In for the Long Game

Hey guys!

It’s that time of the month, where I’ll share discoveries, lessons, and insights worth sharing.

What was the most challenging experience this month, and how did I overcome it?

June has been a particularly refreshing month with not so much stress. I’ve finally settled down at my new place which is awesome. So from a personal perspective, I haven't faced a challenging experience.

However, I’ve been battling with staying motivated and running this newsletter to be completely honest. In the beginning, I was like it’s not a big deal. I will manage this, and eventually pull it through.

It’s not growing as fast as I’d like it, and I’m trying to convince myself that I am in it for the long game. But you guys probably know the feeling. After a few weeks, you feel like you can do it, and all of a sudden it crashes.

I did write a tweet that my goal is to get around 100 subscribers. But I sometimes get insecure if I even can get there. I sometimes I’ve got a voice inside my head that says who do you think you are… like who would actually read what you have to say.

And then I start to compare myself with others who are way ahead of me. But then again, why am I comparing myself with people who have been doing their work for more years?

There’s a trick to how I overcome this challenge. What I sometimes do is that I look for YouTubers or content creators, and then I look at their first video or one of their oldest pieces of content.

Why, you might think? Because there’s no such thing as overnight success. It’s literally a fairy tale! And even if it did happen, well that’s probably because of their connections. But that’s a minority.

From MrWhoseTheBoss to Ali Abdaal to PewDiePie. Look at their first videos. They all sucked! But that’s okay. It’s a journey.

I do enjoy sending these issues out. I find it to be really enjoyable don’t get me wrong. And I hope you find something useful in them.

What has been the most enlightening lesson or insight I've learned this month?

I saw this interesting Ted Talk video on YouTube about body language by Stefan Verra. We all know how important body language is when meeting new people. With the right posture, we will look more confident to the other person. And with the wrong posture, we will look small and shy. You probably have heard of the “straight back, chin-up, and have eye contact” sentence.

What I love about what Stefan is talking about is when to have a straight, symmetrical posture vs a more relaxed, asymmetrical posture.

Imagine if you were always straight, and had a perfectly aligned posture with a not-so-smiling face. You would look really tense, and maybe a bit scary.

He talks about having a balance between a stable, symmetrical posture vs a relaxed, asymmetrical posture. When you want to state something very important message that should be remembered you do that with a stable posture. And when it’s less important you do that with a relaxed posture.

That was a lot of postures talk lol. But I urge you to see the video. It’s really insightful!

Was there a resource (book, article, podcast, video, etc.) that significantly impacted me this month, and why?

I was reading this book written by a Danish entrepreneur named Martin Thorborg. His book when translated is called ‘Create Your Own Success - Rules of Living That Can Take You Far’.

The book is packed with rules and principles that are a sum total of the experiences that he went through. He shares practical and funny life bits of advice on everything between responsibility and duties to challenges and dealing with negative people. This book will make you reflect on your own goals in life.

What’s amazing about Martin is that he has established over 40 companies, sold some of them, and made a lot of money. But he has also gone through a lot of struggles in life. Like getting kicked out of school, going bankrupt twice, and experiencing tremendous stress. He wasn’t particularly good at school, but that never stopped him from trying out different things in the real world. And also admire his humility. He’s not a person that boats about the money he makes.

Of course, he promotes as an entrepreneur the opportunity to make a lot of money, but it requires a lot of dedication, hard work, humility, resilience, and being kind to people.

Here are some of my favorite parts from the book:

"Make sure to fill your life with exciting challenges, otherwise your life will be about irrelevant and uninteresting tasks."

“Set aside some time each day to learn new things. It will quickly become a pleasant habit, which will make you a more exciting boyfriend, a funnier friend, and probably also richer in money and experiences.”

"All major decisions require courage and discomfort."

"Be good at celebrating your victories."

"If you don't take care of yourself, love yourself, and be proud of who you are, you will never find the energy to be something for your children, parents, friends, and others you value."

"Thank you is a very powerful word and costs nothing."

“Your success pisses off a lot of people. It makes people aware of their own laziness and stupidity.”

"Trying to get 20 percent better at something you're bad at doesn't make you good. But getting 20 percent better at something you're good at makes a huge difference."

"There is nothing wrong with setting yourself high goals. It is inspiring and gives energy.”

“There are no easy solutions. Comfortable diets, quick success, easy money and the like do not exist. The long, tough haul is what it is.”

What am I looking forward to in the upcoming month?

I mentioned in my May reflection issue about reading two books and I did manage to read one of them - Martin Thorborg's book, which I talked about above. The other book written by Dr. Grace Lordan is Think BIG. Unfourtnaly I haven’t started reading it yet. Gotta be honest my reading habit hasn’t been the best. I’m really slow. But hopefully, I can pick up the pace.

The next thing I’m looking forward is to getting this newsletter really going. As I mentioned above, my goal is to reach 100 subscribers. So if you’re following me on Twitter, you’ll see a lot of it going forward. Still have a lot to learn. If you know any course or people worth following and learning from when it comes to newsletters, please let me know.

I’ve also started focusing on selling digital products on Gumroad. Currently, I’ve two out there - Seamless pattern collection and project folder structure for creatives. So, I’m planning on selling more guidelines, templates, and collections. I don’t know why I didn’t do it before. I guess I experienced the imposter syndrome lol.

What about you?

If you want to, I’d encourage you to also take these questions and reflect on them. I’d love to hear your insights or what valuable resource impacted you. And also what are you looking forward to in the upcoming month?

---

Quote of the month

Creativity is a choice, it’s not a bolt of lightning from somewhere else.
— Seth Godin'

---

Until next time,

Stay inspired!

Sharmarke