Most people don't understand the bliss of being in a season of intensity.
They ask, why don't you take a break and have some fun?
They can't see that nothing else is more fun than what you're doing.
Whenever my mom calls, she asks, did you do anything fun this weekend?
For the past few years, my answer was almost always, nope, just the same old stuff.
Of course, I'd occasionally have the trip or event that I would update her on, but usually my answer consisted of writing, walking, working, lifting, and eating, because that's what I do and enjoy doing every single day.
And her response as a caring mom would always be, oh, you should go out more.
You're young, Daniel. I always thought there was something wrong with me.
She was right. I thought, I should go out more.
Am I wasting the years that matter the most?
Well, I look back and regret doing the same old thing day after day.
So I pushed myself to go out more.
What I discovered was that I only started to feel more lost and dissatisfied with life.
As my mom continued to call and ask that question, it started to click.
So did you do anything fun this weekend?
Nope, just the same old stuff.
Why don't you go out and have some fun?
Well, nothing is as fun as what I do every single day.
That question assumes that doing anything is more enjoyable than the same old stuff.
But the same old stuff is what leads to meaning, presence, and flow.
Operating at your peak capacity is so much more enjoyable than constantly tapping pleasurable distractions to fill the void in your soul.
I started to think to myself, why would I go out and conform to what society says is fun just to seem to other people like I'm doing something that's fun?
Things like late nights that throw off your sleep schedule and slowly destroy your mental and physical health, hangovers that rot your brain, ruin your focus and make it difficult to perform in the things that are enjoyable, not pleasurable, or picking out on food bombed with grease and sugar and whatever else they put in it to make you addicted to it.
Now, I didn't exactly say those things to my mom because that's rude.
These are just the thoughts in my head.
I also don't think that these quote unquote bad things should be eradicated from your life as a whole.
The occasional night out can be a great tactical reset.
It can force you to feel like shit so you crave feeling better.
It can open you up to conversations you wouldn't have normally had leading to breakthroughs in your work.
It can expose you to lower states of consciousness so you can navigate their contents and use them to your benefit.
This entire idea that we're talking about right now stems from a conversation that I had with a business friend of mine.
He commented that people feel so lost and uncertain because they haven't created a lifestyle that they don't want to escape from.
So this sent me down a rabbit hole in my mind thinking about how I'm fairly grateful that I created my ideal lifestyle relatively early so I can double down and reap the compounding benefits of that.
It's like James Clear 1% better every day.
You either get exponentially 1% better every day once you figure out the lifestyle that you want to create, or you're going after someone else's dreams indulging in bad habits and getting exponentially worse.
So that's what we're here to discuss is one the problem with modernity and why people, especially young people, feel so lost, confused and uncertain about their future.
Two is the opportunity that technology and the information age provides and how few people have taken advantage of it.
Three is how setting standards will change your life and seven standards you must set for yourself if you want to live with purpose.
Four is how to create your ideal day so you can stop hating Mondays and feeling like you need to fill a hole in your identity.
For those struggling right now, there is a way out.
There is a way to navigate the chaos.
There is a way to have a sense of control over where you end up.
You live in a time where you can create a life, you love waking up to every single morning.
The first step to getting out is understanding what got you there in the first place.
You feel terrible because your subconscious knows that you could be doing better.
The problem with uncertainty starts with the fact that you outsourced your sense of certainty.
This is how it goes. You're born into a culture with specific beliefs, values and standards.
As you learn to walk, run and speak, your mind is molded to match those around you.
You can't control this because it's how you survive.
Before you know it, the only goals on your mind are to go to school, get a job, marry someone, go on some fun vacations and retire someday.
These goals vary from family to family.
Some families force moral success and religious beliefs, others force academic success and others encourage entrepreneurial success.
So you can start to see right here that depending on the open-mindedness and big picture thinkingness of your parents and the culture that you grew up in, that heavily determines your success.
I'm a very big proponent that the destination is greater than the journey.
That's rather controversial, but the entire journey is dictated by the destination.
If you're set on a destination that is destined to fail at birth, if your mind is programmed for that, the journey doesn't matter.
You can try to find enjoyment all you want and you can find enjoyment in it, but you're just causing unnecessary suffering in your life.
