Thinking about the new year, it seems like everyone’s goal is to become more fit, stronger, more powerful, etc. However, what does this really mean?
Power vs Strength?
Currently speaking, the most interesting thing to me is strongman. Strongman competitions are insanely interesting to me, I am very interested in more traditional, ancient Greek styles of strength and weight lifting and feats of strength, rather than the modern day ones.
My personal ideal:
Become strong like a strong man, but look like a demigod.
This means, I don’t want to be strong, muscular and fat. I want to have insanely low body fat percentage, which I do with intermittent fasting and abstaining from all starches, vegetables, fruit, sweet things, etc. Even something I’m starting to realize, even tea, green tea is quite sweet. Even arabica coffee, is too sweet for me. I want to start shifting to robusta, maybe just sticking to the Deathwish coffee.
On becoming more of yourself
Don’t strive to become EK — strive to become yourself.
For example, I have many heroes who include Steve Jobs, Kanye West, Elon Musk, Jay Z, etc. Yet my big epiphany is that ultimately, I do not desire to become them. I want to become more of myself.
Billionaire body?
A simple thought for the new year includes optimizing this year for yourself, your well-being, your body.
It seems that the foolish trade-off we do is this:
We sacrifice our health and our well-being, in order to increase our money earning potential.
For example, finishing work or being “productive“, typically is related to the end pursuit of any more money.
Or, work for the sake of work, or being more productive, working more is considered more virtuous. We must get rid of this silly notion. Work is a vice. Being productive is a vice.
Power Not in things
When we desire to buy new devices, cars, tools, etc., I think what we’re trying to do is augment our power. But the simple question; does buying “Pro“ products actually make us more powerful?
No. What is power in regards to work? Ironically enough to become more powerful in the realm of work, is to do less work. To do more work is the servile slave mentality. For example, apparently Oprah Winfrey only uses an iPad mini for her “work“. All of her peons and minions do the heavy work on their laptops.
Thus first realization:
The goal is not to buy a MacBook Pro laptop, even the impressive 14 inch. I wonder if buying more powerful, more capable devices actually make us more servile and slave-like.
What is power?
I am still trying to figure this out, but, it seems that the most real type of power we could gain is physiological power. That is, to strengthen our own human body. This means, more powerful muscles, lower body fat percentage adipose tissue, more powerful spine, more powerful sinews, more powerful ideas, etc.
Everyone wants to become a thought leader
Ray Dalio— even him, after making billions of dollars seems that his ultimate life goal is to become a thought leader. To create some sort of legacy that goes beyond him.
Even the joy of a Nassim Taleb; his ultimate pursuit is philosophy, in creating ideas and innovative ideas.
Perhaps a goal for you this year is to strive to become a thought leader. How does one become a thought leader?
Honestly speaking, as long as your ideas can influence the thoughts and behaviors of one other human being on planet earth, you’re doing your job.
Simple ways to become a thought leader:
- Start a self-hosted website blog via bluehost.com and install wordpress.org. Publish your thoughts as a blog posts.
- Start an email newsletter, I recommend Sendy.co. Even though we all hate email, it is still one of the best ways for you to propagate your thoughts, open source. A simple thought; write emails that you would actually like to receive.
- Start a podcast. Just use anchor.fm, which is owned by Spotify. Publish either video podcasts or audio podcasts.
- Just Vlog out your thoughts and upload them to YouTube. Go deep. Think philosophical Vlogs.
- Think at the decade, two decade, 3 decade + level. For example, with my email newsletter, it took me at least 12 years to gain 10,000 subscribers. at this point, I don’t think I really need any more subscribers. Instead, my simple goal is to gain longevity for at least another 30 40 50 60 70 years etc.
Assignments
- Sign up for a gym membership, or a CorePower membership, and start chatting with the people there. Ask them what their New Year’s resolutions are.
- Quit sugar, carbs, starches, fruit, and vegetables this year. 100% carnivore diet — beef liver, beef heart, beef small intestines, beef ribs, etc.
- Only shoot small JPEG this year. Choose a good in camera black-and-white preset, or a good in camera color preset, and stick with it. Buy a RICOH GR IIIX if you haven’t already.
- Use Apple photos exclusively this year. Ditch Lightroom.
ERIC KIM WORKSHOPS
Conquer the street and beyond with EK:
- Conquer Boston March 25th
- Conquer Innovation in Berkeley April 15th
- Conquer South Korea June 19-23rd
Powerful ideas
Via HAPTIC PRESS:
- Creative Every Day / Print
- Masters / Print
- My first photography book (only 3 left)
- How to See
New year resolutions
- Anytime you’re tempted to buy a new camera, just buy a photo book instead.
- Don’t buy any electric cars. Don’t buy the Lucid, don’t buy the Tesla, etc. Today I hung out in the Tesla model S plaid and the model X plaid and I’m kind of over it. Instead of buying the Tesla, just use that $150,000 to buy Tesla stock instead.
- Workout at least twice a day. During the day, weightlift and do yoga at least once. Sometimes I do yoga in the morning with Cindy and then we lift in the afternoon, and sometimes I weightlifting the afternoon and do yoga with Cindy in the evening. Both are good.
- Upload your photos to arsbeta.com for critical feedback.
- Have a chat with WHY APP?
Future thoughts
- Isn’t it so funny that every single new year, 99.9% of peoples New Year’s resolutions has to do with working out more, and eating healthier? Apple and everyone else should take note; the future of fitness is weightlifting, and some sort of functional fitness meet yoga. CrossFit should go harder on their marketing.
- One of the best ways to motivate people to start working out more and becoming healthier is promoting some sort of clothing lifestyle. I think the reason why Lululemon is so insanely successful is because they have actually figured out a way to motivate women to become more beautiful by doing yoga, eating healthier, etc. Everyone wants to aspire to become more beautiful.
- Optimize your life for health, not work or productivity. Ironically enough, the more you optimize your life for health, the healthier you will become anyways.
Powerful philosophy
Share your power
Ironically enough, the more you share your power with others, the more powerful you will become as well. Therefore as a simple suggestion, if you have any ideas thoughts or other techniques that could help empower another human being, just share it with them.
I also think it is better to attempt to help somebody in the spirit of goodwill, than to not.
Don’t be afraid of offending others. Once you have conquered this fear, you can do anything.
Powerful Photography
This year, let us drive to become more empowered in our photography. A simple way to do this is take it back to basics, go back to your spirit of photography of fun, jubilant joy, and fun experimentation. Let us strive to make photography fun again!
ERIC
Better to attempt the insanely audacious and fail than to never have even attempted it at all.
EK NEWS
If this has sparked even a thought or two within you feel free to forward to a friend!