10 Lifestyle Design Lessons That Allowed Me to Train BJJ Every Single Day
Escape 9-5, work anywhere, and train every day.
I wrote a post on Instagram a while back about a day in my life. I’ll link it at the bottom of this article.
The post did well, and a lot of the comments were from people who were envious of my daily routine. One person even said that my life seems very low-stress and fun.
I must have romanticized too much.
It is fun, but it’s also pretty high-stress. The only real difference between my stress and other people’s stress is that my stress is self-induced.
But my daily routine — one where I spend several hours in the morning doing creative work, go to training, do some more creative work, lift, and then spend time with my girlfriend and go for walks under the Texas sun — is actually pretty attainable for anyone who’s thoughtful, good at managing their time, and has a good internet connection.
Trust me — I’m not that smart. You can figure this out too.
Here’s how:
The real land of opportunity is the internet.
With hard work, networking, some skills, and maybe a little luck (something that can be manufactured through repetition), you can leverage the internet to build freedom for yourself.
This is what I’ve learned from creators like Dan Koe, Dickie Bush, Tim Denning, and many more. The idea of having a flourishing one-person business seems unattainable to many, but it’s never been as attainable as it is now.
Most people think that anyone who sells the idea of freedom or escaping the conventional structure of work and life is a snake oil salesman, but I was curious enough to dowse myself in the snake oil. Now, I make a living writing and doing Jiu-Jitsu and that’s all I do.
There is an obscene amount of opportunity available on the internet. Don’t let it pass you by because you’re stubborn or because you think it’s all a scam.
Don’t be afraid to put your back against the wall.
My back was against the wall from the moment I moved to Texas until…
Okay, it’s still kind of against the wall sometimes.
However, I put myself there. I am also more fulfilled professionally than I’ve ever been. I’m having more fun with Jiu-Jitsu training than I’ve ever had.
The reason that I’m enjoying these things is not because there’s no pressure, but because there is more pressure. The absence of pressure leads to boredom. The presence of pressure leads to opportunity, improvement, and everything you’ve ever wanted. I promise.
Don’t aim for a life with no pressure or anxiety, instead, aim for a mind able to overcome pressure and anxiety.
3-4 hours of deep work every single morning will set you free.
In January, I had this nightmare week.
I was broke with no real prospects of turning it around, the city of Austin shut off my power because I owed them hundreds of dollars, food in my fridge was rotting, my apartment wreaked of a fowl stench, and I ended up stuck in a hotel feeling like my entire life was falling apart.
I wrote a whole article about this lovely experience here.
When this happened, I promise you that I did not react well.
After a day or 2 of wallowing, however, I got to work, and I was able to turn things around. I’m doing much better nowadays.
One habit that I forced myself to commit to was a daily habit of long, focused work blocks. From the time I wake up (around 8:30 am) until I leave for noon training, I am focused and working on creating content for myself and the clients I’m working for.
This daily deep work habit has completely altered my life — and it’s only been 4 months.
Too much Jiu-Jitsu makes you worse at everything.
Everything — including Jiu-Jitsu.
Right now, I’m doing about 5-7 Jiu-Jitsu sessions per week and 3 weight lifting sessions per week.
Between that and the aforementioned 3-4 hours of deep work every morning, I’m putting a lot of stress on my body and mind.
When I’m not careful about my recovery, I end up burning out and I get kind of stupid. My work suffers. I train worse and I learn less. I usually am irritable during this time as well.
Something I’ve learned to do is allow myself a mid-week carb-heavy meal every now and then or just a light day when I’m in the middle of hard training and working. Playing the long game is essential.
Progress comes from effort, but too much effort makes you worse. That’s the paradox any ambitious person has to deal with.
Your network is everything.
This is a harsh truth, but one of the drawbacks of Jiu-Jitsu for me has been professional connections.
I’ve built a lot of great connections with a lot of people who are like me, but I’ve struggled to meet and connect with people who are doing the things that I want to be doing.
This has been the biggest change that I’ve made in the last year — but really the last 2 months. I’m working with and for people who are doing things that I aspire to do as well. This is the beautiful thing about ghostwriting — you get paid to learn.
I feel I’m creating more value by surrounding myself with people who offer something valuable to me.
I invested thousands of dollars in trying to build a better network for my career. It seems to be working now.
Higher lows are the prelude to higher lows.
As I’ve been working on my writing gigs, building the newsletter, working on my book, and trying to train myself, there have been a lot of ups and downs.
Highs and lows. Victories and injuries. Viral posts and posts with 1 like from no one but my beautiful, supportive girlfriend.
What I’ve learned is that at the moment, no matter what level you are at, the lows all feel the same. Losing in the semifinals of the ADCC Trials (like I did in March) hurts just as bad as losing in the round of 16 (like I did last fall).
When I zoom out, I realize that these higher lows are the best identifier of progress.
Your expectations have risen to the point where the low hurts the same but your result is significantly improved.
“People focus more on reaching higher highs when the best signs of growth are higher lows.” — Dan Koe
Lows always suck, but a higher low means that the higher high is incoming. Brace yourself.
Outsource whatever you can.
This year, I invested in strength and conditioning programming, I started using AI to help with writing, and I’ve done tons of other things to help me save time and money.
This goes against my nature.
I am stubborn, I like to control everything, and I never thought of myself as a team player or a utilizer of trendy tools until recently.
What I come to accept and believe is that optimizing things for performance is not cheating, it’s essential to taking your skills to the next level because you save time and therefore are able to focus more on what matters.
Build ONE highly effective skill to a highly effective level.
Like I explained in the last point, time is gold.
With skills, you can make that gold a gold necklace.
The way you get the ability to control more of your time is by developing one skill to the level where you’re to do that at a rate that is nice and pays for your things.
For me, that skill has been writing.
I can make more money through writing (and thus have more control of my time) than a lot of people with more followers or bigger biceps can make because I’ve spent the last 4 years writing every day and practicing my skill.
Sure, maybe I should be making more Instagram reels or TikToks, but it doesn’t matter for my quality of life too much. Obsessing over the skill of writing has brought more peace, opportunity, and happiness than winning any grappling match. That’s a hard truth.
At this point, I’m honestly just grappling because I love it.
You need to have the audacity to believe that you are worth pursuing something unconventional.
There is an insane scarcity mindset in Jiu-Jitsu. It’s deeper than most people think.
People are scared to invest in themselves because they don’t see a chance that they will be able to make that money back. They can’t seem to find an ROI for investing in competitions, instructionals, The Grappler’s Diary premium, etc.
But whatever, I’m here to tell you to buy my thing. That’s why this newsletter has literally been free every Friday for the last 3 years.
I’m just here to tell you that whatever you do in life — if you don’t believe that you are worth investing in, no one else will believe it either.
Set highly specific goals, otherwise goals will be assigned to you.
This is really important.
If you do not set specific goals for the things that you want to achieve in this life, you will end up pursuing the default goals set by your society, your parents, or whatever other influences you have. The freedom to create a highly enjoyable existence is possible, but only if it is something that is deeply important to you.
The Grappler’s Diary is sponsored by BJJ Mental Models, the world’s #1 Jiu-Jitsu podcast!
This week’s episode features Dominyka Obelenyte!
Dom is a black belt under Marcelo Garcia, a 4x black belt and 10x overall world champion, and a longtime BJJ Mental Models collaborator and coach.
In this episode, Dominyka breaks down mental models for Jiu-Jitsu game-planning alongside her new Digitsu instructional, The Art of the Gameplan.
To listen, look up BJJ Mental Models wherever you listen to your podcasts or hit this link.
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