So a family who encourages entrepreneurial success and trial and error and experimentation and creating your own worldview, they're arguably going to have a better life than someone who forces moral or academic success and conforming to someone else's goals and standards.
If you understand the mind and human behavior, you can spot the problem with this.
The unconscious, programmed goals sitting deep in your psyche shape how you act, who you are and what opportunities are available for your awareness to register.
You have the same mind as your parents, who have the same mind as theirs, who have the same mind as theirs, unless someone in that family tree questioned their beliefs and sought a better way of doing things.
Now, if nobody in your family tree has questioned those things, then this is your sign that you probably should, because it's not just your life, it's every life in your family tree that comes after you that is affected by your decisions.
The world has changed. Technological advancement came fast.
The world is much, much different than it was 10 years ago.
And if you're operating from a set of 100 year old beliefs, it's no wonder why you feel so lost.
You lack purpose because the modern world is drowning in information.
You don't know how to make sense of it all.
Your beliefs don't match the environment.
You outsource your certainty to society, your parents, your teachers, the government and religious ideologies.
Now that there's an abundance of information that challenges what you believe, your focus is split and your mind is in a constant state of disorder until you decide to reprogram your mind.
What served your survival in your local environment is not going to help you survive and thrive in a world that is rapidly changing.
Your parents probably didn't push you out of the nest so you could learn to fly, so you have to take the leap on your own.
Not to mention, most workers fear replacement within the next 10 to 20 years, another distraction that could be easily resolved by taking matters into your own hands and starting a business.
I discussed this in the video two weeks ago, the future of work.
So to start, and because I rarely plug my own products early in a video, even though it's not that early in a video, if you want to learn a skill that will help you secure your future, a high income, high impact skill, that's digital writing, and I would argue it's a foundational skill to any other skill you learn, check out to our writer, the link is in the description.
The question is, how does one change the code their mind operates on?
How can you write the code in a way that allows for meaningful progress in your life?
How do you find clarity in a society that benefits from you being a cog in the machine?
We'll get into that because it gets much worse before it gets better.
Let's paint a brutal picture of modern life.
Most people are dopamine depleted from unnecessary Adderall prescriptions, phones, and distractions that lead to anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure.
Since people are at the point where their normal state is feeling like complete shit, they try to feel something, anything, by whatever means possible.
You are in a constant state of survival and stress, your mind is narrow and can only notice quick opportunities to get a hit of short-lived pleasure.
From this low state of consciousness, you are robotic and animalistic.
You chose to pursue goals society assigned to you, you didn't focus on solving the unique set of problems you grew into that make you unique and valuable, you neglected your health, finances, and mind for the sake of conforming to what others wanted for you, and now those problems sit around creating chaos and you don't know what's going on.
The average person stuff themselves with processed food.
They have an emotional reaction every time they see a social media post.
They feel the need to argue and prove their worth anytime they can.
Beyond that, they never go out in the sun.
They stare at screens all day, they sit in fluorescent lit cubicles, their work lacks challenge and meaning.
All of this feeds back into each other and splits off into more problems.
Your sex drive takes a hit because your estrogen and prolactin are sky high, your testosterone levels are tanked, your body grows soft and pudgy, you start losing your hair and the man boobs popping up on your chest make you feel self conscious.
You start walking with a slouched, unconfident posture and want to hide yourself from the world.
For women, there's a similar phenomenon.
Birth control is prescribed like candy, antidepressants are the normal option for mental health because they make more money than going through the slight discomfort of simple lifestyle changes.
But since you haven't made a simple lifestyle change before, your mind convinces you that it's incredibly hard and you project that excuse at any chance you can rather than just changing.
Men and women alike lack the energy or care to meet new people, exercise or change their habits.
The masculine feminine balance on a social scale is getting closer and closer to neutral.
There's no polarity. We are fighting the laws of nature and suffering immensely because of it.
I'm not saying the solution is to regress to a time before technology and return to tradition.
I'm suggesting that you integrate and adapt to the modern environment.
Solve your own problems.
Beyond that, subconsciously you know that chaos is increasing exponentially.
Entropy takes hold from your lack of effort and by doing nothing with your life, you slowly start to drown.
