PenBlade's Journal - Emperor (2023)

Journals - Major Programs
#1

This is where I’ll be documenting my observations with the Emperor subliminal, which I plan to run for at least 3 months (April through June 2023). I enjoy writing, so I’ll try to make these engaging but not too long, for anyone who wants to follow along.

I haven’t tried subliminals before, but have had good results with meditation, journaling, and various mindfulness techniques. Self improvement has always been a part of my curiosities and interests in life, kind of a DIY fan in that way.

A little about me:
Late 30’s, bachelor’s degree, slim but should be more physically active, happily married/together (incl. dating phase) for15+ years, father to a preschooler, working a 9-5 tech job making a, “far from 6 figures,” yet tolerable income that, if I pay attention, should allow me to retire by 62-65.

Life is good, but my work is just a financial means to an end. I’m pretty much at my income cap with my current employer, and while I could probably bring in 25K/year more by the end of my career, I’ve become keen on the idea of starting a small (probably online) business and owning all the risk and upside that entails…since my income isn’t super high I’m hoping it won’t be insanely hard to replace or exceed it over a ~5 year window.

I have a hobby that I’ve created content online about for 5 years, which became monetized after ~2.5 years–it earns me a few hundred extra bucks a month, which I’d like to grow and either do full time, or use as leverage to spin up another revenue stream…though I’m only a small % of the way there right now.

Since my side hustle started as a hobby I have a lot of natural curiosity, interest, and skill in it, but the massive combo of becoming a dad and COVID together really threw me for a loop and I’ve struggled the past couple years with putting in the amount of work needed to further grow my side hustle, it’s been plateaued as I work on getting my motivation and focus back in order (now that I’ve integrated parenting into my life, haha)

So…that’s my story and why I chose to pick up the Emperor subliminal. I’ve already got a small side hustle with a little bit of traction, I’ve tasted success with it before, and I’m seeking tools to help me get back in the swing of growing my audience and earning capacity again.

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#2

Day 1 Recap:
Listened to 2 playthroughs of Emperor (masked track) about an hour before bed:

1st playthrough was in a meditative style and I consciously thought about why I purchased the sub, what I am working toward, how I hope it helps and how I’ll feel when I begin getting traction toward my goal (more consistent content creation to start…eventually leading to increased views and engagement with my content as a longer term result)

Then I did some work for about half an hour and listened to a second playthrough while working (actually reading some of SC blog posts and more info on these forums)

Unsurprisingly, no immediate changes, though I did find myself feeling a little tired mentally by bedtime: a bit of mental fog, or almost an “inflammation” type feeling (but not a headache) in my mind.

This isn’t a brand new feeling: I get it every now and then, when I do too much cognitive work throughout the day or late at night, and its more likely when I haven’t been getting enough sleep: raising my kiddo from infant through toddler years has taught me a lot about what “not enough sleep” feels like :laughing: and to appreciate the clarity and “tranquil energy” that consistently getting enough sleep feels like…I need to work on being more consistent but I aim for 7 hours minimum nightly.

Notes:

  • I’ll have to be even more vigilant to prioritize sleep to give me the bandwidth to receive, process, and integrate the subliminal, as they’ll add an extra subconscious load (which will be worth it but I need to adapt for it)
  • I also need to stay vigilant to make sure I’m still working on my actual goals that I started this sub for. I sometimes get “too into” a support technique or process that’s supposed to help me, probably as a distraction from actually Doing The Work needed to advance the main goal.

Side note: I need to “get with the lingo” here and figure out if 2 playthroughs = a “loop” or “2 loops” or something else lol

Start of Day 2: It took a little longer than usual settling down to sleep last night with that slight “brain fog” or fatigue feeling, but I eventually drifted off and slept fine. I have normal energy this morning and have laid out a few key goals I want to take care of through the work day, as usual. Let’s see if they actually get done :skull:

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#3

Day 2 Recap:
Not quite as productive at the day job as I’d prefer (on its work or my own goals) but found some momentum by the afternoon. Once I got to my couple hours of free time at the end of the evening to work on my goals–video editing, practically speaking–I immediately entered flow state and blasted out 2.5 hours of great work. Then it was 10:30 and I should have wound down and went to sleep but instead I stayed up another hour vegging out.

