In order to build a demigod body, some simple thoughts and strategies:

1. First of all, intermittent fasting. This means no breakfast no lunch, only one massive dinner, one insanely massive and epic meal a day. And I also encourage a 100% carnivore diet, only exceptions include eating dark leafy greens, kale collard greens, or kimchi with no sugar added.
2. For food, beef neckbones is really good, also lots of collagen, beef ribs, and also beef organ meats. Beef liver, beef hard, beef small intestines.
3. At the gym, I recommend working out at least once a day. Ideally twice a day. This is the new modern luxury to be able to work out twice a day. Lately I’ve been working out twice a day, lifting weights at the gym, and also doing yoga with Cindy at CorePower. I really like the yoga sculpt class, which is essentially a hybrid class in between weightlifting and yoga. Or the C2 class, which is just a normal yoga class. The reason why I like both weightlifting and yoga is that I have discovered superficially the better I get at yoga, flexibility, poses etc., the stronger I become at the gym. Currently speaking, this is the strongest I’ve ever been in my life. My spine is also 1000 times stronger, I feel like my spine is made out of adamantine.

Why demigod bod?

There are certain things which are in our control, and certain things which are not in our control. One thing which is not in our control is how rich or famous we will become. However, one thing we do have the power of is how to craft and build our bodies.

The body is democratic. All human beings, assuming that you have a normal bodily physiology, is more or less the same. I don’t believe in “genetics“, this is essentially the new racism 2.0.

I truly believe that any human being, regardless of male or female can build a demigod body. Women should strive to become demigoddesses, and men should strive to become demigods.

For men — Achilles is the goal. Or Hercules.

For women — Athena, or Pallas Athene.

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No supplements

No protein powder, no creatine, no pre-workout powder, no steroids, no testosterone, no synthol, etc.

All you need is beef. Don’t eat chicken. Chicken is not meat, and not beef.

Don’t eat fruits or vegetables. Fruit is just candy with a good conscience, and vegetables are just pretentious starch. I have never witnessed a vegan or vegetarian who looked like a demigod.

Insanely epic hypelifting

Rack pull, atlas lift, one rep max style:

MUSCLE BY KIM:

1. 150 POUND DUMBBELL DEADLIFT // MUSCLE HYPELIFTING BY KIM
   The Art of Hypelifting
2. How Did ERIC KIM Get So Strong?
3. ERIC KIM DEADLIFT PR (250KG, 551 POUNDS)
4. ERIC KIM 255 KG (562 POUNDS) DEADLIFT ATTEMPT
5. VLOG: WHAT I LEARNED AFTER DEADLIFTING 3.3X MY BODY WEIGHT (540 POUNDS)
6. ERIC KIM 4 PLATE SQUAT
7. MUSCLES ARE THE ULTIMATE WEALTH
8. ERIC KIM GYM GOPRO POV
9. *BEYOND* MAINTENANCE.
10. HOW TO GET BIGGER ARMS
11. THE BEAST KETTLEBELL WORKOUT (48 KG, 105 POUNDS)
12. NOT WHO IS RICHER OR MORE SUCCESSFUL, BUT WHO CAN DEADLIFT MORE?
13. KETTLEBELL HOME WORKOUT (48 KILOGRAM, 105 POUND): 1 HANDED CLEAN AND SQUAT
14. The Philosophy of Fitness
15. Menacing Body
16. Hyper Nourishment
17. One Man, One Kettlebell
18. STRENGTH OVER SIZE
    Minimum Viable Workout (MVM)
19. Movement is Art: ERIC KIM WARMUP
20. ENJOY THE MOVEMENT.
21. Strengthening or Weakening?
22. Muscular Motivation
23. Limit Your Reps, Maximize Your Power Output
24. Love of the Body
25. The mind is overrated; the body is king.
26. BENCH PRESS GYM
27. How to Squat
28. SUMO DEADLIFT GYM
29. ADRENALINE.

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Why build your body?

Your own body as a work of art!

In Praise of Building Your Body

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My Muscle Philosophy:

Treat your body as sculpture.

This is not my body

The first thing:

I don’t see my body as belonging to me. I look at my body like it belongs to someone else.

When I look at the Lamborghini of someone else, I admire it. When I see the muscles and physiques of anyone else, I admire it. Then I had the epiphany:

Why not transform my own body into a Lambo, and admire my own body instead?