But that's only added pressure to the already terrible situation.
The first step to changing your life is becoming aware of all of this.
You have to sit with it, contemplate it and get so angry that you have no option but to revolt because that's the only way that you can start to discover truth because what you're revolting against is usually a static ideology or idea or something that doesn't flow or evolve.
So by revolting against it, you're revolting against the false.
Then with that new spiritual energy source that's just baking inside of you because now you're aware of all of your problems and how they impact every error of your life and are holding you back, you can use the abundance of information that's available to you right now in this world we live in to self-educate, pursue new goals and dig yourself out of the rut.
Uncertainty is a holistic issue.
Your environment, your hormones, your mindset, your work, your lifestyle, your culture, your society, it can all serve you or pile drive you into the ground.
The cure is becoming multi-dimensionally jacked.
You must take care of your mind, body and finances before anything else.
You change the world by changing yourself and letting your decisions ripple through consciousness.
But still, it gets worse before it gets better.
Wealth and prosperity are here.
They're just not evenly distributed.
It's not difficult to log on to social media and see people make a few million dollars before they turn 30 or even 21 or even 26 like myself because they saw the opportunity of the information economy that wasn't possible for older generations.
They don't understand it.
So if you don't value absolute self-reliance, you will be thrown to the side.
Why? Because the lawmakers are all from previous generations.
Society is shaped by those at the top of it.
The opportunities to achieve wealth and prosperity the old way, go to school, get a job, buy a house, get married, etc.
are influenced by those who make the laws.
Housing has doubled from pre-pandemic to now so people would rather waste their money going out and finding themselves with travel to give up on investing in their future because it's near impossible for someone with a decently high-paying job to do so.
High-paying jobs are no longer high-paying because the cost of survival continues to increase.
Young people aren't mating or having kids because they can't afford it and they just don't have the desire to.
Their hormonal and psychological health are in the garbage can.
So the only people we spend time with are our digital friends on social media that we don't even know are significant other if you're developed enough to have one that's worth having and are close friends if you're lucky enough.
Modernity can get extremely lonely if you don't develop the social aspect of your life.
Back to the point. The 80-year-old lawmakers have children who are almost in their 60s.
They still need to call their nephew for tech support to learn how to open and find an email or how to search on Google on a 20-year-old computer that has a ton of viruses.
I shouldn't have to explain how the values and beliefs of older generations influence the decisions they make and how that prevents society from seeing progress.
The lawmakers bias themselves and their children, meaning the only path to wealth and prosperity for you is to take a completely different path.
Or of course you can wait until the entire system is reorganized, which is going to be a painful and difficult process.
Just take matters into your own hands.
It's the only way to forget and revolt against what you've known as the only way to open your mind, set new standards, and allow yourself to grow into them.
Knowledge not found in schools is the source of money not found in employment.
Everything we just talked about isn't meant to be your daily dose of nihilism, so you can continue doing nothing with your life.
It's the opposite. It's meant to make you angry, upset, and mad at yourself so you finally have the clarity to make a change.
Like a slingshot, you use that negative energy to start and let momentum take over.
You cultivate a positive philosophy through action and effort.
What you need is an opportunity and there are more than plenty around you.
The solution to your problems is technology, information, and efficiency.
Going to school and getting a job is an outdated path.
Self-education, improvement, and starting a business are the only paths to full control over one's mind, body, and finances.
Now, of course, yes, I hear all the objections.
You can have an incredible job, a great paying job, nothing wrong with that if that's what you want, but this channel is for people who want the most out of life.
So, if you don't want to be handed a paycheck every day by doing a select string of tasks and not really having any meaning in eight to 12 hours of your day, then starting a business isn't that bad.
And you're living through the second renaissance.
Can't you see it? Individuals are using the internet to remove the limitations of previous generations.
You no longer need to go to a prestigious school to make connections that lead to an incredible job.
All you need is to publish a piece of valuable content on the internet for someone across the world to see it.
Or you can use that DM feature with a bit of social skills and persuasion, of course, that you thought was just for sending memes to your friends.
You no longer need to have a resume and spam applications to mediocre jobs you don't actually want.
Your personal brand is your public resume that lets an audience follow you based on the value you provide.
Now, this is kind of a niche subject.
