From Shadows to Sunlight- a story of self-reinvention

The year 2020 marked a watershed moment in my life. The abrupt onset of COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdown led to personal metamorphosis. I found myself confined to my home, surrounded by a few close family members and friends, with the world reduced to a series of virtual interactions. Yet, amidst this isolation and personal struggle, a new perspective dawned on me. With an unforeseen clarity and an almost obsessive drive, I embarked on a truly transformative journey, and this is what I want to talk about today in the hopes that anyone reading can find inspiration in some of the things I’ve reflected on.

Success

In game theory, there are so-called finite games, and there are infinite games. Finite games are defined as known players, agreed-upon rules, and an agreed-upon objective, examples include things like baseball, basketball, and school. An infinite game on the other hand involves known and unknown players and changeable rules with the objective of perpetuating the game for as long as possible. The true winners in life I like to think are those playing infinite games or at least those with an infinite mindset. Infinite players play with the objective of being better than they were yesterday while finite players consistently play to beat the competition. Achieving the goal is not what you are going to be most proud of, what you are going to be most proud of is the person you’ve evolved into, the character. I began to see every action as a step towards growth not just a step towards my goal. “The only thing that matters is how you see yourself in the mirror and whether you are happy walking next to it because you have to. Is that shadow something you are proud of? does the sun hit you and form something of pride, or does it form something of an embarrassment”? You can’t change overnight but you can change direction overnight, ensuring you are making progress in the right direction and error correcting along the way as you gather more information about the journey ahead should be the metric you use for your own success. I didn’t change overnight either I just kept pushing myself a little bit more each and every day, studying a little bit longer, working out a bit more, reading a bit more, and then after a few months go by you’ve compounded your growth into something you can now look back on with a sense of pride. Focus solely on being a certain kind of person and become obsessed with making each day your masterpiece.

Coach John Wooden, a renowned basketball coach, once observed with a tinge of regret how parents seemed to hold a double standard when it came to academic achievement. They expected their own children to bring home A’s and B’s, yet seemed comfortable with the neighbor’s child getting C’s, simply labeling them as ‘average’. Wooden found himself at odds with this imbalanced view of success, a view that was just as prevalent in the athletic world where success was often equated solely with constant victories. Contrary to this narrow interpretation, Coach Wooden aspired to redefine success for his students. He believed that success extended beyond mere grades or scores in a game. He sought to shift the focus towards personal growth and overall development, advocating for a broader and more holistic understanding of success. His philosophy of success was about striving to bring out the best in oneself, about becoming the best that one could be. Success, he then defined as “Peace of mind attained only through self-satisfaction in knowing that you did the best of which you are capable”. Because sometimes it can feel that you have lost even when you outscore somebody, and sometimes it can feel that you have won even if you get outscored. In this kind of sense, it’s no longer about hitting the snooze button, it’s what hitting the snooze button represents, it represents a person who values comfort over character. If you think of life as a game, you develop yourself through the actions you take day by day, each action gets you a little bit closer to becoming that person you want to be and if you do it that way you will no longer drive by the external masters of your life, you will be driven by your internal desire of where you want to go tomorrow. If you make the process of becoming better and find success in progress as opposed to achievement, the world is your oyster.

Failure

Rather than perceiving failure as a negative end-point, I see it as a meaningful chapter in my ongoing narrative. Each stumble is not a dead-end, but a first attempt, a learning opportunity. While others see failure I see a stepping stone towards my success. The aim is not to always be right at the first attempt but to make consistent progress in the right direction. By embracing this outlook, I reset my expectations and realize that failure represents where I am, not who I am.

Belief

The actions you take today are actually taking effect, even though they may not be immediately evident, they shape our future selves not our present selves and that’s why it can sometimes be frustrating, but don’t confuse zero progress for the progress you in the coming years down the line, a quote I remind myself of is “The scientist who doesn’t believe in his hypothesis will never run the experiment to test it out”. There is no better driver of belief than the evidence you gather of the actions you take. Look back at your past actions and remind yourself that if you went through the fire then, you can go through the fire now.

