Since my last video on index cards, my life has completely changed - and I know I sound like some
kind of cheesy infomercial or something, but I'm being completely sincere. This changed my life.
I made a bunch of updates to my deck that I thought could be interesting to see and
might be helpful to those of you who were interested in trying it out for yourself.
One of the benefits of this system is that as
cards no longer apply to your life, you can take those out and replace them with new ones that do.
A lot of my previous deck was about patience - having patience with myself - and that was because
I had plans to get to where I am now, and it wasn't going as quickly as I wanted it to.
But now that I'm here and doing things differently already, I have less of that
and more of looking towards my next goals -
the future of what I want to do with my life.
That's why the first one now says "welcome to the next gen."
I could have put "next chapter," but "next gen" somehow sounds techy and cooler.
The first part actually comes from a conversation I saw between
Jordan Peterson and Russell Brand, where they were talking about addictions,
and somehow this felt right for my life as well, even though I'm not an alcoholic or anything.
Find something worth giving up your screwing up - something a lot better -
an adventure, something edgy and cool, a quest to accomplish.
I actually added "a quest to accomplish."
They didn't use the word "quest"
but just like the word "gen," I think that the word "quest" is somehow inspiring
(and a little bit nerdy) but it gives me energy.
The next part says "full-time skill development."
This is really what I want to focus my life on.
Even if I'm doing a job for somebody else, I want to be able to look at that task
and find some way that I can benefit
from it - even if it's just adding a small tool to my toolbox,
practicing some kind of skill that I feel like I need to get better at.
That way, it doesn't feel like I'm doing things for other people solely;
I'm also getting something out of what i'm doing. There's more fulfillment in there.
Fall in love with the process; keep moving at a rapid pace.
Improve the weakest links to raise the baseline.
By this, I mean I want to focus on the things that i'm not
good at. It's really easy to focus your time and energy on things that you know you can do already,
but if you focus on the things that need the most work,
and you were to just "raise the baseline" of your skill level,
then all together, the entire skill is going to become that much easier for you,
and that's really how you achieve mastery.
You just keep "raising the baseline" by focusing on the things that you're not good at.
I'm skipping this next card - not gonna talk about that one...
I have a card that has a pros and cons list - basically one half of it
is "things i'm running from" and the other half is "things i'm running towards."
It's actually not split 50/50. The "running
from" part is much smaller and the "running towards" part is much larger,
as a way to kind of remind myself that I'm not just trying to avoid certain things -
I just have so much to look forward to if I keep up with what I am trying to do.
This card should look familiar: it was in my last deck.
It's "you've done it before, you can do it again."
And then we get into the "beliefs" section.
Belief number one: my ideal will emerge through daily practice.
That's from my past deck. The card after it, though, has been updated -
now it says "consistent updates."
That's relative to YouTube, actually!
Be yourself, share your style, have fun and experiment.
Persistence, tenacity, grit.
I took "patience" off - it used to say "patience" on there.
I feel like I don't need to work on that as much as I do persistence
and tenacity and keeping consistent with my postings.
Belief number two: (same as in my previous deck, taken from Tim Ferriss)
what would this look like if it was easy?
It really doesn't need to be so hard; just give in and stop resisting.
Belief number three is new - if you build it they will come.
You can't control people's reactions to your work; put your creations out there, and then move on.
I think this is very important for any kind of work that you're
doing - if you're really worried about the way that it's going to be perceived,
it might paralyze you to the point that you don't create the work.
The next card is one that I'm not going to show you - it's basically affirmations
telling me things about myself that I know about myself to be true.
The example i used last time was being open-minded.
If you're ever feeling down about yourself,
having a card like this that kind of reminds you of those things you KNOW to be true,
even in your darkest moments, you KNOW these things to be true about yourself,
it can help you to boost your self-esteem a bit.
This next chunk, I don't know if I wanna share...
It's... um... about changing the way that you feel.
So, actually, this is a good thing to talk about.
It's a - it's an evolution from my previous thinking.
When I used to be sad or depressed or anxious,
I would use the words (when I was talking about myself, and when I was thinking to myself)
I would say "I am sad / i am anxious / i am depressed,"
but in that language, the way that that is set up, it makes it sound like
it is something that I EMBODY
I AM depressed, I AM anxious,
when in actuality, it's a fleeting moment:
I FEEL depressed.
And if you want to make it even more fleeting, you can say "right now" or "currently."
Currently, I feel depressed. Currently, I feel anxious.
And using that language when I talk to other people about how I'm feeling
or when I'm even talking to myself
or writing things down in a journal, if I say "I FEEL this way,"
it somehow makes it feel like the bad feelings are not part of my identity.
I don't want to identify with certain aspects of how I feel, because it's forever changing.
The other part of that, is that I have a card in here that says "you can change the way you feel."
So even when I feel sad or when I'm really angry or aggravated about something,
irritated by something,
I can change the way I feel by doing certain things physically.
So this card says "walk in the sunshine, meditate,
jump in the ocean, lift heavy things,
(for me, I get kind of a euphoria with that)
talk with friends, laugh at videos,
(I recommend Marc Rebillet and Reggie Watts)
cold showers, stretching, get enough sleep, binge a tv show if you need to,
and make sure that you're getting enough food and nutrients.
