Purpose

I want freedom over my time.

I want the freedom to work from wherever I want, with whomever I want, whenever I want, and on whatever I want.

But that doesn’t mean sitting on the beach drinking cocktails all day.

That gets boring quickly.

No, I do want to work.

But it has to be work that allows for creative self-expression and interesting challenges to overcome. I want to keep pushing myself further and achieve more today than I did yesterday.

As the old adage says, it’s about the journey, not the destination—yet it never feels as such.

In short.

I don’t want less work.

I want less meaningless work so I can replace that time with more meaningful work. I might not even call it “work” anymore when it comes to it.

But that’s what it is.

Work I truly and utterly enjoy doing.

And the only way I can think of to get there, and more importantly, stay there, is to start building something of my own. To develop my skillset, build my own offers, grow my customer base, and become my own employer.

The specifics don’t matter. It’s about the big picture here.

That’s the ultimate goal. To be truly free to work on whatever I want while getting paid more than enough—which is only to rid yourself of all the symptoms that come with not being paid enough, not the goal in and of itself.

So no. I don’t want money.

I want the freedom of self-expression and meaningful work.

If you find yourself nodding in agreement right now. Then maybe it’s time to stop wasting any more time and get to it.

Also, if I can recommend an immensely valuable skill to learn that’ll be incredibly useful to you, no matter what path you’re going down, then it’ll be to learn and master the fundamentals of marketing, and more importantly, email marketing. Because that’s going to enable everything else you’ll be doing.

And for that, there’s no better place to be than Email Valhalla.

Check it out here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

For the past week or so I’ve been completing daily programming puzzles as a part of the yearly Advent of Code leading up to Christmas.

It’s going well so far—better than it ever has compared to my previous track records, at least.

But there’s a curious thing happening.

You see, most days, I finish the puzzle in under an hour, sometimes two. But once every few days, like yesterday, it easily takes me up to five or six (6!) hours to finish this one puzzle.

That’s six hours of non-stop staring at my screen, trying to think of potential solutions, translating it into code, checking for errors, endless debugging, discovering new edge cases, and going over the processes once again.

And yet, it feels like a breeze.

The hours fly by. I stay focused, hyperfocused, in fact, and would easily be able to keep this up for another six hours (and probably ever following day as well).

You might think this sounds miserable, and maybe for you, it would be.

But man, I can’t tell you how almost “natural” this comes to me. How ‘motivated’ and excited I am to finally get it to work, and ultimately how ‘happy’ and ‘at peace’ I am during the entire process.

Sure I might bang my head on the keyboard once in a while, but that’s part of the process. And even that is enjoyable in its own way.

This reminded me of some lessons I learned while reading Psycho-Cybernetics.

Just take the following excerpt taken straight out of the preface:

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“Creative striving for a goal that is important to you as a result of your own deep-felt needs, aspirations, and talents (and not the symbols which the “Joneses” expect you to display) brings happiness as well as success because you will be functioning as you were meant to function.

Man is by nature a goal-striving being. And because man is “built that way,” he is not happy unless he is functioning as he was made to function—as a goal striver. Thus true success and true happiness not only go together but each enhances the other.”

===

This excerpt gives a new and helpful explanation as to why I experience these coding puzzles the way I do.

I picked up a new goal—one I’m genuinely interested in and determined to achieve.

The process of doing what man is “built to do”—striving towards a goal—is where you’ll find true happiness and success is to be found.

That’s why it’s so important to have goals, projects, dreams and aspirations.

What kind of goals?

The type where you’re creating something new.

This doesn’t have to be something completely new, that’s nowhere to be found in the whole wide world. But it has to be new to you. To bring to life a book you write, a song you composed, a painting you created, even a promotion you worked for, a deal you closed, a certificate or degree you studied for, a fish you caught, or something as simple as a sweater you knitted.

Creation is what we, as human beings, were meant to do.

And creation is what will keep you healthy, sane, and even thriving if done correctly, for decades to come.

Speaking of which…

If you’d like to learn my entire process for ideating, creating, and launching profitable digital products in 21 days or less, then I’d highly suggest you check out my course Product Creation Made Easy.

Click here for more information: https://alexvandromme.com/pcme

You want freedom over your time.

You want the freedom to work from wherever you want, with whomever you want, whenever you want, and on whatever you want.

But that doesn’t mean sitting on the beach all day drinking cocktails all day.

That gets boring quickly.

No, you do want to work. But you want work that allows for creative self-expression and interesting challenges to overcome. To keep pushing yourself further, to achieve more today than you achieved yesterday.

As the old adage says, it’s about the journey, not the destination—yet it never feels as such.

In short.

You don’t want less work.

You want less meaningless work so you can replace that time with more meaningful work. You might not even call it “work” anymore when it comes down to it.

But that’s what it is.

Work you truly and utterly enjoy doing.

And the only way to get there, and more importantly, stay there, in my humble and accurate opinion, is to start building something of your own. Develop your own skillset, build your own offers, grow your own customer base, and become your own employer (this includes working as a freelancer if that’s what you enjoy most).

Then, and only then, when you’re truly free to work on whatever you want while getting paid more than enough—which is only to rid yourself of all the symptoms that come with not being paid enough, not the goal in and of itself—then and only then will you truly live the life you’ve always dreamt of living, even if you don’t realize it yet.

You don’t want money.

You want the freedom of self-expression and meaningful work.

So stop wasting any more time and get to it.

And if I can recommend you a immensely valuable skill to learn that’ll be incredibly useful to you, no matter what path you’re going down, then it’ll be to learn and master the fundamentals of marketing, and more importantly, email marketing. Because that’s going to enable everything else you’ll be doing.

Anyway.

To learn more about my solution to master email marketing fundamentals, check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a high school reunion.

There I saw so many of the recognizable faces who made up the bigger part of my 6 years in high school quite a while ago, some of whom I’ve kept in touch with and have regularly seen after high school, others I hadn’t seen for over 5, 6, or 7 years.

And the craziest thing to me wasn’t how much some people have changed, that’s certainly fun to see (and talk about). No, the craziest thing was how LITTLE some people changed.

Which is quite saddening to think about.

Here are people who had something going for them, who were developing themselves in high school, had support all around them, yet somehow, someway, that same support suddenly stopped after high school graduation.

They got pushed into a career they weren’t keen about, were forced to do stuff they didn’t want (but other people wanted for them) and they lost their spark.

They stopped innovating. They stopped experimenting. They stopped trying.

Essentially, they stagnated.

Which, just as in business as in life, means death.

If you’re not growing, you’re dying goes the saying. And that’s absolutely true in every regard.

You could be the biggest business in your market for years, even decades. But the moment you stop growing, you start to crumble and fade away. Others will start catching up. Others will pass you by. You will become forgotten and obsolete.

There’s also no point arguing or getting mad about this.

That’s just the way things go.

It’s up to you to decide what to do with this information. Realize this truth and try to make the best of it or act as if it isn’t true and slowly, sometimes even unknowingly, wither away until there’s nothing left.

So many people are alive, yet not living.

And like so, many businesses exist, yet aren’t functioning.

Now, I don’t know about you. But I’d rather accept this truth at face value, and rightly act upon it—growing both my business and myself.

Anyway.

I’m not the personal guru teaching you self-growth (maybe I sometimes do, if so, that’s an accidental benefit). But I can help you grow your business, especially when it comes to your marketing and your email game.

If that’s your jam, then check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

Here’s some (useless) thinking I was doing yesterday:

My dad’s initials spell out DVD.

So one of the funniest things I could do is only date women with the initials CD and start a little disc collection in the family.

Now this isn’t a marketing lesson.

In truth, this makes no sense whatsoever—other than it being hilarious (and if you don’t get my sense of humor, then that’s a you-problem).

But it made me realize that despite how absurd this sounds, I could probably achieve it if I wanted to.

If for some reason all I cared about was this one particular goal and I’d be ready to sacrifice everything and everyone else that comes my way, just to fulfill this one goal. Then, even though I haven’t done the math on this, I’m 120% certain I could achieve this goal.

But that’s not all.

See, the above statement isn’t just limited to finding (and seducing) someone with the initials CD, is it?

It applies to everything.

There’s all this potential inside of me, you, and everyone else walking this earth. An insane amount of potential energy waiting to be unleashed, to be used to achieve just about any goal in life.

And that’s the thing.

You have the potential to achieve anything—but not everything.

You can’t be picky.

You can’t say “oh I’ll do this and this and this, and oh how about this as well?”. No it doesn’t work that way.

Pick one goal and one goal only.

More.

Whatever goal you pick. You’ll have to accept the sacrifices that come along with it. You can’t be picky with those either. You can’t take the good without the bad.

Here’s an example.

I made it my goal to “Build a business of my own that allows me to work whenever I want, wherever I want, and with whomever I want by way of writing,” (writing because that’s what I like to do—I’m not much of a video person).

That’s it.

The moment I try to do something else is the moment I fail in both.

Yes I could earn more money doing regular workshops, yes I could earn more money creating and selling video content, yes I could earn more money working with high-ticket copywriting clients as a freelancer, but those aren’t my goals.

In fact, they’ll take me further and further away from my goals every time I try to do something else.

I’m not saying not to experiment—of course you should.

But be clear on what it is you truly want.

I’ve seen many people—clients, readers, and friends alike—get distracted in the jungle of opportunity, losing track of their goals, and never getting closer to reaching their goals despite already “working” on their goals for the past year and a half.

Anyway.

This, like most important lessons in life, isn’t exactly a practical one.

You’ll have to figure out what it is that you want on your own.

But in case your goals involve creating and selling (digital) products or courses online, then check out Product Creation Made Easy—it’ll show you how to ideate, create, and launch profitable digital products in 21 days or less.

It’s all based on experience and insights I’ve learned by working in the trenches myself and learning from other industry experts. Everything’s battle-tested and ready for you to use.

Check it out here: https://alexvandromme.com/pcme/