Anticodeguy

Sometimes you just need to touch the green grass. Sometimes you just need to touch the fiberglass.

Read more about Money Buys Everything (Despite What They Tell You): The Uncomfortable Truth About Modern Freedom Watch more videos like that on my YouTube @anticodeguy

Your brain isn't designed for happiness. It's designed to make you want more. Ever wonder why likes and new gadgets don't actually make us happy? Let's explore: --- Each of us has a unique neural architecture for happiness. Even identical twins with the same DNA process emotions differently. Your brain responds to stimuli completely differently than mine. This is why generic happiness advice usually fails. --- Don't mistake dopamine for happiness. It's not the "joy molecule" but the "wanting molecule." It drives anticipation and desire, not contentment. Evolution created it for survival, not happiness. --- We've learned to exploit our own nature. Chocolate raises dopamine by 50%. A social media notification about the same. Methamphetamine - 1000 freaking %. But all work through the same neural pathways. --- Social networks perfectly exploit your dopamine system. As Facebook's former president admitted:

"We designed the 'like' button to give users dopamine hits."

Familiar feeling when you check notifications every 5 minutes? --- Here's the problem - external euphoria is temporary. And your brain adapts. Over time you need more stimulation for the same effect. Studies show: constant overstimulation reduces receptor sensitivity by up to 30%. --- This mirrors drug addiction. After each "high" comes a drop. Which triggers desire for another dose. I've noticed: achieving goals often left a strange emptiness after the initial thrill. --- Our neurochemistry isn't designed for permanent euphoria. If your brain could maintain it constantly, we'd all live in perpetual "high" states. But this would destroy our system - our brain evolved specifically to prevent this. --- True happiness exists beyond the dopamine model. Research confirms: eudaimonic well-being (meaning, growth, values) lasts longer than hedonic pleasure. It emerges from within rather than being achieved externally. --- Consider your dopamine triggers. What external stimuli do you depend on to feel good? How sustainable are these sources? Have you noticed diminishing returns from what once brought pleasure? --- Happiness lies beyond molecules. It's in the meaning we create. In the perspectives we adopt. In the internal choices we make. Dopamine provides sparks of pleasure, but the fire of contentment comes from something deeper. --- There will be 3-part article series on that topic, starting with the first one: https://anticodeguy.substack.com/p/the-science-and-philosophy-of-happiness?r=1m5hbt

It turns out that you can pretty easily generate images on your own server using free tools. The image canvas - a simple HTML template Image render - browserless/chrome, which takes a screenshot of the HTML page n8n - to glue everything together and work with the result

The Science and Philosophy of Happiness: Why Dopamine Isn’t Enough The question of happiness is both profoundly philosophical and intensely practical. On one hand, it requires deep internal reflection – the kind that reshapes our fundamental worldview. On the other, it directly affects our everyday behaviors, relationships, and external life. While happiness might seem like an abstract concept, I’ve found that understanding it forms the foundation for building everything else. After all, what could be more important? If we’re honest with ourselves, happiness is the ultimate goal that drives most human behavior. At some point, nearly everyone asks themselves: “Why am I here? What’s the purpose of all this?” These existential questions inevitably lead back to happiness – that elusive state we’re all pursuing, whether consciously or not. But here’s the fundamental challenge – happiness is intensely individual. Our unique neural architecture and lifetime of experiences make each person’s definition of happiness different. This creates an immediate problem: there cannot be a universal formula for happiness that works for everyone. The path to contentment for one person might lead another to misery. This realization sent me on a journey to understand happiness from multiple angles. I wanted to study the science behind it, the philosophy surrounding it, and the subjective experience of it. What I discovered changed my understanding of what it means to be happy – and I believe it might change yours too. In this first article, I’ll explore why we’re all uniquely wired to experience happiness differently, how our brain’s reward system works (and can work against us), and why modern life has created a dopamine trap that prevents many from experiencing deeper contentment. Future articles will delve into the internal nature of happiness and practical techniques to cultivate it. Let’s begin this exploration by understanding why your happiness is fundamentally different from anyone else’s.

“Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.”

– John Stuart Mill, English philosopher, Autobiography (1873)

Read more about Money Buys Everything (Despite What They Tell You): The Uncomfortable Truth About Modern Freedom Watch more videos like that on my YouTube @anticodeguy

Embracing Productive Chaos The Three-Body Problem is also liberation. Once you stop expecting perfect predictability from complex systems, you free yourself from the frustration of constantly “failing” to make reality match your plans. Instead, you can develop a more sophisticated and ultimately more effective approach to building your business: 1. Treat any blueprint or framework not as a guaranteed path to success, but as a starting point for your own unique journey 2. Build systems for detecting and responding to change rather than trying to predict and control everything in advance 3. Run small experiments, gather feedback, and adjust continuously rather than betting everything on one grand plan 4. Develop comfort with uncertainty and see unpredictability as a source of opportunity rather than just threat 5. Focus on building adaptive capacity – your ability to notice and respond to change – rather than perfect prediction Remember, even tiny changes in your approach can compound dramatically over time. As the Three-Body Problem demonstrates, small shifts in initial conditions can lead to massively different outcomes down the line. This doesn’t mean giving up on planning entirely. As Dwight D. Eisenhower wisely noted,

“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

The process of thinking systematically about your business is valuable even when the specific plan must change.

Your business keeps failing because you're treating chaos like it's predictable. Physics has a concept - the "Three-Body Problem" - that explains why most business blueprints crash into reality. And shows a better path forward: --- Two bodies in space (like Earth + Sun) follow predictable paths. Add just one more body and the system becomes chaotic and unpredictable. This is why that 10-step business blueprint you bought keeps failing you. --- Business isn't a 2-body problem with clear outcomes. It's an n-body problem with countless variables: competitors, market trends, tech shifts, regulations, psychology... All interacting in ways nobody can fully predict. --- Even franchises - the most standardized business blueprints - frequently fail. Why? They can't account for all variables in each specific implementation. As Churchill said:

"However beautiful the strategy, occasionally look at the results."

--- The blueprint model is wrong. But there are approaches that work with chaos instead of denying it. --- 1. Systems modeling instead of static blueprints Create a dynamic representation of your business that can be adjusted as variables change. Think of it as building a living map rather than following printed directions. --- 2. Run small experiments with fast feedback You can't predict which approaches will succeed in a complex system. So launch minimal viable versions, gather real-world data, and adapt quickly. --- This is what I did with my ANTIghostwriter course. First version got horrible feedback from students. So I iterated - rewrote everything, reshot videos, improved quality by 10x. Small experiments beat perfect planning. --- 3. Design for antifragility Don't just build businesses that survive chaos. Create systems that actually improve when exposed to volatility. - Multiple revenue streams - Low fixed costs - Strong cash reserves - Modular offerings --- 4. Shift from predictive to adaptive strategy Don't try to forecast exactly what will happen, which is impossible in complex systems. Focus on building the capability to respond effectively to whatever does happen. --- The Three-Body Problem is also liberation. Once you stop expecting perfect predictability, you free yourself from the frustration of constantly "failing" to make reality match your plans. --- Remember: No guru's blueprint can account for all variables in your unique situation. Your path will differ because your initial conditions, resources, constraints, and opportunities are different. Embrace this beautiful chaos. --- To dive deeper into the frameworks I briefly described here, read the full article: https://anticodeguy.substack.com/p/the-three-body-problem-why-your-business-96e?r=1m5hbt

Read more about Money Buys Everything (Despite What They Tell You): The Uncomfortable Truth About Modern Freedom Watch more videos like that on my YouTube @anticodeguy

