Month: February 2023

This morning I am doing what I want to be doing. The airport waits for me.

Now to make more of this happen. Or allow, perhaps. Because this is always here.

It’s like some particular topic of interest. Right now I’m hearing everyone (ok not everyone) around me talk about topics I’m interested in. I think it must be some new thing but, but no. It’s just new to me. There are books. Old books. And people wrote blog posts years ago.

It’s just new to me. It has been there all along.

The life I envision has been there all along, too. It was just waiting for me to notice it. Now I am gently pointed in that direction, and I see that it’s not that far. And yet so far when I don’t see it.

Remember the time when you saw the gossamer veils separating the universes, each person in his own universe? On Lake Avenue, of all places.

See-through yet there, as easy to pass through as smoke. Are these walls? Horizons? Or just illusions that separate me from you, my world from yours? Your possibilities from yourself and my possibilities from myself? Illusions that can be trivially exploded?

All of those universes are available and exist, except for those who see only their own universe and perceive the smoky veil as an end beyond which there is no more.

I’m passing through the smoke again and seeing what has always been there.

Let’s do this.

Step 1. Pick a thing. Any thing.

The big book/whatever it is thing.

Step 2. Do the work.

On it. Yesterday I standardized a majority of the eleven episodes of the videos. Same file set up. Same writing templates. I had started multiple episodes and was flailing around. Systems now exist, Pozen style.

Step 3. Get the life you want.

I can’t draw a straight line from here to there. But this project is definitely an accelerant. So go for it.

It’s not realistic to guess that this thing is the end state of evolution. But it’s a starting point for evolution. And the end state is vague too. But directionally accurate. Less client, more customer — to use a business analogy. That’s the desired payoff space. Within that space who knows what I will find.

At 2 am because why TF not. I’m awake.

What would I rather produce? What would I rather do? What does the world want from me?

Mastery.

In face to face interactions with people in my chosen trade.

Mastery.

In writing about my chosen trade in such a way as to help others do what they want to do. Training, practical. Help them by making resources useful to them.

I’m not sure if the immediate desire is there from my fellow humans for this. Or whether this is me and what I want, with self-indulgent prose. To be determined in the next year.

Yesterday had a difference in it: go for a run at lunchtime.

Change is made of a thousand differences.

It is a five Zoom day today. Do I like this? No. They are a necessary means to an end.

Four of the five Zoom calls are transactional. Only one builds our collective abilities as a group. And that collective ability is what allows me the space to achieve personal change.

It’s either build the organism and reap the results or let it all drop to the ground and hope that good results happen from that.

I’m hedging my bets on that at the moment and doing both. “Let it all drop to the ground” will lead to different results. Less money certainly. Better life? Who knows.

So “let it all drop to the ground” is a marketing effort for the organism at the moment. I can spin it up and spin it off later.

Is it sufficient to know that you don’t want this? Or do you need a that to aim at?

Asked again today. The answer is still the same.

What must change? Publish more. (Reason: it tests the ideas by exposing them to other minds).

Continue with the writing. Do it by first writing the video script, because that reveals the story. Tell this element first, then tell that element next.

Take the overview and add part 2 and part 3 to it, then publish it as a marketing piece. Give it to the platform to put up—if they want it.

I’m fighting a war on three fronts. First, tread water. (Get daily revenue work done). Second, build the fortress (systems and people). Third, plan and execute the Escape. (The publishing thing).

Fourth, mix more metaphors. 😀

The publishing thing is a “start where you are and keep moving” activity at this point. A “build it and they will come.” Who will come? What am I building? Come to where or what? All of these are unknown.

The usual answer returns when I ask the question. “Hell, no.”

The answer pulls me forward.

So I’m going to do today what I would want my last day alive to look like. It’s replicable.

The day starts. Coffee with my wife, with an inspiring discussion of an idea she found.

(From that conversation, a decision was made. Something we will do together less than a year from now.)

