Saturday Seven's: 25 March 23
A compilation of my findings, interests, and actions from the past week that might be of interest to you. It allows me to share the results of my weekly routine, and you can follow too!
Hello you!
Welcome to my weekly newsletter! This is where I share my latest discoveries, insights, and musings from the past week. From fascinating articles and captivating podcasts to insightful quotes and personal reflections, you'll find a diverse array of content that I hope will inspire and inform you. And if you enjoy what you read, don't hesitate to share it with your friends and family - they might find it just as engaging as you do. So sit back, relax, and let's dive into the world of ideas together!
This weeks Youtube videos:
All in podcast
YC Sam Altman
GPT Updates
What I’m currently reading:
“How to live”- Derek Sivers
“The illusion of money” - Kyle Cease
“Anything you want” - Derek Sivers
What I’ve listened to:
Audio I’ve listened to:
Quotes I’ve liked:
“Only spend money on things that do long-term good, like education.
In other words, never spend, only invest.
The earlier you start, the better, since time is the multiplier.” - Derek Sivers“Mastery is the best goal because the rich can’t buy it, the impatient can’t rush it, the priviledged can’t inherit it, and nobody can steal it.
You can only earn it through hard work.
Mastery is the ultimate status.” - Derek Sivers“There are few things that get you over your own crap more than working hard.” - Adam Savage
“The most rewarding things in life take years.
Only bad things happen quickly.” - Derek Sivers“You must be single-minded. Drive for the one thing on which you have decided.” - George S. Patton Jr.
“The passion comes after you start getting good.” - Derek Sivers
“The more you can dream, the more you can do.” - Micheal Korda
“True success is figuring out your life and career so you never have to be around jerks.” - John Waters
“Confidence doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s a result of something… hours and weeks and years of constant work and dedication.” - Roger Staubach
This week’s curiosities, interests, and thoughts:
Thoughts:
On being an opportunist and seeing fear:
If you want to make money, a recession is a great time. Because investors are all seeking safe haven for their funds. And if you can prove that your venture is a safe haven and assure your benefactors that their money will be safe and can grow. You will seem like a lighthouse during a storm. Raising capital for your business during a bubble crisis is easy, people need a safe place for their money.The rich with no skills shout louder than the rich with skills. It’s a matter of self esteem. After all, rich people are just people, built the same.
Keep your head low always, but always believe in yourself too.
Emotional Investment
The quality of the thoughts we have depends on the decisions we take to do x.
The quality of the thoughts we have create the emotion we live with. And the emotions we focus on grow and create the quality of our life. What does it FEEL like to: Succeed, to be a billionaire, to be healthy, to Love one’s self, to be loved, to be free, to be great? Focus on the FEELING. What sorts of emotions do you practice daily?
The Decision to do X activity, creates the thoughts (which are related to that activity), which create the emotions (uplifting or downpulling, related to our 1) Alignment with our decision, 2) the choice to think our thoughts -positive or negative- ). Choice of thoughts = choice of feelings → Quality of life.
Choice to feel [M](specific emotions) → Choice to materialise /attract → the benefits of those [E]emotions.
We get [M] in proportion that we feel [E]. Therefore we must expand [E] as much as we can to get more of [M].
What expands [E]? → Focus/ Flow/ Fully Embracing [E]… Doing more of this.A) So what emotions am I proficient in?
B) What Emotions do I need to train in?
1) Anger-Lust-Frustration-Fear… ?
2) Joy- Excited - Happy - Free- Abundant - successful - Rich - Healthy - ease - harmony - beautiful - loved - flexible - adaptable - full - amazing - blissful - on top of the world - confident - desired - magic- in awe - magical - wonder - excitement - adventure - fun - light - blessed- secure - carefree - powerful - achievement - praise - …
What does it feel like to experience these emotions?
How can I experience these emotions more?
What circumstances do I want?
And what feeling do those circumstances represent?
What obstacles prevent me from feeling deeply, from all of these emotions?
What day dreams and thoughts make me feel the emotions listed before?
What does it feel like to ‘make it big’? What does it feel like to win?
After everything I’ve been though, what is the contrast of my lowest point and my highest point?
What is an emotion I want to experience abundantly for the rest of my life?
What does the finishline represent (emotionally)?
What pain am I currently feeling? How can I heal it?Two types of education.
Learning should be from a place of curiosity. Never from a place of urgency or feeling forced. Education means to lead out, so your education should be tailored to your curiosity and interest rather than the side effect it produces (money). Your curiosity and interest are your GPS and guide you towards what you need to bring out and to the forefront of yourself. Forced education is a failure.
Which is why there are two versions for education: to mold /to shape or to lead out.
I'd rather bring out my abundant brilliance than force myself into a box of constraints.Feelings = thoughts = what we do.
Our feelings = the activities we engage in every day.What activities do I enjoy?
How do activities make me feel?
What activities make me feel great?
How can I build a life style around things that make me feel great?
The one indicator of who you are:
Your train of thought = YOU.
If you can build a successful train of thought you’ll always come back to it. Successful train of thoughts → Successful momentum of feelings → Comes from doing activities we want to do, that we enjoy, that are fulfilling.We end up going towards what we focus on.
Spend your time focussing on your amazon basket, add a little hype around how the end of the world is coming, and how the financial market is going to collapse, and VOILA! You no longer trust the value of money enough to hold on to your savings and think that if the markets going to crash, you may as well prepare for it.
