Hey bro,
Are you doing okay?
Nas.
“Today is the most important day of our lives.”
On to these week 5 thoughts and ideas! Aitesss Let’s go!
Set a conducive sleep environment, please.
Your sleep quality affects your overall quality of life. Getting a good night's sleep is an important aspect of self-care for us men. We know that lack of sleep leads to fatigue, irritability, and poor concentration.
You don't want to eventually hurt someone just because you didn’t have a proper rest. That feeling sucks.
When I was working long-hour shifts, lack of sleep affected my work to the extent that I needed sleeping pills and ended up quitting my job. I felt like a 25-year-old living in a 60-year-old body.
I was sleeping during the day with no proper blinds accompanied by a year-long noisy real-estate HDB construction going on opposite my house. I’m cranky all the time.
I've learned my lessons since then. Rest for me is important now as I’m on the road about 8-9 hrs a day. My current place has blackout curtains and cooling pillow types from IKEA.
Sleep is important. Go get it.
If there are safe spaces for kids to fall, there needs to be one for adults
I spoke to a connection on Linkedin about how self-procrastination is the enemy of our progress. It stems from misinterpreting failures as us being doing broken things.
Getting there requires a mindset shift. If we are able to fuel ourselves with failures we met, we can learn more and get to where we want faster.
As men, we are more triggered to fail because we are looked upon as providers for our families. The whole shebang however is flawed and misleading. We become the subject of what a typical male shouldn’t be but in that instance it also makes us become weak individuals who don’t take risks.
What you need is to set up a condition where you have a safe space to fail and try out anything you want within your capacity without affecting your finances or life so much.
One should have “experiments budget money”.
You need to start small to go big.
I met a guy at the barbershop near my neighborhood a year back and whenever I cut my hair, he’s my go-to guy. He has been my loyal person to go to but he left to go work in another town doing other things.
Months after, I heard he is back in town but he now freelances and has a small room near an industrial warehouse. I straight away booked an appointment. I went up a cargo lift and find myself in front of this plain grey door at level 9. There was no sign indicating it was a barbershop, nothing. As the door opens he warmly greets me like we were old friends and we went past a few other wall-divided rooms before going into his.
There’s a warm chill vibe in this room. Couches, wall art, good music, some other stuff like Pokemon Trading Cards Packs and some of his friends were in the room talking about merch and chilling. Tucked at one corner, was his space where business gets done.
We lost track of time because of how much fun we began chatting about our lives talking about business ventures and other things he has in mind. The one thing that sticks is when he said he has more control of his time now as opposed to working in the barbershop for someone else.
He humbly says that he has a long way to go but I’m so happy he’s doing things that make him happy. Sometimes you need to take control of your life by doing small things that lead you there. Not everything is so clear-cut.
That requires mental effort to get out of places you don’t want to be so that you can start your own thing.
You need to keep trying to know if it’s meant for you.
Back in October, I posted about how I have started doing Grabfood in town because there’s more demand there. It required me to wake up early and leave by 6 am, well 7 am now.
4 months have passed and I’ve now grown accustomed to waking up and starting my work in town.
Once in a while after ending work, I cycle back to buy food and bump into friends at the shopping mall they would ask how're my earnings faring with theirs and questions about working in town.
While most are not keen on traveling far saying that it’s not worth the travel, I know it has always been my eagerness to test out the theory by doing it, and I make that choice every single day. The only thing I needed to do was show up and keep putting in the work.
Safe to say, I’m consistently hitting my targets, and doing this works out for me.
People who disappear for a year are what you’re seeing now.
If you want to do something simple, you can do it easily now but if want to do something great, understand that it’s a long play.
Most of us see others on social media and think wow, this person is so lucky and talented. We see them and we feel so unmotivated like our lives are not capable of achieving anything great.
What you don’t see is them disappearing for a year, two years, or more even to have been where they are.
They didn’t magically just happen. I know a polytechnic friend of mine who worked at the gym from skinny to freaking fit and that took him years of enduring bumpy roads.
Now that you know this, stop discounting yourself.
That’s about it for this week's issue!
I’m still posting on the Substack chat every week to keep up to the base with everyone. It’s the most direct way to discuss and chat with me and other like-minded people same as you.
If you somehow manage to get to the bottom of this page, thank you so much. I enjoyed writing this newsletter as much as you enjoyed reading it.
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Till next time!
Great stuff here man, awesome to see your streak coming along! 👊