10 Hobbies that Separate Winners from Losers

J.C. LaCroix Uncategorized

Have you ever wondered what separates the rich from the poor? The powerful from the victims? The successful from the miserable? I have. In fact, as a Darkworking instructor, it’s kind of my job. It makes sense that someone who has success also has power. The two are, while not completely, synonymous in 99% of cases. And, having more Power than someone else really means you have more leverage, or more options. Simple. Dig? Thus, in looking at how the powerful spend their time, I have found 10 ways that they build skills, or train themselves, that directly increases their power. All increase either leverage or options, most increase both. It’s the hobbies of the Masters of the World that make them who they are, in large part. Point-blank: Every Prince(ess) I know practices these on a regular, almost religious, basis. If you want to be a Prince(ess), spend your time as they do, and you will start to see Princely returns to your power-bank. Guaranteed. But, the trick is to understand, as the Powerful do, that time is finite. The point isn’t to become a virtuoso in these areas. The point is to create a small stream, a tiny little time commitment in skill-building, that adds up over time. This adding up creates an inevitable tipping point. Want to tip? Okay, I’ll show you the 10 Hobbies, how the Powerful build them, and how much time to invest. Without further ado…

1.       Martial Training: This is the fine art of combat. First, the benefit here is that, even if you’re not hitting the gym, you’re getting some sort of exercise. Second, the Martial Arts are a Primary way to train your discipline, and to integrate your mind/body energies. Most importantly, is the pure confidence it generates. In times of social tension, like someone yelling at you, or someone threatening, insulting, or embarrassing you – you will react with calm, a clear sign of power. Why? Because you know that if the situation escalates, you can handle it. Social anxiety will lessen greatly. Lastly, is just the simple fact that if someone attacks you, or you need to take someone else down, winning the fight becomes a viable option.

a.       Some Options: All Martial Arts Fighting Styles, Wrestling, Boxing, Firearms Training, Weaponry Training, just to name a few.

b.      Minimum Time Commitment: 2 Hours Per Week

2.       Survival Skills: The first rule of life is to not die. When crisis occurs, if you are not prepared, your chances of survival boil down to luck. And, your luck will suck because your mind is in a state of panic. If you die, your power goes to zero. Also, the pursuit of these skills will allow you to estimate crisis situations before they occur, and how you might leverage them to your advantage. You will see the world differently. Finally, and this must be experienced to be understood – the acquisition of these skills gets you back in touch with nature, and your animal side. You see what is behind grocery stores; the world loses its bullshit veneer, for good. This new perspective can be leveraged in surprising ways.

a.       It includes: CPR, Emergency Medicine, Tracking, Hunting, Fishing, Outdoorsman-ship, Disaster Training, pretty-much anything in a Firefox book or a survivalist magazine, but DO the skills, don’t just READ the skills.

b.      Minimum Time Commitment: 2 Hours per month.

3.       Knowledge Building: It’s an old invention, Writing; It’s a long forgotten skill, Reading. This is so often known but not practiced, it’s ridiculous. I have never, in my life, been in a powerful or wealthy person’s home and not seen a plethora of bookshelves, with books covering a variety of topics. At the same time, almost all poor, exploited bastards I know don’t READ. Emulate the winners on this one, its elementary. Knowledge is power. You want power. Go get some knowledge. The Library should be your new BFF. More knowledge also makes you harder to deceive. News, Comics, and Fiction does NOT count here, kids, otherwise, all reading is good reading. I know, sorry, eat your vegetables before dessert. This also keeps your mind sharp, and your accumulated knowledge gives you additional options. But, this only pays off fully if you make it a daily habit.

a.       Often Neglected, But High-Payoff Areas: ALL Sciences, HISTORY (my god, those who study history have so much leverage over those who don’t, it’s tragic), Philosophy,  Trade Magazines, Marketing, Professional Journals, Body Language, Negotiation.

b.      Minimum Time Commitment: AT LEAST 0.5 Hours per day.

4.       Meditation: Breathing, it’s as old at shitting, probably older, right? Look, you understand that it’s hard to be powerful if your body is turning to snot-on-a-stick, why don’t you see the same thing about your mind? This is actually more important. Deepak Chopra is, and has infinite potential for more, power. Jessica Simpson, while she has power, has pretty much capped out and will only have to default to pure wealth power when she gets all wrinkly and leathery. Why? One trains the mind, the other does not. More importantly, in addition to clarity, insight, and focus, this, by itself, over time, will literally give you more usable time in a day. Trust me. Stick with it for a month and find out.

a.       The methods: You can pick any meditation system you want, go to youtube and type in meditation video, all that matters is that you sit and breathe.

b.      Minimum Time Commitment: 15 minutes per day (start with 5, work up from there).

5.       Social Skills: You don’t have to be a social butterfly. But, the powerful make it a point to go out and meet new people. They also make it a point to practice interacting with new people to get better and better at it. Even if you think you’re a social retard, the fact is, unless you’re autistic, you’re hard-wired for socialization, and you will improve at it by default. The networking benefits alone are priceless. More importantly, understand that power is, ultimately, the ability to get the other monkies to give you the bananas – no escaping your other monkies on the quest for Greatness. Nothing exists in a vacuum, not even you. So go to meetup.com, find a group you like, and go sit down with some people.

a.       You can choose: ANY activity where you physically go out and meet new people, and interact with them in conversation.

b.      Minimum Time Commitment: 2 hours per week.

