Around two weeks ago, I was working on my next YouTube video.
But this time it was different because this time I had this strong sense of determination
to really get it good.
Because there's this thing where you have your certain skill level, but then you have
your standard of quality.
So how bad are you willing to make the video before you post it?
So what I mean by that is your skill level enables you to make a certain quality of video.
But then the standard you hold yourself to is the lowest you'll go.
So if you have a high standard but a low skill level, that's called perfectionism.
And that's where you just fail.
And you're never going to make a video that you're happy with, so you're probably never
going to post.
But if you have a high skill level but a low standard, then that's just sloppy.
You just look trash.
And this whole time, for the past many months, I've been steadily increasing my standard,
but I've been drastically increasing my skills.
And so I've gotten to this awkward position where my standard is significantly lower than
my skill level ability.
What I mean by that is I'm capable of producing much higher quality content than what I am
doing.
And for various reasons, I'm not.
That brings me to two weeks ago.
I had this strong sense of determination to hold myself to a high standard just because
I wanted to see how good I can make this video.
And this was my best idea ever.
My best everything.
I made my dad sit for 40 minutes, retaking the same picture over and over and over again,
making slight adjustments to the positioning, the angle, everything.
I wanted the thumbnail pictures perfect.
I wanted the title perfect.
I wanted the intro perfect.
I worked on the idea, the title, the thumbnail, the intro.
I rewrote everything at least a dozen times.
The titles.
I wrote out 100 titles.
Usually I do 20.
This time I did 100.
The thumbnails.
I came up with 12 thumbnail concepts.
Usually I only do two or three thumbnail concepts.
I did 12.
And I picked the best title.
The best three thumbnails.
And then I worked on the intro and I rewrote that intro the first 10 seconds, probably
over a dozen times.
Just rewriting the same exact sentence over and over again to make it hit, to make it
draw people in, to make up the perfect hook.
Because the packaging and the intro is the most important part.
And then I went and talked to my YouTube mentor and I shared him the packaging and I realized
that it sucked.
So I went back that night and rewrote another 20 way better titles.
And I picked two of the best titles.
Positive titles and negative titles.
So what I mean by that is don't do this versus do this.
And that's negative versus a positive title.
And I had one of each and then I had three thumbnails per title.
So I had a total of two packages, which a package is a title and three thumbnails.
Or it's usually just a title and a thumbnail, but YouTube allows you to have three thumbnails
on a video and test which one is the best performing.
But I had these two titles opposite psychological principles and then six total of thumbnails.
And I created those thumbnails.
They were my best thumbnails I've ever made.
There's a software where you can put thumbnails into it.
And basically it shows you what your video would look like on the home screen of YouTube
next to very high performing videos.
And usually when I do that, I can tell that my thumbnails are sub par, sub quality.
But this time, this time it was, it was pretty good.
I think that I had a significant boost in my thumbnail quality in this video.
And so I sat down and started scripting out the video coming up with all of the shots that
I was going to make.
This video was going to be my most intensive video in the sense that a lot of the videos
I have this kind of rule where I don't like to go more than four seconds without changing
the camera angle or doing a cut.
There's a rule where my mentor told me usually don't go longer than four seconds before cutting
to the next clip.
And I do that, but then in recent times I started doing longer because of a reason which I identified
and realized that it was not a good reason.
So now I'm trying to get a lot more cuts.
And in this shot list, usually I have this whole shot list and I have shots four seconds.
This time it was one second shots.
Literally shot, shot, shot, shot.
And that means that I'm going to have to record a lot of clips.
And I basically finished the entire shot list, which is the most difficult and tedious part
of the video creation process in my opinion.
I basically finished it.
So I'm basically done with the video.
All I had to do was record and edit because all the pre-preparation work is the hardest.
Editing and editing is really easy because you know what you're going to do after that.
And you know what I did?
I needed to come up with a metaphor to explain a certain concept.
And I actually used chat GBT to give a bunch of ideas on metaphors.
And one of the ideas was to use a piano.
