for those in pursuit of their highest version
Nicolas Cole is a writer and personal branding expert, who works with thought leaders in various industries on how to build and amplify meaningful personal brands. In this conversation, we dove deep on writing online, the downsides of entrepreneurship, and turning the negative into positive.
My podcast is two months old.
Which is crazy. Because it feels like I’ve been doing this podcasting stuff for way longer than two months. (In truth, I started recording in late August so it’s been three months.)
At the same time, it’s exciting. Because the podcast has gone far in just two months. It’s been downloaded almost 10,000 times. It’s received incredible reviews on Twitter and on Apple. It is gaining momentum.
It makes me realize why overnight success is a myth… Because it takes a long time to build up a reputation.
Here’s what a reputation really is: it’s a body of work.
And your body of work takes more time to assemble than what you can possibly do in one day. One week. Or one year.
That’s what makes it strong.
You’ve improved.
You’ve built better stuff.
And people can see the progression over years.
How does that relate to the podcast?
Well, the more I think about it, the more I can see myself doing this for years. The first promise I need to fulfill is doing it 100 times. We’ll reevaluate after we hit that milestone. But for now, all signs are green.
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google
Eddy Quan is a writer who tweets about writing, mindset, and self development. In this conversation, we spoke about self love, confidence, energy, dopamine, and lessons he would give to a younger version of himself.
Affirmations work (at least for me).
I’ve previously used “I love myself” as a trigger. I would say it in the shower, before going to sleep, and when I found a random moment. I got this from Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It by Kamal Ravikant.
After a couple of weeks, I noticed a huge difference in my state of mind. Three simple words, repeated and felt, eventually made a huge difference in my psyche for months.
But when life gets good, it’s easy to get complacent.
So I’m going to get back into the habit of repeating a simple phrase to myself.
The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks has provided the inspiration:
I expand in abundance, success, and love every day, as I inspire those around me to do the same.
My friend Dickie Bush (check out our conversation here) asked me a great question:
If you could give one piece of advice to yourself way back in your first few days as a creator, what would it be?
Figured I’d share my answer with you as well:
Set an internal goal. Something you can control. Write 100 articles, record 100 podcasts, publish 100 videos.
That doesn’t mean ignore external feedback. Just the opposite. Try to improve your creations. Reach out for help. Ask someone what they think. Improve.
When you publish your first piece as a creator, you’ve embarked on a journey.
Enjoy every step.
Something magical happened.
Jack Butcher was on the podcast. He was thinking of a quote, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
Then he typed some buttons on a machine.
And the phrase popped out at him.
Think about the absurdity of that.
I mean, I even stopped in the middle of the conversation to point out how crazy this is.
Imagine, at any other point in history, if you had trouble remembering something… and then you could just tap some keys and the answer popped back to you?!?
This post is a reminder that the internet is awesome.
PS: The quote was…
“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.“ –Albert Allen Bartlett