The Reset

Remember there is an end for all. (Memento Mori)

Remember…
– the vastness of the cosmic ocean. (Levels of Magnification)
– how tiny we are in the grand scheme of things.
– the unfathomable complexity of the world. (Levels of Organization)

Remember…
– everything is empty of meaning.
– “it’s all invented.” (Rosamund & Benjamin Zande) (Possibility)

—

The Reset is a Tool I created for myself to help me recover balance. It’s part of a larger system I call the WayFinder.

Whenever I am in an unresourceful state, I read it slowly until the meaning sinks in.

The Beautiful Game 4

I see my life as a beautiful modular Game made up of a myriad smaller life-games. I call it The Beautiful Game.

The Beautiful Game is an interplay between Innerplay and Outerplay.

When we think of play, we usually think of Outerplay – play that manifests in the outer world. But Outerplay is only the tip of the iceberg.

Innerplay – or The Inner Game – is the invisible foundation that enables and nurtures Outerplay.

Self-Coaching

Be your own coach whenever you practice.
Observe yourself; analyze your own movements; be honest with your self-appraisal.
Could that vault have been more controlled, with a softer landing?
Could it have been more efficient?
What can you improve on?
There will always be something, believe me.
(Dan Edwardes)

Turn your inner voice into your inner coach. (Brett Ledbetter, TED)

Fragments from Imaginary Dialogues

“How?”

“Think what a parkour coach does (or a sports coach more generally): they teach by giving cues, short instructions meant to elicit a specific response and achieve a specific outcome. Cueing is a skill – and an art. This is what you want to emulate when becoming your inner coach.

Thinking of self-coaching as a practice, it has two components: perspective taking and self-cueing.

Perspective taking is an imagination practice. Or more specifically, an imaginal practice – as opposed to imaginary. ‘Imaginal’ means using imagination for achieving practical ends. In this case, it means imagining yourself as your coach, seeing yourself with the eyes of a coach.

If you were your coach (in this situation), what would you do? What cues would you give? What questions would you ask?

You can take the practice further by imagining yourself in dialogue with yourself as the coach.

There’s a quote I like by John Vervaeke:

Philosophy is the practice of internalizing Socrates.

Similarly, we might think of self-coaching as the practice of internalizing the Coach.

In practical terms, self-coaching is essentially self-cueing: applying the skill of cueing to yourself as if you were your coach. This requires applying and (deliberately) practicing cueing – or as Dan Edwardes, one of the founders of Parkour Generations calls it, ‘cue-jutsu’.”

“So self-cueing is a special kind of self-talk.”

“Yes.”

“What makes a good cue?”

“There are two aspects to it: content and delivery.

As concerns content, good cueing is brief, unambiguous, and specific. It directs attention to what’s most relevant and tells you exactly what to do. By ‘brief’, I mean two things: using simple language and as few words as possible, and giving as few cues as possible at a time to prevent overwhelm. Positive cues (‘do x’) are better than negative cues (‘don’t do x’).

As concerns delivery, how you say matters as much as what you say. Good cueing is respectful. It is firm, yet kind and compassionate.”

“A bit like parenting?”

“That’s a good way to think of it.

The habit you want to cultivate is that of thinking in cues. Engaging in all your practices as if you’re actually teaching them.”

“So you’re practicing teaching at the same time.”

“Indeed. I consider teaching one of the most important skills one can develop.

Ideally, you engage in cueing as deliberate practice. Collecting and creating cues for all your practices, (creating your own ‘cue library’), continuously refining cues (in terms of both content and delivery), discovering synergies and playing with combining them for optimal results.”

The Most Important Practice 2

Fragments from imaginary dialogues

“What is the most important practice, the One Thing?“

“Wisdom?“

“‘Wisdom’ is an abstraction. Abstractions make unreliable practices.

Don’t rush it. What does it mean for a practice to be the most important practice?“

“Thinking hierarchically, it’s a practice that is a meta-practice to all other practices – the highest-order practice.
Thinking metaphorically, it’s a practice connected to all others.
Thinking pragmatically, it’s the most impactful practice.“

“What comes to mind now?“

“Three powerful quotes:

Awareness heals.

Everything you do is an act of poetry if you do it with mindfulness. (Thich Nhat Hanh)

Each thought, each action in the sunlight of awareness becomes sacred. In this light, no boundary exists between the sacred and the profane. (Thich Nhat Hanh)

It’s Awareness! Awareness is the most important practice.”

