Midlife crisis finally caught up with me. This started right after I graduated college and pursued careers and lifestyles that I deed was the optimal path — maximizing money and productivity. I had money in the bank, but I never felt quite alive. I threw money to make me feel alive but they never fulfilled a deeper hunger. Soon, that hunger, a quarter-life crisis, metastasized into a full blown midlife crisis that I was experiencing.

We buy things we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress people we don’t like — Fight Club

When a client walked away without paying me — wasting 3 months of my life — I hit rock bottom. My favorite quote from the movie Fight Club came screaming in my face as I slouch on the sofa, doomscrolling social media and melting my brain and weeping at my current state of affair. Like the protagonist in the movie (played by the awesome Edward Norton), I’m a shell of myself. But in my case, I didn’t have a Brad Pitt punching me in the face — I had life upper-cutting me right in the gut.

I knew I was in a rut and something is amiss. Something was being buried under the never ending grinding, screen time, zoom calls, and isolation. The zest for life had died out

I had to change something. Drastically. Fundamentally.

I dropped everything I had, and booked a one way ticket to Buenos Aires.

I had to change course 180 degree. I have to reinvent my life completely.

The plane ride to Buenos Aires was soul soothing. I glanced out at the window mid flight, and I saw this breath taking view of the Earth.

“Wow its full moon tonight. When was the last time I saw something like this? I’m lucky,” I thought to myself as I gazed over this breath-taking view of Earth mid-flight. Views like this never cease to fascinate me.

I knew nothing of Buenos Aires and of Argentina, except that at some point in my life, I’ve heard of the “passion” of Argentina and that I vaguely remember I had liked the music from that land. In the midst of my anguish, a thought popped in my head:

“Why not go do tango and learn Spanish?”

What a ridiculous idea, but I knew the patient needed a system shock — a defibrillator jolt to a heart numbed by decades of the wrong path. A full re-invention is required, and I have no idea how to do it other than just jumping straight into it.

And I am not alone. Yuki, my loyal travel companion, decided she wanted to guide me me on this journey.

Buenos Aires, the Land of Tango, Architecture, and… Steak

It has been almost 2 weeks since I’ve arrived at Buenos Aires. It is an intriguing city — a metropolitan with European architecture, merged w/ modern day concrete jungle, and lots of tango, Milongas, and steak. Argentinian asado is definitely yummy (hmmnnn chimichuri sauces, why isn’t this on every steak menu in US?)

I jumped right into tango. I took a few classes and the teacher took me to the milongas, the tango dance parties. Argentinians do love to dance — from Monday to Sunday, every night there are milongas and locals of various ages and skills come tango. On some special nights, they are also joined by an orchestra and professional tango shows.

The music of the orchestra, the improvisation of the dancers, and liveliness of the crowd drew me closer, and soon I found myself also on the dance floor busting out my tango moves.

For once, I simply followed what my body told me to do — stepping on toes and bumping into others. I didn’t care anymore. I am alive.

I have 2 months in Bueonos Aires, and I’m curious to see what “following your bliss” and synchronicities would unfold.

Here’s to a wild journey.

Another day of random doodling. After a solid week of doodling, I can now say I’m more confident on the my doodling ability — the facial expressions, the angles, and the body anatomy is mostly passable for the human eyes.

With these doodling, I am exploring what my art style is. I want to know, but right now my skill level is skill limited and my exposure to different art/doodling style is narrow. So I’m copying and scribing other famous cartoon comic strip art styles — Calvin and Hobbes and Snoopy.

Turns out my favorite childhood cartoons had relatively simple art style and character design, something that I, at my current doodling level, can definitely draw. I don’t remember why I was gravitated to them as a child. Was it the cute cartoon art? Or was it the story? Or that perfect combination of both?

I never thought in a million years that I’d be doodling cartoons, but during this process, I had so much fun that I hadn’t had in years. Doing things for the fun of it is strangely therapeutic, and doing things with my hands is soul soothing. In a digitally addicted world, and AI generative one, doing hands on things reminds me what being a human is like.

Also I discovered that the comic strip name is Peanuts and Snoopy is the dog’s name. I never knew!

I always am a big fan of Family Guy and the Simpsons. Their comedic storytelling together the cute cartoon-y art mesmerized me from age 10 to even today. One day, I do dream of making my own comic w/ something like this, so today I’m doodling Brian and Homer.

From these, I realize that if you make the characters “rounder”, the cuter or visually more pleasant they are.

I do notice that sometimes in my drawings the lines are squiggly (still gotta work on those muscles in my fingers). Is there a way to make these sketches prettier?

I threw them into AI and these are the results:

Google’s AI studio refined the lines and added colors to it. It knew I was drawing Homer and Brian and added colors appropriately (and added the missing dog tag from the original).

Not bad.

I then threw the original sketch into ChatGPT (4o) and Google’s Video Gen AI, and both of them rejected it w/ copyright infringement

These doodles of your favorite cartoons, Big Tech now don’t allow them :/

So, I suppose from now on, you can only use your original works (your own character design) with these AI.

Here I uploaded my doodle from before and generated a refined image (ChatGPT 4o) and an animated video (Googles Video Gen). The generated video was astonishing — turned my doodle into 1920’s animation

With these AI tools, any person can create art in any form.

This really speaks to this fascinating juncture of the universe — with these AI tools we can unleash the creativity that’s dormant within us. We are truly creators.

Day 3 / x of doodling.

Today I attempted to draw my dog from different POVs cuz I wanted to see if my hand muscles can go in a different direction (it can).

The challenge for this is getting my dog’s anatomy to look right. I used the facial guiding lines and it not only helps w/ getting the facial angles correct, but also w/ the rest of the body angle. Once I get the facial angle correct, the rest comes naturally.

Through these doodling exercises, I also find it easier to turn what’s in my head to paper (or iPad in this case). I used to have troubles with these POV drawings (I can only draw in one side — facing left), and now different POVs are coming together more naturally.

Practice do make progress!

This was quite astonishing experience. I created this doodle using Procreate app on my iPad. I bought this app years ago but never did anything with it — somehow the blank canvas and its many features scared me so I never drew anything. Like many aspirational things I wanted to do, my own fears — or the sense of being overwhelming the mountain of technical hurdles — hamstrung me from even starting:

• I wanted to learn Japanese, Korean, Spanish, but looking at the difficulties of the beginner’s language book paralyzed me

• I wanted to make my own app — but the sheer amount of technical plumbing required prevented me from taking that first step

• I wanted to do my podcast or start my YT channel — but the hassle of setting up camera, shooting, editing, uploading paralyzed me

Instead of looking at all these things and paralyze myself, perhaps the best way is to just start small — one crappy doodle at a time, one crappy video at a time, one crappy writing a ta time.

And who knew doodling can be this fun and therapeutic!

I can’t wait for my next doodle!

Day 1 / x of my new career — doodling / aspiring manga artist

Creativity, after all, cannot just sit in my head. They must be shared with the world, no matter how “crude” they might be.

So here comes the beginning of my new career :)

“Check out this gorgeous rock Bryan!” said Freddy as he held out a stone he found on the beach as we were resting in between our scuba dive sessions. I glanced over at the rock in his hand – it’s just an ordinary rock, not the diamond I had imagined. 

Freddy then turns his gaze towards the end of the beach and sets off flipping rocks after rocks on an endlessly rocky Greek beach. Much like a tale of Frenchman’s romantic fervor, Freddy’s infatuation is one not with humans but for rocks. I have never seen someone with as much passion for rocks as he had.

When we returned to the dive shop and washed ourselves, I noticed something that I didn’t see before. The garden where we washed off was made from the rocks Freddy and his mates had picked up. White stones mixed with obsidian rocks formed a beautiful base for the shower; flat granites paved the steps into the shop; and limestones outlined the herb gardens. For the first time I noticed the meticulous touches in this dive shop; an elegance that lit up the dive experience that I had never sensed in other shops. 

