Kind: captions
Language: en
good morning a bunch of folks asked me
to make one of these a day in the life
videos
to talk about how i do time management
the day how i structure the routine
to maximize productivity so here we go
the day starts now after about six to
eight hours of sleep
now there's periods of my life where i
do sprints where i'll pull all nighters
work crazy hours and so on but regularly
i try to get 68 hours of sleep
plus the mythical epic 30 minute power
nap
i think sleep diet and exercise are
essential for productivity
just under i would say passion and
whatever the heck you need to do to be
happy
and keep every single day low stress i
might give a shout out to a few products
that sponsor the podcast
for no reason except that i love using
them and that's why we agreed for them
to sponsor the podcast so
click their links in the description to
support the videos
i make i'm really fortunate to have way
more sponsors that i need so i get to
choose only the ones i really love
i'm generally a minimalist guy i don't
like material possessions
but this ac bed has been nice
it lets you set the temperature
throughout the night
so for me what i like is for it to cool
the bed and then warms up as i wake up
been helping me get some restful sleep
so i start each day when i get out of
bed the first thing
there's a mantra a list that i have on a
sheet of paper that i go through
so i start by reminding myself of the
current set of rules
and constraints on the various
addictions
things that drain on my time so that
includes social media the current rule
is
i only check social media when i post
which is one two or three times a day
for no more than
10 minutes so that that's it it's very
strict that's one of the main addictions
i think that's important to control
some people completely remove themselves
from social media i think
that's one of the possible solutions but
to me that's a little bit of an easy way
out
the hardest thing to do is to really
moderate the use of social media
because when you use it in moderation
actually can bring you joy it can really
connect you with other people
it kind of makes me feel amazing when i
only check it once or twice a day
but you have to be strict and then the
other rules are
diet and exercise so i make sure i
exercise
every single day no matter what even if
injured i find a body part
any body part that's not injured and
exercise it and then diet i just have a
straight diet that i follow
within the constraints of which i can
enjoy myself so for me that's been keto
which is
very low carb diet so the first part of
the mantra is i remind myself of those
rules
it kind of sets the constraints within
which
the game is to be played second part of
the mantra is gratitude
i visualize and meditate on
the idea that i might die today at any
moment today so
i kind of try to accept
the notion that today is my last day in
this earth
and it's mostly just a breathe in and
out and a pause
and a meditation on the fact that it's
freaking amazing that i'm alive
that life is amazing third is i
list out loud by the way unless i'm with
somebody then
it's in my head but i list a set of
goals for the next
five years a set of goals that i have
and these are ambitious
big goals that i would like to achieve
in the next five years
fourth is i list more near-term goals
for me that's
by the end of 2020 i want to do these
kinds of things
they're just out of reach but achievable
so if i really work my ass off
and with a bit of luck i can get it done
i mean that really starts to get me
amped up
like let's let's get to work fifth part
of the mantra zooming in even further
i actually focus in on the day i
visualize going through the rest of the
day
all the things i think i need to get
done this is really quick but i
literally visualize myself like in a
game of slims like
on fast forward running around getting
all the stuff done
successfully like i visualize both the
struggle of it
i visualize the hardest part of the day
that i i have on my to-do list
and getting them done crushing it but
really sort of uh
focusing on the the timing of it the
beat of the day
and getting it all done just like a game
of sims except for the part where
when you're cooking you set yourself on
fire you run around i miss sims i miss
video games in general
finally i go through a set of principles
that i strive to live up to
as a man now there's a particular set of
phrases that are a little bit cliche
but i think fundamental to who i am but
they center around
compassion empathy love
and on the other side of it is character
and
integrity and strength both physical
and mental so today is a little bit
different because i'm also
making this video i don't like it
it's uncomfortable it's a distraction it
takes away from my focus
but i'm gonna get the job done i said
i'm gonna do it i'll do it
so i'm gonna do the mantra now and next
thing hit hard
the deepest work of the day for four
hours a four hour session
that i'll probably feel behind the desk
all right so i did the mantra then i
drank about a liter water went to the
bathroom made a coffee
and now ready to hit the day hard with a
four hour session of deep work
focused on a single thing no
