Forward

I’ve always had a hard time expressing my feelings and communicating. Along with that, I’ve always been very left brained - hardly any creative bone in my body. For my first ~22 years of life I was a very introverted boy with aspirations to one day become an aerospace engineer working on highly classified military aircraft/propulsion equipment.

I did go on to get my Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering but graduate school was required to take up the Aerospace specialty. There were very few mentors or people I looked up to but there was one guy I had REALLY admired at my first engineering internship.

He was the president of the company. A multi-millionaire serial entrepreneur with… an engineering background! He was the most charismatic and knowledgable person I had ever met. He quite literally knew how everything worked in tremendous detail and had numerous multi-million dollar exits of companies he founded and led. I carefully listened and studied every bout of advice he shared with me.

I told him about my great ambition to go to graduate school and get this fantasy Aerospace engineering job. He told me the best thing you can do is to jump right into work. He said you’ll never know if you truly love something unless you try it. Rather than spending even MORE money on school, he advised me to jump right in and get a job in engineering, get a feel for what it’s like to work as an engineer, save some money and then decide if I still wanted to continue with school.

And so, I jumped right into my engineering career out of college.

It was NOTHING like I had imagined. Think 1980s office setting, white brick walls - almost like a gloomy old hospital setting with 95% men in their 40s-60s who carried a dark cloud over their heads. I saw right then and there through the eyes of these men what my destiny held if I continued on this 9-5 path for another 30-40 years. There was NO WAY. I needed a way out ASAP.

Following this “awakening”, I put my head down for 2.5 years to try to find a way out. I flipped a house, invested $40k into an unknowingly failing e-commerce brand, tried starting my own e-commerce company with friends that failed to launch and finally landed on real estate sales that ultimately allowed me to quit engineering and leave this 9-5 life.

In this newfound exciting career, I sold mulit-million dollar homes in the famous Hamptons of New York.

At 25 years old, I was what many people would consider successful. A young real estate agent working for a top real estate brokerage in one of the most sought-after estate markets in the world. I turned my dream into a reality - I escaped the grueling 9-5, I was on pace to make over $200k in my second year, I had peers that made $1mm per year that I felt weren’t too far off from where I was and many top brokers were scouting me.

Even my dream of one day becoming a real estate investor was as real as ever with the manager of my brokerage routinely flipping $8mm homes into $25mm while bragging to me about how easy it was to do.

My Downfall - How it Happened & Where My Mind Was.

There I was at 25 years old, living in this brand new Amagansett cottage apartment behind a $10M estate and couple more $5M+ homes to my left and right. I had just FINALLY quit my 9-5 engineering job that I had been dreaming of leaving for the past 2.5 years. I remember sitting in that apartment on day 1 thinking to myself, “I did it, I made it out, I’m free”.

I waited to feel this permanent sense of happiness that I so longed for but oddly enough, I didn’t feel ANY more saved. I was expecting that once I finally made it to a position like this, all my suffering would vanish. That I would feel on top of the world and all my inner demons would vanish.

So, about 4 months into this “dream job”, I started dreaming again. This time, it was about escaping real estate sales just as I did with engineering - I blamed everything on the job - how I worked too much, how much I had to sacrifice, how the market was unfair to younger agents, how my broker was lazy and incompetent, etc..

And then came the crypto boom of ‘21! Things got even BETTER (at least from the outside perspective). There I was, in my expensive & luxurious Brooklyn apartment, thinking I’ve mastered the art of crypto and NFT trading, making my way to a few hundred thousand dollars. But, this was a dangerous trap - a trap of the greed I had pent up and never worked through because I believed I always needed MORE to feel more on the inside.

This next chase to $1mm+ became my downfall as I quit real estate for good and went full-time into NFT trading before the market and life expenses came crashing down all at once. I fell all the way to -$35k in credit card debt and $100 in my checking account & $0 savings.

There I was at rock bottom, working as a bartender at a busy restaurant trying to stay afloat financially. It was quite the ego-death.

Fast forward to today - I am now 27 years old and on paper, I am back to square one working again as an engineer. But, internally, I am at new heights from all the trials and tribulations I endured physically, emotionally and spiritually during these times.

Mind Alchemy - What is it?

Alchemy by definition is “a seemingly magical process of transformation, creation, or combination.” It is traditionally thought of as the medieval pseudoscience of chemically transforming a common metal into a rarer metal like copper to gold.

As we all know, the mind can be your best friend or your worst enemy.

‘Mind Alchemy’ is a philosophy on the act of transforming the mind; creating as you will consistent positivity and optimism that leads you to your highest & best self.

If harnessed and mastered, Mind Alchemy is an actual super power.

But attaining this power is WAY easier said than done..

The ancient Chinese philosophy of Taoism, speaks of all aspects of nature working as a “yin-yang”.

Yin-yangs are “wheels” - symbolizing that opposites in nature are actually interconnected; you cannot have one without the other. Examples; one cannot experience light without darkness or one cannot experience great joy without once suffering from immense pain. So, it is the FRUIT of the darkness that we endure that opens the gates to experience that much more light on the other end.

But, the real question is how does one alchemize the suffering of the mind to it’s polar opposite friend on the Yin-Yang wheel?