The logic

The great logic:

1. It is far cheaper to get buff than to buy a Lambo.
2. The human body is the apex beauty. This means your personal goal in life should be to beautify your own personal body to the maximum (without plastic surgery, steroids, etc).
3. Ultimate democratic approach: Genetics doesn’t matter. Sex doesn’t matter. Racial ethnicity doesn’t matter. Anyone can both add muscle mass and subtract fat.
4. It doesn’t cost much to get ripped. Just intermittent fast [no breakfast, no lunch], one big ass meal a day, and mostly a ‘ketogenic’ diet.
5. Your body is always with you. Why not beautify your body to inspire yourself?

The joy of sculpting your own body

To sculpt your own body is insanely fun. Why? You can see the change over time!

Once again, the goal is simple:

Never stop adding muscle mass, and never stop reducing body fat, or keeping it low (around 10%).

Muscle and your body is highly practical.

The more muscle you have, the more energy you got. The more power you got to make art-work, and live with gratitude, joy, and hyper-vigor.

Strengthen on, and flex on!

ERIC

MUSCLE 101

1. DUMBBELL SHOULDER OVERHEAD PRESS (1 ARM)
2. What is the Ideal Male Form?
3. How to Workout Quickly from Home
4. How to Augment Your Muscle Mass
5. Fat (Adipose Tissue) not ‘Health’
6. To Be Happier, Just Workout at the Park
7. ERIC KIM GOPRO POV WORKOUT VIDEO
8. Why Become More Muscular?
9. How to Get a 6 Pack
10. Greedy for the Gains
11. Simple Home Workout
12. LAMB
13. ERIC KIM FLEXES HIS MUSCLE
14. ERIC KIM WORKS OUT AT HOME GYM
15. More Muscle, More Productivity
16. How to Increase Your Muscle Mass
17. Extreme Vanity
18. There is No Proper Form
19. Why I Love Working Out
20. Better to Powerlift and Deadlift Heavy One Rep Max Attempts than
21. Drive Fast Cars and Motorcycles
22. Why I Love Working Out at the Park
23. RICOH WORKOUT
24. YOUR BODY *IS* YOUR BANK ACCOUNT
25. In Praise of Ghetto Workouts
26. Rock Workout
27. How to Workout
28. Dynamic Warmup
29. My Fitness Motivation Hacks
30. Why Make Workout Videos?
31. ERIC KIM FITNESS
32. How to Lift Weights
33. ERIC KIM WORKS OUT
34. ERIC KIM ROCK PARK WORKOUT
35. My Body is a Work of Art!
36. Park Workout Ideas
37. The Physiological Joy of Working Out
38. Anti Body Body Shaming
39. How to Workout at Home With Only a Barbell
40. 11 Tips How to Use Photography to Get More Fit
41. How to Lose Fat Fast
42. Become More Creative With Your (Limited) Home Gym Workouts
43. Flexibility is “Micro Strength”
44. NEVER STOP GAINING MUSCLE
45. ERIC KIM PARK LIFE
46. How I Workout at my Home Gym
47. In Praise of Pistol One Legged Squats
48. Powerlifting Style Workouts at the Park
49. The Philosophy of Bodybuilding
50. YOUR BODY IS YOUR BANK ACCOUNT
51. WHY I WORKOUT AT THE PARK
52. How to Strengthen Your Rotator Cuff
53. In Praise of Rings Workout
54. How to Workout at the Park
55. Why I Don’t Eat Breakfast or Lunch (In Praise of One Huge Dinner Meal a Day)
56. HOW TO LOVE YOUR BODY
57. Is Working Out at the Park Superior to Working Out at the Gym?
58. Why I Workout
59. WHY PHOTOGRAPHERS SHOULD WORKOUT
60. How to Increase Your Testosterone
61. My Workout Philosophy
62. How Appearance Matters
63. How I Workout at Home
64. My Philosophy of Food
65. The Best Park Workouts
66. How to Quit Sugar
67. How to Workout in the Streets and Park
68. How Much Meat Can You Eat in a Day?
69. APEX MALE MASCULINITY
70. HOW I WORKOUT AT THE PARK
71. How to Lose Fat
72. How I Became Stronger and Buffer and More Swole During and After Quarantine
73. What is Skinny-Fat?
74. In Praise of Working Out at the Park
75. Why Meat is Good
76. Flesh over Metal
77. Why Lower Your Bodyfat?
78. How to Augment Your Recovery
79. Increase Intensity, not Reps
80. My Park Workout
81. How to Fast
82. HOW I WORKOUT FROM THE PARK
83. How I Got So Swole
84. Pure Power or Sculpture?
85. How to Workout in the Streets
86. How to Workout At Home With No Equipment
87. Super Saiyan is the Goal
88. MY POWERLIFTING PHILOSOPHY
89. MY EXERCISE/WORKOUT PHILOSOPHY
90. What if Mood Originates in the Stomach and Gut? Digestion Health
91. Why I Don’t Consume Protein Powder or Supplements
92. Real vs Fake // Natural vs Unnatural
93. You Can’t Fake Strength
94. How to Grow Your Muscles
95. How to Add Muscle and Subtract Fat at the Same Time
96. ERIC KIM BODY MUSCLE FLEX
97. Don’t Build Muscle, Build Strength.
98. Visual Kinesthesia: Muscles and Art
99. How to Maximize Muscle Growth and Fat Loss