Frameworks for Navigating Business Chaos Understanding that business operates as an n-body problem doesn’t mean surrendering to chaos. It means adopting methods specifically designed for complex, unpredictable environments. Here are powerful frameworks that successful entrepreneurs use to navigate uncertainty. Systems Modeling Instead of Static Blueprints Rather than following a fixed path, systems modeling involves creating a dynamic representation of your business that can be adjusted as variables change. Think of it as building a living map rather than following printed directions. Companies that leverage predictive analytics and systems modeling are on average 5% more productive and 6% more profitable than their peers. These organizations use statistical models to forecast trends, risks, and opportunities, enabling proactive adjustments. What does this look like in practice? Instead of a rigid 10-step plan, you’d create a model that includes key components of your business system: customer acquisition channels, product development processes, delivery mechanisms, feedback loops, and revenue streams. I covered several technics of systems modeling on a very primitive level in my previous articles: - The Black Box Method: How Systems Thinking Can Free Your Brain (And Your Time) - Systems Analysis 101: The IDEF0 Secret Weapon That Will Transform Your Business Thinking The crucial difference is that this model isn’t static. It’s constantly updated with new data and observations. When something doesn’t work as expected, you don’t question your ability to follow instructions – you update your model to better reflect reality. For example, Walmart uses systems modeling to predict unusual shopping patterns before hurricanes. Their data analysis revealed that strawberry Pop-Tart sales increase 7-fold before storms. This insight allows them to stock accordingly – a perfect example of responsive modeling rather than fixed planning. For your business, this might mean creating dashboards that track key metrics and relationships between variables, allowing you to spot patterns and make adjustments before problems become critical.

A Millimeter Counts The second conclusion is: how to apply this theory in business? In business, it’s important to engage in predictive analytics, predict the expenses of marketing campaigns, the result of releasing a new product. The same principle that works in modern science applies: approximation, modeling the situation, considering as many parameters as possible. The more parameters we consider, the more accurate the prediction over a short period of time. Time is one of the variables. The shorter the time period, the easier it is to predict. Any change, even by a millimeter, as in the n-body problem, affects the system. For example, a shift in the orbit of Venus or Mercury by a millimeter over billions of years leads to the intersection of planetary orbits, collision, a change in the solar system. One millimeter on a cosmic scale is incredible. In business, such a millimeter could be an employee resignation, stock movement, the emergence of artificial intelligence, a new program, the illness of a manager – anything at all. It’s impossible to predict with accuracy.

“It may happen that small differences in the initial conditions produce very great ones in the final phenomena.”

– Henri Poincaré, mathematician & chaos theory pioneer What to do? A systems approach and analysis, which I actively talk about, helps. Systems analysis involves considering many variables when describing a system. This is what’s needed. It’s impossible to account for all variables; they are dynamic, constantly changing, there are more than can be described, and at each moment, a new system appears. Plus, they are unknown and cannot be known because there are billions of people on Earth, each of whom can indirectly or directly affect a business. It’s impossible to know everyone. You can only probabilistically assume a scenario. Systems analysis allows for approximately accounting for a large number of known variables. If something is unknown, systems analysis methods allow for adding variables. I described this in the article on creating a list of objects and functions: The Power of Systems Thinking: How to See the Whole When Others See Parts, which are variables necessary when describing any system, including a business system.

Just Take This Guide And You Will Be Rich (You Won’t)