Then I realized something – Freddy wasn’t just picking pretty rocks, he was building this garden.

What had synchronicity brought in front of me this time (it led me to a bouquet previously)?

—

Story one – wisdom of following your heart

A few days earlier, I had just arrived in the Greek island of Paros and met up with my friend who’d been traveling in Greece for a month. This was a much needed break–in NYC, we were both exhausted from all the socializing and external stimuli. We both were withering away from the disconnect from nature and the ocean (we both are avid divers). When I saw the crystal clear water of the Aegean seas, I understood why so many movies and epics were set in this place. Greek islands are captivating.

One evening, as we sat at a beachside tavern enjoying the sunset, Greek wine, and local delicacies, we delved into deep conversations about family, relationships, careers, and our personal journeys.

Suddenly a voice interrupted, “May I join your conversation?”

I turned around. The voice was from an old lady sitting next to us. She was holding a book on the Gospel of Thomas – the gnostic book banished in the orthodox Christendoms. She introduced herself and said she couldn't help herself from jumping in after overhearing our conversations on life. 

The lady shared her life story of how she ended up in Greece. Turns out, she, like us, had a mid-life crisis about her unfulfilling corporate career in NY. She left it all behind with her husband and moved to Greece in the 80’s (she was the real OG of nomading). Her journey was one filled with ups and downs–exploring the King’s Chamber in the Pyramid in Egypt, her husband passing after a terminal illness,  overcoming her grief; becoming a renowned author on topics of spirituality (hence the Book on Gospel of Thomas).

Before leaving, she left us with a message: “Follow your heart and it will take you to places you can’t even imagine”.

Like Yoda, this mysterious lady appeared out of nowhere, left us with a message that struck a resonating chord in me, and disappeared into the mist (well, the beach to be precise). 

Following one’s heart, eh?

Scratching my head, I think I know what that means, but my heart still can’t quite comprehend the message. 

Is this another sign from synchronicities of the universe?

Story 2 – the stone garden and the trio crew

After Paros, we moved to the island of Milos for scuba diving, the main event of our trip. There we met the crew members of the dive shop: Giannis, the elder OG shop owner who brought scuba diving to the Greek island; Freddie, a mid-aged man who is the instructor (and is fascinated with rocks); and Paul, the young apprentice who is going through the rigorous training to be a certified instructor. 

The three of them took my friend and I on a few diving trips. The dives were spectacular. What was more intriguing however, was the composition of this unique crew and how seamlessly they complimented each other.

Giannis, also a Yoda-like figure, captained the boat and showed everyone unforgettable diving experiences (drove me to the perfect spot for this drone shot); after every trip, he silently goes into the garden and waters his exotic herbs. Freddy, the main instructor, takes care of customers and, in his spare time, finds and collects rocks for his boss’s garden. Paul, the youngest of the trio, and the trainee, helps with the grunt work around the shop and the boat>; he adds his exuberant and jolly energy to the place.

United by their love for the ocean and diving, this diverse, multi-generational crew forms an unexpectedly harmonious team. Their complementary skills and infectious enthusiasm breathe life into the shop, creating an electric atmosphere. Each member, following their heart's true north, found their way to this place, and their collaboration birthed a tranquil stone garden.

As I watched these individuals work in perfect harmony, I couldn't help but reflect on the corporate world I'd left behind. The contrast was stark and revealing. Here, before my eyes, unfolded the very essence of genuine teamwork–a symphony of their individual passions and distinct personalities. Is this what following one’s heart can lead to and produce?

The old lady’s words resurfaced in my mind.

—

As I reflect on my journey through the Greek islands, I'm struck by the profound impact of these seemingly random encounters and experiences. What began as a simple desire to escape the chaos of New York City and reconnect with nature has transformed into a deeply meaningful odyssey of self-discovery. 

The universe, in its mysterious ways, presented me with a series of synchronicity events: the spiritual wisdom bestowed by the old lady, the teamwork of the crew members, and the serene stone garden manifested by their passions. Each of these encounters presented me with signs and confidence to find and sail towards my north star.

Following one’s heart is the way to one’s true north.

@sabrina.ngocim shaking lmfao #nyc #dating #single #datingadvice

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I looked at the video, “Ya, that’s the girl who hit on me in Central Park”

“Omg! This is really you! I saw this girl on TikTok talking about hitting on a guy in Central Park by asking him for a dog poop bag and going on a date with him!”

A few days later, I shared my TikTok infamy story with a friend who flew into NYC from Paris, and my friend’s eyes were bewildered. 

“Wait, I just saw a viral TikTok video about a girl picking up a guy in Central Park. That’s you!?” I stared back at him, not registering how he could have seen the same video when he’s on the other side of the ocean.

At that moment, I finally understood what it means to have gone “viral”. Not me directly – I don’t have TikTok – but indirectly. What are the odds that my friends found out that I was the subject of the viral TikTok video in the billions of videos uploaded every day?

Meaning in the coincidences

Synchronicity – a term coined by psychologist godfather Carl Jung  – is a singular event that cannot be explained by cause and effect, but rather by a meaningful coincidence. The story goes like this:

During a therapy session with Carl Jung, a rational patient recounted a dream in which she was given a golden scarab, a symbol of transformation. As she described her dream, Jung heard a tapping at the window and opened it to find a real scarabaeid beetle, which closely resembled the golden scarab of her dream. Handing the beetle to his patient, Jung announced, "Here is your scarab," highlighting a striking example of synchronicity. This event helped bridge the gap between the patient’s rational mind and the symbolic, deeper aspects of her psyche, enhancing her therapeutic journey

Days later, I found myself holding the most beautiful bouquet in my hand. Never had I thought I’d touch anything flower related – I thought they were a waste of money. But I found myself at this girl’s apartment, helping her produce bouquets and fulfill her hundreds of orders she’s gotten for her flower hobby business – a result of her TikTok video going viral. As I was helping cutting papers and ribbons, I listened to her backstory of why and how she started her flower business: she made flowers for herself because her ex-boyfriend wouldn’t buy her flowers, and she started making them for her friends and now the lucky moms. 

Here I was – many articles on my struggle of my career and finding my passion – I was in awe of the prettiest bouquet I’ve ever seen in my life and inspired by her origin story. I was searching for those whose pursue their passions as career, and a TikTok video lead me here.

There was no way these events could have been planned out from the get-go; rather, these were randomly coincidental events brought the bouquet to my world. Synchronicity at play.

Luck – turning synchronicity to our favor

If synchronicity shows to us that coincidence may not just be random events, then is that so for luck?

Richard Wiseman, a psychologist conducting extensive research on the concept of luck, ran an experiment involving a newspaper. Participants were asked to count the number of photographs inside the newspaper. Unknown to them, the newspaper included a message partway through that read, "Stop counting, tell the experimenter you have seen this and win $250." This message was large enough to notice easily, but only the people who self-identified as lucky typically noticed it; those who considered themselves unlucky skipped it and kept counting. 

Signs and coincidences are all around us, but only those who are open can see them and bring meaning to them. We have agency and control over how much luck we have and can spot the coincidences that are meaningful and not mere random chances.

For a long time, coming from an engineering discipline where I indexed on rationalism, I’d shrugged at synchronicity and labeled them random chances. I was fixated by my own efforts – aiming after fantasies, making the most money, demanding promotions – and shut off the idea to let synchronicities, luck, and serendipity take its course. In doing so, I cut off the coincidences of luck, and, like the unlucky ones in Wiseman’s experiment, kept grinding endlessly. No wonder I ended up a machine – void of soul and the blessings of luck.