All of these things can change the way you feel - so when I'm in a slump,
reminding myself that it's temporary really helps me to
be able to get through it and not identify myself with that feeling.
And then we get into career stuff, which I'll show you guys some of, but
this first card is mainly about how I identify myself from a career perspective.
I have always been a designer, but when I think about it, I also consider myself to be an artist.
I consider myself to be a musician. I consider myself to be a maker.
I am claiming that I am a writer. I'm claiming that I'm a YouTuber.
That last one, "YouTuber" - actually,
I've struggled with that, and I've only realized lately that
the only thing you need to do to become a YouTuber is to post videos on YouTube -
and suddenly you're a YouTuber.
There's literally no other qualifications to becoming
a YouTuber than just posting videos on YouTube,
so I am claiming that title as well!
I already work a lot (and hard) - what would happen if I
instead applied these skills to my own businesses and creations?
Storytelling is fun, fulfilling, and can shift cultural ideals and challenge beliefs.
I'm having a bit of a career shift right now - I
might talk about it more in a future video, but all I'm going to say right now is
that I'm attempting to become a bit more
entrepreneurial - and it's involving some storytelling.
And in the past, I've thought that that is less important
than something I could be doing, like trying to be in the medical field
or trying to be in law or something that seems more important on paper,
but something like storytelling is necessary in the human society -
we all rely on it to convey different messages and to teach lessons
and to be able to walk in someone else's shoes
or have experiences that we might not be able to have otherwise,
so it IS important, and I'm affirming that with myself every time I read this card.
Drawing is a familiar and comforting escape and positive distraction,
where you have complete control.
It's a productive and fun way to spend time without spending money.
I'm often intimidated to follow
one of my passions, which is drawing, and that's because I'm scared of it.
I have fear around it and I'm still unpacking that a bit, because I love it -
so this is just a reminder of all of the great things about it
that will help me to get past that fear, bit by bit.
These people did it - so can you!
I listed out people who I admire - who, actually, I admire quite a bit -
and I think that they're amazing, but also
when I read through this list, I think, you know,
they didn't used to be that good, and they've gotten good,
and I've seen the progression of their work
from "okay" to "really good," which is encouraging to me,
because right now I feel like in some areas of creation specifically, i'm "okay,"
but I'm not really good.
But if I follow their path, I could be.
Not gonna talk about this...
I'm not gonna talk about that...
I will share one of them actually - so, uh, Frank Miller was on that card.
Frank Miller is a comic book writer and artist - he's a combo, he's a one-man combo pack -
and that's a bit rare to have someone who's good at both the writing and the artistry...
If these people did it - so can you!
I have a card in here specifically for YouTube
that says "chase your curiosities, have fun with it, make things
you'd want to watch and share, and share your style."
i'm gonna skip this one...
I'm gonna skip that one as well...
I have a card that says "focus."
It has this year (which, of course, we only have a couple of months left of this year).
It has next year what I want to do, and then the year after.
It's a little bit vague once we go farther into the future.
I'm not a person who has a five-year or ten-year plan or anything like that,
but I think being able to see where
what you do this year will affect next year, will affect the next year, is helpful.
I did put a daily schedule in here - it's replacing a card that I used to have
about certain things that I could do -
"Free time, free activities."
I do still think that that card is helpful, but now in my life,
I feel like I don't really want to have free time.
I'm more interested in working on projects when i feel like I would have had free time.
I don't consider working on projects to be filling free time, I feel like it's still
kind of a version of work, and so
this is just kind of "if you feel like you have free time, do these things"
and you'll occupy that time with productivity -
and it's things that I enjoy - I mean, it's not treacherous work or anything.
The last card actually says "in summary."
Fitness: daily practice over time.
With fitness, I want it to be something that I
don't have to think about. It's just daily practice.
Comics: (probably from the "Frank Miller," you can figure out that I'm trying to get into comics)
- uh - develop skills, push yourself.
This is part of that "raise the baseline."
Focus on the things that I'm not that great at now, and overall,
the product's going to be raised up to that much better of a level.
And then YouTube: uh - it just says "have fun and experiment."
If I'd focus on YouTube being about having fun and trying things, it suddenly isn't as intimidating,
or I don't have to worry about comparing myself to other people, and that's it.
That's my deck for now.
It seems like it's a little bit smaller than it used to be, which is good.
I do encourage you (if you try this) to read over it at least once a day, every single day.
I do it as part of my morning routine to remind me - before my day even really starts -
what it is that i'm doing all of this for.
I know a lot of you expressed interest in trying out this method yourself;
I'm interested to hear if you did,
did you change anything about the way that I talked about it last time?
Is your deck smaller or larger than mine?
Do you do a physical deck or a digital deck like some people recommended?
Something I actually did recently was put a hook in my closet,
so I can hang it up by the binder clip and remind myself to look at it every day.
it's kind of ironic, cause last video,
I was making fun of people putting their vision boards in their closets...
Look who's doing it now!
I'm sure I'll be making updates on my own deck in the future as well, so
maybe I'll make it a regular thing to provide updates so that you guys can
stay on top of what it is I'm working on as well.
That's all i've got for today -
'til next time!
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