Joseph Maynor

For what it's worth, this is what I do. I balance non-dual being with egoic-illusion depending on what kind of situation I'm in. Sometimes I need some ego, sometimes I need a little bit of dissolving into Being. Like a chef seasoning a dish, I add just the right mixture of illusion (ego) and Truth (no-ego) into each moment to advance my life-purpose agenda and to remain calm and peaceful regardless of circumstance. I hope this doesn't cheapen enlightenment, that's not my intention. Enlightenment is not only the existential truth, it's also a superb TOOL to be employed in a moment along with ego (which is also a superb tool), and it gives you a huge sense of being grounded and emotional-mastery. Ego is Yang, no-ego is Yin. The Tao is the proper harmonization of Yin and Yang in the moment. I don't know if this helps or confuses you. There's a practical side to enlightenment. Yes, it's the existential truth, but it's also a tool in the toolkit to be used when the situation calls for it. This is how it's all worked out for me. But as you can see from my posts I still appreciate existential Truth, but I'm not gonna sit around all day and do only that with my time. I couldn't even if I wanted to. I got lots of projects on my plate that need doing in the real world and I gotta be nose to the grindstone with this stuff or I ain't gonna get it all done. I work all the time, 7 days a week probably at least 10 hours a day on my business and life-purpose work. I wish I could explore more of the psychedelic stuff someday, and maybe I will. I had one really bad trip one time that scared the shit out of me. Fetal-position scared, ya feel me! No joke. So, I get it man -- "reality" can flip inside-out on psychedelics. For some reason I wanted to drive my car and I didn't even know where I wanted to go. If you're gonna trip, you might want to give your car keys to someone else. I was 5150 (so I designate here, not legally) for a while, and then I collapsed into the ground into a pool of colors, and I still don't know how it happened, but I ended up in my bed with the covers over me in a fetal position slowly coming down, shivering with fear. I think I promised myself like 1000 times that if I made it out alive I would never do this again. But of course . . . I did. I never had a trip that bad though, but that one scarred me. It made me realize that if you got any demons, insecurities, anxiety, depression, or any paranoia or anything like that, watch out with psychedelics. Baby step it. You don't wanna have a come to Jesus moment in the worst possible way. Having no footing in reality is what is really scary. You can't make heads or tails of things. It's existentially terrifying. Well, not always, but it was in that instance. Sometimes it's absolutely spectacular. But ya'll know about that. I don't really fool with drugs anymore. Sobriety is actually best for personal development work. Healthy, sober, strong is what I wanna be (need to be) in order to get my dream-life handled. So, that's what I am shooting for long-term. But I make no judgments about drugs. Again, it is us that acts unwisely, drugs are just tools like guns. Sometimes using the tool is useful sometimes it is unwise, it depends on the situation. The problem is that we make shit decisions like 90% of the time. That's our real problem. So, instead of blaming our own lack of self-control and discipline, we scapegoat drugs. That's just like us -- we blame everything and everyone but ourselves and we rationalize up-the-yin-yang! Ever notice how you and others rationalize things? It's nuts! Where the hell did that gene come from and how can we de-program that? Someone will get Bill Gates rich if they crack that problem. You want big money, there you go! It just fell in your lap. Get busy. Videos on point:

