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I outsmart myself to be productive
How to love working so much, that everything else becomes a distraction
Today is Sunday, 7:21 am in Bali.
I’m writing this newsletter instead of surfing (the waves are excellent). There’s a force pulling me to work. It’s more addictive than my favorite sport.
How to love working so much, that everything else becomes a distraction?
Solopreneur update
Pieter Levels tweeted about ZenVoice.
My friend Dan told me: “PRODUCTIZE IT”.
So I launched PoopUp in 3 days — Turn your website visitors into customers with wake-up call popups.
It made $922 in 24 hours.
1. The tribe
We are the most social creatures on the planet.
Art, books, startups, and everything we create have a fundamental purpose: To contribute to society and evolution.
We’re hard-wired to care what people say, to be curious, and to compete.
Twitter changed my life. I found people I admire and people I could compete against. It created a powerful and healthy desire to grind.
You don’t have to build an audience (although it helps). Subreddits, Telegram chats, and Discord communities let you connect with like-minded people to leverage our social drive.
2. The system
You can trick the brain into working hard, but we’re still monkeys. We expect our efforts to bring results, quickly.
I have no clue how much I’ll earn next week, or how many followers I’ll get.
But I know exactly what I’ll achieve:
1 YouTube video
1 newsletter issue
1 feature (or startup)
With a short deadline and controllable goals, I always fulfill my expectations, and quitting is not an option.
3. The carrot
I lived like a cockroach with $1,000/month for 5 years. No one cared about my work.
Family, friends, and random people became curious when I started to earn $50,000 per month.
I don’t care what money buys (I didn’t even get a new surfboard). But I care for my work to be recognized.
Money gets attention. And attention drives motivation. Get paid for your work (ditch free plans). It’s a powerful drive to get things done.
Throughout my life, I’ve quit countless times — because one of these 3 drivers was missing.
It took 2 years to understand what pulls me to work. This issue summarizes it.
PS: I won’t ship startups for 3-6 months. I’m working on a project that’s important to me. I’m a bit scared, but it’s the right thing to do, I guess.
Whenever you're ready, there are 5 ways I can help you:
ShipFast: Ship startups in days, not weeks with the NextJS boilerplate loved by 1,700+ developers.
LaunchViral: Grow your startup with viral launch videos.
IndiePage: Join 3,000+ solopreneurs and showcase your startups.
PoopUp: Turn your visitors into customers with wake-up call popups.
ZenVoice: Stripe invoices, without the fee.
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