Raphael

The Importance of a Good Presentation I have never been the kind of person to judge people on the way they look and the way they dress. How someone's dress is not important for me, what's more important is how conscious the person is. I thought the same most of my life and therefore never really cared about wearing sleeve shirts, suits, etc. I would most of the time only wear a t-shirt with a hoodie. However, I noticed that in the professional world many times people will judge our competencies from our looks especially if we are young and inexperienced, so a good first impression is important. People who care about how they dress are seeing as people who put effort into themselves, who have high standards, and care about themselves and therefore are expected to deliver better results. I think that many of my bad results in freelancing are coming from self-esteem issues and bad marketing. I used a picture that I took three years ago in a simple t-shirt. I look like a totally inexperienced kid in this picture, also my descriptions can sound a little too childish. I will change my presentations and therefore my identity. I will wear a white sleeved shirt now so that I look much more mature and trustable.

Health: The Foundation of Deep Work I just realized how important health is for deep work. There's a minimum of health needed to be able to work properly, otherwise, the brain gets crazy and we can easily feel unmotivated, tired, and lazy. Basic habits like meditation, yoga, eating healthy, exercising a minimum, having a lot of empty time, minimizing entertainment (in particular the internet and social medias), and going to sleep at regular times are super important. They are the foundation of a proper work ethic and also the foundation of a great life.

The 4 Discipline Framework (from Deep Work: Rules For Focused Success In A Distracted World - Cal Newport) Discipline #1: Focus on the Wildly Important Aim execution at a small number of wildly important goals. This simplicity will help focus energy to a sufficient intensity to ignite real results Identify a small number of ambitious outcomes to pursue with deep work hours Discipline #2: Act on the Lead Measures: Measure success with two metrics Lag measures: describes the thing to improve Lead measures: measure the new behaviors that will drive success on the lag measures Discipline #3: Keep a Compelling Scoreboard Have a public place to record and track lead measures A scoreboard creates a sense of competition that drives to focus on the measures, even when other demands vie for attention. It also provides a reinforcing source of motivation Discipline #4: Create a Cadence of Accountability If you work alone: set a regular day each week to analyze your results If you work with a team: put in place a rhythm of regular and frequent meetings

Don't Work Alone (from Deep Work: Rules For Focused Success In A Distracted World - Cal Newport) For some types of problems, working with someone with a shared whiteboard can push a working ability deeper. Two Guidelines: Separate the pursuit of serendipitous encounters from your efforts to think deeply and build on these inspirations. Each effort should be optimized separately, as opposed to mixing them together into a sludge that impedes both goals. Even when you retreat to a spoke to think deeply, when it's reasonable to leverage the whiteboard effect, do so. By working side by side with someone on a problem, you can push each other toward deeper levels of depth, and therefore toward the generation of more and more valuable output as compared to working alone.

Breathwork to Release Immediate Anger and Dirtiness Breathwork is super powerful to release immediate anger, greed, feeling of dirtiness, or other similar emotions. I was feeling quite angry today and decided to do a breathwork session. I didn't had a super mystical experience (I never cried nor had visuals), but I felt a lot of tingling sensations notably in my forearms and they also became quite tight near the end. I felt super empty and super lightweight after the session, I was back in my higher self as if I was not a human anymore. The anger and dirtiness almost completely vanished. Breathwork is like magic.

31 July 2020 Wake Up Time: 06:07 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM) In Bed Time: 09:23 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM) ✅ 45 minutes of Doing Nothing Before Going To Sleep Work Sessions: 01:29 PM - 02:51 PM: I went back working on my personal website. I got some very annoying errors caused by the SSL certificate because it was not working with the www subdomain. I chose to contact my hosting provider. Work Duration: 1 hour 22 minutes 03:01 PM - 04:03 PM: I searched for a theme for my website, contacted a freelancer, and started the layout. Work Duration: 1 hour 2 minutes Deep Work Sessions: 08:35 AM - 10:02 AM: I started to make the colors and fonts adjustments for the mobile view. I had a lot of unrelated thoughts about spiral dynamics, communicated, and triggering people. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 27 minutes 10:20 AM - 12:20 AM: I completed the mobile view updates. I had a lot of thoughts about past difficult experiences with stage blue. Deep Work Duration: 2 hours 04:10 PM - 04:51 PM: I started to design the header. Negative thoughts of the past and anger came up. Neighbors also decided to put loud music, it was a little difficult to work. Work Duration: 41 minutes Total Work Duration: 6 hours 32 minutes, including 4 hours 8 minutes of Deep Work (objective at least 6 hours) Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes, I'm not reading anything currently)

I have a lot of distaste, resistance, and rejection toward stage blue.

