Today is a Gift

Hi,

I am writing this newsletter backwards today. Typically, I try to end the newsletter with my haymaker one-liner. But I am really excited about this: today is a gift twice over.

Let me explain.

I have to do a lot of reminiscing to write these newsletters. Think about all the events, all of the successes and failures, and finally the lessons I’ve learned.

I find myself in two different states of mind when I do this: thankful those moments are over, and sad I can’t relive them.

Typically, I feel guilty about these feelings… mostly the gratitude for those days being over. In Phil Knight’s book Shoe Dog, he ends it saying he wishes he could do it all over again.

That feels like the objectively correct response to building a company. But I don’t feel that way all the time. Sometimes, I think, “I would never do this again.”

Fortunately, a few years ago, the CEO and founder of Nvidia said that he wouldn’t do it again if he had the choice. His sentiment was a little like, If I knew how hard it was going to be then, there is no way I would’ve done it.

This helps me feel balanced. There are days where I am a little more Phil Knight, and others I am more Jensen Huang.

So how does this make today a gift twice over?

Here is the fun part.

Your past self has worked every single day of your life to get you to where you are today. You are living the dreams of your previous self. Something to be celebrated.

Your future self is doing two things:

• Wishing it could live today again
  

• Thankful that they were able to get through today

Either way, today was instrumental to everything you have, are, and will work on.

That makes today very special.

The Hero’s Journal

Last week, we talked about some of the pain points of The Hero’s Planner.

This week, we are going to talk about the wins of the planner. Before we jump in, I am going to introduce a vocabulary term: Negativity Dominance.

Negativity Dominance is the psychological idea that we have a greater emotional response to negative events than positive events. It’s a survival thing.

What you need to know for this newsletter is it takes around three positive things to outweigh one negative (in our minds).

This section is going to be an attempt to only focus on the good.

Six months leading up to our launch, we came up with the idea of Road to Kickstarter. It was actually something that I had always wanted to do. It was a weekly newsletter talking about the progress of the planner as we prepared for the Kickstarter campaign.

We did it for like twenty-something weeks.

It was awesome, we were getting great feedback from the community, it kept us aligned as a team, and really created a great vibe around the project.

Additionally, we had Heroes using the planner in our community, and they were really enjoying their experience with the new product.

The last decision that we made? We weren’t going to sell any of our current products with this Kickstarter campaign. Which led us to having our highest 30 days of revenue ever. That felt really good.

There are so many good things to be talked about with The Hero’s Planner, and for a first version of the product, it was pretty amazing.

We have high expectations for our products. Good is never good enough. The Hero’s Planner was good, when we allow negativity dominance to take over it feels like the sky is falling.

At the end of the day, I would relive that experience. I wish I could tell my past self that now.

Atypical

I texted Trey this earlier today, and I feel kind of guilty saying this, but I’m bummed that Trey’s content is improving the most during a time when I’m the least involved with the channel.

I think back to being in Portugal and talking about it every day, or even when he was filming his first video in The Hero’s Headquarters.

Obviously, I am very happy that he is progressing as a content creator and businessman.

If you haven’t watched his most recent video, it's a must.

Reading

For today to be the day your past self dreamed of, your past self had to start building. Even if the thing that they were building is not your reality today, they had to start then. I have been reading Seth Godin’s book The Practice.

It is an unapologetic take on: start now, start today. You won’t get better at the thing you are trying to get better at until you start.

It's very good so far.

Coffee

My coffee journey has been pretty dull these days. I should do something to shake it up. Any suggestions?

Conclusion

Problem with writing my punchline at the beginning of this newsletter? What do I write now? Curse my beginning-of-the-newsletter self.

I am kidding.

Treat today like the gift it is, then do it again.

There are a lot of people (past and future you) who are jealous that you get to live today.

Everything that happens today is a gift.

Bye,
Kyle