6.       Languages: There is a whole aisle in the shopping center of your brain that has nothing but language functions in it. Language, they say, is what spawned the development of our cerebrum to get bigger and badder in the first place. More importantly, it’s helpful to know when the two hot Beaners in the Laundromat are planning to proposition you for a three-way, or knock you out in the alley out back and lift your wallet. Or, its good to be able to sell your product to the Chinese people on the other side of town, when no other White Devils can. On a deeper level, though, language determines how you think. Different languages have different constructs for words and syntax, therefore altering the way you reason. More language skills equates to new options of thought, and therefore more options of action. You don’t have to become fluent here, just put some time into new languages. That will open up your mind, even if you don’t become so much as semi-fluent. Over time, you’ll look really cool too.

a.       Options are: Any human or computer programming language. (Ayup, yields same benefits, studies show).

b.      Minimum Time Commitment: 4 Hours per Month.

7.       Goal Review: We Guru’s keep telling you to do it, and all the time, I find people not fucking doing it. But, that’s okay. Don’t cry when the person who took the time to write, “Find (Insert Your Name Here), and Kick Their Ass” on an index card, actually swings by your house and achieves their goals. They probably found you, half naked in your living room, staring at a blank piece of paper with a pen in your hand, saying, “What is my purpose?”. LOL. Look, all achievers do this, it’s that simple. Write your top 3 goals on index cards. Look at them first thing in the morning, and last thing before sleep. Once a week, make a note of your progress, make some plans for next week. Once a month, evaluate your goals, make new ones, or tweak as you need to – there is so much power in that, for such a small price.

a.       Gear needed: You. Index Cards. A Notebook. A Pen. So simple. So many tards.

b.      Minimum Time Commitment: 5 Minutes a day, 10 minutes a week, 30 minutes a month.

8.       Technical Skills: The modern world encourages us to specialize. So, we do. But, specialization makes us dependent on others. Dependency is the anti-success. Look around you, right now. Look at all the shit around you. Do you REALLY know how it works? What does that mean? You are blind to the expertise of another. Trust, is good, blind faith, is bad. Evolution teaches us that the generalist always wins. So, why are you specializing and consciously loosing? You can save money when you can fix your own car, so more leverage there. OR, when your time is worth more than the mechanic’s, you can save money when he makes up some lie about your fortran assembly being out of calibration and tries to screw you. Leverage there. See how it works? And, by studying technical skills, you’ll see new trends, opportunities, emerging markets, and be able to seize them. Plus, and I speak from experience, you can get laid with this stuff. Yes, you too, ladies. You don’t think there are hot guys out there who haven’t dated girls just because they could build their own motorcycle? Yeah. Right. She was a piglet. I fucked her anyway. Judge me all you want, the bike was awesome. The key here is you might need to read first (unless you get some friends to teach you), but don’t count the time unless you’re actually physically doing the skill in question.

a.       Critical Areas: Cooking, Sewing, Carpentry, Plumbing, Electrical, Software Skills, Auto-repair, etc.

b.      Minimum Time Commitment: 2 hours per month.

9.       Rhetoric: This is the old fashioned name for the skill of making an argument. Because we live in a social context, the ability to argue persuasively (independent of truth) is a fundamental skill separating those who call the shots from those who don’t. For the Romans, this was more important than being able to ADD and SUBTRACT, with good reason. Look at powerful families, they always stress this skill. You should too. Now, READ about this in the knowledge-building category, but practice it here. This will serve you when dealing with government bureaucrats, cops, people you need favors from, interviews, hookers, ANYWHERE, you want something. When you’re ready, you MUST move into practicing public speaking.

a.       Get your Cochran On: Debate clubs, online political forums, Toastmasters. Anywhere you can pick a verbal argument and practice winning, or speak in public and practice not pissing yourself.

b.      Minimum Time Commitment: 2 Hours per Month

10.   Creativity: Ah, the Arts. Exercising your human ability to spunk/squirt on a canvass and title it, “Human against Cosmos”, with a smile. It doesn’t matter if you see yourself as creative or not. It doesn’t matter if the stuff you create is any good or not. It doesn’t matter if you take that little canvas and lock it in a trunk in the basement, and no one finds it until you’re dead. Which, as far as I’m concerned, would be funny as all hell. No, what matters is that you’re doing it. Being creative on at least a semi-regular basis not only stimulates the right-side of your brain, it forms all sorts of new and interesting connections between neurons. What this boils down too, is that you will see angles on problems and situations that you never saw before. Go try drawing still- life’s for a while, even if you SUCK, and you’ll see the whole world differently. Same thing if you try your hand at interior design, music, or whatever. Remember, more options, is more power. So, go to your art store, then grab some batteries or some lotion, and get started. LOL. God. I wonder what a Therapist would actually say if I could jack them in to my internal dialogue…

a.       Choose Your Destiny With: Poetry, Music, Writing, Acting, Singing, Painting, Sculpture, Dance, whatever you want, so long as you’re making ORIGINAL works of your own.

b.      Minimum Time Commitment: One hour per week.

That’s it, folks. But now, I want to take a moment to put this all into perspective, in terms of time. While this isn’t an exact estimate on your available hours, it’s just meant as a reference at a glance. On the one hand, I’m not including your commute, for example; On the other hand, I’m not including that you can multi-task. There are 24 hours in a day. Let’s be conservative and average a 30 day month. That’s 720 total hours. Take away 240 for sleeping. And another 240 for working. That leaves 240 hours of discretionary time per month. Calculating the time I have requested comes out to a total of 89.5 (I rounded up to 4 on the goal planning). That’s about 1/3 (37%) of your discretionary time. And, most of these things are FUN, in and of themselves – they’re inherently leisure time. But, that STILL leaves the overwhelming majority, 63% of your free time in your hands. Over 200 hours of TV, if you gotta have it.

1/3 of your time can change your entire life.

It has for others, it did for me.

Remember, an Improved You is a Better World.