Hey there!

Today Michaels good friend, Sam, is joining on as a guest-writer for todays post. He’s sharing a personal story of an experience during Covid, and some tips to get through it.

Juan was hanging out with a Chilean dude and some Argentinian girls on Friday. When they were walking to get a Kebab near the red light district, the Argentinian dude punched a drug dealer in the face. Unnecessary roughness if you ask me.

Michael had a packed few days exploring Busan (where he and Lina made this cute flipbook), and now a few days ago just arrived back in Guangzhou, China.

HAPPINESS

How to Maximize Misery

One of my favorite YouTubers of all time is CGP Grey. There is a broad range of topics that he has made videos on, but this one has stuck with me the most. I encourage you to take the time and peruse some of his videos after this article; in particular, Rules for Rulers, You Are Two, Fable of the Dragon Tyrant, and the inspiration for this article, 7 Ways to Maximize Misery.

There’s plenty of articles on how to be happy, so here is one on how to be miserable!

1. Stay still:

Make your world as small as possible. Try and bring all aspects of your life into the smallest possible radius. Ideally, live in a tiny apartment and work from home. Covid really helped me with this, before Covid this might not have been possible.

Remember, your goal is to move as little as possible. Try and door dash your groceries, do not cook or clean, and do not exercise! Any movement generates reward chemicals in your brain which could lead to happiness. You do not want this! Stay indoors, keep the windows closed, and do not move!

2. Screw with your sleep:

Insomnia is your friend! I’ve struggled with sleep for my entire life, so don’t feel like you need to get this right first try. The more you screw your sleep schedule, the more it will screw itself. Be sure to vary your sleep and wake times as much as possible! You should ideally have days where you sleep far too little, followed by days where you sleep far too long. If you ever feel good when waking up, you’re doing something wrong.

3. Maximize your screen time:

Boredom and tiredness will try to drive you to action, your phone will protect you! You need to dull your senses as much as possible. You should be on your phone when you fall asleep, and it should be the first thing you see in the morning. NEVER have a quiet moment to yourself. You must always be consuming content!

4. Use your screen to stoke your negative emotions:

Your screen is gateway to all the hate and misery in the world! Use this power! Consume as much political hate speech as possible. Look up rage bait and memes that piss you off. Watch flat earth videos, holocaust denial videos, or war footage. It is all good stuff. Try to prioritize things you have no power over. You need to be angry that you are also powerless!

5. Set VAPID goals:

Your brain evolved to solve problems, give it impossible tasks to distract it! Set a VAPID goal: Vague, Amorphous, Pie in the sky, Irrelevant, Delayed. Your goal should have no clear structure or steps that it can be broken into. Your goal should be essentially unachievable. Your goal should be completely unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Your goal should have an undefined timeline. And you should focus on the destination, rather than the journey. Make a goal about how you will spend your riches before you make them.

6. Pursue happiness directly:

This one is a bit counterintuitive. Aren’t I trying to be miserable? Yes, but misery cannot exist in a vacuum. You need to build an idealized, impossible vision of happiness that you pursue directly. Instead of steering yourself to things that make you happy, steer yourself to the concept of happiness itself! Be sure to compare yourself to others as much as possible in this phase. Do not look at what they have done to be happy, only covet their happiness itself.

7. Follow your instincts:

Once you get started on your path to misery, your mind will lead the way. Allow yourself every impulse. Food, sleeping in, porn, TV, TikTok, alcohol, drugs, cigarettes. Embrace them. Flip from one to the next. Do not consider long-term consequences, as they do not matter. Get as much of the immediate hit as you can.

Postscript

During Covid I realized something – I was depressed. I had felt it creeping towards me after high school, but I didn’t recognize it for what it was. No matter how things were going on the surface, I was consistently unhappy. I couldn’t sleep well, I felt goals were pointless, and I lost sight of the future. I felt no passion for anything. I am become nihilism, destroyer of souls.

Then I found this video and realized that I was doing every single one of these things. These steps are so easy to fall into. For me, it was a turning point. Even though I still struggle with sleep and use my phone too much, I am consistently thinking of this list of things and avoiding them. This wasn’t an “Oh thanks, I’m cured” moment for me, but something that’s lived in the back of my head for years while I actively tried to better my environment and my circumstances.

