If you are solo, and you want to create anything substantial, you need to time block these two types of time.

You may have heard something similar to what I am about to say from Alex Hormozi.

He has stated that there are two types of time in the day: maker & manager time. My belief is different, but adjacent. Mozi doesn’t look at the full picture in my opinion.

It’s not about the tactical management of people or putting out fires. It’s about the source of creation. This is where these two types of time come in:

• Visionary Hours

• Administrative Hours

Visionary and Admin hours come from different places, different mindsets:

Admin hours come during times of a plan, and a set course of action. These are where the ‘hard’, disciplined work is done.

This looks like:

• Sending the cold emails

• Drafting up the offer sheet

• Doing the client work

• Making phone calls to distributors

Visionary hours come from a place of inspiration. ​Visionary hours start from inside you, but end up with something new in the world. It’s flow. It’s the vision of whatever you are creating.

This type of time looks like this:

• Daydreaming in effortless detail about where, when, and how your product is used

• Pondering about your dream lifestyle and how your company gets you there

• Mind mapping how your product/service intersects with you and your customer

• Writing a manifesto for your company’s future (even when you haven’t filed for an LLC yet)

You need both to create something incredible.

You can't be the sole visionary without administrative skills, otherwise there will never be execution on the vision.

You can't just admin or force discipline your way to world-class, you will only end up as a VP of a pre-established company.

Lost potential. Nothing new created. Only someone else’s dream fulfilled, not your own.

You must heed the two types of hours, and mix them both to create something new, unique, groundbreaking, and real.

The world is for builders.

And you must be able to execute.

And you must have a vision for the future.

You can't sit on your laurels and expect yourself to shit out gold. You must work for it.

There is no other way around it. There are times when you need administrative hours. This is my personal weak point. I have all the vision but struggle in the admin. This is how I have found success:

Find a way to make admin hours as pleasurable as possible (your future greatness necessitates it):

• Spend 3 weeks trying out 3 new pieces of productivity software to find what works best for you

• Treat it like a game. Track the time, log it, get new personal bests, and beat your previous efficiency. (I am doing this right now)

The visionary time for me comes quite effortlessly. Here is how you can too:

Those hours between 9pm and 3am, right after finishing the chapter of your book, right after finishing the docuseries, and you have a vision, you MUST act on that inspiration. Forget your sleep. If you respect yourself (and your creative energy), you will hone your vision, make a visionary plan, and find a way via administrative hours to bring it to fruition.

Otherwise, you are doing yourself & humanity a disservice.

Humanity needs greatness more than ever.

There is too much dilution with TikTok, brain rot, and the pandemic of depression worldwide. You MUST act on this vision as an act of ego, and to be ego-less.

Visionary is the predictor of needs.

Administrative is the provider of said needs.

If you heed your vision, let it envelop you, and join yourself in this experience of life, then you will reach something that serves you internally, and serves externally to everyone else.

You can only do this if you can balance those dynamics.

If you are solely a visionary like Steve Jobs, get yourself an administrative partner like Steve Wozniak. This is a gross oversimplification of Apple’s success but you get the idea: Jobs brought the vision of the Apple I, Woz was able to execute upon it.

If you only want to provide-provide-provide, you need someone with the vision to make the product special. To make something unique, something that will change everyone's life because you are too busy solving problems on your checklist in sequential order, not looking for the domino that will topple all in one fell swoop (that is the visionary to define and find the domino to top)

If you are solo, and operate in both domains like I do, then understanding visionary and administrative is necessary. You and I need to operate in both realms if we have any hope of creating something incredible.

You need to time block, or at least understand yourself well enough to know when to leverage each type of time. For me: admin work is in the morning, and visionary is in the evening/night.

Solo founders are plentiful, just as much as dynamic duos like Jobs and Woz. It’s not easy solo, but not impossible, you can make it work. Jensen of NVIDIA did, Bezos of Amazon, Sara Blakely of Spanx, and many more did.

Fund your vision with your admin skills.

Have a vision to make the admin worthwhile.

Otherwise, we will just be keyboard pushers doing menial tasks that provide our monkey brains with enough problem-solving stimuli to keep us sane.

We have potential to create something incredible. Don't waste time.

KEEP GOING.

Here is an equally complimentary and dissonant letter I wrote about dissing time management. Give it a read to widen your perspective:

Other links:

• KEEP GOING Studio, where my team and I design to fuel your health/wellness/lifestyle business' growth.

• Find me on 𝕏

• Find me on Instagram (I post stories on occasion and desire to post more content on how to live a better life there as well – tbd)

• Join me on my (future) podcast, KEEP GOING Podcast here.

• Deciding to move to a new city

• Deciding to run a marathon with only 2 months of training time

and it has been nearly.. effortless. And I realized that I could only do this because I have been prioritizing one thing in my life: Agency

By being agentic, you have more control over your life. It's a form of manifest destiny.

Being agentic is like driving down a mountain road in a Porsche 911.

You are in the driver's seat, feeling each turn. Adjusting for the body roll. Breaking as you enter each turn, accelerating as you exit. It's raw.

The only thing between your ass and the pavement is a few inches of steel and aluminum. You push it close to the guard rail, millimeters between the edges of your tires and a cliff that, if you went off, would mean certain death... but you are guiding the way, controlling the car. It's nearly effortless. It's flow. You are active in the pursuit of experiencing life.

This is agency.

You are active in your experience of life.

But most people don't have agency. They don't get close to the guard rail. They don't know when to brake and when to accelerate.

I'll drop the metaphor.

They don't have the clarity to see their options in life. And even if they did truly see their options in life, they wouldn't know how to make the right choice—nor have the balls to do make it.

There exists immense friction that creates a gap between them and the life of their dreams — because of a lack of agency.

This is what agency is all about:

Agency is knowing where you want to go, and going.

It's not grinding. It's effortless.

And it starts with being agentic.

Core aspects of personal agency and being agentic:

Agency can be broken down into two subsections:

First principles:

• Awareness and stimuli

• Pragmatism

• Action

Foundations:

• Health

• Learning

• Play

• Identity

Each of these plays a vital role, but it starts with first principles, and then you build off of them with the foundations. This is how you design, build, and live the life of your dreams.

First principles:

It all starts with AWARENESS, STIMULI, and IDENTITY:

We are clouded. Our awareness if near-zero thanks to overstimulation and malformed identities. I have written about over-stimulation at large in other newsletters, so I will keep it short here, but if you want to read more, I will link some resources at the end of this section for further reading.
(you can also just browse the archives of the KEEP GOING Newsletter and follow your intuition)

Here is the honest truth:

You have been trained to look for the wrong signals that make a good life. We are taught to look for status signals as success: how much money we have, we ask ourselves if we have the right car, the right clothing, the most affluent friends, a full calendar... we look for these instead of looking for the signals of truly makes a good life.

The issue is, we aren't told what makes a good life for ourselves. We have to define our own success, but we are not given the tools for that.

It requires us to be aware of what provides us with peace, happiness, joy, out-of-body experiences, etc.... And the sooner we are able to actually listen for the right signals, the quicker you can get back on track.

You can't know if you are off course (in life) if your map is blatantly wrong for you. Agency is about finding and reading your own map. Then you follow it to the best of your ability and adjust course along the way. You do this by listening for the right signals instead of the wrong ones.

Here is the kicker:
We can't look out for those signals because of immense noise from stimuli.

Normal, raw, life can't compete with tiktok and corn (in the short term).

We see our life with blurred vision, not for what reality actually is. Our minds are full of things that aren't real. It tells us we NEED to care about X, Y, Z.

It's obvious to see why we can't make intelligent choices. Our personal agency is doomed if we can't remove the stimulation.

Here are some quick examples that you can do to remove stimulation and increase awareness:

• Delete instagram from your phone, replace the habit with journaling

• Add a site blocker extension to your browser, and block ruthlessly

• Instead of scrolling on X, go for a walk without listening to anything

• Read philosophy: find what resonates and what doesn't

Throughout this process of removing stimuli, you will find your natural proclivities coming to the surface. And you must listen to them, and do your best to remember them (I suggest journaling :>).

There are endless tools for this. But it boils down to this: remove yourself from hyper stimulation, get your dopamine baseline to a reasonable level, and know thy self.

Answer these questions:

• What is my definition of success?

• What lifestyle do I want to live?

• What is fulfilling for me?

Further reading on over-stimulation:

Pragmatic intuition: Balancing rationality with intuition

Once you remove excess stimulation, and regain your self-awareness, you will naturally listen to your intuition more. But there is an issue:

Intuition is a lost art, and we have become so overly rational and risk-adverse that we lose all semblance of a LIFE WORTH LIVING.

Examples of overly rational moves:

• Staying in the safe job

• Saving money for retirement

• Never leaving your small town because 'family'

Here is a differing reality of those:

• You can always get another job, so quit yours and go all in on yourself (if you so desire)

• Saving for retirement is like giving money to your 65 year old self who can't use it, so why prioritize it?

• Your small town and your family will exist after traveling for a while, but you will never understand yourself if you never change your environment. So get out.

None of those are really that risky. After all, betting on yourself is never a risk.

Intuition is your gut instinct. It's trusting yourself and where you feel guided to. Most people's intuition can be wildly inaccurate from over-rationality, but there is only one way to improve your intuition: by using it.

Do things intuitively for a week and see the results:

• Don't track your calories and macros: eat intuitively and see what happens

• Say yes to something that doesn't necessarily make sense but you WANT to do it

• Listen to your gut feeling when talking with people, don't over rationalize the body language and analyze the power dynamic

Doing this, you will find yourself blundering, and excelling. This is about finding your edge, and where your instinct is right and wrong.

Now that you tested it, you balance this with rationality. We are already skilled at this. We overthink everything, and find the most optimal solution. With our intuition is check with rationality, we can safely drive our Porsche down the mountain road and not drive off the cliff. But we can still find the edge and get intuitive results.

