Graduating While Exciting Can be a daunting step in life

Life Strategy Guide: College Graduation

By: LaidbackMarco

So the dreaded moment finally came knocking on the door, the final hour has come , and the magical moment of time has ended. Most of the things you planned on happening  didn’t happen, but a lot of fun unexpected things happened instead and it was still a fun ride.

Sure I’m not an esports athlete, big musician, or big artist right now, but honestly I don’t think I’ve earned it yet and maybe it’s not out of reach yet (well maybe the pro League player one. . .might have to wait till a next life if that’s a thing. . .or until they invent a multiverse portal gun, but that’s not the point here)

One thing is for sure you have to be willing to work to achieve things in this life.

I truly wish everyone could fulfill and experience the dreams they see in their mind and live to the fullest. The reality is, even if you work your ass off, not everything you want to happen will transpire, but other fun things happen when you work towards a goal

Below is a Step by Step list that would have helped me so much post graduation, accompanying the step is an example from my life. I’m hoping that it will go a long way into helping you and that one day you will help others to chase their dreams and prosper.

STEP 1: Get a Job Any Job

This Job Helped me gain important skills I still use to this day!Like most of you reading this, I graduated with no dream job waiting for me. There was no job at Riot Games, JET didn’t want me, hell I had zero prospects. I graduated with a degree in digital technology and was having a hard time getting a job anywhere . A victim of the entitled look at me I got a degree, I went to school, read books, and did stuff so hire me generation. As well as online applications being completely and totally bullshit. . . like does anyone actually get them or do they just all end up in a recycle bin.

School was really hard actually T-T

I went through a pretty strong depression following graduation, because I had felt like a failure. All over the internet we get stories of the talented individuals who make startups, work at Pixar, or in my case the senior from my school who is working with Jimmy Fallon Right now.  I wanted to be able to make my web show work work, I wanted all the parties I missed to stay inside drawing, producing music, or making bad videos and streams to add up to something, but alas I fell short on all my personal pursuits, and because I had spent so much time with trying to make my dreams work my performance in school suffered as well. Worthlessness and despair, two old familiar friends came to visit me once again, which is ironic because I got an award that year. Best Print Design in my program for a comic I made with my group. I had two things that were displayed in the end of the year showcase, but I didn’t feel great about my work. This lack of confidence in my work was confirmed when I didn’t get a job in the field.

Part of me thinks my problems stemmed from the resume I was sending out to every company. . .

This Goofy Resume Got Me a Job Down the road! Let Me know if I should explain!But I didn’t want to use a basic one, because  I would have been lying to myself and the company hiring me about who I am. I wanted to be my authentic self as I walked into an interview, even if that means I didn’t get that Job.

I actually had an extra TESL class after I graduated, so I didn’t get that massive dopamine rush that happens when you finish something you set out to do. My plan was to get that S-TESL certificate and get a job overseas teaching English, which would make my degree useful in a sense. After that we had a family vacation which my twisted mind couldn’t make the best of because every second of the vacation feels more akin to a dream than my actual existence, and like my magical night in Tokyo and Cinderella the clock was going to strike twelve eventually and I came hurdling down from my spot in the stars and back to earth.

Even with the S-TESL certificate I really struggled to get even an interview. . . and when I did things went more bad than good for most of them. One failure at a time I learned how to conduct myself better until finally I was able to get a job teaching English with a company called BoarderLink. The problem was is that my job didn’t start for another eight months and on top of that you needed some money for the flight, the first month of living, and to set yourself up in a foreign country. I don’t come from a wealthy family so it was up to me to gather that money.

Now that I had my job overseas, I had to find a job here locally in order to save said cash. Once again I went through all this hiring B.S. that some companies never even respond to and after doing that for a while, I got fed up with all those dumb survey questions. Asking my parents for advice, they instructed me to print out some resumes and hand them out to some local businesses, which still lead me to the “Oh I’ll show this to my manager and we’ll give you a call” the polite lies that Americans tell each other on a regular basis to save face.

