smd

Have you taken a Myers-Briggs type indicator test to check what kind of personality you have? I did the one on 16 personalities and that one was has been very helpful. Your personality may not fit into being completely organized & in control from top to bottom. And each personality type still has its own type of masters from all walks of life.

It's one or two of these possible problems: 1.) You get home, it's probably late afternoon or early evening. You're tired & your will power is broken due to low energy. It was used up during the morning & afternoon. Every vice & craving will have free reign & can go unchecked. 2.) You're in the "In Between" time, that point of inflection where you have to convert thought into action. It can be a real bitch to get through that resistance. I'm told the way to get through it is to stop thinking about it & just do whatever it is you set out to do. Once you get started, it should build its own momentum. But with low will power, it's easy to halt in your tracks. For instance, I was going to go to the gym for a basic 20-30 minutes of cardio today. I found or remembered that all my gym clothes were dirty. So I washed my clothes, but once they were dry nearly 2 hours later, all of my energy to get to the gym was totally gone & put off for tomorrow and I didn't make a backup plan of what to do if I didn't go to the gym! So vegged out on YouTube instead..

I have this same problem! I even have to work the weekend once a month. I asked if I could get a day off instead of getting paid for the weekend. Nothing doing. They want my ass at work! I've actually been considering the possibility of applying for disability. I've got a problem, not a big one, but maybe big enough to go on disability. That would buy me time to do other things or start a business, etc.

It looks like the most gigantic egotistical thing I've ever read. Coral? Turquoise? C'mon man! Really? I don't understand the all-fired extreme rush to the finish line either. It also runs contrary to the concept of mastery, where's the 10-20 years of effort? So skill-based, neural networks build 2x faster now? Unless you're like Tolle & it just happens to you one day.

That's an excellent graphic. I think the reason we can't actually see what it is, is because it's a singularity, beyond anything we know. It might be the merging of man & his machines for instance.

What are the reasons where you would need judgement? It seems to me that it is a survival mechanism. Of course, we have the Internet & constant bombardment of things to judge or be judged by, but there must be some other reasons for having it around. For instance, if I was a young adult & my closest, newest, friend was a psychopath who wanted to go out & do as much damage as he can, with his friends. Wouldn't it be my own judgement to tell me to avoid this man? Obviously going along with it would lead to disaster. Or what if he did it on his own & then told me all the gory details? Wouldn't judgement tell me to report him to prevent further harm to others or maybe myself?

The ones that terrified me as a teen were the ones with wings. If I found one flying around before bedtime, I would not sleep until it was dead. This all happened because one night I was sleeping and had this "dream". I had this dream of eating something god-awful. It tasted like paper, rough, and gishy in my mouth and it had a foul stink to it. When I woke up, I realized that I had probably had one of the fliers land on my face, go into my mouth, and I had eaten it. It was really weird because they seem to like to go into your mouth while you're sleeping. Later, I found the nest brewing in my comic collection, brought them out in the open, and killed them all by hand & foot. These days I figure they were probably going into the mouth to try and get food in your teeth, need a drink, or perhaps to commit suicide. Last year, when I was in India, the corporate bathrooms would have nests of these things just hanging out on the walls or floors, undisturbed running their little roach errands or hanging out. Since I was awake, it didn't really bother me, but I'd destroy them if I found them in my bedroom (fortunately none were found in my hotel room). These days what gets on my nerves are wasps. I work from home & I'll be talking to a customer & have one large one suddenly fly out, heading to the bananas to build on their nest. The first time, I called maintenance to handle it in case it was a nest. However, it was just one. He killed it. A few weeks later, another popped out & heading to the bananas. On the last time, I found that if you just tap them from the top in mid-flight with your broom, they'll drop to the ground fast & then you can crush them quickly. This one was still alive after I pounced it, so I scooped it up & put it outside in case it was still alive (can live out the rest of its existence or be a resource for another animal). I've also found that what really bothers me about them is the jerky movement when they're on surfaces as well. They move in such an unpredictable way. At any rate, that's how I've handled my fear with them: try to find an explanation as to what they're doing around me, then kill it if it feels to be a threat, otherwise, ignore it.