interruptions if interesting ideas come
into my head
to try to trick me into pulling on the
thread of that idea
i gently set it aside write it down in
google doc
to address later so i bring my mind
gently back to the focus of
the task because ideas keep coming but
you really want to focus on the task
so the only interruptions that are
allowed is water coffee
bathroom and i try to minimize those i
usually try to be just once in a four
hour session
i stop the timer when i take that break
but i don't do anything during that
break like social media or any of that
stuff it's really my mind is still
focused on the task at hand
and hitting it hard when i return to the
desk the
desk by the way is a standing desk they
don't
sponsor anything but i still love them
it's autonomous you should check it out
pretty inexpensive
sometimes i sit sometimes i stand not
wearing a suit
i sometimes wear a suit especially i'm
going to film
i wear a suit when i go outside i just
enjoy the way i feel when i wear a suit
but
at home i'm wearing a t-shirt and jeans
right now i'm not wearing any pants
just kidding i'm wearing jeans but uh
you wouldn't know it if i didn't which
is the magic of the internet
if you punish it i can do a separate
video on
my setup i optimize the heck out of
everything but
my first love my home is the kinesis
keyboard it's this weird
ergonomic keyboard that's probably way
too expensive
but i still love it i'm surrounded by
things i love and emacs editor
although i use a lot of modern ids like
today i'm working on
tensorflow lite on a samsung
galaxy s20 doing some deep learning on
the smartphone
there's a bunch of tricky undocumented
things that i'm trying to accomplish
not looking forward to it because it's
going to be just a lot of debugging and
trying to figure out obscure things
but that's the hardest part of the day
that's the hardest thing on my to-do
list that's what i'm going to
focus on no distractions that's what
this four-hour session is about
i'm usually drained but happy
at the end of the session i mean i'm
happy throughout but i kind of dread
this four hour session every day which
is why i hit it hard
early on without reflecting without
thinking almost like a machine
i just get the job done that's the way i
think about it and i feel good
afterwards
but i don't want to do it and i do it
anyway so here we go
i'll see on the other end of the four
hours all right the four-hour session is
done
i did not get as much done as i wanted
but it's nevertheless a big success
because i just grinded it out
zero thoughts about anything else only
took a single
uh bathroom and water break so it took
about four hours and
ten minutes next up i'm going to do a
little bit social media now
which i need to post a podcast
conversation with
david eagleman brilliant neuroscientist
so i'm just going to post that
check the comments from the previous day
trying to keep the whole experience
under 5 minutes
and definitely under 10 minutes and
after that like i do every single day no
exception
is guitar or piano or music usually
these days it's been guitar
in the human world i'm currently single
but in the music world i'm in an open
relationship
with this beautiful guitar open
relationship because i sometimes cheat
on her with the acoustic
but mostly electric fender strat
the warm boozy sound of offender kind of
like the eric clapton
jimi hendrix as uh brings joy to my
heart so i
look forward to this moment it's an
escape it just uh
makes me happy like a lot of things do
but this is kind of a
private moment of joy
and after that is about an hour and a
half to two hours
of a private set of moments of suffering
aka exercise so here we go
social media guitar keep the social
media under 10 minutes
no exceptions and the guitar sometimes
i'll let it slip but usually just 20
minutes
all right got the social media and the
guitar done actually there was a
a bunch of moments where just brought a
smile to my face both the hilarity and
the love i always really appreciate it
when i check social media moderation it
really does bring me joy so
thank you for that now it's time to face
the
demons in my mind going on a long run
all the things i don't want to think
about i usually start out listening to
brown noise
as i run it really focuses my mind lets
me think deeply
and then about 2-3 miles into the run
when i start feeling a little better
i'll switch to listening to an audio
book i'm currently listening to
the rise and fall of the third reich
recommended highly great book rough
but important for our times if you don't
study history
you're doomed to repeat it my current
exercise routine is around a minimum of
six miles
every day and then when i'm about three
or four miles in i decide
how far more i want to go i usually
don't feel like running
but once i actually get out there want
to say put some of the miles in
you start feeling good sometimes uh
sometimes not sometimes it's the drag
but
sometimes you feel really good and then
i'll do the 8 10 maybe even 12 miles
my hope one day is i'll just keep
running and do an ultra marathon just on
a whim
now for the usual 67 mile run it should
take about an hour and afterwards i do
a short but intense session of body
weight exercises