By being pragmatic, working with intuition and rationality in a yin-yang relationship, you can get disproportionate results effortlessly.

Final piece of the puzzle: Action

This one is a given. But you need to be able to take action on the awareness you have gained, and the pragmatism you are intuiting.

Let's get back to our definition of agency:

Agency is knowing where you want to go, and going.

I covered how to know where you want to go. Now we need to get there. You do this by taking action.

Here is a sample plan:

1. Find what success means for you, list out your long-term goals in work, life, relationships, etc.

2. Break each aspect of 'success' into intermediate goals/milestones

3. Make a short-term plan to attack the intermediate milestones (2 weeks to 3 months in duration)

4. Do the actions required.

5. Repeat with what you learned from executing

You will not nail everything on the first go. That is okay. It's ideal, actually. If you did everything right, you wouldn't learn anything from it.

Action is about being active in your own life, not being passive.

Something to note:

Your short term plan shouldn't feel hard or require immense grinding. If it does, it doesn't align with you.

Agency and being agentic isn't about grinding. It's about finding your edge, where you get results effortlessly.

To find your edge requires your intuition and self awareness.

When making a plan for your intermediate milestones, ask yourself "What would this look like if it were easy?". Use that as a heuristic for life.

Foundations of agency:

Now that we have covered the first principles of agency, lets talk a little bit more about every day, foundational tools of agency:

Health

Taking care of your body is the clearest entry point to agency. When you take care of any aspect of your health (physical, mental, spiritual) you are exercising your agency.

Some simple agentic actions regarding health:

• Going to bed earlier (and having a dialed circadian rhythm) #kgn/ideas

• Going for a walk

• Following a diet temporarily

• Get some sun

• Breath work

• Have a training routine

You are doing these actions to net a result in your life. Simply put... that is agentic as fuck.

Exercising, following a diet, getting good sleep... making these choices for yourself is the lowest hanging fruit of personal agency. It is the simplest and most accessible way you can exercise your agency.

When you lose control over your body, you are 10x more likely to lose control of your mind. And your mind is the core processing unit for making any and all agentic decisions going forward, so take care of it. Speaking of your mind...

Learning and thinking

Your ability to learn and think at a high level is more important than ever before.

We live in a time of immense, overwhelming amounts of choice. And your ability to make a good, intelligent decisions is vital for not only maintaining your agency, but becoming more agentic.

And that is all predicated on your ability to think clearly, and learn.

Your course work (school required or self-assigned—a very agentic action) will be stale, and honestly might suck sometimes. But you can always extract good things from it.

You might learn squat about the topic of the actual course, but you can learn to think differently. You can always see things from a different perspective, and see more of the forest and less of the trees.

• Get a different point of view

• Practice critical thinking and problem-solving

• Synthesize connections to other topics

• Learning how to learn better (meta-learning)

No matter what you are doing, get something out of it.

Play

Along with intuition, the art of play is lost.

By partaking in play, we:

• Gain autonomy (synonym of agency)

• Express emotions in a socially acceptable way

• Improve problem solving

• Foster grit and creativity

Some examples of play that adults can do:

• Martial arts

• Pretty much any sport..

• Exercising your inner artist (writing, painting, design, etc)

• Travel & exploration

• Games

The beautiful thing about most of these is that they have constraints. This forces us to play within some lines, but allows us to exercise our agency and deeper needs in life without doing something psychotic.

Identity

Finally, agency is something you must make your identity.

One of the strongest levers we can pull on as humans to make change in our lives is through our identity. When we make something our identity, we almost always follow through. It gets results.

By making agency our identity, we make agentic actions effortless

This is meta-agency right here.

You can do this many ways:

• Spit affirmations in the mirror

• Write "I am agentic" over and over again in your journal

• ... But nothing is as strong as a signal for our identity as doing agentic actions over and over again.

That is how you identify as agentic. And by identifying as agentic, you gain agency over your life.

Examples of agency:

• moving to a new city/country to follow your pragmatic intuition.

• buying a one-way ticket to a country where you don't even speak the language

• quitting your job

• signing up for a marathon

• starting a successful business

• writing and publishing a book

The above are larger decisions, but exercising your agency also looks like:

• taking a walk

• going to bed when you choose to (and for a good reason, not because you should)

• saying no to a night out and doing coursework you have always wanted to do instead

• consciously putting the phone away

• setting boundaries with people who drain your energy and attention

• cleaning your environment (and crafting your environment)

• using an app blocker

• journaling

• etc.

Agency is a core part of KEEP GOING. Agency epitomizes intentional living, and fueling your own journey.

Become more agentic.
Live better.
KEEP GOING.

B.S.

Want personal help with this? Book a 30-min call w/ me for free, no strings attached. Would love to get to know my readers more personally.

https://cal.com/bslagle/life-alignment-chat

Other links:

• KEEP GOING Studio: Multidisciplinary design studio that fuels growth for health, wellness, and lifestyle brands—from vision to victory, we craft your entire journey.

• Find me on 𝕏

• Find me on Instagram (I post stories there all the time and will be posting more content on how to live a better life there as well.)

If you want to get effortless results in life, there is nothing more important than your environment.

Those who have a dialed environment rarely get burnt out. They are also the highest performers in the world. All because they know how to get their environment to work for them, and not against them.

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The only issue is that it's a monumental challenge to identify and assess every aspect of our environment.

We have our:

• Home environment

• Work environment

• Social environment

• Digital environment

• Outdoor environment

• Internal environment

• Political environment

• Financial environment

• Temporal environment

• Energetic environment

• Information environment...

• etc — I could go on.

Fortunately, we can clump all environmental factors this into these two buckets:

1. Internal — Within your control

2. External — Outside your immediate control

Now that we can look through the lens of everything within our environment as either internal and external—or rather within our control and outside our control.

The only thing left is to get focused on one narrow part of our environment.

I start this by having a goal or a desired result.

Welcome to the environment crafting protocol. Let's get into it:

Get a sheet of paper and write down the desired result you wish.

It's likely opposite of most of your problems. So if you are stuck, start by listing out your most pressing issues, and then inverting them. (e.g.: no money in the bank account → 10k /mo business)

You should have a list of desired results you want from life (and from your environment).

Pick one to focus on, I suggest the one that would make the biggest difference in your life.

Next, we list out the key steps to achieve that result, starting with your current situation.

For example: your desired result is a 10k/mo fitness coaching business. But you only are at 2k/mo and are struggling to pay rent. Then your key steps might be:

2k/mo → 10k/mo

1. fill up calendar with clients (paying and free, goal is to get referrals and testimonials)

2. onboard new PAYING clients only, offer free clients the ability to keep their slot but only if they pay

3. raise prices for new clients until you run out of demand

4. get more testimonials

5. create content online. share value in the forms of education, entertainment, and authority (social proof)

6. get leads into a funnel (landing page > newsletter > offer)

• (estimate — 5k/mo at this point)
  

7. request referrals from the highest paying clients

8. offboard the lowest paying clients with higher paying clients from referrals

9. team up with other trainers and synergistic businesses to grow your client base and deliver more value to your clients

10. refine branding and marketing to target the most enjoyable and highest paying clients in our client base.

11. run ads/maxx organic lead gen until calendar is full of enough people to net you 10k/mo.

• hit 10k/mo

Now that we have the blueprint, we move on to the next step.

We write down all the environmental factors that affect the key task/requirement we are on. And then cross-reference with our current environment

At this step, we begin finding out what in our environment is preventing us from actualizing our desired result.

Let's say we are stuck at step 1, we can't fill up our calendar with clients (paying and free).

Here are some environmental factors that could be at play in that situation:

• Internal — Within your control

  • Lack of knowledge on how to market themselves

  • Lack of confidence to do outreach

  • Branding and business assets

  • No funnel/poor funnel

  • No social presence

  • Limiting beliefs

  • No sales ability

  • etc...

• External — Outside your immediate control

  • Not physically located near a gym

  • Lacking facilities/equipment

  • Scheduling issues for leads

  • Network limitation

  • Economic factors

  • No testimonials

  • etc..

(note — most of these factors that are out of our control can actually become a point of strength for us. e.g. Not physically located near gym bring the gym to your client in the form of dumbbells and calisthenics)

For this hypothetical situation, we want to put our focus into the things we can control (our locus of control): the internal environment.

Now, it's time for our thought experiment. How does our current environment compare to the environment necessary to achieve our desired result?

Here is what an environment might look like where we have already acquired step 1:

• Internal

  • We have a sales script and objection handling framework

  • We practiced marketing ourselves to our friends and family, now we have the confidence to approach clients

  • Built a simple funnel using Kit and started posting on Instagram

  • Created a simple set of brand colors to keep brand consistent

You can clearly see where the current environment and the necessary environment are misaligned (and that they are pretty much just the opposite).

If you are stuck and are not sure what environmental variables are at play... I highly suggest you ask ChatGPT, and it should be able to guide you in the right direction.

It's simple from here on out. It's time to craft our environment.

Make changes to your current environment to match the environment that nets the desired result.

This might look like:

• Situating ourselves into social environments with other fitness coaches to learn what they do (learn via osmosis)

• Go to networking events and gyms to practice selling yourself

• Read books and watch YouTube videos on how to do sales and marketing

• Follow a tutorial on how to make a Kit account and basic funnel (or as me to help you)

This can be as drastic or as minimal as you desire. I recommend starting with small, easy-to-complete 5-mins or fewer adjustments that net a good enough result. Doing many of these small things can compound into bigger results. But nothing can replace drastic change.

Repeat this process for every piece of your list until you reach your true end desired result.

So, to overview:

1. Get a sheet of paper and write down the desired result you wish.

2. List out the key steps that are required to achieve that result, starting with your current situation.

3. Write down the environmental factors that affect the key task/requirement we are on. And then cross-reference with our current environment

4. Make changes to your current environment to match the environment that nets the desired result.

Eventually, it gets pretty simple.

Example:

• Desired result: Focus

• Environment required: No distractions.

