YouTube here

Channel here

  Hey, this is Kimsia.

 Today, I want to talk about a foundational template that I discovered back in 2017. And I want to share with you today. This foundational template, I called it the "Well-Designed Tempo".

Birth of the Tempo

This was the third time I was trying to get in shape. And the third time I was trying to do that by hiring a personal trainer. I've been through stages where I went out to get a personal trainer trying to get in shape. Went back to normal. Get another different personal trainer trying to get back in shape and it went back to normal. So this is the third time.

But this time, I swore to myself, it was going to be different. Instead of immediately going out and getting the third trainer, I told myself, okay. I gotta get a very good one. So it's going to be expensive. But before I go and do that, let me make sure that I have established the gym going habit first.

I set myself a challenge, which is.

I need to first be able to go to the gym three times a week for six months. Uninterrupted.

 And on my own.

 And if I can do that then, and only then can I go out and get the expensive trainer. And I managed to do that.

So that was back in 2017. First I gave myself a challenge. On my own. I need to go to a gym. Three times a week for six months. If I can do that, I'll graduate to the stage two, which is going out and get this expensive trainer.

 I was with that trainer for almost a year. After that i was on my own.

Since then, I've been still going to the gym regularly. And as of last week, I got a breakthrough, which is I can now deadlift two times my body weight. Now that would have been unthinkable unimaginable to the younger version of myself, say five years ago.

So that's what I meant by a well-designed tempo.

Three Characteristics of Well-Designed Tempo

There are three characteristics. Number one, there is a stage one and stage two. Stage one is this challenge I gave myself. Stage two is, in this case, hiring the very expensive personal trainer.

The second characteristic is these stages. They are finite.

I gave myself six months. If after six months it doesn't work out, okay, we try something else. Or, maybe I give up on the whole idea altogether.

The third characteristic is actually psychological safety. In the sense that I purposely lowered the standards of what counts as going to the gym.

How I Created Psychological Safety for Going Gym Regularly

When I go to the gym, as long as I stepped foot physically into the gym, I turned back. That still counts as going to the gym once. On my own. If I'd gone in and finished whatever I planned to do, that still counts as one. If I'd gone in, do the planned session, left halfway that still counts as one.

For stage one, as long as I've physically stepped foot, it still counts as one. That really lowers the standards of what counts as going to the gym regularly in stage one. That is how I generate psychological safety in this case.

Coming Back to Video Log Challenge

Now, coming back to this video log. I actually failed to follow this template.

Initially, I said, I was going to do this daily video log in order to get more camera confident. I didn't plan for stage two. There is no clear e nd point to this challenge. There is also no psychological safety. So I'm going to correct this.

Instead of having no clear end point, a clear end point of 50 published video log on YouTube.

Instead of no stage two, stage two would be rewarding myself with an expensive camera. That I expect to use going forward for future video logs.

Instead of having no psychological safety, I'm going to create it by decreasing the frequency. Instead of publishing it every day, I am going to change to just publishing it on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I'm going to increase psychological safety even more. Creating a buffer by filming and editing ready to go videos. Just in case.

So there you have it. I think this is going to work out a little bit better now. For your own reference, maybe you can try out this well-designed tempo on your own challenges, all right? Thank you.

YouTube here

Channel here

 Hi, this is Kimsia. I missed the past couple of days. I'm nursing a cold, so if I sound funny, that's expected. I've realized that the theme for most of my videos are things I wish I had known before I started trying to be an independent software developer.

Today's video is actually no exception. I'm going to cover one thing, which has two parts. One part is that feelings make actions. It's practically the title for today's video.

And the second part, which I may have to kick it to the next video or to a separate newsletter issue. Which is you need to do whatever you need to make the feedings more conducive for actions that you want to take.  

Feelings Make Actions

For example, when you run your own business, sometimes you hear people say, Wow. That must require a lot of self discipline. Because you need to do things you may not like in order to get business. In order to get customers. In order to meet delivery deadlines.

So that masks the bigger truth that I'm trying to point out, which is a lot of the times feelings are the proximate cause for most, if not all of our actions.

  I will argue that this truth about feelings making our actions is so self-evident that we have actually forgotten about it.

 This truth is like one of those detective novels where you have that key piece of evidence hiding in front of you the whole time. Hiding in plain sight. Yeah, that kind of thing.

  So I need to make it explicit once again, and I wish somebody had told this to me.

Which brings me to the second part

Do Whatever it takes to induce the helpful feelings

Do whatever it takes to induce these helpful feelings. Or, whatever it takes to block the unhelpful ones.

