Reflections, projections and gratitude expressions
A long-winded thanks and a snapshot of what's to come
Ahh the deadzone between Christmas and New Years Eve. I don’t know about you, but this is definitely one of my favourite times of the year.
There is nothing happening, everything is closed, the weather is depressing (at least in Germany), the streets are calm and quiet. The extent to which life is demanding things from me rounds down to an all-year low. So, what better time than to reflect on the year that was, and to dial in what I’m looking to accomplish for 2024?
For those that’ve been following along for a while, you’ve no doubt come to the realisation that I’m a planner. I don’t share all my plans here because it would be an onslaught of ‘and then I want to do this, and this, and that as well’ and very little heart, which I’m confident is the reason most of you are here.
But at this time, it’s nice to make a gentle split. I began my day by going through my 2023 calendar and reviewing everything that I did. At the beginning of the year, I wrote on my day planner ‘The year of meticulous record-keeping’ and this has turned out to be an understatement.
Reflections
Every day of the calendar year has a note made, recording my practice for the mind/body/spirit involved for that day. Meditation, yoga, chi gung, Wim Hof breathing, kung fu, bouldering, gym, running, swimming, intense bouts of walking or bicycling, anything beyond the realm of ‘standard operating procedure’ I made a note of.
I wanted to compile this into a spreadsheet, and got halfway, before I realised that I don’t care about the numbers all that much. It was a more about showing to myself that I get it done, day in day out, and that helps fight good old impostor syndrome.
Based on these notes, I average a little over two hours’ worth of practice per day. For those of you that practice nothing, this is an insane amount, but for those of you who have strong and regular practices I guess this is about normal. For me, though, I tend to aim at such an insane level that I see two hours a day worth of such work as ‘not enough’.
This is absurd, insane, and what we in the industry call a ‘self-limiting belief’.
It goes like this: ‘yeah, BUT there are people out there doing four, six, even eight hours a day! Who am I to share what I know? I’m completely underqualified!’. The outcome is that my ego rests comfortably in a bubble of safety, certainty, and is never challenged, tested, or brought to see another point of view.
This is a safety mechanism we all have, it’s simply a question of whether we see that it’s in operation and, once identified, whether we can figure out how to flip the override switch and take ourselves into that edge zone where growth happens.
So, that’s what was taking place this year. I’ve spent the last 365 days collecting irrefutable evidence (for me) that, even if there are people out there doing more, that I am also doing a lot, and I’m doing it my own way. And I am a stubborn prick when it comes to doing things in my own way, because I think that it speaks to the very nature of humans to do things their own way.
The fun part is when you realise that ‘you’ don’t exist and ‘your own way’ is simply a reflection of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, or experienced being reproduced through you. But that’s who you are, in some weird way. You are the sum total of everything that brought you to this moment, PLUS whatever happened before our internal computer was able to form rational calculations. Even in the womb we were getting information.
Aside from recording all that I did, I learnt a lot about surrendering to community intelligence, setting ego aside, and facing up to this huge insecurity that my ego will suffer if I let other people influence what I am doing. One day the light flicked on, and I realised that everything I’m doing in life is a result of people I’ve met, things I’ve heard, seen, or done, and others are at the foundation of so much of it, that the line between me and everyone else is totally non-existent.
I also went balls deep into learning about marketing. It’s totally NOT my favourite thing but I learn fast, it’s pretty intuitive and logical, and being someone who likes to do as much myself as possible, it makes sense to have a strong understanding of it before I jump into the next part of the journey.
And that’s what I’m here to expand on.
I realised that it’s time to make a giant leap of faith and open up my inner world more, which is in a weird way, a reflection of your inner world, so that’s what 2024 is going to be about. I’m not going to go too in-depth into my plans, but I’ll tell you at a high-level what it’s all about.
Projections
Sub stack
I love it here. The ability to write longform, send it to your emails, and get a reply every once in a while, is just so nice that I see this as my primary base of operations. But I want to change it. And there’s three reasons for this.
The first one is selfish: I don’t like sitting at my computer all day. I quit working in the office for this reason (amongst others), and although I don’t have so much time at my computer now, the idea of expanding my ‘office time’ goes against my desire to improve my health. So, rather than going back to writing a post every week (give or take), I’m going to stick with the New Moon/Full Moon posting rhythm. Unless something urgent comes up.
The second one is professional: I like to think of myself as a creative mastermind that never needs to edit his work. Ever. But this year I put together a gigantic piece and watched myself add layer upon layer as a form of distraction, and I realised what was really going on was that I was not skilled at editing my own work. This is partly because I never go into these posts with a clear thing to talk about, and partly because I like the idea that people see the raw process, the guts of the thing itself, rather than the polished product. But it’s time to take it to the next level.
