No Fap Nightmare Mode Broke Me. Fix This First! - Alex Becker Channel
19m 36s
The speaker introduces "no fat nightmare mode," a self-coined term for extreme deprivation where he eliminated all possessions and distractions—such as TV, alcohol, socializing, and unhealthy food—to focus entirely on building his software company, Hiro Switch. He used this method after quitting his "make money online" businesses, achieving a company valuation of $15–30 million. The core idea is that by removing all sources of dopamine, the only outlet for satisfaction becomes your growth or work, enabling 10–12 hour days and rapid leverage building. However, he warns that this mode has major cons: it reduces creativity, happiness, and effective decision-making. He explains that entrepreneurship has two phases: building leverage (requiring brute work and focus) and using leverage (requiring strategic thinking and creativity). Staying in nightmare mode indefinitely leads to diminishing returns, where extra hours don't move the needle, causing burnout. Instead, he advocates cycling between these phases—intense work periods to build leverage, followed by relaxed, creative periods to deploy it effectively. For example, he plans to re-enter nightmare mode in early 2021 for new projects but will cycle out by mid-2021. The key is to recognize when work hours become less impactful than smart decisions, and to avoid burnout by aligning effort with results.
So no fat nightmare mode it broke me. I don't think you should do it in the way I did it Are you should at least know how to do it the right way? And I know what you're probably thinking one Why is this guy talking about his masturbation habits on YouTube? That's not what we're discussing in this video It's just the name of the the process what no fat nightmare mode actually is. It's where you get rid of everything If you don't know my Superman backstory. I am the most woke empty house business advice guy on the internet with a great bottom Also very PG get your kids bring them the room They're gonna want to hear this and I will only say the effort like three times So you don't even have to cover their ears that being say what no fat nightmare mode is Technically referencing to it's a very unspecific term that I made up on this YouTube channel because I like to stiff my own Farts and make my own terms up, but essentially late last year I got rid of all my possessions. I live a completely empty house and More so it means giving up video games television drinking any unhealthy food Socializing basically what you do is you take everything in your life It's a distraction or takes away your focus and you look in this direction of where you want to go Which might be like a big bonfire and then you take all of it and you throw it on the fire and you use that to make the fire hotter and basically what it is is extreme deprivation and Discipline to achieve a goal and in this video I want to cover my results from it and more so how to do this the right way and how to do this the wrong way because there's a very Specific way you should be doing this and you should be aware of the cons that will come so when you Spot the cons you can address the cons and not get the cons because really working like this becomes inefficient Because frankly how you work and how you go about doing this and how you align on your focus is way more important But if you don't understand the phases to do this in you're gonna mess yourself all up like I did You're gonna hit a slump that you don't need to hit and slump suck. So let me explain this So let's just get into this and First and foremost my content is mainly meant to be consumed kind of like an audio book So I'm just gonna play myself playing doom eternal on nightmare in the background Because I don't see the benefit and you staring at me while I talk to you It's kind of boring and I think look I just chopped the demons head off. That's way more Engaging okay Unless you're one of the unless you're one of the few viewers who who breaks their no-fab streaks while watching my videos And if so I don't want you to watch my channel. It's not that type of channel. So Hiding all the smut from you. So let's just get into it I want to explain why I did nightmare mode, but then more so I want to explain how to do it because you have to understand how it ties in the leverage And if you can work in nightmare cycles, which I'm about to talk about you're going to get a massive benefit from it And if you don't work in the cycles, you're going to get a massive drawback to it So let's discuss first off. Why did I do it? So about November of last year I got rid of almost all my info businesses I didn't want to be of make money online guru anymore. I don't I just hate that shit. I'm just being straight up with you I don't want to do it anymore I want to build cool things. I know I don't I didn't enjoy working in that business very much So I basically stopped doing all those businesses and I wanted to work primarily on my software company actually 100% on my software company Hiro switch is probably the fastest-going tracking platform on the internet right now I'm not here to toot my horn about that the reason why I did is because I had a challenge in front of me that I'd never quite accomplished before and I was basically burning all my bridges to do so and what was in front of me Was hard because a lot of businesses I built