Hello. Welcome to Daily(ish) for, Tuesday, February 14. It's, Valentine's Day. Happy Valentine's Day. Make sure you buy lots of chocolates and flowers and all those sorts of things to keep the corporate machines going.
Speaker 1:Not that I'm cynical about Valentine's Day at all, but I digress. It's minus four outside. It feels like minus 12 going down to minus 25 as cold as my heart might be right now, I guess, and your mileage may vary. Be be safe out there. Drive safe.
Speaker 1:It's windy, cold. You know, if you're anywhere in the geographic vicinity of me, I guess. Wherever you are, hopefully, it's much warmer and nicer and not blowing snow and, looking like we're returning to winter when we had we had, like, a week. No. We had more than a week.
Speaker 1:Sorry. We had, like, many multiple weeks, months, people people might say, of freaking cold weather. And then Tuesday, yesterday I said Wednesday I said it was Tuesday. It's actually Wednesday. Sorry.
Speaker 1:Update your calendars if you're taking taking notes at home. And then Tuesday, yesterday, it was up to one degree, zero one degree. So we went skating outside, and it was glorious. We got to enjoy winter again, the snow and ice and frozen ponds and things like that. But then today, it's, right back down into the sub zero, way below sub zero temperatures.
Speaker 1:So that's, winter in Saskatchewan for you, Canada even, you might say, but definitely where where I live, it's, we had a few good years of not insanely harsh winters, and then this one has been just brutal. I may have a crappy attitude towards Valentine's Day because I just finished cleaning up a toilet that was overflowing and leaking down into the floor below. Luckily, no actual crap, leaked to my knowledge, but just, you know, toilets being what they are. We've had kind
Speaker 2:of a rough go of
Speaker 1:it too with our our house. We've had a pilot light on the water heater that's been malfunctioning, so we've had cold water sometimes. Not hot water, guess. We always have cold water, but it's not hot water. We had a, stove, the broiler element.
Speaker 1:Seems to be broken, but works fine in other when it's not just strictly on broil, which means it's probably like a logic board or something more expensive and not, crisp replaceable. That's for sure. And what else? We've had a microwave that died and after five or so years, six years, had to be replaced. And so luckily, so far, knock on wood or whatever this desk is made of, the water heater seems to have fixed itself after needing to be the pilot light needing to be re hit relit manually a few times.
Speaker 1:Just as we were about to replace it completely, I realized I wasn't pushing down the, I don't know. It's not the igniter. It's like the allow gas to flow button completely far enough possibly, and so figured that out. Still had to keep lighting the pilot light over and over, and then now suddenly it seems to just have stayed. So I don't have to worry about yet replacing the, combustial tube or something.
Speaker 1:I forget what it's called. It sounds like something from back to the future, but it's, I can't really think because I'm focusing on the Reese's Pieces peanut butter cups that, my wife got me for Valentine's Day that I'm allowing myself to eat once I finish recording this episode. In the previous episode, I had was a bit discouraged and, not that I've completely left that place by any means. It's it's it's I'm only about one step removed, one foot in outside that door maybe sometimes, and and and, pretty easy to sort of let myself get to that discouraged place. There's folks around me who are awesome at encouraging me and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:That's great, and I appreciate that. Sometimes it's just kinda like I want to see the the proof of it in the numbers, whether that's sales numbers or client numbers or viewers or downloads or any of those kinds of things, kinda just like wanting to see tangible results, not just people saying, hey. You're great at this. You should do this. But I also recognize that part of the deal is showing up for work every day, which, I do show up and sit in a desk or sit at the desk or stand sometimes.
Speaker 1:Probably need to stand more often these days. But I don't actually show up and do the work sometimes of whether it's podcasting. I think I just have I'm I'm too, widespread. And so the courses part particularly is something that I'm really passionate about and love doing, but I don't know if selling courses is maybe my thing. Maybe I should just be putting them out on YouTube, having fun making things, making the videos, but not worrying about the whole, like, infrastructure of selling them and and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Just, you know, keep doing the client work, plugging away there, the mundane work of that as it may be sometimes. And when I say mundane for it's mainly because it's, like, it's someone else's thing that I'm building into. I don't actually get to, like, be all in because it's someone else's thing. And so either that limits what I can do because it's their thing, obviously, in terms of decision making, but also in terms of how much time, and or money they wanna pay me to, buy in or go in or do whatever I'm supposed to be doing for their thing. So where I could devote months and months of time into a project, someone helping someone with something, they maybe only have budget or time for a week, let's say.
Speaker 1:And so I don't get to actually see it through to fruition the way I would envision it, which then has me going back to, like, the grass is greener side of, like, well, maybe I should go work for someone. And then then I would be all in on that thing. But again, it's like, well, their thing is their thing. It's not my thing. I leave at 05:00 or whatever.
Speaker 1:You know, don't don't I'm not working anymore. I'm punched out punched the clock, punched whatever. It's been a long time since I've done any of those metaphors. But, and then they they keep living it. I can walk away and just keep, you know, plugging away with podcasting or whatever, it may be and not really be all in the same way.
Speaker 1:So these are my thoughts rolling around my head, and I don't know who you are that's listening out there. I continue to struggle with the idea that, beyond friends and family and random, it's kind of a scattershot of people who seem to be listening out there. I keep plugging away with it. I hope, it's somewhat interesting to you. I'm hoping and planning and wanting to show up a little more with this podcast, which is, you know, famous last words for any podcast blog creative person who's like, oh, this is it's been a
Speaker 2:long time since I've, recorded a vlog for
Speaker 1:my YouTube channel or whatever. And so I'm back on the back on the chain gang again, working on this thing again, and then, you know, silence for another two years. So, that's my fear in in any sort of proclamations of, like, I'm gonna do this every day now going forward for the rest of the month or whatever. I still haven't decided what we're but I'm gonna give up for Lent. Lent starts today, and, I maybe I'll give up giving up on things for Lent.
Speaker 1:Is that is that a way of doing it? I don't know. That's, my giving up and being discouraged would be a nice way to to spin that, I guess. But I know it's tough to just, like, give it up because it's so fun to be discouraged sometimes. Wallowing, is is a habit and a lifestyle choice that comes way too naturally for me.
Speaker 1:So, unfortunately, I don't have, like, a nice little succinct wrap up positive spin on this all because I'm still in the midst of it as always. And sometimes it feels like at episode 235 of this podcast, you'd think I'd be, like, more on the, okay. I figured some of this stuff out. I'm gonna go do that thing that, I've gonna I've been hoping and planning to do or I'm somewhere further along that road. But, that's where the discouragement cycle starts hitting in, setting in, and starting to think like, well, I haven't really gotten anywhere since five years ago when I started my business or whatever.
Speaker 1:The the sort of like, the nobody responded to the email I sent or nobody's watching the video I put up or whatever. And the metrics of of social media life are great for marketers and data nerds like myself, but they're also awful for, data nerds like myself who, let them, like, seep into my brain a little too heavily. So I think these days I am stuck in a bit in the, like, I have ideas, enthusiasm, excitement, plans for a way to take x and add y to do, if I could be very vague. But my, entrepreneurial heart, as it were, is tired and, doesn't wanna be broken again if I can spin this into a a Valentine's Day appropriate analogy. And so I just feel like kind of exhausted at the idea of, well, I I know I could do this, I could do that, but then looking back at the results.
Speaker 1:And nothing else is working, so why would that start working suddenly? So, the there's the one part of me that wants to just shutter it all, shut it down, focus in on, you know, get rid of all the things basically, and, just shut up and do the client work, and the web design work or whatever and stuff like that. But I know there's not like a long term, there's not a huge future there. It's there's a lot of, like, pressure from the top from big companies that are you know, budgets are being squeezed on their end. And then at the low end, there's a lot more every day, every year.
Speaker 1:There's a lot more services like Squarespace and Weebly and Wix and whatever that allow you to build your own website. And, and so there's always sort of that there's always been that kind of pressure, but it's kinda just like the writings on the wall that the margins and everything's sort of being squeezed. And so not that next year, nobody's gonna wanna hire me, but five, ten years down the road, it's the machines are gonna replace me basically, I guess, is the gist of what I'm feeling. So there's a happy life. I digress.
Speaker 1:I hope your Wednesday is going great. So I hope you have lots of chocolate and or rice pilafs. Whatever whatever you want today, you you go get that thing. And, we'll see you again on the next episode of Daily ish. Thank you for watching.
Speaker 1:Well, you can not watching. Listening. Thank you for listening. Thank you for to the Patreon supporters at patreon.com/ichris. I have been putting out occasional little, lenses, videos, or snaps, or pictures, or whatever they're called to that to that mobile apps that that you need.
Speaker 1:So, if you visit patreon.com, I think you can download or look for it in the App Store of your choice. Patreon is the app, and sign in with your account if you're a Patreon supporter, then, a few little behind the scenes, silliness and hijinks will ensue. Thank you for listening. Hope you have a great day. Don't get snowed in.
Speaker 1:Bye.