In my last post, I walked through some actionable steps you can take toward making meaningful, lasting changes in your life. This week, I want to share my review of a book that gives a way more thorough and engaging framework for taking each of the steps I described.
The book is called Level Up Your Life, and it’s written by a freakin’ genius named Steve Kamb.
About the Author
Part of the reason I found myself getting so into the book is that I can relate in a lot of ways to the book’s author, Steve. I was always into video games growing up, and loved playing RPGs. As I entered the workforce, I found myself playing games after work to wind down and take my mind off the day.
Over time, this became more of a habit, and I felt myself getting into a rut. I was playing games to take my mind off real life, and that was the same thing happening to Steve. What he realized over time though, is that all of the video games he loved most – games like Diablo, World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy, The Legend of Zelda, and so on – used almost identical game mechanics to make the games insanely addictive and fun.
More importantly, Steve also realized that those same game mechanics could be applied not just to video games, but to real life. And that’s where the magic begins.
Beyond writing this book, Steve manages a Business called Nerd Fitness at nerdfitness.com. you can guess by the name that he’s found his niche to target, and I love what he’s doing over on that site. Basically, he’s created a community of people who are trying to get in shape and add a little spice to their life in the form of more adventure.
Book Summary
This is a personal improvement book that reads nothing like a personal improvement book. It starts with Steve giving some background of himself and identifying the framework that makes role-playing games like Final Fantasy and World of Warcraft so addictive.
He then talks about why it’s worth applying those mechanics to real life, rather than wasting your days by pouring all your time into video games.
From there, he gets right into the meat and potatoes of it all, starting with creating your own personal superhero origin story. The idea is to paint a clear picture of the life you’re working toward. He talks about how to deal with people in your life who will try to bring you down along the way, as well as ways you might be tempted to sabotage your own success.
He then talks about how to structure your journey. Rather than making a to-do list (which is boring and feels like work), you’ll be making an epic list of quests (which is way less boring and way more fun), and assigning an amount of experience points to each one based on how big of an accomplishment it is.
Following that, Steve gets into the finer points of playing the game of life – how the concept of “Boss Battles” plays into the real world, the idea of finding “treasure chests” with items that help you on your journey, and playing on Multiplayer mode – in other words, building a support network of people to come on the journey with you.
He then talks about strategies for dealing with challenges and setbacks, as well as strategies for celebrating key wins along the journey, ending the book with a series of helpful resources for those looking to create their own game.
Sharing my Thoughts
Like I said, I was hooked on this book from the moment I picked it up to the moment I finished it (a day later). As someone who grew up with RPGs, the framework Steve was outlining in this book instantly resonated with me.
Is it nerdy? What do you think? If that’s not your thing, then this book’s not written for you. If it is, then this book is possibly the most important book on self-improvement you’ll ever read.
I always wondered why I could muster up the motivation to stick with any major change or initiative for any length of time. This book made me realize that it’s not all about motivation. Motivation is a limited resource that comes and goes. But you can take steps to prepare yourself when motivation is high to set yourself up for success even when motivation is low. That’s key.
I loved the process of creating my alter ego, who I modeled after my real-life hobbies. Because the site started as a fitness site, you pick a “class” of character – like an Assassin, Monk, Warrior, Druid and so on – based on the type of exercise you’re interested in. If that sounds irrelevant, it isn’t. If you want to live a life of adventure, you need to maintain at least a baseline level of physical fitness. So work with it. For me, I chose to be a Monk, since the class focuses on exercise mainly through martial arts.
When you read the section about choosing your quests, I can’t even describe how motivated you’ll be to create your own quest list. In the span of two days, I added over 100 different quests of varying degrees of difficulty to my list.
And the best part? You can track all your quests, your experience points and level, and progress online at levelupyourlife.com. The idea is that as you complete quests, you earn experience points, level up and become that much closer to being the ultimate version of you at Level 50. Given this, it’s important that you paint a clear picture of what you want your life to look like, and structure your quests so that they help steer you in that direction.
I also loved the concept of Boss Battles. Some quests are so big that you have to break them up into smaller milestones. Say for example, you want to learn to speak Mandarin. That’s way too big of a quest to just write down, so you break it down. Maybe the first step is signing up for a Mandarin-speaking course and prepaying so you don’t back out. Bam, 5 experience points. The next step might be to practice a few broken sentences with someone who speaks the language. 5 more points.
So when would the Boss Battle come in here? Well, in this example, the Boss Battle might be booking a trip to China and spending a day speaking entirely in Mandarin; no English allowed. 20 points for that one. The idea is that Boss Battles are big, scary challenges that, if you complete them, will have added significant value to your life, just like they do in video games. I love this concept, and couldn’t wait to work out a list of my own Boss Battles to work toward.
I also appreciated that Steve included a section on dealing with doubters and haters. There are plenty of people out there who will be jealous of you, trying to drag you back down to their level as they sip on their Hatorade. You need to prepare to deal with these people, because you will face them at some point.
Wrapping it Up
Overall, this is one of the best, most important self-improvement books I’ve ever read. Since creating my own list of adventures and quests, I’ve already noticed a change in the way I approach decisions in my life, and it’s all in the right direction. I highly, highly recommend you check the book out.
You can pick it up off Amazon by clicking on the below image:
Happy reading, and see you on the other side!
