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“If all of our behaviors are spurred by a desire to escape discomfort in one form or another, what that means is that time management is pain management. I don’t care what life hacks you just read about, or what guru tells you to take a cold shower at 4 AM. None of that stuff works unless, first and foremost, we learn how to deal with discomfort.” – Nir Eyal

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Check out The Art of Manliness Episode Page & Show Notes, hosted by Brett McKay (@brettmckay)
Nir Eyal (@nireyal) is the author of the new book,Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life. He's also the author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. The below Podcast Notes are slightly abbreviated; think of them as a cheat sheet. For more on Nir's new book and how to avoid distractions, check out the from his appearance on The Kevin Rose Show.
Key Takeaways

Technology isn't the cause of distraction (it's the symptom)

Every action we perform results from a desire to escape discomfort

Keep a calendar
If you don't plan your day, someone else will

Prevent distractions with pacts

Effort pacts (making unwanted behaviors more difficult to perform)

Price pacts (inflicting a cost if you do something you say you're not going to do)

Identity pacts (calling ourselves a specific identity makes it easier to change a behavior)

Change your notification settings to limit unwanted interruptions

Only touch each email you receive twice (once to sort it and once to answer it)

Technology Isn't the Problem, It's Us

Habit-forming products (i.e., Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook) appreciate in value the more you interact with them
The more you like/comment, the better their algorithms become at presenting you with content you're more likely to engage with

"The more I dove into the psychology of procrastination, the more I realized that we have it all wrong. The technology isn't the cause of distraction; it's the symptom. The root cause is much more interesting and much more important to identify if we are really going to tackle distraction." - Nir Eyal

EVERYTHING We Do Results From a Desire to Escape Discomfort

All human behavior is motivated by one thing: the avoidance of pain/escaping discomfort

When you're lonely, you check Facebook

When you're hungry, you eat

When you're bored, you browse Twitter/Instagram

THUS - Uncomfortable emotional states (internal triggers) are the primary drivers of distraction

"If all of our behaviors are spurred by a desire to escape discomfort in one form or another, what that means is that time management is pain management. I don't care what life hacks you just read about, or what guru tells you to take a cold shower at 4 AM. None of that stuff works unless, first and foremost, we learn how to deal with discomfort." - Nir Eyal

Keep a Calendar and Plan for What you Value

"It turns out that two-thirds of Americans don't keep any sort of calendar. Think about how crazy this is. We spend so much time and effort protecting our stuff. We lock up our money in banks, we have home security systems, and we have car alarms. We protect our stuff because we don't want anybody to steal it. But when it comes to our time, we say, 'Come on in and take it; do whatever you want with it.' If you don't plan your day, why are you surprised when someone else plans it for you?" - Nir Eyal

And remember:

"We cannot call something a distraction unless we know what it distracted us from" - Nir Eyal

Time you plan to waste isn't wasted time

Change Your Notification Settings

"Two-thirds of people with a smartphone never change their notification settings. That's ridiculous. Can we really complain about technology addicting us if we haven't taken 10 minutes to change the notification settings?" - Nir Eyal

Use Pre-commitments (Pacts) to Prevent Distractions

A pact is anything that prevents you from doing what you don't want to do
A simple example: Retirement accounts apply a financial penalty if you withdraw funds before a certain age

There are 3 types of pacts:

Effort (making the behavior you don't want to do more difficult)
Ex. - When Nir's writing, he uses the Forest app on his phone to discourages him from using it

Price (inflicting a cost if you do something you say you're not going to do)
Ex. - Joining a betting pool with friends to quit a bad habit

Identity (calling ourselves a specific identity makes it easier to change a behavior)
"When there's an identity involved, we become more likely to live up to that moniker. A devout Muslim doesn't ask themselves every day, 'Should I have that gin and tonic?' Devout Muslims don't drink alcohol, period. It's who they are." - Nir Eyal

How to Reduce the Amount of Time You Spend Managing Email

Rule #1: "If you want to get fewer emails, you have to send fewer emails" - Nir Eyal

Rule #2: Only touch each email twice - once when you open it to sort and once to answer

SOOOOO much time is wasted by opening/reading an email, reading it again 3 hours later, reading it again the next day, etc.

This is key: sort your emails by when they need a response, NOT by topic
Nir uses color-coded labels in Gmail - a red label indicates he'll answer the email that day, yellow indicates he'll answer the email within the next week (he schedules 4 hours every Monday to clear out his inbox/answer the previous week's non-urgent emails)

With the emails that don't need an immediate response:
"There's this magic thing that happens when you let non-urgent emails wait: they decompose. This is called email decomposition. When you let non-urgent emails wait a little while, you won't need to answer most of them because people figure out stuff on their own, or something just gets crushed under the weight of some other priority and is no longer relevant." - Nir Eyal

Woah...
"Between email and meetings, the time left over for the average knowledge worker to do everything they have to do in their day is only an hour and a half" - Nir Eyal

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Nir Eyal: How to Become Indistractable - The Art of Manliness * Podcast Notes

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Check out The Art of Manliness Episode Page & Show Notes, hosted by Brett McKay (@brettmckay) Nir Eyal (@nireyal) is the author of the new book,Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life . He's also the author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products .