after the whole crazy push-up pull-up
squat challenge that i did
i now do the david goggins inspired
nickel and dime workout that he talks
about so every single minute
you do five pull-ups and ten push-ups a
minute on a minute
and usually it kicks my ass to do about
15 to 20 minutes of that
that's enough my hope one day is to get
up to like one hour
which is really tough your muscles just
drained exhausted but
i find it's a really great intense way
to get the
exercise in without taking too much away
from your day
heart on the mind hard on the body but
good for the soul
by the way all this has fasted so it's
been about 14 16 hours since i've eaten
last
i feel great no food
water and i've just taken a salt pill in
case i do
run for a long time it's important to
have electrolytes in the body
i love exercising fasted an empty
stomach focuses the mind
i can actually perform extremely well
that's one of the things i've learned
about myself
everybody's different but i've actually
learned for like martial arts for combat
sports for intense workouts even
i just personally enjoy working out
fasted so
i guess based on my diet but also my
psychology
i perform best when i'm fat adapted
which means i'm a low carb diet
it's probably deep somewhere in my
eastern european genetics
that my ancestors will go without food
for long periods of time and then have
to
wrestle a bear to the death intensely
so it seems like this is the kind of
thing i enjoy doing not eating and then
doing
intense focused hard
workouts makes me feel great i enjoy it
both physically and mentally
all right let's get to work all right
the exercise grind for the day is done
i did seven miles in just over an hour i
think
it's slow pace really losing myself in
the audiobook to be honest
and after that i did 20 nickel and dimes
that's 20 minutes
every minute you do 10 push-ups and 5
pull-ups
it's a great quick way to exhaust the
muscle
also really good test of mental
toughness because at least for me at
least at home
i really want to start quitting at about
the 10 to 15 minute mark
just the muscles are exhausted you have
to pause
it's just unpleasant takes me back to
the
to the month and a half previously that
was doing the insane uh
challenge so i love it it's really quick
20 minutes maybe 30 minutes depending on
the day
and the one hour of the running feel
pretty good
not so good about 1936 1937 uh nazi
germany
as the audiobook is covering but uh
um yeah really makes me think about the
nature of evil
it puts everything into puts everything
else into context
somehow you know studying history
sometimes is a really
good way to force me to stop
and to acknowledge how weak my mind is
and how much stronger it needs to be
if i want to have a role in this world
of making positive change i think about
nazi germany
and what it means to be a hero in those
times
what it means to uh be a person that can
reverse
the decline into evil i think it's much
more difficult than people realize
i think it means standing against the
masses it requires a kind of
mental toughness mental fortitude that i
don't think i'm ready for
and i need to be most likely hopefully i
will never have to play a role of any
importance
but if i do have that opportunity i need
to be able to step
up that's what studying the 30s
the great depression on the united
states side and a decline into a state
of terror
on the european side really makes me
think
i know this is a day in the life video
but uh that's also my days
i as often as possible try to think
deeply
about history about the state of the
world today
about my own mind about the science that
i'm fascinated with which is the science
of intelligence
and the science of engineering
intelligence
after the exercise when i jump into the
shower which contains the moment of the
day that i dread the most which is the
first minute
that i take a cold shower i have a bunch
of songs
that i know the one minute mark of that
i usually put on
it could be as cliche and cheesy as uh
the rocky soundtrack we're gonna fly now
i think it's the the first solo is the
one minute mark
or uh fortunate son by ccr
or uh if i really need a boost i'm an
old school metallica fan
as well so master puppets
i think when he starts singing is the
one minute mark so here we go
and after that i'm right back into the
grind of deep work
another four hour session of where i
continue
on a particular task focused for four
hours straight
today i didn't get as much done on the
tensorflow light side so i'm gonna
probably dive right back in but usually
during the shower
and a little bit afterwards i'm thinking
about like what's the right thing to be
focusing on
given what i was able to get done in the
first four hour session
all right next fun time is over we're
back to the grind
of uh deep work the second four hour
session of the day
where i remove the rest of the world and
focus on a single task
today i'm going to continue with the
tensorflow lite work on the galaxy s20
for the probably entire idea of the
four-hour session
now depending on the day i might eat
here if i'm eating twice a day
today i don't really feel like it really
focused really feeling good
again that's kind of the benefits of the