Some of you won't get it, but I am in the personal branding space.
So I see content pop up where it's like personal brands are dead influencers that are dead.
And then they go on to say like, Oh, no, they're still live.
You just have to do it my way.
So interesting concept there.
So just keep an eye out. If you see a headline that's like personal brands are dead.
No, they're not because it's a personal brand writing that.
And I've talked about this plenty of times before.
I'm not going to explain it here.
Go watch my other videos.
You no longer need to perform a specialized role in a company you don't care about.
You no longer need to be a cog in the machine that sells a product for someone else.
Thanks to technology, you can build a product or service with close to zero dollars, attract an audience and acquire skills fast that allows you to run a one person business.
Now you may be thinking, Dan, isn't that hypocritical?
You're talking about how people are saying do it their way, but you're saying do it the one person business way.
I want you to understand that the one person business is just a concept that helps with understanding.
That's not my way of doing things.
It's just a concept. It's an idea to get you to start as one person rather than hesitating and thinking that you have to try and start a billion dollar company with a team of 50 people when you don't have to do that nowadays.
This is just taking the business principles and applying them to you as one person a great starting point.
This isn't a business model.
So to say it's just a way to get started that anyone can do that isn't limited to what skills or other things that you learn.
But some people still ignore the opportunity.
They don't realize that this is modern survival.
Yes, right now it's the internet, social media, and information that allows you to create your ideal lifestyle.
Times change. You won't win if you're operating from 10 to 50 year old beliefs that you refuse to shed.
The ones that take control of your mind and make you call anything new a scam.
All great ideas are seen as scams until they solidify their roots in society.
But by then the next great quote unquote scam is on the horizon and only the intelligent people take advantage without scamming or being scammed.
And yes, actual scams are a very real thing.
I shouldn't have to say this but really just a bit of critical thinking goes a long way.
Like if you see the bots in the comments of this video, when the video first gets posted and then like 10 people leave a comment and then people are like how are people leaving the comments are Dan is but Dan buying bots look at the images, right?
It's literal naked women on the images saying like, Oh my god, this is such a great video.
Yeah, I posted those under my account to boost engagement.
No, they're trying to get you to click on their profile and reach out to them or join their own only fans or message them on WhatsApp acting as me somehow.
There's just have just don't be an idiot.
So if you want to enroll in my scam, check out digital economics and you might actually benefit from it.
So in other words, the intelligent people take risks on the future and create it in the process because an idea is just an idea until it's actualized, right?
It's seen as crazy. People don't accept it.
This is just a lesson that is illustrated throughout historical books and metaphors and stories like even the Bible, how Jesus Christ of all people is like, Hey, here's an idea.
Maybe you should open your mind and accept it and maybe you'll enjoy things.
I'm not a Christian, by the way, I'm just illustrating point to this day.
He is very right to a lot of people.
So with that, the early adopters of crypto, some obviously got screwed.
Some obviously did incredibly well.
But the entire point with this is with anything new, yeah, that's going to happen.
But then there's people that persist and integrate it as it gets better and better and better.
And as the technology gets better, and then the other people, they're like, I don't want to do this anymore.
It's too risky. And then they give up their lives to comfort and security.
The question now is why can't I see new opportunities and act on them?
The answer is because your standards are non existent.
Your life sucks because your standards are so low that you are okay with your life sucking your life sucks because of the thousands of tiny choices you made over the past year.
You didn't make the choices that led to a purposeful career.
You didn't make the choices that led to fulfilling relationships.
You didn't make the choices that led to a healthy and aesthetic body.
But Dan, what about genetics and where I was born and working a job that doesn't allow me enough time to whatever?
Yes, those things play a role.
But you just made another tiny choice.
You just made a choice to close your mind off to what you can do in your situation, which is something.
You just relinquished your ability to solve problems.
The ability to choose cannot be taken away or even given away.
It can only be forgotten.
That's a quote from essentialism.
It's not difficult to see that you aren't a special case.
Thousands like you have turned their situation around.
I bet you could take someone in a terrible position and give them steps to achieving something, but you can't do the same for yourself because your mind is in the way.
The quality of your life one year from now will depend on the tiny choices that compound into that life.