Two weeks went by and the only thing I got in my inbox was some “oh we don’t think you’re qualified Emails”. I was desperate for any source of money. That’s when I saw that my friend from grade school was hiring at her restaurant and I was able to get my first job out of school.

A Dishwasher and Busboy was my first job out of school.

It was only on the weekends, but I finally had a source of income which made me feel more at ease about the impending government slavery, the shadow of Student debt looms over 70% of us with a bachelor’s degree. I had found something to pay it back one little step at a time.  I even had enough free time to play in a League of Legends tournament. The feeling of being a real eSports athlete took all those hours I put into practicing, improving, and losing my way to improvement and gave me one of the most treasured memories in my life.

Once again the clock struck midnight on me again and it was back to normal life.

About a month after working for the Diner I recieved an Email from the Children’s Museum of Tacoma offering me an interview. During that interview I realized how much a company’s “Why?” as called by Simon Sinek mattered to me. So began my life working 7 days a week , working every day from nine to five meant much less free time and I thought that I would never be able to make any progress towards my dream.

Seeing your dreams die while keeping your body alive is like watching a rose shrivel up and die. . . unlike when you tear your acl and all your aspirations and dreams die violently and suddenly. . . your dreams die one petal at a time. It’s how adults become cynical, because they never choose to take action in pursuit of what they want, I didn’t want to feel regret anymore, I wanted to live as if the next day could be my last.

I was faced with two choices: Do nothing and complain or I could improve myself to match the Situation.

STEP 2: Don’t Be In A Rush To Leave Home

I’ve Been So Exhausted I’ve Passed Out On The Table Chasing My Dream, But it’s worth it!If your parents are willing to house, feed, and help you through this phase in life, why be in a rush to leave that? There is freedom you probably miss, you maybe want to date(something still entirely possible), or the constant lecturing your parents can get annoying. Living under the same roof with your parents can really grate on your sanity after a while, but I was crazy to begin with.

Moving out right away will give you more options now, but it might restrict some opportunities in the future.

Below is a list of benefits and reasons you should consider staying at home.

• Your parents give really good advice, despite all their pestering, they will actually say something that is extremely useful every now and then.
• The time you spend with your parents is already limited enough so why rush leaving them, you might look back and regret not spending more time with them.
• You Can help and be of service in your house in the form of reorganizing, washing dishes, cleaning, and cooking every now and then. Your parents aren’t as young and spry as they used to be, so lend them a hand when you can.
• Those parents you love so much need to talk to someone other than each other before they drive each other crazy. . . and most of the time that person is you
• If everyone in the house works a full-time Job you rarely see your parents, I only interact with my parents an hour or two a day.
• Your parents make a pretty good alarm clock on those days you really just don’t want to get out of bed
• And Lastly The cost of living is far cheaper. You don’t have to pay rent, water, electricity, cellphone, sewer, gas, and a multitude of other things when you’re living at home.

STEP 3: Start Saving Up Some Bread

Saving Can Be Done one Small Amount at a TimeNow that you’re out of school it is time to build a relationship with some dead presidents and if you are still living at home saving money should be easy.  The problem is the trap that many of us fall into.

“Because I’m living at home I can spend all my money on living an extravagant lifestyle that I wouldn’t be able to afford without my parents” .

Spend all your cash buying things like a new Laptop, Camera, or DJ controller(cough cough. . . not things I want right now) and you will easily find yourself without any money. Another way to lose some friends (dead presidents) is to nickel and dime your way to death. Perhaps it’s five dollars here and there on some food and lunch, that Game you think you need, or your hair and nails, whatever it is these things will eventually add up over time. So for now deal with your slow laptop, learn the ins and outs of your 300 dollar mixer, and use your phone to take pictures in the mean time.

Here are some tips that I found have helped me save some money.

• Put 25-50% your income into that savings account pretend like that percent of your money isn’t even attached to your name for now.This will be a lot easier if you are living at home.
• Start tracking and budgeting your money with a spreadsheet. By doing this you can see how much you really spend on food and gas over a month so you can get an accurate figure of the state of your finances. (I found food is a large portion of my expenses)Google has a Pretty Nice Template in Sheets called Monthly Budget That Works Well for me.

