Hello, this is Celeste. I have been writing poems since 2017 and my low-fantasy crime novel Project Dylan since 2022. Letters for Creatives is the place where I share my thoughts on writing, creativity, resources for creatives, and interview creators and authors.

Life is demanding so much of my physical and mental strength lately. It didn’t even surprise me that I am now back on my ‘self-improvement era’ after having my first morning yoga class in quite a while.

But my intention is different this time.

When the teacher (who is my friend) asked for my plan after class and if I am going for another workout session, I said “no, I am going to chill in the park.”

I ended up going to grab pineapple bun and egg tart, being on the tram for an hour and writing my novel until I could not take it anymore.

Comparing last Sunday to my last ‘self-improvement era’, I know that I no longer want to bite off more than I can chew. After knowing doing that doesn’t lead to the result I want (burn out, imposter syndrome that never walk away), I want to find the middle ground where I keep improving myself 1% every day but also enjoy my life.

But my corner for podcasts is still here.

Tim Ferriss and Alex Hormozi were on separate Modern Wisdom podcast episodes with Chris Williamson. They are filled with gems that I would keep reflecting.

I have edited some highlights for grammatical reason. If you want to know the context better, I have the timestamps below for each of the highlight below.

19 Harsh Truths About Human Nature - Alex Hormozi

On sabotaging oneself (Timestamp: 3:19)

CW: This person is starting from essentially zero, how much … worse can it get?

AH: It is the downside if you can eliminate someone's downside for action, it should bias you towards taking action.

CW: Why is that people who have nothing to lose still feel like they have lots to lose?

AH: They have nothing objectively to lose and so everything that they feel like they have to lose is purely made up in their mind. They are stories that tell themselves about what other people are going to think about them when those people aren't even think about them to begin with.

That is where they live all of their lives or live out all of the potential downside is in the mere reflection of what other people will think about them in the future should they fail.

If I actually had somebody in front of me, they'd start squirming. If I said ‘you have nothing to lose’, they do have something to lose and I am like ‘okay who’s the person in your mind’, they say ‘it's my uncle’.

Will your belief that you're going to be viewed as a failure by your uncle be the sole reason that you live the rest of your life below your potential and regret everything that you don't do because of Uncle Harry?

All of a sudden, they are like "‘I don't want to let Uncle Harry have that kind of power, it breaks and then they get free of it.

It is usually one or two voices and if you can get really specific on whose voice it is, then you can name it. Shame only exists in the shadows.

CW: Here it is out in front of you and you realize just how irrational it is.

AH: Because it's in the shadow. We put in the shadows because of how it makes us feel about ourselves. We avoid it.

The faster you can build that muscle of ‘I've got this hesitation, what is the real reason?’. I do have something to lose. It’s relational capital, it's my perceived status within my tiny micro community that doesn't matter. The confrontation is where all the fear is because it is embarrassing.

The Lessons, Hacks & Books That Changed My Life - Tim Ferriss

On short-term planning (Timestamp: 6:28)

CW: Talk to me about this relationship between 3 months and five years?

TF: If you were to ask me five years ago, could you have predicted everything that would have happened in the last five years? Of course not.

If I put my all into shorter term projects for 3 months, within that I have two to four week experiments that I'm running, that's kind of semantic insurance against psychological distress from failure. Just framing it differently using different language to train your thoughts to react differently.

I would say that as you run these experiments, let's just say for three months. If you were to try to set in stone some type of three-year plan, you're probably going to be creating blindness for yourself, where you don't see very attractive open doors that you had not predicted.

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On fame (Timestamp: 40:13)

TF: When I was in college, a friend of mine was the son of a very famous producer in Hollywood and I went to stay with his family at one point. This producer said to me ‘you want everyone to know your name and no one to know your face.’

On identity diversification (Timestamp: 1:04:02)

TF: Another piece of managing or mitigating or preventing low mood for me is having some identity diversification, which means you're not just doing one thing. If you have your podcast, your startup, your job as the sole barometer of your self-worth, there's so many factors outside of your control. If you were solely fixated on one thing, you're too vulnerable to Black Swan events (there is a book called The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb) due to variables that are outside of your control.

In contrast, if you have your Saturday workout or you have your deadlift, you have rockclimb, you have archery, you have whatever it might be, in addition to your primary work. In addition to drawing, in addition to your relationship that you're trying to cultivate and deepen, if any one of those things is down, just like in a stock portfolio, if they are somewhat uncorrelated, you can still have a good week.

That is very important to me that I have multiple tracks running at the same time. So that if one hits a roadblock, it’s not just an exisitential spiral.

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