“If you’re not taking hits, you’re not playing hard enough.”

👋 Hi! I'm Dan. I help makers, artists, entrepreneurs, and creatives find the clarity and motivation to get their work out into the world. If that sounds good, let's go! 🚀

Hi Reader,

“If you’re not taking hits, you’re not playing hard enough.”

I've had to reinterpret every setback.

I’ve been reflecting on the past year+ as I’ve set the trajectory for 2024,
And one thing stands out over and over:

The past year was brutal.
There were some painful experiences that I would never want to repeat.

But I’m learning to be proud of them.
Instead of shame, I’m learning that to measure my your growth by them.

👉 The truth is this: you’re going to take hits.

Otherwise you’re not actually on the field.
Otherwise you’re not becoming who you’re made to be.

As Roosevelt said it:

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,
whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood”

-Theodore Roosevelt, Paris 1910

It’s easy to talk about the wins.

The internet love that stuff. The gurus flaunt it. Social media is brimming with it.

But it’s hard to carry the weight of the wounds that come along with it. 🩸❤️‍🩹

For those of you who’ve taken hits: I see you.

For those of you still rebuilding your confidence: I’m with you.

And for those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about: I hope you’ll find the courage to press in.

Make the ask.

Take the risk.

Make the bet.

If you don’t finish this year with at least a few bruises, you’re holding back. 🖤

In Case You Missed it:

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📰 Guerrilla Book Marketing Tactics - I'm helping my friend Raj launch his book. Here's a fun run down of some recent shenanigans.

📰 Highlights from 2023 - The single most consistently helpful action you can take for your life, career, and business is to review .
Studies have been done on this.
Goals without context don’t stick....

📰 You can fix the root cause of burnout this year.

It’s easy.

But most don't want to hear it.

From the Newsletter:

📰 The Hidden Addiction Driving us to Burnout - It's not workaholism. It's something deeper and more insidious.

📰 It's quitting day! 🥳 - On finding freedom to quit the things that aren't working.

📰 The Death of The Meaning Movement ☠️ - On creativity, risk, death, and what it means to be fully alive.

Things I'm enjoying (geek edition 🤓):

⌨️ Keybr

I've been spending a few minutes a day brushing up on my keyboard technic. It's silly. But I love it.

My thought process is this: I spend all day most days typing. If I can spend a few minutes a day getting faster and more efficient, it will make my life better.

To take it one step further, the less friction I can have been thoughts, actions, and words, the better.

And this is helping.

I've been using keybr.com, a fantastic and free tool. Better than all the others. I've tried them. Check it out and let me know if you do.

📝 Logseq

I've long been a fan of using a bullet journal to record my day, thoughts and meetings. I've longed for a digital tool that's flexible enough to replace the physcial journal. It's not that I don't like the physical journal. I just want my notes to be more searchable.

Additionally, I'm not a linear thinker. I've always struggled with how to connect, build upon, and arrange my thoughts— especially on paper.

Enter Logseq. It's one of a few similar class of tools out there, but it's open source and free.

It's a bit technical to setup. But it's changing my life, and I love it.

I'm using it for:

Meeting notes
Project management
Daily task organization
Day and time logging
Record keeping
And so much more.

I can't imagine this being the last time that I write about it. It's THAT good.

You can find it at Logseq.com .

Anything great you've been enjoying? Hit reply and send it along! I'd love to know.

Yours in meaning making,

PS- I'm working on rebooting the podcast and hope to have semi-regular newsletters landing in your inbox.

In the meantime, hit reply. I'd love to hear what you're excited about making/creating/doing in this season of life. I can't always respond, but I promise I read every email.

Dan Cumberland

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And follow along:

The Meaning Movement