Zane

My pleasure! I love writing words of encouragement to people!

@ZenBlue I love how you've been consistent with your daily meditation and how the time flows by for you while meditating. You're making good progress with your meditation!

@appleaurorae Thank you for telling your story! I can resonate with your story because I to struggled with talking to girls. I'm very interested in learning other people's stories about self-actualization and their struggles. I strongly agree with you about digging into a girl's mind and soul. When I was younger one of my biggest struggles was understanding people deeply but the strategy I applied was where i was selectively social with people and I would spend time with them to understand them more deeply. I think like an anthropologist by observation and questions. I feel deeply passionate for some of the people I socialize with and completely uninterested by some people.

"The Motivation Manifesto" is an embodiment of my life philosophy that strongly values freedom, uniqueness, life purpose, and individuality and being proactive in life rather than an observer. The book reads like a powerful motivational speech! For personal development, I'm reading about creativity, freedom, self-actualization, mastery, and self-motivation.

The greatest example of being a transformer is storytelling in any medium! Storytelling transforms an idea into concrete reality. For example, creative writing transforms an idea into a written story. Music communicates ideas through sound, passion, and emotions! Film communicates an idea visually! A storyteller acts out the idea on stage and embraces the audience's imagination. Storytelling is the embodiment of transformation!

To become more aware of my death, I will write about the best moments in my life and my regrets. However, the catch with my regrets list is to write how I will learn from this regret and treat it as a lesson. I will also write a vision of my death! I will ask "did I live the life I wanted to? What did I experience? What do I want to experience? How do I feel about the past, the present and future? What are my regrets? How are these regrets valuable? How will I prepare for my death? Will I be proud of my life or will I regret my life?

Can you please expand on your idea "we are not really creators we are transformers?" What do you mean by that? Can you please apply a concrete example?

To be blunt, exams don't matter much in the long term because life is not about exams at all! Exams and academic worries can make you feel deeply neurotic and unfulfilled and under extremely high standards. I go to a college where exams are focused around academic writing and exams are rare and the main focus is developing critical thinking and open-mindedness. Exams make you miserable and neurotic! I remember hating exams with such a passion and feeling deeply anxious. I learn for the sake of learning rather than through extrinsic motivation! I learn by going outside to museums, bookstores, the zoo, the theater and by the outdoors and through books and through real life experience. I recommend critically thinking and coming to your own conclusions about exams. Ask questions like "what do I want out of life? What is my life purpose? What are my values? How can I educate myself and discover the joy and fascination of learning?"

@Neill EXACTLY!!!! There is a YouTube series called "The Psycho Series" where the abusive father rationalizes his actions by saying that his son disrespected him and he blames other people for his misery and his anger. He is an embodiment of someone who is unconscious of why they are cruel. He rationalizes his cruelty as "tough love" and he blames his son for causing his family to collapse while the father's anger is what caused the family to collapse.

@ZenBlue I love your answer to the question and I love how you balance self-actualization with starting your own business and applying outsourcing and focusing on self-actualization, personal development, friends and family and vacations. I know it does sound lofty and idealistic but that's exactly what Leo wants us to aspire to! I feel like my personal development approach would be created by me but inspired by Leo, Robert Greene's "Mastery", elements of Tony Robbins, and many other strategies.

I feel like people are mean because they're operating from low consciousness or unconscious levels and they don't even realize that they're behaving this way. Maybe they're highly egotistical and are petty and they have base level values like pursuing money, status, and short-term pleasures. They are so dogmatic and entrenched in their ways that they people with different values as "weird" or "crazy." They can be highly tribal and adhere to rigid conformity! When you try to sit down with them and discuss self-actualization or personal development, they are so close minded and unaware of it that they see you as crazy for educating them. Unfortunately, when people are mean, it's extremely difficult for me to empathize with them. However, when some people are deeply struggling, I can empathize with them. When a person lashes out at me, I curl in a fetal position and lock myself in my room to absorb the pain and to avoid contact with that person. To deal with mean people, I find it difficult to apply kindness! I want to hold a mirror to them so that they can realize the effect of their actions on others. Sadly, I feel that mean people will truly struggle and fail miserably with personal development because they might deny their cruelty and neuroses.

What makes Greene's books so fascinating to me is his strong balance of historical anecdotes that show how the laws can be applied practically and he analyzes a variety of historical figures like politicians, generals, royalty, artists, scientists, musicians, writers and many other figures and he's very in-depth about their styles. He strongly focuses on history, human nature, and applying the laws in concrete reality. I feel like "Mastery" is the book that applies the most strongly to self-actualization. Rather than look at "Laws of Power" in a self-actualization context, I would look at it from a political history or a philosophical lens to gain insight into the concept of power. It's perfectly fine to disagree with Greene's message but i'm trying to deepen my understanding of power.

I love Robert Greene's books ESPECIALLY "Mastery," "The Laws of War" and "The Laws of Seduction."

I love learning about other people's self-actualization experiences because personal development is all about personal experiences because there are a wide variety of motivations to go into personal development. I feel like the quality of Leo's videos would massively improve if he used personal anecdotes and other paths to self-actualization.

If you told me about self-actualization, I wouldn't blast the idea as crazy. I feel like I would react with a deep curiosity and initial excitement particularly when someone discusses life purpose with me. I would excitedly tell other people about personal development but they would brand me as "a dreamer" "crazy" or "impractical."

