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👋 Good morning from Los Angeles! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #107 of Plan Your Next. A Sunday newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

And on some occasions, I complain about composting. That’s next.

💡 What’s new?

🎨 Today is the last day to sign up for Approachable Design. Want to develop your own style and communicate your design decisions with confidence? I got you. But, there are only two spots left!

✏️ If you missed it last week, the recording and notes of our Drawing for Writers session are posted here. Here’s a first-hand experience from out a quick summary from a student here.

I can be a wasteful person.

But I want to be better. Rather than improve on this shortcoming, I bought a $300 kitchen composting machine to tell myself that at least I’m doing something.

Food waste is real, people. Especially with kids.

My daughter’s appetite is the dark matter of our family; it’s there, but I can’t begin to understand it in a meaningful way. I can’t predict it or manipulate it. Who knows how much or what it will crave on any given day.

I’m at its mercy.

See what I did there? I’ve already set the stage to defer my own garbage guilt onto a one-year-old who can’t even talk.

If we were serving her ice cream every day, nothing would go to waste, because I’d be willingly present to finish the scraps. But between broccoli, chicken, black beans, pasta, turkey, beets, and carrots, some days she wants more, some days less. Same as all of us. Right?

And that’s just the waste from someone who doesn’t even have a say in the matter.

My failed composting history

For the past eight years, my wife and I have lived in some pretty small apartments without a traditional way to compost. You know the ones: the large garbage bins that spin in the backyard, letting Mother Nature bring life back into your waste.

Living apartment to apartment in Los Angeles doesn’t give us that much space, so if you’re looking to virtue signal, your options are limited to the form of a pretty small tin can.

When we did compost, we used a small $20 stainless steel canister from Amazon. It fits about two and a half meals and requires custom compostable bags that never really fit. A simple Google search showed that using rubber bands around the top is how the DIYers do it, but they failed to mention how undoing a rubber band from an overflowing food waste container feels like dismantling a bomb.

The small bin would fill up every other day, forcing you to dutifully march back and forth between the compost bin and the kitchen. Dumping the sloshing pile of food scraps into a bigger bin inevitably leaves food waste on your hands or clothes.

This went on for a few years. Then along came our daughter. While I could blame everything on her, I won’t. But curiously, I haven't composted a damn thing since her arrival.

I’ll pause while you gasp.

The moment where I try to redeem myself

It’s now been about a year since I have lived shame, letting the small compost can from Amazon sit in the corner, unused out of pure laziness.

While searching online, I came across the $300 bucket called Lomi (I was a first adopter sucker who bought it during a presale—it’s $500 now!). I’m not sure why I decided this was a normal amount to spend to be viewed as a climate-conscious person, but I’m sure some part of it was trying to make up for the fact it had been almost a year of not composting. Of course, that was all my daughter’s fault.

But what really drew me into it was that you could compost your scraps down into healthy, nutrient-filled plant soil.

Being a mediocre plant dad, I suddenly thought I could make up for the lost time. I could compost my scraps, and feed my leafy green friends at the same time.

The apartment-sized Lomi compost bucket

What the Lomi does is break down food scraps—and bio-degradable packaging (!)—into nutrient-rich soil. And it does all of this on your kitchen counter, while plugged into an outlet. It’s fast-forwarding a natural process, kind of like when nature reveals organic matter decomposing at timelapse speed.

There are three settings to choose from. The first you can use for plant soil, where it takes a bit longer—24 hours—by using less heat and keeping the nutrients intact. They refer to the nutrient-rich soil as Black Gold.

The second setting is the default, which takes about 4-6 hours. The end result is still soil, it’s just not suitable for your plants.

The third setting is one that you can use for bioplastics. Even the Lomi packaging itself can be cut up and composted right inside the damn thing! (Because I’m horrible, I didn’t read about this setting until it was too late and everything was recycled.)

In all three modes, you end up with incredibly dry dirt you can safely walk out to your city-issued compost bin without the mess. Or in my case, to breathe new life into our potted plants.

Overall, it reduces the volume of food waste by up to 90%, so I can compost almost a week’s worth of scraps without walking it out. And it doesn’t smell because of the tight-fitting lid. Well, it smells, but like an armpit after not wearing deodorant for half a day.

With most of these tech gadgets, you always wonder about its shelf life, and if the thing breaks—which it inevitably will—it ends up being just a giant bin for food scraps like we originally had.

I honestly can’t predict what will happen, but they do tend to push the three years extended warranty for this, so I’m getting a bit nervous. If it ends up in a landfill, then I’m worse off than where I started. As of writing this, I have not researched whether I can buy a new Lomi and let it compost itself. I’ll file this as a feature request for the next software update.

While I may regret this decision later, it’s been fun to use in the same way that deleting an email is fun. You press a single button and the machine responds with a beep, signaling you’re doing a good thing. Then immediately, it starts to whir and gently fill the kitchen with a not-so-subtle white noise, grinding organic matter into Black Gold.

Aesthetically, it’s as if Apple designed the product, with its stark white exterior and shiny white power cable. The size is about twice the size of our old tin can, but it nestles nicely into the corner without being an eyesore.

But take my review with a grain of salt…

To give this not-so-serious review some authenticity, I asked my wife how she liked it.

“I’m not sure it’s worth it.”

I guess this is where I’ll promise to do a future update that never gets written, like my daughter’s appetite, which will be difficult to predict.

There you have it. Lomi—a gorgeous yet overpriced compost bucket that signals to everyone—and to myself—that you’re a better person. Pre-order now for $500*, a price increasingly outpacing national inflation levels. Ouch.

*Not affiliated in any way, especially after this review.

❤️ Much appreciated feedback help from Cam, Matt, Scott, Caryn, Florian, Sara, Katerina, and Chris.

⚡️ Your next creative hits

👨‍💻 Find the first version of anything
Before the next, there’s always a first. Pretty wild to see the first job posting from Jeff Bezos, the first video on YouTube, or the first bottle of Chanel N°5. H/T Sari Azout

👨‍💻 All icons start as squares
I’m sure most of you haven’t designed icons, but this thread brilliantly walks through how to make it more approachable. Most ideas for icons are simple enough to be created from existing shapes.

🟤 The Color of Water
What color do you think of when you see water? For many, it’s not blue. Unsplash and charity:water recently collaborated and showcased images based on different colors of water.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your next adventure, crazy idea, or if you’re feeling creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

p.s. If you enjoyed this letter, would you please let me know by tapping on the heart below?.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Good morning from Los Angeles! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #103 of Plan Your Next. A Sunday newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

What’s new?

✏️ We’re close to 200 signups for Drawing for Writers: Procreate 101! If you’re curious about the process behind how I draw images like the one below, sign up here. It’s free!

⚡️ RadReads $10K Bootcamp is a free 3-day event hosted by Khe Hy. Right after I left my job last year, I took Khe’s Supercharge Your Productivity course which helped give me some alignment on what was most important to me. This Bootcamp is a free event, where Khe will teach you how to design a system to achieve your goals (while working less). Sign up here.

Imagine you’re out for a bike ride, and something feels off with your front tire. It’s pulling to the left, and you can see it’s not spinning perfectly center. It’s got a slight wobble.

What might you do to fix this?

In a bike shop, a mechanic would flip the bike over and give the wheel a spin to see what the problem is. If the wheel looks wobbly, it can be fixed through the practice of “truing” to make sure the alignment is centered.

Truing a bike wheel is done by spinning a wheel between two metal prongs, looking for inconsistencies between the spoke tension and the wheel itself.

If it has a severe wobble, the wheel will rub up against the metal prongs. It’s up to the mechanic to twist the spokes—either to tighten or loosen them—to bring everything back into harmony. If she’s successful, the wheel would spin seamlessly between the metal prongs in a straight line.

The process of discovering our own interests is like riding a bike with a wobbly wheel.

When you begin to write, you’re veering all over the road, unsure where you’re headed. This is part of the exploration, the adventure of trying to figure out what we’re being drawn to. But because of this adventurous mess, it can drive you mad because you’re not sure what lies ahead.

Can you sustain the momentum? Will people enjoy what you have to say? Will being too adventurous hurt me in the long run?

When a mechanic sits down to true a wheel, each spoke needs to be explored and checked for damage. The same goes for your writing. We can’t know immediately whether to give up on it or not without looking at an idea up close.

Your ideas are like the spokes in a wheel. Each spoke represents an idea that needs to be explored through your curiosity, then either fine-tuned or replaced.

As you write, you’ll begin to notice what excites you, or which ideas need to be thrown out. Maybe an idea feels wobbly, or your knowledge about it feels amateurish, so you’ll need to tweak and spend time with it to find its alignment.

The only way to find alignment is to sit with each idea, write through your curiosities, and see how the road reacts to it. Do you feel like you’re trying too hard to make something work, when really the idea needs to be swapped out for something new, or a slightly different take?

Author James Clear chased his interests all over the field, writing a hundred articles before he truly understood what excited him. He opted for consistency over choosing a particular area to focus on.

"Rome wasn’t built in a day, but they were laying bricks every hour. Just lay a brick. That’s how you build an empire."—James Clear

When I look at many of my favorite writers, I’m drawn to their wheels filled with hundreds of idea spokes. The more successful writers have wheels of harmony, having spent years fine-tuning each spoke, looking for new ways to refine it.

By chasing your ideas through the practice of writing, you’ll eventually hone in on the right wheel of ideas that creatively align with who you are.

⚡️ 2 creative hits for you to check out next

🪄 Unconventional life advice from someone who drinks too much, has just one friend and works a crappy job. My friend Charlie Bleecker wrote a thread this week that went bonkers on Twitter. It’s life advice from her dad, Chaz. It’s hilarious and based on her longer-form essay.

👨‍💻 A feedback tool for your Twitter threads. Getting feedback on writing Twitter threads has always been a bit difficult. Louie Bacaj built this handy tool to streamline writing feedback, and soon he’ll introduce longer-form essay feedback.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your next adventure, crazy idea, or if you’re feeling creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

p.s. If you enjoyed this letter, would you please let me know by tapping on the heart below?

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Good morning from Los Angeles! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #102 of Plan Your Next. A Sunday newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

💡 What’s new?

🎨 My latest: 20 unconventional design tips for non-designers. These are timeless tips you can use immediately in your design projects. What did you think I missed? Hit reply and let me know.

✍️ Drawing for Writers: Procreate 101: Have you wanted to add visuals to your own writing? Salman Ansari and I will be hosting a FREE YouTube live session where we show our process for creating visuals like the ones in my newsletter. We’re hosting it Friday, May 6th, at 11 am (PT). Sign up to be notified here.

😵‍💫 I’m experimenting with LinkedIn. Follow me here. Cringe? Maybe. It’s a strange reaction for me personally, but I’m also open to experimenting with new platforms. Even if I’ve been vocal about it in the past.

In November of 1982, Tony Hawk was 14 years old and about to compete in a skateboarding competition in Whittier, California.

At this point, most of his peers had already decided to turn pro.

He was considered next, but he had doubts.

Before the event, he looked at his entry form. There were two checkboxes on the form which read, “Pro or Amateur.”

Checking the box determined which category Tony would compete in.

A simple identity question is simply a state of mind.

Like you, I’ve had many identities over my life. But my distinct label has been, “designer.”

When I left my full-time role 8 months ago, I felt conflicted about who I wanted to be going forward. Am I just a designer? To me, that label felt too safe and comfortable.

I wanted to shed it, but it’s also something I identify with deeply.

Even though I had been writing for almost two years, I felt too afraid to check the ‘online writer’ box.

I also had experience teaching—and recently launched my own course—but I didn’t consider myself an instructor.

It’s easy to identify too closely with how you label yourself. It can feel like a trap—or a poorly executed marketing campaign—where the positioning is all off.

Most of the time, our income and safety are tied ridiculously close to the labels that we let define us.

Tony hesitated, but shrugged and checked “Pro.” He turned and looked back at the Bones Brigade owner and mentor Stacy Peralta, and said, “Is that ok?”

“If that’s what you want to do,” said Stacy.

At that moment, Tony Hawk turned pro. That was it. No celebration. No champagne. But a decision that would launch his career for the next 40+ years.

Maybe changing your mindset can be as simple as flipping a switch.

Inspired by Tony, I updated my own about page from being just a designer.

⚡️ Three creative hits for you to check out next

✏️ How to write irresistible copy

Copying is the best way to learn. And now my right-hand hurts. But, this new copywriting course by the couple, Sara and Sam Parr, is just that. It’s two weeks of literal copying and copy breakdowns, for $80. (No affiliation)

📈 100 Ways to slightly improve your life without even tryingI did #8 yesterday, and I wish I did #78 more often when I was working full-time.

🤣 The creative process in 43 Hayao Miyazaki screengrabsHayao has been storytelling for ~60 years, but he still finds the creative process daunting like all of us. This hilarious thread captures my insane process almost exactly. (H/T) Snail Mail

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your next adventure, crazy idea, or if you’re feeling creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

p.s. If you enjoyed this letter, would you please let me know by tapping on the heart below?

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Good morning from Mequon, Wisconsin! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #98 of Plan Your Next. A Sunday newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

Congrats to Jacob who won the giveaway for the Portfolio of Small Bets course with Daniel Vassallo! Thanks to everyone who submitted their own project ideas. Please reach out if you want to chat more about them. (see the end of the newsletter)

:: If you're listening to the audio version, I’m sitting next to a fire crackling against my cold AirPods. These don’t mix well ::

💡 What’s new?

🎨 Approachable Design 5 is open! This design workshop helps you discover your own unique aesthetic, which will help you to make better design decisions for your business or brand. Never again look at Pinterest to be inspired. You’ll build a design kit over the course of (2) 4-hour sessions on March 19-20. Learn more here.

👨‍💻 Slide Decks with Style video course: Have you wanted better creative control over your slide decks? It’s filled with tutorials on how to use Figma to build out your decks. Figma is a free design tool that I think all creators and entrepreneurs should have in their repertoire.

It’s Thursday morning and I’m rushing to load up my backpack for an impromptu trip to Wisconsin.

But this trip is different.

There’s a family emergency. We booked plane tickets as quickly as we could think. And we're taking our ten-month-old daughter on her first plane ride.

Personally, I love to fly. The art of travel involves paying attention to details, like preparing to paint a landscape. When preparing to paint, there’s dedicated research to choosing what to paint, how to paint, and researching details of the subject beforehand. In planning a trip, I love to think about the details of packing, like planning the exact combination of clothes to fit my 45L backpack. No more, no less. I’m a roller, not a folder.

Checked luggage? Checking luggage is for chumps. Define the packed boundaries, then paint between the lines.

It’s all pretty practical until you have a kid. We had originally planned for Rowan’s first flight to be New York in April. Like an experienced pilot using a checklist to minimize their errors, I used a checklist to organize all the things we should think about, both mentally and physically. Twitter threads were searched and friends were asked.

But that plan was thrown out the window on Tuesday night and we quickly booked a Southwest flight headed northeast, trying to remind ourselves this is a moment we have been anticipating before she was born.

As I quickly jammed clothes into my backpack, Alie packed much of our other things for Rowan. And like a baby speaking their first words, I uttered words I never thought I would form: “Alie, maybe we should get one of those Smarte Cartes sitting outside the terminal to haul our luggage.”

I’ve never brought this much luggage on a trip. In the past, I’ve watched in horror while families with carts of luggage stacked like a pyramid of cards, seconds from a disaster, stroll through the terminals.

Up to this point in my life, I thoughts carts were superfluous and unnecessary, much like the e's on the end of not-so-cleverly named, Smarte Carte.

I don’t get along well with carts. I find them generally unacceptable and, until recently, I’ve been shopping at Costco for years refusing to submit to the cart system. But I’ve learned one thing: Costco employees don’t really know what to do with you kicking a 72-pack of paper towels and diapers across the floor during checkout.

At the airport, as we strolled to the check-in counter with our trusty Smarte Carte, we did something else that a younger version of myself would have rolled his eyes at.

We checked two bags.

I’m basically less than human at this point and we still have to stroll through security.

I know you must be thinking, “I feel really bad for Nate right now in a totally non-sarcastic way.” Thanks. I certainly feel the sincerity.

So did the Southwest woman at check-in, because my wide-eyed expression was saying, “It’s our first time flying with a child.” She motioned to our car seat, letting us know we might want to bring it on the plane with us. We held up the line of people behind us as we went back and forth on the pros and cons of using a car seat or not.

We took her at her non-sarcastic word when she said, “You don’t have to use it, but you might want to think about it,” which I interpreted as, “You sweet ignorant first-time parent. You don’t know anything.”

Somehow we made it through security—car seat, and Smarte Carte in tow—then made our way safely aboard our Southwest flight headed northeast.

Our flight was filled with nervousness, excitement, and edge-of-our-seats suspense of a potential major blowout. But the Southwest Gods were looking over us today and decided to make this unanticipated non-blowout adventure more memorable than we could have imagined.

It used to feel like there was an art to preparing for a trip, but just like a beautiful piece of art doesn’t resemble one another, neither does one trip from another.

“Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.” This saying has never rung more true than this most recent trip. I’m not sure I’ll ever find beauty in using a cart, but I’ve found a new appreciation for traveling with an infant. Even if this new mode of travel resembles a Jackson Pollock painting then a peaceful rendition by Edward Hopper.

After landing in Milwaukee, new concerns took over. But my daughter's first flight is one we’ll never forget.

⚡️ Two creatives hits for you to check out next

Okay! Serif—A fun, affordable serif font for headlines

👨‍💻 Live workshops as a way to launch an idea Found this thread helpful in thinking as I build out my own live workshops

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your next adventure, crazy idea, or if you’re feeling creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

p.s. If you enjoyed this letter, would you please let me know by tapping on the heart below?

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Good morning from Los Angeles! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #97 of Plan Your Next. A Sunday newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

It’s difficult to think about anything other than what’s happening in Ukraine right now. It’s f*g heartbreaking. My friend Art Lapinsche wrote an essay on his memories as his family fled the Yugoslav war, which is an uncomfortable reminder of how quickly things can turn.

💡 What’s new?

🎨 Approachable Design 5 is opening its doors with a limited amount of spots available. This is a live 2-day weekend workshop on March, 19-20, and consists of (2) 4-hour sessions. If you have wanted to learn the fundamentals of design while building your own personal design kit, this is exactly for you. Learn more here.

​​"Good design communicates trust." This quote has anchored my personal approach to design. Yet as someone who has literally zero design experience, the craft has always felt daunting and overwhelming. Colors, fonts, Figma, gradients - where does one even begin? Thankfully I discovered Nate's course and in the span of a weekend was able to create RadReads assets that communicate our vibe and ethos.”—Khe Hy, founder of RadReads

Plan Your Next featured guest

Every now and then I aim to discover insights from entrepreneurs and creatives who are chasing their next thing. This week, I have the privilege to highlight the author, creator, and friend, Paul Millerd!

“One of the things that kept me going was the discovery of things I liked doing - things like writing, having conversations, and creating things online - that gave me energy. I found that if I created the space in my life for those things to happen they would and by doing so, I’d be able to sustain the momentum to keep the path going.”—Paul Millerd

Who is Paul Millerd?

I first met Paul on Twitter last year. He’s been an active influence in my own adventure into solopreneurship—or whatever you want to call waking up early without a regular routine. He gave me some lived perspective of my options, which always seem a little vague when sitting in your own mind.

Between then and now, Paul just happened to write an entire book, The Pathless Path. I’m envious of how Paul blends his own personal goals against consulting, seemingly succeeding at navigating the two. It’s not easy, and it’s why I asked him to answer a few questions on the topic of finding your way.

I hope you enjoy the short interview, and I highly recommend subscribing to his weekly newsletter.

Paul, tell us a bit about yourself and what keeps you busy most days?For the past five years, I've been self-employed and have been slowly trying to lean into the freedom and flexibility that this sort of existence allows. My days vary widely but typically involve some creative work (typically writing), sometimes paid work (consulting or course-based coaching), conversations with people from around the world, and outdoor activity. I have tried to design my life around liking what I do and have tried to consciously lean against any “hustle path” where I need to make sacrifices for a payoff in the future. I don’t recommend trying this at home but it’s worked well for how I’m wired.

Tell me a story. When was the last time you made an unexpected turn in direction? And what's one takeaway you learned in sustaining that momentum to see it through?To me, I felt like I was always making dramatic shifts - I changed jobs every 1-2 years for ten years. Yet it was not until I left my full-time job to become self-employed in 2017 that others seemed to notice. This was a shock for me. At the same time I was overwhelmed with both the uncertainty and possibilities of a new path, I had to deal with the understanding that others saw me doing something risky and even bad. In the first few months of that “leap,” however, I had a sense that I had stumbled into something that was a much better fit for my life. One of the things that kept me going was the discovery of things I liked doing - things like writing, having conversations, and creating things online - that gave me energy. I found that if I created the space in my life for those things to happen they would and by doing so, I’d be able to sustain the momentum to keep the path going.

What were you doing prior to making this change?Prior to that leap, I was working as a strategy consultant in New York. I was actually helping advise companies on CEO success and interviews with people who would late become Fortune 500 CEOs enabled me to clearly see: I was not one of them.

A piece of advice you would offer someone who feels stuck in pursuing their next idea?I think many people are stuck in an endless cycle of reaching for the next goal, the next thing, more stuff, or a better career path. I was stuck in that more for more than a decade. It turns out what I really wanted was space in my life to disconnect from "worker" mode, and to be able to think, ponder, and contemplate the important questions in life. So my advice would be: don't pursue the idea, go wander and the rest will take care of itself.

What are you most excited about in the world today?I'm so excited about the reality that more people than ever are now able to pursue their own positive version of freedom in their lives by sharing their ideas with the world, finding the others, and building a life around work that brings them alive. And helping more people make that happen, of course!

What’s a favorite quote or piece of advice you live by?"That thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you is usually what you need to find, and finding it is a matter of getting lost." —Rebecca Solnit

Do you have an "ask" of my audience? Something you need help with?First, everyone should read my book because it's a friendly invitation to other creative weirdos on unique paths. Second, everyone should share this newsletter and support you, Nate, because I think the way you are showing up in the world is genuine, caring, and powerful!

Where can someone find you online?

Follow Paul on Twitter

Paul’s Instagram

Paul’s Website: Think Boundless

Snag Paul’s book: The Pathless Path (not an affiliate link. It’s just that good.)

⚡️ Check out these creative hits next

Google Slides is actually hilarious”Join me on this cathartic journey which aspires to be none of the following: constructive, systematic, exhaustive. I’m too tired for that, dear reader. Consider this a gag reel. A platter of amuse-bouches. A chocolate sampler box of nightmares.”I find it fascinating that anyone can actually use Google Slides easily. This product is so old and frustrating, it’s why I created a course on using Figma for slide decks. (Sorry, I just had to plug Figma once again!)

Want to start an internet business?Khe Hy (Supercharge Your Productivity) and Marie Poulin (Notion Mastery) will be sharing 2-decades worth of pragmatic advice on starting and scaling creator-focused online businesses. March 4 @10:30 AM PST Click here to sign up.

Jeen-Yuhs: A Kanye TrilogyIncredible Netflix documentary on Kanye West, filmed over two decades. I’m only a third of the way through it, but you can clearly see his talent at the age of 12. If you’re a creative person at all, I would recommend watching this. It’s non-stop determination to be great.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your next adventure, crazy idea, or if you’re feeling creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

p.s. If you enjoyed this letter, would you please let me know by tapping on the heart below?

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Good morning from the Upper Haight of San Francisco! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #96 of Plan Your Next. A Sunday newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

Welcome to the 36+ new subscribers here this past week. Every Sunday, I aim to make this newsletter as classic as Larry David’s take on crypto.

💡 What’s new?

✏️ I published a guest post, The Courage To Not Give Unsolicited Advice for my friend Charlie Bleecker’s newsletter. It’s how giving unsolicited advice is a waste of time, and it takes from Alfred Adler’s principles found in the book, The Courage To Be Disliked.

👨‍💻 Course giveaway: Late last year, I took a course called A Portfolio of Small Bets by Daniel Vassallo. It gave me momentum in continuing a few of my own small projects, and the smart people in his community are worth it alone. I have one FREE course membership to give away. If you’re interested in joining an upcoming cohort for free, just respond to this email with what your next small bet would be. I’ll pick one person who replies to give it to!

🎨 I’m truly thankful for the feedback I received from my last newsletter on learning to draw. If you do end up creating illustrations by remixing and copying, please share them! I’ve already witnessed a couple. I also published a concise version on my own site if you want to save it for later.

When I first started this newsletter, I was going to write about the trips I’ve taken because I had no idea what to write about.

When you’re starting out without any writing experience, you’ll almost always want to share every detail, from start to finish. Little did I know this was possibly the worst way to tell a story. But, the thought of leaving details out from an entire two-week trip felt unnatural, like leaving socks on while having sex.

I was so new to writing, I hadn’t yet read Matthew Dicks’ book, Storyworthy. In it, I would learn his first rule about travel stories:

“No one wants to hear about your vacation.”

I think that’s mostly true, but maybe it’s because most people are bad at telling travel stories? Thankfully, Matthew does include a second rule: “If someone asks to hear about your vacation, they are being polite. See rule #1.”

So here I am not telling you about my second trip to Argentina in 2018, but instead, how to experience your next trip in a new way.

I used to think that using a tour guide was cheating. I also thought most guides hated their jobs. My experiences had been limited to mostly bad Seattle Underground Tours where unenthused comedians mocked the tour itself by masking their disgust through gritted teeth.

It wasn’t until a trip to Paris when my in-laws hired a legit pro to take us through three of the most popular museums that you probably know. I walked away from that tour realizing how much more connected I felt to the art I was seeing. I saw it through their eyes but felt it with my body. I never applied the common phrase I use when finding design help, “You get what you pay for,” to tour guides.

So, in 2018 I went to Argentina with my wife’s family. Instead of a tour guide, I found a local art teacher who held private walking tours, but for drawing. He taught simple one and two-point perspective drawing, which anyone can do with a small ruler and a pencil.

More important than the simplicity of drawing this way, you are connecting to a location in a way most people never try.

In many cases, the first memories I recall from a trip I’ve taken is the food I’ve eaten. When I was in Japan, it was slurping down a bowl of ramen elbow to elbow in a cramped restaurant in Tokyo, or biking to a vineyard just outside of Mendoza City to drink wine while eating steak from a cow grazing on some of the best soil in the world.

All of our senses are being triggered when eating, so it’s not a secret these memories are at the tip of our memory banks, sealed safely like a cold wallet holding Bitcoin in a fire safe.

Sitting outside to draw a scene connects our senses in similar ways. We use four of the five while drawing. And if you have a handy sandwich nearby, you can take advantage of taste, just for kicks.

What’s underrated is the connection we have to a place by creating something. Drawing forces us to process information in multiple ways: visually, kinesthetically, and semantically. It’s superior to reading or writing because of this visual trifecta.

We’re also connecting to a location intimately as you might experience by walking instead of driving.

Our guide walked us to a few different locations. We spent about 30 minutes at each building, while he taught us the basics and encouraged us to work fast.

Instead of focusing on perfection, he wanted us to see the simplicity of the process so we could quickly apply this even if we were sitting on a bench with just 5 minutes to spare.

Even if the sketches weren’t capturing every detail, my memories of the moment were being absorbed by the paper. Like a delicious meal, I can easily recall the pillow-like grass we were sitting in, the differences between high and low relief construction, or how the flush glass seemingly dissolved into steel.

Drawing doesn’t need to be complicated. It can be fun just to sit in the middle of an intersection, quickly drawing the pillars of a museum in a 2-point perspective.

It’s a simple mental hack for recalling details of your trip in the same way you’ll remember sitting at that small cafe on your first night, enjoying a malbec with a grass-fed steak with loved ones.

It might even be the first memory you recall when describing your start-to-finish vacation story.

Unless you also happen to see a glacier on that same trip.

Nothing beats a f*g glacier.

⚡️ Two creative hits for next week

📸 Free design elements for your projectsCSA Images has provided some incredibly high-quality design assets for free on their website. I remember using this site as a young designer

🏡 Designing a 100-year old home in AccraI absolutely love these long-form, well-organized posts on building something. It makes me want to create one for my current bike-building project. What I enjoyed most was the design brief Emmanuel put together for their home at the outset. (Plus, the design of this site is beautiful. Simple design decisions ftw)

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your next adventure, crazy idea, or if you’re feeling creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

p.s. If you enjoyed this letter, would you please let me know by tapping on the heart below?

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Good morning from Los Angeles! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #94 of Plan Your Next. A Sunday newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

Welcome to all 160+ people who joined this past week. And a special shoutout to Abhishek Shah who shared Plan Your Next in this fantastic thread. I’m feeling incredibly grateful. ❤️

💡 What’s new?

🎨 My next live creative workshop, Approachable Design, will be held on March 19-20. Hop on the waitlist to learn more and get updates as we get closer.

⌚️ The Wearable Challenge I’ve been a part of is going extremely well. My biggest takeaway so far: Taking a 10-15 minute walk after meals blunts most blood sugar spikes. I’m down about 10 pounds, doing 20-25 min HIIT workouts most days, and my sugar cravings have been almost non-existent.

(Truth time: I have an alter ego nicknamed by my wife and friends. His name’s Dane. Dane eats or drinks everything in sight when he’s hungover or DGAF. He also loves sugar and has no problem mouth prancing all over a plastic sleeve of Oreo’s if given the chance. His motto: A cookie not eaten is a cookie wasted. This entire challenge has been to keep Dane locked up. I’ll keep you posted if we’re successful.)

11 years ago, I bought an old 86’ Schwinn bike from my friend, Eric. Around this time, I had just sold my condo and most of my posessions. I was looking to detach myself from the idea of homeownership, and all the stuff I felt was weighing me down. Like the vintage lime green vinyl sectional that was missing an arm.

After selling that sofa and most everything else, I was left with my laptop, Eric’s old Schwinn bike, and my clothes. Then I asked Eric if I could rent a spare bedroom in his small craftsman home.

Imagine Thoreau leaving behind his material possessions, but instead of moving next to a pond by himself, he moved into a friend's house. That friend was Eric.

I paid Eric $550 a month to live in his upstairs bedroom for a couple of years. This was down from the $2,250 I was spending on my mortgage, which forced me to learn about investing and other ways to put my money to work.

During that time, Eric and I became close and I found myself fully immersed in his own passion, building and restoring bikes.

His basement looked like your local bike shop. Any tool you needed was readily available, even a wheel truing stand for building out custom wheelsets. If you ever had a bike question, Eric was your man.

It reminded me of my dad’s basement studio when I was growing up. He was a graphic designer and he had professional tools like graphic design markers, a projection machine that would allow you to reflect images perfectly, and every kind of paint you could ever need as a 12-year-old.

Eric had put in his 10,000 hours of riding, building, and perfecting the customization of his bikes.

This was a new world to me, but I became fascinated with how much thought, patience, and personalization you could apply to a vintage bike, versus buying one off the shelf.

Personalizing a bike has an infinite number of choices to make, and defies some of the myths you might have in your head, like having fat tires doesn’t actually slow a bike down but instead makes it more comfortable to ride. 80’s Japanese steel was built to last forever, and the randonneuring community is just as passionate as the Jeep community. Because of that, there are many aftermarket parts available, so you could build and personalize almost anything your heart desires. Craigslist was your bike parts shop.

My newly vintage Schwinn bike was one of the few possessions I kept after selling my home, and I wanted to make it mine. Not only did I want to personalize it, I had a goal of taking a long bike trip over the course of a couple of weeks.

My bike was an ’86 Schwinn Voyageur, originally used as a touring bike. This meant it had a lot of braze-ons to hold equipment like racks and cables, without having to use extra zip ties or clunky accessories that added more unnecessary weight to the frame.

What started out as a dark-green road bike with clunky components, turned into a custom powder coated sleek ride with new lights, re-wired braking, design touches like Italian leather gripping, Brooke’s leather seating, and new fenders locked into place by a wine cork.

These changes don’t mean much on their own, but each decision I made connected me to the bike. Conversely, it makes it more difficult to try and sell it later, but it’s what creates a bond I wouldn’t want to make if given the choice.

Personalizing objects around you is one way to fend off the desire to buy more. I’m inspired by the Neistat brothers—Casey and Van—who were inspired by the talented artist, Tom Sachs. Their approach is to customize everything, which plays into their aesthetic, but also the longevity of the object’s shelf life. Look at Casey’s studio and all of the old gear most people would throw in the trash.

