Who are you?
When I was in college I read a book called “The 4-hour workweek”. This book changed my life on how I viewed my time and my effort. After reading it, I went out and hired a virtual assistant to do the stuff I didn’t want to do as a college student. That VA cost me $3/hour and I would have them do things like synthesize my notes, email professors, and gather my sources for my essays. They had access to my calendar and my class schedules so one really cool thing I did was have them apply to internships and jobs and set up times to interview. They would email back recruiters for me, set up in-person interviews for me, and fill out lengthy job applications.
Today an average VA is around $15/hour. I’ve moved away from VA’s but I’ve moved onto other forms of automation to help me not think about the small details in my everyday life. For instance; I have my thermostat automated to know if anyone is home and if there is, then it cools down the house based on the temperature outside. I’ve also set up rules to close the garage door if it stays open for too long. I’ve even set up iOS shortcuts to send my wife a text of my location if my phone gets below 5% battery.
So a question I pose to you is; how have you made your life easier with automation?
✍️ Quote of the week:
“You don’t automate to get rid of the human, you automate to amplify the human.” - Robert Mann, Great Recruiters
🎶 Song of the week:
The Early Days - Old Man Luedecke warning: sad if you have kids.
📖 What I’m reading:
Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell: I’m a few chapters in and boy is it a strong opener.
👓 Top 3 learnings:
Think about the inputs vs the outputs.
People tend to focus too much on the outputs. Example: I’m going to lose 30 pounds, I’m going to sell X number of units of my products, I’m going to read 20 books this year. These things can easily be written on a New Year’s resolution. Although resolutions are good, people forget the small details that will get them to their goals.
Here’s one thing I changed this week that reflects this. Two weeks ago I had a weekly goal to make my wife laugh once a day. This led me spiraling of ways to make her laugh without much prevail. This week I changed that goal to learn or think of one new joke every day that would make her laugh. This is far more measurable and has me thinking of things that I can focus on daily, rather than shooting for something I have no clue how to achieve. Here’s another example: Take more photos which changed to take 5 photos daily.
Break down your goals into smaller segments and exploit the crap out of them. Once you have yourself focused on the inputs you can tweak them to your advantage. And once it’s all you think about, then your broader goals will take care of themselves.
Focus on your identity
Tony Robbins once asked his audience to stand up if they work out regularly. About 45 people stood up. He then said “please stay standing if you found out today that working out did nothing to benefit your health or physical appearance but you still would continue to work out.”. 25 people sat down with 20 still standing. He continued to say that the people who remained standing work out because it’s their identity. They aren’t doing it to meet a goal or to feel better but because it’s who they are as a person. It’s their identity to work out.
The issue is that focusing on these broader achievements always puts you in a mindset that doesn’t focus on your identity. It instead puts you in a mindset that makes you more aspirational, not inspirational. Things like “I’m trying to quit smoking” versus “I’m not a smoker”. Or another example; “I’m trying to not eat fast food as much” versus “I’m a healthy and fit person”. One is something you are trying to do and the other is who you are. Focus on things day by day, the success will eventually come.
You are what you repeatedly do. Identity is Latin for “repeated self”.
Social media is dying
Another year, another algorithm change. Instagram recently changed its algorithm again if you haven’t noticed. So I thought to myself; with the rise of Instagram’s news feed being increasingly busier, Apple’s privacy limiting Facebook advertising, and TikTok with its user-first approach platform limiting creators’ growth, where will creators turn to when these platforms no longer reward the content being produced? I’m starting to see some pieces of change turning away from these social networks. More people are turning to places like Discord, Newsletters, and Slack to nurture a more close-knit community. With these platforms, creators own more of the communication, have a closer dialogue with their audience, and can scale more effectively than with existing social platforms.
I don’t know if this trend will continue or if these social giants will find a way to give back to their content creators but it’s interesting to see how this is playing out.
🤑 Crypto:
CPI came out yesterday and inflation hit *12.7%* 7.5%. Although I think that number may be higher than that, I’ll leave that topic for another day. The feds are trying to slow down the economy but not too fast because a speedy halt will cause a recession. So how do you do that without accidentally hitting the reset button? With monetary policy. Here’s essentially how that works: 1. government stops subsidizing and giving out loans. 2. companies stop spending money. 3. companies stop paying employees so much. 4. employees stop spending because of little money. 5. prices go down because money isn’t being spent.
As for most cryptos, I think there will be a melt-up event happening within the coming weeks with bullish news all centered around Blackrock, Super Bowl, and Russia.
🎲 1 thing I’ve been enjoying this week:
Superfans - One thing I’ve been enjoying this week is Superfans and how easy it is to build an audience of actual true fans, not just passive customers or subscribers. My key takeaways from this book are; connecting with your audience 1x1 from time to time, having them control your dialogue and topics, and posing questions that are most people want to know about.
👴 Dad thoughts
Who are you to yourself?
Sometimes I feel a little guilt when it comes to how I spend my time. I try to center my life around my family but with my overarching goals that span across health, fitness, writing, reading, dates with my wife, and my actual day job; sometimes it’s hard to have quality time with family. I once heard this question that changed the way I looked at this. Who are you to your kids? Easy, a good loving dad. Who are you to your job? A person that excels and grows in their career. Who are you to your spouse? A loving husband that is by her side no matter what. Now, who are you to yourself? That question is so deeply forgotten that we often think that these other things are the makeup of who we are. Who you are to yourself matters because it pours out into other pieces of life. When I think about it; I’m a designer, so I bring to the table my love for design in my work, with my kids, and with my wife. When I'm not doing any of these I just design for myself.
Have a great Super Bowl weekend! Go Bangels 🐈.
📬 PS: Once more, please do reply to this email if you have anything to add / any questions. I quite enjoy replying to comments/emails as a source of procrastination from revision.
📬 PPS: Also, please hit the <reply> button and let me know what you thought of this email if you have a spare few seconds. I'd love to hear your thoughts on what was useful about it and what could be changed. Thanks <3