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"Strive towards the Heavens, and let your Woman be the anchor which pulls you to the Earth in perpetuity, yet never able to fully ground your Energy" -steroidroid

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Hello all,

Over the past year, I've been a lurker on both The Red Pill and SR sub-reddits. I've gleaned a ton of useful information out of both. I can attribute a major shift in clean living to the SR forum. There is most certainly a spiritual element in a lot of the text in this subreddit and I've had some real long streaks, so I do not doubt any of the magic spoken of here. My longest streak was 6 months long, but I've noticed that usually a lot of the benefits begin at day 20 and slowly grow in power as the streak continues. Most notably I've seen:

a glow to my skin / sexier appearance

more energy / less sleep

Increased aggression / willingness to be an asshole when needed

unwillingness to be a doormat for people

magnetism from both men & women

magical, synchronistic connection between thoughts & reality

a more dreamlike, surreal quality of reality

increased ability to venture into higher spheres of consciousness

The Red Pill (TRP) has also been super useful for me, although I think a lot of the men on that subreddit are highly sexually frustrated and thus a lot of the content is misogynistic. However, a lot of what is discussed there is spot on about female nature. And it's not really fun to realize the idealistic princess you've created in your mind is actually much more malevolent & machiavellian than you previously thought. I used to think women were these innocent creatures who had a great deal of compassion & empathy. I also used to think women were logical and thought similarly to men. Women are indeed highly intuitive, highly emotionally intelligent, and likewise very compassionate & empathetic. However, the positive elements of these qualities are really only focused upon their offspring and family life. Beyond, women can use these qualities in disturbing ways. Many of us have a strong bond to our mother because she nurtured us into adulthood. She was there when dad wasn't. She offered an emotionally safespace that isn't found anywhere else in the world.

Unfortunately for men, they use their maternal relationship as a prototypical relationship for all other women.......at least perhaps initially in their youthful naïveté. Young men are initially blind to the darker aspects of female reality in their early manhood simply because they did not recognize these elements in their own mother. However, not all men are blind in such a way. These are the lucky few who understood the female reality perhaps starting in their youth and used that understanding to strengthen their courtship abilities. These are those who are naturally gifted, those who other men despise for their relative ease in gaining the admiration of many female suitors. For most men, the female reality is unknown. This is what gives rise to the female quip of "men don't get it." It's likely this dynamic follows the pareto principle: 80% of men are clueless to the nature and reality of women, while 20% of men "get it."

I do not claim to understand the feminine reality entirely. Perhaps I understand very little of it. As I mentioned, I have gained a lot of useful insight about women through the TRP. But be warned, a lot of what is found on that subreddit is created out of sexual frustration / misogynistic attitudes towards women. It's an unhealthy place to linger long. Get the knowledge and leave so that the anger isn't transferred to you. Before I mention the insight I've gained into female reality, I thought I should first share an epiphany that I had today from no other place than tinder.

I've had plenty of matches, a little bit of banter back and forth, but nothing ever seems to pan out for me. There's more than one reason why I haven't had much success. For one, when communicating online, a lot of information such as body language, tone of voice, and human presence is lacking. I could have better game too. And of course, girls will use tinder as a means of validation and attention mining. I've grown increasingly frustrated with wasting my time on the app and having my high spirits continuously brought down. So I decided to delete all senseless apps off my phone recently such as IG, FB, and Tinder. Reflecting on my phone use, most of it is unhealthy other than the occasional game of chess and using safari to look up useful information. It's going to feel great to wake up and not check my phone anymore.

Back to my tinder experiment - I decided to pose as an attractive women on the app and see what occurred. I found some pictures of an attractive women, including bikini shots, and uploaded them into my fake tinder profile. I swiped 100 times, liking every profile I came across. At minute 5 after finishing the fake profile, I had about 70 matches and 20 messages from various dudes. And that is when the epiphany struck for me. Men are much more desperate and desirous of women than women are of men. I didn't really need to pose as a women to learn this fact. I think we all know that women in their sexual prime are objects of adoration, praise, and excessive attention. However, my experiment awakened me to the extent of attention that an attractive women gets. In a days time, both online and out in public, it's likely that an attractive women will be propositioned countless times.

In my experiment, I attempted to take on the mindset of a woman, I wore her shoes for about an hour. Upon reflection, I had a lot of epiphanies. Women are in their sexual prime for a much shorter period than a man. And the male reproductive system creates exponentially much more reproductive material than a woman. Men are always creating new sperm. A woman however is born with a bank of eggs which eventually runs out. I'm not well informed on the subject of ovaries. However, I do know that each month a women releases a series of eggs. One takes center stage, where the rest are reabsorbed into the body, disappearing into oblivion forever. Those eggs will never be fertilized and will never be recovered. Thus, in a year, a woman really only has 12 eggs which have a chance of being fertilized. Now let's say that a woman is capable of reproducing from the age of 13 to 45 before menopause strikes. That's 32 years of sexual vitality, multiplied by 12 equates to 384 viable chances of getting pregnant. Women are obviously not going to keep pumping out babies year after year since each baby requires so much investment. So lets say of those 384 viable eggs, only three are ever fertilized.

My point here is that female reproduction operates from a point of scarcity in comparison to a man. A man on the other hand produces anywhere from 20 to 300 million sperm cells in a day. That means that a man could hypothetically impregnate multiple women in one day, day in day out. Obviously since we are retainers, we know that sperm quality and our energetic state drastically diminish after ejaculation. For your own health, it's not a good idea to be ejaculating all the time. Men have the abundance of reproductive material, women have a scarcity. Women are also bogged down with the nine month pregnancy term and the responsibility to care for the child. Men can flee the scene with no physical repercussions and no commitment. Man is rather bogged down with the woman's cry for commitment and the government's intervening hand in terms of child-support. A gentleman will stay with his child's mother and help her through the hardship of raising a child. I am not advocating that men go on an careless ejaculation spree and abandon their offspring & lover. I am merely demonstrating that the consequences of sexual intercourse are much more drastic for a woman rather than a man, which brings me back to my tinder experiment.

Women are much more selective in mating than their male counterparts. Men have billions of sperm to give over the course of their lifetime whereas the egg is a precious rarity in comparison. Thus biologically speaking, women have been hardened to guard their fertility and seek out the best mate for their rare, but highly sought after eggs. Women are also much more fragile physically speaking and thus, they had to develop a psyche of vigilance. The march of history carved men and women into completely separate beings due to their sexual differences. Men could take risks, rape and pillage, impregnate many and flee from the scene. Women minimized risk for risk entailed great immobilizing consequences, consequences that changed the course of their entire life. Men have a lot to give, women can only take a little. As a man, tinder isn't necessarily an abundant place because women are not only highly selective in their breeding, but they are also highly sought over by men as objects of sexual conquest. Men are not selective in their breeding. They are in surplus and thus have much to give. Men are willing to give more than women are to take. And thus the imbalance in the act of courtship exists. Women deny. Men chase. Women aim. Men shoot blindly. Women guard. Men pillage. No different in the world of tinder. Those with the rare precious object are on guard. Those who have much to give are always on the hunt.