You don't have to make perfect choices.
It's actually better if you make mistakes.
The greatest risk is no risk at all because how else would you fail?
Without failure, improvement is literally impossible.
Without improvement, you don't have an aim for your life.
Without an aim for your life, everything becomes meaningless.
Becoming a better person is how you live with purpose.
Broke people are okay with being broke until something catastrophic happens, and it is much more likely for a catastrophic event to happen to them.
Their car blows up because it's old and unmaintained.
Someone breaks into their house in a bad neighborhood.
Their parents get sick and they can't help because of low income.
Of course, they have some motivation to make money at this point, but they think it's too late when the catastrophic event happens.
They didn't prepare, so they get trapped in an endless cycle of I should have started sooner.
Eventually, things equalize.
The stress in their life lowers.
They start to enjoy their mindless comforts again, waiting for another catastrophe to break them down.
Successful people use these events to change who they are.
Who they are determines their standards and values.
Their standards and values determine the tiny choices they make.
If you're okay with having $5 in your bank account, you won't see that as a problem.
If you're okay with having $100,000 in your bank account, you will see anything less than that as a problem that needs to be fixed.
Problems frame your perception.
Here, you begin to notice more money making opportunities.
Your Google searches start to change to things like how can I make an extra $1,000 this month?
You start having more conversations about money with your friends, and all of these tiny choices start to compound into results.
You rewire your thinking patterns based on your intentional search for specific information relating to the problem you are facing.
The information you consume highly impacts your identity and thus your standards.
If you surround yourself with people, physical or digital, that makes it seem like it's okay to be 100 pounds overweight, have zero money, work a job you hate, stay with a partner you despise, get drunk every night, and the rest, how do you think your life will end up?
If your standards require you to eat from whole foods, you're going to look at McDonald's and disgust, or at least you're going to be able to navigate McDonald's situations a lot better.
You're going to be like, okay, I shouldn't get the triple quarter pounder with cheese.
I should get a spicy chicken sandwich and count it towards my protein macros and chill until I can eat somewhere else again.
And while I'm at it, just enjoy it.
And if you're, if you have standards that require you to work like a CEO, then you're going to view low level grunt work as a problem that must be solved through automation or delegation.
Now, you obviously can't solve all of the problems in your life immediately.
You can't escape your situation right now.
You need a plan and aim a way out.
And by sticking to this plan, I promise that the journey will be more enjoyable than the outcome of that thing.
As Nietzsche would say, happiness is the feeling that power increases, that resistance is being overcome.
Most people take the bare minimum approach to life, quick money, quick sex, quick pleasure, no commitment, no depth, no failure, the easier you try to make your life, the harder it's going to be.
The way out of mindless living is to adopt the standards of who you want to become.
How much money do you want to make?
What kind of work will bring you fulfillment?
What is your ideal relationship for friends or a partner?
How do you want to look and feel?
You must go beyond the bare minimum of survival, commit to having a reason behind your actions.
If you don't know why you're doing something, why are you doing it?
And if you know why, why are you ignoring it?
Are you advancing humanity by handing out 40 triple pumped mocha cappuccinos working at Starbucks?
Or are you making humanity sick and overweight?
What about your quote unquote, innocent, receptionist job for the military industrial complex that bombs innocent people on the other side of the world?
Are you aware of what you are unconsciously contributing to?
Why haven't you begun pursuing a more purposeful career or starting a business?
Do you know why you are shoveling food down your throat?
Do you understand how each nutrient interacts with your biology and creates a healthy state?
Why haven't you begun educating yourself on health and training?
You live in your body. It should be considered your full time job to learn about it.
Do you know why you're going through the motions with a partner that was easy to get with?
Do you see yourself with them for 40 more years?
Why haven't you improved your social skills to the point of being able to attract a better partner?
It's cliche, but you have one shot at this life thing.
The only person that can stop you from living a meaningless existence is yourself.
So let's rapid fire seven standards that will lead to a fulfilling future.
First is one hour of deep work.
If you can spend eight hours building someone else's dreams, you can spend one hour building your own.
Second is $100,000 in your bank.
Anything less is considered a problem to be solved.
This standard provides financial direction and clarity in your choices.
Third is 10,000 steps a day for physical and mental health.