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

– Mike Tyson, former heavyweight boxing champion In business, there are also n bodies, and the number of variables that need to be considered when creating a business is so large that it’s impossible to calculate it all in advance using scientific methods or equations. That’s why it’s impossible to create a playbook that you can take, apply, and end up with a ready-made business. Even if it’s a step-by-step plan, system, or franchise where there’s a book that takes into account many variables and allows minimizing risks, a large number of businesses started even through franchises don’t become profitable and operate at a loss. This confirms the hypothesis that life or business in this case is subject to the n-body problem. The first conclusion we can draw is that there’s no point in looking for schemes, ready-made templates, advice, blueprints, or playbooks for creating a business because, even if you follow them step by step, some variable unique to your situation or your life will turn this template into a useless piece of text. Some tactic or strategy won’t work, some advice will be inapplicable considering your position in space and time. It will all end with broken hopes or an indication that this blueprint is a scam. This often happens despite the fact that it’s a legitimate course on creating a business from someone who has created it, or on any other topic. For example, a course by Ali Abdaal, a multi-million-subscriber YouTuber who knows how to attract an audience, grow a channel, shoot videos, and does this in practice. He’s not a theorist but someone who has gone from zero, knowing all the nuances. However, if you buy his course, no one guarantees that you’ll become a multi-million-subscriber YouTuber. Practice shows that this is what happens. Some achieve a lot with the help of the course, while others don’t succeed at all. Why? Their specific situation, variables not considered in the course and that cannot be considered, don’t allow for it. Adjust Anything To You Case That’s why I always say: don’t try to apply other people’s systems to yourself without adjustment. As soon as you want to apply a system created by someone else, consider that they have a different position in space and time, a different set of variables that may overlap with yours, but you’ll have unique variables. When you take a system or strategy, be sure to make adjustments considering your variables. Adapt the system to yourself so that it can be reused. Continue doing this constantly, fine-tuning tactics and strategies, adding variables that you won’t consider the first time, even knowing your situation better.

“Nothing endures but change.”

– Heraclitus, ancient Greek philosopher Treat any advice, tactic, strategy, blueprint, or playbook as a beacon that guides you by vector. But the specific path, the trail, leads through a field, and you need to pave the way yourself, considering the backpack with cargo on your shoulders.

If you're not yet familiar with the three-body problem that inspired an entire series - it explains why your business plans keep failing. Let me explain how this physics concept reveals the unpredictable nature of entrepreneurship: --- The three-body problem shows why two celestial bodies are predictable, but add a third and chaos ensues. With two variables, you can calculate future positions. Add one more and suddenly prediction becomes virtually impossible. The same happens in business. --- When you have just two variables - like a seller and buyer - it seems predictable. But real business involves countless variables: market shifts, competitor moves, employee dynamics, tech changes. Each variable increases complexity. Like celestial bodies, tiny shifts matter. ---

"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face."

- Mike Tyson This is why those step-by-step business blueprints and courses keep failing you. They worked for someone else, in their position in space and time. Your variables are different. Completely different. --- Even franchises - supposedly the most replicable business model - frequently fail. The blueprint might be perfect, but there're your location, team dynamics, local economy. All unique variables that change everything. No template can account for your specific reality. --- A millimeter shift in planetary orbits leads to cosmic collisions. In your business, a tiny change - one employee leaving, one algorithm update - can collapse everything. Or create unexpected success. --- Don't waste time seeking perfect business templates. Instead, adapt strategies to YOUR specific variables. Take courses and frameworks as directional guides only. You must blaze еhe trail through your specific field yourself. Every time. --- Systems thinking helps navigate this complexity. Analyze your business as part of larger systems. Consider more variables: jurisdiction, culture, technology trends. The more variables you identify, the better your approximation of reality. --- Remember: besides the obvious variables, there are countless unknowns you cannot predict. Our brains crave simple narratives. Reality is infinitely more complex. But this shouldn't be discouraging, but rather liberating. --- In your business, find the variables you CAN influence. Even a millimeter shift, over years, transforms everything. As Karl Popper said:

"Optimism is a duty. The future is open. No one can predict it."

We determine it by what we do. --- The three-body problem teaches us that perfect prediction is impossible. But understanding complexity helps us navigate uncertainty. Stay adaptable, keep learning, and remember: The inability to predict everything is what makes entrepreneurship an adventure. --- Next week, we will explore several frameworks that can help you to navigate within the life and business environment and untangle a bit the Three-Body Problem. Until then, read the first article here: https://anticodeguy.substack.com/p/the-three-body-problem-why-your-business?r=1m5hbt

If you are about to run ads on Meta, prepare for this. Every day, you will receive an endless supply of emails with phishing links. They will demand that you act on some legal copyright stuff. Guys, change the tape already, make it more personal at least...