The next thing you know, your savings are gone, and the amazon guy is knocking at your door. Now, this all happened because of two things. Fear and Wrong focus, and wrong focus because we’re unaware of the effect focus can have over our actions.
If you repeat look at an object of desire, you’ll end up wanting it more while disempowering yourself. Just as you disempowered yourself while you waited for your high-school lover to respond for days and then came back to life when they responded. Its because you aren’t investing any energy in You while you focus on their text response and that doesn’t feed or nourish you. If you think about something a lot, you’ll end up growing its importance for yourself and living in contrast to it, or lack of it.Stop focussing on the things that don’t participate in building up your life ( skills, wellbeing, relationships…). Like online hype, social media, or whatever fear-based narrative that ends up disempowering you through the thoughts it elicits. Cut that shit out of your life!
Start focussing on whatever empowers you! → The center of your focus should be your progress, your growth, your learning, your well-being, your future, your narrative (your train of thoughts…) .
Build an alternative reality that supports your progress, and ultimately empowers you to empower others because it allows you to resource from a place that only you can delve into.
Seek to deconstruct your fears, seek to find loopholes, seek to find peace here and now. This is your foundation.
Never try to get away from something, always try to go towards something. It’s subtle, but there is a big difference. If you are uncomfortable or in fear that where you are will [FILL IN THE BLANK], you’re running away from an idea. If you’re not going towards something with the support of what you already have, you’re running away, forgetting to water your own garden and seeking greener pastures. Outgrow your circumstances, don’t seek for better ones.
Importance of focus:
We think in relation to what we focus on most. We focus on what we’re most exposed to.
→ Spend time in england → Start thinking / speaking in English.
→ Spend time coding → That thinking about the code you can produce.
Our thought process = what we are most exposed to.
If you want to learn to [FILL IN THE BLANK], but spend your watching football, or reading about startups or following the latest advances in the market.
Focus the majority of your time focussed on [FILL IN THE BLANK], what you can do with it, how you can better understand it, on ways to apply it… not your amazon wish-list. Focus where you’re going, what you’re doing.
If you are in pain, you will seek comfort for that pain.
If you seek comfort, you will shift your focus.Failing quickly is the best thing you can do. You’ll prevent yourself from losing valuable resources and you’ll be able to recover faster. Failing quickly is helpful.
Plan what you will consume in advance. - Mental consumption
Especially for learning immersion in complex subjects or if you want to master something. Focus on building your mastery and only that. Be satisfied with what you already have, don’t seek to have more if you already don’t outgrow or master what you have.Choose what is in your mind:
You want to travel, have luxury, own luxury, be with beautiful people, because you 1) feed your mind with that type of content, 2) believe the illusion that it is better than what you currently have, 3) reject what you have because you associate pain to it. You have been sold the idea that something elsewhere is better and will make you happy.
Your only opportunity is right here, find comfort in mastering your reality right here and becoming more than you are here.
Undo your fear, your pain connection, and your delusion that elsewhere is the solution. It’s not, its a narrative that’s being fed to you that disempowers your current action and progress. It’s in someone elses interest to sell you “a better situation” by making you feel that what you have is mediocre.To focus well and learn:
Sit.
Have a subject you want to learn.
Reduce all distractions to the minimum.
Choose to read the subject with the intention of understanding how it works, how it fits in etc.
Turn off thoughts by Active listening, you will hear the sound of your inner reading.
Breath deeply while reading to intensify oxygen and blood-flow. + Focus on breath and reading.
Understand the discomforts + Fears + Pains you feel which take your energy and prevent you from full immersion in subject.
Get multiple sources that teach the same thing. This will allow you to get a better understanding of what you’re seeking to comprehend.
If you don’t understand, read about it, ask openai to explain it to you as if you were 4 years old…
Everything you learn as a child seems to last forever because you have no context to view it with relative to the length of time.
So in order to learn something well, you must immerse yourself with
a) The same intensity, and frequency that you would if you had a malleable child brain.
b) Percieve the subject as you would if you were a child and let it imprint your brain.
c) Add adult mental models to this immersion learning to better incorporate your skill understanding.
You can’t help someone unless they actually want help. Helping someone shouldn’t be painful or destructive to the helper.
Don’t reinvent the wheel if others have already done so. Use their innovation, stand on their shoulders.
Strive to master something you can control. Writing I can control, code I can control, breathing I can control… And master those things until you can monetize them. [Not specific to these things.]
Being rich doesn’t make you better. It means you have more options to get better with.
You only get ahead by mastering multiple things and stacking them, and then venturing into new things. Embracing the pain, making your new thing your comfort zone, and spending your time there practicing. Only move on when you have mastered one thing.
Mastery provides confidence because you can rely on your skills and even monetize them.
We can rely on skills we have mastered and this provides confidence, because having skills = survival = contribution = value.
Skills are visible potential.How to get a magical mindset?
First of all: what does that entail? What does that represent?
What are the processes/ Actions to create that outcome?
What is required to a) create magic? b) Create enchantment? c) create surprise? d) uplift someone?
Thank you for reading this week's newsletter! I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback. What resonated with you the most? What would you like to see more or less of in future editions? Please don't hesitate to share your suggestions and ideas with me on Twitter @check_goldberg. Just include the hashtag #saturdaysevens so I can find your feedback easily.
And if you found any of the ideas in this week's newsletter particularly intriguing, be sure to check out my books ‘The creators guide to the galaxy’, and ‘Addiction’ on amazon!
I hope you have a fantastic weekend, filled with joy and relaxation. Much love to you and yours.
Until next week,
Cherokee