Forgive me, this is perhaps obvious, but I wanted to give it articulation. And my tinder experiment only opened my eyes wider to this dynamic between men and women.

A woman's nature, I would argue, predominantly arises out of the rarity of her egg and the fragility of her body. A man's nature, I would argue, arises out of the surplus of his sperm and the strength of his physical body.

Sexuality is the defining factor for each gender. Each sex and their conduct in the world has been directly dictated by the momentum of evolution and the interplay of this dynamic therein.

All that said, I can finally get to my observations about female nature. I used the internet, reddit, and especially the The Red Pill subreddit for much of my theory. And I used my actual life to verify the theories I read online. I am a Lyft driver and have given over 4000 car rides. I thus have had plenty of interesting human interaction over the last two years and can safely say that a lot of what I learned online through theory was perfectly congruent to what played out before my eyes as I drove down the city streets with my passengers.
Observation 1 - Women are incredibly psychically manipulative
Since generally women's strength is not found in their physicality, they are extremely vulnerable, especially when carrying a fetus in the womb. Women are obviously not warriors for good reason. It is the men who go off to fight in war. This is obviously not a new realization. The feminine sex in all mammalian species is generally physically weaker and more vulnerable.

Through long periods of evolution, women developed a different strength - strength of the mind as it relates to their own well-being. Women are much better at navigating social situations than men. And they do so with subtle grace, rather than with zealous transparency. While the men were busy bashing each other over the head with rocks and chasing down their families next meal, the women were busy honing this skill set. When a woman no longer wants you to proposition her, she will subtly mention how awesome of a cook her fake boyfriend is. When a woman is bored or annoyed with your topic of conversation, she will subtly draw your attention elsewhere - hey, look thats my friend from art class - IE you're boring me so I am going to subvert this conversation to something meaningless so you hopefully get the message to stop talking. Rather than tell you that you are a weirdo, her and her friend will mention a creepy guy who they both know. This is the language of womanese and although you think these two women are talking about some random creep, they are actually using him as a representation of you. In other words, they are confirming to each other that you are a weirdo right in front of your eyes. There is no confusion between the two, each girl knows what was said. Unfortunately, you don't, you oblivious buffoon! Women have mastered the art of subtle communication - whether its to get out of a tricky situation, divert your attention, or talk shit about you in front of you without you even knowing it. Women are much more capable of navigating situations such as these with grace, whilst us men hardly even understood what was communicated. However, that's not to say that men are incapable of learning this language.

Begin to pay attention in your interaction with women - they speak in subtext. If you know this language, you will have an easier time with girls. Women wished that you would "get it." But unfortunately, when a woman uses this covert language know as womanese to tell you that your game is whack, you probably won't even understand and will keep babbling. Keep an eye on women, they are much better at corralling and shaping interaction in the most subtlest of ways. It is truly amazing once you recognize it, because for them it comes with such ease, whilst for men, it is a difficult language to both learn and speak.
Observation 2 - Women are always testing you
Men historically always had their eyes on the upkeep of the tribe - fending off their territory, scavenging for the next meal, inventing tools to make life easier, conjecturing about the nature of reality, getting lost in the world of thoughts, giving meaning to the grandness of the infinite reality before them. Women always were focused upon the family, upon winning a good mate, raising children into capable adults who could carry the torch of life onto the next generation. Women upkeep humanity itself through child rearing. They are the literal creators of life. Women did not entertain lofty ideals or think about the best way to build a canoe for fishing. Women's mindstate was always upon matters of the earth. Men's minds were always oriented towards the greater dimensions of reality from which he derived advancements that benefited all mankind. Thus, men tested ideas. And women tested men.

Women want strong and capable men. Men who will breed healthy children. Men who will keep women safe. Men who will maintain the order of civil life and keep the primordial chaos of the bay. Man is a creature which aids in the structuring of the embryonic endless possibility of the chaotic female world. Man is the rock upon which women creates her base.

Thus once more over long stretches of evolution and history, the psyche of women developed in direct orientation to men's competence or lack thereof. Simply said, a woman is always assessing a man for his competence. In TRP terminology, this would be known as shit testing. When interacting with a woman, what you take as overt simplicity is actually covert complexity. It can be as unassuming as "will you get me my soda." You think of course, no problem, I will get you your soda. I will exert effort, get up, walk across the room, and get you that soda that you could have gotten yourself. Not so simple Jack! She is testing you for your spine or lack thereof. A man who happily complies with the demands of all others is no man at all, but rather a doormat. And through such a simple question as the one above, a woman will assess whether or not you are assertive, dominant, and selfish. Women want a selfish man, for if you're not selfish, you're going to be wiping everyone else's asses but your own. From a survival perspective, this is a dangerous attitude. You need to watch out for your own good and the good of your immediate family. You are the protector of your most valuable resources - your time and energy. If you happily give those away, no woman will ever respect you. She wants you to be selfish for it is an indication of your own impulse for self-preservation.