“It’s useful to gain clarity on what the most important practice is – to make one practice central: it helps you remember.

But there’s one more step.

‘Awareness’ is also an abstraction. The risk of any practice is to remain stuck at the conceptual level. This is another form of self-deception.

Always remember:

The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.

Endlessly ask yourself:

What is the moon?”

Lessons from Magic the Gathering

Fragments from imaginary dialogues

“Focus on the process.“

“What do you mean?“

“I mean focus on playing well and on the joy of playing, of solving gameplay puzzles, not on the outcome of winning.“

“What do you mean?“

“Aren’t the words clear enough?“

“Remember the metaphor with the finger and the moon?“

“The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.“

“Words are the finger. What is the moon for you?

Can you give a personal example?“

“Yesterday, I played a Draft game with quite a powerful deck. I managed to get six victories out of the maximum seven. Instead of feeling good and appreciating the experience, I went into a downward spiral. I lost balance.“

“Why do you think that is?“

“I was focusing on the outcome. In the moment, not getting to seven victories felt like a failure.“

“So despite knowing the importance of focusing on the process, you focused on the outcome.“

“Yes. Not focusing on the outcome is hard.“

“It is. It’s our default. It’s like swimming against the current. What happened after that?“

“I didn’t take a break as I should have and immediately started another Draft. It went poorly. I rushed it, made mistakes and ended up with a quite average deck. Feeling like I had nothing left to lose, I started playing.
To my surprise, it went very well. I played beautiful; I focused on the process, I was relaxed. After five games, I was 4-1. That’s when I stopped for the day – as you know, for me stopping playing is an essential practice.“

“There’s a quote I like by Josh Waitzkin:

Once you feel the profound refinement of a skill, no matter how small, use that feeling as a beacon of quality.
Once you know what good feels like, you can zero in on it and search it out regardless of pursuit.

The key aspect here is the feeling. That is the moon.

Understanding requires insight. Your insight experience revealed the moon – whereas before, you were looking at the finger.

Use that feeling as a beacon of quality and practice getting there more and more consistently.“

Project Magic the Gathering for Personal Development

Fragments from imaginary dialogues

“The game Magic the Gathering is a powerful practice for me.“

“Why?“

“There’s a quote I like from Robert Greene’s book Mastery:

It is essential that you begin with one skill that you can master, and that serves as a foundation for acquiring others.

For me, Magic is my first skill, in the same way Chess was the first skill for Josh Waitzkin.“

“The difference is Josh started as a child and you’re in your forties.“

“The Path is different for each of us. And I believe it’s never too late to start.“

“Why Magic?“

“Because the game is deeply meaningful to me.

Because I have a long history with the game, and there are many things I love about the game, from its design and artistry to its strategic depth and the experience of playing it.

Because for me, Magic has ‘pull power’ – to use a concept by Jim Rohn. I don’t have to get myself to do it; it powerfully draws me to it. In fact, my challenge is to stop playing. For me, the game has addictive qualities; it’s a constant exercise in balance and restraint.

Because I want to master the game, and in the process, to get to know and master myself.

Because I see a huge potential in the game, from teaching English using it to teaching the game itself and using it as a vehicle for personal development.

I turned Magic into a life project. I call it Magic for Personal Development. In the process, I’m creating a ‘playbook’ for it, a practical handbook to guide my practice and, eventually, to help me teach it.“

—

You can see a blueprint of my playbook here (<link).

The Daily Journey

Fragments from imaginary dialogues

“What is most meaningful to you?“

“Many things… but now that you’re asking me, I can’t think of any!“

“Give it a little time. Gradually, they’ll come back.“

“They are coming back to me! Love, playfulness, my family, creating, learning, teaching, being around children,…“

“How do you feel now while remembering them?“

“Happy.“

“I call the totality of things that are meaningful to you ‘your personal universe of meaning’. And your universe of meaning is unique to you.

Interestingly, you can’t access all your universe of meaning at once; only sequentially. It seems to be a linear process.“

“Like a journey?“

“In a way yes. We might think of every thing that is meaningful to you as a beautiful place on your journey of meaning.

Every day’s journey of meaning is unique.

