5 Life Lessons From the First Half of 2024
The theme of the year is incremental progress.
I had a conversation with someone the other day who said that I’ve had “a heck of a year”.
From the social media perspective, it does look like an exciting year:
Traveling to Europe
ADCC Trials
Getting into ADCC
And there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes that I don’t really post about. The theme of the year, as I wrote about in January, has been “building”. I’ve been working hard on a lot of different projects and building them step-by-step.
I haven’t really finished anything — ADCC hasn’t happened yet, I’m not yet at my writing goals, and I’m also still building my new life in Texas — but I’ve made a lot of progress and I’ve learned a lot.
Here are the 5 biggest life lessons I’ve learned in the first half of the year.
On good company.
When you move away from your hometown, you find out who your real friends from your hometown are.
All of the friendships that you were keeping merely out of convenience become extremely inconvenient and they fade away.
I’ve been gone for almost a year, but really a little more. I still talk to my good friends from back home a few times per week. A lot of the people who said they were my friends I haven’t heard from a single time.
Likewise, being in a new place makes you realize the value of good company. Building friendships is hard and it takes time.
This year has made me realize the value of good friends, good people, and those who really want the best for you.
On workload.
Earlier this year, my workload was really high.
I was writing for 10 clients, managing the newsletter, writing my other newsletter, and writing my Instagram content 5 days per week. Not to mention training myself and traveling to teach seminars. I was busy, all the time.
My personal life was suffering. My sleep was suffering. Because these were suffering, my physical health was suffering. Because my physical health was suffering, my mental health was suffering.
I realized that I needed to get off the hamster wheel of hustle. I was trying to make a dollar now and it was going to cost way more than that in the short term.
You need to put a price on your dreams and your lifestyle.
A lot of people have dreams that they give up to earn a paycheck of no more than $30-50K per year.
Really?
Don’t be afraid to give up on comfort now for fulfillment later.
On the fragile ego.
The ego is run by your addict brain.
It’s difficult to satisfy and when you do, it doesn’t really stay satisfied. It just looks for the next challenge.
Take me getting into ADCC for instance.
ADCC is a dream I’ve had since like 2017, but a goal I’ve had since 2021. I’ve worked really hard, trained a ton, reinvented my Jiu-Jitsu, and even moved my whole life across the United States to give myself a better shot at getting into the big show.
Every time I reach a big goal in Jiu-Jitsu or life, I am satisfied for a bit. Maybe a week or two. Life is good. There are no problems. Bliss.
When I got into ADCC, I achieved literally the biggest goal I’ve had in my grappling career. It satiated my desires — momentarily.
Every time, slowly but surely, my ego starts to demand more from me. It starts to question the validity of what I’ve done, which forces me to work harder to validate the next thing, which will hopefully quiet the ego once and for all.
It’s a never-ending cycle.
The solution is to remove your happiness from the vicious cycle of the ego. It never ends, you might as well learn to be happy with or without success.
On knowing yourself.
I have a chronic issue with my back, but the funniest part about it is that every time I aggravate it, I can feel it coming.
I know myself, but sometimes I deliberately choose to ignore the signs from myself that I am going to hurt my back.
When I listen to myself and choose to rest my back when it’s feeling off, I don’t get some reward. Nothing really happens. If anything, I wonder if I’m supposed to be pushing harder.
However, if I push too hard and hurt my back, I always feel stupid, annoyed, and upset with myself. In hindsight, I always know that listening to myself is the right to do.
This applies to the rest of my life as well.
Sometimes, I ignore what is best for me in the pursuit of what I “want”.
So don’t be like me a few weeks ago. Don’t hurt your back because you’re stubborn. Play the long game, know yourself, and trust yourself a little bit more.
On enjoying the process.
It’s really easy to become outcome-oriented — to think that the only reason why you should do things is to get a good outcome.
I’ve started to try to enjoy the process of my work more. To enjoy the training for a competition — the challenges, the peaks, the valleys, the lessons, and more. These are the things you be focused on in training.
In the past, I used to measure my ability and growth based on the results of training. If I did well in training, I would win the competition. If I didn’t, I would do bad.
Same with writing. I used to think if I poured my heart into an article, it would go viral. If I didn’t, it wouldn’t.
The truth, in both cases, is more complex. I’ve won competitions that I didn’t train for at all. I’ve lost competitions that I busted my ass for.
I’ve written viral pieces of content in 10 minutes. I’ve poured my soul into pieces that got 10 views.
In reality, the process is the goal. The real joy comes from working and creating. Results are the aftermath.
Closing Thoughts
This year has been extremely challenging and exciting.
I helped my girlfriend move to Texas. I’ve been to 4 countries and 2 continents (3 if you count the one I live on). I’ve competed in multiple ADCC Trials, had the emotional roller coaster of getting invited to ADCC, got what I thought was my dream job, quit it because I realized it wasn’t, and there’s a whole lot more to come.
One thing I try to do as I go through my life is document and reflect on as many things as possible. This might be a bit for my own self-indulgence, but I really do it because I want to be able to learn and look back on my experience.
These were the 5 biggest lessons that I learned this year so far.
The Grappler’s Diary is sponsored by BJJ Mental Models, the world’s #1 Jiu-Jitsu podcast!
This week’s episode features Ben Van Doren! Ben is a Lucas Lepri black belt and the head instructor at Deep Blue Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in Caledonia, Michigan.
In this episode, Ben draws on his experience as a manager and BJJ gym owner to discuss difficult coaching conversations.
This conversation is a great playbook for Jiu-Jisu leaders of all sorts, and how they can productively navigate the difficult conversations that arise on the job with both your students and coaches.
To listen, look up BJJ Mental Models wherever you listen to your podcasts or just hit this link.
The Grappler’s Diary is also sponsored by The Brolo.
Whether you’re a golfer, a man looking to show of your progress in the gym, or just a person who’s interested in always being on the cutting edge of style, the Brolo has something for you.
For me personally, the Chicago themed Brolo is my favorite.
I mean, come on. Look at that shirt.
Get one for yourself here. Use “Chris10” at check out.
Also published this week:
What Jiu-Jitsu Is All About
When I started Jiu-Jitsu, I was 17. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life and I thought that being a UFC fighter would be way more interesting than being an accountant or a salesperson or whatever “regular job” I’d end up with if I went down some alternate timeline for my life.
If you enjoyed reading this article, share it with friends! Or, click on the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it on Substack!
That Chicago brolo tho 🔥I loved the “on knowing yourself” section—it’s been such a trip getting to know my true self as an intentional goal. Love it, keep up the awesome work!