GROWNUP PAINS

the fear of starting

May 19th, 2024
Let’s talk a little about fear.

Have you ever found yourself caught in a mental tug-of-war between a strong desire to do something and a sort of psychological paralysis that renders you physically unable to do the thing?

Maybe it was applying for a new job or asking for a raise.

Or perhaps it was planning your first international trip outside of your home country.

It could have been that you’ve always wanted to write a book, or start a website, maybe even a YouTube channel.

Deep down you know you want to take the leap and do the thing, but something inside you is preventing you from starting it. Something is telling you, “but if you throw your hat over that fence, then you’ll have to climb over and get it.”

“Climbing over the fence could be difficult. It could be scary. The other side of the fence might seem better, but it could actually be way worse. It could not be worth it at all. I’m not the type of person who climbs fences anyway. I’m not wearing the right kind of clothes for that. I don’t have the right gear to make that climb. I don’t know what I’ll need once I’m on the other side. I have everything I need right here. I’m okay right here. I’m familiar with this side of the fence. I’ll just stay on this side of the fence for now. Maybe someday I’ll see what’s on the other side of that fence.”

You may have heard of the idiom, “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.” The problem with idioms is that, despite their being widely-known and touted as “wisdom,” many of them are subjectively bad advice. Just because something has been said forever doesn’t mean it’s correct. Similarly, if it’s something that everyone says, and everyone is not out there living their best life, do you really want to be following the advice that everyone else is following?

As humans, our brains are wired for survival. Specifically responsible for keeping us from peril is the amygdala, a tiny almond-shaped segment of our brain close to the brainstem. The amygdala is associated with fear, emotions, and motivation. It does its job partly by flooding our brains with adrenaline and cortisol when it senses danger. See that tiger? Better run.

These days we see fewer tigers, and yet we are still susceptible to a great deal of fear. Generally speaking, our lives are not constantly threatened in the same way they would have been hundreds or thousands of years ago. So what’s going on here? Why are we so scared? And what are we scared of exactly?

We may be experiencing what is now known as the “amygdala hijack.”

I just learned about the amydala hijack while listening to the audiobook of Feel Good Productivity by Ali Abdaal (an excellent read so far). As I understand it, this is when the amygdala is triggered by a non-survival-related fear. Fight-or-flight is initiated, causing us to have an intense emotional reaction that may be out of proportion to the situation. The frontal lobes shut down, and we can no longer think clearly.

So what causes all this debilitating nonsense to occur inside our heads? According to Ali, it’s usually one of two culprits:
1. Social anxiety – fears about how our actions might impact us socially
2. Self-perception – fears about our limitations and weaknesses
And both of those largely boil down to a fear of failure. We never really want to fail, and we will do all kinds of mental gymnastics to avoid failure.

But what if we could do some different mental gymnastics to break through our fears? What if, with the right mental framing, we could just get started doing the thing we want to do?

Ali offers up many useful insights in his book, one of my favorites is the 10/10/10 rule. Ask yourself, if I do this and fail, will it matter in 10 minutes? Will it matter in 10 weeks? What about in 10 years?

Walking yourself through that framework and actually answering the questions can have a profound impact on your perception of the actual “risk” at stake.

If you know who Tim Ferris is, or have read The 4-Hour Workweek, you may have heard of an exercise called “Fear-setting.” Almost the opposite of goal-setting, fear-setting is a framework to help us conquer our fears and make better decisions. It goes something like this:
1. Brainstorm your fears. Jot them all down on paper or in a document. Don’t hold back; try to write down every worst-case scenario or “what-if” that could happen if your fears became reality.
2. Consider the consequences of not doing the thing you fear doing. What would life be like if you take the path of inaction?
3. Revisit your worst-case scenarios from step 1 and develop a plan. If they were to happen, how would you respond? How would you fix things? How could you prevent these worst-case scenarios in the first place?
If we take the time to go through the fear-setting framework, we may find ourselves much more calm at the prospect of trying something new. What really is the worst that could happen? And if the worst actually does happen, is it really the end of the world? Is the fear of what might happen actually worse than the reality of never trying?

