Tag Archives: intention

Moons & Moods: My Equilibrium Theory

Total Read Time: 7 Minutes

Over the past 3 days I have had the worst mood swings in months. The more people I talk to between work and home, the more I find consistencies in their emotional irregularities. Oxymoron, (consistent irregularities) I know, but mine were more than just environmentally related.

I had to go to the dentist, which I have an irrational fear of . The days leading up to my appointment were awful. Everything effected me. The things I could bounce off of me normally really dug deep. Even the little things like stupid joking comments from people at work just had more of an effect than usual.

I wrote this for all of you dealing with a similar mood swing. It’s so natural. Maybe more natural than we all realize.

You can do it! I believe in you. You’re amazing!

Without further rambling…

I made the realization yesterday over coffee. Thinking back on my writing about alcohol, I correlated it to writing. The resistance to Start writing is so akin to the resistance to Stop drinking. I wrote,

It’s self-perpetuating. Alcohol demands more of itself. The hardest part is to stop. 

The easiest… not starting at all.

Andrey Starostin: Alcohol

The self perpetuation can be understood as a state of flow,

see my writing on flow in How to Find Your Passion.

It’s quite simple to keep writing once I start, due to said state of flow. I realized alcohol’s similarity in that perpetuation. So I thought about the resistance between wanting to stop drinking and wanting to start writing.

It’s hardest to stop drinking after the first few drinks.
&
It’s hardest to stop writing after you start.

It’s easiest to prevent the perpetuation of drinking by forcing yourself not to start.
&
It’s easiest to begin the perpetuation of writing by forcing yourself to start.

The Resistance

Life seems to be so full of resistance. The richest moments of our lives demand difficulty in one way or another. The War Of Art, by Steven Pressfield is a perfect manual, almost a writer’s bible. It is the mirror you didn’t know you could look into. Relating to all creators, Pressfield brings clarity to the physical, emotional, and spiritual resistance all creators feel to sit down and get to work. The rationales we justify Not writing with. Easily in my top 10 books of all time.

My point is, I am flawed.

Unfortunately, I succumb to the resistance and my writing goes days, weeks, sometimes months without seeing a pen touch paper. I battle the desire to be more productive. I want the ability to write any time I choose. I wish I had the control.

Why isn’t there a gym of my mind? Why can’t I go through the motions and deadlift words out onto paper?

Equilibrium Theory

As a young boy, I formulated rationalization to explain why the world worked. I had to make sense of things. When people get mad, they return to happy. When people quit a job, someone replaces them. When I run around the playground all day, I get a sunburn. Everything seemed transactional, as if to have a reaction or an exchange of energy.

As bad as things get, the show must go on.

My equilibrium theories have never let me down, but I have no explanation for them. The moon comes around every 27.3 days. It’s no coincidence that oceanic tides change, hospital attendance rates spike, and restaurant call-offs occur around the same time.

How have you noticed these wavelengths in your life? It seems like one day you’re posting on instagram, and other days you’re beating yourself up.

My point with the equilibrium theory and my discipline is that some days it’s so easy to write. Some days, I can barely get out of bed. I look for ways to influence those days into my liking.. perhaps by

Nudging

I want to control the wavelengths.
I want to find the optimal length, intensity, and frequency.
I want to understand how my ups and downs can be steered into my favor.

I believe discipline, going through motions and forcing yourself to do the intentional right thing, will raise your “low’s,” but with an important caveat.
It seems to work by desensitizing you to the effects of your emotions.

That means your lows are less low.
It also means your highs are less high.

There has to be an ideal wavelength, where the highs hit all the marks, last long enough, and the lows are not downright crippling.

Steering

What if you could choose where the lows fall, as much as where your highs soar?

I want my highs to be involved with creative endeavors. I want to create at my peak performance. I want to analyze and understand with clarity and love for myself.

As for my lows… I aim to steer them at something… resilient. Durability in various facets of my life offer the ability to absorb negativity and bounce back faster.

I believe you can practice steering negative states into parts of your life that are definite and indestructible. Controlling the downside seems to be the first step, letting the upside glow and aid in recovery.

