obsession.

i’ve recently been getting the ITCH to mentally dominate my opposition.

now 2 years ago i would have just loaded up marvel snap or my preferred tac shooter & then go to town.

me now is iffy about playing video games for 10+ hours a day to channel my masculine desire to display dominance via f*****g some s**t up..

so over the past few days i’ve been playing chess for like 10 hours a day..

and it’s been SICK 😎

yesterday I was watching a vid about how to approach learning the game in terms of what principles to focus on, & the teacher, a master chess player named Akeem, said something that took me back to my 2020-22 fps season.

are you playing to get stronger? because if you never analyze your games you’re not playing to get stronger, you’re just playing to win.

back in 2020 when I first started playing Overwatch, a moba-shooter, i had a few friends who’d all been playing since release in 2016. they were all gold ranked players (average rank) who had peaked plat (slightly better than avg) in like 2018.

i started playing & after 6 months I went from bronze to gold.

another 6 I was plat in support, my main role.

another 6 i was diamond in support (top 10% of players), plat in tank, & gold in dps.

in 18 months i was better than all my friends who had 4+ years on me.

after 2 years of OW i peaked diamond in support, diamond in tank, & plat in dps.

this wasn’t just because I was an overwatch fiend either. when I started playing rainbow six siege in ‘22 I did the same thing.

best or #2 player out of 7 of my friends after like 6-12 months of grinding.

5 of which had had the game for years before me.

so what was the difference between me & them?

why was I able to climb ranks while all my homies remained hard stuck?

i played to get stronger, not to win.

growing > winning

here’s the real guys.

i f*****g love winning.

i love beating people.

i’ll be the first to say that it MASSIVELY boosts my ego.

and that’s ok, as long as you sandwich some humility between your 2 slices of arrogance.

I’m so f*****g hot & smart & cool. who’s out here like me?????? (no one)

AND you’re nothing without God so tone it down a bit there lil bro.

true true. fair fair fair.

SIKE B***H. GOD GAVE ME THESE HUGE ASS BALLS FOR A REASON BABY WHOOOOOOOOOOOOO

^^ avg mirror sesh

so yes. i love competition & i especially love displaying mental dominance over my opposition.

so when i played fps i wanted to win, of course.

but i understood this crucial mindset that differentiated me from most of my homies.

“i deserve my rank”

my rank is a reflection of my skill as a player.

it’s the output that reflects my inputs.

the reflection in the mirror.

therefore if i want a higher rank, i need to improve my skills, game sense, & decision making.

my friends didn’t understand this.

alot of players have huge ego’s that hold them back instead of propel them forward like mine.

i have a healthy relationship with my ego.

i hype myself up for being the f*****g man & have confidence in my abilities, while always remaining open to finding gaps in my awareness in order to become better.

i pair my arrogance with a humble student mindset.

so while i have a huge ego, it doesn’t hold me back from growth.

my homies could not say the same.

they couldn’t admit to themselves that they actually sucked at the game (which is why they were a low rank) & then start moving from that to get better.

it was always

“i lose because of my teammates”

“i’m topfragging. what are YOU doing????”

“i got my 1, yall should have closed the round”

always focused on others, never focused on themselves.

looking at other people will forever keep you blind to what YOU need to see in yourself.

read that again.

one of my boys, Bk, was JUST LIKE THIS.

Bk was a good shooter, but he wasn’t the best strategist or team player.

Bk has a huge ego that tends to blind him, so he always had this blame my team mentality instead of the blame myself mentality.

his teammates were stopping him from winning & ranking up, so he’d get mad about them.

his anger kept him distracted from the real problem.

that he was way too f*****g aggro alot of the time & got caught in bad positions when the team needed him alive.

if he improved his positioning & was more intentional about getting aggressive, I’m sure he would have ranked up.

but he never saw those problems.

it was always “my team is ass”

it was never “damn Bk that was dumb, you shouldn’t have done that”

but I ALWAYS did that.

“you fool Jaden that was bad play, you shoulda did X instead”

“damn i should have asked for that call like i was going to, now i don’t have support”

“F**K. i shouldn’t have taken that fight, now my team is down & the site it open”

i knew that i had to constantly change how i thought & how i approached the game if i wanted to rank up. which means training your thought process in game after making mistakes & going back to review your games to find other ones.

this is why Akeem said

are you playing to get stronger? because if you never analyze your games you’re not playing to get stronger, you’re just playing to win.

if you’re not pointing out your mistakes & retraining your thinking, you’re not playing to get stronger, you’re playing for an ego boost.

outputs reflect inputs

“i deserve my rank”

this was always my mentality.

so i got better to become the player who deserved the rank i wanted.

my friends didn’t have this thought process.

they thought win games = rank up.

which makes sense.

win → gain elo → gain enough elo → rank up

the problem is, since these shooter games are teams games (& most players suck (including you)) you usually only have yourself to rely on.

this means that you will get team diffed.

diffed = owned by opponent(s) because they have greater skill

so there will be games you CERTAINLY lose (~10%) & games you will UNDOUBTEDLY win (~10%).

those 20% of games shouldn’t be your focus.

the 80% of games that are undecided, where YOU can be the difference maker, are where men are made.

most people never use those 80% of games to improve themselves as players, so they stay hard stuck.

they think win games = rank up.

when in reality improve skill, games sense, & decision making = rank up

the rank is the reflection & the skill is the image in the mirror.

you only change the reflection by changing the image.

stop focusing on the outputs like more views, more subs, or more money.

that’s like focusing on rank & wondering why you can’t rank up.

you can’t rank up because you aren’t focused on the inputs that the version of you who has that rank would do.

you don’t have the mindset of the diamond player who knows how to improve their game, you have the mindset of a gold player who’s always blaming their team.

that’s why you’re hard stuck gold & why I can actually climb in rank.

i don’t give a f**k about ranking up.

i give a f**k about being a better player.

i focus on the inputs & let the outputs reflect over time.

i have the same mentality with art & biz.

i don’t focus on views, subs, or money (i tried that a year ago & got depressed as f**k) i focus on learning, creating, & expressing.

the better I am at telling stories & delivering impactful insights, the more i can impact people.

i want to be a better philosopher & storyteller. the better I am at those, the more i’ll be able to impact people.

the more impact people, the more they can impact me in return.

i focus on the inputs (writing, recording, studying, having convos) instead of the outputs (views, subs, money).

extrapolate this to your life.

stop focusing on the outputs.

set goals so you know what actions & mindsets you need to get there, then HYPER OBSESS with those actions & mindsets until you internally become the person who has those things.

this is just the better way to live too lol.

life sucks when you want something & feel like s**t cause you don’t have it.

life is a lot better when you want something & feel awesome because you know you made progress towards that goal today.

how you move is up to you.

but i don’t think you want the former..

inputs > outputs

detach from the goal & surrender into the fact that God is guiding you towards it.

you don’t need to know everything right now.

all you have to do is act.

Do it today. Be better for it tomorrow

Stay devoted. Stay inspired.

- Jaden

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