Burn calories, get sunlight, open your mind to new ideas.
All major discoveries, like the creation of the atomic bomb, were discovered on a walk.
Fourth is one gram of protein per pound of body weight.
This satiates you, builds muscle, and makes it easier to hit macro and micronutrients.
Even if you aren't building muscle, the thermic effect and micronutrient density of protein-rich foods should be prioritized.
Most of your fat loss and diet in general falls into place when you do this.
Fifth is training three plus times a week.
Run, bike, Olympic lift, bodybuild, crossfit, I don't care.
Do something that increases circulation, longevity, and acts as a meditative habit to rest your mind from work.
Sixth is one self-investment per month.
Those who pay, pay attention.
Swap wasting your money on quick pleasure for investing in education, business growth, and experiences that lead to the person you want to become.
Seventh is 30 minutes of self-education.
If you aren't learning something new every day, you are dying.
Self-education reprograms your mind.
Without it, you can't spot new life-changing opportunities.
These are standards that you grow into.
They don't happen overnight.
You change what you consume and rewire your mind in alignment with these standards.
Then you will feel the stress response when you don't live up to them.
That's your new identity trying to survive.
You use that stress to act, solve problems, and create.
Let's break down what creates better choices.
Learning is the fundamental human drive.
At birth, you are an information sponge.
Your parents, friends, society, teachers, and bosses all project their worldview on you.
Where did they get their worldview?
From the same people unless they questioned it.
Most of the time, you can think of talking to the average individual like talking to a TV.
This isn't me punching down at them.
This is just pure fact. You can just observe it in your everyday life.
It happens. This is all that you know.
This information creates reference points in reality.
It's how you distinguish yourself from others.
It creates your identity.
Your identity limits what information you notice because you've only learned so much.
You won't notice certain things if you haven't learned the information that bridges what it is with what you know.
You won't understand intermediate information if you haven't learned beginner information.
You can't advance from level one to three.
You are missing out on 99% of life for this reason.
If I was exposed to the information and environment that made me goth, like the person that wears all black and dies their hair and stuff like that, I would notice certain likes and dislikes in music, people, clothing, work opportunities, outlooks on the future, and emotional states.
As a goth, I won't notice or even care about a profitable business opportunity to experiment with, assuming that I am the stereotypical loner goth who hates the world.
If I drowned myself in information to reprogram my identity over time, I would spot opportunities related to that identity.
This brings up the power of the internet.
You can tend a digital garden or be thrust into a digital swamp.
We've never had access to so much information and I find it hard to believe that it isn't shaping identities rapidly and for the worse.
When you log on to social media, the default action is to follow entertaining accounts and meme pages.
Almost all of them subject your mind to unwanted tenants that party like it's a frat house.
When the parents come home, they're devastated by what they see.
What this means is that if you unconsciously spend time on social media and then you finally wake up one day, you're going to look at your own mind and be like, what the hell went on in there?
Your awareness is the parents coming home after mindless ideas turn your mind into a swamp.
Become aware of this now.
Unfollow anyone who does not serve the conditioning of better standards in your life.
Even if it doesn't seem like it and no matter how much you justify it, the people you follow subtly influence your actions.
Slowly, then all at once, you become someone you may hate.
The only difference between you and the person more successful than you is the consistent intention behind the information they consume.
And then you're asking like, okay, but what about taking action?
You're acting every day.
Why? Because your mind is programmed with the information conducive to those actions.
Meaning, the actions that you take right now, already, every single day, even just watching this video is the byproduct of the wiring in your brain that means you choose to watch this video.
So by reprogramming your mind, better decisions become automatic and then you act because of it.
So surrounding yourself with the right people, physical and digital and education and everything like that will reprogram your mind to do this.
Why do people keep doing things they hate?
I've always wondered this, not like I'm some special little flower that never got stuck in the trap, but one who feels like he's escaped and can view the situation from higher up on the mountain until he inevitably falls back down.
Praying for the weekend, dreading Monday morning, hiding who you are to make conversation with people you don't like working with, using the internet as an escape, scrolling, clicking, shutting your mind off for just a bit longer because when it's on, you don't like what it's doing.
This is the life of the consumer, the person who is used by the internet rather than the one who uses it.
