Been thinking a lot about finding my niche recently.
I purposely write a lot about lifestyle design for freelancers because this was my background.
Freelancing was my entry point and the ticket that funded and enabled my experiments in lifestyle design.
It has given me the agency over my own time, and financial stability to run these experiments
But more and more I find find I want to write about my other interests.
Although I primarily write about systems to run a design agency,
The stuff that I find truly interesting
Is stoicism, meditation, lifestyle design, counteracting common culture, societal conformity and mindset shifts.
All of these things in service of a greater goal:
A fulfilling life
So why is it so few people actually write about this topic?
Guru preaching about making money?
They want more money so they can reach their lifestyle.
Manifesters?
They want the life of their dreams.
Productivity experts?
The want less time and stress.
Almost all topics, niches and content crestors are downstream from this topic of happiness.
Talking about money, productivity, and hacks is sexier,
Yet all are downstream of lifestyle.
Growth will be slower.
My audience will be smaller.
But I’ll continue writing about lifestyle design for freelancers,
because that’s the route to lasting happiness
From time to time, we all resent & covet the luxuries of the ultra rich.
They are paraded in front of us in an endless feed of FOMO and envy-scrolling, in a bid to capture our attention and monetize our emotional currency.
But it makes me sad to think that the luxuries of my son’s generation will not be…
The the new “unaffordable luxuries” will be:
When you start thinking of these things as the “ultra luxuries” how would you rank your wealth now?
The current state of AI and the creative job marketing has me thinking this a lot.
(parts of ) My job may be obsolete in about 5 years
The bottom end of the market will fall out and only the established experts will continue to earn
I know they’ll have a lot of learning to do.
The future will belong to those that can wrangle AI better than others,
and that can combine multiple skills into one package which sells
As someone who spent most of their life playing learning, creating selling and exploring in an online virtual environment,
I’m particularly worried about adaption.
I know I have a lot of cross-transferable skills
I know I can pick up new skills easily.
And I have the skills that I need to sell new skills
The question is not:
“How do I adapt?”
but
“do I even want to adapt?”
For the last 3 years, I’ve been accurately tracking my emotions throughout the day as well as getting more serious about journalling.
Using AI to analyse my journals
And analytics through my emotional tracking
There’s a pretty clear theme emerging…
I’m much happier when I’m building things in the physical world.
I generally find the internet is an exhausting place to be in recently.
Content and the internet in general in a broader sense is becoming more generic.
Short form content that rules on social media is like sweeties for children.
First, the online creator economy has flooded the market with shallow content.
Now AI is supercharging that deluge,
and social algorithms seem to be doubling down, speeding their own eventual demise.
It’s getting harder and harder find good content
And for my own content to get found,
Under an avalanche of over optimized engagement schlopp.
I can see two paths ahead of me:
1
I can permit my skills on my knowledge and authority in the design/ marketing strategy space into something that will still leave give me leverage and profit in the virtual world, probably something related to or aided by AI.
Or 2
I can pivot into some my physical skills, building things designing things, creating things in the real world
The latter is probably less scalable but more satisfying.
I would have to sacrifice the level of free time right now.
And probably a lot of the money that I make right now.
I wouldnt have as much time with Fin and Immy either.
In exchange for alignment, better physical health,
satisfaction
Have to also be aware that the grass is always greener on the other side
I could pivot into something new and end up hating it or getting bored.
This requires some hammock time to figure out…
You can do anything you want, you just can’t do everything you want
Every day I get a little better.
Or a little worse.
I can default to the latter
Or I can choose consciously.
Good (or bad) habits
=
A good (or bad) life
You don’t be happy WHEN.
most people think they’ll be happy WHEN.
“I’ll be happy WHEN I get that promotion,
“I’ll be happy WHEN I live in a bigger house”
“I’ll be happy WHEN I reach £10k/m”.
Life is problems.
Solve one and you’ll have more problems.
So if you wait until WHEN you’ll die waiting.
We are goal striving machines.
So you be happy WHILE you chase the goal
Q What does Wealth mean to you?
freedom. Freedom from constraint. Freedom to make better wealth decisions and investments. Freedom from the raterace
Q What does money mean to you?
If you’d asked me this question first, I’d have responded as above.
However in the context of “wealth vs money” it changes how I think about it.
When you ask people about success, normally they equate it to career and monetary success.
It’s the same with wealth.
Wealth can mean more than just pointless endless accumulation of monetary assets.
I have a hunch most folk would be just as happy with stability and £60k as they would earning £100k.
After a certain point there’s not much difference so long as you have enough to live comfortably and afford some luxuries.
“Most people spend money they don’t have to buy things they don’t need to impress people they don’t like.” – Dave Ramsey
I’d add most people squander their time their time on things with no value,
glued to their lightboxes and dopamine hits.
So in this context, money is something I spend to buy time;
Time to spend on the things I enjoy.
Immediate (Design Hero funds my lifestyle (240k/yr)
Short-term (5 years) Building a scaleable business to sell digital products.
Long term (5 years+) Diversified wealth. Book sales. Content. Property. semi-passive businesses
I invest my money to buy time. I invest my wealth to buy stability and freedom.
Whenever I hit roadblocks, I think about “The Obstacle is the Way“.
The best walks aren’t just a straight line to the summit.
The real adventure starts when the bridge has collapsed and you have to cross the stream,
or the path is blocked and you make your own way.
We don’t rage at these detours on a hike.
The point of the hike is not to get to the end of the path, the point of the hike is to hike.
So why do we get so frustrated when these things happen in our business or life pursuits?
Do you want a shortcut straight to the end of your life?
No, you want a rich, varied life well lived and full of experiences.
This ties in nicely with my first thought regarding the perception of time passing.
Do you really want to join a fastlane straight to the end of your life?
A straight motorway to your death would be a very short and boring life indeed.
I must learn to enjoy the obstacles, the detours, the problems which make up the rich variety of life.
Obstacles might seem like a negative at the time, but they add up to the rich experience of life as a whole. Learn to embrace them.
That waterfall has been here for hundreds of thousands of years. probably since before the men were smashing each other with rocks on the prairies of Africa. Since forever.
But at some point in time, unfathomably long ago, that waterfall was just a stream. and before that it was a flat rocky plain.
beside the waterfalls are other falls carved in the rock, but now dry.
At some point in history the water followed that channel, then changed course and the rock was left behind.
Eventually that waterfall will carve another channel in the rock until it reaches a tipping point, then the river will suddenly change course again
ou think things are permanent, but they change. You might think your team, your job, your lifestyle is forever, but it’s not, it changes all the time!
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