I was getting that vibe from them when I was checking out their institute's products and one of their online live speeches with Wilbur. They spend a lot of time spamming you to buy their stuff too. I'm in the Actualized camp though and there isn't enough time to work on both.

There aren't any levels really, like Level 5 Laser Lotus (hilarious btw). Spiral Dynamics is a sociological construct used to define a collective age or society (like the US being majority blue), but if you can't watch a video why not search Amazon for books in Kindle or physical form to read about it? Spiral Dynamics is an interesting beast. It also has applications in Futures Studies. That's how I learned about it 10 years ago when I took a few grad courses on it.

I'd tell you but then I'd be afraid of giving away the book list for the people that didn't pay for it. I suppose there needs to be a separate forum category for those that have bought Leo's products. He's mentioned a few in his videos but I don't want to cross any boundaries.

I don't know if anyone has watched it yet, but from a self-development perspective, it's truly fascinating & worth your time. I can't imagine someone with $100 million could open up a free-range mediation/yoga center, spend decades doing meditation & other things...and yet still be the type of man he was described as in this documentary!! It's mind-blowing & it seems so counter-intuitive to self-development...how can such a man with the directions he had come to be who he is in that film? It's staggering...as if self-development was turned on its head! Maybe it's not for everyone & they should leave it be? What's funny is that he even wrote a few books about yoga, meditation, or Buddhist leanings that I'll need to hunt down for curiosity sake. I'd love to hear a few critiques by the self-development professionals. PS: I wish I could say this was just a small case...but I was checking out TJ Miller for the same thing (dumped Silicon Valley fame last year, calls in a bomb threat on Amtrack this year....one of those wtf moments!). Maybe he'll end up like McAfee decades from now...but I digress.

It's very interesting. For one thing, I know quite a few people that have drank obsessively when they were you & are still in middle-age drinking heavily. I read a few articles about his health & one thing that I found particularly striking is that he ignored going into surgery to get his gall bladder removed. Reason: so he could continue his gigs! So then it had to rupture & then be forcefully removed & when it ruptures, it can leave behind all kinds of complications...leaks & so on, or surgeons having to go back in to fix something. When my Doc told me that mine would soon rupture, I asked some older folks about it & they explained that a ruptured gall bladder is one of the worst pains imaginable. I didn't even think twice about getting it removed right away. Do it now or suffer terribly later. Seemed an easy choice. And I'd also heard about ruptures causing complications. If a Doctor tells you they have to operate, you can't just ignore that. So I did find that part of Avicii's story very perplexing. I haven't seen the documentary yet but will check it out. I'm sure it's fascinating.

I saw a book on Amazon called Hidden Dangers of Meditation that sounded pretty worrisome. I found an interesting article on the subject as well: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/meditation-is-touted-as-a-cure-for-mental-instability-but-can-it-actually-be-bad-for-you-10268291.html Although I've practiced meditation & some yoga breathing exercises for a few years & never encountered an issue. Makes me think it might be better to do it in moderation, at least for me. On the whole, there is a lot more data coming out now about meditation, yoga, & psychedelics that I never saw up until now. I find it helpful to have as much info as I can get my hands on where possible to avoid serious risk (if there are any). I once told a lady I was meditating regularly & she had a reaction, which makes me think, now, she must've known someone who had a bad reaction to it.