Whatever your dream or goal money is a tool that will either need or it can help speed up the process. It never hurts to save for a rainy day and money is a tool if used right that can bring in more of itself.

STEP 4: Read More Books: Sharpen Your Mind

You Can Even Bounce from Book to Book!Now that you’ve graduated you can read books of your choice instead of what someone else deems is important or necessary for gaining a credit. Now I firmly believe the education system conditions us to hate reading. Though there are a couple of teachers I remember being  fun, despite popular belief reading can be enjoyable. There are also many benefits that come with reading books from a bigger vocabulary all the way to stress reduction.

The part I’m more interested is being the best version of me that I can be. Reading can lead to self mastery first and than life mastery second.

Below is a List of Quotes about reading from Brian Tracy’s website

• Commit to Lifelong LearningOne quality of leaders and high achievers in every area seems to be a commitment to ongoing personal and professional development. They look upon themselves as self-made people, as “works in progress.” They never become complacent or satisfied. They are always striving toward ever greater heights of knowledge and understanding.
• Get to the Top in Five YearsEarl Nightingale said many years ago that one hour per day of study in your chosen field was all it takes. One hour per day of study will put you at the top of your field within three years. Within five years you’ll be a national authority. In seven years, you can be one of the best people in the world at what you do.
• Read Everything You CanRead all you can about your field. Subscribe to the executive book clubs and book summaries. Build your own library of important books in your field. Never be cheap about your education.
• Go Through 50 Books Per YearIf you read one hour per day in your field, that will translate into about one book per week. One book per week translates into about 50 books per year. 50 books per year will translate into about 500 books over the next ten years.
• Join the Top 1% of Money EarnersIf you read only one book per month, that will put you into the top 1% of income earners in our society. But if you read one book per week, 50 books per year, that will make you one of the best educated, smartest, most capable and highest paid people in your field. Regular reading will transform your life completely.

For me reading has been a great way to retro and introspectively reflect upon my own life. I thought wow I’ve been living at so much less than my full potential for most of my life.

The great thing about reading is there are books on almost everything drawing, making music, getting over fears, beating procrastination. Reading books seems like a daunting task at first, but I’ve realized that five minutes here, ten minutes there, and sometimes 30 minutes to an hour of reading go a long way. If you don’t think you have the time for reading than you can pick up an audio-book or two. Put them on the way to work or as you are doing something tedious and repetitive if you are allowed to.

Even YouTube has some audio books and motivational material if you need that small push!

Here Are Some Books I Have Found Helpful

The Go-Giver, Expanded Edition: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea

This book has given me insight to the true definition of value and how I can serve more people. . . I wish the financial reward was as instant as the book made it out to be though

The Alchemist

Through the tale of a young shepherd and his dream, The Alchemist Reveals the importance of setting and working towards a dream, vision, or goal in mind.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Covey, Stephen R. (1990) Paperback

It is no mystery why this book is highly regarded by anyone looking to take control of their life. This book has not only helped me build a relationship with myself, but also my interactions with others.

How to Be Interesting: (In 10 Simple Steps)

A nice concise and wonderfully illustrated book to help unlearn cynicism and make the world a little more adventurous everyday.

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

Changing your mindset on challenges and failures as well as allowing others to try and look through this vantage point makes you feel at ease with past decisions and not fear making mistakes going into the future.

The 5 Second Rule: Transform your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage

This book not only helps you beat procrastination, but also helps you fight the fear of the small decisions every day in your life that have big impact

STEP 5: Lose The Fear

One of The Scariest Things I’ve Done Is Called a girl and told her how i felt. Now we are friends!

You can change and improve the way you think, but you must overcome fear and act on those new impulses.

When we think about the greats in life such as Muhammad Ali, Bruce Lee, and Micheal Jordan, we like to put them up on a pedestal and say “this person is naturally gifted and special I could never be like them”. It would be foolish of me to deny the existence of natural talent and ability, but what we forget is that all these greats put in an great deal of work and effort to get to where they are. Secondly there were many failures on the way to great success. Not in the case of Ali, but many of the talented individuals in our society tell us how it is, while some are far from humble, they aren’t hiding when they say things like. . .

