Dan Arnautu

Very interesting idea. I'm gonna think about that.

Don't know about that. Music is my first love.

Yeah. I am just amazed by the sheer demand and the amount of positive feedback that I have received and continue to receive. This makes me somewhat contemplate more seriously on the idea becoming a life coach, haha.

Well, that just means that life is an endless possibility. You are already here, so your only choice is... Will you live a passionate and exciting life or will you live a sad and mediocre one? There is this quote I read from Alan Watts, that says: ”The more a thing tends to be permanent, the more it tends to be lifeless.” So live your life to the fullest extent. There are so many things to do, so many things to see, to hear, to feel. Take solace in that. The idea that it will take twice the amount of time that you think it will take before you gain traction and start to profit is a pretty well known, let's say business law, that most successful business CEO's can confirm. Just read the biographies of successful entrepreneurs and even youtubers. Paypal and Tesla were on the verge of bankruptcy many times, but they got over that and are now at the forefront of their niche. The most popular youtubers usually say that for the first three to four years when they were not making any money. They were posting videos for mostly chirping crickets. Just a few people. But they kept at it, built credibility and made very successful brands eventually. Can you do it way faster than that? Yeah, sure, but it's not a guarantee. I know youtubers that hit 200.000 subscribers and even a million subscribers in less than a year. But those are the exceptions. And that usually happens only for very accesible niches by the general population. Even a bum can laugh at a prank, but the average american won't care about quantum physics. See what I mean? And there is risk involved either way, which is why you should exercise caution. You will want to quit many times. You will ask yourself if the effort is actually worth the reward. You will constantly doubt yourself. But those that push through these usually get what they deserve. You can try to do this for the short term, but unless you have a vast experience in your field already, bring something new to the table, or have a very unique style (and even then), don't be surprised when the market punches you in the face. As a rule of thumb, don't start a product until you have your first 1000 true fans: http://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans/ The process for building your youtube channel and making money: Acquire your first 1000 true fans Ask them what are their biggest sticking points/problems are Build a product around that Reinvest the money from the product/service in your audience Repeat this cycle to infinity There is a much more advanced and detailed model of this scheme, but the one above will be enough for you to focus on for now. This is rooted in evolution and biology. Think of wolf packs. Wolves will fight each other to see who is the alpha in the group, the one fit to lead the pack. Same with humans, but it's more nuanced. They will test for a variety of reasons. To see if you threaten someone's alpha position (aka if you are someone they should be worried about) in the group To see if you are strong enough to be part of the pack To see if you are a threat when it comes to resources. If you are an alpha, most women, resources, food etc. will flock to you and not to them. They don't want that. To establish control in the work place Many others Read: How to be a 3% Man by Corey Wayne The Way of The Superior Man by David Deida The Red Queen by Matt Ridley Also: Search on youtube for Corey Waynes's videos on alpha behavior and the power dynamic with other men You can't avoid these tests ANYWHERE. It's in our genes. You will have to learn to identify them and respond to them appropriately. When someone makes fun of your nose for example, it's not really about the nose. They want to see if you are insecure about it. The want to see if it will trigger you emotionally, if it will throw you off-balance. If you respond with, yeah, I hate my nose and maybe start to cry or throw comebacks... you failed the test... hard. If on the other hand you say jokingly that you got it for a discount from the supermarket last week and self-amuse and they see that the remark doesn't affect you one bit, not only will they start to perceive you as strong and not test you again, they will start to respect you and see you as a valuable ally. As with the dishes, if it's not your job to do them, don't do them, simple as that. If a manager forces you to do them when it's someone else's job, file a report at the manager's boss or quit working there. Yeah, some people will just be extreme assholes and there's nothing you can do about that. In that case, you just need find a more favorable environment. But if you pass the initial tests right, you will be able to say that you won't do them and they will comply with your response. But if you started off as weak and remained that way for a long time, it will be very hard for you to change their perception. It can be done, but it will take time. No problem. It's my pleasure. Start doing The Assertiveness Workbook. That will help you a great deal. In less than a year you will take care of the way you communicate, your assertiveness, the image you project to other people around you, your percieved frustration and much more. Good luck!