Great points. But to be fair to Leo -- and pardon me if I am wrong -- but I assume a big part of Leo's life-purpose is taking the deep-dive into enlightenment. Just a hunch, I don't know that for certain. Life-purpose is a very personal thing. I know how fond Leo is about enlightenment and the Truth. I would guess that he loves it, he's passionate about it. And good for him. That's a perfect element for his life-purpose if that's the case. If you're gonna chase anything, chase what lights you up on the inside, what you're passionate about. So, he's gonna take enlightenment further than I would for example, because my life-purpose is different, although there is an intersection -- in the Venn-Diagram sense -- between all of our life-purposes. But those areas of commonality change in size depending on who we are comparing from a life-purpose standpoint. (I happen to get my kicks from Philosophy and writing, but that's just me. ) Hey -- everybody loves ice-cream, but Ben and Jerry had a passion for it and took the deep-dive into ice-cream. I could go on and on. Wine anyone? There's another deep rabbit-hole. Some people could care less about wine. But some people dedicate their entire lives and careers to studying wine and pairing it with all the different kinds of foods, etc. It's a friggin' science in and of itself that could take a lifetime to master. I hope I didn't belabor this point. Sometimes I get carried away, and I am passionate about life-purpose right now (and I hope for forever because it's awesome). Now, on another issue. And I hope I don't come off as sounding too arrogant here -- but a lot of people don't seem to understand this so I will state it here. The point is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater regarding rational thinking, it's to understand what rational thinking is, what it isn't, and when and where it is useful to employ it in certain situations, and when rational thinking has no jurisdiction as it were. This is subtle, but it has helped me. In relative truth and for scaffolding work, rational thinking can be useful. For being non-dual reality, rational thinking *can* set you apart from enlightenment by 100 miles. So, it's not rational thinking that is bad, it is how we are clinging to it and interpreting it in certain situations that is stupid or bad. Let's use a better word, a nicer word -- unwise. Kinda like guns don't kill people, we do. Or concepts are not bad, it's how we cling to and interpret them that is bad in certain situations. Same kinda issue in all those scenarios -- It's us that is wrong! But due to denial, we don't like to acknowledge that, so we blame something else. It's how we are clinging sub-optimally per the situations that we are in that is bad. Ok, so I'm off my soapbox now. I just needed to interject this because I see it come up over and over again, and I'm not saying that you committed any of these "offenses" haha. I just responded to your post because I saw you raised the issue of rational thinking. See, now I get to stand around eating doughnuts and write everybody else a ticket like a traffic-cop too! Gives my ego a little boost, a little goose to the ole identity-complex.

There is no me. Reality just is. But even these claims have to eat themselves. Writing just happened, but even this claim has to eat itself. Reality is of a piece, but even this claim has to eat itself. Absolute Truth is a tricky bear. Yes, this too must devour itself. What did Leo say -- a cat unraveling a yarn which unravels the cat? I totally get that. But even this belief has to eat itself. All beliefs are existentially false. Yes this one too must dine on itself. Everything said in my prior post must eat itself too, like a snake swallowing its own tail. At best it can be relative truth or scaffolding. This claim doesn't have to eat itself since it is within the egoic illusion. I have dropped back down into the human illusion now where absolute Truth hides in plain view. Hey, if it's just us we can do whatever we want right? A bunch of hairless-monkeys creating some culture and a little beliefs. Why not? It's better than watching other monkeys play charades on TV. Ain't nothin' wrong with relative truth per se, unless it tries to ape its older brother, absolute Truth. Everything we believe is relative truth at best. That's what's special about enlightenment, the rules change -- the carpet is pulled out from under our little monkey feet, and we can't wrap our little primate-minds around it. We might exclaim --what the hell is happening to me? Well . . . . I would say there is no you, but you know the rejoinder -- this belief must chow-down on itself too. Lots of giving with one hand and taking away with the other hand happening here. Reality is counter-intuitive because it is non-dual.

Also any metaphysical conclusions we make are not non-dual awareness, they are made within the relative egoic human life, language, and theories -- in monkey-ville! So, trolls cannot exist in non-dual awareness because that's an egoic distinction. Whatever "trolls" could be in non-dual awareness is part-and-parcel of everything else that is real, and it is what is -- since reality is a-conceptual. So, what is real would be something like the visuals of a troll but not trolls, but even that individuation would be egoic because you are piecing-out an image from non-dual reality thereby adding a little monkey-augmentation to non-dual awareness, super-imposing a little monkey individuation belief on non-dual awareness. So, anything we say in language is within the relative egoic pragmatic truth, not absolute Truth. All beliefs are existentially false. This is a humbling insight. Of course we can say a lot of relative things about non-duality, but they are all true with a lower-case t not true with an upper-case T if that makes sense. So, again, we can say a lot of monkey-chatter about reality, but it ain't reality. Reality is something that just is without distinction, and even this sentence has to eat itself. This is why it is important to be the Truth not theorize about the Truth. If you wanna theorize about reality, you're gonna be engaging in theory-scaffolding (which can be useful training-wheels to guide novices or those learning about enlightenment) or truth with a lower-case t -- relative human truth, a biased monkey-mind perspective on reality (or theory of reality) not reality itself. For the purposes of my post here, you can consider a theory to be roughly a set of beliefs or proposed beliefs.