A woman may not even know consciously that she is assessing your strength and self-worth. However, all women, subconsciously are masterminds of poking and prodding at men to determine their ability to direct their own life and give it shape. Pay attention next time your with a chick, she will indeed test you. And for your own health, the answer should almost always be no. She wants to hear the words no. "Will you take care of my dog while I go drink wine with my girlfriends?" NOPE. Take care of your own damn dog. Some of you may be offended by this brashness. You will say, why salinorum, you are such an asshole, you should be considerate and helpful of other people. The true underlying intent of this question is to discover whose time is more valuable - yours or mine? Women speak covertly. Men speak overtly. When she places a request to you next, its not so much the subject matter, but the underlying message of the question which is, do you value your time or my time more? And if you value a woman's time more than your own, you are in big trouble for you are not creating a life of your own but are rather falling into the life of another. Women know this language well. Be vigilant!
Observation 3 - Women are emotionally attuned
I am often caught off guard when I am out in public. I am a highly cerebral person (if you can't tell by this post) and I end up living in my head a lot of the time. That means that the interaction that occurs beyond my mind with the world is kept to a minimum. I am generally a self-contained environment. That however does not entail health. Sometimes it entails misfortune. There are many pitfalls when the only place you know is your own brain. I often get caught in toxic thought-loops about whatever it may be.

When I'm out in public, I will be surprised when a woman is suddenly repulsed by my presence. Its as if she can read the toxicity of my current mind state. If i've spent the morning tormenting over the fall out of some friendships, somehow the cute grocery store clerk knows the negativity I am caught within, without any sort of word. My countenance and body language alone are enough for her to make a proper assessment about my state of being.

What really catches me of guard is when I repulsed or scare someone whilst the waters of my mind have been relatively placid. I have found that women are better at understanding my emotional state than I am myself. If I have 10 interactions with 10 different girls and each interaction goes negatively, something is off with me, not them. That said, I often use girls as a mirror for my own refinement. If I am repulsing people, interaction after interaction, something is unhealthy within my mind. If I am glowing, magnetizing the room, then I have curated something healthy within myself that other people have found to be attractive and alluring.

This phenomenon is easy to explain. Women have obviously always been the providers and source of leadership for infants, toddlers, kids, and teenagers. A mother must be able to read her infants emotional signals in order to make a proper assessment of that baby's state of being. She will thus know when it's hungry, when it's tired, when it's disturbed, and when it's tranquil. This is a skill set that is crucial for the upkeep of the species itself. If women were not so emotionally attuned, how could they ever so gracefully raise a child and cater to its every need?

What I've found really interesting about women's attunement is their response to me after I have eaten a psychedelic. I never have had a bad trip or have gone through anything too harrowing. I have had some painful realizations and witnessed my own shortcomings, but generally speaking, psychedelics have always helped make my soul lighter, put me at ease, and provided a spiritual sustenance for my hungry spirit. Every single time after I trip, I become what a light is to a moth during its night flight. I become highly magnetic to women. They can read my elevated state of being and are most eager to discover why my spirit is glowing.

Women are great emotional readers and likely understand your state of being better than you do yourself. Thus, my advice is to use them as mirror. I do not suggest basing your sense of being based on a couple of women's perspective and response to you. You should always generate your own sense of self. However, in order to be your best, you should always be calibrating. If you go about your day and generally all the women you cross are repulsed by your presence, it's a good indication of your countenance and of your vibe. Women can read you, pay attention to their response.

Lastly, the science. I recently learned that women have many more emotional connections in the brain than that of a man. In other words, a woman's capacity to read emotional information greatly surpasses that of a man. Women's brains are hardwired to read emotion. So trust how they read you.....generally speaking.
End Observations
Now, there are many more observations that I could discuss, but I'd rather close up this post since it has turned out to be rather long. I was inspired to write all this after my experiment with tinder yesterday.

I hope this post has some relevance to the SR community. I sense that some of you are here because you have played the game, have grown tired of its ups and downs, and have decided to save your seed long-term. Others of you hope to have a healthy relationship with women, but haven't been able to do so in the past due to your own flawed perception of women. We all know that excessive mastrubation, excessive lust, and obsessive pornographic consumption leads to a very skewed and unrealistic view of women. Additionally, many of you probably are unaware of the actual female reality and still think of woman idealistically as Disney princesses, incapable of deceit and malevolence. Many of you are here to get yourselves right, to clear out the neurotic thinking of your mind, to render a healthier perception of women as a whole.

Lucky are those who in their youth learned the female reality and became familiar with it, rather than living in an idyllic fantasy construct. Most of us however have been buffoons, instilled with the romantic values of Disney and other propaganda pushed to skew are view of women. Women are not angelic beings, but are rather very machiavellian, not out of sheer evil, but rather as a coping mechanism for the hardships of life. Women's nature has arisen simply out of necessity. Women evolved to rove through a psychological and emotional world, mental strengths that were honed as a result of their deficient physical strength in comparison to men.

Once you come to terms with the actual reality of women, there are several options. Before I state these, I suggest consider the sheer magnitude of propositioning that occurs for a relatively attractive woman in her prime, day in, day out. It will awaken you to your own desperation. You will realize why women take on their defensive and psychologically manipulative position. They are looking out for their own good and for the good of their future posterity.

So where does that leave you? Well, I assume most of you reading this are not naturally gifted at understanding the female world. Many of you are probably sexually frustrated. Many of you simply have given up hope due to your own failures and shortcomings with women. Thus, here is my own interpretation and advice to both you and myself. I am in the muck of life, just like you and what I write here is an attempt to both further my own understanding and advise myself wisely.

A young woman will always have many potential suitors. There are always plenty of men knocking at her gates hoping to capture her favor. If you join this hungry pack, you are a mere face amongst a multitude. It thus seems futile to me to always be on the chase, to dedicate all your energy and focus to a pursuit which may not offer any return. Slowly, your life energy is wasted, dumped hopelessly into a black hole.

Do not waste your energy any longer. Young woman will always exist. Woman will always be there as your potential suitor. Therefore, one woman is nothing to anguish over. She is not your special buttercup. She is merely a singular representation of a force which never ends.

So forget about woman or your hopes for courtship. You are young, vital, full of energy, full of potential, and capable of great things in your future. Turn your focus onto yourself. Build yourself into a better man. Create a life that is in line with your greatest aspirations and dreams. Save your semen as fuel for your own conquest. Build up the strength & stamina of your body through weightlifting, swiming, boxing, skiing, hiking, adventuring, any physical demanding activity. There is an Adonis which you could give birth to if you were serious about the development of your physicality.

