Month: November 2022

The 4 Things Every ‘God-Tier’ Mentor Has in Common

The 4 Things Every 'God-Tier' Mentor Has in Common

Table of Contents

A good mentor, coach or more broadly speaking ‘teachert can literally be the difference between whether we fail to learn something or whether we develop an intense passion for it. Over the past few years in particular I’ve learned from hundreds of different teachers as I’ve sought to reach mastery levels within business, personal development, spirituality, salsa, boxing, overall health and nutrition, and that’s just naming a few things. Good teachers are rare… legendary teachers are like unicorns… and bad teachers, well, bad teachers are everywhere: classrooms, books, social media, YouTube, and here’s the thing: learning from a bad teacher could irrevocably damage our lives. Some of them may just drain our bank accounts without imparting any real value, while others can actually lead us off of our paths entirely, where we can spend months, years, possibly, even our entire lives having never discovered our true essence or potential. 

Nowhere is this more true than within the self-improvement industry, where most mentors, coaches and again, broadly speaking, teachers, literally don’t know the first thing about true personal development, what they do know is how to promote the same toxic positivity and momentary motivation strategies that only end up creating a false sense of improvement, which is why when you look at the broad population of people who are trying to improve themselves most of them are just like zombies all repeating the same things but with no actual Improvement to show. For all of their supposed efforts this is the illusion of improvement and it originates in bad teachers. In this video I’ll show you the four qualities that all legendary teachers have in common, so that you can separate the good from the bad to cultivate true learning and passion in everything that you do and maybe one day even become a legendary teacher yourself. Let’s begin.

Number one: they've already excelled at what they're teaching.

The most dangerous teachers are the ones who teach entirely from textbooks or from what they’ve read or seen online, because these teachers exist only within the world of theory. Trust me when I tell you that the reality of something is very different than the idea of it. You can’t be a good millionaire mindset coach if you haven’t already earned a million dollars, you can’t be a good business coach if you haven’t ever built a successful business, you can’t be a good Fitness coach if you yourself aren’t in great shape, so while bad teachers in these areas may have read tons of books or even have college degrees they’re missing the key ingredient which is how to actually translate that knowledge into reality. When we read, the best that we can hope for is to memorize, to truly learn something is to take it from the world of theory into successfully manifest it within reality.

To know the path is not to walk the path, to walk the path is to know the path. Unfortunately many people choose to teach as a way to seek validation for being good at something without actually being good at that thing, and if this sounds like you, please don’t feel bad. When I first started my personal development journey I would post all sorts of motivational quotes on all my social networks, I would give my friends advice on how to be successful that they never asked me for because I was trying to externally validate the idea that I was successful instead of just doing the difficult work required to actually become successful. Good teachers have already done the thing that we’re seeking to learn and the higher their level the more they’re able to see with clarity what lesser teachers are simply unable to see.

Number two: they love to teach.

For the longest time I hated dancing salsa. I knew that I wanted to learn how to dance but lacing up my Salsa shoes felt like a death sentence. Most of my teachers hated teaching, I imagine because they mostly taught the same steps over and over to the sandal wearing foreigners who smell like sweaty cow. Most of these teachers only taught me how to memorize steps, which is not only boring but it doesn’t make you a better dancer. I wasn’t seeing any progress from which to feel motivated and so I struggled to take classes with any sort of consistency… but then I found teachers like Daniela and Maira, who not only love salsa but also love teaching, they celebrated every little Improvement that I made, while also giving me enough room to safely fail and try again over and over and over.

They taught me how to move my body with the music, how to express myself through movement, which was the result I was pursuing in the first place, and in doing so they helped me to love the journey of salsa, which is the most important thing when it comes to not giving up something that anyone can force themselves to do something for a brief period of time in the pursuit of a specific result, but unless we love the actual journey of the thing it’s not likely that we’ll ever make it to see the destination and this is why it is so critical that we learn from people who love what they’re teaching, because their love of process is contagious through them we can vicariously develop a similar love of process, even if we haven’t yet tasted the sweet reward of what’s waiting for us at the finish line.

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is a simple system designed to help you achieve a specific goal by facilitating the development of relevant habits and creating the perfect environment to make failure impossible.

This guide is about actually walking the path. It creates a perfect environment devoid of excuses and forces you to face who you are and what you need to do in a way that’s sustainable.

Number three: they push us to be uncomfortable.

Most teachers will just talk and talk and talk as if their words are somehow translating into knowledge. They try to make the experience of learning easy, providing answers instead of using questions to provoke critical thinking. Learning should be uncomfortable, here’s why: we only learn through application, when we are taught by a teacher, teaches a book or a video and then we apply those teachings we’re always going to feel uncomfortable initially, since we have no experience doing that thing, then over time, the more that we apply those teachings, the more comfortable we begin to feel because we become good at those things, but unless we want to remain at the same level we need to continually push ourselves to apply new information to try out new techniques to once again be uncomfortable. To repeat this process over and over is to move towards mastery and a good teacher will thus teach us in a way where they’re constantly pushing us to always exist within the uncomfortable frontiers of our limits.

Number four: they help us discover our Unique style.

Early on, a teacher who is still learning who we are, will teach us their style, which is perfectly fine and normal. This is actually just one of the many ways that our teacher can begin to observe our tendencies, predispositions and our overall essence, but as we develop the job of the teacher is to help us find our own unique path our own unique style, instead of always just imposing themselves on us. Now, there are nuances here in boxing, in salsa, for example there are certain fundamentals that we need to first learn how to rotate the body, to generate power in our punches, how to maintain our gaze on a fixed position to properly execute a spin, but when it comes to style which has a lot less to do with fundamentals and a lot more to do with how our essence translates into our actions.

A bad teacher will demand that we do these things according to their style, while a good teacher will help us to discover our own unique style. Now, style is not specific to physical activities like salsa and boxing, it is universal, it is a manifestation of our essence with whatever thing that we’re doing. Within business and self-development there are, of course, fundamentals as well. We should learn how to love the process, we should learn how to seek discomfort as we move towards mastering, but a good teacher will help us to establish these fundamentals in everything that we do, as a platform that we can then use to reach our potential, while a bad teacher will try to guide our growth even after that platform has been established.