I know, I know this sounds like some woo woo freaky mind games. I don’t deny that it’s out there. As soon as someone starts talking about moons and astrology people automatically have a predisposition to… you get the point. I’m just a young boy trying to make sense of the world.
I’ve heard from a lot of you that you can relate… creating things is hard.

So far the best examples come from states of clarity.

Clarity is when you’re centered. You can drop into yourself and sit in a state of experience. You’re aware, present, and intentional. Clarity is where I see that I’m right.

When do you experience clarity?
Can you access it?

I’ve never been able to provoke clarity, but I’ve learned to recognize it when its there. I use clarity to recalibrate where I am in the wavelength.

I encourage you to try it next time you are having an amazing day. Try to drop into yourself and write down your desires, your goals, your downfalls, things you want to be more intentional with, and experience the moment, recognizing it shouldn’t always be there.

It’s a work in progress, this theory of equilibrium. I wish I could control it, but I’ll settle for simply understanding it.

It offers some explanation for why I am the way I am.

While I may feel out of control, I gain some peace with the fact that some force in this world is.

Thank you,

To my support around the world. My family, friends, loved ones, critics, and editors. I can’t do this without you.

Andrey Starostin

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(Yes, I respond and read every one)
Andrey@andreystarostin.com

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I’m Writing about My Relationship with Alcohol

Total Read Time: 8 Minutes

This post is about trauma. About Numbing myself. This is about choosing to give myself life instead of taking it away. I know it’s hard to read. Believe me, it’s harder to write.

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor. I do not advise anyone on changes to their health. Please consult your doctor before you do anything. If you or someone you know is struggling with alcohol, please seek guidance and help from a professional. There are people a phone call away that know exactly how to help.

The most spent currency is time.

One of my mentors, although there’s no chance he knew the impact he has had on my life, is a man I worked with years ago. He worked with urgency, indulging in a sigh only when time was taken care of. I mean the kind of “taken care of” when we are waiting on time itself. His most quoted saying was, “we are up against the clock.” The clock started when he woke up. It ended when his tasks for the day were finished.

We are either waiting on time, or time is waiting on us.

When you start a kettle of water, the time span before it boils is YOUR time. During that time, you are free to do anything you want. When the water has boiled, you are back on the clock; with time waiting on you to pour that water over some coffee grounds.

I find a soothing relief when I am waiting on time. I feel productive and in control. Ahead of the game.

Another example of this is efficient dishwashing. Not the kind at home after you ate some eggs. The kind where a 50 table restaurant that seats 200 people sends back 200 plates after they finished eating. Imagine you are the dish washer, and the next set of guests is arriving. Clean those plates.

I once worked with a young server named Jake. The dishwasher at the time was complaining they had to wash too many dishes. Jake pointed out,
“You’re not the dishwasher. That machine is the dishwasher.”

The point here is, the one thing we can not control is the time the dishwasher takes to run each cycle. What we can control, is having the next tray of dishes ready so that we can have the dishwasher running as often as possible. When the dishwasher is not running, time is waiting on you to load that thang up.

Alcohol is a time suck

I see alcohol as an exchange. A trade sometimes. Most of the time, just a time suck. I give away the rest of my evening, to the influences of alcohol. I sacrifice the productiveness and efficiency of the following morning to “recovery.”

“I give away hard earned dollars to the empty calories I worked so hard at my job and in the gym for. “

Don’t mistake my drama for preaching. I am all about loving myself. I want you to love yourself. You are amazing. Your life is worth living. You are incredible. Don’t beat yourself up for a night of drinking. This is about understanding the CHOICE you’re making. Man, I’m full of caveats today…

Alcohol BLURRRS Time

My father often related his first drink of the day to it’s conclusion; the day that is. Decisiveness takes a steep drop after that first drink. It’s self-perpetuating. Alcohol demands more of itself. The hardest part is to stop.

The easiest… not starting at all.

“Drinking alcohol is borrowing happiness from tomorrow”

Matt Mullenweg

The Challenge

Awareness – Take note of the opportunity cost with drinking. Understand what you will be unable to do instead.
Value – Apply intention in weighing the value of your consciousness that you lose while drinking.

Honesty is the true challenge.

Why is it easiest to lie to yourself, when you are the person that knows the truth?

