Have you ever watched the staccato movements of the spider monkey?

The constant twitch, the darting of the eyes, even the position of the body, hunched over to protect it's vitals.

Most people have trained themselves to be the spider monkey.

And they (we) are doing it to ourselves.

People live their lives in a state of reactivity is because they start their day, every day in a state of defense.

And nobody thinks of it as being hyper-vigilant or defensive, why would we? That just sounds stupid, infantile and vulernable.

And that's exactly how it is.

Wake up.

First waking thought is not even completed... you grab your phone.

Biometrics logs you in.

Scan for messages.

Scan for notifications.

Scan social media for meaningless updates.

Scan the news for potential risks to react to.

That's the first mistake.

Open the portal of doom. Endless noise, zero fucking signal.

Drown in non-material notifications from X, email or team chats.

It's masked as "I'm checking the news", "I need to stay on top of things", and worst of all, "I'm preparing for my day".

None of those hyper-vigilant behaviors empower you.

In fact, they train you to be low agency, trains you to believe that you're at the bottom of the fucking totem pole.

As Amy Cuddy says in her powerhouse of a book, Presence:

"Vigilance runs UP the chain of command."

Vigilance is asymmetric and directional.

Everybody knows the boss' schedule.

Everybody at the bottom is checking all comms channels constantly.

Everybody at the bottom is scanning for threats, because they are vulernable.

This came from being in the fucking tribes we all originated from.

It's embedded deep into our DNA.

The spider monkey vibes.

Be defensive or die.

Defensive living is a low power, low energy, low agency.

State of survival begets death.

It's a strange cycle.

The more you scan for threats, the more threatened you become.

The more threatened you become, the more shit you attract into your life.

However, the inverse is true.

Just look at the opposite.

Via negativa as the intellectuals call it.

Invest the first part of your day proacting.

Wake up.

Think about what you want.

Work towards it.

Procrastinate as much as you can on being reactive.

Put off - potentially infinitely, the checking of notifications.

So what's the way, the superior way to begin your day?

Start with your goals, your initiatives, your targets.

Your objectives above all else.

Perhaps the most important question you can ask is,

"What has to happen today to materially improve my position?"

You see, winning gets over-complicated.

If you want to win consistently, you have to improve your position on a daily basis.

If you get better by 1% every week (doable as hell) every week for a year, you're 67.8% BETTER than you were at the beginning of the year.

But to do that - you have to be in a state of high agency, high sovereignty.

You're never going to improve while being in a state of reactivity.

You'll always improve in a state of proactivity.

Even if you fail, you'll get more shit done, you'll learn more, you'll ... improve.

What a concept.

Action creates feedback. Action creates information.

Point your focus at what you want, NOT what THEY are saying.

Make the switch.

So go on the offensive.

Be the one putting out the notifications.

Be the one causing the waves, not the one being crashed on.

Stop being prey. It's a fucking choice.

Become the APEX PREDATOR.

It's a decision you make every day.