Tag: Emotion

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How to Create the ultimate 5 – 10 people list of people you admire and aspire to be around.


“You know how they say
“the 5 people you spend your time with influences who you become” ?”


Hi! Welcome to my blog, I hope this post finds you well in this festive and comfortable season!



You know how they say “the 5 people you spend your time with influences who you become” ?
Well, we don’t always have the possibility to chose the people we want to have around us. Right?

Wrong!

Until recently, the idea that my fate would be tied to my location, the people around me (whether I like them or not, or even if I aspire to them or not…) as well as their minds, was something which created a specific amount of anxiety for me. Not that I fear the people around me or my circumstances, nothing could be further from the truth. Although, I am particularly picky about the time I spend, the attention I give and the subjects I want to devote my time to…
Though, the idea that my life is influenced by those around me and I have no control over those around me can produce a specific amount of worry. I really don’t want to pick up on certain habits, certain mind process’s or ways that don’t suit who I am developing myself to be.

On the one hand, picking people for your life is essential. In the doing we underline the examples we wish to copy. Like monkey’s we pick up on speech patterns, body language and other such subtleties which have made an impression on us because we have either liked the person or disliked them.

Csikszent Mihaly explains in his book Flow that “attention is our most important tool in the task of improving the quality of experience.“. And deciding who and what we give our attention to influences our lives in many subtle and important ways!

If you live in a town, going out and meeting someone specific to spend time with might be a bit of a challenge. Although not impossible, the chances are slim that the exact right people you need will be on your path with the same distinct reasons as you.

In fact, you’d probably waste more time and energy out and about than you would proactively getting done everything on your Important x Urgent list.

Pam Thomas a high end mindset coach describes the concept of energy leakage in his article https://thriveglobal.com/stories/are-you-leaking-energy/

“Depending on how we spend our $100 of energy it’s possible to expend it in ways that create an energetic deficit. When we become energetically deficient we then have to borrow that energy from somewhere…maybe from our own cells (making us tired and susceptible to fear, self-doubt, etc.) or from someone else (making us needy or dependent).”. In understanding that we only have a finite amount of energy per day, it becomes very clear that the attention we have (i.e. 100$ of energy) is better invested in activities which give back to us, individuals who are going in the same direction, or in something with a good ROI. (Sport, Education, meditation, personal development, healthy food, clear uplifting thoughts etc…)

In a recent GQ article on neuroscience, Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett explains that our minds don’t function the way we think they do. How do we think our minds work? And with such a a variety of answers, how do we go about our everyday lives? On first hand, I’d bet that most people believe that the mind is made for thinking, stocking information… and alternatively the others don’t really wonder what the brain does at all… Though Dr.Barrett’s findings changes our understanding of how it functions and ultimately leeds us to driving our vessels in a more responsable and even more careful way. The concept of allostasis was proposed by Sterling and Eyer in 1988 as a process of reestablishing stability in response to a challenge. Barrett explains that our mind is merely a regulator, a controller to sustain our survival. “Every action you take (or don’t take) is an economic choice. Everything you think, feel, and do is a consequence of your brain’s central mission to keep you alive and well by managing your body budget.”

This being said, you’re probably thinking we’re incredibly off topic. We’re not.

Taking in to account that some people leave us depleted and tired after spending time with them.
Some even go as far as saying specific people are “Energy Vampires”, or “Narcissists“.
Though, lets stay on topic, I nearly lost you a few moments ago…
We’d rather leave conversations with people, feeling empowered, feeling confident and bold, ready to take on the world, right?

So how do we achieve that?

How do we find the people we aspire to?

How do we encounter those so-called people we admire?

And how on earth do we create our team of smart, high achieving, high energy people?

  1. It all starts with Self: We start by focussing on ourselves. Focussing on ourselves is the surest of ways to discover what we like, what we dislike, understand how we feel about this or that, as well as discover what we’re curious about. And this takes time, investment, and even going through the nitty gritty emotions. YIKES, I know you’re hating me right about now.. But it’s true. Going through our nitty gritty emotions by ourselves over and over again is how we grow and ultimately overcome them.
    Be patient with yourself!

  2. Procrastination: Having spent a vast amount of time on naval gazing, as you might put it. I’d like to invite you to reconsider your perception of Procrastination. It is there for a reason, so no pressure, embrace it and learn to invite it into your life.
    I generally procrastinate when my energy is saturated, I’m tired or low energy, or I need to breath from the depths I immerse myself with complicated topics.

  3. FocusMate: Okay, this might perhaps be the most important part of this article. The tool which enables you, with the right perception, to network, to grow, to exchange, and also to stay where you are and save your energy for better things. You know, the productivity and creativity in pt.2 and the
    well-being I’m about to express in pt.4? Yes Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m talking about FocusMate.

