My Daily Schedule

Apply this to laugh your way to the top of the world

“I don’t just want to reach the top of the world.” I told her.

“I want to reach the top of the world on my terms. So that’s why I cannot do what pretty much everyone else is doing because I’ve done that and I know how that story ends.”

“How does it end?” she asked with the innocence and curiosity that makes up the female form.

“Well, for me… it ended bruised and bloody with the walls of time caging in on me as I was screaming out with pain and turmoil over the realization that I had spent my entire life lost in the past/future and had missed the entire point of life.”

“What was the point?”

“Presence – the only thing that’s real.”

–

Life is funny.

At 16, I got alcohol poisoning and was puking out blood on some random girls bathroom floor while I was floating in and out of consciousness.

I thought I was dying.

So I did what most dying men do and tried holding onto life.

“Ah God, I messed up. Give me another chance. Please. I spent my entire life doing bullshit. I have so many dreams and goals I want to actualize before it’s all over.”

(You know how that story goes.)

And guess what?

I got that second chance (thanks God) and I made sure not to waste it.

Instead, I ripped out the pages from my journal full of intentions (at the time) and painted reality with it.

You know…

The actualization of goals and desires.

Make this, go there.

And between me and you, life became quite good and I thought I had it all figured out.

After all:

I was making some people’s yearly salary in a day.

I was living where I wanted to live.

I was dating who I wanted to date.

I was eating where I wanted to eat.

I was traveling where I wanted to travel.

And I was living as I wanted to live.

So I thought shit was all good.

And if/when death were to greet me, no longer would I be kicking and screaming and suffering in pain over a life not lived.

(Like I did at 16).

But guess what?

Death came knocking again at 25.

And this time?

I was left even more fucked up than I was at 16 haha (so fucked up in fact that I lowkey had PTSD for a year straight after this experience).

How come, you ask?

Well, I was operating under the belief that the only reason a man goes out kicking and screaming at the time of death is because he didn’t fulfill his dreams (I read hundreds of self help books from 14 to 20, so that’s what I got brainwashed with).

So with that logic, I concluded:

The more dreams I tick off, the less regret I’d have at death.

So that’s what I did.

Only to open the door to death at 25 and realize my logic was false and that actually isn’t what ended up happening…

What ended up happening (at least to me) was my conditioned reality (full of the good life) started to unravel like a dream and it started to give rise to a deeper reality.

This deeper reality (you could call it the spiritual, but I don’t like that word because it can be perceived as if it’s something separate from normal life) exposed itself to be the truth of reality and it filled my heart with the deepest level of fulfillment, awe, love, peace, gratitude, strength, and wonder that I’ve ever known and in return brought me to my knees (literally) with the painful realization that:

I could’ve been in touch with this throughout my life, but I hadn’t because I was lost entirely in the dream of life (thus missing out on the entire point of life).

As a result:

A real life I never lived for a real life is only lived when you’re in touch with real reality.

Not only that, but my conditioned reality exposed itself to be as important as a grain of sand in comparison to this deeper reality.

So with that noted, you can imagine how much pain, suffering, agony, and turmoil I was in.

For here I was thinking the more distance I put in between where I started the video game of life and where I ended (externally), the better off I’d be at the time of death.

But that’s not what ended up happening.

For what ended up happening was conditioned reality exposed itself to be almost dream like and opened up to the deeper reality (you could call the deeper reality heaven) and it was better than you could ever fucking imagine…

… and I was left with the sobering realization that I had never been in touch with this during my life and thus had spent my entire life living in hell.

Imagine the pain of that.

So with that all understood, I found myself bruised and bloody, screaming out in regret again at 25.

This time I wasn’t pleading for more time inside the video game of life so I could achieve more goals and dreams (that’s important, but it’s not the most important). I was pleading for more time, so I could get in touch with the entire point of life (Presence) and live my life as that.

And guess what?

I got that third chance (thanks God) and I made sure not to waste it.

Instead, I made Presence the focal point of my life (which isn’t as simple as just saying that, but doing real work on your consciousness) and started to be more:

In the world, but not of it.

Such is why, I told the girl with the face of innocence many years later:

“I don’t just want to reach the top of the world. I want to reach the top of the world on my terms.”