What I love about this video is there is no real monologue about why he personalizes his electric bike. His approach to making the bike his own is so commonplace, that he just wants to be able to charge it more conveniently. So instead of making an elaborate plan, you see in real-time how he thinks about modifying the bike to his own needs.

There’s so much s**t in this world, the shelf life of most consumables is incredibly short. To me, there are a couple of ways to reduce the number of things you buy. Either invest in high-quality items that have a longer shelf life, or connect with the items you have through personalization. By personalizing, you make it yours. And when it’s yours, you’ll want to use it forever.

That is until someone steals your ’86 Schwinn and now you have to start all over with a newer, older, ’83 Schwinn Voyageur.

Time to make this mine.

⚡️ Two creative hits for next week

Deep focus roomsI doubt I’ll ever need these unless I owned a tiny home, but they’re so well designed. We live in a rental house right now, but even then, I’m looking for quiet spaces to record the newsletter, or take calls. (via Mike B.)

🐦 A guide to TwitterIf you’re at all like me, you might find it difficult to use Twitter in a healthy way. You understand the power of a network, but haven’t spent the time personalizing it for yourself. I found this article nuanced and helpful in approaching Twitter the right way.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your next adventure, crazy idea, or if you’re feeling creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

p.s. If you enjoyed this letter, would you please let me know by tapping on the heart below?

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Good morning from Los Angeles! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #93 of Plan Your Next. A Sunday newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

Imagine Play-Doh being poked by an index finger. This is me nudging myself to get up out of bed every morning.

Sometimes I spend the first few minutes scanning my phone notifications to the dismay of every article titled, The Ultimate Guide to Productivity. When I do roll out of bed in a zombie-like state, my body is full of potential energy even if it doesn’t feel like it. Potential energy is stored energy, waiting for an external force to push it around.

But I need more than an index finger.

To do any type of real work, a transfer of energy needs to happen. A force to push my fingers into these keys and make words seemingly appear. Most days this feels more difficult than Luke Skywalker trying to use the force to lift an X-Wing from the swamp. But a right hook from our nine-month-old daughter certainly helps.

Since we don’t have Sci-Fi superpowers at our fingertips, we need to plan ahead to have a sustainable energetic platform to wield. Things like making time to exercise for 20-30 minutes, eating healthy, going for walks, and not drinking every night.

And if you’re like me and have kids, you need more horsepower than the average human. To do work before the kids get up, during naps, and after they go down, you can’t fill those precious minutes watching Netflix while not exercising, going for walks, and drinking every night.

The play-doh-like state I find myself in crept up over the past 18 months. My energy feels low. I get tired easily, my mind drifts, and the small things like watering all 30 plants in our house make me want to intentionally kill them off. Not surprisingly, I’m quickly becoming a daily connoisseur of the wines of the world and siphoning my wife’s stash of brownie crisps.

Somehow, Alie has incredible moderation. I’ve joked I should have a lockbox to store all of her sweets in it. Sneaking them behind her back and hoping she doesn’t notice isn’t fooling anyone except for my in-the-moment shame.

If I’m being honest, I replaced cooking with take-out, my 45-minute banger Peloton rides became 20 minutes, my drinking went from 1 to 3 glasses a night, and I found a new habit of slamming Trader Joe’s licorice bags in a single setting.

3 teeny-tiny extra pounds suddenly became 15.

Just 2 years ago I was in the best shape of my life. I was cycling, taking daily walks, eating well, springing up from bed, and not buying Trader Joe's licorice.

During Alie’s pregnancy, I read an article that blamed the #dadbod on having a child, somehow making up another excuse that it wasn’t my fault for doing everything I just listed. F**k that.

We’re always on the lookout for hacks and ways to be more productive, but the more I reflect on what’s holding me back, it’s less about the tools and more about how much energy I have during the day.

The best work I’ve done has come from the moments I feel energized to work on a project. My best writing has come from the times I laugh while writing, overflowing with energy. My best workouts come from when I feel limber and energized to immediately jump into that HITT session. And sex is better when I wouldn’t rather be napping.

I’ve read enough books and listened to enough podcasts to know what to do, but finding that perfect energy state is elusive. Even if you do have it, it can sneak out the door without notice. Your weakest point can come when you feel the strongest.

Monitoring my blood sugar

Like I imagine what takes place in AA, part of the solution is admitting there’s a problem.

I decided to stick a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) in my left arm to start understanding the fluctuations in my energy. Having this in your arm is like forcing yourself to stare at the calories on a Mcdonald's menu in real-time.

Glucose is the scientific term for blood sugar, and your body needs it for energy. The Greek word for glucose is, “sweet.”, which is my vice. Just hearing that word makes me crave a cookie. So understanding which foods and activities spike your blood sugar helps you know why you’re suddenly reeling from a lack of energy. (Or craving that cookie.)

Even having a few glasses of wine might feel good at the moment, but your liver doesn’t process it for a few hours. While your liver is working overtime at 2 am, your heart rate speeds up, keeping your body up even though you think you’re sleeping. Reading any online article about your liver is much different than looking at last night's spiky graph.

The main takeaway from 5 days in—outside of how important alcohol moderation is—is by taking a 15 min walk after eating will help clear up most spikes in your blood sugar. You can even splurge a little and a walk will suppress your spikes. Keeping my blood levels steady keeps my appetite at human levels and my cravings for sugar to a minimum.

So far, I’m finding my afternoons filled with more energy and my mornings are slowly catching up. I want to get back to my best self. My goal is to lose 20 lbs, lift 3x a week, read and write more often, and stop watching Netflix every day.

These steps are just the table stakes to fulfill my real goals: To execute every day on the most important projects in my life: Approachable Design and being a father, and whatever is next.

And none of this will get done by trying to push Play-Doh around with an index finger.

:Thanks to Florian and Charlie for feedback:

⚡️ Two creative hits for next week

The 5 stages of fastingI love this simple breakdown of how your body reacts the longer you fast. Fasting starts at around 8 hours, but significant benefits like ketosis, mental clarity, and fat burning start between 12-18 hours. For the record, I’ve done plenty of fasting in the past, but didn’t really dig into the details much until now.

Levels Health and how to monitor your glucose (blood sugar)I linked to the challenge I’m doing last week, but the CGM mentioned in my essay is called Levels Health. It’s about the size of a quarter and sits on your arm. It’s not cheap, but I only plan to wear it for a month to experiment and test while doing the challenge.

One other insight I had: Taking apple cider vinegar before a meal suppresses your blood spike. This is useful to help blunt any potential energy swings later in the day, or usually right after a meal.

One last serendipitous podcast I listened to this week was between Tim Ferriss and Chef Marco Canora. Marco helped Tim Ferris with the 4-Hour Body years ago, and just talked about his own experience wearing a CGM. Found it timely and he also endorsed walking after a meal.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your next adventure, crazy idea, or if you’re feeling creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

p.s. If you enjoyed this letter, would you please let me know by tapping on the heart below?

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Good morning from Los Angeles! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #90 of Plan Your Next. A Sunday newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

💡 What’s new this week?

🎤 I was a guest on Cohort Captains, a new podcast my friend Jonathan launched recently. We chat about design and some simple steps to finding your own style. He launched with some great guests, so I recommend checking it out.

👽 My friend Nick deWilde—of his popular newsletter The Jungle Gym—recently launched a new Web3 education-focused community called Invisible College. If you’re curious about building in this space, but don’t know where to start, check it out.

📕 I’m close to finishing the book, The Courage to be Disliked. I’ll do a write-up on this afterward because it’s affecting me deeply, and how I think about raising Rowan.

I miss travel

As my friends Matt, Vanessa, and I walked up to the Delta counter at the Minneapolis International airport, we slid our passports to the tired, older gentlemen stuck working the night shift of the airport ticket counter.

His eyes swiftly scanned all 3 passports, knowing exactly which line to lock his eyes onto, as I do standing at a hot counter loaded with pizza slices.

Holding one passport, he looked back up at us without a change in expression and said, “Well, one of you isn’t headed to London tonight.”

Our hearts sank as the attendant flipped a passport towards us with his cranky finger fixed on Matt’s expired date. I felt sick as I realized Matt wasn’t going to fly out with us on our first friend’s trip abroad. A trip we had been planning for months. A trip we had cobbled together our dollars to find the cheapest ticket to a gloomy city in the middle of a rainy spring.

I think about this first trip all the time. I arrived home from that trip in full euphoria and immediately made my first travel video.

It’s what set in motion a motto I had in my head: Always have the next trip planned.

I’ve carried this line with me since that moment, never not having a trip on the horizon.

From there I would bounce between cities and countries, as often as I could replenish my bank account or convince a friend to split the costs with me.

That motto inspired this newsletter, even though it’s not about travel.

To me, having the next thing planned doesn’t need to be the right thing. And it certainly doesn’t mean planning out your next five years. But I’ve found having something to chase keeps me motivated, because it’s easy to find yourself in a slog without it.

Starting this newsletter was my next thing for a while. Now it’s my thing. It blossomed and grew into a door that opened into other worlds. It gave me a new path to chase, which wasn’t visible from the highway I was speeding down.

It’s branched out into new paths and friendships and strengthened existing relationships. You could say it stemmed from that first trip. Always wanting something next.

Back on my first trip abroad, Vanessa and I landed safely in London. Matt was quickly renewing his passport in Chicago, and flying to meet us in less than 24 hours. The adventure had started and I was already addicted to this uncomfortable feeling.

Every time I travel, I think about this first trip. I’ll think about it as we jet back to Europe next spring, hitting new cities for the first time in over 2 years.

Damn, I miss travel. Where are you going next?

⚡️ Two creative hits for next week

Web design in 4 minutes: A quick lesson in how to make a web page go from plain text to nicely formatted in just a few steps.

How 77 Metro Transit agencies design the letter M: Try taking 4 lines and making them distinct from one another. This is a fun comparison of how they try to make their M look distinct.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your next adventure, crazy idea, or if you’re feeling creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

p.s. If you enjoyed this letter, would you please let me know by tapping on the heart below?

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Good morning from Los Angeles! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #87 of Plan Your Next. A Sunday newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

Welcome to the 29 new people since last week!

What’s new this week?

👨‍⚖️ An article I wrote a while back was cited in a Law Journal. Check out Footnote 101! Thanks, Jonah!

👨‍🎨 I started to build out a self-paced, bite-sized course on using Figma to build slide decks and presentations. I’ve designed fundraising decks that have helped raise millions of dollars, and I think Figma is one of the best ways to do this. Hit reply if you want to know when I release the first version of it. And if you want to know anything specific, let me know and I might include it.

Good morning from Los Angeles!

I hate that I love technology. Its constant evolution is a dopamine hit that continues to punch the same spot in my brain, year over year. And if you follow what’s happening in the web3 space, it feels like it’s rocketing at an even greater clip than Moore’s Law.

In the 7 days since I wrote my last newsletter, 14,000+ members of ConstitutionDao raised $42+ million to bid on the only remaining private copy of the Constitution. By Thursday, the group (and me) were outbid, and life suddenly went back to normal, waiting for the next project.

Just today, technology took a swing at the knees of our burr coffee grinder, but thankfully that offline product doesn’t live in the latest web3 dao, and lasted us 7 years; not 7 days.

This also happened to be the first year I didn’t upgrade my iPhone to the latest iPhone, and I did a little Rocky dance in my mind for fighting back the urge.

Nate: 1, Technology: 1,000,000.

I hate that I love technology so much, I thought I’d list everything I rely on, as a therapeutic measure to see how crazy I really am. And maybe it will help me ease back on a few things? Maybe.

What’s on your own tech list?

Some of these links are affiliate URLs, but I make that clear below.

Creativity + Productivity

Figma I use this every.single.day. It’s my most recommended design tool for everyone, not just designers.

LoomLike Figma, this is integral to my workflow. I use it almost daily when recording feedback videos, or helping show how I deconstruct design. I also use this for Approachable Design when doing tutorial videos. (Although I may switch to Screenflow for editing those.)

ScreenFlow I just upgraded this the other day to make my mini-course on using Figma, and I’m impressed by how much it’s improved.

12.9” iPad Pro (2018 256GB model) + Apple Pencil + Magic KeyboardI use this for all of my illustrations, usually every few days. The Magic Keyboard is a gem to type on, and prefer that if I’m in a pinch.

DescriptI use this for editing some of my video transcripts, as well as our podcast that Reza and I need to get back to recording! You can quickly select all of your filler words (“um’s” and “uh’s”) and delete them quickly. You can also train the software to use your voice if you want to add in words. I use this weekly.

RoamSince early 2020, I use Roam for my notetaking and info capture. Any note or idea I want to save, I’ll add it here.

NotionI’ve been using Notion for the past 6 months as a way to track tasks in my projects and domains. I follow the approach Khe Hy teaches, which I highly recommend checking out.

ProcreateThis is an iPad app for creating digital art, like the ones you see at the top of this newsletter. It’s what I recommend for anyone trying to get into drawing or creating their own illustrative style. It’s what many professional artists use, as well as many who don’t consider themselves traditional artists, but who want to express themselves creatively, like Matt.

Final Cut ProI don’t use this as much anymore but I did have a short stint as a wannabe vlogger. I’d love to pick up videos once again at some point, but it definitely wouldn’t be a reality show of my boring life. 😂

Adobe Creative Cloud subscription with 2TBI mainly use Lightroom CC, Photoshop, and Illustrator, but I’d love to wean off off these over the next year.

Finance

YNAB (TradFi)Alie and I used this for a long time to get on the same page with our spending, but we use it much less now. However, I still keep it around as a way to peek in every now and then.One-month free referral link

Personal Capital (TradFi + Crypto beta)I use this to keep track of most of my traditional finances, although I only check this about once a month or less, just to make sure nothing crazy happened. They recently introduced a way to track specific cryptocurrencies but depending on how active you are, it might not be worth the effort.$20 referral link

Chase Sapphire Card Once my wife and I went 100% debt-free, we switched to using a rewards card for daily purchases. For the past 4 years we have been using this specific card, and pay the balance off monthly. For us, it’s the easiest way to pay for our travel using points without having to think about it. The annual fees make me cringe every year, but we have found the benefits worth it. We book our travel through Chase Rewards, which maximizes the travel points (1.5x). Of course, we haven’t been traveling at all, but we’ve been stocking up travel points over the last 18 months.

Vanguard (TradFi)Much of my retirement funds are locked up into long-term low index funds that automatically get rebalanced. (~90/10 stocks/bonds split) Out of sight, out of mind.

Betterment (TradFi)I use Betterment for my non-tax deferred savings, with goals set up. It makes it a bit easier to access, and I mostly like to experiment with low-fee AI-based rebalancing, taking advantage of their tax harvesting as well. $5,000 managed for free referral link

BlockFi (BlockFi)This is where I keep some BTC and ETH for the long haul, earning what many would consider in DeFi a very low return (6-10%). But I’m all about the long game and would prefer to earn a small return and not think about it.

Ledger Wallet (DeFi)I currently have both the Ledger Nano X and the Ledger Nano S. I don’t think you need two for cold storage, but if you’re dabbling in the space, I think it’s worth getting the feel for how these work. 20% off referral link

MetaMask Wallet (DeFi)This is a digital wallet that lives in your browser. Imagine your bank account easily accessible from any website that takes cryptocurrency. Never share your secret keyword phrase with anyone.

Zapper (DeFi)This is a dashboard—like Personal Capital—but for your digital wallet. But you can do a lot more like swapping tokens, bridging assets from one protocol to another, staking, and pooling funds. Simply, it gives you an overall view of your public wallets. Your public key is actually public, so anyone with it could plug it in and see what you’re storing. Keep in mind, this doesn’t make it less safe, unless someone gets your recovery keys. Be incredibly careful about not sharing these. In many cases, you might have several digital wallets and use 1-2 to transact with regularly.

Marketing

SubstackThis is what you’re reading right now! The ease and use of spinning up a newsletter keeps me coming back. I’d love to potentially consolidate this to ConvertKit but I’m not convinced that’s the best move right now.

ConvertKitI’ve grown to love this company and wielding it is a bit like using Photoshop. It can be unforgiving, but I love how focused they are on creators. Referral link to add 100 free subscribers to your account

WebflowThis runs both my personal site, kadlac.com and business, approachabledesign.com. I also love to use this for prototyping live ideas out. I also recommend most people to Webflow because it’s so customizable. It’s not the cheapest option, but if you can dream it, most likely can build it in Webflow.Referral link

CalendlyI pay the monthly fee here to have more control over my creative calls, and I get to customize it a bit more. I use this service weekly.

ZoomI mean, do I really need to say anything else here?

Yourwebsite.com hostingI should probably stop paying this $6/mo plan, but I keep our wedding site I designed humming out of nostalgia. It’s built using Jekyll—a static site generator—and I also generally like having FTP access to a shared server somewhere.

Home

Peloton Bike (2018 gen2 model)For as much controversy there is over having single-use gym equipment like this in a home, it’s been one of the best health investments I’ve made. I personally can’t stand going to a gym, and 3 years later, Alie and I still use this about 4-5x a week combined.

Hue LightsI don’t consider our home a “smart home,” but this is the closest thing that comes to it. I use these in my office to set a vibe when I write, design, or shoot videos. I just installed a few in our living room lamps recently to do the same thing. We don’t have Alexa or Siri running things, so we manually turn them on/off.

Corvo Electric KettleI use this for my single-serve coffee with the Aeropress, or for serving tea. It takes about 2 minutes to boil water, and the design of this product is off the charts. I will most likely pick up their grinder as well. FWIW I brew my coffee at 185 degrees to keep the acidity low.

BenQ HT2050A ProjectorAfter spending the last 8 years without a TV, we broke down and purchased a projector. I still can’t stand the idea of having a large rectangle absorbing all the attention of a room, so this was our compromise. We paired it with a Sonos Beam for some decent sound, but we don’t keep it up very often and use it only for movies.

Hardware

14” MacBook Pro M1 Max with 2TB DriveI recently upgraded this as I was running into RAM memory issues with my previous laptop. It comes as no surprise I use this daily, and breezes through every task. But, I'd say that about any new machine. I generally upgrade my main laptop every third generation. (~3 years)

Elgato KeylightAs much as I dislike having a fill light during some of my Zoom calls, this truly does help with poor lighting.

27” LG Ultrafine 5k monitorI’ve been lugging this monitor around since it was released in 2016, and it’s where I do most of my design work when I’m at my desk.

48” Uplift Standing Desk (Walnut veneer w/plywood core desktop built by a local handyman)I’ve had this desk since 2018, and I’m not sure I would ever go back to a fixed-height desk. I still don’t stand as much as I should, but it’s great to have the option.

Sony A6400 with Zeiss 1.8 24mm lensThe camera body means very little, but I love the fast 1.8 aperture with a prime lens. I set this to manual focus and hardly ever need to touch it. What’s great is that I use this for recording high-quality demos/workshops, so it’s my primary camera.

Seinheisser MKH416 Shotgun micPicked this baby up used on Facebook Marketplace and have been using it mainly for my workshop and zoom calls, including new course recordings. I prefer this because it’s out of camera view, but I could probably improve the quality if I prepped my room with some foam. But who wants to do that?

Apple Airpods v2I have such a love/hate relationship with these. They are absolutely a joy to use, but the mic quality is s**t, and I’ve had to turn off the automatic switching feature because I’ve had so many issues when connecting to Zoom. Ask anyone at my 6 am writing group.

iPhone 12 miniMy favorite iPhone since maybe the 4S? I love the size and the MagSafe feature.

Leica QI keep this fixed full-frame camera on hand when I’m traveling since it’s ridiculously easy to push/pull my photos in any direction. It’s what I use to shoot photos like this where I can leave it open and hardly need to process. (I just realized I passed half a million views of that photo on Unsplash! Fun.)

Logitech MX Master 3 MouseI' haven’t used a different mouse model (except for the 3-4 times I’ve forgotten it while traveling) in the past 8-9 years? I could probably use this on water and it would still work.

Elgato Streamdeck MK.2I’m still getting used to this, but it’s really handy during our workshops when I need to mute everyone, share my screen, or end calls. And those are probably the 3 most basic things you can do with it.

Kindle Oasis (2016 Gen 1)For whatever reason, this is one of those purchases that I would make again without thinking. The size, the strange square dimensions, and the leather flip cover that is held together by a magnet are so beautifully designed. The software and refresh rates will always be lacking, but I love picking this up and not feeling like I’m holding a cheap piece of plastic while reading. The battery in both the device and the cover are genius as well.

Brother Monochrome Laser PrinterWe hardly need to use this, but yet we can’t quite live without a printer. This printer is strictly monochrome, so you don’t run out of ink that quickly, and uses wifi so you can store it out of the way. I’ve had this since 2014 and swear by it for 99% of the things I need it for. If I need to print images, I’ll use an online service.

—

I didn’t cover every piece of tech, but these are the most significant. It’s a little disheartening thinking about what I depend on, but it’s also difficult to think about what I should get rid of. Would love to hear your thoughts or hit reply with questions.

⚡️ Two creative hits for next week

✍️ Writing well

This handbook by Julian Shapiro is brilliant, and I love much of the thinking behind it. There are a few great ideas here:

Find an objective for your piece

Find a motivation so you finish it

Make it stick using stories/analogies

📈 This is a great thread on how to compete against a dominant player in your market. Part of their success was learning why people switched from Canva to Snappa, then using that to their advantage across their product UX and positioning. But if I were you, I’d still use Figma 🙂

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your next adventure, crazy idea, or if you’re feeling creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

p.s. If you enjoyed this letter, would you please let me know by tapping on the heart below?

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Good morning from Los Angeles! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #86 of Plan Your Next. A Sunday newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

💡 What’s new?

🎨 Approachable Design just hit some key milestones last week as we have now taken over 30 students through the workshop. For the next workshop in January, we’ll be more ambitious as we start to test the edges of our team.

📣 Web3 PSA: If you happened to purchase an ETH domain prior to Oct 31, make sure to claim your $ENS tokens from their unexpected airdrop. At the time of the drop, these were worth up to 15k, and upwards of about 35k this week based on the quantity of your drop and the recent market uptick. A curious question is, “what does this look like if it becomes the GoDaddy of web3?”

👯‍♂️ I’m joining a small course called A Portfolio of Small Bets run by entrepreneur Daniel Vasallo. These are simple ideas in practice but I love joining these communities to surround myself with others who are also playing The Great Online Game. I might also be addicted to learning. 😬

Good morning from Los Angeles!

For most of my life, unboxing a Macbook Pro felt more exciting to me than the thought of unboxing a newborn.

I always loved the idea of being a father, but I never felt ready to become one.

In my 20’s, I was in and out of relationships because it was fun and I was focused on my career. In my early 30’s, I became more serious about both life and fun—aka doing fun life things that were more expensive like buying a condo and traveling around the world.

By the time I hit 40 I found myself married but still looking for ways to get myself amped up to have kids. Every parent I’ve asked has never felt ready. So what was at the root of not being particularly excited to have kids?

I often think about why this is. The easy answer is I was too selfish and focused on my work. Another might be the shame I feel when comparing how I want to raise children compared to how I was raised.

My childhood was not that difficult, but it was confusing in many ways. Like many, my childhood was spent growing up in the church. And it seemed every conversation or question was pointed in the direction of the bible. The Bible was either gently tossed or violently hurled at all kinds of problems, with many conversations ending in, “because the Bible says so.”

You can’t have sex before marriage because the Bible says so. You can’t watch Ghostbusters because there's a spiritual war happening you can’t see, and the Devil’s winning. You can’t listen to Green Day because the Bible doesn’t allow swearing. You can’t say “fart” because it’s another way of saying, “f**k.” You can’t date until you’re 16 and never had, “The Talk” with my parents because if you can’t have sex, why talk about it?

Dancing—not to the beat of the devil, of course—around these confusing rules made no sense, but it presented life as black and white. But look a bit closer, and each day brought shades of grey. In those nuanced moments, you just had to have faith and pray your way to an answer.

For much of my life, I felt ashamed for not staying on the righteous path, but I also know not having kids until now let this guilty seed grow roots in my mind much longer than most. This guilt made it difficult to get excited about having my own kids, because time did not necessarily bring healing, it just brought more shame.

Guilt that raising my own children differently than my parents is a sin. Guilt that I never fully confronted my parents about how I felt, but there’s an obvious tension there.

What I didn’t expect was how quickly I could trim the vine of shame.

Recalibrating as a father

Now that I’m a parent, I’ve come to realize how focused I am on creating a safe and stable home for Rowan. Worrying about how I was raised or what my parents think takes a backseat to everything else. It’s not forgotten, but I trust myself as being someone who can learn from my own experiences versus worrying about how others think.

Before having children, it was easy to sit back, stuck wondering what kind of family I should raise. But having children is like screwing on a macro lens, focusing on the moments in front of you. It’s not easy looking forwards or backward in either direction for too long. A diaper needs changing, or her next nap is going to give me 60 minutes to finish this letter.

Ultimately what I lacked was the conviction in myself—as someone who can love unconditionally without the Bible telling me so. It prevented me from getting excited to care for another human. Like most parents will tell you, you can’t prepare for being a parent, but I’m now fully excited to be one.

Thanks to everyone who provided feedback on early drafts, like Bryce, Charlie, Matt, Scott and Florian.

⚡️ Two creative hits for next week

💻 The Hims & Hers site is beautiful and incorporates some intelligent scrolling which I normally don’t like, but the way the content in the phone interacts with the rest of the content is clever.

👩‍🎨 What’s your creative type? I took the test and ended up being a Dreamer.

“The world is a place of beauty and magic in the eyes of a DREAMER. Where others see facts and figures, you see symbols, metaphors, and hidden meanings.”

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your next adventure, crazy idea, or if you’re feeling creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

p.s. If you enjoyed this letter, would you please let me know by tapping on the heart below?

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Good morning from Los Angeles! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #85 of Plan Your Next. A Sunday newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

Welcome to the 31 new people here!

💡 What’s new?

👩‍🎨 Monday, I presented to students of Cam Houser’s course, Minimum Viable Video this week to show how to quickly design thumbnails by stacking elements. If you want to see the deck, just reply and let me know.

🎨 Approachable Design is happening this weekend! It’s only 2 days, but it’s incredible to witness how much our students can accomplish in that time. Get on the waitlist for the next workshop in January!

💰 Last week’s letter on personal finance received a lot of great responses, and I’ve had a number of conversations with you all. Thanks for being so open and willing to share your own stories! I’m someone without an inheritance, zero financial help with school or debt, defaulted on multiple loans and had a credit score of 425 at the age of 23. It’s fair to say I’ve had to play the long game. If I were to write part II, what would you like to know?

Good morning from Los Angeles!

This week, one of the most well-known tech companies—and comically cringe at delivering keynotes—decided to change its name. Facebook the company is now called Meta. And Facebook the social product that drowns me in my own tears every time I sign in, is still our beloved Facebook.

In the same way they’re known for handling our privacy (with double-fisted middle fingers flung at the world) they straight-up brute-forced a name change even if it’s owned by another company.

I don’t advise trying the same thing next time you need a new name unless you’re also valued at around 950 billion.

But hey, coming up with a name is difficult. Even naming children is a time-consuming process. Alie and I admittedly aimed for a gender-neutral name, but we didn’t have a name picked out for Rowan until we both were staring into her tightly closed eyelids.

A name can inspire momentum

An idea for your next thing starts with an idea or a personal pain point you’re trying to solve. Many people will advise you not to think about logos, or names early on because they’re not important. And while I generally agree with the idea there are more important things to work on, nothing gets me more inspired to work on an idea that has a name, logo, or visual story.

This is why many designers get mocked for spending time on things like logos or visual direction early on. Investors and technical founders will roll their eyes at this seemingly waste of time, but do what you need to do to work on this every single day. To me, it’s not a waste of time to envision what this small idea could blossom into, or the story you’re trying to tell. This also helps explain to people the pain point you’re solving for.

But this article isn’t about design. It’s about something I find more difficult, which is coming up with a name. Like naming a child, naming a product or a business carries a lot of weight because it’s not straightforward to change later.

In design, I can update the look ad feel of a brand or a website more easily than changing the name of a company.

So how do you go about naming your next thing?

When I had to come up with the name for this newsletter, Plan Your Next was inspired by Tim Urban’s, Wait but Why. I thought a phrase was easy to remember, and I loved how easy it was to say. It gave me the autonomy to talk about a broad range of topics, depending on my mood or interests.

Each of the words makes sense when I say them aloud, and it’s easy to spell. Sometimes the content doesn’t always match up with the name, but that’s part of the long-play overall.

Recently, I’ve been reading a clever book named, "Hello, My Name Is Awesome” by the equally clever Alexandra Watkins, who runs a double equally cleverly named agency, Eat my Words.

Alexandra creates a great framework to give us a way to filter out the b**t. She calls it SMILE & SCRATCH.

What makes a good name?

“For a name to be awesome, it must embody a tricky trifecta. It must… (1) feel like a real word(2) be intuitive to pronounce(3) be intuitive to spell.”—Alexandra Watkins

The SMILE & SCRATCH framework is fairly straightforward, like a good name. Finding a name that delivers on the following framework takes a lot of time, and won’t happen in a group setting or with friends.

SMILE

Suggestive: Make sure it suggests something about your brand

Memorable: We find the stickiest names correlate with words and concepts that are already familiar to us.

Imagery: Hearing names associated with visuals make an impression and are hard to forget.

Legs: Extend your mileage by attaching your name to a theme. Ben & Jerry’s flavors are a good example of this.

Emotional: Based on research by Forrester Research, 50% of every buying decision is driven by emotion.

SCRATCH (Avoid these mistakes)

Spelling challenged: Your name sounds different than it’s spelled

Copycat trends: Don’t resemble your competitor’s names, or end your name trendy things like -ly.

Restrictive: Don’t let your name have an age limit if you decide to expand

Annoying: Forced, or frustrates customers

Tame: Too flat, or uninspired

Curse of knowledge: Speaks only to insiders

Hard to pronounce: It sounds confusing or requires spelling individual letters

💡A few more unexpected tips:

A memorable name is better than a short name. Peanut Butter & Co. uses ilovepeanutbutter.com because it’s easy to remember. Their other website redirects back to ilovepeanutbutter.com.

Don’t use your personal name as a brand if it’s hard to pronounce or if it’s difficult to spell.

Resist the temptation to be mysterious. Ambiguous names are hard to remember, especially if they don’t relate to your business.

❌ How not to brainstorm names

First, never brainstorm in a group setting. Names or ideas that spring up during these sessions usually get diluted to the point of no return. Or words get stacked into a name to make everyone happy. As Alexandra states, “The only person who is happy by this is your trademark attorney, who exclaims, “It looks like we can get clearance on Hiveacore!”

In the same way, don’t invite a bunch of friends over for wine and brainstorm over a Ouija board, Scrabble, or anything else that resembles drunken entertainment.

Start by yourself, in front of a computer. Rabbit holes are helpful for this focused brainstorm session.

✅ The process of brainstorming names

First, this process can take weeks, but you’re looking for a list of 100 names that pass the SMILE & SCRATCH test, which will be trimmed down to a couple of dozen names. Don’t fall in love with just one or two names, since many will not get past trademark screening.

In fact, it took Warby Parker over 6 months to land on their name, with over 2,000 on the list before deciding on it. If you’re curious, their name comes from two Jack Kerouac characters, Warby Pepper and Zagg Parker. They were inspired by the beat generation and how they influenced a generation like Warby Parker was trying to revolutionize eyewear.

Fill out a creative brief for your ideaAlexandra has a creative brief in her book outlining how to define what you’re building. it’s good to have this filled out so any name you do decide to run with, will be based on your goals.

Choose a dozen words related to your brand or experiences. This is like lighter fluid for your search. A jumping-off point to finding relatable names. She recommends using thesaurus.com to find synonyms that spark, but I’ve come to enjoy powerthesaurus.com even more.

Use Google image search to supercharge your imaginationLooking up visuals is a great way to get your brain to chase itself down different rabbit holes, sparking new ideas for potential names.

Go to a dictionary to research definitionsUse thefreedictionary.com or other resources like websters1913.com for a slightly more classical take on the English language. You can find phrases and idioms that reveal much longer names and ideas.

Look at movie titles for inspirationPop culture references can make for sticky names because they sound familiar. Alexandra once named a janitorial company, “Eat my Dust” which is also the name of a 70’s race car film.