I want the blur. I hate the clarity of the mirror. I don’t value my time. My productivity doesn’t produce anything the world wants. It’s better NOT TO FEEL and keep the past buried. It’s easier to sleep.

I couldn’t be more wrong.

What I know about myself is I find the edge too hard to balance on. One drink is so perpetually powerful, I eventually succumb.

The easiest answer is no, to starting.

Why am I being so hard on myself?

I spend a lot of time looking around myself; at the people I look up to, the people that raised me, and the people I can learn something from. So… basically everyone.

Most of the time, I’m paying attention to myself. What makes me feel good, bad, okay, and not enough.

The times I beat myself up the most are when I’m unproductive, financially irresponsible, and repeating mistakes I’ve already learned from.

When I look at what keeps me on track to being disappointed in myself, it usually involves alcohol.

When I look at accomplished, revered people around the world, many of them abstain from… alcohol.

Decision time

Drink a lot less alcohol.
As in, barely any.
Most of all, to better understand the true cost when I do drink.

Accountability

This audience… YOU are a great start. I really don’t want people pointing out when I’m slipping down the slope again.
So please point and laugh if I do.

Reward

I really Love finances. If anyone wants to talk about money saving techniques, credit cards, savings accounts, trading options, etc… Maybe I’ll just write about it. I’m bound to eventually.

I’m going to reward myself for every time I say no to alcohol.
I set up an easy transfer between a checking account into a savings account at a different bank. Capital One savings, in case anyone is interested.

They’re both interest bearing, but the savings account I specifically chose because I have no physical access to it. I did not link any automatic withdrawals from it. It’s way easier to put money in than it is to take money out. The point being, to mimic the sunk cost of spending money on drinks.

Every time I say no to alcohol, I get to deposit the cost of the said alcohol into my savings account.
Bottle of wine costs $15?
Just made $15 dollars by being disciplined.

I started thinking… imagine if you could get back all of the money you’ve ever spent on alcohol… god damn.

So that’s what I’m doing now. Positive reinforcement.

The easiest thing to forget is to accept being human and forgive mistakes. I’m not saying I’ll never drink again. I’m not demonizing it if I do. Remember, I said I want to understand the cost of doing so. I’m also making it easier and more rewarding to not drink.

What does Alcohol look like in YOUR life?

I’ve heard of dear friends drinking because they’re bored. I’ve heard coworkers say how they realized how much better they feel after NYE if they don’t glorify getting sauced. I have friends running challenges to make March a dry month.

The reality of it is, alcohol is so present in our lives. It’s effects do not have to consume us. The world is such a beautiful place with people like you in it. I would love to see what you’re capable of if you stop letting alcohol hold you back.

Truly, Thank you

For reading my spilled thoughts. You are so significant to me, and to this world. Thank you for being in it.

Thank you for being.

Andrey Starostin

Email
(Yes, I respond and read every one)
Andrey@andreystarostin.com

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Self Acceptance vs. Complacency

Total Read Time: 5 Minutes

I recently heard Tim Ferris’s interview of Brene Brown (Episode #409 – The Tim Ferriss Show) where they discussed relationships. As with most of his podcasts, Tim discussed ways of self betterment. He and Brene reach a topic that I in particular can relate and empathize with: the topic of self acceptance.

“There is a fine line between self acceptance and complacency.”

Let’s bring in a money analogy. When have you made enough money? If your goal is to “make more,” then what does it take to get you off that path? When do you realize you’re trapped in a never ending goal?

It looks like two outcomes really: You make more or you don’t. If you get what you want, it isn’t enough. If you aren’t making “more” money, then you’ll have to reconsider everything.

Money is really easy to understand.

It’s just a number. If you want it to grow, you have to define the goal number. The same principal has to be applied to your self acceptance.

How do you measure your self worth?

Now there’s a touchy topic. I’ve gone through months of trauma work and just scratched the surface. Trauma is everywhere and we have to make eye contact with it. I highly recommend Mastin Kipp as a start to learning about yourself. Below I’ll add recommended books etc.

You have to measure yourself based on who you are now, not who you want to be now. Speculation of your future self is bullshit. I’m sorry, but you don’t know what tomorrow looks like. For that reason, stop worrying about yourself. Today and right now are all that matters.

