Another Excuse Newsletter

Welcome to the first edition of the Another Excuse Newsletter, the newsletter that isn’t just another excuse, but a reason to start that thing you’ve been putting off.

Together we’re going to explore useful tools, tricks and perspectives to prevent you from signing up for even more newsletters and starting that project or business you know you should have started ages ago.

How we got here

I’ve been toying with the idea (one of many) of a newsletter for a while now. But like most of them, it almost faded away to become yet another idea I spoke excitedly to some people about, did nothing about it, and carried on with my life. Making me a little more annoyed with myself than with the previous idea.

It got to the point where I knew I had to do something and was stuck in a state of analysis paralysis. I knew, after consuming copious amounts of content about starting a project or a business, it always boils down to one simple thing: JUST START.

So, this is my way of holding myself accountable and just starting. I even put off just starting this, but better late than never. Now I have a weekly obligation to get this out and hopefully motivate some people to start along the way.

The Actual Newsletter

Perspective

Anxiety is good for us.

According to Dr. Tracy Dennis-Tiwary anxiety is the crown jewel of evolution and our emotions have evolved to give us information and preparation.

We have to feel a bit off to have nervous apprehension about the uncertain future. That’s what prepares us for uncertainty. When we are anxious, we are in that space of where we are now and where we want to be and it prepares us to either revert to disaster or make our dreams and hopes come true.

It’s different to fear because clear and certain danger causes fear. Where anxiety is about uncertainty. That uncertainty causes us to prepare as much as we can to limit that uncertainty. There has to be a chance of a positive outcome or else we’d give up.

I suffer from bad anxiety at times and this mental framing has helped me take an approach of preparation rather than one of helplessness. It’s a work in progress, but we’re getting there.

Dr. Dennis-Tiwary has a great discussion with Simon Sinek about how we can turn that anxiety into a positive emotion and use it to our advantage.

You can check it out here.

Tool

Notion is a tool I’ve been using for years now. After doing a deep dive, I realized it has capabilities I never even knew it had.

What is Notion?

I'm sure many of you have come across Notion, but for those that haven't - it's an application that enables you to think, write and plan in any way you like. It has a modular interface that makes it easy to link multiple pages and create databases. You can use it to plan and organise ideas, manage projects or run an entire company. The possibilities are endless.

I first started using Notion to track the books I was reading, categorizing them, ranking them and making notes on which parts resonated with me.

Now I'm using it to create systems for this newsletter, to stay on track, plan, and generate ideas.

The Notion template industry is huge because they can be shared and duplicated, which means they can be monetized. If you've created a system and workspace that works for you, odds are it will work for others. So why not sell it?

I’ve put together a hub of all the best templates I could find and rolled them into one. There’s no need to use all of them, but I’m sure you’ll find something for yourself.

You can grab that here.

I’m working on one at the moment and will share it at a later date.

Consume (Read / Watch / Listen)

A great book to get you started is The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. It discusses all the different ways we get in our way and how we never start on the things we want to start on. After reading it years ago, it’s always been in the back of my mind. It makes it clearer when I’m not acting when I know I should.

He’s labelled this feeling the resistance, and he discusses the different ways to overcome it. But the crux of it is… you guessed it!

STARTING! and not stopping, showing up day in and day out.

Anyway, I wrote a blog post on it over 3 years ago (excuse the writing) if you’d like to check it out instead of reading the whole book.

It is a very short book, though, and this newsletter is about starting and eventually finishing things. So read the damn thing!

Concept

Bank Run: A bank run is when many customers of the same bank decide to withdraw all of their money at the same time because they are worried that the bank doesn’t have enough liquid reserves to cover all withdrawals. As more people withdraw their money, the likelihood hood of the bank not being able to give everyone their money back increases and the situation gets worse. This can create general scepticism and spread to more banks.

This is what happened to Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) a few weeks ago. Simply put, they purchased long-term government bonds at a low-interest rate because the FED promised they would keep interest rates low. That didn’t happen and with a spike in interest rates, the market value of the long-term bonds decreased because bonds now yield a higher interest rate.

So, SVB would still get a 1% return on their bonds in 10 years, but everyone wanted their money now. They had to sell them for less to pay everyone out. This sparked more panic, and the cards began to fall.

The government had to step in and stop the bleeding before it got even worse.

There’s a lot more to this and along with many debates about the causes and solutions. People are discussing FDIC Insurance issues, the FED causing more inflation, the current issues with the banking system and the possible repercussions of it all.

I’m not trying to be an alarmist, but the news has underplayed the situation and I suggest you check it out.

Here are two great podcasts that discuss the situation in detail. One is pretty realistic, and the other is extremely negative.

Thanks for Reading

See you next week
(It won’t be as long)

P.S any and all feedback is welcome, so let me know what you think by replying to this email. 😘 Thanks