Hamza is one of the biggest self-improvement youtubers.

If you are familiar with his videos, then you have certainly come across his Jeffrey vs Adonis comparaison. For those who don’t know, Jeffrey is this weak young man living an unhappy and unfulfilling life, crippled by his addictions and bad habits. Adonis, on the other hand, is the pinnacle of manhood—strong, disciplined and purposeful.

In his videos, Hamza often describes how both of these characters live their lives, and ultimately, his mission is to help young men go from being a Jeffrey to being more like Adonis.

At first glance, it seems to be just a funny little meme Hamza has put there to boost engagement, you know, with the doomer on one side and gigachad on the other side...

But in my opinion, this is fucking ingenious. Claps to Hamza for coming up with this.

There’s a profound lesson in Jeffrey vs Adonis, one that can help us live more purposeful lives. We can all benefit from doing what Hamza has done.

How?

By creating our own Jeffrey and Adonis.

You Need a Vision for Your Future

Vision literally means visualising the future.

You can create a vision for a business, for the future of humanity like Elon does, but above all else, you need to create a vision for your own future.

If you don’t, you will be walking through life aimlessly. Not towards anything, not from anything, just walking around with no direction or destination.

In that state, you are much more likely to fall for distractions. Because if you don’t know where you are going, there’s no difference between distraction and direction.

I have realized for myself that I will feel empty at my core unless I am working towards something I find meaningful. Pleasure, enjoying life, those are all good, but if I don’t have a purpose, if I am not working towards something bigger than my current self, I will be the shell of a man I could be.

If you read my newsletter, we likely have similar personalities, and there’s a good chance you also feel empty inside when you are aimless in life.

So how do you find your vision?

Your vision doesn’t have to be some deep, world changing purpose. You will get there over time, but right now, your vision can be who you want to become.

Adonis is Hamza’s vision. I will guide you through journaling about this in depth, but for now, briefly imagine what your ideal self is like.

• What does he do for a living?

• What good character traits does he have?

• How does he lives his life day to day, where and with whom?

DON’T put a leash on your imagination, thinking you can’t achieve that or that, or that it is not realistic.

a vision ≠ a goal

Let me make the distinction more clear:

A goal is “climb this mountain” and “pass this river”. You complete it and move on to the next goal. Your vision on the other hand, is like the North star. It guides you and gives you direction, but no one follows the North star to ‘reach’ the North star.

Adonis is an idealized man, and so will be your ideal self. You can’t “become” Adonis, because you are imperfect like everything in this material world. But you can strive to be more like Adonis, make it your North star and follow it even though you will not reach it in your lifetime.

Of course, your version of Adonis will not be the same as that of Hamza, or mine. We will journal in detail on what Adonis means to us, but before that, we need to talk about an equally important character…

Vision for Direction, Anti-Vision for Action

Jeffrey is what I call an anti-vision.

It is the opposite of vision, that is, the direction you DON’T want to take.

Imagine it.

Imagine the life you absolutely don’t want to live. The kind of person you absolutely don’t want to become. And again, don’t stop your imagination: Visualise the worst vision of the future you can think of until the life you imagine is a complete nightmare you are repulsed by it.

Having an anti-vision does 2 things for you:

#1. It clarifies your vision.

If you did the visualisations, you might have noticed that imagining the life you don’t like is easier than the life you want.

That’s just how our brains work, we are much more sensitive to what we don’t like. It’s far easier to find something to hate than to find something to love, easier to find something to complain about than to find something to be grateful for.

But the good news is, if you know what you don’t want, knowing what you want is easy: just take the opposite of what you don’t want.

The reason why, I believe, Hamza puts so much emphasis on Jeffrey’s bad habits is that if he just escapes them, his life will be much better. What Jeffrey needs is not more good habits, but not having the bad habits.

#2. It motivates you into action.

What would make you run faster, seeing the finish line or being chased by neighbour’s dog?

An anti-vision does just that.

It is not the life you will get if you make a lot of stupid decisions… It is the life you will sink down into if you don’t follow your vision.

I already told you how fragile you are when you are aimless in life. If you coward and don’t take action towards your vision, you aren’t going to stay still; the life of you hate will follow your scent like a dog and catch you.

This should scare you, but in a good way.

Every time you find yourself blocked by fear, remember that there’s no other option: you either go for your vision, or your anti-vision comes for you.

How to Create Your Jeffrey and Adonis

Alright, we talked the talk, now it’s time to walk the walk.

The part of the letter you just read passively is over, so unless you are part of the 1% of readers who actually take action with what they learn, you can leave here.

If you decided to stay, or saved this letter and came back to this part later, then open a page, ‘cause we’ll do some journaling. Whether it’s a digital page on Notion or an A4 page on your Notebook doesn’t matter.

Start by writing “Jeffrey” with big letters at the top.

Below it, write as detailed as you can, what you imagine to be the absolutely worst life. Include your past negative experiences as much as you can and don’t withhold your imagination. Imagine a fucking nightmare until you are viscerally disgusted form it.

To get started, answer these questions one by one:

• What does Jeffrey’s daily routine look like?

• How does he feel when he wakes up to go to work, how does he feel when he goes to bed?

• What kind of bad habits and thoughts is he stuck with?

• How is his relationship with his parents, friends (if he has any), significant other (if he has any), children (if he has any)?

• What do they think of him? What does Jeffrey himself think of himself?

Below these, feel free to continue writing, adding as much detail as you can add.

If you need some inspiration, you can read what I wrote on my version of Jeffrey:

Jeffrey lives alone in a small run-down apartment.