Okay, sharing a screenshot of my server's console obviously (now) was a mistake. I am a noob at dev-ops and obviously missed one critical signal to hackers. A couple of hours later, my server was hacked. Don't make my mistake.

The Three-Body Problem: Why Your Business Dreams Keep Crashing into Reality If you’re not yet familiar with this famous theory that inspired an entire series – it’s the three-body problem. We won’t delve into scientific details now; it’s better if you look into what it is yourself, but I’ll briefly explain the essence. When we calculate the trajectory of two bodies in space that orbit each other, such as our planet around the Sun, we account for parameters of these two bodies. With high probability, we can predict where one body and the other will be after a certain period of time. However, if we add a third body that affects the first two with its gravitational field, predicting their future position in space and time becomes virtually impossible. The variables involved in this interaction become immeasurably numerous, and calculating their values so that everything is accurately matched is not possible, at least not now. There are simplified methods for calculating the state of these bodies, based on simulating various scenarios and approximation – averaging all these variables. This is not an exact calculation, but it allows for determining the location of bodies with sufficient accuracy. But the essence remains unchanged: it’s impossible to precisely determine where one body will be relative to another. Beyond Just Celestial Bodies This concept, in my view, extends beyond the study of celestial bodies and science to life itself. When you have only two variables, such as two people or the relationship between them at a certain point in time, you can more or less predict them if you have the values of all these variables. But as soon as a third person appears, the number of variables that need to be considered when all three interact increases disproportionately more than just plus one or multiplication by the number of people. The same applies to any aspect of life, which is why it seems so unpredictable and unexplored. Despite the fact that we, as a human species, have gone through so much and achieved a lot, life remains a mystery for each person. What will happen to them is mostly unclear and impossible to predict. Using the principle of approximation or calculating only two bodies doesn’t work because there are many more bodies in each person’s life that influence and contain variables that need to be considered. The same applies to business. If everything were as simple as calculating the position of two bodies, we would have templates, blueprints, or step-by-step instructions on how to create a business and become rich, taking into account initial conditions, capital, location, and the presence of other things. But business is also something that doesn’t involve just two bodies, such as a seller and a buyer, but much more. This problem, by the way, is called the n-body problem in science, meaning the number of bodies is not three, but undefined, yet more than two.

The Passion Paradox: Why “Follow Your Passion” Is Terrible Advice (For Most People) When some tech billionaire or celebrity tells you to “just follow your passion,” it’s worth remembering they’re speaking from a position where failure has virtually no consequences. It’s easy to preach passion from a mansion with millions in the bank and a team handling all the boring stuff. Think about Jobs again. Yes, he followed his spiritual passions at one point – by taking that trip to India. But who funded it? His employer. He had a safety net that most people starting out simply don’t have. M.J. DeMarco, author of “The Millionaire Fastlane,” cuts through this bullshit perfectly:

“Stop thinking about business in terms of your selfish desires, whether it’s money, dreams or ‘do what you love.’ Instead, chase needs, problems, pain points…”

The harsh reality is that the world doesn’t pay you for your passion – it pays you for the value you create for others. The truth is much more nuanced than “find your passion.” Sometimes passion follows success rather than preceding it. Let me explain. Imagine you start trading stocks. Initially, it feels overwhelming – complex charts, market jargon, information overload. Not particularly enjoyable. But then you make your first successful trade and earn $100. Suddenly, your brain lights up with dopamine. “I did this with my intellect,” you think. The success creates a direct correlation: your actions led to tangible results. Now you’re interested. A few more successful trades later, and suddenly you’re developing a genuine passion for trading. The passion didn’t lead to success – the success created the passion. This reversed pattern plays out everywhere. As Mark Cuban bluntly puts it:

“Follow your effort, not your passion. No one quits anything they’re good at.”