If you finished reading this, my hope is that you are now armed with a few more tools for dealing with modern day fear. Whatever it may be, whether applying for the new job or asking for the raise; whether planning the overseas trip or asking out the girl; whether writing the book or starting the business; if you have been staring at that fence for a while, wondering what’s on the other side, now is the time to find out.

Throw your hat over the fence, and then go get it.

We are an Amazon Affiliate, and some links are affiliate links. If you click and choose to buy, we may earn a small commission AND it helps grow the channel at no cost to you. That sounds like a Win-Win to us!
1000 Subscribers!

January 10th, 2024

Achievement Unlocked

Today we hit 1000 subscribers on our YouTube channel.

Milestones are exciting, and I like to celebrate them when they do come around. It took work to get them. It took many, many iterations and inputs, consistently over a period of time. It took effort. So to 1000 subs, I say cheers!

…and immediately I’m ready to work for the next 1000.

More importantly, I’m ready to put in the work to earn the watch hours we need in order to monetize the channel.

You see, YouTube has two primary requirements that must be met if you hope to unlock monetization. Reaching 1000 subscribers is one of them, and today we celebrate that achievement.

The second requirement is to have at least 4000 public watch hours in the last year. So the equivalent of 4000 viewers each watching an hour of content from the channel within a year, or any variation that adds up to at least that.

That’s the minimum amount of viewership that YouTube wants to see before they will consider a channel for the YouTube Partner Program, which is how channels can earn income from ads that roll on their videos.

Interesting side note here: YouTube places ads on videos regardless of whether that channel has earned the right to monetize its content. Isn’t that fun?

So 4000 watch hours is the next goal. Where do we stand now? Currently we’re hovering around 40 watch hours (only 3960 more to go!) because most of the content we have published has been YouTube Shorts (similar to Instagram Reels or Tik Toks), and watch time on Shorts doesn’t factor in. Also fun!

So the plan now is to make some long-form content; specifically videos in the 5-15 minute range. We just posted one featuring Kacie which covers what you should bring with you to a Mardi Gras parade. You can watch it here.

I plan on doing some chapter-by-chapter book summaries for some non-fiction books that I’ve found helpful over the years. Selfishly this is an excuse for me to read more, but also a way to better disseminate the information as well as articulate it in a helpful way for others. I may send out adaptations of the summaries as emails to my book club people. You can get on that list here if you like.

If you’re keeping up with us, please know that we love and appreciate you. This is quite the journey, and it means a lot to us that you’re along for the ride.

Here’s to the next milestone.

-woodrow
What Comes Next?

December 10th, 2023

The last half of this year has been a whirlwind, to say the least. From visiting Spain (a pre-wedding honeymoon) to marrying the love of my life; from losing my father and other loved ones in the family; to starting a YouTube channel with absolutely no idea what to create content about; to establishing this blog as a place to organize my thoughts and ideas; to writing and self-publishing a book very quickly (it’s a shorty, but you can find it here if you are interested); to learning a bunch of micro-skills along the way that will hopefully make this internet thing easier down the road. Things have been moving fast, and I intend on enjoying the journey.

So what comes next?

I still feel like the YouTube channel will be the main focus. At the time of writing this we have 958 subscribers. I have posted mostly Shorts and Shorts Remixes (clipping other people’s content, sometimes reacting to it). There are some long-form videos on various topics, and the whole lot of it is very disorganized.

This was a time to throw spaghetti at the wall.

This was a time to gather data.

This was a time to learn and prepare.

Now is the time to narrow the focus.

Successful content tends to either be educational or entertaining (or both if you are that good). I want to create something that helps other people, and just need to figure out the “What,” the “How,” and the “Why.”

We called the channel “Grownup Pains” as a play on “growing pains” because becoming a grownup is hard. We started with this broad idea that we might be able to help some number of people by sharing our limited wisdom in what has helped us navigate the path of adulthood. For context, I am in my mid thirties and still feel like a kid.