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” -Michael Jordan

“I’m not extraordinary, I’m ordinary person who chooses everyday to make one more extraordinary decision.” – Lisa Nichols

Popular culture tells you to separate these people from yourself and you start to think that they were born with some innate God Born talent or skill. You start to believe that your traits and other abilities are at fixed level and can never be changed. This in turn makes you fear failure, because if you fail now, that means you’ll never be able to do it. Instead of looking at challenges with fun and excitement,

While I don’t  deny the existence of natural ability, the simple truth is these people also poured in an enormous amount of work. The greats should inspire us to achieve and chase that dream that only we can and bring it into this world.  Although we cannot be these people, there are things that only you can do with your outlook, you just have to stay tough and find out what it is.

I believe the one thing that separates us from these greats is Fear. The fear of being ourselves, standing out, and failure which is the largest fear most of us harbor.

I was slightly upset that they didn’t teach this kind of thinking in school. In fact school is the place we are trained to fear failure. Maybe getting over fear was one of the deeper lessons buried under metaphors, symbols, elves and magic. Perhaps they were trying to get us to think more deeply, or maybe they wanted us to read between the lines and apply the underlying lessons to our own lives, but sparknotes didn’t leave much room for reading between the lines. It had never once occurred to me that I could suffer from the same fault as Odysseus. In the Odyssey our protagonist battles fears, monsters, and even the gods on his bildungsroman. All of these threats pale in comparison to his greatest enemy. . . his own pride. I had realized that my hubris was thinking I had enough courage to face my fears.

While most of us don’t battle ogres or Poseidon on a regular basis we do have a ever going conflict with ourselves in the form of small actions every day. These small five second decisions make a big impact on how we feel on this roller coaster. Maybe it’s telling that girl that you think she’s cute today or getting started with drawing because you’ve always wanted to. The Five Second Rule by Mel Robbins, the book I recommended earlier, goes into further detail on how small decisions like this start to gain momentum and snowball into something larger. Putting this rule into practice I’ve found that it’s made own life and hopefully the lives of others more interesting and fun. Life begins at the edge of that comfy place so try to leave it every now and then.

Perhaps there should be some sort of self mastery class where they should teach how to be successful and lecture on getting over the fear of failure. Don’t worry I’m an expert on failing at this point, I have failed or dropped multiple classes, but I don’t feel like a failure because I refuse to give up.  In fact I’m moving to Japan in march and I had to drop out of a Japanese class.  Cheesy Pun completely and 100% intended it’s important to look at it in the same light as Thomas Edison.

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”-Thomas Edison

Having battled with this small fear I now sing and dance while at work and sometimes people will sing and dance along.

“Life is a musical thing and most of us learn to late you were supposed to sing and dance while the music was being played” – Alan Watts

STEP 6: Invest in Yourself

This Will Happen One Day I know it!

Now that you have some capital, It’s time to start taking steps towards that dream. If you bought and have read some of the books I recommended up in step four congrats you’ve already started step six. That five dollars you spent on a book could change your life in a massive way. Perhaps reading isn’t your way of learning, but maybe you’ve always wanted to play the guitar, become a DJ, or start on a creative and expressive venture. In today’s world you have no excuse not to get started. If you really want to learn how to do something tools like YouTube, google, and a host of other online content at your disposal. Investing in an educational course or class to help you learn a hobby and can eventually turn that hobby into another source of income for you.  Perhaps you don’t want to turn any of your hobbies into anything more than that. Well it would do you wonders to learn skills that will make you more valuable at work. Some of us feel uncomfortable with paying money for online courses, but there is usually a local resource or class you can take to accomplish the same thing.