When you say you are rich, are you saying you sold your Bitcoin? They're just hash codes. Nobody can explain what it is & I have no idea why anyone still bothers with it. When it dipped to 7k, I thought that it was finally bursting, but as it fell so did the stock market. This made me wonder if the same algorithms that sold on the market were also being applied to someone's bitcoin stack (otherwise why did it simulate the stock market in lock step?). At any rate, I still expect the entire thing to come to a crashing halt one day. I knew the Subprime loans was bad. The online newspapers were constantly talking about how bad it was. However, no one could explain how it would crash or why. I think the term I'm looking for is Singularity. There's a point on the horizon that you just can't see past & that's where we are with bitcoin. Like a solution that someone came up with, that doesn't have a problem defined for it...almost as if it was developed backwards & what it solves hasn't been defined yet. Or it solves nothing & something catastrophic would have to happen: Perhaps someone cracks the encryption & breaks it somehow. Or govt does a crackdown & fills it up with regulation & tracking to the point where it's not interesting. I'd have thought it was gone for good, but right now it's at 11.2 & seems to be holding in that area. It's practically a flatline at this point & maybe people are just sitting around buying it at 10 & selling it at 11, all the time. It sounds boring to trade bitcoin. Penny stocks are proven dangerous already. Except for the scams like BitConnect (wassa wassa wassa...) it doesn't look like you can lose much money in bitcoin itself, except by leaving it online. It sounds like a major hassle to me to download hash codes & store them offline. We have an entirely automated financial system that is easy & effortless to use. Having to store your cash on a piece of hardware is pretty ridiculous. I think it'll get as tiresome as recording movies off the TV with DVDs became or ripping Netflix DVDs to have your own 'free' copy...that repetition of putting the stick into your computer to buy/sell bitcoin funds, then taking it back out. Do that a few hundred or thousand times & let's see how exciting that bitcoin is...financial freedom just inching forward. I think bitcoin might make people sick of money perhaps.

No one has come out to explain what the fuck is going on with Bitcoin. Just a few months ago, it was $5,000. Back in April, it was under a $1000, then it spiked up after that. Fuckin' CEO of JP Morgan Jamie Dimon has been criticizing it heavily for a very long time, but now JP Morgan and the other financial institutions are getting behind it. Why? It's reported that the 17-23% of total number of Bitcoins were lost on various hard drives, so there's nobody to collect that money, now said to be worth about $30 billion. What is with the fever pitch of get rich quick schemes? Why is there not a govt crackdown? Why would the banks who hate Ponzi schemes turn to embrace it? And why are there always new ways to put a fever in you to get you separated from your cash? It also sounds like many experts are remaining silent because they don't want to appear wrong, or they've become a turncoat like JP Morgan & dropped their words, taking action in the opposite direction of all the bullshit they just said in public. Is there a possible video here?

I think you have to start playing chess before you turn 10. I just heard Rick Beato mention that on a video on YouTube about mastery. You might be anomaly that is better to start a later age though. It may be that 10 years into it is a myth. Some say talent is a myth & others do not. I read a few books on mastery & then I always hear conflicting reports on what is the right viewpoint. It's an odd paradox of talent or 10 years xp being both right & both wrong to me.

Perhaps it's a rare thing to get your dream job, especially if you're young. Although seeing it on the Internet, it seems everyone acquires it fairly easy..they probably don't represent the masses. There's very few people I know doing what they would think is a dream job. Mostly just the rat race & the shit show to scrape by to raise a family...easy money & comfortable jobs always just a little bit out of grasp.

As Hal Leonard's Mastery book says, you have to be willing to make mistakes, look like a fool, & pick yourself up off the floor when you fall down, no matter how embarrassing. It appears their job is to be tough on you to keep you on your edge. If you're uncomfortable, it'll probably keep you at a more present state while focusing on your research. I imagine over time you'll become accustomed to it. You may not have any former students to ask about the program, but if you can find any, it might help to figure out how much risk you are actually in for getting removed. Perhaps not as much as you think. It's likely they'll never be friendly towards you so you'll want to maintain a professional relationship only & no need to please them as they'll never be pleased by anything (or may refrain from revealing it to you if they are). Congrats on your program. Sounds pretty neat.

Friendships have a shelf-life. I believe the term is that after about 7 years, you eventually grow apart & can no longer relate to one another. So if you've known these people for a long time, then you've grown apart & are feeling the drift. Although I have discovered that as you get older it becomes harder to find new friends or ones that you can build any trust into, because you have no foundation to build on like you have with your First Friends from school.

Can you share the link or story for the woman who had the trip? I like reading them.

