You Need To Be Extreme If You Want Your Life To Change

You need to be extreme if you want your

life to change. And the best way I can

illustrate this is by talking about the

story of my birthday in 2021 because I

remember it vividly. This was the time

when my business was actually starting

to do well. I was also in the middle of

losing weight because it happened after

co. So I was 20 to 30 lbs overweight.

I'd been in the gym my entire life. I

didn't like how I looked. This was also

a time when I was in the middle of the

first draft of my first book, The Art of

Focus. And the weird thing about this is

I so many things were going well and it

felt like at that time every single

weekend there was a reason to go out and

do something that would ruin my

progress. Things like concerts or

hanging out with friends or going out to

drink, that kind of stuff, just normal

life for normal people. And since I was

making such good progress, I figured I

could take a break. So I did. I went

out, I partied, I drank, I stayed up

late, I went off my diet, and as you

could guess, my progress didn't only

slow down, it just started going

downhill rapidly. Every weekend, it

would take maybe 4 to 5 days for my

energy and my mental capacity to

recover. And by that time, there was

another event to attend. There was

another thing to do that would slow down

my progress. And because of this, I

couldn't think straight for writing the

draft of a book. And obviously, my

fitness habits fell off. and my business

started to slow down because of those

two things. Now, that felt painful, but

the pain wasn't excruciating just yet. I

didn't have a reason to change. Now, for

months prior to this, my friend group

and I had been planning to go to Seattle

for my birthday, and I was already tired

of not making progress, but it was my

birthday, right? So, I could justify

going out and having a little fun one

last time. So, after a weekend of going

out and doing the same thing and making

very little progress, I was done. At

that point, I was just so mad at

myself because when you have goals that

are the most important thing in your

world, they shine a light on everything

you're doing wrong. The most painful

thing in the world is watching those

goals fade into the background as

they're being replaced by goals of

shallow pleasure. So, the second I got

back home, I just disappeared. I didn't

respond to anyone. I became unavailable.

Every invitation or event in any form

was just an automatic no. I didn't even

have to think twice about it. And

because of that, every single action I

took felt seamless. I wanted to be

disciplined. It gave me joy. And slowly

my mind returned, my body returned, my

business returned. My entire world

changed in an instant. Now why is that?

The first reason is because being

extreme changes your brain. There's a

famous saying that summarizes a

neurosychological theory related to

neuroplasticity called Heb's law. And in

a nutshell, it just says neurons that

fire together wire together. So

neuroplasticity, as you may know, is

your brain's ability to rewire itself by

forming new neural connections

throughout life. Your brain isn't fixed

and rigid. It's a dynamic network that

can adapt, learn, and change based on

your experiences, thoughts, and actions.

So being extreme about changing your

life helps quicken the process of

neuroplasticity or changing your brain.

People scream about how consistency is

key, which is true due to repetition

reinforcing neuropathways, but we can

take it a step further than that.

Novelty and challenge stimulate

neuroplasticity even more. So when you

flip the switch and pursue a goal with

all your might, you put your brain in an

environment that quickly adapts and

helps that become your new standard. The

second thing is that intensity and

obsession create this neurochemical

cocktail in your brain. Most people fall

into a rut because they seek extrinsic

motivators. But when you are obsessed in

the context of this discussion with a

goal, you are fueled by intrinsic

motivators. each of which stack and

strengthen each other in a way that

sustains some degree of flow which is

the state of optimal experience or one

of the most enjoyable states of mind.

Now there are five of these intrinsic

motivators. The first is curiosity which

is the desire to explore the unknown.

Learn how to change and fill knowledge

gaps and this results in good dopamine

from novelty and neuropepinephrine which

heightens attention preparing you to

learn. The second intrinsic motivator is

passion where an intense enthusiasm is

built for the path that allows you to

change your life. This results in more

good dopamine and norepinephrine. The

third intrinsic motivator is purpose

which is the feeling that your actions

contribute to something larger than

yourself. Achieving goals here results

in more dopamine which reinforces

behavior. And serotonin stems from

significance and belonging. Oxytocin

stems from connection. The fourth

intrinsic motivator is autonomy, which

is the desire to direct your own life

and work to control your choices,

actions, and environment. And this

results in yet again more dopamine and a

reduction in cortisol, which is the

stress from feeling put in a box,

allowing for creative decision-making.