EK DEMIGOD BOD

Towards a new concept — the Atlas Lift:

What is the concept?

The concept is simple:

Load up the barbell on a squat rack, and just see the maximal heavy weight you can lift up and hold on your shoulders, then put it back.

Benefits

1. Towards building a demigod body

Become more social, become happier, stronger, and more!

PODCAST VIDEO

It is my personal thought in today’s world, to be social is a virtue. If you think about it, all success stems from the social.

For example, much success is to be had when you network, meet investors, build business connections, etc.

Also, assuming that you want to become a personality, start a YouTube channel or blog, etc., being more social is better than being less social.

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Experience this

1. YouTube video vlog
2. Blog post

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What holds us back?

I think a lot of people are held back by the fear of making other people feel uncomfortable. However let us note, if somebody is uncomfortable by your behavior, that is their problem, not yours. I think it is better to attempt to be insanely friendly, and make somebody feel uncomfortable, rather than not to attempt it at all.

Pragmatic exercises

A very very simple thought is if you want to become more social, one of the best places to go to is the gym. Or you could go to yoga, just sign up for a CorePower membership.

When you’re at the gym, don’t work out with headphones or AirPods on. This will give you the opportunity to talk to more people, and also let other people have the opportunity to talk to you.

Much of our social life is held back by the fact that our social sensors, a.k.a. our eyes in our ears are blocked. Our eyes are blocked by our phones, and our ears are blocked by our headphones or AirPods. If you want to be more social, just keep your phone in your backpack, and also don’t bring headphones to the gym, and also don’t work out with headphones on.

Get loud

Something funny that I have discovered is as I have become more loud, hypelifting at the gym, yelling loud, I attract a lot of attention. And as a result, a lot of people actually come up to me and just start chatting with me. Thus ironically enough, to open up more avenues of social life, get louder.

Also, when you see somebody that you like, somebody you want to talk to, or somebody who is just wearing a cool outfit or accessories, compliment them. Just approach them and compliment them on their clothes, shoes, accessories, look, etc. This can open up an opportunity for you to have a conversation with them.

Joke around

And the reason why I am so social is that I am like a big kid. I like to joke, have fun, be an entertainer and joker. I think a lot of people want to “look cool“, but in fact, that is just a signal of insecurity and lack of self-confidence.

Street confidence

A lot of street photography is confidence in the context of strangers on the streets. There is a silly bias in street photography that you’re not allowed to talk to people. I say it doesn’t matter whether you shoot it with permission or without, it just depends on the situation, what type of photo you want to make, and your mood.

In fact, I believe it actually takes more courage to approach a stranger and ask for permission to make a portrait of them, than to shoot a candid photo of them.

A very very simple way to approach a stranger and ask to make a portrait of them is to approach them, and say, excuse me sir, or excuse me miss, I love your look. Do you mind if I make a portrait of you?

A simple way to build your confidence is approach a bunch of strangers and try to intentionally get rejected 10 times. The STREET NOTES approach // digital.