This argument comes up a lot. It seems like the argument is based on a belief system: If we're in a dream, if it's enlighten this or that, then why do anything? Well if you're not enlightened, how do you know this? You're just buying into someone else's belief system. And as you've probably heard in Leo's latest videos & insights, it's a 20-40 year journey. So if you're not willing to commit the time investment involved to see for yourself (and again _no guarantees you'll ever experience anything_!!), and if you take it on faith, you're copping out to actually doing anything useful or making a contribution to society. Also, I fail to see the part about competition & success. You say you have Leo's Life Purpose course right? What happened to doing a skill just for the sake of doing the skill? Hello, mastery. If you're not mastering anything then you haven't found a life purpose. Life purpose should be the antithesis to success & winning...those are just small parts of the whole, or used for paying your bills, like a day job. Come to think of it, I'm not even sure what an "enlightened perspective" would actually mean. That's buying into a belief system & going against the goal of having firsthand experience such as using meditation techniques. An enlightened perspective isn't systems thinking. If someone tells me that life is just a dream, so what? I still have to pay the bills & feel the pain of this machine called a body that I inhabit. I also get to take the pleasure in working on my life purpose(s) such as writing & music making. How can something that never lives or dies live forever? Why would a God hide infinity from himself? Maybe by being alive & being fooled by our waking dream is a welcome respite. Otherwise, what would be the reason to hide?...I can see the conundrums, but I can't really take an enlightened perspective because of that 20-40 year barrier & it may never happen even if you did it the whole 40+ years. Much easier to work on a life purpose, that's for sure.

If I have nothing to do, I'll just let my body be the alarm clock. If I sleep too long on a given day, I'll set an alarm to at least get me up before 9am the next day. For work days, I rarely get anything done in the morning. Maybe with extra time, you can prepare a better, larger breakfast.

I quit once over 10 years ago. I couldn't think straight for 2 weeks & had a bad headache for about the same amount of time. Eventually I'd find my way back to drinking coffee again. at honestly don't see the point in quitting. The Bulletproof coffee helps my train of thought for work. If you follow Dave Asprey's concept of the brain being 100% fat & that using high quality fats in your diet produces a better brain, then it works for me. Granted there are days where I sleep in & I'll just drink instant. But my manager has been praising my metrics for the past several months, telling me that however I'm handling my work is something of a black art. There's nothing they're able to pinpoint as to what makes my work better than the others on my team, so they can't duplicate it to improve the team to be on par with me. Unfortunately, I don't have any other metrics to measure for self-development. I really wish I had some that were as ruthlessly efficient as the ones we have for corporate day jobs. Also, Richard, if I were to quit at all, it would just be for a detox to clean the system. Then after that I'd be right back on top of it the next week. ;-)

Interesting. Other than some online buddies, I don't have any friends at all. I just ditched a couple of my oldest friends when I realized they were kind of faking their friendship towards me. I have a few at the nearby bar, but we're not really close. The funny thing is that I don't feel alone at all. I still have my gf, my co-workers, & family. What makes someone your friend anyway? I was realizing that the friends that I had in my court for the past few decades, just went out of their way to never visit, except maybe three times a year. So it sparked into my head that they weren't really my friends at all...just giving me platitudes (like wishing me a Merry Xmas but saying they're too busy to stop by when I've got some days off, not even for an hour). So my friends were nothing more than thoughts. They're not really there. Figments of my imagination. Probably over a year ago, was the last time I felt lonely or that I needed more friends. Nothing came of it either. I come from a long line of hermits, so I suppose it's very easy to get used to the silence...the Internet slowly making hermits of us all me thinks.

