Month: October 2023

Early in 2023, I received a cold email suggesting I switch to a different ad network than the one I was currently using. I declined, but the man followed up seven more times. His tenacity was admirable.

Each time he emailed again, he tried a different angle. “Google is laying off people, meaning ad revenues are declining.” “Here’s our ad index showing revenues might be lower this year.” “Our system is more dynamic than the one you are using.” And so on.

Surprisingly, he even got to the heart of the problem: the cost of switching waves. “I’m confident our system can out-earn your current one on its own, but we’re happy to neutralize your risk by agreeing to a minimum payout. What are your thoughts on testing us with a revenue guarantee?”

It was an impressive show of empathy and commitment, but in the end, I couldn’t take the bait, no matter how sweet it looked. He wanted me to swap the golden idol — and that’s almost always a mistake.

In Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark‘s genre-defining opening scene, Indy outsmarts a bunch of deadly traps to reach the treasure waiting for him on a pedestal in a cave. The golden statue looks innocent enough, but Indy knows: This, too, is a trap. Thankfully, the man came prepared.

He takes out a bag of sand from his pocket, hoping he can swap the idol for something of equal weight, thus not triggering whatever punishing mechanism awaits. He looks, he thinks, he weighs the bag in his hand — and he takes out a fistful of sand. What was supposed to be a final adjustment quickly turns out to be a lethal mistake: No more than five seconds post-swap, the entire cave starts collapsing, and Indy must run for his life.

When I read those cold emails, I could feel the golden idol in my hand. “What if I will make more revenue?” I wondered. But I could also see myself sprinting out of a cave with poisoned darts flying right behind me. “How much more could I possibly make? Will the result be worth the hassle?”

Time is limited enough as it is. Why spend it optimizing a machine that already runs smoothly? Could I squeeze out another 10%, 20%, or even 30% of ad revenue by upending my entire system? Perhaps. But if I can seek newer, bigger treasures in different caves, why swap the golden idol? Why bet the house if all you can gain is an extra garage?

In business, replacing an income stream with a similar income stream that might make slightly more is a bad idea. Whether it’s replacing one affiliate with another, shutting down a line of popular shoes for a new one, or taking on a client you’ll have to sacrifice another client for, often, the switching cost is higher than the gain — and even if not, the two might cancel each other out. In either case, you’ve spent a lot of energy with little to show for it.

Life, too, is full of shiny golden idols. The cute guy at work seems extra attractive after a big fight with your boyfriend. The new gym in town beckons with machines no other gym has. But here, too, making the swap will likely only get you in hot water, not out of it.

Now, killing a course business to start selling books, taking a complete dating break, or quitting the gym in favor of outdoor workouts, those, too, are risky — but at least they’re risks with true potential for gain.

If you’re going to chase a treasure, make sure the reward is worth the run. Don’t swap the golden idol, and don’t let anyone derail your train if you’re headed in the right direction.

Yesterday, I bought some friends to a beautiful lake. The place is usually crowded with tourists, but for some reason, it was almost empty. The water was clear and peaceful. The promenade was quiet. You could hear the wind rustling in the trees.

For some reason, however, I couldn’t let go of “for some reason.” “Hmm, I wonder why it’s so calm today. Is it the unpredictable weather? The school holidays? Are we just early?” I kept thinking about it. I kept talking about it. In hindsight, that was unnecessary.

The most important activity in that moment wasn’t thinking. It was presence. Often, it is better to enjoy the result than to chase the reason. The latter rarely adds value and frequently detracts. The former is a challenge and reward in its own right.

Be where you are. Your deduction machine is amazing, but it doesn’t need to run all the time.

In early August, I received an email with revenue-shrinking news. I didn’t know exactly how bad it was going to be, but I figured it might be a hit of up to a quarter of my monthly target. “What else can I do to make up for the shortfall?” I wondered.

After considering a few options, I decided to launch a Black Friday–style promotion for our Four Minute Books Lifetime Membership. Based on other sponsorships and already dialed-in events, there was only one weekend I could use, so what should have been a calm week suddenly turned into a rather busy schedule.