And it was to explain, I don't remember exactly what the concept was.
I think it was a concept on learning or building a skill or something.
I don't even know.
But I needed a piano to explain a certain concept.
And luckily we had one sitting in the basement just collecting dust for years.
No one ever uses it.
So I pull it up and wipe down all the dust and bring it in my room and start inspecting
it.
And the next thing I know, I'm signing up for a five day free training on how to play
the piano.
And then I just got sucked in.
I finished that entire free training in one day.
I learned all the keys on the keyboard.
I learned how to play some basic chords.
And I learned how to play some basic chord progressions.
Which I'll actually play, I have my, this is foreshadowing, not so much, but I actually
have the keyboard right here.
I'll play what a chord progression sounds like right now.
Let me grab this.
Alright.
So a chord progression is basically where you, a chord is you playing three notes.
Wait, let me turn up the volume, I don't even know if you can hear this, but that's three
notes.
C, E, and G.
That's C major.
And I was playing, I learned how to play three notes and a chord progression is just multiple
chords.
So.
So that's C major, A minor, F major, and G major.
Which you can just call C major C or F major F.
But that is, I learned how to play that in the first day.
And I was hooked.
I had this extremely strong sense of determination to learn how to play the piano.
And it's so strange because I've never even had a desire to learn how to play the piano.
I didn't even, I forgot that we even had a keyboard until that day.
And this day was September 20th of 2024.
And I'm recording this on October 2nd.
So it's not even been two weeks.
And so I, but I still had this video to work on.
So the next day I wake up and I finish the, or I basically finish the script.
And all I have to do is just record and edit.
And that's maybe two to four days of working.
And that's like really easy, super simple.
But I couldn't do it.
And it wasn't that I didn't have the discipline.
It wasn't that I didn't, it was just too hard.
Because I know the difference between not wanting to do something because it's hard
and not wanting to do something because your heart longs for something else.
And in this case was the second where my heart was longing to play the piano.
Because I had brought my piano up into my room at this point.
And I just could not concentrate on finishing this script.
So I'm like, okay, I'm just going to go all in.
Just forget about YouTube.
Just forget about it.
I'm listening to my heart.
That's like, that's what a lot of that's, or that's what Christian teaching is all
about listening to your heart.
But I prefer, or it's not listening to your heart.
It's listening to God, which God is just like a heart is another term for God.
I just prefer to use heart because it makes me, it not makes me feel better.
It just feels more natural for me to say for various reasons.
We won't get into that now.
But basically listen to your heart, right?
Go just, there's a Bible verse in my bathroom that says, it's something like, I read it
every time I pee.
It's like, who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life.
So don't worry saying, where will we get food, water, clothes, but seek first his kingdom
and his righteousness.
That basically that, how I interpret that is don't worry about the money because in
our modern society now we've evolved to equating money to food, water and all the necessities
of life because if you have money you can just buy any of that.
So basically don't worry about money, instead seek first his kingdom and righteousness.
And there's another verse in the Bible that says, the kingdom of heaven is within.
That is basically saying like, God is in your mind.
And I also heard my dad was talking about, there's this book that he was talking about.
It's like calling Jesus or hearing God or something like that.
I don't even know.
But he was talking about how this book is this guy, this pastor maybe.
He realized that a lot of people are flawed in their thinking that God is something that
actually talks to you.
When in reality it's kind of this silent, inaudible voice in your own mind.
And that's basically what the kingdom of heaven is within.
It's that silent, inaudible voice.
In this book called Reality Transurfing he describes it as the rustle of the morning
stars.
It's like the voice without words, the sound without sound.
It's that inner knowing that it's like sense of knowing.
It's hard to describe.
But that, basically how I interpret that verse I said that's sitting in my bathroom is that
don't worry about money, just listen to your heart.
And then all these things will be provided for you.
So my heart was calling, my heart was longing for playing the piano or learning how to play
the piano.
And that's just another way of saying that I was called to play the piano.
And Christians use this term saying I am called into ministry.
