The best periods of my life always came after a period of getting absolutely fed up with the lack of progress I was making.
I’ve begun to understand the difference between “relief” and “cure.”
Relief feels good.
It comes in the form of cheap pleasures, mindless entertainment, and prescriptions.
Humans fear change.
So we cling to the illusion of security that is presented by the external world.
The advice.
The porn, beyond sex.
The promises of a better life.
The persuasive marketing angles.
The things that may provide a sense of security, but are not of your own understanding.
A cure is painful.
It comes in the form of getting sick of being sick, to the point where you come full circle.
By full circle, I mean a complete and radical flip in perception.
Imagine a line colored in a black-to-white gradient with shades of gray in the middle.
Then, connect the ends of that line together so that black and white touch.
We can see this pattern of reality in our everyday life.
A person so stupid they become insightful.
An outfit so unstylish it becomes stylish.
A joke so unfunny that it becomes funny.
A non-believer so trapped they become a believer.
Or, a person so fed up with who they are they become an entirely new person.
Character Begets Action
Identity restricts perspective.
It provides a boundary so that your thoughts don’t fall into unknown territory and threaten your entire existence.
Perspective influences perception.
Any given situation has too much information for the conscious mind to process (we are capable of processing around 50 bits of information per second).
The identity, or character, you’ve cultivated with time will limit what information you process that is available to the perspective that you have access to.
From that information, you will interpret it differently from everyone else.
I can ask you to think of a “bird,” and the image that pops into your head will be different from every other human on this planet.
Some will think of a cardinal, others a blue jay, both with faint lines forming the image in your head. Yet the underlying essence of what a bird is remains the same.
The same is true for something like the concept of God. People go to war over interpretation and “proof” when the experience or essence of what the concept points at is the same, and it’s right in front of you but conditioned thoughts prevent you from seeing beyond the surface.
Speaking of something as touchy as God, let’s tie in the example of Christ Consciousness.
The identity of Christ was expanded to that of everything that his perspective expanded with it.
He could perceive situations holistically and see them for what they are.
I am not here to lecture you on religion or ideology or dogma because that is the exact opposite of what I am pointing to here. Be careful how your rigid identity influences how you perceive these words (because I’ve been the dude that regurgitates blind “facts,” judging what I haven’t experienced as if it couldn’t possibly be there).
I do not subscribe to one perspective, but attempt to integrate truths from all into my worldview. I am nowhere near perfect in this, but it is hard to deny that everyone is pointing at the same thing across every cultural belief system. The meaningful dopamine you reap from pattern recognition in studying different perspectives is a sign that you are heading in the right direction.
Perception influences how you move within the world.
People that are heavily tied to a religious, nutrition, business, or political ideology will almost always act in alignment with the goals that were assigned to them by that intellectual construct.
People that seek to open their mind to awareness and understanding can make decisions that are conducive to their ideal future.
Action is directed toward a goal. Always.
Your identity has goals baked into it.
The question is whether or not those goals are self-generated or assigned to you by the external.
A political ideologue that adopted the beliefs of their parents without question will act toward goals assigned to them by the political party.
A bodybuilder by passion and self-study will generate their own goals and allow their nutrition, lifestyle, and training to fall in alignment with that goal – else they experience suffering, which is not bad, but a useful compass toward better.
Character creates action and action reinforces character.
If you want to change who you are, challenge your beliefs.
Allow your actions to follow suit with time (not a day or week or even month, but a lifetime).
And by doing so, you create a life of less involuntary pain.
The Most Interesting Part Of A Story
Most people don’t realize that life is story.
Story is symbolic of Universal patterns.
You can note these patterns in architecture, music, all of creation, scripture, systems, environment, economics, and your life.
That is how we make sense of the world.
The mind interprets the world through concepts, stories, metaphors, and symbols.
To understand one thing, we must have a subconscious understanding of everything it is connected to.
A cup wouldn’t make sense without a hand.
Gravity wouldn’t make sense without force or mass.
Your life wouldn’t make sense without the current state of society and culture.
Everything you know is just a layer of stories containing billions of bits of on/off information pieced together for your current level of understanding.
Stories give meaning to life.
Your identity is the story you tell yourself.
You will live out that story on autopilot if not made conscious.
What word, sentence, paragraph, section, and chapter is unfolding before you in the book that is your life?
Now, we must bring in the topic of polarity to deepen our understanding of meaning.
In short, one thing cannot exist without the other.
Happiness cannot exist without a sad reference point.
Nor a cup without a hand.
Or life without suffering.
On that last point, the climax of the story is often the most memorable.
When the battle is at its peak.
When you aren’t sure what the future holds.
When the symbolic villain is just about to win but the hero triumphs.
If there were no low points in your life it would lose all meaning.
It would become flat. Dull. Linear. Lifeless. Mechanical. Robotic. Mindless. Mediocre.
Life is a dance between order and chaos.
Push pull. Yin yang. Masculine feminine.
From personal to social to cultural to cosmic.
You cannot achieve new heights, perspectives, or levels of consciousness if you never accept the battle, lose your ground, and propel in a new direction.
Emotional Transmutation
Transmutation (noun): the action of changing or the state of being changed into another form.
I have a tattoo on my right forearm.
An ouroboros.
A symbol for alchemy.
It is an image of a snake eating its own tail in the shape of an infinity sign.
A reminder that creation demands destruction and that one cannot exist without the other.