Scour book titlesUnlike businesses and products that can claim ownership due to trademark laws, you cannot trademark a book title. Don’t try this with famous books that have been made into brands, like Harry Potter, but this can be a treasure trove of ideas.

Have fun with punsThe Rhyme Zone is a great resource to take an idea and find lightly coined puns

The right name

You might not be convinced of your name, but Alexandra advises against trying to get the opinions of friends, family, or focus groups involved. Many great and memorable names are shot down all the time. Remember to stress test your name against the filters above, and get it trademarked.

I highly recommend checking out Alexandra’s book, as it’s much more hilarious than my own essay made her out to be.

Additional namestorming resources

Go Name Yourself: Originally a Kickstarter project, this card deck has exercises to help expand your imagination when it comes to naming.

Fantasy Name Generators

Idiom Connection

Name Berry

Power Thesaurus

Websters 1913 Dictionary

Synonyms

Visual Thesaurus

Word Associations

Word Find

Word Game Dictionary

⚡️ Two creative hits for next week

What’s next for the creator economy and web3?

Li Jin, co-founder, and General Partner at Variant, has a great thread on where she believes the 4th era of the Creator Economy is headed. The 3rd (today) is about monetizing directly from users, while the 4th (future) is about blurring the lines between fans and creator, and into community ownership.

Keep iterating

I absolutely love this evolution of Great Wave by Katsushika Hokusai. I had no idea how it took shape over 28 years, evolving into what we know now today. A great lesson in continuing to make art every day.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your next adventure, crazy idea, or if you’re feeling creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

p.s. If you enjoyed this letter, would you please let me know by tapping on the heart below?

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Good morning from Los Angeles! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #84 of Plan Your Next. A Sunday newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

💡 What’s new?

🎨 Today is the last day to sign up for this upcoming weekend’s Approachable Design! We would love to have you, and I guarantee it’s going to help you make smarter design decisions for your future projects. Check it!

📚 Currently reading: Hello, My Name is Awesome. A book about branding, and why some names are forgettable vs those that are memorable. Fun fact: Zappos.com was originally named shoesite.com.

Good morning from Los Angeles!

In the popular Netflix series, Squid Game, 456 players crippled with debt compete against each other by playing children’s games for a shot at over 35 million dollars.

Putting over 450 people into one room, the inevitable conversations about how each of them ended up there would closely match real life. Everyone comes from a different background, with their own set of circumstances. Whether you were graduated with honors from Seoul National University like one of the main characters, or simply a divorced father addicted to gambling like the protagonist, debt knows no boundaries. It takes the best and the worst of us.

We don’t talk about our personal finances enough.

“…doing well with money has a little to do with how smart you are and a lot to do with how you behave. And behavior is hard to teach, even to really smart people.” —Morgan Housel, The Psychology of Money

I once tried to talk to a friend about personal finance, but I immediately sensed their spine lockup like a rusty bear trap. I dropped the subject, because I knew after I asked a couple of questions, they had been caught in this conversation before.

If our lives are the sum of the bets we have placed on ourselves, many of us don’t like rehashing when the bets didn’t work out.

It’s a subject I’ve spent over a decade learning about, trying to understand my own behavior and reasons for spending, investing, and saving.

I didn’t get serious about my own spending habits until after I turned 30, right after I sold my condo. Before I purchased that condo, I had scraped together everything I had at the time just to make a 10% downpayment of about 21k. It wiped out my savings, and to be honest, I thought it was a lot of money.

One of the reasons I thought it was a lot of money was because I had nothing to compare it to. No one talked much about personal finance, and I truly had no idea what I was doing. Making money wasn’t too much of a problem, but as a fresh freelancer, it was tough to be diligent about putting 10-15% of it away when you’re not sure about the next job. Money came in and out without gently brushing up against a brokerage or savings account.

So I did things like buy art, fly my dad to Argentina for a month long trip, and just find ways to live a fun life.

Software is eating our finances

I once asked my dad if he knew where he and my mom stood financially.

“I honestly have no idea.”

“Wut?!”

He didn’t realize that within an hour, he could be staring at a dashboard with a summary of where they stood. The thought scared him, mainly because of the hard conversations that would follow.

But I feel these conversations are starting to happen, even if it didn’t happen in my own family.

This tweet by Stew Fortier summarizes a feeling I’ve been having. Get an intimate group of people together to talk about their own finances. The trick is to come with an attitude that supports, and not compares.

Then there’s Nathan Barry—founder of ConvertKit which is valued at ~$200 million—who writes a paid newsletter describing his finances in full.

The explosion of web3, publicly shared crypto wallets and NFTs has also fueled a community collaboration of wanting to share and collect more in public. These conversations still act as a status signal in many ways, but it’s a wedge into much deeper conversations about leveraged economics and a bet on our future.

The F.I.R.E. (Financial Independance, Retire Early) movement is alive and kicking. It’s not what I strive for as much anymore, but it’s rooted in the basics of saving more than what you earn.

The first group who showed me ultimate transparency was an oldschool online forum called Bogleheads. It’s named after John Bogle, the founder of Vanguard who also happened to create the very first index fund. The forum doesn’t allow stock tips, but it does stick to the fundamentals of basing your allocations on low-fee based index funds.

This group opened up my eyes to how helpful people could be on the internet, and how much I could learn.

I certainly don’t have all the answers, but there’s no shame in looking for them.

:: Resources to level up your finances ::

Planning your next thing if you’re in debt is not a great place to be making decisions from. It can be debilitating, so I would seek proper financial guidance. I encourage you to be more curious if you are struggling, and don’t be afraid to ask questions.

Here are a few resources that have helped me along the way:

The Four Pillars of Investing

The Psychology of Money

Mr. Money Mustache Blog

The Coffeehouse Investor

Fire subreddit

You Need a Budget - Budgeting software

Monarch Money - Budgeting software

I Will Teach You to be Rich — Ramit Sethi

Money — Tony Robins

⚡️ Two creative hits for next week

✍️ How David Perell writes an essay

This interview with David Perell is a fantastic glimpse into his writing process. What I enjoyed was how he tests his ideas publicly in different settings to see what resonates.

“Sharing my ideas creates a virtuous cycle of new connections and opportunities” —David Perell

🎨 Jim Carrey: I Needed Color

Maybe you have seen this one before, but watching a comedian like Jim Carrey describe why he needed color in his life is heartwarming.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your next adventure, crazy idea, or if you’re feeling creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

p.s. If you enjoyed this letter, would you please let me know by tapping on the heart below?

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Good morning from Los Angeles! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #83 of Plan Your Next. A Sunday newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

💡 What’s new?

🎨 Enrollment for Approachable Design Workshop #4 is now open! This is the 4th incarnation of our weekend workshop for you to capture your aesthetic into a design kit, built on the spot. Enroll now!

💻 I’m also thrilled that my friend Khe is launching his next cohort of, “Supercharge Your Productivity.” His Notion-based course changed how I think about staying focused on 10k work, and his productivity system is what I use for our team at Approachable Design. Also, Khe took my own workshop and we worked together to design his landing page based on his own style. I’m proud of how it turned out!

🎬 Who else is watching the latest Succession or Dune on HBO?

☀️ Looking at owning in Tulum. Not sure where this is headed.😬

Good morning from Los Angeles!

"If you think good design is expensive, you should look at the cost of bad design.”—– Ralf Speth, former CEO of Jaguar Land Rover

There is no such thing as no design. It’s either good or bad. If you think you’re not making a definitive choice, you’ve already chosen a side.

Selecting an unknown font from a Google Slides text dropdown is a design decision. Choosing a primary color from the color picker inside Microsoft Word is a design decision. And picking a clothing outfit for your daughter to wear at her first day of daycare is a design decision that may or may not have happened two days ago.

As you start to add up these minuscule decisions, they amount to something Gestalt psychologists would be proud of: they are greater than the sum of their parts. Finding your style isn’t just a color or a typeface, but a vibe. Like a brand, style is about how it makes someone feel.

“Aesthetics is the language of feeling, and people value feeling more than information” —Marty Neumeier

This feeling is the combination of tens or hundreds of design decisions that a person or a company makes.

Choosing to recognize is up to you, but not choosing is still choosing.

Think about who’s style you love. To me, it’s Casey Neistat, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Oscar Isaac, Mark Ruffalo, Shantell Martin, Tom Sachs, and so many more. These are people who have owned their own style, and it’s not uncommon for you to recognize it from afar. Style at its core is about defining your own values, and what you love.

It’s not about signaling, even though at its essence style is a signal. It’s about sharpening your interests in a way that gives you a focused signal, which is more about defining a filter.

A defined filter is how Elon Musk runs Tesla, a $900B company. A Cybertruck is not designed for the mass market, but it is something he wants to see exist in the market.

Rachel Rodgers of Hello Seven has style, and it’s emblematic of any materials you can find online.

Craigslist has defined its style by maintaining its core values of simplicity and its utilitarian aesthetic.

Style gives permission for us to connect, and a way to let you opt-in.

More than likely, you’ll catch me wearing my black Everlane pocket-tee with palm green pants, all based on the sun, sands, and palm trees that define my own aesthetic. Offline and on.

⚡️ Two creative hits for next week

A while ago I was asked, “How will you help your daughter live her full creative life?” While that’s too big of a question to answer with a straight face, I think a lot about my own actions and to make sure I walk the walk. This thread my Ana Lorena Fabrega gave me a different perspective on what not to do. I love #3.

A fun personal website based on the experience of Instagram Stories. I love how he shows off his portfolio using these constraints.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your next adventure, crazy idea, or if you’re feeling creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

p.s. If you enjoyed this letter, would you please let me know by tapping on the heart below?

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Good morning from Los Angeles! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #82 of Plan Your Next. A Sunday newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

Deconstructing to find your path

On Thursday, I had a short meeting with 3 other designers to talk about design systems for a client we're all working for in some capacity. It turns out, two of the three experienced designers never had any formal training in design—like me—seemingly building their career arc through the non-t

raditional route of being self-taught. What captured my attention about this conversation was how casual it was shared, as if sharing a piece of generic life advice like, "One man’s trash is another man’s treasure."

Early in my career, I was careful never to describe myself as being self-taught, thinking that it would reveal me as somewhat "less" of a designer. Certain companies would only hire those with a bachelor’s degree or higher, and so the traditional path set an artificial bar for who they considered worthy.

These constraints forced me down a different path altogether, focusing on building generalist skills requiring me to pitch, sell, prototype, design, and code. It didn’t mean I was stellar at any of these steps, but it made me appreciate the needs of a business very early on.

Looking back, it’s easy to see why I took the path that I did, based on what was laid out in front of me. But there’s a lesson in deconstructing a career. You get to follow the branches of decisions spanning out in seemingly random directions, seeing how they all connect to the present moment.

Annie Duke, the author of Thinking in Bets, describes where we are now as the sum of the bets we have placed on ourselves.

Whenever I’m asked about finding an alternative path, I usually recommend researching someone that inspires you, then working backward throughout their career. Deconstructing an outcome is a fun way to peel back the layers of a career.

Visa recently applied this to Marie Kondo’s career, noticing some early indications that she was onto something special in her early twenties. As he points out, there were indications of her obsessing over organization as a child.

This process is special because it starts to unearth the imperfection of building careers, companies, and more.

I mistakenly thought my own path was unique—while not vocalizing it—in being self-taught. But, even the most linear-looking path is filled with potholes that might surprise you.

⚡️ Two creative hits for next week

💦 Visualizing the flow of waterSometimes you’re told a fact as a kid, but until you see a visual representation of it, it doesn’t really connect. I grew up near the Mississippi, but this map reveals how much of the watershed in the US flows through Louisiana still blows my mind.

🎨 If you’re sick of hearing about NFTs, you might be playing the game, “earmuffs” with yourself for the next decade. This fascinating thread by 6529—an anonymous account—attempts to outline why JPGs represent something much larger than digital art, and how off-chain governance is where we could be headed if it’s successful.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your next adventure, crazy idea, or if you’re feeling creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

p.s. If you enjoyed this letter, would you please let me know by tapping on the heart below?

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Good morning from Santa Barbara! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #77 of Plan Your Next. A Sunday newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

In the last two minutes of each episode during the 11 year run of, “The Joy of Painting,” Bob Ross would routinely look into the camera and say, “And here’s your bravery test.”

Immediately after the proclamation, Bob took a large 2-inch flat paintbrush and dipped it in a pool of paint. Almost recklessly, in one sweeping motion, he brushed across a 1/3 of the seemingly finished landscape.

At first, it looked like he ruined the painting. Over the next two minutes, he would quickly fill in the details of a tree in the foreground, adding a layer of depth to the consistently rendered landscape.

The producer of the show mentioned that every time he did this, it caused her anxiety that he wouldn't finish on time. But every time, he did.

While the depth of the foreground element nudged the quality of the painting forward, Bob was risking failure with such little time left in the show. The confidence he had in his own skills came from his ability to trust the process and be open to failure.

Since hearing this story, I think about this line a lot when I design, write, or when I made the decision to quit my job.

As they say, God is in the details. But the details mean little without conviction in yourself.

Just earlier today I had a conversation with a friend where I expressed the perception I have of myself prevented me from contributing in larger group settings.

In his own way, he urged me to take a brush and paint a line through my own perception, filling it in with a new identity in those situations. The bravery test is a way to throw caution to the wind and to trust in the process, even if you don’t have full trust in yourself.

Applying this idea to my design work, it could be as simple as flipping some colors around at the last minute to create a different visual hierarchy. When I worked with Charlie Bleecker on her own design kit, we scrapped her entire palette and tried something new. Then we landed here.

In writing, it might mean cutting out your best line and pasting it as the hook. Or during the editing process, taking a machete and hacking off sentences or words that aren’t necessary. “Kill your darlings,” as they say.

To me, the bravery test is about shocking your creative process with a defibrillator, sometimes at the last minute to try something new or courageous.

If you’re stuck this week, think of Bob Ross and find a way to test your creative bravery.

⚡️ Tidbits for next week

💎 Can the value of a physical diamond be transferred digitally into an NFT if it’s physically destroyed? This experiment by Tascha started as a tweet, then was minted on OpenSea to test the hypothesis. The following question I have now is how the status of bidding on this item compares to the status of owning a physical diamond. I’d argue it’s a convincingly stronger status signal because you can showcase it as an NFT to the world vs the people physically around you.

Read Taschen’s hilarious conversation with her mom trying to explain this to her.

💼 If you consider yourself a generalist, writer, and YouTuber Michael Ashcroft points out in his latest newsletter that seeking answers is important to your survival. I never really thought about it this way, but if I’m having a conversation with someone whose intellectual reach doesn’t cross domains, it might be a subtle flag for how feral your opportunity radar is.

Add to this the fact that many of these people are, increasingly, feral free agents, as @visakanv puts it. They operate and navigate in the world without jobs or strong affiliations, which means their need to understand how things work is important for their survival.

Put another way, if you have a secure job then your ability to make sense of things outside the domain of your job doesn't really affect your security, unless you miss macro trends that cause your job to go away or change dramatically. This is not the case if you're a feral free agent where, in my opinion and limited experience at least, you need to be able to hold a much more flexible and broader perspective to be able to navigate and identify opportunities you could pursue.

👶 It’s becoming increasingly more difficult writing newsletters with this cute ding-dong staring at me all day. We’ll prevail, hopefully.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your next adventure, crazy idea, or if you’re feeling creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

p.s. If you enjoyed this letter, would you please let me know by tapping on the heart below?

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Good morning from Los Angeles! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #76 of Plan Your Next. A Sunday newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

Good morning from Los Angeles!

Every week for almost 7 years, Alie and I have one priority besides arguing over how many snacks I steal from her stash of sweets.

The early morning Saturday walk.

It’s our routine that crosses state boundaries, time zones, pets, and now bebe’s.

Even though we’ve been walking almost every weekend, Alie will inevitably ask me every Friday night, “Do you want to walk tomorrow?”

I’ll pretend to give it a thought while I silently catalog Saturday’s to-do list, knowing that the walk revolves around changing dirty diapers and writing this here newsletter. The hesitation in my answer is a bad habit since we both know the answer is, “Yes, of course.”

The real decision is which route we will decide to take. Are we going to get a solid workout in and walk east on Clayton up and over the closest hill to Hyperion and back? Or are we going to take it easy because we’re slightly hungover from the 3 glasses of wine last night, and head west towards Hollywood. That route would eventually decline 500ft in altitude straight into the Pacific Ocean if we were brave enough to trek 4 hours one way. We aren’t.

It doesn’t matter how tired we are, or how terrible we feel, the Saturday walk is going to happen.

Moving means walking

Our walks started when we moved to San Francisco 7 years ago. We landed there in the middle of December, leaving the snow-filled trenches of Minnesota in the rear-view mirror of our 7-year-old Subaru. Walking outside in California—in December—felt like we just hacked Mother Nature.

We walked everywhere. We walked to explore a new city, to understand how to navigate the neighborhoods, and to think about where we wanted to settle. The vibes of a neighborhood change so quickly in SF that walking is the only way to not miss the sudden change.

An elderly couple who lived 2 doors down from us in a house so old it was purchased with gold coins inspired our weekend walks. You might catch them arm-in-arm, inching step-by-step up a hill so steep that would make a snowboarder perk up.

“Maybe weekend walks are the glue to a healthy relationship?” I thought to myself.

The starting points of our walks changed almost yearly. They first started in the Mission District, then the Casto, then the Upper Haight. When we moved to Los Angeles, we started walking from Silver Lake, then Los Feliz, and Echo Park in a few weeks. We know these neighborhoods incredibly well because of our walks.

Swapping spots

When we started our Saturday walks, it was a way to take our dog, Lupe, out for a bit of exercise. Our first big walk was to Fort Funston, a large dog park nestled alongside the Pacific Ocean.

Lupe continued to give us a reason to maintain our walking habit, and she got us through periods of frustration by keeping an eye on what was important: Making sure the three of us figured it all out together.

The hills of SF took years off her life, but they were some of the best years we had together.

By the time we arrived in Los Angeles, Lupe stayed home at times while Alie and I would take our long walks. We always could get a sense of how she felt by our long concrete walks in the sun.

When she passed, we filled the void by ourselves by walking the steep hills of Silver Lake before welcoming our daughter Rowan into our life.

Our walks have given us a consistent habit even as life changes around us. In some ways, it makes it easier to deal with the constant change in our lives.

Walking as therapy

If I could design the perfect walk, it would be to get up at 6:30 am, just as the sun is creepin’. We would postpone coffee and breakfast until after the walk, as a reward for getting our asses up early. Unfortunately, Alie is the complete opposite and we tend to briefly argue about this at the start of every walk.

“I just need 10 minutes,” says every 20-minute block of time.

A half-opened eye argument at 7 am ensues, and Alie always wins. Of course, it’s more enjoyable to take it slow and enjoy some coffee before heading out. But I’ll always want to hit the gas on a day where you can pack in as much as possible. 6 am on a Saturday feels like an opportunity to do whatever you want.

However, the walk starts out, within 5 minutes the disagreement fades away into either silence or a conversation about where we want to live next.

By the end of many of our walks, we have agreed on many life decisions, like when should we have kids (we did), where should we live next (we moved), what do we want in life (we still don’t know), and our individual goals.

Today we just walked all over our neighborhood with our bestie, Heather, visiting us from NYC. Next week we’ll take our Saturday walk to Santa Barbara, and then Echo Park after that.

I can’t wait to check out these new neighborhoods and let the walking and the talking to the thinking for us.

⚡️ Two hits for next week

Beautiful branding by One Design Company for Wilder Fields. Also, a well-designed website that uses an eclectic serif typeface against a muted backdrop. I love the ligatures the most.

Street Views of New York CityBetween 1939 and 1941, the Works Progress Administration collaborated with the New York City Tax Department to photograph most buildings in the five boroughs of NYC.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your next adventure, crazy idea, or if you’re feeling creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.comWorkshop: approachabledesign.co

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Good morning from Los Angeles! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #75 of Plan Your Next. A Sunday newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

💡 What’s new?

🎨 I’m in the process of designing and building out a website for my good friend Charlie Bleecker. It will end up as a case study for how to apply a simple design system to your future design decisions. Let me know if you have any questions about your own landing pages or design artifacts.

❤️ I signed up for the premium package of WellnessFX to check the levels of my biomarkers. Yes, a very Tim Ferriss thing to do.

I’m addicted to moving

As I've written before, I've moved 9 times in 10 years now. It’s now been 10 times in 10 years since I wrote that article. And now I want to move again.

I’m addicted to moving.

For every place Alie and I move to, we have good intentions about staying there a little while. On the day we signed the rental application to our current spot, I blurted out to our future landlord a straight-up lie: “We hope to start a family and find a spot for a couple of years.” In the moment it wasn’t a lie, because I truly want to be one of those people who enjoy staying in one spot. But swirling down in the darkness of my belly, a maniacal laugh was drowning out any whispers of conviction I was holding onto.

And let’s face it, I wasn’t holding too tightly.

After I broke even selling my one and only piece of real estate—which I thankfully wasn’t patient enough to hold onto because it led me down an entirely new path—I haven’t really wanted to own anytime soon.

That desire to not own has now given me too much freedom to chase what my heart wants. And it wants a lot.

It wants to explore new neighborhoods, new cities, and new living room layouts. It wants to be challenged to see what I can do with a 600 sqft home, even if it means thinking about ways to keep an office desk, a Peloton, and a crib in a 10x12’ square. Maybe I haven’t been able to figure that out because I’ve never been great at Tetris.

In one of his many principles about money, Author Morgan Housel says, “The hardest financial skill is getting the goalpost to stop moving."

I think I could say the same thing about my living desires.

I realize I don’t have the cash to just buy some land and build a home in the exact way I want, near a city I want to live in. I love Los Angeles. But I’m not sure I’ll be satisfied here. Or anywhere.

The dream

Who doesn’t want a lush and tropical ranch near a big city with pets and kids running everywhere, enclosed by a post and beam style home, skin melting wi-fi, windows from floor to ceiling overlooking a back deck out over the ocean, the front overlooking redwoods, and all your IRL and Zoom friends over for dinner and brunch every day?

Even with all of that, owning a home feels heavy. It’s not just the home but the location to decide to commit to. Your new community.

Every place I’ve lived, I’ve always hit a point where I’ve been drawn to explore the next thing. And it comes much sooner than I recommend for anyone else.

The move

Our next move is spurred by making some more room for our in-laws and guests. Right now we can’t host anyone, and I’ll be sharing an office with a crib soon so that’s going to end badly.

This next spot won’t be the last, and like wanting to know your future, I’d love to know where we decide to end up. But for now, we’ll keep moving and enjoying our adventures in the nearby valleys and neighborhoods.

⚡️ Two hits for next week

👩‍🎨 Fonts in Progress is a place for designers to sell fonts to support their work in progress. It’s also a great way for you to support designers early on and get access to unique and affordable typefaces while they build them out.

🏠 The Design Files If I ever have the chance to build my own home, it’s going to include this beautiful arching ceiling wave.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your next adventure, crazy idea, or if you’re feeling creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.comWorkshop: approachabledesign.co

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Good morning from Los Angeles! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #74 of Plan Your Next. A Sunday newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

What’s new this week?

🎤 I had the pleasure to speak with Kasra, a 14-year-old from Illinois who was curious about Approachable Design. You can listen to our 9-minute conversation here.

💪 I’m realizing this week how creatively refreshed I feel as I dive headfirst into a new freelance project. Having a clean slate does wonders.

📕 Debating whether to take Write of Passage for the 3rd time.

Every great piece of art tells a story. Every great film you’ve ever seen is trying to tell a story. And every story is prefaced by another story.

I’ll never get tired of appreciating this story cycle.

When I view art, I’m immediately at the center of two stories fighting for my attention. The first is the story between the art and my interpretation of it. The second is the story of the artist, and what compelled them to create the piece in the first place.

I’m fascinated by these competing stories, knowing the stories are like layers of an onion.

I watched the documentary, “Val” this week. It’s the self-told story of actor Val Kilmer, who has lost his voice due to throat cancer. Like the rest of us, he’s filled with stories. Stories of his brother—and best friend—who died at the age of 15. Stories of being the youngest person at the time to be accepted into Julliard School’s Drama Division. Stories of being viewed as an uncooperative actor. Stories of suddenly losing his voice during his one-man show of Mark Twain.

Except in this story, he sensed the urgency to have his story told because he quite literally couldn’t tell it himself. His son Jack narrated the entire film in Val’s voice.

Writer Packy McCormick recently described a conversation with friends on why the Olympics had such bad ratings this time.

“A few friends were talking about why the Olympics’ ratings were so bad. Sure, it was weird not having fans, and sure, America’s best athlete competed less than expected, but the real challenge was, we didn’t know any of the other athletes’ stories. In the past, there would have been months of build-up, with profiles on America’s athletes all over ESPN and The Today Show and in the local newspaper. We all would have been watching the same shows, and those shows would have told stories that convinced us to care.”—Packy McCormick

Without stories, there’s nothing to grab onto.

YouTuber Casey Neistat described his travel videos as the easiest stories ever told.

“If you want a 3-act narrative. Fly somewhere.

A plane ride has 3 acts. Get to the airport, take the flight, arrive at your destination.

Setup, conflict, resolution.”—Casey Neistat

Whether you’re interviewing for a new job, pitching an idea to investors, or marketing a software product, make it memorable by telling a story.

⚡️ Two hits for next week

A Masterclass on being an artistI’ve mentioned how much of a fan I am of Van Neistat, but this long-form interview with another hero, Rich Roll, was off the charts. They dig into storytelling, writing, art, the struggle of doing what you love, and the making of A Spirited Man.

Loved his bit after watching all of the Masterclasses on writing:

“They all kind of say the same thing. You’ve got to sit in that chair, and you’ve got no idea. And then when you do have the idea, you have no idea where it came from. It didn’t come from you, it’s something that came to you because you put the 3 hours in, or however many hours you put in.”

The Tokyo Toilet Project17 toilets in Tokyo are redesigned with the help of 16 creators. I love the contactless toilet design. Damn, I miss Japan.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your next adventure, crazy idea, or if you’re feeling creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.comWorkshop: approachabledesign.co

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Good morning from Ojai! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #73 of Plan Your Next. A Sunday newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

Welcome to the 11 new freshies here!

Alie and I are in Ojai celebrating my birthday and our 4th anniversary in one of our fav spots.

What’s new this week?

🎨 Today is the last day to sign up for this weekend’s Approachable Design workshop. I’d love to have you, and we already have an intimate cohort including creators, writers, and a founder of a YC backed company. Hit me up if you have any questions about creating your own personalized design system!

💻 I’m documenting a live case study for a website redesign. I’m using my own inside-out design method I teach—eating my own dog food if you will—and it’s gorgeous so far. We’ll be moving her from Squarespace to Webflow since you’re able to truly start from scratch without much effort. Flexibility is key with no-code tools.

⌨️ Apple released a Magic keyboard with Touch ID (the same one they use for the new iMacs) that I immediately had to have. I use an external monitor with my laptop and find myself needing to type in my 1Password login a dozen times a day.

👨‍💻 I’m taking on a large freelance project starting this week. It’s about 4 mo earlier than I imagined I would, but lining up my own criteria against Derek Sivers’ framework, “Hell yeah! Or no,” I thought it would be a lot of fun.

When something feels off, it usually is.

In the first episode of HBO’s new series, Watch the Sound," DJ/songwriter Mark Ronson is attempting to Auto-Tune Lady Gaga’s voice while she sings the single, Shallow.

He loads up her track on the monitor that he helped write, and twists the knob to crank up the Auto-Tune feature. He listens intently for a few seconds before the program abruptly lets out a loud, “brummmmmmp," before canceling itself.

Her pitch was so perfect there was nothing to correct, and the algorithm got bored.

But we all know the extreme examples when you hear Auto-Tune applied. Cher or T-Pain come to mind.

Designer Tuned

When I sit down to design a piece of software or a website, it would be easy for me to just go through the motions of building it on Auto-Tune.

I could pick a solid typeface, a few colors most people generally don't hate, add some padding, and set it off with some contrast that no ones is offended by. This is my version of designing with Auto-Tune applied. Pushing pixels, safely.

It's not going to inspire or connect you to it, but give me 15 minutes to design something simple, and I could get you to agree that it, "doesn't suck."

Like many artistic fields, there are guidelines a novice could follow to create things that are acceptable to most people. Much of the time it means starting sourcing the right ingredients.

Making a stew with a few key organic vegetables is generally not going to suck.

Using a beautiful piece of walnut and some linseed oil to create a desktop is going to look halfway decent.

This is why I don't love templates or kits when I design something. Because we're using someone else's ingredients. It feels like cheating.

Twitter Tuned

When Twitter refreshed its visual style this week, claiming they designed an entirely new font called Chirp, something felt off. The typeface didn’t feel all that unique to Twitter.

And it turns out they used a white-labeled typeface called GT America which they made a couple of modifications to and added tittles. Yes, those small dots used for punctuation or above a lower case “j” are called tittles. You’re welcome.

Whether you like it or not, they took a shortcut and used a typeface many others have also used for their branding and called it a custom font.

But if we take the time to go pick our own ingredients, we have the potential to build something incredible. Something with a beating heart. Not something algorithmically programmed to fix our off-notes.

Be so good that Auto-Tune doesn’t know what to do.

⚡️ Two hits for next week

👨‍💻 The Life-Changing Magic of High-Speed Career Sampling by Nat Eliason struck a chord with me. You never need to go all-in on one path. It’s worth being curious about multiple interests and seeing where they take you.

“You have to commit to the right things. You should probably spend at least 10-20% of the time you’ll eventually spend on something deciding if you want to spend that time on it.”—Nat Eliason

🎤 Ramit Sethi is the author of the bestseller, “I Will Teach You To Be Rich.” His new podcast is riveting. He talks with people about the details of their financial problems, using real numbers. The topics center around money, but money is rarely the problem.

Some of the episodes are: “My wife didn’t know I had $450,000 of debt” and “My husband is going broke, but he won’t let me help.”

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your next adventure, crazy idea, or if you’re feeling creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.comWorkshop: approachabledesign.co

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Good morning from Los Angeles! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #72 of Plan Your Next. A Sunday newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

Welcome to the 27 new fans here! I’ll never forget you. Or, at least I’ll try not to.

This is a special edition where I highlight creators and entrepreneurs who have made their next move. Today I welcome Anne-Laure Le Cunff and how she transitioned to her next thing!

💡 What’s new?

🎨 I casually opened enrollment to Approachable Design 3! It’s a 2-day workshop for non-designers to help uncover your own visual style, and to make better design decisions for you and your business. Join 19 others in an intimate space hosted by myself and 3 other creative advisors. While the workshop is the launching page, we also highly value community and furthering our projects through exclusive Playshops. Check it out!

🖥 I’m slowly helping my friend Charlie with her new website, based on making design decisions from the inside out. Eventually, I’ll turn this into a small course on designing your site from the ground up and building your site in Webflow. But, my main goal is to show how you don’t need to start from a pre-determined minimalist template. What’s your biggest struggle when designing your own site?

🖼 I purchased three more NFTs this week to support artists. I’m bullish on this space, even if it’s highly speculative. But because the space is evolving so quickly, our politicians are writing bills so haphazardly to try and keep up.

Plan Your Next featured guest

This is a special issue of Plan Your Next. I aim to discover lightweight insights from entrepreneurs and creatives who are chasing their next thing. This week, I’m honored to highlight Anne-Laure Le Cunff of Ness Labs.

Who is Anne-Laure?

I first came across Anne-Laure in early 2020 through her newsletter, Maker Mind. Her writing around the topic of mindful productivity—backed by science—always felt more tactical. I emailed her with a question and she got back to me immediately, which led me to join her community Ness Labs.

Since joining, I’ve spent the last year co-hosting a weekly Newsletter Mastermind with my Knighted friend, Sir Steven Wilkinson. The incredible community of people she has cultivated through her writing is far above any other group I’ve been a part of.

I’m pleased to have Anne-Laure share some brief insights.

Tell me a bit about yourself and what keeps you busy most days.I'm an entrepreneur and a neuroscience student. I founded Ness Labs to help knowledge workers achieve more without sacrificing their mental health.