I’m looking more closely at my values in trying to narrow the focus for this thing. Today I had this epiphany that Happiness is actually one of my core values. Happiness for me, happiness for you, and happiness for as many people as possible.

More specifically, I believe that happiness is a moral obligation. I believe that owning our feelings is important because we impact the lives of everyone we come into contact with. When we are miserable, we spread misery like a plague and sour the interactions we have with others. Conversely, when we are happy we tend to encourage happiness in those around us.

So where am I going with this?

I want to take the “Grownup Pains” idea and view it through the lens of prioritizing happiness.

I want to offer sincere and practical advice that helps others to grow while abiding by the maxim of “Happiness First.”

I want to help others build a better life for themselves and their loved ones.

I want to accomplish this through media, whether that be YouTube, this blog, or published books.

I want to do this because Happiness is important to me, and I want to help anyone seeking a happiness-centric life.

There is my “What,” my “How,” and my “Why.”

If you are willing to suffer through a little more randomness while I figure this thing out, consider subscribing to the channel.

Thanks for reading, and be well this holiday season!

-woodrow
‘5 Things’ Book Launch

November 20th, 2023

I’m super excited to finally make this book available to the public! I uploaded the Kindle eBook version a few days ago, but was waiting on the proof of the paperback before hitting “publish” on that. The final tweaks were made on Sunday and the paperback should be available across Amazon in the next day or two.

For me, this really is about the learning experience more than anything. How to format a manuscript for ebook and paperback. How to publish to Amazon. How to build and manage an email list. How to promote across social media. How to integrate affiliate links. There are so many “how-to’s” to the whole process and I want to learn as many of them as possible.

The next step will be recording, editing and formatting the audiobook version and learning everything surrounding that process. I find it all very fascinating.

If you would like to follow along, consider joining Woody’s Book Club for updates along the way! You will get the occasional email from me, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Until next time, my friends,

-woodrow
Remember, Remember, The Twelfth of November

November 12th, 2023

Today marks the anniversary of a couple unrelated-yet-interesting milestones for me. Most recently it is one month of married life, and I must say, I’m rather fond of it. I am happy to be married to my wife, and I am super excited for what is still to come.

Thanks to the beauty of Facebook memories, I was recently reminded that “On this day” in 2018 I worked my last shift at Commander’s Palace. I was employed there for exactly nine and a half years to the day, and my last shift happened to fall on Veteran’s Day. I recall my final “pre-meal” or pre-shift meeting. One of the managers announced my eminent departure, and sous chef Meg Bickford (now the head chef of the establishment) looked toward me and said, “thank you for your service.” I am not a proponent of stolen valor, but I did find that rather humorous.

Going back three more years, November 12th of 2015 was the night of my first performance on stage at the legendary Tipitina’s in New Orleans. I played drums in a band called The Crooked Vines, and we had gotten a slot for a show featuring up-and-coming local artists. Tickets were free, but the goal was to get as many friends as possible to come and say they were there to see us. We were told by an employee of the venue that pulling in at least 100 people would guarantee us another gig in the future. I think we got 98 if I’m not mistaken, and that must have been good enough because they booked us several more times over the next few years.

That was a fun show. Many friends from Commander’s were at that show. My wife was at that show. She took this great picture which pops up in my Facebook memories every November 12th. And though we weren’t together at the time, I really do love the interconnectedness of it all.

-woodrow
Learning how to publish a book

November 1st, 2023

I was listening to a podcast the other day. I think it was an interview with Alex Hormozi, and they were discussing the concept of “skill stacking.” The idea is that learning any one skill has inherent value and increases your potential to earn greater income, but learning more will exponentially increase your potential output. Basically, 1 + 1 = 3. They gave several examples, and I think one of them was writing a book, getting it published, and then marketing it online. Knowing how to do any one of those things is a valuable skill that you can use to generate income, but knowing all 3 could unlock much higher potential overall.