in the past were based around Business concepts that have worked before this is a completely new concept That's really he was not assured to happen and had a lot of hard costs and if I was driving this car drunk I was driving this car distracted I wouldn't have made it it was tough and so Basically I decided to get rid of all my possessions all my things I can go just deep into what I like to call nightmare no fat mode which the no fat is thrown in there kind of as a joke because everyone's obsessed with that right now But it is basically means taking away everything already listed this video But to go a little bit more in detail and it means just removing all distractions if it's not something that ties into your work or growth It doesn't happen It's very simple rule that means no TV no bad food no drinking really no socializing whatsoever No things that mess with your dopamine which again if you check out the dopamine videos in this channel explain why that works Basically if you inject dopamine into your brain you're going to get less addicted to the things that are not the thing that you want to do Which is my software company? So by doing this it essentially allowed me to build a company which by low end evaluations right now valuations evaluations is worth anywhere from 15 to 30 million dollars, which is pretty that's that's cool That's that's an awesome accomplishment and almost the almost the last year since I've done that And I wouldn't be able to do that if I hadn't been almost completely isolated as a person The thing is this process also comes with massive cons now first off Let's just talk about the benefits and again if you want how to actually execute this and do this There's another video on the channel just just go find your smart or actually we'll just play it then to this video Because again you should listen to this like an audiobook Again, how's the demon killing going for you pretty good? Okay, so first off the massive benefits to this is if you structure your life in a way That you can't get any dopamine Except from the thing that makes you grow you're gonna become obsessed with it for example Back in the hunter gatherer days the cave in days this stupid lame story that every biohacker is told in the history of ever and biohacking You got to think about how do people get motivated to go walk barefoot Across rocks and hunt pigs that doesn't sound fun to me and to a lot of people working on a business and personal growth doesn't sound fun But it sounds a lot more fun and hunting pigs with your shoes off right? Well the way that happens is because there was no other way for them to get dopamine back then hunting and killing pigs Well, at least a ton of dopamine hopefully you get the metaphor behind us because it's not exactly how it works But essentially by removing everything from your life The only outlet you really have to get satisfaction is gonna be your personal growth and your entrepreneurship journey If that's what you're working right now, but it could be anything and then by removing all those distractions There's nothing to take you away from it. There's nothing to stop you from busting out 10 to 12 hour days because you literally have nothing else to do And then also during this time frame you're also allowed to read books, you're allowed to watch documentaries, you're allowed to eat healthy foods and work out Anything that helps you move faster essentially, okay? So like meditating helps you move faster and what this allows you to do is again like I just stated You don't have anything else to do with your time or your days and you don't have anything else to focus on or give you joy So you just go all in this thing and you're able to get a massive amount of leverage built up And so that's how I built all this leverage at my company, but after I did build all this leverage I accomplished the initial building of what we were trying to build Then came the cons of nightmare mode because you have to understand What happens is as you build something the amount of hours you work don't actually Become as important as they used to be And what is going to happen in nightmare mode as well as you're going to become far less creative You're also not going to be the happiest you've ever been in your life And to be frank with you the urge to be a debatuous Goop troop mounting the manicure monster Get stronger and stronger to longer you stay in it, you know, or two three months you can go for it But after that you're really going to start hitting A wall because your body just doesn't work like that it just doesn't and I've been talking other people that are actually far more successful than me And we've kind of done and experimented with this kind of thing This is pretty much what everyone has found and really to a certain extent it's going to make you somewhat blind because The thing that's going to move you forward in certain phases is going to be nothing but work and focus and the thing It's going to move you forward in other phases is going to be your ideas and your creativity and how you decide to use leverage not amount of hours That you put in for example I could work 500 hours this week and I could work 500 hours every single week for the rest of the year and Bill Gates could still accomplish more with a phone call right now because he has the command and leverage of Well, just a lot of money and a lot of people so there's