I just watched Leo's video on being strategic? How do all of your apply strategic thinking in your life? My current strategic intent is to master creative writing and to achieve world travel, I've been heavily involved in creative writing workshops, English classes, and a creative writing club to connect with other writers. For my own writing, I decided to strategically focus on being highly experimental and discover my true passions and my authentic voice as a writer. I've observed writers and filmmakers and other artists to discover their own strategies and creative tendencies. I've dedicated myself to writing five pages a day! I am a writer because I have a deep love for creativity and I feel like creativity and freedom are my highest values. I've been mentored by published writers and my peers! Another strategy I need to create and take action on is my grand vision of traveling the world to truly become a world citizen and to expand my worldview and realize how amazing the world is and how beautiful life is.

I was in your situation where I feel a great deal of initial anxiety in college. I recommend balancing relaxation, stress management and focusing on ending the semester. I see counselors and tutors and learning coaches for academic assistance and seeing my professors and this helps me greatly in managing my stress and being in control.

I recommend looking at comedy websites and YouTube channels like Channel Awesome, McJuggernuggets, and Cinemassacre because these projects started out from nothing with a very small fan base and they skyrocketed in popularity. Maybe you can watch the videos and observe how they succeeded so you can apply that success. What are your comedy videos focused on? What is your sense of humor? Maybe you can find a niche who appreciates your sense of humor! A great book for you would be "Steal Like An Artist" by Austin Kleon and "Show Your Work" by Austin Kleon. By applying resources like comedy YouTube channels, Austin Kleon's books and Actualized.org, you could create a great YouTube channel. I would love to check out your comedy videos! There are plenty of filmmakers who didn't go to film school, who funded their own films, and taught themselves to make movies and heavily consumed movies to feed their muse.

Ray, I would love to be your personal development partner! I'm fairly new to personal development and after learning more about self-actualization, I'm fascinated and excited by the possibilities. I'm so glad that you have many aspirations and i'm so excited to talk about personal development. It's amazing how you're multi-lingual.

Maybe people reject these concepts because they're scared of changing and they feel like these concepts will disturb their comfort zone! I feel like I'm beginning to embrace these concepts and I want to explore them deeper and apply them in my life. I won't blindly reject self-actualization! I feel like i'm in the initial phase of being curiosity, then I'll become more fascinated, I will actively pursue it and I will apply it more deeply in my life. I feel curious but I want to feel passionate and excited about self-actualization!

I can strongly identify with your story of being obsessed with a girl and having such vivid fantasies. My first big crush was in middle school with these girl with long black hair and for a while, I felt extremely awkward in approaching her. I was blinded by this obsession and I told one of my classmates that i had a crush on her and she found out about the crush and she gave me the "let's just be friends" speech. When I was still feeling this puppy love, I was in my deeply awkward phase where I struggled with socializing with both genders and I always felt alienated from my peers. To talk to her more, I started sitting at lunch with her more and I was unconsciously acting needy and almost clingy. Today, I've got much better at talking to girls and now I've gained a lot more confidence to ask girls out and that resulted in dance dates, lunch/dinner meetups and coffee meetups. I learned that the awkwardness is a phase and that socializing is a skill that takes practice and progress and time. I focus on being completely authentic and I embrace the awkwardness! I tell some girls my genuine feelings and they accept these feelings and when I cross the line they let me know without being too critical. I embrace my authentic self and I don't try to fake confidence or become an Alpha Male. There are a wide variety of strategies for talking with girls and you need to discover some strategies, apply them, and use progress and time as your allies. I learned how to balance comedy, eccentricity, and authenticity while socializing. Look at someone like Leo who used to very awkward and nerdy and how he made great progress through learning pickup and dating many girls and pursuing personal development actively. I learned how to use my eccentricity and enthusiasm to my full advantage rather than become "normal" or an alpha male.

One of the most common themes on Actualized.org is to avoid wasting your life! I've been questioning "how can you waste your life?" Let's start a discussion on how your life could be wasted and let's provide concrete examples! Maybe Leo can make a video on wasting your life and how to avoid it!

So to simplify what you're saying, you just want to live a self-realized life with no identity ego or beliefs and focusing entirely on your own joy? If that makes you happy, than that's a valid way to live your life!

I understand exactly what you mean! However, I agree and disagree with you! I feel like you need to balance taking care of yourself and taking care of others. I feel like both selfishness and selflessness are double-edged swords that have their advantages and their disadvantages. For example, healthy selfishness is focused on fulfilling your basic needs and highest level needs. I strongly agree with your point that humans are capable of thinking and imagining and making amazing changes. The truth is I don't want to commit myself to such an overwhelming responsibility like getting married or raising a family. I want to focus on achieving my own self-actualization journey and experience as much of life as I possibly can. Does my point make sense? It's perfectly fine if you disagree with me1

I feel like you have complete freedom and responsibility over your time and you can use your time however you choose to! You can commit time to master something you're deeply passionate for, you can invest time in self-actualization, and you can invest time in passion projects. Time could be wasted by spending too much time on petty shit, being miserable, and being uncertain of what to do with your time. Don't overload your schedule and burn yourself out and try to get too much done! You need to balance your time, manage your time well, and take have freedom and responsibility over your own time.