Business vs. Love Part 5

You know the feeling.

Friend calls you up to go out, there’s an event at a bar. Same scene, same girls. You wonder if you should muster up the courage and energy to go out, or decide to stay in and make some progress on that website you have been trying to launch in the past 6 months.

Scenario 2 – you have been doing well at work lately – new job and new promotion. 2% salary raise. Yeh. You decide to go out more this week with your friends. You get a few number closes, but none of them return or pick up when you text/call. You wonder where your game has gone wrong, and after a while decide “fuck it” and focus on some other area in your life. Maybe you’ll muster up the anger or motivation to call up a few PU friends and ask for their advice, but ultimately, the game dynamics go back to you.

You go back to focus on work, but you realize that you are working your ass off for your company and they are making all of the money. The constant ass kissing and power maneuvers at work get to you. You decide to start your own company on the side. You do some research and work, but really have no idea where to start. You write a business plan.

A friend’s birthday comes up – you decide to go. You hit it off with this girl, and decide your game isn’t so bad after all. You go out a few more times over the next 2 weeks – some nights are good, some night are not. A lot of effort is being put into this and the results of lays is not showing.

If the above 5 paragraphs sound remotely familiar, that is because I have experienced it first hand. I have been writing these “Business vs. Love” posts for…. 1 year now!

It took a some simple advice from one group member, a Stanford PhD student at our MasterAlliance meeting to wake up me, “R, maybe there are just excuses? I mean, when I didn’t want to work out, I was throwing out the exact same reasoning as you. These are just excuses that stand in your way. Maybe I am wrong, but think about it.”

He’s right. The truth is, if it came down to it, I would choose love over money. Because love transcends material things, even this life, money is only a tool we use to trade things of perceived value in this world. But achieving both often means going after something the right way. You want to pickup a girl? Focus and learn from each set’s mistake. Don’t over analyze your sets, and focus on your skill set. Film yourself if you have to to see your flaws.

Waiting for that business plan? It is not going to write itself. Stop watching porn and if you are going to blow off your friends, make a commitment to finish 20% of that plan by the time you go to sleep. These are things that are definite and require energy, but the fact is sometimes this pain of exerting energy is better than the pain of mind-numbing and time passing that comes from doing a lot of things that are 1. half assed and 2. not significant anyway.

“With Scarcity comes Clarity” – Sergey said recently in the economic downturn, and this is another sage advice that I am lucky enough to see working at Google.

The “I am going to have fun” vibe

Thursday afternoon, we are playing a game at the courts in Crittenden Lane. I was doing alright, but not that well. This wasn’t even my team. I thought about it, and remembered back in high school – when I played ball, it was always when I didn’t think about it that much that I did really well. Coach made me to 20 push ups after sucking the first half, and I was so tired that when I went back into the game I didn’t think about it and sunk my first shot.

This playful vibe is useful, and I ended up scoring 6 of the 21 points for the win. Later that weekend, I also embodied the “Fun” attitude into my PU. This attitude is comprised of “I am going to have a good time” with “I am a fucking cool guy with a cool life” vibe. Combine this with actual skill, in basketball and PU, and you can get very far in results. I had 2 girls buy me drinks recently. It was a blast. Lovedrop talks about the Ying and Yang. Ying is the positive energy you generate form your presense. Your positive vibe. The Yang is the non-reaction seeking and negative energy deflecting energy. You can’t let one person’s actions get to you, this includes other AMOGs, a girl’s rejection, or any other distraction of that sort. In some times, being in a “fun state” is like being in “Flow”, and your ego goes out the window. You are one with the game.

Feeling like this also makes me smile and happy for a moment. And during that phase, in my mind I wish I would not lose it and that this feeling can continue. I can call it up when I force a smile, or when I think about this “fun and play” basketball mentaltity again, but the impact it has when it happens varies.

I suppose, when in doubt, let your ego go. Think, “have fun”. and “I am cool”. In the words of Vincent Chase, “My life is too good to be worried about Shit like this”.