Every week day, his alarm goes off at 7, he hits snoozes, rolls in bed, then after 30 minutes, he takes his phone, scrolls through instagram, then it gets kinda boring so he opens tiktok and scrolls for some more, and it is already 8:30, so he rushes to the kitchen, eats high sugar cereals and goes to work in a rush.

From 9-5, he works a minimal wage job at McDonald’s, and it’s where he comes to eat lunch and dinner.

He hates his job, he finds it very unfulfilling, but instead of searching for purpose and to find a way out of his situation, he numbs his brain with social media, netflix, video games, and drinking out and partying on the weekends.

He has stopped talking to his family, and the only friends he has are on discord. They regularly meet together to play fortnite and complain about their lives.

Jeffrey’s life is a mess, just like his house — socks and clothes everywhere, soda cans laying around next to bed, and he’s been too lazy to throw the trash out for the last 3 weeks.

He doesn’t exercise, eats garbage food like chips every day, has a fucked up sleep schedule, and no wonder that he is depressed, lonely and unhappy about his life.

Deep down, he knows that his life sucks, but he doesn’t have the balls to admit it to himself.

Instead, he acts arrogantly. He talks obsessively about topics like how the world is philosophically meaningless, how the government is corrupt and how unfair life is. He looks down on those who achieve success, as mere luck or “I could’ve done it if I really wanted to”.

He continually neglects his natural desires because otherwise he would have to work to get there. “I don’t care if women like me or not”, “I don’t care if I am respected by others”, “I don’t care about having kids in the future, the world will go down anyways”

He also craves freedom, he wants to travel the world like the people he sees on instagram, his core craves purpose, but no, he doesn’t care. Life is meaningless anyways.

His parents are disappointed in him, other men don’t have any respect for him, women don’t have any interest in him. He hates himself, and that’s why he gets so frustrated and angry with petty small little things, feeling like the world’s plotting against him when he needs to stop at the red light twice.

That’s the life of Jeffrey: purposeless, constrained in life by his low financial status and his own inner cowardice, unhealthy and full of needless suffering.

Now, it’s time for… Adonissssssssss (I had to do this)

Open a new page, or continue writing on the same page, it doesn’t matter.

Write “Adonis” with big letters.

It’s time to dream big. Imagine your ideal self, the most impeccable version of yourself. Imagine a paradise of a life and achievements that would make you feel proud.

To start out, you can use these questions, and of course, feel free to continue on writing afterwards if the spirit moves you.

• What does Adonis’s daily routine look like?

• How does he feel when he wakes up, how does he feel when he goes to bed?

• What kind of good habits he is happily doing every single day?

• How is his relationship with his parents, friends, significant other, children, and the broader community in general?

• What do his loved ones think of him? What do random people think of him? How does Adonis thinks of himself?

If you need some inspiration, here’s what I wrote:

Adonis lives in a spacious mountain cottage, which is itself located in a tiny ‘village’ built by himself and his brethren.

Every morning, he wakes up before the sun, with his friends, they gather around in the little town square of their commune, and from there, they head for the mountain. At a small clearing about a kilometre of hike from the house, they do their intense morning exercise, meditate, and appreciate the gift of life.

He walks back home with his friends, chatting and laughing, or discussing a serious problem they want to solve.

At home, he has breakfast with his wife, children and parents. He doesn’t have to rush to a work, he can sit with his loved ones and talk to them over breakfast for as long as he desires.

Once the breakfast is over, he says goodbye to his family and goes down into his work studio. Technically, Adonis doesn’t have to work. He has enough money to live until the day he dies. But his work is helping people. He is making a positive impact on the world. And that’s why every day, for 4-8 hours, he works on his creator business with full focus.

But once the work is done, it’s done. He can then focus on his other priorities.

He can take a walk with his wife, home-school his own children, fly to Thailand to train martial arts with his friends… With his impeccable mindset and financial situation, Adonis has an abundance of choice. He is a free man.

But with all that, he stays very humble. He gives credit to all the people who has helped him along his path and all the times Fortuna has smiled at his face, rather than boasting about how hard he has worked for all this.

He is grateful, kind and caring for others, and that’s how he has gained the respect of his parents, wife, children, and everyone else who had the chance of knowing him.

That’s the life of Adonis: free from constraints, mental and financial, healthy and strong like a Greek god, and full of love, purpose and presence.

If you actually did the journaling, know that I am proud of you. You have done the hard work now and your future self will be proud of you in the future.

Feel free to send me a DM on Substack or X with what you have written, I’d really love to know about your vision and anti-vision.

One final note…

Your vision will change over time.

You will grow older, experience new things, discover more of who you truly are. That’s why you will need to adjust your sails, as you sail, so to speak.

For that, I have a bonus tip for you:

Keep a running list of things you find purposeful and things you find soul dreading.

Write them down, and adjust your Adonis and Jeffrey accordingly.

How?

Let’s say one day you go mountain biking with your friends and it was awesome. Great, Adonis does this more often. You can take this literally or metaphorically, that is, either Adonis is actually going on mountain biking more often, or he does challenging activities with his male friends more often.

It will be up to you to discover it, and that’s why I am telling you to NOT keep it in your head and write it down!

Another example, if you have to work a 9-5 right now and hate it, know that Jeffrey is stuck with it until the day he dies. Write this down as well.

That’s it everyone.

This has been one of my favorites to write so far, and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Like, subscribe, send this to a friend if you want, and I will see you next week.

— Keep grinding, Nihad