Robert

My Top 10 Values (in order of precedence): Creativity - Being original and imaginative for the purpose of expansion, expression, and contribution to the world. Excellence - Doing things or creating things of greatness or merit in order to have high quality results, thus enhancing life. Beauty - Anything having an appealing or interesting form that gives joy or delight to someone. Similar to excellence except this tends to relate more to either art or natural beauty as opposed to actions or work. Passion - Zest for life and savoring many things in life, plus doing what's meaningful to you. Independence - Being free and self-reliant, in regards to both mind and body. Having options and an abundance of resources. Strength - Not just mental and physical health, but mental and physical brilliance. Having the well-being to prosper. Love - I'll just take this definition from the dictionary: "an intense feeling of deep affection." Can be related to many things: intimacy, friendship, spirituality, etc. Peace - From the external peace of tranquil environments and lack of wars/violence to the internal peace of oneness: order, harmony, and serenity. Generosity - Genuinely caring about the well-being of others. Making choices that are for the greater good. Giving, being thoughtful and compassionate, and understanding how to empathize. Adventure - Exploring and experiencing life. Living a charged life. Travel. The Hero's Journey. Etc.

Okay, so this past week was pretty decent. It mostly consisted of me being home all day, every day, waiting until I start my first day at this new job. I'm a little excited just to see how the job is (because I'm doing something new), but I'm pretty sure I'm gonna get absolutely sick of the job after about a week. I really want to be financially free and able to seriously work on my life purpose with full and consistent effort. One of the things that I finally decided on the past few weeks is that I'm putting all things in my life to the side and I'm gonna completely focus on becoming financially independent. I did goal setting for like the millionth time this year, but this most recent process consisted of me eliminating every single one of my goals except for the money goal. Brian Tracy helped me get my priorities straight. In a video on YouTube he talked about this exercise where you organize your life by determining which goal out of all of your goals would have the biggest positive impact on your life. I determined that financial freedom would have the greatest positive impact for me. If I became financially free, I wouldn't have to deal with these toxic people that I live with, I would be able to focus on my life purpose and I would be able to pretty much lock down the first 2 levels on Maslow's hierarchy of needs - the safety and physiological needs. Since I don't have these locked down at all, it is extremely easy to backslide and lose motivation. I could be on fire one day, kicking ass, until I have one of these toxic individuals stealing money from me, making all types of threats towards me, cursing, yelling, being violent, including me in their petty fucking problems. And it's not like I've just now realized this. It's been like this forever, but I've finally decided to completely forget about having balance in my life. Ever since I failed the 90-day exercise from Leo's life purpose course, it's become 100x more clear and obvious that I'm simply not ready to do all of this life purpose stuff and all of these other big goals. I'm gonna sacrifice everything until I get decent results towards my money goal and hopefully be able to move away from these toxic people. I know, though, that if I want big results, I'm gonna have to make big changes. Huge changes. Once I start this new job in a few days, I'm gonna adjust my daily schedule. Besides work, the only things I will be doing is spending at least 3 hours per day towards my money goal. I'm not gonna stress myself out other goals like reading, or typing, or life purpose, or anything else. I will still read books and stuff, but I'm not setting a goal for them. I don't know how long it will take to become financially free, but I will not stop working towards it and giving it my complete focus until I get it. Recent Insight #1: Homeostasis causes backsliding. I re-watched some of Leo's video on backsliding. He mentioned this book called Mastery (which is on my top priority reading list) that talks about how homeostasis can keep you stuck. As humans, it's natural for us to want to keep doing what we've always been doing; it makes us feel safe and secure. Although this can sometimes be a good thing, at other times it can keep you stuck because when you make a positive change that may feel really uncomfortable, homeostasis kicks in and makes it harder to for that change to stick, regardless of how that change can help you. Simply being aware of all of this can help you stop backsliding. Recent Insight #2: Striving for balance can easily make your life more difficult. This seems so obvious, but it's hard to accept. When I look at all of these other people who seem to have balance, it often makes me want to be balanced. But I've learned that trying to be balanced can screw up your priorities. While every area of your life is important in the long run, not everything should be given importance during every period in your life. Strive for progress instead!

It's not a neurotic escape to simply enjoy a video game. As long as you play in moderation, you can easily have video games in your life without being addicted to them and resisting real life.

@Gus It's fine to choose a domain of mastery as long as you know what your top passion is. However, I think you should still try to identify your zone of genius as soon as possible (it doesn't have to be years later.)

Yes! Detachment from outcome. Thanks for reminding me about that concept.