Then the rest of my day is determined, too. Vigorous exercise. Reason: feels good, man. Write. Reason: the result I want will come from what I publish. Everything above that is gravy.

T

The answer continues to be “This is not how I would spend the last day of my life.”

What can I change today?

Short term thinking: get out of the office after the second appointment. Go somewhere (I already know where). Have lunch. Then edit and publish the newsletter.

What about the long term?

Until proven otherwise, aim for “publish”.

Aim for “recruit fellow travelers.”

Prompt: the Steve Jobs morning question. first just look at what I’m doing.

Answer: running a business. Why? Well, because it’s an infinite game, basically. Thats fine. It’s fun enough and I can’t think of anything else I’d do for money. None of the jobs I see people do look particularly appealing.

“Fun enough.” That’s an interesting phrase to come out of your head.

Yeah. I think I mean it sincerely as “fun” though, because there is no end point that I’m seeking. I’m just sort of juggling and seeing what I can make and what I can do. So don’t read too much into it, Dr. Freud.

Then why are you asking the Steve Jobs question?

Because it seems heavy. I’m shoveling snow uphill in hell. There are many things I don’t want to do as part of running the business. I want them done but I don’t want to do them myself—I want someone else to do them. And getting other people to get things done is a pain in the neck.

Oh, it’s the Hell is other people quote, is it?

Firstly, apparently that quote is misconstrued. But secondly no it’s not people generally. It’s specific tasks, specific people, specific outcomes. And it’s a discomfort with me not being willing to be an asshole and fire people if necessary. Or chicken. Or greedy.

Asshole because it disrupts their lives. Chicken because it disrupts my life. Greedy because I can limp along like this and be profitable.

But you pay for that profit with your unhappiness, no?

Sigh. Yes. and the price I pay is not worth the profit I reap.

So it’s your own greed that drives things. You want the money and you tolerate your current conditions to get money. And it’s your ego that drives things. The ego of thinking other people judge you by head count.

OK I’d that’s true what’s the indicated change? WWSJD?

He would focus on what’s important. The product. If the product is suffering, he would fix that. And that’s viable for me because I want the product to exist because I want it to exist. No particular reason beyond that.

The money element is there for sure. Probably because I grew up in a home of modest comfort. But the ability to know I did a killer product and it made a difference to someone. That matters.

Ok gotta go now because I’m being torn away to do something I don’t want to do. For someone I do want to help.

For me, the danger of Twitter is that I don’t shut up and sit still long enough to be quiet, all by myself. and I’m not active there. Barely enough to register a sign of life.

Thoughts rattle around in my head. Impressions, really. Thinking implies some kind of coherence. The impressions are Legion, to handwave at the Gospel of Mark.

Perhaps Teh Technology at my fingertips roils the waters.

Twitter is all selling all the time. TBH it’s why I’m there. I’m there to learn how to use the tool to explicitly sell (how do I get you to give me money) or to sell myself (be my friend, please).

It’s time to step back and let the waters still, the sediment settle. Get reacquainted with the Kingdom of God.

This site is basically a daily (I wish) diary, convenient because the WordPress app is on my phone. A blog is a time-organized work of literature—a diary. I use a WordPress driven blog simply because it is easier to write here than in a notebook with a pen.

Considering that nobody sees this and nobody knows it’s me, easy accessibility on my phone may be an acceptable use of Teh Technology. Maybe I can dial it back to an offline writing app on my phone, and if that’s not enough, revert to paper. This is a question of progress, of trial and error.

I have never read Uncle Ted’s manifesto but I have seen snippets. He has some good points. Too bad he felt the need to market his ideas by planting bombs.

What do I take away from all of this? Tear yourself away from grazing the Pastures of Twitter. Sure, there is lush grass here and there. But most of it is calorie-free. The world is a big, big, big place. There are many pastures. And the Inner World is infinite.

There is no rush.