There's no escaping this new world, you can fight it or flow with it.
And while the internet is the problem, it's also the solution.
You don't have to use the internet to do this, but there is no reason not to.
The last reason your life sucks is because you don't contribute to humanity.
You lack purpose, you aren't a part of something greater than yourself that you chose.
You don't contribute to humanity because you don't have something so valuable that you can't help but share it.
You don't have something valuable to offer because you are ignoring the problems in your life that beg a solution to be created.
You're ignoring the problems in your life because you don't have clarity on how to achieve the goal that will solve them.
You don't have clarity on how to achieve a goal because you have nothing to build, nothing to frame and guide your learning.
A value creator is someone who has intention behind their inputs and outputs.
They treat their life like a science project.
They identify their own problems.
They educate themselves with the infinite resources available to them on the internet.
They test the solution on themselves and distribute their experiences with writing.
They package up the most helpful and streamlined solutions in the form of product or service.
That is how they make a living by living with purpose.
Becoming a creator is the cure for overconsumption.
Writing is the vessel for distributing value.
I personally write on all platforms.
I do not care about competing with images and pictures of my lifestyle and other things like that.
I see the internet as a place to curate good thoughts and distribute good thoughts to spread and help people improve.
And the ultimate upside of that is that I get to do what I enjoy for a living.
This isn't about becoming famous.
This isn't about building a massive following.
This is about distributing the value you have to offer in a place that you can reach anyone with the opportunities that will change your life and career.
You don't need a step-by-step course to join the online party.
Write what you want to write.
Talk to who you want to talk to.
Get your name in front of people by not being a ghost.
Get eyes on your writing so it can spread more and more with time.
If you really need an extra push, just observe the people you are following for long enough.
Observe what they write about.
Observe how they write it.
Observe who they interact with.
Observe what they sell to make a living.
Piece the dots together and begin emulating them.
If you don't have an answer, look it up.
You won't get all the answers in an instant.
Be okay with that. If you know you are meant for more, start acting like it.
Now you don't have to write, but I've personally tried it all and I just enjoy writing.
And with writing just being a fundamental aspect of human life, the thing that allowed us to survive because we passed down information so other people can do things better, it's just a great starting point.
You don't, you just learn the skill of writing.
You don't have to learn video editing and all these other things because writing transfers over into all of those things because it's the foundation of communication.
You don't look forward to waking up because you don't have something to look forward to.
It's pretty obvious, but this is still a widespread problem.
People don't see it as a problem, so they become a victim to their situation and never change.
So here's a process that you can try to find that one thing that will make it impossible to sleep in.
Step one is to map out a holistic future.
People don't change because they're just comfortable enough to stay the same.
The pain of their current situation doesn't outweigh the pain of not being where they want to be.
You need a vision and an anti-vision.
Pull out a notebook and start writing.
Bring up everything you don't want in your future.
Pull from past experiences, current situations, and continue writing as you become aware of things to add to that page.
This is a living, breathing document.
You don't just write for 10 minutes and then forget about it.
Your anti-vision should be potent, so much that you become disgusted with your current situation.
You should want nothing to do with it.
Your only option is to launch in the opposite direction.
From there, write out the opposite.
Start creating clarity about what you want in the future.
As you experience life over the next month, add to this.
Next, write out a few more things.
One, exactly what you need to do over the next year, month, and week to start making progress.
Two, exactly what skills you need to learn in order to get there.
Three, what is currently holding you back in your plan to replace those habits or people.
Four is who you need to become in order to reach your vision for the future.
That should at least give you a starting point.
Now, step two is to start a business.
You're saying, but Dan, I don't want to start a business.
You don't get it yet, do you?
Unless your vision isn't authentic, meaning you aren't conforming to what your parents or society wants for your future, the only way to have full control over all domains of your life is to start a business.
Don't want to get replaced?
Become the replacer. Don't have energy and can't focus?
Start a business so you can control how much time you work and focus on health.
Don't make enough? Start a business that has a high earning ceiling or impinent earning ceiling that will almost always start as an online business that requires zero dollars to start.
Lack meaning and fulfillment?
It's because you work a job where the challenge in your work has stopped.
