Life is a bizarre video game.
There are cheat codes that can help you level up to a better life. Here are some I crowdsourced from the internet.
Pursue your goals in private
Instagram created this stupid bragging culture.
It taught normal people to take photos in private jets they never flew on, or to pretend-drive Ferraris they don’t own, or to stand outside a stranger’s mansion and pretend it’s theirs. Makes me sad.
The bottom line is Instagram taught us that every moment in life needs to be shared. That we should shout from the rooftop about how successful we are.
Or that we should post our goals in public and let the whole world know while we’re busy-being-awesome.
Fame is a misdirection. Having public goals doesn’t make them achievable.
If anything, sharing your goals in public makes them more likely to have sniper critics shoot at them for fun. The crazier your goals the worse the feedback.
When no one knows your goals, they can’t attack them or try to talk you out of your dreams. That’s a huge cheat code.
A great wife
(Or husband or partner.)
With a supportive partner you can do so much more.
My wife supports me immensely. Without it I wouldn’t be able to write online and work crazy hours on my business. Without her I wouldn’t have a daughter on the way or an extended family that makes me smile.
When times get tough my wife always makes me see the bright side.
Your mind can be your biggest enemy. A supportive partner can tell you the other side of the story that your brain doesn’t want you to hear. Plus a partner who knows you well can spot patterns — especially self-destructive patterns.
Choose a great wife for a better life.
A dog or cat
This one got mentioned a lot on Twitter. People say their dog or cat helps them live a better life.
During some of my darkest days I had a beautiful dog.
No matter how bad things got she sat next to me. She would follow me everywhere. They say Equine Therapy (spending time with horses) helps people recover from trauma.
Perhaps a dog or cat can do the same and we just don’t have the science to back it up. Either way, pets are a life hack.
Daily writing
Writing is how you get your thoughts out of your head.
When your thoughts are written on a page they look different. As you write you flex your creativity muscle. The dots between different ideas start to join.
Life just makes more sense when you write.
The fact other people can benefit when you publish your work online is simply a bonus.
Surround yourself with people you want to be like
I’m bad at figuring out stuff on my own.
The “who you spend time with is who you become” cliche quote got me by the curly ones when I was a young pup. By spending time with people smarter than me, I learned many uncommon lessons.
One of them was that hourly pay doesn’t scale well.
So I became obsessed with figuring out how to earn a living that grows exponentially with the same amount of daily effort (aka leverage). This stuff isn’t taught in school or college.
Thankfully the internet is your best friend.
Get into Slack/Discord groups where your future selves hang out.
Less is more
We’re born to live a life of excess.
The idea of less is more became popular a few years ago when minimalism hit the mainstream. Podcaster James Altucher sold everything and lived out of a suitcase in Airbnbs. This was peak minimalism.
The trend of owning less possessions has since slowed down. It’s got replaced by financial minimalism, work-life minimalism, habit minimalism (less Netflix), and health minimalism.
If an area of your life sucks, ask yourself: “How do I do less in this area?”
A healthy mindset
Youtuber David Perell says cynical people love pessimism because it requires zero imagination.
Unfortunately this is the norm in society.
When you get exposed to this pessimism virus for too long it has a negative effect on your life. It becomes easy to be stupidly skeptical and see everything as a scam rather than an opportunity that needs more investigation.
Optimism is rare because it requires hard work — and discipline. When you see the world better than it is, opportunities become abundant.
Work on your mindset daily through:
- Priming
- Affirmations
- Challenging assumptions
- Reading psychology books
- Getting an accountability partner to reveal the lies you tell yourself
The gym full of buff bros
I stick out worse than a Zebra walking down a crowded New York Street when I go to the gym.
Mamma just didn’t make this body to be buff and toned. But that’s okay. The cheat code with the gym has nothing to do with muscles.
When you walk out of the gym you feel amazing. Even if you didn’t beat Arnold Schwarzenegger on the Pec Deck or beat Terry Crews on the bench press, you’re still winning.
Exercise also forces you to challenge yourself. To be 1% better than the last session. You go from being in a capitalist competition with everybody else to being in a competition with yourself.
It leads to personal responsibility. You own the good days and the bad days.
Even if you have a terrible day of exercise, you still access the endorphins that get released into your blood. These help you relax and feel good.
Spend more time with family than with your boss
This one came up a lot, too, on Twitter.
Sadly, many of you spend more time at work with your boss than at home with your families. Makes me sad.
We only get so much time with our families. Our grandparents will die suddenly. Our parents will die when we’re not ready.
I think of it in this bizarre way…
If your grandparents and your parents are already dead, you are next in line for the queue at the funeral parlor. A grim yet thought-provoking idea that should help you spend less time at work, and more hours with family — before it’s too late.