The single most important resource that you can spend on yourself is time. Your time is precious start acting like it. There is no one on this earth that can make or produce more time so start treating it with the respect it deserves. Don’t be one of those people that pray and wish for 5′ o’clock, you are quite literally wishing your life away. You would be a fool to think that you are unable to learn anything new at work. If you think there is nothing to learn at work, it is your mindset which is the problem. You can learn more about your co-workers, gain a new perspective on old things, or build a story in your mind for characters or objects you see on the job. Even if you work at a warehouse, you can think about what your fellow employees lives are like at home by gathering small details about them and filling in the details with your imagination.

Take for example a task I was given at work, I was to advertise a car that I couldn’t see myself driving. I was having trouble  thinking of what to say about this particular vehicle that I just couldn’t get excited about. My manager took a deep breath and said

“You’re thinking about it the wrong way”

He then went on to tell a story about a real customer who had gotten off the bus stop across the street walked over with her kids and recited.

“Get me into anything  I can afford, It’s freezing cold out here and I just got my license after it having been suspended for three years. Anything you have that I can afford will be better than the bus”

This short story has changed my life, One small story has made me reevaluate the way I think about things I take for granted in my life. The smallest conversation sparked a whole paradigm shift in the way I think. Although not everything you learn while changing into this new way of thinking will be this major, remember that all the little things you learn will add up to something quite large. The ocean is just a collection of water droplets after all. Take for example learning a shortcut that will save you five seconds on a project will eventually save you minutes and than hours as you hone your craft.

Other than learning, the second thing you can do at your work is add more value than you get paid for.  How you add more value is up to you, but if you want some examples of the way I add value to my work I’ll start by saying you can add value to your place of employment by simply doing more than you are required to do. At my job at the Children’s Museum of Tacoma you can keep your job if you reset areas, make sure you open/close properly, and keeping an eye out for suspicious activity. But you can go the extra mile and perform extra tasks like running laundry, sanitizing toys, and interacting with visitors, which is the most fun. Sing, dance, and play and to be a place where people can catch smiles joy and good vibes from.

The most valuable people at work do well to make sure their peers are doing alright as well. Talk to people at work and actually care to remember what they have said to you, maybe share a snack with them or offer them something to drink, assist them with tasks. If someone isn’t doing well sometimes all they need is someone to listen to them as they express their woes.

This last one is hard, but for my last point of self investment I would say that you have to find time for your dream every day. What this is for you will be different than it is for me. I can only give you insight on the things I do for my own dream as an example. What is my dream, well right now it’s to be a video-game playing DJ that animates his own music videos has their own clothing line and a bunch of other stuff. . . because How to Be Interesting says why not be that weird anomaly. I try to make drawings when I can.

When the museum is slow I sit down and ask kids to draw with me, which is hard enough for a shy person as myself, but if they do end up sitting and drawing with me I give them the illustration I was working on. One because it makes me happy to see someone else doing something I love and secondly is because it adds value to their their lives. In fact they often think my drawings are way better than I do. Something I’ve recently started to do after making mixes at night is  I upload my mix online so when I do my opening tasks in the morning I can put them on and listen to them. Because I’ve become so used to opening I can do most of the tasks without thinking about it to hard, which allows me to critique my own DJ mix. Next when I make my regular announcements throughout the day, I role play that I am an airplane captain or something fun. Now I still include all the necessary information I need to include, but why not make it more fun as well as an exercise in your acting skills. A　co-worker has told me that those announcements are fun and make her day. Isn’t that more valuable for all parties? Except for the people who think it’s annoying. . . well I don’t know what to say to them other than sorry.

The last thing is use the skill of getting over fear you learned  and chat with your boss or manager to see if you can integrate your hobby into your work somehow.

And I know you’re thinking that an idea like that could never work. For one people are supposed to not like their jobs right? On top of that I’m not good enough at my creative work for it to be valuable

As scary as this sounds the leaders in your organization or company might like what you can bring to the table. On top of that when you are doing something you enjoy, leaders can feel safe knowing that their employees are working hard. Also as Simon Sinek says “When your employees are treated well, they then in turn treat your customers better.”