Since then I have relaxed from my hyper deterministic approach and opened up to more chances. With a work of art in my hand and listening to an inspiring story that I needed, perhaps the virality of the TikTok video was synchronicity in orchestration. No longer do I see flowers as a waste of money; instead, the beauty of the bouquet is a symbol and a catalyst for more synchronicity, serendipity, and luck, bringing smiles and unforeseeable changes to those who received them. I, too, wonder how this bouquet can open up new paths in my world. I don’t know, but at least I know I’ll bring the inspiration from its beauty wherever I go next. I just need to open up my attitudes and choices and let synchronicity take its course.

Here I was – a good 15 years into my software engineering career – I found myself staring at screens of code that looked like hieroglyphics and my fingers resisting typing another stroke on the keyboard. The product specs drained the soul out of my life, and I just don’t care about pumping out anymore code.

The irony is that coding is my sole means of living – it paid me handsomely, affording me a luxurious lifestyle where I can buy any gadgets I want and travel to places I desire – now sucks the life out of my soul. I had built a life on a trade that I have 0 passion for.

How did I end up here?

I’ve always been good at engineering. I was able to pass my engineering courses with ease (with an unhealthy dose of last minute cramming of spark notes and red bulls). I could bruteforce my way through algorithm interviews like a machine and landed lucrative software jobs. My career in the tech industry looked bright, so I thought. I just need to  keep brute forcing my way through and up.

Until I met my colleague Saurabh. Saurabh was a talented engineer, like most engineers I met throughout my career. But he’s different – he was able to draft up architecture diagrams on the fly, tackle difficult situations, and bring people from all corners of the company together. I often stood behind him with my jaws dropped, simply in awe at what he’s able to do.  He had this fire within him and things lit up whenever he went. 

He was passionate about his work. He was a magician. 

Looking at myself, everything seemed like a tiresome grind. Then something occurred to me – I had no fire nor magic, for I had become a machine.

THE PERILS OF SUPPRESSING YOUR HEART

Growing up in a single-parent Chinese household, I was ingrained to maximize financial outcomes above all else. I studied engineering, finance, and business with the desire to make money. Choices and decisions are made based on the formula of “if this makes money do. If not, skip”

The chase of more money, promotion, status, and lifestyle upgrades gave life to a maelstrom within me. I jumped into a career in software engineering because that paid handsomely, and chose companies that paid the most. Even finding dates came down to the rubric of what school she went to and what job she had. The tunes of romantic love, doing what I’m passionate about, exploring the arts, are cute but ultimately unprofitable fairy tales and destined to be skipped. Thus, I keep grinding, hustling, churning out code like a robot on an assembly line.

Until one point, no matter how many dollar signs are in front of me, I had no pulse to inch a step forward. This is how I ended up in this predicament

REDISCOVERING THE TUNES OF MY MAGIC

Is it ever possible for me to be like Saurabh and bring forth my own fire and magic to the world? I set out to find out for myself.

—

We each have our own unique frequencies that resonate with us, but do we know what they are?

I don’t, or I don’t know the difference between what jolts my dopamine (ie, doom scrolling Twitter) vs what resonates with me deeply. Until one day I saw the “tuning fork resonance” and a light bulb popped in my head

Metaphorically, there are “tuning forks” within us, and to find out which ones vibrate, it requires us to “strike” and listen in on whether there is any resonance. When we suppress our hearts, we suppress the tune that tells us that something’s resonating. If we never take the action to strike, we’ll never find the thing that creates resonance within us.

Looking at that video, I realized I had done two stupid things in my life – numbing all tunes in my heart (for money) and being a world class procrastinator (laziness) to do new things. In other words, I didn’t listen to what resonated with me, and I didn’t try new things to see what I like. No wonder I got stuck in my predicament – a trade that I have no passions for.

Time to experiment!

With that revelation, I knew I had to do something to A) try a bunch of things to see if what resonates and B) tuning in to what resonates within me.

I didn’t know what to work on, but I ran experiments based on this core principle – I will act on what excites me, and do it at least 3 times.

I started with cooking as my first experiment. Cooking was never a passion of mine; it was born out of necessity and my dismay of paying $25 dollars for subpar Taiwanese beef noodles. Desiring to make it better, I scoured YouTube and the internet for the best recipes, and after years of trial-and-error, I perfected the best noodles on the planet. Every time I slurp down my own noodles, I am in awe of what I’ve made. This brought immense excitement and joy, and the more I do it, the more I am in love with the journey of cooking and the fruits of my labor.

I started hosting events as my second experiment. As a person who had no social networks in NYC and dislikes mindless socializing, I had to do my own events to meet people and make friends. First event I hosted was a dinner party. After shilling to everyone about my awesome beef noodle, I had to back up my bragging. It was scary at first to host a dinner party – I didn’t have the right tables and plates and definitely didn’t know how to cook for 10+ people. Guests came, slurped my noodles, and raved about it. I loved to see the reaction on their faces.

There were moments where I wanted to give up – people flaking last minute, piles of dishes and food waste to clean, I getting eviscerated by my own guest – but no matter the sweat rolling down my face, the gunk in my fingers, I loved every moment of it. 

In doing these, I discovered that I really loved cooking and hosting and bringing people together. 

The lesson I got from these experiments is that, to bring out the magic within me, it is paramount to tune in on what brings out the joy and love I have of the craft regardless of circumstances and outcomes. I simply found what sings to my heart and enjoyed the process and the journey.

—

Thinking back to Saurabh, he was a magician at coding.

Much as I tried, it was not my calling. 

From these experiments, I’ve discovered my magic – cooking, hosting, bringing people together. I can conjure up amazing things to service the world.

I am a Magician.

Years ago, I remember watching a Youtube video (fyi, I think I am addicted to Youtube) of a street food vendor serving corn, and I was thoroughly captivated.

Nothing extraordinary, just a man serving corn while drumming along as he stirs and beats on the equipment with his spoon. But I was strangely mesmerized like a dog in front of tennis ball. It was just corn, but it is more than just corn – the man drummed beats of magic into the corn. 

It reminded me of the few street food vendors that breathed the same magic to the banana-roti on the streets of Bangkok. The man flattening a dough of roti with precision, slicing bananas evenly, and spreading nutella. In a few min, a plate of hot, creamy banana roti was served on to my hand and the chef returns to cook the next order. It was magical.

“Isn’t it awesome to see one bringing such excitement and beats to their work?” so I thought.

Bullshit work turns you into Zombie

Looking at the jobs I’ve had over the years, I can’t say I breathe magic like this into my own work. In fact, they were often the opposite – the passion and joy were drained by some invisible vampire called bullshit work.

When I started my first job, my boss would morph from the shadows behind me and breathe down my neck fumes of terror. Years later, I find myself in high-level meetings with company leaders scheming ways to win market shares by moving boxes in PowerPoints and editing numbers in Excel. In the last tech startup, I find myself tasked with reinventing Auth0 while the company fights for its survival.

Bullshit work drained the joy and passion out of my life. Putting up with bullshit, even 1%, eventually leads to complete erosion of my passion for work.

After rage-quitting from my job and the industry, I found myself a walking husk – I don’t know what I want anymore and what brings me excitement, and no amount of digits in my bank statement can help. Neither does jolting it with drinks, loud music, nor neon lights.

Is it ever possible for me to do jobs like the man making corn? Will I ever be able to breathe magic in my work and career, like the street food vendors I experienced in Bangkok? 

Bring joy and love into the moment makes magic

In my long sabbatical from the corporate world, I started hosting dinners and cooking for my guests. Cooking was never my hobby – it came about as a necessity because I didn’t want to pay $25 for a subpar noodle in NYC. The acts of buying groceries, washing vegetables, chopping, hours of mixing and cooking, plating, and cleaning up are chores that numbs my soul. But I discovered something strange – the more I do this – hosting, cooking – the more I brought my own beats to it. Unbeknownst to me, I was dancing with some tunes I was blasting as I did the chores.

When guests munched on their first bite -- the sourness of the garlic stir fried chinese pickle, the spiciness of the sichuan tripe, tender soft chunks of beef, all mixed in a bone broth of tomato and soy sauce with the northern noodle -- they exclaimed “oh my god, this is the best beef noodle I ever had!” “the meat is melting in my mouth!," “I’m gonna add 5 stars to your apartment on Google Map.”

I delivered my magic, and everyone’s loving the taste of it.

For the first time in a long while, I can feel the passion and joy in me when I cook. Chopping vegetables became drumming on on the cutting board; cooking sauces was mixing elixir of deliciousness. Every step in the process I brought a beat to it, and with it I created a work of art. I have no aspiration to be a Michelin-starred chef, but in cooking I felt the complete joy and excitement of the art. I lost myself in the process and hours flew by like minutes.

Is this what it feels like to love what you do? 

The sages of our times have commended us to do work we love:

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do” – Steve Jobs

I’ve heard these quotes many times since I graduated from college, but they were so elusive. After decades of un-inspiring jobs and shattered dreams, I couldn’t figure out how to love the work I do.

The video of the man making beats and corn, and my own venture into cooking, showed me what it is like to bring love into you work. And when I did that, I produced my best work.

In high school, I remember vividly I stood by the edge of the dance floor at dances, too shy to step onto the floor and too shy to ask anyone to dance. Decades later, the same same dragon still haunts me when no one shows up to my parties or events — the fear of humiliation and rejection engulfs me like breaths of hellfire raining down from the skies. 

The Guy Who Started the Dance Party

Years ago, I remember watching a video of a guy starts dance party

and it changed my life. This video is just one guy dancing ridiculously by himself in a park.

“Is he not ashamed? My eyes hurt looking at the way he dances”, I thought to myself as I was watching the video. But soon, one guy joined him and started dancing ridiculously as well. More people joined in, then more, and a party got started. One guy dancing ridiculously in the park got a whole crowd going.

How many times have I seen empty dance floors with crowds around it? Everyone is waiting for the party to get going, but no one wants to be first. How many times have I been the bystander – just looking from the outside and waiting for someone else to start the party? 

Party of one – yourself – is All You Need

This video struck a profound chord in me – no matter how ridiculous one looks, no matter what judgments may come, a party of one is all you need to melt away any anxiety.

When I was 25, I had an opportunity to take a break from work and embark on a Europe backpacking trip. Thinking about the adventures paved an exciting world beyond the dragon, but I was second guessing myself because I couldn’t find anyone to join me. Am I going to eat meals all by myself on this trip? How can I handle my own company? The thought of being alone in foreign countries quickly dampened the excitements I had, and fears of a lonesome trip ensued. 

But, somewhere deep in my mind, the ridiculous man from the video started dancing, and in my head I saw myself as that man.

“I’ll be fine, I’ll just entertain myself on this trip,” I reassured myself.

I bought a one-way ticket to Spain, and a lifelong passion for solo travels was born. In a decade, I’ve ventured to 50+ countries, experienced unimaginable travel stories (I slept in a make-shift tent on the roof of a skyscraper), and made lasting memories with new friends I made on my adventures.

Whenever I am sensing social insecurity raising – feeling FOMO on a lonely Friday night in NYC, friends flaking on me in last minute for our scheduled events – a figure starts dancing ridiculously in my head, reminding me that a party of one – myself – is all I need to have a great time regardless of circumstances.

Enjoying My Own Party of One

At the beginning of 2024, I re-committed myself to this idea:

• even with 0 views, I still write and post my content on X. 

• even when no one signed up for my events, I still held them with a smile. 

• even when my ideas are scoffed at, I still pursue them with gratitude.

Reminding myself that a Party of One is all I need gave me the confidence to overcome any social insecurities and enjoy my own company in what matters to me. It freed me from the need to be validated by others and the expectation of outcome, and I can simply be me. 

The results had been surprising to say the least. I’ve hosted a few events – Tech Meetups, Writing Club, Central Park Picnic, Dinner Potluck, Hiking Group – as a party of one, and surprisingly even more people showed up. Just like the ridiculous guy in the video, the party of one morphed into bigger parties without my intentions. I enjoyed the good companies and most importantly, I enjoyed every moment – with or without anyone. 

I enjoyed my own Party of One just like the ridiculous dancing guy in the video and parties got going, and the Dragon of Social Insecurity is slain.

—

PS: I took a long break from writing because I was paralyzed by this dragon of insecurity. But now, as a Party of One, I am back.

Hi friends, today is the last day of 2022, and I thought I’d wrap up the recap and reflect on what happened in 2022 (and set aspirations for 2023). Here we go

🥂Thank you 2022 for such an epic ride!

• What’s the theme of 2022 — rollercoaster ride to find myself

• Words to describe 2022 — Courage, Discovery, Surrender, Reinvent

• My wildest moment — traveled to 15 cities in this year! What an epic journey!

• My 3 proudest accomplishments

  • Taking the hard journey to find purpose in my life. After going to many places, conferences, reading a bunch of self-help and hypnosis books, trying a bunch of things that seemed like dead-ends, I finally discovered my purpose, my ikigai — to become a creator and explore and share my curiosities and personalities.

  • Becoming a writer. Writing and English always were my weakest subjects. I remember turning blank pages for my English classes, but this year writing became more natural for me. Thanks to Write of Passage and the awesome people I met there, I wrote more and grew confident in my own writing abilities. It is an outlet for my creativity and I can be creative.

  • Getting my puppy Yuki and taking care of her. First 2 months were extremely hard and I definitely had puppy blues moments, but in the end it is a rewarding experience. I’m glad i made the commitment.

• My biggest challenge — reinventing myself radically when I lost my savings in FTX.

• My 5 biggest lessons

  • 1) The reality we experience is based on our own mind. And the mind is malleable and we have the power to mold it. So take ownership of my mind and I can change my reality.

  • 2) The key to changing the things we experience is self-image. Change the way we see ourselves, change our reality. So I’ve committed myself to be a person who employs positive self-talk only.

  • 3) Tragedies and setbacks are opportunities to reinvent and upgrade myself. I can cry about losing my savings, or use this opportunity to reinvent myself and make a comeback. I choose the latter.

  • 4) Believe in positive outcomes. There is a chaos monkey inside my head that’s always screaming and fearing. But if I don’t pay it any attention and instead shift my focus towards positive outcomes, it quiets down.

  • 5) Self-agency. I got angry at my puppy a few times, should I really get angry at a baby who doesn’t know anything? I am the one responsible for her training and subsequent behaviors, so I should look at myself in the mirror. The agency is always in my hands

• The biggest gift — my puppy Yuki

🚀 and here I come, 2023!

• Main Theme — build my digital business and build 100k revenue by end of 2023. It’s do or die now, time to suit up and become a professional

• 4 Areas to focus on:

  • Business — Commit to building my digital content business around my interests. The tracks I am going to focus on:

    1. Track 1 — Building my audience on Twitter, Youtube, newsletter via a content factory

    2. Track 2 — laser focus on getting diving into topics of my interests:

       1. How to develop AI proficiency in the age of generative AI (ChatGPT, DALLE, etc)

       2. How to become a better content creator and make a living out of it.

       3. How to distill and synthesize insights

       4. How to become a better educator

       5. How to master the mind, behavior, and social relationships

  • Brain:

    • More organization, more knowledge synthesis

    • More meditation, more flow

  • Body:

    • more exercise daily

  • Behavior

    • more relaxation, more focus, more intention, more play, more dance

    • more meaningful relationships and friendships

    • more leadership, discipline, confidence

Cheers everyone! And may the odds tilt in your favor in 2023!

It's 7am. I looked at my watch and it's time for me to hit the gym. But my body didn't want to get up. I can just snooze the alarm and eventually skip just for today. Tomorrow I'll get back to it. After all, it's just skipping a day, no biggies right?

After a long life struggle with building habits and the discipline to stick with them, I can now honestly tell myself -- skipping a day is a big deal. Because I know the hard truth -- the subpar results that I am getting are the direct consequences of skipping one thing here and there. Eventually, I became a ship with many holes on the bottom -- energy, efforts, dreams leak from the cheese holes of skips.

In reflecting how 2022 went, I've made strides but also got sidetracked many times. I had a system to ensure I steer the ship in the right direction. But that system had many holes in it and it fell apart eventually.

🚢 Let’s take a look at how my ship is leaking

In 2022 , I set a goal to cut back on social media consumption -- yet I am still a slave to the algorithms. Looking at the charts from RescueTime, I’ve experienced major regressions of the red bars which meant “distracting” times. And I know it is actually much worse than that.

I also wanted to publish videos and grow my Youtube channel, yet I've only made 2 episodes thus far. In looking at my task (and habits) tracking app TickTick, things died down towards 2nd half of the year.

I wanted to become a Life Coach making $5k a month. So far it’s 0 client and 0 dollar.

The lessons learned here are that I need to concentrate my attention and efforts into a single place where I can view and review my goals with a religious fervor. Otherwise, any momentum and energy built up would leak from my ship.

To be honest, I was using 3 different apps to track my goals and habits, and most of the time I wasn’t even looking at the metrics at all. The results definitely speak for themselves.

Rebuilding my ship to be airtight and leakproof

I've come to the conclusion that a few things are required to build an airtight ship (my life operating system):

1. Building the Dashboard of my Life OS. This consists of tracking how I am spending my time (RescueTime), my daily habits (TickTick), my daily + weekly + monthly + quarterly + yearly goals (Notion), my personal development areas (TBD), and my spending and finances (personalfinance)

2. View and review the dashboard as #1 priority . These metrics aren't useful if I don't look at them!

3. Upgrade my self-image to be a person who never skips a rep.

4. Set a low bar for a rep but a high bar for completion.

5. Build my victory rituals every time I stick with my habits. And store that in my Victory Journal.

I’d like to reword James Clear’s quote:

In other words, to get to the destiny of my aspirations, I need my ship to not leak. My new life OS rules are:

• Rule 1 -- Design and Build a 100% airtight ship for my life

• Rule 2 -- Make sure the ship is 100% airtight

• Rule 3 -- Stick with rule 1 and 2.

With this in mind, I am giving the last 2 weeks of 2022 a final push. Become a person who never skips a day.

--

(if this resonated with you, I'd love to hear about how you are making yourself also an airtight ship who never skips a day)

Falling flat on my face

A few months ago, I did something really out of my comfort zone – I started hosting my own communities. I had just started an online writing cohort and I thought it’d be cool to bring people together and share our experiences. I volunteered myself to host Lunch & Learns, an 1 hour session where people can come and share their experiences. This is gonna be my first time hosting online events outside of work.

With much enthusiasm, I posted my events to the community and prepared for the event. 

When I launched the event – 1 person showed up. That’s right, out of 300+ people, 1 person showed up. I managed to put up a straight face and powered through the hour, and when the session ended, I was demoralized. But I told myself to keep going.

For the next 3 weeks, I hosted a few more events. 5 people showed up next. Then 10 people. Then 3. 

People came and went, and in the end I was standing there looking at the Zoom meeting with myself.

“Herding cats is surely a thankless and joyless job” I thought to myself.

Then I hosted a few different things – building a discord community, hosting masterminds, etc. These started with great enthusiasm, but in the end they became ghost towns.

I definitely need to tweak some things, but the problems lie much deeper than the my community building skills. These experiences reminded me of something hidden within my self-image – my high school experience. 

How my high school experience still haunted me

In the last post, I talked about how our own self-image is getting us the results and experiences we are getting. 

Growing up, I wasn’t exactly a shy kid. I was an introvert, but when I was in Taiwan – where I lived until 11 yo – I never felt threatened or withdrawn. However, when I moved to the US, things changed. I left the comforts of my old environment – friends, school, culture – and adapting to the new environment was difficult. In high school I was severely bullied and harassed because I didn’t speak English well, and I was outcasted into the FOB corner (fresh off the boat, then a derogatory term for immigrants who don’t speak fluent English). I wanted friends, and instead was faced with sneer, derision, and ostracism. 

I’m 37 now and high school was eons ago, yet somehow this memory still lives with me. It was a part of my identity and self-image, and I’ve been carrying this all my life. 

Deep down, I’m still the same 16 yo kid who wanted friends. When I tried to host the community events and build my own friend circle, this kid was running the show. When people moved on to the next best thing, the same fate faced that kid now as it did back 20 years ago. 

The strongest force in human psychology is the need to remain consistent with how we see ourselves

This statement rings eerily true for the 16 y.o. me as the 37 y.o. me. 

So finally I became aware of my own self-image and how it had hindered me all my life. If I desire a different result and experience, it is not enough for me to change just what’s on the outside. I must change the person inside. 

But how?

Well, the first thing I can do is to assure this 16 yo kid within me, “You are ok. No matter what happens, I will be your friend. I will always show up to your parties”

And just like that, a life-long void deep within me is filled.

Assure and Accept the Person You see in the Mirror

Self-assurance. That’s what I just gave myself.

What the heck is self-assurance? What does that even mean?

Definition of assurance is: a positive declaration intended to give confidence; a promise

Self-assurance… is giving confidence, a promise, to yourself.

We all have experienced this at some point in our life – whatever we seek from others, it will never fill in the void in us. The only person who can ever fill that void is ourselves. Not your mom, not your spouse, not your imaginary bf/gf, not online community fans, not God. 

That responsibility lies with us and us only.

When I started giving myself the things I was seeking from others, the void was filled. I became complete. I can look at the person in the mirror and accept him for what he is. Nothing more, nothing less, as is. 

Assure myself. Accept myself. With this realization, I freed myself from the old self-image that had held me back. I no longer needed external validations because I can give all the assurances I need. 

I took another look at the person in the mirror, and this time I gave him a  smile and a smirk – we can tackle the world together. Adventures and challenges await us, and this time I won’t be demoralized.

PS. I am putting together an experience to re-engineering the self-image within us so we can get more life we wanted. Stay tuned for more!

I ran out of steam. After just putting out 2 episodes, I stopped my podcast efforts. Isn’t this what I always wanted? After all, I’d already gotten all the gears – microphones, cameras, the software – and a huge list of topics I wanted to dive into. But after seeing myself on camera, I hit a big resistance – I couldn’t quite put a finger on what it is, but I can feel the deep, nasty phobia clawing at me.

Little did I know, but when I was attempting to produce my video podcast, I recalled the memories of my high school days where I was often publicly harassed and humiliated by my peers. As I was seeing myself on camera, I felt super awkward and the memories of high school returned to me. “This is so embarrassing; I am not a people person, who am I kidding to build up a social media presence?” I told myself and dropped my efforts of being a podcaster.

Have you seen someone defend their identity tooth and nail? A obese person who is trying to lose weight will sometimes say self-fulfilling words like, "I'm just like that, I'm fat, i've done everything and it doesn't work for me" They tried to change the outside without changing the inside, and soon revert back to be consistent with what their self-images are.

Unbeknownst to me, I was walking down the same self-defeating path. I attempted to change the outside – producing podcasts – but soon my inner identity came screaming out and stopped my efforts right on the tracks.

The strongest force in human psychology is the need to remain consistent with how we see ourselves.

In other words, the results we experience are outward expression of our inner self-image. In this case, memories of my high school experiences won. The fears of public humiliation took over and stopped me from making more videos.

When we look in the mirror, we not only see the physical reflection of ourselves but also ourselves in our mind. We see that person with interpretations we deemed true, no matter how biased we may be.

Share

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I was never a morning person. Let alone a morning "work out" person. But things changed when I was living in the suburbia in San Francisco Bay Area. Life was too boring at the time with nothing to do past 9pm. So I slept at 10pm and got up at 5am. With a lot of time on hand before I need to hop to work, I decided to head to the gym and see what happens. I worked out and got done before 8pm. I felt superb, and I continued this habit.

