Intro to the Alt Life

Gentlemen, what's going on? Good morning. So I saw that a lot of you guys have interest in my lifestyle and more importantly how you can achieve that lifestyle and what I would do if I had to start over and recreate this lifestyle. So I wanted to use this video as kind of a primer of how I got here, where I am and what I'm doing in the first place and what tools I think are essential as a baseline foundation to build a life that is completely of your own making. And this is something that I've been really astute on since the very beginning. You know, for context, I've never had a 9 to 5. I've never had a salary job because I knew that my ideal lifestyle did not pertain to me working for a corporation. Now, don't get me wrong, there were a lot of temptations along the way, and I have no issue with some people pursuing a career. I think, you know, some of the most successful people I know just had real jobs. You know, That pertains to a particular archetype, right? If you have a certain personality type, you're going to perform really well in that setting and that is completely fine. Now the thing to keep in mind here is you just need to be extremely self-aware and understand what is best for you and not let that be confused for the desires of others, right? I'd say about 97% of people have lives primarily structured around what other people want from them, their parents, their culture, their teachers, and their peers. They may think that they're autonomous and they're making decisions for themselves, but it's oftentimes a facade. You know, this conditioning runs deep. We're very impressionable. We evolved in the context of tribes and we want to fit in and we want to compete. So oftentimes people will create this life that they think is independently their own when in reality it's just the closest representation of who they think they are with the opportunities in front of them. And we see this all the time. There's this idea of mimetic desires where your desires start to mimic those of the people around you. And I'm sure we've all realized it. I personally realized it, you know, when I was in college. I loved college, by the way. I watched football every Sunday, you know, oftentimes 2 times a week for like 4 hours at a time. And it was a really big part of my routine. The second I graduated college and I moved away from that environment, I've never watched football again. So that's a desire that I thought was mine when in reality it wasn't mine. It was just, you know, me compensating for those of you know, the people around me. So the most important step in building out an alternative lifestyle, a lifestyle that's aligned to your proclivities, is just being really self-aware and making sure that you aren't muddling your desires with the desires of the people around you. And the best way to do that is to, one, spend more time alone, to spend more time in unique environments, and three, get really good at gathering data about yourself. And this is the most important step. Are you actively being an observer in your own life? Are you asking yourself consistently, who am I? What do I respond positively to? What do I respond negative to— negatively to? What are things that are so intrinsically inherent to me as an individual that I could do them in my sleep? You need to be constantly tracking this. Now I've gotten to the point where I do this subconsciously, but I spent, no joke, probably 8 months after graduating college religiously tracking every single thing about myself in a notebook. I was working my ass off. I was punching up. I was in an industry that I didn't really like. I had to work so much harder than who I was before. It was a complete and total like behavior and identity change. And I always say this, but I gained 6 years of growth in 1 year because of my dedication to being observant about myself and not just learning about myself, but learning about people in general, learning about psychology in general, learning about history, and realizing that, you know, we've gone through this same self-discovery process and all the struggles that come with it since the beginning of time. I mean, you read any timeless book, any historical account, Marcus Aurelius, whoever it may be, they're all talking about the same problems. It's just a different context and environment. So what I want you to do is I want you to either use a Notion document, a notes app, or a book, journal, whatever has the least amount of friction to you, and start documenting every time you feel above and below baseline. What are these things that give you energy, that make you feel more excited, that make you feel more energized to go out and do things? What are the things that detract from that? And slowly, don't make any, uh, just make observations. Don't make any assumptions about it. Don't say this is good, this is bad. Just gather data because there's going to be obviously fluctuations in this. But you do that for a month, let alone 3 months, and you are going to have irrefutable evidence that these things are good for you and you should do more of them and and these things are bad for you and you should do less of them. So that's step number 1, get really, really self-observant, make hypotheses about yourself and then prove those to be true, right? You may think you are some type of person, right? Because your ego says you are, but in reality, that may not be the truth. You need data to back it up. So I have a pretty good understanding of who I am and this is always changing, but I'm very confident in like who I am, not like in all of my traits and feeling like really overly confident, but I know my weaknesses, I know my strengths And I know that these are malleable. I know that I can improve my weaknesses and I know that my strengths can atrophy if I don't use them. But that self-awareness is step number 1. I do think it is worthwhile to study evolutionary biology and anthropology. I think that was the biggest needle mover for me because it's the lens from which I see the world. Now, you may see it from a different lens. I know some people see the world through a physics lens, right? But whatever it is, find that unique lens that is the best way and gives you the most clarity about human nature in the world that we live in, and that'll be very helpful for you making informed decisions. So moving on, let's talk kind of about what role does career play in this alt life? What role does doing things you don't like play? I