01. The Hero's Journey Begins
Moving to a new city. High agency. Intention Setting.
Intro
Hello friends of many chapters.
If you’re receiving this, that means I consider you to be a part of my inner circle. So welcome to this exclusive club. Membership benefits still tbd.
[ I might be posting this publicly, but if you are someone to take the time to read this, welcome to the club ]
I’m writing this newsletter as a way to track the happenings of my life and share more intimately my story. One of the things I want to place more value in is maintaining my relationships. Most of you here are across the country. Some are on the other side of the world. No matter where in the world we are, I want to build a forum to just share and prompt those “let’s catch up” conversations.
So what the hell am I up to these days?
As of last week, I am now a Mexico City “local.” Maybe a colonizer. I don’t know where I stand yet. So why did I make such a drastic change? Well, for the last year I was a small town boy living in Birmingham, Alabama. Venture for America brought me to the land of the Dixie and it treated me well — for the most part. It was simple. But it started to feel small. Suffocating, even.
I heard in a great episode of the Diary of a CEO podcast [Moment 111 - The Unexpected Benefits of Travel Everyone Should Know: Max Lugavere] the idea of Groundhog Day Syndrome. Here’s one of my notes from the pod:
Do you ever feel like time flies? Well it may not be because you are having a good time. It’s because our brain chunks routine. It’s an efficiency machine. Once we get into daily habits and routines, our brains work on high efficiency and we no longer get dopamine from things we used to enjoy.
Groundhog Day syndrome - Wake up. Do a few things. And then go to bed. Repeat.
The last year in Birmingham felt like that. Constant grind and hustle and then boom. A year is up.
Change your environment. Maybe go to a new gym. Go to a new coffeeshop. Do something fresh.
That’s why youth was so powerful or even “slow.” Every day was different. That’s what travel does. New scenery will allow your brain to develop new connections. Access to discovery is one of the pillars of life fulfillment.
So here I am. Changing my environment to keep things fresh. Not only that, but in one of Paul Graham’s essays, he writes about Cities and Ambition. How each city attracts a specific type of character profile. I asked myself, “Is Birmingham attracting the people I want to be around?” I don’t think so.
George Mack is known for his tweets about high agency individuals. One of his requisites for finding high agency people are to look for those who have an immigrant mentality. Those who are able to change their environments. Not even just a city, but a country. It’s a type of person who is willing to leave comfort and do something difficult. And it drills down into self-fulfillment. You don’t do this to impress other people (maybe you do, I don’t know your deepest motives). But you usually make these drastic life decisions for yourself. I encourage everyone to read and reflect about high agency often.
Birmingham is one of those weirdly tribal cities where groupthink reigns supreme. Low agency NPCs are everywhere. Don’t get me wrong, there are some really dope people I’ve met there (in fact, I met the dude who told me about high agency in Birmingham of all places — thanks Kyle B). But it felt like the potential to meet people I truly resonated with was slim. Insanely slim. To get to the deep conversationalists you have to sift through so much fodder. I’m not one to just accept things. So I somehow found a way for my job to let me work out of Mexico City for a few months. And boy, this city just feels right. We’ll see if this is just a honeymoon phase, or if I’m still in love with this magical place in 3 months.
I used to strongly believe that geography can’t define happiness. I still mildly believe that. Happiness is intrinsic. It comes down to surrender. But what this doesn’t consider is connection. Relationships are one of the main pillars of happiness (shoutout Jackson K aka Mr Happiness). The potential for high value collisions was incredibly low in Birmingham. Most of the people you meet in Birmingham just let life happen to them. You take a sample size in this city and compare it to anywhere else in the world and what do you get? A largely homogeneous group who share similar ideas. That sucks. So what can you do? Place yourself in geographies with a higher surface area of luck. Optimizing for high value collisions. I was simply not getting that in Birmingham. So here I am. Seeing what else is out there and taking notes.
Small town boy lives in big city now.