Tell me a story. When was the last time you made an unexpected turn (to others) in direction, either recently or in the past? And what's one takeaway you learned in sustaining that momentum to see it through?When I left Google, I thought working on a startup was the next step. Turns out, I love the freedom of building a bootstrapped business. That was definitely an expected turn — I think for the better. I take things one day at a time. I learn every day. And I'm grateful to be part of a community of fellow entrepreneurs who share a similar journey.

What were you doing prior to making this change?I was working at Google on the digital health team, with products such as Google Fit and Android Wear, and then on a couple of startups in the digital health space.

What would you say to someone who feels stuck pursuing a new idea?Just give it a try. You don't have to go all-in straight away. Start a newsletter while keeping your full-time job; launch a podcast while freelancing for corporate clients. When you feel ready and the metrics are right, you can go full-time. But it doesn't need to be a big, scary jump.

What is a favorite quote or piece of advice you live by?I love this quote by Alvin Toffler:

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."

What’s your ask, or something you need help with?If you are interested in mindful productivity, creativity, and mental health, check out my weekly newsletter :)

Where can someone find you online?You can find me on Twitter!

⚡️ Three dopamine hits for next week

🧑‍💻 How to freelance: An obvious way to mitigate the blow to your income while you pursue your next thing is to freelance. My friend Paul Millerd recently launched a self-paced course on The Art & Tactics of Freelance Consulting, which helps you position and increase your rates.

🪄 Make the unpredictable, predictable. A great thread by Daniel Vassallo on how individuals need to make many strategic low-risk bets if you want to live a life that divorced time from money.

“To make a living in the Pareto world, you must behave like a venture capitalist, a book publisher, or a major film studio. You must have a portfolio of enough things going on that you can expect a few payoffs to be happening regularly.”—Daniel Vassallo

👩‍🎨 Vincent Van Gough Immersive Experience

Last night was special. It was one of the few date nights Alie and I experienced over the past 18 months. We spent it getting some drinks and going to the Van Gough Immersive exhibition in LA. I’m always a bit down when I think about Van Gough’s life and how consistent he was over time, with no recognition of it during his own life.

We have the ability to create and get feedback so precisely now, it’s hard to imagine how it might have been different for someone like Vincent. We live in a wonderful and inspiring time. Take advantage.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your next adventure, crazy idea, or if you’re feeling creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.comWorkshop: approachabledesign.co

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Good morning from Los Angeles! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is Plan Your Next. A Sunday newsletter connecting design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

Welcome to all 10 of you who are new here. I hope the internet robots welcomed you warmly.

💡 What’s new?

Approachable Design 3 will be launching on Aug 21-22. It’s a 2-day live workshop to discover your unique visual style and to build a design system you can use for your future design projects. We’ll be officially opening up the doors in the next few days, and you can get on the waitlist here!

How to choose colors from the inside-out. I gave a mini-workshop to Khe Hy’s Supercharge Your Productivity students. I created a template for doing this on your own, which includes a couple of resources. It’s now yours!

But, will it make the boat go faster?

Imagine having immense clarity on what you want to do next, that every single decision you make is based on a single question.

This is how the British rowing team won a gold medal in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

It had been 88 years since the British rowing team won a gold medal. Simply, it was a team not taken seriously.

But while training for the Sydney Olympics, they developed a strategy that transformed their team from an afterthought into a gold medal winner.

What was their strategy?

To pit every decision against the question, “Will it make the boat go faster?”

“Should we change our routine?” Will it make the boat go faster?

“Should we go out drinking tonight?” Will it make the boat go faster?

“Should we eat eggs for breakfast?” Will it make the boat go faster?

“Should we sleep in?” Will it make the boat go faster?

Having this focus kept the team aligned on strategy, conditioning, and training. They destroyed their competition and won gold in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Set your long-term intentions

When we are unclear about our real purpose in life—in other words, when we don’t have a clear sense of our goals, our aspirations, and our values—we make up our own social games. —Greg McKeown, Essentialism

What I find helpful with this strategy is that it becomes a game you can use to break down the decisions you need to make in the next day, week, or month. Our lives are chaotic and messy. Mine sure is.

But, without setting long-term intentions for what’s important in your life, there’s nothing to anchor the answers to.

Greg McKown describes a way to narrow your focus when presented with new opportunities.

Write down your opportunity.

What are your minimum criteria?Write down a list of three “minimum criteria” options that would need to “pass” in order to be considered.

What are your extreme criteria?Write down three ideal or “extreme criteria” the options would need to pass in order to be considered. By definition, if the opportunity doesn’t pass the first set of criteria, the answer is obviously no. But if it also doesn’t pass two of your three extreme criteria, the answer is still no.

On its face, it seems simple, but the real work comes from knowing where you’re headed.

What’s your version of, “Does this make the boat go faster?”

More reading on this story:This week’s newsletter is inspired by a story I found earlier in the week.

🤯 Three creative hits for next week

How to summarize the next book you readOne way to increase your site’s traffic is to summarize book reviews. But it’s a competitive space and even I am daunted by the idea. Matt Tillotson—writer and marketer—shares 7 personalized ways to remix books in your own voice.

Learn your next language in the browserIn my neverending quest to learn another language, I’m always on the lookout to find novel ways to practice. Toucan is a browser extension that replaces words while you read, so you can practice where we spend most of our days.

Your next typefaceDesigners know there are so many beautiful typefaces that aren’t found in drop-down menus. For non-designers, a simple way to stand out is by choosing one that speaks to your personality. This beautiful spikey serif typeface is inspired by the features of migratory birds. Designed by Valerio Monopoli.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your next adventure, crazy idea, or if you’re feeling creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.comWorkshop: approachabledesign.co

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #70 of Plan Your Next. A Sunday newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

Welcome to all 430 of you, and special thanks to Lyle for the donation to the “Feed Alie Fund” fund last week. She was fed!

What’s new this week?

🎤 Episode #21 / It’s Gotta Be The Mic: Reza and I sat down with Lyle McKeany to talk about memoirs, messiness, and the meandering path to finding your writing voice.

🙏 This thank you thread was written to show appreciation to designers who write. I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s important to support those who have helped you, even if you’re dust to their broken-in sofa.

📖 Currently reading Essentialism by Greg McKeown. My favorite takeaway is on the paradox that focused people—Essentialists—tend to explore more because they look to be inspired. “One paradox of Essentialism is that Essentialists actually explore more options than their Nonessentialist counterparts.”

🎨 I am presenting to Khe Hy’s community—filled with writers, engineers, project managers, entrepreneurs, and more—on how to choose a color palette based on your own visual style. My mission with Approachable Design is not to create more designers, but to give space for non-designers to embrace their full creative selves.

Good morning from Los Angeles!

I grew up as an incredibly artistic kid, but once I graduated high school, I didn’t have a firm grip on how I was going to apply my loose skills to the “real” world.

My dad was also a very creative person, spanning artistic mediums with ease. Frosting wedding cakes for friends, painting murals for events, sculpting statues cast in bronze, handwriting causal notes using calligraphy, and painting Ukrainian Easter eggs were part of his repertoire. These skills were applied at most, as a hobby.

If I had to slice up my dad’s personality based on the business book, “The E-Myth,” he was close to a mix of 90% technician, 10% entrepreneurial, and 0% manager.

As defined in the book, a technician is someone who sees no connection to where his business is going and where it is now. When thinking about how to let your craft blossom into a profitable business, you must have a better balance between the three identities. At 17, I was looking at art and design through the same lens as my dad. Art for art’s sake.

When I first started college, I enjoyed photography and design, but my opportunities seemed limited to portrait photography, wedding photography, and graphic design. I randomly chose architecture as my major, because it felt artistic and had a more formal structure to its career path. But, my heart wasn’t in it.

Thankfully I started to get curious and began to ask questions outside of school and family about what might be possible in these fields, which led me to quit school and teach myself design.

Writing as a serendipity strategy

Before this past Tuesday, the last time I visited my hometown was 18 months ago. I was in the middle of my own career, headed in a straight line, concerned about my own future. Being more entrepreneurial and technician than my dad at this point, I’ve found myself designing my own paths at various points.

But seven years into my recent role, I had lost sight of my own identity. I wasn’t sure exactly where I was being led, because I was just a passenger in my own car. Even if I found myself in the driver’s seat, where would I go? Like a muscle, your network tends to atrophy if you’re not actively working out. I would bounce between what I thought I should be doing and what other designers were doing.

One thing I knew with certainty: becoming a better designer or manager wasn’t going to have much impact on others, let alone myself. It wasn’t until I started to get curious through writing and this newsletter, which provided me a new lens into viewing the world.

My own path wasn’t clear until I veered off to explore adjacent areas of design.

“People who maximize serendipity balance the humility of not knowing where their next big break will come from with the arrogance of knowing that it will come from somewhere.” —David Perell

David describes a number of ways to cultivate your serendipity, which may open up new doors you never thought were possible.

This exploration started my 18-month journey to rediscovering myself and my impact through writing. I certainly don’t have all the answers, but writing has opened unexpected doors by maximizing serendipity into my own next thing.

If you’re feeling stuck in your career with no creative opportunities in sight, just start writing. I’d recommend building out your writing habit by starting with Julia Cameron’s morning pages strategy.

⚡️ Inspiration for next week

Watch Pharrell Williams initially discover Maggie Rogers

What Maggie performed relates closely to discovering your visual style. You can’t just see what’s popular and adopt those same techniques. You have to be willing to explore and find what’s unique to you. H/T Stew Fortier

"You have to be willing to use elements that are not necessarily popular. You have to be willing to play music or have music in your songs, that doesn't sound popular." —Pharrell Williams

💡 A tip to building your personal brand inside your company

While this can seem intimidating, I love the idea of crafting a newsletter specific to your own company.

🖥 The art of the desk setup

While the end result doesn’t look that interesting to me, I love the thoughtfulness involved in choosing every item for it.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your next adventure, crazy idea, or if you’re feeling creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.comWorkshop: approachabledesign.co

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #69 of Plan Your Next. A Sunday newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

I put the Tesla in FSD mode and let itself cruise beyond 400 people this past week. I want to welcome all 22 new fans! (I labeled you “fan” in my artful automation so there’s nothing you can do about it.)

Good morning from Los Angeles! What’s new this week?

😵‍💫 I used Facebook this week. AMA.

💌 I am currently building out an email-based handbook about how to make design decisions more approachable. Is there anything you struggle with? Reply and let me know! View the tweet.

✈️ I’m headed to Minneapolis next week to spend time with former HomeSpotter colleagues and friends. The original plan was to travel with Alie and our 3 mo old daughter—it never gets old saying that—but we had to cancel that due to the recent bubble up in the Delta variant. Rowan’s too young to get a vaccine and she can’t wear a mask.

🤲 If you’re in the giving mood, you can tip me @natekadlac on Venmo, and 100% collected will be used on food deliveries for Alie while I’m gone. Yes, I’m shameless. And yes, I will thank you in next week’s letter!

Can automation be artful?

I very rarely imagine Henry Ford waking up in the early morning and overlooking his factory which is effortlessly pumping out Model T’s thinking to himself, “Damn, this sweet factory is humming like a piece of art.”

But if I do take a moment to imagine it, I can’t help but see the beauty in automated systems producing mechanical art like the Tin Lizzie, Leaping Lena, or the Flivver. (Colloquial names given to the Model T.)

There are many differences between Henry Ford and myself. First, I’m presently breathing and he’s not. Second, within days of the announcement of the Model T, he had 15,000 subscribers on a list compared to my 421 after a year of spamming your inbox.

He obviously knew a thing or two about creating demand and designing systems to match those orders.

Henry Ford’s factory originally built the Model T in 12 hours, 8 min. Within 6 years, his factories were producing the same car in just 93 minutes.

Today, finding ways to use automation is desired by many marketers and creators. You hook up a Typeform to Zapier to Convertkit and bing, bang, boom, you’ve got your funnel, right?

In the business book The E-Myth, the business role of the manager would drool over the repeatable systems she could manifest. But a problem with automation design is how much life they suck out of your interactions. It’s like a No-Code automation tool that promises to put your brand “front and center” by asking for your favorite 6-digit hex value.

Templated automation has its faults, but where does that leave us?

By the time the obsessive Ford Model T factory produced sold its 15 millionth car in 1927, its underbelly remained largely unchanged since 1908.

I believe this is why productivity tools like Notion have such a following. The learning curve can be steep, but you’re able to design your own system fairly easily from scratch. It’s entirely possible to design a finely tuned system using full-page tables and relational databases while keeping it somewhat aesthetically pleasing.

Hell, the product’s aesthetic was even inspired by an old map!

While I can effortlessly spot a Notion website designed in Thailand from my ass prints here in Los Angeles, it’s much closer to appealing to a wide range of users.

Building a beautiful automation

It’s one thing to write a weekly newsletter using plain text, but to treat it like a piece of art using custom illustrations and audio recordings goes against all forms of systems thinking. One of my many faults is applying a thick level of craft to the things I build. I don’t recommend it, and I’m probably revealing an undiscovered blemish in the gray matter of my cranium.

The other side of the rainbow—opposite the side with gold-filled buckets— is to remove some of the anxiety of writing weekly emails but creating proper funnels, marketing automation, and shadow newsletters to gently guide fans into my ecosystem. I’m admittedly a fan of both of these approaches because there’s value in creating art, as well as offloading some of the more mundane jobs which genuinely ease the level of effort.

The downside of most automation systems is they’re set up to quantify everything. Brain-bending questions like button color and size give soul-sucking justification for focusing on the mundane. It takes effort to stand out, and many of the off-the-shelf tools hardly make it easy.

My aspirational bar for Approachable Design is to craft a top-shelf, highly tailored experience for students that is the pearl of cohort-based workshops. A f*g pearl.

But everything surrounding it needs to reflect the brand values the workshop entails, and I can’t leave that solely to the technician in me. It must have systems in place, drawing you in, leaving you wondering and wanting more. Artful automation.

“How did Nate pull this off without gimmicks?” is what I want to hear you whisper under your breath.

It’s the level of beautiful automation that would make Henry Ford perk up from down under and give me a wink and a nudge.

I believe automation can be artful, but it’s going to take some work to reach that bar.

⚡️ Inspiration for next week

Fighting off the minimalistic stereotype

I’ll die on this hill. But even designers struggle with fending off the minimalistic stereotype which is easily associated with creative people. I believe it takes more effort to embrace your style than it is to choose a minimalist version of yourself.

Change your perspective

I once stayed in NYC just above NYU, and I remember how different the city looked. People were hanging out on the rooftops, and I could see dozens of garden patios. It gave me a new perspective of the city and I’m so happy I came across some of these photos.

It takes patience to produce greatness

While this is mainly about how Jackie Chan creates action comedy, I thought the way American fight scenes are shot vs the way Jackie Chan directs was the most interesting. The culprit? Not surprisingly, the cost directly affects the time allotted to shoot a scene. This directly affects the visual style of a fight scene.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your next adventure, crazy idea, or if you’re feeling creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.comWorkshop: approachabledesign.co

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #68 of Plan Your Next. A Sunday newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

We’re two subscribers shy from 400—a highly insignificant number in the long run—but if you think of anyone who might enjoy this letter, here’s a big ass button for you to use.

Good morning from Los Angeles!

What’s new this week?

🚶🏼‍♀️ The first week of being funemployed turned out to be exactly what I needed. A good mixture of reading, writing, meditation, working, calls, and beach time is pretty fulfilling. I’ve had no less than three job opportunities poke their head up, but I’m sticking to my plan of being independent for the next 6 mo. (if not more)

⚡️ I recently completed Khe Hy’s Supercharge Your Productivity course. It was phenomenal and focuses on how we work on our businesses instead of working in them. Personally, I want Approachable Design to be the best live creative experience that exists online, and that requires more long-term planning than simple to-do lists.

Alongside the live workshop, I’m creating exclusive playshops for new and past students to continue to build out what they’re working on. These will be hosted by me and my creative advisors. More to come!

The cost of opportunity

When I made the decision to leave my job recently, I felt an incredible conviction to do it. An emotional conviction is so strong that when asked to translate into actual words with another human, the words spilling out of my mouth resembled the illegible scribbles of my morning pages.

When you’re choosing a path not fully paved, it’s not easy to articulate every forward step. There’s an energy filled with confidence propelling me forward, but is this the best decision for me if I look at it objectively?

Am I just being drawn out into the world because of the possibility of what’s next?

I got to the point where I needed to check myself. If I stepped back, could I view this differently? How could I be honest with myself that this was the right decision I should be making?

The push and pull

I recently chatted with Khe Hy about this, and he likes to think about the underlying motives using a simple question.

Are you being pushed or pulled?

Khe left his cush job on Wall Street in his mid-thirties to become fully independent, and later he and his family ended up moving from Brooklyn, NY to California. He writes about being pulled to California:

“What makes this move so bittersweet is that we felt pulled to go somewhere else. And the pulling sensation inspires confidence – as if you’re playing from a place of strength. The push, on the other hand, feels like running away from something that is broken. Or even worse, running away as a means of escapism – without confronting the underlying fear behind the desire.”

It’s a similar feeling to when Alie and I picked up our things and moved from Minnesota to San Francisco. We weren’t feeling pushed out of the state, but rather being pulled by the west coast. The ability to camp year-round, our proximity to the ocean, near Tahoe and the mountains to snowboard, wine country just over the Golden Gate Bridge, all in an aesthetically and energy-filled city devoid of sub-zero temperatures.

Asking yourself whether you’re being pushed or pulled to move across state boundaries is a big decision, but how this plays out at a job can get more complicated.

Considering your options can be expensive

Nick deWilde has been writing about this topic of professional uncertainty, and writes in this fictional back and forth:

COACH: For starters, you can stop spending all your energy trying to change the outside world, and commit to changing the way you experience it.

…

CLIENT: So, are you saying that instead of striving for a job that makes me happy, I should learn to be happy with what I have?

COACH: I’m saying that the only real way to have a job that makes you happy is to learn to be happy regardless of what job you have.

When making a big decision whether or not you should stay at your job, it’s helpful to understand if you’re being pushed or pulled from the situation.

The Coach in Nick’s example isn’t trying to convince his client to stay but to listen to why he wants to leave.

If you’re sensing you’re being pushed, it’s worth stopping to explore that reason to see if you can fix your current situation first. Are you holding yourself back from making the most of your current opportunity?

Free time opens up a world of options to push you

In my first week out, I’ve had an immense amount of ideas spill across my brain. New products I could build, articles I should write, and courses I could teach.

But hidden behind this creative energy, I know I’ll never have the time to accomplish it all. Even without a job, I sense myself being pushed into areas stemming from the feeling of wanting to be productive and prolific.

Visa speaks to this dilemma in his thread:

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the things you have the time to do on any given day. You could work on a dozen projects slowly and infinitely.

Acknowledging this tension should lead you to a place where you realize you can’t accomplish everything, but by focusing on what’s pulling you should help reduce the anxiety.

Big decisions like quitting your job or moving across the country feel exhilarating because the world feels full of opportunity. But the cost of being directionless is more expensive than in looks, so make sure you’re being pulled instead of pushed.

⚡️ Inspiration for next week

🎨 Apple almost released a Curb Your Enthusiasm style ad in 2014

Larry David Looks like the full-length video has been pulled from YouTube, but I am shocked they even made an entire 10 min episode to talk about App Store

🔭 Change your perspective to change your stance.

Love this perspective of juggling. It reminds me of viewing Manhattan from a rooftop vs looking up from street level. There’s another side to the city most people don’t see looking down, filled with beautiful gardens and backyard patios.

📖 From David Perell, “Read to collect the dots, write to connect them.”

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your crazy ideas or if you’re creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.comWorkshop: approachabledesign.co

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #67 of Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing. We’re now 388 strong, so if you’re new here, welcome!

Good morning from Los Angeles!

What’s new this week?

Friday was my last day in my role as Creative Director. Tapping out of my work email and slack channels was surprisingly satisfying. Although I’m now torn as to what do the newly unemployed put on their LinkedIn profiles?

Am I looking for freelance work? At the moment, I’ve been turning down requests for freelance work. But, if there’s something you can’t shut up about, get in touch with me. Right now it’s either, “Hell yeah, or no.”

Courses I’m enrolled in. I am in the middle of three courses at the moment as I start this solo journey. Brennan Dunn’s Mastering ConvertKit, Will Steiner’s Email Based Course, and I just finished Nat Eliason’s DeFi Orientation. Nat’s course is a great orientation for beginners, and it takes only about an hour. The money you stake to take the course is given back to you in your ETH wallet once you complete it. So it’s an incredible deal to learn the basics of DeFi, for free!

Lastly, a random idea on Twitter

Does your style matter?

Hell yes.

“But of course a designer would say this,” you might think to yourself while simultaneously rolling your eyes. You’re great at multi-tasking btw.

"Type must draw attention to itself before it is read, but in order to be read, it must relinquish its attention that is drawn."—Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style

While Robert is talking about typography, you can apply this attitude broadly to visual style. Style is what drew me closer to my now wife by a photograph I saw of her in SF.

Simply, it was her style. She was at Outside Lands, a music festival wrapped in a fiery red headscarf because it’s so damn cold there in the summer. She looked comfortable and confident in her own skin, with friends who she obviously loved and loved her back. But truly, she was f*g vibin’ in aviators and a long sleeve black shawl.

Style is how we communicate with each other without uttering a word. Like it or not, the decisions you make not only affect the perception you have of yourself, but the perception others have of you.

Elon Musk once tweeted, “I judge a book by its cover.” And while he was literally talking about book covers, it’s an obvious statement that applies across much of the work we create.

If you’re an author, filmmaker, YouTuber, founder, maker, or any other type of person who builds, no one will know the amount of work you put into your craft. No one can truly appreciate that side of things. You’ll have mere seconds to capture their attention with your visual style. In other words, how you communicate with us visually.

When Elon Musk helped design the first Roadster, he could have copied any of the electric cars on the market. It could have matched the style of a Prius. Instead, he relied on his own unique taste—confidence in his own aesthetic—which led him to create the S.E.X.Y. lineup we know today.

Specifically, the Cybertruck goes against all odds of what should be built in the competitive landscape. It’s yet to be successful, but building a car that stands out as it does requires an immense amount of confidence in one’s taste.

Aesthetics is the language of feeling, and in a society that's information rich and time-poor, people value feeling more than information"—Marty Neumeier, The Brand Gap

Style is what draws us in, and helps us connect to one another. It could be as simple as a band poster, or an ‘I Love NYC‘ shirt.

To stand out means to be confident in who you are. You can’t just copy the style of someone else, because ultimately you’re not knotted at the root level.

Stylistically stolen

Toby Shorin wrote a great piece on the Diminishing Marginal Value of Aesthetics, and highlighted Hassan Rahim who designed the artwork for Jacques Greene’s 2016 album Feel Infinite.

The original design was found all over the place and peaked with the artwork for a Nick Jonas single. Now, you can find this aesthetic as a default for many DTC Ecommerce branded templates.

By not listening to your own perspective and visual taste, it’s possible you might end up copying the look of a dated Nick Jonas single.

And no one wants that.

⚡️ Inspiration for next week

🎨 How do you choose and modify colors?

As I continue to find ways to make design more approachable, I’ve been recording videos like this one for my students. If you’ve ever wanted to learn how to adjust and combine colors, this might help.

Mental models, critical thinking, and the future of educating children

A Q&A between the Chief Evangelist at Synthesis and Polina Marinova. A great reminder of how critical having fun while learning helps kids become better decision-makers. Here’s one of my favorite answers:

Q: As someone with two young children, my daughter just turned two, what’s the best way to prep her for a synthesis education?

FABREGA: Give them the freedom to play, explore, and pursue their own interests.

It seems too simple.

🪟 Landing page inspiration

Blake Emal has analyzed 100s of landing pages. Here’s his top 34.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your crazy ideas or if you’re creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.comWorkshop: approachabledesign.co

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #66 of Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing. We’re now 382 strong, so if you’re new here, welcome!

What’s new this week?

One thing I realized about the 14 students who are currently enrolled in Approachable Design is how unique everyone’s visual boards are. You just don’t see this amount of personality expressed because we’re limited by the tools. Many No-Code tools dumb down our personality, leaving us to choose a HEX value to allow our “brand to be front and center.” There’s a gap here I am trying to fill eventually, but much of the work needs to start with defining your visual taste.

I was recently featured in Transparent Tuesday’s, a newsletter by Charlie Bleecker who writes under a pseudonym. Catch a video of our conversation here. (8 min)

My most popular tweet this week—and let’s be real, I don’t have many—on how to create your own design system by designing from the inside-out.

Good morning from Los Angeles!

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards.” —Steve Jobs

If you extend both hands out at your sides, you can see your fingertips in your peripheral vision around 170 degrees. This field of view is the foundation for the rule of thirds used in photography.

Try it, it’s fun!

When you do this exercise, it’s revealing how wide our field of view actually is.

Yet if you’re staring down at your laptop or looking at your feet when you walk, the world can feel small incredibly small.

Now do this every day, and opening up your hands and testing the limits of your optical view feels like work.

But, as you’ve experienced, there are times when the world smacks you in the face and forces you to perk up.

This has happened to me 5-6 times over the past 20 years, and each time it’s led me down an unexpected path that provided some interesting opportunity. Not monetarily in all cases, but a new perspective.

My last full week

One of these opportunities came up recently for me, and I decided to jump. As I get closer to the last week in my full-time role, I’ve had a number of conversations with friends, entrepreneurs, and colleagues.

I’m often asked what I’ll do next. If they’re a reader of this newsletter, I’ll even get a little wink. Very cute.

They’ll ask the inevitable question, and I’ll candidly say I’m not planning on heading to another full-time role in the traditional sense. After that convo, the look I got reminded me not to say, “in the traditional sense.”

They’ll ask how I’ll make an income, and I don’t have a great answer for this.

I don’t say this to #humblebrag, but I do think I’ve been self-aware about how chasing the short-term dollar affects my own long-term plan.

And chasing the short-term dollar without a job is just freelancing without a fancy title.

This tweet by Paul Millerd encompasses my own feelings about what freelancing means.

Hell, I used to glorify this work myself. But let’s be honest, freelance is a job with a much shittier boss. Myself.

My answer to this question is that I won’t be searching for another job right away. Hopefully never, but I’ll never say never.

In the meantime, I initially intend to spread out the options based on what’s interesting, with a mix of reality sprinkled in. It might look something like this:

25% freelance

25% inputs (reading, learning, conversations, and communities)

50% leveraged outputs (writing, building products, podcasting, and collaborations)

The alternative is a life that continues to ignore the 170-degree optical view that’s freely available to us.

⚡️ Inspiration for next week

📕 I had no idea that the BBC handbooks were so intensely creative.

🎨 I’m waiting for this font to be used in something special. Just look at that ‘A.’

💌 Josh Spector on how to grow your next newsletter.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your crazy ideas or if you’re creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.comWorkshop: approachabledesign.co

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #65 of Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing. If you’re one of the 6 new subscribers, welcome!

Good morning from Los Olivos, California!

This weekend, Alie and I took our 8-week old daughter on our first road trip to the central coast of California, which happens to be the closest version of wine country we could find.

Along the way, I texted back and forth between a friend who is taking my design workshop next weekend to better define his own visual style. He mentioned how fashion plays a large part in defining his visual taste. He has been pulling images of camo hoodies, Y-3 minimalist Japanese kicks, surfing, and other things he finds inspiring.

It’s a process that takes some time to work through, but will exist as a foundation for all his future design decision-making.

It’s been interesting to watch the process unfold from his perspective as he uncovers new colors, textures, and potential typefaces.

But once you have a visual starting point, where do you go from there?

In many cases, you find yourself looking for ways to implement this new understanding of your further distilled visual taste in your life.

In the real world, it could affect how you bring more into your life. The clothes you buy, the design of your living space, the objects you might sprinkle around your home.

And it could affect what you get rid of, with your new discerning taste.

When you’re able to articulate and understand with confidence how you define your unique aesthetic, you become more intentional about your ability to recreate it.

The problem with No-Code

I wrote why minimalism is boring because when I look around the web, I feel frustrated when I see people not being able to express themselves fully.

The crutch is to go with the least offensive choice, which is usually the black and white option you’ll find in most No-Code tools. The minimalist template is often a choice made from design exhaustion.

I can’t help it, it’s the designer in me who wants everyone to be able to have the confidence to fully express themselves fully, and find subtle ways to show that off.

The advent of No-Code tools has brought enormous autonomy to creators who were held back by the inability to actually do the complicated work of coding.

The speed of being able to stand up a website or product with any of these services is unimaginable just 10-15 years ago.

Creating an Airbnb clone with No-Code can be cobbled together with just a few tools. Setting up a Shopify store to sell your new product can be done in an afternoon. Making an account on Ghost for your blog/newsletter/membership can take mere minutes to throw together. Selling a PDF on Gumroad takes seconds to start accepting payments from around the world. Hosting your website based on a Notion document is child’s play. Creating a newsletter on Substack is possible just by squinting through one eyelid with the other eye closed.

When software enables a profitable hustle for creators who don’t code, making design decisions is done by choosing a typeface from a dropdown, selecting a color from a pre-determined palette, and a 300x300 optional logo to complete “brand” the experience.

What you end up with are thousands of Shopify websites with the same visual experience whether you’re selling baby bottles or leather jackets.

Thousands of Substack newsletters requiring nothing more than modifying 2-3 settings.

Gumroad pages that all look the same unless you upload a few custom graphics.

While No-Code tools become more commonplace, the internet looks more like a sterilized database.

🎨 Approachable Design enrollment closes Tuesday, June 22nd at 11:59 PM EST.

Even if you’re not a designer, you can create a confident design system from which you make all your design decisions. In just two days, I teach you how in my workshop Approachable Design.

Based on this workshop, I worked with a phenomenal writer to explore her own underlying aesthetic. In this video, Charlie shares how it gave her the confidence to work with a photographer she recently hired.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas or if you’re creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #64 of Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing. If you’re one of the 18 new subscribers, welcome!

Good morning from Los Angeles!

🎨 Approachable Design is almost sold out! Just 6 spots remain for the workshop on June 26-27th. We have writers, entrepreneurs, YouTubers, and more who have registered so far. I’ll be announcing it more widely tomorrow, so check it out if you want to know how to build your own design system based on your unique personality.

🎤 Episode 20 of It’s Gotta Be the Mic: Reza and I interviewed Charlie Bleecker who is the lead mentor for David Perell’s Write of Passage. She writes under a pseudonym which you’ll learn more about during the podcast and has a weekly newsletter called Transparent Tuesdays which is incredibly vulnerable and insightful. I recommend subscribing!

It all started with a question:

“What are you struggling with most when it comes to design?”

I asked this question to more than a dozen curious writers. I created a drop-in style office hours block on my calendar and titled it, Design for Writers.

Little did I know where this would lead me, but it was something I could offer to “real” writers.

This was during the middle of an 8-week course for writers, and I was using this as my mental shield to somehow cover the fact I didn’t consider myself a writer. Let’s be honest, 3-and-a-half out of 4 days, I still don’t.

But I was pelted with design questions like:

“How do I choose colors?”

“What font should I use?”

“Why does my website suck so bad?”

Amateur hour.

You see, when you study a specific skill for over 16+ years, you start to take it seriously. At some point, you might find yourself with a serious scowl solving serious problems. A scowl that shows how determined and damned good you are at your job.

I can only imagine a rocket scientist begrudgingly traveling to her parent’s house for Thanksgiving and having to answer questions about why the 30-year-old stove isn’t working, only to find out in the span of 300 milliseconds the pilot light went out.

She’s a serious scientist doing serious work. Not fixing a f*g flame the height of a fingernail.

And so here I am, sitting in 1:1 design sessions with talented writers concerned about how they’re presenting themselves online.

And something occurred to me. I’m actually enjoying talking about the fundamentals of design, like typography, color psychology, leading, and spacing.

It’s not that doing serious work is a bad thing, but I unearthed an interesting side effect of giving back to a community that was genuinely curious about design.

I realized I had discovered a bridge between the playful and the serious work. Both have their place, but sometimes the knowledge you keep stacking up needs to be emptied. You’ll learn more about yourself by giving back, and maybe make a buck or two along the way, opening new doors you never knew existed.

My step-by-step plan to building a small workshop.

Choose something you’re above average atLearn where you can offer value. Pick a topic you have above-average knowledge about, and offer to help others without anything in return. By giving without asking for anything in return, you’re opening yourself up to invaluable feedback. Listen to the questions they have, and figure out where your knowledge gaps are. You’re also able to gauge whether this is something you enjoy doing. Buckle up.

