Quote of the week: “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Weekly Thought
As my brother-in-law told me a few years ago while we were walking through a Chicago neighborhood: “No is the most powerful word in the English language”
And look, I get it - for many people, it’s uncomfortable to tell others no.
maybe you don’t want to hurt another person’s feelings
maybe you’re torn between what you want vs. what you know is best
maybe you have intense FOMO (fear of missing out)
But it’s necessary to say no to most things in life.
if you want a healthy body, you need to say no to junk food
if you want a successful business, you need to say no to a lot of down time / social plans with friends during some seasons of your life
if you want to develop real skills, you’ll have to say no to constant distractions like checking social media every 15 minutes
Plus, I believe that the inability to tell others no is a sure-fire way to lose yourself in life because of two main reasons:
If you overcommit too much to others, you are pulled in too many directions. And when you’re pulled in too many directions, you have so many ongoing plans that you don’t have the time or mental capacity to go deep & specialize in what you want to become good at. Then you jump from thing to thing to thing trying to “find your path” or “find yourself”, while continuing to feel lost the entire time.
When you’re pulled in too many directions, you forget what you stand for. You forget your values. You forget what’s important to you. So you lose yourself.
And I know this is especially tough for generous people to implement because you have nothing but good intentions behind why you say yes to everyone.
But the problem is, I believe it’s important to fill up your own cup first. Meaning, if you have a cup, but it’s empty, what do you have to pour into another person’s cup? Nothing. So fill up yours first so that you can then pour into others. You cannot give what you do not have.
PS - if you want to give more to others, and have the capacity to do so, by all means say yes to more things, people, opportunities, etc. But this email is clearly intended for anyone who needs to focus on themselves more in this season of life.
Recent Challenges
As I get more familiar with building/improving the Manage Your Life tool, I have more time for marketing. Which is great. The only problem is, I almost always have my AI coding assistant (Codex) working for me in the background, so I never feel like I can fully get into a marketing “flow” for creating content because I’m always context-switching now - because I’m relaying info back & forth between Codex and ChatGPT every hour or so to keep all of our development work organized & moving forward. So I’m still trying to figure out my best “flow” for work as I maintain & grow Manage Your Life. It stresses me out a bit, but it’s not awful.
Recent Highlights
I finally got Manage Your Life authorized as a Partner with Microsoft, which makes calendar connections much easier. Real good news to get on a Friday!
I finally redesigned our user onboarding for Manage Your Life, which should really help with user activation (people using the tool), and improving activation should also help with retention (people continuing to pay for the tool).
To winning together,
Austin