there's something be said about leverage and there's something be said about work Neither can be disregarded And putting nightmare mode at the forefront and trying to stay in that mode forever is going to basically Focus exclusively on work hours instead of the latter thing that I just talked about and so what am I trying to say right here? Well, you have to understand that there's really two phases of entrepreneurship or I think really growing anything But it's it's very easy for me to talk about it in terms of entrepreneurship because that's what I do Okay But that's what applied to growing as a person growing your job whatever it is I really if you're listening to this channel. I don't think most people should be entrepreneurs That's like telling most people they should be a lead singer in a band Everybody has different J&A say pause I can't speak French They have we have different things that we will gravitate towards and be naturally good at and will naturally make us happy being an entrepreneur isn't going to make everyone happy So unlike other channels out there where it's self-help and hey, we want you to take control of their life and work a pat No, I don't think everyone should do that. I don't think everyone should do that so apply this to whatever you're passionate about in your life you have to understand Building leverage and using leverage are two very different things and nightmare mode is exceptional at Building leverage because what most people don't have in their life is leverage That's why they can't make money easily It's fairly easy for me to make over a million dollars a year because I have a lot of leverages a lot of people work for me I have a proct I built up a lot of ad leverage and knowledge over the years and experience and I've built companies that can work if I'm there or not And so if I make a decision or I do something
It's like I have a massive amount of weight already behind it. And so it's easy for me to get a lot of momentum and generate a lot of income. Most people don't have that. And when you're building something new, it's all about building that leverage, gaining the experience and gaining the knowledge and gaining really just the education you need to actually be good as an entrepreneur is one thing. And then going and building the team, building the product, building whatever platform, building the courses, building the information, building whatever the hell you're going to do. Going to build a lot of times that just takes pure blunt work. And it takes a lot of it to build something good to put together a good team to build the processes, to build all the systems. It takes a lot of work, a lot, a lot, a lot of work and a lot of man hours and particularly your hours because you're the one building it. You're the one building the entire ecosystem that your business is going to exist in. Picture yourself as a, I don't know, a farmer. You have a greenhouse. Well step one, the growing stuff in this greenhouse is you're going to have to build the greenhouse. You're going to put the planch, you're going to put in the soil, you're going to build the walls. It's going to take a lot of work and you're going to need to be obsessed about it and you're going to need to only focus on that. But at a certain point, the greenhouse becomes built. You've achieved leverage. You have a lot of things working underneath you. And at that point right there, going and building another roof on the greenhouse and putting in six more windows and throwing more dirt on the walls isn't going to do anything. Eventually, you've built the leverage and you're going, you need to use the leverage. You need to deploy what you've built. And when it comes to deploying what you've built, it's not about the hours. It's about the decisions you make. It's about the ways that you decide where to direct what you've just built. Let's imagine you just built a giant battle cruiser. If you want to properly get the results, this battle cruiser can deliver, the worst thing you do is build another command deck and then add 50 more people to the cruiser once there's already people on it. It's going to make it more complicated. And more so, you're getting diminishing returns. Getting another battle deck adding 10 more planes isn't going to do anything. What is going to do something is use strategically using the battle cruiser in the right way. And so, a decision, and so working one hour a week but spending 40 hours thinking could actually have way more impact than the inverse. Spending 40 hours a week working and spending one hour work thinking would actually have a negative effect on that. And so what happens after you've built leverage a lot of times when you're growing in an entrepreneurship as you're going to have to start using that leverage. And you're not as creative as you should be. And more so, if you're not particularly happy, and again, happiness isn't, it's all about fulfillment, but overall happiness and being like not feeling like you're running a marathon, it's going to contribute to thinking very clearly. And this is where Nightmare mode is going to start to fail you because what's going to happen is as you socially deprovate yourself, as you start removing all the funding tickles and giggle things out of your life, as you lock yourself down, that is conducive to you getting a lot of work done, but again, getting a lot of work done is