30 July 2020 Wake Up Time: 06:08 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM) In Bed Time: 09:10 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM) ❌ 45 minutes of Doing Nothing Before Going To Sleep Work Sessions: No work for today @Raphael Good, you had some rest today. Also, try a have more empty time of doing nothing on Sunday. Total Work Duration: 0 minutes, including 0 minutes of Deep Work (objective 0 minutes) Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes, I'm not reading anything currently)

The more aware I am, the more I seek silence and solitude.

29 July 2020 Wake Up Time: 06:18 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM) In Bed Time: 09:40 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM) ✅ 45 minutes of Doing Nothing Before Going To Sleep Work Sessions: 02:34 PM - 03:26 PM: I went back working on my website. I had a few issues with the page builder license. Work Duration: 52 minutes 03:33 PM - 05:01 PM: I continued setting up my website. I also set up SSL. I distracted myself a little too much. Work Duration: 1 hour 28 minutes 07:48 PM - 08:14 PM: I set up the main pages of my website. Work Duration: 26 minutes Deep Work Sessions: 09:27 AM - 10:32 AM: I continued yesterday's design corrections. I was distracted because I was listening to some videos at the same time. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 5 minutes 10:56 AM - 12:42 AM: I continued the colors and fonts updates. I had a lot of unrelated thoughts. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 46 minutes 01:47 PM - 02:27 PM: I finished the desktop design fixes. They will maybe be a few more fixes to do, I will see that with my client. Deep Work Duration: 40 minutes @Raphael Good job again. Keep staying aware of the distractions and pushing it up. Total Work Duration: 6 hours 17 minutes, including 3 hours 31 minutes of Deep Work (objective at least 6 hours) Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes, I'm not reading anything currently)

I worked in a small company where the boss was the bully in chief and would bully all the employees. But also all the employees would bully me because I was the new young recruit, so in the end, I was bullied by everyone in the company. I would try to stand out for myself and refuse some things, and also responded many times with aggressiveness. They didn't like that because they wanted me to be submissive and polite to them, so in the end, it created a vicious circle that backfired more and more to me. It left me traumatized.

28 July 2020 Wake Up Time: 06:33 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM) In Bed Time: 09:35 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM) ✅ 45 minutes of Doing Nothing Before Going To Sleep Work Sessions: 09:15 AM - 10:36 AM: I tried to withdraw the money (again) from the freelancing platform and completed the SEO course. I will start to apply my knowledge soon. Work Duration: 1 hour 21 minutes 10:57 AM - 12:02 AM: I configured my WordPress website. I distracted myself a little Work Duration: 1 hour 5 minutes Deep Work Sessions: 12:09 AM - 01:22 PM: I started to make changes to the website's colors. It's a little difficult to find a proper palette. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 13 minutes 02:16 PM - 04:02 PM: I continued the work on the colors and fonts. I was quite sad during this session thinking about difficult past experiences. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 46 minutes 04:16 PM - 04:56 PM: I continued the work on the colors and fonts. Deep Work Duration: 40 minutes @Raphael Good job, you work well today. Congratulations! Total Work Duration: 6 hours 5 minutes, including 3 hours 39 minutes of Deep Work (objective at least 6 hours) Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes, I'm not reading anything currently)

@bejapuskas Yeah, I thought the same. It also seems to me that using some vulgarity in marketing can be an effective strategy (I'm not doing that, it's just a thought) because people are used to marketing who promises love, care, and compassion. An aggressive marketing can attract a lot of people by shocking them and also because they are not used to it. Another question: How would you deal with bullies? Would you stay polite? Or being aggressive?

@Raphael I was more thinking about the limits of the practices and principles at this stage. Selfless goals can be attained through stage orange practices. I think the emphasis on emotions varies a lot, in Think and Grow Rich! the author talks a lot about emotions. Also the 100% responsibility principle doesn't take enough into account the environment in which the individual grew up.

What are the limits of stage orange self-help? Where does it fail? Where isn't it applicable? I personally feel like exercises such as affirmations, sentence completions, and visualizations conflict with the spiritual work. Counter-intuitively I start getting results when I completely accept the situation and let go of all expectations.

@Ya know Thanks for your thoughts.

I'm quite polite most of the time, I only use some "bad" words occasionally. It's more difficult for me to be polite when I'm confronted with trolls and people who do everything to annoy me. I also had a period where I was not that much polite which was 4 - 3 years ago. I think that at this time, I resonated with what you're saying about the need for attention.

