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

Inkless tattoo

I recently got a new tattoo done. As it got way more painful nearing the 6-hour session, I thought to myself: “If there wasn’t any ink in this tattoo after the session’s over, would I still sit through this pain?”

We allow a lot of things in our lives to become inkless tattoos.

We stick with jobs that we don’t like or where we don’t see ourselves going anywhere, and we sometimes gaslight ourselves. We tell ourselves “At least we’ll gain some experience” but we fail to ask ourselves whether the time taken justifies that experience gained.

We stay in relationships that leave us drained, and that do not empower us. We tell ourselves “They’ve always been like this” or “We’ve known each other for so long” but we fail to see how it holds us back as individuals living the life we deserve.

Inkless tattoos are experiences where we allow ourselves to endure pain with no true outcome. “True” here refers to an outcome filled with intention. For example, if I wanted to retire by 27, does staying in a 9-5 job & trading my limited time for money that grows slowly align with my intentions? No, it does not. What would align with my intentions is owning something that grows; this can look like building my personal brand & monetizing it or starting a passive income stream like an automated business.

I am no stranger to inkless tattoos either:

• I was working towards a professional qualification in accounting, a field I had no interest in pursuing [I dropped out].

• I was in an entry-level finance job [I finally quit it and changed fields].

• I let myself be surrounded by people with completely selfish motives [I don’t take up opportunities when I’m not aligned with the person’s attitude].

• I was in a stagnant role in a new field and told myself that at least I got to learn something [I quit it for something totally unknown to me].

• I worked from morning to past midnight for a company with a product I didn’t believe in, run by people with poor attitudes [I was laid off and it was the best thing that ever happened in my professional career].

• I was in a comfortable role but building someone else’s retirement plan [I started my business and am working towards building products full-time].

What’s important is recognizing these inkless tattoos because, a lot of the time, it’s not that we aren’t capable of making great changes in our lives, but that we get caught up with the day-to-day and fail to wake up from it. We end up pacifying our dreams in return for comfort (e.g. freedom/income/feelings) that is controlled by someone else (e.g. employer/social circle).

Entrepreneurship / Finance

Building a business sounds intimidating. You think of coming up with the product, getting and keeping the customers, and all the other admin stuff.

But most of those things aren’t immediately important. Just building something people want, and helping them be aware of it. Everything else is secondary.

So that’s what I’m doing with DIY Discord. My 2-prong approach: (1) It’s something I needed (which I’m sure many other people in this field need too because the information I needed to do what DIY Discord solves was so scattered), and (2) I need to work on raising awareness.

When people become aware of it, then prong #1 can improve (the product gets better when I get more customer feedback). The magic is that the product doesn’t have to be ready and that the final product will be way better than what I marketed during pre-sale because of the feedback loops. So in the coming weeks, I’m going to prove to you that you can make sales from just your idea, as inspired by fellow solopreneur Marc Lou’s latest newsletter issue (it’s great for aspiring & current solopreneurs, check it now!)

As always, consistency is key to finishing things that are worth the time. As Natalie (my partner) says, not every day is ideal for doing great things but we can always make room every day to accomplish at least 1 task that brings us closer to our broader goal. And that’s what I strive for each day.

Freedom

Freedom can look like scheduling a 25-minute call instead of 30 and using the extra 5 minutes to go on a walk (got this tip from Sahil Bloom). What I noticed during my travels is that some locals have lost sight of what’s beautiful in their cities and are mostly turned off by it entirely.

Try viewing your home in a new light, and you’ll soon discover there’s beauty tucked away somewhere. It could be as simple as ditching top 10 lists, walking without navigation, and entering a random cafe you stumble upon.

Free yourself from your old routines, and put that liberating feeling in a bottle as a reminder because we’re just getting started on building a better tomorrow :)

Homework

Wake up from the simulation you’re living in. Take a good look at your life, what inkless tattoos are you putting up with?

Being aware of them is the first step towards not wanting to tolerate that way of living any longer. Then comes action.

We often underestimate what our bodies and minds are capable of so don’t worry, you’ll survive this process of reaching your ideal life.

Till we meet again next week.

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

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