Hey friends
Last week’s episode of Dragons Den provided me with a transforming idea that kept me up until 4am, sketching out a new business idea and direction.
Pretty fucking significant.
Must have been the effect of the London Nootropics coffee coming through the TV!
Let’s get into it.
Business
I’m currently in the process of making a complete shift to creating an online business, which will eventually include everything from a YouTube channel, blog, newsletter, building a community, e-commerce and providing digital and physical products & services.
That’s the long term plan.
Right now, I’m starting all of this from square 1 one. That means developing an action plan to turn my goals into concrete steps.
I have to keep reminding myself that whilst I can’t guarantee results, I can control the actions that I take day to day in order to try and get the results.
My process up until now has been as follows:
- Deciding which business idea to focus on first
- Validating my idea by deciding what result(s) I need to achieve for proof of concept for that business idea
- Reverse engineering that validation results into a timeline and small actionable steps that I need to take right now in order to achieve that validation result.
For example, for my YouTube channel, my validation goal is getting 500 subscribers + 5000 views in the next 8 weeks. The actionable steps I need to take will include setting up the channel, creating valuable content and sourcing my viewers.
If you have a business idea (or ideas) that you want to start this year, spend some time coming up with a plan to validate your idea and get proof of concept first on your journey to turning your idea into a business.
In the meantime, I’ll let you know when my YouTube channel is ready with some valuable content for you.
Fitness
Last week I took some extra time for rest and recovery by having a deload week.
A deload week is a week where you’re still training - at the gym, outside or at home - but the intensity of your workouts and how much you workout are drastically reduced.
Deloading for a week gives your body the chance to recover, prevent injury and stops you from overtraining.
I’ve only started incorporating this practice in the last 6 months or so, since I started my bodyweight training with a weighted vest.
Deloading didn’t have an immediate impact. Looking back over my last 6 months of training thought, it’s definitely helped improve my overall workout performance because I’ve been able to complete harder training sessions , like The Murph, in quicker time.
Life
I need more sleep! I’m sure I’m not the only one.
In January, I got a little excited after listening to a podcast episode with Jocko Willink where his sleep routine was going to bed by 11pm and getting up at 4.30am.
I tried this routine and for a couple of weeks, it was all good. I was getting more shit done.
Weeks 3 and 4 were different - I was knackered as fuck and both my sleep quality and productivity went down massively.
The bottom line? I’m no Jocko.
I more need sleep in order to function properly the next day. Studies show that a good night’s sleep needs 4 to 6 sleep cycles a night, with each cycle lasting on average 90 minutes.
Armed with this insight, I’m in bed by 10.30pm and up around 5-5.30am feeling much better.
Favourites of the Week
Podcast: The High Performance podcast, hosted by Jake Humphrey (BT Sport + BBC host) and Damian Hughes (Performance Psychologist). I found this podcast after doing some digging into high performance habits, which is what the podcast is based around. My favourite episode so far has been with [Karl Lokko](https://uk.linkedin.com/in/karl-lokko-92696088#:~:text=Karl Lokko is a former,within the U.K and globally.), gang leader turned venture capitalist who’s looking to transform Brixton into the black Silicone Valley.
Quote: “How hard should I push myself?” I ask myself a version of this question every day when I’m working. This blog post from Dan Shipper provides a good insight about what the science of stress tells us about peak performance.
Tech: 4K Weeks app. Life is too short to live on autopilot and this app provides you with a visual reminder of how many weeks you lived and how many weeks you have left to live. I open the app every week and it reminds me to put life into perspective and not take people, things and situations for granted.
Useful: When you need marketing inspiration, check out this site for a massive archive of ad copy.