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3 Tricks Modern Videogames Use to Create Addiction

3 Tricks Modern Videogames Use to Create Addiction

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I have a weird relationship with video games –

On the one hand, they’ve given me a deeper understanding of complex themes like friendship, love, and purpose, as well as unique insights into many of the  models and archetypes that have largely shaped who I am today.

On the other hand – there have been many times… TOO many times… where instead of advancing my life or career – I was farming virtual gold until 5 in the morning.

Video game addiction is now such a massive global problem that in 2019, the W.H.O officially added a new disorder to its list:

“Gaming Disorder”…  which is roughly summarized as “an impaired control and over-prioritization of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences”

And while we most often think of people with ‘gaming disorders’ as overweight neckbeards still living in their parents basements.

The “real” gaming addicts are actually just normal, everyday people – mostly in their 20’s and 30’s –  who have become involuntarily enslaved to an artificial stimulus that is designed to keep us addicted.

In this article I’ll be focusing EXCLUSIVELY  on the negative aspects of video games, and what makes them so uniquely addicting in an age of endless distractions.

#1: Our Reward System Loves Instant Gratification

Most people mistake  “dopamine” as  something that makes us ‘feel good’.

In reality, dopamine is actually responsible for motivating us to take action in  anticipation of the thing that makes us feel good… “the reward”

When we feel the urge to play video games,  dopamine is actually  the thing that MOTIVATES us to pick up the controller –

Now the problem with dopamine is that it doesn’t distinguish between ‘good rewards, which are usually ‘long term’ in nature –  and ‘bad rewards’ which are normally ‘short term’ or ‘instat’ ’ in nature – neurologically, they’re both just “rewards.”

And so when presented with the choice of getting an INSTANT reward by playing video games, or working towards a long-term reward by training our bodies or building a business…

Well, this is why it’s so RIDICULOUSLY easy to prioritize gaming over studying –

Trying to manage video game play time is like buying a pack of oreos and intending to just eat one a day… good fucking luck.

As long as our video games are accessible within our immediate environment –   It takes  a TREMENDOUS amount of conscious energy and discipline to be able to effectively manage how much we play.

And to make matters worse – there’s almost 0 friction to go from the ‘idea’ of playing video games, to ‘actually’ playing them.

My Playstation 5 now loads up so fast that from the moment that I have the ‘idea’ to play Spiderman – I can be playing within a few seconds.

…I can open up Candy Crush on my phone just as quickly as I can open up Instagram.

#2: Video Games are Supernormal Stimuli

In call of Duty.. We’re a highly trained soldier…

hunting down terrorists and expertly maneuvering around obstacles while executing strategies with our teammates –

In reality… we’re just pushing buttons on a controller.

This is a great example of how videogames are a “Supernormal Stimuli” – let me explain.

All living creatures have built-in programming to react instinctively to  certain stimuli –

A supernormal stimulus is an artificially exaggerated version of a normal stimuli, that produces a GREATER response.

An example of this is junk food, which is an artificially exaggerated stimulus of REAL food.

Or porn, which is a supernormal stimulus of human reproduction.

And so videogames… well.. They are LOADED with supernormal stimuli –

Call of Duty and Halo are so rewarding because they closely mimic the activity of hunting.

And the The humans, Zombies and monsters we find in these games are all artificial exaggerations of predators –

Sports games like Fifa and NBA2k21 are evolved simulations that mimic hunting and battle skills –

MMORPG’s like World of Warcraft simulate an exaggerated sense of progression by including ranking systems, rare equipment, and achievements –

And unlike real life where ‘progression’ takes real time and effort.

In video games, in just a few hours we can go from a weak puny nothing, to a legendary hero.

All of this is tied into primitive desires  where the best hunters and the most accomplished members within groups had better access to resources and potential mates.

Even the upgraded gear that we purchase is tied into our innate desire to appear accomplished within society… even if it’s a virtual one.

Get the Dark Mode guide

The Dark Mode Guide

is a simple system designed to help you achieve a specific goal by facilitating the development of relevant habits and creating the perfect environment to make failure impossible.

This guide is about actually walking the path. It creates a perfect environment devoid of excuses and forces you to face who you are and what you need to do in a way that’s sustainable.

#3: Video Games Use Operant Conditioning

This is a Skinner Box. A Skinner Box usually has a button or lever that activates a food dispenser.

It was designed by Dr. BF Skinner to research how he could change an organism’s behavior using rewards and punishment – a learning process that he dubbed ‘Operant Conditioning.’

Now, what does this have to do with video games?

Dr. Skinner made a lot of important observations – 2 of which are critical to understanding why video games are now DELIBERATELY addictive.

Observation 1: Rewards can be used to create addiction

Almost every game on the market is now OVERFLOWING with rewards –

We gain experience points, loot, and virtual money  for every monster we defeat,

We get rewards for unlocking new skills, recipes, and equipment.

In a lot of games, we even get rewards JUST for logging in every day.. In some cases we get rewards for getting a certain number of rewards! …This is WAY better than real life! 

Former Ubisoft Research Scientist Nick Yee famously conducted studies that demonstrated how the more hours that we spend playing video games,

the more self achievement we begin to derive from video games INSTEAD of real life…

By LEVERAGING these systems of seemingly unending rewards, video games  are starting to look more like Skinner Boxes than harmless sources of entertainment.

Observation 2: RANDOM rewards are even MORE addicting

We release much more dopamine when rewards are random…

This is why slot machines are so popular in casinos. Because of this, we’ve seen an unprecedented rise in “Gacha” type games.

Gacha is short for ‘Gachapon’ – which are very popular machines in Japan where people put money in hoping to score a rare toy.

Gacha-gacha the sound of the machine being cranked – and “Pon” is the sound made when you take the capsule out.

If you take a look at the Google play store on Android, or the App store on Ios – you’ll find THOUSANDS of Gacha games.

Where the ENTIRE point of the game is to spend real money on ‘loot boxes’, ‘crates’, or ‘wishes’… that MIGHT contain stronger equipment and heroes.

Players can never directly buy the items themselves… they can only offer up their money and pray to the gacha gods that today is their lucky day.

A lot of these games are disguised as RPG’s or Card games – The reality is that they’re just glorified slot machines, and what players THINK is a GAMING addiction, is actually a GAMBLING addiction.