Little did I know I was slowly reconditioning my own identity. Instead of dreading the mornings and working out, I slowly became the "morning workout" person. This identity carried with me without my life, even to this day. Whenever I sleep in late, I felt guilty. And even if i skip many workouts in the row, I still think of the bar as 6am working out. Eventually I'd roll myself out of bed early in the morning and hit the gym, no matter what.

The strongest force in human psychology is the need to remain consistent with how we see ourselves. In this case, I became a morning workout person and that's when I go workout.

Our self image can be the chains that hold us back. But it can also be the key that liberates us.

To get the results we desire, we must re-engineer our self-image. To get the life we want, we must become the image we see in our minds. To dream the life we desire, we must be the image in our minds.

As we approach the end of 2022, let's ask ourselves 3 questions,

1. "Have I experienced all that I desired this year?"

2. "How did my self-image limit the height to which I can fly?"

3. "In 2023, who do I need to become to experience the life I desire"

(next post: How I re-engineered my self image and became a shameless writer)

“Mommy, did you know dogs age differently than us?”

A kid in the park announced to her mommy as she was petting my 4 month old cavapoo puppy in Central Park.

“1 year for dogs is 15 for human, then 9, then 5…”

Her mom looked at me with a little smirk and replied to her daughter, “no hon, every 1 year in dogs age equals 7 in humans”.

There’s nothing unusual about this conversation. I knew that every 1 year in my puppy equals to 7 years, so right now, at 4 month old, she’s going through her “kindergarten” phase. Which really means I can kick back, relax, and not worry too much about proper behavioral training until she’s 1 year old.

But something kicked me in the head — what if the kid is right? What if I am (as is with her mom) simply outdated?

“You know, she might just have the latest data on this” I said to the mom. Her mom simply shrugged it off and moved on walking, while the kid was begging to have her point made.

Later when I went back home, I googled “dog age to human age” and I was blown away by the stats:

• 1st dog year = 15 human years. 2nd dog year = 9 human years. Every year after = 5 human years

• The long-believed “1 dog year = 7 human year” is a simple arithmetic exercise by referring to human lifespan (humans average life span is 70, a dog’s is 10, 70 / 10 = 7)

With this new insight, the need to put my puppy through proper behavior training just got more urgent. I don’t have one year to train her through her development stage, I have about 6 months.

Isn’t it funny that this 6 year old kid busted our long held bias, yet some of us won’t budge with this new data?

How much biases are so ingrained in us? How do we become aware of this?

How can we keep our minds open and be willing to embrace new information regardless of the source?

And kids, they may open up our minds, because it is quite true our experiences in life can calcify our minds.

Strangely enough, this experience ties back to my post-FTX experience (and here’s an update):

Last week I published an article  on how to find self love from this debacle. Losing my savings definitely sucked and I was swept into a whirlpool of negative self talk. But this experience forced me to find a way out. To pull myself out of the rut, I began applying positive self-talk and self-love to myself every day, especially before I fall asleep and right when I wake up. 

After a week of doing this, I experienced something quite miraculous. My life long negative attitudes were eradicated and replaced with optimism and zest. How funny it took only a week to eliminate these mental garbage and rewire my head. Now, I can’t wait to get started on my creator path to rebuild my life (and income) back.

For the first time, that bright future and life I so desire are possible again:

• Want a loving spouse? It is possible

• Want to quit your 9-5 job and build a biz that frees you financially? Yep

• Want to experience the life and activities you’ve always dreamed of? It can be done.

All it really takes is shifting my perspectives and a little mindset engineering, and all becomes possible.

Why do I say that when I haven’t proven this theory out? Because the kid in the park showed me the dangers of self-limiting beliefs — if I brushed her off, I’d miss a crucial development period for my puppy due to my own pridefulness.

For myself, is it possible, then, to make a comeback from my FTX experience with my savings gone? To start a new career as a creator when all I knew was software engineering? To regain my old lifestyle back, where I was traveling freely and enjoying restaurants?

I believe so, and this is the quest I am embarking on. 

Next, my first task is to reforge and upgrade my own self-image because I realized the reality I am experiencing is the result of my self-image – if I held the negative self-talk attitude, I’d cast myself into the abyss. Thus the task at hand is to reconstruct my self-image to be more positive and empowering. Just like my experience at the park, I can choose to be open to what the kid was suggesting, or stick with what I was conditioned by.

If you want to upgrade your self-image to empower yourself and life, follow my journey on my blog and my youtube channel. I will be posting my updates there. 

Just like that, SBF robbed my savings, my dreams, and my dignity. The savings that I had been frugal all my life – skipping fancy restaurants for cheap Chinese takeouts (they are good tho), living with 4 roommates in a cramped SF apartment – all robbed just like that.

Devastation, hatred, fury were raging in my body. I can’t forgive these crooks and their buddies for robbing my freedom and my life. 

These emotions then quickly devolved into fear, panic, and self-blame. 

“How can I be so careless? How can I screw things up this badly?”

Feeling naked for the first time in my life, before I knew it, I was beating myself up into a deep downward spiral. 

— 

I was stuck in this rut for a few days as I watched more of this drama unfolding in realtime on Twitter, but eventually I knew I had to stop and climb out of this hole, or else I’d be consumed by the never-ending negativity that had engulfed so many other victims. 

I returned to the one true thing I know – meditation, a practice that I had long ignored. After a full 30 min session, I was able to find solace in it, and strangely enough, a revelation popped into my head.

“Love yourself; Be kind to yourself”

This message hit me like a rock and knocked me out of the negative state. With that message, all my past journeys to find self love – to hypnosis conferences, meditation retreats, ayahuasca in Peru, and biblical teachings – all came back to me. Thus I began a quest to dig deeper into self-love and to apply it to myself.. 

Self Love Requires Consistent Practice

Self-love requires intentional practice because by default we are wired to be negative. This is due to our biological survival instinct – always looking out for threats to protect our physical and ego safety. In layman’s terms, negativity outweigh positivity by a factor of 5 to 1 (check out my hypnosis blog https://bryanliu.blog/stumbling-into-a-hypnosis-conference-changed-my-mind-literally/), so no wonder it is much easier to get into a downward spiral instead of an upward one. 

To help myself find more self love, I engineered and applied a simple process to myself to replace negativity with self-love.

These are the 5 techniques to I used to form self loving habits:

1. Break the state of my current thinking pattern. Quickest way to do so is by hacking the body with Power Poses. Hold your Power Pose for 10 secs and feel the change. (Power poses are like Superman poses)

2. Quiet my mind by shifting focus from the brain to the heart. Once the attention is on the heart, expand the conscious awareness to the universe and feel its majestic (I am just a speck of dust in the universe). Then draw in the feeling of love from the universe into my heart. 

3. Look down at my heart and smile. The only person who can love me is me. By smiling to my heart, I point the happy emotions from smiling right back at my heart. 

4. Anchor every inhale to breathing in love, and every exhale to spread love to others. What you give out you get in return, this is the third law of physics.

5. Apply positive affirming self-talk by saying “I am receiving love from the universe” and “Bryan (replace with your name), you are loved because I love you.”

Whenever I find myself stuck in a downward spiral of self negativity, I apply these techniques, and magically feeling of confidence courses through my body and melts away the negativity. Like the sunshine after the hurricane, self-love, self-respect, self-appreciation reveal themselves once the negativity clears away. And with that, I stopped beating myself over things I didn’t have control over and stopped being fixated on the loss.

Losing my savings with FTX sucked, but I can view it with love and realize that it is just a number in the bank account – I can always make more. Once I freed my attention from the traumatic event, I can free myself from being a victim and instead focus on empowering myself through self-love. In times like this, self-love is the one resource we can give ourselves and no one can rob that from us. 

If you find yourself often in a downward spiral, I hope you can find more self-love by applying these techniques. During these trying times, we can all love ourselves more.

Smile to Your Heart, my friends.

Subscribe now

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I wasn’t going to share my experience publicly but I did make a post on Reddit and have gotten quite a lot of responses (99% haters, but 1% reached out to me cuz they were also affected). It tells me many are suffering from this episode, and we need to support each other in times like this.

So, I’m going to write about my experience with FTX in 3 parts:

• Part 1 – Finding self love when you got robbed

• Part 2 – How I am turn this into a constructive and positive outcome

• Part 3 – What I learned about money

If this story resonates with you, pls comment below, I’d love to hear your story

Leave a comment

“Three, two, one, down we go,” the freediving coach announced. I took my last breath and dove down into the ocean.

This was my first time freediving, a diving sport that uses no air tanks and instead relies only on your lungs. My 10 year scuba diving experience prepared me very little for this because I always had air tanks and made diving a rather safe recreational water sport. But now, without the tanks, I have only 1 breath to dive down and back up. One mishap means drowning into the bottom of the sea.

As I dove into the ocean, I could sense the oxygen slowly depleting in my lungs the deeper I descended. When I felt my lungs were half way depleted, I turned around and prepared my ascension to the surface. But now, looking upwards, the surface looked much further than how my body registered the distance. Can I make it in time to the surface?

The gasp for air was real. My diaphragm was contracting and the urge to breathe was f-king suffocating. I kicked my fins to propel myself faster to the surface.

“Huuuah!” I gasped when I broke the surface, and the air had never tasted so refreshing.

As I was floating on the surface and returning back to normal breathing, I treasured this sense of weightlessness – the buoyancy of the ocean water carried my body, and the urge to preserve the one breath in my lungs shedded of all unnecessary thoughts and emotions. Freediving is not only an extreme sport, but it is also a spiritual moment to cleanse my mind and heart.

When I returned to shore and back to the dorm, I was savoring this transformative experience. Normally, I’d immediately reach out to my phone to share on all social media platforms my awesome diving experience. But this time, I resisted the urge because I enjoyed this sensation of “weightlessness”. I felt free. I felt in the present. And most profoundly, the epiphanies of what’s  important in my life surfaced one by one.

Air is precious, and as are all other necessities to ensure the living of my physical body. The quality of my relationships – with family, friends, and the world – becomes more important than quantity. And most importantly, time – specifically how I am spending it – became more treasured as I marched toward my late 30s. External expectations and rewards – that promotion, the title, the number in the bank account, the number of dates I’m getting, means much less now in comparison.

Remembering how much one breath mattered clears away the weights in the mind and reveals what truly matters in life.

Are you sinking by the weights of life? Do you remember what’s important in life?

Take a deep breath, and dive into the imaginary ocean with me. Remember how precious this one breath is. As you surface, let go of all the unnecessary weight you’ve accumulated.

Remember what matters.

"Bop!" I just popped a bottle of champagne, and with that I am drinking and toasting with my friend, an ex-colleague who had left the company earlier. We are celebrating my hitting the “send” button – sending in my letters of resignation.

The thrill is real and no joke. After fifteen years working professionally, I hadn't felt this liberated in ages. As I downed sips of champagne, we toasted to a bright future waiting for me down the line. The only problem is that I had no idea what I wanted to do, and the only thing I know is I didn’t want to return back to the tech industry.

Being a creator is a promising option, but is it really possible to make it a career? Can I stand out amongst the billions of creators in cyberspace? Can I make a living as a creator while finding fulfillment?

I know the stats are against me. On Youtube, there are 55 million channels (and growing fast), but 99.5% of them have less than 100k subscribers and I have to stand out from the crowd. Pareto law, the 80/20 rule, suddenly looks quite nice compared to the skewed landscapes of social media.

In the previous post, I revealed that the secret to finding our ikigai – fulfillment in career, our reason for being – lies in reversing our normal default pattern towards one that starts from serving the needs of others. Anchoring our career in this direction is important because it will reveal the key instruments to guide us to our ikigai – a compass, a telescope, an engine, and a flywheel. Let the voyage begin.

Compass of Blue Ocean – the destination of prosperity and abundance

The Blue Ocean, a term coined by author “Kim” in the book “Blue Ocean Strategy”, is the destination of opportunities and abundance where uncontested market spaces can be created and competition left in the dust. This is where we want to sail to by all means. The Red Ocean, on the other hand, is the default destination where competition is fierce and players are fighting to the death for scraps.

Every year 10,000 aspiring actors descend into Hollywood to chase their dreams of stardom. However, only 1% of the aspiring actors make it while others have to work menial part time jobs to make a living. Countless commencement speeches preached on “Don’t follow your Passion”, or “Don’t chase your dream” because doing so without means of making a living, or entering into fiercely competitive fields, is how most people end up in the graveyard of broken dreams – at the bottom of the Red Ocean.

To find the Blue Ocean, we must anchor our eyes on unmet needs of others and create economic opportunities by applying our unique creativities and capabilities. When this happens, new niches in the market are created and those with the capabilities can capture and dominate the space.

This is the harsh reminder for me to not lose sight of the Blue Ocean and to avoid misstepping into the Red Ocean at all cost. And with the Compass of Blue Ocean, I can navigate through the cloud of confusion

Feeling is the Secret Sensor

At the heart of the other 3 instruments – Vision, Mission, Career – is our feeling, our hearts. Fundamentally, inspiration, intuition, creativity, flow, love, passion are “feelings” and being in tune with these can guide us to discover our purpose, fulfillment, and natural talents.

However, in our modern society, we optimize our “analytical” side and often turn off (or tune down) our “feelings”; it is not a mystery when we don’t feel fulfilled because it has been turned off for too long.

I was a clear case in point. For years, I’ve suppressed my feelings and instead optimized the “analytical” side. Desiring to get into top tier tech companies, I switched off my heart so I can grind the soulless tech interviews, but I was competing with the best talents around the world in a zero-sum competition. Unbeknownst to me, I was slowly drifting into the Red Ocean and competing in soulless battles. All feeling of the heart was numbed and replaced with robot-like programs. No wonder I was lost and unfulfilled.

When we tune in with our feelings – what we are curious about, what we love, what feels “right” – we start off on the path towards fulfillment. Like a sensor picking up the subtle magnetic forces, our feelings guide us in the direction of fulfillment.

The Instruments of Vision, Mission, Career

When we apply our feelings to the needs of others, we generate a powerful feeling of caring and service. This leads to the Telescope of Vision – seeing the opportunities to serve the needs of others. Having a vision is important because it anchors us to the greater good. When storms come and obstacles get in our way, we can navigate through because we’ve established the vision on the destination and that will guide us through storms and obstacles.

When we combine the feelings of our hearts with what we care about and our skills, we create the Engine of Mission. Like a missionary, those who have the engine march forward towards their vision regardless of the circumstances. This is the mental game that gets us through the odyssey of our voyage.

When we combine together what we love doing, what we can be great at, and what drives our economic engine, we create the Flywheel of Career. This is a recipe for a great career where one can build a durable and long lasting career and blow past one’s competition (and get paid handsomely)

Onwards to the Blue Ocean!

Finally, with these 4 instruments in our hands, we can sail towards the Blue Ocean with confidence – with the compass guiding us, the telescope keeping our eye on the prize, the engine powering our ship, and the flywheel working our unique machinery.

As we navigate to and through the Blue Ocean, we’d find and capture opportunities that others can’t see or seize. We’d carve out and dominate a niche market by fulfilling the needs of others, doing what we love, doing what we are great at, and generating and capturing economic values. This is where we can find a fulfilling career – our ikigai.

Since  I’ve discovered the ikigai treasure map and turned around my ship, I am on my path towards finding my ikigai. No longer am I suppressing my feelings and competing in the Red Ocean; instead I am letting inspirations and intuition guide me towards the Blue Ocean. I have never felt more alive, electrified, and purposeful. Even though I am just starting my new creator journey, I am not afraid. For as long as I know I am helping others, continuously trying to bring more value to others, I know that will lead me towards a Blue Ocean. I no longer see myself needing to compete with billions of creators out there, for I know there are still unmet needs out there that require my unique experiences and talents to serve.

In the next post, I will dive deeper into these topics, and show you specifically how to find your strengths when you seem to have forgotten, how to find causes or domains you can anchor on, and how to build a monopoly by creating your Blue Ocean. Also I will share a few “Captain’s tips” to help you avoid common pitfalls.

(this is part 1 of a 3 part series)

Do you feel dissatisfied with your job? Are you itching to leave it all behind and wanting to do something that resonates with your soul? You are not alone. When the world was slowly returning back to normal post-Covid in 2021, a phenomenon happened. Workers were not coming back to the workplace, resulting in a massive labor shortage across all industries and functions. They called it – the Great Resignation.

I certainly was dissatisfied with my career. Fifteen some years after college, I have switched careers numerous times – a computer engineer (staple Asian male career); a futile attempt to break into the financial industry (then ‘08 happened); a marketer marketing tractors in rural China (how I ended up there is another bedtime story); a software engineer working at startups that imploded more spectacularly one after another. I was getting paid more and more, and yet  I was further and further from fulfillment. What went wrong?

Then, in 2021, I saw an internet meme, and it forever changed my mind and my career path. It is ikigai

Ikigai – the treasure map to find your North Star

Ikigai is a Japanese term (生き甲斐) which essentially means Reason for Living, in other words, living on purpose. In 2014, blogger Marc Winn published an article “What is your ikigai”, and it went viral on the internet.

This was revealing to me because it clearly showed me where I was on the map. Professionally I was stuck in the “Profession” intersection (how ironic isn’t it), but emotionally I didn’t know what I love anymore and spiritually I was addicted to my own pains. Ikigai, like a treasure map, showed me what was missing in my career and life.

Thus began my journey to find my ikigai– my North Star, my purpose.

How to interpret ikigai

Before we go any further, I must note that I don’t like how the internet has interpreted ikigai (article for another time). The venn diagrams are insightful, but “how to find your ikigai” was never sufficient. Online interpretations preach about finding your ikigai but never bother showing you how. In addition, unactionable and cryptic labels were added to the intersections without any explanations. To help better understand this treasure map, let us discard what’s out there and to start anew.

I will interpret the ikigai map in 3 parts:

1. Part 1 – Why you have been sailing backwards

2. Part 2 – Treasures in the Creator's Paradise

3. Part 3 – Tactics to rapid experiment and unstuck yourself (TBD)

In this post, I will focus on part 1. Here we go.

The story about you and how you relate to the World

Our life story is about how we relate to the world around us and what we should do with ourselves. Ikigai is asking us to understand what we love to do and what we are great at doing. It also asks us to understand what the world needs and what the world is willing to pay for.

When we do what we love and what we are great at and also serve a need in the world and get paid for doing so, we’ve discovered our ikigai. This is our North Star which will guide us in the direction of happiness,fulfillment, and abundance. The 4 circles in ikigai are like compasses, and they each show us a dimension that reveals our ikigai.

However, the secret to discovering our ikigai lies not just with the 4 circles, but in the order of how we navigate through them.

You have been sailing backwards in your career

Imagine you are on a boat and want to sail towards your true North, a destination where you’d find happiness and purpose. You’ve been sailing for quite some time, but somehow you feel anxious, worried, and frustrated. You look at your compass, and suddenly you realize your compass had been faulty this whole time and you were sailing South. You’d eventually reach North, but it’s gonna take an awfully long way to get there.

The faulty compass is configured this way: find the professions that pay the most, go to schools to get trained in the skills, then get hired and get paid. When you have money, you can then buy stability, upgrade your living standards, and afford love. After all that, you can then live a purposeful and happy life.

Navigating towards Your North Star

What if we can navigate differently? Let’s take a look at some people who've sailed in the reverse. From Elon Musk to Steve Jobs, these entrepreneurs pushed the envelope of human civilization with their creations and companies. But interestingly, both of them stated that money wasn’t the motivator. Instead, their desire to improve and better the world with their gifts and curiosities drove their behaviors and actions; money is the byproduct.

Consider reversing the above faulty compass: start with the needs of others that resonate with you, develop a love to help those needs, acquire skills to address those needs, and get paid doing so. When the compass is configured this way, you tap into the powerful motivator of helping others, and then intrinsically develop the drive and curiosities to acquire skills necessary to do the job. This pushes you to become the expert on solving those needs, and other people will then pay you for your expertise. This virtuous cycle not only addresses the needs, but also allows you to tap into your hidden potential while enabling economic progress. It’s a win-win-win situation.

Sounds almost too good to be true? Allow me to elaborate with the following parable of the stonemasons.

Parable of the 2 stone masons

One day there are two stone masons laying bricks. You ask the first one what he is doing, and he answers, “I am laying down bricks. This is the only job I can get and pays the bills. The work is hard and my boss is pushing me too much. I hate this job.” You ask the second stonemason what he is doing, and he answers, “I am laying down bricks. I am thankful I have this opportunity, because I am building a Cathedral. I am working on honing my skills with great bosses. I’m loving my job and it pays the bills.”

The moral of the story is the perspectives. One mason prioritized his financial needs first and love and service last. The other did the reverse – putting the needs of others first and his own financial needs last. Both are doing the same job and get the same pay, but one has the perspective of scarcity while the other of service. One mason is merely making ends meet, while the other is building the Sagrada Familia (it’s been under construction for over 100+ years).

The shift in their perspective and how they viewed their situation revealed different paths to their ikigai, just one is obviously in the opposite direction.

How I reversed course in my career

For a very long time I was not content nor fulfilled with how my career was progressing. After hopping through careers and jobs, I was pretending to seek meaning, but, truth be told, my motivation was money. Obviously that led me to a dead end, and I grew to dislike my software engineering trade. This was a real predicament because my livelihood depended on this trade.

To turn my ship around, I quitted my job and exited from this industry all together. Instead of answering requirements from higher ups, which oftentimes came from the whims of the CEO or some VP, I focused on the small needs right in front of me – my brother’s and mine. My brother and I were trading crypto and doing things manually. It was very time consuming and laborious. I saw a need to automate this process to make our lives easier. Thus I applied my software engineering skills and built an automated trading system for us. It was a long and hard project, but in the end it was very satisfying and fulfilling. I made my brother’s (and mine) life easier, and I am hooked on this process. For the first time in a long time, I felt agency and sovereign. I felt alive.

This new pattern showed me a more fulfilling way to navigate my life and career. Now, I see the needs in others that I genuinely care about – finding meaningful careers, realigning identities, building better life habits, etc – and I can actually apply my skills to make real impacts. And I know I will be financially fine because people do pay for experts to solve these needs.

I’ve found a path towards my ikigai, and now every morning I can’t wait to wake up and start paddling towards it.

Cool, but how do I reverse course?

In this post, I wanted to open your mind to the ikigai treasure map and the importance of navigating towards your North Star. But there’s a lot more to the map. Do I follow my passions? What if my passion doesn’t make money? What even is my passion? To understand the nature of these problems, we must dive deeper into the multi-dimensions of intersection. Each dimension of intersection reveals another insight on this treasure map, guiding us eventually to our treasure – our ikigai.

Reversing your course can be scary and risky, but with proper strategies and tactics you can properly navigate through the choppy waters without sinking. I am going to show you how in the next post.

Stay tuned for <Part 2 – How to read the map of ikigai and find your Vision, Mission, and Abundance (TBD)> and <Part 3 – Tactics to rapid experiment and unstuck yourself (TBD)>