Defining success in this chapter of life
Setting intentions is always a good idea in new chapters of life. Fresh environments. Fresh ideas. It’s okay for those intentions to change, but you definitely need something to work towards. You need to know where to go. Seneca says it well:
If man knows not which port he sails, no wind is favorable
-Seneca
My brother introduced me to a YouTube channel called GRAVEMIND. And boy, is it a profound gallery of motivation. One of my favorite videos describes a similar concept to Seneca. Some noteworthy pieces are below:
A ship would never leave a harbor if it didn’t have a destination.
The captain of his ship can only arrive at one port at a time.
His destination will be invisible for 99% of his voyage. But he knows it’s there and that he will reach it if he does certain things a certain way every single day.
Most people are like ships without rudders. They let the winds dictate their journey. They believe circumstance controls their lives.
The key takeaway here is to define what you want. Otherwise, you will be another one of those cannon-fodder NPCs stumbling through life. You can manufacture luck by first defining where you want to go. There is no such thing as being too detailed here.
To first define where I want to go, I need to define some problems I’ve faced in my life. Here are some of the things that I have struggled with in the past:
Defeatist mentality + risk aversion
Complacency + procrastination
Doing things for external motivations. AKA people pleasing
I sometimes find myself not doing things because I think I’m going to fail. Not talking to intriguing people in public. Not applying to certain colleges because I thought I wasn’t good enough. I have no idea where this came from, but most of the problems that make me anxious are just in my head. My solution here is to embrace rejection. Frame it as a good thing. Wire my brain to get a dopamine hit even when I fail. I have experiments in the books for that. Stay tuned for results.
Procrastination mildly ties into the first point. Countless versions of this newsletter have been in my drafts forever. I don’t know if I lacked the willpower to put my nose to the grindstone or what. But I just let this tumble around and never prioritized action. Now, I’m blocking off time in my calendar to focus on reflection and writing. I hope the results speak for themselves in a few months.
In the past, I felt like I was very much a people pleaser. Always wanted to be liked. Non-confrontational. And boy, did that version of myself suck. I found myself doing things I really didn’t care about. These days, if I’m at a social gathering I’m not afraid to leave early if it’s starting to feel like a waste of time. I’m working towards being the friend who’s blunt to your face and nice behind your back.
During my three months in Mexico, I will share my learnings from various experiments to chisel myself into the person I want to become. I will try to be as scientific as possible with these experiments and share data when available. I’ve always had an affinity towards math and science, so why not adopt a similar approach to life?
Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the sculptor and the marble
In one sentence:
I am sailing towards mental clarity and fortitude. A life of spiritedness where no external factors can stop me.
Future newsletters
Along with sharing the results of various experiments, I plan to focus my content around these three Socratic pillars:
Eros - Love and Desire
Sophos - Wisdom, Knowledge, and Intellect
Thumos - Spiritedness and Embodiment
An old college professor introduced these concepts to me when we read Plato’s Republic and they have stuck ever since. There was something beautiful in distilling human condition down into these three categories. These pillars will be the foundation for growth these next few months (and maybe even years).
Quote to share
He who throws the coal gets burned
I heard this in a podcast once and I wrote it down to revisit (I really don’t remember where I heard it, though). It originates from Buddhism where holding onto anger does no good. If you try to place blame at someone or something, it will only harm yourself. The lesson with this quote is to simply let go, and you will be happy. This is a reminder to stop. Take a breathe. And carry on.
Conclusion
Well, if you’ve read this far, thank you. I hope you genuinely enjoyed it. If there was anything in here that piqued your interest and want to talk more, feel free to drop me a line. I don’t care if it’s been 5 years since we last spoke or if you’re a regular communicator with me. The point of this newsletter is to inspire thoughtful ideas and conversations. So let it flow. I’ll see y’all next time and thanks for tuning in.
May Otavio’s Odyssey commence!
Very well-written bud, excited to see where this takes you.
What a fantastic pilot episode Otavio! He who posts the stack gets the sub.