My Method

Alright guys – everything described in this video is exactly why I tend to avoid most online shooters, MMORPG’s, and especially mobile games.

Here’s an easy trick that will help you identify games that are intentionally DESIGNED by be addicting – something that they ALL have in common –

They don’t have ‘game over’ screens… or for that manner any other ‘stopping cues’ that give us a pause to decide whether or not we want to keep playing.

My favorite thing to tell people when they ask for advice on managing video games is this: avoid games that don’t have an ending.

Anyway – as for me –  I only play role-playing games – more recently – The Witcher 3 and Persona 5 Royal and 13 Sentinels.

And indie games,  like Journey, Celeste, and Gris…

Generally speaking, I tend to gravitate towards games with rich stories, deep characters, and unique experiences –

And I also have a rule for myself where I can only play video games while I train on my bicycle. 

If you want to see first-hand how video games have influenced my life, follow me on Instagram @nelsonquest.

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The 4 Modern Stimuli That Evolved to Enslave Us

The 4 Modern Stimuli That Evolved to Enslave Us

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One afternoon, a scientist and his students watched as a goose gave chase to a volleyball, hoping to ‘save’ the volleyball and return it to her nest, while she completely ignored her OWN egg as it tumbled along the ground just a few feet away.

The bigger, rounder volleyball actually triggered the mother goose’s primal instincts to a GREATER EXTENT than that of her own smaller, oval shaped eggs.

And while you might not believe it – hidden in this story is the secret behind why we struggle so much with the 4 ‘big obstacles’ of the modern age:

Porn <> Video Games <> Social Media, and Junk Food

What I’ve learned is that to overcome them, we need to understand them – WAY beyond just how they mess with our dopamine.

Because in reality, they literally HIJACK our primal instincts so that they can use them AGAINST us.

Which is why, whenever we use these things, we almost  almost instantly we start to feel a strong pull TOWARDS those things, and away from the things that actually benefit us.

So in this article I’ll show you exactly how we can get back to prioritizing physical attraction over sexual distractions, income levels over mining metals, squats over tik toks, and healthy meats over tasty sweets.

Let’s get into it:

Supernormal Stimuli #1: Porn

We are biologically wired to seek out specific desirable traits in potential mates.

Women with fuller lips and child bearing breasts and hips, men with strong features and muscled bodies –

Porn combines ALL of this, and then injects it with steroids, ULTRA 4k HD videos featuring women with gargantuan sized fake breasts and men with horse sized penises, groaning and screaming in exaggerated ways as they engage in utterly unrealistic “casual sex”.

Porn is  a ‘supernormal stimuli’ of sexual reproduction – the most POWERFUL primal instinct, which is why porn consumption results in a  MASSIVE dopamine dump that is EXPONENTIALLY exacerbated by its ease of access.

Again, dopamine IS what motivates us to do things- so the more we consume the ‘supernormal stimulus’ of porn, the more motivated we are to consume more of it.

Which converts it into a vicious downward cycle that Men MOST tend to struggle with.

Here’s how I manage it:

First, we need to understand the left inferior frontal cortex – which is what allows us essentially ‘override’ primal instincts.

In other words – … our greatest weapon at combating primal instincts that have been hijacked and mobilized against us… is ‘rationality’ – which most people are sorely lacking in.

As an example, most men will put tremendous effort towards something like NOFAP, which I am a fan of, but then they won’t even take a few MINUTES to sit alone in a room and consider “what is it that I REALLY want, and how is porn getting in the way of that? “

When I took the time to consider this for myself – what I really wanted was to find an ideal partner, which meant I had to build my value and become worthy of an ideal partner, which porn was a massive distraction from-

And to make a long story short: I used rationality to understand my primal instinct to reproduce in a way that allowed me to channel it to become what I needed to become if I wanted to attract a gorgeous, young, intellectually-curious, supportive, loving woman… who’s very open to sexual experimentation.

Supernormal Stimuli #2: Video Games

Video games are, for better or for worse, the pinnacle of supernormal stimuli.

Anything and everything in real life can be believably replicated in a virtual world and reconstructed to include all of the ‘reward’ elements, without any of the risk.

FPS games like Call of Duty and Apex Legends, are so rewarding because they so closely mimic the activity of hunting.

From the firing of projectiles at mobile targets, to the cooperation with teammates and coordination of an attack –

Our instinct to hunt thrived because hunters had a better chance to produce healthy offspring thanks to the nutrition and sustenance provided by a fresh kill.

Games like World of Warcraft on the other hand – simulate an exaggerated sense of progression by including ranking systems, rare equipment, and achievements –

In real life, while might just be a ‘lowly’ student or work a boring 9-5.

Online,  we can be level 90 elven warlock assassin.

Even FETCH QUESTS are forms of supernormal stimuli that simulate the activity of foraging – go to x area and retrieve x number of items or kill x number of monsters –

And all we need to do to ‘jack-in’ to these exaggerated realities, is this.

I personally LOVE video games – they’ve helped me tremendously as I move along the path.

And what I do to manage them is twofold – First – I don’t play any games that don’t have an ending – so no online or mobile games.

Second – I only allow myself to play video games… when I train on my bicycle –

Which means that riding a bike for an hour, something I used to absolutely hate, is now my favorite part of the day – easily my favorite life-hack ever.

By the time the hour is up, I’m exhausted and sweaty – so I don’t want to keep playing – what I want is a nice shower and to get back to work.

The best investment I’ve made for my health has been this one by far – and while I’ve got a pro bike setup, anyone could just as easily pick up a spin bike, which runs about $300 new or $100 used.

Get the Dark Mode guide

The Dark Mode Guide

is a simple system designed to help you achieve a specific goal by facilitating the development of relevant habits and creating the perfect environment to make failure impossible.

This guide is about actually walking the path. It creates a perfect environment devoid of excuses and forces you to face who you are and what you need to do in a way that’s sustainable.

Supernormal Stimuli #3: Social Media

Even before ‘language’ had evolved – our human ancestors had already learned the critical importance of cooperation and “group harmony” –

Which meant shared resources, and greater protections against  looming predators –

As a result, we are genetically HARDWIRED to seek approval from our peers.

Social Media understands this – and hijacks this instinct to keep us in a perpetual ‘approval seeking’ loop.

