Howdy Reader! Content creation can be a grind. Sometimes it's without a lot of feedback. Or worse, people unloading on you just to unload on you. But when you genuinely help someone, that's a joy. I recorded kind of a silly short showing my "high-tech" camera stand. One of my fellow YouTubers really found it helpful, though: I LOVE IT! Brilliant! I’ve been fighting to maneuver my arms around a tripod without bumping into it, HA! Getting comments like that makes your day and makes the grind...
2 days ago • 1 min read
Howdy Reader! So I'm trying this new thing with Obsidian. I had everything in a single vault, including a few private things. Like my blood pressure, some birthdays, that kind of thing. I'm not going to be really needing to link to that information. With my Obsidian setup, I had a way to exclude these notes from all of my views. But I was making things too complicated. Why not just have those pieces that I needed for my writing in there? No reason at all, actually. I was just caught in the...
3 days ago • 1 min read
Howdy Reader! One of my friends in my mastermind group went radio silent. You know ... how's it going, are you kicking butt and taking names, etc. For a few days, nothing. (Actually, I checked the conversation and it was only 36 hours. The fact that it seemed longer ... don't know what that means 🤪) Anyway, it turned out he was traveling, and had unplugged for a bit. He's been self-employed for a few years. This is one of the perks of self-employment. You don't have to announce when you're...
6 days ago • 1 min read
Howdy Reader! Creating content can be a slog. One video or article right after the other. I'm up to 135 videos on my YouTube channel. One thing that's gotten easier is doing this: Grabbing a bill and my phone Recording a short Popping the video into Camtasia to do some light editing Writing a quick description Publishing it Just doing the thing and putting it out there. That doesn't happen with the first video. Or even the 20th. After a while, though, it does get easier. Let's grow together!...
8 days ago • 1 min read
Howdy Reader! In the last email I talked about searching for counterproductive activities. One of those activities was dealing with time-wasting people. People who need you a lot more than you need them. People who abuse your time with endless requests and/or constant drama. People who may have started off acting reasonably, but aren't anymore. This doesn't imply that there aren't good reasons for why these people act the way they do. But, for your own sanity and progress, it's time to set...
10 days ago • 1 min read
Howdy Reader! Going further in your creative journey takes searching. Searching for those counterproductive activities. Like: Time-wasting websites. Time-wasting people. Time-wasting thoughts. Getting rid of those time-wasters isn't enough. Even if you successfully get rid of them, a vacuum is left behind. Aristotle said this about vacuums: "Nature abhors a vacuum." So something will takes its place. And if you don't plan for what takes its place, it might be just as bad, or worse, as what...
12 days ago • 1 min read
Howdy Reader! After a very slow last couple of months, I've got a focus for the first part of 2026. Since the beginning of the year, I've uploaded five videos to my YouTube channel. The one I uploaded tonight had a bit more excitement than usual. In a Reddit thread, someone made a comment that revealed what was in front of me the whole time. But after he did that, all sorts of connections and possibilities showed up. So I recorded the video right then, and I was still hyped up about it. If...
14 days ago • 1 min read
Howdy Reader! I have a like-minded side hustler I chat with fairly regularly. Not unlike myself, he has a lot of things he wants to do. One of these things is dropshipping, a form of retail arbitrage. Lots of people do this, and there is lots of material, free and paid, on how to do it. If I were to take it on, I'd likely start it myself and do all the things. I'd buy a course, learn it, and do it. Not my friend. He handed the course to a VA and instructed her to implement it. Even made a few...
16 days ago • 1 min read
Howdy Reader! Whatever your creative journey entails ... ... there's going to be fun stuff ... ... and there's going to be some boring stuff. Take eBay reselling, for example. I've heard this many times in my online travels. Sourcing product is fun. Putting listings up is boring. (And I can agree!) Here's the thing about listings, though. The listings sell your product. No listings, no sales. The boring stuff tends to be where the value lies. Let's grow togoether! ~ John Note: Some links in...
17 days ago • 1 min read