I usually fall asleep within minutes of hitting the pillow, but last night, when I finally tried to sleep, I couldn’t. It wasn’t that I “couldn’t turn off my mind,” I felt tired physically and mentally, didn’t have a to-do list for tomorrow or anything stuck in my head…it was more like my consciousness just wouldn’t drop down into a low energy level where falling asleep seemed likely. Stared at the wall and dozed for an hour, tried meditating, tried sleeping on the couch, etc. Eventually shut down but probably only got 4 hours of sleep…bummer way to end an otherwise nicely productive day.

Notes:

  • It’s critical to identify a clear action, that you can take “right now”
  • With that clarity, when you get a chance to work…“just start.” Even if you don’t feel like it, or only have 20 minutes…just take 5 or 10 minutes and do one thing. Odds are, you’ll make more progress after you overcome the resistance to start a work session.

Start of Day 3:
Dragging this morning from terrible sleep. Honestly, listening to my sub today feels like it will just tax my ill-rested mind without there being much chance to benefit from it. I have no sense for how the sub affects my consciousness yet, so I’ll wait till evening and listen for 1 playthrough before bed, then call it a night early so I can begin to restore my mind. Over time, I want to test listening at the start of the day vs at the end to see if it gives me an easier time getting started…but that’s for when I’m well rested :man_facepalming:

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#4

Day 3 Recap

I soldiered through the day better than expected despite being tired from lack of sleep overnight. I decided to wait until evening to listen to Emperor, which in hindsight was the safe call. The day job (DJ) was fine and I got enough done to call it an acceptable day, then in the evening I spent some quality time with the wife and managed to do some good work on my current project, which is almost complete.

Then I wound down to sleep at a normal time, listened to Emperor once, and called it a night. I felt a bit of that sense of “brain fog” or fatigue after listening, but it was milder than session 1 (half the loops, too), and I didn’t have any issues sleeping.

Notes

  • Don’t write something off just because you got a bad start. Try not to beat yourself up over it either–both of those aren’t productive and you can still make some progress. Even a tiny amount of work is still meaningful progress in the big picture.

Start of Day 4
Slept fine, feel pretty good too–I don’t have the charge of several days worth of good sleep, but I am definitely set up for success more than I was yesterday. I really want to try listening to a loop or two during the morning, but that will have to wait for Friday. I’m sticking to the recommended schedule and not doing extra loops. This is mainly because I’m trying to keep the perspective that the sub can help but its on me to overcome my resistance and put in the work: I don’t want to visualize but not overly inflate my expectations for the sub, which I feel listening many times more than recommended might incline me to do. I’m aiming for patient habit/lifestyle building, not a sprint.

Today’s goals are to wrap up a few projects at the day job (DJ), pick music for my next project, and work on either the packaging of it or a blog post for tomorrow. Feeling like I can do it.

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#5

:tada: Hey I got a “new user of the month” award in this community, that’s cool. I’m mostly keeping to myself and while I’m time limited, I’m also super approachable so LMK if there’s anything I can help with. Otherwise, I’ll get back to quietly jotting down my notes here to increase my focus on my goals and using this sub. :tada:

Week 2, Monday
Just starting my morning at the DJ with a coffee, listening to Emperor (masked) while I update the journal. Friday I wrapped up my latest video edit and buttoned up all the things needed to get it posted, wrote a newsletter to my community, and did a livestream (many of the immediately actionable aspects of the side hustle I’m working on growing)

I took way too long to get the video done, but knew it was going to be a high value piece of content that would help lots of people and delight my regulars. I started last week with my first ever private coaching session, which a fan of my content approached me about. That was great because I’ve wanted to offer 1 on 1 coaching for a while, but haven’t really believed I’ve created enough value, consistently, to feel comfortable with the idea of offering it. Frankly, Ive learned that I need to learn how to sell: it’s a life skill and I don’t plan to make my income solely from running ads over top of my content–I’ll need to offer a course, training, or physical product if I’m going to shift my moonlighting into a full time gig…and I’d have the skills, and that would lead to the confidence if I was trained, so I’ll probably be looking for a course or some teaching material to build out that skill set. For now, though, it was perfect timing to be approached for paid coaching, and the student is someone who’s already got great habits for success, so it’s almost like a perfect “test student” for me to validate my ideas about a coaching service and get a positive review before offering it openly to my community.

