It's like I am very calm and say nothing for a long period of time, then they push my buttons too far, and then I explode in rage and furiousness.

But I also had an experience where I did nothing, stay calm, and control myself no matter what. I found out that they will slowly stop because they got bored of not seeing me reacting.

I will try this one if I get in a dislikable situation. Thank you.

No problem. It's my pleasure. Start doing The Assertiveness Workbook. That will help you a great deal. In less than a year you will take care of the way you communicate, your assertiveness, the image you project to other people around you, your percieved frustration and much more.

Good luck! 

Edited March 12, 2018 by Dan Arnautu

[Dan Arnautu]

4 hours ago, Shin said:

Enjoy your new full time job bro 

Yeah. I am just amazed by the sheer demand and the amount of positive feedback that I have received and continue to receive.

This makes me somewhat contemplate more seriously on the idea becoming a life coach, haha.

[Shin]

12 minutes ago, Dan Arnautu said:

Yeah. I am just amazed by the sheer demand and the amount of positive feedback that I have received and continue to receive.

This makes me somewhat contemplate more seriously on the idea becoming a life coach, haha.

Wish you much success and ...

 

[Dan Arnautu]

1 minute ago, Shin said:

Wish you much success and ...

 

Don't know about that. Music is my first love. 

[Shin]

7 minutes ago, Dan Arnautu said:

Don't know about that. Music is my first love. 

Then be a lifecoach for people whot wants to be successful musicians !