Category: Personal reviews

This is a 3 minute clip of Chris Koerner on The Diary Of A CEO sharing to act on the curiosity in the least amount of time possible.

I enjoyed his way to phrase “strengthen the bias reaction muscle”.

It reminds me of the fear, sweaty palm, hearing my own heartbeat when posting my first LinkedIn post recently. That sh*t was terrifying.

Instead of sitting on the next one, I scheduled the post. It’s a smaller action, the fear is not that immediate or as intense.

I found this suitable to strengthen the resistance to the bias reaction muscle.

From loc 93 of War of Art highlight:

Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.

That being the direction, the execution reminds me of Dave Ramsey’s debt snowball method. Start with the least effort or least scary one.

• Afraid to write publicly? Start with writing in a blog.
• Doesn’t know what to do with an empty webpage? Start with writing on to do app or post-its.

Momentum will compound.

Two books I did not finish recently and the reason.

• The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need by Andrew Tobias
  • A fundamental book. If it dates back to 2017, I think this would be a nice read. For now, it feels like a reminder; there’s nothing wrong with that, but I haven’t found big insight to keep me going.
• Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel by Rolf Potts
  • A highly to-the-ground, practical book. I think it will be a good read when I’m on the road, but that ‘s not the case at this moment. It felt distant and hard to follow through.

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Why do I feel obligated to finish a book?

1. I paid. I want my money back. or: it’s a waste not to.
2. There’s something, I just haven’t stumble across it yet.
3. It’s a book. It has to be right.

But a book is an idea, and idea doesn’t always translate for everyone. At 35, I think there’s no guilt in that; although at times I imagine myself to have to like it.

Millie’s turning 5, school began to teach numbers and alphabets. I found this as an opportunity to learn to do hard things.

Every time she writes from 1 to 50, a box is slashed, she accumulates 4 minutes of iPad or Switch time to redeem.

It works for adults too. What’s that one anticipation we reward ourselves when we finish our work? Or may be in smaller pieces: I’m having a cup of hot mocha after 3 pomodoros on this deck.

I’m a great procrastinator. I paid for Bluehost, I switched to Hostinger. I changed a dozen or so themes. But I avoided the thing that should be done: to write.

• 2021: 3 posts
• 2022: 3
• 2023: 5
• 2024: 30
• 2025: 25

I began to write on TickTick and reached 22 straight days. I found writing in my todo list to be a tactical move stay away from perfection.

1. Removes the mental barrier, it’s like writing on a post-it note.
2. Smaller screen landscape compared to an empty webpage.

The word ’emotion’ includes the word ‘motion’, it’s 6 out of the 7 characters. I think this implies 80% action and 20% feeling. Unfortunately, we often flip the ratio when things get hard.

If I treat myself as a business, a restaurant. Does a bad review make me feel bad? Yes. And nervous, angry, defensive, sad – that’s natural. Does it stop the restaurant from opening the next day? Probably not. Why do people operate differently when it comes to personal life?

Discipline helps to mitigate the emotion. Discipline to take action, even if it’s not the optimal quality. 

“Dad got scammed for NT$18,000,000.”

That’s the reactive response to frame the situation, but it made scammer the bad guy. Doing so, we loose the opportunity to iterate for the next occurrence.

Same goes, “Dad got greedy.” says himself.

Acknowledge that it might appear again and scammers are professionals, we can frame it to rewires the action.

1. Dad leveraged.
2. Dad invested in something he doesn’t know.

I have forgotten where I got this idea. But decade before I read about David Goggins cookie jar method, I have been collecting feedbacks. They live in the Accomplishments and Insults folder.

Feel defeated? Scroll the Accomplishments folder.

Not feeling to exercise? Scroll the Insults folder.

It’s a good reminder on what I’m capable of and who I can prove wrong.

On 34

34 was a year of liberation. Millie turned 4 and now enjoys art and craft, I have more time on my own. I changed job after almost 7 year stay, it brought the opportunity to live in the US for 30 days. That was an unimaginable and incredible experience.

Milestones

• Exercise time more than doubled last year
• Changed job after 6.8 years
• Lived in US for a month
• Stopped smoking and started running

Lessons from 34

1). 60% confidence is actionable

This was the third or fourth offer in the 6 months search. I had enough sample size to know 60% this could work.

It was still scary about leaving the people and place I worked for 6 plus year. It was comfortable, even with much frustrations. The doubt never went away: what if this doesn’t work out? What if I’m not qualified enough? How can I come back?

I carried it with me to the new job, and the lack of thereof gave me a good push to perform.

It’s what’s unknown that scares me, once I’m in it, I figured how to navigate. And this decision gave me the opportunity to experience different culture, project, skill, and lifestyle.

2). I deeply enjoy feeling good physically

I ran my first 10K in April. I had my last cigarette on my last day of work, June 20th. As of the time of writing, I run twice a week, weight lift twice a week, and swim once a week. I feel strong, that gives me confidence and feeds mental strength, it cycled back to my exercise and work performance. This feels deeply satisfying.

3). Spending is a source of my anxiety

I tracked my income and expense since second grade, it’s a thing I’ve been doing for 2+ decades. In the past year or two, this has brought me fatigue and tension in the household. I knew how to save and I would try to squeeze the last % if I need to sacrifice. But I don’t know how to spend, and I found this wouldn’t last long. One can only stress for enough time before giving up.

4). Work is necessary

We took a 9 day family trip to Malaysia during the break between two jobs. Day 7, midway at Penang, it felt either bored and anxious not to work at all.

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To 35

35 will focus on learn to be happy. Not to degrade the performance, but learn to reward myself properly.

1). Learn to spend

“Spend extravagantly on the things you love, and cut costs mercilessly on the things you don’t.” ― Ramit Sethi

Linda and I setup another individual envelop for fun money, approximately 5% of our monthly income, split in half. We will try the approach to “save for ___”, to save for a goal, a bigger reward.

2). Publish more

This terrifies me. It’s the reason I started the blog; it’s the reason I procrastinate endlessly.

“The degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance” ― Steven Pressfield

Unless it’s health related, these sometimes turn into a great exercise.

A long day of work; exercise becomes a switch of thoughts.

An argument with family; exercise blows the steam off.

Emotion can be flipped with motion.