Real and not real is an egoic conceptual distinction, not part of non-dual awareness. What is is notwithstanding our thoughts about it. To answer one way or the other would be existentially false. All conceptual judgments about what is is a piece of reality trying to judge the entire thing. Like a Yelp review trying to judge Paris has no effect on Paris. Paris will survive long after Yelp will. But even this is merely egoic story. Be the Truth, that's it. Knowing the Truth by chin-wagging about it *can* lead to augmenting reality with storytelling (It depends on how the beliefs are clung to). Of course we need belief scaffolding about reality, but scaffolding is humble. Scaffolding would never claim to be the building it surrounds. No map is the territory, and this statement and judgment needs to eat itself too. All of these statements need to eat themselves existentially as they are all egoic distinctions overlaid on top of non-dual awareness.

Reality makes no distinctions. It just is. All distinctions are egoic. As soon as monkey-speak, illusion-city is already rearing-up. Just be with reality, sit within it, envelop within it, like a baby snuggling into a warm blanket freshly taken out of the drier. Once we start flapping our lips we lose something of that beauty, of that experience. And it's the experience that has true value, not our words, our silly squawking. Intellectuals should be humbled by enlightenment not emboldened by it. Just my take, my monkey-view to pile onto the rest. Do we really care about all these words? Does Paris give a shit about some tourist's Yelp review about it? See? Paris could care less. It just is. Reality laughs at our words. Actually, it aggrandizes us to even say it does that much. Reality is actually indifferent to our words.

Why the limiting-belief? Live a charged-life. Do what is emotionally-difficult. Not all of us are hiding under the cover of pseudonyms here. People are supposed to mingle not peck away like neurotic birds from behind a dead-screen. You got more interesting people per-capita here than in bars, yet most people don't think twice before going to those. You only life once. Mingle. Let's not be neurotic ants hiding in mom's basement. That's the antithesis of what we want to be. I'd like to meet all of you personally. If you came to San Francisco, I'd drop what I was doing to come meet you. But that's just me. It could change our lives. It would be stupid to waste that opportunity, and for what? To avoid going outside our little bubble for a couple of hours? You only live once. Meet everyone you can, especially anyone regularly on here. It's bound to do something positive for everyone involved. To me it would be more fun to shoot the shit with any of you than hear you preach. I'd learn more about you too having you off your pedestals, without the personas, the masks. And you'd see me without mine. We'd see a similar spark in each other's eyes, something that would work to dissolve our differences. And we would be so happy afterwards. Like visiting a foreign city that you've heard so much about in books for the first time.

@unknownworld Not to butt into this discussion but to me arguing about enlightenment or who's more enlightened than whom seems so wrong to me. It's like arguing over who's poo smells the worst objectively speaking. Maybe we need to put the toy away for a while, we have built too many fantasies around it. Wanting to be right and enlightenment go together like oil and water. Enlightenment work has tempered my need to be right not fed it, but that's just me.