Build up the strength and power of your mind. Read many books. Listen to the wise sages who have left their thoughts behind. Browse the spiritual wisdom of the holy books. Do not limit yourself to one dogma. If you lack male role-models, which I think many of us do, then find your advisors in the great men which history has remembered. Hernan Cortes could be your role-model. Henry Ford could be your role model. There have been many great men who embodied the world of gods upon the earth. And you could easily meet by investigating their wake. You can take their wisdom and embody it yourself. Increase your mental aptitude. Play chess. Learn strategy, learn to think long-term. Learn new subjects. Challenge your mind to grow.

Take care of yourself. It's the best thing you could do. Eat clean, wholesome foods. Do not liter your mind with the disgusting mental and physical food that abounds. You embody whatever you consume. If all you eat is McDonalds, you will look like fast food and your vibration will fall. If you endlessly let hate enter your mindscape, you will become the embodiment of hate. You must guard your mental and physical vessel with suspicious eyes. You are the temple through which the light of god can enter, but first you must nurture yourself to a state of being which is receptive to the light. It is very easy to cut ourselves off from the light of god and in such a state, we are no better than dead.

Have a worthy life-long goal to pursue. It will not be realized or achieved in a day, weeks, months, or even years. It will take an entire lifetime to develop. So do not be deceived by anything that is quick. You are in it for the long haul and you have an entire lifetime to develop your career and passions. If you are an aspiring musician, dump your heart into the pursuit with full commitment despite the hardships. Chance favors the prepared mind. Opportunity will present itself to you if you commit. Great things will come. You must trust yourself and never give up.

If you can wisely commit your energy to solely yourself, you will no longer be a man of desperation, a man who looks beyond himself for fulfillment. You will have created a world in which you are content to exist singularly. And it is only then that a woman will eagerly enter your kingdom, will desire to enter your world. Who is doing the chasing now? Not me you will say. Potential suitors will offer themselves up to you. But your practice of SR should only aid in the development of your guardful eyes. You will not open up to just anyone. You are selective. You have refined and perfected yourself into a great jewel, into a beautiful pearl. You have the freedom to choose someone who will embellish and improve your world. And at this point in your long and wearisome journey, you will perhaps conclude that you never even needed a woman at all. For women, as I have observed, will stir the waters of your mind and provoke you into a state of disease and instability if you let them. A man who has firm roots in himself and can ground himself is the only one who should risk relationship. If your roots are weak, its likely the chaotic female element could uproot your entire tree and leave you in a state of desolation.

If a chaste life is not for you and you are desirous of a female companion, I still advise that you take the above to heart. And there should only be one more recommendation I make for you if you long for a feminine element in your life: familiarize yourself with the Female Reality. Just as you pursue your goals and your physical / mental health, so too should you pursue to acquaint yourself with this world. A man who knows the female reality has a better chance of surviving its destructive elements. I have seen too many men ruined and torn asunder by women once their relationship and marriage goes sideways. Why so? They never took the time to familiarize themselves with the world of women. I advise you to know this world, for without this map, you are at great risk of having the great world you have built ruined and destroyed quickly by the irrational feminine element.

Thank you for reading my long winded post. These are just my observations and thoughts. They are not the entire truth and are only conjecture. As mentioned, I mostly write this for myself as a form of advise and contemplation. Hopefully you too derive something useful from what I have written. Cheers my brothers. Good luck on your journey. Always have faith in your own capability. Believe that you are the gateway through which god can manifest himself.

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Hello all, Over the past year, I've been a lurker on both The Red Pill and SR sub-reddits. I've gleaned a ton of useful information out of both. I can attribute a major shift in clean living to the SR forum.

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Discipline Is King

"Mental toughness is many things and rather difficult to explain. Its qualities are sacrifice and self-denial. Also, most importantly, it is combined with a perfectly disciplined will that refuses to give in. It's a state of mind-you could call it character in action." - Vince Lombardi

Motivation is a fleeting state that requires a certain mental or emotional approach to reach a goal.

It fluctuates depending on outward conditions.

In contrast, discipline can help you conquer the toughest challenges.

For example, you may wake up with a cold or flu and have a 10,000 word report to write, yet not be motivated to complete it.

However, discipline commands you tackle the work knowing it must be completed, regardless.

Success depends on discipline because motivation comes and go. It entails chipping away at a goal until the desired outcome is realised.

Motivation is interrupted by excuses and fades steadily. This is why your motivation at the beginning of the year contracts towards the latter part.

"In other words, if you are an effective manager of yourself, your discipline comes from within; it is a function of your independent will. You are a disciple, a follower, of your own deep values and their source. And you have the will, the integrity, to subordinate your feelings, your impulses, your moods to those values," states author Stephen R. Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
You mustn't wait until the perfect conditions to begin a task. Rather, tackle it boldly until the conditions become perfect.
Motivation is an overused term, apparent in the corporate world where managers try desperately to inspire their employees.

Yet, in the sporting world motivation cannot be relied upon for success.

Winning athletes know discipline is the cornerstone of success. They consistently show up to training when they're less inclined. Unforeseen circumstances may interrupt their preparation, yet they are determined to put in the hours of dedicated practice.

Life has a way of dragging you every which way if you let it. This means if a crisis or unplanned event arises, you may be unmotivated to take action on your goal.

This scenario happens all too often.

If you think back on the previous week, did something unexpected affect your motivation?

Did it wane during the week or were you disciplined despite the interruption?

Author Jay Samit states in Disrupt Yourself, "By carefully studying your environment and analyzing your daily frustrations, you'll find that opportunities for disruption start to jump out at you. Daily discipline is the key to this exercise. I tell my students to write down three things they notice could be improved every day."

