Noooo! I’m useless!!

Hi 👋🏻

Yesterday I was told there may be cuts at my day job this year. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been in a flux of anxiety since. until 2 hrs ago.

The prospect of losing my salary is daunting. This has been a safety net for my founder consultancy business, which I have been slowly, carefully, and methodically growing with a sense comfort due to my income.

This comfort changed to a malicious anxiety for a good 10 hours yesterday. My girlfriend called me. it’s all I could talk about.

FUCK.

I lay on the sofa, Indian takeaway in hand, dejected. I could already hear the pounding knocks on my door from the bailiffs.

‘cough up, son! You’re HOMELESS!’

Income, mortgage, dreams - all gone just like that.

of course, after a good sleep and trip to the gym, I now know this is bollocks.

Firstly, nothing has been confirmed yet.

Second, I might be fine.

Third, and most importantly, I now have a rocket up my ass and new found clarity.

• My visceral reaction has confirmed my growing belief 9-5 life just ain’t for me, long term

• I’ve taken mitigating ‘plan B’ action by updating CV, connecting with old colleagues etc. whilst I’d absolutely love to just go all in on my dream biz, it’s going to take a little more time. 9-5s ARE useful in providing security and funds to pursue a more favourable solo career

• My plan A action is simple. Finding what is most important, and doing it faster. And saying no to anything that isn’t in those 4 walls.

I read a timely Y Combinator article this AM which talks about the 90:10 rule..

• How can you solve 90% of the most important thing with 10% of the effort?

• Which 2 metrics are absolutely vital to achieving the said 90% priority? And what should you DO and NOT DO to drive those metrics?

And then my own twist..

• If you could only focus on 1 thing this year that makes the biggest impact to achieving said goal (insert lofty ambition) - what is that thing?

With an egg & salmon on sourdough lunch recently consumed, sore shins from deadlifting, and a semi-sunny British sky - I now know where I need to double down on:

• I thought about my most impactful customers so far - complexity of projects, $$, quality of connection, future work potential

• Then thought about the specific moment that brought those audiences to me, requesting for my services

• And finally, decided to repeat the build up to those inbound questions - with room for variation. This means using similar marketing tekkers across Twitter/X, Reddit, and Discord - tailoring valuable, actionable info to SPECIFIC audiences - not a shotgun. More of a laser. But loads of them. Pzzzt pzzzt

if you’ve had some bad professional news recently:

• Redundancy (or the risk of it)

• Losing a client

• General lack of belief

Then think about times you’ve won important clients.

Some questions to consider..

What brought them to you? What worked? Why did they reach out?

Which of your efforts makes the MOST impact? What can be discounted?

What 2 metrics can you track in 2024 to achieve the high priority 1-3 goals you’ve set yourself?

..

Also, get some sleep and go for a walk.

Let’s get it.