The third one is creative: As I’ve spent the last year building up a database to confirm that ‘yes Nick, you are good enough to speak in public about these things, and now you have no excuses left’, I’ve also been neglecting my creative writing, and writing more generally. So, I will be introducing a paid tier into this Substack where I will be uploading collections of all that I’ve written (in handwritten form – more on this below), once a week.
By adding this structure of New Moon/Full Month posts for free subscribers, and weekly collections of musings for paid subscribers, I invite enough space into my writing world to go into this editing process more seriously. It’s going to be like pulling teeth for me, but perhaps it’ll give you the reader a smoother experience. And I think you’re worth that much.
WHAT I WOULD LIKE FROM ALL OF YOU:
I don’t want to run around in public banging a drum, trying to get people to hear about me, and I am stubborn as fuck when it comes to advertising. Aside from the heart stuff, I’m pretty sure this forms another part of the reason you’re all here.
I believe in organic growth, and I mean GENUINE organic growth, not writing blog pieces aimed to rank for SEO or comparing home page keywords to get me to the top of the list (humblebrag about all my marketing knowledge), I mean growth that occurs out of that which I am creating.
With this belief, however, the only thing I can rely on to act as the fertiliser for this organic growth is word of mouth, and community engagement. So, I ask you all to every once in a while, think about whether you know someone that might like what I’m doing, and flick them a post so that they may also subscribe.
If you’re feeling really adventurous, you can sign up to the paid tier that I’ll be announcing in the next post very soon. If you’re feeling downright wild, you can go for the ‘founding member’ subscription and get a copy of the book I wrote last year. Talk about a powerful way to close out 2023.
The intention is that, assuming it flows well, and community engagement is nice and strong, after a year I should have enough material to publish a book of short stories. I used to write stories pretty often, but my focuses have shifted over the years, and it’s the time to bring it back. But as I mentioned, I don’t like spending all my time typing so I’ve found a great solution, which leads me into my next section.
reMarkable 2
For those unfamiliar with the reMarkable 2, it’s ridiculous. (Its price is also ridiculous, but they have a very nice sales process if that’s your sort of thing) It’s an e-reader and writer that is as close to the feeling of writing on paper that I’ve seen. Not only that, but it has a ‘convert to text’ function that, at least with my handwriting, is about 95% accurate.
This tool is at the centre of my new approach to writing. Perhaps with the exception of the New Moon and Full Moon posts, I expect that most of my work will be done on the reMarkable. The reason for this is that the creative juices seem to be that much more CREATIVE when they come through the hand onto the page, even if it’s an e-page.
I am more productive when I use the laptop, but productivity is the key for business and not what I’m interested in seeing thrive. I want creativity to be at the heart of things because this focus on productivity is what I feel to be killing the enjoyment of life.
Plus, it might inspire someone out there to pick up a pen and put down their laptop, and that sort of thing is the biggest win that I can ever imagine these days! Even if its an e-pen.
Social media
I am a late adopter, and with good reason. But the time is now. This year, I will be putting myself into the public sphere more and more through all the mainstream social media channels. Substack is my home base, and I intend to keep it this way. I need to do a little research, but I’ve the feeling that I’ll make Patreon my second base.
Youtube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (shut up, I’ll never not call it that), and Facebook will be where I drip-feed bits of information for those relevant audiences.
I don’t like the community engagement on those platforms, I don’t like the ownership structures, and I don’t like the advertising models that have ensured that they’re arguably rich boy propaganda machines (Twitter) or government mouthpieces (Meta). I am, however, also learning to smell my own bullshit and this is another procrastination tool that I’ve been utilising to keep me away from stepping into my strength.
So, points of dissatisfaction be damned, I’m going to use them in the method that I see appropriate to me and will see how it goes. I will be checking in with you to keep me honest. The last thing I want is to drift into content creation for the purposes of finding followers, getting likes, and so on, so I ask you all to keep me honest.
When you think I’m sounding a little bit too much like every other mouthpiece of Silicon Valley, I expect you to cyber-kick me in the junk and bring me back to my centre.
Coaching
This is the big, exciting, and terrifying one, but it’s also the one that makes the absolute most sense to me.
I’ve been building programs, putting together structures, sharing them with friends, family, and clients consistently over the years but I’ve never had to balls to do it in public. In 2024, all that’s going to change.
