The best way to say what you want to say is not a simple matter of simply saying it then leaving it at that. But rather, trying your best to articulately express the best form of your idea above your current level ability. So first, it starts out shit. And starting out shit is easy. It means just starting with anything, without even thinking. Then second, is coming to terms with how shit it actually is and developing the awareness that your work is actually shit starts the process in order to learn how to turn it from shit into good. And that’s huge progress. Because third is step is great news: all you need to do now is go from good to great.
However, this ability to get from shit to good can take many months to years, whereas going from good to great will take 10-20 years. You have to be aware of this and your current skill level. Looking at your current masters, learning about their apprenticeship and understanding everything they had to do to get where they are now.
If you are aspiring to walk a similar path you need to be realistic given the level of their education and experience and more importantly, the type, and time given to their practice. 10-years at one masters level may therefore take 20-years for someone starting with far less time and years behind their training before beginning. It therefore wouldn’t be unrealistic to expect to put yourself through then at least 10-20 years of training before accumulating this same level of experience your master has in the present. And given any disadvantages or later start you may have, the question then isn’t are you able to, but rather are you up for the challenge?
Are you willing to put yourself through a minimum of 10,000 hours of training all with the idea in your mind that it will bring you to the point of being ready to start your own triangle?
And this is an argument to encourage you to not only say yes to that, but to make you realise what your life will be like if you don’t. What else would you be doing with the time if you didn’t?
Easing up and relaxing is fine, for a while, but don’t let it last too long and never more than an hour or so. If you happened to wake up with a functioning mind and body each morning, you are already more blessed than you are even aware, so if you moan or complain all the while you sit there with these physical and mental superpowers, then you are wasting the very precious resources you have been blessed to wake up with and you don’t deserve them. Which is why if you continue to stay in this relaxed state of mind, they will one day be taken from you and you may even start the process of neurodegenerative diseases when it was in your power to stave them away. Therefore, you must never stay in this relaxed state of mind, otherwise you may slip more often than not into boredom, losing control over consciousness before entering a permanent state of apathy, or anxiety.
To avoid this deadly scenario you must continue to keep rising to the challenge of the times and put yourself into high-risk situations that force you into needing to become deeply focused and creative. Otherwise, you may miss the point and what you don’t want to happen is to sit still for so long that you never feel like doing anything, then spend your entire life passively absorbing whatever comes your way. And if that happens, what exactly was the point in your existence?
So although stillness is the key, the kind of stillness we are referring to here is not idle nothingness, but a much rather involved stillness where one needs deep concentration, focus, meditation and daily reflection. Goal planning and action are an everyday activity along with the ability to shut out and ignore everything going on in the outside world. You’re going to need to be much more deliberate. You have to be interested. And fill your life with interests. And this will bring much more joy and satisfaction than the short lived dopamine hits from the temporary distractions of the modern everyday world filled with sources of pleasure, quick hits of entertainment or news that does nothing to increase your overall productivity and satisfaction with life, or even your real knowledge of the world itself. If you want to get that, then read books and learn more about the unknown worlds you’ve never experienced.
You’ve got to do the work and you’ve got to want to do it. More importantly because discipline is a pleasure. Being educated is a pleasure. Being deliberately physically and mentally challenged is all an extraordinary pleasure. And if you don’t learn to experience how and why these are all true pleasures, then you may in fact go your whole life and all the way to your grave without ever actually having experienced what high-quality living feels like. The way to the ultimate high within. The high way within. And this is why all these things not only matter but are extremely important for your mind and mental health. And if you decide not to act on these ideas, then I’m afraid there is not much hope for you in the future. If you are not willing to get yourself up and going, who is? Better yet, if you need someone else to come along and get you going, then you’re the last person anyone will ever need. Nobody wants a man-sized child. You need to take responsibility, ownership, and control. And if it is too hard, well, isn’t it great we have philosophy to help us improve?
