Games are bloody fun.
We can play Mario Kart or Fortnite whenever we want. What’s cool is when you live your life as if it’s a video game.
Your whole mindset changes. Reality looks different. Problems change. Solutions appear in strange places. And fellow characters in the game become helpers.
If life is a video game then these are the cheat codes.
The best advice you can get comes from a meeting with your 85 year old self
As entrepreneur Alex Hormozi gets older he’s becoming eccentric as hell.
On a recent podcast Danny Miranda asked him about where he gets advice from. That’s when he says he has a meeting with himself every Monday.
What an arrogant, ego-centric answer. But he goes into more detail. In this meeting it’s him and a second character which is his 85 year old self. Alex has a conversation with him. 85 year old Alex has some wise knowledge.
Alex says this strategy works well for him because both characters have full context of everything he’s ever done because they’re both him.
Whatever problem Alex gives 85 year old him, the answer normally is some version of “that won’t matter in the end.”
The best advice we can often find comes from those in their 80s & 90s because they are closest to death. They have nothing to lose. It’s the same reason the best biographies are written by people in this age group.
When they’re young they’re afraid to share the truth out of fear or judgement. But when they’re 80 or 90 they don’t care anymore and finally put their life experiences into a book.
The cheat code here is simple: have weekly conversations with your 85 year old self to get perspective.
Most advice we give to strangers is what we wish we could tell our younger selves — Alex Hormozi
See comedians to learn philosophy
There’s a lot we can’t say in public.
Cancel culture is real and it has people terrified. And employees are scared that if they say anything controversial online their boss might read it and show them the unemployment trap door.
Comedians can say whatever they want because it’s supposed to be a joke.
So there’s little recourse and a lot they CAN say. Writer Lawrence Yeo says “Comedians are the great philosophers of our day, primarily because humor is all about framing wisdom in an absurd way.”
I’ve never heard anyone say it like that — and it’s true. Go watch a comedy show for a lesson in philosophy. To go a step further, dare to use humor as a well to express the ideas that you believe limit our collective potential.
I’ll go first…
The diversity debate is awesome but my neighbor regularly uses it as a way to show he’s better than me. So I piss on his lawn to show him who’s boss.
That was a joke but it opens the door to an important conversation on virtue-signalling. When are important debates moving a problem closer to a solution, and when are they nothing more than status games?
Comedy is a cheat code to saying the unsaid.
Use life formulas to solve problems (like these)
There are formulas for life … and much of life is simple math. These are some of the best you’ll ever see.
Image credit-Naval Ravikant via Brian Feroldi tweet
My favorite life formula is:
Happiness = Health + Wealth + Good Relationships
Focus on these and you can’t go wrong.
The unlikely solution to busyness
Busyness is a badge of honor.
People love to say they’re busy — especially me. Are we really? Author Dan Koe slapped me in the face when he said “Chaos is our default state.”
There is never a moment when life is calm and there are zero wars. So instead of waiting for peace and calm to arrive, just take action amidst the daily chaos.
Free time is a fantasy. We make time in the chaos for what’s important.
Most of us don’t age at all
There’s your physical age and your emotional age.
Many of my high school friends are grown-ups and have children. Yet they act like babies and still like to bully others or tell stupid teenage jokes. That’s why I don’t hang around them anymore.
A similar thing happens at work. We get our first job and the first few years we learn a lot. Then eventually many of us stop growing. We take one year of experience and repeat it for 45 years and call it a career. Sad.
Get around people who become completely unrecognizable every 12 months. Be around people who grow — not those who die at 25 and get buried at 75.
One big great catastrophe doesn’t ruin your life
Ernest Dimnet wrote the book “The Art of Thinking.”
As a former French priest, he’s not the person I’d normally pay attention to but he makes a good point:
The happiness of most people is not ruined by great catastrophes or fatal errors, but by the repetition of slowly destructive little things.
Cheat code: The small things are everything.
If you can’t solve a problem, it’s because of this…
I get weird messages all the time with some version of “I don’t know how to start writing online. Can you help?”
It seems a strange question in the digital age, where you can google or ChatGPT the answer to pretty much anything. Modern philosopher Naval Ravikant says “ “If you don’t know it, it’s because you aren’t interested in it.”
The cheat code here is we’re naturally resourceful to go figure stuff out and get the answers when we’re ‘interested.’
So do things that interest you rather than chase shiny objects for upgraded status in things you don’t really care enough about to do the work to learn.
