The Curiosity Click: Issue 45 - What I Stopped Doing That Actually Helped

I used to treat business like a slot machine.

Pull the lever. New idea. Pull it again. New platform. Pull it again. New funnel builder. Pull it again. Some "one weird trick" from a guy whose watch looked like it was still on payments. (Probably was.)

Every time I'd tell myself I was making progress because I was busy. Tabs open. Notes everywhere. Stuff getting "worked on." Nothing actually finished. (Fun fact: "worked on" is where projects go to die.)

Years went by like that. Money disappeared. Not all at once. Just enough at a time that I could keep calling it "investing in my education." (It wasn't.) Built up a nice graveyard of half-built things. Got really good at starting over. (Which feels productive right up until you notice it's been five years.)

Eventually I noticed the pattern. Which sucked. Because it wasn't a platform problem. Wasn't the algorithm. Wasn't the traffic source. (Would've been easier if it was. Could've just blamed Facebook.)

The real problem

It was me building like I already had buyers.

Months polishing products nobody asked for. (Or knew existed.) Designing pages like I was entering them in some contest I made up. (Nobody judged it. Nobody saw it.) Tweaking buttons. Tweaking copy. Tweaking the funnel like the funnel was the business. (It's not.)

All while telling myself I was being "strategic" when really I was just hiding in tech and design because it felt safer than finding out whether anyone wanted the thing.

Silence is worse than "no," by the way. At least "no" is data. Silence is just... nothing. (Which your brain fills in with worst-case scenarios. Mine did anyway.)

I followed the directions

Here's the thing. I followed the directions.

Write content. Post consistently. Drive traffic. Make an offer. Want more control? Create your own product.

That was it. Normal instructions. No tricks. No hype. Just the usual stack everyone teaches. (And charges for.)

Did all of it. Carefully. Responsibly. Didn't cut corners. Didn't sell garbage. (Didn't sell much of anything, but that's a different problem.)

Still didn't work.

It wasn’t that I didn't try. (I tried plenty. Too much, probably.)

It didn't work because the guy who wrote the course built his business on his personality and visibility. On being magnetic. That natural state that some people are born with. On that "trust me, hit follow, you'll love this" energy some people just have. (Lucky them.)

I don't have that. Can't do the wink-and-smile thing. (Wouldn't even if I could.) I need to show I actually know what I'm talking about. Show the work. Demonstrate I can help through competence, not charm. (Which takes longer. Way longer.)

His system worked for him because the system was him. I'm not him. Tried. Failed. Moved on. (Years ago. Should've been faster about that.)

Waiting for passion

Then there was the "find your passion" phase. Which sounds great until you're actually doing it. (Spoiler: you're just waiting around.)

I kept waiting for the lightning bolt. Never showed up. (Still hasn't.)

So I picked something and stuck with it. It wasn't magical. I was just tired of being the guy who was always "almost there." You know the guy. I was that guy. (For way too long.)

Nobody feels ready

Same with being "ready."

People really believe there's going to be a day when they wake up and feel prepared. When the stars align and they just feel like doing it. (They won't.)

That day doesn't exist. (Sorry.)

I never felt ready. Just got tired of waiting for a feeling that wasn't coming and did the work anyway. (Everyone who says they felt ready is lying or misremembering. Probably both.)

Stopped being a professional student

I also stopped treating content consumption like a job.

Like I was getting paid per article saved. (I wasn't. Nobody is.)

I had enough information to last the rest of my life. (Probably two lifetimes.) What I didn't have was the discipline to use what I already knew. (Which is the actual problem, but nobody wants to hear that.)

So I cut the intake. Less reading. Less watching. Less saving stuff I'd never open. (You know you do this too.) More shipping.

Knowledge hoarding feels productive. Doesn't pay rent though. (Or anything else.)

Networking was mostly useless

Networking went too.

Used to do it because everyone said you're supposed to. Most of it was just marketers talking to other marketers about being marketers. (Very meta. Very pointless.) Very friendly. Very agreeable. Very safe.

Which should've been my first clue it wasn't doing much. (But I'm slow sometimes. Often, actually.)

Simple beats complicated

Complicated makes you feel smart. Simple feels like cheating. (It's not.)

But simple is the only thing that survives real customers. Complex stuff breaks. (Always at the worst time.) Simple stuff either works or you find out fast. Failing fast is cheaper. (Trust me on that one. I have receipts.)

Wrong audience

Stopped caring what other marketers thought too.

They're not my customers. Don't pay me. Just have opinions. Loud ones. (About everything.)

Fog vs. focus

Trying to help everyone went next.

Broad isn't generous. It's fog. Nobody knows who you're talking to. Including you. (Especially you.)

One person. One problem. Everything got easier. And quieter. (I liked the quieter part. A lot.)

The tweaking trap

The tweaking was brutal.

Launch. Tweak. Tweak. Tweak. Tweak. Until you've basically rewritten the whole thing and can pretend you never launched. (Which defeats the purpose, but your brain doesn't care.)

Had to force a rule: launch it, leave it, move forward. Fix what's actually broken, not what anxiety wants to mess with. (There's a difference. Big one.)

No magic answer

I quit hunting for THE answer. The secret. The missing piece. (It doesn't exist.)

There isn't one. (Really. There isn't.)

Just a boring stack of fundamentals you keep avoiding because they don't give you the dopamine hit of a new strategy. (Less fun. More effective. Story of my life.)

Scale later

Everyone wants to scale before they have something that works small. (Put the cart way before the horse.)

Like building a second story on a house without a foundation. Goes poorly. (Every time.)

I stopped chasing scale. Started asking "does this work at all?" Which, annoyingly, is what actually works. (Turns out the basics matter. Who knew?)

Time wasn't the issue

Used to say I didn't have time. I had time. Just spent it on the wrong things. (Lots of wrong things.)

Busy isn't effective. (Feels like it though.) Not fun to admit. Clears things up fast though.

No costume

Dropped the expert costume too.

Not interested in pretending I have it all figured out. (I don't.) I'd rather tell the truth about what worked and what didn't. That's the only thing I trust when I'm buying from someone anyway. (Everything else sounds like sales copy.)

So yeah

I stopped starting over. Stopped building in a vacuum. Stopped polishing for applause. (Nobody was watching anyway.) Stopped chasing new things like they were going to save me. (They weren't.)

All that stuff I stopped doing? Those are the traps. (The expensive ones.)

Not some mysterious formula. Not a secret hack. Just avoiding stupid, expensive mistakes long enough to finish something people actually want.

Which is what I laid out in The $50K Lesson. Thirteen traps I spent years learning the hard way. (So you don't have to. That's the point.)

You can grab it here:. Grab it here. It’s a quick read and wont cost you a dime.

Until Next Time,

Any questions? Email me - kevin@ pyragonics.com