I was not a fan of "Zen" as it tried hard to sound intelligent without saying much. Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Murakami was a disappointment as well. Mystical realism is an often imitated genre done well by only a few.
Find a good CrossFit gym. Nothing compares as a metabolic workout. CrossFit is constantly varied functional movements performed at high intensity.
You workout alongside others, which is an incredible hack to keep you going. Typically there is a focus on weight lifting and then some kind of Workout of the Day (WOD). As a result, you will get stronger than any runner and you will have greater endurance than any weightlifter. Like all fitness, consistency is key. I found the more I worked out, the more I wanted to eat healthier. I also got better sleep.
Crossfit has a reputation as unsafe, but I find that as long as you know your limits and learn the fundamentals, you'll be find. All gyms worth their salt have coaches that should enforce good technique. Half the battle is just getting to a gym.
Carlin's hilarious, but it's all an act. Everyone in show business knows that and it's not something to base your life on. If you can find a better way to live, Jesus would be the first person to tell you to go for it. Jordan Peterson did a great series of Biblical lectures you can listen to them on YouTube or Podcast. They were incredible.
Try again, and then again - the layers of meaning in the Bible are profound if you have the intellect to dive into them. It's brilliant in addressing different problems at different stages of life and ultimately about consciousness and something beyond. I'm not advocating it as a belief, just try trusting it and not setting up a straw man. Read "the divine conspiracy" by Dallas Willard or 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson.
I almost feel bad for this guy. I believe he deserves everything he's got coming his way, good or bad. It's a repulsive and idiotic article written by someone who is naive, arrogant and presumptive on life and how to make it in the world.
I do admire the hustle and ingenuity, but what is ambition but a form of love and hope? The entire article had a meticulously cynical view on business and his customers. I think the idea of responsibility is shocking to the author, who obviously has never experienced something meaningful. He's a fraud and he knows it.
Humans find meaning by helping other humans. The article is perverse and I really wish the author go back to wherever trash hole he came from. The western world does not need this kind of parasitic thinking.
Ambition is a form of hope. By definition, you have to be an optimist to start anything. So it's important to counter this with a healthy sense of realism because the truth of the matter is that calling it "difficult" is an understatement.
Know your business model.
Know how many steps it takes for you to monetize anything.
Know your audience.
I would also say it's important to find good advisors. A good accountant/CPA is very important and it may be worthwhile to meet with a good lawyer. We created CEA (certified entrepreneurship advisor - https://ceanow.org) after seeing how much good advice is so needed and have courses on business planning and entrepreneurship.
Although we haven't hit the $1K/mo just yet, we're getting close. Perhaps overly ambitiously, we started https://ceanow.org - we saw a need with the bad advice that was given to startups and wanted to educate the "advice-givers." Our audience is primarily accountants and lawyers. It's a SaaS model in education and there's been a lot of interest. The big problem is the time bandwidth.
Hi Wes,
I would very much be interested in the case study of what you did for marketing of the book. What did you do? How did you go about it after you wrote the book?