I put in 10,000 hours into a video game... here are 3 things I learned.

Ted Carr

Sep '22 (edited) in Other

There are A LOT of similarities between video games and this Great Online Game.

Here are 3 insights that I picked up from spending 10,000 hours climbing the ranks of Runescape.

For context: I was obsessed with Runescape from from ages 10 to 18.

I played at least 2-4 hours/day - ideally (a lot) more.

I climbed the leaderboard and eventually became rank 4 in the world for a skill known as "Firemaking." under the username: Trev_Frank

Attached are a couple videos showing me firemaking (some 'fans' screen recorded me) to show how repetitive this process was - and how obsessed I was.

Here are 3 lessons I learned which I'm now applying to the great online game of entrepreneurship.

1) You gotta do WHAT you love - and what you love is typically what you're good at.

I loved fire making. I lit fires all day. & I thought I was the GOAT from day 1.

Now, I love synthesizing. I love simplifying concepts and sharing them and I think I'm pretty good at it, too.

2) You gotta do it HOW you love.

My process for firemaking was very simple.

Here was my process for becoming rank 4 (edit: actually rank 3 - see in the comments) in the world which I followed for YEARS:

Run to the bank teller to withdrawal logs
Run to the far end of the screen
Light the logs
Run back to the bank teller
Repeat this same process for HOURS (you can see this in the video attached)

Now, for synthesizing, my process looks like this:

Study successful people in my niche
Write out an insight
Record insight on video
Send viewers to a freebie (pdf or mini course) containing more insights
Study successful people in my paid program

When you love the process, there's no procrastination, because you genuinely deep down enjoy doing it.

(I love writing posts like this for example, so much so, so even if this all gets deleted, I won't care because I love writing it more than I love publishing it.)

When it comes to dialling in your process, everyone has their own flow and ideal way of doing things.

All of the best athletes train differently.

All of the best musicians compose differently.

All of the best writers write differently.

All of the best actors prepare for roles differently.

You have to find YOUR way, and make it uniquely YOUR OWN.

3) You gotta track your progress.

Doing a repeatable task can be boring, but when a favourable number (like firemaking exp points for example) keeps going up every time you do it, it's easy to become obsessed with getting that number higher and higher.

So ask yourself, "What favourable number can I keep rising up and up if I just keep repeating a simple process I enjoy?"

That number might be:

Words written on a page
Posts uploaded in a week
Videos uploaded in a year
Books read in a month
DM's sent
Cold calls made

Whatever the number is, make sure it's WITHIN your control.

Don't pick a number like: total sales, or total views - those are out of your control, and come as a RESULT OF the number that's WITHIN your control.

Once I maxed out at 200million firemaking exp, I became unmotivated to keep going because I could no longer see my exp points going up... as much as I loved the process, I wanted to make & SEE progress.

So I contacted customer support and told them to raise the 200m exp limit lol

But since they didn't...

I retired, gave my account to my 12 year old cousin, and he got my account banned shortly after due to the bot usage.

I wasn't upset with losing my account tho because again: I loved what I did, I loved how I did it, and I loved tracking my progress.

Hope this helps!

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