Interestingly, I got a DM over the weekend about private coaching by a second potential student, explained how it works and my rate and they didn’t have any objections…it may only be a one-off thing, but still, this represents a very substantial jump in the revenue of my side gig, and revenue is the oxygen that will let me take this thing to the next level…also a noticeable shot in the arm to my belief in the feasibility of making my side into my main gig…so I’m feeling pretty positive and maybe even a little excited. It’s been a quiet goal of mine but I don’t think I’ve made an effort to manifest this sort of thing–that said, it feels like the universe definitely placed the door for coaching as a revenue stream right in front of me and all I have to do is be confident and open it before it dissipates.

My next goal moving forward is to schedule my next coaching session and pick the next video idea I want to work on. The past 3 years or so, I seem to have a habit of being unfocused after completing a project…like I’m busy but not productive for a while after I cross the finish line on something, which means I miss the opportunity to turn some of that energy from finishing into momentum for the next project, so I always feel like I’m just starting out a brand new thing with a lot of activation energy instead of maintaining the pace. It seems like a silly thing to struggle with given how long I’ve been doing this, but for whatever reason, this is where I’m at.

Today I take action with listening to Emperor, journaling here and in my main journal, and move forward into the DJ to try to carry momentum into my next piece of work better than I did last time. One thing at a time, right?

Notes

  • It doesn’t matter how much momentum you gain, only that you gain some. It’s far more important to gain a tiny amount of momentum every day/week than it is to gain a huge amount sporadically.
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#6

Week 2, Wednesday

I’ve taken to reflecting on my progress and journaling about my future goals while listening to my subliminal, which ends up being a lowkey visualization exercise in and of itself…seems to be a good fit for me. Listening to my 2 loops of Emperor in the morning doesn’t seem to wear out my brain assuming I’ve gotten acceptable sleep the past couple days.

The past 2 days have been great. Sunday, someone new commented in my community that I should offer private coaching, I told them to DM me and I booked a session with them easily, which I just fulfilled yesterday. They do coaching/instruction as their day job too, so we really jived: they knew how to ask good questions that let my training target exactly what they were struggling with and we knocked down a bunch of their roadblocks during the session. They validated that my teaching techniques are excellent as well, which means a lot to hear from a fellow instructor (different sport but similar processes)

It’s also been nice that so far both of the 2 people I’ve coached haven’t batted an eye at my rate for a session. It’s not wildly high–though it might be higher than my day job rate–but I have some work to do on my abundance mindset for how easy it is to make money, and this is helping a lot. Really thankful that I’ve had the opportunity to connect and work with both of these students, because they’ve given great feedback and have massively leveled up my self confidence when it comes to offering coaching as a service. I think this confidence and really my growing conviction in the belief that I can do this and there will be a demand for it, is something that will empower me in future projects for my side gig, too. My free content I’ve been doing for several years basically pre-sold both of those students on me being legit, trustworthy, value packed and sincere in my drive to help them improve at the sport I love, so that’s awesome to see. Very positive.

I also brainstormed on, and picked my next piece of content. “Slow but on a roll” is how things are feeling right now. I’ve started scripting it, but don’t have the best process for my writing just yet. I haven’t decided if it’s best to write out all the knowledge and then finesse that value into a well-paced script, or if I should try to write it with the pacing and mini-hooks to drive retention built in from the get-go. If I have to ask myself this, it probably means that I lack the skill and practice to do the latter at the moment, cause that seems like a better way to go about it…but I draw a blank and spin my wheels when I try…must be “too much” for my current skillset. No biggie, it’s important to seek clarity and remember that if I can’t (yet) to not waste time trying to juggle all the balls at once when there’s nothing wrong with doing half first and the other half second.

So yeah, minor rant, but things are going well and I’m off to a better than usual start at keeping my momentum from one project to the next. Now to not overthink it, not set the bar for quality so high that I get analysis paralysis, and to just get on with it and Do The Work.