While on that topic, they pointed out that the fastest way to learn a skill is to simply attempt it. Alex said he put off learning how to build a website for years because he “wasn’t a tech guy,” and then one day admitted to himself that he was smart enough to learn it and was just being lazy about it. He set aside a whole day to learn how to build websites, and ended up learning at least 80% of what he needed to know in about 4 hours.

All of that was pretty fascinating, but then they said the thing that hit me like a ton of bricks: Anybody can learn how to self-publish an ebook in less than an hour, and they could start by just uploading a one-page PDF to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (or KDP for short) to learn the process and get over the fear of starting. I looked into this a little more closely and learned that the same exact platform will publish actual paperback and hardcover copies of your book as well, not to mention the audio version if you make it.

This blew my mind because I had always thought you needed some kind of publishing deal with an established company to write a book and get it out into the world. It turns out that Amazon has made this super easy for anyone to do.

Lights started turning on in my head. I was getting all kinds of big ideas, but I didn’t want the energy to fizzle out before I actually accomplished something. I scoured through some Google docs until I found a script outline for a potential YouTube video I never made. It was called “5 Things I Wish I Knew In My 20’s,” and I thought, that’ll do.

The goal here was to learn how to publish an ebook by uploading something short. What started out as two pages ended up as a little over forty in a matter of days. I used small pockets of time to complete more and more of the thing. I watched videos on how to format the document for paperback vs ebook. I learned how to make a cover on Canva. I learned how to make an email list that my friends and family can subscribe to for updates on when I’ll release it. There’s still a few steps left in the process, and I’m intentionally leaving some things out of the equation this go-around or I’ll never get it done. But I do feel like I’m learning a lot in the process.

I’m stacking all of these skills, and can’t wait to see what I might do next with them.

-woodrow
It’s bed time…

October 20th, 2023

…but I would like to squeak out a few thoughts really quick.

First and foremost, I got married last week to the love of my life, Kacie. It was an amazing weekend with three full days of events, food and music. We got so many beautiful pictures, and celebrated with so many of our closest friends and family (and sincerely missed the ones that couldn’t attend for any reason—you were there with us in spirit!).

Kacie planned just about everything, and it all came together beautifully. I made sure to slip in a few of my own surprises (a song here, a dance there, and even a glitzy slap bracelet tastefully timed during the ceremony; it was an inside joke). All this to say, it was truly an amazing weekend because of all of the hard work and planning that she put in and I’m grateful that we have these memories to share with each other for the rest of our lives. Thank you my baby!

I would also like to say that I’m more excited for the future than ever before. We have big plans, and big ideas, and I am truly inspired in the wake and glow of our dream wedding weekend. This blog has been a bit sporadic because I decided to “start messy” rather than to keep putting off starting until I was “ready.” As of now, this is just a place to organize my thoughts while I grow my knowledge during this season of preparation.

I’m still very much interested in growing a YouTube channel, and will continue to work towards that. I’m also learning how easy it can be to write and self-publish books, both as physical and as ebooks. I’m thinking of starting a video podcast complete with in-person and virtual interviews. But all of this would be meaningless without intention and purpose. As I broaden my scope of what I can do, I need to narrow my focus of who I’m doing it for.

Who is my audience? Who is my avatar? Who are you? How can I help you? As of the posting of this article, I don’t think many if any people have read this blog yet. We have about 774 subscribers on our main YouTube channel, but most of those came from silly YouTube Shorts reaction videos. I have a couple thousand friends/followers on Facebook, and I don’t really use any other social media platforms frequently. So who to address? Who is the target audience? What do I offer?

I think I want to focus my efforts on helping younger people looking to forge their own path. I want to help them avoid some of the mistakes I made so that they can get a head start. I want to write and create in a way that benefits others.

I’ll keep sharing here, and maybe this will be a chapter in a future ebook.

Until next time,

-woodrow
How to Get Started on YouTube Now: A Complete(ish) Guide – Part 1

September 24th, 2023
Is starting a YouTube channel easy or difficult? The short answer is both, depending on how you look at it. In this video we will answer several questions, the main one being “How to get started with YouTube”, along with some practical tips and advice on HOW to get started, and some more philosophical questions you need to address if this is a road you plan to go down. Why get started? What do you make videos about? Is this a hobby or a business? What’s the goal here?

Just Get Started

These are all very important questions we will get to, but first let’s answer this question: is it easy to get started? Yes. If you have a smartphone or any kind of video recording equipment at your disposal, just start. Don’t even worry about a channel name or niche or artwork or description. If you have a simple video idea, just record it on your phone and post it. Rip off the bandaid. If you don’t have a video idea or aren’t sure what to post, just make a video saying:

“Hello world, my name is so and so and I’m thinking of starting a YouTube channel. I haven’t really dialed in what we’ll be all about just yet, but I wanted to share something with the world and see what happens. If you would like to follow our journey from the ground up, please consider subscribing to the channel! Thanks for watching my first video. More to come soon!”

Make that video, whether your face is in it or not (huge shout out to you if you put yourself on camera on the first go around!) and post it to your youtube channel. The title can be “My First Video” and the description can literally just be the script or transcription of what you actually said in the video, copied and pasted into the description. You can leave the tags blank and the video category set to the default, which is probably “People and Blogs”. You don’t even have to create a thumbnail if you don’t mind youtube choosing a frame from the video as the thumbnail. You can always update ALL of these things later if you really want to, but the whole point of this exercise is to NOT OVERTHINK IT!

Now I just used a key word in that last sentence which was “Exercise” and that’s the exact metaphor I would like to focus on. Making YouTube videos is just like performing an exercise, one which contains many micro-movements or micro-exercises, which together make up the larger exercise of creating and publishing one video. The first time you tried to do a pull-up, you probably weren’t very good at it. Personally, I suck at pull-ups so I’m not judging. The point is, getting good requires doing the exercise, which builds the muscles that make it easier to do more repetitions in the future.

If you just made your first video, then you just jumped up on the bar and squeaked out your first pull-up. Or maybe it’s your first one in a long time. Either way, you just found out how out of shape you are, and you need to make a decision. You’re probably thinking that the decision you need to make is, “Do I keep doing this forever or not??” and if THAT is what’s going through your head, you’ll definitely just quit right now. But that isn’t the question! The REAL question you need to ask yourself is, “can I make one or two more videos, and try to make something about them just a little bit better than the last one?” And if the answer to that can be YES, then I think you owe it to yourself to make that much smaller, much more achievable commitment.

The first step in that journey is simply to finish watching this video (or reading this blog post if you found me at The Woodshed), because I actually have many useful tips and insights to share with you.

The second step is getting something to take notes with while you go.

Now if you haven’t already asked yourself this question, now is a good time to consider it:

What is your reason for wanting to start youtube?
- Creative Outlet?
- Generate Income?
- Side-hustle?
- Quit your 9-5 day job and go full-time?
- Want to Work from Anywhere?
- Travel More?
- Help People?
- Teach People?
- Grow a Business?
- Grow a Brand?
- Entertain?
Any and all of these reasons are valid reasons to start a channel, and there are other reasons I maybe didn’t mention that are also valid. Some are more nobel than others, but that doesn’t diminish their validity. Maybe you hadn’t thought of some of them, or maybe you considered all of them. What are your top reasons? What would you hope to accomplish?

You don’t need to have the answer cemented in stone now, although it’s great if you do. It’s also perfectly fine if you decide to add or change your reasons in the future. People change and so do their goals. Making money from youtube may not be your primary motivator now, but it could become important to you later in your journey. Maybe your channel is really your mission, and you need money for that mission, so there is no reason to be bashful about wanting your videos to help you generate income.

The third step is finding some resources to help you expedite your learning process to get ahead of the curve. One example is the book YouTube Secrets by Sean Cannel.

Stay tuned for Part 2 for more on what resources may help you (spoiler: most of them are FREE) and how you can apply what you learn along the way.

-woodrow
committing to the behavior

July 12th, 2023

It has taken most of my life to realize that small things lead to big change when done consistently. I have always heard it, but living it is another thing. In the last few years, it has become more and more clear. It has become a firm belief. It has been validated by experience.

I currently work in a sales position for a telecom company. I won’t say which one, but it’s one of the big three. I have been with the company for about three and a half years now, and have done very well. My first role was as a sales rep in the retail store. I had worked retail at a Ritz Camera store as a high school senior, but it had been a long time with a lot of different jobs in between, including about 11 years in food and beverage service. Now, back in the throes of retail, I was having flashbacks of long inventory counts and constant waves of customers in varying moods.

My manager at that first store was a “tough but fair” kind of guy with a bit of a twisted sense of humor. I thought he was great, and still have his number in my phone. He taught me a lot about sales, but I think the most important advice he ever gave me was this: “Consistency is everything. If you are consistent in your behaviors, you will be surprised at how successful you will be.”

I’m paraphrasing a little, because he was speaking more to the consistency of offering all products and services to everyone, regardless of what they came into the store for. I remember challenging him on this, asking him, “how does it make sense for me to offer X when they came into the store for Y?” And I will never forget his response. He told me to “take them on a date,” conversationally speaking. He said it doesn’t matter what they came in for. Of course I’m going to help them with that, but while I’m helping them, I need to talk with them, get interested in learning a little about them, and ask questions to uncover the need for additional products and services. In doing so, they might say something that helps us both realize how they might truly benefit from something else we could offer.

I was amazed at how well this worked. I’m still amazed by it today. Now, working for the same company, I’m in a role where I visit existing customers in their homes and see if there is anything else we can offer that might solve a pain point they have. Every single day I meet new people, make a meaningful connection with those people in a short period of time, and then am pleasantly surprised when they jump at the opportunity to switch a service over from a competitor because of the relationship we built.

I have noticed that the key to my success has always been consistency. I need to consistently ask questions that engage the customer. I need to consistently go through a checklist of information to consider when creating a custom offer for them. I need to consistently make the offer, even when I doubt that they may be interested. And sometimes they aren’t interested. But many times, to my delightful surprise, they are.

This principle of consistency has helped me in more ways than just sales. Right now, I’m coming up on a 900-day streak on Duolingo in my journey to learn Spanish. I don’t do a lot every day, but I always do at least a little. And that has been enough to help me better speak, read, and understand a second language.

I’m trying to apply this principle in more areas of my life. I’m trying to apply it here, to this blog, by writing something and hitting publish every day. I’m trying to listen to more podcasts that teach me new things, or get me thinking of things in a different way. I want to do a lot, but for now I’m making sure to at least do a little every day, and focus on doing it consistently.

-woodrow
do something small every day

July 11th, 2023

My intention for this blog is not just to be a creative outlet. I plan to use it as a sort of landing page for larger ideas that I might eventually turn into long-form content for YouTube. I have been doing quite a bit of research on the topic of creating and growing a channel. I have watched and listened to a lot of content from other creators on that platform. It’s actually taken over as my go-to interest, where I always have an earbud in, constantly listening during small pockets of time throughout the day. I’m over here aspiring to create something, and this blog is something of a stepping stone towards that.

One concept that stuck out is to document the journey. This comes from a book that I haven’t read yet, but keep hearing about, called “Show Your Work!” by Austin Kleon. Another concept from that book is to share something small every day. This is something I’m really leaning into, because if I don’t do something small, I may do nothing at all.

I’m coming up on the end of my lunch break, and although I wish I could take a deep dive into the subject of this particular post, it will simply have to wait. If you already read through the first two blog posts, you may have noticed a theme with these abrupt endings. Jotting down thoughts and musings, leaving things open ended.

I’m dying to keep hitting “publish,” even if it means only sharing something small.

-woodrow

Just Get Started