FLORIAN BADOR - Composer / Entrepreneur / Athlete

Florian Bador

Looking for Future Wife
Capitalism
Spirituality
Life Philosophy — The Ultimate Genius
Depression & Suicide — The only cure that works
Links & Shared Files
My Music
Photos
Quotes
 
FRESH STUFF: new upcoming music "Amniotic Tone" here
Hi, this is my personal website and for now I will use it to describe who I am and most importantly share what I'm about and what I've learned about reality as you probably shouldn't care much about who I am ("Great minds discuss ideas, Average minds discuss events, Small minds discuss people." - Eleanor Roosevelt). In a few years I will turn it into a platform where I share my content (piano music videos with a cinematic quality no one has ever seen before, and personal development material/insights) with the help of a full time staff to focus exclusively on this and scale. Until then it will remain this single basic page as I spend most of my time coding for my businesses.

Quick description of who I am, and some thoughts:

LOOKING FOR FUTURE WIFE

I am still looking for my future wife and I had this idea of describing here what I am looking for because it is very specific and therefore difficult to find. This way someone I know who might be reading this may want to help me and put us in touch with someone they know. If this is you, THANK YOU for the help.
Of course a downside of doing this is that an insecure girl may try to fake it to fit the description. If this is you, please know that one of my greatest skills is to read through people so it is only a matter of time (likely short) before I find out everything you have inside and we will simply both have wasted time and likely end up worse off emotionally than we were before we met due to hope turned into disappointment (since I will absolutely not settle for less than exactly that, I have no problem staying alone my whole life if that's the alternative. That's one of the pros of being a Sigma Male, we're perfectly fine alone).
Obviously I'm doing this because I believe that the potential of the former case is greater than the risk of the latter.
That's it for the disclaimer, now for the description:If the one you're thinking about is not exactly like this, then please don't introduce us. There's a long time I would have settled if I wanted to. When it's the right one it will be a shock to read this, the reaction will be "OMG he's describing exactly ****** as if he'd known her for years".

CAPITALISM

I absolutely love capitalism and want to explain this here because way too many people today have a negative view of it, usually because they don't even know what capitalism really is. They often confuse it with individualism, which is absurd because we cannot trade with ourselves. Capitalism and Individualism are therefore opposite.

THE ULTIMATE IDIOCY:

There is nothing more stupid than to have an opinion on something we fail to define and understand correctly. For example, if we picked 100 people in the street representing a perfect random sample of the population and asked them "What do you think of Scientology?" I am quite convinced over 90 of them would share very specific details about what they think of it. But if we then told them "We're writing a new simple encyclopedia, could you write a short paragraph explaining what Scientology is?" these same people would suddenly find themselves in trouble, completely unable to define clearly what it is. That is ultimate idiocy, yet asking people about capitalism would result in a similar experience. Millions of people dare to have a view point on minimum wage for example while never having opened a book on economics, so they fail to realize that raising minimum wage actually ends up hurting the poor the most (I added a paragraph below on minimum wage). I call that maximum stupidity. Personally I have absolutely no clue what Scientology is really about so I simply keep my position about it undefined in my mind because I do not need to have a view on everything. If I start dating a girl who is a Scientologist I will suddenly have the need to know, in which case I will go read a dozen books before finally formulating a viewpoint. Until then I will only keep a defined perspective for things I fully understand, like capitalism. If you want to learn what I've learned about it, this is why I am writing this.

BASIC ECONOMIC MECHANICS & HISTORY:

In order to understand capitalism we need to go back in history and understand how civilization evolved from growing our own food, making our own clothes and burying half of our kids, to massive abundance for ALL. Yes "ALL" because the poor of today would be considered wealthy by yesterday's standards, and I am not talking about currency devaluation but standard of living. Yesterday's lower-middle class was starving while today's poor are fat. Today's "poor" complain about their condition on social media using a smartphone more powerful than the computer that took us to the moon. I am not saying that any of this is perfectly fine, but that it should all be put into historical perspective to understand the whole picture about capitalism.
So we had to grow our own food, build everything we use, and by the end of the day no time was left for anything else than mere survival. Then came the specialization of labor which led us to trade. I grow wheat and you build horseshoes, so I can give you a bag of wheat in exchange for horseshoes that I can use for the horses of my field and we both win.
But now let's say that you want my wheat but I have enough horseshoes. I am however in need of some wooden tools for my field and you don't make those. Well, what if we could use some kind of token that allows me to get something from a third party instead of you? Not only that, it would also allow me to shift the transaction in time. And that's how gold and silver came along. I give you a bag of wheat in exchange for a piece of gold and I later give that piece of gold to John who makes wooden tools every day.
No one makes money as it is against the law. Today, only the central bank can make money. We can however circulate currency (tokens). Let's say you have $100 and give it to me in exchange for some wheat. I then give it to John for a wooden tool. John then gives it back to you for horseshoes. We could keep doing this 500 times in a single month and each of us would have earned $50K and benefited from great abundance. Yet, there was only $100 in existence. Too many people have this very flawed impression that when someone else "has" the money there is less for them. This illusion of scarcity is due to the fact that most people never studied economics. Whenever I use the word "study" I am not referring to academia (I don't even have a college degree) but REAL LIFE study.
As the same $100 bill circulates (and that nobody is "making" money) there is greater abundance for all. Most people would read this and think "I already know that", but knowing it is useless unless we can THINK FROM this perspective daily. Many people "know" about push-ups. Can you buy kale from the farmers market and see the specialization of labor being exchanged via tokens the (specialized) farmer gets from another specialized person? (You). I do. In fact that's all I see.
"THE PIE": So the next time you hear someone talk about "The Pie", remind them how absurd of a concept that is. You can tell by the use of this word that this person never studied economics. In that example, you, John and me each have eating 500 pies, and that's because we can eat the same "pie" multiple times. The value is not in the pie but in its circulation. Had we provided twice more value to civilization we would have eaten that same "pie" 1000 times instead. That pie multiplies as we get better, that's why complaining doesn't work while self-improvement does. The use of the word "pie" is very dangerous, it feeds envy and resentment based on a completely incorrect concept, a mental illusion.
So the beauty of this circulation of tokens (now that's a good word for what actually happens) is not only that we can suddenly have access to everyone's stuff and choose when (therefore solving problems such as perishability) but since everyone now specializes in doing one thing they each start to do it very well. As a result, the whole of civilization benefits from not only more abundance but also more excellence. Everything becomes better in an endless self-reinforcing pattern. Compare anything to what it was 50 years ago and you can see this everywhere. Anyone doubting this is simply ignorant.
I saw a homeless van in Venice Beach that had a professionally printed sign covering the entire windshield, it read "CANCEL BILLIONAIRES". You can tell for sure this person never studied economics, yet the public library was a few blocks away. They chose to pay for a sign instead. Had they gone to the library and picked the right books for free they would understand how a billionaire only became a billionaire because they figured out a way to circulate a lot of tokens (the same ones over and over) by providing massive value to civilization at massive scale, improving EVERYONE's life in the process. I thought his windshield was a great metaphor for his life, his own complaining and acting like a victim prevents him from seeing where he is going. Yet, this complaining can only look very professional because others worked to make a printing business possible, from every part of the printer to the person who bought that printer and specialized in using it. They may have even gotten a loan for that printer because someone believed in them. All of this absolutely BEAUTIFUL.
I'd like to make it clear that I never resented capitalism even when I was broke, and I've been far more broke than most. Instead, I DECIDED to read the books and make my best to understand the world. I knew there was something wrong with what *I* was doing, not the system. Victimhood is a choice, so is growth.
For years I used to slowly walk my neighborhood for 2 hours a day while reading (walking would prevent me from falling asleep). One day a neighbor saw me read one of Ray Dalio's great books and said "You know, one thing these people don't teach you is the luck factor". I smiled saying "Watch me get lucky then". What did this neighbor choose? Victimhood and self-disempowerment, and he was trying to drag me down into mediocrity with him so he can feel better about the agreement he made with it. Fortunately, because I had at that point already wired my mind for years through daily absorption of personal development content I was able to instantly identify where he was speaking FROM, and something in me immediately screamed "Stay away from that person". You can be pretty sure he didn't read many biographies of successful people, or he would have known how ridiculous his victim-story was. If he ever reads it's probably not what the successful read, or perhaps simply some entertaining novels. Like Jim Rohn said, "Most people major in minor things". He also said "Find out what poor people read and don't read it".
Back to economic mechanics...
John now starts getting a bit complacent about his wooden tools. It's human nature to start slacking off when things do well and push harder when they don't (in fact this is exactly why we have economic/debt cycles). As a result of John's complacency what used to make my life easier is no longer that great relatively to the new standards of living. Fortunately Matt also makes wooden tools and I find them better so I now trade the gold with Matt and my life continues to improve. Pretty soon, John's life is not doing as good as it used to, so he stops slacking off and keeps improving himself again like he used to. Both Matt and John keep getting better in a never-ending reinforcing cycle that benefits the whole civilization because wooden tools are now getting really amazing. Capitalism forces people into excellence and by turning them into the best version of themselves lifts the whole world upwards.
Without this, complacency would take over and in Nature stagnation is an illusion. There is either progress or decline because a rock is dead but water will eventually erode it given enough time. In other words, without capitalism we would eventually return to the Stone Age.

WHAT IS A CAPITALIST, WHAT IS A SOCIALIST?

A capitalist is a person who understands the way these mechanics work and likes it this way. They believe in NON-INTERFERENCE with these principles of the laws of nature.
There are only three cases of people who don't like capitalism:
1. Those who prefer to complain than to specialize and create (the lazy). A dream life for them would be to lay on the beach every day with beers and create nothing.
2. Those who haven't studied economic history, or from the wrong people (the ignorant), not realizing that even if they are lazy they are still slowly benefiting from capitalism (through the produce of others inevitably injected into a society they are part of).
3. Those who fall into both 1. and 2.
Most people who dislike capitalism (typically socialists) fall into the 3rd category, being usually both lazy and ignorant because laziness leads to ignorance since no one was born with historical knowledge. Their ignorance prevents them from having any sense of perspective and understanding of how we got here as a civilization and how life was before. Since victimhood is easier than taking responsibility they blame the system, a system that has proven to work very well throughout history. They are pissed at the system because they never made the decision and effort to learn it, this is why ignorance is piss.
A socialist is a person who believes in INTERFERING with the way value is exchanged through civilization by forcing it to go where it would not naturally go otherwise.

WHY CAPITALISM DOES GOOD WHILE CHARITY AND SOCIALISM CAN HURT:

Unfortunately, although socialism may look like a good idea at first, history has proven that this does not work, or not for long because the most optimized system is one where value flows naturally with the least interference (taxes are interferences). This is not an opinion, this is what we learn if we study economic mechanics objectively. Almost every book on economics points back to this core principle that Adam Smith explained so well 250 years ago. And by "optimized system" I mean one that brings the most abundance for ALL. For that reason you will rarely find a socialist who studied economics, or they would have to be extra lazy and selfish to compensate for their understanding of the fact that socialism always ends up breaking this beautifully oiled machine that makes us all prosper, and pretty soon the whole of civilization stops making any progress. In fact, socialism usually ends up dragging down everyone's living standards lower than they were initially. After all, why would John improve himself and therefore civilization as a whole if he is not rewarded for it? His complacency is guaranteed to kick-in again.
The reason why socialism cannot work is the same as why a rich kid who was given everything is sure to be spoiled and weak, and history has shown that weak people create a world no one wants to live in. At first it seems like love to give that child everything, but on the long term we realize it is in fact a curse. Socialism works exactly the same way, it is an instant-gratification approach which by very nature carries the seeds of its inevitable upcoming fall. Everything about economic mechanics comes from human nature. Besides selected books, one of the ways to study economics is to carefully observe human nature.
The beautiful paradox of capitalism is that by allowing the individual to use personal gain as original motivation they end up bringing prosperity to all. This is simply because we cannot trade with ourselves and we cannot force someone to buy, so the only way to circulate currency is to provide value for someone else as determined by their own needs, not ours. This is called the "Invisible Hand" principle. Capitalism is one for all, but indirectly and naturally.
The naivety of socialism on the other hand is that by supposedly wishing to help the individual in an all-for-one direct and unnatural fashion we break the whole machine that made it all work in the first place, dragging down the living standards of the entire civilization, the one individual included.
In the end, socialism is a shortsighted perspective while capitalism respects the natural laws of human nature regarding global prosperity. Everywhere capitalism has been prosperity followed. Everywhere socialism has been declined followed. This is precisely why China has moved away from misery and now entered an era of great abundance that will most likely surpass the US by far and become the new greatest power (as Americans got complacent just like John while Wang was hungry for more). That is the crazy story of a communist government that was intelligent enough to make room for a capitalistic economy, such a strange combination.
We may wonder then who among a capitalist and a socialist is most selfish after all. This reality is usually the opposite of what most people are tempted to believe, as they confuse capitalism with individualism. But again, these people typically never studied economic history, they're too busy blaming the system and complaining.
The reality is that a good business is the greatest charity imaginable because it is sustained by the natural circulation of tokens through some kind of value provided to others as determined by their own needs. A traditional charity on the other hand is NOT sustainable since it will always depend on someone responding to one's begging for tokens for no value provided to them in return. A traditional charity depends on someone else having figured out a way to provide REAL value to civilization, and as it begs them for tokens it slows down their progress, and therefore the world's progress. Claiming something has value based on our own perspective forced into the world without it being backed by demand from others is not REAL value, in fact it is borderline selfish. I am not saying that we shouldn't give to charity of course, but that we should give while fully understanding what is really happening when this transfer of tokens takes place.

HOW CAN EGO & COMPETITION BE HEALTHY?

Years ago I heard Oprah Winfrey ask Wayne Dyer "If this ego thing exists, isn't there a purpose to it?" (what a brilliant question). He answered that he couldn't see any, that in his opinion ego had no purpose. I accepted that for many years until I study economics and understand how FREE TRADE (another word for Capitalism) brings prosperity to civilization. Suddenly I realized that ego, just like everything else good and bad on earth had a purpose: The ego of the individual drives competition which through free trade brings prosperity to the whole. That is what I call Spiritual Aikido, or the art of turning darkness around for light. For those who believe in a higher power, this power knows very well how to use both light and darkness for good, and so shall we. Many people refuse to use the power of darkness because they are afraid that it spins out of control, yet they all know Batman.
When John slacked off earlier with his wooden tools (a few paragraphs above) Matt's ego might have been part of the reason why he started building better tools than John (on top of a natural desire for creation). If that was the case then the larger that ego and the more it would end up benefiting civilization as a whole. Not quite something you will hear from your priest or therapist, but it is the truth. Too many people are afraid of embracing darkness to turn it into light, and all darkness may have its purpose which is why Oprah asked this brilliant question. We are biologically wired for competition and also for being social creatures. Can you see? This can only make sense if prosperity/growth is part of the design and goal. Who would have thought that economics was a way to know god! As one of my favorite quotes below says (by some dude named Jesus C.) "Cut wood and I am here. Lift a stone and you will find me."
Imagine a world without any competition. Do you truly believe we would have access to the incredible level of abundance and excellence we have today?

NATURE & DOWNSIDES OF CAPITALISM:

There are very few cases where restrictions should be put in place (forced) for the greater good. For example, a business may cut down trees or spill oil in the ocean while responding to the growing demand of civilization. Another might take advantage of human weakness (instant gratification of the uneducated crowd) by creating addictive pharmaceuticals and promoting them to millions of doctors, or by offering over-leveraged loans to the naive and financially dumb person who thinks value can be created without productivity, or by modifying the seeds of Nature in a shortsighted way. These however are rare exceptions that are too often used to misrepresent capitalism when the real thing to blame is simply instant gratification. Many people like to generalize this misrepresentation because it supports their victim-story of the "Evil Capitalist" (victimhood is an easy form of instant gratification, the delayed gratification equivalent would be to take responsibility). So while capitalism has a few downsides due to the instant gratification tendencies of the spiritually asleep person, socialism on the other hand is fully based on instant gratification: "Let's distribute money right now without any productivity!" (typically through debt and/or printing money which is the same thing, a debt on the future value of a currency).
One of the fundamental principles of economics is that the only real value is productivity, everything else is made up, and an illusion cannot be sustained forever. This is why the GDP is such an important metric that we often use as a denominator to something else in order to measure the ratio of that other thing relatively to what is REAL. Just like countries have a GDP, we all have our own personal GDP and the P is the key to all growth. Without P the individual declines and the same is true for an entire country. There is no way around this truth and never will be because it is embedded in the laws of Nature. In other words, whenever you hear someone suggest to improve civilization (or an individual) through some economic measure that will not increase productivity you can know for sure that this is a bad idea. It's the classic choice between victim-hood and empowerment, giving a fish vs teaching how to fish, instant gratification vs delayed gratification, brain vs spirit.
Another downside of capitalism is that, since the poorest are generally also the most ignorant because lack of self-discipline is the main cause of long-term poverty and that undisciplined people rarely read, this ignorance leads to an illusion of decline. Capitalism improves the quality of life of the poor on the long term in absolute terms, but relatively to the richest they tend to appear and feel poorer which leads to resentment and therefore conflicts. In other words the richest and the poorest both grow thanks to capitalism, but the richest (the disciplined ones) grow much faster, increasing the wealth gap and giving the illusion of more poverty. Failure to study economic history is the main cause of this false belief.

STOCK MARKET / INVESTMENT:

When the Dutch invented the stock market they took capitalism to a whole new level. From then on you could invest the fruit of your labor for compounded growth by investing into someone else's labor, distributing this fruit into businesses you didn't even have to build nor visit. So John and Matt decided to join forces and create a wooden tools business that will create tools no one has ever seen before, improving the life of thousands of farmers. Fifty people heard of their idea, believed in it and decided to lend Matt and John some tokens in exchange for 1% ownership, leaving John and Matt with 25% each. As they now build tools they could have never built alone, they not only improve civilization, but their own living standards as well as the standards of each of the fifty owners who now share a piece of the reward. The value these people brought was belief. This is what an investor is, someone who brings value to civilization in a very strange way, with mere strategical belief in someone else. Capitalism leads to synergy which brings abundance for all.
Of course many people will lose while investing but capitalism is not to blame, ignorance, failure to study the game (from the best, not the neighbor) and instant gratification are the causes as always.

THE POOR:

Now, let's say that Joe is the laziest human being alive. Joe did not improve himself, never specialized into anything, wakes up late every day and complains about the system with his buddies at the sports bar where he knows everything about the latest fighter but nothing about himself. Joe missed almost all the opportunities offered by capitalism, except for one thing: Joe now lives in a world that is A LOT more abundant with much higher living standards. He now rides on roads he didn't have to build, others built them for him while he was sleeping. He eats a diversity of foods he didn't have to grow and wears good clothes he didn't have to make. As a result of his lack of specialization he circulates very little value, but the little he circulates gives him access to so much more he could have had before. Totally ignorant of what happened, he acts like a victim on social media, complaining about capitalism while typing on a supercomputer from 30 years prior that used to take an entire room and now fits in pockets he didn't have to invent.
I don't like Joe but he should like me.

MINIMUM WAGE:

Someone recently asked me to explain the minimum wage problem, so I thought I would copy that and add it here for anyone interested.
The minimum wage is probably one of the most counter-intuitive concepts of economics. Another one would be import taxes to supposedly protect local manufacturing while this in fact hurts the whole economy and therefore the individual manufacturer (Adam Smith explained this very well 250 years ago, yet many policy makers still don't get it).
So here's what happens when we force a minimum wage (or raise it).
1. The price of all products involving minimum wage workers increases, and who consumes these? Everyone, except that for the poor this represents a very high proportion of their expenses (e.g. groceries) while for the rich it is very negligible since luxuries are rarely affected by minimum wages (think Walmart vs Jewelry, who buys those in proportion to their income?).
2. There are many poor people who are not on minimum wage, and this is increasingly true with modern self-employment. The freelancer who has a very hard time finding contracts may charge a decent fee but if they don't find enough contracts they will be very poor and the minimum wage does nothing for these people (while the other points I mention here still affect them negatively). I used to be one of these people because I was excellent at coding and terrible at selling myself. I solved that problem by creating my own businesses so that my extremely high standards can be put to use without having my face on the services (no one would buy if I started opening my mouth, even though they logically should).
3. All businesses who hire minimum wage workers have no choice but to either hire fewer people or drop their level of productivity, usually a combination of both. Hiring fewer people means rising unemployment, of who? These poor people the minimum wage was supposed to help. And dropping productivity means slowing down the entire economy.
This last piece is HUGELY important because in order to do well we first need to be in a country that does well, and as I mentioned earlier productivity is the only thing real. Being poor in the US is a very different thing than being poor in India. As the whole economy slows down (which really just means that the currency changes hands slower as I explained earlier with tokens and the same $100 bill) the living standards of the entire population drop, and who feels this the most? The poor. How naive it is to think we can simply force one part of a whole machine artificially without affecting the other parts and breaking that machine.
I could go much more into details but these are the basics of what actually happens with minimum wage. This is again a classic of ignorance. Many people dare to have an opinion on a subject they never studied, and the greater their intentions the worse the results since they will bring even more passion into the defense of an idea that seems attractive at first but is completely wrong and harmful in reality. Doing the wrong things for the right reasons is much worse than doing the right things for the wrong reasons.

LOGIC vs EMOTION:

Capitalism vs socialism often comes down to logic vs emotion. Many people who think purely emotionally will tend to like socialism because they cannot see how this completely fails in the practical context of physical reality. Only a person who learned rationality (a somewhat unnatural trait) will be able to take in consideration not only the attractiveness of an idea but also its practicality. In this context it means its consistency with the laws of economics just like there are laws of physics. A socialist is too often like a person who doesn't believe in gravity saying "If I believe enough with a good heart I can jump off this cliff and I will fly", then calling you heartless for disagreeing. Only practical Dreamers leave the world better, naive and ignorant ones make it worse. The truth is that gravity doesn't care how we feel about it, it simply IS.
Like one of my beautiful T-shirts says, the greatest headache is trying to explain basic economic principles to socialists.
For that reason you will rarely see a rational socialist. In fact, political statistics show a much higher percentage of left wing among women than men. I would certainly not equate capitalism to right wing but there is an obvious correlation since a capitalist will have a hard time with the typical "logic" of the left. This gender disparity is due to the fact that women carry the child and no man can compete with this, it naturally wires women for emotional thinking. This is the same reason why so few women succeed in business, it has little to do with social inequality and everything to do with the fact that succeeding in business is only possible for the few who understand that reality does not care how we feel about an idea but only about whether the idea actually works in practice. Reality never discriminates, it does not know who is behind an action. Truly powerful is the person who can alternate on demand between emotional thinking (which almost everyone has naturally and is necessary for creativity) and rational thinking (necessary for manifesting this creativity into its physical equivalent). These people are the ones to bring heaven on earth because they simultaneously have their head in the sky and their feet on earth. Like everything else, this stretch requires intentionality and WORK.

LEARN MORE:

If you are interested in learning more about economics and history I would recommend two books:
• An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, BUT I have to warn you that this is the hardest book I have ever read. See my review on GoodReads to understand why. So I highly recommend that you find a great summary of it instead. This book from 250 years ago is considered by most as the greatest classic of economics ever written.
• The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley, except that Matt has a strong and unfortunate oil-bias as well as a liking for GMO that should be ignored IMO (see my review on GoodReads).
• Ah, and you may want to check out My new collection of T-shirts that I consider the most appropriate for our time and now wear daily everywhere.
If you plan to start a business, ABSOLUTELY read The E-myth revisited by Michael Gerber.

WANT MORE MONEY?

If you're reading this thinking "All this theory is great Florian but right now I'm struggling financially, how do I bring that into my life in practice?". Here's what I would say:
1. Do the math. There are too many powerful emotions involved with lack of money. Doing the math neutralizes any fear and other biases by approaching the problem with rationality. If you're really broke it can mean making a spreadsheet of income/expenses and see how much is missing per week, that way you will only be fighting a specific number rather than a monster ghost, which is much more manageable. If you're not broke but you just want more, then the same thing applies: "How much would it take to live that kind of lifestyle?" and make a spreadsheet. When something wasn't put down into numbers it means it only exists in your mind, and personally I would never trust my mind.
2. As I explained above, at the end of the day human beings exchange currency because they each specialize into a certain form of labor/produce. It is very important to realize that even during the greatest depressions there are still TRILLIONS of dollars in constant circulation. That is because people haven't stopped eating nor going to work to better their life and civilization as a whole. Scarcity thinking like "No one is buying anymore!" must be killed with the rational realization that since life hasn't ended these tokens are still circulating everywhere. There are tens of thousands of individuals who make (circulate) multiple millions every month each (AKA their "income"), including during depressions, and no one even heard their name. If you'd join them no one would even notice. This is how much abundance our beautiful civilization swims in.
The ultimate question then is: "What do I know or can figure out how to do that others are willing to pay for?". This doesn't have to be rocket science or some other extremely specialized skill. Millions of people pay to fix a flat tire just like they pay for dry cleaning, banner design or translation. In fact many wealthy entrepreneurs own businesses that provide very basic services like car wash or food. The key is to become completely obsessed with that question, walking around all day with it in mind, then experiment in the physical reality to see if people are actually willing to pay for this thing, rather than being stuck in your own mind with the most classic illusion "The world needs this stuff" without ever having MEASURED if that is true.
"Do what you love and money will follow" is the greatest bullsh*t ever told. How selfish of a quote that is... If these tokens you're looking to circulate can only come from others, then it cannot be about you! Nobody cares that you love it. You must test and measure everything because numbers will tell you what is true, your mom and friends are too biased and will only mislead you into thinking the world needs your stuff when it doesn't, and as I said your mind is definitely not something to trust either. What this mean for example is that if you ever put ads somewhere, don't even think of putting the same phone or email, that way you can measure each approach like a scientist. Then ADAPT. Adapt your offer and how you present it, adapt how you find these people, and even adapt your own skills if needed. Always follow the metrics, not your passion... Instead, BRING PASSION to whatever works according to the metrics, and always keep the fundamental question in mind: What are THEY willing to pay for that I can figure out a way to provide.
I'd like to add one amazing life-changing insight I got from Ed Mylett on the passion thing... You'll need to listen to him telling the story (5min) but to summarize the concept he once said to his son "Winning is more fun than fun is fun". In other words, don't worry about picking the thing that brings excitement because when you start winning (at anything) it will suddenly become VERY fun.
Once you get something to actually work the next question is "How can I do this at scale in such a way that the output is no longer proportional to my time?" These may sometimes seem like difficult questions to answer but you'd be surprised to see what happens when we (intensionally) become completely OBSESSED with a single, clear, quality question.
3. Whatever you do, do it EXTREMELY well because the world will not pay for mediocrity/average, or not for long. This means you never stop improving your stuff even when it's already great.
4. Practice the habit of being aggressive with the level of action you take. The previous point was about quality, this one is about quantity, and it takes both. Most people are way too shallow with this, they apply for a job, waste 3 weeks only to realize they're not hired, then apply for another, and so on. But... what if you could make one phone call every 5 minutes? (if you're in sales for example) That's 12 per hour, 144 per day, 864 per week, 3744 per month. What do you think would happen? Hmm... Almost no one plays with this kind of numbers, this is precisely why you should. This can of course apply to anything, like applying for jobs. You'd be surprised what happens once we start playing with absurdly high numbers. Well, it tends to bring absurd results :)
When I lived in Montreal (in my twenties) I went as far as 8 months late on my miserable $450 rent (and still not out!). I dropped flyers in mailboxes to advertise my snow clearing skills (by -20F/-30C) and handyman skills, and I can tell you that I dropped many thousands of these flyers, not a mere hundred. Then when someone called I said "Sure I can do that, what about tomorrow?" only to Google it right after because I had no clue what the thing was nor how to fix it. But on top of high numbers I always figured out a way to deliver extremely good quality work.
Remember: In economics the only thing REAL is PRODUCTIVITY. It is the productivity that ends up circulating these tokens. It is just as true for an individual as it is for an entire country.
5. Never stop learning new skills. Cognitive skills are never as important as the non-cognitive ones, but they are the ones that can be monetized in a tangible way because they are easy to measure. Since the specialization of labor is at the core of the exchange of value through civilization then our skill-set (cognitive) can become very valuable, especially in times of financial trouble because it multiplies the options. I think most people would be surprised to see the list of skills I accumulated over the years. Some of them take decades to master (like coding or piano) but others can really be learned in a few weeks or months, retained for life and monetized if ever needed. "Jack of all trades master of none" is BS, we now live long enough and have access to enough information to master multiple things. Here's a quick list of cognitive skills I learned either to the point of mastery or a high enough level to bring massive value: Coding both back and front-end (many languages), Linux servers and everything that relates to Networking and internet security, Computer hardware, Electronics engineering, 3D-modeling and 3D printing, Digital cameras and lighting, Video editing, Photo editing/Photoshop & Web-design, a lot of Handyman things, Lock-picking (yep lol, but not to mastery), Bicycle mechanics, Piano, Music Mixing (esp. orchestra) & Sound Editing, Room Acoustics, Nutrition, Fitness, 2 languages, and I probably forget a few. Now just imagine if I go broke the number of options it gives me. You can even combine the skills for compounded value, what about Nutrition and 3D-printing? :) or Acoustics and 3D-modeling. Because of the time I invested acquiring such skills I could charge to assemble a new road bike from scratch one ball-bearing at a time, take wedding (or divorce) photos, or build a custom wood fence around someone's house from concrete fondation to lock mechanism, etc. All these are things that someone somewhere needs and is therefore willing to pay for. Obviously I will probably never do any of this for work at this point but I could certainly use that for myself too. So it's worth investing time to learn at least one new skill per year, and pick well because "Most people major in minor things" - Jim Rohn. If you learn to learn fast (that one is non-cognitive) in only 10 years you've become great at 10 different things, which is huge!
6. Eliminate the losers from your life. Your average friend is probably a terrible influence that impacts your thinking in dangerous ways (often with the best intentions, which only makes it worse). I wrote about that earlier in the page (search for "influence" with CTRL+F). Of course when it's about skill they almost all major in minor things like the latest popstar or MMA figther... They know all about that and nothing about themselves. I say STAY AWAY at all cost!
7. Feed your mind DAILY with videos from these people: Tony Robbins, Jim Rohn, Ed Mylett, Grant Cardone, and David Goggins. And most importantly NOBODY ELSE, this means absolutely NOT someone like Garry Vee or other "popular" people on social media who give plenty of bad advice.
8. Tony Robbins often said "Most people over-estimate what they can do in a year, and under-estimate what they can do in a decade or two." It's important to have the timeline right or you will quickly get frustrated. Sure you can stop and reverse a common financial hemorrhage in a month or two if that's where you're at right now, but expecting a massive change in a single year is setting yourself up for frustration. Personally I almost never think about the next 3 years, but I do think a lot about the next 10-15, always knowing that I'm in for the long run and that's perfectly fine.

SPIRITUALITY

I was raised atheist in France (equivalent to the "New York atheist"). Around 25 I had an instant awakening. I lived in Montreal near the St Joseph oratory and often used the stairs of this largest church in Canada to workout. One day I heard there were escalators inside to reach the top because of the scale of the place. Curious to find out what escalators in a church look like I went in for the first time with a tourist spirit and found myself completely alone in the gigantic basilica. I had a very powerful encounter with Silence that changed me forever. From then on I went back every day and made sure to look at the mass schedule in order to avoid them so I can see Her again.
When I moved to Los Angeles I looked for a church that was open all day so I can continue my practice of visiting Her (or allowing Her to visit me) outside of the schedule of a clergy. I knew She would be there too. I found one and sure enough, She was there.
Some time passed and one day I accidentally went during a mass. I got introduced to some young adults group and before I know it I was part of a Catholic church, organizing events, mixing the live music for them, singing in the choir, and so on.
SCIENCE OF THE SINS & TRYING TOO HARD:
I never understood that a priest can eat meat, therefore killing perfectly innocent breathing creations of God (or paying someone else to do it for them). I knew since my encounter with Silence that this was highly incompatible with an awaken spiritual state. This should have been an obvious sign of drowsiness but I remained asleep with them for 5 years until one day I finally woke up. I was in the choir and we started the mass the way we always do, saying "Let's acknowledge our sins". I looked around and started laughing, laughing at myself for having fallen asleep for so long. I left and never went back.
After 5 years asleep I could finally see clear again. I remember some church retreats where we would spend our time dwelling on how "weak and broken" we are... and I thought "But I'm not, 'cause I'm a bad mofo who was born for greatness". Had I said this out loud they would have mistaken it as arrogance, not realizing that they were, too. No one was born to live a small life and simply "make it through the struggle"... Failing to realize this is not humility, it's being spiritually asleep, a zombie soul floating around unconscious of its own nature. Like Michael Beckwith says, we were not born in sin, we were born in bliss.
On top of this dogmatic thing about misery and brokenness is the fact that my generation is the weakest of all times. The average westerner of my generation grew up in massive abundance and is massively weak as a result. So whatever they call struggle is often laughable when put into perspective. For that reason I'm usually bored with the average westerner, I find weak people boring, even annoying in fact as they respond "OMG!" to a broken bone and surf this kind of "struggles" until they become their dominant thoughts and conversations so that their whole life becomes about these small pointless things that do not lead to growth. Once in a while I meet someone who grew up in communism or war, got through all sorts of TRUE tragedies, yet they don't even call them struggles, they call it life, they simply shut up and grow. I tend to connect well with these people, they are the strong ones. Blessed are the badass for they shall leave the world different than they found it while everybody else remains a mere tourist on a tour of this incarnation as a passive commentator.
So I managed to wake up from the dogmatic practices because I was still an outsider, but I knew that after having been hypnotized like the dogs of Pavlov by the clergy for generations to make of their spiritual practice a science of sins and smallness, an art of misery and struggles, they had no chance of ever waking up, short of an exceptional miracle. Such miracles do happen but they are very rare, most people simply stay asleep their whole life.
The clergy was founded a couple of centuries after Jesus had already left, and it was one with the state. No man of state ever had any interest in people's spirituality, or a higher Freedom for them which can only be attained through mysticism. Their interest has always been the mere avoidance of social chaos. This is why all religions are loaded with rituals, clerical doctrines, and lack any profound mysticism or deep introspection as main practice. The main practices are usually external: bread/community, distant god figure, historical Jesus with a heavy focus on events (which goes back to my Eleanor Roosevelt quote). You will not hear Luke 17:20 in a church because the words of Jesus have been filtered for crowd CONTROL. I did not want my spirituality to remain at the level of morality and rules of good conduct, and I knew since my encounter with Silence that there was something far beyond that. Or in the beautiful words of Lao Tzu from the Tao Te Ching verse 38:
"A foolish man tries to be good, and is therefore not good [...]
  When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.
  When goodness is lost, there is morality.
  When morality is lost, there is ritual.
  Ritual is the husk of true faith, the beginning of chaos."
This is precisely why, ironically, religions have brought a lot of chaos into this world. They try too hard, and they try in the wrong direction, one that mostly aims outwards, away from mysticism and is therefore bounded by society. We all know a classic church person who tries very hard to be "good", but then there's the person who doesn't try and simply IS, and that's a totally different experience. One of the reasons for that is that the second person is completely FREE to be themselves while the first one has no clue who they really are. It is impossible to be truly "good" without being ourselves, and a mold of any shape always takes us away from our-Selves.
I also came to the conclusion that the classic charity practiced by churches can in fact be very harmful because it consists mainly of giving the man a fish instead of teaching him how to fish. The former reinforces victimhood which is disempowering and therefore harmful while the latter (when combined with the raw and often brutal truth) is the only one that sets people Free.
So I returned to Silence just like in "The Alchemist" and I could now practice the remembering of my spiritual nature just as well in a synagogue as in a mosque or a church, but I would prefer a quiet forest where I am more likely to see a burning bush. Just like Rilke wrote in The Book of Hours, "I don't want to think a place for you. Speak to me from everywhere.". Or if you prefer it from Jesus in the gospel of Thomas, "Cut wood and I am here. Lift a stone and you will find me.".
TRULY AWAKE PEOPLE ARE AGGRESSIVE:
I found that far too many people in "spiritual" communities forget that all their visualizing, contemplating, meditating and praying (which usually means begging a judge in the sky to do things for them) means strictly nothing without ACTION, and that this level of action should be aggressive and radical. I never found an absolute maniac in a spiritual community but I saw a lot of people doing everything at very shallow levels. These people usually believe that extremes are wrong and balance is right. This is spiritually absurd because all excellence comes from extremes and balance always leads to mediocrity which means falling short of our true potential, and that is absolutely not "spiritual". I believe most people need a Navy SEAL more than they need a priest so they can manifest their soul-stuff into the physical reality, and THAT is very spiritual. Bringing heaven down to earth. Why have a physical in-CARN-ation in the first place otherwise? When I heard Grant Cardone say "My prayer is action" I knew this was Truth, just like when I've read Rilke say "Only in our doing can we grasp You. Only with our hands can we illumine You.". I do meditate, visualize and dive into contemplative introspection daily, but I make my very best to keep these negligible when compared to how aggressive the level of action I take. Or to put it another way I would say... Ask not what your God can do for you, ask what you can do for your God (and not small things with great love to make sense of doing less, great things with great love to express Her fully through our unlimited potential).
Too many people in our generation got told they were special, and too many "spiritual" leaders sold this extremely dangerous idea that it's all about what's inside... No one cares what's inside, and no one should care. It's all about what we DO. I am absolutely convinced that Hitler had a lot of good inside, yet it turned out to be completely irrelevant.
DARKNESS IS HOLY:
There is something about spirituality that might be the most challenging to explain, with the most room for misunderstanding, and you will never hear it from a priest of therapist. Yet, I believe that mastering this thing is the ultimate level of enlightenment. I am talking about the darkness. God uses both light and darkness for life and everything good, and so shall we. Now, if you say that to a church person they would say "Oh yes, we need to embrace our brokenness..." but that's not what I'm talking about. I am talking about BREAKING stuff, not being broken.
Batman is the ultimate example of mastering darkness and turning it around for light using what I like to call "Spiritual Aikido". Without having some darkness to intentionally tap into with a high level of control and self-awareness Batman would never be able to have the level of impact he has, no one in Gotham City would know his name because he would have done too little for society.
I believe the same is true for real-life heros. A priest might tell you Mother Theresa was driven by Love, but what if she just HATED injustice? You might say it's the same thing, it also comes down to Love at the core, but I would argue that the resulting drive is completely different. After all, everything we think is processed through this physical brain of ours, and if you study it you know what triggers it most, it's not pretty church psalms. And who designed this brain? (if you believe in the idea of a Creator).
The reality is that very few amazingly good things get done out of naive unadulterated Love, but many have been done out of hate of the opposite. Priests and therapists don't like this truth because they're terrified that hate runs out of control since they never dug within this place themselves to learn to master it, so they simply run away from it and usually remain very incompetent as a result. Only those who went very deep into the darkness within them while remaining highly self-aware acquired the ability to do a lot of good. To me, a healthy spirituality must incorporate this darkness.
Suddenly EGO can have a divine purpose. Why would it exist otherwise? We are biologically wired for ego because it ends up turning into growth (which in Nature means LIFE) and therefore ironically leads (mostly) to selfless outcomes. It also leads to bad outcomes, but without ego there would be no growth which means death (see in Capitalism above where I explain how the ego of the individual benefits civilization as a whole in the context of economics - Type CTRL+F, then "ego" to find it). Now try to explain that in a church and see if they get it... Their level of spiritual practice is not sufficient to embrace this idea, their status-quo/formatted mind will prevent them from even investigating it, and their naive/weak/pretty girlscout approach therefore prevents them from using everything the world has to offer as drive for sizable positive outcomes. This is precisely why this shallow level I described earlier is omnipresent in such communities. They never learned to know and embrace the darkness within and therefore fall very short of their ultimate potential when trying to shine light without.
PS: In 2023 I saw this absolutely brilliant video where Jordan Peterson explains this concept of darkness better than I ever could. What he calls monster is what I call absolute maniac. I've never been into his videos (because I tend to be very hesitant in learning from people who seem unhappy, since I want to be happy) but that particular one is definitely worth watching because of the level of genius in explaining such a tricky truth to tell.
SELF-ESTEEM, INSTANT-GRATIFICATION AND DELAYED-GRATIFICATION (AGAIN):
Back to church-level "spirituality"... I remember a retreat I did with this young adults group where we were given a small mirror to stare into for 5 minutes as a first exercise to kick off the retreat. After 5 minutes I looked up and could not believe my eyes. I saw the saddest thing I have ever seen in my whole life: at least half of the people were crying. I did not know why back then but years later I understood precisely why they could not even stare in the mirror for 5 minutes without crying. The reason is that self-esteem works the same way we esteem another person. Imagine if someone told you "Tomorrow I'm going to do this for you" and the next day they don't. Then the following week they say they will show up at 3.30pm but they come at 3.45. The week after that they actually show up on time but the next one they don't. How would be your level of respect/esteem for this person? So their miserable self-esteem simply came from a place no one likes to talk about, something that is the raw truth... Not pushing themselves enough and following through. This is the only way to truly feel alive. The problem is that this is not something they teach in a church, in fact the influence clearly goes the opposite direction, "Be kind with yourself" and so on they say. This type of "kindness" is in reality very unkind as pushing ourselves is the kindest thing we can do to ourselves. Saying "Tomorrow morning I'm going to wake up early and run" and ACTUALLY DO IT. After compounding this for years we look into the mirror with a big smile.
Another reason why so many people cry when they look straight in the mirror for an extended period of time is that they do not know themselves. Self-awareness is developed most when pushing ourselves to the extremes and beyond that. We cannot know a thing unless we know its limits. Because of this whole "balance" thing that so many "spiritual" communities preach, most people have no clue who they are since they never reached and pushed any of their limits, or what they thought was their limits. This is when we realize that everything David Goggins talks about is in fact the highest level of spiritual practice. And obviously, due to the oxygen mask principle, it is impossible to help anybody unless we fully developed ourselves. It is very naive to think otherwise.
I also found that people from such communities have a definition of the word kindness that is usually synonymous with instant gratification. To me the kindest thing is the Truth, because the truth will set me free while the pretty words won't. For example, let's say that someone is fat and keeps eating junk food (no priest should be fat, this also makes no sense) nine friends don't say anything but one comes forward to say it. Which one is kind? I would personally instantly hate the nine and love that one who came to me telling me the Truth that could set me free. These nine who knew were too weak to be TRULY Kind while that one was courageous enough to do the right thing with a Love of a much higher level, a sacrificial selfless one. The modern "kindness" most of these people practice is often not only weak but also selfish since it values being liked by others. Or in the words of Emerson, "God's work will not be made manifest by cowards". In most "spiritual" circles the vast majority of people are very "kind" cowards, because again, they try very hard to be good and therefore aren't.
WOULD YOU WANT TO LIVE FOREVER?
At the church I used to go to I was known as the vegan health freak (also for always arriving all sweaty in cycling clothes) and I was very vocal about the vegan thing, both for health and moral reasons. One day I had a conversation with a 50-year-old man who was there every Sunday, he started questioning me about nutrition which I first thought was a good thing because curiosity leads to growth, but I quickly realized that what he was looking for was a validation that what he was doing (mediocre nutrition) was not that bad after all. At some point he asked me "But how do you treat yourself?", a question that I first failed to understand until I realized that what he meant was junk food, and that's how he made sense of it (junk food = treat = I love myself...). So I told him that I treat myself with health, that THIS is the ultimate treat.
Once he ran out of arguments to justify why mediocrity was fine after all, he told me one of the most horrible things I've ever heard, and this became something that changed my life. He said "You know, once you reach my age you'll realize you don't want to live forever.". As I felt extremely sorry for him I realized that this was the ultimate test, the best indicator of whether the way we run our life is working or not. His bad habits of junk food (he was eating like an average person, which is junk food) were in fact a hidden form of suicide.
Would you want to live forever? I usually answer ABSOLUTELY! 99% of the time, but whenever I'm no longer sure I seriously question what I'm doing with my life, ready to rock anything and everything if needed because the answer should always be a clear "Hell Yeah!". Any other answer is a sign that whatever we're doing is not working. I since made this a spiritual practice to regularly ask myself that question.
Now, how to make sure the answer is yes? In my opinion, growth is the answer. What is life but growth? Life always wants more of itself, everything in Nature is either growing or dying. Stagnation doesn't even exist because a rock is dead but water will eventually erode it. In order to want to live we must grow. There is no way around this. And how do we grow? By pushing ourselves, this is why I previously wrote that pushing ourselves is the kindest thing we can do to ourselves. Pushing ourselves is LIFE, making sense of where we are (stagnation, which is an illusion) is death. This is when we realize that someone like David Goggins is in fact a very spiritually awake person (and most people are asleep).
FREEDOM vs STATUS-QUO:
The most spiritually awaken people are usually the furthest away from the status quo, not because they try to as a reaction to it (that's weakness), but simply because the high level of Freedom at which they live naturally distances them from the place where everybody else had fallen asleep, commonly called "The world". Let's face it, most people are not happy, they're quite miserable in fact, they are not fit either, not wealthy, not at peace at all either, not anything truly great in most areas of life and this can only mean one thing: The status quo must be wrong. For that reason, being an independent thinker is probably the most important trait of all for spiritual awakening, and we don't find that in a dogmatic place by definition.
You may want to watch the movie "A Hidden Life" by Terrence Malick to understand what I mean when I use the word Freedom. It's not the entitled freedom of Venice Beach to "do whatever I want" and try to look important in a society that has fallen deep into over-permissiveness and victimhood, it's one of a very unique kind that this favorite movie of mine illustrates like nothing else I have seen. Let me give you the best line of the movie, one that made me both smile and cry at the same time: "Sign here and you'll go free" > "But I'm already Free". Franz Jagerstatter was no doubt a great independent thinker.
I absolutely LOVE these people who live at a whole other level of FREEDOM than the rest of the world, they are so few. I'm never a fan of people since I prefer being a fan of ideas (see Eleanor Roosevelt quote mentioned earlier about people/events/ideas) but I have to say that someone like Elon Musk completely embodies what being FREE truly means, and I am very thankful that a few people like this appeared on the planet and dared to take high levels of ACTION so we can know they even exist.
Please do not write to me to debate about spiritual views. I will not answer (these arguments never lead anywhere). Thanks!

LIFE PHILOSOPHY - THE ULTIMATE GENIUS LEVEL

I'd like to introduce to you what I call the ultimate genius of living, my personal little philosophy that I consider the supreme goal in mastering Life. Here's how it goes:
▶ Some people are excellent at making things happen, they push themselves hard, they are disciplined and aggressive, they make a difference and the world's trajectory is affected in sizable amounts because they showed up.
▶ Others are excellent at living like The Little Prince. They are fulfilled, not by the results but by the process and the little things. They know how to notice a rose and smell it, they haven't fallen asleep to become a well behaved accountant respected by society.
Let's call the former type the Doers and the latter type the Smellers.
I would estimate the Doers to represent about 1% of the population. They are so few because self-discipline is a requirement for producing results and it is a very hard and unnatural quality for the brain. Biology loves instant-gratification and this takes people away from actually doing anything sizable.
I would estimate the Smellers at about 5 to 10% of the population among adults, and 99% among children. That is because we were all born with more curiosity than fears. Then mommy brought us to the park and with the best intentions said the classic (and unintentional evil) "Be careful honey!" and teachers taught us how to behave and fit-in, and pretty soon the Little Prince forgot about his planet, the rose and the sheep.
That ultimate genius level is to combine both, to simultaneously have our feet on the ground and our head in the sky. This stretch does not happen by accident, it requires an enormous amount of effort and intentionality, integrating two different extremes and rising above dichotomies. Until we can imagine a bodybuilder play the violin and have no problem with this picture we cannot even start the process of stretching to this genius because we wouldn't even have a VISION of what that stretch would look and FEEL like.
I would estimate those who have both, the "Smellers Doers" (or geniuses) to be less than 0.1% of the population. And I would estimate those who have neither (the zombies) to be the vast majority of people, neither fulfilled nor achieving anything significant, neither in the sky nor on earth, just floating with the wind somewhere in between hoping for a better wind some day.
▶ To become Doers we must override our feelings with extreme action and aggressive intentionality. This completely goes against what the brain wants, which is instant-gratification. This is why at most 1% of people succeed at this. Doer-skills can be learned from people like Navy SEALs, by absorbing their mindset as an intentional daily practice and pushing ourselves beyond limits into the dangerous but at least capable-making world of extremes. Most people are afraid to do this because it looks ugly from the outside and they worry that embracing their inner darkness leads them to a path that spins out of control. In other words they are afraid of their own power, and I believe it is a mistake. Avoiding the possibility of becoming highly capable by running away from extremes does not make anyone good, it only makes them... incapable (of both good and bad, meaning just dead). Because so many people miss that side of the two ultimate virtues, and that this side is more difficult to develop than the other, I like to say that "Most people need a Navy SEAL more than they need a priest". The real reason why they usually go to the priest is because it is easier and the brain likes easy. Another reason why stretching to a Doer is more difficult is that it takes years for the physical reality to catch up with consistent actions.
Being naive does not make people more pure, it simply makes them incapable. A lot of "spiritual" communities have a HUGE problem with this. Incapable is useless, and useless is not spiritual since we came here for a physical incarnation in the first place. At first it seems very pretty to "Imagine..." but it means nothing if we end-up getting shot in the back at 40 years old.
▶ Becoming Smellers is easier because we were all born this way. Is is more natural and does not require to fight biology, it takes REMEMBERING more than learning. The results of smelling are also instant, all it takes is an intentional shift in perspective and within a minute we can be a Smeller (at least for a while until we forget). Smelling is an every-moment-thing while doing takes more patience due to its natural delayed feedback. For these reasons more people succeed at Smelling than Doing. The Doers who wish to become Smellers (again) need to integrate smelling-disciplines into their daily rituals with enough intentionality to create this stretch.
The Doers tend to despise Smellers and the Smellers tend to despise Doers, but that is only because they are stuck into a dichotomous life philosophy, they cannot imagine the bodybuilder violinist. As a result of seeing everything from dichotomies they believe that they might lose their ability to smell if they became aggressive, and they might lose their ability to do if they started smelling. Both are false.
The Smellers are often women because this quality is a natural part of female energy. The Doers are often men due to being a typical male-energy quality. Smellers know how to live in the now, Doers in the future. Both are right and each is wrong. I believe they must be integrated into the same mind for the magic to work, trying to combine them by bringing two different minds together won't do it because each mind won't be able to understand the other, like conjoined twins with one head in the sky and another on earth trying to make sense of each-other's perspective and get somewhere...
Tony Robbins has an expression I like to describe these two areas of life, "The Science of Achievement, and the Art of Fulfillment". Notice that one is a Science while the other is an Art, emphasizing completely different worlds. The earth is governed by laws like gravity, SCIENCE is the way these things are discovered. The sky however cannot be known by science, it is a world discovered with WONDER.
People who fail to feel at ease with the image of the bodybuilder violinist won't realize that Science and Wonder are in fact the exact same thing. They see them as opposites. Science and Wonder are simply two ways to know Divinity, the "World" with capital W, the "Universe", or whatever you may want to call it. Many people call it "God" but I learned to hate this word due to all the clerical baggage of doctrines it carries.
Doer and Smeller qualities ARE NOT born, genetic, or "personality types", they have to be developed and mastered intentionally through daily PRACTICE. I like to develop my Doer side by adsorbing the mindset of people like David Goggins and Grant Cardone (it's never been easier today with Youtube), and I like to develop (or remember) my Smeller side by making art, reading "The Little Prince" (for the 50th time...) in a retreat center (e.g. Big Sur), by meditating, and mostly just by remembering it intentionally in the daily life, looking around for a rose, or by splashing ocean water in the air and rushing into the crashing waves before going back on sand and jumping to celebrate for no particular reason, then interrupting the jumping to embrace the horizon with my arms wide open (I actually do all these daily as part of my habits while a few zombies observed stunned, probably thinking I'm insane, not realizing most of the world is). I also sometimes like to give myself a healthy shock by reading something like "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" or more recently watching the 2022 movie "Living" and tearing up in the theater.
Personally, I've been a Smeller for the first 20 years of my life (obvious path as an artist). Then in my twenties I realized how impractical this was in the context of physical reality, civilization (the world with a small w), and how painful can the consequences be of failing to get anything significant done. I also started seeing how one could impact the other because without being a Doer it would be impossible to leave the world different than we found it, and this prevents the attainment of PURPOSE which ironically is a Smeller thing. So I progressively started developing the Doer side. I did not call them like this back then since I was clueless about this concept. Over the next 18 years (20-38 yo) I became intensionally aggressive and self-disciplined and I absolutely loved the results because I could see how it altered the physical reality, something my Smeller side was totally incapable of... doing. Problem is, feeding both the Doer and Smeller sides simultaneously is extraordinarily difficult (that's why I call it Ultimate Genius) so I lost some of the Smeller side over that period. In fact, I composed over 100 music tracks in my first 20 years, and only a couple dozen in the next 18 years.
At this point, some people will think "Sure, we oscillate between one and the other, it's all about... BALANCE!" but I think that is a very wrong perspective. These people are stuck in the dichotomies, "balance" is a nasty lie that implies dichotomies, and because it is an UNCOMMITTED way of living it always leads those who believe in it into mediocrity. And mediocrity is neither Doer not Smeller, it is zombie. The goal is not to oscillate back and forth between earth and sky but to actually STRETCH all the way, walking the surface of the earth with our head in the clouds. Not one of the two, not both, but one big WHOLE thing from one extreme to the other and everything in between.

Depression & Suicide — The only cure that works

The main reason I made this web page is to share what I've learned about reality (until the website becomes a whole platform later). So I will share here something I learned about depression and suicide that you may not ever hear anywhere else. I claim that it is the only cure that actually works, THE MAGIC KEY.
In my twenties I had many periods of very severe depression, sometimes to be point of becoming suicidal. I tried many approaches to it but none worked. Not having anyone to talk to ended up helping me because it forced me to seek answers on my own, and in particular from within which is often the best place to look for them since there's no better way to study Human Nature than to use the most direct connection we have with it, the one with the highest bandwidth for feedback loops.
When we study the most capable people in history we find that each of them had at least two things in common: They had a long period of profound loneliness that forced them to go deep within, usually in darkness, and find the answers there. And among the answers they found THE MAGIC KEY that I'm going to talk about. Itzhak Perlman stuck in a wheel chair watched other kids play outside and realized that since he could still move his arms might as well become obsessed with the violin. Kobe Bryant lonely in Italy where he didn't speak the language threw himself completely into basketball. This pattern of loneliness and darkness followed by obsession is so obvious that it is in fact difficult to find anyone who made of their life something extra-ordinary who does not fit perfectly into it. From Jesus to Batman they all fit right into this pattern. That's when we realize that these periods of darkness and loneliness are in insight blessings as long as we take advantage of them.
One day in my beginning thirties I finally found THE MAGIC KEY too, I had reached that aha-moment where everything clicks, I finally understood what makes people depressed and it never happened to me since, not even once at low levels.
Imagine you bring your car to a garage to fix it, but you've been bringing that car every week for the last two years and it's still broken. Wouldn't you conclude that whatever the mechanic does is not working? What if that mechanic had all the credentials and degrees to be considered the ultimate "expert" in the field, should this affect your judgment? Yet, millions of people have seen a therapist or psychologist for YEARS, even taken toxic/mind-damaging antidepressants, and are still depressed nevertheless. This is absurd. It goes back to what I wrote about the status-quo, the fact that THE STATUS QUO IS WRONG. No one should ever be impressed by "experts" who cannot back-up their credentials with results.
I saw a therapist for about 18 months and I believe he was a good one, he helped me understand the basics of what happens within me and become more curious about my feelings. But after 18 months there was no results. How is that possible? Because just like in music, there are theorists who spend their time analyzing, measuring, even coming up with meanings about what a composer did that he didn't even know himself (making it some irrelevant theorist-craft), and then there are the people who just make music. Thinking and analyzing is useless without action and results, and this is what all these people are missing.
So I left this good therapist and a couple of years later I finally reached the aha-moment on my own and understood how this all works after reflecting and studying those who actually get results. Here's how that aha goes:
We are spirits. Wayne Dyer used to say "Spiritual beings having a human experience" (meaning not the other way around). In other words we get IN-CARN-ated into flesh, physicality, from spirit. What could possibly be the purpose of that? The purpose is CREATION, but not of any kind, the creation that manifests things from the spirit into their physical equivalent. In other words, not more thoughts... but more matter.
Imagine you crash a funeral, sit in the audience and hear someone speak about the deceased, maybe a priest for example, and he says "This man was a very spiritual man, he meditated for 60 years in a cave to die very awake!". Wouldn't this be an absurd life? The guy spent his whole life desperately trying to get back to where he came from, only to go back there anyway. So why did he show up in the first place? I meditate twice daily, but that's only to serve one main purpose: bringing me clear thinking so I can take more and better... ACTION.
Let's share again these two quotes I already shared many times in this page:
"Only in our doing can we grasp You. Only with our hands can we illumine You." - Rilke (The Book Of Hours). Another way to say this would be "Only through physicality can we express spirit".
"My prayer is action." - Grant Cardone.
So what is this magic key to depression I discovered like few others?
Become so OBSESSED about a creative endeavor that you neither have the time nor thought-energy or room for depression. The level of obsession should be so high that if people knew how much time you spend on the thing, how often you think about it, and most importantly how aggressive the amount of ACTION you take, they would be forced to make it wrong so they can get off the hook and not have to face the fact that they live at shallow levels far from their ultimate potential, far from what their SPIRIT secretly begs them for in terms of amounts of PHYSICAL ACTION.
Grant Cardone (hate him or love him, that's irrelevant) wrote a book called "Be Obsessed or Be Average" which might be the best book I have ever read in my life so far, and I've read hundreds. In this context it should be "Be Obsessed or Be Depressed".
A therapist or priest will never tell you this truth because they are too afraid of extremes, despite the fact that all excellence requires some extreme and all mediocrity involves shallowness and average. Many people will say things like "Oh but you're just replacing an addiction with another", or promote a "Balanced Life". Those who preach the evil gospel of "balance" never commit to anything deep enough, and uncommitted people tend to be depressed. Of course, part of what gets them depressed is a lack of results in their life since balance ultimately leads to mediocrity which doesn't give any GROWTH to celebrate. This whole thing about balance could not be more wrong advice, it is a very dangerous idea and those who promote it should be avoided. It sounds pretty and perhaps even "spiritual" but it doesn't work on the long term. Obsessed is how we SHOULD be. It is not natural for a spirit to be contained by the status-quo and tamed into a REASONABLE SPECTATOR. If no one thinks you're insane, then most likely that everything you do is too shallow, not committed enough, not OBSESSED enough. And this lack of obsession creates an ache inside the subconscious that says "I'm far from my ultimate potential". That gap between current level of commitment and ultimate potential is what makes people depressed.
Once I understood that I started cultivating on a daily basis an unreasonable level of obsession for everything I do, and this changed everything. Not once have I ever been even close to any form of depression again. Obsession is not some trait of personality-type, it is something to cultivate with high intentionality. We CHOOSE obsession daily.
Now, by "Creative Endeavor" I do not necessarily mean art or craft. Anything that alters the course of the physical world in some way is creative, whenever Spirit affects Matter. Fitness is creative, matter was alerted. Business is creative, civilization is impacted. Any skill is creation, by wiring the nervous system in unique patterns that are then able to alert the world. You will have a very hard time finding someone who is completely obsessed with what they do, regardless of what that thing is, and who is depressed. I believe you simply cannot find such a person.
The endeavor does not need to be grandiose or unique. It doesn't have to be basketball, violin or some world-recognized thing. The WHAT and the WHO are irrelevant, it is about the HOW. It's about obsession itself, not the thing we're obsessed about. In other words, I am exposing here the big lie of "Finding your passion". This also couldn't be more terrible advice. No need to "find" it... Pick ANYTHING and BRING an unreasonable amount of obsession TO it, and I promise you you will never be depressed again. Of course, don't set unreasonable timelines for high expectations because this would be the most common way to mess this up. Tony Robbins often says "Most people over-estimate what they can do in a year, and under-estimate what they can do in a decade or two.". In other words, their long term dreams are actually too small, but the timeline for their short term expectations is too short. Again, it is the obsession itself that will bring you joy, the PHYSICAL expression of SPIRIT to its full extent, not the attainment of some goal.
The ultimate test is this: If the average therapist knew how obsessed you became about "it" (again, pick ANYTHING, almost at random if you have to) would they think that's wrong? If not, you probably need to deliberately crank up the level of obsession. One excellent way to do that is to cultivate an intentional HATE for the shallow, this will automatically push you into obsession. Then you can simply bring this level of obsession into absolutely everything you do. Trust me, I have learned from experience that it works very well.

MUSIC

2022 : new music "Amniotic Tone" coming soon (preview).
2021-08 Diary of the Stars
2020-08 B-612
2019-06 Birth of the Solar System
2019-04 Draw Me a Sheep
2019-01 Medley of 2018 Songs
2018-10 Ibiza
2018-08 Funky Improv
2018-03 Ey Yoga Mat!
2018-01 "Extended" version of The Flight of the Dove (the piano-splits video)
2015 Hymn to Grandpa (orchestra)
2015 The Flight of the Dove (orchestra)
2012 Solemn Lullaby (orchestra)

FAVORITE QUOTES

"Almost everything comes down to instant gratification versus delayed gratification, in other words brain versus spirit. We take the marshmallow test every second of our lives." - Florian Bador :)
I believe in this so much that I intentionally made it everything that I'm about. I wired my brain over the years to identify instant gratification as the ultimate enemy in every situation, and the people who promote it are very unwelcome. They usually do so to feel better about themselves having sold their soul to it, if only we could join them... but I never will.
"Impress the fly on the ceiling, not the friend on the wall." - Florian Bador :)
 
"Democratic systems always end up becoming dangerous bottom-up dictatorships." - Florian Bador :)
I guess I need to explain this last important one... As the most attractive yet incorrect ideas gain momentum in society through the uneducated crowd, this new majority ferociously defend these "obvious" views until the status-quo becomes a bottom-up type of dictator. He's nowhere and everywhere at the same time, and anyone who dares challenging him (typically independent thinkers) are called *-ist names and eventually burned at the stake. This is precisely why Plato hated democracies. The history of the Roman Empire proved him right, and he's right again today, even more so because modern media put an exponent on the status-quo resulting in an extraordinary momentum-power. In the same time, the status equality of the people is greater than ever in history so that anyone completely uneducated and ignorant can really have a voice (by "educated" I do not refer to academia of course as academics are often the least educated people. I am referring to a relentless curiosity to learn the truth through daily healthy and intentional habits compounded for decades). The concept of democracy relies on the idea that the majority is more likely to be right than wrong, and this couldn't be more absurd due to countless biases, but especially due to this problem of momentum.
 
"Sign here and you'll go free" > "But I'm already Free" - Franz Jagerstatter in the movie "A Hidden Life" by Terrence Malick, possibly my favorite movie of all times. Once in a few millions comes someone who chooses to embrace a level of Freedom of extreme purity, and I'm in love with these people. They are free from the mind of society and one with Truth. I see these people as the ultimate role models.
"Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once." - Shakespeare
"God made man because God loves stories." - Elie Wiesel
"You were not born in sin, you were born in bliss." - Michael Beckwith
"We don't need spiritual followers, we need spiritual leaders." - Michael Beckwith
"A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty." - Emerson (Self-Reliance)
 
"God's work will not be made manifest by cowards." - Emerson
"Only in our doing can we grasp You. Only with our hands can we illumine You." - Rilke (The Book Of Hours)
"My prayer is action." - Grant Cardone
"Don't let your learning turn into knowledge or you will become a fool, let your learning turn into action so you can become wealthy." - Jim Rohn
"Success requires no apologies. Failure permits no alibis" - Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich)
 
"To really feel alive, you've got to fu**ing push yourself. That's just the way of things." - Tom Bilyeu
"Winning is more fun than fun is fun." - Ed Mylett (Listen to him & his son telling this life-changing story in 5 minutes)
"There are a lot of people in mediocrity who have a nice resume, but they're one-timers." - David Goggins
"^$#**ck&~* f%}^?#** {@$$^#*!!!" - David Goggins (any good swearing by David Goggins sounds like poetry to me)
 
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - George Bernard Shaw
"Life is short, so remember to be super serious, take everything personally and be outraged on a daily basis." - Chad Hurley
"Some men see things as they are and say why, I Dream things that never were and say why not" - George Bernard Shaw
"Walk by faith, not by sight" - John
 
"The kingdom of God will not appear in visible signs, nor shall people say Lo Here! or Lo There! because behold, the kingdom of God is within you." - Jesus (Luke 17:20)
"Cut wood and I am here. Lift a stone and you will find me." - Jesus (Gospel of Thomas)
"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." - Blaise Pascal
"Do you want a drink?" someone asked - "I'm making my own" replied Deepak Chopra (meaning from within as opposed to desperately trying to change ourselves from without like most people do)
"Wherever you are, be there."
 
"You must make your future Dream a present fact by assuming the feeling of your wish fulfilled" - Neville (The Power Of Awareness)
"Conquer the mind and you conquer the world."
 
"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble, it's what you know for sure that just ain't so." - Mark Twain
 
"Great minds discuss ideas, Average minds discuss events, Small minds discuss people." - Eleanor Roosevelt
 
"Mastery is being brilliant at the basics."
"People are rewarded in public for what they've practiced for years in private." - Tony Robbins
"Losers react, Winners anticipate." - Tony Robbins
"Good times create weak people, weak people create bad times, bad times create strong people, and strong people create good times." - Tony Robbins summarizing the book The Fourth Turning (which I don't really recommend - see my review on GoodReads)
 
"Broke people are selfish." - Grant Cardone.
"Find out what poor people read and don't read it." - Jim Rohn
 
This story of the farmer and good news/bad news.