@Danielle Cool. The day before yesterday I got a shot of excitement hit me like what used to happen when I was in my teens. That giddy-burst of excitement for reality and for the future that zaps you, you know what I'm talking about. It's a discrete, momentary, emotional zap or burst. I haven't had one of those hit me in years. I recall I used to have those quite frequently when I was younger. It was noteworthy when it happened. I was like, aw shit! I haven't felt one of these in years! It's a shame that we lose these little zaps of excitement as we age. Reality becomes too hum-drum, too settled-into, too made-at-home within. We lack those unsettled, half-naive bursts of novelty and anticipation that we had when we were much younger. And now I crave more of these zaps! I recall it was one of the best things about being young. Everyday was filled with dreams about the future -- big dreams, and the sky was wide-open as to what I could be or what I could do with my life. Like a blank-canvas patiently waiting, anticipating, expecting to be turned-into a masterpiece someday -- where my dreams were my reality and my reality was patiently-awaiting my dreams -- like a poor dog staring at the front-door panting, waiting for its owner to inevitably return. The raw joy and power of anticipation! I hadn't even realized I had lost this. But then I focused on what I have gained since that time and smiled. Oh, it's all so much of a journey, so much of a trip -- a story with the second-half still yet to be told. And the relation between the first-half and the second-half of the story will be interesting to see. This gives me anticipation to be elderly, to see the blunt, half-jagged strokes of my artwork exit the dream and fall into my lap like a tossed-toy. Perhaps at this time I will put this toy on my mantle-piece above my fireplace and stare at it sometimes with wrinkled-face -- blowing new life into the old dream by so doing. Like an aging-musician listening to his old hit song years later with new ears colliding with old-memories. At some point in the life-cycle of an artwork, the artist has to lay down the brush. It's always fascinating to know when and where the final strokes should be placed on the canvas. When is a work of art complete? That's a fascinating question every artist faces. I will get to see all of that in my own life in my elderly years and I look forward to it. Why didn't he put a little more paint up there in that corner where it is all bare! someone might ask. What was done will be what was done -- the artwork by this time will have become artifact, a toy to be placed on the mantle-piece now -- or a painting to be hung-up on the wall in my bedroom over my bed, over my buzzing-head.

Mathematics doesn't have a foundation in reality, but it has correlation with theories about reality. Or, more importantly, theories can be framed within the theories of Mathematics. But notice that any practical application of a mathematical idea is no longer the pure mathematical idea. It is now a new thought. A different thought. One way to think of Mathematics is it is the theoretical residue that remains after the mechanical-mind abstracts the content out of its mechanical theories, especially physical or scientific theories of external reality. When that content falls away, what is left is the abstract structures of Mathematics, the scaffolding of the probing-mind facing outwards on physical reality. But this is a story, don't cling to this as a truth. It's just an idea to goose the intuition a little bit. We call these intuition-pumps in Philosophy. Talking about Mathematics as one thing is a bullshitting exercise, but it can be useful as a training-wheels theory to get your gears-turning as you explore more on your own. At some point you gotta kick the training-wheels off though. Mathematics also comes from quantizing, individuating, drawing analogies to geometry, consideration of groups or sets in the abstract of what's actually in them, or the consideration of relations or functions between variables that can be represented in mathematical structures. But notice that X = YZ has a different meaning from F = MA, although F = MA is influenced on the pure mathematical form of X = YZ. F = MA is force is equal to mass times acceleration, a principle of Newtonian Physics. Remember this, Mathematics is more like a bush than a tree. Don't think of Mathematics as a single thing reducing-down to a foundation in logic or set theory, but as a loose connection of theories with a certain resemblance. Set theory or symbolic propositional logic is no more foundational than the theory of ratios or the theory of integral equations. Mathematics has no center or foundation. The expectation that Mathematics should have a center or a foundation is a theory that WE overlay on top of Mathematics. Each theory in Mathematics is of-a-piece and has a unique history of relation, influence, and interconnection with other "mathematical theories" or other concepts and metaphors (some existing outside of Mathematics). Think of Matrices. Do they exist in Nature? No, we made them up to solve certain problems. Each Mathematical theory or structure has a history behind it. If you really want to learn the Philosophy of Mathematics, learn about the History of Mathematics and new doors will open for you. The a-historical way that Mathematics is taught in schools where all the theories are bunched-together in a nifty, tidy book, is a convenience that textbook authors created, they made it up. Mathematics didn't come into being that way. Mathematics evolved in a more piece-meal, messy, creative, and exploratory way, one little step at a time, each step standing on the shoulders of prior work done in the field of Mathematics (and Mathematical Physics especially). Here's a great book to read which I read and loved every page. The Story of Mathematics by Lloyd Motz. (If you like this read his The Story of Physics too, it is excellent.) https://www.amazon.com/Story-Mathematics-Lloyd-Motz/dp/0380724588/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1502931087&sr=1-2&keywords=the+story+of+physics+motz https://www.amazon.com/Story-Physics-Jefferson-Weaver-Paperback/dp/B010WF6JRA/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1502931123&sr=1-4&keywords=the+story+of+physics+motz

We are afraid of being judged stupid or crazy by our peers. We are afraid that we might find out we are wrong and have to give up some of our cherished beliefs. We are trained not to discuss beliefs and it is culturally considered to be rude. We protect and respect each others' bad habit of denial.