Every post is an opportunity to demonstrate value and increase our harmony within the group –

And every like that we receive is a signal of approval –

All of which our brain sees all as increasing our chances of survival.

Furthermore, within these ancient tribes – there were ‘hierarchies’ – Where an individuals rank was determined by numerous factors – including the individual’s skills, knowledge, experience, desirability to the opposite sex, and relationships with the rest of the tribe.

Within social media – we’re not seeing someone as they ACTUALLY are – we’re seeing their virtual projection of themself.

Which are often curated to highlight MOST, and in some cases ALL of these ranking factors.

So how do our primitive brains make sense of all of this? They don’t.

We see people AS their digital projections – which is why overconsumption of social media makes us feel depressed about our own, much more ‘REAL’ experience of ourselves –

It’s as if we are, perpetually, the ‘weakest link’ in the tribe, even IF we’ve achieved some stuff.

Social media is what I personally most struggle with, and to manage it what I do is – and this may sound weird – use my rational brain to detest social media – I literally feel disgust.

Which is why I don’t use Facebook or Tik Tok, and only use Instagram to share stuff with you guys and save memories – I also only follow my girl.

To manage YouTube, I keep it uninstalled on my phone – , which helps a lot (although I still get lost on my computer sometimes watching creators that I enjoy too much).

What helps me most is to just be present, and to use my rational brain to differentiate between ‘enjoyment’ and ‘wasting time’.

Supernormal Stimuli #4: Fast Food

Our taste buds – which we use to identify sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami flavors – evolved to help our ancestors identify high calorie food , while avoiding unsafe or toxic substances –

While dopamine systems evolved to create motivation for doing the things that would lead to high calorie foods –

Which, in a relatively short period of time – has gone from this and this, to this.

And what shows up to our door isn’t a freshly killed bison or recently plucked berries –

What usually shows up is something usually a SUPERNORMAL STIMULI of REAL food –

Loaded with artificial sugars and colorings to simulate high calorie, highly attractive  to give us lots of calories, and artificial coloring to make it even more to our ancient palettes.

If we’ve ever had a big mac, french fries, and a vanilla shake – then NEXT time we got hungry, we were probably thinking about that same meal or something similar, which is why fast food, like all supernormal stimuli, is always such a slippery slope.

Corporations understand this, which is why high calories aren’t so much ‘cooked’ as they are ‘invented’.. by scientists who have learned how to hijack our evolutionary instincts so that they can flip them on us.

To solve this, what I do is simple – I focus on the long-term feeling that foods are going to give me,, instead of blindly indulging in short-term pleasure. And I only eat delicious foods –

And before anyone starts with that b*llshit about how eating healthy is expensive – vegetables, fruits and eggs aren’t expensive, and there are tons of affordable and tasty meats and fish – you just have to ask around.

When we understand that porn, video games, social media, and fast food are all designed by profit-hungry corporations who don’t care about us.

It becomes a lot easier to look at the situation for what it is – and understand that we must rise ABOVE our instincts using RATIONALITY – to make the adjustments necessary to be able to thrive within the modern world.

If you enjoyed this article, please take a single second to subscribe to my YT Channel.

@nelsonquest on Instagram, if you enjoy my stuff make sure to subscribe and click the f*cking bell.

This is the path – ciao and cya in the next video.

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Do This Stoic Exercise To Become Limitless

Do This Stoic Exercise To Become Limitless

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“Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what’s left and live it properly. What doesn’t transmit light creates its own darkness.” - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7-56

On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded a completely outmatched Ukraine.

Boasting 10x more military spending, 5x more active personnel, 5x more armored fighting vehicles, 10x more aircraft and 20x more helicopters – Many expected that Russia would capture the Ukrainian capital within days, and in doing so, would execute President Volodomyr Zelensky.

Fearing much the same, just the day after the invasion began, the United States made an offer to Zelensky: flee your country and we’ll make sure you’re safe.

His response? 

“The fight is here. I need ammunition, not a ride”

This confused me greatly.

A politician?… a world leader that was actually willing to risk their life to defend that which they had sworn to defend?

With this confusion, came the shocking realization of how we’re living during an era where it’s become normalized for most people (and in particular authority figures) to betray the values and ideas they claim to champion, when it becomes convenient to do so.

By choosing to stay and fight and lead his people, Zelensky inspired the world by breathing new life into virtues that most of us assumed were dead… and the result has been magnificent.

Ukraine, just like every other country, has their fair share of political corruption and civil disagreements, yet Ukranians from all walks of life – farmers, programmers, accountants, grandmothers – – most of whom have never so much as fired a single bullet, have taken up arms and are ready to die to protect their homeland.

Even boxing legends like the Klitschko brothers, Vasily Lomachenko, and Oleksandr Usyk, men with power and money, wives and children – 

In the west, we see those things as reasons not to fight. These men see them as reasons for why they must fight. Think about that for a second, and if that doesn’t blow your mind, consider this:

The Ukrainian battle with Russia IS literally redefining the very idea of what power is as well.

Because sure,  tanks and planes are powerful, but perhaps even more powerful are people with pride and courage and LEADERS who embody those same virtues –

People with enough moral fortitude to draw a proverbial line in the sand, and boldly declare that ‘he who dares cross this line shall have hell to me’ – regardless of the size of the enemy!

If you feel like all of this inspires something within you as it does within me, then I invite you to join me as we work our way through the stoic exercise of TRULY considering what we are  willing to die for.

If your experience is anything like mine, I think you’ll be blown away by the result.

I’ve spent weeks contemplating this question, and understanding where I draw MY line in the sand has dramatically improved my motivation and ability to take action.

Let’s begin.

What does it mean to be willing to die for something?

“I have to die. If it is now, well then I die now; if later, then now I will take my lunch, since the hour for lunch has arrived – and dying I will tend to later.” - Epictetus

First, we need to understand what it actually means to be willing to die for something.

My wife Gabby once asked me if I would die for her, and I told her ‘absolutely not.’

She was a bit upset by this so I explained to her “Listen, Gabby, if ever there was some sort of grave threat to your life, I’d find a way to keep you safe from it.”

“I have a tremendous amount of life experience, and I’ve been in many life threatening situations, all of which have granted me the wisdom to act quickly, decisively, and without emotion”

“So, as long as you’re with me, I promise to do everything I can to keep you safe from danger. If I were to die for you, then how am I supposed to protect you?”