27 July 2020 Wake Up Time: 07:39 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM) In Bed Time: 09:35 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM) ✅ 45 minutes of Doing Nothing Before Going To Sleep Deep Work Sessions: 10:32 AM - 11:03 AM: I did a few bug fixes. I was listening to something at the same time so I was a little distracted. Deep Work Duration: 31 minutes 11:30 AM - 01:00 PM: I continued fixing some bugs, but was super distracted. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes 02:51 PM - 04:02 PM: I updated the checkout interface. I distracted myself a little. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 11 minutes Today was a fucked up day. Sometimes I get dragged down by unhealthy manifestations of the different stages: Red: Anger and hate. It can make me feel very dirty, but hopefully, that's very rare most of the time. Blue: Being afraid of speaking up for myself and breaking rules. Orange: Being too concerned about time and wanting fast results. It stresses me and in the end, I sabotage myself and get slower results. Green: Too much tolerance and kindness of other people which ends up backfiring on me because of people's abuse of my kindness. Yellow: Spending too much time lost in my head and therefore not taking enough actions. All these elements combined can create a toxic mess sometimes. @Raphael Some days are down days, that's life, that happens, let's accept it. You will do better tomorrow. Good luck Total Work Duration: 3 hours 12 minutes, including 3 hours 12 minutes of Deep Work (objective at least 6 hours) Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes, I'm not reading anything currently)

26 July 2020 Wake Up Time: 06:14 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM) In Bed Time: 10:10 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM) ❌ 45 minutes of Doing Nothing Before Going To Sleep Work Sessions: 11:40 AM - 12:05 AM: I had a call with my client. Work Duration: 25 minutes 12:31 AM - 12:51 AM: I had another call with my client. Work Duration: 21 minutes Total Work Duration: 46 minutes, including 0 minutes of Deep Work (objective 0 minutes) Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes, I'm not reading anything currently)

It looks like for me it only works and is necessary when people are at low levels of consciousness, otherwise, it would not be necessary. I see the validity in this situation.

I don't think that's only about spiral dynamics. Generally, people are not very interested in being open and understanding the world around them from multiple perspectives. They are mostly interested in fulfilling their immediate needs or at best medium-term needs. It's the same thing at school, at the beginning kids are very interested to learn about everything, then when they grow up they start to lose this interest. When we are kids, we are empty, and life is mysterious and magical so we want to understand how it works, but after growing up we assume we know reality, therefore, there's not so much mystery and we lose our curiosity. After 18 - 20, people are usually much less interested in challenging their paradigms. When I was following courses in amphitheaters at university almost nobody was listening to the teacher, most people were playing video games on their computers or phones.

25 July 2020 Wake Up Time: 06:10 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM) In Bed Time: 09:09 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM) ✅ 45 minutes of Doing Nothing Before Going To Sleep Work Sessions: 08:38 AM - 09:42 AM: I had a call with my client. He told me that he will pay me more after this project, I'm still suspicious. Work Duration: 1 hour 4 minutes 11:46 AM - 12:05 AM: I had a call with my client. Work Duration: 19 minutes Deep Work Sessions: 10:05 AM - 11:46 AM: Various fixes and a few improvements. I got a lot of unrelated thoughts. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 41 minutes 01:26 PM - 03:09 PM: I continued the bug fixes and started to work on the trending page. I had a lot of unrelated thoughts. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 43 minutes 03:17 PM - 04:48 PM: I continued the work on the trending page. I also continued to have many thoughts. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 31 minutes @Raphael Good job Total Work Duration: 6 hours 18 minutes, including 4 hours 55 minutes of Deep Work (objective at least 6 hours) Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes, I'm not reading anything currently)

24 July 2020 Wake Up Time: 06:04 AM (objective 5:30 AM - 6:00 AM) In Bed Time: 11:40 PM (objective 9:00 PM - 9:30 PM) ❌ 45 minutes of Doing Nothing Before Going To Sleep Work Sessions: 08:53 AM - 09:55 AM: I had a call with my client. I got fucked up again, it's pissing me off. Work Duration: 1 hour 2 minutes 10:37 AM - 11:00 AM: I had another call with my client. Work Duration: 23 minutes Deep Work Sessions: 11:40 AM - 01:13 AM: I searched for some libraries, did some tests, and worked on a carousel. I wasn't that much focused. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 33 minutes 02:21 PM - 05:32 PM: I continued to work on the carousel. I wasn't very focused. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 11 minutes 03:54 PM - 04:37 PM: I tried to fix some bugs that weren't even bugs. Deep Work Duration: 43 minutes 07:54 PM - 09:30 PM: More bug fixes. I distracted myself a little too much sometimes. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 34 minutes 09:40 PM - 11:25 PM: More bug fixes. I distracted myself a little too much sometimes. Deep Work Duration: 1 hour 45 minutes Total Work Duration: 8 hours 3 minutes, including 6 hours 46 minutes of Deep Work (objective at least 6 hours) Total Reading Time: 0 minutes (objective 0 minutes, I'm not reading anything currently)

The Interpretation of True/False Everything that I say is false. Everything that I say is true. The validity of what one's say is only determined by the perspective that interprets it.

Ok. But I had cases where I would ask for something in a normal way, but people would get reactive just because I would forget to say "please". For example, one day I asked someone: "Can you open the other door when you'll be inside?". The person responded "PLEASE???" in an aggressive manner. I find it annoying to be so obsessed with politeness, it makes me want to be less polite and don't use politeness formulas at all. Isn't it the opposite?