In order to succeed at the project I am currently working on, I need to focus on developing my business, get me into the right headspace of possibility, positivity, fun, innovation, and purpose.
I don’t need to develop anything external (website, logo) but I do need to develop tools and processes to get me into the right headspace.
Here are some original ideas:
7 whys to understand purpose
Write a science fiction story of the role of the clients company in the future, write an origin story to the company
Try to tell the science fiction with the brand, website, ads
Design thinking – how might we solve X problem
What does level 3 look like? What does level 1 and 2 look like?
What problem are we solving for humanity?
What crisis are we pushing the boundaries in?
Mindmap – fill the whiteboard
What games can we play with our employees?
How can we make it fun for our clients?
Here is the main blueprint concept I am working with:
Build the future: create home base to live in
Brand
Mission
Vision
Website
Recruit more people for that future: I need you!
Lead magnet
Work together for the future: we build it together
I need to do some brainstorming about my new niche.
I do think that banking is not a niche I want to start in because it is harder to take someone who is making a lot of money and make them purposeful than it is to take someone who is purposeful and help them make money. At least for me. At least while I don’t have a proven track record yet.
If I focus on the non-profit arena, the goal is to understand current what the state is with non-profits. I don’t know how to answer that question except by talking to people working there.
I may have some people who can help in that arena but I don’t know if reaching out to them will take some time, and even if they do, what is the answer? I just don’t know if they can speak to the whole industry.
Review recent non-profit technology conference agendas for AI-related sessions
Look at speaker profiles and presentation topics
Look for grantmaking foundations focusing on AI for social good. This indicates a growing interest in AI within the nonprofit sector.
Social Media Listening: Use AI-powered social listening tools to analyze conversations around AI in the nonprofit sector.
I am also thinking about the 10k for for-profit companies and wondering if non-profits have something similar in the forms they must make publicly available in the 990 and 1023.
I’ve decided to start on my health challenge today. What does that mean?
An emphasis on taking care of my mental and physical health above all
Creating boundaries and emotionally processing any pushback around not making my health a priority
Certain goals:
Jiujitsu for 2+ hours every day
Boxing on the days I can go
Cooking all of my meals
Bedtime at midnight
Reduced or elimination of all processed sugars
Work comes after health, and is designed to be rejuvenating instead of draining
This health challenge will run from today until the 15th – the day when I travel home. Then I will work on adjusting and finding a new routine.
Today, I want to ponder two things:
What do I want to post as a video explaining what I’m doing with my youtube challenge?
How will I support myself healthwise while working to make it rejuvenating?
Youtube Video
“It’s over. I failed”
“Welcome back to the 21 day youtuber challenge, my name is Jack you are watching episode 17.”
“In this challenge, I was supposed to post a video every day for 21 days, and it’s safe to say I failed.”
“I haven’t posted for multiple days in a row, the last episode actually shot multiple days before I released it because it took so long to edit”
“The reason is simple, it took 6 to 8 hours to create every video from the ideation, to the shooting, to the editing and that just isn’t sustainable”
“If I think of the ideal pyramid of life, it looks something like this” (Health, work, youtube)
“But recently it’s felt upside down”
“So what’s next? I still want to do the challenge – posting the rest of the 21 videos exploring what I like to make videos about. After all, I have so many more ideas to try out”
“But I’m not going to release them every day anymore”
“Here are 10 things I can focus on now that I’m not releasing videos at such a frantic pace”
“But in those little moments when I have time, I will keep making videos for this series, and hopefully it’ll be magical”
Working Plan
Focus on only one thing at a time
Process emotions around rushing or being in a hurry
Create an appropriately prioritized to do list
Take a lot of notes when taking a break so I can pick off where I left off
Timed meditation and off screen time for stronger focus
I feel exhausted. My head feels numb. I feel hot and tired. My back aches.
My heart feels heavy. I feel angry at myself. So helpless. My mind in a fog.
My apartment is a mess. I just want to cry.
I can’t work. I just play games all day long. my eyes feel tired.
It’s 2 o’clock in the morning. All I want to do is eat and play video games. The pull is so strong in my heart like there is a strand of honey getting pulled.
I feel a numb panic deep in my chest. I’m afraid of failure. I’m scared I will disappoint myself and everyone around me. Pushing myself to make my business cards is only making me curl up even harder.
It was a long week. I’m exhausted. But the work just keeps coming.
I guess I can cancel tai chi tomorrow. Sleep in.
Tonight I can clean my apartment until I feel more peaceful.
I know I can use the gym as a way to process emotions, but I don’t use it.
I feel this pull, this overwhelm, like the honey being pulled, from my heart.