I wrote one long, hopefully compelling sales email for Friday, which took about six hours. After the results were in, I was only 25% of the way to my goal, so I decided to extend the sale through the weekend. I reminded people in the usual Saturday newsletter, and I wrote yet another six-hour sales email on Monday. I really poured my heart and soul into it. I’m not the best at writing sales copy, but I do believe in the power of a good story, and my sales-geared stories come out best when they are fresh. I scheduled a last-minute reminder email and went to bed.

The end result? The morning after the launch ended, I rubbed my eyes while staring at my analytics. I was exactly $29 over my target for the month.

It’s astonishing what you can accomplish once you firmly set your mind to it and hit the ground running. Set a goal, start working, and let your brain figure out the rest. You might not always overshoot your target, but even if you get within 80% of what you aimed for, you’ll feel proud and amazed.

Your mind is a dream-making machine, and there’s no reason to not dream as big as you can.

Our guest couch isn’t exactly a luxurious bed, but in the morning, our friend still claimed it was the best sleep he’d had in a while. For one, our apartment has proper shutters that close all the way, and for another, he could hear the strong rain we had that night fall against those shutters. London, where he is from, rarely offers either of those things.

“Man, it’s so dark when the shutters are down. It’s great!” he said. He also explained that he sometimes plays “those rain sound videos” on his speakers all night. “But this is the real deal!”

When you pull a fake iPhone out of the box, you’ll immediately recognize your mistake. But not every replacement is obvious. We can go for years without realizing we’ve lost the real deal. We might even forget we’re dealing with a surrogate altogether — but blinds don’t make a room completely dark, and recorded rain sounds are never as vivid as the ones outside your window.

Don’t settle for substitutes. Insist on the real deal.

It’s an oddly specific question, isn’t it? It’s not, “What have you got coming up?” or “What are you doing the rest of the year?” Just, “Next month, what’s on the docket?” It can be downright scary.

When you think about it on a month-to-month basis, perhaps you’ll realize you’re not doing enough — or at least not enough of the things that matter. Sometimes, you may count the events, deadlines, and deliverables, and go, “Damn, this one’s gonna be busy! I need to increase the pace.”

A few years ago, I decided to structure my notes by time frame. I added four folders: one with my ultimate stretch goals and three for anything related to my annual, monthly, and weekly focus areas. Over half a decade later, only the annual goals really stuck. Week-to-week, too many unexpected things kept coming up, and month-to-month planning just didn’t feel necessary.

When I returned to Four Minute Books late last year, however, my girlfriend inspired me to set up a Trello board with monthly columns and milestones. For a 7-year-old business with fully developed arms and legs, it might have been the most useful change I’ve made all year.

I filled in whatever I knew would be needed every month for the whole year. Then, I added some more placeholders which I could later populate with goals wherever I knew work was needed but not exactly what kind. “What are you doing next month?” I kept answering the question, over and over again.

I made some mistakes, of course, but when I glanced at the board once two thirds of the year were over, I was surprised: “Wow! Those are a lot of green boxes.” Simply putting my repetitive tasks on a monthly rotation not just ensured I didn’t miss any of them. For the first time, it also gave me a sense of appreciation for how much I’m getting done — and how that work compounds over time.

If you ask me now, I can tell you exactly what I’m doing next month. I’ll be writing 4-5 book summaries, publishing 4-5 Youtube videos, and I’ll be writing a newsletter for every Saturday. I’ll write weekly promo emails, two “Best of the Blog” editions, and I’ll work on some new content too. Will it always be this way? Probably not. But as long as thinking month-to-month brings me closer to my goals, I’ll keep doing it.

A month is not long enough to derail your entire year if you waste it, and it’s also not short enough to be derailed by a single event, which can easily happen to any given week. It might not be the best time frame for you to plan your life in and around, but if you haven’t given it an honest effort, it sure is worth a try.

So, what are you doing next month?

In my hometown, we have a saying: “Today it only rains once.” It means that, when you look out the window in the morning and see some drizzle, you already know the forecast for the whole day. About 9 out of 10 times, the weather stays exactly as it is early in the day, and that’s both comforting and frustrating.

