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It was my standard.
My “good” days then are my terrible days now… and that was normal.
So many people have no idea how much better they could feel. They don’t realize
that their “normal” state is bottom of the barrel.
I would instantly feel like garbage, lay back down, and binge-watch episodes of The
Office until I got hungry again.
I was taking online classes at the time. Of course, I didn’t know how to manage
myself. I saw the “freedom” of online classes as an excuse to adopt self-destructive
habits and slowly die in my comfortable hole.
I would log on last minute and complete the bare minimum of the assignments (I
still passed with As and Bs).
At night, I would spend 5-7 hours playing League Of Legends. With or without
friends, it didn’t matter. I was just numbing my mind at this point.
This was all to illustrate one point:
The difference between video games and real life is fake risk and real risk.
Real pain.
Real fear.
Real sacrifice.
The things that allow pleasure, love, and results to exist.
In life, you can’t just hide behind your screen and hope there won’t be failure.
In a video game, we trick our minds into thinking it’s making progress.
The sleeping-in, fast food, and Netflix binges kept me in a drip-fed dopamine
sedation so that I didn’t feel the need to pursue anything greater.
Before we start, The Art Of Focus Keepsake Box is available for preorder:
The Keepsake Hardcover – we are only printing 2000 copies.
The digital download of the book so you can be the first to read.
The FOCI Planner to deconstruct your ideal future into priority tasks.
Tiny Choices
Your life sucks because of the thousands of tiny choices you made over the past
year.
You didn’t make the choices that led to a healthy and aesthetic body.
“But Dan, what about genetics and where I was born and working a job that doesn’t
allow me enough time blah blah blah”
But you just made another tiny choice to close your mind off to what you can do in
your situation.
The ability to choose cannot be taken away or even given away—it can only
be forgotten. – Greg McKeown
It’s not difficult to look around and see that you aren’t a special case. There are
thousands like you that have turned their situation around.
The quality of your life one year from now will depend on the tiny choices that
compound into that life.
The greatest risk is no risk at all, because how else would you fail?
Big Standards
Broke people are okay with being broke until something catastrophic happens.
Their parents get sick and they can’t help because of their low income.
Of course, they have some motivation to make money at this point, but they think it’s
too late when the catastrophic event happens. They didn’t prepare.
Eventually, things equalize. The stress in their life lowers. They start to enjoy their
mindless comforts again. Waiting for another catastrophe to break them down.
Their standards and values determine the tiny choices they make.
If you’re okay with having $5 in your bank account, you won’t see that as a problem.
If you’re okay with having $100,000 in your bank account, you will see anything less
than that as a problem that needs to be fixed.
Your Google searches change to things like “how to make an extra $1,000/month.”
You rewire your thinking patterns based on your intentional search for specific
information relating to the problem you are facing.
The information you consume highly impacts your identity and thus your standards.
If you surround yourself with people – physical or digital – that make it seem like it’s
“okay” to be 100 pounds overweight, have zero money, work a job you hate, stay with
a partner you despise, get drunk every night, and the rest… how do you think your life
will end up?
If your standards require you to eat from Whole Foods, you will look at McDonald’s
meals in disgust.
If your standards require you to work like a CEO, you will look at low-level grunt work
as a problem that must be fixed through skill acquisition, education, prioritization,
and outsourcing.
You obviously can’t solve all of the problems in your life immediately.
And by sticking to this plan, I promise that the journey will be more enjoyable than
the outcome of that thing.
The easier you try to make your life the harder it’s going to be.
The way out of mindless living is to adopt the standards of who you want to
become.
If you don’t know why you are doing something, why are you doing it? And if you
know why, why are you ignoring it?
Are you advancing humanity by handing out 40 triple-pumped mocha cappuccinos
working at Starbucks? Or are you making humanity sick and overweight?
Why haven’t you begun pursuing a more purposeful career or starting a business?
Do you know why you are shoveling food down your throat? Do you understand how
each nutrient interacts with your biology and creates a healthy state?
You live in your body. It should be considered your full-time job to learn about it.
Do you know why you are going through the motions with a partner that was easy to
get with? Do you see yourself with them for 40 more years?