You would need to try different things. Doesn't matter whether or not, they are "correct". Quote, and unquote. As long as they make you have the kind of feelings that make you take the actions that you do want to take.

And they do not need to be universal, meaning they do not have to work for everyone for it to work for you. That can be highly specific to you.

And they need not work forever for you, you can have a completely complicated, Rube Goldberg-ish routine that works fantastically for three months. After that, for whatever reason, they start to lose their effectiveness. Now you need to change to a different routine. Go ahead and change, and don't be surprised that you need to keep switching things up all the time.

You can try many different things and don't let anybody tell you otherwise.

You can try changing your identity, try changing your beliefs. Try changing your environment. Try adopting new habits. Try setting your standards lower. Try setting your standards higher, all sorts of things.

And noticing the feelings you are starting to have after hearing all these different ideas, they might also be a precursor, a hint on whether some of these new changes you're trying out whether or not they're likely to succeed in making you take actions or not take certain actions. So that's it from me today. Thank you.  

YouTube here

Channel here

Initially I wanted to do YouTube to help with my SaaS idea, GreenDeploy, one of my side projects. What happened was I procrastinated a lot in terms of producing the YouTube videos.

The way to overcome all these fears was to do this more often. On top of doing a weekly YouTube video for GreenDeploy, I'm also now doing a daily video logging in my personal channel.

If It Hurts, Do It More Often

If it hurts, do more often.

While video logging about my journey, running a business as an independent software developer, I may embarrass myself very soon. Because as you recall from yesterday's video with my paid customer work being like the Sun in our solar system and all the other side projects orbiting around my paid work

The Biggest Fear of Doing This Channel

The paid work is the one that is funding everything else. And there is a chance that I may not continue with the paid work. I may have to shut down the company altogether because a hundred percent of my current revenue is coming from just one enterprise customer.

Typically we negotiate a two year contract and the current one is coming to an end at the end of the year. Making a personal YouTube video about running a business as an independent software developer might very soon take a turn for the worst.

Despite the Fear

Despite this fear. I still want to do this because if I have to line my ducks in a straight line every time before I try something new, I would never really make anything new. So that is the fear I have. And this is what I'm talking in today's video logging episode. So thank you for listening.

YouTube link to video
YouTube channel

Hey, this is Kimsia. Yesterday, I talked about me doing this video logging, documenting my journey of running a business as an independent software developer. So, today I would go through the things I'm actually trying out and the considerations I have of how I devote my time, my resources towards each individual project.

Solar System Analogy

Okay, as you can see on my screen over here.

I have listed four things on this screen. Kind of like a solar system. With the sun in the middle. And the smaller planets orbiting around it. The idea is the same.

My paid work for my customer. It's a MNC whom I developed customized software to process their quotations, their purchase orders, which are typically in Excel or PDF files.

I'm using the revenue from that paid work to fund my other projects and the ideas that I have. So one of them is this GreenDeploy, SaaS idea I have.

Right now, I'm trying to be more of an engineer-influencer, trying out various platforms like Twitter, Substack, YouTube, Medium.

I'm also writing this book. I titled it as "Django for Excel". It takes my experience in terms of doing this paid work for customer and see if I can translate it into a book that I can put it up on Amazon Kindle.

And that is my current layout for now.

Considerations

The considerations I have is are these side projects, are they going to pay off? Are they interesting in and of itself?

If all I think about is optimizing for generating revenue, I should just go back and become an employee. Where there's far more certainty and I have a higher rooms in terms of growth for my income level.

So this is also partly self-actualizing in terms of pursuing my independent software developer career as a business.

Other considerations include whether I'll actually be good at it because if a side project doesn't really pay that well, but I'm good at it, the motivation to continue is there.

These are the considerations. Typical cookie cutter style advice on the internet doesn't really delve deep into.

Because everybody's journey is a little bit different. It's hard to find a one size fits all advice. So, this is what I'm currently working on. And thanks for listening in today.

Reason 1: Getting Better

Number one: getting better. That refers to a bunch of things like getting better at making the videos. Getting more comfortable with listening to my own voice, getting better at editing the videos, that sort of thing.

Reason 2: Experiment

Number two, an experiment. Again, a bunch of things I'm experimenting with the format.

I'm going to try with this daily video logging format. The content.

The content will largely be my journey: running a business as an independent software developer.

The other thing I'm experimenting with is the platforms like I'm going to start off with YouTube and Substack video posts.

And finally, the thing I want to experiment is the tools. In this case, I'm recording this on Descript. I bought this microphone, this whole arm stand. So we'll see how this goes. This is day one of the daily vlog. And. I'll be touching a bit more about the journey. In tomorrow's video. So thank you.