    Focusmate is an online Website/App which is meant to help you with your productivity and stay distraction free, focussed on your goals. Thats the primary reason we use Focusmate.
    The secondary reason is not what it is programmed to do, but what is most beneficial to everyone you encounter. Smile, be Warm, be Yourself, and share. You might end up meeting some really interesting, upbeat people you’d never get the opportunity to encounter otherwise.

  4. Energy, energy, energy... Yes, we’ve talked about that a lot haven’t I?
    You’ll need energy if you want to produce, work, focus on anything.
    This means you’ll need good healthy food. This also means that you’ll need to channel the energy you do have into meaningful productive practices which give you an ROI. I’ll talk about this in my next article.

  5. Structure. Yes, in order to use everything I’m talking about and something you can rely on, you’ll need a structure a ‘goto’ reference which is tangible and malleable. For this, I use the good old Whiteboard, a written structured list compartmentalised and the help of some tools
    I will add at the end of the article.


By using these 5 points, I get to meet high energy, ambitious people on a daily basis. I attract them because I am myself on that high level frequency (The exercises, The food help to develop the energy for this). And I’m able to do it often because I’m following a structure I created for myself which allows me to follow it even if I have no clue of what I’m doing that day or even feeling a bit hazy…


I thought I’d add some goodies:

Here are a Few Tools I like and use on a daily basis which get me to better focus, produce or simply keep track of what I’m doing or where I’m going.

Tools:

Create an Effective todo list: Learning how to create an effective todo list can prove invaluable. This article has been life changing in how it has effected my todo list creation. In that before I actually didn’t know how to create on effectively. I also added the notion of the Eisenhower Matrix in that I will only put what is urgent and important & important and not urgent.

https://www.notion.so/: So you need to go to the Office to have a physical layout of what needs to be done and what has been done? NO NEED! Notion is the perfect app for tracking and organising tasks, for business or simply for home. You can keep track of

https://habitshareapp.com/: You know how I talked about developing habits earlier on in the article, the concept that you can track your actions over the course of time and visualise your progress and
percentage of accuracy.

https://slack.com/: I’ve found that if you want to distribute a research, a message, and target a specific group of people, Slack is the best place to do so. Let me explain before you judge me as someone exploiting the indigenous tribes… While I was working on a startup in Fin-tech I needed to find a FullStack Developer capable of building the App. While I had no clue of how to grasp a developer, especially in the midst of a COVID lockdown, I got creative. Low and behold, I found 35 developers by targeting Digital Nomad slack communities in the space of 1 week! Need I say more?

https://discord.com/ People like to use this for gaming, because that is what it is originally used for.
Though, I use it for the TEAM to talk on in order to get work done without the hassle of planning call’s etc. Once everyone is subscribed, its fairly easy, everyone can have a reachable online office to do their work. And the messaging system is pretty simple.

https://www.focusmate.com/ Conceived as a studying platform, I figured out after a while that it could be a place to network and find likeminded people, according that you do it right and don’t overstep boundaries etc. People are generally open to discussing what they do, they’ll tell you about their goals at the start of every session and you can use it for training your elevator pitch for Work, Social, Partnerships, learning about new tools or insights, hek even relationships why don’t you. But really.. do it correctly, no one wants unwanted harassment in the privacy of their own home!

https://miro.com/: “The online collaborative whiteboard platform to
bring teams together, anytime, anywhere.” The Crema team explain the functioning of the app (in this video) pretty well and while is it still a collaborative online whiteboard, what you can do with it is nothing short of genius.

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Finding a peaceful balance between what’s going on in the world and where you are inside of yourself



It is important to be in harmony between how we feel inside and how we are outside.
This isn’t always possible, if so we must learn to love ourselves, and accept it from the inside out. 

Hence why we strive for perfection. People will qualify us through how they see us first and foremost. Which is distressing for anyone who isn’t picture perfect in today’s society. How can we possibly keep up with the constant update of knowledge?trends, tips, articles, news outlets, podcast shows and live to be as great as everyone else? How can we like anything we are, when we consistently compare ourselves with “everyone else”?

We simply cannot keep up. We can’t, even if we wanted to keep up with everything that is happening on a daily basis all around the world. There are way too many people and events occurring.

It is then wise to go in the opposite direction and disregard everything and everyone.
It becomes essential, in order to focus on the one most important ingredient in the recipe known to date, to neglect anything and everything but ourselves, how we’re feeling, what we’re thinking, how we function etc. I’d say the COVID is a blessing, but I already lived like this pre-covid. It’s very much so a blessing for everyone else, whether they can see it or not.

The contrast of one’s objective and virtual presence, is an extension of self. It’s very easy for everyone to get caught up in the illusion that How we are seen by others, How we perform in video games, or media covered games, or any other sort of exposure through a screen. It simply isn’t Who we are, nor is it What we are. It is but an intention, a role we play well, a placement of our time and effort in projecting something for others to relate to.