Your emotions are a product of your environment. You do NOT control your emotions. But you can alter your environment! Make small consistent changes and stay vigilant!

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— Sam

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

The only things you can sell to make money

Some of you might want to start your own business and escape the 9-5 rat race. But the biggest question beginners face is “What should I sell”?

A better question is What are the actual things that can be sold?

There are actually fewer than you think. There are digital and physical formats of each of the following 7 things, giving you 14 things you can sell:

1. Products 🎁

   You could sell a physical product like a water bottle or a digital one like an eBook.

2. Services 👨‍🔧

   In the physical realm that could be a massage. On the digital side, that is often stuff that can happen in the digital space like digital advertising for a local business.

3. Access ✋

   Physical access could be renting out a property to a tenant. Digital access could be an online platform like Netflix, with digital content.

4. Attention 👀

   You could sell physical attention like space on a billboard or public space. In the same way, Facebook and Google have digital attention and sell it to advertisers.

5. Risk 📈

   You can sell insurance for a building and you can sell digital insurance like hacking prevention to websites.

6. Money 🏦

   The entire banking system is based on buying and selling money. You can have physical money or digital money.

7. Brand/endorsement 😎

   You can get a commission on any sale of a t-shirt with your super popular logo. Digitally, Instagram sells you a verified checkmark to build your brand.

It can also be a combination of these categories. If someone sells a rock concert, you sell:

1. Entry to the concert (physical access)

2. Drinks and food (physical products)

3. Sell a digital recording of the concert (digital access)

Picking which one to sell depends on:

The resources you have + Your skills/values/experience

You may think you don’t have any experience, but you do. Your parents and the people you grew up with did something. Maybe your mother was an eye doctor or your dad was a mechanic. You will naturally know more about those fields than the average person simply by the people you were around growing up.

So from the 7 types of things you can sell, is there any that you have a little more experience with? And of those things, which is the biggest problem you think you could solve, given the resources you have access to?

Most people starting out won’t have the finances to start a lot of things, so you will sell your time instead and focus on Services.

“A focused fool can accomplish more than a distracted genius.”
- Alex Hormozi

Source: Alex Hormozi

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— Juan

LIFE

Live Like a Lion

I heard about this framework from the My First Million podcast, it’s a method that high-value individuals use to make sure they spend their time and energy on the most important things.

Lion vs. Cow
Ever watched a lion’s daily life? Most of the time, they’re just lounging around, chilling, and saving their energy. But when they decide to hunt or spot a good opportunity, they use all their stored energy to pounce, securing high-value nutrition.

Now contrast this with a cow. A cow spends almost all of its time doing the low-energy activity of grazing on low-nutrition grass.

We can take a cue from lions. Typically, people work at a medium-low intensity for the majority of their tasks. But what if we flipped that? Imagine working at a low intensity while keeping an eye out for important opportunities. Then, once one comes along, you focus fully on it and use all your stored energy to ensure you capture it.

Taking this into Practice
During that focused period, dive deep into your work. Set clear goals, eliminate distractions, and put in the hours. Then, for the rest of the time, scale back. Take it easy, enjoy downtime, pursue hobbies, and spend time with loved ones. This approach not only prevents burnout but also boosts creativity and productivity.

By living like a lion, you can achieve a better balance. Work intensely when you need to, and rest well when you don’t. This way, you’ll stay sharp, motivated, and ready to pounce on opportunities when they arise. Give it a try—embrace your inner lion and see the difference it makes.

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— Michael

TAKING ACTION

Sign up to our Accountability Clubs

Want a community to keep you accountable? Willing to put your money where your mouth is? 😂

How it works:
💸 Everyone makes the same deposit at the beginning of the month.
✅ Every day you succeed, you get paid back a small amount from your deposit PLUS the money from others who failed that day.
❌ Every day you fail, your money for that day goes to people who succeed.
🗓️ It is 5 times a week. Month-to-month contract. You can join or leave at the beginning of each month.

June Clubs you can join:
🏋️ Exercise 5 times a week.
⏰ Wake up early during weekdays.
📵 Digital minimalism during weekdays.
📝 Signup to join for June

Highlights from Exercise Club: