Author: William

People who think they are too smart to be fooled are most often fooled.

Those who believe they are invulnerable are most vulnerable.

Those who think it can’t happen to them o

Security is a delusion.

Everyone has vulnerabilities. Everyone is vulnerable, to manipulation, to persuasion, to deception.

Pride creates blindness, self deception.

The ultimate pleasure is anticipation.

No one wants satisfaction.

People are motivated by the anticipation of satisfaction.

Call it Hope. Call it Desire.

The idea of the chase. It’s embodied in “sex drive”, but it’s the primal energy that makes man a hunter.

The kill is a moment. Even when you succeed, there is no lasting pleasure. You just return to the hunt, the chase, the anticipation of the next thing, goal, orgasm, kill, success, triumph.

The hunt is the thrill, the addiction.

The hunt is the challenge that forces our growth, focuses our mastery.

Roles and their levers to create value:
Investor: capital ++++
Leader: humans +++
Professional: skills/expertise ++
Laborer: Time +

In a world increasingly dominated by artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, fears about job security and the relevance of human creativity are understandable. The rapid advancements in technology have led many to question whether AI will render human creators obsolete. However, this perspective misses a fundamental truth: while AI can replicate and even enhance certain tasks, it cannot replace the unique human qualities of vision, taste, and leadership. These attributes are the bedrock of innovation and are more critical now than ever before.

The Irreplaceable Value of Human Vision and Taste

At the core of every groundbreaking creation lies a human vision—a compelling idea that captures the essence of what people need or desire. This vision is intricately linked to taste, the discerning ability to recognize and appreciate what resonates on a profound level. Rick Rubin, for instance, is a music producer who has profoundly influenced the industry not by playing instruments or writing songs, but through his exceptional taste and ability to bring out the best in artists. He identifies raw talent and shapes it into something extraordinary, a skill that no algorithm can emulate.

Similarly, Steve Jobs transformed technology not by inventing new hardware, but by envisioning products that seamlessly integrate into people’s lives. His keen sense of design and user experience set Apple apart in a crowded market. Jobs didn’t engineer the iPhone himself; he led teams of talented individuals to realize his vision. This underscores the irreplaceable role of human insight in driving innovation.

AI as a Tool, Not a Replacement

Throughout history, technology has served as a tool to amplify human capabilities. The invention of the printing press, the steam engine, and the internet each revolutionized society, but none replaced the fundamental need for human creativity and leadership. AI is the latest in this lineage of transformative tools. It excels at processing data, identifying patterns, and performing repetitive tasks with unparalleled efficiency. However, it lacks consciousness, emotional intelligence, and the ability to comprehend the nuanced complexities of human desires and morality.

Consider the magnificent Sagrada Família in Barcelona. Designed by Antoni Gaudí, this basilica has been under construction for over 140 years, brought to life by generations of artisans inspired by Gaudí’s original vision. AI could potentially assist in architectural design or construction techniques, but it could not originate the visionary blend of Gothic and Art Nouveau styles that make the Sagrada Família a singular masterpiece. It’s the human touch—the vision—that breathes life into such projects.

The Primacy of Understanding the Human Condition

The humanities—philosophy, literature, art, and history—provide invaluable insights into the human condition. They help us understand emotions, motivations, and ethical considerations. This understanding is essential for creating products, services, and art that genuinely resonate with people. AI, despite its computational prowess, cannot grasp the subtleties of human experience.

Content without context is merely information. What gives content value is its ability to connect with an audience on an emotional or intellectual level. AI can generate music that mimics Bach or write articles that follow a specific format, but it cannot create something that captures the zeitgeist of the times without human guidance. It doesn’t understand why a piece of music moves us or why a story inspires us—it merely processes data.

Leadership in the Age of AI

As technology evolves, so does the nature of work. The roles that require routine, predictable tasks are most susceptible to automation. However, positions that require strategic thinking, emotional intelligence, and ethical judgment are becoming increasingly vital. Leadership involves more than managing processes; it’s about inspiring people, making moral decisions, and setting a vision for the future.

Leaders define objectives, identify target audiences, and devise strategies to meet their needs. They possess the wisdom to make judgments that machines cannot. The story of King Solomon’s judgment illustrates the depth of understanding and compassion required to make complex decisions—qualities inherent to humans.

Adapting and Thriving with Technological Advances

Artists and creators have always adapted to new tools and mediums. The introduction of photography didn’t eliminate painting; instead, it expanded the possibilities of visual art. Digital music production didn’t eradicate live performance; it opened new avenues for sound exploration. Similarly, AI offers new tools that, when leveraged properly, can enhance human creativity.

To stay ahead, individuals must be willing to embrace change, continuously learn, and develop skills that complement technological advancements. This includes honing one’s vision, cultivating taste, and enhancing leadership abilities. By doing so, we ensure that technology serves us, not the other way around.

The Enduring Need for Human Judgment

Ultimately, humans are the arbiters of value and morality. We decide what is good, what is beautiful, and what is meaningful. AI can present options based on data, but it cannot make ethical choices or understand the implications of those choices on society. As we integrate AI into various facets of life, the need for human oversight becomes even more critical.

The Future of Collaboration Between Humans and AI

Envision a future where AI handles the mundane aspects of work, freeing humans to focus on innovation, strategy, and connection. In such a world, the most successful individuals will be those who can effectively collaborate with AI—leveraging its capabilities while providing the human insight that machines lack.

Actors may use AI to enhance their performances, but the emotional depth they bring to a role is uniquely human. Musicians might employ AI to experiment with new sounds, but the soul of the music comes from human experience. Even in fields like medicine or law, where AI can process vast amounts of information, the application of that knowledge in a compassionate and ethical manner remains a human responsibility.

Conclusion: Embrace the Human Advantage

Rather than fearing AI as a competitor, we should view it as an ally that can help us achieve greater heights. By doubling down on the qualities that make us uniquely human—our vision, creativity, empathy, and moral judgment—we can carve out roles that are not only secure from automation but are also more fulfilling.

The key is to remain adaptable, continuously seek knowledge, and focus on the big picture. Understand the needs and desires of people, and use technology as a means to meet them. In doing so, we not only secure our place in the future but also contribute to a world where technology enhances human life without diminishing the essence of what it means to be human.

In the age of AI, it’s not about competing with machines but about leveraging them to amplify our uniquely human capabilities. By embracing this mindset, we can transform potential threats into opportunities for unprecedented growth and innovation.

Ah! Experts. Yes. The experts.

We should talk at length about these experts, this priesthood, their moral authority, their flawless judgement, and why we should subserve our intellect and judgement of self-evident truths to the experts.

Where in our constitution does this deference to experts serve to enable democracy?

The experts, of course. Trust the experts.

The regular man doesn’t know what’s in his best interest. We need overlords. We need the experts to tell us. Yes, they possess judgement that surpasses the average man.

Let us hand over our conscience to the experts. Let the experts govern us. Hell, the common man is too stupid to know what’s best for himself. Why give him the ability to vote? Yes, voting is so antiquated when we have experts, this priestly class that walks on water.

Speaking of authoritarianism.
Complexity doesn’t mean complicated.

Mathematics is simple, but complex.

I think things are made to be unnecessarily complicated to obfuscate the truth.
The notion of conspiracy is a red herring. It prevents you from thinking. We dismiss anything labeled as a conspiracy. It’s a deliberate red herring to prevent critical thought.
If there is anything I’ve learned in my life, it is that Truth is simple.

Confusion is not truth, and the more confused, the further you are straying from a truth.

The past 8 years I’ve had vivid dreams about these figures. Potent dreams. We were friends. Despite a period of 7 years of disdaining Trump, all the times we met and were with eachother in my dreams I respected him and endeared him, and he was respectful and kind. This always left me unsettled upon waking, as there appeared to be dissonance in who he was in my dreams and who I think him to be. Musk was always building rockets. Always seemed to have his eye on the stars, always busy and working. In my dreams with him, we never had a personal relationship, like I did with Trump. With Bieber, we we see eachother and embrace eachother as long lost friends. I was never enamored by him. We spoke about intimate feelings and thoughts, shared vulnerability. There was a loneliness that we recognized in eachother, and it comforted us. Despite the throngs of fans, we should sit and talk, hug it out like brothers, and talk about life, the ups and downs, the struggle.

This dreams have always been very bizarre and inexplicable.

I’ve always wondered what they could mean. Other than my wife, there is no one else I ever dream about, and certainly not repeatedly. These figures populated my dreams for years now. It’s strange, but I ask myself what it means, if anything.

I was thinking about this a lot this election.

The narratives. The consensus around narratives. The distortion of perception. How fear is used as an instrument to craft perception. It keeps people enslaved to their perceptions, and expression of their latent denial of death.

Why it happens. To which demographics. How it happens. Who is most susceptible.

I thought about the Dunning Kruger effect: The rational model holds that overly positive prior beliefs about one’s skills are the source of false self-assessment.

I have a statue in my office that I look at everyday named Rising Sun, by Adolf Weinmann. It represents Icarus, and the consequences of Hubris. When they were preparing their flight to escape, his father Daedalus, the genius engineer and architect, advised his son to “to take the middle way”, but his son was “drawn by desire for the heavens” and perished by not heeding his fathers advice, taking too much stock in his ability.
–Metamorphoses (Kline) 8, the Ovid Collection, Univ. of Virginia E-Text Center
(https://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/trans/Metamorph8.htm#482327661)

There is a similar story of Phaeton and his father Phoebus, who guided the chariots that pulled the sun across the sky. Phaeton wished to drive the chariot and failed to heed his father’s guidance and proceed in the middle way. He lost control of the chariots, destroying the earth, and himself in the process.
–Metamorphoses (Kline) 2, the Ovid Collection, Univ. of Virginia E-Text Center (https://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/trans/Metamorph2.htm#476707490)

A reminder that our self-assurance is more than often a flaw in our self-assessment, a self deception of our inflated ability to reason and accurately perceive.

The more sure you are, the more skeptical you should be. Self virtue is fatal. There is a natural tendency to accumulate self virtue as we grow in education, knowledge, status, money, prestige, success, titles, degrees.

The true value of education, of knowledge, is the ability to recognize your ignorance, not escape it. We never arrive. It is the realization that, as the island of knowledge grow, so too do the shores of ignorance.

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool. WS

This year I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on narratives, channels of influence, personalities, righteousness.

Thales (the “first” philosopher) is attributed with the aphorism: “Know thyself” . It was inscribed on the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, who was the god of Truth.

I think it’s easy to get caught up in trying to determine what’s true, versus what is true of ourselves. And seeking the ends of the former is often what leads to these threads of self deception, as we lose sense of the self which serves as the basis of the reality we seek.

It’s unsettling, yet liberating, to gain an awareness that there are alternative realities that exist. It should humiliating, and can be embarrassing, that our perceptions are not the only perceptions, that there may be narratives supporting perceptions which more closely align to a truer base reality.

But getting to that truth, that base reality, requires humility.

Our closeness to God is proportional to the size of our ego. God is reality, nothing more and nothing less, and the reality can only be experienced in the present. The present requires a loss of self. Only then can you experience reality for what it is, rather than what you think it is. Reality is truth.

“We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents.” Emerson said.

I think of how malleable groups of people can be, and why, and reflect on the institutions they affiliate with, and why. Institutions are groups of people under the spell of a moral authority. Government. Media. Academic. Religious. Corporate.

Institutions are allergic to original thought.

They commit atrocities by leveraging a populous when people appeal to the authority of their association, rather than the authority of their own truth. But cultivating a population that can appeal to self-evident truths requires a humility.

“The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs. Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.” Emerson

When the oracle of Delphi proclaimed that none was wiser than Sacrates, he was in disbelief, because “I know that I have no wisdom.”

So he went in search of all the men wiser to refute the oracle but “found that the men most in repute were all but the most foolish; and that some inferior men were really wiser and better.” “They were good workmen they thought that they also knew all sorts of high matters, and this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom.”

After his search he concluded “that God only is wise; and in this oracle he means to say that the wisdom of men is little or nothing”

“He is the wisest who knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing.”

But “the fear of death is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being the appearance of knowing the unknown; since no one knows whether death, which they in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good. Is there not here conceit of knowledge, which is a disgraceful sort of ignorance?”

If you’re locked in a room, and the room is all you know, and you believe you are free—- are you free?
Similar to the allegory of the cave.

Inconvenient truths are hardest to perceive. Mostly because of our unwillingness to see, because doing so what mean we must alter our entire paradigm/ way of seeing, and perhaps upend fundamental beliefs we cling to for security.

Everyone’s reality is valid, in the sense that it is their reality. But I believe there are levels of reality. Primitive reality, there are forces acting upon our lives that we attribute to certain causes to, completely ignorant of their true nature or origin.

This applies to natural physics as well as societal.

We perceive higher levels of reality when we move up the causal chain to first principles, or whatever the first mover is or might be.

I like to think there is no power in any one reality beyond the network which shares that reality.

I often wonder how many realities are shared unconsciously— playing games and repeating narratives that feed the reality, without ever knowing the reality you’re participating in.

Democracy.
Communism.
Academia.
Entrepreneurship.
Capitalism.
Government.
Hollywood.
Religion.
Morality.
Etc.

We look at these as prima facie objective enterprises. But the reality of each is a scale, depending on how you’re participating. The realities can invert completely on themselves, depending on how you’re participating, or who invites you to participate in their reality (akin to being dragged out of the cave)

It’s like the closer you get to the higher reality, the more disturbing it becomes, because it shatters the innocent uninformed ideas about the forces actually governing reality.

And we naturally adopt whatever reality is convenient. Not because it’s best or right or true, but because it’s less disturbing, less threatening.

I think about this often.

Trying to square one reality with another. Asking myself what information I’m able to perceive.

I think about the whole notion of the enterprise of philosophy, as I understand it. I was reading Montaigne this week, specifically his essay That to Philosophize is to learn to Die. (https://monadnock.net/montaigne/learn2.html).

It makes me think about these inconvenient truths. To reveal them is to get more comfortable with death. It prepares you for the ultimate reality.

Montaigne says
“He who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.

Knowing how to die frees us from all subjection and constraint.

There is nothing evil in life for the man who has thoroughly grasped the fact that to be deprived of life is not an evil.”

Our unwillingness to confront certain inconvenient realities is a reflection of our servitude.

There is no freedom— not in the liberal sense— without learning to die. Which is to say, embracing realities and truths which are most inconvenient, which pose the greatest threat to our being.

I think the process of philosophizing is a process which ultimately liberates us. Questioning our realities. Our convenient, cozy assumptions that we are so self assured of, but ultimately enslave us to limited realities.

Philosophy is asking if there is more beyond the room. Sometimes it’s just a matter of knocking on the door and having someone open it. Sometimes it’s just opening it ourselves. Sometimes it’s inspecting and cracking the lock. And I like to think these rooms lead to more rooms, and often these rooms are connected, and we must continually remind ourselves that we are unfree, that there are other realities beyond our perception.

This is why books are useful. But books can also reinforce realities and keep us trapped.

I think about this.

How do we grow. How do we advance, evolve, progress. It’s all a reflection of our ability to exercise this true freedom of choosing. Not accepting the status quo, the given, the false dilemmas presented as fixed options. But scratching at the corners to reveal something always there, but imperceptible because we cling to convenience.

You should be a killer.

Those that win posses no fear.

Kill the fear.

The man who acts as if his life depends on it, as if he is ready to die, will always perform more intensely and overcome anyone or thing that doesn’t kill him, and grow stronger and more powerful.

You should try to die.

Everyday you need to die. Kill yourself. Your ego. Your fears. Your insecurities. Kill your self. When you do, your vision transcends the possible into the potential.

I have no fear. Deep inside me I am dead already. I have died long ago. I have nothing but my raw spirit. That flame alone survives. Sometimes barely. I often live with it under a blanket, smothered. Why?

If I am not true to me, what is truth? Where is my star?

I am living a lie. Speak my truth. I have no shame. Not of my contradictions.

I have no fear. My fear is to live with no honor, to never have lived my truth, to never allow life to cut me to the bone to see what I am made of.

I will die. Memento mori.

I want to die by my own hand, by choosing how I live.

animosus

What do I want? This is the most important question to live with, to answer with your life, everyday.

Be ready to die. Be not afraid. Death is coming anyway. There is no failure. There is only understanding and death.

The closer I come to death, the more I learn.

I want to act in ways that jeopardize my life, not wantonly, but with righteous intention.

I am tired of living under a blanket waiting to die.

I want to be dangerous. I want to live with the breath of death at my back. I want its cool fingers grasping at my back as I lunge forward into the light. I want to feel its weight and I want to lift it every moment, never letting it prevail. I will fight it.

Suffering is life. Ignoring it causes neurotic suffering, delusions.

I do not want to exist. I want to die striving to achieve my dreams, the visions that I paint in solitude. I want to paint more boldly and vividly and pronouncedly, and then I want to construct these visions with my blood and sweat and tears and toils, drop by drop, until they become the fabric of my life.

Set a goal. Then step to it. With all I have. Stupidly. Erringly. Unashamed. Undeterred. March forward without security, without comfort, without knowing. All so that I may know myself.

I have two masters. God. Myself. God is the same flame that ignites my spirit. I must be true to the light. If god does not show me, I must trust myself. No other man or woman. And I must be willing to die and sacrifice everything if I should know myself fully. Death comes regardless. Sooner or later it doesn’t matter. We are biding time. What transpires between birth and death must be written by my actions, born of thoughts.

Choose a path, and commit. It will lead me on a journey, and that journey is the way. The destination may be irrelevant

How bad do I want to live?

How parched is my spirit?

How hungry for life?

I must die if I should live.

In difficult ground, press on; In encircled ground, devise stratagems; In death ground, fight.

—Sun Tzu, The Art Of War

Throw your soldiers into positions whence there is no escape, and they will prefer death to flight. If they will face death, there is nothing they may not achieve. Officers and men alike will put forth their uttermost strength. Soldiers in desperate straits lose the sense of fear. If there is no place of refuge, they will stand firm. If they are in the heart of a hostile country, they will show a stubborn front. If there is no help for it, they will fight hard. Thus, without waiting to be marshaled, the soldiers will be constantly on the alert, and without waiting to be asked, they will do your will; without restrictions, they will be faithful; without giving orders, they can be trusted.Prohibit the taking of omens, and do away with superstitious doubts. Then, until death itself comes, no calamity need be feared.

—Sun Tzu, The Art Of War

Never completely surround an army. Leave an opening.Why? When there is the door to escape, the men to be rushing through it and will not stay to fight. So in reverse, when there is no way to escape, the only way to survive is to fight till victory, then the men will be committed to fighting till death.

—Sun Tzu, The Art Of War, Chapter 7

The concept of “death ground” originates from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, a seminal work on military strategy and tactics written in the 5th century BC. While The Art of War is essentially a military treatise, its principles have been applied to various fields beyond warfare, including business and personal development, due to its insights into strategy, competition, and psychology.

The term “death ground” refers to a situation in which an army or a group finds itself in a position from which there is no escape, and the only option left is to fight with all its might for survival. In such scenarios, the soldiers are believed to fight more fiercely because they are motivated by the basic instinct of survival when faced with the existential threat of annihilation. The concept is rooted in the idea that when people perceive that they have no way out, they will summon unprecedented levels of courage, strength, and resourcefulness to overcome obstacles.

Sun Tzu advises placing one’s troops on “death ground” to ensure they will fight with utmost determination. This is not just about physical positioning but also about creating a psychological state where the soldiers, or people in general, recognize the severity of their situation and the necessity for all-out effort.

Translating this concept into modern non-military applications, “death ground” strategies can be found in business, sports, personal development, and other competitive or high-stakes environments. It’s the idea of creating a situation or mindset where failure is not an option, compelling individuals or teams to leverage their fullest potential to achieve a goal. This could involve setting aggressive deadlines, committing significant resources to a project, or taking bold steps that do not allow for easy retreat, thereby necessitating extraordinary effort and innovation for success.

The psychological underpinning of the “death ground” strategy is related to human motivation and the fight-or-flight response—a physiological reaction that occurs in response to a perceived harmful event, attack, or threat to survival. In such high-pressure situations, people may access deeper reserves of creativity, perseverance, and resilience.

However, it’s important to note that while the “death ground” strategy can lead to significant breakthroughs and achievements, it also involves high risk. The constant stress and pressure can have negative effects on individuals’ health and well-being, and the potential for significant loss or failure if the effort does not succeed. Thus, its application requires careful consideration of the stakes, the resilience of the team or individual, and the potential costs versus benefits of such an approach.

So the past week has been a whirlwind!

As you know, last weekend we visited Sacramento to view a several homes and se saw that one we wanted just a day after it went on the market and we fell in love.

Our realtor told us there were no other offers so we told her this was the home we were looking for and we wanted it and I went to work on financing and writing an offer letter to the owner.

The next day we found out someone else made an offer, but our realtor advised us to make our offer and the owner would likely counter given the competition but the following day our realtor said the other agent/seller didn’t want a bidding war and just accepted the first offer.

We were absolutely devastated. The realtor said we should submit a backup offer that allows us to purchase if anything happens to the first offer. We did but she also said that 98% of first offers close, and she’s only seen 3-4 back out in her 19 years as a realtor.

Stina was crying all week. She was so sad. Depressed. Hopeless. My father said to write a letter to the owner. I spoke to a realtor friend and they said that is not customary and not really how business is conducted, but that if you wanted that home you should absolutely write the owner.

I had nothing to lose but the house so I wrote the owner a personal email and attached our offer letter and told her we were devastated and that we wanted her home and to consider us if anything happens or if she wants to negotiate within the right of recision window.

The other agent told our agent to tell us to stop emailing the seller lollll 😆

We went to look at houses again yesterday/Saturday and Stina was crying between houses. Nothing that appealed to us at all. And not a lot of inventory to choose from which is expected this time of year. And everything is still expensive even though they weren’t that that nice. And it was a dreamy home and we were not expecting to love it as much as we did.

We were resigned to a long process of waiting for another gem to show up.

We were driving home from a day of touring homes in Sacramento and pulling up to Oma and Opa’s street as they were walking baby michael, and our realtor called me and Christina and I looked at eachother wondering what she had to say and she said she had an interesting development.

She said the previous buyers backed out, that they apparently were trying to salvage a marriage by buying a home, but realized that would not be wise.

The seller said she wanted us to have it. Stina just stopped the car in the middle of the street and started balling her eyes out lol. And ran to hug baby Michael and her parents just over run with joy.

The icing on cake is the owner gave it to us at a discount, and it appraised for more than we are purchasing it for, and the previous buyers already did all the inspections, which we will have available.

And the owner did pest and maintenance inspections already had $17k in maintenance work done and had all the reports that indicated all clear, so everything is move in ready, and we don’t have to spend thousands in inspections and reports etc and we have equity built in already.

We are very stoked!

Genuinely think that knowledge/education had pretty much been totally democratized at this point. You can chat with AI or YouTube or online classes and get all the education you could ask for.

What you won’t get it access to networks. I spend a lot of my time thinking about how networks work, strong and weak ties, and how access to networks makes a world of difference.

I wish I had a trade
If you have a trade and you have good business/ sales sense, the world is your oyster
Specifically Granovetter’s Society and Economy
Homeschooling is interesting
How to balance social interactions/ socialization
Most homeschoolers I knew growing up were in the church. They tended to be odd but they at least were heavily socialized through the church. I guess?
And if you’re not in a church, how do you socialize?
I guess sports are accessible and other athletic actives
Having similar shared experiences I would imagine bonds people and curates trust which is necessary for cooperation
Which I think is a major aim of education, implicitly
I strongly believe that knowledge is a social construct
And a byproduct of networks of human activity
It’s like cost vs value
Knowledge is an abstraction
Cost is an abstraction of value
The map is an abstraction of the territory
I question an Education devoid of the social activities and networks that create and substantiate knowledge
I think the utility of education is, though perhaps not always explicit, the socialization, the ability to arrive at or create understandings, to collaborate toward ends, etc
I’m cautioning against the value of an education that doesn’t appreciate the value of socialization
Why to homeschool or avoid college or just educate purely online
What is the value of college, or any schooling?
If they all teach the same curriculum, and all that differs is the peer group/ network of peers and their networks
I think acquiring language is critical
But a book won’t teach you the value of knowledge. Wisdom. Practicality etc etc of what you know
You can go quite far technically speaking. Like, understanding the language of mathematics/physics/logic/technical disciplines can take you very far, but there is still a social element
I’m not sure I entirely agree with myself but it’s an intuition I have
It’s a question of value.

Education is valuable because it teaches us valuable things. What is the value of those things. What are the things of value it teaches us.

Vocabulary. Behaviors. How to work with others. Disciplines. Mental frameworks. It even instills values or informs our value system. That is, we what should be we aiming at, or why the aim or focus is worth it and deserves our attention in a particular way.
Education is not just going through the motions to regurgitate information
It should be a means to an end.
A key to a door
Or provide an ability to fashion keys and doors of your own
But how can education provide the full scope of value without meaningful relationships, ie networks, etc
I dunno
You are the company you keep
I think that extends beyond friends to other week ties and associations
All depends on what you are trying to achieve
I’m sure you can be a hermit and be entirely self sufficient and be happy and possess incredible local knowledge for things relevant to your personal survival
But as you seek to contribute to society and the larger structures governing it the role of education to socialize becomes evermore important. As you integrate into systems that support other systems etc
I think we take for granted the networks were born into
Which is why social mobility is challenging throughout history
We don’t understand their value or pull or how they even impact our lives
We are like fish in a pond who don’t know the ocean exists
But talk about water as if we are experts
I like the idea of higher education evolving into an incubator like model
Not even with the idea of a business but more people aspiring towards a common end and joining a community with peers and mentors to assist in the development and growth toward that end
Perhaps that’s how higher ed was originally conceived
I like the idea of highly committed, intimate, personal, scrappy, sacrificial, etc
Intensely focused
Like the liberal arts model
But broader and more practical
When I think of networks, it’s 1) relationships, these strong and weak ties to other individuals and their access to networks (networks are physical/proximate or psychological or economic, 2) the verbal landscape or the language inherent in a network that binds it and 3) the cultural landscape that encompasses the rituals and symbols and etiquette and behaviors etc

All three are integral to a network. A the broad network is society, but there are countless networks comprising that society, networks within networks, like a neural net. Think of how many “functions” there are in a corporation, think of how many “markets” there are for their buyers, etc. each is a network in itself supporting the broader socio-economics.

When we think of education, and ask ourselves what we are explicitly learning, and what is the value of education in that regard.

Within a network there are various forms of value: economic, status, authority, power, etc … maybe truth, maybe justice, etc.

What else?

And then, how well do do education institutions actually preparing/teaching an individual to not only thrive in a network, but gain access to it
We are fish born into bodies of water
Some mere puddles
Others born into streams or rivers or seas or oceans
I think it’s important to understand how to access other bodies of water
That opens up the utility of knowledge
Even an awareness that there other other bodies of water allows us to leverage knowledge more intelligently
But accessing is still a challenge as an outsider
No idea of any of this makes sense
But goes back to education. We learn a thing. We think the thing we learn stands alone, but it does not. It’s embedded in networks of humans
Athletics is a good analogy
Or sports
If you are born into a soccer family, you can participate in soccer games.

You may not ever be exposed to other sports. And never know the games you are missing, and the payouts they provide
You may read books about football, but if you don’t know anyone who plays football, what does it matter? You won’t know how to use it. You can’t play the game by yourself.
And there may be barriers preventing gaining access to playing football games. Maybe the barrier is basic knowledge, maybe it’s location, maybe it’s startup costs etc
Networks are games
How to add value
I actually think this is why modern education fails so many people
Not even broader, just less academic. Less rigid. I think liberal arts education is amazing. But would be great if it was a little less formal.

I have friends that have joined an incubator and I’ve read about Ycombinator and other incubators and their culture and access to networks and likeminded peers and mentors etc
Intensely focused on work
Value is the key
How to extract value
By providing value
The net is the gain
Need to position yourself as close to the centers of a network as possible
Or intersections of networks

It is easy to go down into hell;
night and day the gates of dark death stand wide;
but to climb back up again, to retrace one’s steps to the open air;
there lies the problem, the difficult task.
—Virgil: The Aeneid, Book VI, line 192 (paraphrase)

More accurately:

The gates of hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
But to return, and view the cheerful skies,
In this the task and mighty labor lies.

The older I get the more I realize that most people are full of shit, and the closer you get to the top, the more full of shit they get, but the better they get at hiding it.

Not to say there aren’t brilliant people and great leaders with virtuous character in the world, but I seldom find the world rewards these individuals.

I mostly discover that life becomes more and more of a political charade as you get closer to the apex of a field or domain or area.

Most of these emperors have no clothes. But most of the world plays along because that’s what everyone else does.

I think we falsely believe that as you move up the hierarchy there is a proportionate increase in competence. This is not guaranteed.

Unfortunately, by conferring this expectation on anyone in a leadership position we erringly normalize incompetence throughout the organization.

I also reflect on how the dark triad traits allows personalities to move up the hierarchy, and how this translates to leaders in roles they probably shouldn’t be in, but nonetheless occupy

Maybe this is a cynical view of the world

In order to grow, you must create sustained demand.

In business if your delivery capacity is 10, you need a sell 20. And keep selling it, even if you can’t deliver. The business must step up to the challenge it is to grow. It will never grow to 20 capacity unless there is a demand for it, and that starts with sales. Sell more than you can deliver, and then deliver flawless execution.

Life is hard, and there is no avoiding it. If you avoid hardship, you become weak, and you suffer more. The only option is to choose your hardship. This is the only path that makes you stronger and improves your condition.

The difference between those who succeed and fail is in hardships they choose. Successful people do what unsuccessful people are unwilling to do, but life is hard all the same.

We can choose our hardships, or we can let life choose them for us.

When we choose, we take control of our life, we actualize our dreams, and direct our destiny.

When life chooses for us, we become a victim of circumstance, and suffer needlessly.