At DJ, things are fine but I’ve been more motivated to work on my personal projects, so I have some catching up to do (I have a lot of freedom in the DJ) I still have room for improvement at being efficient with DJ tasks that leaves me guilt-free time to work on my side gig :sweat_smile:

Notes

  • Keep up the momentum with the content, make a conscious effort to carry energy from the finish line of one project through the starting line to the next.
  • Stay on top of things at DJ, don’t let enthusiasm for side gig create distractions that will have repercussions at DJ, that will just take you out of flow and stress you out.
  • Don’t forget to sleep enough, easy to miss this when excitement for projects makes you start burning the candle at both ends.
#7

Week 3, Monday

Had the day off Friday, which is good and bad. I don’t enjoy admitting it, but I tend to do poorly at sticking to my goals when there’s a pattern interrupt like a day off work. One would think (and indeed I hope) that a whole day off work would be spent focusing on my side gig as though it were my full time gig. After all, that’s a meaningful opportunity to do a lot of work that would otherwise take 2-4 evenings during my normal schedule.

What frequently happens in reality, though, is that I usually work only a little bit and then take the rest of the time off to relax or goof off and consume entertainment content instead of making my own. I try not to beat myself up about it in hindsight, but there’s definitely a gap between what I wish I did during periods of extra free time and what I actually do. Sometimes it makes me wonder if I’m not actually cut out to pursue my side gig full time, or worse, that I’m not actually interested enough/passionate enough about doing it, if I’m not as motivated during periods of free time…but I’m also telling myself that I tend to burn the candle at both ends a bit while working FT, parenting and trying to build this side gig all at once. So it makes sense that I’d want to take a breather when I finally don’t feel like I’m always in a time crunch.

I’m sure there’s room for improvement in a few ways, but for now I’m focusing on getting back into the swing today. Positively, I got good sleep over the weekend, and worked on content 1 day out of the 3 I had off this weekend, so I didn’t completely check out. Sat and Sun are usually family-focused and I don’t always change gear into “work mode” when I get free at the end of the day, anyway.

Today my schedule looks to have a solid opportunity to wrap my next script during the day and begin shooting tonight, so that is my goal. Now to get started on it.

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#8

I think this is the way. From someone like me who has no responsibilities outside of work, the scope of what you’re doing right now seems incredibly large. I’m in zero position to say anything else, but I hope you don’t feel too guilty about enjoying your time off because it sounds like you’ve done your best to optimize your schedule towards productivity and set time to be there for your family. Fuck it, you deserve some me time too :man_shrugging:

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#9

Thanks for that, I do appreciate it :pray: There’s always more we could be doing, or trying to do–I recently consumed content on the nature of being a finite being in a world of infinite enjoyable options that are “worth doing”…and the anxiety that can cause if we don’t have the right mental framework. I don’t consider myself an anxious person normally, but digesting that content I realized I definitely have room for improvement.

Getting efficient at doing what we do, only to add more eventually becomes a recipe for unhappiness, by normalizing an unsustainable amount of work. I feel a little stuck, sometimes, in not earning enough to quit my DJ but not having enough free time while working & parenting fulltime to grow my side gig…but I’m trying to be patient and enjoy helping the process unfold. Slow and steady… :sweat_smile:

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#10

Week 3, Wednesday

Short update from me today. Rallied nicely this week and finished my talking points for the next video by Tuesday evening, and finished polishing it today. It’s ready for recording and should be a fairly simple edit so I hope to have it done next week at the latest. I have really got to get back to finishing a piece of content every 2 weeks or so and for the first time in a while I seem close.

DJ is going fine, hacked down my to-do list there, but I must admit I’ve not focused as effectively as I’d like during the work days. One would think I’d aggressively complete DJ stuff, which would free up time to then aggressively complete side gig stuff, but it’s taken me until around 2pm each day to really hit my stride and then I manage maybe 60-90 minutes of focused work. I’m "productive " the rest of the day, just not as much as when I’m at my best. Trying to bear in mind that whole “small daily progress” note.

