THE OUTSIDE-IN TRAP
If you need validation, you are living outside-in.
You open a dating app to see if a cute woman will like you. You ask AI how well you are doing. You compare yourself to other men. You fill every silent moment with noise.
All of it is the same thing — you cannot sit comfortably with an uncomfortable feeling.
OWNERSHIP OVER WAITING
I deleted dating apps almost three years ago. I am consciously single. Not because I have given up — because I am the owner of my choices, not a passenger waiting for life to happen.
I am an Enneagram 8 with a 7 wing. Competition is in me naturally. But my competition is with myself — becoming the truest version of who I am. My drive comes from not wanting to miss my highest potential. Not from lack of value.
The Performance Trap
The first day of my men’s retreat Become an Attractor is about exactly this — seeing your value without needing to perform for the audience. Because when we perform, there is always a subtle “look at me.” Look how much I know. Look how well I am doing.
Can you be present and quiet in a room full of people? Can you sit with yourself on a Friday night with no plans and not call yourself a loser?
Friday night in Canggu
Yesterday I did CrossFit in the morning, played 90 minutes of padel with a low gold level player — great match, real adrenaline. Afterwards my mind was still chasing. I could have played another 90 minutes. Instead I got a 30 minute massage and went home.
Most people here in Canggu go to Black Sand Brewery on a Friday night. I noticed the pull. I know that feeling — the wanting. And I also know the feeling comes from within. I generate it from inside. I do not need to fix it by filling it.
The chasing passes by itself if you let it.
SIT WITH IT
Wherever you feel you need an app, a place, a person, or anything else to calm a feeling — what if you just sat with it instead?
Be uncomfortable.
That is where the real work begins.