• Actions to make environment match: clean desk, use do not disturb.

Don't overthink this one too much.

Here is a list of examples of high performers and their perfectly crafted environment for them to achieve a desired result:

• Casey Neistat + Winter with no heat + dumbbells

  • 

• Jerry Seinfeld (creator of one of the most successful TV shows in history)

  • Desired result: write jokes

  • Environment: he locked himself in a room with nothing but a blank yellow memo pad and a pen. he locked himself in there for up to 4 hours, and he allowed himself to do two things: 1. nothing. 2. write jokes. guess what he ended up doing? (he wrote jokes and had a number 1 hit comedy tv show for years)

• Alex Hormozi

  • Desired result: do work/write/maker-time (deep work)

  • Environment: his desk is in a back corner without windows, and he has a super wide monitor that takes up almost all of his viewing space so that he has zero chance of distraction.

• An extra verbose example:

  • Desired result: Fit, strong, and healthy

  • Current situation: Fat, weak, and unhealthy

  • Current environment: Junk food in the house, insanely comfy couch with a TV, living in the suburbs with zero walkability, getting groceries to be delivered to their front door

  • Crafted environment: No junk food in the house, only whole foods. Floor seats and low tables; no TV available to sit in front of for hours on end. Lives in the city where they can walk everywhere from work to grocery store and back, cancels DoorDash or food delivery services and makes all the food from home or goes out to health food restaurants.

This is about making systems that get you the result without trying nearly as hard.

Make it easier on yourself, not harder.

Use systems, not willpower.

KEEP GOING.

B.S.

p.s. — I am still thinking of starting a podcast, reply to this or DM me on X if you’d like to be a guest.

Other links:

• KEEP GOING Studio, where my team and I design to fuel your health/wellness/lifestyle business' growth (like I outlined in this post kinda thing)

• Find me on 𝕏

• Find me on Instagram (I post stories there all the time and will be posting more content on how to live a better life there as well.)

Subscribe now

I heard this quote from Zach Schenken, and it blew me away.

Here is my take and contextualization.

Time isn't the most valuable resource we have. We all have the same 24 hours in a day. That is a given thanks to existing and being alive. We can't gain more time or lose time. The future isn't actualized yet, and the past doesn't exist anymore. Time honestly doesn't matter.

So what does matter?

Attention.

When you don't intentionally direct your attention at the things that count, at the things that help you reach your goals... you inevitably end up missing your targets.

Imagine this:

You're at an archery range with a bow & arrow and attempting to hit a bullseye. While, at the same time, trying to watch a YouTube video.

It's simple. You will miss. This is because your attention isn't directed in the right places.

No matter how long you wait; or using your time "wisely" by multitasking by watching a tutorial on how to shoot a bow and arrow, you will always miss your target.... if your attention is misplaced.

You should be placing your attention into your technique, drawing the bow, aiming, and releasing the arrow. Nowhere else. This is a fact of life.

Time was never the most important thing. It has always been our energy and attention.

Thanks to the modern world, we all have excess amounts of energy.

We don't have to scavenge for food, or fight off other tribes from our hunting ground. Instead, we can pick up a week's worth of groceries from the store, and cook it in an extremely convenient kitchen.

We don't have to migrate each season to a more temperate climate, as if we were nomadic tribesmen.

We have it so good, we almost suck because of it. (read more here)

Because of all this convenience and security, we have an immense amount of leverage over our daily lives (and a painful amount of free will). We have more control over our own destiny than anyone else has ever had in history.

This leverage almost always nets us with excess energy and attention. How we aim that attention defines everything. It's a manifest destiny, but you MUST aim it.

Without properly tuning your attention to the things that matter, you will end up lost in distraction:

• Scrolling Reddit

• Watching entertaining, but otherwise useless YouTube videos

• Reading yet another self-help book that doesn't actually apply to your life

Yes, you will lose time, probably years of your life, if you remain firing your attention without intention. But this isn't about time management, instead attention management.

I will repeat the quote:

Time isn't yours to spend, attention is yours to aim.

Last week, I discussed how the dopamine system creates slaves of us all (especially hunter types or ADHD-ADD folk (let me know if you want me to discuss this more)).

We can't escape the dopamine system, but how we direct our attention is heavily impacted by our dopaminergic system. If we have been putting attention towards the same hyper-stimulating, attention-thieving activities for too long... breaking the habit can be very difficult. We become literally addicted to it.

This is a direct hijacking of our most valuable resource: our attention.

You can take it back, but it requires a little bit of sacrifice, and a lot of change.

I'll keep it simple:

You need to pull yourself away from the attention thieves as much as possible for about 3 weeks.

This is like pressing a reset button.

Once you press the reset button, you then need to direct your attention to the things that count.

Here are some tools for doing the reset, and preventing a relapse:

• Block apps and websites with cold turkey blocker (don't rely on willpower to block distractions, use systems) (link)

• Dopamine detoxing — find a protocol that works for you

• Audit screen time and block apps with Opal/ScreenZen (block attention thieves on your phone) (link to Opal, link to ScreenZen)

• Turn off notifications AND badges on your phone

• Run Do Not Disturb (or Reduce Interruptions-mode) 24/7

• Audit your following list on socials (if you look at the feed, you are giving those people your attention—make sure it's dialed)

No one is entitled to your attention. You choose where you aim it.

Again, here is the quote to ingrain it in your mind:

Time isn't yours to spend, attention is yours to aim.

One thing to note:

If you do this, and it makes your life miserable, know this: unlearning and redirecting yourself can be a very annoying and painful process. It's literally removing pathways from your brain (for more context: read this)

But all good things either come or go with pain. That is life. Like in lifting or running or stretching, it's temporary pain for long term gain. Your attention bends to your will, but unfortunately the skill has atrophied.

We are a scrawny middle schooler again thanks to our environment. And we need to get back into the metaphorical attention-attuning gym. It requires a little bit of awareness and intention.

Next week is going to be about how you can craft your environment to net results, and make attention management effortless.

Thanks for reading.

If you have enjoyed this or found it helpful, please share it on any platform of your choosing.

Share

And if you haven't already, subscribe to get letters written to fuel your journey every week on Wednesday.

As always,

KEEP GOING.

B.S.

p.s. — I am thinking of starting a podcast, reply to this or DM me on X if you’d like to be a guest.

Other links:

• KEEP GOING Studio, where my team and I design to fuel your health/wellness/lifestyle business' growth.

• Find me on 𝕏

• Find me on Instagram (I post stories there all the time and will be posting more content on how to live a better life there as well.)

Yo... it's Brook. It has been a while! You might not recognize me, but I am the author of the KEEP GOING Newsletter. You probably have seen my 'How I travel the world for less than 3k per month' newsletter or maybe even the one on how betting on yourself isn't really that risky...

Either way, I am grateful to have you here.

This is the official return of the KEEP GOING Newsletter, where every Wednesday you get a letter to fuel your journey with lifestyle design via health, business, philosophy, and productivity.

If you are new here, sign up below to get the letters to your inbox:

Anyway, let's get into why you can't get yourself to work and what you can do about it.

In a world of YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, dating apps, corn, and more productivity apps than you could even imagine.... We are not designed for this environment of hyperstimulation and hyper connection. This is what prevents us from doing the work to attain our dreams.

Doing the work required should be enjoyable, and it often is. But it pales in comparison to the stimulation from scrolling the timeline and engaging in pitiful comment-section arguments.

And honestly, you can't blame yourself. As I said before, the world we live in is made to keep us engrossed. Without systems in place, and an understanding of our own physiology and psychology, we are doomed.

I don't believe that there is an unground society that wants to keep us deaf, dumb, and blind to dark sorcery. I do believe that people and those in charge are operating with the best of intentions because I believe in humans. But this is the truth: our environment is an awful byproduct of the mission to improve the human experience, gone terribly wrong.

We have ratcheted the stimulation lever so much that we are destined to fail if we can't figure out a way to manage it. But this won't be done at the corporate level. There is ZERO incentive for big corps to have our well-being in mind. So long as they still get their ad revenue money, this dystopian show will go on.

This means one thing...

Action must be taken at an individual level.

We are not designed for this environment of hyperstimulation and hyper connection. Our minds and bodies are designed to be hunting and gathering, looking for blueberries and tilling dirt. We are not designed for casino-grade slot machine addiction algorithms in our everyday life. We are not designed for having poison in our food system that keeps us in a state of dull discomfort.

We are not designed for our environment.

Simply put, we need to take action for ourselves to get back our agency. We must take radical individual action.

It starts with two things:

1. Understanding a basic neurotransmitter: dopamine

2. Becoming aware that you are a slave to everything that has to do with it

It all begins with biology: Dopamine

There are probably two types of people reading this: The ones who can't get enough of Andrew Huberman and love the word neurotransmitter. And then other ones who want to run and hide whenever they hear the word.

I'll keep it simple for you, as it is the only way that makes sense for me.

Dopamine is the thing that gets us to do anything. It's the neurotransmitter of motivation, discipline, and pursuit of something.

How the dopamine system works is simple: Think of it like a heart beat monitor, with a baseline, and then spikes up and down.

What affects this and causes blips along this baseline is a cycle of expectation and outcome. Our brain sets an expectation of what will happen if we do something. Once we do whatever we were thinking of doing, our dopamine baseline will either go up or down. It does this based on the result and how it compares to our expectation.

Let's break it down a little further with a little more nuance.

1. We have a desire to do something

2. We set an expectation of what the result will be like

3. We get a small surge of dopamine to supply us with the energy to complete whatever it was that we desired to do

4. Based on our perceived result (positive or negative) of doing the thing, our dopamine either goes up or down.

Let's see some examples: Positive outcome

• Our desire: Acquire and eat ice cream

• Our expectation: Ice cream will be tasty and make you feel good

• you do the action... you get and eat the ice cream

• The outcome and comparison: The ice cream is indeed tasty and makes you feel good. Your expectations are met/exceeded.

