Hey, it's been a while.

I've started ghostwriting and marketing for other businesses, which made writing for myself much more difficult.

I'm making writing for myself a non-negotiable part of my schedule again though! So you can expect at least semi-regular posts moving forward.

I kept hearing that my newsletters were a bit long though. So I'm going to start experimenting with chunking them differently throughout the week. Some days will be my book notes, sometimes content reviews. Some, like today's, will just be my blog-style content.

Sorry for such a long hiatus. Enjoy!

The ENTPreneur is About Self-Actualization.

Everything I write about is a means to an end. I believe that self-actualization comes from integrating your passions and personality into your businesses and your art, and vice versa.

The first step to self-actualization (and any meaningful change) is self-awareness—understanding what you want, what your values are, who you are now, and what you're working with.

You may be tempted to start this process by defining your dreams and lofty, almost impossible goals. This is the general consensus on where to start your journey to "becoming your best self."

But there's an interesting counterargument to this: that you should instead start with what kind of life you want to avoid.

Dan Koe calls it Anti-Vision. Tim Ferriss calls it fear setting. They're referring to the same powerful tool for clarifying what you want out of life by first defining what you don't.

It's a simple but powerful exercise. All you have to do is sit down, set a timer, and start describing a life that you don't want—one that feels inevitable given the current course you're on.

Why “inevitable?”

Because what do you think your life will look like if your eating habits never change, if you continue to sleep poorly, if you procrastinate on chasing your dreams? What will your relationships look like if you never face your demons, if you get in the same fights with your partner, family, and friends over and over again?

It's not only knowing the immediate consequences of your actions, but projecting those out 5, 10, 15 years and beyond. There's no miraculous change waiting for you—your future is just the sum of your actions and your lifestyle.

You might not be ready to dream big yet, but I'm sure with a little introspection and imagination you can see where you're headed. I'm sure you know what you want to avoid.

To help you with this exercise, I'll share my Anti-Vision—the future I'm afraid of.

Before I start listing qualities of life I want to avoid, I want to show you a tactic I call the Anti-Rolemodel. This is the easiest way to start.

The Anti-Rolemodel is exactly what it sounds like. It's someone you know whose life seems like a nightmare to you. Someone you'd never want to switch places with.

I have many, but I want to focus on one: my late grandfather.

I loved my grandfather. He was an incredibly sharp, scrupulous man, and a true stoic, which makes his life more tragic. This is not a criticism of his character—this is an objective look at his life and how it would be a subjective hell for me. The perfect life to avoid.

My grandfather was "dying for a long time," about as long as I can remember.

He had a heart attack in his 50s, and his knee was so bad that he walked with a cane everywhere he went.

My grandfather chalked his health issues up to his sedentary lifestyle. He worked an uninspired desk job as an insurance investigator, and he ate McDonald's every day for lunch. His knee issues are genetic—I have them too (thanks, Grandpa). But I'm sure the chronic inflammation only made the issue worse.

He spent the majority of the latter half of his life watching TV or researching things for fun on the computer. His health spiraled over the last decade until he died completely bedridden. His mental health deteriorated too—he could barely stay awake through a conversation at the end.

He was survived by a wife who constantly verbally abused him. I imagine it got worse near the end. She was losing her mind and had grown to resent taking care of him.

They seemed miserable together. A lifetime of emotional neglect played out every day in needless fighting between two adults who’s grasp of reality was slipping away.

When he died, we were sad but ultimately grateful. No one wanted him to continue living that way. Death was a gift.

This would be hell to me. The worst outcome.

At all costs, I want to avoid:

Once you know what you need to avoid, all you have to do is flip the script, and that will give you ideas on what you have to do.

Hopefully by this point you're convinced that this is an exercise worth doing.

You don't have to pick an Anti-Rolemodel if you don't want to. You can just start by setting a timer for 10-20 minutes and bullet-pointing what the qualities of a terrible life are to you.

What does your personal hellscape future look like? Some major themes to consider are: health, wealth, meaning, novelty, creative endeavors, relationships, and habits.

If all you ever did was steer away from a bad life, you would end up with a life worth living. You would be ahead of 90% of people who never think about their future at all.

Figure out who you don't want to be. Then don't be that person.

It really is that simple.

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