All we need is faith that the vision and discipline required to persistently suffer toward some to-be realized end will guarantee our growth and increase our capacity to be free from circumstance beyond our choice.

We must always pay the price.

Discipline or regret.

Now or later.

There is no avoiding hardship, but we can always choose the terms.

Three options:
A. Increase total population, decrease proportion of total suffering
B. Maintain total population, maintain proportion of total suffering
C. Decrease total population, increase proportion of total suffering

The catch is with option A, total population of suffering increases over B.

This is what I think about when I hear people say capitalism is bad

So essentially you must ask:

Would you prefer a lower proportion of suffering of the total population, or a lower population of total suffering?

If the latter, then you essentially may as well choose C and decrease total population of humanity, and essentially exterminate humanity

If you’re concerned with total numbers of people suffering you may as well just end humanity, because suffering will never be eradicated

Capitalism increases total population but decreases proportion of humanity suffering. The catch is that there will be greater numbers of humans suffering.

If you are not okay with this, then you must choose C and end humanity and the possibility of all suffering.

You have my heart, you have my dreams. You stole them, and I shall never have them back. My waking moments are mine that I share with others, but you own the part of me that dreams. You inhabit my lust and longing, fill my veins with passion, with yearning, and command my heart to beat louder with every flash of your memory, your skin, your lips, your neck, your waist, your hair, all the parts of you that intoxicate me now. I am not yours, and you are not mine, yet you own me, my heart, and my dreams, and even now, my sleepless nights.

It’s 1:01pm and I’m sitting at my desk. My office is the original master bedroom, with a full bath and spacious walk in closet. My large oak executive desk is situated facing the center of the room, with a leather couch across with a row of windows above, and a love seat against the wall to my right with framed map of the roman empire as it was in roughly 400ad. Across the love seat is an oak armoire. Bookcases line the walls behind and on either side of me, and stacks of books are piled up like little city skyscrapers all around the perimeter and corners of the room.

I watched by son all morning while my wife worked. I was tired when we woke, but my son always managed to pull me up. I made him breakfast, we played in the yard, the garden, the mud, the sandbox. We ate grapes and strawberries and blackberries and raspberries, plucked fresh from the vine and bush.

How to make a lot of money in sales?

Assuming the compensation is a %/proportion of revenue, and revenue is currency/time, there are several factors the impact high much revenue you can make as an individual with your time:

• Time to integration of value (ie complexity of product/service)
• Time to Delivery of value (how long until you realize the full revenue of a sale)
• Recurring Revenue (consumable, subscription etc)
• Sales Cycle, ie time to identify need and decision makes
• Total Cost of solution
• Cost to support the sale (resources, marketing, prototyping etc)

Whether you are selling products, services or solutions, there is a hierarchy to business transactions:

• Peer to Peer (independent contractors)
• Business to Consumer
• Business to Business
• Market to Market
• Economy to Economy (between countries, but moreover, between alliances)

I’ve always worked in business to business sales. I believed that is where the money was. That is because I never understand M2M, and this is the role of private equity and investment banking and corporate development play, and it is the most lucrative.

Leverage is critical, because time is finite. Leverage is the ability to move a lot with a little.

If I want to make a lot of money, I need a high volume of deals with short sales cycles and quick transaction times for realizing revenue, or I need capital intensive sales.

The higher the transaction sale price, the higher the value I need be delivering for the client/customer. It needs to make them money, save them money, or save them time.

Investment bankers act as financial advisors to companies. If a company or government want to raise money for an investment, they use investment bankers issue stock, float bonds, negotiate the acquisition of a rival company, or arranging the sale of the company itself.

Private equity raises money from individuals to acquire companies that make up a portfolio of investments. They leverage industry and business knowledge to make companies more efficient or productive to achieve an ROI.

A Hedge Fund is limited partnership of investors that uses high risk methods, such as investing with borrowed money, in hopes of realizing large capital gains.

Any time there is a transaction of money between two entities, there is a fee or cost of doing business. The person brokering or responsible for the transaction is typically compensated according to the proportion of money being transacted. This broker is a sales person, but they can be called many things. The more money being transacted, the greater the compensation.

I need to learn how to increase my sales. How?

• Time to find buyers – how quickly it takes to find a buyer
• High Dollar Deals/ Expensive solutions
• Buyers with deep pockets/expensive problems.
• Fast Sales Cycle – Qualifying Need to Close
• Quick Transactions – Once agree to purchase, how long to transact
• Quick Delivery – how quickly to realize revenue/total value of order
• Recurring business – compounding

Build relationships, build trust, be consistent, be dependable, be credible, be trustworthy, be an authority.

I need to find opportunities to make money, save money, or save time. Every opportunity is framed that way.

Failure is the only way to learn. I must experiment, and have no fear. If I fear, I will not be present, not show up fully, I will be guarded. I must have no fear in trying.

Several of my best friends have started their own business, either on their own or with partners. Almost all of them. Here are a few, along with their skill:

• Home Furnishings (Marketing/Design)
• Creative Design (Artist/Illustrator/Animator/Musician/Graphic Design)
• Medical Device (Computer Engineering, Programming)
• Athletic Team/Sports Club/ Performance Coaching/ Author (NCAA Athlete)
• Investor and Financial Advisor (Finance, Family business)
• Construction (Home Building)
• Dental Practice (DDM/denist)
• Toy Design & book publishing (product designer)

Several are academics or full time scientists:

• Aging Geneticist (phd biology)
• Environmental Conservation (phd)
• Political Science (MA working on Phd)
• State Conversation Scientist (MS Biology)

The best friends that I have working in industry are few:

• Private Equity/Private Credit/BDC (Accountant)
• Brain Training App (Marketing)
• Biotech/Pharma (phd biochem scientist)

I find this very interesting.

I am part of the industry group:

• Management Consulting/Professional Services (Sales)

I would love to start my own business. No idea what I would do. What skill do I have? Sales? Is that even a skill? People? Teaching people how to sell?

I think the path to wealth is build and sell a business, then you get into the game of buying and selling businesses, which is the Market to Market level.

I want to write a book. Why? My life? Share some insight? I think the process of writing a book would be more productive for my life than publishing it, but perhaps in the process of writing I develop and become the person I was always meant to be.

I want to demonstrate to myself that I can achieve anything, and there is a formula. I am still proving to myself that I have a formula and it wasn’t just brute force and luck. After all, it must be repeatable and predictable.

I feel the final milestone in demonstrating my true self worth is achieving monetary goals, ie wealth. I don’t know if I will ever fully believe I’m exceptional unless I achieve high wealth.

Sure, overcame mental illness. When I was getting my life together I had some set a goal to travel the world and write a book and work in the field of management consulting. Along with these goals I made the promise to myself to make writing and reading an essential part of my identify and daily routine. I also promised I’d buy a Breitling watch and learn to ride a motorcycle and buy a Ducati when I hit some life milestones when was 19 just to remind myself that dreams come true. Set goal to graduate high school after dropping out. Achieved in 1 year. Set goal to enroll in 2 year college and get straight A’s and attend top university in the nation. Set a goal to experience Greek life. Achieved in 2 and 3 years. Graduate highest honors, #1 and transfer to top 14 university. Graduate with two majors and a minor. First job is $35k year. Set a goal to earn over $100k within five years. Earn $185k in 4 years. Set a goal to become professional bodybuilder/sponsored athlete: achieve in 3 years. Set goal to be fitness model/international book/magazine cover model: achieved in 6 months. Set a goal to be a professional male escort. Achieved in 1 year. Set a goal to move to California. Achieve in 4 years. Set a goal to become a manager. 2 years. Set goal to make over $250k. Achieve in 4 years. Took 16 years to achieve my goal of working within the field of management consulting. Decide I’m ready to settle down with an amazing wife and life partner and begin having a children to build a family. Achieve in 1 year and 2 years. Set goal to live in Silicon Valley with a house large enough to host extended family visits and have a lawn and pool and garden in a neighborhood close to work. 6 months. Plant an incredible garden: 4 months.