Alright, so I was out at the bar last night, having a few beers & an old friend of mine reached out & wanted to have a beer with me. I hadn't seen him in about a year & I thought I'd never see him again actually. This guy is a handsome, middle-aged man that had been married & divorced for about 16 years & I met him in the bar a few years ago when he was unsuccessfully chasing women around town. I found out that for the past year he had been flying over to China to romance a hot, younger Chinese woman & he showed me a few photos. He told me that he planned to marry her & bring her to the States this year. Then move to the West Coast to Washington/Oregon area as she said she wanted to be closer to nature. So at this point, with all of my self-development & research I've done on the topic, I spoke up & told him about Chinese green card hunters & how these trophy wives would leave after two years when they were permanent residents & women from China were notorious for a pump & dump of their American husbands. If it had been a Filipino woman, I wouldn't have thought this at all. I further tried to explain that these women would not have any notion of Western values & would, of course, not be lying when they say they would never leave the marriage (if residing in China). However, once they get to America, they talk to other women in the States. Suddenly, they'll find out how much power they have over a man, the finances, & everything else. I had asked if he was getting a prenuptial agreement, but he wasn't. However, when we were talking about retirement funds earlier, he told me hadn't planned accordingly when he was younger, so he didn't have anything but his salary coming in & not much saved for those final days. So it doesn't sound like he has much to risk. In my head, the life formula being followed here would be: -> Go to China. -> Pick your mail-order bride. (It may not have been from a catalog, but if I can fly over there & point my finger at the hottest gal for marriage & it requires so little effort of me, what else can it be called but a mail-order bride???) -> Bring her back to the States, make her American. -> Constantly requests money be sent back to her family overseas. -> May have children. -> 2-3 years later, she files for divorce & takes half. East/West Coasts, get alimony. Assuming it goes this route, it makes this path entirely farcical & an utter fantasy life style leading you right back to ground zero in a few years. All of that effort completely wasted. Much to my surprise, my buddy turned the tables on me with this conversation. He started telling me that he knew this girl & she wouldn't do this. He also said he didn't care if she cheated, wanted kids, or wanted a divorce. After it ended, he would just go find another woman. He was telling me that if I think the marriage will fail, then the mind will make it become true. But I've never been married & just about every married man I know is telling me they wished they had lived as a bachelor exactly as myself. And others have confided in me that they have sexless, unhappy, marriages that just limp along. Nobody is happy with it after a few years & the interesting sex has dried up. Then after telling me how he didn't care, he then tried to point out that I was lonely & that I should get a woman & get married!! Basically, do the same thing as him. So, I told him about my personality profile (INFP). The very definition of INFP is that I'll always have few friends & can go into & out of a hermit state, literally at will. As an introvert, I prefer being by myself all the time & I actually have to FORCE myself to go out to a bar & mingle with other people. And it's only once, sometimes twice a week. How the hell could I be lonely or desperate? In my eyes, I'd say that flying to a foreign country where the decks are stacked in your favor to select a trophy wife means that YOU are lonely! I could do exactly what he did too. Anyone in America can. Just engage in a dialog on the Internet, fly over & pick her up. And start breeding..lol. To me, it's the loneliest fucking act. Completely desperate. He also mentioned that since he was old, he just wanted to have someone around. To me, this translates into: I don't want to die alone. Whereas in our self-developed universe, we all know that we die alone anyway, whether somebody is there or not. At any rate, he was starting to get pissed, so I backed off on the topic & just told him that he looks like he really knows this woman & that he has it all figured out since he's not worried about her leaving in a few years, or taking his money or whatever. (I'm a Mediator, remember? lol) I didn't get a chance to explain that humor & the things that a foreign girl would find funny wouldn't come across between cultures & there would be so little in common to make the relationship last for very long. Especially when the sex gets old. Nor did I get a chance to mention that moving to Washington/Oregon might be a strategic move on her part to force him to pay alimony in addition to taking half his finances. That would be the reason of moving to the West Coast after all, it being her idea to do that. Not his. So the bar closed & I went home & I started to think to myself: Am I crazy? Have I got this entire situation backward? Should men be flying to other countries to bag a trophy wife & openly let themselves be exploited, in order for the relationship to be free? So it's ok for a divorce lawyer to ass-rape my bank accounts & let the wife do whatever she wants? Don't protect yourself from the Western-based exploitive legal system that hates men? Or is he just a big fucking idiot who only has it half-right? I've seen this guy do nothing but fail to get hot girls for the past 3 years, despite being handsome, right here in the USA & now going to bring a foreign girl over & thinking that being exploited is an acceptable risk. My own theory is that if you can't find someone in your hometown or at least within an hour's distance to where you live, then you're doing something wrong. There are Chinese women right here in town you can try to date or ask out. The difference being you can't just walk up to a group of them & point at one of them to have relations with you. Am I missing something?