So you’ve got to be self-motivated. You’ve got to want to move yourself. You’ve got to want to be strong. You’ve got to want to be smarter. You’ve got to want to be wiser. You’ve got to want to be more resilient. You’ve got to want to be more active. You’ve got to want to work harder. You’ve got to want to go to bed earlier to wake up earlier. You’ve got to not be lazy. You’ve got to be up and at it. You’ve got to have a plan set for yourself each day. You’ve got to act on that plan each day. And you’ve got to want to do all the other things that you might not always feel like doing and still always do them anyway. Then, learn how to enjoy everything so much that nothing ever feels like a chore. And do everything as best as you can, as efficiently as you can. Why? To get back to doing all the other things that are equally important to you that you need to get done and do before doing everything else again. And while, yes, it can be hard living on 24 hours a day, you would be surprised at the things you can do when you prioritise your life.
All of this takes a lot of effort and it also takes all of your time. It never ends. So you need to be incredibly disciplined. Otherwise, you’ll never be able to do it. You’ve just got to be able to do it all. You’ve also got to want to do it all. You’ve got to manage your health. You’ve got to manage your physical. You’ve got to develop your mental. You’ve got to be able to finance these things too. Looking after your mind and body isn’t cheap. It costs a lot of money to live well. But your health is your wealth so it’s never a bad investment to make. There’s no point in having lots of money if it means being too overweight. There’s no point in having too much money if it means there’s no time to read. So don’t neglect any of the disciplines. Don’t fixate on achieving too much in only one area. That means the other ones will suffer. You’ve got to make time to be able to focus on all of the disciplines. You’ve got to want to do all of these things and make a habit and do it each day. Then stick at it for the rest of your life. Why?
Well, why wouldn’t you want to be all that you can be and as much as you can become, to learn all that you can learn, read all you can read, run as much as you run, lift and jump as much as you can and see how much you can actually be, being involved, fully present, active and engaged in and with your own life, deliberate practising hard on specific goals carefully chosen devoted to a life of self improvement.
Why wouldn’t you want to do that?
Have your journal at your side at all times. Screenshot everything you ever read and learn. Use your phone everyday to learn something new and always expand your vocabulary. If you don’t know a word, look it up. Build your collection of words and their meanings. Create a lifetime’s worth of knowledge and education and keep all of this in multiple places from computers and hard drives and clouds, where you’ll always be able to visit and see each and every moment from your life at any moment or stage throughout your whole entire life, in an instant.
See your life for what it really is: a work of art. Journal your entire life and keep a well documented log of your existence. Memories will be the most important things you leave behind for your family. Even everything they ever brought home from school. That will mean so much to them one day when they are old and you are no longer here and they discover you kept everything they ever brought home from school.
You won’t always know how you’re going to use what you have in front of you right now in this moment, however you will know what to do with it in the future. So it all starts with taking the notes and saving them today and doing this everyday for the rest of your life. You simply won’t be able to do anything or draw from what you don’t have. So you’ve got to be a hoarder of information, a hoarder with education. Be a hoarder of books, a hoarder of ideas, a hoarder of knowledge, a hoarder of wisdom. And devote much time to learning all these things, practising, repetition, studying and revision. This art of self improvement is a never ending process. To desire to always want to improve, to increase your intelligence, well-being and happiness. Knowing how to live and living very well.
Why wouldn’t you want those things?
So you’ve got to want to try. You’ve got to want to learn. You’ve got to want to do all of these things and you’ve got to want to do them all of the time. And you’ve got to want to get up and keep doing all these things and never want to stop doing them. This is the law of motivation and only those who have this will succeed at life. There is no other way to be. Without the law of motivation then you’re not really going to get much done. Instead, you’re going to become a passive consumer and a big fan of lazy leisure and you’ll just have to take whatever comes your way. And I’m telling you, that’s a terrible idea. What a terrible way to spend your one and only lifetime. What a terrible way to waste your one shot at doing something meaningful.
You could have all the experiences, but maybe one more hour in bed won’t do me any harm. Except, it really will. That mindset that keeps you in bed an hour longer in the morning will follow you around for the rest of your entire day. If you can’t start the day without procrastination, then you aren’t going to get through the day without it either. Instead, you will choose distractions. Attention is a finite resource. And you squander it as if your life was to go on forever? Watching all these tidbits of entertainment might feel harmless, but trust me, give it some time and we’ll see what your life adds up to.
