June 17th, 2023: Greetings from Austin. It’s toasty here, hitting 100 most of this past week, but I haven’t found it too bad. It feels pretty similar to Taipei summers. + I joined Khe Hy on his newly launched “Rad Friends” podcast and talked about our relationship with work for an hour. It was a pretty personal conversation for both of us. You can
Thanks for this post and digging deeper into the goal setting for yourself. I am going to share this example w the teenagers I help with motivation and building habits. Because having various levels of goals and your own defined measurement of success is the key here. I love the dedicated time to ‘be a little bolder than I am’ as a great mindset shift to make the impossible become possible. 🙌
Congratulations on putting a bit more "faith" into your abilities and what you have to say and share.
I admit that I found that quite hard myself, despite years of experience and plenty of education behind myself.
Thus, big kudos!
And here my lofty goal:
Within the next 12 months, I am looking to get 100 people to an all-day health, wellbeing and performance workshop - offline, in a real room in New Zealand somewhere.
Good take Paul! Between dying at the altar of goal pressure/mimetic behavior and not optimizing our potential is a spectrum. I feel you can be quite justified in reaching out and doing more win-win proposals with other creators because you have an audience and your message was early and resonates!
I like your point of setting BHAGs that are fun for others to follow and cheer along, and even support you on.
A couple things you got me wondering about:
1. What if you hired a publicist/growth marketer to compensate for your disinclination to self-promote?
2. What if you reframed it? Think of the people who've told you you've changed their lives for the better with your content. Then think of all the others who would similarly benefit if only they knew you existed. Maybe that can add to your motivation? Or maybe you could go the other way and think of your "nemesises"—the sleazes who push "secrets" to success on the popular path. Knowing how they tend to self-promote the crap out of themselves, may be motivation to fight fire with fire.
Or maybe just chill. I dunno. As a fellow new dad, I find it helps to ask myself, "What would I want my kid to do in my situation?"
Really loved this and resonate with your pace/approach to work. I, too, sometimes have seasons of enjoying being bolder and doing more audacious outreach so the idea of an "ambitious afternoon" resonates a lot. Feel like this would give me even more permission to go at my own pace most of the time, knowing that I have built-in moments for going back to the drawing board and 10x-ing my goals when it feels good. Thanks for this share!
This is such a thoughtful meditation on sharing your work, a topic I've been thinking about a lot. I've decided to share a bit more recently, with the intention of expanding my comfort zone and giving myself the opportunity to make more connections with more people.
But what's funny is that your past decisions to share less, and someone else's decision to share more (I loved Michelle Varghoose's recent piece "How To Grow A Following Without Compromising Everything Good In Your Life"), can be equally in alignment. And what's in alignment for any one person can change over time. Which is why I'm glad to read different perspectives on this topic from smart people!
The challenge will be to learn whether you’re facing self-sabotage, or whether it’s a healthy desire for a simple life. We struggle with self-limiting beliefs, but at the same time, fame is a dangerous drug
I really resonate with the last statement here. Reading this post, there’s an obvious tension here between setting audacious goals on one hand, and not putting yourself on a too-regimented track on the other.
It seems like it’s leaning into the latter that’s gotten you here, but you have something that’s resonated with a lot of people now and probably that would benefit from some more audacious goals.
Really respect the way you’re trying to hold that tension though. It’s a really compelling way to think of this.
Love this post, Paul! I relate to a lot of it... around big goals. People have been asking me about my big goals too. And so far, I haven't really had any haha. I have just been enjoying the process and grateful for the great things that have organically come from doing creative work for 4+ years.
Maybe I am missing something! Going to listen to your podcast with Danny to hear and learn more! Thanks!
I think it’s worth challenging ourselves to think of them - pragmatically I do need to earn enough to cover our cost of living - but I think you are like me of having a goal of intentional life over the long term. Which is a goal but just not legible to others. I have been persuaded by some that having some goals can be a cool way to let others root for you.