whole intermittent fasting
keto that sometimes you just don't feel
like eating you feel great
so i'm going to eat just one meal today
which will be
after this four hour session and i see
this as a kind of sprint
to the finish because the eight hours in
total of the work is really what i aim
to do every single day
the rest of the stuff there'll be
another four hour session but it's often
more relaxed
more all over the place has a few more
distractions
a little bit more fun and chaos and just
all over the place
these two four hour sessions of deep
work is really what my
day is centered around so everything is
about them
this is where that war of art the battle
for focus
for gaining focus and holding on to
focus that's what it's all about
some days are really rough the first
session today
was easy i found the focus pretty
quickly and just stay with it
part of it is because it's kind of a new
activity it's a new phone i'm playing
with
and also doing a different kind of
experiment with tensorflow lite
so it's new it really pulls at you and
even though it was difficult there was
no serious stumbling blocks
like i didn't have to spend a lot of
time debugging code and so on
so it was easy let's see what the second
four hour session is sometimes it's a
grind
but no matter what the focus is always
just to be present
to be there if nothing's working it's
not happening i still stay in that place
and
wait for the breakthrough and the
breakthrough always comes
everybody's different i think of how
they discover
focus inspiration motivation but i'm a
big believer
in the discipline of ritual
so being there and even if you don't
feel like it
still being there even if progress is
not being made still being there for the
grind
because sometimes just minutes later
there will be a breakthrough
that's how i feel about deep work that's
how i feel about running too just taking
it one step at a time
because some minutes are rough
and others are full of bliss and that's
just the way the journey of hard work
the journey of doing anything difficult
i'll see you on the other end of the
four hours now the two big battles of
the day are done
the two four hour sessions of deep work
time to break the fast
i break the fast with athletic greens
i sponsor the podcast but actually an
amazing thing that i love
whether their sponsor or not it covers
all the bases that i need with the kind
of
restricted keto diet that i have it has
all the things that a multivitamin has
but
a ton of other nutrients as well i don't
know what it looks like to you but
it's actually pretty delicious i look
forward to it
and it just makes me feel good
in case it's interesting what i usually
eat is some kind of meat and some kind
of vegetable
so if i eat once a day that's going to
be about two pounds of meat
a total of 1800 calories 2 000 calories
for the total meal
if i'm not being very fancy it's gonna
be ground beef
like this is grass-fed
organic eighty-five percent
so 15 fat ground beef in terms of keto
it results in a good macro breakdown
in terms of taste i just like it in
terms of cooking it's also easier
because
it's just the right amount of fat when
it's mixed with the vegetables it like
it creates a non-sticky pan situation
where i don't have to add any oil
it just mixes nicely and results in
flavorful veggies
so veggies my favorite go-to is probably
cauliflower not always
when i really want to get crazy and
party i go with carrots
that's my that's my party vegetable my
uh ground floor the place i return to
often my home is cauliflower
heat broccoli though love cauliflower
and hate broccoli you know
in this politically divisive world we
have to pick our sides my side is with
cauliflower
against broccoli
what else so if i'm fasting or not on
the keto diet it's important to uh
get electrolytes this is weird
this is for long distance running this
is just sodium pills
i think one gram one thousand milligrams
of
sodium in pill form
then there's magnesium glycinate
when i first started keto i think i was
getting headaches for the first few days
to the keto flu that people talk about
the salt is what curated for me is was
the
magnesium there's a bunch of ways to get
potassium
uh i take it in pill form
that's really just to be careful to make
sure you get enough electrolytes in your
diet especially while i'm fasting
especially when i'm doing a lot of
exercise
to balance with the water and everything
like that
finally i always take fish oil did not
plan i'm mentioning another sponsor but
i will
public goods they sell a bunch of
different kinds of stuff including
fish oil it's all good i love the
minimalist design of public good stuff
anyway so much of nutrition science is
uh
barely a science really i like to just
listen to my own body and do one person
one subject scientific experiments of
what makes me feel good
that's how i discovered the keto diet
you know i just look at the signs to
make sure it's not unhealthy
and it's not and for the rest of it i
just see what my energy level is like
how i feel throughout the day in terms
of mental performance in terms of
physical performance all that kind of
stuff same with the nutrients it's
pretty minimalist
so i do take stuff if i miss days where