What exactly can you sit down at the end of each day and say to yourself and show me how much of what you let yourself see today has positively contributed to your experience? If the answer is, not much, then we have to ask, why? Wouldn’t contributing to your future potential be a much better idea than mindless gossip and fake bullshit media news? I may know nothing about anything that ever goes on in the news. Does that mean I am uninformed? I will only start to worry about something when it starts to affect my life or interfere with my activities. Therefore if what is happening on the outside is having no affect inside, then it does get a moment of my attention.
Why wither away to nothingness?
And people wonder why they are depressed? The solution is obvious. And yet it doesn’t seem to be easy whenever it is quite simple. Take yourself away from the screen. Get up and start moving. Go for a walk. In fact, no, start running. Get your favourite music. Create a playlist that you love. Plug those headphones in and lose yourself outdoors. Become completely engaged with your own mind and body and achieve that euphoric state that only comes from pushing past your limitations. And once you’re done with that, yes, okay, maybe relax, but not for long. Because the moment you step out of the bath, you have to open the book, your notepad, your pan, your ruler, your highlighter, and coffee. Sit. Now it’s time to relax. Time when you can finally use your mind and get lost into productive leisure activity.
There’s only two types of people in this world: people who know who they are. And people who don’t know who they are. And the people who know who they are, are the people who are always doing something with themselves. And the people who don’t know who they are, are the people who are always watching the people who know who they are and are doing something with themselves.
And what I’m saying to you is, don’t be one of those depressed people.
The true test of your character is to see how much of all you can be. Not some. Let others sit around and watch you. Even let them make fun of you. One day, it’s you who has the last laugh. As while you’ve been steadily climbing this whole time, they have been a long time on the decline with no way of ever catching up now. And also, because spending your time always watching others is just a bit sad, if that’s your life.
Then, over time, as you continue to compound this practice of continuous physical and mental challenge, reading books on many subjects, what this does is that it will give you tremendous range. You will be able to refine over time then edit to make it better. The best way to say something then isn’t just by saying it. But saying it so you can learn many other possible ways of saying it. And once you have discovered the best way of saying it, that will be the first version, even though it’s already said a dozen times. A dozen or more ways of trying to say the same thing is all to be expected for the purpose of being able to say it well once and for all.
Understand: nobody gets to great right out the gate without any great effort. It takes lots of effort, lots of time and lots of experience. Only recently have I been able to start writing like this each time I sit down to start, which was my goal for the past 10-years to be able to do. When I first experienced flow, at 27-years old, and became aware that I was completely out of my depth, that was when I decided I’m going to put in the time. I’m going to put my head down. I’m going to put myself through the 10,000 hour process. I’m going to stick at this no matter what until I can reach that ability. And it’s only been in the past year, after a decade of doing this, that I’m now able to do the very thing I spent a decade hoping to one day be able to do.
Achieving Mastery in Ableton Live used to be a dream of mine, to teach others to achieve it too. Now, it’s a distant memory. However, all of it was necessary, relevant and important. Because as my mind was always at work on trying to come up with the best and most creative timeless problems to solve related to a subject, I was always reading other books during that time, which was all for the purpose of improving my mind so that I could get better at being more creative in the field that I wished to develop and expand my ideas in, branching out into other fields, as I assumed that would be a good way to come back with expanded knowledge and new or different ways of seeing old problems, to try and enhance the subject matter and fuse disparate ideas together that weren’t in prior work I observed.
However, during this process what I wasn’t expecting, what ended up happening, was that around the 10-year mark, a shift took place in my mind. And I completely no longer wanted it. And deviated away from the subject entirely and no longer felt inspired to move in that direction any longer but go into different areas, which, of course, has been a result of those years of reading other subjects.
So what you think you want now that you also feel so sure about might not exactly be what you will always want. But you might still need to do it anyway to arrive at the point in the future, until you figure out what it is you really want to achieve. So there is no such thing as time wasted, only time saved and experience gained. Everything is therefore relative. But I’ve been interested in, or at least my goal has been since July 2017, to one day create a perennial seller. I’d love to make something that becomes a timeless piece of art. I mean, who wouldn’t? To make something that literally sells while you’re asleep.