Why haven’t you improved your social skills to the point of being able to attract a
better partner?
It’s cliche, but you have one shot at this life thing.
The only person that can stop you from living a meaningless existence is yourself.
Your parents, friends, society, teachers, and bosses all project their worldview on
you.
Where did they get their worldview? From the same people, unless they questioned
it.
If we could put a number on it, you know less than 1% of the information available in
the world. Probably closer to less than 0.001%.
Your identity limits what information you notice, because you’ve only learned so
much. You won’t notice certain things if you haven’t learned the information that
bridges what it is with what you know. You won’t understand intermediate
information if you haven’t learned beginner information. You can’t advance from level
1 to 3. You are missing out on 99% of life for this reason.
If I was exposed to the information and environment that made me goth, I would
notice certain likes and dislikes in music, people, clothing, work opportunities,
outlooks on the future, and emotional states.
We’ve never had access to so much information, and I find it hard to believe that it
isn’t shaping identities rapidly and for the worse.
When you log on to social media, the default action is to follow entertaining
accounts and meme pages.
Almost all of them subject your mind to unwanted tenants that party like it’s a frat
house. When the parents come home, they’re devastated by what they see.
Your awareness is the parents coming home after mindless ideas turn your mind
into a swamp.
Unfollow anyone who does not serve the conditioning of better standards in
your life. Even if it doesn’t seem like it, and no matter how much you justify it,
the people you follow subtly influence your actions. Slowly, then all at once
you become someone you may hate.
Take your time to follow valuable accounts. Valuable accounts challenge your
worldview, make you think outside the box, and educate you on the skills
necessary to reach a higher quality of life.
You will probably find it boring… until it’s one of the most interesting things in the
world.
With time, you will create an environment that is conducive to your growth.
The only difference between you and the person more successful than you is the
consistent intention behind the information they consume.
Why?
Because your mind is programmed with the information conducive to those actions.
Your identity is forged by the information you’ve been fed, and that alone determines
what you perceive as an opportunity to act.
Surround yourself with the right people and you can achieve anything you want.
Not like I’m a special little flower that never got stuck in the trap, but one who feels
like he’s escaped and can view the situation from higher up on the mountain until he
inevitably falls back down.
Scrolling, clicking, shutting your mind off for just a bit longer, because when it’s on,
you don’t like what it’s doing.
The person who is used by the internet, rather than the one who uses it.
And while the internet is the problem, it’s also the solution.
You do not have to use the internet to do this, but there is no reason not to.
The last reason your life sucks is because you don’t contribute to humanity.
You don’t contribute to humanity because you don’t have something so valuable that
you can’t help but share it.
You don’t have something valuable to offer because you are ignoring the problems in
your life that beg a solution to be created.
You are ignoring the problems in your life because you don’t have clarity on how to
achieve the goal that will solve them.
You don’t have clarity on how to achieve a goal because you have nothing to build.
Nothing to frame and guide your learning.
A value creator is someone who has intention behind their inputs and outputs.
They educate themselves with the infinite resources available to them on the
internet.
They test the solution on themselves and distribute their experiences with writing.
They package up the most helpful and streamlined solutions in the form of a product
or service.
That is how they make a living by living with purpose.
I’ve discussed this numerous times in my previous letters. I also break it all down in
my book, The Art Of Focus.
I write on all platforms. I don’t care to compete with images of my fancy car or
lifestyle. I gain a deep sense of fulfillment by using the internet as not only a place to
curate good thoughts, but to organize them and share them with others with the
ultimate upside of doing what I enjoy for a living. Something that’s in my control.
This is about distributing the value you have to offer in a place that can reach anyone
with the opportunities that will change your life and career.
Get eyes on your writing so it can spread more and more with time.
If you really need an extra push, just observe the people you are following for long
enough.
If you know you are meant for more, start acting like it.
With writing being the fundamental mode of communication that has survived
throughout human existence, it’s a great starting point to discover what you truly
want to do.
Dan Koe
When you're ready, head to my website for free tools, paid courses, and more letters
to prepare for the future of work.
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Tempe
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United States