When I went to study abroad near Boston in 2012, I was first confronted with a new weather-reality for a sustained period of time. On one of the first days I was there, stormy morning clouds gave way to a day so sunny you could spend it at the beach. An early acquaintance there promptly introduced me to the famous saying: “If you don’t like New England weather, wait a minute.”

After my return, when I eventually moved to Munich, I quickly noticed the same pattern: A day that started off looking gloomy might turn around soon enough, and just because it was sunny in the morning would not guarantee you made it home before the rain.

Like its more reliable counterpart, fickle weather is also comforting and frustrating at once. It does, however, offer something steadier climates do not: the potential to change at any moment. It introduces hope to an otherwise foregone conclusion — if the weather can change any minute, it may as well change for the better. At least that’s the version of the future we tend to hold on to, and that optimism alone is worth a lot.

Thankfully, the upside of fickleness does not stop at the weather. If your boss is a moody person, you can find out her favorite drink and turn many a sour conversation sweet. And if your first web comic falls flat, someone can still discover and send it viral six months later. Whatever may be a hard friend to keep around might also be the savior that suddenly jumps to your side when you need it the most.

We want to avoid volatility because our brains crave certainty, but let’s remember: Fickleness is potential — and if you don’t like the weather, just wait a minute.

Beautiful stories unfold organically. Then, caring storytellers polish them, trim the frills, and present them in a way we can understand them easily.

But not all stories are beautiful. Some are pushed and prodded along, herded like cattle in a meat processing factory. They are injected with chemicals to make them seem like more than they are. Important events that did happen are left out, while fictional ones are added.

The end result looks a lot like a beautiful story, but it isn’t. The narrative is spun, and if we manage to untangle it, only a few threads will be left.

It’s impossible to identify all corrupted stories, let alone reduce each one to its original, true components. Thankfully, neither is required. All it takes is for you to realize the story has been tampered with. How exactly? That doesn’t matter as long as you stop buying the story as a whole. Once we bring more skepticism to a narrative, much of the damage of falling for a corrupt story has already been mitigated.

When a former president has his mugshot taken — an event that has never taken place in the history of the country — and promptly posts said mugshot to social media along with a link asking for donations, you know there’s a narrative being spun. In politics, almost all narratives are. Does it mean he is guilty? Does it mean he is innocent? No one knows. The important part is that a presidential mugshot is not a good precedent for a country to set, regardless of the reason for the photo. That’s a story headed in the wrong direction, which means it’s time to pay attention and think for yourself.

Watch out for spun narratives. It’s always a good time to tell beautiful stories, but often, half the job is recognizing when a tale has gone off the high road.

There’s a good chance you’ve seen this picture: Set against the backdrop of a wall made of yellow, wooden planks, the young woman jumps high into the air. Striking not only a perfect pose with stretched out arms and legs, she also thrusts her open umbrella straight into the air — all while wearing a smile.

It’s an iconic photograph, first released on Unsplash in 2016. There alone, it has been viewed over 60 million times. Add to that thousands of reuses across the web, thanks to the site’s zero-copyright policy, and I can easily imagine this picture having gone halfway around the world. Personally, I’ve seen it hundreds of times. It’s a writer-favorite on Medium.

Just this morning, I came across it yet again. In a piece about reinventing the umbrella, or rather our lack of success therein, Edouard Bellin placed it at the very end of his analysis. For some reason, he chose the full-screen version, and for some reason, I stopped while scrolling. “Wait a minute! Is she…? She’s wearing braces! Wow!”

I zoomed in. For the first time, I noticed that the young lady’s outfit, including her top and hair, perfectly match the color of the umbrella. I saw in her face that she could be as young as 15 — though just as well up to 22 years of age. And dog my cats, I realized that, indeed, she was actually wearing braces.

You can look at something a million times and still miss one of its most important details. Once we file an idea as a grasped entity in our mental archives, we’ll see it the way we see words or known symbols: We recognize them without thought. It becomes a literal photograph stored in our mind. “I’ve already understood this,” the brain concludes — and thus devotes no further resources to additional analysis.