Is that not every creator’s dream?
However I knew that’s not something you can obviously just do simply from wanting to. If it were that easy, then everyone else would already be doing it. So there’s a reason why the rest of us work a job to support these ambitious goals and dreams. What I am trying to say is, if I never discovered electronic music production first, then didn’t decide to walk away from my career, never decided to pursue the arts, which I also never knew that’s what I did until 8-years after doing it, never persevered, never cared enough, nor cared to go to the conferences, then I may in fact have never discovered flow ever in my lifetime and quite possibly could have died and gone to my grave without ever experiencing it once.
Because if none of that ever happened, then none of this would be even possible. I once thought I was supposed to be a plumber, because I had no GCSE’s, no school results, a complete and utter failure at everything in every area of life. I was tutored in GCSE Math at my kitchen table at 19-years old at night and struggled horrendously to get a ‘C’. I couldn’t apply myself to even do my English GCSE coursework on Macbeth at 19-years old. I also got a ‘C’. I, quite simply, couldn’t cope with academia. My brain was never equipped to be able to handle learning. Then, I was struck with what could only be described as having depression in my early coming close to 21-years old, because I found myself in a place I knew was impossible for someone like me to stay in for the rest of my life. I came home one night after a 12-hour day and had a mental breakdown. And cried my eyes out about how I think my life is ruined, or that I’ve ruined my life.
Then I discovered electronic music production software, Ableton Live. And this became the most fascinating thing I have ever seen. Thanks to a software company in Berlin, Germany, at 19-years old, my brain for the first time in my entire life started to wake up. I then bought a notepad, pen and ruler, sold my PlayStation and all of my games, turntables and records. This technology became so exciting, more exciting than anything I ever experienced. I, for the first time ever, was enjoying, learning. This was new. And it was like nothing like anything ever experienced before. However, I still struggled to learn. But I really wanted to learn. More than anything. And I never wanted to learn before that. I couldn’t. But I kept going and somehow made it onto YouTube. Then thought I was supposed to become an electronic music producer destined to be a YouTube superstar. I even had fantasies of red carpets rolled out for me, with cheers and applause and praise for such amazing work. When really, the work I was doing was completely shit. I wondered why no one in Ibiza knew who I was, even though I was wearing a 100 Days of Ableton t-shirt, which had less than 100 views each video, wondering, how do these people not know me? I’m on my way to becoming a famous YouTuber! This, I hope you realise by now, was to entertain you and make you laugh a little about the extreme bizarreness of my past and uneducated ADHD thinking mind.
The point of it all: I once thought myself to many things but never knew anything about my underlying conditions. But thank my wife as she was the reason how I ended up discovering that software at 19-years old, which sparked a love of learning. She pushed me to get off my PlayStation and go and do something that will be good for you. A friend was always inviting me but I always put it off to get stoned instead and play GTA. That encouragement from her we can even say started this whole process. As I even stopped going out partying from that moment and started to stay home and at least try my best to read on Friday and Saturday nights instead. It meant that much to me. This would lead to my decision to walk away from that career which probably would have led to my early suicide from severe depression. So, back to school and off to college we go at 21-years old, to do music. Without a plan or backup plan. Just a strong sense that I must do this. This is what school should have been. If only there was something as exciting as this back then, maybe I could have reversed my ADHD sooner?
So although the dreams of becoming world famous and known to millions never came to fruition, that ambition brought me towards something of far greater and more practical life importance. It led me to the discovery of flow, which in effect is the direct result of how and why everything else has ever happened since and led to now. I attended a conference, hosted by Ableton, where I attended a talk on flow. This was my formal introduction. And it would be the start of a decade of training, in flow.
And while I can’t ever say for sure now what I would be doing with myself if I hadn’t made those choices to pursue music technology in my 20’s, I can say that it was the best and most important decision I’ve ever made in my entire life. Even though I’ve never quite fully got myself back above minimum wage since leaving that career to do that, my happiness levels have never been better or higher since, nor do I think I would have ever discovered, understood if I even heard about it, or achieved those experiences and reached the level of intellect I have now. It seems to have reversed my ADHD. What I didn’t realise, and it took 10-years to realize, I wasn’t supposed to be any of those things. I was supposed to be this: a writer. And it brought me closer to it.
