I feel like writing, so that's what I'm gonna do. I have no idea what will come out. Let's just see, shall we?
Firstly, Rebecca Tracey of uncageyourbusiness.com sent a fantastic email newslettery thing called 'Fuck that Guy'. I don't know what it is, but I'm attracted to strong women how can speak their minds in that way. That was what attracted me to Amanda Bond and her course back when I was spending money on social media marketing courses like I had a never-ending supply.
I considered spending money on Rebecca Tracey's course too. I was on holiday at the time and got a really nice glimpse into how to crush it in terms of marketing and reel in the little fishies on the hook. I got this close to it, with all those emotional butterflies and thoughts flying around my head saying: 'This is IT! This is the ONE! Buy this course and everything will be GOLDEN!' Rebecca even sent me a couple of personal voice memos with some feedback on my social media marketing business as it was then.
So. Close!
I talked it over with my ever-loving wife in the car on the way to Dudley Zoo, and kind of came to the conclusion that social media marketing isn't really my thing, and that's the reason it's not working — not because I've not done enough learning, but because I don't really want to do it. It took that experience to bring that out of me, that experience and a talk with my wife. I should do that more instead of being so insular with my thoughts. Note to self: your wife is your best friend and ally and supports you even when she disagrees.
That would've cost me $2k, money which, I hasten to add, my wife has earned, not I.
Okay, so it seems that my writing is about my attraction to strong women then. Ha!
So what exactly IS my plan then?
More courses, naturally.
Systems Thinking with August Bradley
I'm enjoying August Bradley's Systems Thinking course right now. In fact after only two weeks I think I can say already that it's one of the best courses I've done. I'm struggling to get my head round the Notion system that he's teaching, but it's not really about that so much as it is about learning how to think in terms of systems and really work out what I want to do and then how to do that. It was the first part that was missing, which is why I've been kind of wandering around aimlessly or aiming at the wrong things since I sold the post office a year ago.
As I watched the live call on Tuesday with about five layers on and my hood up (yes, the house is BALTIC!) I started making notes about my values and what August calls 'value goals'. Without starting there, I'm kind of in the weeds. Things like:
- Be the best guitar player I can be
- Satisfaction in life
- Mind improvement
- To be loved
- To have a comfortable, warm, uncluttered house
- To live more minimally (minimalistically?)
They're pretty nebulous and unmeasurable, right? That's the idea though; to start with some top level life goals and then work back to come up with goal outcomes that will move me towards those value goals. Value goals have to come from the heart, and that's the key. If I just put something like 'be an awesome social media manager', it's not really a heart-felt thing that will drive me, you see?
But if I take the first one: Be the best guitar player I can be, I can come up with some goal outcomes for that:
- Complete Mike Dawes' video course
- Finish Fred Noad Solo Guitar Playing Book
- Finish Mary Flowers' blues DVD
Then I can use habits or projects to work towards those goals. The goal outcomes will be set to one or two quarters, then the projects or habits will break down into weeks and months, so let's say:
- Finish half of the Solo Guitar Playing book by the end of November
- Chapter 3 by end of next week
- Two exercises today
- Two exercises tomorrow
- Chapter 4 by end of following week
- Chapter 3 by end of next week
That kind of thing.
So how does Notion help with this? To be honest I'm still kind of in the weeds with that. I've tried to implement this kind of thing but so far unsuccessfully.
I'm still very much at the learning stage as the course is still at the beginning more or less, and I should spend the time until the end of the year working on my value goals and learning how to use Notion and create my own personal operating system.
Ali Abdaal's YouTube Academy
This is the second of two courses I've enrolled for. As I consider my value goals and figure out just what it is that I want to do, rather than what I think I should do, this seems like it.
I've been enjoying Ali's content for a couple of months now and his candour in giving away his revenue numbers is one of the things that pushed me over the edge with my (wife's) money in my hand.
I've been on YouTube since before the Google days and I feel like if I'd had a systems way of thinking back then, I'd be one of the YouTube celebs by now. I don't say that flippantly, I actually believe that. And if I can carry that belief forward to today, well, why the hell not! I'll learn how to make videos with an eye on systems, both my own and YouTube's and find a way of making them work together to earn me enough to pay the bills. That's my goal: pay the bills. I don't need a Tesla but I do need a way of spending my time in exchange for money that I can use to pay the bills. Simple.
https://academy.aliabdaal.com/
Right, I really better get on with my day. This turned out to be way longer than I was expecting!
By the way, it seems like this would make two or maybe three actual blog posts with value for people if I were to work on the content a little. Could there be room for that over at camscampbell.com? I really do like writing ...
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://sunbane.com/strong-women-and-systems-thinking/