Feeling fine though, I’m challenging myself this week to get better sleep all week, and so far I’m 2 for 2. My goal for tonight is to have another private coaching session and prepare my office space to record in for Thursday. Tomorrow during the workday I’ll have to get my newsletter into shape and ready for Friday. Slightly stressed cause I feel like I might get lazy and drop the ball to veg out one night, which would quickly put my somewhat arbitrary timeline in a bind, but I think it’s probably still mostly “good stress” from pushing myself in a healthy way to stay a little more focused and do things a little more intentionally than I usually do :call_me_hand:

Notes

  • When it doesn’t feel like I’m doing enough, I need to look back at where I’m coming from and what I’m comparing it to. Compared to last time, I’m way ahead. And I can’t compare my productivity to back when I wasn’t also parenting. I need to enjoy those memories but drop that value system from my “lens” (The lens I use to filter my view of the world through, I sometimes nerd out about the concept of tuning this lens to align better with want you want and filter out negativity or distraction)
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#11

Week 3, Friday

I’m continuing to build some momentum! Wednesday evening and Thursday I basically accomplished all the main “needle movers” I identified: had my 3rd private coaching session, worked on my newsletter, researched setting up an online store (something I’ve been experiencing a ton of resistance about…for some reason I seem to think it will fail more miserably than is likely possible lol) and I shot and edited the A-roll for my next video. I still have to shoot and edit B-roll and then it will be ready to publish. I also slung together a 5 minute video edit for my newsletter community, which I may refine more and release as a proper edited video in the future.

In an nutshell, I feel like this week I’ve been moving closer back toward alignment with the person I used to be when it comes to content creation. I have so much more going on than I used to, but I’ve also picked up some wasteful habits over the pandemic and the infant and toddler years of parenting, and I think this week I’ve been finding opportunities to trim some of the fat from my daily habits and keeping myself focused more on why I’m choosing to “work” on things I want to build again, instead of defaulting to chilling out and consuming content as soon as my “have to do” responsibilities for the day have ended. The other habit I have to keep in check is a desire to learn about stuff that I don’t actually need right now in order to best use the tools I have access to right now. That’s a tricky one that eats some of my limited free time without me noticing until it’s too late some days.

This journal entry is a little slung together, admittedly, and I feel a little rambly, but if every week was as effective as this one I’d surely be closer to where I want to be…seems like progress, I just have to sustain it long enough to cement it into my life again. So far, it’s a good start but still feels like a house of straw instead of a house of bricks…we continue, one day at a time…

Notes

  • Education and self improvement is great, but can also be a distraction in disguise. If your goal is to explore curiosity and find something to chase, by all means have at it. If your goal is already defined and what you need to do now is build something, be careful about learning how to use tools you don’t yet need or own “for future planning purposes” or exploring step 3 and 4 of a process when you’re really only working on steps 1 and 2. This can often be a form of resistance or distraction, more entertainment and “what if” style daydreaming than actual education. Define how much time in your day you’ll give up to education or study that is not actionable in the near-term (or immediately)
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#12

This might be the first time I experienced some reconciliation? Or, perhaps more likely, I’m just grappling with the idea that my preferences don’t align with business opportunities in my scene :man_shrugging:

Week 3, Weekend Recap

Work hours Friday were solid: I accomplished everything I wanted to and left work feeling like I’d carry momentum through into Friday evening, which is my “night off early” from parenting (my wife and I give eachother one night a week like this for solo time)

I expected to come home, wrap up and then do a couple hours of work on side gig stuff. But I got derailed in the dumbest way, which doesn’t happen to me that often: I watched a Facebook video from someone who recently moved into a leadership position at a local business that pretty much owns the local scene for the sport that I make content about for my side gig (though my content being digital doesn’t really have a “local” element, most of my viewers and community don’t live in my current home state)

Anyway, the video itself was a net positive for the local community, talking about some innovative things they’d do to serve people who win a feeder competition series leading to the entry-level pro series. They were good ideas, all things I’d be in favor of and have thought about myself (I don’t have a business that can host or run local events though, unlike these guys)

You’d think this would be neutral or positive, but for me watching this video made me feel bad. In hindsight I think I couldn’t help but compare myself to them and their progress…and it made me feel bad that I haven’t accomplished more or had more influence on the scene. So I ended up in a spiral about that and by the time I got out of it I was too tired to feel like doing any work :skull: :man_facepalming:

After reflecting on it, the bigger issue is…what I most enjoy about my sport takes place at the opposite end of where the media attention and cash flow seems to be. I like to help ppl get into the sport, become highly competent, and make it sustainably into a part of their lives at the hobbyist level. For example, I’ve been enjoying participating in my sport for 10+ years and have never been particularly interested in the time, travel and financial sacrifices necessary to try competing as a professional. I’m just not super into the pro scene, but predictably many newbies began spectating the sport from following a pro and begin practicing/participating in the sport aspiring to become a pro.