If I were you, I would quit business school. In The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman, the author makes a very compelling argument on how business schools fail us and why you don't need to get an MBA, and also he tells you all you need to know about business. In The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris, the author also tells us the story where it proved to be a much better investment to take all the money that he would have payed for tuition in college (a few hundred thousand dollars) and use it to give himself a similar education by putting the money elsewhere (traveling, paying coaches, starting actual businesses with the money etc). In the book Drop Out and Get Schooled by Patrick-Bet David, you will also learn how the education system failed us, who should go to college, who shouldn't and why. You will find many statistics there also. In the book The Virgin Way by Richard Branson, Richard also puts a very high emphasis on how business schools do things wrong and what should have been there in the first place. If you want to see why or if you should quit, read those books. The books will make your decision much clearer and more informed. If you were studying law, or medicine, or hardcore things like that where a degree is absolutely mandatory, yeah, I would have recommended that you stay in college. But if I were you, I wouldn't spend another minute there. What your peers would think about this won't matter after your success. But the opportunity cost and time spent in college when you could be doing something more high yield things matters. Because you don't get that time or money back. But you know your situation best. I gave you some resources and info on how to make your decision taking easier, but you are still the one who has to do it. You said that your life purpose is still vague. As you have a job already, buy the life purpose course and do it. It's worth the money. This will give you a clear direction and will keep you centered and grounded. Now for the job. I say keep the job for now and ideally, get one with flexible hours or one that you can do from anywhere. To be able to transition to your creative and entrepreneurial pursuits full time, a job with flexible hours is usually a must, because one with inflexible hours can usually make you lose opportunities and will slow down the transition to what you want to do, a lot. For example, a job with a fixed schedule won't let you go on tour with a band if the opportunity presents itself, or take care of an urgent problem in your business when it arises. You don't want that. Either way, have a job until you make the full transition to the career you want. Quitting your job when you don't have any other source of income, (or an unreliable one at that) is a very stupid idea. I can't tell you which actions to do daily because you haven't figured out your end goal yet. Take the life purpose course, or set a preliminary goal that you can strive towards, reverse engineer the process and start working towards that goal? Contemplate the situation like this. Let's say you have the goal. Ask yourself: What is the one thing I can do this year to achieve x goal? What is the one thing I can do this month to achieve x goal? What is the one thing I can do this week, that will help me achieve the monthly goal? What is the one thing I can do today, that can help me achieve my weekly goal? What is the one thing I can do right now, so that I can achieve today's goal? This is how you figure out what you need to do daily. But you need the goal first. Now it's up to you to take the decisions, set the goals, figure out your life purpose, take action on the job part etc. I gave you the tools and knowledge that will help you do all of those things. Let me know if there is anything else I can help you with. Good luck!

@Amit You try lots of things, you see which ones you like, which ones you don't. You fail hundreds of times, get up again and again until you find that thing. You introspect, contemplate on what you want, what you find most meaningful in life, what you want to be doing everyday for the rest of your life, who you want to be around etc. This is a very difficult thing to find out. You will need to do thousands of hours of work to find that. I can't give you the answer to that. But remember, you only have to succeed once, so it does not matter how many times you failed. Take Leo's Life Purpose course. That's the best thing on the market right now in order to find what you really want and what is meaningful to you. Good luck, Amit.

