BlackOut Friday Weeknotes — Nov 21, 2022
A Visiting Aquarius, The Ambivalent Holidays, and Paying the Bills
TL;DR — The links for stuff that might be interesting to you:
The Big BAM Process is on sale for $73, down from $579 (code: recessionproof2023)
So is Into The Abyss…and Master The Draft (code: takethedive)
Ugly notebooks I’ve been loving.
A Story of Oddity
A week ago I was out with the dogs before bed, leashed up and stuffed into a coat. We step out the front door and on our porch is a full glass of water. I had never seen the glass before. It was full, to the brim. It was also a cozy 27F outside.
“Do you know anything about this?” I ask the wife after coming back inside. “No, that’s creepy,” she says.
I dump the water and leave the glass at the edge of the porch — maybe they would come back for it. Instead of paying attention to White Lotus (which is wholly enthralling, BTW), I’m looking through witchcraft forums to see if someone was trying to put a hex on our house.
The following Sunday the wife spots someone walking down our driveway holding a glass of water. He sees that he’s been seen, so he sets the water down on the concrete and shuffles away. This is our neighbor. This is what it is to live in Asheville — everyone is either on too many drugs, or not enough.
This Week
This hasn’t felt like the holidays. Maybe that’s what happens when your operating mode is to avoid the news and TV commercials and retail centers. The only indication of the coming holidays is the weather. And, maybe, how the default channel on our TV — The Movie Hub — switches all of its programming to Hallmark Holiday classics where the first kiss (and the only kiss) happens at the 76-minute mark.
Way back, when I worked in retail, it was hard to ignore. The shopping mall piping in the same two dozen Christmas songs, Santaland set up in the main promenade, the lights and decorations, the sales, the influx of customers. Years later, working in offices, the dichotomy of trying to fulfill end of quarter/ year quotas mixed with travel and time off — you craved the holidays because it meant something of a break.
Now, this time of year just means I’m probably cold. It means I’m doing searches for stuff like “heated keyboards.” This is a season of rest. I am totally the kind of guy who will eat his fill of carbohydrates and bourbon and spend the evening on the couch dozing off to a movie (Magnolia). Sleep late on Friday, take a long walk, see what people get up to when we all collectively decide on a day off.
OutWord
Making Progress on the End of Endless Content Redux draft. I forgot how much I loathe the formatting process.
I’m also in the middle of redesigning the homepage for OutWord — maybe the website in it’s entirety. I’ve been bothering my current stable of clients about what to expect in the new year — what they have in mind, the capacity they need from me in the first quarter, and what I’m going to create to supplement everything.
I am currently going through the foundational course I created — Into The Abyss — to see what is new and how I can improve it for existing and future students. In the spirit of Cyber Monday, I cut the price by a quarter with the code takethedive.
You can also get my supplementary course — Master The Draft — for only $37.50 with the same code.
BAM
Lots of hours have gone into reviewing the assets the organization has at its disposal and finding the gaps in customer onboarding. There is some really cool stuff here, lots of opportunity, just need to let the mortar set between the bricks.
Right off the bat is their “recession proofing deal.” I have it in my notes to write more on it later, but having a rock-solid relationship with your brand is the difference between surviving lean times, and thriving through it.
Right now the self guided brand building product — the Big BAM Process — is going for a screaming deal at $73 (down from $579) with the code recessionproof2023. The small-group sessions — where you connect with other business owners like yourself —are also half off.
My goal with BAM is to build out a foundation for the organization to keep a stead stream of valuable branding content well into the future.
Other Things:
I am importing the content from my now-closed Revue account to Medium. You can read some of the back issues here
At the start of the year, I bought a case of 8X5.5in cahier notebooks. They end up being the perfect size for a month of journaling. A few pages a day. I’m no where near as disciplined for a bullet journaling thing, but they have been a less-bulky, easier-to-index tool for the day-to-day. A bit of journaling, a bit of list-building, a bit of doodling. And they are ugly as sin, which is perfect.
These seem to work better, as I also bought a huge Moleskine daily planner to use as a journaling tool at the end of last year, and I gave up on it sometime around May. Sometimes, the key to getting the work done is to have a tool that is flexible enough to meet you wherever your head is at.
Until Next Week…