Take it all away, and all you have is yourself. Have you ever tried sitting in the dark with one candle, with no screen, no book, no kindle or music or anything. Just you and the candle? I bet you’ll get a little anxious at a certain point. Truth is, at first it might seem uncomfortable, maybe even anxiety producing… But by staying with it, we get to experience ourselves, what we’re feeling, why we’re feeling that way and so on… A vital road, in taking time out for us.

In todays world we need to perfect our camera presence in order to feel confident with others. If we are critical of ourselves, we cannot feel confident entirely with others. We’ll often have illogicisms, and discrepancies we need to overcome. Looking at myself through the camera, I see my critical self come out and poke holes at what I am doing as well as how I am corresponding with myself, the camera, and others around. When speaking on camera, I discovered that I was highly self critical. The process of overcoming the camera’s perception, isn’t the camera, but how I’m seeing myself through the lens. 

Have something to say, an exercise to follow. A guide-line and rules to follow in order to overcome and progress. Once we have the rules of the game, we can test, go through trial and error until we become perfect with the camera “in our own perception of perfect”. Above all, we see our flaws. They’re highlighted and in our face. They’re big and bright in contrast to what we’re normally aware of. When other people see us, they take it as a given “This dude has x, y or z… that’s just normal.” But what if, on that day the “Dude” in question had something which wasn’t normal to his everyday settings of normality?

If my writing inspires you, take a look at some of the books which have
inspired my writing. GO TO LIBRARY

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Jobs vs Purpose

How many years are you supposed to study to get a job? 
How many years are you supposed to invest into your studies in order to land a job? 

In my view, the easiest way to get a job is to work on social skills like retail and jobs alike. 

I studied for 2 years to understand how sales worked, before then studying for 3 years to get A levels in french litterature and philosophy. 

Then I was pretty much set to get any entree level job I wanted. Before graduating sales, I had read “The Game” by Neil Strauss, in which the author talks about approaching as many girls as possible to get over the fear of rejection and potentially expose yourself to more people, which in proportion helps to achieve adding more phone numbers to your contact list and potentially getting more girls in your life. 

Though, I had already mastered that while I was in high-school and spent most of my time chatting up birds. On recess, lunch breaks etc. 

Then later in life I simply applied the same principle to work, print out a tone of cv’s and apply the same mechanism, walk in with a big smile like with the birds. 

Have a confident tone, like with the birds. Eye contact, like with the birds.
Dress well and be well groomed, like with the birds… 

Having a sales degree made things pretty easy, and being a salesman also proved to ease things. Though, getting a job wasn’t difficult for me, so I could simply apply my ambition and aim for higher and better if I didn’t like where I was. Which I did.  I was also limited to the job function though.

Had I studied for 10 years to become a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer,
the doors wouldn’t have been open to me to do job hoping to the same degree.

I wouldn’t have noticed how boss’s functioned and how they exploited their employee’s to make money for them. I wouldn’t have had the freedom to jump from one job to another, or land communication jobs. The thing with a job is that it is like a lillypad, it helps us to get from where we are to where we are going. Jobs are perfect for anyone who has entrepreneur ideas. The difficulty with jobs though, is that you don’t have infinite energy or health.

You can work as hard as you want to land the job, but once you have the job it becomes difficult to sustain that same level of intensity. 

As for a career, you study for a long while in order to become a cog in someone else’s system, only to then wear yourself out but have no other options because you’ve clogged your mind up so much with your learning mechanisms that it becomes very difficult to then switch to anything else.

When you are endocrinated with studies, your mind tends to pick up information differently. You’re okay with force feeding yourself. Though, you’re doing it, most of the time, because that is the only choice. Work your head off to get a diploma, and then get a job according to what you have studied. 

This is very limiting, for a few reasons. 

1) You cannot switch, your diploma stunts your ability to get do anything else.
You’re stuck self identifying with your diploma. 

2) You haven’t learn’t to think outside of academic spaces, which is limiting in the real world. Where in school, you learn facts by heart, your mind becomes a warehouse of dusty encyclopaedic facts, which is useful if … you’re passing an exam. 

Though, your mind functions differently. In the real world, our minds pick information, based upon our curiosity. We then dig in, sift and sort the information. Pass on to something else, etc. Only to then conclude with Eurika moments when your brain has finished processing all the information. 

Your mind has been taught to think in a way which doesn’t equate to finding solutions you need, but solutions you’re required to find for someone else. You’ve been taught to retain information or methods in order to apply them later. You haven’t been taught how to think or how to use your brain to its full potential. 

3) You don’t have any real world experience. This doesn’t help your confidence or your capacity to believe in yourself. And you often get used in the business world.

4) You don’t work your EQ, which becomes inherantly more important than any IQ. Your IQ is solely there for you to figure out problems. Your EQ is there to help you go through problems. It’s your sticking power.

5) You don’t learn risk. You’re coddled in a little world of privilege inside of academic structures. You don’t go through difficulties. Infrastructures protect you from risk by providing a lush environment of academic pretention. 

If my writing inspires you, take a look at some of the books which have
inspired my writing. GO TO LIBRARY