Only talk to people you are genuinely interested in

A simple thought is let your natural enthusiasm drive you. That means only interact and talk to people and socialize with people that you’re interested in. For example, if you get the sense that somebody has good vibes, just approach them and start talking to them. Tell them that you like their good vibes. I think it is a good idea to wear your heart on your sleeve.

Ask people for their first and last name

If you frequent the gym a lot, or go to yoga, or some other regular fitness activity like CrossFit, etc., get to know peoples names. Ideally their full first and last name. I also find that in order to remember someone’s name, I ask them whether they know somebody famous with the same first name. This just adds a little bit more friction to help you force to remember their name.

Let us remember that there is no sweeter sound than the sound of our own name.

Even my friend Timothy Flanagan tells me, after being a teacher for over 30 years, kids get easily offended if you don’t remember their name, yet they do not realize that a new teacher needs to remember at least 100 names.

Even when I teach workshops, I have actually found that the number one critical thing to build a relationship with your student is to strive with all your strength to remember their name. Ideally their first and last.

Go out.

It is hard to be social if you just stay at home all day. Yet a lot of people want to stay home in order to “save money“. I say, maybe it is a good idea to eat out, go to restaurants, go to the local all you can eat Korean barbecue place in order to socialize with people you can socialize with — waitresses waiters and anybody else you encounter.

Practice

To be social as a practice. I say practice being social every day, all day. Better to make small talk, than to make no talk.

Ask deep questions

Surprisingly enough, one of the best ways to quickly build a rapport with somebody is to ask deep questions. Ask them about their life passions, life goals, etc. 99.9% of the time people will tell you honestly. Go big.

No such thing as failure

Better to attempt to be social, and get strange stares, to be laughed at or ignored than not to attempt it at all!

ERIC

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Conquer your fears and meet new peers

What can you become this new year?

1. BOSTON
2. BERKELEY
3. HADONG SOUTH KOREA

EK WORK

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New year, new photos

Become more prolific this year!

1. Creative everyday // print
2. 30 days to jumpstart your photography
3. Embark on your own photography adventure workflow

More in HAPTIC SHOP

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New year, new confidence.

Shed the old leaves. Become a new, better you!

ERIC

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Confidence thoughts

1. How to become more confident
2. How to become more confident in yourself
3. Become more confident through stoicism.
4. How to become a demigod vlog // direct video link

Share the confidence!

Feeling more confident? Feel free to forward this to a friend needing a quick pump!

EK NEWS

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“That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” – Nietzsche

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When atlas squat hold lifting 700 pounds with my sleeves rolled up sleeveless, the bar was so heavy that it digged into my shoulders and rubbed off some skin. Lesson — tshirt is good because it covers your shoulders a bit, better for squats!

Second lesson —

Don’t buy or use cutoff or sleeveless shirts when lifting insanely heavy weights at the gym — whether squats or rack pulls and beyond.

Glorify yourself:

Adrenaline in me like I got injected (Big Sean)

Nothing can conquer me!

700 Pound Squat Leg Lift

700 and beyond:

AUDIO

How to Look More Masculine

Becoming more masculine–more of a man:

PODCAST

In praise of self vanity:

I’m sexy and I know it:

Not like Elon Musk — he doesn’t look well. Arms look weak and flabby, and looks like he is getting a bit of a gut. And his face doesn’t look well either — look at his recent interview with T-Mobile CEO.

What attempts to destroy you will only make you stronger.

Antifrafile vlog

1. How to become antifragile vlog
2. YouTube mirror

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What is anti-fragility?

One of the most formative books that I’ve read in my life was anti-fragile by Nassim Taleb. Not only was it a very fun and entertaining read, but, it also totally changed and revolutionized my mind, in terms of how I thought about things.

The basic gist is this:

Small dose stressors actually strengthens you.

For example, weightlifting. I believe that the biological function of weightlifting is this:

You lift a very very heavy weight, at your maximum, once, and the stress that it puts on your body is a positive stress, a “eustress”.

For example, gravity is a eustress. Astronauts who go into space and don’t have gravity, their bones and bodies atrophy. Apparently astronauts need to spend about six hours a day exercising in the space station, just to maintain their bone density.

As your bones weaken, you become older.

A very interesting thought:

The cause of biological aging and weakening is a result of your bones weakening.