Upon saying all of this, a massive grin spread over her face.

And then I added “plus, if I were to die, I know you would never be able to move on with another man, and you would probably just end up taking your own life, hoping to reunite with me  in the afterlife.”

To this she began to laugh, but before she could even squeeze out a single giggle, I slapped her across the face for even considering that this was a joke.

I’m joking! But my main point in all of this is that the ‘willingness’ to die for something shouldn’t be the first option, it should be the last option.

If it comes down to it, yeah, I’m willing to die to protect what I love, but not before I’ve exhausted every possible way to either protect us from, or eliminate the threat itself.

Once we understand what it means to be ‘willing to die’ for something, then we’re ready to consider the question further.

Here are the 3 main things that I’m willing to die for.

1. Freedom

“You want to live, but do you know how to live? You are scared of dying and tell me, is the kind of life you lead really any different from being dead?” -Seneca

I firmly believe that the greatest existential threat to our time is the gradual encroachment by the 3-headed monster of corporations, government, and media, onto our freedoms.

It’s insane to think that Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, the ‘public square of the 21st century’, have taken it upon themselves to become the arbiters of what is ‘truth.’

Yeah what could go wrong when soulless multinational corporations, motivated by profit and swayed by massive political biases, get to decide what’s true?

To the extent that should you dare use one of their platforms to voice anything they’ve determined to not be true, you can receive a strike or have your account shut down entirely, without any real way to appeal.

What people don’t realize is that this slow encroachment onto our freedom of speech – arguably our most important freedom because it allows us to speak up against tyranny and other horrible ideas – is creating a situation where those who disagree with whatever narrative the 3-headed monster is pushing are essentially guilty of ‘wrongthink’ and branded as enemies.

And when you study history – I would particularly encourage you to study The Gulag Archipelago, or the rise of Communism in China – you understand that the death of freedom always begins the same way –

A systematic elimination of constitutionally protected liberties under the guise of ‘being for the greater good.’

In the words of Marcus Aurelius, “Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future too.”

I believe that to exist within a system where our every move is manipulated by the slimy tentacles of totalitarian policy is the equivalent of death – and so why wouldn’t I be willing to die in the battle to prevent that from happening.

Get the Dark Mode guide

The Dark Mode Guide

is a simple system designed to help you achieve a specific goal by facilitating the development of relevant habits and creating the perfect environment to make failure impossible.

This guide is about actually walking the path. It creates a perfect environment devoid of excuses and forces you to face who you are and what you need to do in a way that’s sustainable.

2. My Country

“Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Would I be willing to die for my government? Absolutely not.

Would I be willing to die protecting my family, friends, neighbors… people who follow this channel?

Yeah, I would.

Because when you log out of social media and log into the real world what you find overwhelmingly is that people are great.

They’re honest, they care about one another, and generally speaking, they’re doing the best they can given the information and resources they have available to them.

For a country to actually be a country, there’s an implicit assumption that we should all be willing to fight, and yes, even risk our own lives, to protect those around us.

Because if we’re not willing to do that, then what are we really? A geographic area with artificial boundaries.

3. My Family

“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by…. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.” - Marcus Aurelius

So for me this is where things get a little complicated – I’ll explain.

My mother and father – my heart tells me that I should be willing to die to protect them,but I’d like to think that if it came down to it, that I wouldn’t give my life, because I know how important it would be for them, in that situation, to lay down their lives for me instead.

So I guess when defining family, within the context of what I’m willing to die for, I’m referring to ‘those who come after me.’

I’m at a point in my life where I’m just now starting my own family. Last week, at my 2nd amateur boxing match, seeing my wife and her daughter (who I’m only just starting to get to know)  watch me go to battle filled me with something I still don’t fully understand, so I can’t explain it to you here.

But what I can explain is that, many years ago, I came to understand profoundly that my life would have absolutely no meaning so long as I served myself.

And since I’ve learned to serve those around and above me, life has given me more in the ways of blessings, success, and motivation, than I ever could have imagined.

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The (Real) Reason You Have NO Motivation

The (Real) Reason You Have NO Motivation

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Social Media is so much worse than you’d think. It may seem like we’re just innocently scrolling through Instagram or Facebook, but on a neurochemical level what’s actually happening is that our motivation is being directed away from the long-term awards that we experience when we work hard learn new abilities or improve our health and instead directed towards more consumption of social media.

If you consume social media in any amount and you struggle with motivation this article will make it clear why that’s happening by covering the three main reasons. At the very end of the article I’ll also show you how I’m able to instead maintain extremely high levels of motivation with everything that I do… let’s begin.

#1: Social media is a dopamine machine.

So, if you struggle with any sort of motivation related issue: procrastination, drugs, sex, masturbation; if you feel more motivated towards those things than you do towards getting work done or improving yourself, then you really need to understand how dopamine works.

Dopamine is the neurochemical that our bodies release to motivate us towards the things that it believes are important for our survival. When we’re hungry, our brain releases dopamine to motivate us to go find food. If it didn’t, we would starve to death… literally. When scientists stopped the release of dopamine in mice, it caused the mice to stop eating altogether they just sat there doing absolutely nothing.

Now, here’s the problem: dopamine is a component in our reward system, which is a system that has hardly evolved since prehistoric times, meanwhile technology like social media is evolving at an exponential rate.

For most of human history, social acceptance was a critical element of human survival because in case you haven’t noticed humans kind of suck: we can’t run particularly fast, we don’t have sharp fangs, if I fell off the stool I’d probably break a bone.

These days we can get away with being loners, but in prehistoric times social acceptance was critical for survival, and to have low standing within the tribe was bad, but to be kicked out of a tribe was basically a death sentence.

Every time we engage in social media this tribal dynamic is being played out at multiple levels.

When we post something, the likes and comments we receive are interpreted by our prehistoric brains as validation of our position within the higher of the tribe, which is why lots of likes make us feel great while just a few likes makes us feel not so great.

Every time we leave a like or drop a comment it’s because we feel a sense that we’re adding value to the relationship and reinforcing closeness, and this also creates reciprocity because by liking other people’s posts it’s been proven that we significantly increase the chances that they’re going to like our posts in return.