Add serendipity to your lifeFill your life up creatively so you have more opportunities to share your ideas. You might even meet new people who could be the perfect student. Start a podcast, join podcasts, form a writing group, open up your calendar, host masterminds, find an accountability partner, join online courses, write online, support online creators, use Twitter, or start communities. Get out of your shell and make your mark. Easy!

Create a human to adopt the beginner mindsetAlong the way, you might hear that to teach online, you must adopt the beginner mindset. I couldn’t agree more. The easiest way to do this is to start small. With an embryo. Make a human. No one said this was going to be easy.

Offer your above-average knowledge for $$$Once you start talking about the thing you’re above average at, create a quick landing page and be clear about what you’re offering. Ask friends, friends of friends, LinkedIn friends, Facebook friends, Twitter friends. You get the idea. Start putting yourself out there, using the feedback you received from your free sessions. Take the pain points people had, and address them with your solution. Test out your services for $25-$100. You want to test the seriousness of your idea, and to see if people are willing to pay. The confidence you’ll get from the first few sales will hopefully add to the momentum you’re building.

Start writing and find your communityAt this point, you should be writing AND talking about your above-average skill set. While you might hear that you should have thousands of followers to even think about sustainably running a course, you don’t need that to just get started. An easy way to get around this is to start thinking about who your audience is, and where they hang out online. Start joining conversations online, without selling. Be helpful, start answering questions you have above-average knowledge in, and focus on giving as much value as possible. You might find your community in niche Facebook groups, subreddits, Twitter, archaic online forums, or elsewhere. Keep scouring and hunting for where you can help out. Just don’t be annoying and come across as too salesy.

Build your curriculumAfter hosting 5-10 free and paid sessions, you should have enough feedback on if you’re delivering enough value. Now is the time you might be able to host a live 60-minute workshop and host more than one person. Go back to well if you need to and ask for favors from the people you helped. Be kind and start thinking about what pain points you could formalize and address in an hour.

Host a workshop!After validating your services, the goal is to apply your teaching skills to more than one student. Aim for 5-10 students for your first cohort, and charge enough to get you out of bed. I’d aim for $50-$150 to make it worth your while.By running these workshops live, you can always increase or decrease the pricing each time you run one.

Along the way, you should be listening to whether or not you’re having fun. This may seem too simple, but the reason why most startups or side projects like this fail, are because you lose steam.

The ability to scale your efforts is what you’re after here. Moving from 1:1 to 1 to many is directionally where you want to head.

Keep this in mind, and good luck!

⚡️ Inspiration for next week

Feel like you’re there, together

Project Starline is a concept by Google aiming to make feeling like you’re in the same room with someone thousands of miles away.

“Imagine looking through a sort of magic window, and through that window, you see another person, life-size and in three dimensions. You can talk naturally, gesture and make eye contact.”

Your next super team

Packy McCormick on the similarities between Lebron James joining the Miami Heat and how we can build our own Liquid Super Teams. This is one of the reasons I had the confidence to leave my own job, and start collaborating with others. DAO’s are also making this type of collaboration inevitable.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your crazy ideas or if you’re creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.comWorkshop: approachabledesign.co

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #63 of Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing. If you’re one of the eight new subscribers, welcome!

Good morning from Los Angeles!

What’s new this week?

🎨 Approachable Design kicks off in 3 weeks! For those new around here, I teach a live 2-day design workshop to help you stand out by learning how to create your own personal aesthetic.

To keep it intimate, there are only 14 spots open for this next cohort. The Essential tier retains the same reduced pricing as the first cohort, as we work out the kinks and deliver a top-shelf experience.

If you’re curious, please visit approachabledesign.co to learn what it’s all about.

🎤 I was a guest on Josh Cadorette’s Building Out Loud podcast. We talked about building a cohort-based course and making design approachable for all.

⛳️ On Deck Course Creators just wrapped up its 8th and final week. I was so honored to play a small role in supporting the 130 people who signed up. I’ve learned a lot, and if you ever want to talk courses, please let me know!

📖 Reading The E-Myth Revisited. I feel like a moron not reading this years ago!

The three roles of building a business

In less than a month I’ll be leaving my job to pursue something new. My life will look the same in the short-term, consisting of sitting at home in my pj’s in front of the Zoom grid playing with video filters.

But it took a few weeks to come to that conclusion. After spending some time speaking to half a dozen people about what the shape of this new life might look like, I feel confident making a slightly crazy decision like this.

But, had I made this decision years ago, someone named Old Nate would approach this very differently.

So I made a pact with myself.

A pact that separates Old Nate from New Nate.

These are two different people with two different mindsets.

There are many differences, but they all became very clear while recently reading The E-Myth Revisited. The book was published 26 years ago, so it’s fair to say I’m taking business advice from a book with an awkward title and dated reference.

Granted, while we have scrubbed the ‘E’ prefix from many web-centric nouns, we do still say E-Mail and E-Commerce. I don’t feel all that bad for advice from The E-Myth.

Instead of it standing for “Electronic,” The E-Myth stands for The Entrepreneurial Myth. The book suggests that everyone who gets into business is actually three people-in-one. The Entrepreneur, The Technician, and The Manager.

The book explains the problematic relationship between these three identities:

To The Manager, then, The Technician becomes a problem to be managed. To The Technician, The Manager becomes a meddler to be avoided. To both of them, The Entrepreneur is the one who got them into trouble in the first place!

Here’s how I rank myself:

The Technician

The Entrepreneur

The Manager

As a designer, I am a skilled Technician. I’m great at what I do, and I value my craft and rely heavily on it. Maybe too much.

Old Nate would dive straight into business relying solely on my skills as a Technician.

“And that in a Technician-driven business, without The Entrepreneur to lead her and The Manager to supervise her, The Technician will work until she drops, only to wake up the next morning to go to work even harder, and the next, and the next.”

Likely, this outcome looks something like freelancing until I drop, or running a small studio until I drop.

Dropping doesn’t sound like that much fun, or different from what I’m doing now.

This imbalance clearly states that if I rely solely on my ability to design, I’m only creating another job for myself. Without the harmony of being able to simplify the tasks of the past, and make space to visualize the future, Old Nate will focus on the present and stay there.

That Fatal Assumption is: if you understand the technical work of a business, you understand a business that does that technical work.

Put another way, it’s easy for me to make the fatal assumption that knowing how to design gives me the understanding of running a design business.

Admittedly, my current blind spot and least favorite thing to do is making time to manage, in the way that’s needed to build systems.

I don’t have a perfect plan for New Nate. But I have realized I need to make space for the past, present, and future. The facets of a business outside the business of designing.

It’s easy to say, but it’s a crutch in practice.

Old Nate would focus on the present, looking down at my feet while I walk.

New Nate is thinking about how to build systems around what’s worked in the past, and make space for thinking about what’s going to happen in the future.

Call this leverage, compounding, or whichever mathematical catapult you prefer.

The imbalanced equation

Being 70% entrepreneur and succeeding based on vision is a myth. You may have seen this happen up close or on your favorite Twitter thread.

Being 70% Technician and hoping you can work your way out of a business might give you some early runway, but ultimately you’re looking directly into the eyes of Old Nate.

And we all know what Managers are capable of. (I kid, sort of)

I’ve also seen it work out well, and I’m thankful to have learned that balance from a good friend.

Aaron Kardell is one of my favorite entrepreneurs—and a close friend—who started HomeSpotter 12 years ago. While he might not admit it, Aaron is a well-balanced Technician, Manager, and Entrepreneur.

An entrepreneur who knows how to code, sell, build and manage a team.

I’ve had the pleasure to work with Aaron for over a decade, and it’s been remarkable to see how he has toggled through these different identities in varying scenarios.

There are many people I’ll miss working with, but none more than Aaron.

I’m leaving a job and an old identity, but New Nate is up for this new life.

::Special thanks to Khe, Rob, Paul, Cam, Joseph, Andrew, Nick, Tim, and of course my wife, Alie, for listening and offering support to me over the past 3 weeks::

⚡️ Inspiration for next week

📈 A marketing masterclass by Steve Jobs

In a noisy and complicated world, how do you get people to remember you?

🤔 Why don’t you know what you really want next?

Alan Watts shares two insights:

You have it already

You don’t know yourself.. .cause you never can

It’s worth the entire 12 min.

🏡 How to make a house feel like a home

As someone who loves to embrace one’s taste, Tim explains how he designs his house to feel like a home. Also, I learned about biophilic design.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your crazy ideas or if you’re creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.comWorkshop: approachabledesign.co

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #62 of Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing. If you’re one of the eight new subscribers, welcome!

Good morning from Los Angeles!

Last week, I caught myself in the middle of the Netflix series, Halston. It’s based on the life of Roy Halston, the American designer who rose to international fame in the ‘70s.

The incredible thing about Halston is his constant evolution and curiosity to use different fabrics and materials across the span of his career. During the mid 70’s, he worked on his first perfume, and the process reminded me of how I teach design from the inside out.

All fragrances consist of three notes: The base note, the heart note, and the top note.

Base noteThe base note is the most important note. It’s about your past. The smells, feelings, and memories are all the artifacts that define who you are. Base notes bring depth and solidity to a perfume. Without the base, you have no fixatives to strengthen the heart and top notes that sit above. These are fundamental truths, in your life and the base of the fragrance.

These notes aren’t recognized immediately, but the heaviness of the molecules allows them to be revealed after the dissipation of the top two layers.

In design, this is what I refer to as the inside portion of inside-out design. Like the base note of a perfume, it refers to your foundational layer. Your core values, your inspirations, where you grew up, and everything that makes you, unique.

This is where we start in building our new design decisions. It’s a unique combination of traits that can’t be found anywhere else.

Heart noteThe note sits in the middle and can be thought of as your soul. It holds all of these base note truths together. The body of the heart note uses more oil, and acts as a buffer between the top and base note. It reveals itself just before the top note disappears, and helps to soften the immediate blow as the base note appears.

The heart note is like a visual mood board, a glue that builds a visual aesthetic from our base layer. It’s the in-between layer communicating our uniqueness to the world. It describes who you are not with words, but with imagery. The visual aesthetic of a heart note combines color, light, textures, and shapes.

Top NoteAlso known as the head note, top notes consist of small and light molecules. They command immediate attention but evaporate quickly. The top note must be aggressively sharp and distinct, with the ability to stand out within just a few seconds. If you happen to try a perfume sample at a store, take a whiff of a glass of wine, or choose which deodorant to use quickly, this is the note you’re basing your decision on.

Top notes are like our website home pages, product landing pages, newsletters, email drip campaigns, pitch decks, and Twitter profiles. They must be distinct enough to capture the attention of someone within just a few seconds. We only pray they stick around long enough to smell the other notes, but we’re not always lucky.

All notes work together, but if one’s missing, the entire pyramid crumbles.

People judge books by their cover, so make sure to pay attention to every single note.

⚡️ Inspiration for next week

Your senses, on drugs

Combining ASMR with macro videos is unlike anything I’ve seen. Make sure you have your sound on when watching these beautiful clips of the tiniest of actions.

Your next template shouldn’t be a template

It’s not like I need another reason not to use generic templates, but I can’t help myself. Andrew is spot-on. Relying too heavily on templates shows a lack of thoughtfulness that would otherwise set you apart from other founders, writers, designers, marketers, and on and on. Do the hard work.

Your next great piece of art, explained

I’ve always enjoyed walking around museums casually looking at art. But, there are two different modes when viewing beautiful art.

The first is by being a casual observer. There’s nothing complicated other than observing how a particular piece makes you feel. It’s a valid way to look at art, and this might consist of slowly walking, or speeding through a gallery as if checking off a box. Take it in, and move on to the next.

The second—if you have the time—is to understand the context and history of the piece. This takes much more time, and you won’t see as many pieces. As much as I hate to admit it, having a personal guide is one of the best ways to take advantage of this mode.

When in Paris, we hired a guide for the Louvre and Musée d'Orsay museums, and it was easily one of the highlights of the trip.

This YouTube channel is like having a personal guide hand hold you through the history of great pieces of art.

This particular video walks you through a piece of art you might find in your popular Notion template or set as your background screen saver. The Great Wave by Hokusai.

In 1639 Japan closed its borders and cut itself off from the outside world. Foreigners were expelled, Western culture was forbidden, and Entering or leaving Japan was punishable by Death. It would remain that way for over 200 years.

It was under these circumstances that a quintessentially Japanese art developed. Art for the people that was consumed on an unprecedented scale.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your crazy ideas or if you’re creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.comWorkshop: approachabledesign.co

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #61 of Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing. If you’re one of the 13 new subscribers, welcome! And, thanks Khe for the shoutout!

What’s new this week?

🎤 Episode #19 of It’s Gotta be the Mic: Reza and I chat about our favorite apps we use to

🎨 The second cohort of Approachable Design will be launching on June 26-27th. I’ve yet to launch the new landing page, but if you’re not yet on the waiting list, you can sign up here.

👨‍🍼 Baby Rowan is one month old and I don’t know how time works.

Good morning from Los Angeles!

Have you ever had a brilliant idea, then gracefully share it with the world while immediately watching it flop? Maybe you didn’t communicate the idea in the right way, or tell the story to the right audience.

In 1948, this happened to one of the most famous theoretical physicists.

During a conference in the Poconos Mountains with 27 other theorists, Richard Feynman stood in front of an empty chalkboard. He began to draw out simple diagrams representing how subatomic particles talk to each other over time.

Before using this new method, you would have instead used long, complex mathematical equations to achieve the same result.

Feynman thought he had discovered something truly novel, yet his peers were skeptical and peppered him with questions, poking holes in the strategy.

He eventually left the conference disappointed, and even depressed.

Even Feynman’s own closest friends and colleagues had difficulty knowing where the diagrams came from or how they should be used.

It wasn’t until a younger associate—Freeman Dyson—spent a year seeking to understand what Feynman had discovered. He would end up writing the first paper in 1949—before Richard Feynman wrote his own—on how to use this new method.

It took several years after that before diagrams would be used, and not until 17 years later would he be awarded for his work.

In 1965, Richard Feynman shared the Nobel Prize award for the Feynman Diagrams.

This award may never have been received without the help of Freeman Dyson for sharing what would be a modern-day tweet thread on how to use the Feynman Diagrams.

Even Feynman—one of the most brilliant physicists known for simplifying the complex—needed help translating his own ideas.

Our ideas alone aren’t enough. It might take work to market them, write about them, and even get feedback on them.

It might take a friend or another person entirely to help demonstrate how to use the idea.

Get comfortable being uncomfortable.

Sources: https://web.mit.edu/dikaiser/www/FdsAmSci.pdfhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feynman_diagram

⚡️ Inspiration for next week

Can you learn to love the job you have?

Chasing your next thing always feels easier, but it’s also smart to consider whether the faults you find at work are because you have chosen to feel unhappy about it.

“COACH: For starters, you can stop spending all your energy trying to change the outside world, and commit to changing the way you experience it.”

Norman Tran’s website

Norman has such a simple and elegant design, but it feels welcoming and playful. The right combination of typefaces and textures can truly bring your designs to life, and this is a great example of doing that with just a few elements. qu

Your next NFT

I am really enjoying watching crypto art evolve and expand. The creative duo, Nastplas, are based in Madrid, Spain, and creating a remarkable amount of quality art. Available only as NFTs.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is open to chat about your crazy ideas or if you’re creatively stuck.

And if you’re creatively stuck because you ran out of coffee, save 10% on Flow State coffee. Flow State uses l-theanine and raw cacao to lower anxiety and support creativity. (Affiliate link)

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.comWorkshop: approachabledesign.co

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #60 of Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

Good morning from Los Angeles!

There’s not a more perfectly apt newsletter title like Plan Your Next to collide with what happened this past week.

HomeSpotter, the 50+ person company I’ve been helping build for the past 7+ years was recently acquired.

It’s a significant part of my life that’s been attached to my ankle like an electronic monitoring device. Talk to me long enough, and HomeSpotter is a topic you’ll end up hearing about. Talk to me longer, and you’ll hear about how f*g hard it is to work on something that long.

When you end up working on an idea for this long, it inevitably becomes part of your identity. The time and the energy you have starts to concentrate into one bucket, forcing all other decisions to revolve around it.

It’s like having an unbalanced portfolio that is too heavily weighted in crypto. It’s risky, and the opportunity cost can be difficult to see if you’re too tied up in one asset class.

What kept me from pursuing other activities like writing, building an audience, or working on side projects was the idea that I needed to keep adding sweat and equity to the one asset class. That, and guilt plus shame. All of it.

But over the past year, I realized it doesn’t have to work that way.

“Make your desired behavior your normal behavior.”—Polina Marinova

When I heard Polina say this out loud in a live session, everything switched for me. Looking inward to listen to what you want is difficult. Spending time uncovering what drives you, and how to make space for that takes real f*g work.

And as soon as I started to chase some of these things, life became a lot more interesting.

Soon I would find myself with a writing group, co-hosting a newsletter mastermind, writing a weekly newsletter, drawing more, writing more, keeping an open calendar, co-hosting a podcast, meeting my heroes, supporting independent course creators, and now teaching design workshops.

For too long, I identified as a designer who was helping building HomeSpotter. The truth is, I had no one to blame but myself. No one was saying I shouldn’t do these things, or that I couldn’t. But I got entirely locked up into my own head about what others might think, so I pushed them to the side.

I’m excited for the future, and already feel more engaged with my own interests.

This acquisition couldn’t have come at a better time—not because I want to leave—but because I’m in a better state of mind to live a more blended and creative life.

Once you know what your desired behavior should be, work towards it everyday.

⚡️ Inspiration for this week

👨‍👩‍👧 Relationship resentment

Khe Hy on how to recognize and avoid relationship resentment. Having kids is like having to redesign your life, and I’m more sensitive now to how this affects my relationship with Alie.

✉️ Batch your email

Mailman’s promise is to help tame your email inbox by surfacing only the most important emails, and scheduling the delivery of everything else. I’m trying it out right now and it allows you to continue to use whichever client you want. (I use the Gmail on the web)

📕 The Fourth Turning

Van Neistat details the book, The Fourth Turning, by William Strauss and Neil Howe in a wonderfully visual video. The book describes the four turning archetypes, and right now we are in the fourth turning, crisis.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #59 of Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

Good morning from Los Angeles!

As I head back into the remote office Zoom grid after two weeks of paternity leave, I’m keeping this letter on the lighter side. In all honesty, I had this whole half-written article about how having a bad logo is better than no logo—and why I can’t stand the Tesla logo—but that will have to wait until next week.

I’m sure you’re on the edge of your seat!

If you’re new here, we’ll resume the storytelling next week as usual.

Have a great Sunday!

⚡️ Inspiration for this week

🏡 Arched doorways are an invitation to step inside

There’s something unconventional about an arched opening. It’s an extra design decision that adds visual contrast to a square box that I love. The soft arch is like someone extending a hand inviting me to come inside, as opposed to a rigid rectangle muttering, “move along.”

🏃‍♀️ What does it mean to “run like a girl?

A powerful creative campaign on how women, men, and the general public have unconsciously adopted a stereotype of a girl’s ability. This hits home now that I’m a member of the #girldad club. H/T Sher - Intellectual Tourism

👑 Define your atypical principles early on

Rob Hardy shares why following “best practices” can be misleading. Define your principles early on, which will help the myriad of decisions you have to make later, easier.

“You have to decide who to serve, what problems to solve, what products and services to create, how to spread the word, what tools to use, how to treat your customers, and so on. And within each of those big categories, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of smaller decisions that must be made.”

💪 How to identify your unique skills

Discover your “hidden” skills by starting with your compass skill. Thread by Josh Spector.

💌 Investing 101, but fun

Big Later is a $5 email-based course for investing 101. Run by Will Steiner, he takes a light-hearted approach to investing in the stock market. Not so fun fact: Three in five millennials have exactly $0 invested in the stock market. WTF.

📖 Page anchor: Swedish bookmark

Can’t say that I read a lot of physical books, but this could come in handy for The Power Broker.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #58 of Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

If you’re new here, it’s nice to meet you!

What’s new this week?

Podcast: It’s Gotta be the Mic #18 with Jesse Desjardins

Special PYN Guest: Meet Jonathon Hillis and how he made his next move from director of product for shoppers at Instacart to the founder of Creator Cabins.

Good morning from Los Angeles!

In 2011, I listed my condo for sale. When I first listed it, it had bright mustard walls, black wood flooring, homemade chandeliers with hanging mason jars, a 9’x9’ oil painting of Koi Fish on the wall, a homemade king-sized platform bed made from walnut, and many other personal touches.

I took a lot of pride in the design and aesthetic I had cultivated for it. And there was a part of me that wanted to show it off to potential buyers.

But when the realtor started to show it, no one bit.

30 days, 0 offers.

60 days, nothing.

The market was slow at the time, but it was strange that we weren’t getting any bites on an affordably priced condo near the center of Minneapolis. What happened next is what many sellers often hear, but don’t want to believe.

To sell a home, you need to sanitize it of all personality.

The reason for this is that the buyer needs to be able to imagine themselves living in the home with their own belongings. It’s difficult to do this when so much personality is baked right into the home. It can act as an insect deterrent for your home.

Website templates also fall into this trap.

Like someone looking to sell their home, website sellers must also sanitize their templates to appeal to website buyers.

If you check out the free templates from Wordpress, Webflow, Wix, Squarespace, and on and on, the most popular ones downloaded are the most minimal.

This is because it’s difficult for the seller to personalize the templates too much, for fear of not being able to sell it. And because it takes some effort to change the default template, many people leave it the way it is.

Using one of these templates is like buying a home sanitized of personality, then never changing the interior to fit your personality.

If you’re a writer, developer, teacher, speaker, marketer or entrepreneur, there is no reason to live in the same sterilized sandbox that millions of other people have opted in for. Sometimes we have mere seconds to capture someone’s attention, giving them a peek at who we are.

It’s worth investing in yourself to stand out from the rest of the internet, using a combination of your own interests, inspirations, and background.

To sell my condo, I had to paint my walls beige, remove the beautiful koi fish painting, taking down my custom lights and art to sanitize my own space. Within a week I received an offer that I ended up accepting.

When you’re trying to build an audience and create connections with other people, your websites, Twitter profiles, newsletters, Youtube channel artwork, Notion templates, lead magnets, and more all deserve to have your own personality baked into it.

You can’t find your true fans with the least amount of effort.

Don’t make the least offensive choice by not changing anything.

Plan Your Next featured guest

If you’re new here, I aim to discover insights from entrepreneurs and creatives who are chasing their next thing. This week, I’m honored to highlight Jonathon Hillis.

Who is Jonathon Hillis?

🏡 I'm building Creator Cabins, a community of remote cabins for remote workers in the Texas Hill Country near Austin.

💸 If you are building for independent creators and online communities, I’d love to help via capital.community. We sponsor the Creator Coop and the Creator Fellowship.

🥕 As the director of product for shoppers at Instacart, I helped millions of people earn money independently online. Now I lead the Carrot Angels syndicate to reinvest in the Instacart community.

🤖 Meatspace Algorithms is my blog & newsletter about how software eats the world. I do a limited number of consulting gigs about the topics covered here; reach out if interested.

When was the last time you made an unexpected turn in career direction? I joined Instacart in 2015 because I wanted to learn how great startups were built. I felt like I packed decades of learning and a lifetime of relationships into those 6 years, but I knew it was time to leave. I had gained the skills to go out on my own, and it was time to do so.

The first thing that made the transition easier was going out on a high note. My team helped lead Instacart through an incredible growth cycle during the pandemic, and I knew they were strong enough to keep the momentum going without me.

The second thing was having something to run towards. I had gained a personal mission for helping people become independent, flexible workers at Instacart. I believe this is the future of work, and I knew I wanted to help millions of more people earn money independently online.

The third was having a community beyond Instacart. I took the online course Write of Passage this past summer and met my new online tribe. The relationships I've built from that community have been my bedrock as I left my old world and entered a new one.

What were you doing prior to making this change?Leading the Shopper & Marketplace product teams at Instacart

What would you say to someone who feels stuck pursuing a new idea?Figure out why you're doing what you're doing. If you are chasing someone else's idea of success—whether that's prestige or money or fame—you are going to end up feeling stuck.

What is a favorite quote or piece of advice you live by?I believe in keeping many competing ideas in your head simultaneously and testing out problems against them.

“You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say, ‘How did he do it? He must be a genius!” ~ Richard Feynman

Here are some of my favorite frameworks: https://www.meatspacealgorithms.com/twelve-frameworks/

What’s your ask, or something you need help with?I'm building Creator Cabins, a community of remote cabins for remote workers and independent online creators. If you are reading this, you are the type of person I want to be in our community. Come visit us and meet other people from our corner of the internet IRL!

Where can someone find you online?jonhillis.com@JonathanHillis on Twitter

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #57 of Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

If you’re one of the 11 new subscribers, welcome! And, if you might know someone who might like this letter, there’s a large button below to do just that.

What’s new this week?

🎙 In episode #17 of It’s Gotta Be the Mic, Reza chat about two of our favorite books, Conspiracy, and The Four Agreements. They couldn’t be more different, but there’s a lot to take away from them.

👶 Welcome Rowan Kadlac into the family! Alie and I are first-time parents, so every single experience is new to us, but it feels great to be a dad.

Good morning from Los Angeles!

Friday afternoon at 3:33 pm, inside Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is a day I’ll never forget.

In the nine months anticipating for this day, the questions dancing around my mind have been sparring back and forth in a ring, like heavyweights Ali and Foreman.

Will I be ready for a child before she arrives?

Will I still find time to be creative?

How can I be a selfless dad when most of the decisions I make are selfish?

How can I help cultivate her creativity early on?

Will I completely f**k it up?

To me, these all completely normal and valid questions for a first-time father. A first-time father who doesn’t hang around kids.

And many times when I did notice—and judge—kids around me, it was out of context with reality. My own experience lines up with an essay Paul Graham wrote, “Having Kids.”

Paul says:

Of course the times I noticed kids were when things were going wrong. I only noticed them when they made noise. And where was I when I noticed them? Ordinarily I never went to places with kids, so the only times I encountered them were in shared bottlenecks like airplanes. Which is not exactly a representative sample. Flying with a toddler is something very few parents enjoy.

In fact, as we drove along Hollywood’s long stretches of silvery cement roads towards the hospital, we reflected on how long it’s been since either of us held a newborn. How is it acceptable that a couple of people like us with almost zero experience with children are allowed to bring one home?

Then just 15 hours later at 3 am—in the midst of changing my third diaper—any anticipation I had built up was killed by the immediate reality.

The reality that this new life looks, feels and smells completely different than the car ride to the hospital hours earlier.

I’ve been anticipating this moment now for nine months, but now that it’s died off, I’m anticipating getting home and beginning the next chapter of life with Alie and Rowan.

One thing for sure, reality will quickly set in and it will be on to the next thing soon enough.

⚡️ Inspiration for this week

💸 Make smarter financial decisions

My friend Daniel has created a weekend workshop for personal finance. Think Approachable Design (my course), but for your future. You walk away with a system to help make smart financial decisions for your future. I can’t recommend Daniel enough. (I wasn’t even paid a single cent to recommend this, which is a horrible financial decision.)

🎨 Find your aesthetic

I believe that your aesthetic is not discovered by looking at outward inspiration, but instead by looking from the inside out.

But dammit if we just want to click on fun pictures and label ourselves. Trashcore anyone?

👶 We’re a Snoo family

Since we began researching bassinets for our girl, we entered into one of the greatest online debates about getting your kid to sleep: Should you use a Snoo bassinet or just roll old school method of putting your baby to sleep?

It’s a heated debate amongst online parents, but we couldn’t pass up the chance to test this out. The Snoo helps soothe the baby by safely rocking her to sleep on their back. The #1 factor for us was safety, as there haven’t been any cases of SIDS when using this product.

We decided to throw down and see if this hi-tech contraption was worth it or not, so I’ll let you know.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #56 of Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

If you’re one of the 9 new subscribers, welcome! And, if you might know someone who might like this letter, there’s a large button below to do just that.

Good morning from Los Angeles!

In early 2012, Brian Armstrong built a prototype that would let you send and receive payments in Bitcoin on the web or from your phone.

At the time, Bitcoin was sitting at $6.

Brian applied to Y Combinator (YC), arguably the world’s most successful and well-known startup incubator.

But, there’s one rule for startup founders applying to YC. You must have a cofounder.

And like any normal and sane person who wants to build a company, Brian put an ad out on Hacker News hoping to, “throw a hail mary” for a “shotgun wedding.”

The reason why YC requires cofounders in most cases is three-fold:

Productivity is efficient when you split up the work

Moral support during the intensity of building a company

Historical success of companies with co-founders

They have found that establishing a collaborative relationship has a higher chance of success in the long run.

Charles Darwin also notes, “In the long history of humankind, those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”

In my own life, it’s been a wild week. I wrapped up the first cohort of Approachable Design last weekend with friends, talked to Josh Cadorette on his podcast about design, and finally Reza and I interviewed Charlie Bleeker on our own podcast about her writing process.

There’s a pattern emerging in my life, and in many of the decisions I make. Collaboration is a fundamental tenet in my life right now. This wasn’t always the case for me, for much of my life. Being self-taught means I’ve got a lot of pride built into my own identity which I’ve had to shed.

But for every new idea, find friends to collaborate with, early and often. Even if it doesn’t work out, it makes life a hell of a lot more fun.

Brian Armstrong ended up meeting his co-founder Fred Ehrsam who then went on to build Coinbase, a company that went public this week valued close to $100 billion.

⚡️ Inspiration for this week

📷 Same Energy

As you click, this image search throws you down a rabbit hole of related aesthetics to find new art, photography, or anything else. It’s remarkably smart and quick.

⛴ Steer through the Suez Canal

Not so easy, is it?

🤯 The $650 million pizza

You’ve heard the story. But here’s the original 2010 thread of the man who once paid 10,000 BTC for the delivery of 2 large pizzas.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #55 of Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

If you’re one of the 12 new subscribers, welcome! And, if you might know someone who might like this letter, there’s a large button below to do just that.

Good morning from Los Angeles!

As you’re reading this, I’m right in the middle of launching my first cohort-based workshop, called Approachable Design.

It’s been taking shape over the past 6 months, ever so slowly. It first started while holding open office hours to talk about design, then continued through conversations about how to best harness my own skills.

But then it stalled.

The creative mindset is a blessing and a curse. If you’re open to new ideas and naturally curious, it’s inevitably going to lead you in a lot of directions. Creative thinking blossoms through play, practice, and experience.

Before I knew it, I had 5-6 ideas I wanted to chase. That I still want to chase.

I came across yet another online course called, The Minimalist Entrepreneur by Sahil Lavingia. Sahil is the founder of Gumroad and an early designer at Pinterest.

One night, he designed a pencil icon and tried to sell it online.

But, in 2011, he had difficulty finding a place to sell a digital asset like an icon, so he built Gumroad in a weekend to do just that.

A mantra Sahil often repeats is, “Just start. Learn later.” He pushed us to break down ideas into their simplest form and to find ways to charge customers immediately to test if something is worth paying for.

Armed with early validation, the other ideas started to fade away temporarily while I devoted more time and energy to what Approachable Design could be.

Accumulating ideas can feel like you’re making progress, but until you start charging talking with potential customers, you might be spinning your wheels.

By starting now, and learning later, you skip all of the excuses that might be holding you back from taking action on something sitting right in front of you.

Even if Approachable Design leads nowhere, it won’t ever be bouncing around in my head screaming, “What if?”

And remember, my calendar is always open to talk about your crazy ideas.

Just start. Learn later.

⚡️ Inspiration for this week

🎨 The second renaissance of creators

Jack Conte, CEO, and co-founder of Patreon, says the stigma of being a starving artist will disappear over the next 10 years. (H/T Jesse Desjardins)

“Creators are about to have leverage. They are about to have a choice. Global creativity is about to be financed and celebrated to a degree that’s going to make the first renaissance, a blip in the history book.”

🌈 90% of decision making comes from emotion, not logic

Adam Hayes describes ways to integrate emotional design into your experiences, using the AIDA method.

🛠 The Weekend Woodworker

Someday, when I have more time and money, I will be devoting some of it to this course on woodworking. I know my buddy Pete could teach this in his sleep, but maybe he should instead create a course around it?

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas or if you’re creatively stuck.

