Another Excuse Newsletter

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

What to expect this week:
👓Perspective - Baby steps
🔨 Tool - Simplified
🍿Consume - Kagi Stats
📖Concept - Willpower Depletion

Latest Podcast Episode

This week’s guest is Jean-Francois Lappas.

Jean-Francois is the co-founder of wabya, a platform that connects you with the right coach. They aim to bring self-realisation through coaching to 1 billion people by 2023.

In the episode, we discuss:

• How wabya started
• The meaning behind the name
• What self-realisation means
• Dealing with burnout
• The impact coaching can have
• The hurdles they've overcome
And so much more...

You can check out the episode here.

Perspective

Baby Steps

Most of us struggle with thinking long term.

I've heard many people say this:

If you write one page a day for a year, you would have written a book.

Quite a few first time authors have approached their writing this way.

One page isn't a lot.

In a day, that's setting aside, an hour, maybe even half an hour.

And I'm sure you'll get faster as you go.

But the point is, that writing a book is daunting.

If someone decides to do it, it may take a while to actually start.

But if you just plan to write one page a day and give yourself a year, you'll have a book.

This obviously doesn’t only apply to writing.

It applies to everything we do.

Small, simple, approachable steps can have a huge outcome.

But we focus on the outcome, which lets fear and doubt creep in.

If you focus on the small steps to get there, you'll suddenly look up and you will have arrived.

So apply this to the big thing you're thinking about starting.

Break it down into one page a day.

And don't look up until you've done it for a year.

Tool

Simplified

We’re going to see tools like this show up more often.

It’s become pretty easy to spin up an AI tool and so the market is flooded with them.

I’m not saying I find it easy, but the barrier to entry is relatively low.

So, now instead of building tools to solve a particular use, people are building suites of tools for a particular customer.

Which makes sense.

I mean it’s tough to distinguish your tool if you’re the hundredth company to help someone write marketing copy.

But if you create a suite of tools that target social media managers, and one of them is for marketing copy, you’re back in business.

A tool that solves a problem isn’t convenient enough for people.

They need to go to one place to have all of their problems solved.

That’s what Simplified is trying to do.

Although I think they might still be going after too many verticals, they have tools for Graphic Design, writing, video and social media.

Like I said, the aim is to solve all of your problems. A one-stop shop.

I still feel like they need to add some features to each vertical to complete someone’s workflow.

But this is only the beginning of platforms like this.

AI is going to increase the output of those who use it.

Giving them an advantage.

Consume (Read / Watch / Listen)

Kagi Stats

Have you had problems with Google lately?

Many people are complaining about the ridiculous amount of ads.

For some search terms, you have to scroll through so many sponsored results just to get to an organic one.

That wasn't the original purpose of Google and when Google started, Sergey and Larry said that this would be the wrong way for search to go.

But here we are.

So other search engines are starting to spin up with subscription models and other ways to monetize that aren’t skewing your search results.

One of them is Kagi.

And this isn't a tool section because I'm not focusing on the product.

I mean, a search engine is a search engine and all they do differently is subscriptions rather than ads.

But I wanted to point you guys to their stats page.

It's fascinating to see what sort of growth a Google competitor gets.

What the most common search terms are and how people use it.

The stats page is free to look at because the founder is building in public, which I love.

So, if you'd like some insights into a small Google competitor check it out.

Concept

Willpower Depletion

The concept of willpower depletion is pretty straightforward.

The idea is that we have limited reserves of willpower and once depleted we give in to the many things we try to refrain from.

Think about that tub of ice cream late at night.

Earlier on in the day you would have said, “Hell no! I’m on a diet!”

And yet there you are, on the couch, eating ice cream at 11 PM.

The concept dates back to the 60’s when Dr. Walter Mischel experimented.

I’m sure you’ve come across the marshmallow test.

If not, it’s when children are put in a room alone with one marshmallow and if they are able to wait until the adult gets back, they get another marshmallow.

Most children couldn’t wait and ate the marshmallow.

Mischel found a correlation between willpower and success: children with a greater ability to “defer gratification” were more successful.

So overriding your instincts and delaying gratification can lead to bigger rewards over time.

It’s important to be aware of willpower being a finite resource.

Knowing this can save you from yourself, so when your willpower is depleted you aren’t giving in and slipping up on the things you're trying to improve.

I wanted to write about this to make everyone aware.

You’re not failing, it’s normal to slip up.

But knowing that it’s easier to slip up at the end of the day should enable you to make better decisions at the beginning of the day to prevent that.

Thanks for Reading

Now start something!

P.S. Feedback is welcome and needed! If you’d prefer to send me an email and not respond, you can do so here: [email protected]

Check out my socials below 👇