Hey friends, welcome back. I hope you enjoyed the previous reflections. In case you haven’t read them, check them out: last week’s reflections.

Now, onto my reflections for the past week:

A Quote I Liked

Growth Mindset

The takeaway from the video: Burnout is often caused by a lack of impact in one's work rather than simply having too much work. That means finding fulfillment and meaning in work can re-energize individuals.

Reduce the phantom workload

The pressure of work mostly doesn’t come from the work itself but is related to other stressors such as people issues, juggling work and personal lives, and job security concerns.

Reducing the phantom workload doesn’t necessarily make the work easier, but the process of working becomes easier and more enjoyable.

In a workplace, this can be avoiding drama and sticking around people who give you a time rebate (as opposed to a time tax) instead. For the self-employed folk, it can look like finding your community online or for an accountability group with a few others who are in the same stage of life as you are so it fosters vulnerability.

Increase the level of challenge (not the volume) of work

As the degree of challenge in one’s work increases, so does job satisfaction. If we’re feeling burnout, we can start taking up projects with visible impact and a scope that will invite us to venture past our comfort zones but won’t overstretch us.

Also worth trying is the “naive yes”; agreeing to a new challenge before your brain kicks in and tells you it’s not possible. As Richard Branson said, “If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes — then learn how to do it later!”

But don’t say yes to everything. Say yes to challenges that are a size too big, and then grow into them.

Avoid reckless persistence

A relentless determination to finish everything we start can lead to poorly allocated energy and wasted resources. The (silly) idea of finishing for the sake of finishing can result in a Pyrrhic victory (when success inflicts such heavy tolls on the winners that the victory is indistinguishable from defeat).

I’ve expanded on the concept of smart quitting in a previous newsletter issue here.

Sometimes we just have to cut our losses and let some projects go. As someone who’s trying to build income streams from useful products, I highly resonate with the approach of “shipping fast > focus” in the early stages (Marc talks about this a lot).

Entrepreneurship

I’ve been focusing on marketing for the past week. Here’s what that consistency has gotten me. Pretty decent reach for 7 days with an account that started with 0 posts and 1 follower (myself).

I have to start branching out beyond this because organic social posts alone won’t scale quickly. For the coming week, I’m going to start engagement-focused content on my existing and new channels (e.g. Reddit).

Trying out Reddit and other community-dense platforms is something I’ve been putting off because of all the red tape there is when it comes to self-promotion that’s too direct. However, having actual interaction with my target user group can lead to higher conversion rates. I’ll start with creating evergreen content that is free (with no sign-up requirement) to add value without requesting anything in return directly.

I’m also almost done with my new landing page for Community Setup Pro (previously called DIY Discord, but I didn’t want to run into any trademark issues) because I’m closing the free waitlist and going to start collecting pre-launch orders instead; making new sign-ups put their money where their mouths are $$$.

On the Galactic Crew side, I need to finish setting up the automated onboarding flow for new customers so that it significantly reduces the friction between me and the customer (as opposed to a traditional marketing agency that’s full of calls).

Freedom

Didn’t reflect on this much the past week. I’m mostly trying to figure out a system for visualization that works for me because I really want to capture that feeling of freedom in a bottle (that I’m going to sustain in 10 months’ time).

Feel free to reply to this email with any ideas, questions, or thoughts that you have about freedom!

Homework

Relating to burnout. Are you fulfilled with the impact you’re making? How can you challenge yourself more to increase that impact?

Burnout can have a ripple effect on other areas of our lives and has a lasting effect even after what caused it is removed. Time is precious and nobody wants to look back feeling like they’ve wasted their lives on things they’d consider insignificant or trivial.

Till we meet again next week.

Cheers to the future,
Ernest
indiepreneur, digital nomad, transhumanist

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