i don't take electrolytes or fish oil
it doesn't really matter but i feel good
but i find it's nice to make sure you're
getting all the nutrients
at least regularly and like i said
athletic greens help make sure i cover
all bases
about all the weird stuff that i should
be getting and i'm not even aware of
so
this might be the first and only video
i'll ever make in the kitchen
i kind of feel like this is one of those
chef shows where i should be yelling at
somebody
about their mediocre performance in the
kitchen so
i throw the veggies into boiling water
then drain the water
then throw in the meat and then i guess
broil it or whatever the heck the term
is the entire thing takes about 20
minutes but i only really participate in
the last five minutes
when i like when it's broiling and i
mix it and sorry if broiling's not the
right term
i don't know what i'm doing okay anyway
it's uh
super easy i enjoy it it's delicious i
throw some salt based spices in there
and the final result kind of tastes
amazing makes me happy
after i make the meal i'll probably
overlay the video
of what the final result looks like i'll
often eat it behind the desk
sort of uh thinking deeply about
something
oftentimes about the thing i'm going to
do in the next four hour session
just kind of relaxing enjoying the food
but also just thinking
of course if there's somebody else here
with me i'll be enjoying uh
the meal with them there's nothing more
beautiful than connecting with other
human
beings over some delicious food
okay here we go all right i'm done
eating
feeling pretty good don't feel like
being on video
but uh by the way wearing a 2001 space
odyssey shirt
this is where i might be wearing a suit
if i'm doing filming if i just feel like
it
so the next four hour session is more
relaxed
kind of work it's still really focused
but there's a bunch of tasks this is
where
i might do the email check now my rule
with email i check email most three
times a day
and the first two times is just to check
for emergencies
or respond to an email that takes like
less than 30 seconds to respond to and
it's kind of important
the third session which is during this
four hour period
is when i actually spend try to spend no
more than an
hour but i go through the emails i read
them
these days i'm so freaking lucky to be
getting just a lot of
kind thoughtful messages so i just take
them in
it brings me joy brings a smile to my
face one of the
favorite things of the day for me and i
also if there's like
some of the stuff i have to deal with i
respond to those emails
that's actually at the end of the four
hour session now i would also be doing
video editing any kind of filming i'm
doing
any kind of website design stuff and
also the the continuation of the deep
work
so today i didn't finish the tensorflow
lite thing but i'm close so
i'm gonna probably spend one hour on
doing some more tensorflow
then i'm gonna do two hours for
a video editing a podcast i need to be
working on
i usually try to put in an hour to a day
of podcast related stuff
i need to outsource it i really do but
for now i'm doing it
and then the last hour would be the
checking the email and so on
and after those four hours i do two plus
hours of reading one hour paper
one hour plus of literature but we'll
get to that
first is four hours i'm back to it
tensorflow for an hour
two hours of podcast editing and then
one hour of email again very few
distractions very few breaks
on days like today when i'm feeling
really good really energetic
this third four hour session i try to
make as good as the first two
in terms of the deep focus that i
achieve also this time is for when i
don't feel great i can just
lay down and watch some netflix watch
some documentaries on youtube
hang out with friends if i had a
girlfriend this would be girlfriend time
netflix and chill for now i'm doing just
the netflix part of that
anyway today is deep work but starting
now
on any particular day this is where the
possibilities of chaos are wide open
so i can just do whatever the hell i
want
i got some jack daniels i got some stoli
smirnoff vodka i got
some peanut butter flavored whiskey so
i don't drink very often pretty rarely
actually
but the possibility is always there the
night is always full of possibilities
i'm a big fan of a random adventure and
just being lost in it
this is the time for that to happen but
today as far as i know
it's tensorflow adobe premiere some
email
then some papers and some dostoyevsky
let's go
all right i got the four hour session
done
took just a few minutes longer i got all
the email done
i got uh podcast editing and actually
just got that done
in just over an hour so i had some time
to do
podcast prep where i'm doing some
research for a couple of upcoming
conversations
and of course the tensorflow thing still
didn't wrap it up but put it in the hour
that's on the play for tomorrow to start
again
programming is a grind what are you
gonna do
but i feel really good i really feel
good about the day
i don't know if this is good a day in
the life video but it's a good day
in my life maybe not exactly in the
sense that
it all went perfectly but in the sense
that
i put in a very large number of hours of
deep focus