Your zone of genius is your top passion plus your unique talent. If you did the course right, you should have identified your top passion prior to deciding on your zone of genius. Maybe personal development and comedy are both passions of yours, but you should take the time to decide carefully on only one and then after that's settled make another attempt to identify your zone of genius. I suggest you go back in the course and do The Big Leap Process again.

I don't think Leo has done a video on loneliness yet. I think this is a really important topic because along the self-actualization journey as well as the path to enlightenment there are bound to be some very lonely times. Also, I think it would be nice if Leo were to give some practical tips in order to help people not only cure loneliness but also feel a deep connection to others.

I don't know of a catchy title, but I'd be very interested in a video of Leo talking about how watching and/or masturbating to porn effects self development. Is porn bad? What are the benefits of porn? How can porn stunt personal growth? Can porn be used for higher consciousness? If so, how?

This is an interesting question. I've pondered it myself when trying to find my own zone of genius. As far as I know, zone of genius doesn't have to do with expertise. It's just a fancy term to describe your approach to your passion. So, in your case, if mathematics is your passion, you would have to find out your unique talent when it comes to mathematics. Are you good at doing math in your head? Is there any specific area of math that you're naturally good at? These are questions you should ask yourself. When trying to find your zone of genius, it doesn't matter whether or not you're outstanding at your passion; mastery is a whole different beast that you will spend thousands of hours working on.

See, that's why I said sometimes it seems so obvious.

One of the reasons I find it really difficult to talk about unconditional love is that it's so difficult to define love. Sometimes it seems like a semantic waste of time, but at other times the definition of love seems so obvious. Just based on my own intuitions, I think unconditional love can be given even without enlightenment. I also think that hate can be a form of love. As long as you want what's best for your true self, regardless of the conditions of any aspect of that self, then unconditional love is there. I dunno, I guess I need to meditate more...

Nice to meet you too. I write comics. I know comics is a medium and not a genre, but I say "comics" because I don't have a preference for any specific genre when writing. I'm working on 4 different comics right now and they're all a variety of genres, from fantasy to science fiction to realistic fiction to horror. Yeah, you're right. There really are no musts or rules for this stuff. That's a good outlook to have. Good luck with your writing.

@Leo Gura Yeah, I came to that conclusion years ago. Most of what you see in comics and manga is the same recycled fantasy and superhero crap. Trust me when I say this: although I still use stuff like Lord of The Rings to feed my muse, I look to a lot of other things when it comes to actually writing stories.

Since I want to work in the comic book industry one day, the best things I use to feed my muse are stuff related to fictional worlds. So anime/cartoons, manga/comics, art, books, movies, and video games are usually what help me the most. I use almost all of the resources you listed, though.

Not to be a dick, but if you think you know too much, you don't know enough. I felt the same way as you at one point in my personal development, but I realized I was lying to myself. Although personal development requires many emotional difficulties, this doesn't mean that you have to frantically think about everything - or anything for that matter. It's fine to take things slow or really slow, and part of doing personal development is taking breaks and taking time to smell the roses.

It's cool to see a fellow fiction writer on here. Have you read The Anatomy of Story by John Truby? It's a must-read for any writer of fiction.

To me it sounds like you don't know what you want. Most people who know exactly what they want aren't too worried about how they will get to where they want to go or whether or not they will become bored of their success. They're motivated by detailed vision, a vivid picture. So my advice to you is to get more specific about what you want.

IIRC in a YouTube comment Leo said he would do a video about shadow work.

I'd use that time to listen to music, or plan my day/week, or just contemplate things.

Oh wow, that's a lot of insight. Some of the things you listed I already knew or found out while not in the enlightened state, but others are making me scared of what I'll find out if I have another enlightenment experience.

Unfortunately, I didn't get significant insights because the experience lasted less than 10 seconds. How long did yours last and what were some of the insights you came up with?

I had one. It happened a few months ago and marked the end of a 3 month long existential crisis. It was heartbreaking, but at the same time I can't say it was a negative experience. I felt an indescribable peace all over my body. I felt connected to everything around me and I felt so complete.

Yeah, don't skip any of the exercises. Do all of them, even if you have to put the course down for another month before continuing. The course is designed in a way so that you do the exercises in order. As someone who completed the course, I can assure you that it's worth it. Plus, I found the values section to be the most tedious. Once you get passed that part, everything becomes easier.

I think that even if someone uses this forum for mental masturbation, they will eventually wake up when they see the results other people are getting.

I always get INTJ.