I’m capable of anything. Even rising from this challenge. This is important because as I get more successful, there will be days I feel exhausted, and in those moments, I need to find a way to find balance, to find peace.
I also want to learn to embrace failure. Failure is so scary to me. There is an image in my mind of my business cards being a complete disappointment and I feel a pit in my heart. A horrible amaturish website I’m not proud of and I can’t fix it.
Everyone starts somewhere. Everyone starts at the beginning. The people who are exceptional, who are savants are not people who started at the middle. They are people who enjoyed the beginning.
But how can I enjoy this? I feel so scared it won’t be good.
Makes me think of this video:
In this video, Jesse talks about how play allows us to feel pressure while still being able to learn.
That fun is the key to this.
But what is the key to fun? What would make this fun for me, regardless of the outcome, what would make designing and drawing fun for me?
What would make it an infinite game, not just a finite game focused on an end goal?
It’s true, the thought of designing business cards does not sound fun to me at all. It sounds like a slog. But maybe that’s because I’m worried about failing.
Ok, what if I tried to merge my painterly style with “woodcut” style prints. What if I created a new drawing technique that I could use to create cool stuff for friends and to sell as products?
That definitely sounds more like play to me.
So what about going to the gym, because I like it so much when I actually go, but I find it hard to go to begin with.
What if I saw it as supercharging myself – which it really is doing. Whether I go to lift weights or just to hang from the bar and stretch it really is building my body up to full potential. It might even solve my sleep problems.
And what about sleep, why do I not want to go to bed? Because if I go to bed, tomorrow, I wake up with tons of problems. Well maybe, that’s not a bad thing. Maybe before I go to bed, I fill my to do list with questions that I want to search out the answers to.
Here are the questions I have today, that if I knew the answers to I would rest easy:
What am I going to do about my art coaching and AI gaming companies?
Am I behind schedule and if so what do I do about it?
Should I extend the schedule?
Am I losing money?
How do I get out of my procrastination phase and get working?
What do I do about my art coaching website?
How do I get everything done in such a short period of time?
Should I start registering for fairs?
Should I pay someone to design the website for me?
How am I going to get the motivation to start drawing? How do I start drawing consistently?
How do I start going to the gym and working outsite the apartment consistently?
How will I start cooking again and cleaning up my apartment? Where will I find the time?
How will I prepare for the next week of work? How do I balance my other businesses?
When will I continue to work on my Javascript projects? What is the breakdown between AI work time and coaching work time.
Why do I no longer feel any motivation to do coaching? Is it because I’m scared to propose a $20,000 product? Am I scared to start a community?
And so I went for a walk. On my walk, I determined that it was because I desire to focus more than anything. Currently, I am focusing on posting for 50 days on LinkedIn and it’s taking a lot of energy. I need to be able to have fewer things on my plate.
However, when I sat down to write this journal. I realized that I’ve lost my way in these posts. I no longer do the hard work to grow and articulate how I am feeling. When I did, my poem revealed to me that I feel extremely lost and scattered in my mind. I’ve forgotten the helpful intentions I use to set myself into the mode of preparing my day:
You are in my house
Take your time, be patient
Be ok with silence
Take risks
My house is a place where anything is possible
Connection theory + flow theory
When I immerse myself in these intentions, I feel the distinct taste of possibility coming back to me and my world is opened wide enough to do the planning that I want to do in these posts.
Today I want to continue the work of yesterday and I want to focus on three things:
I had a slower start to the day. I started the day on my phone, waking up a bit early because my new retainer is bothering me when I sleep.
I watched some Valorant, talked to my girlfriend, and now I have a flight in about 3 hours. I want to leave in about 2 hours. I still have to take out the trash, eat up some more food and load the dishwasher.
I did a bit of a workout and I found out a couple of things that help with regaining energy, and gathering chi:
Butt-clenched breathing: sounds a bit weird but it works. Lie down, clench the sphincter muscle (what you use to hold in poop) breath in. Then relax and breathe out. Repeat.
Tummy circles: put the left hand over your stomach, then your right hand over that. Make circles over your stomach in the clockwise direction. Do it lightly. Then put your hands in the same area in your back and repeat.
Extremity exercises: this can be any exercise that works your extremities. For example, doing a dead hang and focusing on clenching really hard with your hands but leaving everything else relaxed, or doing heel raises with the tips of your toes super engaged with everything else relaxed.
Meditation: lie down close your eyes and walk down a staircase while counting to 10. Imagine the smell of wet stone, always puts me in a meditative state really quick for some reason.
Anyway goals for today. Just relax! I want to get all the chores sorted out and just spend the rest of my time relaxing.