Social media spends hundreds of millions of dollars to understand all of this, so that it can hijack our dopamine system to motivate us to continue consuming more and more social media. This is why for example whenever we post something everyone who follows us won’t see the post immediately, instead social media will throttle the number of people who see the post to basically spread out engagement over a 48 plus hour period to get the maximum impact with respect to how it’s affecting our reward system.

It’s like an IV drip of small rewards that can quickly become the principal reward that we feel motivation towards.

#2: Social media is a Supernormal Stimuli.

According to the book ‘Supernormal Stimuli, how Primal Urges Overran their Evolutionary Purpose’ By Deirdre Barret from Harvard University, ‘Supernormal Stimuli or any stimuli that elicit an instinctual reaction more strongly than does the stimulus for which the Instinct evolved’.

So, the essence of supernormal stimuli is that the exaggerated imitation of an actual natural instinct can exert a stronger pull than the real thing.

For example, porn is a supernormal stimuli of reproduction, junk food is a supernormal stimuli of real food, video games are supernormal stimuli of hunting, gathering and socializing, and as for social media… well, social media is a supernormal stimuli of tribes and tribal dynamics (everything we covered in the first section).

In prehistoric times we competed in much smaller tribes usually consisting of around 25 to 150 people.

Now, in comparison, our digital social media hierarchies often consist of thousands of people, everyone from weird friends that we haven’t talked to in 10 years to celebrities and billionaires, so often thousands of people; and the rule of any hierarchy is that we are in competition with everyone in the hierarchy.

Competition means comparison and whether we realize it or not, every single post that we read, every photo that we consume, we’re actually comparing.

Now, if the difference is small, then we feel happy because that indicates we have a good position… but if the difference is big, we feel unhappy because that indicates that we have a low position, and so the more unhappy that we feel with respect to our position, the less motivated we feel to improve our position because we feel like the task is far too great for our ability, which brings us to point number three.

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#3: Social media vastly exceeds our cognitive threshold.

British Anthropologist Robin Dunbar observed that the brain size of primates had a significant correlation with how large their societies typically grew.

So, by taking those numbers and plugging them in to correlate with the average brain size of humans, he came up with a number of 150: Dunbar’s number, the cognitive limit to the number of meaningful relationships that a human being can have.

Having more than 150 friends causes a cognitive overload that reduces our ability to operate optimal. Social media often connects us to thousands of people, which is way beyond our cognitive threshold and severely impairs our ability to operate at optimal levels.

Our social network is itself a hierarchy and it’s probably the one that has the most influence within our lives.

When it becomes too large or varied we feel less motivation to climb it because we feel overwhelmed by it, usually in the form of anxiety or feeling like we’re lost or in a situation that’s hopeless, because of how small and insignificant we feel when considered within the massive scale of that hierarchy.

Social networks represent social interaction on a scale that we never evolved to manage efficiently or effectively.

Conclusion

All right guys, so to quickly recap, for anyone looking to maximize motivation levels, you should limit not only your use of but your access to social media as much as possible.

So, in my case, social media is still a very tricky thing for me to manage.

I only really use Instagram where I’ve reduced the size of my digital hierarchy from thousands of people to now only following 150.

If I want to share a post or a story I usually just send it to Sebastian who is someone that I hire to manage all of my social media.

Broadly speaking, I just keep Instagram uninstalled on my phone and I only install it if I really want to post something myself or respond to comments.

Making these videos on dopamine and reading as many studies and scientific literature as I have at this point has given me an amazing understanding of dopamine and how it ties into our motivational systems and I think it’s the most important thing that you can learn about if you’re looking to increase your own motivation.

Knowing what I know now, when I feel a lack of motivation I know that it’s not because I’m lazy (and no human is inherently lazy, there is always a cause, and for our generation the cause is almost always social media) so when I feel lack of motivation I figure out what it is that’s siphoning away my motivation and I completely restrict my access to it, while at the same time I forced myself to sit down and do productive work.

Within a few hours I almost always feel more energy and motivation, and after a full day of that I feel like a brand new man.

If you have any issues with motivation, learn everything you can about dopamine, there are lots of videos on this channel to help you there.

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How to Be a Weak Pathetic Failure (forever)

How to Be a Weak Pathetic Failure (forever)

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Do you ever find yourself doing something you told yourself you weren’t going to do, and think ‘wow, I f*cking suck.’

Well, you probably do, and maybe it’s finally time to just… give up.

I mean, life is hard enough as it is – so why waste another second struggling to “improve” yourself, when you can quickly and easily join the legions of worthless, feeble-minded geniuses who have discovered that the secret to an easy life is a single word….

Which I’ll share at the very end of today’s video, which is a complete 6  STEP guide on how you can transform from someone doing their best to improve their life, into the weakest, most pathetic, piece of garbage you could ever possibly dream of.

Step #1: Understand the REAL Reason You’re Broke

If you’re broke – it could be for a nearly infinite number of reasons – excluding of course the possibility that it’s your fault.

It’s most likely because of the limited opportunities in your city or even country, despite the nearly endless ocean of job opportunities that exist online…  most of which only require a basic laptop and stable internet connection to get started.

But how could anyone in their right mind honestly expect you to know how to get started?

I mean, despite a nearly endless ocean of free online resources detailing how to get started and make money in virtually any online profession, what you need… AND deserve… is an actual mentor who can hold your hand and guide you.

Yes, I’ve seen the hundreds of messages you guys have sent me asking if I would be willing to mentor you in exchange for your extremely valuable gratitude… and if I say that I can’t, or don’t respond – it’s NOT because I’m busy running a business, making YouTube videos, starting a family, and trying to win a Colombian National Title in boxing –

It’s because I’m racist.

Step #2: Blame Ageism, Sexism, and also definitely Racism… ideally all 3

Listen – as a business owner with over 50 employees, I can tell you first-hand that I’d be OUTt of business…  and probably living on the street and eating out of garbage cans… if I hired people based on the ‘merit of their abilities’.

Because businesses can’t afford to care about profit – what we REALLY care about are 3 things.

The first is what age you are.

Why would a business care about the actual skills you possess or the impressive things you’ve accomplished when you are CLEARLY a young person with no future upside.

The second is what sex you are – please – the last thing I need some intelligent,hard working woman distracting my 100% male work-force.

