As a kid I would tell my Mom fantastical stories.

My favorite pass time was to think about all my wild dreams.

I thought about the way it would feel to work with Jaguars, road-trip around in a converted van, and win gold at Taekwondo.

I would dream of all the places I would live from Hawaii to the Rockies and from Thailand to the Himalayas.

My brain was teeming with goals, aspirations, and dreams.

That was until I hit the fork in the road:

I never thought I’d fall for the conventional trap. I was always aware of it.

I new it was better to listen to what you (actually) wanted to do, then it was to follow the crowd despite that being the easier option.

But, I was arrogant, I thought I could outsmart the system.

I thought I could do both:

• Go to school and study

• While working on side projects, nourishing my passion in my free time and during the summer

I lied to myself, I fooled myself into believing, it was better to go this route for the stability of it (it’s really not).

Despite knowing the truth, that it wasn’t the correct path (for me).

As expect I was unhappy, unfulfilled, and lost.

Now it wasn’t all that bad, I had good people around me, I enjoyed some of my classes, I lived away from home for the first time, and I felt like I was finally growing up.

But, in the quiet moments I started to notice my dreams weren’t as loud. And my plan to work on my passions in my free time, wasn’t really happening.

Through reflection, I realized my dreams hadn’t been around for a while.

I realized they started to leave me the moment I looked to the crowd for guidance.

The Mass

There are 4 Types of People:

1. The Mindless

2. The Followers

3. The Arrogant

4. The Aligned

The list can be bulked into two categories: The Followers & The Aligned.

Every single person who is a follower is, or will live a life of quiet desperation.

Maybe not now, but one day they will wake up and wonder why the hell they are living the way they are, and why they’ve been putting up with it for so long.

Sadly, many of these people will feel hopeless to change.

The first biggest trap is making people believe they have to figure out their life at 18.

The second biggest trap is making people think they can’t change the direction of it.

The Mindless, are those who follow the conventional route because it the only option they are aware of.

The Followers, are those who feel turmoil with what to do with their life and look to others for the solution.

The Arrogant, are what I was, the ones who think they can outsmart the system, those who think they can have it all (at once).

The Aligned, are those who follow their own path, whether it be the conventional path or a path they forge themselves.

The Pandemic of Followers

Today we have a pandemic of followers.

Look at all the people locked into careers they dread, purely because they were told it was the right choice.

Look at the kids getting ready to graduate high school, stressed over what to do with their future, while still having to ask to go to the washroom.

Look at the university students who think (despite hating it) university is the only way to get a well paying job.

People are desperately searching for more out of life.

The world is full of lost people who have forgotten their dreams.

People searching for clarity, focus, and fulfilment.

People seeking to grow, find their place in the world, and have an impact on the lives of others.

There is a pandemic of forgotten dreamers.

The Pandemic of Mental Entropy

Entropy is generally taught to be disorder, but an easier way to understand it is, as the spreading out of energy.

The more spread out energy is the less useful it is and the more disorder ensues.

A high entropy mind is overthinking, stressed out, and anxious.

It’s the mind of person who can’t focus, who is lost, and is a slave to their impulses and desires.

The modern world is designed to ensue mental entropy, it’s designed to distract you, and ‘spread out’ your mental energy.

It’s no wonder you can’t focus.

You are bombarded with constant stimulation, through:

• Short form content

• Social media

• The crowd

18 year old’s being told to figure out their lives are the most susceptible to mental entropy.

You have the opinions of your peers, teachers, and parents all pulling you in different directions.

And worst of all the common advice young people are given when they don’t know what to do is:

“To do something easy that will make a lot of money.”

This notion to do what’s easy or will get you a quick buck, ingrains a belief that you can’t take control of your life.

It creates a lack of belief in your ability to learn, grow, and adapt.

Adding to the pressure and enforcing the idea that being fulfilled in life doesn’t matter.

With all this pressure, overstimulation, and lack of belief you lose sight of your dreams.

Dreams are the direct opposite of mental entropy. Dreams are a compact force of energy and focus.

As a conscious beings, you can take control of your focus and energy.

You can gather it back up and nurture it into something powerful.

You can reverse the entropy in your mind.

Renewing the Dream Tank

The noise of the outside world has drowned out the sounds of your dreams.

You must rekindle them and ignite that spark.

If you do this, life will gain a certain luster to it.

You’ll be rewarded with quality dopamine, and clarity and peace will invade your spirit.

No matter the dream, the pathway is the same.

To live a meaningful and impactful life you must nurture and express your dreams as they change throughout your life.

The 3 Step Dream Fulfillment Framework

To fulfill your dreams, you must start by finding them (again).

1. Clarity & Interest

Start by reversing mental entropy.

