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 - Just 5 minutes
🔨 Tool - BetterfriendAI
🍿Consume - 4 Questions
📖Concept - Canvas Strategy

Latest Podcast Episode

This week's guest is Lottie Unwin.

Lottie is the founder of Up World, a community for start-up marketers, and Brand Hackers, a business providing fractional marketing teams for brands.

Lottie shares her journey of starting Up World and discusses the challenges and strategies she used to build and grow the community. She also delves into the concept of interesting people, the importance of rest, and the balance between work and rest in her life.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Starting her businesses
• Work-life balance
• Prioritization coaching
• Niche marketing
• Scaling
• Maintaining focus
And so much more

You can check out the episode here.

Perspective

Just 5 minutes

The trick to get started is to make it seem less scary.

And the easiest way to do that is to shorten the time commitment.

Most things don't take 5 minutes to complete. They normally take a lot longer.

But if you just commit to 5 minutes, you've done the hard part.

Most of the time you'll keep going.

The most successful people figured this out.

They've turned what most people struggle with into their superpower.

The more times you get started right away, and commit to 5 minutes, the easier it gets.

Before you know it, you've gone from idea to validating it in a weekend and everyone else is toying with the idea in their head.

You can see how this compounds over time.

If you've started, tested and realized an idea doesn't work multiple times, by the time it takes someone to get started, you'll be streaks ahead.

And you'll be a lot closer to the right idea.

It's all about reps and finding the easiest way to put the most in.

We all struggle with starting.

Just reframe it in a way that makes it easy for you.

Tool

BetterfriendAI

This tool segment is less about the actual tool and more about the story behind it.

Of course, it's a great idea, we all want to be better friends, remember previous conversations and keep in touch.

That's what this app does, but where the idea came from is more interesting.

The creator of this app is a young man from India.

He was listening to a podcast episode when a founder described her process of keeping in touch with friends.

She then went on to say that she wished that an app existed for this.

He heard this and got to work.

Once he finished he reached out to her and told her he had created her dream app.

And of course, she shared it with her followers.

These ideas are all around us. People with followings are always talking about their dream apps, but very few people take action and build them.

It's got marketing baked in.

If you do a good job, they will share it with their thousands of followers, giving you a lot more reach than if you created a random app.

This is a great lesson in working smart, not hard.

Consume (Read / Watch / Listen)

4 Questions

A lot of pain and discomfort comes from within.

What do I mean by this?

Well basically, a lot of the time, it’s all in our heads. We make up stories and persuade ourselves that people are feeling a certain way when we never know for sure.

This can cause us a lot of pain, suffering and anxiety.

This is Byron Katie’s bread and butter. If you haven’t checked out her site The Work, you should.

She came up with 4 questions to basically check yourself. To make sure your beliefs are valid and you’re not torturing yourself for no reason.

It involves asking four simple questions about each belief that causes us pain:

1. Is it true?

2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true?

3. How do you react when you believe that thought?

4. Who would you be without the thought?

Once you answer these questions you’re meant to come up with a “turnaround.” A sentence expressing the opposite of what you believe.

For example “He doesn’t understand me,” could become, “I don’t understand him,” or, “I don’t understand myself.”

By flipping it on its head it changes your perspective. It causes you to reflect and re-examine your truth.

Try it out. Let me know what you think.

Concept

Canvas Strategy

I don’t know if you’ve realized, but you have to create your own opportunity.

But the people who can offer the most opportunity are normally swamped in outreach and messaging.

And yet it is still the fastest way to leapfrog the competition and speed up the trajectory of your career.

So how do you successfully do it?

Well, the author Ryan Holiday, has a strategy and it’s called the Canvas Strategy, finding canvases for other people to paint on.

But what does he mean by this?

It basically means, to make other people look good by creating an easy-to-follow path for them. But the focus is on making people better in the process, not just looking like it.

He suggests 3 Key approaches:

1) Find new trains of thought to hand over for them to explore.

2) Find outlets, people, associations, and connections.

3) Find inefficiencies and waste and redundancies.

Using any one of these approaches shows that you’ve done your homework and you’re providing value. And if you get good at it, no one will turn you down.

You’re giving them an opportunity to explore their creativity in a way they might not be doing currently.

You’re illuminating the path and giving them the chance to join you on it.

It’s a way more proactive approach than asking, “how you can help?”

Help first.

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]

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