I’m writing this at 11am and will be meeting Mazz at 12:30 at Embankment; that means I have more than enough time to run through my morning ritual and to tell you, my curious reader, all about it.
Even on weekends, I’ll always set my alarm for a “reasonable” time. The sad truth is you cannot catch up on sleep, some tiny amount of irreversible damage is already done to your body. Because of this, I’ll set an alarm to give myself around nine hours of sleep so that it still feels like I’m indulging in some sort of luxury but not wasting my time. Having an alarm is important otherwise my whole day slips into snooze mode.
First I’ll go and brush my teeth and put a song on and intermittently sing along to it. Nothing with too much oomph, just enough to get my vocal chords working. In the past I’ve gone into my first set of the day and it’s going to be the first words I’ve spoken so it comes out all crokey. Not good. The other reason for not singing along with much bravado is that hyping yourself up on music and caffeine is implying that you’re not good enough as you are. Plus, when I try and spike my vibe upwards, it tends to stick around for one set then quickly dissipates.
I go into my kitchen, open my laptop and log-in, then put 10g of ground coffee into a cafetiere and boil 500ml of water. In the meantime I’ll put 3-5g of vitamin C powder (ascorbic acid) into a small glass. Once the water is boiled I’ll pour it over the coffee and set my red eggshell timer (all the accoutrements in my flat are red) for four minutes, then use the rest of the water to dissolve the vitamin C. I’ll fill the rest of the glass with cold water, and down the vitamin C. It has an incredibly tart flavour, which is why I down it, and I’m always reminded of the rough translation of Kung Fu: hard work, or, eat bitter. The timer pings, so I plunge the cafetiere and pour the contents into a mug. The coffee perfectly fits in the mug. I take that, plus another glass of water, and sit down with my laptop to check the weather; will I need my umbrella today?
As a disclaimer, I don’t believe that the exact measurements have anything more than a marginal benefit to me; the measurements are not some kind of hoodoo.
The first reason why I’m so specific is that’s who I am and also who I was trained to be; three years of studying economics told me that everything had to be optimised and had to find an equilibrium. So it is natural for me to question, why 10g of coffee and not 12g or 8g?
Then the second reason is curiosity. I think Warren Buffet said that you could predict success by finding the most curious child. The child who always asks “why?”. It leads me to tinker and introduce new variables to see their effect.
The overarching aim is long term vibe management (by good health) and to put myself in a low-lying state where I’m excited for the future but know that work still needs to be done. That’s where the Daygame sets come in.
On the day, I’m aiming to feel light. I don’t like to eat anything before starting a session as I find that I think clearer (even if not eating ketogenic, if you know what that is). The coffee and vitamin C both raise your stomach acidity levels meaning you will burn through food and convert it to energy at a faster pace. You’ll also, most likely, need to take a shit imminently, thus contributing to your “lightness”.
The vitamin C is the ace in the hole. 3g a day is enough for most people, but I’m a lot bigger, so I go 3-5g (I’ll use a 5g scoop and not fill it entirely). It contributes to your immune system (which we all know) and helps your body to create glutathione, the body’s master antioxidant (which not many of you will know). Antioxidants reduce cell damage hence you retain your youth for longer. I like it as well, in a broscience way, because it feels like it makes your mouth more dextrous in the same way that a shot of whiskey might feel like a slap in the face.
Yours unfaithfully,
Thomas Crown
Thomas Crown PUA 