I have been called to preach the gospel.
That is just, that's basically just your inner knowing.
It's like you're the inner, the rustle of the morning stars, God.
It's that heart.
It's your heart saying that you have to, you should preach the gospel.
It's the same thing that I was experiencing with the piano.
My heart or God or the rustle morning stars was telling me to play or to learn the piano.
So I just went all in, forget about everything, just focus on the piano for however long it
takes.
I don't know.
I, because I'm basically free.
I'm free.
I don't have to go to school.
I don't have to do anything.
I'm already free.
There is no structure holding me anymore.
Like school used to hold me.
Now I'm free.
And you could argue, oh, well you're still living at your parents house.
But it's not, that's irrelevant because I'm free.
There's no, there's a difference between living at your parents house and having to go to school
as a requirement.
There's a huge difference there.
There's the, the, going to school is like this structure restricting you.
But living at your parents house, that's just living life.
It's just being free.
I'm free to do whatever I want now.
And I was free before.
It's, it's not the correct thing to say that you're not free when you're at school because
you're, you are free.
You have freedom of choice.
But it's kind of different because there's a lot of societal pressures that are extremely
scary and difficult to go against in that case.
Let's not get into that.
Basically, I spent two weeks, that's what I've been doing for the past ever since September
20th.
I've been playing piano, learning how to play the piano.
And if you want to hear how good I am now, I am, this is October 2nd.
So it's been, I don't even know.
I'm looking at the calendar and I can't even see.
It's like 12 days, 11 days, I don't know.
It's been 11 days and I've been basically playing all day, like wake up.
All I do is eat and lift weights and just play.
That's it.
And so there's been two or three or four days where I was busy and I wasn't able to play
all day, but I was still able to get a couple of hours of playing in.
But I'm going to cue a clip on so you can hear what, how good I am now.
And by the way, I memorized this song because it's too hard to read the sheet music and
play it.
So I basically just memorized the whole thing.
And I'm going to, the way that this audio thing works is I plugged in a USB into my
computer from my keyboard and it basically just sends all the signals of all the notes
that I played into my computer into this software.
And now I have it in the software and I can turn it, the audio into anything that I want.
So I can have it in the original, or I can have it as a grand piano.
Or I can have it as a choir.
Here is the song of me playing.
This is like 11 days of piano so far.
As you can tell, there were some pauses, some missed notes, but I think it was decent for
11 days.
And obviously it sucked.
Obviously it sucked.
I've only been playing 11 days.
But I'm pretty happy with my progress so far.
And if you're wondering what it sounds like with the choir, I tried all of the choir options
available to me for free.
And there are two that sound the best.
So here's the first one.
And here is the second one.
Now about what I talked about in last month's episode about how I was broken.
That was like the theme of last month's episode.
I was broken, struggling.
I couldn't really do, or I was just not feeling it.
And a big reason was because I was reading the book, The Ascent of Humanity, and it was
just opened me up to a lot of truths about our world, and it hurt.
It was painful.
And another reason was that I hadn't read Reality Transurfing in a long time.
I hinted last month about how my current lifestyle was not good either.
I wasn't suffering.
I wasn't happy either.
I was just neutral.
I was just kind of a neutral lifestyle.
Before when I was just in the mediocre lifestyle, like I was just watching TV all day, playing
video games, doing nothing, that was suffering.
I was miserable.
That lifestyle sucked.
I was not happy.
I was not neutral.
I was not happy.
I was just not unhappy.
And then I started working on myself.
And then over time, eventually, once I started reading Reality Transurfing, I started getting
hints at this happy lifestyle.
Instead of it being neutral, it started to be happy.
But then once I stopped reading Transurfing, that it kind of starts to atrophy.
What atrophy means is it's basically whenever you stop using a muscle, it loses its strength.
So if you were jacked and then you stopped training, over time, your muscles will atrophy
and then you'll lose your physique.
And that is the same thing with Transurfing I found.
Because I've read it three times now.
And each time, maybe a month or two passes by the time I finish reading it.
