I'm going to quit

I lost my way for the past few months.

Not in the sense of my life, but in my content creator journey.

It took getting off X and writing for fun on Medium to help me rediscover that.

Two things I want to talk about for this and the next entry:

1. The intent of content creation (this newsletter)

2. My rebranding and my approach to writing (next week’s newsletter)

Before we go any further, I’m not saying any of this to piss people off or to convince them that the system known as Money X isn’t helpful. It is…it’s just that not many go in with both eyes open initially.

So let’s dive in.

Why we create

I’ve moonlighted as a performer all my life.

• First in music as a pianist and violinist…

• Then in martial arts in demonstrations for cultural events…

• Then as part of dance team in college as a choreographer and dancer…

• During my professional career, I picked up theater and eventually to swing dancing.

• Then I started a family and put all of it on the backburner.

This white screen is the stage that I stand on now.

Well…not literally…that’d be rather expensive as I’d be crushing monitors every night as I dad bod into oblivion for the next few years until I can get back on the horse.

I digress…

This screen is my stage for the foreseeable future, and I intend to bring what I’ve learned from all the other performance aspects to bear here.

At least, that was my intent when I first started here as a New Year’s Resolution to write every single night for a whole year.

I’m proud to say that I haven’t missed one yet.

What I’m not proud of, though, is the fact that somewhere along the way, I drank a little too much of the Kool-Aid that Money X was serving up.

I lost a bit of my uniqueness as I started learning more about stories and building an audience and watching other people shower the masses with giveaways and networking calls and pitching cohorts and masterminds and discord servers and…

Yeah, it’s an avalanche of business and marketing 101 for the uninitiated.

Something snapped in me this week.

Poof begone

I took three days off from Money X this week due to the discovery of being search banned.

I figured I could use the break from the pressure of pumping out content and engaging others and networking.

Don’t get me wrong, I have made amazing friends along the way…you’re most likely one of them at the time of this writing since I haven’t really pushed too hard to get people to sign up.

What I discovered was that without the pressure, I became me again.

X is just one platform that is power in idea validation and versatility of the type of content you can offer up. It’s a crucible for everything that you want to try if you so choose to do so.

The problem is that if you’re interested in building a business, you’re eventually hedged into a certain groupthink mindset.

If any of you have ever played the “Mass Effect” games, you know this indoctrination process can be insidious in its infiltration. You eventually become a husk that does what everyone else is doing even though you retain the shell of who you were in form…

As much as I have enjoyed the ride, I’ve realized that the allure of this process has run its course in its current form.

That’s the whole idea behind the courses that I’ve taken from the start.

• Dan Koe

• Kieran Drew

• Erica Schneider

They all mentioned something that the vast majority of people running to this dream have either ignored or misconstrued in their mad rush for $10k/month and avoiding/leaving college and the 9-5 in the name of freedom:

You are the niche.

What does it mean to you?

Bro culture sucks.

In other words…YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO STAY ON THE GROWTH FOR GROWTH’S SAKE TREADMILL.

Stay there long enough, and you become one of them…forgetting what you wanted to make in the first place and becoming a ghostwriting, freelancing, client-chasing growth expert.

From what I’ve seen this year…many will play, and few will win. The rest become consumers hoping the next cohort will unlock the key for them.

As I’m writing this, I also realize that the galactic cycle of harvesting sentient life every 50,000 years from the “Mass Effect” series also has eerily similar tones to this process.

It’s all about to happen again.

As the Holiday season begins, another wave of people will be brought to the shores of Money X in the EXACT SAME WAY I came here.

Many of the people who started with me this year have disappeared entirely, and the ones who have made it this far are in the process of either overdosing on the Hopium (thanks to Sean Kaye for introducing me to this term) or are in the process of expanding beyond the confines of the space.

I’ve said enough on this…in fact, here’s the post by Sean himself that inspired this week’s rant:

Needless to say, most of my more interesting stuff was probably from before or around the time I started writing this newsletter.

It’s time to combine the best of both worlds and dip the Oreos of my own experience into the milk of Money X.

…

Not my best analogy, but it’s what came out. Apologies.

So what now?

Takeaway

To recap:

• I stepped away from Money X for 3 days

• I realized a few things about the rat race here

• I'm taking action to realign with myself with 60 days left this year

Don’t lose yourself as you travel this path, or you’ll be more Frodo than Sam by the time you reach the summit.

Gollum is guiding you. Smeagol is just along for the ride.

Think about that.

Here’s this week’s actionable exercise:

• If you’re a content creator, are you really still sharing from your experiences or have you become a cookie cutter creator?

• If you’re not a creator, why do you consume content from the people you do? What sets them apart? What would set you apart if you were?

This is an exercise in knowing your identity and your uniqueness.

Thought of the week:

An Inspirator takes the best aspects of every world to become something more.

This entry was much longer than I had intended…I suppose this was a long time coming, and it was bound to happen eventually.

Next week, I’ll go into more detail about what my rebrand means to me and how, in the words of the great Taylin John Simmons, it’s going to shape my digital identity.

Needless to say, it is always a privilege to have you reading here. I hope this serves you on your journey as always!

Vince

P.S. I’ve written a few articles on Medium. Again, I don’t feel the need to stick to any one topic there, and I’m always evolving. I’m still unsure of how it fits into the larger context of my journey here.

P.P.S. NaNoWriMo sounds like a huge challenge to undertake this month…technically I’m keeping up with the word count, but nothing I write is really coherent in the present moment. Maybe I’ll tackle a real novel in 2024. For now, I’ll try to write 50k words this month in total.