Things that I did not achieve:

Write/publish a book. Invest in real estate/buy a house. Pay off all debt. Start an emergency savings fund. Start a business. Attend an Ivy league school. Get involved in the local community/nonprofit/charity. Get involved with toastmasters. Study for the GRE/GMAT and score in the 99th percentile. Apply to MBA/attend top 14.

Some of these goals were not feasible or conflicted with other goals I was pursuing the time, or I just didn’t make them the top priority, because of fear or lack of focus and discipline and allowing distraction.

Some soft goals I achieved:

Teach myself history of fundamental mathematics and its relationship with science. Learn how computer/control systems work. Learn European history, and my family history. Explore historical basis for philosophy of mind, intelligence, cybernetics, and how it ties into Artificial Intelligence. Teach myself Data and Systems. Become an Excel master.

My current goals are similar. By 4o I want to:

• Earn $1M/year compensation
• Debt Free
• Own a $700-1M Home ($200k down payment/ 4000-6000k month)
• Complete first draft complete of a book
• Have four children
• Perform regular endurance/aerobic exercise
• Run half marathon
• Wife doesn’t need to work
• Attend graduate school/executive education?
• Become a leading expert in something/ master a skill/professional in something

By 45 I want to:

• Own a profitable business generating $20M year
• Live close to my family
• Own Dream Home/compound with acreage/land

Enough of this rambling.

It’s just after 4pm PST. I often find myself thinking thoughts that aren’t altogether brilliant but worth making concrete and tying down. I need to get in the habit of expounding on them when they begin to percolate and I’m processing. Usually some quandary I’m trying to solve or pieces I’m fitting together in hopes of creating a new paradigm shift which I can incentivize behaviors or make me more effective with pursuing decisions.

I believe simple is truth and truth is a reliable guide to performance.

Everything is a paradigm, and every psychology and the performance it produces is a consequence of a paradigm.

Stress really bogs me down. I get consumed with work and I can’t turn it off. This is why exercise is so critical.

I find myself craving novelty, an escape, an adventure. I know this stable, regular routine is good, but it makes me feel stale without clear goals and an assurance that I’m not going through the motions, that my actions are bringing me closer to my ends. I need exercise, but I can’t seem to care for it. It needs to be part of my daily motions, an effortless impulse, like eating and sleeping, both I’m not very good at.

Perhaps a schedule.

Will write more another day.

The discipline of exercise ensures clarity of mind and an overall levity, which lessens care in the most productive way. Being too careful is stressful. It becomes a burden, a stress. And stress takes on a material gravity that increasingly weighs on your soul, accumulating in crevasses until you become figuratively stiff and the imagination is immobilized.

I love my son. He is a great kid. There are no words that describe the affection and adoration I feel for him.

A good attitude and a dedicated work ethic. These ensure things not only move, but move in the right direction. People do want positive energy. They want to do business with people they trust and like.

At the end of the day, everything is bullshit. Everything can be learned, and each day we use a fraction of a fraction of everything we know, and that fraction of a fraction can be learned by anyone. So I feel these roles we fill in the world are mostly charades. Once you are able to demonstrate confidence, and speak with authority, because you trust the words will integrate with someone elses worldview, and they will respond accordingly, even predictably, then you can walk on water.

Management consulting is a lot of bullshit. What it comes down to is: 1) do I like this person/ want to associate with this person 2) are they smart 3) do they work hard 4) can I depend on them 5) will working with them improve my quality of life.

The ideas are just kind of performative. We wave them around, enter words into presentations and act as if the words actually reflet some structural integrity of something, of a team or person or culture. “methodology”. Basically: are you disciplined, do you follow a process, do you track the process, are you accountable etc. You don’t need an explicit methodology to sell if those qualities are inherent to your character. But, we must sell ourselves. And so these performances serve to woo an audience into believing our values or ideals align with theirs, and as a consequence, favorable outcomes will result, despite cultural and organizational and systemic challenges and problems continue to exist. These performative dances are made on the outside and then we are invited on the inside, and then its just working together. There is no program or protocol. It’s just people engaged in relationships, synced to a common purpose and goal, with agreed upon standards for executing behaviors.

I must wake early for a 7am meeting, so I should sleep now.

I look forward to making it a habit of journaling before bed.

I bought a $300 laptop for writing. Specifically for writing before bed. I have 2012 17″ Macbook Pro that is too bulky and buggy to write with, especially in bed. I bought a new desktop, but that’s only useful when I’m at my desk, my workstation. I still need to seize moments to write, and this is my attempt to eliminate every excuse and limitation.

The keys feel odd under my fingers. I will adjust.

This week was a difficult week. I had heavy feels. My thoughts weren’t exceedingly deep, but my heart was heavy, for no particular reason. I slept in. I slacked off. I stayed up late. I napped. I did not fake it to anyone, not the wife, not my colleagues. I was honest about where I was and how I was feeling. I genuinely feel you can’t process and move on any other way.

I would really like to take psychedelics sometime soon. It’s been roughly two years since we conceived on Lucy and I’ve had no experiences since.

I need to go to bed. There is no use staying up this late. I would like to process some thoughts and feelings while I’m up, but I’m contemplating the expense this will take.

I really need to figure out who I need to be to achieve what I want. I need to figure out who people, my clients, would like to associate with. I need to be very strategic. This needs much thought. In addition to business support strategy.

I want to go backpacking with B, J, and D. Somewhere new, exciting, remote, adventurous.

Where to find inspiration?

Do I want to own my own business? How do I achieve this.

I recently ended the company fiscal year. I am still trying to determine whether I hit my goal or not. I got a 12% base pay raise. I applied for a management position. I was passed over, because the two other candidates previously held the role. The company restructured the sales organization. I feel my manager is not really doing a great job managing. He is a huge fan of me, and supports me in whatever I do. But he isn’t managing and doesn’t provide accountability or structure. When I applying for the sales management job I spent many hours reflecting on how I would manage his team, and what I would do differently, and the structure and accountability I would provide. I asked myself a lot of questions about what I need from a manager. I’m not really that motivated for the upcoming year. I have 2 solid clients with decent potential, and maybe 1-2 additional clients that may generate some dollars. I’m struggling to feel invested at work. There is a certain grind that takes its toll. The hardest part of my job isn’t building a relationship, identifying an opportunity, or closing the deal, which takes tremendous effort. The hardest part is client service. Making sure the consultant or team performs and meets or exceeds the clients expectations, and delivers value that satisfies the client. Some clients are hard. Some clients cannot be easily pleased. Some consultants are unreliable. Some have personal issues that impact their professional lives. If sales is a science, managing people is an art. Or is it?

I will spend the next month refocusing on my account strategy for the new year. I will do research and analysis and planning and then begin executing.

However, I want something more. I want more of a challenge. I want to see a vision and realize that vision. I need to do this for each client. “If I’m so good/successful/smart then just I should have no excuse not to achieve my goal.” The playing field is the same for everyone. The greatest differentiator is attitude.

My attitude will determine my success for my whole life: I must have a great attitude.

Let this be a cornerstone: a positive mental attitude I am successful. I see the best in others. Struggle is growth. Adversity creates opportunity. I can change my circumstances by changing my attitude. Always be learning.

If I don’t believe in myself, no one will.