• The result: Dopamine goes up.

In the positive outcome, it forms a pathway in our brain to do it again because it felt good, and the outcome was satisfactory to our expectation. This can lead to eating ice cream more often (and is an example of why things are so easy to get addicted to even if you only did something once)

Okay now lets flip the script: Negative outcome

• Our desire: Acquire and eat a highly rated flavor ice cream

• Our expectation: Ice cream will be exemplary and will be the best ice cream you have ever had

• you do the action... you get and eat the ice cream

• The outcome and comparison: The ice cream doesn't meet your expectation. It's mid.

• The result: Dopamine goes down below baseline. You are disappointed.

In this negative outcome, if forms the opposite pathway. It tells our brain that we shouldn't do this again, and it reduces our motivation to try again in the future.

So this is the core mechanism/equation of dopamine:

Expectation Reality

Is our expectation exceeded, met, or a let-down?

The thing is... this comparison equation is done CONSTANTLY for every waking second of our day. The only thing is that most of the things we already do are pre-set pathways that we have discovered lead to a reliable positive outcome.

Here are some examples:

Drinking coffee

• Expectation: Get energy and enjoy a warm beverage

• Reality: Satisfies expectation

Eating a normal meal:

• Expectation: It will satisfy like the time before, and the time before that

• Reality: probably satisfies expectation again

Watch YouTube video:

This one is dicey. We form an expectation based on many things here: how much does the thumbnail/title intrigue us, is it a channel that we have watched in the past and have a positive history with... to name a few...

• Expectation: The last video I watched from this guy was great, and this one is about something relevant to my life.. I will love this one!

• Reality: Video turned out great, and I took some notes / OR / Video was disappointing and didn't hit on anything I actually cared about, I was click baited.

If you have been paying attention, those two different outcomes will cause different blips along our baseline dopamine. And will cause us to feel differently.

Scrolling Instagram/TikTok:

• Expectation: Effortless entertainment and a steady stream of stimulation and novelty.

The reality could be either satisfactory and we get the stimulation, or the timeline is dry and nothing interesting comes up... you can decide the reality for this one.

This is all well and good in concept and example, but in reality it's hard to see how you do this comparison equation for literally everything in life...

I highly recommend you take a step back before doing anything today, and ask yourself what your expectation is for what you are about to do... That alone might change your life.

You are probably thinking... "So how does this knowledge help me achieve my goals and dreams, you aren't even a biology teacher what do you know!?!?"

Settle down...

Like I said before, this dopamine equation is something we do CONSTANTLY; and it also stacks.

We can follow the dopamine, stacking up hit after hit of feel good stimulation into a serious crash if whatever we are doing lets us down.

And when we hit a dopamine crash and our dopamine falls below baseline... we tend to do just about anything to get it back above baseline. (This is the cycle of addiction)

A dopamine crash feels like this:

• Low energy

• No motivation

• Brain fog

• Lethargy

• Boredom

• Mild depressive feelings

• Hunger even though we may have just ate (this is the desire to get dopamine from food)

• The great desire for easy stimulation and dopamine (e.g. social media, junk food, etc.)

All of this to say that everything we do in our day to day is based on this dopamine equation. Because we have so much stimulation, and are constantly stacking easy hits of dopamine, we cannot get ourselves to do the hard things.

We are always in the cycle of quick stimulation.

I guarantee you this: You are in this cycle, whether you want to accept it or not.

How do I know this? You are reading this article. You have an expectation based on reading the title and getting this far in. Yes, I just broke the 4th wall. You and I are slaves to this system as much as anyone else is.

Okay, great. Now you understand dopamine.

Now, you must audit everything you do

Find your largest points of distraction and stimulation. What takes up all your time? What gives you the most stimulation but doesn't add much value to your life?

I can't answer these questions for you, but I can tell you mine.

This is what took up most of my time and how I am actively fighting them:

YOUTUBE, INSTAGRAM, and ICE CREAM

I love YouTube as an example because it is the most used social media on the planet, right after Facebook.

YouTube has a near perfect recommendation algorithm. It is designed to keep you stimulated for as long as possible.

I used to watch YouTube for HOURS at a time. It used to be video game creators that hooked me when I was young slave to the dopamine system in middle school and into high school.

But I have improved since middle school... Only a few months ago I was watching hours of lifestyle vlogs, sports/training videos like Dr Mike Israetel telling me how to get JACKED. Hours of my day would be eradicated by something that didn't really get me closer to my goals. Yes, getting jacked is a goal of mine, but watching YouTube WILL NOT GET ME JACKED nor net me much long-term satisfaction.

But now, my habits are different.

Now I only watch ~1 video a day, and it is ALWAYS highly actionable and philosophically aligned with my goals. It always provides me immense value.

How did I do it? I removed myself from the system, kind of.

Here is the truth: Removing YouTube entirely from my life would probably be a net negative. I think that it is a fantastic platform with some of the most valuable information out there, all for free...

But, I did remove many aspects from the platform and manufactured it to work for me and not against me:

This is how MY YouTube works (thanks to the UnTrap For YouTube extension)

• No home feed → automatically redirects to my Watch Later playlist

• No custom thumbnails → it picks a random frame from the video and uses that instead

• No recommendations on the watch video page

• No profile pictures in the comment section

• No autoplay

^ shoutout

This way, I use YouTube for good 99% of the time, and I have no issue getting off the platform.

I have done the same for Instagram as well and removed my home feed and reels, thanks to another browser extension called SocialFocus — it's made by the same creators as UnTrap For Youtube.

» By removing thumbnails from Youtube, I don't have high expectations that can lead to a dopamine crash.

» I removed myself from the hyper-addictive recommendation algorithm. Now I can't downward spiral into stacking dopamine hits until an inevitable crash.

Youtube is just an example... but it can be done for everything in life.

I did this for food as well.

I was eating a bowl of lovely, clean ingredient chocolate ice cream every night for like 2 months straight.

I had an expectation that whenever I got myself a bowl of chocolate ice cream, I would feel good. And it satisfied nearly every time.

But I got a little tubby (:<), and I didn't get enjoyment from real, satiating food— and I felt like couldn't wind down at night without a bowl of ice cream.

So, I removed it from my house. I no longer have a frictionless source of stimulation in my freezer. By doing this, I prevent a stack of dopamine hits that could lead to a crash later on.

This goes for any easy source of food-based stimulation in my house. I only keep whole foods that provide me with satisfaction, and that don't lead me to being a complete glutton.

What you need to do: Become aware of how this dopamine cycle is ever-present in your life. Slowly chip away at sources of stimulation, and you will find yourself doing the hard things that move you towards your goals, nearly effortlessly.

I am a hunter-type/ADD-ADHD person, so addiction and low-dopamine are a part of daily life.

You might need less management than me, but I guarantee you need more than you currently have.

We are all a slave to this cycle, no matter what gender/age/occupation/etc you are.

If you can master this cycle in 2025 and have it benefit your life... have it fuel your journey. I can say with confidence that it will be the best year you have ever had.

That wraps it up. This is definitely the longest newsletter I have ever written. If you found it useful, please share this with a friend who you think is a slave to dopamine and needs to become aware.

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You can read the previous letters here.

And you can support the KEEP GOING mission monetarily by subscribing as a supporter here on Substack. Each dollar goes to buying eggs and ground beef to fuel writing these newsletters. You can do so by subscribing from anywhere on this page.

As always...

KEEP GOING.

B.S.

Other links:

• KEEP GOING Studio, where my team and I design to fuel your health/wellness/lifestyle business' growth.

• Find me on 𝕏

• Find me on Instagram (I post stories there all the time and will be posting more content on how to live a better life there as well.)

You say this to your parents or friends.

But somehow they all know the same statistic:

"But did you know that 70% of businesses FAIL!"

They will follow it up with:

"It's so risky! What will you do if..."

"Or what about..."

"Do you have a plan for when..."

How come you have to swim through so much bullsh!t to start a business?

Truth be told, the statistics are true. Any business has a likely chance of failure.

But how about this... let's consider it from a different perspective.

The only reason a business fails is because of something the business owner does or doesn't do.

99% of the time it is largely within their control, or at least their choices will determine the fate of their company.

So why is it risky?

It's entirely within their control.

The same goes for you and me starting our own businesses.

This idea of a business being risky is only so large, especially when you consider it from a solopreneur perspective.

Solopreneurs can ONLY blame themselves if they fail.

Who can they blame if revenues tank and they can't pay the bills?

The economy?

(if they do blame the economy... they were destined to fail from the start)

The "risk" is entirely within our control.

You have EXPLICIT jurisdiction over what skills your business operator has (which is probably yourself).

If I fail... I ask myself these questions before blaming someone or something else:

• Did I learn the proper skills?

• Did I practice those skills?

• Did I put in enough hours?

• Did I think through your decisions?

If I can't say yes to those...

Well, I know why my business failed (and it's not even remotely hard to see at that point).

How do you prevent this from happening?

Simply put: become efficacious.

Learn how to run a business that will succeed.

Learn how to:

• Study markets

• Build an audience

• Write copy

• Sell a product

• Build in public

• Manage people (for all those normal-preneures)

YouTube and Z-Lib/Library Genesis have free courses, books, and lessons on EVERYTHING listed above (and more)!

You can't use the excuse of the economy causing your business to fail, there is a book for that!

When you say you are going to start a business...

Those who stifle your dream only do it because of one reason:

They aren't willing to become better.

They cannot comprehend themselves learning and applying skills that they do not have already.

And so they choose to tear you down... in hopes that they don't have to look in the mirror at night, and see themselves as a failure for NOT TAKING THE LEAP while you are changing your life, day by day.

I started mine, and so can you.

So...

Is it actually risky to start a business?

…

KEEP GOING

B.S.

p.s - love the KEEP GOING Newsletter? drop a testimonial here. if you want to share this newsletter with your friends - send them this link: https://kg.brookslagle.com

KEEP GOING

Fueling you to KEEP GOING on your journey, one letter at a time.

By Brook Slagle

p.p.s - if you want to increase your brands' presence online or just need a website, schedule a call w/ me ​here

I have it so good.

All of my meat can come perfectly cut and packed in a clean plastic container.

All the food that I could want and need is conveniently selected for palatability...

Then it is shipped to a "supermarket" where it is all readily available for purchase just down the street.

I ask myself: "When was the last time I visited a butcher?

In our life, we don't have to even SEE the unideal parts of the animal, let alone eat it.

How far disconnected are we from where our food comes from?

MOST of us don't have a garden...

MOST of us don't hunt for our food...

But is this bad?

This ever evolving convenience allows us to prioritize other things.

We can put our ducks in baskets that might be more beneficial. Whereas 1000 years ago we would have had other priorities (sheer survival).

Here is another perspective:

It might be beneficial to struggle on the things we have all accepted as normal and convenient.

Let's envision a TEMPORARY situation.

It's 200 years ago. November 28, 1823

You are hunkering down for the winter and you need enough food to last you the entire time.

You did a good job growing potatoes throughout the summer and you bought rice from a farmer in the south.

And you hunted one elk and took all necessarily precautions to prevent it from spoiling.

But, by the time late February comes around... you realize you have only a couple pounds of muscle meat left.

But you have nearly all the organs still.

All of what modern society would generally leave for scrap or "pet food"... you would be faced to enjoy for the sake of survival.

200 years ago... this hypothetical would never happen.

Organs, hooves, horns all had (and still do have) an immediate use.

Organ meat was commonly accepted in the diets of human, horns and hooves could be made into tools like combs and knives. And other bones could be just boiled until everything was extracted from it.

But to us, many of these uses don't even come to mind.

Today... we would need to get a little creative to find uses for it.

We just eat ribeyes and chicken breast.

Imagine how good that would be for us to NEED to use the entire animal?

Of course, nutritionally we would be more sound. More diverse nutrients and more nutrient dense protein sources...

But behaviorally, we would be skewed towards practicality and efficiency regarding food.

This would bleed into other parts of our lives.... how can we stretch our funds, business prospects, and other things?

We would be less consumer and more provider.

This reminds me of a quote from Naval...

"The older the problem, the older the solution."

I can't lie... this whole letter was inspired by a 12pm thought about how "fun" it would be to be stuck in a cabin in the woods, in the middle of winter, with only one large game animal to survive off of.

Gamma state brain waves are weird, but this thought-experiment is fun.

But writing this did make me more grateful of things like butcher's and supermarkets.

I am going to go buy some fruit and organs now.

and maybe hunt for the meat next winter...

KEEP GOING

B.S.

p.s - if you want to increase your brands' presence online or just need a website, schedule a call w/ me ​here

Imagine you are on this train, and it is out of control. And we don't have seatbelts.

That is what it feels like to be trapped in your 9-5 because you are a "vital member of the team".

If this sounds like you... read on ↓

Subscribe now

I was in a similar situation to you, about 2 weeks ago...

I had SO much mental resistance around quitting my job.

I was a necessary team member.

My job was:

》Limiting where I could go (geo-blocked locations)
》Taking the my best hours of the day
》Causing so much stress...

But I couldn't take it anymore. I was leaving my business on the back burner for too long... I said FUCK IT.

It was time to go all in and quit my job.

I called my boss and told him that I want to put in my two weeks.

I sat there waiting for his response.

"Oh man, how come? We love you here!"

"This is surprising. What can we do to keep you around?!?"

Here is what actually happened:

"sure."

Guess what? ZERO resistance.

Didn't even ask why I was quitting.

He was just like… "okay".

My feelings of being a "necessary team member" just exploded. After that call, all of my resistance was gone.

It just vanished.

In that very moment, I learned that I had so much more control over my life.

I was letting MYSELF down by staying in this job.

To be honest.... That call reeked.

I may have been the next poor soul to get sent to HR, and to the chopping block.

Lesson in this?

You have more control over your life than you think.

You just need to take more action.

Be ruthless.

Accept the responsibility (and consequences) of your choices.

Just fucking commit.

Your life might change.

I wouldn't be here if I didn't take back control over my own life via action.

Fortunately, my train is heading towards MY destination now. It's the path I set for myself, and I am the captain of the train.

Today is the last day of my "2 weeks notice".

I hope this message inspires you to go all in.

KEEP GOING

B.S. // 2024-03-15 15:25

p.s - if you want to increase your brands' presence online or just need a website, schedule a call w/ me ​here

p.p.s - a haiku.

this letter is short

my life has been busy af

bare with me pls thx

There are some mistakes and I left them in there for the sake of documenting as I improve reading aloud and articulating.

Read along, enjoy, and let me know if you like this feature!

Subscribe now

I was a shape-shifter.

An only child of a single mother.

From a young age, I have always been the kind of guy to be highly personable and social, because I had to be.

It's not like there were many people around to chat with. I always had to find my group and mix in somehow.

But that caused me to never figure out who I was.

I moved from the West Coast in California, USA, to Eastern South Dakota. Over 2000 miles away. This was during summer break, between the 5th and 6th grades.

From city life to farm town.

The culture shock was immense.

I was a Cali kid who wore skinny jeans and "talked funny" to these farmers, and I bet I did.

But that made them take interest in me and I loved it. I was cool for being weird. This lasted about one semester of school, about 4 months. In their eyes, my novelty wore off, and instead of being cool-weird I became just weird.

And then I began "shapeshifting" and mending into my environment (s/o @yaboikurious). Less skinny jeans, more real jeans and sweatpants that didn't fit quite right.

I was descending into people-pleasing and the subsequent status game that comes from it.

I lived like that for the next 3 years until somewhere in high school I figured out I didn't need to be someone I wasn't. I didn't need to shape-shift to be like-able.

This is a long-winded story on how our environment affects us and how we adapt to it.

No one is immune to this phenomenon, we all do it. We all want to be a part of the tribe. It is innately human, a survival instinct.

But, it often doesn't do us much of a service when we are attempting to find ourselves.

We need to extract ourselves from our environment and figure out who we actually are.

I have found this process to be most easily done by leaving where ever I am at.

By uprooting myself, I am removing all consistently reinforced environmental scaffolding. In my mind, this scaffolding makes up how I view myself, and how I view the world, and thus, my actions.

Removing the scaffolding lets whatever wasn't actually me, crumble. And what's left is authentic, true to self, ME.

This is a HUGE reason of why traveling is NECESSARY for young people.

The sooner you can get out of world (your environment), the better off you will be.

When on your journey, you will find parts of you that you never realized existed. And ones that never had any real sticking power outside your environment.

One thing that has stuck out to me while I have been in Spain is how much modesty is valued amongst Spaniards.

It's impressive, these people dress up in full clothing, year round. Puffer jackets when it's 60ºF, and long sleeve linen shirts when its 95ºF.

I get funny looks from locals like I am ZOO ANIMAL while I am running in a tank top. Total rubbernecking.

And I gotta say, its doing wonders for my confidence. I am nearly desensitized to someone giving me the odd look at this point.

While it is partially because of my extremely limited wardrobe (my backpack can only fit so much), it's as much of a part of me to not care anymore.

I used to go chameleon and blend in.

At the beginning of my time in Spain, it rubbed off on me. I didn't want to go outside without a long jacket or something to cover up. But it didn't stick. The scaffolding wasn't strong enough to hold that temporary character trait.

The next location I go will affect me differently and challenge me in ways that I can't expect. And that is the beauty of it.

I will constantly be figuring out a little bit more about me, and who I am. Bit by bit.

This is the power of traveling and finding yourself. Reaching more understanding of who we are, which something always worth pursuing.

As always...

KEEP GOING

B.S.

p.s - if you want to increase your brands' presence online or just need a website for you or your brand, let's chat ​here

p.p.s - love the KEEP GOING Newsletter? drop a testimonial here. if you want to share this newsletter with your friends - send them this link:

There is nothing quite like traveling outside the country for the first time and realizing this:

"I know nothing."

This experience does either one of two things to you:

1. Sends you into a spiral.

Your ego explodes and you can't handle the thought. You run back home with your tail between their legs.

2. You go fanatical about making it your life.

Your ego doesn't take over the process. You take the hit, but see the light on the other side.

You are removed from your conceptions and are willing to let yourself get into a state of hyper-intake. You become a sponge.

And then... you never go back.

Once you get that taste of humility and freedom, you can't go back. You aren't the same.

Traveling is a drug, an addictive thing. It can hook you the same where heroin does and it can separate you from your loved ones the same way.

Sometimes you start taking the drug, and your mom gets mad at you because you aren't calling her enough because you are too busy using (i.e. to busy jumping on flights, riding a dirt bike in the rural tropics where there is no cell service, you one too many bowls of ramen and are now riddled with brain fog - sorry mom can't talk, etc).

There is extremist beauty in that level of communal degeneracy. But instead of separating you from your loved ones, traveling can bring you closer to them, especially if you share it.

If you let them into your life, it can change your relationship and who you spend your time with.

The ones who are curious about what you are doing, and are excited to hear what you learned on your travels, are the ones you want to stick around.

Those who say "man, I could never, I got tooooo many responsibilities" are probably just coping with their own lack of life.

Nothing against them... but they probably spiraled and went back home with their tail between their legs the first time they got uncomfortable.

Or they say something like, "it's toooo expensive!!!".

One of the greatest illusions of the modern age is that travel is still expensive and is only for the rich.

It's just that. An illusion.

Having friends and family join you on your travels is probably the most rewarding thing you could do. This is the opposite of communal degeneracy.

You share that experience, and they then change for the better.

Here is the core of this:

As you travel, you become where you go.

You absorb and it changes you.

You are where you go. (h/t @caitlynlubas)

So why limit yourself to where you go?

Why stay in your crusty, mono-cultured hometown? I would argue it is your responsibility, to yourself, to get out of it and experience the world.

You will become greater for it.