Step 7: Get Control of Your Life

Middle School Me Playing Games The Magic of a Controller allowing one to interface with a virtual world

Before I decided take the first steps toward my dream,  I got up when I wanted, tried to keep all the things I wanted to do in my brain, and had no sense of where or when anything was. I was a prime example of one of the “drifters” as Napoleon Hill calls it.  I’m not really sure what spurred or motivated me to make a change, perhaps all those motivational videos I watched on the internet. Although I’m still pretty clueless, unaware, and air headed  I’ve found that there are some things that helped me to be able to control and manage my character better.

The first of which was to clean more often and to get physically organized, which makes life flow better. Am I perfect at this? No it’s a constant battle,  but I am consciously thinking about how I can do things more efficiently or rearrange spaces to be more aesthetically pleasing and functional.  Putting my space into ease allows me to focus on more pressing issues. This can apply to your computer file keeping habits as well. Keeping computer files organized is an ongoing struggle with how fast the world moves content, but I found that using the file folders in your computer are really important in getting organized. This folder system is similar to how most brains work.

I organize the folders into subject, year, month, and then title. So if I make a new piece of art I can go to c://documents/pictures/art/(currentyear)/(current_month)/(art title) and I know it will be in there. I recommend doing a system that works for you, but make sure you use those folders!

The second thing that you can do is to start organizing your time using a schedule and  moving your tasks into lists. You can take this a step further and even organize the  importance  level of item items. Into A for being extremely important through C less important. For now I’m taking it easy on myself just having a list has taken me pretty far already. It feels great being able to offload the task of memory so you can focus on other things, it’s similar to when you close that RAM hogging application from your PC. There is actually a big problem you can get into here at the same time and overplan for yourself. . . there is a correct mix of structure and Chaos and you have to leave yourself some room for spontaneity and the random shit that gets thrown your way every now and then.

Another thing I’ve found helpful is waking up early I’ve been getting up at 5 to 5:30 in the morning after going to bed at 12:00 am. The trick is to just do it and have something exciting for you planned. For meI wake up knowing that if I don’t start producing creative work after I wake up, the rest of the day I won’t have time or the patience to grind through challenging problems. Just think if you wake up at five as opposed to someone who’s waking up at 8 to get to a nine a clock job you almost have an extra day’s worth of time in your week, and sure that extra day has bags under its eyes and is a little groggy, but that time is all yours.

The last thing I would recommend is starting to keep a journal, people think just because they are in this first person flesh vehicle that they know a lot about themselves, but it is the opposite actually self knowledge and discovery are in far shorter supply than most people think. I find that keeping a journal has helped me to learn far more about myself than anything else. Why do I feel this way. . . what other similar things have happened in my life that make me feel like this. Was that rude, was that not acceptable? What does this mean what does that mean? You can find out so much about yourself if you review these journals after some time has passed. Memories you forgot you had will surface, for most of us its hard to remember what happened within the last four days. I have a hard time remembering  what happens in the day let alone a week. . .There’s so many details in life, in small actions that happen everyday. . . was my manager trying to say in a nice way don’t do this again. What does that facial expression mean, that change in tone, what was on the other person’s mind when I said that. It’s weird because I have a hard enough time understanding what my own actions are let alone the actions of others. I try so hard not to judge and think huh? Empathy can be a helpful tool when writing these. Think to yourself. Why might they think this way, what did they go through today, maybe a breakup, maybe they were yelled at, failed a class, did badly in sports . . . who knows.

Building a better sense of self and a better self-image is something I’m trying to do with these journals. What a lot of people don’t know about me is although I smile and use social media to build an image of what I am, using smiles, and filtering out all the undesirable things from online. Underneath all the digital make up is a fragile, sensitive, depressed human being. I’ve been trying so hard to like myself and the work I produce, but there’s something in me that just can’t. I’ve been trying to learn to love myself with the journaling. It seems to be therapeutic in nature, perhaps people can tell through my lazy stride and apathetic demeanor that I’m not happy, or maybe my sense of self is too overbearing and I need to learn how to let go and just live in the moment. The classic “over thinker”. . . whatever you use the journal for I’m sure it will help you in some way shape or form.

Writing down what you did and how well you did can be applied to things like video games, art, sports and music as well.  And I’m beginning on slowly implementing them into those things so I’ll let you know how it goes!