And by the end of the two months, my happiness has completely atrophied.
And then I realize, oh, time to read Transurfing again.
So I go back to Transurfing and spend another two months reading that thing.
And then it gets me happy again.
Or it doesn't get me happy.
I choose happiness.
It reminds me how to choose happiness.
Because that's what the book is all about.
It's the fact that we can manage our happiness levels.
And it's funny because there's a lot of not mystical teachings, but a lot of like manifestation,
all kinds of stuff that I hear in maybe not the contemporary.
Oh, that was my water bottle.
Maybe not the contemporary.
I don't even know what I'm saying.
I've heard a lot of people say that they tried kind of managing their happiness levels.
But it doesn't really work.
This book shows really how it works.
And it's 700 pages long.
So it takes two months to read.
Which shows that there must be something to it if it is that long.
And I've read it enough to know that there is something to it.
And it reminds me, every time I read it, it reminds me how to choose happiness and how
to actually not let my happiness atrophy, if that makes sense.
But it's been five months since I read that book.
Five months.
Usually there's only a one or two month break.
This time it was five months.
And so I realized, okay, it's time to sit down and just read Transurfing.
And I started reading it and literally right away, just, it's crazy.
That book is like magic.
It just reminds me of so many things right away, back to normal.
And I alluded to last month, in last month's episode that before, earlier this year, I was
able to hum, sing, and just be happy all the time.
Like I would literally wake up at three in the morning, three a.m.
And just skip down the stairs.
Just woke up, pitch blackout, skip downstairs, hum, turn on my computer and get to work.
Like I must be a psychopath.
But it was happy.
I was happy.
And then I lost that and I assumed that it was because of other things, but I actually
realized that it's because I forgot about the Transurfing principles.
Now I was reminded about, now I have been reminded by the Transurfing principles.
And now I am back to that state where I'm like humming and I don't even have to try
to hum.
When I realized that I wasn't humming anymore, I tried humming and it just felt so forced.
It wasn't, just was not good.
But now I'm not even trying to hum.
I just catch myself humming sometimes.
And that is a big reason is because of Transurfing.
And that is why that book is just revolutionized, the way that I perceive the world and the
way that I exist as a human being.
Now there is a, I want to give a rational explanation on why I have started going all
in on learning the piano.
And it's not like the, it's not a piano, it's a keyboard, which I think they're basically
the same thing.
Excuse me, because the original keyboard that I was learning on, it was this old crappy
keyboard.
Literally on day four, I spent 500 bucks and bought a brand new keyboard, a really nice
keyboard.
It's called the Elysis Recital Pro.
And I bought that, I bought a pedal, I bought some headphones, I bought a stand, I bought
a floor mat that I could stand on.
I have this whole kit.
I'm all kitted out.
And there's this thing in marketing where people make decisions on emotions and then
justify with logic later.
And it's not even just a marketing thing.
I just learned it while I was studying marketing.
It's a psychological principle.
But basically how that relates now is that my emotions decided to learn piano.
Another interpretation is the Brussels in the morning stars, the heart, God, those are
all, or the calling, those are all different ways of saying the same thing.
I started learning piano based on my emotions and now it's time to justify that decision
of going all into piano with logic, with my mind.
And basically on the first day, I was all in on piano and that's what you want to get
to in life.
You want your heart to be all into something, but then you want your mind to agree because
that's the big kicker.
A lot of people, they have their heart as longing for something, but their mind just
can't justify it.
And so they are kind of tense, they're torn.
And that is when you are extremely unaffected as a human being.
But when your heart and mind are united in their decision towards doing something, that's
when you become this powerhouse as a human being.
And I think it's pretty evident because I've made such significant progress on piano in
such a short amount of time.
And that's because my heart and mind are merged and they're both in union and they're both,
that's another way of saying that God, or that's another way of saying that your personal
will is in alignment with God's will.
You're following God's calling.
That's just another way of saying that.
But I am all into piano now.
It's time to justify with logic.