Everyone who you share your presence and love with will be better for it.

Not only that, but it will callus your mind with struggle (traveling isn't easy). You will be tougher, more durable.

It will give you life experiences that you couldn't get any other way, like losing all of your clothing because the Mexican lavandería (laundromat) gave literally ALL of your laundry to someone else. (don't worry, I got it back after a few days)

You won't be the same.

Buy that plane flight.

Find that cheap month-long Airbnb in Thailand.

Commit to your dream and follow through.

Stop thinking about it, and saying "well... I don't know. What if...."

You don't need anyone's permission for the freedom that traveling gives you.

Once you get it a taste, you won't be the same.

"A taste of freedom can make someone unemployable." - @naval

Once you can construct your life around this freedom, you won't be the same.

In order to make traveling your life, you need leverage. You build leverage by offering your skills and capabilities for others to use.

Monetize yourself, and you can make traveling, or whatever you endeavor, your life.

I have a gift for you to make this easier.

Don't spin your wheels on the technical side of building leverage, use Aster to jump start the process.

Use this FREE Framer website template to get your personal brand or business online within the next HOUR and start building your life around freedom.

I also made a 24 min instructional video on exactly what you have to do get your brand online w/ Aster.

》Get Aster AND the instructional video HERE.
》Check out the launch video HERE.
》Check out the preview page HERE.

As always...

KEEP GOING

B.S.

p.s - love the KEEP GOING Newsletter? drop a testimonial here. if you want to share this newsletter with your friends - send them this link:

KEEP GOING

Fueling you to KEEP GOING on your journey, one letter at a time.

By Brook Slagle

p.p.s - if you what to increase your brands' presence online or just need a website, schedule a call w/ me ​here

It's appalling.

My ears hear every word, but only understand a few.

This Spanish serenade is radiating because I am currently in a coastal town, south of Barcelona, Spain.

I wouldn't change this experience for anything.

I have been traveling & living outside the USA (my home) for 5 months out of the last 12.

"Trust fund baby!"

Hardly.

Traveling isn't for the rich only.

My income has been <3k a month for the entire time, most of the time less than 2k/m.

Your lifestyle is the only limitation to what you can experience.

I have learned a few things about how to make traveling cheaper than renting an apartment and living the normal life.

This one is a little dense. Strap in.

Here is my guide to ...

Traveling the world on less than 3k per month

Location Location Location

One of the most important aspects to traveling on a budget is location choice.

This is all about leverage. I lived in Mexico for over 3 months and never paid more than 1k PER MONTH during it.

How? Mexico's currency is just not as strong as the dollar. Things are just cheaper than the US.

1k per month gets you decent food, an inexpensive apartment, and somewhat reliable internet.

Mexico isn't the only place where you can do this.

NomadList is a great resource for finding cheap places to travel to.

Here are some of my general recommendations for inexpensive locations:

• Super cheap:

  • South East Asia (Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, etc.)

  • Most parts of Latin America (Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, etc.)

• Mid-cheap:

  • Eastern Europe (Croatia, Poland, Hungary, etc.)

There are more places, but you can find them yourself!

When choosing a place, find something that excites you and is within your budget. Do research, look at forums, newsletters, heck, even look at Airbnb! There are so many resources out there to find gems that others have already dug up for you! You just have to look.

But... sometimes you want to visit someplace that isn't super cheap.

Say Spain, for instance... Like the majority of Europe, it isn't THAT cheap.

That leads me into my next point, how sometimes staying for longer will be significantly cheaper.

Slow travel: stay for longer for significantly less.

This is my bread and butter. It is often overlooked, but many platforms offers longer term stay discounts for accommodations.

For example: I am currently staying in an Airbnb that would normally cost ~$1500usd per month. But since they offer it at a heavily discounted rate for a monthly stay, I paid $660.34 USD for 29 days.

This happens EVERYWHERE.

The long term discounts are everywhere on Airbnb. The key to finding the discount is using Airbnb's search filters, and being relatively flexible with your dates.

I believe that one shitty night of sleep in a hostel is a worthy sacrifice to secure a 55% off a nice Airbnb for a month when your dates don't perfectly align.

Another way you can do this is by booking in advance.

If you can guarantee your dates far in advance, this is MUCH easier. You can often find some incredible deals. The only thing is that you must commit to those.

I have been "risking it" for the last few months, and have secured longer term discounts on rentals only a few weeks in advance, but the pickings get limited fast.

You have to be willing to jump on a good deal.

This leads me to...

Travel credit cards: save money by spending it.

A travel credit card is a MUST if you plan on spending more than a few weeks out of a year traveling.

I have earned over $1.5k worth of credit card points that can be converted into free airfare or just straight up cash.

The amount I accrued is made up of about 50% entry offer and 50% normal spending.

I am a little bit of a travel credit card newbie, so I rock a Chase Sapphire Preferred. At an annual fee of 95usd, the benefits have CLEARLY covered the annual fee. (the other benefits covered it alone, i.e. $50 hotel credit, complimentary DashPass, 6 months of Instacart+, etc.)

I recommend this card to all of those who don't want to jump into the deep end with a nearly $500 annual fee travel card, but still want to get some pretty sizable benefits.

Here is my referral link so you can get the same one (or its big brother, the Sapphire Reserve!) and start on your travel journey.

If you don't have one yet, I recommend leveraging a big purchase like your flights, laptop, or something expensive to get a big jump start on the entry offer!

There are MANY travel credit cards out there, and many of them are AWESOME.

Capital One, American Express, Chase, Citi, etc.

Check out this list for more inspiration.

But, spending money on a credit card doesn't help if you can't afford to pay it off.

Well... It sounds like you might need to adjust your lifestyle.

Lifestyle change: the colossal factor.

The only way that I have been able to live outside the country for 5 months on less than 3k/m is because I have adjusted my lifestyle.

Here is what I have done:

Rejected consumerism.

I buy ONE souvenir from each country, and it has to be very special.

Pack light.

Throughout my entire time in Mexico, I lived out of a 30L personal-sized backpack. This saved me significantly on checked bag fees, and increased my mobility.

I eat two big meals a day.

While in Mexico and Barcelona, I lived off of $30 PER DAY.

My accommodations were ~$15 per day, and I had to make the other $15 stretch enough to feed me and transport me. Find the gems that feed you well, for cheap. (Tacos and Turkish food serve copiously)

Partner/group travel

Splitting costs is HUGE. It allows you to split likely the largest expense: accommodations.

I have been fortunate enough to travel this entire time with my girlfriend, and it allows us to both be more frugal.

Free experiences

Free things have been some of the most rewarding experiences I have had on my travels. From the most immense sunsets, to brown waterfalls.

Most of what you see on TripAdvisor is monetized in some way, aka costs YOU, the consumer, money. Look for the free stuff. You can find stuff online in forums and budget travel blogs. I found most of my gems by just walking around and talking to the locals.

Spending the extra money on experiences

A fancy tote bag will break down over time, memories are forever. I spend the cash I save from the above on cool things like hanging out with baby big cats, boat rides down crazy canyons, and surf lessons.

It is much better than sleeping in an Airbnb that is 15% nicer for double the cost.

Being okay with being uncomfortable

Some of the places that I stayed in during my trip to Mexico didn't have AC in June/July/August (fyi - it's fucking HOT in Mexico). Some of them didn't have hot water.

Why did I make such sacrifices?

Because I wanted to travel. And those little comforts I learned weren't needed, but only something I wanted.

I chose travel over comfort. (It was then I realized how important fans are…)

That's what I got.

My current life IS traveling.

I want to experience the world, learn more about myself, and other cultures.

My methods might be weird and not-so-pretty. But they work.

Don't let your lifestyle limit you from experiencing the coolest things in the world.

Choose life over comfort.

KEEP GOING

B.S.

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Notes...

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If you want to share this letter with your friends or audience, use this button:

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Any subscriptions that come from your link will stack up referrals, and you can get a month of complimentary paid membership to KEEP GOING.

Finally... if you want to increase your brands' presence online or just need a website, schedule a call w/ me ​here or check out my website and see what I offer @ https://brookslagle.com

A newsletter to help you, as the name implies, KEEP GOING on your journey.

Each letter is intended to motivate, educate, inspire, and expand who you are.

Topics covered will be wide-ranging, but common themes will be:

• nomadic living

• lifestyle design

• health & fitness

• business

And more.

What you get as a member:

As a free member… you will get one letter a week, every Wednesday.

As a paid member… you will get exclusive, actionable, value focused posts and protocols. You can expect AT LEAST one of these a week, with the possibility of an extra letter on the weekends.

Either way, free or paid, are a member of the KEEP GOING community. The comment section is always free, and you can reply to each letter with something you’d like to add, or just roast the shit out of it (you have the power).

Subscribe now

One thing that you should know… This newsletter will change and evolve. Don’t expect that same content in 3 months. If you can’t handle this, don’t subscribe. The ethos of KEEP GOING is to evolve and grow.

No hard feelings if you aren’t down for that.

By the way… KEEP GOING isn’t faceless. It’s written by me, Brook Slagle. You probably came from my 𝕏/twitter, but if you didn’t, you can find out a little bit more about me here.

As always…

KEEP GOING

B.S.

Brook here.

You might notice some things look a little… different (hopefully better!).

I decided it was time to finalize some necessary rebranding, and no better time to utilize this transition period to get off ConvertKit and on to something a little more community centric… Enter Substack.

Let’s get into the new things…

Comments

With Substack, you now have the ability to comment publicly on the letters! Community was the one major selling point on transitioning to Substack.

You can still privately reply to the emails as usual, and I will still always respond to those, but now you have a way to create conversation with other me and other subscribers!

Much improved web reader

One of my biggest gripes was the shoddy web reader on ConvertKit. Although it is a powerful marketing service, their website reader was ass. Mobile view is nearly unreadable and that simply will not do.

I want my readers to be able to read on all platforms, not just the email. Substack’s web reader is about as good as it gets. They have a fantastic mobile app too. Full stack support :)

Get more from Brook Slagle in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

You can go ahead and check out the KEEP GOING homepage here, as well you can see most of all the previous posts from KG there.

Paid subscription

Good news for anyone who loves the KEEP GOING newsletter. You can now support the newsletter directly by becoming a paid subscriber! It’s currently pretty dang cheap, and I do intend to raise the price in the future as we grow.

No pressure to upgrade, you still will get my weekly email as per usual, but paid subscribers will get at least one extra email a week!

You can go ahead and click this button to become a paid member.

Subscribe now

Slight new, snazzier branding

A while back, I redesigned the social image for KG, and I didn’t have the time to make the entire change across all platforms.

I pushed it off because I was eventually going to get off CK, but I just didn’t know when.

The time has come… and now we look like this:

that just about summarizes it.

You will be receiving another email from me tomorrow-ish (re)introducing the KEEP GOING newsletter. Give it a read, there are some little changes going w/ the posting schedule, and it goes over detailed information about being a free vs. paid member. The gist: expect a letter on Wednesday instead of Sunday, comprende?

On Wednesday, next week, KG will resume as usual with a value packed guide to travel the world on a budget! This one is big. I am excited.

If you want to share the KEEP GOING newsletter, press this button below ↓

Share KEEP GOING

As always…

KEEP GOING.

B.S.

good evening.

as you can probably tell, this email looks a little different from my previous emails.

well we are currently under construction, so no newsletter today.

as we grow, we have to evolve.

look forward to my email on my guide to traveling on a budget... soon!

can't forget...

KEEP GOING.

b.s.

​

Brook Slagle • 2024-02-04

Yo! Brook here.

I am currently writing this at 11pm on Sunday in Barcelona, Spain, procrastination nearly got me today.

Time change is a blessing for the KEEP GOING newsletter,

Anyway, story time…

I used to have an absurd Instagram addiction.

I had the habit of any second where I was “bored” to open my phone and click on Instagram. I would start scrolling and being mindless.

Hours would disappear.

Can you imagine how rough it was once they implemented reels?

Any free second and I would commence the DOOM SCROLL.

I eventually realized this was an issue and put a time limit on the app, thinking that this would solve the issue. Hopefully thinking.

But this issue was that I still had the habit to open the app whenever I was bored.

And even when I ran out of time,I still had the option to “One more minute… remind me in 15 mins… etc.”. The good thing was that I would rarely press it. That’s a mild win, at least.

I gained back some of my time.

But when I did press the button to extend my time, it would cause a cascade effect of me instilling the habit of opening that app whenever I was bored all over again.

I became aware of this, and so I thought that I would stop the habit of opening it by moving the app around my home screen.

The goal was to remove the physical habit of touching the screen in certain spots, ideally the habit would be interrupted, but stopping it.

This worked! For a little while…

But eventually I would find the app again, and it would just restart the process.

And in the end I ran out of new places to place the app, and I ALWAYS found new ways to find the app quicker each time.

So, I removed the app entirely from my home screen. Fixed! Or so I thought…

I then figured out that I could just swipe up and search the app with three characters “Ins” and then tap the little icon and BANG, I was back, stuck in this loop.

There was no end to this issue.

Now I had no choice but to just accept the issue and be addicted to Instagram, or uninstall the app entirely.

What did I do? The right thing, I did the right thing.

I removed it from my phone and honestly haven’t looked back since.

I access Instagram on my computer if I really want to, and I only do that for a couple mins a day.

One thing that has helped prevent any sort of habit from forming with the desktop site is a little Chrome extension called News Feed Eradicator.

Once configured, it allows the main feed for a determined amount of time, and then blocks it when time is up.

5 mins a day allows me to check up on my friends and favorite accounts, but never get sucked into a terrible habit.

I have gained back hours of my day, and years on my life.

Do you have the same issue? My recommendation: delete the phone app, and adapt to using it on your computer.

KEEP GOING

B.S.

p.s - love the KEEP GOING Newsletter? drop a testimonial here. if you want to share this newsletter with your friends - send them this link: https://kg.brookslagle.com​

p.p.s - if you what to increase your brands’ presence online or just need a website, schedule a call w/ me ​here​

​

Brook Slagle • 2024-01-28

You need to flip to a new chapter in your life (it’s easier than you think).

At some point, you might feel uncomfortable in your own skin, each day feels like it DRAGS, or maybe you just feel stagnant. You go through your day-to-day, and it just feels like you are standing in place.

This how I have been feeling for the last few months.

I have been slooooowly going up, but honestly, it’s barely a creep forward.

To put a label on it… it’s stagnation, and it’s my antithesis. I HATE stagnation.

The funny thing about stagnation is that you don’t realize it’s happening for a little while.

You get comfortable. The allure of soft things, sleeping in and decadent foods distract you from what is really important. Eventually, you either: 1. realize this is happening, and you make a change, or 2. you keep trotting on the downward curve until you hit rock bottom and hopefully make a change then.

Rock bottom generally means life-altering misfortunes (i.e. chronic health issues, prison, mental health problems, etc.).

My perspective & goal is well accepted: avoid rock bottom like the fucking plague.

So, to avoid this, I get off the downward curve as fast as possible. The first step is to realize you are on the downward curve in the first place.

I realized a few weeks ago that I was:

• only getting <7k steps/day, let alone 10k (my goal)

• using my “bulk” as an excuse to eat excessively

• getting piss-poor sleep

• and more…

And once I had realized that I was on the steady decline, I had to change it up, and change it up I did.

I believe that the easiest way to change your actions, which change your life, is to change your identity (I wrote a post about this and breaking down the ideal self, check here).

My identity was coasting… and I needed to realign my identity with my goals. Here is what I did:

1. Booked a flight to a country I have never been to.

2. Found a month-long Airbnb there that was cheaper than my rent in the US (+ faster internet too 🤣)

3. Bought a course

4. Changed my look: got a huge haircut + shaved

5. considering changing my name to Pablo (sarcasm)

All of these are external. This is by design. Our external environment plays a MUCH larger role on our daily actions (and identity) than we ever give it credit for.

My environment was stale, complacent, and cared WAY too much about American football. In turn, it was having a cosmically large impact on how I did everything, from introspecting to interacting with others to my eating habits.

My new environment is growth centric, and focuses on living life to the fullest. Stagnation is the antithesis of my new environment, which aligns with my identity.

Note: I know I am in a position of privilege to be able to just leave the country for months at a time (and go by pablo). Not everyone can do this style of thing I am doing because of a multitude of reasons from family to job requirements.

But PLEASE keep in mind, you can change your environment. You have control over your domain, and if you don’t have that, you at least have control over your mind, which you can change.

The change will be uncomfortable.

Remember: Growth requires discomfort.

It won’t be easy.

This transition won’t be easy for me. It will require more from me than anything else I have ever done in my life.

And that is how it should be.

Your hero’s journey isn’t going to be easy, it was never intended to be.

But it’s not insurmountable. After all, the hero always wins, right?

My prescription to flip a new chapter in your life:

1. Identify you are on the downward

2. Set goals to break your downward trend.

3. Break those goals down into steps.

4. Create your environment to support those steps.

5. Craft a routine within your new environment, commit to the routine.

6. Become an animal at execution.

7. Embrace the discomfort.

As always…

KEEP GOING

B.S.

p.s - love the KEEP GOING Newsletter? drop a testimonial here. if you want to share this newsletter with your friends - send them this link: https://kg.brookslagle.com​

p.p.s - if you what to increase your brands’ presence online or just need a website, schedule a call w/ me ​here​

p.p.p.s - stay toned for haircut pics on twitter​

​

Brook Slagle • 2024-01-21

Want to help the world? Generate an absurd amount of MONEY.

This is an idea that I came across while reading Going Infinite, it’s about Sam Bankman-Fried(@SBF_FTX)’s rise and fall.

this guy →

One of the most interesting topics I found in it is “Effective Altruism”.

It is a movement that advocate’s using evidence to find out how to benefit others as much as possible and to take action with said evidence.

SBF figured the most effective way to have a huge impact on others beneficially is by generating an absurd amount of money.

Then donating that money to the most effective sources to directly benefit others. Things like charity, cancer research, and any other way to resolve a global issue.

With this will in mind, I would argue he succeeded… he generated the most amount of money of any young person ever. The only other person that rivals him is Mark Zuckerberg. SBF hit $22.5 BILLION dollars in net worth in his twenties…. A monumental success in all respects.

He did this by creating an immense amount of value, mostly with his cryptocurrency exchange, FTX. In order for him to start this exchange, he networked with the crypto bigwigs and made himself a regular. With those bigwigs trusting him, he earned the trust of other well-known and trustworthy crypto enthusiasts.

He generated authority.

Once he had those relationships, he launched his crypto exchange, FTX.

It was the best thing since sliced bread.

People loved his exchange. It allowed people to trade w/ margin, but it used a new technique for a well known problem for crypto exchanges and users: clawback.

This new technique called liquidation caused people to flock to the exchange, and in a matter of a couple of years it became one of the top exchanges, and SBF became very rich.

His golden ticket was a combination of authority, a unique solution to an already existing problem, and the wherewithal to execute on it.

Now if you know about SBF already, you probably know the story “ends” with SBF in jail, but you have to give it to the guy, so long as he follows through with his intentions of philanthropy (he still plans on donating ~90% of his money), he was damn effective at attaining an absurd amount of money.

What can you take away from this?

Well, I would have to agree with him… generating money is likely the single most effective way to help others. As much as I wish we could all be Gandhi, we can’t.

He also makes very good points in business: your network is a projection of your net worth. For example, one of the first people to invest in his new “risky” crypto exchange was Binance’s founder, CZ, who is worth ~15 billion.

As well, he understands how value is perceived and how to distribute value on an incredibly wide scale.

FTX started out for crypto enthusiasts, ones with tons of money and lots of knowledge. It wasn’t a huge market. But eventually, it outgrew its niche and made it mainstream.

We might not be on the same scale as FTX in our businesses and day to day lives (although, I am aiming for FTX level of wins long term, of course), we need to start small to grow big.

This brought the big bucks for Sam.

And, in theory, big bucks for those in need.

Yo! I hope you enjoyed this read.

I am finishing up this epilogue in the Denver International Airport, I am back to full time traveling and will likely be writing a little bit more about that.

I’ll be on the west coast of the USA for the next week, then I am heading to Europe.

Hope you had a good week, see you next sunday <3

As always…

KEEP GOING

B.S.

p.s - love the KEEP GOING Newsletter? drop a testimonial here. if you want to share this newsletter with your friends - send them this link: https://kg.brookslagle.com​

p.p.s - if you what to increase your brands’ presence online or just need a website, schedule a call w/ me ​here​

​

Brook Slagle • 2024-01-14

yo, brook here!

Have you ever pitched something before? Have you tried to convince someone to buy from you, or spoke over and over to people to achieve an intended result?

Well, story time..

Ever since I was a kid, I have had a stuttering issue. I got made fun of back in school because I would stumble over my words in almost every sentence.

Each day, I had a class that I had to be pulled from in order to be one-on-one with a speech counselor. We would read out of a book and practice pronunciation, speed, and other things to help with my articulation.

And overtime I got better. But never fully remediated. Once I reached high school, those one-on-one sessions seemingly went away, but I did have to take a public speaking class, just like the rest of you probably had to. Needless to say, my nerves came back and with that came my stutter.

I would hear snickers after class, and some of my good friends would tell me that some dickheads were making fun of me.

I can’t lie, it did sting a bit, but it didn’t matter. We were all in the same boat. And quite frankly, their speeches weren’t any better than mine.

Fast-forward to college, and I had to fulfill a humanity credit requirement, so I took another speech class. I think that class was my only C in college….

At this point my stutter was quite controlled, I would almost say mitigated.

Nowadays, I speak to people and I tell them a similar story. They say that they wouldn’t have ever known! But each time I do stutter, I ALWAYS recognize it and I really wonder if those people are just being nice 🤣.

Over the last summer, I went to an event in San Francisco for people who wanted to build their own ideas. It was an IRL (in real life) event for people who graduated from Nights & Weekends from @buildspace.

It was a three-day event, and on the last day I had the opportunity of demoing my idea/project (which was my no/low-code landing page freelance offer) in a science-fair style to anyone who would listen.

This was my booth:

​

Here is an excerpt from my recap that I wrote for this newsletter:

It was go time.

The energy in the room was insane.

I grabbed my water and began pitching to whoever would listen.

I did my pitch over 15 times.

It was loud as fuck in this event hall. And my throat was dry.

I ran out of water after the first three pitches.

I iterated my pitch between people, and my last two pitches were by far the best.

My natural stutter came out in every pitch, but I still pitched my ass off.

And…

The outcome was NOT terrible.

Overall, gained 10 followers on twitter and built up my self confidence.

I learned that I needed to talk about my idea more, and JUST TALK with people.

The worst they can say is that they don’t care and move on.

And that never really happened, the worst that happened was “I am a dev so I don’t need this but its cool. good luck.”

​link to day 3 recap of buildspace nws4 irl-sf​

That experience was insanely informative for me.

I am a person who doesn’t do great at learning by someone telling me to do something, but rather I learn from doing the thing.

And the feedback loop from this experience was immaculate.

After each time I pitched to someone, I would make a slight modification and see how it would affect my listener's actions.

Sometimes I would fumble by adding a new word, it might cause me to stutter and lose my train of thought.

And sometimes I would restructure my pitch and it would be a straight-up disaster.

This kind of feedback loop helped me learn how to avoid my stutter and solidify my pitch all in real-time.

One of my goals for 2024 is the seek out and utilize feedback loops like these more.

I want to improve my pitching - and speaking overall.

With that said, I am thinking up a new offer and I want you to listen (read, rather lol) to my pitch!

My new offer: Web-presence creation service which I will temporarily call Keep Going Studio.

At Keep Going Studio, we build web-presence for personal brands with strategic web design, a tailored email newsletter, and a digital storefront to monetize your knowledge. With Keep Going Studio, your brand gets off-platform and into your own hands.

Keep Going Studio will build your brand along side you so you attract the right audience and leads. We take care of the technical side and provide instruction so that you never end up confused while building your digital business.

Keep Going Studio is your solution to catapult your personal brand to off-platform presence, monetization, and your freedom.

Whatcha think? Would this be helpful for you?

Let me know by replying or DM’ing me on X.

Perhaps agency-ing…

As always…

KEEP GOING

B.S.

p.s - love the KEEP GOING Newsletter? drop it a testimonial here. if you want to share this newsletter with your friends - send them this link: https://kg.brookslagle.com​

p.p.s - if you what to increase your brands’ presence online or just need a website, schedule a call w/ me ​here​

​

Brook Slagle • 2024-01-07

Hey, it's Brook.

I have been thinking about something recently that might change your life...

We have become disconnected from the way we acquire things.

It's as simple as... "Buy"

​

As a society, we have the greatest conveniences at our fingertips. You no longer have to get off the couch to order groceries. And in 48 hours they can appear at your doorstep.

There is nearly zero effort.

We lack of purpose, but have an abundance of all consumerist things. All at the drop of the hat. We have little struggle.

We lose our on potential whimsical occurrences while doing things because things are so fast and easy.

One of these is just how we acquire things.

Let's take the example of getting a nice, leather-bound notebook.

​

​

How do we go about acquiring this leather-bound notebook today?

I can say it in one word: Amazon.

Or if you want to support a small business and make yourself feel a little better, I can use another word: Etsy.

There is nothing inherently wrong with these companies, or others like them.

But they are designed for one thing: make it incredibly easy for you to buy what you want in a matter of seconds.

In fact, it took me 6 seconds to find this exact one on Amazon​

Once we order it, it will likely show up on our doorstep in a few days (possibly same day if you live in the right area!). Then we can say we have acquired a leather-bound notebook.

​

How would we have acquired a leather-bound notebook 100 years ago?

There were a few ways:

1. We could be able to buy one or have it made from a leather-worker's shop if you were lucky enough to have one in your town or village.

2. We could wait until the next weekly marketplace to possibly find one from a regional leather-worker.

3. We might have to get on a train or catch a ride to a big-city department store to find one.

4. We might have to make it ourselves, which would take weeks of learning basic leather-working, procuring the materials, and finally constructing the notebook.

​

And each of these options takes a while to actually acquire the notebook, and most of them require some form of social interaction.

As well, each of these processes would create a story, something to make that notebook all the more special.

Each time you would look at the notebook, you would remember the trials you went through to get it, be it making it from hand or the trip to the market.

That item now has a story.

But this has all been stripped away.

The story of our items nowadays is now this:

shipped in a recyclable Amazon box and dropped on our doorstep by someone who couldn't care less about the box's contents.

now that is something special... (sarcasm)

You have zero connection to the product.

The connection is what you make of it, but I know many others who have year old blank notebooks because they had no real incentive to write in. And I believe that is because there is no story behind it.

How do we get back to this?

We must romanticize the process.

I am not saying to romanticize your impulse purchases on Amazon. That doesn't solve the problem.

I am saying, take the long way around. The obstacle is the way.

Take your time before buying something.

Ask others around you for recommendations.

Do your research. Find what brands are the best.

Figure out which brands align with your values, and buy the one that does.

Learn how the thing is made. See if you can make it yourself.

If you can't make it yourself, see if you can buy it from a local crafter in your town.

You have options besides marketplaces designed to steal your money and give you a subpar product.

And going down the alternative route can give you some pretty serious benefits, like:

1. You will have a better product

2. You have a much higher likelihood of using it.

3. You will take better care of it.

4. You are more connected to it.

5. It has a story.

6. You allow entropy into your life, and that can take you ANYWHERE.

Just take a little longer before the next time you press "buy". Ask yourself:

"Is this really what I want and how I want to get it?"

As always...

KEEP GOING

B.S.

p.s - if you want to share this newsletter with your friends - send them this link: https://kg.brookslagle.com​

p.p.s - if you what to increase your brands’ presence online or just need a website, schedule a call w/ me ​here​

​

Brook Slagle • 2024-01-03

yo, its brook here.

I got news… as you could probably tell, I am ending the series Wednesday Wrap Up.

There are a few reasons for this. I recently have been auditing things that I do. Checking if they are still serving me and trying to view everything within the perspective of 80/20, Pareto’s Principle. One of the bigger time-sinks is my Wednesday Wrap Up series on my newsletter.

The original goal with this series was to share cool things that I found - it was pretty much a rip-off of Tim Ferriss’ Five Bullet Friday. It was, by design, almost self-aggrandizing and self-serving.

As it passed on, I realized that I wasn’t valuing the writing in these newsletters. I was always putting them off and not doing a great job of accumulating cool things throughout the week to share with you all, which was the whole point of it.

So, thank you for sticking around for the 11 weeks that I did publish this series to my newsletter. But it is over :<.

One thing to note: You will still be receiving my Sunday deep dive! I am not stopping writing KEEP GOING, just the Wednesday Wrap Up series within my newsletter.

So instead of two emails a week, you will receive one email a week, on sundays. Doing so allows me to write better stuff and put my focus to the 20% of things that give 80% of the returns 😉

You can read all of my posts - including all the previous installments of Wednesday Wrap Up from this link here: https://mail.brookslagle.com/posts​

I appreciate all of you who are here to witness the early stages of this newsletter.

Expect an email from me on Sunday →

love you all <3

as always….

KEEP GOING

B.S.

p.s - i did find something cool this week worth sharing still: kiwix. its an app that allows you to download the ENTIRETY of wikipedia on to your phone, computer, or even a raspberry pi. it’s dope.

p.p.s - if you want to share this newsletter with your friends - send them this link: https://kg.brookslagle.com​