A Letter For Process & Progress
Weekly Update (1/7/25) of Radical Transparency
Despite this claiming to be a “weekly” update I actually missed a week. It was New Years Eve last Tuesday, my parents came into town to visit that day and I didn’t get around to writing a P & P update. I’m going to apologize for that, because I’m from the midwest and that’s what we tend to do (apologize for things that don’t really need an apology). I do feel a slight bit of shame or angst or whatever - I let myself down by not sticking to my commitment to write one of these every week.
My bad.
My wife reminds me often that I need to give myself a break when I disappoint myself in this way. Allowing myself grace and balancing it with accountability is a hard act. I promised her that it wasn’t eating at me too much, so I’m trying to honor that as well.
On to the good stuff.
Thoughts / Ideas / Reflections
I’ve gotten several replies in my inbox to posts over these last couple weeks and I LOVE IT. If a post compels you to write back to me it fills me with energy. Those replies have led to awesome, fun, interesting written conversations, which is EVEN BETTER.
They remind me of one of my favorite bits of content on the internet ever - when Bill Simmons (aka the Boston Sports Guy aka the Podfather) was at ESPN/Grantland and he would post these email conversations between himself and Malcolm Gladwell. These were really long form conversations where each person was thoughtfully responding and asking further questions to the other to get their perspective.
I’d like to ASK if anyone reading this would want to do one of these with me as a test? The premise is simple:
I’ll start the ball rolling with an email to you
We exchange thoughtful emails with each other for a full week
I post that email exchange on here
If you are up for this shoot me a reply or comment on this post.
More than anything it’s got me thinking about fun/interesting ways to engage with my subs/audience. I’ve also had 1v1 video calls with a few of you I’ve never met or knew before and that’s been extremely cool and beneficial as well. Even at a small scale this is very rewarding. After examining that this afternoon it’s led me to a few other thoughts:
Gratitude is a RESONANT activity
Why do I say that? By examining myself and being aware of the vibrations and signals that I’m resonating with from others, I’m connecting 2 previously unsynchronized vibrations
It’s a “self” vibration from me syncing with a “non-self” vibration and those two vibrations get put through a lens of appreciation & goodness (gratitude) which creates a harmony
That harmony is then amplified further by me writing about it and posting it and creating new synchronizing vibrations of others (my readers) joining into that harmony
Which creates a chorus of resonant harmonious vibrations, which is by definition UNFORGETTABLE
The bigger that chorus gets the more gratitude and goodness can be spread throughout humankind which inevitably will start more and more good things
Whew. I love this shit. The best part is gratitude is a choice we can all make and act on. It can be created at will.
Stats
Percentage to goal: 100% to 30 day goal, 38% to 100 day goal
(I still pumpin these babies out every day and loving it)
Subscriber growth has slowed but I’m still pacing at about 1 per day on average. I need to get this to 1% per day with better promotion (still not focused on this). Exponential growth is the optimal path, not linear.
Views overall plateaued over the holidays, which is understandable. I also didn’t stick to posting at the same time everyday these last two weeks, which definitely hurts me but I don’t know how to measure that. It just was too hard with a less structured day and kids being home and family visiting.
Biggest Learning
As I dive further into stoicism (I just got my The Daily Stoic in the mail yesterday, which I’ll be reading and taking notes on every morning and night before bed) the image above makes more and more sense. I don’t think I fully grasp it yet, that will take serious work and practice.
Biggest Win
I got to hang out with one of my best friends ever, a childhood/HS friend, and her family for a whole afternoon. We got to catch up a little, break bread and eat a meal together, play with each others’ kids, throw snowballs and footballs around, and sled. Our two oldest boys are similar personalities and really connected, they both expressed to us afterwards that they want to hang out more together. Doesn’t get much better than that, WINNING.
Highest Level of Resonance This Week:
This video of a bubble freezing:
With love and deep appreciation,
-Andrew