I believe the answer to this is unique to us all and can only be answered in our own self-work which includes (but not limited to):

1. Facing the darkness within (the shadow) and uncovering karmic lessons that act as a stairway to your highest truth and deepest purpose.

2. Practicing mindfulness: This develops into awareness aka “watching your thoughts” and having the space to discern whether to act on them or not (the precursor to mind alchemy).

3. Pursuing an attitude of loving kindness towards oneself (known in Buddhism as maitrī that is a path to ).

I’m going to have Google Bard help explain what the virtue of maitrī is because it has been especially prominent in the transformation my mind in my darkest times ⤵️

“In Buddhism, maitri is one of the four virtues that a bodhisattva (highest level of enlightenment) must practice. 

The other virtues are known as the Brahmaviharas.

Maitri is the first virtue that must be practiced.

It means "loving-kindness" and refers to goodwill towards all.

Maitri is the basis of compassion. 

Compassion is a combination of maitri and generosity. It is a journey outward, a journey of communication. On one level, compassion is feeling friendly toward ourselves. 

Maitri is often translated as "unconditional friendship with oneself". It is a means of connecting to the divine within. 

The name Maitreya is derived from the Sanskrit word maitrī which means "friendliness".”

The Moral of The Story

The longer I resisted my suffering in pursuit of this illusory “easy life” I hoped would wash away all my inner turmoil, the deeper the roots grew of my inner darkness until my outer world came crashing down on me.

Eventually, I found that the only worthy pursuit was one of learning to LOVE my suffering, my unique path, my journey - NOT a destination.

The natural human desire is to ELIMINATE all suffering. But, it’s in the EMBRACING of suffering that allows us to see past the pain, eventually landing on a higher perspective that takes us out of the “jar” for just a moment to realize the yin-yang karmic cycle we were caught in. And from this place, we disempower the root of this suffering and wear it as a badge of honor, carrying it along with us as we continue our journey and expansion of life & reality.

(Powerful quote: “You cannot read the label from the inside of the jar.”)

Suffering is the precursor to growth. THIS is the only path, map or plan needed.

For my first 26 years, I was living a “default path”: the path of knowing what I wanted to be already; the default way we are meant and taught to be from school, society and parents. Within this, there is the “prestige trap”, that we believe we must impress, have a great title, be of a certain status to reaffirm our lack of true self-worth, purpose and fulfillment.

And then there is the “no path”, exactly what I described above. Allowing your life to be your path and teaming up with and trusting God, higher power, the universe, infinite intelligence or whatever you want to call it. This shows you the way - in and through YOU. 

If your “path” is suffering, GOOD, on the other side are gifts and superpowers. If your current life is easy, then seek out temporary bouts of suffering, difficulty or sacrifice. It is impossible to develop a strong character with an easy life. Alex Hormozi hit the nail right on the head here, ⤵️

You cannot have an easy life and a strong character. I wanted an easy life and I became weak as a result. I constantly wished for easier and easier “destinations” and consistently ended right where I was before until eventually knocking myself to rock bottom.

The ultimate pursuit is the love of the game, the embracing of life’s challenges with faith, hope, love, gratitude and self-belief. The universe or god takes care of the rest. The “default path” will live a never ending karmic loop of pursuing something that was always within their control and right there all along while the “no path” realizes that the richest men actually need nothing at all. And it’s from this way of being, that he attracts true outward abundance - a life full of giving back and serving all around him in his highest and natural state of creation, love and abundance.

Conclusion

Coming full circle, I titled this first newsletter, “When purpose meets intensity” because I’ve always had this intensity for life, going at things with 110% effort but in a lost and forceful way. I have now come to a place of deep purpose from which I work.

It’s this combination of purpose and intensity that I believe has opened my life up tremendously.

For the past 10 months, I have given my all, working 70+ hour weeks as an engineer in conjunction with my side passion and creative outlet of speaking, writing and crafting Web3 business plans & ideas under ChiFlow and Painfully Bullish Network.

My external circumstances are far from perfect - I don’t have a resemblance of a work-life balance, my finances are far from recovered but I can finally say that I have “made it” (in a different kind of way).

I’ve come to realize that this “no path” has led me to finding my “art” or creative outlet that allows me to authentically express myself and it feels SO FREEING. It’s through this creative outlet that I continue to find and develop more of myself. In this way, I have found work gives back to me - in lessons, opportunity, self-confidence and JOY.

My work has become my path which has become my destination and finally, I feel I have made it. There’s also comes a knowing and a trust that the work I am putting in will lead me to a life of my dreams - a more open ended, known outcome that I am so excited for that I know is just right for me and will come to fruition when it’s my divine time to receive it (patience.. don’t get me started here).

From a kid who always identified himself as an introverted, extreme left-brain math and science geek with no creative bone in his body to realizing that my highest state of being is when I’m expressive, creating and connecting with others!

I appreciate everyone immensely who has made it to the bottom!! I felt that I must first properly introduce myself and paint the full picture of who I am and where I am today before moving forward in this newsletter series based on the challenges, lessons, teachings and experiences I come across as I pursue a life full of purpose and intensity.