Step 8: Manage Your Network Meet People

Go out shake some hands, be weird, be yourself and serve others.

When seeing the word network people usually assume that network means social network, which although I believe is an important thing moving into the future, is not where networking starts. Social networking is important don’t get me wrong, spreading online presence will help to let others know what great stuff you produce and experience along your journey and is a way to making a living off of doing anything if you have enough traffic. A thing I have noticed about myself and others around my same age is that we often forget about the people in our direct vicinity. Your network should start with the living breathing people you interact with on a daily basis, sometimes it’s who you know so get out and meet people.

I’m not going to lie here, socializing and keeping human relationships is all pretty new to me. To be frank I am quite terrible at interacting with other human beings. I am still lost  in the art of friendship and social interaction. At a base level I can smile and be kind to people and hold basic conversations. At the end of the day I am a simpleton when it comes to human interaction, things such as passive aggressive behavior, social politics, sarcasm, and other supposedly obvious social signals tend to fly right over my head. I have found success in active listening and letting others speak more than I do. Although I did find a good memory and an accurate sense of perception creeps people out sometimes. As sometimes I bring up things in conversations that people forget about or when people forget you even talked at all, perhaps it’s because they have far more conversations than I, therefore I have less to remember. Despite all my shortcomings I now actively try to live among the other people, but it’s been a fun challenge because I’ve been so used to living in my own head and doing everything on my own.

If you’ve been following my steps to success you’ve learned that  keeping a journal can help you learn more about yourself. It’s time to take you out into the world, find out who resonates and clashes with you and why. Is there anyone who covers your weak points and challenges you and if so why not listen to to their point of view. Share yourself with the world and let others do the same, you will find that others around you have their own dreams and passions that they follow,perhaps they align with yours. You might have skills that can help them and vice versa. In synergistic relationships there is much gain from getting another pair of eyes on the same topic. You can set it up to a win win for both parties that way both people will gain something off of the interaction.

Perhaps it’s time to start offering your services to others or even spending less time with some people who make you feel down or less of yourself. This can be hard if you’ve been friends for years, but if you spend time with people who end up making you the receiving end of every joke they make is that really the best for you? It’s not like you have to cut them off completely, but you can spend less time with them. Meet some new people, have an adventure. There are plenty of people in the world and most all of them are friendly and kind. Get out of your own head and have interest in others, you’ll have a lot of fun conversations that way. Dale Carnegie explains the importance of taking interest in others in his book How to Win Friends and Influence people, which also explains the importance of smiling at others and having the courage to ask them about themselves. Keep in mind there is a difference between genuine feedback and interest and flattery.

Once you start to meet people and learn about who they are and where they come from, you might be surprised by the lives of those you even interact with on a daily basis. As you hear the stories it’s fun to try and sort through all the information and build attach that story to a face. Knowing all I know about human perception and everything I like to question every bit of what I am told or what goes through my ears. . . call me skeptical, but like a detective its fun to try and find the true nature of others.

Going into the future the one thing I can say is that I’m trying to be honest, generous, and kind to all the people I meet and come across. Like some of the people I look up to, Gary Vee and Simon Sinek I want to enable people to be their fullest honest selves around me. If I can help others out with information I have and help them out some of them might help me to spread the word about things that I do that give value to others. “Give without expecting anything and return” – Gary Vaynerchuck

Step 9: Take It Easy on Yourself.

Sometimes I find my harshest critic is myself. . . I’m still trying to love myself

With the advancement of the internet ,social networks, and technology like smartphones  information has been spreading at a rapid pace. Which sounds good on paper, but carries with it a double edged sword. All these things have brought about much good, but in Simon Sinek’s: Millennials in the Workplace speech he brings up that suicide rates are climbing, as well as our generations self image is collectively on the decline, social media, which is supposed to connect people, leaves us feeling more depressed and isolated than ever. The worst part is that everyone thinks you’re okay because of what you upload online that everything is fine. The term smiling depression has coined for this dissonance among feeling and uploading. Perhaps it’s due to the way we perceive’ “oversharing” and try to keep everything on the web smiling happy and seemingly fake.