And the fifth intrinsic motivator is

mastery, which is the process of

learning and growing being its own

reward. And this results in sustainable

good dopamine that keeps you in the

game. Those are the intrinsic motivators

that create obsession and you will

understand these more as they come into

play when we talk about how to spend the

next 6 months of your life. Now the

third point here is that your mind

filters reality based on what you're

obsessed with. Let's illustrate this

with a quote from Maxwell Maltz. The man

who conceives himself to be a failure

type person will find some way to fail

in spite of all his good intentions or

his willpower even if opportunity is

literally dumped in his lap. The person

who conceives himself to be a victim of

injustice, one who was meant to suffer,

will invariably find circumstances to

verify his opinions. Our mind is wired

for survival. But the interesting thing

about being human is that we don't only

try to protect and reproduce the

information in our genes or in our DNA

like animals. We do that, but we also

attempt to protect and reproduce the

information in our consciousness or our

worldview or our concept of self. So

what that means is that we feel

threatened when our body is threatened

obviously like animals but also when our

identity is threatened. So on the

negative end we notice information that

reinforces our beliefs and worldview

often leading to us lashing out at those

who question our religious or political

beliefs. Our identity feels threatened

and the brain's response sends that

signal. So we feel the need to survive.

Now on the positive end, when you are

identified with a goal that you are

obsessed with, your mind will

automatically notice opportunities in

your environment to reinforce that

higher version of yourself that you were

becoming. An example of this is if

you've ever set out to achieve a goal,

like a New Year's resolution, and then

you start reading a book, and now you're

learning things that you didn't even

know existed before. you're noticing

diets to try and exercises to try and

when losing weight or going to the gym

wasn't a priority to you before, you

didn't care about those things. They

didn't even register for you. It's the

same phenomenon when you hear a word for

the first time and then you hear it

everywhere or when you see a new car for

the first time and then you see it

everywhere. The point is that if you

aren't obsessed with a goal, you are

missing out on so much in life and so

many opportunities where you're

wondering, "Oh, how do I do this? How do

I do that? Oh, I'm it's it's all luck.

No, you're just not obsessed with a

goal. The goal that allows you to notice

those things. The people who are

obsessed with their goals are living in

a completely different mind space than

you. And they don't have trouble

succeeding because it's automatic. We're

wired this way because our ancestors

were wired this way. When our ancestors

were hunting for something or they

needed food, their attention was

heightened and they would notice things

in the environment that allowed them to

survive. Now if we look to something

like cybernetics and apply that to our

mind or the psyche, we can see that our

mind has some form of a homing mechanism

toward our goals. Our mind accepts

information that helps it and rejects

information that doesn't. You are

steered toward your goals without much

effort. So in summary, if you are

obsessed with a goal, the universe will

conspire in your favor by giving you the

resources to achieve it. So, we

understand that being extreme or being

obsessed is the best way to change your

life. But how do you get to that point?

Right? You're you're hearing me say,

"Oh, you need to be obsessed with a

goal." But what if you aren't obsessed

with any goal? What if you don't care

about anything? What if you don't know

what to do? What if you're stuck in this

rut or you just feel lost? What if

you're like me leading up to my birthday

where I was just starting to fall off

track, but I didn't really notice how it

was impacting my life until I finally

hit that point where everything turned

around. How do you hit that point and

what is the reason behind it working? To

understand this, we need to understand

that evolution creates order from

disorder. Now, this is an interesting

one because the second law of

thermodynamics states that all natural

processes move toward a state of greater

disorder over time. In other words, this

is what entropy is. It's the measure of

disorder, randomness, or chaos. Now,

here's the thing. the universe or your

life just moving towards greater

disorder or randomness or chaos is only

half of the story. In his book, The End

of Uncertainty, Ilia Priagene makes the

argument that this arrow of time is not

just an illusion but a fundamental

feature of reality itself. When a system

is pushed far enough away from

equilibrium, it can become unstable.

Now, here's the key point. This

instability can lead to a spontaneous

emergence of new complex ordered

patterns called dissipative structures.