Step One

Accept does not mean like. You don’t have to like who you are right now, but you have to accept it. It’s done. Accept who you are right now.

Step Two

Accept all the things you can not change. If you don’t accept them, you’re stuck on repeat. “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” – Albert Einstein.

Step Three

Avoid complacency by being critical of the things you CAN change. Begin with things that are going well. Start with one thing and ask, “how can I be more intentional with the thing I love about myself?”

This is not something you want to eliminate. Remember, change does not have to be scary. Change can mean better. It should mean better. If you’ve been given the gift of beautiful hair, and you love that about yourself, how can you change to be more mindful, or twice as intentional with your hair?

Intention is the Key to Everything

I hate to be needlessly repetitive, but intention is my catch phrase. Jocko has “discipline” and “dichotomy.” I have “intention.”

I argue that intention is the solution for all of your problems. When you are intentional, it means you are in control. Control leads to easier solutions, because you have no one to blame and everything to change for the better.

Love Yourself

If you start being intentional with loving yourself I am sure you’ll have less time to wallow.

Displacement Strategy

You’re too busy loving yourself to hate yourself.

Or how about this.

You’re too busy improving the things you can, to be worried about the things you can’t.

Okay one more.

You stop noticing pebbles on the ground when you’re running.

Vacuum Strategy

Displacement is avoiding the formation of clutter in your living room (clothes, bags, useless garbage) by putting a couch there instead.

The vacuum is formed when you take out something you’re used to being there; your bed for example. It feels extra empty. The space is a vacuum for new things to fill it.

Take unwanted habits, bad role models, malevolent influences, and toxic environments out of your life. The vacuum that is created by that can only be filled with love. Love yourself first and your intention will naturally show you what is toxic and what is pure.

It’s like eating something out of a garden. You don’t grab the dirt. You just know what’s good for you. It looks so fresh and healthy. You don’t have to like it, but you have to accept it. You can be someone who hates fruits and vegetables, but you can’t deny that they are good for you.

Recipe for Life

Have you ever baked a cake? Baking is something I’ve never been able to do because the core construct involves trusting you’ve done everything correctly. You mix all the ingredients, then it’s out of your hands. You put it in the oven and pray.

The cooking I like to do involves tasting as you go. Adding additional salt, pepper, lemon, garlic. Giving each step thought and intention. Every ingredient serves a purpose and without each other, the dish is missing something.

Life should be a harmony of intentional steps forward. Life has no recipe where you do all the right things and come out risen and enlightened.

Life is today. Life is right now. You have the choice to carry yourself the way YOU intend. The one thing no one can ever take from you, is how you react. So react with intention. Give everything that deserves thought your loving intention. Let everything else stay in the past.

Thank YOU

For your time, your attention, your support, your kindness, your love

Andrey Starostin

Email
(Yes, I respond and read every one)
Andrey@andreystarostin.com

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Recommended

The Tim Ferriss Show: For those with a commute. Music lets you think. Podcasts tell you what to think.

Mastin Kipp: Claim Your Power – This book changed the way I see myself. It really put me on the path.

Jocko Willink: Speaking of “the path,” Jocko is responsible for hours of my time and interest in getting my mental state battle ready. From war novels to Jiu Jitsu, Jocko covers all things to get you on the path to your best self. Discipline Equals Freedom is the book I started with. Review coming of his latest book, Leadership Strategy and Tactics.

How to Find Your Passion

Total Read Time: 9 Minutes

What are you doing about it? Why would you QUIT YOUR DAY JOB?


Everyone wants their dream job, or wishes they even knew what to look for. If there’s one thing my 20’s taught me, it’s that your mindset behind intention defines both why you do something and subsequently, how you do something, if at all. I have spent the past decade listening to the world’s leading minds distill their advice into instagram posts, 3 hour podcasts, books, speeches, and YouTube videos. There’s all the advice in the world for people on how to achieve their goals. I’ve spent 10 years stuck at step one: what is my purpose? Here’s what I’ve got so far. My purpose is to show you you’re significant in this world. Let’s start with HOW to start searching.

“It’s hard to look at yourself...”