think a lot of people feel entitled to living a unique life, but a unique life inherently takes work. It's a lot easier to follow a set path, a structured routine to success, than it is to try to craft your own. There's a lot more variables. There's a lot more unknowns. But I think some people are just more attuned to that risk. They have a higher risk profile. For me, I know that I would much rather do something new and innovative than know that I would have success doing something else. I do it all the time. It's oftentimes the reason, like, I can't have a good thing because I'm so much more interested in the what-if than the what-is. So understand that about yourself. And once again, don't downplay the fact that it might be effective for you to get a job, at least in the meantime. But the most important thing here, and it's a trap that I fell into. I see a lot of people fall into it. It's like, I have to do the thing I'm passionate about right now. That is oftentimes a recipe for mediocrity because the thing that you're passionate about is usually not the best opportunity for you in the present moment. The most important thing here is to start garnering career capital, become a more effective person, right? There's no merit in saying that like a 9-to-5 is dumb when you wouldn't be able to perform there in the first place, Right. Avoiding violence is not virtuous if you weren't capable of violence to begin with. Being celibate is not virtuous if you couldn't get laid in the first place and kind of shooting down the traditional corporate structure and educational structure when you can't even get good grades to begin with. You can't hold an argument when having a discussion and you're not very literate. That's not going to get you very far. So what you should aim to do is get good at the games that you're playing for the sake of being good. Now, the key here is whatever situation you're in right now, if you're in a job that you hate or if you're in school that you don't like, identify those areas that you can focus on that will benefit you from a self-development level regardless of what you're doing moving forward. So when I went to school, you know, I was traditionally going for finance and law, right? Because those were the games that were presented to me. But I was like, this is a lot of specialized information that I don't plan on using, right? I'm only doing this for the degree. So I know that I'm probably not going to get a job after college. So it doesn't really matter if I have like a specialized skill set. What's really important is I focus on becoming a more efficacious person. How can I max out my social skills? How can I max out my writing capabilities? How can I get some test trials running my own businesses? Because I know that I'm going to fail a few times. And really, it's about having that growth mindset, identifying areas that you can improve yourself regardless of what you're doing, right? And this should apply to all areas of life. It's like cooking, right? I'd say I'm pretty good at cooking, but the way that I got into cooking, it's like, well, I got to eat every day, so this might as well be a skill set that I continue to improve on because if I'm doing it every day, why not? And also knowing the fact that the simple act of improving in any area is improving your capacity for improvement in all areas, right? It's a meta skill. Learning is a meta skill. Skill acquisition is a meta skill. It's a skill that's going to help you acquire more skills. So start adopting that mindset. Get good at things for the sake of getting good at things. Become a more efficacious person. This is going to open up way more doors. So anyway, you build up that foundation, you become an efficacious person. Now it's about finding that golden ticket. And I think with that golden ticket is something that aligns with the opportunities in the present moment, right? What are some coattails that you can ride? What are some opportunities that are going to make your work that you put in go a lot further? And then what's something that's natural to you? So for me, you know, I have a background in marketing. I'm pretty good at building teams from my time in cybersecurity and tech. So I was like, okay, cool. It's sensible for me to create an agency here, right? I'm pretty good at sales. I'm pretty good at building systems and outsourcing, automating those systems. And it aligned with my goal, right? My goal was to be living the life that I'm living now in a foreign country, working a few hours a week, getting decent cash flow, you know, recurring money that is gonna enable me to live the life I want and think deeper about what I want next. And this is somewhere that I also see people messing up, is they think the decision that they make of what they're going to do in the next 2 years, 1 year, 6 months is the thing that they're going to have to do forever. But when I started the agency, I went into it knowing that this will not be the vehicle that's going to get me to the next level. This is going to be the vehicle that's going to support me while I explore other opportunities for getting to that next level, whatever that next level is. So that's a very important distinction. You have to look at timeframes here. You have to really think about things not just in the present moment and avoid the recency bias, but really look at like, what is your objective 10 years from now? And it's also important to figure out what is your personal North Star metric. You know, is it money? Is it lifestyle? Is it freedom? Is it influence? I've realized at this point that for me it's influence. You know, I think it's the most fulfilling thing for me to be able to change the lives of others. I don't want to take over the world. I just want to kind of cut my sliver out of it. And I've been very astute about that. So a lot of that just comes down to self-exploration and learning about what I know. And that is my primary driver and decision maker for the actions that I take. Do you know what your North Star metric is? Is it just something else that other— someone else told you it should be? Is it a car? Is it a watch? Is it girls? Figure out what your actual North Star metric is and be astute about it and test it out over and over and over again. Always be questioning your object— always be questioning your decision-making matrixes. Always be questioning the frameworks that you use to look at the world and make your decisions. So these are really