I was watching this, this YouTube video the other day.
Excuse me.
I was watching this YouTube video on how to master the art of film.
And this guy, he's a genius.
He's been making films for 20 years.
He's working with Mr. Beast, who is the most successful YouTuber on the planet.
And he is directing Mr. Beast on his Beast Philanthropies videos.
So if you are, if you're able to direct the most skilled YouTuber on the planet, that
means that you must be extremely skilled.
So now that this guy's credible.
He is, I was watching this video and there was a part where he was shown, he was talking
about how music is 60% of your video.
And I was like, oh yeah, it makes sense.
I didn't even think about piano.
To be honest, even when I started learning piano, I didn't even think about this quote
until well after when it was time to start logically justifying my decision.
But let's just say that music is 60% of your video.
That means that I've been, I spent the past year working on improving my skills that equate
to only four tenths, less than half of my video.
I've spent all of my time focusing on 40%.
That's like what you should not do with the 80-20 rule.
You should spend 80% of the results come from 20% of the actions.
Now it's kind of different with this because it's different because it's not like an input
output.
It's an input input.
But I've been focusing all of my time and energy on improving my skills on the video
creation side of things.
And I completely neglected music.
Yes, I've gotten better at choosing the stock music.
I've gotten a little bit better at that.
But that's kind of irrelevant because there's only such a high skill ceiling.
Actually, no, you can get way better at that.
But it hasn't really been something that I've been really focusing on.
It's just been kind of like, oh yeah, I'm finished my video now.
Time to throw some music on there.
But now I'm actually like studying music theory.
I'm learning piano, but I'm also learning music theory.
And right now it's simple stuff like I'm memorizing all of the notes on the grand staff, which
is the notes on the sheet music.
And I'm also memorizing all of the key signatures.
But then once I'm done with that, I plan on learning, there's this thing, a document,
a online thing, what is it called?
It's like a blog, an online blog post explaining how to improvise on piano.
And it shares all the tools that you need to be able to improvise on piano.
And that's just to be able to create your own music at will, just naturally.
And I've been working through that list.
I'm on the first thing still, but I'm trying to figure out the music theory and then studying
music theory.
And that is so I can improvise my own music to have background music for my YouTube videos.
Now this is all kind of logical justification.
I don't even know if this is how it's actually going to turn out in action.
But right now all I'm focusing on is making, or all I'm focusing on is just seeing how
far I can go with piano, how good I can get with piano as quick as possible.
I just like seeing how good I can get.
And going back to that same video, how to master the art of filmmaking, this guy who's
also working with Mr. Beast, he's been filming for 25 years.
This guy, there was another part of the video where he shared a brainstorming section where
he showed that he had this whiteboard painted onto his wall.
So he had his wall, but then he used special paint to paint a whiteboard.
So he didn't have to have an actual whiteboard.
He just painted this special stuff on his wall and he was able to write on his wall
with gyro race markers and erase it.
And I was like, oh, that's sick.
And it wasn't until a couple of weeks later where I actually decided to pull this trigger.
And I bought some whiteboard paint and it arrived yesterday and I finished applying it
this morning.
And now I've got one big whiteboard painted onto my wall and then one medium-sized whiteboard
on the opposite wall in my room.
So now my room has two whiteboards, a keyboard and my bed, which is just a floor mat.
But basically I've turned my room into this creative dojo, like this creative musical
dojo.
And I'm really happy with it.
But that's my original intention for the whiteboard was just to brainstorm videos.
And I was just going to have one massive whiteboard in the wall, taking up the entire wall.
But then I started learning piano all of a sudden.
So now I'm like, oh, well, I can use this whiteboard for writing stuff down for piano,
like objectives or goals or just writing notes down or whatever I may need to write down
at that moment.
And then I have the other whiteboard behind it to be able to write stuff down brainstorm
for YouTube videos.
So that's kind of just a monthly update for this past month.
I'm feeling a lot better.
I just know that every time I forget how to be happy, just retransurfing.
And it helps a lot.
So peace.