The sequence – and the amount of time you spend in each place – is different each day.“

“Are there ways to access the totality of it?“

“It seems we can only access the totality as an abstraction. A bit like you cannot experience the territory while looking at a map; to experience the territory, you have to be there. We have a hard time being everywhere at once.“

“Now that I think of it, these dialogues of ours are another kind of journey of meaning. Only this is another kind of journey.“

“A beautiful creative journey.“

“Yes! Feels like home, doesn’t it?“

“It does.“

On controlling your thoughts

There are only two things you can control with certainty: your actions and your thoughts. So focus all your effort on improving those things and bringing them into true alignment.
Waste no thought on the things you cannot control.

Fragments from imaginary dialogues

“Can you really control your thoughts?“

“Let’s do an experiment.

Pick something you consider so vital that you’d want to keep on top of your mind every moment of every day and try to keep it on top of your mind for as long as possible.
You’ll notice that, with effort, you can do it only for brief periods.

Now try to access the thought as often as possible during a day. Track it. Use reminders.
You’ll notice it becomes available only infrequently despite your efforts.

It seems the control we have over our thoughts is an illusion. When we think, we don’t pick the thoughts we want; they simply become available.

In any situation, there’s a set of optimal thought configurations. If we had complete control, one of those configurations would always be available. But oftentimes, like when we fail to live up to our standards, they aren’t.“

“True, we can’t directly control the availability of thoughts, but we can control their frequency.

We can’t control when a thought becomes available; only how often. The more often you think of something, the more frequently it becomes available.

Moreover, we can control the ‘filtering‘.

Let’s think of thoughts as options. In every moment, our mind is presenting us with options, and we get to choose which are most relevant.

Metaphorically, we can think of the life of the mind as a choose-your-own-adventure game. You can’t control the options you’re presented with; only the options you choose. And each choice opens up a new set of options.“

“What if all the options you’re presented with are suboptimal?“

“There’s a quote I like:

The improviser focuses on making the idea into a good one, rather than searching for a “good” idea. (Patricia Madson)

You always get to make the most of the available options.“

Carpe Hora Journaling

Fragments from imaginary dialogues

“We all have the same number of hours in a day. Yet some people consistently get more out of those hours than most. And I don’t mean in terms of ‘productivity’ but meaningful life experiences. In a sense, such people live longer than their years. I call this phenomenon ‘life density’.“

“How do you increase life density?“

“My approach is to track every hour of the day. I call this practice Carpe Hora Journaling. By tracking, I keep it perpetually salient. Moreover, at the end of the day, I get a bird’s eye view of the entire day.

I’ve been keeping the journal for almost two years now. It’s been through so many iterations. Here’s what the latest version looks like:

On the left side, the numbers represent every hour of the day. For every hour, I write the most significant things that happened during the hour, positively and negatively – this is how I discovered many of my dysfunctional patterns.“

“How do you manage to write everything into that small a space?“

“I’ve created an entire abbreviation system for it. For instance, ‘WF’ means ‘WayFinder’ – a collection of resources that help me reconnect with my Meaning.
Plus, I don’t need to write down everything; only the most important things.“

“What is the most important thing for you to track?“

“Take a look at the leftmost column. You’ll notice some numbers are green and their square is shaded.

Green numbers signify connection with Meaning – which is actually a combination of meaning and feeling.
For instance, I often experience a strong feeling of Love. It’s not directed at anyone; it’s simply (over)flowing out of me into the world. I sometimes like to imagine myself as the sun and Love as the rays I’m sending out to all the people of the world.

Shading signifies engaging in some essential practice.

The ideal for me is a day where all hours of the day are green and shaded. I haven’t gotten there yet, but I’m getting better at it.“

On practicing Gratitude 2

Fragments from imaginary dialogues

“While useful, I find the practice of expressing gratitude for three things limited.“

“Why?“

“It is impossible not to take most things for granted most of the time.

In any given moment, there’s a myriad things we are taking for granted. With practice, we can appreciate a tiny number of things a tiny portion of the time. This is a natural constraint of human cognition. 

Expressing gratitude for three things is very limited in scope. It’s not just about appreciating a few things. It’s about remembering that the things we can appreciate are far, far vaster than what we can remember in any given moment. It’s about appreciating the totality of it, not just a handful of instances.”

“What’s the practice?“

“While engaged in something – anything –, ask yourself:

What are all the things I can appreciate about this?
What are all the things that make it possible?

Initially, only a handful of things will come to mind. But if you keep going, you’ll discover more and more and more. Eventually, you will powerfully remember how deep it goes, how interconnected everything is.
Getting to that place is beautiful. Savor it while it lasts, for you will shortly forget again.“