Thirteen Visualizations That'll Rewire Your Brain (Guaranteed)

Life will never look the same again

Image Credit–Midjourney

Words can do a shitty job of creating breakthroughs.

Over the last 3 years I’ve collected illustrations that take the best life lessons and visualize them so they stick to our brains.

To save you hundreds of hours looking for them yourself, I’ve curated the best ones below (many are illustrations you would never have seen).

1. You’re supposed to be fearful when you make a growth decision

My goal in life is to make people think.

If I can go beyond that and make people change, then I’m ecstatic. The biggest roadblock I have to this goal is, whenever I ask people to change, they feel fear.

Fear holds them back. It becomes an excuse to stop.

But what if feeling fear is the sign you need to make a new decision and grow beyond your potential? What if embracing fear made you unstoppable?

Image Credit–Janis Ozolins via X(ozo.art)

2. The hidden skill most people don’t possess

People get h0rny over habits, success, IQ, emotional intelligence, networking, etc.

Not me. What gets me excited is when I meet a person who’s default is to be resourceful. When they have a problem or lack information they’re able to trust the internet has the answer and figure it out.

They don’t ask dumb questions like “But where do I write?” when the answer can be googled for free. Instead, they’re focused on experimentation that leads to wisdom.

When I met my business partner Todd, he wasn’t the sharpest guy on the internet or even the most successful. What he had was resourcefulness.

I told him “we’re going to launch something together, cool?”

He had no idea what it would be or how. He didn’t even have the skills, but he told me he’d give it a go. A lot of people would just have had imposter syndrome and said no. But not Todd. He got it.

Become a resourceful person, then find more people who possess this rare trait if you want to build an empire you own.

Image Credit–Ash Lamb via X

3. Rich people are freaking idiots

Social media is full of rich people trash.

Rich people sell us the dream that money solves everything. But when all you do is focus on money, you stuff up all other areas of life. It turns you into an accidental Elon Musk – lots of money but a 0/10 in all other areas of life, which leads to divorce.

Wealthy people understand the importance of money, but they also understand when to dial it back and burn the billionaire dream to the ground.

Wealthy people have free time above all else.

Image Credit – Junhan Chin via Insta

4. The work-life balance and self-care crowd have made a huge mistake

The average person is trying to lower stress.

The mainstream message is that stress is dangerous. That it’ll lead to burnout and ruin your life. Apparently, we need more self-care and better work-life balance. We need more time off and holidays to try and forget work for a while.

Idiots.

I don’t want to f*cking forget work. I think about my work 24/7, even while making babies. Why would you want to forget a positive addiction that leads to an obsession?

Stress is an essential part of life. Without stress we die inside and leave this world at 25, before we’re eventually buried at 75 and have a funeral for our remains.

Most of us don’t have too much stress. No. We don’t have enough. Healthy stress is a source of growth. Stress is a component of high performance.

Feel the pain and you’ll experience a gain.

Image Credit–Sahil Bloom via X

5. Shortcuts are a dead-end that holds us back

If you saw my email inbox you’d throw up. Every day I get random emails like this:

• “What’s the fastest-growing social media app right now?”

• “How can I make $100K in a month?”

• “Can you spend 30 seconds to validate my writing?”

• “Could we have a 10-minute Zoom call?”

All of this is shiny object syndrome in disguise. The false belief is that if you just meet your idol or get a few tips, all your dreams will come true. Wrong.

There isn’t a one-minute hack. A heart surgeon can’t teach you heart surgery over a 30-minute coffee, even though the internet will convince you they can.

The only hacks are:

• Do the work

• Choose ‘hard’

• Build a daily habit

• Choose your obsession

• Stick to a goal for 5+ years

The problem is my view of the world doesn’t release cheap dopamine. It doesn’t sell people a dream or allow them to set unrealistic expectations.

So my success roadmap is ignored. And that’s why it’s so easy to succeed in life, because 99% of people will get stuck looking for hacks.

The elite high performers just start, stay consistent, iterate, and play in decades.

Image Credit–JK Molina via X

6. The different zones of life that I’ve never seen shared like this

You’ve probably heard the cliche concept of a comfort zone.

This visualization below shows the hidden zones you’ve probably not heard of. The furthest I see a lot of people get is the learning zone. The problem is learning can often be nothing more than procrastination in disguise.

The growth zone is where all the rewards are.

It’s where your creativity and imagination thrive, and that leads to meaning and a higher purpose. I’ve lived in the growth zone for the last 5 years.

A cool perk I’ve found is when you permanently decide to enter the growth zone, you experience higher states of consciousness. It’s a transcendent feeling.

Time feels different. Reality changes shape.

It’s as if the majority of people live in a VR world with Apple Pro Vision ski goggles, and everyone else lives in the present in the real world.

The gap between the two is getting wider.

Image Credit–MVA International

7. A 4-hour workday is possible with this skill

When people hear “4-hour work day” they scream “clickbait!”