Unless we force it to, that is. It’s never too late to open our eyes and screen instead of just see. To study what feels familiar yet actually still contains many a mystery. To find the new inside the old.

Don’t just check life against the photocopies in your memory. Perceive it. Analyze it. Engage with it deeply every day — and don’t stop until you spot the braces.

Yesterday, I had slept poorly and too little but ended up having an extremely productive day. Today, I slept longer and better but woke up with a headache. I probably won’t accomplish half as much.

The plot twist is that yesterday, I really needed the energy. I was wrapping up a big launch, and it’s hard to spend six hours writing sales emails when your head feels like a construction site. Today, the launch went well, the sale is over, and it’s okay if I’m on cruise control.

That’s the irony of irony: Sometimes, it makes sense even when you can’t see it. Don’t lament your story before you know the ending. What feels like a pothole when you first drive over it might turn out to be a spring of fresh water; what seems bad today can always transform into good tomorrow.

Having spent all of 2023 working solely on one project, Four Minute Books, I have happened upon several interesting realizations.

First, I did not miss some of my previous business ventures for even a minute. Not necessarily because I didn’t enjoy working on them, but because there was simply so much to do, there was no time to be bored.

Second, while I lost some income from not prioritizing those other revenue streams or shutting them down outright, I more than made up for it by making more money through Four Minute Books.

Third, I still wake up at night sometimes, thinking about all the problems and things that could go wrong. How it could all disappear the next day. No matter how “diversified” I am, that seems to keep happening regardless.

Fourth and finally, I entertained the idea that if I want to be a full-time author of books someday, eventually, I might have to let go Four Minute Books too.

The underlying theme of these insights is that life is full of systems, and systems deserve our respect.

A system is something so big, you can spend your entire life in it and never be done. Writing on Medium was a system, and so was my writing course. They, too, contained endless to-dos and could have provided a lifetime of busyness. I just chose to focus on Four Minute Books.

Focused energy spent in one system compounds. Scattered energy across systems dissipates. I could never have kept growing all three of these projects at the same time. Two of them had already been shrinking. But by putting all of my energy into the oldest, still-growing system that already worked the best, I managed to ratchet up the rewards by far more than I lost in removing myself from the other two systems.

No system is perfect, and every system will always have problems. Whether you wake up at night sweating about getting new business for your one-man painting company, making it to your son’s guitar gig on time the next evening, or whether you closed the living room window doesn’t matter. There’s no magic combination of systems that’ll forever let you sleep peacefully at night.

As that last bit already hints at, we are part of countless systems in our lives. They extend well beyond work and business. However, we also have limited time, energy, and attention to spend on and in these systems. Every now and then, we must decide which ones truly matter to us.

Running a household is a system. Raising a child is a system. Keeping your friend group together is a system. So is any job, business, and hobby. You’ll never get the balance right perfectly, and you’ll dip in and out of many systems without ever deliberately adjusting them in your overall calculation. That’s normal, but it is worth trying to pay attention to the few systems you care about the most.

Do you really want to give up your career in law to pursue one in the food industry? Or is it just a matter of rediscovering, perhaps even reinventing, your love for the system? Are you ready to commit to and really be there for your child? Or should you wait a few more years before firing up the parenting system? Of course, any shift can be managed when it happens. The point is to prevent friction where possible. There’ll be enough in any one system as it is.

The most important takeaway from all of this, however, is that systems deserve our respect. Four Minute Books, like any business, plant, or human, needs care, attention, and love. Without them, it can’t grow. If we can’t give these things to the system we have chosen, maybe we need to choose a different system.

At the same time, Four Minute Books is a system already so vast, I sometimes dream about its tiniest cogs. “I need to change that one word on that one page.” “I should add a PDF download there.” “How can I redo my email signup flow from scratch?” Any system offers millions of questions, challenges, and problems. Only when you really commit to one can you become an expert in tackling perhaps not all of them but at least the ones that matter.

Choose your systems wisely. Give thanks to the ones you’re parting ways with, and respect the ones you decide to embrace. May your gears always turn smoothly, but remember: Unlike when Han Solo powers up the Millennium Falcon, in life, it’s almost never “all systems go!”