1-2-3 Inner Game

Welcome to 1-2-3 Inner Game, your weekly hit of actionable strategies to achieve a high-performing, healthy, and thriving life.

Today's Highlights

• Getting Rid of "Bad Blood"

• 1-2-3 Inner-Game

• New Year's Resolutions are for Suckers - Do This Instead

• How I Built the Inner Game Blueprint

• Brain Candy

• Rundown of Cool Stuff This Week

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Hi,

Last week, I talked about how my energy levels were off. No bounce. No drive.

Just… sluggish. 🐌

This week, I took action.

And by “took action,” I mean I let a guy make 300 tiny cuts on my back while suction cups pulled out my so-called bad blood. 🩸

Yep. I tried Hijama—aka cupping therapy, let’s see if ancient wisdom can fix what modern habits broke.

Here’s how it went down:

I lay face down. The doctor (who, with his blade and suction cups, felt more like a medieval surgeon 🏥⚔️) told me, “Alright, we’re gonna do 300 cuts.”

300?! I thought this would be like 10. Maybe 20.

🔹 Step 1: Suction—cups pulling my skin up like rising dough.

🔹 Step 2: Tiny blade strokes—quick, sharp, not exactly painful, but enough to make me question my life choices.

🔹 Step 3: Cups go back on, and suddenly… I can feel the blood being pulled out.

Slightly painful.

And then he casually drops, “You had a lot of bad blood.”

Wait, what? 😳 More than normal?

Session ends. I check the mirror. My back looks like a Dalmatian —except all the spots are deep red. But I feel… different. Lighter. Clearer. Like I just deleted a bunch of corrupted files from my bloodstream.

Placebo? Science? I don’t know. But my energy? ⚡ It shifted. And right now, that’s all that matters.

Energy is everything. When it’s off, nothing flows. So I’m experimenting. Hijama was one step. Now I’m tweaking workouts, dialing in my diet, and tracking sleep like a scientist.

Because if ancient Egyptians, Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), and Michael Phelps all believed in this, maybe there’s something to it. 🤔

What’s the most unconventional thing you’ve tried to boost your energy? Hit reply—I’d love to hear.

Here's some Inner Game wisdom to chew on this week

1 question

Entrepreneurship is a balancing act.

Move too fast, and you risk breaking things. Move too slow, and you miss opportunities. Take on too much, and you burn out. Take on too little, and you become irrelevant.

What’s the one area in your business where you’re pushing too hard—or not hard enough?

2 questions (and answers from me)

1. What’s the biggest difference between successful and struggling entrepreneurs? Speed of execution. The best don’t wait for “perfect”—they test, iterate, and adapt while everyone else is still overthinking. 🚀

   
   

2. What’s a guaranteed way to make bad decisions? Prioritize short-term comfort over long-term gain. Easy choices today often lead to hard consequences tomorrow.​

3 insights from me

1. The most underrated skill? Learning how to reset. Success isn’t about never failing—it’s about how quickly you can recover and realign.

   
   

2. Willpower is a weak strategy. Set up your environment so that good choices are effortless and bad ones are inconvenient.

   
   

3. People don’t rise to the level of their goals. They fall to the level of their habits. Focus less on outcome, more on daily systems.

What's new with the Pod - Emergence Now

New Year's Resolutions are for Suckers - Do This Instead

Listen Now

Breaking the Cycle: From Burnout to Inner Game Mastery

Here’s the deal: In 2012, burnout wrecked me. 😩

My health collapsed—I was down to 61 Kg—and my mental game was a mess.

I spiraled into behavioral addictions, and one bad decision toppled everything.

On the outside, I was a high-functioning overachiever. 👔

Inside? Total chaos, anxiety, and existential dread. 😰

I dug deep, did the work, and found tools to transform.

But now, I see this same struggle everywhere: stress, anxiety, and overwhelm are crushing entrepreneurs.

That’s when it clicked. I needed to change the conversation about the pressure entrepreneurs face and how to live a life worth living. 💭

Because, truth is, many of us are addicted to stress. 😵‍💫

Even the most successful people I know feel empty, numb, and stuck in a cycle they think is normal. But it’s not.

So, I built the Inner Game Blueprint—a game-changer to break that cycle and help entrepreneurs live better. 🛠️

Now, let me ask:

What are you innovating? 💡

What challenges are you tackling? 🥊

What’s your game-changer? 💥

Brain Candy Tweets That Made Me Think, Laugh, or Go ‘Huh, Interesting!

Look, balance is great if you want an average life. But if you want to be the best at something? 💯 You have to go all-in. No half-measures. No ‘work-life balance’ posters on your wall. Just pure obsession—the kind that makes people think you’ve lost it. 🤯

Because the truth is, everyone who’s ever been world-class at anything was a little (or a lot) unhinged about it.  Balance doesn’t make history.

Obsession does. 🚀🔥

The biggest lie we tell ourselves? That we're "stuck" where we are.

Nah. You’re not stuck. You’re comfortable—which is way worse.

Most people don’t lack time, brains, or resources—they lack enthusiasm. That raw, irrational excitement that makes people wake up at 4 AM because they can’t NOT do the thing.

The people who break out? They don’t "have time"—they make time. They don’t "have resources"—they figure it out.

Mediocrity isn’t a circumstance—it’s a decision.

Choose wisely. 🚀

Here’s a rundown of some cool stuff I’ve been diving into this week.

📖 ​The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey​

📽️ 📖 What ​books to try​ based on the movies you loved last year.

I'm rooting for you to continue crushing it! 💪🏼

Dhiren