It’s a valid reaction. There’s a lot of crap online. The illustration below shows you the hidden power of flow states and deep work.

It’s not that the 4-hour workday people do less work. It’s that they work in a new way without distractions. So their output is higher and they can hit their work goals faster, leaving them extra time for rest.

There’s a reason I put my phone in another room and have zero notifications.

When you see this opportunity for yourself, you’ll never think the same way about work or productivity again.

Image Credit–Dan Koe via X

8. The Atomic Habits view of the world will ruin your life

I love James Clear and would have his babies.

His Atomic Habits book is awesome. The challenge is it has created a bunch of copycat sheep who run around going “It’s all about consistency, bro.”

Showing up daily is important, but if you overthink and suffer from perfectionism (which most do), it’s not gonna help you.

Hitting a goal every day is more important than the results. What James Clear doesn’t harp on enough about is there will be off days.

There will be days where you’re like “F*ck, I’ve got covid,” or “My grandma just died, give me a break, amigo.” On those days doing 100% and hitting some cookie-cutter, self-help, feel good habit won’t be your #1 priority.

A better approach is this:

• Get off 0% progress

• Aim for no 0% days

Image Credit–Hannah Wilson (@quotedvisually) via X

9. This common software development method applied to life will make you unstoppable

In the software world engineers mostly use an agile framework.

It means you launch something small, test, get feedback, and iterate. Then go again. This framework never ends. The same experimental mindset can be applied to life.

Your opinion is limited. Asking questions to strangers has its limitations. Asking people about a fictitious idea is even more limiting.

To recover from overthinking, perfectionism, and procrastination and succeed in life, you must become an experimenter.

You need data sources. Social media is full of them.

You need to stop thinking you know everything or guessing…and go out and launch experiments to find true insight that leads to wisdom.

My entire online business is built on this idea. I start at the point of “I know nothing.” Then I experiment to figure out the unknowns and iterate on feedback.

When you adopt this mindset, fear and anxiety plummet. Suddenly it’s easier to start.

Image Credit–Janis Ozolins (ozo.art) via X

10. One of the greatest visual lessons you’ll ever see

Many of you would have seen this famous image from Jack Butcher.

I included it because it highlights a common feeling. When you start a new goal, get a new job, leave a 9-5 for entrepreneurship, or start writing there’s always this point where your brain goes “this is pointless, idiot.”

That’s when a lot of us give up.

Being able to feel that feeling and keep going is where success is found. The gains in the early days are so tiny that it feels like you’re not making progress. That sends a signal to our brain that “this is not working.”

It IS working, it just takes time to see results.

For this reason, I believe obsession is crucial. If you pick a goal, habit, topic or career that you’re not obsessed with, you’ll rely on motivation and feeling like it.

That’s where dreams go to die.

Being obsessed means you’ll go past the “this is pointless” point, and develop the skill and wisdom to succeed at your craft.

The goal feels pointless now, and that’s why it’ll be extraordinary later.

Image Credit–Jack Butcher via X

11. There are only two types of pain

Not making a decision is a decision. Read that again.

When you skip opportunities because you can’t decide or you fear failure, it leads to a place I call hell: regrets.

All the things you didn’t do or try are what will haunt you later in life. Just visit a hospice center for those who are only weeks away from death (like I did).

All you’ll hear are all the regrets they have. It’s depressing.

It’s painful to play hard games and be disciplined enough to show up every day and push past the roadblocks. It’s even more painful to stay in your comfort zone, drown in Netflix TV shows, sit on the sidelines, wait for things to happen, and stay stuck.

Choose the pain of discipline. There is no success without pain.

Image Credit–Tracy Tang via X

12. Writing isn’t what you think it is

I crap on a lot about writing. Sorry.

It’s easy to think writing is all about growing an audience, making millions of dollars, or getting useless followers. There’s a deeper level.

Writing helps you think clearly. It’s a way to validate ideas.

When you have a writing habit you become a better speaker. Your beliefs become clearer. And the world makes more sense.

Everyone should write online daily to experience the magic. The opportunities that come from it are a bonus prize. But there’s nothing sexier than a clear thinker who knows what they want and gets to the point. Writing enables that superpower.

Image Credit–Janis Ozolins (ozo.art) via X

Image Credit–MilaniCreative via X

13. The limitless opportunities available to you aren’t obvious

This is one of my favorite visualizations of all time.

Key lessons:

• You can change paths at any time

• There are always more paths in life open to you

• Paths are only closed off to you if you believe they are

What’s cool is there are no limitations.

Whatever you dream up can become a reality. The paths in life sold to us mostly support other people’s objectives. Traditional career paths are stupid and overcrowded. They land you in the layoff spreadsheet at some point.

When you embrace the power of the internet, you can literally make money watching monkey videos if you choose.

See the hidden paths few talk about. Or create your own path that no one has ever thought of, and join the top 1%.

Image Credit–Waitbutwhy by Tim Urban via X

Tell me which of the 13 illustrations you loved the most in the comments and why.

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