Punishing and should-ing all over yourself won't help in any way. What you are experiencing is the so called mighty yo-yo effect. This happens most often when people diet. They overeat one day, and in order to compensate they just starve themselves the next day, and then the cycle repeats because they are so hungry. What's the solution? The solution is integrating what you want into your LIFESTYLE. Making it sustainable. For example the term diet needs to be replaced by nutrition. Diet is something that you do for a short period of time, until you achieve your goal, and then you usually get right back to your starting point because you haven't found a way to fully integrate healthy nutrition into your life. To maintain a permanent beast-mode, you just need to put a lot of healthy habits in place, make successful behaviors automatic. Elon Musk runs three international companies, but he does not have any more discipline than you or me. He used discipline at first to instill one habit, and when it became automatic he moved on to another one and applied discipline there. You won't ever have so much discipline that you can change more than 1 or 2 habits at once (and 2 is really pushing it already). Give 66 days for each habit. Don't try to do cold showers, AND start to read, AND start to exercise, AND start to meditate, AND start to wake up at 4 a.m. when you are not used to any of those. You are just asking for trouble. We are looking for sustainability here. In 12 months you can put 6 to 12 healthy habits into place, depending on their complexity. I'm doing that right now with waking up at 8 a.m. every morning. I'm doing that for 66 days and then I'm moving to another habit. With 10 years of doing this kind of work you will be like a force of nature. Habits that I've already put on autopilot include: Tracking macros Exercising 3x a week Doing yoga 3x a week Reading/Researching Releasing emotions Now I don't need to convince myself to do these things. They are like tying my shoes or picking up my cup of coffee to drink. I don't have to think about them. They are set in stone, like going to class or going to work. You cannot brute force this process. Homeostasis is too strong. Removing one bad habit or putting in place a good one will take all of your discipline, energy and will. So plan for the long term. Do one at a time. See what is the most high value habit for you to do right now and start doing that for 66 days, and then move to another, and then another. You will be beast-mode all of the time by the end of the year that way. What I want you to do: Download and print the sheet attached below. Write on it what habit you want to remove or put in place. Hang the sheet somewhere visible in your house and check one box each day. It will motivate you to really put the habit you want in place. Tell me which habit you have chosen and send me a private message to give me an update of your progress at the end of the challenge. Also, tell me if you are up for the challenge in the first place. Note: A few people here already took the challenge, so we are doing this together. We are keeping each other accountable. Let's go! Good luck! TheONEThing_66DayChallenge_Calendar2.pdf

@Ether Low energy is a more difficult topic, because there can be even more than a dozen reasons. Reasons include: A lazy thyroid No physical activity (yea, physical activity actually give you much more energy, not less) As a rule of thumb, I think every single individual should have 3 hours of their week dedicated to a kind of higher intensity form of exercise The exercise can be of your choice and preference (it can range from calisthenics, rock climbing, swimming, bodybuilding, sprinting, olympic weightlifting to basketball, yoga asanas, boxing, jiu-jitsu etc.) - the key is that it should be high intensity Unhealthy diet You should not eat heavy carbs in the middle of the day. They will give you a big crash Healthy snack that gives you energy ----> peanut butter on a slice of apple Snack that drains your energy and makes you lazy ----> a bar of chocolate or any kind of pastry eat these only at night or when you don't have a lot of hard work to do Lack of sleep A very busy mind Experiencing a lot of negative emotions throughout the day (ex. anxiety, fear, worry etc.) don't underestimate these - they can drain you so much that you can't even get out of bed in the morning Many many others

@Viking Try and do some activities that keep you in a state of flow. I'm talking about those activities that get you so immersed in them that you forget to eat. For me that is learning a new song on the guitar, recording, filming, reading, doing a course etc. For you those activities will probably differ. More often than not, activities that require mental energy can exhaust you even more than physical activity. I too got into the trap of exhausting my body in order to bring the energy down, but it did not work that well. Also, from personal experience, I saw that you can relieve things like restlessness, jitters, lust, excitement, stage fright etc. with The Sedona Method too. Positive emotions can and should also be let go of when they affect your work (for example excitement for an upcoming event). Learning to sit with the restlessness and release it consciously is a great thing.