You work for people you don't care about, selling a product you don't care about that drains your energy, creating a life you don't care about.
Your psychology, physiology, and spirituality are in the gutter simply because you don't take matters into your own hands.
And yes, it's unfortunate that quote unquote starting a business carries so many old connotations with it.
A business, for all I'm concerned, is giving yourself permission to do what you want.
If you want to control your ideal day, then you need full control over it.
Yes, it takes time, but that journey will be more fulfilling than anything you do.
Step three is to self educate daily.
Now, this is obvious, but how else are you going to learn how to do the things you want to do?
You can't have all of these dreams and aspirations and act like you don't need to learn anything.
Invest in seminars, invest in courses, invest in experiences, invest in business growth, invest everything you have into creating the life you want.
Otherwise, it's not investing, it's wasting.
Block out a 30 to 60 minute section of your day specifically for self education.
You can pair this with other standards in your life like walking 10,000 steps a day, go on a walk, throw on a podcast, lecture or audiobook that exposes you to what you don't know and capture potent ideas so you have fuel to build during your focused work blocks.
And once Cortex is live, you can use Cortex Capture to capture these ideas.
Step four is to systemize your weeks and days.
If you aren't making progress, you are making regress.
I'm not even sure if that's the correct grammar, but you get the point.
Entropy isn't friendly.
You never stand still. You either move forward or you move backward without knowing it.
So if you aren't making progress, you must be able to identify that as a problem and start digging deeper into it.
You do this, you identify problems in your life by starting with a weekly audit, write down everything you do in a day and start to label everything as unnecessary or parasitic, then pull out a blank page, draw a weekly calendar and write down every single thing you are going to do that week.
It should align with making progress towards your goals.
Then start doing it. And if something doesn't flow or you notice a problem, cross it out on the page and exchange it for something else.
If you aren't making progress, experiment with something else.
Step five is just that, to self-experiment.
The only way to solve your problems for good is through self-experimentation.
There's a massive problem.
If you were to only focus on solving the problems in your life through experimentation, you would become successful, but nobody does that.
They are marketed schooling, a job, a house, a car, and retirement, so people pursue that as a band-aid to their deep-rooted problems.
Then they are given food and drugs and advice that add another band-aid on top.
So people slowly become more neurotic and dumb because they fail to actually solve problems in their life.
The things that make you valuable, irreplaceable, intelligent, aware, and any other good trait you can acquire, that all comes from solving problems.
As you go on this new path, away from your anti-vision and toward your vision, the determinant of your success is agency, the ability to identify and solve problems without permission from someone else.
When you encounter a problem, first, become aware of it.
Second, start self-educating to solve it.
Third, try different processes and teachings.
Fourth, don't attach to any given one, like the carnivore diet that may serve you for about a year, making you healthier until it tips in the opposite direction and wreaks havoc on your health.
Solutions change and evolve depending on your situation.
You will probably never find a permanent solution to a problem in your life.
And that's what's fun about it, is reversing entropy.
That's where you find meaning and challenge is by consistently just pushing forward while you're trying something, there's weight growing, you're increasing your capacity to lift emotional weight and mental weight and physical weight.
Meaning, if you ever take focus off of improvement, you will start to regress.
This doesn't mean you stop having fun, creation and destruction happen in cycles.
Self-improvement can tip into destructive territory when done too much, but at that point, it's not self-improvement.
So self-improvement would then be letting loose and doing what most people would label as destructive when from this perspective, it's creative.
Understand that, because I also see people posting videos of like, oh, self-improvement, like being on self-improvement, or self-improvement didn't work for me, so I quit.
And now I'm doing this other thing that is improving myself, therefore, it's self-improvement.
Oh my God, it's like, if you do too much self-improvement, then it's no longer self-improvement, it's self-destruction.
And if you don't do enough, or you don't let loose, sometimes letting loose and going and getting drunk can be self-improvement, it's just dependent on the situation.
So that's it for this one.
Thank you for watching.
If you enjoyed it, like, subscribe, check the links in the description.
Cortex is almost ready to launch, if you're not on the Cortex waitlist for next month, when we actually do launch, then you're gonna miss out and you're gonna have to wait longer.
So thanks for watching.
See you in the next one. Bye.