I like to think of life-purpose like this -- imagine you have a line that has several wooden-beads strung along it. Now imagine that that line is slack and horizontal and the beads all have a lot of space in between them. What life-purpose does, if done right, is it raises one end of that line up so that all the beads fall together and become one giant, unified bead pointing-upward at the raised-end. Those beads are everything you need to be doing to live a big-life and even just a responsible life. You are going to be living here to do your life-purpose work, so money is a bead for you. Having a retirement is a bead for you. In order to contribute back to the world, you gotta wanna live here for 60-70-80 years in some degree of financial-security, at least to where those issues don't interfere with whatever the result is that you are aiming for in your life-purpose. One of the benefits of life-purpose is that by lifting-up one end of that line, it gets your whole-life together by carrying all the hum-drum aspects of living, like finances, up along with it. A rising-tide lifts all boats, all beads. So if you do it right, finances will be built into your life-purpose. It's a necessary element of living here to do your work. You don't wanna be struggling financially if you're gonna make an investment here on Earth to do your life-purpose work. So you gotta be strategic in how your entire-life, including your finances, are beads on that line. And when you get that passion and drive that comes from your life-purpose work, where your work finally becomes play, your whole-life comes together as you take massive loving action each day -- and all those beads slide-together and become one giant rising, consolidating, optimizing, getting-its-shit-together bead. Life-purpose is the juice, the turbo-charger you need to strategically get your whole-life handled if you do it right. Like taking the slack out of your line and creating your life into an optimized work of art, investing in your whole-life, so that you can shine for others, and to do that you must actually shine -- which means you need to be healthy, strong, happy, and coming from a place of true overflowing abundance. How can you contribute huge creative-value to the world without becoming a cornucopia of abundance yourself? You need to be so full you are overflowing with heart and gifts (your prolific works), giving true value and love to whatever it is that you are focusing on in the moment. Paradoxically, we help ourselves most by resolving to make our lives about contributing to others. It's a Way of embracing Maya while not embracing Maya. A little trick we use to make this illusory-life on Earth palatable to us if we choose to remain here, which most of us have decided to do. If we're gonna remain in Maya, let's do it from our higher-self rather than our lower-self. This is the meaningless-meaning, the purposeless-purpose. So, is life-purpose about you or others? To me this is a beautiful question. And because we are all one, what you're doing is channeling love into love. Love is becoming more fully-conscious of itself. To me that's what life-purpose is. Love directed inwards manifests outwards and love directed outwards manifests inwards. It becomes a rising-spiral in your life and in the world as a greater good. An upward-spiral of love within monkey-land. A reasonless-reason for toying with Maya and even working at all. A trick to navigate a trick as it were. An illusion within an illusion. A construct we use to make a happier, healthier dream (dream-life). Life-purpose is so deep. It's one of the golden-keys of life and I'm so grateful to Leo for making me realize the value of this magical and powerful motivation-supercharging tool. Leo's life-purpose caused my life-purpose vision to come into focus. His love begat my love. And my love will begat someone else's love as I now execute by life-purpose. It's a beautiful thing, like cascading dominoes building up to infinite-momentum. What better could we be doing within Maya? That's a deep question. Reality laughs at all our distinctions but we don't. The illusion kisses God on the cheek like the dutiful Son honoring its Father. Reality just is. Life-purpose and enlightenment really are two-sides of the same coin. Ok, not really, haha. Maybe I should pound my hairless-monkey fist on my desk to make this claim more True. You are the music-maker, and you are the dreamer of dreams. You are absolute-infinity. Manifest the juice from that. Creative contribution is happening all around you and within you. Become one with that creative-energy, that evolving elan-vital, so that all your beads rise and merge-together into something excellent, something that could be put on a pedestal, a truly-honed work of art, a conduit for the Good and the True. Video on point to watch:

If you can learn to love yourself fully you won't need love to come externally. Then you will not come off as clingy or insecure which repels people. You'll be interfacing with the world sourced in love, giving love. That's how you'll get love back is by overflowing with abundant love sourced inside of you. Shower the people you know with love. Give abundantly without any desire to be recompensed and you will get so much love back. And then the people around you will start to want to do kind things for you not because they feel like they owe you, but because they like you and want to nurture you, to care for you, to bond with you. When you tap into Divine Love everyone around you will know it. It will change your life. You'll be a source, not a sink; grounded from inside yourself, not insecure. Remember, respect is a form of love. One of the most priceless things you can do to show love is to show respect to someone, especially someone who is unaccustomed to being given much respect. Call a homeless man sir and see what response you get. Kindness and gentleness and patience and respect are what people really love to receive. Giving these to people from a place of abundance is one of the greatest joys in life. Not to mention what you get back in return.

You should look at some of Picasso's art from his weird African phase when you are tripping.

You're neurotic because you're not integrated right within reality. You're not grounded. You're not harmonized with reality. Enlightenment works on this.

The next stage is to realize that your belief that you are at the center of things is an illusion. But even that is a story. You as a body-mind-brain don't exist. But even that is a story. What exists is reality being aware of itself, and reality is everything moving as one giant flow without distinction. But even that is a story. And Reality being itself just is you. But even that is a story. You are not a thing but the non-dual reality being itself. But even that is a story. You are the atmosphere that is aware of all the clouds moving though it, yet you are not the clouds. But even that is a story. Reality is not conceptually capturable, it is idealism. It is what is -- stripped of our thought-stories about it. It is being that. Knowing it by being it. But even that is a story Everything you see around you is not physical. It's a non-dual substance. But even that's a story. Nothing is what is conscious of everything. It's just one being. But even that's a story. Nature is nothingness. And that's what you are. It has no properties, no features. It doesn't exist or not exist. But even that's a story. Fall into the godhead. This is the ultimate nature of reality. Where there are no distinctions and you are aware you are nothing, and that everything is you. Absolute Infinity is right in front of you. BUT . . . . Need I go on? Do you see by not-seeing what I am pointing/ not-pointing to? Enlightenment is an odd sort of reading between the lines. But, yes, even that is a little story, a little hairless-monkey fairy-tale we tell ourselves to feel like we know. To satisfy our need to know, our need for certainty. Our human/egoic urge for conceptual resolution, for understanding -- that succulent, tantalizing fruit we can't resist -- like Eve not minding God and wanting to feast on such forbidden-fruit from the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. After God found out about this little fruit-picking transgression, He said, get the hell outta here and don't come back! Don't be pickin' no fruit from my Tree of Knowledge. I told you explicitly not to do this. Jeez!

The feeling of giving back from a place of abundance without alterior motives is one of the purest, best feelings you can have in life. The joy of giving back. I imagine this is what parents or teachers must feel like at times too.

Nice tool. I'll work with it. Mindfulness of Energy Mindfulness of Willpower/ increases Threshold Guardians/ Emotional labor Gaining Experience/ Leveling-Up Resilience/ Strength/ Increases Perseverence

Nice work. You have a nice writing style. Very genuine voice and good tone.

It's a set of loosely-related but not foundationally unified theories about numbers, logic, sequences, series, sets, relations, geometry, and inqualities -- and corresponding numerous applications of these concepts. Mathematics is thoughts. Lots of thoughts. Thoughts that have nice application in the Physical Sciences, Engineering, and elsewhere.

Write out a list of all the things you dislike about yourself and other people. Write out a list of all the things you like about yourself and other people. This will get you started. It will get you digging. The ego is everything you identify as me. The shadow is everything that you identify as not-me. Me in the sense of -- I'm the kind of person statements. E.g., I'm a skater. I'm a tough guy. I'm a metal-head. I'm bad with women. Etc. The key to shadow work is to let in little repressed pieces of you from your shadow come back into consciousness so you can integrate more fully with your authentic self. Your quest to carve out a strong identity caused you to reject or repress certain parts of you. This is what shadow work fixes. It allows you to fill-out into your authentic self more. Emerald has 2 vids on shadow work that you gotta watch for background. Her YouTube channel is called The Diamond Net. Watch those two vids. They will solidify your conceptual understanding of shadow work.