The easiest example to wrap your head

around this concept is think of a faucet

and the faucet is just pouring out water

and it's very chaotic. But at some point

it gets so chaotic that as it's going

down the drain it creates this

whirlpool, this beautiful ordered

structure of a whirlpool that's not more

chaotic. That's not more messy or more

disordered. That's order that has

emerged from disorder. Now, I know we're

getting all scientific or abstract here,

but bear with me for a second because

there's one more thing that you need to

understand, and that's the fact that

reality is composed of whole parts. Not

just parts, not just holes, but whole

parts. An atom is a whole and a part of

a molecule. A molecule is a whole and a

part of a cell. A cell is a part of an

organism. An organism a part of an

environment. Or you can think of letter

to word to sentence to paragraph or

matter to life to mind to soul to spirit

or even things like the technoeconomic

base of a society like foraging to

horicultural to agrarian to industrial

toformational societies. Now the point

that I'm trying to get at with

illustrating this is that evolution

creates order from chaos. As matter

progressed and became more complex, life

emerged. As life progressed, mind

emerged. As anything becomes more

developed or complex or disordered or

messy, a new hole emerges as the ordered

structure for that thing. Now let's try

to tie this all together. So when you

take the concept of entropy and apply it

to the mind, you get psychic entropy. In

other words, the mind tends toward

disorder, randomness, and chaos. So in

your personal life, when you reach a

point of feeling lost or you feel like

your life is falling into chaos, you are

presented with an opportunity for a

higher version of yourself to emerge.

This isn't just some random abstract

philosophy. This is directly observable

in everyday life. This is exactly what

happened in my story. Things became so

complex, so disordered. I felt so

chaotic, like I was falling into this

rut. And eventually I just hit that

point. I hit the point of becoming so

fed up with the progress that I was

making that I had no choice but to flip

the script and do the complete opposite.

The reason that many people don't reach

this point is because they aren't

brutally aware of how their current

trajectory in life is impacting their

thoughts, emotions, and progress toward

non-existent goals. So, you need to

reach the crossroads of dissonance and

insight. What I mean by that is once you

get a taste of where you are in life,

you've gotten you've you've been there

for long enough, you will start to feel

like you are being ripped in half. And

that's exactly what you need to pay

attention to. One lower part of you

wants to stay the same while one higher

part of you wants to change. And as you

intentionally choose to lean toward the

higher, you are met by insight. You are

given the answer to everything. And that

leads to this insane burst of clarity

that leads to obsession for a meaningful

goal. That is the tipping point that

pushes you into being extreme. Now once

you hit this point, this is when you

disappear for 6 months and focus on four

habits. New knowledge comes when you

simply bear in mind what you need to

know. Keep holding the problem in mind

and it will yield. The history of human

beings is certainly a testament to that

fact. An individual runs into a problem

and simply obsesses about that problem

until he or she solves it. It might take

a week, a month, a year, a decade, a

century, or a millennium, but the cosmos

appears to be such that solutions are

always forthcoming. That's a quote from

Ken Wilbur that helps summarize this

nicely is that all problems are soluble.

And that's exactly what you're doing

when you go into this period of monk

mode or disappearing for 6 months.

You're obsessing over a problem. Now, on

the topic of monk mode, I'm sure you're

familiar with it. It's a concept that's

often talked about in the

self-improvement space, and recently

it's just become a bastardized version

of its former self. Everyone has talked

about it, and now since everyone knows

about it, it's often reduced to this

shallow definition of just cut everyone

off and make money. So, we're not going

to do that. And in fact, we're not even

going to follow the original definition

of what monk mode was. What the original

monk mode means is a purely ascending

lifestyle or an aesthetic lifestyle. So

in the past agrarian societies when the

horsedrawn plow was invented there was

an abundance of food and so men had the

free time to pursue their own interests.

So this is when things like writing and

mathematics were invented but it also

gave people the time for deep

contemplation. And what they found is

that the divine wasn't out there or up

there but in here. And that realization

led to the axial period. And the axial

period was a time where revolutionary

spiritual and philosophical ideas

emerged across multiple civilizations.

So Socrates in ancient Greece, Gautama

Buddha in India and Lasu in China. So

this ascending spirituality that was

created or aseticism is a view that pins

the manifest world as evil. Since the

kingdom of heaven couldn't be found up

there or out there, money, sex, food,

and pleasure were demonized. So true

monk mode, the original definition of

monk mode is just this. It's a period

dedicated to the ascending path and

self-realization. But the thing is here,

we're in 2025. We have access to a lot

of information, a lot of different

worldviews. We have access to history.