IQ Versus EQ
IQ used to be the holy grail.
It’s why quiz shows in the 90s were so popular. Now, who watches quiz shows? Nobody. Memorization is useless as your phone can do all of that for you and more.
Alex Hormozi says IQ lets you predict things but EQ lets you predict people’s actions. Knowing how humans will act is much more useful.
The cheat code here is to upgrade your emotional intelligence. Start with the book “Daring Greatly” by Brene Brown.
Make decisions based on the best story
A few years back I did fake interviews at investment banks.
I didn’t want to work in one at all. But I did these interviews for fun and because it might make for a great story one day. It’s the same reason I chose to work with big-tech Silicon Valley companies in my banking days.
I figured I’d be able to collect some great stories, even though I didn’t care much for banking.
The cheat code is to live your life and choose experiences based on how good the stories will be that come out of them. Don’t forget to tell these stories to your grandchildren one day or maybe even in a book.
You can come back from anything
Kim Kardashian once made a naughty video. Logan Paul once mocked people who took their lives. Former president Donald Duck did all sorts of bad stuff in his past (love him or hate him).
Yet all these people have recovered and managed to have successful careers. No failure puts an end to your future except death.
The reason we can get away with indiscretions in the past is because each year we become a different person. People are smart enough to know that.
Cheat code: quit fearing stuff-ups and embarrassing moments. Make an ass of yourself and laugh about it later.
Friends who know a version of you that is dead
Carrying on from the last point…
Sherry on the “X” app said something shocking:
There’s a particular type of sadness you feel when you catch up with someone you miss and realize that the version of them you were once friends with doesn’t exist anymore. You won’t ever find the same person twice, not even in the same person.
This hit me hard recently when I caught up with an old banking colleague. The conversation over coffee wouldn’t flow. I realized they only knew 2014 Timbo who was all about his 9–5 career back then.
But 2023 Timbo doesn’t give a crap about all of that anymore and just lives life for his 8 month old daughter. Meanwhile, my former colleague is still chasing “Head Of” titles and playing the rat race game.
Neither one of us is right. It’s just that one of us is a different person.
Cheat code: see people based on their current software version, not their full name and the way you met.
A way to make decisions sooner
I’m often far too slow to make big decisions. Progress is lost as a result.
Founder of tech company Basecamp, Jason Fried, says in the last 25 years he’s been able to make better decisions by realizing “Every difficult decision would have been easier had I made it earlier.”
What a clever potato.
Cheat code: quit delaying hard decisions and just decide. Life isn’t going to get any easier and there is NO right decision — just the right decision for right now.” And most decisions aren’t irreversible either.
A revelation for problems with your parents
Parents can be a pain in the ass.
Sometimes you just can’t see eye-to-eye on an issue. Like I try and tell my parents that AI changed everything in the last 6 months. I also tell them gasoline cars are dead and electric is the future.
They refuse to understand both ideas.
Cheat code: there comes a time when the difference in generations between yours and your parents is obvious. It’s better to accept that some generational programming can’t be overwritten.
Love your parents for the generation they belong to and quit tryna change their minds on topics they may never understand (or want to).
Momentum drives everything. Here’s how…
– The more you write, the more ideas you have.
– The more you move, the more energy you have.
– The more you rest, the more time you have.
— Dan Koe
The cheat code to achieving almost any goal is to get started. Create a habit and then back it up with a daily system. Do more of the actions attached to your goals and those goals will start to become a reality. Simple.
A story to finish with and inspire you
This dude named Du shared a cool story that highlights the ultimate life cheat code.
A friend of a friend of his makes $1m a year in a business development job in the insurance industry. The guy doesn’t even know how to get emails working on his phone.
A while back he was a beach bum. He had no plans and just wanted to enjoy whatever experiences came his way. One afternoon he chose to show up to a charity event with a box of cookies he had baked earlier that day.
He just gave out the cookies for free to anyone that wanted them for sh*ts and giggles. He thought it might be fun. They tasted yum and people asked him for the recipe.
He ended up making friends with anyone that loved his cookies.
He made more and would drop these cookies off at the homes of his new friends for free. Those people were married to prominent business figures in the community.
He became known as the cookie guy.
One guy owned an insurance company and hired him. This guy wanted him to use his cookie philosophy to sell his company’s insurance. So the former surf bum did — and it was wildly successful.
The cheat code for life in this story is this:
Attitude is everything. Chillax. Focus on spending time with people and not worrying about how they can repay favors. Good people attract good opportunities.