These are in no particular order: (baby-step these in though or you will get overwhelmed and quit.) Purpose in mind/end in mind: You need a clear purpose in mind before work makes any sense. You should know every moment of your day what routine/task lives in that time-space. Once you know that, you can easily assess whether you're off track or not. If you don't know that, well, you see the problem? You can't go after something effectively unless you (1) define very clearly what it is you're going after and (2) know what it is that you should be working on at all times. Don't multi-task: When you start a task, which is usually a little project in itself, spend 15-20 minutes strategizing about it. The best way to do this is open a Word doc and try to break the project down into sub-tasks. Then order these tasks from first to-do to last to-do. Focus only on the task-at-hand: Now print out that list. Now, do each task in that list without multitasking. Cross-off each item after you do it. Block-time/ Pomodoro Method: Work in Pomodoros or block-time. This is critical. My effectiveness boomed when I started using the Pomodoro Method. It paces out your day right so you don't procrastinate or feel under the gun with your work. Google it. That's how I learned about it. The rules are simple. Daily-routines: Every ongoing task in your life needs to be implemented into a daily-routine. And each routine has a time when it is done. So this is what gives you that knowing of what it is that you should be doing at a particular time. Then you can know very clearly whether you are doing right or wrong conduct in a moment. Holding yourself accountable requires knowing what you should be doing in the moment. So critical. Momentum: Your day has different momentum feels to it. Make sure when you are doing a task that you are not shocking yourself. Pace yourself. Try to harmonize your work with your energy levels and time of day. Work with your body and energy levels not against them. Flow: Try to lose yourself in each task. Become one with the task and get into flow. You'll get a lot done effortlessly when you get into the zone and ride that wave. When you're in flow try to avoid interruptions. Interruptions are the enemy of flow. Close your door so you can work without interruptions. Turn your phone off and unplug the internet cable if you must. I do this.

Here's a good way to describe it. Say you want to find a girlfriend. Step-one is to write-down that goal and actually read it every day. Step-two is the implementation of that goal. You need a strategy for obtaining your goal. The best strategy is to break your implementation down into a daily or weekly-routine. In this case, let's do a weekly-routine. You are going to get a girlfriend by implementing a weekly-routine on Friday nights. Say you target a specific club to hunt for your potential girlfriend. If you have resistance or fear here, you're not just gonna walk in that club every Friday and talk to women. So, you baby-step yourself. Maybe the first Friday all you do is sit in the parking-lot of the club for 30 mins and then drive away. Maybe the second Friday, you get out of your car and just walk around outside the club for 30 mins and then leave. Maybe the third Friday you go inside the club for 30 minutes and then leave. See? You are baby-stepping your actions on a routine that will eventually lead you to getting a girlfriend -- over time. You are slowly building-up momentum and confidence to get you to your goal of obtaining a girlfriend. This strategy is called baby-stepping. It's a hugely effective strategy that you all should be using! One major reason why people fail (or worse, don't even try) is that they don't know how to strategically baby-step the implementation of their goals. A mountain is moved by a thousand baby-steps. Think of your goals this way instead of trying to move the mountain in one or two goes. Ain't gonna work like that. Not for big-goals which are often scary and intimidating. That's why achievement of big-goals is a rare and valuable thing. Most people don't do it, and more importantly, they don't know how to do it. They lack strategic-thinking. You wanna be like a general on the battlefield of your life, with one eye on your final-goal and at the same time with the other eye on the little tactical, strategic maneuvers that will add-up to your final victory over time. The trap that most people fall into is they want the girlfriend right now -- they want the quick-fix. That's a huge trap. That mentality often, but not always, leads to disaster.

No. Competition is good if it is in line with your life-purpose. What is bad is when people compete for stupid reasons that don't really benefit their lives or anyone else's life. If you wanna live a BIG, FULL life you're gonna be competing your whole life. Learn to love competing to achieve your goals. But also know when to turn that off though too. A lot of Type A people don't know how and when to shut that competitive mentality off. So, mindfulness and high-consciousness is key when strategizing when and where to compete for resources.