It points to the Law Of Equivalent Exchange which states that for anything received you must sacrifice something of equal or greater value.
Business transmutation transforms creation into money.
Emotional transmutation is the act of transforming your emotional state into something more powerful.
Like using something as potent as anger to push you toward something good.
Of course, this can become dangerous fast.
Emotional transmutation is not becoming a slave to that emotion and letting it dictate your actions.
We want to catch, feel, and direct our negative emotions like a mental Tai Chi master. We want to use, not be used.
To create a better life for yourself, emotional energy is the fuel, and intentional effort is the vessel.
By hitting a low point in life, you come into direct contact with a powerful (yet temporary) fuel source that most people waste. That low point is a rapid connection to the divine.
When the time comes for you, don’t waste it.
Channel Into Building
When you reach that low point, you need something tangible to direct that newfound (and hyper-potent) energy toward.
A vision-aligned project.
The opposing end of the low point you fell into.
From the awareness of negativity, you can easily identify that which you don’t want out of life. From there, you can visualize a better future to work towards.
If you hit a financial low point, maybe it’s time to start a business or get a new job.
If you just got out of a breakup, maybe it’s time to shift your priority toward your health and personal development in the gym.
Most successful people I know started their journey out of raw hatred for a situation in their life.
They hated commuting to work.
They hated wearing a monkey suit 5 days a week.
They hated that they let a relationship carry on, or that they weren’t “good enough” for one they wanted to keep.
When they felt that emotion and let go of the desire to hold on, a new potential revealed itself and action became frictionless.
Most people think that “hate” shouldn’t exist when it is just an obstruction of love. And if that obstruction isn’t removed, hatred latches on and extends it’s stay.
Now, this is my philosophy through my direct experience, and why many of you read these letters:
I believe that holistic entrepreneurship is the meta vessel for any man or woman balancing the chaos in their life with the masculine pursuit of self-generated, goal-oriented building.
If that makes little sense, let me explain the entrepreneurial landscape right now:
1) Everyone is an entrepreneur.
Centuries ago, individuals each fulfilled a purpose within their tribe or community.
They acquired skills and interests that fit the “marketplace” that was their community.
2) Social media is not just an app, it’s a new society.
People still don’t realize how revolutionary social media was.
It’s where we learn (school).
It’s where we hire (career).
It’s where we teach (business).
It’s where we meet (social).
We live in the virtual world right here and now. Virtual reality wouldn’t be able to exist without this societal backbone we already have.
Neglecting social media is neglecting an evolutionary path toward your fullest potential.
3) We have problem solved our way to “doing what you love.”
Evolution is the process of solving problems, small and large.
We don’t notice it until we reflect on decade-plus-long time scales.
An innate human drive is to pursue your curiosity and embrace being.
You can’t do that without money (to a point, but a hard point) in this society. Therefore, it becomes one’s life’s work to leverage modern technology to make an income doing what one enjoys.
You do this by pairing your personal interests with the skills of social media (understanding society), writing, speaking, marketing, and sales.
I discuss this in the $1 Million Dollar Skill Stack.
4) You are the most profitable niche.
What is the meaning of life?
That is a loaded question, but I believe that the answer that makes the most sense is to raise the collective consciousness.
To help others solve their problems so we can transcend the superficial and live in accordance with what is.
The problems in your life are mental, physical, financial, and spiritual.
Same goes for anyone else.
Those are the problems we must individually solve for collective growth.
We as humanity are only as strong as our weakest link, and that weakest link is mediocre, mindless, and destructive. Hence, why you must learn marketing and persuasion for the sake of awareness. You don’t push your worldview, you simply illustrate it and let it do its thing.
Feed the hungry.
Those that are full will eventually grow hungry.
When you solve your own problems, it is implied that you can pass down a solution.
This solution is both how you gain a readership on social media (through content) and sell a product that saves the world one purchase at a time (through education).
If you don’t know where to start, try 2 Hour Writer.
5) A “creator” is not a job but a new way of life.
Regardless of your beliefs in a higher power, underlying metaphysical fabric, or any interpretation of a Creator – it’s hard to deny that the act of creation is pure ecstasy, and that’s a sign to do it more often.
When you learn, dissect, reconnect, and teach you flex the creative ability of your mind, and in the wise words of Arnold:
To me, the pump kind of feels like having sex with a beautiful woman and coming. You know? It just feels fantastic. I am coming all the time, you know!
Creativity is mental bodybuilding. Creation is spiritual sex.
And if everyone leans into their nature as a creator, it is difficult for saturation to exist.
Your story, or identity (that you display in the creator society), is nowhere near the same as anyone else’s – even if you are pursuing the same high-level goals like “making more money.”
You can process 128 billion bits of conscious information in your lifetime.
That is your potential.
At any given moment, you are wasting that potential through distraction or using it to craft a conscious character by which you can contribute to humanity.
Feel into the situation you are in.
Transmute that energy toward a goal.
Acquire the skills necessary to reach that goal.
Pursue your curiosity to avoid the mechanical nature of prescriptions.
Exchange your knowledge, projects, and solutions in exchange for attention and income.
Use your self-reflective consciousness to identify gaps in your ability and fix them.
You have the resources.
It will take time. Years.
You may not start now and that’s fine.
This letter may not even make sense to you at your current level of awareness.
Push forward in reality based on your experience level.
Seek big-picture understanding.
Don’t get trapped in the technical details.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
– Dan Koe