The third, and definitely most important, what country you or your ancestors are from.

Who cares if you’ve designed hundreds of websites or written hundreds of thousands of lines of code –  what really matters is that you’re not white, because we have diversity quotas to hit.

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Step #3: Accept that which you cannot change, i.e. your weight and physical appearance

So let’s start with the obvious – if you’re overweight and/or think that you’re ugly, then you already understand firsthand that these things are COMPLETELY out of your control.

Popular YouTubers are always bringing up the “law of thermodynamics”- that its not possible to store more calories than the ones we consume –

But this has already been debunked SO MANY times.

Not by scientists or nutrition experts, but by the masses of people who claim that despite eating only lettuce and cucumbers, that they STILL somehow can’t lose weight.

They’re obviously telling the truth.

And there are so many obvious paradoxes when it comes to improving your physical appearance.

If you’re OUT of shape, how are you supposed to have enough energy to work out and get IN shape?

How are you supposed to get in a car and go to a gym when you ARE a car.

How are you supposed to dress better, or change your hairstyle, when you ARE a car.

Step #4: Stop dating because you’ll never get who you deserve

Women don’t give a shit about how much confidence you have from all of the impressive things you’ve done, how much pride you take in your appearance, or the absolute fucking gauntlet of of trials and tribulations that you’ve survived to be able to achieve financial success –

What they really care about is how much money you have and how tall you are.

Take me for example, I don’t have enough money to buy any of the high status things that we know women flock to because I waste all of my money investing in myself and in investments.

And I’m only 5’6 – a little known fact that I’ve had to painstakingly hide from the hundreds of beautiful women I’ve been with.

Last year I finally gave up on dating and decided to settle down with Jabba the Slutt.

She’s vile, repulsive and I literally hate everything about her, but with a few more surgeries I’m hopeful we can get to the point where I don’t immediately vomit or break down in tears after she forces herself upon me.

Step #5: Embrace failure, and then quit.

We’ve all heard the famous quote ‘talent always beats hard work, even and especially if talent fails to work hard”

Everyone that’s ahead of us in life got there not because they worked hard, but because of god-given talents or luck, both of which we’ll never have.

Henry Ford famously said “the only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.”

What I’ve learned is that when we fail and then IMMEDIATELY give up, we NEVER have to experience the pain of failure again.

Thomas Alva Edison famously said “I have not failed. I have found 10,000 ways that don’t work.”

Now, when I fail, there is only 1 way: I don’t work.

If you don’t try, you can’t fail – it really is that simple.

Step #6: Maintain healthy levels of jealousy

When we see others who have either achieved or obtained those things that we’re striving for – a lamborghini, a rolex, or a dinosaur skeleton  – it’s completely NATURAL for us to experience feelings of jealousy.

What’s NOT natural is for us to then closely examine these feelings, realize that we’re only jealous of others because we want the things they have for ourselves.

Which then causes us to then see OURSELVES in them,

which then causes us to experience jealousy in a way where we feel HAPPY when the people around us succeed, because we now  see OURSELVES succeeding.

Again, not only is this NOT natural – but this also requires EFFORT, our sworn enemy.

What IS natural and requires NO effort – is to simply blindly react to jealousy –

We SHOULD have the things that everyone else has, PERIOD and it’s only because of our not having a mentor, where we live, our age, race, sex, weight, physical body composition, deficiency of money, short stature, and lack of god-given talents, that we don’t have those things. 

 

—

 

Alright guys, so I mentioned at the beginning of this video that the SECRET to effortlessly being a weak pathetic piece of garbage is hidden in 1 single world that MILLIONS of people across the world have already discovered –

And that word is, COMFORT.

Now here’s the thing – the art of comfort involves both ‘physical’ and ‘mental’.

The physical part is easy –

Find the most comfortable place you could be -recreate the most comfortable sensation you could possibly experience – and just do that all day.

The mental part is a tiny bit more involved –

Basically, what you want to do is try to remain as ‘mentally’ comfortable as possible –

which unfortunately means that you will have to use a tiny energy to violently reject anything that even remotely threatens to make you uncomfortable.

For example, if someone even mildly implies that you should take any sort of accountability for your life, or tries to challenge you with ideas that aren’t 100% consistent with the extremely narrow and superior reality that you’ve carefully woven for yourself. Don’t engage them with  rational, energy-wasting type conversation.

Instead, fiercely remind them that they have no idea what the f*ck they’re talking and then immediately shut your brain off until they leave so that you can conserve what little energy you have remaining.

If this article helped you to understand how to truly manifest all this is worthless within you – please subscribe to my YouTube Channel.

This,  is not the path.

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4 Instant Mental Shifts That (Massively) Improve Life

4 Instant Mental Shifts That (Massively) Improve Life

Table of Contents

Personal development is easy. We all know, more or less, the things that we need to do if we want to truly manifest our potential.

Work diligently. Eat healthy and exercise. Apply what we consume to transform raw information into knowledge.

The problem though for many of us is that when we begin construction on this improved version of ourselves, in our rush to start building the visible portions of the house first – good habits, solid work ethic, meaningful goals – we neglect to inspect the foundations upon which we’re building – which as it turns out for almost all of us, are extremely faulty – and so the house collapses… over and over and over again.

So in this article, I’m going to show you 4 mental shifts you can make right now to fix faulty foundations before you start your next personal development endeavor.

And you’ll see that it won’t just be easy, it will feel effortless… as it should be.

This stuff has taken me the better part of 10 years to fully figure out and I’m about to spoon-feed it to you guys in a 10 minute video, so f*cking  pay attention and seriously commit to implementing these shifts immediately after you’re done watching for at least 24 hours and that will give you all you need to want to commit permanently.

Let’s begin.

Shift #1: Think Less

Thoughts are a curious thing, especially here in the West where we’ve been programmed to perceive thoughts as somehow being a critical component of solving every type of problem.

The reality is almost the exact opposite, and it’s actually really silly if you ‘think’ about it.

Look at the entire self-help industry as an example – where the overwhelming majority of players suffer from the same simple problem – a complete inability to take action.

And so how do they try to solve this problem? By thinking themselves into action… which is not only absurd, it is quite literally a paradox.

It is IMPOSSIBLE to think ourselves into taking action. Action, by its very nature, requires us to stop contemplating it in order to take it.