And if you’re creatively stuck because you ran out of coffee, save 10% on Flow State coffee. Flow State uses l-theanine and raw cacao to lower anxiety and support creativity. (Affiliate link)

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #54 of Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

If you’re one of the 15 new subscribers, welcome!

Good morning from Los Angeles!

What is one thing you could imagine yourself doing for the next 10 years?

Does the thought of committing to something that long intimidate you?

I think about this all the time and where I’m at in my career. Would it benefit anyone if I spent the next 10 years becoming 20% better at the craft of design? I can say with 100% certainty it wouldn’t improve my life, or the life of anyone around me.

My skills as a designer don’t have the same growth potential they once did earlier in my career. As a self-taught designer, it was worth the effort to take calculated risks on my own growth potential, knowing I was playing the long game.

It made sense because the long game requires growth and time to compound. But now, it’s like entering a buffet already full, stuffing myself with food.

But back to the question above.

What areas of your life have the potential for growth and the time to spend on it?

There are only two games to play. The long game and the short game. Both compound in either direction based on the time you lose versus the time you gain.

The short game is filled with immediate benefits. It’s seducing us at every choice we make during the days. Just like my decision to drink a bottle of wine the other night while knowing my sleep was going to be terrible.

Shane Parrish of Farnam Street writes, “Playing the long game means suffering a little today. And why would we want to suffer today when we can suffer tomorrow. But if our intention is to always change tomorrow, then tomorrow never comes. All we have is today.”

The long game is boring from the outside. It’s like we’re walking down a long road with our eyes fixed on the horizon. The scene changes at the pace a sloth might move from branch to branch. With our fixed perspective, we miss out on the baby steps we’re taking along the way.

Black Swan author, Nassim Taleb, put it this way: “Having an ‘edge’ and surviving are two different things: the first requires the second. You need to avoid ruin. At all costs.”

We can’t sharpen our edge unless we have the time to develop our craft over years. Giving ourselves time means starting now, and finding some time every day.

My friend Charlie Bleeker is playing the long game. For over a year, she has been posting an article on her website and sending a newsletter every week.

A couple of years ago I might have answered the question above with one word, “design.” But that answer to me now is so shortsighted I can’t help but be embarrassed by it.

Now, my long play is writing this weekly newsletter 500 times, writing out my own ideas regularly, and finding serendipity along the way.

What’s your long play?

⚡️ Inspiration for this week

✍️ Play long games

It’s never too late to commit to building a practice over the long term.

✍️ A browser-based art collaboration platform

Magma Studio is a clever browser-based tool to brainstorm and ideate through digital painting on a shared canvas in real-time.

✍️ The VHS vault of design

A website dedicated to the design of VHS packaging.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas or if you’re creatively stuck.

And if you’re creatively stuck because you ran out of coffee, save 10% on Flow State coffee. Flow State uses l-theanine and raw cacao to lower anxiety and support creativity. (Affiliate link)

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #53 of Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

If you’re one of the thirteen new subscribers, welcome!

What’s new this week?

🎨 Approachable Design sold out in less than one day! If you’re interested in getting on the waitlist for the next one, sign up here.

🎤 It’s Gotta Be the Mic #16. Reza and I chat with Charlene Wang on how to embrace your true self.

✍️ I showed a group of writers how to add personality to their articles by remixing photos and illustrations using Procreate. Here’s a couple I Illustrated for Erik Newhard and Paul Underhill.

⛳️ On Deck Course Creators: I am joining Andrew Barry’s On Deck Course Creators as a peer supporter. I want to inspire creators to make their courses more personal through design and creativity.

Good morning from Los Angeles!

In 2018, I was sitting on my black, faux leather Ikea sofa, and just put down the book, ‘Conspiracy’ by Ryan Holiday. It’s the true story of how Peter Theil—one of Silicon Valley’s most infamous investors— bankrupted Gawker Media, with Hulk Hogan acting as a proxy.

I was stunned by the story and cleared through it in a brief 36 hours.

After setting the book down, I immediately scoured the internet for Ryan’s email address and shot him a quick note. Within minutes, he replied and we exchanged a couple of emails back and forth.

At that moment, I realized how important it is to show support for the humans behind the work you are inspired by.

Reaching out to compliment a creator’s piece of work changed my life, because it humanized the person, closing the gap between what seems like a chasm.

Author Neil Gaiman once said, “I learned not to meet my heroes if I wanted them to remain heroes.”

On the surface, this seems like logical, sane advice. Our heroes are fallible people who may not live up to the idolized version we have in our heads. I imagine I might be a hero to my future daughter until she realizes I am a regular person, full of f**k-ups and insecurities like everyone else.

“I think that heroes are more important than mentors. A hero is somebody who you can emulate; somebody who raises the bar for you. Heroism scales, so one person can be a hero for a lot of people.” —Seth Godin

Soon after that email exchange, a combination of events happened:

Ryan Holiday came to LA for a book reading and I got to meet him in person. Rich Roll was towering over everyone in the room, infusing the tiny bookstore with incredible energy.

I then had the confidence to email entrepreneur and writer, David Sherry, of Death to Stock and spent 45min chatting with him about creativity.

After that phone call in the summer of 2018, I went to Substack and launched this newsletter.

Every time I sit down to write, I think of my heroes as a way to find inspiration and motivation.

This week I met two of my recent heroes. It’s easier than ever now to reach out to them. Serendipity is waiting to happen.

⚡️ Inspiration for this week

✍️ If you think, “you can’t draw.”

If drawing works like language, then it should be learned the same way: by acquiring the visual vocabulary in your environment. So, the whole idea of “learning to draw” is framed wrong. It’s not “learning to draw” it’s actually “acquiring a visual vocabulary” —Dr. Neil Cohn

Epic Design Fails

A hilarious site full of design fails.

🧐 How to get honest and transformational creative feedback

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas or if you’re creatively stuck.

And if you’re creatively stuck because you ran out of coffee, save 10% on Flow State coffee. Flow State uses l-theanine and raw cacao to lower anxiety and support creativity. (Affiliate link)

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #52 of Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

If you’re one of the 12 new subscribers, welcome!

What’s new this week?

🎨 Approachable Design Launches April 10-11th. If you’re someone who has difficulty making daily design decisions, I’m launching a live 2-day workshop to show you how to build your own style palette. We’ll be rubbing elbows learning how to apply design to your own personal style by knowing how to choose your own typefaces, colors, shapes, and textures that are unique to you.

This is the product of many 1:1 iterations. In the end, each student will receive personalized 1:1 design feedback from me on the palette you create. We’ll have guest speakers from artists in both fashion and the arts, and I’ll be accepting a max of 6 students. I’m also offering 50% off exclusively to Plan Your Next subscribers.

Use code PYNDESIGN to apply at checkout. Learn more here.

Good morning from Malibu!

It’s Saturday, 22 hours before I send this out to you. I’m spending the weekend in an Airbnb studio just off the beach in Malibu. It’s an idyllic setup—which at the very least—should help me to produce some halfway decent writing.

But this is the paradox of creativity. Sometimes we’re tricked into thinking creativity requires a certain amount of space, or the perfect setup to find ourselves harnessing its powers.

Many artists, writers, and musicians have wandered into similarly idyllic setups of their own hoping to find creativity lurking in the shadows.

There’s a scene from American Movie, a 1999 documentary about filmmaker Mark Borchardt struggling to finish his own indie movie. It’s freezing in Wisconsin, and Mark is sitting in his car in the middle of an empty cemetery parking lot before his work shift. In his falling apart fingerless gloves, he’s editing his script with pen and paper, making edits, and writing dialogue for his upcoming feature.

The setting is far from perfect. He’s about to go into his job to vacuum the velvet floors and to clean s**t off the toilet seats before returning home to his three kids. Sitting in the car is his moment to put in the work and find, “some semblance of creativity.”

Staying creatively consistent is not easy.

This letter to you marks the 52nd edition of Plan Your Next. It sounds nice, except that it’s taken over two-and-a-half years to make it to this point.

If you don’t know me all that well, then you should know I have a habit of starting and stopping many projects throughout my life. The one consistent thing about me is that I’m always chasing something. Chasing new ways to manifest my ideas through photography, videos, drawing, painting, and anything else you can imagine.

Investor and entrepreneur Naval Ravikant once wrote, “The price of productivity is creativity.” But I disagree with this. Not all productive people are creative people. These are mutually exclusive.

Creativity is a skill that needs cultivation.

It requires intention around being creative.

Author Steven Pressfield writes in The War of Art, “The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.”

Even Tolstoy had thirteen kids and wrote War and Peace.

If that’s in the realm of what’s possible with less than idyllic environments, we’ll never need to rent studios in Malibu with the sounds of roaring waves in the background to maintain our creative consistency.

⚡️ Inspiration for this week

Creating a distinct style is one of the easiest ways to stand out

Van Neistat: The Spirited Man

I’ve long been a fan of Casey Neistat. He’s been an inspiration to me ever since watching Bike Lanes, a story about the hypocrisy bikers face in NYC. Behind much of Casey’s inspiration has been his older brother, Van. Casey introduces Van’s channel here.

The Katalis EV.1000 is badass

I’ve owned two motorcycles in my lifetime. I hope to own more, but I’ve taken a ten-year break, which might turn into fifteen. But I’ll never not love to look at great design, and this bike slays.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas or if you’re creatively stuck.

And if you’re creatively stuck because you ran out of coffee, save 10% on Flow State coffee. Flow State uses l-theanine and raw cacao to lower anxiety and support creativity. (Affiliate link)

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #51 of Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

If you’re one of the nine new subscribers, welcome!

What’s new this week?

✍️ My latest essay, Minimalism is Boring, just went live.

🎤 Episode #15 of It’s Gotta be the Mic: Reza and I chat about what it means to be a minimalist entrepreneur.

🎨 Salman and I gave a live Procreate demo to On Deck Writers on how your writing can benefit from adding illustrations.

💌 Co-hosted a Q&A with Josh Spector to chat about his writing and newsletter process.

Good morning from Los Angeles!

I used to think minimalism was the goal. I’ve been in thousands of creative meetings where Apple would pop up as the holy grail of design minimalism.

I love everything about Apple, but it’s anything but minimal. A logo on a white page is a minimal look, but Apple is rich in personality. Its design decisions are complex but thoughtful. Many of the decisions about its aesthetics stem from Steve Jobs and what he thought looked good, who was as complex a personality as the rest of us.

Every day, you have to make design decisions, even if you’re not a designer.

We care about the way our homes look, the clothes we’re wearing, and even our personal websites. These decisions are like spotlights into who we are and what we value.

Why do you think so many of us use bookshelves as backgrounds for our Zoom calls? It’s because they look great, and it signals that we’re interesting people.

Minimalism has its historical roots as far back as any of us can imagine. Leonardo da Vinci once said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

But in the here and now, minimalism is often the default design decision we make. It’s easy, and it requires almost no effort.

It’s easy to choose a minimal-looking template because you’re exhausted from making design decisions. Maybe you started with good intentions, searching for images online using Google or Pinterest to get inspired. But nothing felt right because your room is not drenched in sunlight, or the outfit you’re hoping to wear fits better on a 6’ tall slender model.

So you made the least offensive choice possible. You chose to pick something with almost no personality because it simply is easier.

But there’s a better way. Starting from the inside-out.

Designing from the inside-out starts with exploring what makes us unique. It means extracting the most important slices of our personalities. Former Braun Designer Dieter Rams lives by this principle, “Less, but better.”

It takes time to truly know our own taste. It means writing out our core values, our skills, what inspires us. What are the colors, textures, patterns, and typefaces that start to spring up from our own tastes?

Minimalism is boring because making the least offensive choice is too easy.

⚡️ Inspiration for this week

Stop waiting for the ripe idea

Artist and writer, Salman, wrote this great piece about how an idea doesn’t need to be perfectly ripe to be ready to share.

Preparing for the next disaster

When Alie and I moved out west, we cobbled together a small preparedness kit for all of the earthquakes that were bound to happen. Well, in the 6+ years we’ve been in California, we’ve only experienced a handful. And during the long stretches, it’s easy to get lazy.

I stumbled on Get Judy, a well-designed and thoughtful approach to preparedness. I bought the one in the backpack. The water even lasts up to 5 years.

The Letterform Archive

Search thousands of lettering and graphic design specimens dating back to the 1500s, from all across the world. You can browse by decade, country, and more.

H/T Hoodzpah Design

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas or if you’re creatively stuck.

And if you’re creatively stuck because you ran out of coffee, save 10% on Flow State coffee. Flow State uses l-theanine and raw cacao to lower anxiety and support creativity. (Affiliate link)

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #50 of Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

If you’re new here, it’s nice to meet you!

What’s new this week?

🎤 Episode #14 of It’s Gotta Be the Mic: Reza and I chat with Tim Coil about how to baby step your way into crypto.

👨‍🏫 My own workshop, Approachable Design, will soon shed its sheltered cocoon. I’ve only told you and a few close friends about this project. It’s looking like this idea will manifest itself into two-day weekend workshop, helping you unlock your creative taste. Sign up here to get notified on its progress.

🎨 Thanks to Nate Dykstra for purchasing my first ever NFT! Nate’s been an early supporter of my creative craziness. I hope to do more in the future, but I should probably learn some Cinema4D first.

Good morning from Los Angeles! I want to talk through an idea.

I started playing basketball in the eighth grade.

I was really bad, and I struggled to get better on my own. But by the ninth grade, I was regularly hanging out with kids who were 10x my skill level. I’d play consistently with these four other guys, but I was always the worst.

It was difficult to measure my progress because I was always losing. But I was learning because I surrounded myself with people who were giving me advice, knocking me on my ass, and teaching me by their own actions.

A commonality many companies share is that they install a corporate board of directors.

A board of directors usually consists of high performers. They might include shareholders, investors, and advisors who bring support, capital resources and connections.

There are people who are asked to serve on multiple boards, helping different companies serve different needs based on the support they can offer.

Serving on a board of directors can mean that you’re a person who’s resourceful, creative, and connected. You’re able to offer guidance through lived experiences, and thoughtful decision making.

Like a corporate board of directors, we should create our own.

Individuals also can benefit from the experience, perspective, and creativity of others. But most importantly, to offer guidance when we need to make tough decisions.

Jim Rhone has an often cited line, “you’re the average of the five people closest to you.”

I believe this to be true, which also means you might not be leveraging the most important areas of your life, with the right people.

A company might be catering to a certain segment of customers, and have built their board around best serving the CEO and its direction. It’s singularly focused, and the incentives are aligned.

But what if we have many different interests and play across dozens of groups at any given time? If I wanted to get better at basketball, I wouldn’t have chosen a group of writers to serve on my basketball board.

Our interests are growing all the time. We maintain autonomy over all of it, but should we always be asking the same people for help?

Imagine if you curated multiple Personal Boards of Directors (PBoD) for the different areas of your life?

One for growing as a cook. One for becoming a better writer. One for becoming a better teacher. One for creating online courses. One for learning design.

Each group might consist of 4-5 people, all serving different purposes. These groups would be picked by us, when we need to make tough decisions, or when we’re looking for help. Board members would need to be called on when asked, or they might automatically be given the boot.

What AngelList did for connecting startups, is the same way this platform could do for connecting individuals.

By my senior year of high school, I was chosen to the varsity basketball team. Of course, I rode the bench, but in three and a half years since picking up a basketball I finally had a barometer to how good I became.

Thankfully, I didn’t ask my closest friends at the time to teach me how to play basketball.

⚡️ Inspiration for this week

Create your Personal Board of Directors

Writer and entrepreneur Cam Houser on creating your first Personal Board of Directors.

Mindset over toolset in Building a Second Brain

Christina Luo on how to focus your mindset when organizing and capturing your notes.

The best place to find a quote

A website dedicated to famous quotes from movies, television, literature and celebrities.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas or if you’re creatively stuck.

And if you’re creatively stuck because you ran out of coffee, save 10% on Flow State coffee. Flow State uses l-theanine and raw cacao to lower anxiety and support creativity. (Affiliate link)

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #49 of Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

If you’re new here, it’s nice to meet you!

What’s new this week?

🎨 Approachable Design is sold out! I really appreciate everyone who signed up (and paid!) to help me test this idea. I have a much clearer vision for what this can and will be, so I hope to talk more about it in the near future. But, if you’re interested in unlocking your own creative taste and to apply the elements of design to your personality, you can sign up for my email list here.

Good morning from Los Angeles!

Last summer, just as I was perfecting the stay-at-home routine, I chose to stick a metaphorical fork in the road.

I was riding along, willing to accept my own path until I wasn’t. I went off script and started to take writing seriously.

Just a month earlier, I learned of David Perell, an online writer, through a few other people I admire. He teaches an online writing course called Write of Passage.

What caught my attention was his hook, start with abundance.

“Start writing once you have so much information that you can’t not write. Don’t write with a blank page. Start with a treasure trove of facts, ideas, and images instead.”—David Perell

My past experience with writing was to open a blank page, stare at it, feel the anxiety building up to a boil, and then finally giving up and walking away. It was a chore, something to be done only as a necessity. I’m far from feeling most of my words are something worth reading, but I’m more concerned with the consistent practice; the art of building a habit.

In his book On Writing Well, Stephen King says, “You learn to write by writing. It’s a truism, but what makes it a truism is that it’s true. The only way to learn to write is to force yourself to produce a certain number of words on a regular basis."

The problem with writing is that it’s hard. It’s a slog I don’t wish on anyone.

But there’s a hack. Write a story that makes you laugh out loud when writing it. Write about how selling knives led to you becoming a self-taught designer. Write about Japanese pillows. Write about how you almost died during that cold-ass winter in Minnesota. Write about why you left.

Make writing personal and it might not be the problem you made it out to be.

Make it fun.

Make it playful.

Make it easy.

Plan Your Next featured guest

If you’re new here, I aim to discover insights from entrepreneurs and creatives who are chasing their next thing. This week, I’m honored to highlight Paul Woods.

Stop procrastinating about what you should be doing. Pick one thing and just do it. That’s how s**t gets done.

Who is Paul Woods?

I first met Paul in my kitchen on a Saturday morning.

What now feels like years ago (what is time?!), my friend Hina and I hosted a pre-COVID brunch called Secret Saturday’s, bringing together creatives in LA to talk about creativity, design, affordable housing, and online education.

Paul had just finished his new book, “How To Do Great Work Without Being An A*e,” so we talked about how a creative life can be chaotic while still being fulfilling.

I’m lucky to have Paul sharing bite-sized insights, and how he “fell” into design after failing as an artist. His words, not mine. Enjoy!

Tell me a bit about yourself and what keeps you busy most days.I’m the CEO/CCO of Edenspiekermann, a global design consultancy with our US headquarters here in LA. We work across brand design and digital product design for clients like Red Bull, Google, Mercedes, Faraday Future the City of Santa Monica, and a bunch of others. I’m also the author of a book on creative culture, ”How To Do Great Work Without Being An A*e.”

Tell me a story. When was the last time you made an unexpected turn (to others) in direction, either recently or in the past? And what's one takeaway you learned in sustaining that momentum to see it through?For me, one of the most interesting turns my career has taken over the years is how I ”fell” into being design in the first place. Which happened entirely by accident.

When I graduated high school, I had the wild idea that I should study fine art painting at university. And boy, did I suck at that. For some reason, I was obsessed with painting rotting leaves in glass boxes. Weird s**t. I failed just about every module in my first year and dropped out soon after.

Realizing that I still needed to somehow make a living, I managed to convince a friend that my “failed art” skills would translate perfectly into the vacant “webmaster and designer” role he had at his record label. And the rest, as they say, is history.

What were you doing prior to making this change?Being a broke, and failing, artist. I hated it, but it felt like it’s what I was ”supposed” to be doing, based on what I’d been told by all my teachers at school.

What would you say to someone who feels stuck pursuing a new idea?Stop procrastinating about what you should be doing. Pick one thing and just do it. That’s how s**t gets done.

What is a favorite quote or piece of advice you live by?Don’t work for a**s. And don’t take yourself too seriously.

What’s your ask, or something you need help with?If you’re interested in building better, more sustainable creative processes, workplaces, and teams check out my book, ”How To Do Great Work Without Being An A*e.”

Where can someone find you online?www.theassholebook.com

I’d also like to show off Paul’s illustrations here that I absolutely love.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas or if you’re creatively stuck.

And if you’re creatively stuck because you ran out of coffee, save 10% on Flow State coffee. Flow State uses l-theanine and raw cacao to lower anxiety and support creativity. (Affiliate link)

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #48 of Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

If you’re new here, it’s nice to meet you!

What’s new this week? Too much, honestly!

🎨 Beta testing a new idea: Approachable Design for Non-Designers. This is a 1:1 design service for creators and entrepreneurs who have a tough time making smart design decisions.

How do you create a vibe or an emotion using the right typefaces, colors, and fonts? It requires digging into your core values. It doesn’t start by being inspired by what others are doing or by choosing a minimalist-designed template because it’s the least offensive. Instead, I’ll work with you to unlock your creative taste.

What do you get? A personal design session to understand what makes you, you. We’ll translate that into a personal design guidebook for you to reference. It’s early, it’s discounted heavily, and I only have one more spot at this price before I use your feedback to bring in the next cohort at a much less discounted rate. Hit reply if you have any questions.

👨‍🎨 Yes, I illustrate all my own newsletter art, and now you can own it. I’m selling it as an NFT (Non-fungible token). Here's a primer.I get this question every week, and now I’m trying to understand the crypto NFT space more, so I thought, let’s just sell the sucker!

Sales of traditional art is a 60 billion market. Digital art has a ways to go at roughly 10 million, but it’s increasing in speed. NFT’s allow art to be authenticated, divisible, and portable with built-in scarcity. You can keep the original on your phone and resell it later just like a painting. I’m looking to understand this space more and so I wanted to offer my own art as exclusive pieces. Only one copy will be minted.

Good morning from Laurel Canyon!

For the past few days, I’ve been lounging in this small AirBnB studio atop Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles.

I’m taking some time away from work to spend time reading, hiking, meditating, journaling, and reflecting on how my life is about to change in just a couple of months. (If you’re new here, we’re expecting a girl in April.)

Being alone in this studio looking through the layers of Laurel Canyon feels like a selfish thing to do—since I’m not the one pushing a human out of me—but I also know myself and how selfish I think I can be.

Our pregnancy didn’t come easy. A lot of trials, and a lot of errors. We took the scenic route; the winding Mulholland Drive of pregnancies. Thankfully it wasn’t the Trollstigen version.

The reason I’m here is to create a future memory. Have you ever been so furious at everything around you, and someone close to you reveals the cliche wisdom to, “take a few breaths, and find your happy place?”

This moment right now is that happy place. A fresh moment to connect the dots between peacefulness and fatherhood. A new slice of my mind dedicated to the mindset of who I want to be as a father.

During the two years of trying to get pregnant, we had to change course several times. A new method. A new drug. A new schedule. New info to read. It felt endless, always expecting the call from the doctor to tell you, “no” in a new way. But like my unorthodox professional career, you keep your eye out for missed hidden doors to sneak through.

In a conversation about skateboarding, Werner Herzog talks about the skateboarder’s mindset when it comes to trial and error. He still manages to do this in stereotypical Werner Herzog fashion, waxing poetically about trial and error.

With skateboarding, you have to accept trial and error, and I see them doing a certain jump or slide on the metal rail, and they do it 25 times and fail. 26th time they fail. 30th time they fail. It’s good that you don’t accept failure, and don’t give up.

As rudimentary as this sounds, the uncomfortableness of failure is what leads to breakthroughs. A new door might lead to three new doors.

Or maybe you haven’t fully perfected the landing and need to keep trying.

I am confident I have no clue what it’s going to feel like taking care of another human. I’m fully aware I’m going to f**k it up time and time again. But I know I’ll have a lot of chances to make up for it.

Plan Your Next featured guest

If you’re new here, I aim to discover insights from entrepreneurs and creatives who are chasing their next thing. This week, we have the privilege to highlight Rachel Krupa.

I'm a believer, if you say things long enough, and you tell people you're gonna do it, you better do it. Otherwise, you're the person that just talks about things and doesn't execute.

Who is Rachel Krupa?

I met Rachel just weeks after moving to Silver Lake, Los Angeles. She never not smiles, and her attitude is inspiring. You can’t help but be mesmerized by her ambition.

Years ago, she opened The Goods Mart, a better-for-you, socially conscious convenience store. Imagine if Whole Foods and 7-11 had a baby. After visiting almost daily, and finding a unique pairing of Peatos and Kombucha slushies, I heard bits and pieces of her story and how she pursued her next thing.

Rachel, what do you spend most of your days working on?I run Krupa Consulting, a mission-driven public relations agency, and The Goods Mart, a clean-convenience store concept.

How did you get the idea for The Goods Mart, and how did it come to life?At the PR agency, we work with better for you food products. And so a lot of people would come to our office and get goodie bags filled with food. I kept hearing from our clients, “You should have a showroom of snacks!”

After hearing that, I just started telling people for 8-10 months, “I'm gonna create a better version of 7-11.”

I'm a believer, if you say things long enough, and you tell people you're gonna do it, you better do it. Otherwise, you're the person that just talks about things and doesn't execute.

What were your first steps to opening The Goods Mart?I found a space I liked and I just called the guy. I wasn't thinking operationally. I was just thinking, “How do I do this?” I know the products really well. I want to do something to change the way that we look at food, I want to change how we shop, I want to change convenience stores and to build a community around that.

And so I found this space in LA. The landlords told me it used to be a drive-thru mini-mart in the 70s, and I thought, “F**k, this is meant to be!”

What was one failure along the way you were forced to learn from?It was the hardest thing when I had to close the Silver Lake store. I felt like a failure. I felt as though I let down myself. I let down the community. I let down anyone that ever believed in me because I felt like I couldn't do it.

Financially it didn't work. The space was too big. We were paying too much rent. Monday through Friday had no foot traffic. People don't know how to shop in convenience stores.

I've had time now to reflect on it was just like I learned so much that was like a Ph.D. in business for me. And now I'm stronger because of it. But it takes time. It's like that wound that will never heal.

What would you tell someone who feels stuck in pursuing their next idea?There's never a good time to start anything. Something's going to come up and make it a little bit difficult.

So you have to expect that.

When it seems as though someone looks like they're buttoned up, and they know what they're doing? No one knows what the f**k they're doing.

Do you have a favorite quote or piece of advice you live by?Last year I heard this quote, ”Your stress equals that you care.”

So when you're stressed, that means you care about something. You're stressed you're not doing it because you care about it.

From that perspective, how can I be softer with myself, knowing I’m doing things for the right reasons, vs doing it to kill myself?

Where can someone find you online?You can find me on Instagram: My Instagram, Krupa Consulting, and The Goods Mart.

Also, sign up for The Goods Mart newsletter.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas or if you’re creatively stuck.

And if you’re creatively stuck because you ran out of coffee, save 10% on Flow State coffee. Flow State uses l-theanine and raw cacao to lower anxiety and support creativity. (Affiliate link)

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #47 of Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

Every Sunday, I aim to make this newsletter as timeless as a cup of perfectly brewed cold brew. If you’re new here, join us!

What’s new this week?

📺 Finished Halt and Catch Fire for the second time through. Still one of my favorite shows. The third season is a bit forgettable, but don’t miss the first two.

🎤 It’s Gotta Be the Mic #13: Reza and I chat about the pros and cons of cohort-based online courses.

📖 90% finished with The Three-Body Problem. Loving it so far.

Good morning from Los Angeles!

In late June of 2007, I stood in line as the Las Vegas sun was clenching me in its fist, squeezing every last drop of water from my body. It was 114 degrees, and there were 40 people ahead of me in line just outside of a Cingular Wireless phone store.

We were all waiting to be among the first to purchase the first iPhone.

Months earlier, Steve Jobs had unveiled to the world this brand new device, and I had to have one. In the days after the announcement, you could sense this was big.

I remember that feeling of standing in line, and how you were about to see the future in your hands.

A year later when the ability to create apps for the iPhone was announced, I had decided to take a chance on my gut instinct. Years earlier I took a similar chance to learn how to create a website from nothing, knowing how to design for a new device felt like the right gamble.

At that moment, the timing was everything. The confidence to make that decision wasn’t based on a whim, but having an understanding of the landscape, and mitigating some of the risks by having other sources of income. I felt like I couldn’t waste any time.

I call this having asymmetrical timing.

Asymmetrical timing consists of learning just enough to understand the landscape, recognizing the upside, and forcing a decision earlier than most when your risks are low.

The same could be said about cryptocurrency. Those who learned the landscape early on, read Bitcoin’s white paper, and placed low-risk bets were able to capitalize on the upside years later.

In Robert Greene’s popular book, The 48 Laws of Power, law #35 states to master the art of timing.

Time is an artificial concept that we ourselves have created to make the limitlessness of eternity and the universe more bearable, more human.

Robert says there are three kinds of time we can solve with skill and practice.

Long time: The drawn-out, years-long kind of time that must be managed with patience, and should be mostly defensive.

Forced time: The short-term time we can manipulate as an offensive weapon, upsetting the timing of others.

End time: When you must execute a plan with speed and force.

Knowing when to sit back and play the long game, when to upset and manipulate the timing to your advantage, and when to execute are all parts of creating asymmetrical timing for yourself.

Getting an iPhone early on led me to create our first app, and sent me down a path that changed my career.

Your mastery of timing can really only be judged by how you work with end-time—how you quickly change the pace and bring things to a swift and definitive conclusion. —Robert Greene

How can you find ways to have asymmetrical timing in your life?

⚡️ Inspiration for this week

🧠 Timing in entrepreneurship

A great reminder of how poorly timed launches of specific companies have led to billion-dollar industries, like online delivery, online pet supplies, and social networking.

👯‍♀️ Social Capital in Silicon Valley

This essay by Alex Danco heavily informed my thinking a couple of weeks back on building social capital. I still refer to this whenever the topic comes up.

🤷‍♀️ David Perell speaks about how we’re all imposters

“When you do ambitious and important work. You are far beyond your capabilities. So by definition, you are an imposter. If you only did things you were ready to do in your career, you would end up doing nothing.” — David Perell

📸 Just my dream home

Just a shot of my dream home to send you off into the week.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas or if you’re creatively stuck.

And if you’re creatively stuck because you ran out of coffee, save 10% on Flow State coffee. Flow State uses l-theanine and raw cacao to lower anxiety and support creativity. (Affiliate link)

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #46 of Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

Usually, I reserve this spot to say some quippy remark about the timelessness of this letter, but this week I want to thank the 23(!) new subscribers who decided to join the PYN cult. Might I add, you look damn good this Sunday morning!

If you know someone who might love this, would you consider sharing?

What’s new this week?

🎤 Ep. 12 of It’s Gotta Be The Mic: Reza and I have our first guest! Max Nussenbaum sat down with us to talk about the tension between being an artist and a founder, plus many other creative adventures. If you have any feedback on how this went, hit reply and let me know.

🖌 My illustration process was featured in The Featured Image, a newsletter by Erik Jones.

📖 Reading the science fiction novel, The Three-Body Problem by Ken Liu.

Good morning from Los Angeles!

I don’t recommend killing a company off by letting its domain name expire. But if you’re looking to call it quits, it’s a shocking, yet an incredibly cathartic way to get a hold of reality.

This happened twice to me over the past decade.

At first, it’s hard to believe you let it lapse, but you quickly realize you were like a deer in headlights, watching the car speed towards you all along. It’s over before you were hit, but the accident needed to happen to finally call it quits.

Domain names have a unique ability to inspire. I imagine owning a domain is like owning an empty plot of land, Theroux style. It’s vast, infinitely inspiring, and we’re naturally drawn to what could be.

Like reading a book starting from the index, what if you could hack the order of conventional thinking to your advantage? What if you started with a domain before you had an idea?

Peter Askew sells onions on the internet.

Peter’s story is compelling. He builds businesses starting with the domain name.

He’s doesn’t have a computer science background, but he got into buying, selling, and investing in domain names in the mid-2000s.

Instead of coming up with an idea, Peter looks for domains that have traffic or authority in a space. Then, he tries to tailor a business from a keyword descriptive domain like candy.com, or VidaliaOnions.com, which he now runs.

Half a million domain names expire every day, which are free ideas for you to use for something new.

Peter monitors expired domain names, and now runs companies using this method like duderanch.com, BirthdayParties.com, and others.