The pro scene has lots of cash flow from sponsors / business opportunities, and plenty of hype among spectators and fans of these pro athletes…it all revolves around pro sports and the ladder up to it. So I am conflicted about the fact that I’m more excited by recruiting beginner athletes and helping them perfect the “weekend warrior” level of the sport…sometimes I feel like my personal favorite spot might be a bad part of the athlete’s progression if I want to build a revenue stream around this sport. Not to mention many folks feel like if you aren’t able to make it in the pro world you’re a nobody…and I don’t event want to be a part of the pro world right now…I probably could if I oriented my focus to that, and it seems like a sound business move, but meh. I’m pretty sure it’s not for me.
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I’m not sure if any of that could be reconciliation, as Emperor is pushing me to be more aware that I’m potentially turning a blind eye to superior business opportunities, or maybe I’m just jealous that the grass looks greener over there. I can look into the world and find evidence of people and business being successful at the level I’m more interested in, so it’s not impossible, it just looks like it might be the road less traveled. I should probably find a way to integrate professional aspirations into what I do, and separate my identity as an individual from the business identity I’m building…With the right perspective I can probably get better alignment and feel more enthusiastic about it…something to think about.

#13

Week 3, Wednesday

Missed Monday entirely, both listening to Emperor and updating this journal. It seemed to take too long to get into a flow for the day, and I took too long to put out the little fires that you have to put out before you can get on to the more intentional work of the day…before I knew it the day was over and I’d missed my chance to listen.

This was a harbinger for a developing trend over the next 2 days. In the evening, I worked for a little bit on content Monday, slacked off most of Tuesday evening and realized I was spinning into an unproductive loop Tuesday night. So, before I called it a night yesterday, I did a few minutes of content work again to kick back into gear. Unfortunately, I didn’t get enough sleep (6 hours 45 mins I’d guess) but started today with a fresh focus on doing some meaningful work once I responded to the “have to do’s” of the DJ.

Today has started off okay, again kind of slow to find my pace and focus, but much better than Monday or Tuesday. I’m about to finish my loop of Emperor, I’ve journaled, talked to a friend to soundboard through the issue I was experiencing resistance on over the weekend, and accomplished a fair bit of “easy to do but easy to put off” personal stuff. Bills, scheduling medical things, etc.

I capped off the morning by doing some business study and this afternoon, after a work meeting and lunch, I’ll do my damnedest to make some progress on my personal goals.

I have to say that on the whole, I feel like over the past 2-3 weeks I am trending toward being a bit more focused and productive. I know I’ve always had the capability, but my judgement or mind has been clouded more often than not…to where “just because it’s possible, doesn’t mean you’ll do it” …in other words, your value system may not decide that something you want to achieve is worth the effort in the present moment…and so you end up putting things off.

I am beginning to get the impression that I’m uncovering more awareness again, of what I want to achieve and what it will take to accomplish it…and that sort of heightened awareness is what lets me choose to put in an hour or two of work at 8pm after already having worked a full day and then played with my kid and gotten them into bed. I know I can do that stuff, because I used to do that stuff (pre-kid, but still) …the challenge lately has been reconnecting with the mindset that prioritizes those little work sessions that allow me to look back in 4-8 weeks and see progress instead of spinning my wheels. Time to wrap up the rest of this day.

Notes

  • It is inevitable that you’ll get distracted from pursuing your goal at the “optimum level”…you aren’t a robot, you are a very fallible human. Don’t plan for falling off the wagon, don’t let that make it easier to lean into indulgence, but on the other side of things, don’t beat yourself up or get down about when you have a lapse of focus. It’s like meditation: these lapses will happen, and its in the catching them and re-centering that you actually learn how to meditate. It’s in the noticing and non-judgemental “beginning again” of focusing on building your goals that you create the habits and reinforce the value systems that lead to results.
#14

Full disclaimer, I’m parroting here. I don’t know your sport, your scene, and your business goals here, and I barely know anything about business as it is. Is it too naive to say this is clearly a niche you’ve found for yourself? You’re passionate about being involved in and serving the amateur/hobbyist level, and I know you’re doing content although I don’t know the specifics of it. But isn’t this exactly the perfect storm for social media and grassroots content machines that we see these days?