A really good example of this is procrastination – where in an effort to stop procrastinating, virtually everyone tries to ‘think’ or ‘motivate’ themselves out of it, many going as far as to watch videos and read books on the subject.

They’re trying to solve the problem of procrastination with more procrastination. It’s insane.

In the words of, “a person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts, so he loses touch with reality and lives in a world of illusions.”

Think less. Do more.

Shift #2: Feedback Loops

For the past few days I’ve been pondering this quote from Nietzsche:

“We labour at our daily work more ardently and thoughtlessly than is necessary to sustain our life because it is even more necessary not to have leisure to stop and think. Haste is universal because everyone is in flight from himself”

If we look closely at our failures, I think that most of us will find that our natural condition is to actually never look very closely at them at all.

Instead, we simply vow to ‘try harder’ the next time, because it’s actually a bit painful to look failure squarely in the eyes because doing so requires confronting the reality of who we really are.

To solve this, I think it’s critical to make a conscious effort to create what are called ‘Feedback Loops’ – a concept that I actually learned from Elon Musk, who explains them as “where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better.”

I think the best way to do this is to have a set point during the day – ideally first thing in the morning – where we review the previous day and consider our actions critically and directly.

Where and why did we fail? Where and why did we succeed? What adjustments should I make today to improve on yesterday?

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Shift #3: Willpower Is a Last Resort

My guilty pleasure food  is ‘oatmeal bread’, lightly toasted, with a single swipe of peanut butter on top…  mmm delicioso.

Even though I have very high levels of willpower – recently I had a problem where every time I bought more bread with the self-promise that I’d eat only two slices per day,  MOST days I ate a lot more. There was even one day where I ate the entire bag. Yeah that was most definitely a low point in my life.

Anway, after a few weeks of this, it finally occurred to me that I should more closely inspect the foundations upon which this apparent weakness was manifesting itself, and what I discovered was surprisingly profound.

The hungrier I became, the more I thought about the bread.

Thinking about something that you don’t want to be thinking about even a single time is distracting enough, but I was probably thinking about that bread at least 50 times per day…

But my problem was actually much worse than that, because when I looked even  closer, I found that within every single one of those 50 distracting thoughts, a battle was actually taking place where my primitive brain was on the offense, looking for any rationalization it could find to justify eating more bread.

“Eating some of the bread will help me focus”…“I’ll just skip dinner later.”.. “I’ll just workout another 30 minutes to burn it off”…

Out of those 50 battles, my willpower only had to lose ONE for me to end up eating more bread.

In realizing all of this, I determined that the only feasible solution was to go to the source and remove the possibility that I could eat more bread than intended.

Hoping I could find a solution that didn’t involve giving up the bread completely, a few creative Google searches led me to the K-Safe – a time-locking container that allowed me to take out the amount of bread that I wanted to eat on any given day, and then lock the rest in the container for 24 hours.

From that moment on, not only was I no longer overeating bread, but once the locks of the container slid into place I was no longer even thinking about the bread. I went from 50 battles per day, to none.

Now the point I’m trying to illustrate here with my enthralling bread battle is that if we want to eliminate negative habits or addictions, we shouldn’t expect our willpower to have to win 50+ battles of the course of the day – we should instead find the source of that thing and use our willpower one single time to restrict or eliminate it there.

If we’re addicted to social media, we shouldn’t just tell ourselves we’re not going to use it – we should uninstall the applications from our phone or even delete our accounts.

If we’re addicted to video games, we should literally remove the ability to use the console by giving the power cord or controllers to someone to hold onto, or stick them in a kSafe if you have one – at the end of this video I’ll share a link you can use to buy one if you’re interested.

Anyway – if we exercise willpower to eliminate the source, we remove possibility, which frees us from having to battle temptation.

I still keep my bread in a kSafe, but most days I forget to even set the lock. Think about that for a minute before we move to the next and final foundation.

Shift #4: Aspire Towards An Addiction To Progress

It’s just as easy to become addicted to fast food, video games, porn and social media.  As it is to become addicted to exercise, work, passions and good habits.

And for as much as I believe it’s important to always keep things simple, I do think it’s important to have at least a basic understanding of how the neurotransmitter ‘Dopamine’ is responsible for our motivation… or lack thereof.

I’ll link a few videos on the topic below in the description – including one where I describe how to ‘switch’ our Dopamine so that it actually motivates us away from low value instant-gratification type activities and towards high value, long-term reward type activities.

This is exactly the reason why some people seem to be addicted to success – because they actually are addicted to success.

Most people make the mistake of looking at everything I do in a day and thinking that I have tremendous discipline and willpower, and while I won’t say that I don’t possess those things, what I will say is that they are almost completely  irrelevant when you consider how utterly addicted I am to what I do.

If I had to rely on willpower to train as hard as I do with boxing or salsa, I would have never become good at them.

If I had to rely on willpower to be able to work entire days, I’d probably still be a struggling web designer instead of owner of a web design company with close to 50 employees.

So the question now becomes, how can we quickly form positive addictions?

Well, from my experience it has a lot less to do with focusing on any individual activity, and a lot more to do with focusing on the underlying element that makes all activities enjoyable – progress.

When we become addicted to progress, then we only need to feel progress within any activity to be able to perform it consistently and effortlessly.

As a bonus, an addiction to ‘progress’ also simultaneously deters us from any activity that threatens to ‘cost’ us progress – like wasting time on social media or Netflix.

To feel progress, all we need to do is take action towards a defined goal.

What helps me here (and something I believe is really important) is to conceptualize an ‘idealized’ version of ourselves. Think of him or her as the ‘culmination’ of all of our goals.

My ideal self is a genius businessman and wise philosopher – who lives a simple life despite others perceiving it as overwhelmingly complex.

He can dance and fight and swim and bike at the highest levels – and has climbed the tallest mountain on each continent.

By defining my ‘ideal self’ – not only is it easy to feel progress within any of the positive activities that I perform, but that progress now also serves a higher purpose.

To become addicted to progress IS to make effortless what was once difficult.

 

 

Follow me on Instagram @nelsonquest – Unless of course you hate learning new things from someone that’s gone through what you’re going through and come out on the other side… looking really handsome.

This is the path-

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