Post Trip Recap/Imaginary Walls
It’s kinda crazy to think that just a week ago I was on a plane heading to Vegas. The time has zoomed by, that’s for sure.
Before I recap some of my experiences, I was fortunate to do a bit of reading on this trip.
Finding time on layovers, on the plane rides, and on my morning cafe adventures – I managed to finish The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer.
There are a lot of concepts in that book I enjoy, but we’ll focus only on one today.
Imaginary walls.
Singer describes this concept with a beautiful metaphor, but I’ll paraphrase it here.
Imagine you are sitting in a field of brilliant light. But you are sitting in a house of your own design and construction, located right in the middle of this field.
You can see the rays of light shining through the walls because your walls are see-through. Made of glass maybe.
You want to walk towards the light. To touch and feel the light. But there’s still a wall standing between you and the light.
Or is there?
What is your house made of? Your thoughts and emotions.
What are your walls made of? Your psyche.
The mind is a funny thing because it’ll fight like hell to keep you in what it believes is safe.
The only thing is that “safe" doesn't always mean good for you.
When you start to push on these imaginary walls, the nerves, anxiety, and other thoughts and feelings summon themselves to deter you.
You start thinking of past experiences to justify that venturing into the unknown is not worth it.
But you also know that what you desire is beyond those walls.
This was the battle I found myself in when I was in Vegas.
So let’s talk about the trip.
First off, I stayed on the infamous Fremont Street. Probably going to be the last time I stay there.
I think I’m a pretty deep sleeper, but when there are 3 different concerts happening every single night until 2AM…
Now I understand why the front desk gave me a pair of earplugs.
But I made the most of it. I got a chance to see Alien Ant Farm, a band I listened to when I was younger.
The only thing is, I only like one of their songs. Their cover of Smooth Criminal. And I waited 1.5 hours for them to finally play it.
Was it worth it? Debatable.
So heading into the fight, I got a chance to hang out with Sodiq Yusuff’s teammates while he cut weight and attended his obligations.
In the beginning, I really did feel out of place. These guys were black belts, experts in their martial arts, and here I am, 2 months into BJJ.
But shoutouts to them. They were super welcoming, they invited me to dinner on the day I got to Vegas.
And also let me into the hotel room to hang with Sodiq as he cut his last couple of pounds.
Still, I felt a little closed off. I felt out of place. I know Sodiq was trying to talk with me a bit, but in my mind, I could see how tortuous this weight cut was and didn’t really wanna bother him.
Now that I think about it, I should’ve talked more. It would’ve helped him take his mind off the weight cut haha.
I was sealed off behind my imaginary wall.
But there was a moment where I punched through. Or rather, I realized those walls didn’t even exist in the first place.
We got to talking about anime. All of our nerdiness came out and we talked and laughed about several shows.
From there on out, I was good. I went from feeling like an outcast to feeling like a part of their team.
On Friday, I had a solo day. The team and Sodiq had to get their minds right for the big fight on Saturday.
And one thing I do have to work on is learning how to meet people by myself. I could make the excuse that Vegas isn’t really the best city for me, I don’t drink and I’m not the biggest gambler… even though I did lose $100 on blackjack.
Still, I know I can do it. I’ve done it before, but it’s been a while. So I was definitely stuck behind some invisible walls on that aspect.
Come Saturday, it was fight time.
I arrived at the venue with a couple of Sodiq’s teammates. We watched all the fights leading up to Sodiq’s fight.
Everything up to the fight was awesome. And then the fight came… and you realize how unforgiving this sport is.
Sodiq ended up losing, which brought down the mood. Silence for a few minutes between us.
Not gonna lie, that was hard to watch. But this sport comes with the highest highs and lowest lows. You just don’t know what you’re gonna get until it’s over.
So before the main pay-per-view card, Sodiq’s teammates let me know that they were gonna have a team dinner at Fogo de Chao.
Which was fine, I had no issue watching the rest of the fights by myself.
But they invited me. Again, I initially felt out of place. Like dang, I feel like a moment like this should be between their team.
But then again, they invited me. And how could I say no? I was there to support Sodiq anyway so I’ll support him during his highest moments and his lowest.
We got to dinner and it was all good. No nerves, no anxiety. Sodiq was in good spirits.
We loaded up on calories, joked around, and watched the rest of the fights. Trying to enjoy our last day in Vegas because all of us fly out the next day.
On the plane ride home, I was thinking a lot about these concepts of imaginary walls and just closing up in general.
Looks like I found some things to work on. But I’m glad I got an opportunity to have this experience.
Going in the memory books.
Week 87 Updates
Launched a new client’s newsletter this week, finally. It came with a good response too, so that’s a good sign.
Coming back, I don't know if it was jet lag or what. But I had trouble sleeping for a couple days and just getting back into rhythm.
Which sucks because I had quite a few things to catch up on.
Oh, the one piece of great news is that I was supposed to show up to jury duty on the Monday after. But I got a text saying that I didn’t need to and my duty was complete for the next 3 years.
Hell yeah. Now I didn’t have to act like a crazy person to escape jury duty.
Other than that, we’re back on track.
Another late one, but at least we’re getting it done.
Trust the process, love the process.
Kevin
fire