Jason Leow

Coming from a sports training background, I’ve always focused on weaknesses. Not because of some puritan joy of self-flagellation, but that I followed the weakest link principle:

We are only as strong as our weakest link.

It’s the idea that all our different qualities come together like a metal chain – endurance, strength, technique, mental fortitude. During a performance, or a competition, your results are a collective synthesis of these different qualities. They are all interlinked. And a weak link will bring down the performance more than a strength props it up. It’s like forgetting to do leg day, and all you got are huge biceps but soft calves. Or you got a great engine in your car, but your driving skills suck. People tend to focus on playing to their strengths because it makes them feel good, and ignore their weaknesses because it makes them feel inadequate.

There’s also the law of diminishing returns – your strengths will only improve so much by training it, while training your weaknesses actually lead to more % gains in performance.

Yet here’s the caveat: in private, during training, you work on your weaknesses. But in public, when performing or competing, leverage on your strengths. The context where you amplify what matters.

I used to train really hard for sport climbing. I was serious. I got into finals of national opens. Never got to represent my country, but the training obviously worked. So that weakest link principle was something that I believed in. And as I moved on from the sport, I brought along that same sense of drive, competitiveness and craze. Even now, in entrepreneurship.

Being a creator, my strengths are being resourceful, learning fast, creativity, design. For weakest links, I targeted the areas that I was weak in as an indie solopreneur – first coding, then marketing, storytelling.

"Improve your weaknesses only until they stop getting your way.
Then triple down on your strengths.
You’ll only find your 100x leverage point in what you’re best at."
– @thatroblennon

I’m no where near the proficiency of enterprise developers or professional marketers, but just enough to be dangerous. They stopped getting in my way. I can stop coding for months, then jump right back in without any fear or hesitation. After doing building in public, posting content daily for the past 1-2 years, I feel the same too about marketing.

They are no longer holding me back as much as it used to.
I feel calmer, way less anxious about my competency in those areas.
I feel more confident in being able to form a more balanced chain, now that my weak links are evened out.

Of course, there’s always room for improvement, and of course I will continue to learn and grow in them as I stay in the game.

But I feel it had crossed a threshold, and it’s now time to “triple down” on my strengths to find that “100x leverage point”.

Back to my why.

Back to creating audaciously. Calmly.

I feel calmer about the road ahead now.

Hope feels brighter now.
Optimism feels closer now.

I’m back.

v1.1 ready for update and upload on Gumroad and Flurly!

And replied customer who asked for this.

https://meganavbar.carrd.co

In my single-minded obsession to hitting my goal, reaching that desired future, I’m no longer alive in the present.

"Everyone on this side of twitter is hustling, building a better future.
With each success, you goals get bigger.
But be careful if in doing so, you’ve become tired of the present.
Better to enjoy each day than always be chasing a goal that moves as fast as you do."
– @thatroblennon

I love how the tweet talks about becoming “tired of the present”.

So true for me.

I want so much to get to that future, that I tire of the present as someone tires of eating the same food every day. I’m bored of the present. There’s nothing here that I want. I want that future where there’s all the things.

And that, is the root of my unhappiness now.

They say, practice patience. I don’t know about patience for the desired future.

I know that the present is the only thing I have. If I’m not alive to the now, I won’t be alive to that future when it arrives. If I’m tired of the present, I’ll waste all the years leading up to it for just one second of satisfaction.

It’s always NOW. One moment to the next.

This is an important reminder.

Present > past/future
Journey > destination
Process > outcome
Means > ends

/description I’ve forgotten my why.

The past 1-2 years had been focused on growth, customer acquisition, marketing, building an audience. Most importantly, revenue and profits.

But I sense that I’m hitting diminishing returns running in pure marketing mode. Flogging a dead horse. Thus I’m not getting the results I seek. That brought a lot of disappointment and frustration.

I got to break through this vicious loop somehow.

And I think the way is to get back to my why.

Why did I start indie hacking in the first place? Why do I love about making products?

Because I enjoy giving my novel take on things.
Because I enjoy the creative process.
Because I enjoy making things.
Because I enjoy helping others.
Because I enjoy giving delight.
Because I enjoy serving.

I create, therefore I am.

Marketing should complement this why, not take over it. Revenue is a side effect of doing these well, not the mission. Building in public is the process, but actually building the thing is the destination. Maker mode, not marketing mode.

I’ve forgotten my why. And it’s time to get back to it.

I know what to do now. I do.

And I will.

I have 3 astrologers whom I consult with. Yeah I don’t talk about this much, because astrology is so misrepresented. But since I’m going to meet one of them later, I thought I could talk about it.

White Star is one of the first I met, while in Bali. She’s a healer, seer and clairvoyant from the native American Indian tradition, and through her I understood my past lives and how they shaped my present one. She told me stories of how I was a priest in ancient Egypt, and in another life, a Celtic one, and one in the Himalayas. My most recent one was a Japanese soldier who died in WW2. It’s fascinating to hear, and gave me a lot of food for thought on how some of the stories parallel my present life, and how certain themes repeat. I go to her for big magic readings like these.

Kelvin comes from an ancestry of spirit mediums. He father and grandfather were all mediums who helped people communicate with loved ones who passed away. He uses tarot cards and crystals in his readings, but he also has a strong intuitive sense. Through him I understood how family ties and relationships affect my marriage, career. He explained how my relationship with my mother affects my view of marriage, and how my relationship with my father affects my career. He also helped us with geomancy of my house - setting up the space in our house for the right energy and luck. He also does numerology and birth readings, and through him my wife and I came up with a auspicious name for my son. His readings are practical, and immediately applicable to daily life.

Nancy is our latest astrologer. She’s the true blue mathematician of the stars, showing us how she calculated our sun and moon Zodiac signs, our ascendents and how it all affects our life. I was surprised on how she got some of my traits and life events right even though I never shared it. I go to her for overview of the year, the opportunities and pitfalls I got to look out for as the stars move into different alignments.

It all sounds woo woo if you’re not into this. Truth is, I’m not crazy about astrology either. I do recognise that the logical pragmatism of modern science has limits. I know that we don’t know for sure how astrology works. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But that doesn’t imply truth either. I don’t take everything I hear wholesale as unquestionable truth. But I’m open to listening to different perspectives, angles I’ve never thought about before.

And that’s what these readings do for me - it sheds light on potential blindspots which I might have missed. It prompts me to look out for opportunities which I might not be looking out for. It might all be a self fulfilling prophecy you say, but I’m not interested in the truth of how events came about, but that it did and I benefited from it. Ultimately, the readings help me reflect:

If this was true, how would I know to be sure? What other real life and real world indicators are there that corroborates with it? (And vice versa if it was false)

Is this something I’m dealing with already? Does it feel familiar? How does it prompt me to think about it in a different way?

What can I learn from this?

A common way of running a portfolio of small bets, is to have parallel products, spin-offs from a single origin product, offshoots of one big bet:

- 1 main product
- Sell by-products e.g. templates used
- Sell a cohort-based course on how you built it
- Build a paid community for the course
- One-off coaching

This makes sense, because they build off the audience of the previous product, and serves to amplify one another. It's a bit like how Pieter Levels @levelsio did it - his most successful, revenue-generating products are centered around digital nomad and remote work:

- Nomadlist - a digital nomad directory of cities to live in
- RemoteOK - remote work job board
- Rebase - immigration-as-a-service agency

He started with Nomadlist, and branched out from there to the others. He built a lot of other non-related ones too, but seems like the ones that worked are related.

The scary realisation from all this is: I run a portfolio of disparate products, across different industries.

- Lifelog - writing for creator
- Sheet2Bio - link-in-bio using Google Sheets
- Plugins For Carrd - software downloads for Carrd
- Keto List Singapore - keto directory for Singapore
- Sweet Jam Sites - web dev for JAMstack sites
- Outsprint - design consulting for govs

There's not a single spin-off so far! ALL are different niches!

Am I crazy?

How I think about it (or rationalize post-hoc):

It's like investing. You diversify to mitigate risk. Diversify across different types of assets with different risk profiles - from bonds to real estate to stocks to crypto. All have different levels of risk, in different industries.

This can bring more resilience, or even antifragility.

That's what I'm trying to do with my products. To treat my products as financial assets in an investment portfolio. I'm investing my time, energy and creativity into my investment, not capital outlay.

For example, during the pandemic, business was bad for Outsprint as the government were busy fire-fighting the crisis, and had no time, budget or bandwidth for service improvements and innovation. Yet there were lots of good opportunities for products, especially stuff related to remote work, or helped people made a side hustle during lockdowns. My own COVID-related side projects for social good did really well during the pandemic, even though most were not revenue-generating. Plugins For Carrd did pretty okay the past 2 years too. I had little consulting but could focus more on working on my products. Thankfully I got products during this time when my gigs ran dry. At least there's still *something*!

And now it's the pandemic is almost over, but recession and inflation is here. Business is better now for Outsprint as the government are back to normal functioning. But with consumer spending potentially affected, it might be bad for products in general. I see more churn, less sign-ups (despite my low conversions I see it too!).

So depending on the external forces at play, different products perform differently, and it kind of evens out.

Looking ahead, I think I'm good on the diversity so I can start more spin-offs to build off from momentum of existing products that's pulling me in. Plugins For Carrd is one. Outsprint is another. Lifelog has lots of potential for spin-offs too - cohort-based course, templates, writing tools, etc.

Having a blend of diversity and similarity is also mitigating risk!

Grateful grateful grateful. That means my fam won't have to risk going hungry for many more months...

Perhaps all these inner struggles I’ve been having about my lack of results comes down to one thing:

Expectations.

I expected to have succeeded by now.
I expected to have hit my goals yesterday.
I expected to have my hard work rewarded last year.

Expect, expect expect.

And when it doesn’t happen according to expectations, I deem myself to have failed.

"You don’t fail. Your expectations deceive you."
– @jdnoc

Yes. I’ve really just been deceived. By myself. Shot myself in the foot.

I guess it’s because I’ve never done anything this long before without reaching my target. Looking back, the hardest things I’ve set out to achieve in my short life so far, I’ve done it within a year or two. Stuff like winning a school marathon, acing my finals where I previously failed, breaking into a new job without any formal training by just learning on the job. In contrast, I’ve been indie hacking since 2018-ish? Almost 5 years since.

This can’t go on. I’m just making myself miserable. Let’s get back to a beginner’s mindset. Where ignorance is bliss. The openness and fearlessness that children have.

"Naive enough to start.
Naive enough to keep going.
Naive enough to ship.
Naive enough to make a difference."
– @jdnoc

Strategic naivety, it is.

Which I then repurposed and shared it in my Carrd chat group

All thanks to a request from a potential customer... thanks Adrien!

https://meganavbar.carrd.co

As a freelance consultant, I’m basically selling my time for money. There’s no passive income here at all. Every dollar earned from freelancing is time spent working.

And it’s easy to burn out from it, because it’s always hard to say no to projects and money. That’s what happened in my first 1-2 years. I took on everything that came my way. There were even occasions where I ran 2 projects concurrently! Eventually that led to burn out.

A few things I did that helped me earn without burnout:

• First step: Start saying no. Don’t overlap projects. Do one at a time. Plan some downtime in between each one. Overwork is the most common reason for burnout. As a freelancer it’s hard, I know. But learn how to say no is an important skill as a self-employed person.

• Charge more/raise prices. In the first year, I was only charging a third of what I’m currently charging. Definitely under-priced. That led to needing more projects, more work, and thus more likelihood of burnout. It was only after the first year where I got more confident as a consultant that I felt I could raise prices. And as I upgraded myself, learned new skills (e.g. coding), I continued raising prices - 3 times over the decade.

• Set an annual financial target to earn enough, and stop work once I hit it. You can never earn enough. Envision a lifestyle you want, calculate the money needed to support that lifestyle, and stop once you hit it that year.

• Timebox your work year. Earn enough within 9 months, take 3 months off to recover. That’s what I did for a few years when the income was good. The 3 months were liberating - I could do whatever I wanted. And I chose that time to learn coding, work on my indie products, take long vacations.

• Best hack: be selective of clients/projects. Bad clients lead to burnout 10x faster. Over time I started to spot red flags before signing up a client. You might feel you’re turning away money, but it’s really not worth the psychological harm.

What else have you tried that helped you prevent burnout as a freelancer?

This is why it's good to do your own technical support early on to find bugs and issues

This feels like a good question to ponder, as therein lies the opportunity for growth:

"Heuristic for activities to do more of:

• Things you don’t always feel like doing
• Things you never regret doing after

For me, that’s:

• Exercising
• Meditating
• Foam rolling
• 30-minute calls with new people
• Taking walks without my phone

What would you add?"

– @dickiebush

No point doing things that I don’t feel like doing but sometimes regret doing after – it’s a lose-lose.

No point doing things that I feel like doing but regret doing after – it’s probably vices.

No point reflecting about doing things that I feel like doing and don’t regret after – these get done one their own volition, without any additional push. I can think of passion hobbies, traveling.

So… what are things I don’t always feel like doing but never regret doing after?

- Sleeping early
- Eating right
- Exercise
- Running
- Meditate
- Being in Nature
- Swimming in the sea
- Having downtime
- Doing hand craft
- Sketching
- Listening to music
- Walking without destination
- Meeting up with close friends
- Watching less TV
- Less smartphone screentime
- Less work
- Less junk food
- Less junk media

What else should I add to the list?

Struggle this week! I feel like I'm running out of things to say

"Many people stop doing the right thing because they’re measuring it on the wrong timeline." – @AlexHormozi(https://twitter.com/AlexHormozi/status/1548088808754724865)

I know that making a living from internet products is the right path for me.

But perhaps I got the timeline wrong.

The frustration I feel with my lack of results is totally the consequence of misunderstanding the timeline.

I've seldom done something this long without reaching the objective I set. Seldom in all 4 decades of my life. In the past when I set my mind to it, I mostly can achieve it within 1-2 years, tops.

In school.
In sports.
In career.

"Patience with results, impatience with actions" - @Naval

Adding further fuel to the fire of frustration, I've always had problems with the patience. It's an uphill struggle practising this virtue. I know it's important, but it's just so hard.

The most challenging part is the right things in life and business often have no certain timelines. 10 months, or 10 years? It's anyone's guess. So it's hard to know what's the "right" timeline. In my case, I'm sure it's wrong, since it's giving me so much grief.

Perhaps then, being intentional about setting expectations is key. The horror is that I've never once sat down to set expectations. I've always assumed results will speedily arrive once I put myself to it. I've never quite asked myself:

- How long do I expect it to take?
- What if it takes way longer than expected?
- How long am I willing to commit?
- Do I have what it takes?
- Am I willing to trade off time for the reward?

Good time then, to think about this.