I was just reading an article by Steve Pavlina which starts off saying that having a fixed income (i.e job) is dumb. You may or may not agree with that but there’s some other great stuff in the article and I highly recommend reading it.

Anyway I wrote a comment in the forums and realised it would make a good blog post.

Positive Affirmation Posters

There was some talk about putting up positive affirmation posters at work and what colleagues might think. So I posted about my experience as follows:

I put up some positive affirmations at work about being highly productive and loving working on my current game and making the best games in the world etc. and got a funny look from at least one person, but I don’t care because it works for me. You do have to break through a certain amount of social embarrassment if you do something like that though.

Hire an accountant

I was doing a talk last night at the Vancouver Film School to a load of Game Design students about my Indie game developer days and I mentioned some key things that Steve mentioned today. One was about hiring an accountant because they save you time and money so are totally worth it. I don’t want to fill out boring forms, I’ll delegate that to an expert so I can do what I do best. I’ve used an accountancy firm for 7 years with zero regrets.

Speculate to Accumulate

Another thing I mentioned at the talk was “Speculate to Accumulate” in relation to spending money on a business venture. Normally people have no problem spending money on stuff that depreciates in value like a car or a huge TV, but when it comes to investing money in something, fear kicks in and they don’t want to spend the money. In 2006 I decided to spend about $2300 on a game I was making and I reasoned that the worst case was I’d loose it all, a middle case was I’d loose some or break even, and a best case was I’d profit by anywhere from $0.01 to infinity. Turns out the game has made $23,000 so far, nearly a 10x ROI, and it only took me 5 weeks to make, so I’m pretty pleased with that. Also, I constantly receive royalties for that game so the figure goes up every day

Why am I employed right now?

You may have noticed from my post above that I’m now employed instead of Indie (self-employed), and yes that was a hard transition but I did it for the experience of moving to another country and learning from the best in the industry, and to get paid loads. I still own my company and it still makes me passive income, which is nice.

So, who knows what the future holds? (Well I guess I probably do as I have a 5 year plan – do you? But things can change.) Most likely at some point I’ll run my own company again after building up more skills and contacts. Some people would worry about posting stuff like that on-line, but it’s the truth and don’t believe in having two personalities i.e. public and private like people do on facebook, how lame – and that’s a topic for a whole other post. Besides whilst I’m still an employee, I’ll be a damn good one because I want it to be win-win for me and them.

Anyway, that’s my thoughts. Hope they are useful to someone.

A good friend of mine just wrote me letter and he was telling me about the various growth-oriented things he was doing (hobby, business, family) and that he felt overwhelmed with everything and was wondering why he was doing all that stuff. Interestingly he felt a bit better towards the end of the letter just through the act of writing about it because he was able to clearly express and share his worries instead of them being a nebulous floating bad feeling in his mind (and no doubt a horrible physical feeling in his abdomen).

Lesson: Write stuff down, get it out of your mind whether it’s current tasks, future goals or fears. Don’t dwell on it.

Offer to you: tell me your worries in the comments (or email me if you want to) and see if it makes you feel better.

Anyway, I replied to him as follows:

So I hear that you are feeling overwhelmed by your new hobby, your new business venture, and your responsibilities as a parent and husband. Well that is understandable and OK to feel that way. In fact it’s GOOD. Do you know why? Because I was reading something a while back that said as we GROW we push the boundaries of our comfort zones, and we have to grow our comfort zones in order to be able to DO MORE and EARN MORE otherwise we would stay in the same (crappy) place.

So what happens when you grow is that your OLD mind tries to drag you back to where it was because it doesn’t like the change, it wants comfort and to curl up into a ball and do nothing (I experience this from time to time, and felt it Monday last week when it was raining and I was sitting on the toilet before going to work, BUT by the end of the day I had kicked myself into action and felt great about all the things I’m doing). You only experience that feeling of “why am I doing all this stuff?” BECAUSE you have changed and are growing – it’s an indication that you are doing the right thing.

My advice is roll with it; when you feel crappy say “that’s OK, that’s my old mind trying to drag me down, so I must be changing”. Then think about the amazing positive outcomes of all the things you are doing and visualise them. Hopefully you can change your feeling. If not, then go for a walk, connect with nature, listen to some music, read something positive, or get on with one of your projects until your *new* mind takes back over again. I hope this helps!

I’ve been practicing Aikido for 12 years and have learnt many amazing things including Ki Breathing from my Sensei. We often do Ki breathing for a small amount of time in an Aikido lesson but the real benefit comes from doing it everyday or when you are stressed or ill.

Ki breathing involves slowly breathing in and out from your centre (Hara), which is located 2 inches below your naval, whilst imagining a flow of Ki (life energy) entering and exiting your body with your breath. It has an excellent calming effect, especially when combined with a meditation, and helps to keep you healthy or heal you if you are unwell because of the increased flow of Ki (and oxygen) to the whole of your system.

How to do it

- Ideally you should sit in a kneeling posture called Seiza (the front row of black belts in the photo below are sitting in Seiza. That’s me second in from the left at the front.) However, if you have not sat like this very often, it will probably quite painful so you might want to start like that and then swap to cross-legged. Keep practising sitting in Seiza until you build up endurance.

- You can do Ki breathing sitting in a chair or standing up or even lying down, but you may be more likely to fall asleep if you are lying down

- Make sure that you are relaxed but not slumping; feel dynamic and alert.

- Ideally you should be in a quiet place so that you can concentrate. However, once you get good at Ki breathing you can do it anywhere with your eyes open such as on a bus if you don’t mind people thinking “what are they doing?”

- Close your eyes and take a big breath in to start.

- Breathe out slowly through your mouth making an “ah” sound, like you’ve just had a sip of a nice cup of tea. Your mouth should be quite wide open and the ah sound should be long and steady. The sound is made so that you know your breath is consistent.

- As you breathe out imagine Ki (energy/life force/spirit) from your centre travelling up your body and exiting your mouth and going onwards and outwards to infinity. Also feel any negative energy, feelings, worries or illness leaving your system.

- When you have finished breathing out lean forward slightly and imagine that you are still breathing out for a few seconds.

- Then close your mouth and breathe in slowly through your nose. The temptation will be to suddenly inhale a lot of air but you need to control your mind and body so that you do it slowly.

- As you breath in imagine Ki from the Universe flowing down into your centre, healing and revitilising every cell in your system and filling you full of positive fresh energy.

- When you have finished breathing in lean back up to the starting position and imagine that you are still breathing in for a few seconds.

- Then repeat at least 10 times. This may take quite a while because ultimately you should be aiming at 45-60 seconds for a complete cycle, but that may take a bit of practice to achieve.

- Always finish with an out breath, just breathe naturally after that. You may want to finish off with a meditation of your choice because you’ll be in a particularly receptive state.

After you have finished the Ki breathing, just slowly become aware of your physical body once again and then slowly open your eyes and become aware of your surroundings. You may feel quite spaced out but you should feel very relaxed, calm, happy and alive!

Ki breathing is a great start to the day, or a great end to the day because it can help you to get the most from your sleep. Also if you need to take a break from work or whatever in the middle of the day, even 5 minutes of Ki breathing can help. Try it out instead of going on Facebook or Youtube (or having a cigarette) next time you want a break. Enjoy!