The bias is that as you get older, your bones weaken. This is not necessarily true. It is possible that as you age, assuming that you lift weights, your bones can actually strengthen.

For example, currently speaking, at the age of 34, I am 1000 times stronger than I was at the age of 24. And I also aspire to become stronger by the age of 44, 54, 64, 74 and beyond.

Even my mom, who is currently 67 years old, I got her into weightlifting. Doing the one rep max type of lifting, doing the squat hold as well as the rack pull. Just two weeks of daily weightlifting, she is the strongest and most confident she has ever been, far stronger and better than she was at 57, 47, even 37.

“Aging”?

Typically what happens is this —

As we get older, and as the years go on, we fall into more degenerative habits.

For example, something that I have witnessed is that most people my age, in their early or mid 30s, even in their late 20s, are far sicklier, older looking, weaker, and more degenerate looking than they were back in high school, college, even in the early 20s.

Even one of my friends in college, junior year, all he did was eat really bad food, drink a lot of alcohol, smoked a lot of cigarettes, and never exercised, at that age of around 21, he already look like a 55-year-old man.

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What causes your bones to weaken?

Things which causes your bones to weaken include sitting, not walking, not weightlifting, not running around, not playing on uneven and irregular surfaces, etc.

For example, driving. The time you spend sitting and commuting, and being stuck in traffic, your hips weaken, your knees weaken, your feet weaken your back weakens, etc. Anytime that you’re spending not standing or lying down on your back is bad. The only caveat is when you are lying down flat on your back, either when you are napping or sleeping.

It doesn’t matter how old you are, or young you are, anybody and everybody could benefit from weightlifting. It doesn’t matter whether you are 12 years old, 16 years old, 22 years old, 28 years old, 34 years old, 42 years old, 52 years old, 62 years old, 72 years old, 80 years old, etc. I aspire to lift weights until I die at the age of 120.

But isn’t lifting weights dangerous?

No. Also, the hilarious irony is that a lot of people don’t lift weights because they think it will cause them to damage their bones, or hurt themselves. Ironically enough the truth is actually the opposite; you lift weights in order to strengthen your bones, and prevent yourself from injuring yourself in the future.

Therefore my great innovation of the squat hold, the atlas hold, or the atlas lift; it will strengthen your spine 1000x.

Life

An insanely optimistic thought is this:

Anything that happens to you in life, whether good or bad, will strengthen you and make you more powerful in the long run.

For example, other people. Issues or things that make you angry, annoyed, etc., it will all strengthen to benefit you in the long run.

For example, I have a strong sense of justice. Whenever somebody talks to me in such a way which I believe as disrespectful, I get insanely angry. And it seems the most productive way to channel your anger is to either use that as a tool of philosophical introspection, And or to defend yourself. Anger is a good defense mechanism.

But isn’t it bad to be “defensive“? Nonsense. Defense is the highest good.

Even if you think about America, and our military, the “department of defense“. The way that we Americans defend ourselves and our own self interests is we put military bases all around the world, and we keep indefinitely strengthening our military in order to defend ourselves through our offensive strength. Or in other words, as long as America has the biggest stick, nobody will mess with us.

If we think about Machiavelli and Il Principe, Machiavelli says that to preemptively strike is also a virtuous form of self-defense.

Thought framing

Whenever something bad happens to you in life, think to yourself:

How can this minor annoyance end up strengthening me in the long run?

For example, COVID-19 was actually a positive thing because it helped forced people to innovate.

Or, let us say that you injure yourself in the gym. This could be critical information to teach you to spend more time warming up, more time warming up with yoga, or just changing your approach and technique. For example I discovered that doing flat bench press, as well as flat dumbbell press put undue stress on my shoulders in a bad way. Therefore, this information helped me innovate a new concept; doing a floor bench press, or even a floor dumbbell press — how I do it.

Antifragile Photography

I believe street photography is the path to anti-fragile photography.

Why is that? It is because in street photography, we often encounter many setbacks. For example, wanting to shoot a certain scene, but, chickening out, and as a result, not shooting the photo. This leads to regret.

An anti-fragile way to approach street photography is that whenever you have a situation in which you chicken out because you hesitated, you think yourself:

This time I may have chickened out, but let this be a good lesson to myself the next time I see a similar situation or scene, I push myself extra harder to have the courage to shoot it.