The 33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene The Art of Seduction by Robert Greene Thick Face, Black Heart by Chin-Ning Chu The Art of War by Sun Tzu The Way of The Superior Man by David Deida Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

To accept flaws and mistakes, you can use a few things things: Visualize accepting them and giving them love. Transform them into unique traits. Use affirmations. Put things into perspective. Your flaws are so insignificant on the grand scale of things, that worrying them for more than 5 seconds is already too much. Actually contemplate how vast this world is and how long people ACTUALLY look at your flaws. Take so much action that you start to not even care about them, because you are always living on your edge. Life is too short to give them any attention. Own them. Tell people to talk to you after the match, not after the first round. To detach from outcome, again, just contemplate how all of what you are doing will not matter in the end. That will make you focus on what makes you happy. Also, you need to get out of your head, and just be present with what you are doing. Make a plan for what you want to do long term, break what you need to do down into small steps, and just follow them with presence and trust. The answers may be simple, but they are not easy to follow through. Good luck, Daniel!

My pleasure, Sara. I'm glad it worked for you.

In what way is the existential crisis manifesting? Don't know about the youtube thing. If you get into youtube for quick money, you are gonna be seriously disappointed. Starting a youtube channel is no different from starting a business. In this case it will take twice the amount of time and effort you think it will take. As a long term thing, yea, it would work, but if you need money right now, I suggest you look elsewhere. You need to give lots of free value, on a consistent basis, for a long period of time, before you can see even a small income. Why would you want to be around people like that in the first place? Find new friends and peers. I too never felt fully integrated anywhere, but that should not stop us from continuing to search for like-minded people. Also, people will respect you more if you are able to stand by a different opinion (in the context in which you calibrate that opinion to the people you are talking to). People are attracted to polarizing figures and people who live on their edge. If you want to get into deep conversations with basically ANYONE, just start to ask them open ended questions about what is most dear to them. Ask them about their biggest struggles, proudest moments, favorite people in their life etc. You can even ask a bum these questions and you would be surprised by the answers. And by the law of reciprocity, they would be more open to listen to your opinion if you genuinely listened to what they have to say for more than 10 minutes. Most people don't do that. Their jokes are tests to see if you are strong. It's nothing personal. As David Buss says, this is called derogation of competitors. They just want to see if you thrown off-center by those remarks. If you are, you failed their tests and they will perceive you as weak. If you start to defend against what they say by explaining yourself or get serious and use angry comebacks, they win. If you pass the tests on the other hand, by not taking their remarks seriously and laughing them off, they will stop and start to see you as strong, and they won't test you anymore. Also, remember that effective communication works regardless of culture, social conventions etc. It comes down to social calibration. You should talk differently to different people. Know what offends some and what doesn't offend others. Our greatest trait as humans is that we are adaptable to almost any environment and situation. So use that trait. I understand. Be careful, because that will turn your communication style into a passive-aggressive one. You will accumulate resentment, you will eventually blow up, and then the cycle will start over and over again. Becoming more assertive will help you with that, because you will start to clearly and firmly establish boundaries, and frustration and other negative emotions won't be able to build up in you. People won't say or do anything to you, that you don't invite them to do. They will push your buttons until they hit the boundary. If you don't consciously set that boundary, they will walk over you like a doormat because you let them. If they say something about your mother and you laugh it off, they will see it as being ok. To set the boundary, you don't have to give an ugly comeback. You just need to say something like: "I know you meant that in a funny way, but I don't feel right when people talk about my mother like that. I would appreciate if you would stop. (or "please don't do that again. Thanks") ". If you say it like that, they won't become defensive or aggressive. You just communicated how you feel when something talks about your mother like that. If they don't want to respect the boundary that you then set, cut those people out of your life or limit your exposure to them. But 99% of the time, the phrase above will work. Thank you! I appreciate the compliment. I actually did not think that this thread would blow up. I thought I would have like two replies maximum. But I love responding, so I'm gonna continue for as long as it naturally goes.

@Deep I sent you a private message with an audio reply because it would have taken me a lot more to write the answer here.

