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Life has become 100x more interesting since we last spoke.
I’ve been working my face off in the best possible way building our organic refill grocery store, Tare. It’s been open for 492 days at the time of writing this, but it feels simultaneously like 1,000s of days and like 3 weeks. In this time, I have not only all the ideas, mindsets, and insights to use from the past decade, but I’ve stumbled upon dozens if not hundreds of new ones.
Today, we’ll touch on at least a couple that seem to be solid and work in the real world.
Let’s dive in.
Earlier last year, as I was preparing to launch my store, I felt like I had to stop writing and focus.
It was the right decision at the time because writing isn’t quick & easy and opening up an organic refill grocery store definitely isn’t easy or quick. And focusing has paid off massively. Things have gone better than I could have possibly imagined. I went all in on business. It’s working. I think I can sorta kinda maybe(?) catch my breath for a second.
To truly focus, you have to cut out even things you enjoy. Not all, but if you only pick the easy non-emotive things, you’re not really focusing like you ought to be.
Despite working insanely hard over the last 19 months to get the word out about our store, this silly little newsletter & website continues to get more attention every single month.
I have invested literally zero energy into it during this time, but the search algo just keeps tossing it up to people. And I’m not mad about it. It’s a confusing lesson in compounding that I can’t quite grasp, but I’d be lying if I told you that my Tare-brain wasn’t jealous of the easily gained attention.
It’s a physical store in a small town, so the dynamics of what resonates online is different than timeless mental models for anyone anywhere.
One thing I’ve appreciated in this time away from all these articles is just how much of an impact writing them out has had on my mind.
So many of the ideas, frameworks, and insights have become second-nature to me. And there are several you can hang your hat on & put to actual use in everyday life. Your thinking improves in powerful but subtle ways when you get your thoughts out in front of you and organize them.
Then you can fit them back into your mind in a nice & neat way that makes them a handy reference later on when needed.
You ought to know that I’m a big fan of Naval Ravikant. And you should also know that I love how much of a gut punch it was when I read where he said, “The only real test of intelligence is if you get what you want out of life.”
Defining intelligence in this way makes it more tangible in an ‘ouch’ type of way. And it’d behoove you and me to consider our intelligence level (in this regard) with whether or not we’re trending towards getting what we want or not. Take the 4 seconds to ask yourself about this and you’ll instantly have the answer. Maybe it’s what you want to hear. Maybe it’s not.
No matter what the answer is with how well your intelligence is paying off, the real insight here is accepting that what’s required for your dream and what you're doing (or even your best effort), aren’t typically going to line up.
You have to go beyond.
The last 19 months have been 100% about exploiting everything I learned over the past decade, skills too.
This came after a rather lengthy exploration phase, where I was probably too much of a seeker. Hindsight is 20/20 and it doesn’t matter anyway if you properly redeem the past & make use of it. So in that case, I’m right on track. (love how that works). I’m super over all the unlocks for the time being. No self-help. No retreats. No psychedelics. No plowing up of my mental fields any time soon.
For now, all I want to do is just reap what’s been sown up until now. I am adamant about getting on with it. Being in it. Locking in, as the kids say these days.
If it’s work, I want to purely do the work. I do not want to do work about the work. No no no.
Even though I’m listed in the dictionary as an introvert, I’ve somehow managed to find myself as the face of our business.
I’m very much on social media, representing our store, and doing all the things to make people think of our business as many days in a month as possible. And I had no idea that local fame & recognition would follow. This unintended ‘consequence’ has become just a strange fact about my existence at this point. Literally every single errand at some point has me being recognized and talked with about the store, about our videos, and 100% good things.
It’s a good thing. I cannot complain. Plus, my kids getting to see me interact with local strangers & customers in a positive, respectable way is priceless. This is precisely what I remember having happen everywhere I went with my granddad growing up. People calling out his name, shaking his hand, and mentioning good things to him.
But this social media thing…I’m good at it mainly because I’ve decided that I want to win even if that means looking a little cringe.
Ya gotta climb cringe mountain to get past the cringe. I say cringe, but it’s really just going so far outside of my comfort zone that the old me would look at it and think “oh my gosh I can’t believe we’re putting this out on the internet”.
Thankfully, I eased into it.
I got a slow start, and then as the positive feedback (& results) continued to flow in, I kept honing the craft.
Now we’re solid & growing well.
If you’re curious, here’s the very first reel I made.
And, here’s one of the more recent reels I have made.
You can just do things and get better at things, even if it feels cringe while doing so.
Honestly, the main reason you’re even reading this right now is because someone recently signed up for my newsletter and replied back to the initial email with “Hey Dude”
No joke, that snapped me back into writing.
I wouldn’t have suspected it to have been so simple, but here we are. (Wife’s support too I must say)
Now I’m facing these pages with a newfound sense of meaning and am truly excited to ‘pick up the pen’.
It may be the same front we face, but boy oh boy, we’re so back.