There are many ways to get an idea for your next thing, but one counterintuitive way is to start with the domain name. It’s a cheat code to fueling your creativity, and to finding inspiration.

Ways to find domains:

Domains to your inbox

Expired domain finder

Domain name backordering

Or, Google Domains, Sedo, Name.com or many more

Plan Your Next featured guest

Every now and then, I aim to unlock insights from entrepreneurs and creators who are chasing their next thing. This week, I’m honored to highlight, Andrew Barry.

To go fast, go alone, but to go far, go together.

Who is Andrew Barry?

Andrew is a force. I had the pleasure of meeting him last year while he was running his own company, Curious Lion Learning. Just recently, he was brought on to be the Program Director of On Deck Course Creator. He’s helping unlock the expertise most of us have locked up. This transition into his next thing is why I wanted to highlight him this month.

Andrew, what do you spend most of your time during the day working on?Father to Leo, Ghostwriter agency owner for online courses, Program Director for On Deck Course Creator.

When was the last time you made an unexpected pivot in direction, either recently or in the past?On Dec 31st, 2020 I signed up as an employee of On Deck, my first W2 role since 2016. I learned that it is true: to go fast, go alone, but to go far, go together.

What were you doing prior to this?Being complacent about productizing and systematizing my company, Curious Lion.

What would you tell someone who feels stuck in pursuing their next idea?Just do it. Start small, and test your idea as soon as you can to get feedback. The best way I know how to do this is through writing.

A favorite quote or piece of advice you live by?Ego is the enemy.

What do you need help with?If you have an online course or an audience that you want to create a course for, come check out the newest On Deck Fellowship - www.beondeck.com/course-creators.

Where can someone find you online?@Bazzaruto on Twitter!

⚡️ Inspiration for this week

🧠 Learn Webflow in 10 tweets.

I’m a huge fan of Webflow. My own site runs on it, and this is after coding my own sites for years before that. This is a great quick primer to knowing what goes into building your own site on Webflow. (Affiliate link)

📹 Building an idea factory with Ali Abdaal

I’m continually inspired by both of these gents. This is a great video on never running out of ideas.

⏳ Hourglass sand timer

I’m a big fan of the Pomodoro Technique and this hourglass is a beautiful way to avoid digital timers or any software to assist in staying focused.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas or if you’re creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #45 of Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

Every Sunday, I aim to make this newsletter as timeless as the GameStop long call by u/DeepFuckingValue. If you’re new here, join us!

What’s new this week?

🎤 It’s Gotta be the Mic podcast ep. 11: Reza and I chat about Apple TV’s Ted Lasso and what we learned from it. Next week we’ll be having our first guest! Why not subscribe?

☕️ Do you love coffee? Our previous PYN guest—Greg Frontiero—is gifting all Plan Your Next cult members with 10% off his Flow State Coffee. I hoped to ween myself off coffee this month, but I’ve been cheating. Greg uses a custom organic blend using L-Theanine and Raw Cacao to lower anxiety and support creativity.

Good morning from Los Angeles!

I think about how many times I’ve attempted to start writing online.

Early on in my career —or 50 years ago, my wife might joke—I was building out my website, eager to start writing. I asked my neighbor—who happened to be a developer—to hook up a simple database so I could start writing blog entries on my site. That’s what we used to say 50 years ago.

It was my first attempt at writing online, and I quickly discovered writing about my dating life led to uncomfortable conversations.

It was my first and last taste of writing online for a couple of years.

Over the years, I tried a number of times, but never fully developed writing into a habit. It’s unfortunate because my focus was too narrow. I was young, dumb, and couldn’t see the opportunity cost of not writing.

I was missing out on building social capital. As I’ve said before, I was putting myself in an unlucky position.

In Robert Putnam’s book, “Bowling Alone,” he states social capital is a form of wealth that can compound and throw off real dividends when it’s cultivated, or wither and die when it’s drawn down or neglected.

Social capital isn’t about money. It’s about the opportunity to cultivate and capitalize on the intangible bets you place throughout your life.

If you were paying attention this week to GameStop and AMC, social capital is what helped enable the fight against hedge funds who short-sold these companies. This didn’t happen overnight. It’s been building since 2012 when the subreddit r/wallstreetbets originally formed. Reddit u/deepfuckingvalue placed his well-researched bet on GameStop over a year ago, building their social capital along the way by posting regular updates and inviting others in. It culminated in a movement that potentially could affect short-selling altogether. Citron Research already discontinued its popular reporting.

Social capital is readily available to anyone. It’s accumulated through grit, creativity, situational-awareness, spotting opportunities, and antifragility. Building social capital is like building a well-diversified opportunistic capital portfolio. You can’t sit in the same lane talking to the same people making the same decisions and walking the same life path, expecting anything to change.

Social capital thrives in the uncomfortable unrest of life. It suffers when it’s stagnant or inactive.

50 years ago, I wish young Nate knew he was onto something and had pushed on that uncomfortable feeling. Writing is a great way to build social capital. As you cultivate it, it becomes like a credit card you can carry with you, accessible from a newsletter to a blog, or from a side-hustle to a company.

Plan Your Next featured guest

If you’re new here, I aim to discover insights from entrepreneurs and creatives who are chasing their next thing. This week, we have the privilege to highlight Heather King.

Find people who have your best interest at heart, and share your thoughts. It can be intimidating to start a new idea, so lean on others to help you brainstorm a way to move forward. THAT will give you momentum.

Who is Heather King?

Like a rare gemstone, Heather is a unique talent combining apparel design, photo styling, and jewelry design. Heather’s next thing is her recently launched jewelry line. Just look at those cuffs! Her brand merges her love for natural stones and urban sophistication.

She’s based in New York, and has established herself as a Womenswear Designer and Product Developer in the apparel industry.

Heather, what do you spend most of your time during the day working on?I'm a product developer obsessed with putting together funky fresh outfits. I spend a lot of time creating, thinking about creating and enjoying the little things in life. My full-time job as an apparel designer and side gig as a jewelry brand owner keeps me VERY busy!

When was the last time you made an unexpected pivot in direction, either recently or in the past?I started a company in 2019. I was approached by an investor to build my personal jewelry into a full-blown brand. Something I may have dreamed about for myself but never thought I would have the capacity to make it happen. Well, this pushed me to get it done and get it done quickly.

I rely heavily on my support system to keep the momentum going. These individuals give me new ideas, guidance, and encouragement to continue building the brand. I may have lost my momentum long ago if not for the constant reminder that those that love me believe in me.

What were you doing prior to starting your jewelry line?Still working my full-time apparel job which I do enjoy! But always wondering...is this it? Do I just...climb the corporate ladder? Will I always work for someone else? Will I ever build something for myself? I want to travel more, I want to explore other cultures. I want an alternative schedule, I want the freedom to switch things up.

What’s a favorite quote you live by?It's not an actual quote, but a mantra I have hanging on my front door. "It's ok to slow down". Being a career-driven woman in NYC can be overwhelming. And I have to remind myself to SLOW DOWN and smell the roses.

What would you tell someone who feels stuck in pursuing their next idea?Talk it out! Find people who have your best interest at heart, and share your thoughts. It can be intimidating to start a new idea, so lean on others to help you brainstorm a way to move forward. THAT will give you momentum.

What do you need help with?I'm looking to expand my customer reach. So I am always looking for suggestions on where to sell my jewelry other than on my site. And hey! If you love the designs, then word of mouth, spread the love!

Where can someone find you online?www.heatherkingdesigns.com Instagram LinkedIn

⚡️ Inspiration for this week

🔐 Cryptosteel Capsule Solo

This week was absolutely nuts. If it gave you insight into how much manipulation is happening in finance, then you may also be interested in DeFi and Bitcoin. I’m admittedly a believer in cryptocurrency and use Ledger wallets myself for offline storage. For those who have dabbled in cryptocurrency, this is a pretty unique—and well designed—solution to keeping your 24-word recovery phrase safe.

🐥 Three parts to building a personal monopoly

Curiosity: what do you care about?

Competence: what are you good at?

Character: who are you?

⏳ How James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, runs his business

Optimize for time before money. The most important question is, "How do I want to spend my days?" Make as few choices as possible that violate your answer.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas or if you’re creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #44 of Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

Every Sunday, I aim to make this newsletter as timeless as Quincy Jones’ line, “we need more f*g songs, man.” If you’re new here, join us!

What’s new this week?

🎙In this weeks’ podcast of It’s Gotta Be the Mic, Reza and I chat about the tools we use for note-taking, creativity, and writing. Tools for thought, if you will.

Good morning from Los Angeles!

The last job requiring me to be in an office was thirteen years ago. Let’s just say remote working—especially working alone—is not new to me.

When you’re working alone, it’s easy to feel like you don’t belong. The days pile up, the work keeps coming—if you're lucky—and the best relationship you have is between you and the glossy piece of glass with your reflection.

Around 2010, I spent a few years working most of my days in a coworking environment, called CoCo. Coworking spaces weren’t a new concept, but in Minneapolis around that time, they resembled empty real estate offices with bad coffee.

CoCo gave nomads like me a place to make a few friends, build support, and get some s**t done.

I wasn’t alone, staring at my own reflection. What CoCo discovered like many other coworking spaces is that this is a problem shared by many people. Coworking felt like the future of a professional community.

It’s what Adam Neuman tapped into when he started WeWork. He seemed to defy all economic laws of nature by sticking around longer than seemed possible before math caught up to him.

At the core, the concept seemed to work, if only because humans need other humans.

The pandemic has changed everything. It’s like a bowling ball careening down a lane, knocking our habits, lives, and careers all over the place. There are a few standing, but many of us have been smashed.

For a lot of people, this opens a few new ways to look at the world. A changed perspective brings new clarity.

One of the interesting new ways to bring focused clarity and creatives back together are smaller, tighter communities, for longer periods of time.

Nat Eliason just mentioned his new project to build a town on top of another town.

Kyle Bowe is building Creator Camp, where you join other creators for a month, with all the support you need.

And, Jonathon Hillis is building Creator Cabins, a space for creators to live and work for months at a time.

Naming confusion aside, I haven’t experienced a shift in the creator mindset like I did in 2020. I believe it has to do with new business models to support individual creators for the communities they are cultivating. This takes time, an enormous amount of effort, and technology to support it. But instead of building out a community using a paid advertising model, you can support them using paid subscriptions, virtual events, digital goods, apps, and simply tipping/donations.

I joked with a friend a couple of years ago about how it felt that everyone was overusing the word “community.” It was true, but most were confusing the word “community” with “audience.” A community is not schlepping gear or aspirational platitudes to followers on Instagram.

We’re at the forefront of true community building. The lessons from 2020 have launched us forward faster than we could have imagined.

You can now find your creative nook on the internet. And if you can’t, build it.

⚡️ Inspiration for this week

🎁 Amanda Gorman’s, ‘The Hill We Climb.’

Wow. The power of this speech is unlike any other in recent memory. My favorite line, “Being American is more than a pride we inherit. It's the past we step into, and how we repair it." Much work needs to be done, and she didn’t gloss over that.

🤑 You don’t have to believe your own made-up story

Just a good reminder not to get caught up in your own identity, and how you think people view you. I do this all the time. I’m Nate, a designer. Who else could I possibly be?

🎶 “We need more f*g songs, man.”

Whenever I think about quality vs quantity, this quote by Quincy Jones is always top of mind.

We need more songs, man. F*g songs, not hooks. [...] the song is the st—that's what people don't realize. A great song can make the worst singer in the world a star. A bad song can't be saved by the three best singers in the world. I learned that 50 years ago." —Quincy Jones

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas or if you’re creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #43 of Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

Every Sunday, I aim to make this newsletter as timeless as the designer, Saul Bass. If you’re new here, join us!

What’s new this week?

🎙Reza and I kicked off the new season of It's Gotta Be the Mic, and we chat about how we find ideas to write about. The one small change we wanted to make was to bring more focus on a single topic. We’ll also be bringing on guests periodically so keep an eye out for that!

Good morning from Los Angeles!

Since launching this newsletter, I've been fighting with myself over its direction. Maybe you can tell by the number of experiments I've tried over the course of it.

The illustrations, the audio downloads, the stories, and the links.

I believe in chasing your interests, even if it means you're running all over the place. By chasing these ideas, at some point I'll be able to retroactively look back and see which articles I enjoyed writing most, combined with the feedback I get from you, to have a better idea of where I'm headed.

Through these iterative experiments, I hope I get lucky and figure this out.

Richard Wiseman, a British psychology professor at the University of Hertfordshire, ran a ten-year study to understand the role that luck plays in our lives. In one particular session, he split a group of people in half. Those who considered themselves lucky, and the others who deemed themselves unlucky. He handed both groups a newspaper filled with photos and asked them to count the number of photographs in the paper.

The unlucky people took about two minutes. The lucky group took mere seconds.

On the second page of the paper, there was a large message that read, “There are 43 photographs in this newspaper.” The unlucky group was so focused on counting the photographs that they tended to miss this message completely.

While unlucky people tend to be less sociable and have tunnel vision, he also discovered that there’s hope for those who feel this way.

Having an open mind and attitude reveals more opportunities you may have previously missed. Looking on the positive side makes it easier to try new things, and changing up your regular routine can lead to unexpected serendipity.

This brings me to a new experiment for this newsletter.

I’ve been fortunate enough to meet a number of really curious people who have chased their next thing. I recently started to interview some of them and hope to share their insights with you. What I love about this creative group of people is that they’re not that much further down the path if you’re thinking about your next thing.

This will be an ongoing series that will continue, and I hope they inspire you as much as they do me.

I am feeling pretty lucky.

I’m kind of known for unexpected turns. Most of my friends and family expect me to do crazy things like move to Canada and wrestle or start a nootropic coffee co.

Who is Greg Frontiero?

I met Greg earlier this year, and out of nowhere, he continues to surprise you. He’s worked for companies like Yext, Twitter, and Stack Overflow. He’s sometimes a Pro Wrestler. And while being one of the most generous and supportive people I know, he’s created a new type of coffee with his bare f*g hands.

Greg, what do you spend most of your time during the day working on?

NooWave. That’s it. Also, I guess training for a return to the wrestling ring.

When was the last time you made an unexpected pivot in direction, either recently or in the past? And what's one takeaway you learned in sustaining that momentum to see it through?

I’m kind of known for unexpected turns. Most of my friends and family expect me to do crazy things like move to Canada and wrestle or start a nootropic coffee co.

Noowave is different because I haven’t gotten that boredom that follows after the honeymoon period of learning a new skill/job. If I had to guess it’s bc I think I found my “ikigai.”

A favorite quote you live by?

I don’t really live by any quotes. “We can be the bands we want to hear” was the title of my blog announcing NooWave and you can find it on our website but it basically means “you can do the thing you’re thinking of doing the way you want to to do it. There are no rules.” Also “F**k it” comes to mind so maybe that.

What would you tell someone who feels stuck in pursuing their next idea?

Get your idea out of your head and in front of people somehow (for me was write of passage breakout rooms)

What do you need help with?

Please buy Flow State Coffee @ noowave.co and post about how much you love it so other people buy it and do the same and I can continue doing this for the next decade-plus. Thanks!

My other answer would be to do something that scares you today. Quit your job, ask that person you like out or ship that thing that you think isn’t quite ready yet. Because “f**k it” and “we can be the bands we want to hear.”

Where can someone find you online?

NooWave.co. I do a weekly newsletter there that’s more of a life update or a letter to a friend that you can follow if you like the whole “build in public” thing. Or find me on Twitter screaming into the void @sfwgreg.

⚡️ Inspiration for this week

📖 1,000 True Fans - Kevin Kelly

An oldie but a goodie. Kevin originally wrote this in 2008, and I’ve referenced this often in my own internet journey. It’s the same spirit embedded into Plan Your Next. And if you’re creating something yourself, aim for 1,000 true fans. But why aim so high? Li Jin argues you might only need 100 true fans.

To be a successful creator you don’t need millions. You don’t need millions of dollars or millions of customers, millions of clients or millions of fans. To make a living as a craftsperson, photographer, musician, designer, author, animator, app maker, entrepreneur, or inventor you need only thousands of true fans.

🐦 10 Significant lies you’re told about the world: On startups, writing, and your career

Julian explains some of the lies we hear about startups, writing, and your career. My favorite is the sixth knot in this thread.

The world is not run by exceptional people. This is the hidden reason for imposter syndrome. We mistakenly think imposter syndrome is due to low confidence/anxiety. No, it’s caused by not accepting that your new, world-class peers aren’t that special. It’s mostly discipline.

🏋️‍♀️ The Whoop Band

If I didn’t own an Apple Watch, I’d definitely pick one of these up. The band monitors your sleep, measures your recovery, and builds strain by recommending a daily exertion level.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas or if you’re creatively stuck.

Have a great week,

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is #42 of Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

Every Sunday, I aim to make this newsletter as timeless as pedaling downhill through the Adirondack Mountains at 50 mph. If you’re new here, join us!

What’s new this week?

👨‍🎨 You may see a fresh coat of paint in this newsletter. The reason for the change is to further align my site branding and this newsletter. (Even if there is little correlation.)

🎙Working on a new podcast intro for It’s Gotta Be the Mic with Paul Lecrone. I’ve always been bad at hiring out creative work, but Paul is a true talent. BTW, Reza and I are starting it back up this Thursday!

🗺 Putting together a simple email course under the working name, Approachable Design. The goal is to teach design fundamentals to non-designers. Hit reply with any questions you have about design, and I’d love to include them. More to come.

Good morning from Los Angeles!

I stood at the center of a sparse parking lot in Venice, California, looking over my left shoulder.

There, breathing in the salt-filled ocean air, was an eight-year-old girl, standing in the center of a small group of children.

The other similarly aged children were sitting cross-legged on the brisk cement pavement, gazing up at her as she was instructing them to close their eyes and breathe deeply.

Here, an eight-year-old masterfully leading this group of kids in mindfulness meditation.

Venice. Meditation. Not that shocking.

But, I'm originally from a small suburb, who drank two-liters of Tahitian Treat and ate knock-off Chex Mix for breakfast. Meditation was not a tool I had to handle anxiety or stress. At eight years old, I couldn't have explained to you what those emotions were and why I felt them.

I grew up in a strict religious household. My brother once brought up the idea of meditation to my mom, who scoffed at the idea saying, "It's the Devil's practice."

There was no room for self-help without the hand of God, so I never fully embraced meditation until my late twenties.

My own relationship with meditation has been as volatile as Bitcoin. When the currency is being suffocated, I know I should access more of it. But when things are going good, it's easy to think I had it figured out all along.

What kind of strange and twisted world do we live in that this child has more magic mind tools than Link had in Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda?

We're living in a world that continues to give me optimism. At an individual level, we have better access to tools and medicine, if we want them. If only our leaders viewed themselves as imperfect, using self-reflection as a tool to be comfortable with saying, “I don’t know.”

Then on Wednesday, we witnessed a vicious attack against our nation's capital by numbnuts. It was horrifying, chaotic, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. In the moment, I decided to treat the mayhem with wine instead of meditation and reflection. Here’s to future improvement, right?

I certainly don’t have things figured out, but I’m hopeful I can continue to improve, even if it takes a child to lead the way.

⚡️ Inspiration for this week

🧘 Waking up Meditation App

If you read my story above, I’m admittedly trying to improve my mediation practice. The one I’ve connected to the most is Sam Harris’ Waking Up. It’s a good balance of theory and mindfulness meditation, which I prefer.

If you’re looking for a fantastic free version, look at Oak.

🏗 Build Once; Sell Twice

A good summary thread on the process of taking what you know, then selling it.

🏗 A free Loom alternative: Screenity

Loom is a popular tool that makes screen sharing super simple. I use it for showing demos of interfaces that I’m designing or walking through how to use Roam.

Alyssa X created a free Loom-like tool that allows you to also mark up your screen as you record. It’s pretty handy and really fun to use.

🏡 Inspiring aesthetics: New Keys

My buddy Whit just launched a newsletter highlighting inspiring properties around the world under 100k. Even if you’re not in the market for your next home—like me—it’s fun to think about where to go once travel becomes acceptable. You can subscribe here.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas or if you’re creatively stuck.

Have a great week,Nate

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

Every Sunday, I aim to make this newsletter as timeless as a New Mexico desert dressed in white. If you’re new here, join us!

What’s new this week?

Since we’re traveling, not much! But I’d like to highlight a couple of people:

🔗 On Deck just acquired Performative Speaking from Robbie Crabtree. I’m so excited for Robbie + the team and what he’s been able to accomplish in the past six months.

✍️ I had a short call with the loveable Nick Gray—Founder of Museum Hack—who let me give some feedback on his fun article about purchasing a Tesla. Definitely subscribe to his newsletter.

🧠 One of my favorite communities this year was Ness Labs. Some friends participated in making a thank you video for the founder, Anne-Laure.

Happy New Year from Phoenix, AZ!

This past week, Alie and I have been on the road in our old—but reliable—Subaru Outback, traveling through Arizona and New Mexico.

This is our first trip outside of SoCal in an entire year. We watched the sunrise over the Grand Canyon, stayed in a tiny Airbnb studio in Santa Fe, and saw another sunrise over White Sands Desert. (pictured above) We’re now heading back to Los Angeles this morning, refreshed, but definitely not in the same refreshed state as a pre-pandemic trip.

While the trip was fun, you can’t escape how much life has changed in a year. There are no restaurants to visit, no real interactions with people, and an inability to touch a handrail at a remote State Park in Santa Fe.

When I reminisce on past trips, it’s unthinkable how much I took for granted.

Similarly, it’s how I view the internet. I grew up building my own computers and remember fondly accumulating America Online CD’s offering free minutes to get online. To me, the internet has been as much of my life as has art, design, photography, and everything else that defines me creatively.

When I see creators remarking at how brilliant the internet is at changing lives, I feel I’ve taken the internet for granted. It’s obvious how it’s changed my life and the lives of others. Without it, I’d probably have ended up as a fine artist solemnly huddled into a small studio, barely scraping by. Who knows?

Rediscovering Twitter this past year has opened up new friendships, connected me with old friends, and given me a more interesting sandbox to play in. But, I originally joined Twitter in 2007! What the f**k happened?

It feels like I took the internet for granted.

I laughed when HBO’s Silicon Valley Richard Hendricks claimed to be building the New Internet. While technology is inching forward, we’re rethinking how it can replace traditional schools and enable individual autonomy for creators.

On the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Duncan Trussell compared the internet to being the new fire:

People who invented fire. Think about how many people died trying to figure it out. People must have been trying to eat it, thinking that they could absorb its energy into them, while they burned their faces off. The internet is like this new fire.

The possibilities of the internet have always made us a little crazy. Maybe we haven’t tried to eat the internet, but it’s given us the ability to connect to others like never before.

What’s changed recently are the tools and opportunities for non-coders. Content creators are building software products around their businesses, DTC brands are operating without engineering teams, niche online communities function as alternatives to Facebook, and even writing online have all become much easier to do.

From my perspective, it’s easy to see a tide turning. Remote work is becoming the norm, allowing many a more flexible way to live.

Something has changed this year, and it’s only gaining momentum. Please don’t take it for granted.

⚡️ Inspiration for this week

🪟 Windows of Opportunity: A Fleeting Chance at the Impossible

A Window of Opportunity is a rare set of circumstances and a brief moment of time in which an otherwise impossible outcome is potentially achievable. I can personally point to three times in my life that changed my course because I could identify the potential opportunity to capitalize on.

Keep in mind that these opportunities are unique to you. They live in the crosshairs of knowledge, skills, and relationships that only you occupy.

🔥 Your Career Hype Doc

David Hoang—a design leader at Webflow—wrote a great piece on keeping track of your micro-achievements throughout your career. The Hype Doc is an alternative to professional journaling, keeping track of what you worked on in the past, what you’re working on now, and what your future goals are.

I love that it’s meant to track the impact it’s had on you, what you learned, and colleagues or clients. Add in screenshots or metrics to make it more useful and personalized.

I started my own and divided each year into four quarters to keep it somewhat simple to reflect.

🌲 Ecosia: Search the web and plant some trees

Ecosia is a search engine that promotes privacy first and plants trees around the world. It’s also available as a default search engine setting on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.

Their servers run on 200% renewable energy, and every search request removes 1kg of CO₂ from the atmosphere.

If you’re like me and had to search how much space 1kg of CO₂ occupies, then you’re in good company. At room temperature, it takes up the size of about two bathtubs.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas or if you’re creatively stuck.

Have a great week,Nate

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

Every Sunday, I aim to make this newsletter as timeless as, 2020? If you’re new here, join us!

What’s new this week

🎤 Andrew Barry continues to innovate with these small clips from his interviews. My podcast snippet is here, but I recommend checking out Robbie Crabtree’s on learning persuasion.

📷 Unsplash continues to be a fun platform. In one week, my night sky camping photo from Joshua Tree National Park was featured and accounts for well over 150k in views. (And already being used in random Instagram posts) My goal in a few months is to track them down online and see if they can serve as backlinks.

🚗 Today, we’re heading to the Grand Canyon, then Santa Fe for the week!

Good morning from Los Angeles, and the last PYN letter of 2020!

I’ve got so much to be thankful for, it would sound like word vomit to list them all. So I’ll save you from that. You’re welcome.

But, thank you for being here on this little journey with me this year. Writing a weekly newsletter has become an outlet to have conversations with new people, think through different ideas, and to watch something get built, if ever so slowly.

If you have ever wanted to start one, let’s chat about it!

Without the pressure of publishing every Sunday, I wouldn’t be able to do this consistently at all. In fact, I am the worst at feeling productive without constraints.

And while 2020 has been a dumpster fire of a year, vaccines wouldn’t be made in record-breaking time without the pressure of a pandemic. Pressure is why the Pomodoro Technique works so well for productivity. Even diamonds wouldn’t exist without the pressure needed to create them.

Add some pressure; then move fast

Technology by default stands still. It doesn’t move forward inexplicably. Like a steam engine, it requires pressure to move forward.

Given the right constraints, there are many examples of how fast we can move to build.

Patrick Collison, the co-founder of Stripe, has aggregated a list of feats accomplished quickly. Here are some of the highlights:

Disneyland was brought to life in just 366 days

The Eiffel tower was built in two years and two months.

Apple hired Tony Fadell to create the first iPod in 2001. 290 days later they shipped it.

Amazon launched Amazon Prime just six weeks after starting the project.

Early this year on January 10, the SARS-CoV-2 genome was published. 45 days later, Moderna shipped their first batch for the Phase 1 clinical study. On November 16 (266 days after study), Moderna announced that the vaccine's efficacy was 94.5%.

How to add pressure

Build in publicTalking about your idea in public is one way to involve others in the process. It can also bring clarity to your own questions, and help you see blind spots. Being active on Twitter, starting a newsletter, or writing publicly are other forms to talk about your ideas publicly.

Invest time in communitiesIf you’re not surrounded by people who level you up, there are many online communities to join that might offer you a new perspective. Especially if you haven’t built an audience yet, this is the most critical time to make friends who have similar goals. Take them on the journey with you. Consider looking at On Deck, Ness Labs, Indie Hackers, to find smart, independent thinkers.

Set deadlines for yourselfThinking about where you want to be and working backward from there is a great way to plan your goals. Make monthly or weekly milestones, filling out the steps in between.

This past year taught me there are pressures we can’t foresee, and when the world cracks open, there are opportunities to build. Build new relationships. Build companies. Build new ideas.

What’s your next idea?

⚡️ Inspiration for your next week

Quick Draw

I have never wanted to deal with a green screen when shooting videos, but this software removes complicated backgrounds really well.

$4/hour janitor turned millionaire

An incredible story of empowering “act like an owner” thinking. The story of Richard Montañez and how he came up with the idea of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.

Plus, Minus, Next annual review

I’ve learned a lot from Anne-Laure this year, and her simple method of creating three columns to review your year worked for me. Here’s my tweet on how to do it.

👋 See you next Sunday

If you’ve forgotten who I am, here’s a little bit about me. As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas, or if you’re creatively stuck.

Have a great week,Nate

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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👋 Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

Every Sunday, I aim to make this newsletter as timeless as my busted Apple Watch. If you’re new here, join us!

What’s new this week?

🎤 The talented Paul Lecrone posted our full conversation from his podcast on YouTube. We both dissect art, life, and everything in between.

📷 It took long enough, but I created an Unsplash account and uploaded a few photos from past trips. Feel free to use them on any projects!

✏️ I’m building something for writers. Have you ever needed quick feedback or editing for your writing, but don’t know who to ask? Book a time on my calendar. I’d love to chat.

Good morning from Los Angeles!

All week, we’ve been interviewing candidates for a new position in our company. This is not an easy job, and the role requires the ability to speak multiple languages. Not in the literal sense, but to work closely between engineers, designers, support, customers, and stakeholders.

This person needs the ability to determine what to work on; when to work on it, and to run at it with the same consistency as Forrest Gump had running across the country.

This person needs to be able to think for themselves.

Innovation rarely happens when you surround yourself with people with similar ideas and conventions. Having your own thoughts and ideas about your vision is necessary to escape the black hole which contains all existing strategies.

Kevin Lee points this out after a conversation with two marketers at separate Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies:

It's a constant reminder that we can't rely on any playbooks or silver bullets. We can learn and absorb from the best in the industry, but at the end of the day, we have to pioneer our own strategies if we want to see outsized outcomes.

Paul Graham mentions this common trait with successful startups: founders and early-stage employees almost are almost always independent-minded; because otherwise, conventional thinking would get you nowhere.

As a company grows, independent-minded thinkers get overrun with conventional-minded thinkers, and so the original spirit inevitably gets diluted.

This same problem surfaces not only at successful startups, but in our own lives. Surrounding yourself with too many conventional-minded thinkers will dilute your own thinking.

How to think for yourself

In his essay, Paul Graham breaks it down into three parts:

Fastidiousness about truth

Resistance to being told what to think

Be curious

Fastidiousness about truth means being careful about your degree of belief. Be speculative about extreme cases. Annie Duke—author of Thinking in Bets—likes to make decisions based on probabilities. Outcomes are never guaranteed, and we should think carefully about not putting all of our thought eggs into one basket. Without this nuance, you won’t allow yourself to be truly independent.

Resistance to being told what to think is the most difficult because it’s the most visible. To approach life counterintuitively can get you laughed out of a room. If you can’t get rid of this mindset, the next best thing is to surround yourself with independent thinkers.

When I left the design agency world, I was fed up with the desire to please. The fear of losing accounts was the biggest risk to mitigate in that world. So I left. I started to build my own products and surround myself with those who also didn’t know any better.

Be curious. As children, everything is new and surrounded by play. Most of us lose this mindset as we become adults. You can’t be an independent thinker if you’re not curious about the strange and weird things around you.

The comedian Whitney Cummings once said you can cultivate being funny by stopping to look at the funny s**t that happens every day. You can choose to ignore it, but it’s there, waiting to be made fun of. And who is more independent-minded than the best comedians?

Like cultivating humor, you can also cultivate taste by looking closely at the objects around you. And to become an independent-thinker, curiosity is the Willy Wonka golden ticket.

Earlier this year, I challenged myself to write consistently so I could research and clarify my own thinking. I find it too easy to just consume the things that you read, taking them as fact.

It seems simple, but to become a more independent-minded thinker, write consistently, and surround yourself with curious people.

As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas. I’d love to hear what you’re thinking about.

⚡️ Inspiration for next week

Muir Way Vintage Relief Prints

These vintage relief maps are incredibly beautiful. They use digital elevation data to give it a 3D effect.

Waitwho.is

An online directory of interesting people and their content. You can find an individual’s tweets, articles, videos, and podcasts all in one place.

Sari Azout on thinking for yourself

Love this tweet about Sari Azout, who is my straight-up design/entrepreneur crush at the moment. “If you want to find good ideas, you have to dedicate time to think.” Writing is one of the best ways to do this.

Synthesis.is

Synthesis started from a question by Elon Musk. What might a school look like if it were built on first-principles thinking? It’s aimed at kids aged 8-14 years old, and not based on separation by grade levels. It focuses on problem-solving. Here’s the story.

👋 See you next Sunday

As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas.

Have a great week,Nate

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, and this is Plan Your Next. It’s a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

Every Sunday, I aim to make this newsletter as timeless as Johnny Cash dressing in all black. If you’re new here; join us.

What’s new this week?

🎤 I had the pleasure of being on Paul Lecrone’s Penguin Latte Podcast. We dove into an array of topics over the course of two hours, and he’s created a killer trailer for it.