Thanks for this post and digging deeper into the goal setting for yourself. I am going to share this example w the teenagers I help with motivation and building habits. Because having various levels of goals and your own defined measurement of success is the key here. I love the dedicated time to ‘be a little bolder than I am’ as a great mindset shift to make the impossible become possible. 🙌
Congratulations on putting a bit more "faith" into your abilities and what you have to say and share.
I admit that I found that quite hard myself, despite years of experience and plenty of education behind myself.
Thus, big kudos!
And here my lofty goal:
Within the next 12 months, I am looking to get 100 people to an all-day health, wellbeing and performance workshop - offline, in a real room in New Zealand somewhere.
hell yeah! i wanna come to NZ now haha
Good take Paul! Between dying at the altar of goal pressure/mimetic behavior and not optimizing our potential is a spectrum. I feel you can be quite justified in reaching out and doing more win-win proposals with other creators because you have an audience and your message was early and resonates!
I like your point of setting BHAGs that are fun for others to follow and cheer along, and even support you on.
A couple things you got me wondering about:
1. What if you hired a publicist/growth marketer to compensate for your disinclination to self-promote?
2. What if you reframed it? Think of the people who've told you you've changed their lives for the better with your content. Then think of all the others who would similarly benefit if only they knew you existed. Maybe that can add to your motivation? Or maybe you could go the other way and think of your "nemesises"—the sleazes who push "secrets" to success on the popular path. Knowing how they tend to self-promote the crap out of themselves, may be motivation to fight fire with fire.
Or maybe just chill. I dunno. As a fellow new dad, I find it helps to ask myself, "What would I want my kid to do in my situation?"
LOVE the idea of thinking about giving advice to my daughter. I think I would probably be screaming about what she created to the world 😂
I am definitely not a fire with fire person - I think that's a race to the bottom and rather go broke than play that game.
I think I get excited by doing new and fun things, might try to keep leaning in that direction
Nice
Double nice
Really loved this and resonate with your pace/approach to work. I, too, sometimes have seasons of enjoying being bolder and doing more audacious outreach so the idea of an "ambitious afternoon" resonates a lot. Feel like this would give me even more permission to go at my own pace most of the time, knowing that I have built-in moments for going back to the drawing board and 10x-ing my goals when it feels good. Thanks for this share!
This is such a thoughtful meditation on sharing your work, a topic I've been thinking about a lot. I've decided to share a bit more recently, with the intention of expanding my comfort zone and giving myself the opportunity to make more connections with more people.
But what's funny is that your past decisions to share less, and someone else's decision to share more (I loved Michelle Varghoose's recent piece "How To Grow A Following Without Compromising Everything Good In Your Life"), can be equally in alignment. And what's in alignment for any one person can change over time. Which is why I'm glad to read different perspectives on this topic from smart people!
The challenge will be to learn whether you’re facing self-sabotage, or whether it’s a healthy desire for a simple life. We struggle with self-limiting beliefs, but at the same time, fame is a dangerous drug
Totally. I think the balance will always feel weird. If I’m too confident about any direction that’s probably a bad sign.
I really resonate with the last statement here. Reading this post, there’s an obvious tension here between setting audacious goals on one hand, and not putting yourself on a too-regimented track on the other.
It seems like it’s leaning into the latter that’s gotten you here, but you have something that’s resonated with a lot of people now and probably that would benefit from some more audacious goals.
Really respect the way you’re trying to hold that tension though. It’s a really compelling way to think of this.
Love this post, Paul! I relate to a lot of it... around big goals. People have been asking me about my big goals too. And so far, I haven't really had any haha. I have just been enjoying the process and grateful for the great things that have organically come from doing creative work for 4+ years.
Maybe I am missing something! Going to listen to your podcast with Danny to hear and learn more! Thanks!
I think it’s worth challenging ourselves to think of them - pragmatically I do need to earn enough to cover our cost of living - but I think you are like me of having a goal of intentional life over the long term. Which is a goal but just not legible to others. I have been persuaded by some that having some goals can be a cool way to let others root for you.
Thanks for the follow-up, Paul!