I must believe that I am destined to succeed. I must have a positive attitude. Keep my eye on the prize. Hardship is of no consequence.

Assuming I accept my current duty, and continue in the role I have now: How can I achieve my goals?

How can I guarantee positive outcomes? I need to be positive in every circumstance. Joy. Light. Optimism. I can do it. I will do it.

What do I want from life? Who am I trying to be? Whatever that is, it needs to happen now, where I am currently at, and become the best at it.

I need great energy. How can I guarantee great energy and enthusiasm, day in and day out? Do I need to pray? Have faith?

I need a vision. I need to visualize what I am becoming and

Mind. Body. Spirit.

Mind: need to read and learn and intellectually stimulate myself with activity beyond work.

Body: I need to exercise 20 minutes daily.

Spirit: I need communion with nature or quality humans.

What is my purpose? I want something huge. I want a challenge. I want something that lights me on fire and taps into every cell of my being.

Would be great to write a book, start vlogging, start a business. Perhaps all three. I should just start producing material and content that I find helpful for me or that would be an instructive exercise to produce and create. I’m sure others would find it useful.

I need to see this vision and let it inspire me and just lean into it.

I also need to reflect and journal more. I reflect, but I haven’t been spending time journaling and capturing these thoughts to paper. I need this now more than ever as I’m trying to make sense of my purpose and life and meaning.

I see others achieving their dreams and aspirations, and they are no better or capable than I. What am I missing?

I want to provide for my family and I want to be fulfilled.

The advice I’d give myself: Just get started. Action creates order. The path will appear as I move forward.

My life purpose is to help others actualize their fullest and truest form of self.

The past few weeks have been rough. Working from home has its pros and cons. The pros is flexibility. The con is never disengaging, and never physically occupying spaces other than my office and desk and spouse.

I stare into a luminating screen all day long, with minimal breaks, and even when I do break, my mind maintains the intense focus as if I’m staring at a screen that’s now transposed in the interior of my mind.

I have been working on this deal. Potentially $10M. Could also be $5M. Either way, if I close it, my revenue for next year, assuming I maintain current run rates, will be $7M on the low end, and $15M on the high end. If I achieve $10M, that’s almost $1.7M bonus. I want to make that happen more than anything, because it would be absolutely life changing.

Every 20% over goal, my bonus doubles. I more or less hit my goal this year, which was $4.9M.

I don’t know many sales jobs where I can make this much money. The catch is, this must be billed in the fiscal year. Even is you do close a deal, many things can go wrong, and it can take a lot of time to onboard consultants, so that revenue is pushed into the following year, and they up your goal.

Either way, knowing this is possible ignites an insane hunger within me. I love the idea of grinding for exponential returns.

These are the most important topics in my life:

• Relationships
• Finances
• Health
• Spirituality
• Intellect
• Professional life

I need to work on all these things, in equal parts. I feel they are lacking proper attention, except professional life, but even that I am working hard at my job, but am I working on my career?

For finances, I need to focus on budgeting. I should probably hire a personal finance consultant, or just sit down with Excel and build a Personal Finance Workbook/spreadsheet and capture all my accounts and balances.

I should try to account for every single transaction, and reduce spending by keeping myself to a disciplined budget, and focus paying off all my debt.

That should be the most important thing in my life.

I need to chill out. Be kinder to everyone. To myself. Those closest to me. I am so impatient. Too intense. Too wound up. No chill. Too tight.

A new PC arrived in the mail today. I’m quite excited about it. After college I graduated to a Macbook Pro and since then my personal computing products have been apple. However, all my work devices have been PC, so there’s been this uncanny division in how I work and how programs and information translates between the two devices. My Macbook pro was purchased in 2014 and while it’s mostly great, I used it less and less because I work more and more, and my life is all on PC’s and my work laptop. When I upgraded I decided to do a desktop, because that is where I spend most of my days, in this post covid remote world. If I go anywhere and work, it’s for my job, and I have a laptop for work, so I decided I should just get a desktop PC. i7, 12700k, DDR5 64GB RAM, 1TB SSD, 2TB HDD, RTX3060Ti, Win11, Wifi6, etc. It’s a work horse. At some point I’ll get an XPS 13 or Carbon X1 as a complementary laptop, but for now this will do

I’m most looking forward to journaling. I don’t do anything personal on my work PC. Nothing at all. And my Macbook has been just too… old, cluttered. etc. So I need to download/upload my critical documents and files and pictures from my Mac to this workstation PC.

And the thing is, I actually like Apple products. I just… like productivity more in Windows. I love Word and Excel and PPT. It’s my professional world, and I feel that Mac OS or equivalent apps don’t do it well.

I was entertaining getting a Mac Mini M2 for Christina and the home, but I will wait on that.

In the meantime, I want to start journaling daily again. I need to visualize my goals. I need to make my destiny concrete by thinking it through and writing it down and visualizing it.

I have a very important client meeting on Monday. You could argue any meetings with the client are important, but some are pivotal. I will need to do a lot of preparation before 9am Monday. My hope is we can close a $10-15M deal. 25-35 consultants.

Its with the Vendor Management office. My goal is to build rapport. Build the relationship. I have been visualizing non stop. Every moment of the meeting. Every question she could possibly ask. It’s all running through my mind. I’m also in parallel ordering and organizing my responses and answers. I need to structure everything that I will want to say to the client. I will have a script for everything, or just about. I will make sure nothing is lost, and I will rehearse it until it becomes natural and fluent.

I need to make $5M a year. It’s the only way. I need to ask myself what sales jobs or positions or companies can afford to pay me this.

My goal is to become the best sales person. I want to be a rain maker. I want to be able to set out to get it done and do it. People hire me to make deals, huge deals, no matter the complexity and size and scope. They know I can handle pulling it all together, and will pay me humongous sums of money. I need to master sales. Sales mastery. Its more than the classical sales. It’s client development. Client intelligence. Networking. Making associations. Socializing ideas. building knowledge capital about the client that I can use internal to the client to get things done.

I want to build executive rapport. I want to be a trusted advisor. When people meet me, then know I’m dangerously good, and they want to use me. Not because what I know, but because they know I get shit done and make it happen. They can depend on me to execute things with the very best excellence. They know that if I’m apart of the situation, it will be taken care of, that I will deliver and produce or fix and turnaround and make it right.

I want to be #1. I want to bleed and sweat until that happens. I want to take huge risks, risk being poor and failing, in order to learn.

That being said, I lost $125k last year by switching jobs. I believe my current role will pay me much more and that the ceiling is much higher, but it will be 100% up to me to make that reality happen. I must earn it. But its limitless so long as I learn how to leverage my team. I must maintain a high standard of excellence. I must expect the most from those around me. If I close this $10M deal, that should be $1.7M in my pocket. That’s what I am expecting.

The first thoughts that enter my mind when I’m about to journal are always, I should be writing more.

I’ve been reflecting the past year how I need to restart the habit of writing. I need to document my life and reflect on my current circumstances.

I have a baby. I work like a maniac. I say maniac because I my waking life is dominated by thoughts of work, my goals, my ambitions, to-do’s, problems I’m trying to solve. I should definitely write more often just to externalize all the little puzzles or plans or strategies or lists or actions I’m meditating on all the time.

My incessant thoughts of work are punctuated by moments with my baby boy, or the weekend.

I’m not working out, and I don’t have hobbies. I read an hour or two in the evening, but that’s about it. I wake up around 6 or 630, or when the baby wakes up. I am usually exhausted from being woke throughout the night by the baby, so I linger in bed, checking my work emails and Messages and responding. If there is a pressing matter I rise form bed and go to my office and begin working. But usually I wait til about 15-30 minutes before my first meeting to get up and shower and get dressed. I always have coffee, though sometimes it’s after my first few meetings, and occasionally eat breakfast. Christina has been making me breakfast lately and it’s hit or miss if I eat it before lunch or at all.