Cal Newport’s research confirms this: “Passion comes after you put in the hard work to become excellent at something valuable, not before.” For many people (myself included), the path doesn’t start with some burning passion. I’ve gone through periods where I had no idea what I truly loved doing. I had to take what paid the bills, build skills, and gradually discover what energized me. This is the normal path for most people – not the romantic “I always knew what I wanted” story we’re fed. And honestly – I’m still searching. Sharing this framework with you is a part of that journey, since I want to discover if I like that path of content creator. Deloitte’s research confirms this reality: only about 13% of workers feel genuinely passionate about their jobs. The vast majority are still searching or settling. If you’re in that boat, you’re not alone. What complicates things further is that many activities we love don’t automatically translate to market value. Consider the struggling artist stereotype – someone with immense talent and passion creating beautiful work that simply doesn’t sell. I remember seeing an incredibly gifted painter selling sketches on the street for a fraction of what they were worth. His passion and skill were undeniable, but he hadn’t figured out how to make the market value his art. This is where the ikigai framework becomes crucial. It’s about finding the intersection of: 1. What you love 2. What you’re good at 3. What the world needs 4. What people will pay for When all four overlap, you’ve found your sweet spot. But there’s often a gap between personal passion and what others value enough to pay for. As Oscar Wilde wryly observed,

“When bankers get together for dinner, they discuss art. When artists get together for dinner, they discuss money.”

We all seem to want what the other has.

The "follow your passion" advice sounds great from billionaires with safety nets. For the rest of us who need to pay rent next month it's a complete BS. Here's how to actually find work you love that pays well: --- Jobs had Atari literally bankroll his trip to India to "find himself." Most of us don't have multinational companies funding our self-discovery journeys. The truth: passion without practicality = broke artist. Practicality without passion = golden handcuffs. --- The world doesn't pay you for your passion. It pays you for the value you create for others. As M.J. DeMarco puts it:

"Stop thinking about business in terms of your selfish desires. Instead, chase needs, problems, pain points..."

--- Passion often follows success rather than preceding it. Make your first $100 trading stocks and suddenly your brain lights up with dopamine.

"I did this with my intellect" → Success → Interest → Genuine passion.

The success created the passion, not vice versa. --- Step 1: Map your energy. For one week, note what you're doing every 15 minutes during work. Is it giving you energy or draining you? This is how I discovered I'm energized by explaining tech to non-technical people, not by coding itself. --- Step 2: Create value others will pay for. No one pays for talent. They pay for results. Jiro Ono charges $300+ per sushi meal because he created an experience others value enough to pay for. --- Step 3: Develop skills that intersect with your interests. Being terrible at things isn't fun. But as you develop skill, you start experiencing small wins. Those wins trigger dopamine that makes you want to continue. Eventually, what started as just a job becomes passion. --- Step 4: Learn the game or create your own. PewDiePie and Marie Kondo didn't follow conventional paths. They identified gaps, created their own rules, and built systems aligning their passions with market demand. What unique skills + interests could you combine? --- Step 5: Accept the grind behind every dream. Olympic athletes pursue passion at the highest level. Yet their path involves brutal training, injuries, sacrifices, and countless boring repetitions. The glamorous moments we see represent maybe 1% of their journey. --- Every dream job includes unglamorous elements: - Bestselling authors deal with deadlines and marketing - Successful chefs spend hours on inventory - Digital nomads handle inconvenient client calls These tasks are worth it when connected to your purpose. --- Your ikigai is the sweet spot where: - What you love - What you're good at - What the world needs - What people will pay for All overlap. Finding it requires experimentation and time. ---

"Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it."

- Maya Angelou The goal is work that feels aligned with who you are. The path won't be linear, but now you know how to find the way. --- Read the big article on finding your ikigai: https://anticodeguy.substack.com/p/the-ikigai-blueprint-finding-work?r=1m5hbt