I don’t imagine it’s quite like what you’re trying to do, but I’m thinking of grassroot video game scenes that ended up way bigger than they had any right to be (smash bros melee), the big soccer (EPL) fan channels that blew up over the past five or so years and some of these dudes ended up making legitimate amateur/pro-am soccer clubs, getting into broadcasting, etc.

Am I way off the mark here? Reading your post makes me think that you have a great opportunity in front of you, actually.

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#15

I’ve wondered about that…it’s possible that I do, but sometimes it’s the more sound business decision to go where money is already flowing because it proves that there’s demand for the idea. On the grassroots side, there are individual personal brands or content creators getting attention, but its harder to generate cashflow.

Of course, businesses are run by individuals following their genuine interests and curiosity, so I can’t only do what’s a “logical business decision”…I’ll definitely do the amateur / beginner level content cause I enjoy it. I just wonder if I should position that within a path to going pro…vs not really mention pro stuff at all :thinking:

Thanks for the thoughts, though! I definitely appreciate it. For now, at least, I know I need to sort out my thoughts as an individual (mostly done) and then separately, analyze the pros and cons of bringing professional stuff into my content (or not) …I definitely get a little FOMO when I see other people in the space get traction or recognition or sign a new thing because of building and networking in the pro space…it makes me think “am I an idiot for not doing the same thing? Cause if they can do it, so could I” :sweat_smile:

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#16

Week 3, Friday

Sometimes, I’m a little slow on the uptake. Just this morning, when waking up after only 6 hours of sleep (the 3rd or 4th night in a row where I got less than 7) I finally connected the dots: my toddler must be going through a growth spurt cause they’re hungry all the time, napping during the day again, and that’s throwing off their bedtime at night…which I didn’t notice or adapt to well :laughing:

My adaptation was to stay up for the same number of hours as usual…but starting 1-2 hours later than usual…which lead to not getting enough sleep. A poor call, considering I’ve learned that I tend not to prioritize things correctly (or at all) when I’m running low on sleep. I tend to do the minimum requirements to get through the day and consume cheap dopamine in the form of YouTube, gaming, or TV when I could be building something meaningful or spending quality time with family & friends.

The past couple nights have not been very productive, and if I’d realized my kid was staying up later and it was giving me a late start to my evening routine (which was getting a fair bit more productive than it used to be) then I’d probably have adjusted my expectations and done a better of job of being productive. Less than when I have 2-3 hours free, but still getting a little bit done every night and getting over 7 hours of sleep so I didn’t have any compounding issues with motivation and drive.

I’m still “ahead” compared to where I usually am, so I just need to take a metaphorical deep breath and re-center tonight, I have a block of time that I can use to make good progress and get back into my flow…I just gotta make sure to start working when I transition from family time to free time. If I decide to goof off instead, it’s really easy to spend the whole night that way, and even stay up too late again by accident.

Notes

  • Make sure to prioritize sleep. It feels like something you do at the “end of the day” so it’s easy for it to get the short end of the stick, but I have been trying to think of it as the start of my next day: do I want to set myself up to take on the day from a place of energy and advantage? Or do I want to set myself up to start my day lost in a forest without a map, where I have to find my way out and get my bearings before I can begin heading where I wanted to go in the first place? Sleep is the foundation for everything you do while you’re awake. Treat it with respect.
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#17

Week 4, Monday

Friday through Sunday evening was a total wash. I was simply unfocused, or perhaps I was focused on chasing cheap dopamine despite knowing intellectually that it wouldn’t lead anywhere meaningful. I chose to watch anime during my first moments of downtime, which extended to consume the entire free time each night, and even extend until I was getting only 6 hours of sleep instead of 7+. This happened Friday and Saturday nights. Ideally, I would take some sort of rest or breather, maybe watch 1 episode of something, and then change gears and work on something more meaningful be it reading, content creation, planning, etc…but this time was just a loss to the numbness of content consumption.