Hardship

Don’t be surprised when hardship comes, because it should be something that is expected. The way you ensure you keep this mindset alive is by familiarizing yourself with its terrain and allowing those pressures and stresses of life to forge your mind. The most important thing is to tell yourself the right stories about why you are going through whatever it is you are going through, reminding yourself of the fact that it’s a good thing because you are going to come out of it stronger. As you approach challenges see yourself beyond them, and visualize not just the start but also the end of whatever you are about to embark on, this way it’s not a surprise because your expectations of the situation match the reality you will soon experience. If you’ve ever heard the expression “The whole 9 yards”, it has its roots in World War 1, when pilots flew their aircraft armed with .50 cal machine guns firing onto ground targets. Those 50 rounds came in belts and the length of the entire round was 9 yards long. Depending on how the situation was unfolding the pilot would tell the gunner how many yards to throw out, and when shit hit the fan, he would instruct the gunner to give them the whole nine yards, the complete belt, every last bullet was unleashed in a desperate fight between life and death. This draws a parallel to the ‘burn the boats’ mentality a strategy used by ancient warriors who, upon reaching enemy shores, would set their ships aflame. A burning testament to their resolve, a symbol that there was no turning back. Every day, they stoked this flame, a reminder that victory was the only path home. Think about if someone put someone you loved in harm's way, and unless you achieve what you set out to achieve, the consequences are so unbearable that for a brief moment, a switch suddenly turns on, “I’m going through with this all the way, no matter what”. Visually putting yourself at the end of any endeavor has this effect because you go into it with the end in mind. Then as you proceed further along the journey ahead set yourself small goals along the way until you eventually reach the end of it. I set small goals, either through widgets of time to be elapsed or actions to be completed. I become aware of my emotions but then quickly divert and focus on the task at hand until I eventually complete it.

New Standard

To change what you see you have to change how you see things, and having listened to a lot of inspiring figures was a large part of what sparked my transformation. Their way of communicating, and the things they said really stuck with me to the point where in difficult scenarios certain quotes/phrases pop up in my mind subconsciously. Here are a few examples.

“Many Dreams Die while Suffering”

“If you mentally believe you can do it, your body will find a way to make it happen”

“ Champions are not run by the clock, they never think 9–5 time to go to work, 10:00 time to go to bed, because they are run by their desire, which never has an off button”

“ A reminder to all the Gladiators, in the arena feeling lost and with no hope in sight. Making an impact is hard, hard feel shitty, and that’s why most people can’t do it, but you can”

“You don’t develop confidence by shouting affirmations in the mirror, you develop confidence by having an undeniable stack of evidence that you are who you say you are. Outwork your own self-doubt”

“While others are getting their drink on, you’re getting your life on, you’re getting your future on”.

“Normality is what weak people call living, I call it death”

“Champions aren’t born they are created”

“ I know of no greater life purpose than to perish in the pursuit of the great and impossible, just because something seems impossible should not be a reason to not pursue it, in fact, that’s what makes it worth pursuing, where would the courage in greatness be if success was certain and there was no risk, the only true failure is in shrinking from life’s challenges”

Having done so fundamentally transformed my internal dialogue and the way in which I perceived the world, but to do that you have to look at your diet, and not just what you eat, but your information diet. Have the people that have entered into your life improved it (+), have they had no effect (0), or have you degraded as a result of it (-)? Think about the people you admire the most in life and write down why you admire them. Then think about the person you find the most repulsive, and write down the reasons why that person turns you off so much. Now look at both lists. Aristotle once said that “We are what we repeatedly do”, following the same line of reasoning then, start taking actions every day that are in alignment with each of those character traits you admire, and minimize those you don’t, eventually if you keep doing this for years on end, slowly but surely you’ll realize that the person you admire the most is yourself (you become your own hero).

Some of the people that have inspired me:



Greg Plitt


David Goggins


Kobe Bryant

Just as the environment influences whether a plant flourishes or withers, I believe a similar concept applies to life. Think about a typical day in a person’s life, they wake up, go to work, put in enough effort to not get fired then come back and relax for the rest of the day. It’s the standard upheld by those around them and therefore becomes the bar they set for themselves, an attitude that eventually becomes deeply ingrained. If only they genuinely realized how much their environment molds their character would people realize how much they could change.