i resisted the urge to become distracted
i resisted
all of the usual urges i mean that's a
daily fight
and i want it today but it's not over
so next i'm gonna do one hour of
paper reading i have a whole system of
papers i read
there is every single day i read
at least one paper today i'm skimming
two
machine learning type neuroscience
papers that uh
somebody suggested to me based on the
mad both innate conversation
and then i'm also doing a deeper read
still this is the second session of it
for the gpt3 paper
i'm thinking of making a couple videos
on gpt3 and just making sure i get all
the details right there's
there's a bunch of open questions that
are not yet understood about gbt3 i
think
and one of the things i do when i read
papers
is think think outside of what the word
is just saying
there's obviously all kinds of different
papers the ones i'm reading today
both the neuroscience side and gpt3 are
very easy to understand and it's more
like a canvas on which you can project
your ideas so
you're taking in the approach the
different architecture the the results
you know understanding the different
plots the
intuitions like the different
perspectives and the results but all
that is like very literary
like a single pass of that paper is
almost enough
at least so far but what the whole
purpose of the process is for me reading
a paper like that
is to think deeply beyond the paper
to think what are the deep questions to
ask and that's what i
do with paper reading again i have a
whole system that's maybe for another
video if anyone gives a damn
that hour is usually pretty painful so i
usually keep it to an hour like i
literally sometimes i'm counting down to
when i reach
an hour because it's kind of hard work
it really requires focus
after that is a little bit more fun
reading it's
non-fiction or fiction depending right
now i'm working through
the major novels of dostoyevsky
because i'm going to be talking to
tolstoy dostoevsky check off translators
i don't know when exactly but in a few
months maybe in a month i'll be going to
paris to talk to them so
i'm re-reading dostoevsky i finished the
idiot
i'm not working through crime and
punishment reading it in english but i'm
also going to
try to get to listening to it in russian
like taking it in both languages and
trying to understand the
music of the different languages and how
they interact how they connect
what is the gap what are the things that
are lost in translation that kind of
thing
sometimes i do it at the desk sometimes
i do it on the bed
going back and forth when i have a lot
of energy like i do now got a little bit
of coffee in me
i'll just chill on the bed and read the
papers and the books
when i'm starting to get a little bit
tired i'll jump over to the desk
and back and forth so that's it i think
i'll wrap up the dana life video here
because i'll do the one hour paper
reading and then the one hour dostoevsky
and after that
jump into bed and drift into sleep while
continuing to read
the dostoevsky but actually after the
hour
of literature reading i always take a
pause
and do the part of the mantra that i do
in the morning that's gratitude
again it's being thankful that i'm alive
that i survived another day looking
forward to
the next day just be grateful for all of
the
moments that are full of joy in the day
i mean just even filming this silly
thing
it's like fun there's a piece of
technology that somehow is capturing
this
that other people might watch and then
there's like a
microphone i mean just the entirety of
the technology
everything is magical everything is
magical
reminding myself of that doesn't take
much effort but just taking
a break taking a pause just
breathing and just saying damn
it's good to be alive because
uh i won't always be alive
the ride ends too quickly so
it's a opportunity a moment to uh
appreciate the entirety of it
i hope this video is uh interesting or
useful to somebody
i value a few things in this world one
of them is hard work
and i try to live by that every day and
the other
as i often always maybe too much talk
about is
love and compassion towards other people
so with those two things
it's one hell of a good life so i hope
that comes through through uh
the way i live my day this silly video
and uh if you enjoy it subscribe
support the kind folks that for some
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the podcast just uh brings me a lot of
joy
especially the people i get to meet the
people i get to talk to on the podcast
but also the community of people who
listen to podcasts i'm a huge fan of
podcast myself
so this is just a big gift to be a part
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and the sponsors support
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so i get to enjoy and share my love for
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and as a byproduct of that they
enable me to have enough food and
shelter to continue doing
these podcasts which is fundamentally a
side gig for me
to the main dream the main effort that
i'm still
quietly putting in the hours on
again thanks for watching and in your
own life
make sure you work hard and put a little
bit of
love out there in the world
you