And such is why when she asked:

“What does it mean to live life on your own terms?”

I replied with:

“To laugh my way to the top of the world. In other words, to maximize the video game of life (contents) while at the same time being free from the video game of life (in touch with the deeper reality of Presence).”

–

With that ALL understood, this is what brings me to the daily schedule I use to laugh my way to the top of the world (for this schedule isn’t just created at random, but as a result of tasting the aroma of death twice and going back to the drawing board both times).

But before I disclose it, a quick note…

A daily schedule is important because time is an illusion and the Now is all there is.

How you live in the now is how you spend your life.

Fastest way to change your life is by changing your daily schedule.

I’ve experimented with a lot of different schedules throughout the years and there’s always one that I come back to.

This schedule allows me to maximize both the visible (contents) and the invisible (Presence).

So without further ado, here it is:

6 am - 12 pm: Structured (Man Of The World)

I spend the first six hours of the day in the same old way.

Meaning, these hours are structured intentionally and I do the exact same things day in and day out (more or less).

This is important because to maximize the life of the man of the world you need discipline, structure, and routine.

Without this, it’s hard to win.

Success, after all, comes down to nothing more than identifying the right levers and pulling them day in and day out.

So to make that happen, here’s how I personally structure the first six hours of the day:

6 am - 7 am: Wake up, meditate, walk.

7 am - 11 am: Deep work (knocking out 1-3 most important levers for the day with pure focus. No checking phone, texts, emails, nada. Relentless focus)

11 am - 12 pm: Exercise (Gym or Walk)

–

Come 12 pm, the day is pretty much won from a worldly standpoint for if you spend 365 days knocking out the 1-3 most important levers day in and day out, then your life is going to radically change in the best way possible…

… and you’ll be able to experience pretty much everything you’ve wanted to experience inside the video game of life.

Now it’s time for the next phase of the day…

12 pm - 6 pm: Unstructured (Man Of Spirit)

This stretch of time is unstructured – meaning there is nothing on the calendar, but blank space that can be filled up however you please on any given day.

I spend this unstructured time in many different ways…

Everything from doing creative work to working with private teachers (on the inner path) to sitting on park benches mid day as I watch the world move by me to running free-flowing conversations (both recorded/unrecorded) with amazing people with no purpose, but to explore what arises freshly in the moment to learning/studying whatever I’m curious about to talking with the homeless to laughing with loved ones to doing nothing to going on adventures to jumping on calls (both biz/personal) to doing more work (if I’m in the midst of a project and in deep focus/work mode).

But regardless of what I’m doing or where I’m at, the most important thing is to bring as much Presence as possible to the moment before me.

This means:

To continuously sense my arms and legs.

To continuously feel my feet on the floor.

To continuously surrender to the beat of my heart.

To continuously serve the moment before me (without trying to serve the moment before me).

What this results in is:

My surface level reality (conditioned life) opening up to the deeper level of reality (unconditioned life) until the lines blur completely and I find myself ecstatically lost in the magic of life and can no longer tell you if I’m in the spiritual or the physical, working or playing, being or doing, surrendering or creating.

More “time” I spend in this “timeless” space, the more my consciousness bathes in the awe, wonder, love, mystery, peace, joy of real reality which I then bring with me the following morning and use to touch my day’s deep work sessions with (leading to greater results and much higher enjoyment).

And this, my friend…

Is what it means to live “the good life.”

To be in the world, but not of it.

But is this really the “good life”?

I guess we’ll find out the next time death knocks on my door ;-)

Until then…

I’ll keep laughing my way to the top of the world.

–

Thanks for reading!

Your friend inside and outside the video game of life,

/tej

p.s. The above was my personal reasoning for why I structure my days the way I do. But even from a performance standpoint, I find that structured and unstructured time is very important.

During the structured time, you put a dent in the universe.

During the unstructured time, you expose yourself to new ideas, breakthroughs, and skills that allow you to keep pace with where the world is heading.

Both are equally important.

p.s.s. If I was to encompass this entire email in a single rap lyric, I’d go with the following: “We want it all, half was never the agreement.” ~ Drake