@WaterfallMachine I don't quite get what the question is. Are you worried that you are going crazy and you don't know how to handle that or are you worried that other people will start to label you as crazy after experiencing awakenings and major shifts in paradigm? If it's the first one, then you might want to dial back on your practice and integrate the experiences. This is not a sprint. You have to figure out for yourself how to integrate the experience with your day to day life. What's out there doesn't really change. Only how you see it. And if you push too hard, too fast, that will only backfire and actually stall your progress. If it's the latter, read Law 38 from the book ”The 48 Laws of Power” by Robert Greene. You have to learn to able to think like yourself, but still act like others around you. You have to be flexible and embrace nuance. You can have all the insights that you've had, but still be able to crack a cold one with the boys and maybe watch a show on TV. You should be able to do the activities that you were doing before the paradigm shifts and awakenings while still being able to walk and talk as you did before them. Don't let the work throw you off center. Search for some grounding exercises on the web. These are also a part of the spiritual path. Inquiry and grounding are not mutually exclusive practices. They are part of the same whole. You don't have to punish yourself unnecessarily. Appreciate your challenges and backslides and learn to love them. As Leo said, he read a book about an enlightened ER doctor. That guy probably doesn't go around the hospital shouting "You're not this, you're not that. It's all an illusion." No. The guy probably integrated his experiences, and eventually found a way in which it will enhance his job. For example, having more love and empathy for his patients. You don't HAVE to become an outcast, unless you want to. Enlightenment work should enhance your experience of life. If it doesn't, you're probably doing something wrong. And you still have to master the mundane world either way if you want to survive and thrive. Also, remember the following points: 1. Enlightenment work will flip your world on it's head. If you do not prepare and you do not know all the risk and what the path actually entails, you should probably stop. Exercise caution. 2. You should take EXTREME OWNERSHIP of all the aspects of this problem. If you take the attitude that it's happening to you and you can't stop it no matter what, it will take ownership over you, and you don't want that. Even if it's not YOUR fault, you should still take responsibility for it. Because then, change is actually possible. Don't assume that something is wrong outside from the get go. Assume that if you are feeling weird and bad, and that you don't have control, that it means that you are doing something wrong, and that there is something that you are not taking ownership of. 3. Most spiritual masters have not lost the common touch after their enlightenment. You don't see them acting all crazy. They are more peaceful, driven, have a purpose in life and can relate to other people more deeply. They are taking interviews, traveling, educating people, taking charge of issues in their community etc. They are doing what a high quality human being should be doing. I hope this gave you some insight. Feel free to tell me if the advice isn't clear enough or to ask me more questions if you need.

@Charlotte I'm the one grateful for your attention! Your current attitude already sets you up for success. Let's do this!

@Shin Edited the comment and now it works. Thanks, bud.

@Michael569 Thank you. Just paying it forward, Michael.

@Shin

@sarapr My pleasure, Sara! (I think, that's your name, right?) If there's anything else I can help you with, let me know.

@sarapr Apps that block your access to certain applications for a set period of time are usually your best bet. Use the app Moment if you have an Iphone. I don't know alternatives yet for android. If you want to block access to distracting websites on your laptop too, use the program Coldturkey. That's what I personally use when I work on my laptop and it works wonders. Also, a great tip I got from Tai Lopez, is to turn off all notifications, for all your applications, EXCEPT for your messages app. That way, people will know that they will be able to get hold of you only on an emergency, by sending an SMS, and they will start to respect your time more. They won't be able to find you on insta chat, facebook chat all day, every day. You check all of the apps notifications by opening them once in the morning and once at night before you go to bed. You will gain much more control of your life and your time. You will check your notifications when YOU want to, not when Mark Zuckerberg wants you too. All of those incoming notifications are very distracting and prevent you from doing great work. And if I'm right, you want to be the master of your own phone, and not the other way around. Good luck!