Electronic music turned the lights on. But flow kept them on. It wouldn’t be too much to say then that this experience has perhaps gone as far as saved my life. My hope then is that you will also be able to find and experience this in the hope it may also do the same for your life too. There was also a third dimension to this process. But now we’re getting ahead of ourselves. We’ll come back to that point in about 5-years time.
So while my income never increased over the past decade from reading books, I wouldn’t also say yet either. Because you shouldn’t get into art if making money is the sole reason for why you are making art. Art can make you a fortune, or even produce an income, but the real reason for why you should do art is to also discover that feeling. And when I say art, I don’t mean singing and dancing, although making time each day to sing and dance is very important. I’m talking about all forms of art. The physical art of your body, its improvement and the deliberate use of it inside physical endurance activities. The time you need to spend improving the mind engaged with physical and mental tasks focused on the activity and doing it for its own sake for the pleasure which can be derived from it. Painting, dancing, reading, writing, running, whatever gets you there. Art is whatever you do that makes you feel happy. It’s also inside the word heart, what you feel when deeply connected to something. Never ignore that. That’s something inside of you trying to tell you to where you are supposed to be.
Let that feeling guide you. While many others wake up each day dragging themselves to a place they’re not in love with and aren’t doing all that they could be, and even with the time, they still wouldn’t know what to do with it. Let them fall behind. You, however? Keep focused on the press ups, pullups, sprinting, physical, and mental, marathons and all of the other deliberate practice to sustain that level of deep focus and pure enjoyment. Then watch whose lives end up better.
It’s made extraordinary improvements to my life, which I couldn’t imagine living without now. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. I left a job that had the potential to pay me £48,000 per year now today. And I wouldn’t change anything or give up my minimum wage for that again. I certainly wouldn’t give this up to have it again. That’s why I never applied to do it again, even though I’m more than capable of doing it. I would just much rather not.
People sometimes make the misconception that the reason you’re doing what you do is because it’s the only thing you’re capable of doing, when in fact, the complete opposite is true. My bank balance has not increased much over the past decade, but my life has substantially, physically, mentally, spiritually, improving in ways which once would have been thought impossible by others. I’ve also not cried about anything else ever since following my calling. Even though it’s been nothing but hard.
Remember: less money means more freedom. More money means more responsibility. More expectations means less time to move and improve the self, to work on your own project, to be creatively active and productive with your own life. So I have less than what I always could’ve had, and yet I got far more than I could have wished for. I’m all the more happier for the less I possess for what that less has enabled me to be able to have and more importantly, do. And those experiences are worth so much more.
More living with the benefits of struggling that comes from continuous striving?
Or, less time for living for a little extra money?
It’s still an obvious answer.
I wouldn’t want to change that modal for anything. That’s how much it matters. The challenge. The pursuit of growth. The ability to increase your intellect. To challenge the self, and become more than you were and more than you are. Why pass on that opportunity?
If you woke up this morning with a fully functioning body and mind and even have the ability to learn and study anything you want, you are blessed. Make use of this opportunity. I got something from the arts that the guy who only went for money didn’t: a far greater, deeper more meaningful, richer higher-quality experience of living. Far more productive and a much, much happier life.
The only thing you need to be is yourself. You are already more than enough. You don’t have to try and be the best at anything. And you are certainly not behind anybody. And if that’s the way you think, you are focusing on the wrong things. You shouldn’t ever be concerned about bettering anyone, but yourself. The only thing you should be concerned with is yourself. But not in a ‘I love myself so much way’ that makes people think you’re a dick. But in a ‘I know I can do better and I should’ or ‘I’m not doing the best I could and I’m going to work harder’.
Be your true authentic and original self. All day. Every day. Even if it’s a bit too extreme or unconventional. And even if it makes other people think you’re weird as fuck. Deep down, we are all weird as fuck. What you want to do is try winning the competition to see who can be the weirdest fuck. But not the creepy weird fuck. Just that strange, weird and unusual fuck who stays up late at night and keeps on and won’t stop learning, who even runs half marathons at 2am sometimes.