Any non-dogmatic person realizes that

spirituality is only one piece of the

puzzle. It's a very important piece. But

reducing the solution to all of your

problems to contemplation is just as bad

as reducing the same to atoms, money, or

just parts or physical things. The

spiritual people who demonize the

scientific materialists for reducing the

world to atoms are doing the same thing.

They're just reducing the world to

spirit. So instead of doing that, we're

going to disappear for a period of

intensity toward a better life. a period

where you obsess over a problem until

it's solved. And our problem here is

that we want to change the entirety of

our life. We need a holistic monk mode,

if you will. Now, that comes in two

parts. Defense and offense. So, we'll

start with defense, which is short and

to the point, which is eliminating

distractions. Because focus does not

only apply to work. Distractions are not

only notifications that pull you away

from work. The entire point of

disappearing is to create a glitch in

the matrix, to change your identity

overnight, to rid yourself of the crabs

and parasites that pull you down and

drain you of the energy that must be

dedicated to the choices that create a

better future. Now, for the sake of

being extreme, it's easier to change

everything at once than it is to change

one thing at a time. So, rip the

band-aid off. Stop responding to people

who only take and never give. Any

invitation that pulls you away from your

goals should be an automatic and firm

no. Every bad habit that does not serve

you stops tomorrow. No exceptions. It is

an incredible feeling to choose your own

limitations. To be free of that which

splits your attention from the highest

good you can do. Now that's defense. Now

for offense, we need to form four focus

habits. Because a good life stems from

the pursuit of the good, the true, and

the beautiful. The pursuit of truth as a

whole. The good is inner subjective

truth. What is good for humanity or

community? It's doing what's right. The

true is objective truth which is found

in scientific study. And science derives

data. Data is experience. And experience

is physical, mental, and spiritual. The

true is about learning and understanding

how things really are. Now, the

beautiful is subjective truth, the realm

of aesthetics, noticing, and creating

beauty around you. Now, there are many

variations of habits that can check all

of these boxes, but we're going to focus

on four. The four that I think are the

most impactful and easiest to focus on.

So, what you're going to disappear and

do for the next 6 months is this one

project, one book, one meditation, one

workout that checks the boxes of the

good, the true, and the beautiful and

each dimension of your life. So, let's

start with one project, the thing that

you're going to build. Your project is

the thing you're going to work on. It's

your work because work is a necessary

part of life that brings contrast to

rest. But most people work jobs they

hate. So they throw the baby out with

the bathwater hoping that they will

never have to work again. This is a

delusion because you will not be happy

in a state of perpetual vacation because

meaning is found in contrast. If you

don't work to balance out rest, then the

rest becomes meaningless. You go on

vacation and after a month you want to

go back home. You want to get back to

work. The problem is you're working on

the wrong thing. And on top of that, the

average person's view of what rest is,

where rest is recovery, most people view

it as this form of self-destruction. You

lay in bed, you get fat, you eat

Cheetos, you drink wine, you become a

degenerate. That's not rest. That's just

a recipe for burnout because you're not

recovering for any form of meaningful

work. So the start of the solution is to

choose one project that acts as a

building block for the life you want to

live. Now this can be anything. A

creative project that leads to

independent work, a portfolio project

that leads to a change in career. And

most of the time considering the state

of AI, I at least recommend that

everyone try entrepreneurship because I

know many people don't want to do that.

But the way you hedge yourself against

replacement is that and because you are

attempting to control the good, the

true, and the beautiful in your work.

You can't control that when someone else

assigns you the work. Your work and the

project that moves you toward creating

the work you want is a representation of

the good. Because entrepreneurship is

the art of solving problems in other

people's lives. It is how you contribute

to a community or an audience of people

by fulfilling a role that improves their

lives. Now obviously there is the bad

side of work which is doing work for

someone else and being completely

unconscious of the impact that that work

is having on society or culture or the

community or people as a whole. Some

people are working some random desk job

and don't even care or don't even notice

that their company is in coordination

with another one that drops bombs in

another country. Your work also

integrates the true because you have to

learn and actually try to get objective

results for other people. And it

integrates the beautiful by expressing

the depths of your personality because

the best type of business or brand is

one with personality either as one

person as a personal brand or as a

business with personality. So spend one

hour of deep work a day on a project

that can change your professional life.