not going to move you forward, making really good decisions and thinking and making or working around a very good strategy that deploys leverage in the best possible way. That's what's going to move you forward. You could work two hours a week, but if you make exceptional decisions in those two hours and direct your leverage in the right way, you're going to get more results in the person that works 100 hours a week and isn't directing the leverage in the right way because you need to understand there's over 30 people that work at high rows right now. If I direct them all the right way, that's over 1200 hours of work every single week you can get done. There's no way, there's no amount of work I can do that even comes close to that. So it's way more about how he deployed the leverage. And so that's where you get to the point where your work hours is an entrepreneur don't necessarily become that important. If I work 100 hours this week, what am I actually doing that can't be done by the staff and better with their absolute focus? Just how it is, it's far more important that I spend 40 hours a week making really good decisions. And so at that point, there's a diminishing return on my work compared to the amount of work that get done when I use my leverage. And so this is what you need to understand about nightmare mode, especially when you go back and watch my channel and whatnot discipline, focus, excessive work. These are all things you need to be able to do when you're starting your business or starting off. If you can't sit down and focus for 12 hours straight and put in a 12 hour day consistently over and over again, you're not, you're not going to get anything done. Those people can't even put in four hours, five hours a day and then they do with their on their phone and their on social media half the time. So it's more like an hour of work every single day. You're just not going to get it done. You're going to be distracted and you're just not going to have that time to really crunch out and build the leverage you need to build. And the only way to really build leverage is just to sit down and grind it out. But you have to understand once you go through that phase, you need to be able to cycle down to a phase where you're more creative and you're basically more focused on good, crystal clear thoughts and strategy and being happy, spending time with people going and having a few hobbies is going to be more conducive to that. Working 100 hours a week is going to lower your creativity. And so what you should be doing is you should be cycling in and out of these phases of your life. You should be going from a nightmare mode like phase, especially if you're starting out, especially if you're starting out. There's no, you're not, no, no, no, it's not about strategy and happiness right now. It's about you sitting in front of your damn computer or going to the work site and getting stuff done until you have something that's so big and built up that is more so that it's far more powerful than any hours you can put in. When you have that, they need to be able to cycle into a phase of your life or you're more so focused on good thoughts, a learning and being wise. And only we can do that is when you are able to take your head out of the water and look around and see what's coming and be a battleship, captain or general instead of a person that's building the battleship. So there's going to become another point where you need to phase in again. For example, at high risk right now coming early 2021, there's all sorts of crazy stuff where we're going to be going and needing to build all sorts of new things. So I'm probably going to phase right back in a nightmare mode. And it says go up and down and up and down and up and down like that. And so you need to map out these phases of your life and kind of plan them probably by about mid 2021. It will not be a good time for me to be in nightmare mode. And if you don't understand this, you're going to run into finally the last point of this video is which I ran into. You're going to not so much run in the burn out people. People use burnout as an excuse way too much. They think, oh, that's natural. I need to just I'm hitting burnout. No, you're not. You're just you're just being a bitch. Okay. And you're distracted and you're all over the place. You're not you're not hitting burnout. You're going to hit diminishing returns. And when you're in nightmare mode and you're getting diminishing returns, that's when you hit burnout. When you're putting in 12 hours a day and you don't see the needle being moved forward, that's when you're going to hit burnout because burnout occurs when you put a lot of work and you're not getting any dopamine release to it from it. You're not getting any results. And when you put in work and don't get clear results, that's when you're really going to start to fall down. And that's exactly what nightmare mode will lead you to because eventually you get diminishing returns on a high, high, high, high, high work and you actually deploy the work that you've done. And that's exactly what I ran into. And for a while, I was in a bit of a funk. I didn't understand why. It's because you're putting in 10, 12 hours a day or trying to, but not seeing the same obvious returns of your work. It's like you're an artist and you're sitting there and you're painting non-stop, 10 hours a day and you're