important. Another big factor here is to get comfortable spending more time alone. Life is a period of seasons, right? I go through serious seasons of being hyper-social. I go through seasons of being very non-social. I mean, I still go out and I interact and engage with people all the time. But it's not like I'm going out and hanging out with people every night. I'm at kind of a balance right now where I've been able to segment that more, but it's really hard. I'm an extremist. I'm usually on one side or the other, but get comfortable spending more time with yourself. Learn to enjoy riding your own thoughts. Every night I go to bed and I kind of just ride my thoughts, right? When you're in that like GABA alpha wave state, the line between your conscious and subconscious is the thinnest it'll probably be at any point. So a lot of those ideas bubble up to the surface and get comfortable with riding them, get comfortable with really digging into your psyche and figuring out more about yourself and ideas that come up and subsequently more about the world. Now another big factor in this is split testing environments, right? This is why I loved the nomadic lifestyle and I still do because every single time I go to a new place, it's like a new part of me is unearthed. But more importantly, I'm able to identify the things that have remained constant regardless of my environment. Remember how I talked about I loved football in college, but I haven't watched the game since? This happens all the time when I switch environments because there's things that I thought were so core to who I am, but in reality, the second that I left that environment, those left with it. But when I did that, there were things that remained constant the entirety of where I was. It didn't matter if I was in Vietnam, if I was in Bangkok, if I was in Spain, if I was in, you know, the woodlands of Minnesota or if I'm down here in Mexico. I had certain aspects of myself that remained constant, and I can assume beyond reasonable doubt that those things are deepest to my core and my identity. So that's a factor there. Now, going on to the lifestyle that I live, I was very astute about what I wanted from an early age, and I found a way to test that as soon as possible. This is really important. I always thought that I'd be my happiest if I was on a beach, if I was training martial arts, if I was surfing, if I was spearfishing, getting a lot of sun, deep in nature, hanging out with animals and riding a dirt bike. I was daydreaming when I was 16 years old about that lifestyle. And I went and I lived that lifestyle when I was 22, 23. I was like, yeah, this is kind of it, which is great, right? But in the case that I was wrong, I still would've been glad that I speed ran my way to it. Because if you're able to do that now, you're gonna be like, one of two things are gonna happen. You're gonna be like, oh yeah, this is it. So this is gonna reaffirm my decision to work harder at making this sustainable. Or you're going to be like, oh, this is not it at all. So I can get that out of my head. I can stop thinking about it because I know it's not what's going to be— what's going to make me happy. So speedrun that. Ask yourself what it would be like if it were easy for you to kind of test out that ideal lifestyle and understand that all of this is subject to change. What you want right now as a 25-year-old, 30-year-old, 18-year-old is not going to be what you want when you're 30, 40, or 50. And that's okay. We go through periods of different wants and desires. It's hardwired in our biology. Right? There's a common progression. You know, when you're a kid, you want something, you want to be close to your parents. When you're a teenager, you want to rebel and you want to be more independent and spend more time with your peers. When you're in your 20s, you may want something else, 30s, something else. Now, this time span has become a lot more convoluted, right? Some people are going through the same experience when they're 20 as they are when they're 30. Some people are living the lives of 50-year-olds at, you know, 27. But just understand that whatever you want right now is always subject to change. Always be focusing on those things that are going to benefit you regardless of what you do next. Those meta skills, becoming a more efficacious person. So that's really the grunt of it. I think the last thing I want to leave here, and obviously I'm going to be diving deeper into this in text. This is just an intro, but, um, be wary of mentors, right? The more unique an individual you are, the harder it's going to be to find someone that has a life path that you want to a tee. There is never going to be someone who has the exact life that you want. I see a lot of people like, man, you're living the life that I want. There's aspects of my life that you want, but it's not everything. There's going to be different things and unique proclivities that you have that I don't have. So utilize mentors as inspiration. Do not take their word for everything. Don't take it as dogma. I really haven't had that many mentors. I've had a few people that I've taken advice from, and it's funny, most of the advice that I got was horrible advice and it made my life worse. So I understand that I spent a lot of time researching the lives of others objectively, entertaining those ideas without making distinctions of whether it's good or bad. Right. Just being like, oh, that's interesting. And I think that's the best way to do it. Don't put mentors on a pedestal. Don't put my life on a pedestal. Don't put me on a pedestal. There's going to be aspects about me that you don't like. Right. Tim Ferriss was a big inspiration for me. He was the guy that enabled me to get my 4-Hour Workweek, live this life. That's kind of me just following what I'm interested in. But there's a lot of things that I don't like about Tim Ferriss, especially now. Like, I, I find it funny. Like, I don't want to be like Tim Ferriss in a lot of aspects, but that's okay. Learn to compartmentalize the lives of others. Take what you want from them and leave the rest. Get good at being non-binary when it comes to decisions and heuristics. Anyway, guys, I got to go. Like I said, this is part 1. It's an intro. It's a primer. If you have any other questions, you know, post them here below, but this is probably gonna be, you know, like a 5-part continuing series. So I hope you enjoy. Once again, thank you so much for being here. Have a great day.