Get Feelings Out Of The Way

"Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you. Never excuse yourself. Never pity yourself. Be a hard master to yourself-and be lenient to everybody else." - Henry Ward Beecher

Try to disassociate feelings with actions if you want to reach your goals. This is the biggest impediment affecting people because they are dictated by their emotions, instead of seeing the goal as the prize.

You will enjoy reaching your goals more than the immediate gratification of succumbing to your emotions.

If you rely on feelings, you are less inclined to commit to the task at hand because you are dictated by short-lived emotional states.

Discipline means showing up time and again, irrespective how you feel. The goal has a greater purpose, so it is incumbent on you to stay committed until the end.

It's obvious, you don't commit to a goal to play small. It's about winning and achievement that make the pursuit exciting.

"The discipline of consistent action is what self-management is all about. It's the only way to win and keep winning," affirms author Larry Weidel in, Serial Winner: 5 Actions to Create Your Cycle of Success.

So, how can you be more disciplined and avoid counting on motivation?

First, create regular routines without over-committing in the early stages. If your goal is to exercise four times a week, gradually build up to it instead of going all out in the first week.

The greatest impact on your success in any area will result from taking the first step and improving on it.

Gradual Improvements

"You will never have a greater or lesser dominion than that over yourself...the height of a man's success is gauged by his self-mastery; the depth of his failure by his self-abandonment. ...And this law is the expression of eternal justice. He who cannot establish dominion over himself will have no dominion over others." ― Leonardo da Vinci

In the sporting world there's a term known as, marginal gains popularised by Sky Team's cycling manager, David Brailsford. It is a concept referred to as the "aggregation of marginal gains." According to Brailsford it means: "The 1% margin for improvement in everything you do."

At the elite level, most professional athletes are of a similar ability in terms of: performance, dedication and skill. What separates first from second or third is the smaller gains, the 1% such as: sleep, nutrition and recovery.

The 1% increments add up, leading to marginal gains. Therefore, discipline becomes the means to success.

"Success is actually a short race - a sprint fuelled by discipline just long enough for habit to kick in and take over," state authors Gary Keller and Jay Papasan in The One Thing: The surprisingly simple truth behind extraordinary results.

The key is to start small and make small increments towards your goal.

Second, discover your underlying motivation for pursuing the goal. Find a convincing reason to take daily action, even if it's the smallest task, you are likely to stay committed.

People who have a compelling reason (WHY) are disciplined until the goal is accomplished.

The desire must be imbued with enthusiasm that you will stop at nothing to achieve it.

"As Samuel Johnson said, "The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken." Anyone who thrives in any endeavour develops this discipline, the ability to be still, to stay the course, to grow down - no matter what. No matter how the world receives them. No matter what results they get initially," affirms Derek Rydall in Emergence: Seven Steps for Radical Life Change.

The forces of life conspire against you in the form of resistance. If you succumb, your efforts will be in vain and your success squandered. Yet, if you take them into account, you will stay resolute irrespective of the circumstances.

Persistent action in the face of fear is paramount, as Susan Jeffers writes in her acclaimed book, Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway. With this approach, you reinforce your self-esteem each time you commit to a task.

Authors Gary Keller and Jay Papasan state: "When you discipline yourself, you're essentially training yourself to act in a specific way. Stay with this long enough and it becomes routine - in other words, a habit. So when you see people who look like "disciplined" people, what you're really seeing is people who've trained a handful of habits into their lives."

You must think with the end in mind as Stephen R. Covey states.

Discipline replaces motivation because you show up consistently. The goal is too important to allow feelings to get in the way.

The late American motivational speaker Jim Rohn said, "We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret."

I advise you not to allow regrets to impose upon your success.

Afterall, it is much too important to leave to chance.

Call To Action

To live a remarkable life, you must take consistent action in spite of your fears and doubts. Download your FREE COPY of my comprehensive eBook: NAVIGATE LIFE and embark upon your journey of greatness today!

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This One Habit Surpasses Motivation As The Key To Success

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"Mental toughness is many things and rather difficult to explain. Its qualities are sacrifice and self-denial. Also, most importantly, it is combined with a perfectly disciplined will that refuses to give in. It's a state of mind-you could call it character in action." - Vince Lombardi Motivation is a fleeting state that requires a certain mental or emotional approach to reach a goal.

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There is a common mistake that often happens to smart people - in many cases, without you ever realizing it.

The mistake has to do with the difference between being in motion and taking action. They sound similar, but they're not the same.

Here's the deal...

Motion vs. Action

Motion is when you're busy doing something, but that task will never produce an outcome by itself. Action, on the other hand, is the type of behavior that will get you a result.

Here are some examples...

If I outline 20 ideas for articles I want to write, that's motion. If I actually write and publish an article, that's action.

If I email 10 new leads for my business and start conversations with them, that's motion. If they actually buy something and turn into a customer, that's action.

If I search for a better diet plan and read a few books on the topic, that's motion. If I actually eat a healthy meal, that's action.

If I go to the gym and ask about getting a personal trainer, that's motion. If I actually step under the bar and start squatting, that's action.

If I study for a test or prepare for a research project, that's motion. If I actually take the test or write my research paper, that's action.

Sometimes motion is good because it allows you to prepare and strategize and learn. But motion will never - by itself - lead to the result you are looking to achieve.

It doesn't matter how many times you go talk to the personal trainer, that motion will never get you in shape. Only the action of working out will get you the result you're looking to achieve.

Why Smart People Find Themselves in Motion

If motion doesn't lead to results, why do we do it?

Sometimes we do it because we actually need to plan or learn more. But more often than not, we do it because motion allows us to feel like we're making progress without running the risk of failure. Most of us are experts at avoiding criticism. It doesn't feel good to fail or to be judged publicly, so we tend to avoid situations where that might happen.

And that's the biggest reason why you slip into motion rather than taking action: you want to delay failure.

