“New Year’s Resolution”

This thing I’m doing, first of all, is a little exercise I’ve been doing for the past several years now. I write down revelations I’ve had in the previous year of my life just to put it out there so that it’s not on my mind anymore. Writing does that for me pretty well even though I’m not much of a writer in the professional sense. It’s a realistic “New Year’s Resolution” because it’s actually based on when I was born and not an arbitrary date. Sure it’s a “me” post, but really it’s about returning to a growth mindset by offloading all of my baggage into an article…that happens to be public. Below are just random observations from my introspection of the past year of my life. This year it was set off by a check-in with friends and various people saying “How do you do all of this stuff?”. In reality, I don’t, but we’ll get to that.

What does 29 feel like?

It feels like I haven’t even started. I’ve had people say I should tell my story because of how much stuff happens in my life on a daily basis. They say I “do everything” and “how do you have time for all of this”. I think if you really know me, you start to see a pattern. Some people call that pattern ADHD and chalk it up to a loss with a side of Adderall. I call it discontent & restlessness. I’m surrounded by a society that’s full of content people on a life cycle that goes something like work>family>dinner>sleep>repeat and ever since I can remember I didn’t want that schedule even if I love the people that are content with it. Finding joy in that lifestyle is a gift and the fact that we’re free enough to do it is a blessing compared to recent history where we really had no choice. But here’s where I’m at

In 2022 I lost my goals…

I have a tendency to do too much by normal societal standards. I don’t often push back on this because there’s really no use in my mind and at the end of the day it wouldn’t really help anyone. So I’ll just put it here. 2022 was a weird year for me, but of course it was because every year is weird for everyone in some way. If weird just means “a little off” than it could be as simple as “I didn’t eat that many veggies this year”. However, that’s certainly not what I mean by weird when I apply it to my own life. Weird for me is often course-corrections and getting off of rabbit trails I’ve been on for far too long. I could literally be surrounded by rabbits and I wouldn’t even know it. My eyes are fixed on the end of the trail and while it’s great that I have a hyper focus in that way, it’s still a rabbit trail. My original goal was growing a business and my end result is playing golf, starting multiple podcasts, trying to create a reliable form of transportation out of piles of metal and inventing a clothing design that just *might* make it big. These are all good things in the grand scheme of things; I just mean it’s not the original goal I started my 28th year with.

So what’s that goal again…?

“I see you doing all of these things. How do you keep it up?” is always the statement and question I get. I’m not even inflating or exaggerating either. I really think everyone I know in my life has said this at some point. So what’s the secret? You won’t believe it but my bedside table always has three lines of cocaine on.

Nah. I’m kidding, but the secret is there’s not really much to it. I think anyone who’s a little scatter brained will tell you the same thing. I’ve had a focus issue since I was like 5 and even before that I ‘talked too much’ so when it comes down to it my greatest weakness is also my greatest strength. Now isn’t that a paradox and isn’t that what narcissists say? Possibly. At this point, though, I’m not really interested in changing that part of me…that’s not to say I’m against change. In fact, I love change so much I do it often enough to be labeled inconsistent. What I’m interested in is using this trait of mine to my advantage to further my goals…and that’s…the secret.

Heavy generalizations incoming

Most people with so called ADHD will have similar traits to me, but they end up using that trait for things that don’t progress them. I guess that didn’t make much sense. lol Most people choose hobbies that they will never be exceptional at – I say it that way because we live in a modern society where almost any hobby you can think of has a top tier of individuals that make insane money from it. Think of one hobby that can’t make you money at some point in general. Anyway, they’re all picking the hobbies that are the most fun, but not necessary growing them or producing a result because they chose things that don’t lean into their gifts. I chose “hobbies” that actually could produce a return and they’re also things I get very focused on. I got lucky when I was younger because cars were my hobby. Cars can easily produce an income in various ways – I chose fixing them. Turns out I’m good with my hands. Even now what I do is with my hands and then later it’s a creative vision I’m putting together. I daydream all. the. time. so this actually makes sense. So now when I say I do video production work in Fort Worth, I don’t really feel different about it. It fits for me I think. I just happen to be ok being in front of the camera as well as behind it. The most outgoing camera guy you’ll meet honestly. Wow…really went way off base to explain my goals huh? I didn’t even try to prove a point and I think I did it. 

My actual goal

I just want to run a business that’s successful enough I can do it full time and scale it to the point of part time while it runs just fine without me…and I meant that in the broadest form because I thought it didn’t really matter what it was as long as I could do it.

1. Well enough to be mediocre 

2. It Pays enough to pay a middle class salary

Flash forward to today and I’m heavily pushing video production from my business Toasty Creations Media. I’m saying that first to say I have made some progress if only to justify it to myself right now as I type, but really I started this business in 2020 as a Podcast production company and now I’ve just morphed it into video because I got way too into cameras. The point here is that sometimes a business does need to follow a passion you have or else you won’t have the strength to do it. I’ve done several jobs in video at this point and I definitely love it, but then comes the focus goblin I talked about earlier. The way I avoid burnout happens to be the exact thing that may keep me from progress. Pushing through when you don’t want to is something that you have to get good at. I go to the gym almost daily and I don’t skip if I’m “not feeling it” so what the heck is so different about this? I’m not so sure. I will tell you this, though, taking things off your plate is refreshing even if you think you’ll miss them.

Can’t get much higher

I’m lucky to have the friends I have. Every once and a while we sit down and really get introspective about each others current road blocks in our lives. We don’t bring our own, actually we all tell each other what we think about their road blocks. Anyone wanna take a guess at what mine was…? 

My “blind spot” so-to-speak was focus. Crazy right? Don’t lie, you had no idea. Truthfully, there were multiple. As much as I think they all might be relevant, it’s hard to discern where the others are coming from when they say them. In any group of close friends there’s always potential for other feelings to get mixed in with what someone actually thinks because we so often cover up feelings for people so that we don’t hurt feelings, etc. Of course, I think this is nonsense and I try very hard not to do that. I’ll say what I think and if it’s wrong am I afraid of admitting that? I like to think I’m not. 

Where does that leave me? It’s probably not what you think. What they told me has allowed me to see a scattered web of rabbit trails and go over it with a fine tooth comb to, hopefully, straighten them out and compress them so that maybe they’re not so far off from each other. 

“What the heck dude, just tell me in english please?”

The Blind Spot

It made me realize everything I do, from clothing brands to podcasts to actual video projects, needs to be pointed toward that original goal I had. Building the Toasty Creations brand and business in video production. What does that look like exactly? Well it looks like if I design the clothing I want to, it needs to somehow point toward my business. Same with podcasting and same with anything I decide to spend my time doing. In my head all of these things were compartmentalized as separate tasks and projects. Basically mini-businesses inside my head that didn’t really lead to the “mothership” Toasty Creations. Kind of dumb right? Well…that’s why it’s called a blind spot. Bringing these all together sounds easy as I type it, but in reality it’s not so easy. However, it gives me a breath of fresh air because it relieves me from working on all of these things at the same time. If everything you do will point toward your goal, then you’re always making progress. It will double as motivation when you have a slow day where all you’ve done is make 5 shorts for social media and you feel like it was a complete waste. 

Were those shorts somehow pointing toward your business? Like camera stuff, video shoot BTS, tips and tricks, etc? Video Production is so broad and I can use that to my advantage now that I’m set free. Of course, my friends may not agree because I’m now on a steady grind in a different way than I was before so I won’t see them as often, but just take this article as an example – did it work? Check out my demo showreel below 👇🏻