STREET PHOTO STARTER KIT — says

99.9% of street photography is courage.

With courage, it is also an anti-fragile thing. That is, increasing and augmenting your courage is a piecemeal approach. That is, there are certain days you are more confident than others, and some days you’re less confident. And that is OK and all part of the game.

How to augment your courage

Courage is everything. To become more courageous in life;

1. Let us know that courage comes from the heart. Anything that you do which strengthens your heart is a good thing.
2. Let us also consider the physiological consideration; fear is a manifestation of or hormonal responses to things. If you are able to shift your hormonal response, increase your testosterone, etc., likewise you will also increase your courage.
3. Weightlifting at the gym, one repetition maximum attempts. what is a one repetition maximum lift? That is, I had as much weight to the barbell as humanly possible, and just see you at the point in which you could just successfully lift it up even a quarter of an inch, once. Don’t go for reps (repetitions). Reps are for suckers. Or another example, it is better to deadlift 551 pounds once, than to deadlift 405 pounds twice.

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It’s all good.

Ultimate way to approach life:

Anything and everything that happens to you, it is all good!

ERIC

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Moar stoic thoughts

1. Stoicism 101
2. How to deal with miserable people
3. How to become a stoic

More random thoughts

1. Perhaps the best car is a hybrid. Some sort of hyper super car that is a hybrid. Perhaps currently — the new goat is the NSX TYPE S. Get it in red. Or the Gotham grey matte paint. You get the upside of the pick up from the electric motor, and you can still be loud, because it has a gasoline engine. Also, superior miles per gallon.
2. Barefoot: spend more time a day barefoot, this will be great for you in almost every single way. For example, weightlifting barefoot is a great idea.
3. More beef liver, beef heart, beef intestines. 100% ERIC KIM CARNIVORE DIET. Only organ meats, then beef ribs. Meat is supreme. And — if you have the option and choice — liver, heart, small intestines (beef) as positively superior to any type of flesh meat. Even better than beef ribs! Also hit up the bone marrow when possible.

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Now what?

As a practical thought, strive to integrate this line of thinking into your life.

Also I recommend reading Antifragile by Nassim Taleb — you could either just order the paperback copy on Amazon, or just download the e-book for it to read on your iPad or iPhone. I just prefer using iBooks instead of Amazon Kindle, much more beautiful digital reading experience.

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How to become a more antifragile photographer

Whenever you have any setbacks in your photography, or offenses in photography, channel this to motivate you even further!

For example, the next time you hesitate before shooting a photo and you regret it, next time, you could remind yourself to become even more courageous.

Or, there was somebody you wanted to approach and ask for permission to make a portrait of them. But, for some reason or another, you failed to do so. That is OK, next time just double up your courage to approach the person. Strive to get rejected at least 10 times. The lesson from Street Notes// Print.

Or, there is something you wanted to photograph, but you were afraid that you have already done it before, or it was cliché. Next time, just shoot it and figure out what to do with it afterwards.

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Insane Courage

Become insanely motivated— EK EXPERIENCES:

1. CONQUER FEAR IN BOSTON
2. CONQUER INNOVATION IN BERKELEY
3. CONQUER ZEN IN HADONG SOUTH KOREA

EK WORKSHOPS

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The tools to conquer it all

1. Become Immortal: HENRI NECK STRAP MARK IV
2. Become the uber-streettog: ERIC KIM NECK STRAP MARK II
3. Become the Pro: HENRI WRIST STRAP PRO

More EK SUPPLY

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YouTube ideas

If you are interested in starting your own YouTube channel, some ideas:

1. Do more vlogs on philosophy. There is a huge dearth of philosophical ideas on YouTube and beyond
2. Just use a GoPro and record it. 1080 P, 24 FPS is fine. Record mundane things, like you eating, you going out, etc. Don’t edit it. You don’t need any accessories either.
3. Don’t censor yourself, and become more opinionated. The biggest tragedy is when people water down what they want to really say, because they are afraid of offending somebody.

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Philosophize more >

Also learn more about Nassim Taleb here >

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Thinking more?

Feel free to forward this to a friend!

EK NEWS

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“Better to be a gay monster than a sentimental bore.” – Galiani

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Become sexier:

(more…)