Yes, I'd like to get in shape. But, I don't want to look stupid in the gym, so I'll just talk to the trainer about their rates instead.

Yes, I'd like to land more clients for my business. But, if I ask for the sale, I might get turned down. So maybe I should just email 10 potential clients instead.

Yes, I'd like to lose weight. But, I don't want to be the weird one who eats healthy at lunch. So maybe I should just plan some healthy meals when I get home instead.

It's very easy to do these things and convince yourself that you're still moving in the right direction.
"I've got conversations going with 4 potential clients right now. This is good. We're moving in the right direction." "I brainstormed some ideas for that book I want to write. This is coming together."
Motion makes you feel like you're getting things done. But really, you're just preparing to get something done. And when preparation becomes a form of procrastination, you need to change something.

Ideas for Taking Action

I'm sure there are many strategies for taking action, but I can think of two that have worked for me.
1. Set a schedule for your actions.
Every Monday I write a new article and publish it to the world. It's just what happens on those days. It's my schedule. I love Mondays because I know that I will always produce something on those days. I'll get a result. That's a good feeling.

For weightlifting, I train on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. That's the schedule every week. I'm not planning workout exercises. I'm not researching workout programs. I'm simply working out. Action, not motion.

For on-going goals and lifestyle changes, I think this is the best approach. Set a schedule for your actions and stick to it.
2. Pick a date to shift you from motion to action.
For some goals, setting a daily or weekly schedule doesn't work as well.

This is the case if you're doing something that is only going to happen once: like releasing your new book, or launching a new product, or taking a big exam, or submitting a major project.

These things require some planning up front (motion). They also require plenty of action to complete them. For example, you could set a schedule each week to write each chapter of your book. But for the book launch itself, you could spend weeks or months planning different venues, locations, and so on.

In a situation like this, I find that it's best to simply pick a date. Put something on the calendar. Make it public. This is when X is happening.

For big projects or one-time goals, I think this is the best approach. Force yourself out of motion and into action by setting a hard deadline.

Choose Action

Never mistake activity for achievement. - John Wooden

Motion will never produce a final result. Action will.

When you're in motion, you're planning and strategizing and learning. Those are all good things, but they don't produce a result.

Are you doing something? Or are you just preparing to do it?

Are you in motion? Or are you taking action?

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The Mistake Smart People Make: Being In Motion vs. Taking Action

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There is a common mistake that often happens to smart people - in many cases, without you ever realizing it. The mistake has to do with the difference between being in motion and taking action. They sound similar, but they're not the same. Here's the deal...

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“First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit is persistence in practice.”—Octavia Butler

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“First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit is persistence in practice.”—Octavia Butler

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2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,[a] whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

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The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places

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The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places

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-Ernest Hemingway

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On mindfulnes. ACT "awareness and commitment therapy"

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*** Before we commence with the festivities, I wanted to thank everyone for helping my first book become a Wall Street Journal bestseller. To check it out, click here. ***
A lot of the time you know what the smart thing to do is. But you're still worried about how it might turn out. Or regrets about a past decision are making you overthink things.

Your brain is telling you all kinds of negative stories about how stuff might go wrong and you end up more focused on alleviating those concerns than making choices based on your values.

So you play it too safe. Or you get reckless and swing for the fences. Or you're paralyzed and procrastinate. But there's a way out of this loop. Cue the trumpets:

Mindfulness. That thing everybody these days thinks is so darn cool but nobody can tell you what it means.

Alright, quick definition for our purposes: awareness of your thoughts and feelings without being consumed by them.

(Yeah, I know, that clarifies nothing for you... yet. Well, gimme a second here. We're just getting started, okay? Jeez.)

A lot of smart psychologists took mindfulness and science-tized it and created ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.) Let's see how ACT can help you deal with your negative thoughts so you can make smarter decisions based on what's really important to you.

Mindfulness to the rescue. (And, no, I'm not gonna make you meditate.)

Let's get to it...

How To Stop Negative Thoughts Forever

You can't. The end.

Seriously, you are so not in charge of your brain it's not even funny. Go ahead and delete that memory of the time you embarrassed yourself in front of that cute person you liked in high school. Go ahead. Try.

Any luck? Didn't think so. And the result of trying to suppress thoughts is even worse.

...research shows that suppression of unwanted thoughts can lead to a rebound effect: an increase in both intensity and frequency of the unwanted thoughts (Wenzlaff & Wegner, 2000).

So mental whack-a-mole doesn't work. But here's some good news: the negative thoughts aren't really the problem when it comes to decision-making.

Your brain makes thoughts. That's what it does. And some of those thoughts will always be negative because your grey matter lives by the motto of "better safe than sorry."

Thousands and thousands of years ago, Caveman #1 thought a snake was a stick, got bitten, died and didn't reproduce. Caveman #2, who walked around petrified that every stick was a snake, had lots of kids and now we're stuck with brains that create problems even when there aren't any. Thanks, evolution.

But that doesn't have to lead to poor decisions and bad behavior. Your thoughts don't immediately control your actions. You get to decide. At times, you've been worried but still made the correct choice anyway, right? Right.

(To learn more about the science of a successful life, check out my new book here.)

So what is the problem here? In ACT, they call it "fusion." No, we're not talking about nuclear reactors...

You Are Not Your Thoughts

Your brain produces thoughts. They just bubble up all the time. Some are utterly ridiculous ("What if I filled surgical gloves with butterscotch pudding?") and you just dismiss them.

But sometimes you take that storyteller in your head all too seriously. So seriously, in fact, that you think that negative voice in your head is you and you run with whatever it says:

"I'm such an idiot."

"This will never work."

"I'm no good at this, it's gonna blow up in my face and be shown on national television."

This is fusion. It's when an idea pops into your head and you take it as fact, when it's just another goofy possibility your noggin is bubbling up.