Go away and be wildly creative and original with your life. Get into the arts. Not for money. Not for fame. Not for attention. But the shot at achieving what I’m talking about here: that experience. Deep engagement with your life. That inner sense of meaning and purpose to your life. Having a sense of purpose and knowing what it is and how to keep achieving that. And repeating it over and over. Research has now shown people who possess this even go on to live far longer lives.
The sky is the limit.
Go make a movie script and sell it to Netflix.
Anything. Just do it.
Don’t let fear put you off trying. Don’t fear failure. It’s the only way to really learn anything. Many times it’s not that we are worried we might fail, but rather, we worry we are getting so close that we might discover too much and more than we ever imagined was possible. And those possibilities terrify us even more than failure. Yet they are exactly the risks you need to take.
My writing seems to be coming in at 8-page minimums as the new default template sprint now. So sorry if this is a bit too long for you to read. But, I’m not for shortening its length anytime soon. As I’ve just spent a decade being able to write like this. My next goal is how to write 45-minute pieces. So when they show, you’ll know I’m really starting to hit my goal. I’m not for slowing down, in terms of writing. They will only be getting longer. My grandfather did this for a living. But now I’m doing it on a Friday night for a laugh. This is my idea of having fun. And while I would say sorry for having such a good time, what would be the point in getting off a rollercoaster and apologising?
My intention is you will also adapt the same mindset.
I have no interest in becoming a talking head. My interest resides inside a different form of productivity: reading and writing for pleasure. You can either like it or hate it. But either way, I don’t really care. I’m doing what I enjoy and I will always do it now that I can. You can stay and learn more. Or you can leave and I won’t be offended. I’m just doing my bit to stay happy in a chaotic world. And my hope is you will also do the same and be able to ignore everybody too. There is no objective external benchmark you need to hit here. Just yourself. Each day. 0.1%. And do that day in and day out for years, and years, and years. Keep to that habit for a lifetime. And watch how good you get. Build your mental endurance muscle. And no better way to start that process than building your physical endurance muscle.
Those who possess this skill will be the strongest to survive any harsh terrains of life. Focus on increasing and improving the self is worth more money than the world, to be able to be still and calm with a mind at peace with itself and love for nothing more than the simple things. You’ve got it.
Go play.
Explore.
Keep doing your thing.
Whatever the hell that even is.
*This piece took me 10-hours to write today. I started it this morning with handwritten notes inside the pages of this book and it led to several ideas. This being one of them. Then it moved into a Google doc. Then I went to the library. For lunch. But not to eat, but to write. And I continued to elaborate this idea even though at the start I wasn’t sure what the point in this even was. Or why I’m even here today as I don’t think I’m going to come up with anything from this. However, the act of sitting down to start and the awareness of time limitations entered my mind, the deadline of trying to come with something sent me into a blind panic. So I just started to write whatever came to mind, even though I didn’t think it was good enough. Then the most interesting thing happened: the idea started to play with me for the rest of the day. It started following me and throwing more and more things at me to go with it. And while being on the go makes it really hard to write when you have to move at the same time and when you are having so many thoughts at once and are also worried about not getting them down before losing them, thank whoever created speech dictation. This is what technology is to be thanked for. It’s ability to enable us to be able to do more with our constraints. As of now, the end of today, and before it is over, I was able to say almost all of this through the microphone of my iPhone to a Google doc. Then, all I had to do was spend the following 6-hours editing what you have just read now. But it all started by sitting down unsure about what to do and thinking about how it was a bit pointless to even try. So today, I beat resistance. I done something instead of nothing. And even though this might be nothing. It might spark other ideas and one day turn into something as a result, of nothing. And even though this started with no more than 50 handwritten words, that somehow turned into nearly 6000 by midnight. So the point of this piece today then was to help you also overcome resistance. And if you read this book, you will understand the point I’ve just made, and why this matters. But my hands are really, really fucking sore now. So I think I’ll take a day off, and go for a long run to recharge the battery.