I want to empower you. I know what it’s like, very personally, to be stuck and hopeless. I believe everyone has a gift inside them, waiting for the flood gates to open so it can drown the world in the bright lights of their passion. It’s hard to open that threshold and find that passion because it’s hard to look at yourself when you’re the one that keeps walking through the doors of the job you hate. It’s hard to love yourself when you keep making mistakes and keep wasting time. I’m here to show you they are not mistakes, and that time is not wasted. I promise you, there is hope. There is room in this world for your smile and your laughter. There is a vacuum of purpose yearning for your authenticity. The world is hungry for the real you. I want to see you full of so much passion you can’t help but give it away. So let’s start with some definitions.

Definitions:

  • Passion and Purpose
    • Passion: When have you lost your sense of time and forgot to eat, drink, and sleep? What keeps your heart racing when you’re trying to sleep?
      • According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, we need to build upon a pyramid of basic human needs to eventually reach a state of “Self actualization,” where humans are driven to progress toward their full potential. The needs are:
        • Physiological
        • Safety
        • Love/belonging
        • Esteem
        • Self actualization
    • Exercise: Loving yourself
      • Only once you meet your needs can you move onward. Think of where you are on the pyramid, in terms of check points, moving up only when the previous needs are met. My point here is to help you realize you may need to work on some basics before you’re even capable of looking into your heart. Naturally I find it easier to do things to help people before I help myself. I get stuck when I don’t have anyone to help, and honestly forget to really focus on self care and loving myself. Hint: most people reading this will be around love/belonging and esteem. Write down the needs you have already met and leave some space to think about what needs you have in front of you. Keep in mind the quality of each need you already met, and highlight the ones you want to increase the quality of. For example, you know you should eat healthier and get more sleep, but maybe you also feel you could be more present in your relationship and work on your self esteem. Really trust your gut on this one. Engage the gut of honesty!
    • Here’s a quick category breakdown:
      • Basic needs:
        • Physiological: water, food, sleep, clothing, and shelter
        • Safety: Physical, emotional, and financial security
      • Psychological needs:
        • Love/Belonging: relationships with family, friends, partner/spouse, all varying in intimacy
        • Esteem: sense of self worth and pride in accomplishment, image of yourself both where you are and where you want to be
      • Self fulfillment needs:
        • Self actualization: reaching full potential
    • State of Flow
      • When in a state of flow, you are fully immersed and engorged in your task, often losing all sense of irrelevant things to what you are doing.
      • There are times in your life where you have achieved that feeling of bliss in what you were working on. I most often find myself late to places because I lost a sense of time. I realized the things I’m late to are things I subconsciously don’t want to be doing, and the things I’d rather be doing take up all of my attention. Physical fitness, specifically skateboarding, rock climbing, and hiking easily take me to a state of flow. Creative endeavors, as in writing and photography, also seem to engross everything I have to offer in this world.
    • Exercise: get lost
      • Think about certain activities that take up all of your attention and feel like you could do them all day. Also consult the gut on some activities you’re notoriously late for. It may surprise you to realize you don’t like meeting with certain people who bring you down, or engaging in activities that leave you feeling disappointed in yourself. Write them down but don’t dwell too long, let’s move on to the fun stuff.
    • Interesting side note courtesy of dear friend Matt:
      • Explore commitment to punctuality, where lateness “feeds the flames” and punctuality really makes something undesirable more bearable.
    • Purpose: What is your easy A? What comes difficult to others, but feels innate to you, almost boring unless you push the envelope?
      • What do you do so fluidly, you create your own cursive. You have your own voice. You understand how to be unique.
        • Everyone has a camera in their pocket. However, Instagram is proof that everyone is not a photographer.
  • Job vs Career
    • Job: Financial dependence
      • Get’s old pretty quick. For me, about 2 years before the money isn’t so shiny anymore. If you keep switching for higher paying jobs, you realize they pay more for a reason.
        • Work hard for years, one 8 hour shift at a time, so you can get promoted! Now you get to work 12 hour shifts at a time! I’m paraphrasing a quote, I forget where from.
    • Career: Emotional dependence
      • Some careers have a clear cut path. Lawyers, Nurses, Teachers, Doctors. They’re looked at in Immediate recognition that “If I went to school for 15 years I could be an Anesthetist too.” Not to downplay how flipping hard it is to even make it past anatomy 101, but the point is the path getting up there is recognizable. Everyone wants a path, because once you can deconstruct a goal, tasks become obvious and feel more attainable.
      • That is why instead of finding the dream career, I will get you focusing on developing skills the same way a school curriculum adds up to a degree. More on that soon.
  • Success vs wasting time
    • Most jobs can feel like a waste of time, a means to an end, a paycheck that keeps your lights on. I can assure you the path from resentment of yourself, straight through feeling content or realizing you’re stuck, and to an ownership of pride in your hard work lies in one word: intention.