In a state of cognitive fusion, we're inseparable from our thoughts: we're welded to them, bonded to them, so caught up in them that we aren't even aware that we are thinking.... Cognitive fusion basically means that our thoughts dominate our behavior. Thus in ACT, we may talk with clients of being "pushed around by your thoughts" or "allowing thoughts to tell you what to do," or we may talk of thoughts as bullies, or we may compare the mind to a fascist dictator, or we may ask, "What happens when you let that thought run your life?" Similarly, when our thoughts dominate our attention, we often talk about being "hooked," "entangled," "caught up," or "carried off" by them.

Things don't go your way and the grey matter pops out: "Life sucks!" And you believe it. That's you fusing with a judgment.

There are many different ways to interpret what's going on. But you're identifying with this negative one and saying, "Yep. I heard it in my head. It must be true. That voice has never ever ever been wrong in my entire life so it is fact."

When you fuse with bad memories you get regrets. When you fuse with scary visions of the future you get worried. These often end up affecting your decision making. And rarely for the better.

(To learn the seven-step morning ritual that will make you happy all day, click here.)

So how do you stop fusion? Oh, that's "defusion"...

Defuse The Bomb

You've done this before and didn't realize it. Have you ever stepped back from your negative thoughts and said, "Whoa, what's with all this worrying in my skull?"

It's like you pulled off the VR goggles and realized that what's being projected on them isn't the only way to see the world.

Fusion means getting caught up in our thoughts and allowing them to dominate our behavior. Defusion means separating or distancing from our thoughts, letting them come and go instead of being caught up in them. In other words, defusion means looking at thoughts rather than from thoughts; noticing thoughts rather than being caught up in thoughts; and letting thoughts come and go rather than holding on to them.

When you experience fusion, that thought in your head is The Truth. It must be immediately reacted to. And you cling to it even if it makes you miserable.

But when you give defusion a try, a thought is just an idea. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not. You don't have to obey it, you can merely consider it.

So when you're mindful - when you choose to defuse - worries and other negative thoughts cease to be a blaring fire alarm that you must react to. Instead, they're a smartphone notification that you can choose to ignore.

(To learn the 3 secrets from neuroscience that will make you emotionally intelligent, click here.)

Great. So how do you do it?

Ask "What is my brain telling me right now?"

Ha! I just tricked you into defusing. See how "my brain" is built into the sentence?

You're acknowledging that the negative thoughts are not "you" - they're your brain. You didn't say "I'm such a loser" - your brain did. You're creating some distance there. And you can use that distance to question the thought.

Yeah, often you'll question the thought and come back with, "But it's true. I am a loser. I screwed this up last time and I'll screw it up again."

Now you and I could go round and round with me telling you it's not true and you saying it is true. But is it really true? Here's the thing:

I don't care.

And neither should you. When it comes to mindfulness, "Is it true?" is the wrong question.

The right question is: "Is it useful?"

Is telling yourself you're a loser going to help you do the things that will make you not-a-loser? Nope.

...what we're interested in is not whether a thought is true or false, but whether it's helpful. When that thought pops into your head, does it help you to get all caught up in it? Does it motivate you to exercise, or eat well, or spend time doing the things that make life rich and rewarding?

So defuse. Step back. Say, "I notice I'm having the thought that I'm a loser." That gives you distance. It puts the thought on trial.

And often (but not always) that takes some of the sting out of it. You can observe it rather than immediately running with it - and making the kind of decision a real loser would make.

And then hit it with the important question: "Is it useful?"

If you run with this idea as truth, is it going to get you where you want to go? Will it help you take effective action? Is this thought going to help you be who you want to be?

Then make a decision based on what's really relevant - not your worries, regrets or fears.

(To learn more about the neuroscience of mindfulness, click here.)

Okay, let's round it up and learn how to quickly keep negative thoughts at a distance - and make even better decisions going forward...

Sum Up

This is how to use mindfulness to make better decisions:

You can't prevent negative thoughts: Stop trying. Wrestling with them only makes them worse.

The real problem is "fusion": When you treat your negative thoughts as indisputable facts and not merely ideas produced by your brain, that's when they cause problems.

Ask "What is my brain telling me right now?": Get some distance from your thoughts. Treat them as possibilities, not The Truth.

Ask "Is it useful?": Doesn't matter if they're true. It matters if the thoughts help you get where you want to go.

Over time, you want to make note of the thoughts you regularly fuse with. (Maybe it's "I can't handle this" or "I'm going to embarrass myself.")

And then gently make fun of it: Oh, so we're playing the "I'm not good enough" song again?

It takes practice to not get swept away by your thoughts. You're going to have to spend time at it.

Maybe you're looking at all this mindfulness stuff right now and thinking, "I'll never be able to do this. I'm an idiot." No problem.

Take defusing to the meta-level. Say, "I notice I'm having the thought that I'll never be able to do this and I'm an idiot."

Is that useful?
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This Is How To Use Mindfulness To Make Better Decisions - Barking Up The Wrong Tree

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Before we commence with the festivities, I wanted to thank everyone for helping my first book become a Wall Street Journal bestseller. To check it out, click here. *** A lot of the time you know what the smart thing to do is. But you're still worried about how it might turn out.

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"Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day" -Jim Rohn

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"Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day" -Jim Rohn

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"We are what we repeatedly do, Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." -Aristotle

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"We are what we repeatedly do, Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." -Aristotle

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"Pursue excellence, then success will follow you" -Rancho

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"Pursue excellence, then success will follow you" -Rancho

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"all is well" "ayos lang yan"

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-Gary Varynerchuk

https://medium.com/@theyoussefomar/micro-speed-macro-patience-a-formula-for-success-24c1a5c88f93

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The Ultimate Advice For Every 20 Year Old

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EVERY SECOND YOU SPEND THINKING ABOUT WHAT SOMEONE ELSE HAS, IT IS TAKING AWAY FROM TIME THAT YOU CAN CREATE SOMETHING FOR YOURSELF. SPEND THAT ENERGY ON YOUR VISIONS AND EXECUTE.

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3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope.