Jason Leow

I wrote [yesterday's post](https://golifelog.com/posts/reality-bends-to-how-aligned-we-are-inwardly-1663630873350) insinuating that it was all my own doing and effort that brought me all the recent new opportunities for my consulting business.

But the hard truth is...... I don't feel like I did anything much. It felt like all luck.

People say there's luck we can influence and plain dumb luck.

Luck we can influence are all the things I said I did that lead to the new opportunities:

- Daily posts on LinkedIn to build a brand/audience
- Engaging the posts of more local folks on LinkedIn
- Going on a local podcast for visibility (it brought 1 lead so far!)
- Fixing my consultancy website contact form
- Having face-to-face meetings with leads for better impression
- Actively reaching out to past contacts for work

It looks like I did a lot, and therefore I was rightly luckier due to that, isn't it?

No.

The deciding factor here is that I've done most on that list in the past too. Even recently, like a few months. But that didn't bring me leads. There's no guarantee that these specific set of activities brings in more opportunities. It so *happened* that in the larger scheme of things, COVID is lifting and government is starting to have capacity to consider service improvement projects again. I had no idea when or why that was happening. This property of the system is emergent on social forces beyond my comprehension.

More and more I find that "luck we can influence" is just a narrative of power we artificially ascribe to ourselves, over forces we can't control in actuality.

It's BS basically.

Denial.

What I was doing was just to be prepared. But those actions had no bearing whatsoever on the opportunities that come along. It's like tilling the soil and planting seeds and then expecting the rain to come on cue. We can't influence rain, so how can we influence when luck lands?

At the end of the day, it's really all just plain dumb luck. There's no such things as luck we make ourselves.

But one thing's for sure – if I didn't till soil and plant seeds, even when rain comes I wouldn't be able to benefit from it. If I didn't prepare as I did, perhaps opportunities in the form of potential clients wouldn't seek me out when they were ready.

To me that's as much the extent we have over our lives and career.

I do what I can. But it's ultimately still up to God. Or the Universe. Or chance. (Pick the higher power of your choice).

Ultimately, it's plain dumb luck all the way down.

My consultancy business [Outsprint](https://outsprint.io) had been going well lately:

- Currently on a consulting gig with a local non-profit working on an issue I'm passionate about - helping low income families have better social mobility.
- Just met a government Ministry to talk about a potential project coming up to help a vulnerable group. (This came via exposure from doing a podcast)
- Reached out to a previous contact to conduct training for a local polytechnic, with possible one coming in November. The epiphany that I actually do [enjoy training](https://golifelog.com/posts/fighting-for-nothing-1663287755784) led to this.
- Got another meeting lined up with another government Ministry to explore potential to be on their panel of consultant experts.
- Partnered with a local governance institute to offer training for other foreign governments.
- Exploring another possible consultancy gig with a government organisation to do service design for local public service centres.

The fires of COVID are put out, and now government is starting to have capacity to consider service improvements and innovation again.

Seems like things are really opening back up again.

My efforts on brand-/audience-building on LinkedIn seems to be helping me land more leads for work, despite the fact that I have less than 1000 followers. The surprising thing is: most of the opportunities are coming to me.

All of a sudden, I can see an optimistic future ahead.

Funny how things can swiftly turn around, once you're aligned inwardly. Reality bends not to how strong our minds and our intentions are, but to how [aligned, congruent and coherent we are within](https://golifelog.com/posts/i-succeed-when-i-help-others-succeed-1663551944694).

Onwards!

Two days ago I wrote about how [values triumph passions](https://golifelog.com/posts/values-greater-passions-1663371060665) when it comes to my career and work. Writing it out was super helpful. I realise now that helping others is an important part of who I am and how I work.

Like how I dropped everything just now to help a customer with her Carrd plugin. That wasn't even on the menu for my deep work session this 5am morning. But when someone asks, I help. It's a natural drive and instinct. (Of course, sometimes for the worse when the other party is out to take advantage of it).

I wonder if perhaps that's why my Plugins project worked better than others. I'm constantly helping people with it. There's a steady stream of help requests for it, either directly to me or via the communities I'm actively contributing to – Reddit, Facebook.

Likewise for my design consultancy Outsprint. It's social impact focused, so the mission is all about helping society and for greater good. The process is also about helping government agencies and non-profit organisations be more user-centric. I've always enjoyed helping them, and recently realised that I also [enjoy coaching others](https://golifelog.com/posts/fighting-for-nothing-1663287755784). All about helping.

Even Lifelog started out altruistically. We were a homeless bunch of writers and I stepped up to fill the gap. But interestingly after the initial launch, I didn't have a mechanism to help people continually so it waned.

In fact, it was the same "helping others" reframing that helped me in marketing. I struggled with marketing initially because it felt like slimey hardselling. Later I reframed it to leverage on the personality trait I have – I enjoy helping others. So marketing got reframed to more about helping others succeed, using my product. It got waaay easier after that!

My social impact products made during COVID did really well because they were 100% altruistic. All the more social proof.

Entrepreneurship is often about building an empire to many. But for me, the overarching principle had always been – entrepreneurship is about helping others. The hope is that if I help enough people, the profits will follow.

**So the big epiphany here:**

Perhaps things didn't work out for other products because I didn't have a ***mechanism to help others on a consistent basis.*** When products happened on a mechanism to help others, it worked better. When it didn't, it slowly faded away, because I didn't feel needed. There's no exchange of energy. I feed on the energy of others seeking help. They appreciate and in return I benefit from the social capital.

Again and again, it comes back to helping others. The common thread is altruism.

I think I'm on to something here!

I wake up at 4am. Dead quiet. If 4ams are quiet, Sunday 4ams are ten times quieter. I get up immediately. No snoozing, no lazing in bed. I don’t need to, because I slept early at 8pm. All 8h of restful, peaceful sleep. 99% score on my sleep tracking app aligns with how rested I feel when I wake. I jump out of bed, eager to start my day doing something I love.

I wash up, and then meditate to the cool morning air. It’s such a great way to anchor myself. Then some espresso, and I’m off to my laptop for some writing, coding. Deep work and flow ensues. I lose track of time. Yet I’m having so much fun working on my passion projects. I do my most important work for the day, before people are even up on a Sunday.

It’s 8am. The family rouses awake. We make pancakes. Have tea. Eat slowly and mindfully, enjoying presence as much as pancakes. Then we change, and head out outside. A trek through a forest, a stroll down the beach. Somewhere in nature. We picnic lunch right there, just being glad to be outdoors, sharing our sandwiches with ants. We dive into the sea for a swim. We dip out toes in the forest river for fun. The great outdoors, our playground.

Back home, and we dim the lights and enjoy a movie together, through a lazy delivery dinner. Pizza, ribs, wings, whatever. The children go to bed, then after cleaning up we all head to sleep. It starts drizzling. The soft sounds of the rain, lulling us to sleep.

A perfect Sunday.

Struck by Adam Grant’s tweet:

"Following your passion is a luxury.
Following your values is a necessity.

Passion is a fickle magnet: it pulls you toward your current interests.
Values are a steady compass: they point you toward a future purpose.

Passion brings immediate joy.
Values provide lasting meaning."

– @AdamMGrant

I’ve always conflated passion with values. They often seem to walk together in the work that I enjoy. But it’s true, what he said. They are not the same.

I’m passionate about indie hacking. But what I truly value about it is freedom, being able to work on my own terms.

I’m passionate about writing. But what I truly value about it is a reflective, examined life.

I’m passionate about design thinking (through my consulting work). But what I truly value about it is social impact and helping others/society.

In all the three scenarios above, the former can evolve or get eliminated, but the latter had always been there.

I value freedom. I’ve been doing that even before indie hacking. I started my own business in consulting to do just that, even before there’s such a thing called “indie hacking”. Maybe it’s what I do now, but in future that might change. The flavour of the day: indie solopreneurship. Who knows what next?

I value a reflective, examined life. I meditate, I go for Zen retreats, I do weekly recaps. Writing is just part of it. Writing had always been part of it, just that I’ve never wrote this consistently for so long. Who knows what next?

I value social impact in my work. I love helping others. Before design I was working in a large non-profit organisation planning services for the social impact sector. Before joining the non-profit, I volunteered my time for charities, painting houses, spending time with elderly in nursing homes. Then now I do social impact by using nocode tools to create pro bono solutions to social issues, like during COVID. The passions always changed. Who know what next?

This was pretty illuminating for me to write it out. Because so long as I follow my values, I’m safe. I’m congruent. I’m aligned. I’m happy. I don’t have to hold on so tightly to the passion of the day. I don’t have to identify too much with my current job, role, trade. As we can see, those passions change. Inevitably, they always do.

Passions change. Values stay.

Values > passions

What’s one thing you’ve always been good at but for the longest time you fought against, for reasons that’s now strange once you realised it?

Mine is training and coaching.

I fought against doing training for my consultancy work. I always enjoyed doing the work, not training others. I did it only rarely, only when there’s a compelling benefit I can’t pass up, like say a chance to travel to train others. I fought against training and coaching opportunities for the longest time. In fact, all 10 years since I started.

Despite the fact that people tell me I’m good at it. People who observed and worked with me through it. Fellow trainers. Trainees who went through my courses.

I’m not sure why I fought so hard against it.

Sure, I’m an introvert. I get depleted when putting myself out there. Sure, I don’t think I make a good teacher. And when I do teach others I’m always the reluctant teacher. I think I make a better do-er. That’s the stories I tell myself.

But the story I’ve been ignoring in plain sight - I also gain energy when people are appreciative and grow from the process. Lots of energy. I enjoy sharing things I know. I love answering questions. I love co-exploring questions for those which I have no answers for. Above all, helping others is powerful for me. Being able to help others drive me.

Coaching others do all that.

Why have I been fighting this for so long? Was it all for nothing?

Looking back the reasons feel almost lame.

Inwardly, I feel light and delighted, when I think about letting the old stories go and embracing coaching.

I’ve always been a student of life, and the best way to be a student is to try to teach – you’ll realise real quick how little you know.

I’ve always been a teacher. To myself.

Because of that, maybe I can make a good teacher to others too, by sharing what I learned as a student trying to be a teacher.

Time to just f**king embrace it.

I've been posting at least twice a day since I started getting serious on Twitter. Two daily tweets are the pillars of my content strategy:

- 1x indie hacking related tweet at 9am in US (East Coast)
- 1x writing-related tweet 3h later at 12noon

Basically, the second tweet was to market Lifelog. It worked a bit in the initial days. I would tweet about writing stuff, the benefits of writing for creators, how it helps, how to do it, etc. Then I got kinda bored of it, and it also wasn't getting much views. Plugging my product daily also felt too much. So I switched to sharing screenshots of my daily writings, accompanied by a single tweet to sum it up, followed by a follow-up tweet with the link to the actual post on Lifelog. No plugging. Just showing how I use it. Showing the work instead of selling the product. Seemed to bring in occasional signups, but none stuck around. Most days, the screenshot posts don't get much attention. Only when I write something interesting about indie hacking, it gets more impressions and replies.

Suffice to say, Twitter as a distribution channel strategy for Lifelog needs a serious relook. Perhaps the indie maker playbook for this product isn't effective no more?

- Should I consider ads?
- Start an email newsletter?
- Create content funnel?
- Give give give – create free tools and help other more?
- Re-scope the marketing to be even more niche?
- Build new features to add fresh energy to the app?
- Try SEO?

In fact, my entire approach to Lifelog feels tired, and in desperate need of a facelift. I should build more features. There's some quality of life improvements that's been requested that I've not come round to.

Come Oct/Nov, when I'm done with my consulting, I'll review and experiment more.

For now, I'm stopping my second tweets about writing/Lifelog. And let the indie hacking tweets bring people to my profile to click on Lifelog.

Just one tweet a day. Simple.

What do you do when someone who paid for an annual subscription forgot they did and created a dispute via their credit card bank?