not getting a single good piece of work out of it. That's what happens. Whereas if you're an artist who's just starting off, painting 100 paintings a week is going to help you improve them immensely more. And only being focused on art for six months is going to allow you to get that point where you finally have the know how and skill that you need to then combine that with creativity and wisdom. So I just want to point this out to you guys because I think a lot of people will kind of impersonate the things I do on this channel, even though I'm just as lost as you are. I just, I mean, most newer channels out there are going to be like, I know everything. And you just like, well, I think it's like, well, I figured out no one has life figured out. No one has life, no one has life figured out, especially some person on the age of like 55 yelling at you and YouTube. They definitely don't have life figured out. So come on, I'm not going to tell you that. I'm just going to share with you what I've discovered through my journey. So that being said, if you like videos like this, be sure to subscribe, hit the notification bell and smash that like button because what happens is once or twice a week, I post a link in my community tab linking to all the courses I used to make in the past. I'm building businesses, running the ads, growing them, literally how I built my first multi-million dollar business. You get all those ad courses when you see that post in my community tab. You will only see that if you're subscribed and you have to know if Kashemel, because then the algorithm will show it to you. On top of that, be sure to check out the videos after this video. There's ones on dopamine, nightmare mode, and how to basically execute all these things that I talked about that are going to be super useful to you if you're starting out and super useful to you if you're in that kind of phase that I discussed. And if you're listening to this right now in like an audio book kind of style, you got your iPhone plugged in, you got your buds in, just sit around because we'll probably play the next video. I put these on and play this. We'll just play another video related to this video. So I'll see you in the next video. Bye.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
The speaker defines "no fat nightmare mode" as extreme deprivation and discipline, where all distractions (possessions, TV, unhealthy food, socializing) are removed to focus solely on a goal.
He used this mode personally to build his software company, Hiro Switch, after abandoning other businesses, achieving a valuation of $15–30 million.
The main benefit is building leverage (e.g., systems, teams, knowledge) through intense, focused work, as removing dopamine sources makes the goal the only outlet for satisfaction.
However, staying in this mode too long leads to diminishing returns
He emphasizes cycling between "nightmare mode" (building leverage) and a more relaxed, creative phase (using leverage) to avoid burnout, which occurs when hard work yields no results.
Summary:
The speaker introduces "no fat nightmare mode," a self-coined term for extreme deprivation where he eliminated all possessions and distractions—such as TV, alcohol, socializing, and unhealthy food—to focus entirely on building his software company, Hiro Switch. He used this method after quitting his "make money online" businesses, achieving a company valuation of $15–30 million. The core idea is that by removing all sources of dopamine, the only outlet for satisfaction becomes your growth or work, enabling 10–12 hour days and rapid leverage building.
However, he warns that this mode has major cons: it reduces creativity, happiness, and effective decision-making. He explains that entrepreneurship has two phases: building leverage (requiring brute work and focus) and using leverage (requiring strategic thinking and creativity). Staying in nightmare mode indefinitely leads to diminishing returns, where extra hours don't move the needle, causing burnout.
Instead, he advocates cycling between these phases—intense work periods to build leverage, followed by relaxed, creative periods to deploy it effectively. For example, he plans to re-enter nightmare mode in early 2021 for new projects but will cycle out by mid-2021. The key is to recognize when work hours become less impactful than smart decisions, and to avoid burnout by aligning effort with results.
FAQs
It's an extreme deprivation and discipline process where you remove all distractions—like TV, video games, unhealthy food, and socializing—to focus entirely on a single goal.
He wanted to build his software company, Hiro Switch, by eliminating all distractions and burning his bridges to ensure total focus on this challenging new venture.
It forces you to become obsessed with your growth work by removing other dopamine sources, allowing you to work 10-12 hour days and build massive leverage quickly.
It reduces creativity, happiness, and can lead to burnout when you hit diminishing returns—where more work no longer moves the needle forward.
You should cycle in and out of it—use it to build leverage initially, then switch to a creative, strategic phase to deploy that leverage effectively.
Building leverage requires pure blunt work and focus; using leverage depends on making good decisions and strategy, not just working more hours.
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