Hope you’ve all had an amazing start to January, and are moving forward with your plans in whatever ways are most serving right now. In the conversations I’ve had last week around AI, for some it may be highly energetic, while others are sort of taking their time to emerge slowly and intentionally, really savoring the opportunity to rest and reflect, and staying clear of the hustle message that is prevalent in many entrepreneurial circles this time of year.
For me – it’s been a mix of both.
I’ve made some huge commitments to myself and the biz in terms of how I want to show up, and part of that has been getting more organized and structured (Ry and I recently did a full project management overhaul, and also laid out a full roadmap for how we want to move through the year and take things next level).
On the other side of the balance, I’m really trying to honor my energy levels as I recover and heal from some ongoing health challenges. I’m doing my best to put effective measures in place to prevent burnout, as excited as I am about what lies ahead.
One realization I came to last week was that I didn’t really take any planned vacation or downtime last year, and that really effected me.
Yes – I had days off here and there, but it was largely reactive and didn’t really feel restorative because I didn’t do a great job of planning how these times off were going to align with work cycles.
In years past, attending retreats in tropical places like Costa Rica at least once a year has provided both restoration and inspiration, but these past two years in lieu of travel I just kept grinding and that took a toll.
So that’s something I’m committing to this year.
Planned time off.
I invite you to join me in looking ahead at the calendar and making sure you have a few weeks penciled in where you can really give yourself the gift of recharging the batteries.
This starts for me in April.
My wife Janice and I have rented a house with friends in Nosara for the entire month, and I’m so excited for it!
It’s perfect timing, as it will be immediately following the culmination of our Automated Intimacy cohort.
I’ll be working from there, but am also planning to take at least one full week off during this time.
Let me know – how do you plan to keep the balance in 2022?
Here’s what I want to share this week:
1. Automated Intimacy 2.0 officially kicked off this week. We wrapped up our founder’s 50 with 16 incredible copywriters, conversion experts, coaches, and entrepreneurs.
Hearing them share their vision of what they are creating and how they want to apply these concepts has me fully energized this week.
I’m pretty fired up, and super grateful to be able to “play” with you all in doing this work.
2. I’m in the early stages of reviving an old love affair with Twitter. It’s like a breath of fresh air after many years away.
If you hang out over there, shoot me an email with your twitter handle so I can give you a follow!
You can find me hanging out here
3. Someone in our community asked this question: “How to handle when someone clicks they are interested in more than one topic in a self-segmentation email?”
I created a quick video highlighting this particular problem, and a few ways you could go about thinking it through. If you’d like the quick-hit training in your inbox, let me know here.
Who We are Celebrating This Week:
Big ups to AI member Edward Zaydelman for launching his Genesis Community Panels in Costa Rica, bringing together a diverse set of foreign investors and indigenous people to come together to discuss what he would describe as “creating the new paradigm of living in community”, as well as the hot button issues that often come along with that.
Over new years, his community hosted a 60-person workshop in partnership with Stephen Brooks, founder of Allegria Village.
They led a beautiful and open dialogue around eco-village design and topics like Neo-Colonialism, local integration, and overdevelopment in communities that don’t have the infrastructure to handle it (Nosara, Santa Teresa, etc).
You can learn more about what Ed’s creating at:
https://www.livethepossibility.co
This Week’s Curiosities:
Testimonial.to (the link)
Capturing video testimonials doesn’t have to be hard. I’ve used other tools for this in the past, but this week I’ve been test-driving this new tool for a client.
It’s such a frictionless experience all around, and I really admire the clean, crisp UI.
What I love about a tool like this is that you can actually automate the process of testimonial gathering by sharing a request link at a specified time through an ActiveCampaign automation (after the customer has taken specific actions, completed certain milestones, been a membership member for x days, months, etc).
If you would like to give it a try from a customer/client perspective and actually have nice things to say about us, you can check it out here (no pressure lol):
If you dig the concept, and want to try it out yourself, I’ve secured you 15% off to give it a go 🙂
Collective Accounting (the link)
Friend’s don’t let friends tax alone (or so they say).
But in full truthfulness, 2021 was the first year in many that I actually was AHEAD of the game on making my quarterly estimated tax payments, and believe or not, ALL of my tax prep is already pretty much wrapped up for the year as of last week.
This may not seem like a big thing, but in in previous years this has been a constant struggle for me, and most year’s I’ve had to file for extensions.
There’s a lot of opportunity cost in this, never mind the stress of having taxes just hanging out on your to do list.
I credit Collective for helping me get on track, even when I through a curve ball at them with some unusual crypto events last year that needed to be deciphered 🙂
If you US based and looking to bring some calm to this aspect of your biz, check it out.
Use the code PP6695 when signing up to save yourself $600 bucks 🙂
The Work Gym (the link)
Imagine a gym where you show up to get your most important and meaningful work done, with a community to support you.
I’ve been rocking this service for a few years now on an “as needed” basis. It’s been my go to when I need to get my motivation up to get something important done, and for whatever reason there’s not quite enough gas in the tank.
I’m currently participating in a 16 day pentathlon as part of Team Explorer, trying to get us to the top of the charts 🙂
Skin in the Game & Give It All (the link)
Troll Alert: Ry is currently learning this song as part of his (now ongoing) vocal studies with the legendary Nahko Bear (more here if you missed this story).
Maybe if enough of you ask nicely enough by posting in the group, Ry will share his progress with us in the form of some social media entertainment 🙂
Somebody get the request chain started lol …
NFT-Related Web3 No/Low-Code Apps (the link)
A compiled list of no/low code NFT-related apps, mainly for creators (credit Nik Mcfly from the Trends Community).
This is all new territory for me, so I’m still in total exploration mode.
Not much else to add to the conversation, but would love to hear if anyone else is actively checking out these types of platforms and resources, and any learnings you are experiencing.
And thanks to Deya from our community for introducing me to Trends in this video (by the number of people in my network already there, I must be realllllly late to the party)
with appreciation,
Phil
Co-Founder, Empire Engineering
“Never pretend you are free of stories when you are not …contemplate what is true in all times, places, and circumstances. Be curious about what is true on different levels of reality – your path will unfold spontaneously and effortlessly when doing this inquiry regularly”
– Christopher Wallis, Tantrika Institute