Reframing:

  • Intention
    • If you think of your entire life as a budget and a resume, then stop reading and go do burpees. If you’re anything like me, you’re human and you’re inefficient and you should love yourself for it. That’s the first step really, love yourself for the glorious steamy pile of human that you are. I worked in the restaurant industry for over 5 years. I told myself over and over again, that I’m wasting my time working nights when all my friends and family are off having fun, and need to focus on a career that will solve all my problems! I plugged in different things I wanted into job searches, only to return back every weekend to pour beers and carry trays. It really clicked one Saturday morning while I was setting up my bar. My GM walked up to tell me one of our fellow managers was leaving the restaurant industry. GM, “did you hear? She’s finally getting out! She got a real job.” My GM, now caught in a backpedal, “I mean not that this isn’t a real job Andrey, I’m sorry… I didn’t mean that…” It really sunk in that time. I learned that no matter what restaurant I could work at, no matter how high up the management ladder I would climb, if I dread walking into the restaurant, there’s only one way out: loving myself.
      • The job you currently have is not a waste of time. When loving yourself, you’ll find value in every experience you walk into with intention.
    • Time wasted = Experience earned
      • You think pulling shots and steaming milk was a waste of your free time after class? If I took away the product (coffee) out of the business model, you managed time in prioritization of efficiency. Taking in orders from both in store and drive thru, you have a natural sense for systems and processes: who needs their order first and how many things can you group together to buy yourself that stand up straight, hands on the hips, head held high breath of fresh air. Seems simple right?
      • Reconstruct the same business model over one week instead of one morning rush hour. You take in clients orders over the span of a week. Rather than finishing each task before you take a new client, you group together similar tasks to serve a maximum amount of clients.
      • I hear you from across the internet, multitasking is easy when you have the tasks. I spent 10 years changing what I want to be when I grow up. You may not want to take clients or multitask, but odds are, you’ve been training for your dream job this whole time. The answer is right in front of you. You just need to hear about it enough until it clicks. So if you’re like me, now you’re ready to start working with intention.
  • Acceptance:
    • Your current job/situation can quickly become an experiment once you accept how fluid your job can be.
      • Those without flexibility in their lives (if you have children, if you’re battling a DUI, if finances are against you) can be all the more intentional, prioritizing what changes to make in order to move toward one of a few things.
      • Before you tell me it’s impossible, I’ve lived by a principal since I middle school: Even the busiest CEOs and creatives eat, sleep, and breathe. Gary Vaynerchuck and Casey Neistat found a way to make it happen. No matter how stuck you feel, I know you can make time for self love. Maslow has the foundations all written out for us. Knowing where we are gives us the first steps in movement toward being ready for our own capabilities.
  • Your job(s) as an acquisition of specific skills
    • Each position in the world: retail, service, maintenance, communication, management, etc. holds value and can be targeted like a good compound exercise or sport can target a group of muscles for development.
      • Skateboarding seems pretty simple until you break down the posterior chain strengthening happening; not to mention the twitch muscle fibers constantly activating. Rock climbing tricks you into forgetting how great of a workout it is for your tendons/ligaments, back, and joint mobility.
      • Just like the physicality of exercises build muscle and confidence in your body, your experience in different avenues of your job progression build and sculpt your knowledge and skills.

Refinement:

“…The Secret to a Long and Happy Life.“

  • There is a Japanese term called ikigai – “The secret to a long and happy life.”
    • The term combines an ideal lifestyle containing:
      • What you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs, and what you can get paid for.
  • Where you’re missing a link, locate skills in yourself that you need to develop, and pursue them through creative approaches
    • It’s important to add, I may not have experience in every industry, but my examples come from a couple I’ve been in for long enough to get my 10,000 hours of repetition in. These examples will feature a restaurant example and a freelance photography example. The restaurant example allows for you to develop yourself on someone else’s dime with little to no risk. The Photography example involves a little entrepreneurship and some more risk, but so much greater reward.
    • Developing talking to strangers
      • Serving/bar tending with customers that come to you
      • Reaching out to strangers to find ones interested in buying what you‘re capable of.
    • Developing financial fluency
      • Any job handling money with a cash register you’re responsible for balancing at the end of your shift.
      • Any sale you can make on the side where you have to bill or invoice someone for payment and keep track of your sales for tax season.
    • Developing building hands on knowledge and skills
      • Entering a job with a training program, extensive and comprehensive where someone leads you through the necessary steps.
      • Picking up a new piece of equipment and learning how to use it to it’s full potential until you become limited by it.
  • Just like every story has already been told, every job has the same principals.
    • You have something that you sell for more than it costs you.
    • You can make things cheaper for you through refinement of efficiency.
    • Make yourself more valuable, with diverse skills and experience.
    • Eventually you’ll outgrow selling yourself to a job, where you help someone build their dreams, and you’ll begin building yours.
      • Until you’re there, there’s way less risk developing yourself under someone else’s costs.
  • Through developing these skills, you’ll open doors for yourself you didn’t know existed, I guarantee it.
    • Exercise: Hammer and Chisel
      • You’ll find there are some skills you dislike working on
        • List those in your journal
      • We are looking for commonalities between these, and revealing what kind of work you’d realistically love doing.
        • For example, If you’re more into the sales acquisition side or management of operations or analysis you’ll know based on what skills are needed to accomplish these aspects of the business you’re in.
    • Those skills that you’re in love with are the bread and butter we are looking for here. The idea is to take those few truly lovely skills and think of a job where those skills plug into and can be refined so that you have complete control to essentially just focus on that skill. Even If you’re a jack of all trades, I bet there’s still one tool in your toolkit that’s your favorite.
      • In the restaurant industry, I loved the technical aspect of learning recipes as a bartender and refining my skills in making delicious cocktails. As a manager I loved planning and analysis of staff metrics on our company goals. Yes, I was the weirdo that loved meetings.
      • It was the same in my photography business. I didn’t care for client acquisition or managing schedules, but I loved knowing everything about my camera and lenses as well as applying that into a smooth experience on the day of a shoot. I loved planning the business goals on a step by step basis and looking into strategies on how to get there.
    • I’ve come to find I love planning an interview with someone to set a path in finding their passion or learning how they found it. I then love analyzing and distilling that information into easily digestible nuggets here for you! Of course, there is a lot more that goes into an interview and taking that to a written presentation. The foundation of it, however, is exactly what I believe is the core of my interests. The better I get at it, the less of the extra parts I’ll have to focus on.

Conclusion:

Throughout the past 10 years of my self help education, I found help with everything having to do with following my passion except for one thing: how to find it.

Finding your passion is not a race.

It’s honestly not even required to live a happy fulfilling life. If you’re anything like me though, you’re armed with tons of tools and plenty of examples of success around you.

The one missing link: the passion itself to focus the magnifying glass on.

Through self love you’ll get yourself ready to start looking at your skills for ones that stick out. You’ll be able to go into work today, tomorrow, and every time after with intention on developing those skills.

It’ll click one day, something where those skills shine brightest. Until it clicks, just keep refining what you have, because

You’re a beautiful human with all the knowledge already inside you.

Thank You

To my dear friends and family who help me with their support and words of encouragement. I can’t thank you enough.

Editorial help and review: Kyrie, Karina, and Matt.

Contact me

Email
(Yes, I respond and read every one)
Andrey@andreystarostin.com

Instagram
a.o.starostin

Bibliography

Hierarchy of needs: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Maslow/motivation.htm

Flow by: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi https://www.amazon.com/dp/0061339202/ref=cm_sw_r_oth_api_i_VWTZDb2HMHFQR_nodl

Ikigai: https://www.academia.edu/36989526/OceanofPDF.com_Ikigai_-_Hector_Garcia