The newer generation of happy, ambitious, smart, and hardworking kids tend to put the weight of the world on their shoulders. They want to change the world, make an impact, and they want their lives to have meaning. For me personally it’s been very hard to not compare myself to professional artists and musicians that I see online. It’s possible to see a host of better artists than you doing what they love for a living, and then you see yourself working minimum wage having almost no time for art, but still producing what little art you can here and there. Not to mention all the musicians, YouTubers, and other gamers, streamers, memers and all inbetween doing something they enjoy and making a living off of it. It makes me feel like an unsuccessful failure.

That feeling is then further pushed along when I have trouble meeting my goals, waking up early, working out, and slipping up on my schedule. I know I have to work hard to get to where the people I look up to are, so when I fail or when all the work I’ve been putting in seems to be me just spinning tires and staying in place. It’s a very discouraging empty feeling. I fall into the over scheduling category that I mentioned in the early section, which makes it hard for me to not only follow said strict schedule as I’m always behind on it, but it also makes it difficult to have fun spontaneity in my life. I’m at a weird place in my mind where I know it takes hard work to get to a place I want to be, but then I feel like I’m missing out on the magic that life has to offer every now and then. Similar to the way I stress about my finances, its hard for me to splurge and have fun.

Gary Vee has a quote about young folks like me

“the 22 to 30 year old play should be crazier than the 18 to 22, you guys should go around the world as a hoard and learn, taste, play”

And I think my next step in life which is going to Japan to teach English is somewhere along these lines. Recently I’ve been stepping out of my schedule and regimen here and there maybe a beer very occasionally, a night where I go to a concert or rave, or a day when I don’t worry about improving on my art and I just play a pickup basketball game at the gym. What I find is that life has started to be more fun again. . . it’s okay to relax every now and again, but always keep where you want to be in mind and work towards it. I find I’m not only happier, but when I do work it’s more fun and I like going for the challenge more. Do I wish I had more time to commit to my stream, music, and art grind? Of course, but I found that the occasional doughnut into my diet, isn’t really going to harm all the work I’ve put into working out.

It’s okay to be lax every now and again, forgive yourself for failing, look forward to failing, “enjoy eating shit” as Gary Vee says, enjoy being new to things. Enjoy being a noob as this League of Legends video says.

You should enjoy and look forward to the feeling of making that mistake because if you don’t you’ll be trapped in a place where you won’t grow. So look forward to getting outplayed, making bad drawings, or producing terrible songs and videos, because that’s one step towards doing something better next time. I fall into the trap of drawing the same face and producing tracks in the same way. But I should be trying to play around with my formula a bit so I can learn new ways of doing things, which should help me expand more. I encourage you to do the same thing.

Eat a little cake every now and then. . .your diet and trainer won’t be happy about it, but your soul will.

Step 10: Be Thankful For What You Have

Things Like having a nice warm bed to sleep in need to be valued!!

This has to be the hardest step for me be thankful for all the doctors appointments, the eczema, the allergies, the torn acl, the depression, gosh it feels so hard to be thankful for anything sometimes. The only time’s when I’m really thankful is when I get into a near miss. . . you almost lose your vision, you remember that some people aren’t able to see or hear anything at all. I remember when I was young I almost died, my kidneys were shutting down, and I spent some serious time at the Children’s hospital. The only thing that made me feel normal were the video games I played sitting there inside of that room. I should be thankful to be here right now typing this. . . for the house I’m living in, the fact I graduated, that my parents are still here and alive. . . and although they do nothing but bicker half the time I should be happy that they are together. Excuse my language but a lot of shit went down in the house when I was growing up, but that’s everyone, in a way all that stuff is what made me who I am today.

Gratitude for things is hard to have while they are with us and they become regular facets of our lives it’s only in their absence that we find out what they are really worth.

Love you Guys and a deepest thank you if you actually read all of this <3 go out and make a difference, chase your dream, ignite some passion in others. Live as if today was your last.

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