If mental entropy is caused by too much noise from the external world, then the obvious solution is to do the opposite.

• Remove constant stimulation

• Sit with the noise of your mind

• Practice mindfulness & journaling

• Switch to long form content—delete social media from your phone & watch long format YouTube

You’ll feel discomfort at first. But, the more you do it the easier it’ll get.

As you get better you’ll notice a new type of noise in your head. An Internal noise.

In the quiet moments when you’re alone with your thoughts, you’ll start to have a pull to certain thoughts.

This pull is the return of your dreams and interests—Listen to them.

They’ll manifest themselves as goals, such as:

• A dream career path

• Wanting to be happier

• Wanting to travel

• Wanting to have a better relationship with your parents

Whatever it may be, as they arise, indulge them.

Follow these streams of consciousness and imagine yourself becoming the person who has realized their dreams.

Begin journaling and keeping track of them.

2. Make it Real

The next step is to get them out of your head and into the real world.

To start, make a rough plan. It’s not meant to be perfect.

It’s to help gain clarity on your starting point.

Your rough plan should have 3 parts:

1. Your dream—aka your goal

2. A list of what you’ll need to achieve your goal—ex. money or certain skills

3. What you need to learn or do to get what you need

Take 5-10 minutes to brainstorm and write out your rough plan.

3. Practice & Learn

The only thing between you and your dream is a lack of skills.

This is true even when it doesn’t seem like it.

• Are you unhappy?—Happiness is a skill

• Do you need money?—Making money is a skill

• Are you too scared to do what you want?—Courage is a skill

Not having what you want comes down to a lack of skill.

(In a practical sense that is. This doesn’t count for things like, wanting to see a loved one who’s past away.)

Don’t let this discourage you, you can learn any skill you want.

Believe this and you’re leaps and bounds ahead of society.

In your rough plan, you should have listed out what you need to learn/do to realize your dream.

This is the skill you’re going to learn.

This is how you’ll learn it:

1. Set your field

2. Set micro-goals

3. Practice (properly)

1. Set your Field

A skill in itself is to big a field.

You can go a thousand different directions. With so many options you’ll inevitably get overwhelmed or lost.

You need to shorten you field of view.

You do this by zooming in on a part of the field.

For example:

If the skill you’re learning is money production.

There are endless ways to do this.

You need to break it down, into a smaller area of play.

Start by asking broad questions.

• Do you want to make money online or in real life?

For this example, let’s choose real life.

Again, shorten the playing field—physical products or physical labour?

• Let’s choose physical labour.

What physical labour job should I do?

• Let’s say Landscaping.

Follow this line of questioning as long as you need to gain clarity.

2. Micro-goals

In day to day actions, your field is still to broad.

To take action you need to set parameters.

This is where micro-goals come in. They act as your guides through your field.

To set your micro-goals split your field into smaller tangible steps.

To continue the Landscaping example:

Landscaping encapsulates many jobs, from patios to garden bed.

Start by choosing one.

Since you’re trying to learn, your micro goal must always be just outside your comfort zone.

Assuming you’ve never done any Landscaping work, then between the two examples you would start by learning/doing garden beds.

Generally, the less skill required the less you get paid.

And since you’re learning money production, continue to set micro-goals just outside your bounds, developing your landscaping skills and thus your earning capacity.

3. Practice

If you follow me, you’ve likely heard me say:

“Practice doesn’t make perfect, it makes habit.”

The point of practice is to improve. You can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results.

You need feedback (information) and to make adjustments.

The way you do this is simple:

• Try

• Pay attention to what worked & what didn’t work

• Hypothesize a solution to the problem

• Test out the solution

• Repeat

Whenever you have a problem, run it through this framework. If you do it properly you’ll grow faster than ever before.

Ensure Success

To end letter, I have a warning for you:

Be patient.

The first killer of dreams is never starting, the second is a lack of patience.

Most people quit too early because it feels like they’re not making progress causing them to think it’s not worth it.

But you know it’s worth it, because you know what quitting means.

Quitting means returning to the status quo, it means returning to your life of quiet desperation.

When it feels like you’re not progressing there are 3 reasons why:

• You’re not paying enough attention—you’re improving, you just don’t realize it

• The improvement is subconscious—the growth hasn’t had the opportunity to show itself yet

• You actually aren’t improving—in this case you need to apply the practice framework above

Don’t be hard on yourself, your carving out your own path. Something that’s never been done before and will never be done again. Of course it’s going to be frustrating at times.

My last point is related to patience:

Don’t rush the process.

Instead of focusing on the next 10 steps, focus on the step you have to take now.

Write the other steps down, to get them out of your mind. As you progress, revisit them to regain clarity.

Thank you for reading!

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