Put it on your calendar. Work that

doesn't feel like work is the

intersection of what the world needs,

the good, what you have experience with,

the true, and what you deeply care

about, the beautiful. Work, when done

right, is synonymous with life. It is

the central pillar of everything else

you do. And that leads into number two,

which is one book. Now, you're bound to

finish one book in 6 to 12 months. You

can read more, but it just didn't make

sense for me to say two books or three

books when we're saying one project, one

book, one meditation, one workout. It

just didn't make sense. But if you want

to change your life, you need the

knowledge to do so. Plain and simple.

And school probably isn't going to give

you that knowledge. So, you need to

self-educate. You need to immerse your

mind in the thoughts of those who have

lived the life you want to live. Now,

this is simple enough. Read one book 30

minutes a day because learning something

just because you're curious is a prime

representation of the truth. And as

you'll find the simple act of

exploration brings novel ideas that lead

to progress. Now the third habit is one

meditation. While work can be beautiful

and spiritual. It is not a full

replacement for a habit that maintains

your connection with reality. Now, by

meditation, I do not mean sitting in a

dark room and closing your eyes and

focusing on your breath and letting your

thoughts pass, even though that's very

viable. You can do that. Meditation, for

all I'm concerned, is a way of life, a

way of perceiving the world through a

lens of wonder and gratitude. Noticing

the amazing things all around you that

tend to be glanced over when you are

stressed and narrow-minded. The purpose

of meditation in this sense is to notice

depth, to escape the trap of shallow

living. So, for at least 10 minutes a

day, attempt to notice reality in

greater detail and depth. Go on a walk

and only focus on the feeling of your

feet on the ground. Stare at a tree and

notice the intricate detail that you've

never noticed before. Listen deeply when

having a conversation with a loved one.

Don't just notice words. Notice tone,

expression, everything. Stare at your

hand for 10 minutes straight. Yes, I'm

serious. And let your mind wander deeper

into the detail. Feel the water on your

hands while doing dishes. Feel

everything you touch for once in your

life. Listen to the sound of silence or

cars in the distance. Pick apart the

intricate smell of even the most boring

food. Don't over complicate this. And

this leads into the last and final

habit, which is one workout. And I'll

let Socrates tee this one off. No man

has the right to be an amateur in the

matter of physical training. It is a

shame for a man to grow old without

seeing the beauty and strength of which

his body is capable. Now, back to the

topic of reality being composed of whole

parts. One major tenant of these whole

parts is that the destruction of the

lower leads to the destruction of the

higher. So if we destroy earth then

obviously humans the level of mind is

destroyed with it. Destroying the earth

is literal suicide. Another example is

if a cancer cell or a virus invades the

organism and eventually takes over

because we don't fix it then it becomes

sick and eventually dies. And if you

remove something like a sentence from a

paragraph a lot of the times the

paragraph won't make sense. Now, the

point with this is that you live in your

body. It should be considered your

full-time job to learn about it, train

it, and treat it with respect because

anything else is literal suicide. Not

only that, but a lack of health shoots

its impact upward into the creative

ability of your mind, the quality of

your work, and the depth of connections

in your relationships. It's all

connected. So, commit to one workout,

whatever you feel the most pulled to do.

Find a running program, a weightlifting

program, a Pilates routine, a yoga

thing, whatever. The point is to pay

mind to the body that allows you to be

here every single day. Those four habits

can radically change your life. Those

four habits can align you with the good,

the true, and the beautiful. Those four

habits can lead to a higher state of

enjoyment through curiosity, passion,

purpose, autonomy, and mastery. Get sick

of being sick. Give yourself permission

to be extreme. disappear and come back

unrecognizable. Thank you for watching

this video. If you want to read my

latest letter on the death of thoughtful

creation, how to get ahead of everyone

else going into the future, you can read

that on my Substack for free. And on the

paid version of the Substack, I actually

release the full course of the oneperson

business launchpad. So, you can go to my

Substack, check out what's all there,

sign up for free or paid. That's it for

this video. Thank you for watching. Bye.