Staying up too late led to feeling crummy Saturday and Sunday, so I slept during any free time mid-day (kiddo’s nap/quiet time) causing me to lose that as an opportunity to build any momentum or set myself up with something to work seriously on when I got my few evening hours of free time…it all led into a vicious cycle in which I was tired and disconnected from any goal other than making it through the immediate “have to do’s” of the day. Insidiously, I’d get a small boost in energy as soon as those non-negotiable’s were completed and I had free time to myself, but because I’d been so low energy and disconnected I’d immediately plug into TV or social media and lost track of time, staying up too late again and setting myself up to repeat an even worse cycle the next day. :man_facepalming:

Sunday evening I exerted some control over the situation again, finally: When I got free, I immediately jumped into taking care of a weekly household chore and then went for a calm half hour walk. Because action leads to motivation (instead of the other way round) I was able to make Sunday evening solid: doing that prep work only left me with about an hour of work time for content, which I used making meaningful progress on my next project, and then I shut it down in time to get about 7.5 hours of sleep and set myself up for a better Monday.

I’m still stuck with a fair bit of mental fog and difficulty connecting with my higher purpose or sense of “what I’m even trying to do” aside from just get through my day and get paid at the DJ, but it’s definite progress, as the scale is closer to being balanced and I’m at least aware that if I had been taking care of myself properly I’d definitely have something I felt was worth building.

So the name of the game today is to just not fuck up the couple steps of progress I’ve made and not beat myself up for zoning out over the weekend. So far so good? :laughing:

This period of time is annoyingly busy at the DJ, but if I’m honest, I can’t survive on my side hustle, so I just need to buckle down and annihilate the extra DJ work as quickly as possible to get myself back into a situation where I can make progress on what I’m intrinsically motivated to build ASAP. So that’s my goal for today: kick ass at the DJ so that later in the week I can hopefully clear up time to kick ass at my side hustle. It will feel good to make some progress there, as I can feel extra pressure and anxiety from knowing I have some extra deadlines over my head, which makes me want to zone out more than usual. If I just crush that work instead of zone out until “deadline urgency” forces me to make swift work of it, there’s at least a chance that I’ll fill the gap with side hustle work, which would be a net positive.

Notes

  • Allow me to share with you, Autobiography in Five Short Chapters, by Portia Nelson:

Chapter I

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost… I am hopeless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter II

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in this same place.
But it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter III

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it there.
I still fall in… it’s a habit… but,
my eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

Chapter IV

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

Chapter V

I walk down another street.

:point_up: This is how I feel with my struggle of zoning out to tv/anime/content, which if unchecked always leads to staying up too late and wrecking my shit for the next several days. So, I’d put myself somewhere around Chapter 3. It’s surprisingly difficult to avoid, even though I know where that street leads. Working on it. :sweat_smile:

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#18

Week 5, Day Wednesday

I’m still here. Not a lot of progress since my last post: I missed listening on Friday of my last entry–just got busy at work and didn’t get my loops in during my morning routine like usual. Then my kid got sick over the weekend and I caught what they had, and ended up basically bedridden the whole next week. Getting old has some demerits, I advise caution to those of you considering it :laughing:

My sick / recovery time was spent mostly sleeping and being low-energy around the house. Didn’t go to work, didn’t do my usual routines or even check in with my side hustle or self-improvement goals in the slightest. Also completed a 46 hour fast, cause every time I tried to eat I just felt awful anyway.

By the time I was feeling back to 100% (Monday of this week) I was weirdly detached from all my usual goals and assumptions about how I should be spending my time. I’m trying to ramp back up, but also take note of some things I feel like I “should” be doing that may not truly serve me or align with my interests anymore…it’s been a unique sort of unintentional reset.

I got my listens in today, and am back to journaling and tracking things in my offline journal, too. Did some work last night on content and am slowly but surely orienting back toward productivity on my side hustle. Not much more to update today, see you Friday.

Notes

  • It’s quite challenging for me to cast a vision and stay in alignment with it. it seems like even when I try to start out that way, I end up losing touch with it in a mindful, intentional way and devolve into doing things out of habit without actually checking to see if they are still in alignment with what I should be doing at my current point in life. Not ideal, but probably very normal.