I spend all day working at my desk, in virtual meetings or doing work on my computer or making phone calls.

If I have a few minutes between meetings and work, and I can afford to step away, I exit my office and look for Christina and baby to be with them a bit and play with the baby, maybe eat a bit.

Otherwise I am 100% working until 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 or 8, and even when I manage to pull myself from my desk, I find myself tying up loose ends on my phone via email or messages.

Usually we eat dinner between 6-7 and baby gets a baby and goes down to bed between 7-730. Christina will stay with him until he falls asleep and occasionally she falls asleep herself, so she’ll come back down between 8-9.

I occasionally steal away to my office during this time to work.

I go back and forth between having several beers as I wind down, or abstaining from alcohol for weeks on end.

I haven’t been exercising. Perhaps a lack of will and motivation. I am rather disgusted with myself. But I feel that my sole obsession is work.

I believe my annual goal is $5M and I’m currently at $3.5M, I believe. If by some miracle I can bill $10M I get a $1.7M bonus. If I hit my $5M, I get $55k. If I get $6M I get $110k, and $7M is $220k, and so on. Of course I want to hit $10M. But that is roughly 60 consultants billing at $183/hr the next six months, and I currently have about 20, so I will need to add 40. That is possible, but it means I need to get them billing by December 1st.

I also need to figure out how to place 40 consultants in the next 6 weeks. I have about 10-15 in mind, so that leaves another 25-30 that need to find a home.

At any rate, I am hungry. Voracious. I want to makes millions. More than that, I want to transform our company by the business I bring in. I want to be a rainmaker. I want to learn how to close $100M deals. I want to find huge opportunities and close them. Land and expand. This is what keeps me up at night. How can I perform better, deliver better, speak more intelligently, persuade, influence, motivate, produce.

I want to 10x my goals. If my goal is $5M, I want $50M. If I have an average bill rate of $183, that’s 131 consultants billing full time for a year. How to make that happen. Which opportunities? That’s what I need to figure out. How to solution, how to influence and persuade and negotiate and close and repeat every day.

I know this all sounds boring, but all I can think about is affording to give my family a comfortable I life full of opportunity and happiness, and I also feel that if someone else can do it, then I can do it in a bigger way.

I was into gardening, I am still am. I built a pretty impressive garden. Probably more than 50 variety of fruits and vegetables. Perhaps 70 or 80 even. At peak it was yielding 20+ lbs of food a week. Maybe 3 or 4 five gallon buckets of produce.

I don’t even have a specific existential problem I’m working out. No real hobbies. Nothing interests me but cracking this professional puzzle. I recognize I’m probably playing the wrong money game working for other people. But I also view this game as a competitive game, and there is huge opportunity to learn and advance, and very little guard rails on what it means to succeed. I can provide consultants for pretty much any business need.

An unspoken goal of mine is to figure out how to dominate this sales/consulting game, then graduate and get picked up by the big leagues… McKinsey, BCG, Bain. But that’s probably some ego driven desire rather than a decision of utility. I think it’s mostly to prove to myself that I can compete with whoever I need to. I’m fairly sure I’ll need an MBA to be considered. But another part of me thinks that my company is flexible enough to accommodate my ambitions, and allow me to craft a model that would allow me greater success. Because we’re publicly traded, however, I’m skeptical at the upside. Corporations always put shareholders first, and seem to cap total upside.

My focus has been on technology projects. I need to master this. What are the biggest, most expensive corporate initiates? That’s what I need to focus on.

I would like to start working out again. I wouldn’t mind being ripped and healthy and in shape. But I literally don’t care as much as I care about mentally devoting myself to solving the puzzle of work.

What do I want to learn?

Feel like I’m am obsessively trying to learn things at work. I need to continue to be disciplined about what I’m learning. Ask questions. Internalize. Learn. Embody. Incorporate.

I’ reading the Arms of Krupp by William Manchester. Love that author. Great book. About 1/3 of the way through. Fascinating biography/ history of the Krupp family, continental Europe, industrialization and manufacturing, the military industrial complex, business, and politics.

I should want more from life besides work and family, no? Is there room for individuality? As I grow older the less important this seems. But I also feel less and less interesting.

I feel rather one dimensional. My life feels uninterrupted, as if one continuous line, deep and bold, but no contours, even with the occasional vacation and visit from friends. Life seems flat, but it also feels secure and meaningful and stable. It doesn’t feel exhilarating, except at the prospect of dominating work and making millions. But it feels fulfilling, and I don’t feel lonely. My heart feels full.

I still fantasize about possibilities, but by and large I have emotionally and intellectually committed to this journey of family, and have accepted the responsibility of tempering these fantasizes, and enjoying the present moment with the relationships I value most

What is the good life?

Family meals. Dinners with friends. Gardening. Thought provoking books. Morning coffee. Patient, reflective journaling. Fresh cut flowers from the garden. Picking berries off the vine and eating them. Bath time with the baby. Slow walks around the neighborhood. Picnics at the beach. Reading to baby before bedtime. Reading with your partner before bedtime. Cooking produce plucked from the garden. Grilling meat on a charcoal grill. Making Kombucha. Sunday morning Farmer’s Markets. Family bike rides. Being surrounded by beautiful art. Collecting greens and herbs from the garden for a fresh salad. Picking produce from the garden. Going to work with a purpose. Curling up in front of a crackling fireplace. Hosting friends. Making fresh jelly and jam from fruit trees. Seeing baby’s first smile of the day when he wakes.

It’s 11:23pm and 83° in my bedroom. I can’t sleep, for many reasons. One, I drank homemade elder berry kombucha and it has black tea and I’m pretty sure plenty of caffeine. Two, it’s hot as living hell on my bedroom. I think it was 106° today in south peninsula? Three, I can’t stop thinking about work and success. Four, my personal relationship isn’t so great right now.

Regarding work, I closed a $2.2M deal with a 45% GM. That’s $1M GM for our company. A project team of about 10. It’s the 7th largest deal in 5 years. I’m excited to grow this to 5 and 10 and $15M. I feel simultaneously unstoppable and an imposter. I objectively know I am good as hell, but I never feel it on the inside. This is the source of my insatiable drive. I cannot and will not be stopped. I obsess over my goals. 24 hours as day my brain is running scenarios, reading, writing, thinking of ways to win, ways to achieve my goals, forge trust and develop relationships and nurture business.

If I generate $10M in revenue this year, I take home $1.7 million. The chances of that happening with 9 months left are slim, but I already have $5M in the wallet for the year after that deal, assuming we bill it all. And there’s a great possibility it will expand and grow.

I am excited. And I feel vindicated. Yet, I feel unaccomplished. It feels the same as it did when I closed my first deal one year ago. So what? I have bigger goals, grander visions.

I want to pull in $20, 30, 50M a year, by myself. That’s the kind of business I want to generate.

I want to be a rainmaker. I am a rainmaker. I am the hardest working person in our company. I believe that. I bleed for it. One year in, and closing big deals. Nothing can stop me but me.

I expect many more failures. I have not arrived. I am just beginning. I will try harder than anyone. I am unstoppable. I am obsessed. I never stop. I am hungry. I am ravaging. Read the books. Do the work. Go the extra mile or ten or hundred.

I want to be a rainmaker. I am a rain maker. I am a killer. I am a silent killer. Never brag. Never arrogance. Execute. Execute. Execute. Do the unflattering work. Lay the foundations.

I am number one. I will be. I am. I will become indispensable.