State > Story > Strategy

From writing to prayer: how the important work happens before the actual work begins.

I really love a simple mental model:

🧘 State -> 🗣️Story -> ♟️Strategy

I first heard it from Tony Robbins ~5 or 6 years ago, and it's resurfaced recently with a Tim Ferriss / Chris Williamson podcast.

The core idea here, is that what you do before doing your 'work' is really just as important as the work itself.

I built my morning routine around this - because when I’m feeling calm, present, energised and part of something grander, things just flow. But getting to that place can be bloody hard work. Staying there can be even harder.

Here's how I do it.

(It can read a bit like a new-age tech-bro cliche, but at some point I've learned all these things from hearing someone else mention them - so here's hoping it might spark something for you.)

🧘 State

Amiguitos de la Oscuridad (‘Little Friends of the Dark’) offers a collection of over 90 different species of bats – lovingly crafted from paper by artist Juan Nicolás Elizalde.

I'd love to say I wake up every morning excited and full of joy. I don't. It's more often some mixture of low-level anxiety and overwhelm. A thousand thoughts firing through my head.

I start by dragging myself outside, to a comfortable seat, and writing 3 free-form pages in the style of Julia Cameron's Artists Way - this immediately calms the voices, and usually carries a message from the sub-conscious that wanted to be known.

From here I dive into a 20 minute meditation - I've been practising the TM (Vedic) meditation technique for ~8 years now. Sometimes this is super noisy, sometimes more transcendent, but without a doubt it changes my state (even if if only a little bit) into one with more calm, clarity, and ability to just be in the moment.

I then meet a small crew down by the beach most mornings for some (usually quite brutal) exercise, mostly calisthenics. This is the complete opposite of what my mind tells me I should be doing, but my mind is mostly wrong, doing something hard before the real day starts feels really damn good (rarely during, mostly just when I'm done).

Pro-tip, the guys I do this with are ~10x more jacked than I am which is both humbling and inspires me to keep going.

I used to start each morning with a cold plunge / ice bath, but I've been living in Vietnam for the last little while and still hunting for a good solution for my place here (probably will DIY a chest freezer)

🗣️ Story

Tokyo-based painter Daisuke Samejima paints entire panoramas in ultra-realistic detail on balls, turning them into three dimensional artworks.

By the time I'm done with the state-altering work, I'm feeling calm, at ease and flooded with endorphins.

This is the perfect place to spend a little bit of time building my story for the day. The outcome I'm looking for is ⬆️optimism ⬇️victim-consciousness and broadly just telling myself that things happen 'for' me (or 'through' me) and not 'to' me.

I've tried a bunch of stuff to varying success (mirror work, affirmations, lectures) but recently spent some time converting my vision for the future into a physical vision board (cork board with photos and pins) - I chuck on some noise cancelling headphones, put on some inspiring music and really try and feel into the vision in front of me as though I already had it for about 10 minutes.

This has honestly been transformational so far.

Something about sitting with this visual reminds me that 1) it's all absolutely possible 2) it's my responsibility to make it happen and that's a good thing and 3) I likely have no idea HOW that's going to unfold and that's exciting / eradicates a lot of the fear and self doubt of not knowing the exact path there.

I'm kind of embarrassed about the next part but for a couple of minutes after this I pray, not to specific God of a particular faith, but to my understanding of what a higher power is. I’ll try not to rabbit-hole here, but it’s my belief that we’re in a constant process of co-design with something far more intelligent than we are, that we’re all a part of, and so I ask this power to flow through me and allow me to be a conduit for the greatest good possible for all involved. It’s strangely comforting, and reminds to hold the vision loosely because there may be something far more important for me to do in the future that I’m not currently aware of.

♟️ Strategy

Seoul-based Root Bench is a circle-shaped public furniture installation with a diameter of 30 metres, representing the dynamic shape of roots spreading throughout the park.

I won’t bore you (for now) with the details of how I manage my to-do list or what my weekly planning looks like - (though hit me up if that is of interest to you.)

Instead I’ll make this point: for me, the day needs to invite in constant maintenance of this positive state and empowering story, created by this morning routine. When I’m feeling calm, present, energised and part of something grander, things just flow. The strategy feels like a natural continuation of how I’m feeling.

I have a reminder that pops up on my phone at random intervals 5 times a day that simply questions ‘Where are you?’ and usually that’s enough to know if I need to go back and start the cycle again - work on the state, so I can have a more empowering story, so that the strategy unfurls with ease.

I’d love to know what others are doing in this space, so please leave a comment or let me know if this resonates.