The offer isn’t finalised and polished yet, but I see the structure of it crystal clear, and I expect that this will start around April. I’m yet to find a coach title that doesn’t make me want to vomit, but ‘Empowerment coach’ sounded the least disgusting to date. Writing it now still makes me cringe though, I’ll come up with a better title for it in the coming months.
WHAT I AM OFFERING THOSE OF YOU ON SUBSTACK:
I need a few lab-rats to test the structures that I’ll be using, and putting together a case study or two would be excellent as well. Given that many of you have been following along for over a year now, it’s only fair that I float this to you first.
So, the first 3 people that reach out will be offered the coaching program at 75% off. I still haven’t picked my final pricing point yet, but it’ll be sorted soon and before any commitments are made everything will be discussed in-depth!
We will go through all the structures, routines, habits, practices, relationships in your life, and will aim to bring a fresh perspective to them. The intention is to develop a better relationship with change, so that you can embrace it and allow it to work its magic – because change is constant, and it is unbelievably powerful.
Wrapping up, the post and the year
Well, if I didn’t close out the year in true Nick fashion with an unreasonably long post, I’d have let you all down!
35 published posts this year, this one will make it 36, and over 3,000 views. And all of this with 100% organic growth. Which, up to this point, really means people I meet in person are on this Substack, with a few exceptions that have cropped up as it has grown naturally.
The Christmas gratitude is overflowing, and here is where the Cancer Full Moon emotional energy starts to let itself be known. This Substack has been such an important part of my life to this point, and I am so grateful to each and every one of you that has taken the time out of your day to see what’s going on in my world. I hope there has been enough value in these posts that you’ve felt the exchange has been fair.
To those of you who have reached out with encouragement, enthusiasm, support, and questions, my gratitude is double! Writing this and seeing numbers on a screen refresh and update is about as meaningful as going to work every day and seeing the numbers in your bank account change, which is to say not very. But every email, every comment, every personal interaction has made me feel seen, and has inspired me to continue with this.
It’s been a funny little journey throughout the last years of my life, but since starting this Substack I really feel I have a grounding point, an anchor to which I happily return, time and time again. Every time someone swims over to that anchor and says, ‘hey man, nice work’, it’s like a universal thumbs up. And by now you’re certainly aware of how much I love me a good universal thumbs up.
So, one last time. Thank you all. Big things have been happening in the world, and in my life, and I am certain that these have been reflected in the individual lives of each and every one of you. A deeply heartfelt thanks that you choose to share these little moments of your time and energy with me by increasing the number of views by one, every time you click on these emails.
Here’s to a beautiful wrap-up of 2023, and a powerful start to 2024. I wish you all the very best, and I hope that the end of year reflections make you feel inspired to move into those new year projections with momentum.
Much love to you all, and I’ll see you all in the new year.
P.S There will be another post soon to come, introducing this new idea regarding the paid Substack. I apologise for hitting you twice in rapid succession but sometimes that’s how it’s gotta be! Stay real <3
P.P.S In keeping up with the spirit of recording all that I did this year, I wanted to make a ‘year in summary’ list of the books that I’ve read, so here goes!
English:
Dreyer’s English – Benjamin Dreyer
The Name of the Wind – Patrick Rothfuss
The Once and Future King – T.H. White
The Gunslinger – Stephen King
The Love Secret – Sue Johnson
The Art of Meditation – Matthew Ricaud
Hold Me Tight- Sue Johnson
Astrology for Beginners – Yasmin Boland
The Girl in the Mirror – Rose Carlyle
Glue – Irvine Welsh
Noise – Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, Cass R. Sunstein
A Widow for One Year – John Irving
Fooled by Randomness – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Visit From The Goon Squad – Jennifer Egan
The Fourth Hand – John Irving
The Path of Least Resistance – Robert Fritz
Internal Elixir – Robert Coons
Blockade Billy – Stephen King
Route 81 – Stephen King
Elevation – Stephen King
The Colorado Kid – Stephen King
Cycle of the Werewolf – Stephen King
German:
How To Be Good – Nick Hornby
The Celestine Prophecy – James Redfield
Unconditionally Free – Jiddu Krishnamurti
The Great Hunt (Book 2, Wheel of Time) – Robert Jordan
The Dragon Reborn (Book 3, Wheel of Time) – Robert Jordan
The Shadow Rising (Book 4, Wheel of Time) – Robert Jordan
The Fires of Heaven (Book 5, Wheel of Time) – Robert Jordan
Lord of Chaos (Book 6, Wheel of Time) – Robert Jordan