Like @Shin said, if you want to keep reading for the rest of your life and make it effortless, you should make it a habit. It takes discipline only in the beginning. After 10 days of doing this, you will probably start to read automatically. Print the sheet below, write as a habit ”reading for 5-15 minutes everyday” (66 days is usually how long it takes to instill a habit, scientists had found) and hang the calendar somewhere in your house, where you can easily check a box each day. Be sure to specify alongside the habit, the time of day when you want to read (morning/afternoon/evening). That way, the time of day will start to be associated with the habit and it will serve as a cue to read. I'm currently doing this with the habit of "waking up at 8 a.m." everyday. So, we'll be in this TOGETHER. If you are up for the challenge, write a confirmation reply and send me a personal message at the end of the challenge to update me on your progress. TheONEThing_66DayChallenge_Calendar2.pdf Good luck!

@Max_V Glad to hear that. I wish you success!

@Max_V It's great that you chose to take ownership of the situation. Yeah, the truth is, your growth will not be liniar. It will be very rocky and you will backslide many times. The thing is, as Tony Robbins says, we overestimate what we can do in a year, and we underestimate what we can do in a decade. So you gotta keep things in perspective. The backslides won't even matter in 5 years. You should love yourself even more when you fail and backslide. But that can be very hard to wire in your brain. It's hard because of peer pressure - as all the people around you will stop giving you attention and love if you don't have your life together, and that's CONDITIONAL love. They don't know what real love is yet. And that's why you gotta start with yourself. If you cannot give yourself unconditional love, nobody will ever be able to fill that void for you. The same way in which you can have all the success and riches in the world, yet still feel empty inside. It's also hard because society tells us that if we do not achieve material success or any other type of success that they put forward, we are automatic failures in life. But those are THEIR rules. You gotta set your own rules and standards, while not being attached to them. Only you know what will make you happy, so THEIR opinion does not matter. They have their own self agenda. Challenge For You Choose one of the following methods and do it dilligently for a month. Hit me up with a private message on the forum when that challenge is over and update me on your situation. Do the exercise you choose once a day, every day, for a month. 1. Do Leo's visualization exercise from his video on the power of self-acceptance. 2. Release feelings like guilt through the Sedona Method. 3. Unwire the self-defeating thoughts through "The Work" by Byron Katie, which will then change the self-defeating emotions you feel. 4. Do spoken or written affirmations for 5-10 minutes a day, related to self love, such as "I completely accept myself, the way I am right now" or "I deeply love myself, no matter the circumstances that I find myself in." I also had the same problem as you. I used to act like a perfectionist, crazy disciplined and crazy organized person, and usually when things slipped out of my control and I experienced backslide, I would freak out and start to beat myself up uncontrollably and punish myself back into taking action. But that's not a sustainable way to go. That just causes a yo-yo effect where you are super effective one day, and super ineffective on another, and then you beat yourself up into being effective again, and the cycle repeats again and again and again. We need to make our personal growth sustainable, and that starts with self-love, without attachment to outcome. When that sets in, you will see other people loving you more as well. Good luck!

Do you want to make quick money in the short term in order to become independent fast, or do you have the possibility to pursue something you love that will make you money in the long run? We're in the same bucket here, and it's very difficult, but you can become a social, assertive alpha male in a matter of months - 1-3 years tops, depending on your level of input and commitment. Read these: The Assertiveness Workbook by Randy J. Paterson (do ALL of the exercises) How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem by Nathaniel Branden The Way of The Superior Man by David Deida Thick Face, Black Heart by Chin-Ning Chu I've listed the books in the order of their importance, but you may resonate with some, more than others. Skim through all of them and intuit which one will help your case the most. If you give me a really specific problem related to your social anxiety and shyness and give me more details, I will give you advice directly on how to solve it. Right now though, I don't have enough info about you to know what you need to do. BUT, you should read the books anyway. Even one of those will radically change your life and you will look back a few years from now and see how silly and puny shyness and social anxiety really were. But you can see that only in retrospect. So you need to start to take action. And I'm here to help and even keep you accountable need be. Handling coworkers can be a tough thing, especially if they have big egos. But it's more than doable. In what way are you unable to deal with their behaviors? What behaviors are we talking about?