✍️ I’ll be joining the Compound Writing community at the start of the year. I love what Stew Fortier is building over there. Like car insurance, I want a reliable community of writers that can tap into at any given time.

Good morning from LA!

Right now, my website is most organically discovered by the keywords, “make money selling knives,” and placing fifth on Google for “introvert face masks.” Not exactly what I was aiming for when I started writing consistently eight months ago.

If I had known this then, I might have lost all energy to even start. Either that or imagined the possibility I quit my career as a designer and started selling knives once again.

When you’re starting out in a creative endeavor like writing, you’ll inevitably get asked that lonely question, “what are you writing about?”

This question is like seeing a few scattered boxes on a bare floor and then having to choose one, sitting with the constraints of it. This box is your niche, your container you choose not to deviate from. And it can be an overwhelming decision that can stop you from even getting started.

If you’re twitching at the thought of choosing a box to fit into, there’s a better way.

Write out all of your ideas

Toss down all of your ideas onto a piece of paper. Get messy and chaotic. Make sure to start with the bad ideas first. This process is similar to morning pages which Julia Cameron talks about in her book The Artist’s Way. A method of pouring out your ideas as a stream of consciousness, removing the junk that inevitably gets flushed out first.

Select 5-10 ideas

Next, pick a few of those ideas that resonate with you deeply. The ones that spark joy. Create a list of about 5-10 which you can come back to. This list might get smaller, but it might get larger. There are no rules at this stage of the process.

Consistency over selectivity

The goal in this step is to start chasing the inspiration that you have started to curate. Don’t worry about whether it’s going to change your life, others will love it, or Google’s algorithms are going to even care. Your first few dozen articles should be for you, and to help you get a better sense of what you enjoy writing about.

Listen from the inside-out

Inevitably, you’re going to start to learn what you enjoy thinking about. If you don’t love the process, then you’ll quit without attempting the hard work. The voice inside you will start to get louder, you’ll have a better appreciation and love for what you’re doing as you keep at it. Your audience will also act as a voice and sounding board, letting you know what they love to hear from you.

It took James Clear about 100 articles before he started writing with more focus on habits and routines. It’s what resonated with him and his audience most.

Anne-Laure Le Cunff built up a newsletter of 300 subscribers before she re-positioned her newsletter after finally discovering what she wanted to write about.

“How you climb a mountain is more important than reaching the top.”—Yvon Chouinard

What’s next for me?

Here I am, 38 newsletters in and I’m still chatting it up about knives and creativity. I am at a place where I find joy in the process, not knowing where it’s going to take me. But I aim to get to #100 and look back with more clarity, hoping I’ll have a bit more insight then.

🧑‍🎤 Add layers to your next self

Thinking about yourself as a cubist is potentially one of the best ways I can think of getting excited about what you have to offer.

🌚🌕 Next year’s colors: Duct tape and lemons

The color choices for next year certainly feels scripted in a way. But I’m here for the possibility of 2021 being brighter in many ways.

Get ready for Ultimate Gray and Illuminating. Or, in normal-speak: the light at the end of the tunnel. —Vanessa Friedman

🪡 Discovering your niche through consistency

How Successful Writers Actually Picked Their Niche is a great article on how picking your niche is really only accomplished after you put in the time to learn from your own process, and from the feedback of others.

If you feel stuck, don’t invest more time crafting a brilliant forward-looking strategy. Instead, ask yourself what ideas you would be most excited to write about right now — then go do it.

In hindsight, it will all look like part of the master plan.

👋 See you next Sunday

As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas. Let’s find a time to chat.

Have a great week,Nate

Twitter: @kadlacWeb: kadlac.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, designer of Plan Your Next, a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

Every Sunday, I aim to make this newsletter as timeless as the joy of eating a Taco Bell Mexican Pizza. Just kidding, they’re discontinuing it. If you’re new here; join us.

What’s new this week?

🎤 Episode #8 of It’s Gotta Be the Mic: Our final episode of this first season! It’s been such a fun adventure to co-host this podcast with Reza. Neither of us wants it to end, so we’ll be kicking another season off with a slightly tweaked format we’ll talk about soon.

💻 On Saturday, I gave a presentation on design fundamentals to the first cohort of Minimum Viable Video by Cam Houser. You can check out the slide deck here. If you’re curious in knowing how video can be used more intentionally, reach out and I can make an intro.

🎨 I’ve been graciously added to the collective at Superbest NYC, an agency started by some talented friends of mine.

✍️ The On Deck Writer Fellowship wrapped up this week and I’m full of gratitude for the experience and what I plan to do next. Pun intended. Curious? Let’s chat.

Good morning from Los Angeles!

“Always have your next trip planned,” I’d often say to myself.

For as long as I can remember, memories from my travels feel like they have been etched into my heart. Whether it’s spending a month in Buenos Aires working on a startup, riding the rails through Europe, or spending a month in Noe Valley perched in a sunroom reading The Fountainhead; these are the memories I can’t imagine losing, even if I tried.

I was recently a guest on Paul Lecrone’s podcast and he brought up my very first travel video. It’s vivid because of the energy I felt during my first overseas trip to London. I remember feeling shocked when the tired man at the ticket counter told us, “one of you is not going to London today,” while staring directly at my roommate’s expired passport. When he arrived 36 hours later, I felt I had to show him the ropes, as I was essentially a London historian by that point.

This newsletter started from this simple mantra of having your next thing planned. I struggle with what the focus of this newsletter is at times, but it’s given me another lens to look through.

It’s fitting that 2020 has been many things to many people, and outside of trying to create a baby with the combination of cups and needles, I’ve been focused on my writing. Travel is a distant memory, sitting in a crusty lost and found bin, never to be claimed.

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end,” said Seneca—and 2,000 years later, by Semisonic.

Writing has given me a new perspective on travel. Not for the future, but traveling back in time. I’ve never called myself a writer because I have this fixed idea of what a writer is. I have friends who do this for a living and sweat the details. I’m here struggling to write a weekly letter to you. When I compare myself to them, I am not in the same universe.

But sitting here—fingers to keyboard—I’m traveling, thinking about where I’ve been and where I’m going. Writing has been my escape to embrace my past adventures and to meet new virtual heroes.

In 2021, I hope we can all get off our asses and find something to chase.

“If I'm an advocate for anything, it's to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else's shoes or at least eat their food, it's a plus for everybody. Open your mind, get up off the couch, move.”

🍻 Find your next virtual co-worker

Focusmate partners you with a person to create a distraction-free session. I like this idea if you're feeling distracted and need to feel the pressure of someone holding you accountable.

🔎 Find your next font

I’ve been using Fontanello for awhile now whenever I come across a font that I need to know what it is. It’s a Chrome extension that shows you the source. I highly recommend this tool.

📹 Your next video

I mean, need I say more?

See you next Sunday

Are there certain topics you would like me to cover? Hit reply and expect a response!

As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas.

Have a great week!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, designer of Plan Your Next, a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing. Every Sunday, I aim to make this newsletter as timeless as the Rolex of watches. If you’re new here; join us.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

View Details

Hello! I'm Nate Kadlac, designer of Plan Your Next, a newsletter that connects design, creativity, and how you prepare for your next thing.

Every Sunday, I aim to make this newsletter as timeless as the Porsche 911 of cars. If you’re new here; join us.

What’s new this week?

🎤 Episode #7 of It’s Gotta Be the Mic: Reza and I had a great chat about living an ordinary life, writing, design for non-designers, and more. We have one more episode to go before we wrap up this season. We’re both excited to keep this going, so please share specific topics you want to hear us chat about.

🍿 After writing this letter, I’ve been thinking about how Alie and I started this journey in Italy. Lucky for you, I used to be a wannabe vlogger for a stint and made a video four years ago.

Good morning from Los Angeles!

Next April, my life will forever be altered. We’re expecting a girl, and I couldn’t be more giddy or f*g scared all at once. Giddy for the obvious reasons; scared because I have no idea what my life will look like after April 25th.

We’ve crashed into many hurdles to get to this point, and it feels like we’re still 350 meters back in a 400-meter race. Looking back, broken hurdles are laying all over the ground, with our knees bruised from falling down constantly.

We’re trying to get through this without too many scars, but with the finish line in sight, I’ve been reflecting on my own childhood and wondering what kind of dad I hope to be.

Last week I was interviewed by the apple picker Steve Favier, who asked me a seemingly simple question:

How will you make sure that your daughter never loses her creativity?

"There's not really any evidence that one person is inherently more creative than another."—David Epstein

When I was a kid, creativity was all around me. I would catch myself staring up at the ceiling in a random corner of the house, and see a butterfly staring down at me.

Small animals were drawn into the ceiling paint, drawn by my dad’s finger. He built our house with some friends from church and used his creativity to add a unique flair to parts of our home.

Our front door was a wood slab with high relief woodblocks jutting out in a random mosaic pattern. In my bedroom, I splashed paint all over my walls, and painted a life-size version of Chris Webber on another.

I embraced both art and design when I was young. As an adult, I’ve explored painting, drawing, photography, design, writing, pottery, video, and more.

Even though my own creative exploration looks intentional, sometimes our unconscious minds play a bigger role in how we approach the world.

According to a 1992 research study in American Psychology, “nonconscious processes may indeed be faster and structurally more sophisticated than our conscious thinking systems.”

The pleasure we get from exploring our unconscious minds is tied to the sugar-like neurotransmitter, dopamine, which plays a role in creativity. Authors Scott Barry Kaufman and Carolyn Gregorie state in their book, Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind, that “the drive for exploration, in its many forms, may be the single most important factor predicting creative achievement.”

At the end of the day, if creativity can be fostered through exploration, I intend to encourage my daughter to chase every creative thread she seeks. If you don’t continue to explore the world with a curious mind, that creative muscle will wither away.

✍️ Your next article to cure writer’s block

How to cure writer’s block by David Perell

The reason why I took David’s course earlier this year, was for this specific reason:

“Don’t waste your time spinning wheels. Arm yourself with ammunition, and writer’s block will disappear like a mirage in the desert. Instead of creating new information, you organize the information you already have.”

Start with abundance. This is why notetaking and arming yourself with ammunition is so important. As Sebastian Junger wrote, “If you have writer’s block, you don’t have enough ammunition.”

🏕 Your next creative adventure

Wow. Under Canvas is a luxury safari-style canvas tent which puts you in the middle of the outdoors. I can’t imagine doing this unless I had a small family or group of friends, but you can choose from locations like Zion, Moab, Lake Powell, and more.

🧐 Your next quote to inspire

“The art of a great painting is not in any one idea, nor in a multitude of separate tricks for placing all those pigment spots, but in the great network of relationships among its parts. Similarly, the agents, raw, that make our minds are by themselves as valueless as aimless, scattered daubs of paint. What counts is what we make of them.”― Marvin Minsky, The Society of Mind

This quote reminds me of the Gestalt theory, which states that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. We should consider all of the elements on the page as working together, similar to the relationships between the brush strokes, our relationships between friends, or even relationships between interconnected ideas.

👶 In case you missed it, our next story

👋 See you next Sunday

Are there certain topics you would like me to cover? Hit reply and expect a response!

As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas.

Have a great week!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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Hello! I'm Nate, designer of Plan Your Next, a weekly newsletter that connects design and how we prepare for our next thing.

We’re just a couple shy of 150 subscribers, and I’d like to stay ahead of Kevin Rapp’s hilarious Full of Krapp newsletter. Consider sharing this if you found it interesting.

What’s new from me this week?

✍️ I published an embarrassing story on debt, cutlery, and costumes. I’ve told this story to friends over the years, but I wanted to play with it on paper as it time jumps through multiple time periods.

🎙 My first guest appearance on Andrew Barry’s podcast, How Did You Learn That?

🎙 Reza and I released Episode #6 of It’s Gotta Be the Mic, where we talk about solitude vs loneliness, showing up, and personal finances.

Tearing apart the case of the first Apple Macintosh computer, and you would find signatures of forty-five individuals who collectively built it.

There are tens of thousands of people who used this brand new computer, who never knew. The insides of this brand new (1984!) computer mattered to Steve Jobs as much as the outside. It’s a unique balance that I often think about when it comes to design.

Successfully designed products aren’t solely about its aesthetics, but instead, how effective they are at understanding people.

Disney’s Inside Out is a story about Riley who is controlled by her emotions, where ultimately an imbalance occurs, and is what drives her to run away from home. It wasn’t until her emotion, Joy, was able to find a way to work with the other internal emotions to transform Riley into a more balanced human on the outside.

It’s like if your brain is the computer and your self-talk is the software that runs it. Riley’s actions weren’t fully aligned with what she was feeling, and it wasn’t until she confronted those feelings on the inside, to fully transform into a better version of herself.

Dieter Rams is a well-known German designer who’s known best for his time at Braun. He was known for designing from the inside to the outside. Every project began with the fundamentals of function and utility. He was known to hate the term, “beautification.”

“We never just wanted to make something beautiful. We wanted to make things better.”—Dieter Rams

Thinking from the inside out manifests its own beauty, both internally and externally. It’s the type of thinking that Steve Jobs, Riley, and Dieter all ended up pursuing in different ways.

What are some ways you think from the inside out?

🕰 Your next view of history

I’ve seen a few remarkable colored renditions of past footage, but this is something completely new.

These videos are upscaled using AI to auto-generate additional frames for your footage. 14 fps can be boosted and artificially colorized to 60 fps. Nuts.

✏️ Your next sketchbook

I’m a well-known fan of fountain pens, especially the German Lamy Safari, and this is my favorite sketchbook pairing. It’s the Japanese Maruman Mnemosyne A5 unruled variation, which sits about 1/2 the size of a letter. The paper is manufactured precisely for fountain pens that it doesn’t absorb too much ink. I’ve purchased about two dozen of these over the years, and I’ve never wanted to use much else.

See you next Sunday

Are there certain topics you would like me to cover? Hit reply and expect a response!

As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas.

Have a great week!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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Hello! I'm Nate, designer of Plan Your Next, a weekly newsletter that connects design and how we prepare for our next thing.

We have added three new subscribers from last week—and if you’re curious—last week’s letter had a 51% open rate, with 6 audio downloads.

What’s new from me this week? Glad you asked!

First, Reza and I published episode #5 of It’s Gotta be the Mic. Second, artist/writer Salman Ansari and I hosted a live Procreate demo you can watch here. Third, I’m working on editing my latest essay about an embarrassing story about debt, cutlery, and the Red Baron. It should be live next week!

Yesterday around 11 AM, I drove Los Feliz’s version of Main Street—Hillhurst Ave—and it was beautiful. Just after Kamala Harris became the first female VP (and of course her Presidential counterpart, Biden) Hillhurst Ave was living its best life. Love, honking, sirens, celebration, flags, old men riding chopper styled scooters, and air high fives.

After writing last week about what I thought about Kanye and his thoughts regarding communities and creativity, It’s only fair I highlight this:

Choosing not to vote for your local officials is still making a choice.

You have no obligation to have an opinion about anything. You have a strict obligation to not have an opinion about things you don’t understand. —Morgan Housel

In the same way, design is either good or bad. There is no such thing as no design. Just because you don’t know the impact a typeface can have on your website doesn’t mean you’re not communicating a vibe or emotion to your readers.

For example, my parents have a disconnect when it comes to finances. They have not had it easy because of the lack of communication between them. One spends without the other knowing. The other keeps money to themselves due to the fear of losing it. And what they didn’t choose to teach me, forced me to make decisions of my own, unbeknownst to them.

When I advise non-designers about ignoring the design of their type or layout, they are inevitably making design decisions which is being interpreted by the viewer. If you choose a designed template without knowing why, you’re making a decision on behalf of your viewer, whether they like it or not.

What choices are you making without knowing?

Optimizing your design default

James Clear has a great article on designing your decisions.

“I have found more success by living a life that I design rather than accepting the standard one that has been handed to me. Question everything.”

By thinking ahead of time to clarify your decisions, you can avoid the opportunity to

Something has to go on the shelf at eye level. Something has to be placed on the rack at the end of the aisle. Something must be the default choice. Something must be the option with the most visibility and prominence.

Decisions with unintended consequences

Fascinating thread on how certain rules led to unintended consequences. My favorite:

When @dominos said all pizzas would be delivered in 30 minutes or less OR your pizza was FREE. The delivery drivers kept getting into car accidents to get your pizza to you on time, so it wouldn’t come out of their pay check. The promotion didn't last too long.

Close your tabs without thinking

I have way too many tabs open at any given time, so I use OneTabs Chrome extension when I don’t want to make a decision about which tabs to keep. It consolidates everything down into one page so you’ll never lose your tabs.

See you next Sunday

Are there certain topics you would like me to cover? Hit reply and expect a response!

As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas.

Have a great week!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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If you're new here, welcome! I'm Nate, designer of Plan Your Next. We have added seven new subscribers from last week—and if you’re curious—last week’s letter had a 50% open rate, with 14 audio downloads. Enjoy the audio or written version of this newsletter.

Good morning from Julian, California! We headed out of town this weekend, looking for a small town to hunker down into. We found Julian, a now-defunct mining town barely holding onto 1,500 people, as its population slowly recedes.

This small Southern California town is as American as you can imagine:

The gold rush era: Founded by Drury Bailey and his brothers during the mad dash to the West.

Branding and vanity never change: Drury named the town after his cousin Mike Julian because he was better looking than everyone else.

As American as…: Julian is known for its apple pie.

I think about this gold rush period a lot, and what it must have been like to wander into the unknown, looking to build an entirely new life.

I have had that feeling a couple of times in my life, to go all-in. The feeling in which fear takes a backseat to the desired outcome, for better or for worse.

But in many cases, fear sits side-by-side next to that ambition, forcing you to a crawl.

If you have felt that in your life, how have you dealt with it?

🧠 Your next idea

I’m always fascinated by the process of generating ideas. This is a great way to stay creative and continue to look at the world slightly differently. One way I’ve been doing this myself is through writing and conversations.

Here are some ideas for generating new ideas regularly:

James Altucher talks a lot about how generating ideas is like exercising a muscle. He’s got a great article on his method, which involves writing down 10 ideas a day. Even if they’re bad. You’ll get better at it.

James Clear talks about this process of using the sheer force of will and perseverance.

Ryan Holiday recommends journaling daily.

Nat Eliason talks about generating ideas through creation.

Long story short? Activating our creative minds requires effort, through writing, making things, or reading.

🎙 Your next podcast: Kanye West

Kanye is a symphony of ideas

As soon as I heard this podcast was published, I spent a few days trying to find time to fit in the three hours(!) of banter. It was the first time I was able to hear Kanye go in-depth into some of his complex ideas in long-form format, in which the host did’’t continuously interrupt.

Like many, I’m truly fascinated by Kanye’s dynamic and spiraling personality. He is not a person made for short format conversations. In many ways, neither were Elon Musk or Steve Jobs. You can pick apart their conversations and take them out of context, however you like.

What stood out to me was how Kanye describes his thinking as “a symphony of ideas.” I can appreciate that after listening to this, even if some of them are far out. The wide path he walks to fully connect an idea requires patience.

Other lines from this interview made me forever intrigued by how he thinks:

"I would use confidence when I knew what I was doing, and I would arrogance when I didn't know what I was doing. But I would rather use arrogance than to let someone diminish the idea of myself.”

“When I design, I have to pretend I’m a three-year-old.”

“Building a house is like a practical joke on rich people.”

“Relationships are better currency than money.”

"Time is love. You love the things you put time into."

What I made this week

🎙 Episode #4 of It’s Gotta be the Mic just dropped

🎨 Writer/artist Salman and I co-hosted a live Procreate demo for writers

See you next Sunday

Are there certain topics you would like me to cover? Hit reply and expect a response!

As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas.

Have a great week!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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If you're new here, welcome! I'm Nate, designer of Plan Your Next. We're now up to 138 subscribers, so I want to welcome the seven new subscribers here. If you’re wondering why I submitted such a shitty illustration… I lost my Appl Pencil. 🤷‍♂️

Good morning from Los Angeles!

Halloween lurks just around the corner, and I’ve watched horror films I missed out on during my childhood. The list of religiously censored movies I’ve reclaimed for myself includes Halloween, Friday the 13th, Friday the 13th II, and Nightmare on Elm Street.

I’m surprised that I waited this long, but in the back of my mind, I expected the worst.

In the best films, there’s always a transformation of character. In just a couple of hours, an individual’s story expands, taking on an entirely new role, perspective, and identity.

Great storytelling feels obvious when it's done right. It’s like design; you know good design when you see it, but you don’t always know what goes into the craft.

While it may only take a couple of hours to watch a character transform on the screen, real-life transformation takes much longer. Our scripts are messy, and we don’t always enjoy a planned framework as paved as the Hero’s Journey.

In Stoicism, you’re constantly trying to transform anger into empathy, and fear into confidence.

Philosopher and writer Nassim Taleb describes a Stoic as someone who, “transforms fear into prudence, pain into transformation, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking.”

These are constant loops that need endless iterations.

Companies also look for ways to undergo a transformation. In Good to Great, Jim Collins writes, “Just because two good companies merge with one another, doesn’t actually make them great.” Transformation is not a given, even when we combine forces with another equal.

But, transformation can happen if we continue to chase it.

Polina Marinova of The Profile says, “Make your desired behavior your default behavior.”

You might be looking to lose weight, build a company, grow your network, or learn a language. Transformation is required to make that leap.

What’s your next transformation look like?

👨‍💻 Transform your next interview

I love this framework when preparing for an interview. Like having a prepared script, being able to rely on a few high-level stories you recite at any given moment gives you an edge. In the end, Adam mentions the STAR framework:

Situation - what was the situation?

Task - what did you need to do?

Action - how did you do it?

Result - what happened?

🎤 Transform your next signature move

This thread is about how Bill Gundfast transformed a basement of a NYC restaurant into the now infamous Comedy Cellar. He gave comedians the red carpet treatment and also used the comedy club to advise comics like Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, and Ray Romano.

See you next Sunday

Do you find this newsletter worth reading? I’d love it if you shared this with anyone you know who might like it.

As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas. Until we chat, feel free to listen to episode #3 of, It’s Gotta be the Mic.

Have a great week!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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If you're new here, welcome! I'm Nate, designer of Plan Your Next. We're now up to 131 subscribers, and you’re all winners in my book. We’re continuing with the theme of the Audible Newsletter, hoping that Amazon picks up on this idea and acquires us. Until then, hit play and listen to a summarized version of this letter.

What’s new this week?

✍️ KonMarie Your Creative Life: A 2,200-word article on how to apply the KonMari method to your creative life.

🎤 Episode #2 of It’s Gotta Be the Mic: Reza and I recorded a podcast this week discussing newsletters and our first week through the On Deck Writer’s Fellowship.

On Thursday night near the end of our podcast, Reza asked me what I was going to write about for this week’s newsletter, and I had no answer.

Before I stopped writing this newsletter in late 2018, that realization would have scared the s**t out of me. I was timidly writing from a blank page every time I sat down. Not fun, and not sustainable.

Today, all it took was this image of the XB-Supersonic airliner, and an idea started to percolate.

A word that magically appeared was, “aspirational.” How do you take this word and breathe some life into it?

This image, while real, feels incredibly aspirational. Who has the audacity to think of something like this and execute it? We live in incredible times, but flying from Seattle to Tokyo in 4.5 hours seems absolutely insane.

There are few people on this planet who are extraordinary aspirational thinkers, who also execute. We’re captivated by these people, even if they try and fail. And at first, I thought I might write about aspirational thinkers.

Instead, I’m now writing about how that idea percolated and what to do with it.

Finding connections in Roam Research

Coming back to this article, the idea doesn’t write itself. What I do with that idea is to jump into my note-taking tool called Roam. I’ll scour my notes for words like ‘aspirational’ or ‘creativity’ to see what bubbles up to the surface.

Roam gives me a peek into pages that I’ve linked ‘Aspirational’ to directly to or just surfaced indirectly. Maybe there’s something here in the book, Measure what Matters by John Doer which may give me a unique starting point?

In a somewhat spontaneous connection, this book talks about how companies like Google and IBM used Objectives and Key Results (OKR) to set quarterly goals for their teams. It’s a popular approach that aims to break a larger task into smaller ones, all measured through the use of Key Performance Indicators (KPI).

This nugget of an idea is pretty dry right now since no one is here to learn about OKR’s. But what’s interesting is how the book doesn’t recommend you being too aspirational in setting your goals, because if you never hit it, your team may become discouraged or the vision isn’t quite accurate enough. That balance is key.

In contrast, why is it that we’re drawn to people who think big? Leonardo Da Vinci was not thought of only as an artist, but an engineer of weaponry. Even though most of his concepts never came to fruition, he has hundreds of notes and sketches of these in his archives. He lived an aspirational life, delivering more in notes and sketches than finished portraits or weaponry.

Another example is Elon Musk. While he doesn’t hit many of his projected targets, he’s delivered enough to make us believe that his far-out goals are attainable. Mars by 2022? And humans launching by 2024? Crazy! But then you see this and think, maybe?

What is it about Elon that defies the logic of aspirational OKR’s so that his team isn’t utterly devastated when they can’t hit the mark? An essay for another time.

Until then, I wrote this quick letter in 30 minutes.

Here’s s a breakdown of this process:

Pick an idea, a concept, or even just a word. Let it sit for a moment.

Open your note-taking tool where you should be collecting your finest quotes, highlights, and inspired posts.

Look for uncommon connections that inspire something new.

Write, record a video, or snap a photo using this theme to inspire.

What are you creating this week?

Your next live performance

This pandemic has us wishing we could see more live performances. Oda is a company bringing live performances to your home. It’s a beautifully designed speaker that supports musicians and their business model. They also sell seasonal memberships that aim to support live performances to you directly.

Your next self-evaluation

I’m trying to get better at weekly self-evaluations, but I’ve always struggled with the format. Shelby Smith has a great routine explained here.

I also came across Dr. Cameron Sepah’s Keystone Habit which also promotes the daily/weekly self-evaluation.

Do you happen to review your week regularly? Let me know.

Your next 10,000 iterations

Love this twist from Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000-hour rule. Naval states that it’s not about the hours you put in, it’s the repetitions that give you the desired skillset you’re after.

See you next Sunday

Are there certain topics you would like me to cover? Hit reply and expect a response!

As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas.

Have a great week!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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If you're new here, welcome! I'm Nate, designer of Plan Your Next. We're now up to 125 subscribers, and I'd like to welcome everyone new here. Last week’s experiment with the ‘podcast newsletter’ 🤷‍♂️ was our most popular letter, so how could I not resist doing another?

When I sold my condo back in 2011, there wasn’t a grand plan behind it all. I sensed something unsettling, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. For the three years up until that point, life started to feel too comfortable. I felt drawn to a more simple life, one that involved some risk, and some personal accountability.

I started selling most everything I owned. The lime green vintage sofa, the Barcelona chair, and all the other stuff I owned. Everything except for the koi fish artwork, of course.

As soon as I signed the final paperwork, I immediately moved into a room at a friend’s house and started saving 80% of what I was spending before that.

Then, I started to read a lot. When I had a mortgage, it was easy to trick my mind into thinking my money was going somewhere important, and that it’s all I needed to do.

I dove into the classics such as Rich Dad Poor Dad, The Four Pillars of Investing, The Coffeehouse Investor, and many more. I found out about John Bogle, the founder of Vanguard, and the first Index Fund.

What I didn’t realize then—with more time and flexibility—I was applying the KonMari method to my decision making.

I purged my life of everything I owned and only kept what was bringing me joy. The creative inputs I brought into my life were selected unconsciously, for the purpose to find another path that didn’t involve a leveraged expense.

“When you put your house in order, you put your affairs and your past in order, too.”—Marie Kondo

Even though I didn’t have a home, I was starting to put my affairs in order by focusing only on the objects I needed. It gave me the clarity to think about what was next for me.

As Marie says, “The moment you start, you reset your life.”

✨ Your next creative input should spark joy

It’s incredibly easy to get stuck on Instagram and fall into the rabbit hole of the news cycle. I do the same all of the time.

Another way to think about what you should choose to read or watch is to KonMari your creative inputs. Yes, I’m using KonMari as a verb. What are the things that truly spark joy? Ask yourself that question while you’re doomscrolling. Focus on those this next week to see if it leads you anywhere interesting.

Or, is there something you want to create? Look for inputs like articles, videos, or books that are only focused on that creative output.

Anne-Laure of Maker Mind talks about her strategy for consuming:

“I strongly believe that consuming content should be similar to consuming food, especially when you work in an industry where your value is based on your intellectual output, and where your brain is your most important tool. The input you give to your mind is very important.”

As my friend, Ritesh, would say, “find time to play.”

👩‍🎨 Your next piece of art to spark joy

If I were going to buy a piece of artwork tomorrow, it would be from artist/designer Marc Hemeon’s collection. The way he works the grain and breaks in the waves ad horizon line are truly stunning.

If you’re looking for something a bit more affordable, Mark’s 12-year-old son Neo is also creating stellar work that Dr. Seuss on LSD might produce.

🎙 Your next podcast to spark joy?

As I mentioned last week, I kicked off an official podcast with Reza Saeedi, who writes a weekly newsletter called Out of Curiosity. We’ll be chatting our time going through the On Deck Writer’s Fellowship, creativity, writing, design, startups, and other random bits we dig up during the week.

The name of the podcast is, “It's Gotta Be the Mic.”

This has to be a record for how quickly we recorded, edited, uploaded, bought a domain and launched a site for it. Given that, expect nothing but sweet, sweet goodness from the mics, and none of that fancy s**t like a cool intro or outro.

🎤 You can find the first episode here, or download it from all of the places.

See you next Sunday

I’m starting to put serious thought into starting a podcast for Plan Your Next. What seems interesting to me is an interview-style format with people who have transformed themselves by taking action on their next thing.

My ask of you this week: who should I think about interviewing? Should I be considering a different format? Hit reply if you have some ideas for me!

As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas.

Have a great week!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com

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If you’re new here—hello! I’m Nate Kadlac. You signed up for this newsletter, Plan Your Next, at some point during your internet journey. Or possibly from my website, kadlac.com.

Good morning from Los Angeles!

This year has been an absolute shitshow, and it’s affected us all in different ways. It seems that we’re all hunkered down, finding ways to spend the same time we’re all given, a little bit differently.

When st hits the fan, who you surround yourself with, matters. I know I come from a place of privilege, and that rarely leaves my mind. Every week, I get to write this lovely little letter from the comfort of my little home, and that’s a f***g cozy cushy blanket that many people don’t have.

I’ve been spending the majority of this year trying to learn from others to improve my thinking and writing. Since none of this happens in person, I’ve been fortunate to find avenues that have introduced me to a number of people who are building their next thing.

The lesson for me is that while we’re all stuck inside, there are plenty of opportunities to meet and build relationships with others outside your circle.

Today’s Next is to highlight some friends from my circle who I know would inspire you as much as they do me.

🎤 Your next performative speech

Performative Speaking by Robbie Crabtree

Robbie is a trial lawyer who I met during our journey through Write of Passage. From that experience, he’s focusing in on helping people feel more confident speaking in front of others through performative speaking. He’s launching his course on Oct 19th, and I can’t be more excited for him.

☕️ Your next coffee

Flow State Coffee by Greg Frontiero

Greg is a monster mixed with one part wrestler, one part cheerleader. Somehow he’s figured out a blend that introduces l-theanine and cacao to reduce the jittery effect and blood flow that caffeine has on us. You can read more here, but he’s taking pre-orders now and shipping soon.

💍 Your next ring

Heather King Designs by Heather King

Heather is a talented designer based in Brooklyn, where she launched her custom jewelry line earlier this year when the pandemic hit. Her designs are uniquely bold, reminding me of the shape of the opal in the movie, Uncut Gems. Her cuff designs are unlike anything I’ve seen before, except on Wonder Woman.

🛹 Your next sustainable skateboard

Pilllar Skateboards by Corey Bracken

Like Heather, Corey also launched his sustainable skateboard brand in March, not knowing what was coming. He’s focused on building a brand that goes against the grain usually found in the skateboard industry. What’s unique is that he tracks his companies carbon footprint, and offsets that by 110% to stay carbon positive.

🕹 Your next newsletter

It’s Playtime! by Ritesh

Ritesh lives in India, is retired, and loves to play. He writes a daily newsletter to explore how you can introduce more play into your life. He calls it, “Kindergarten for adults.” I highly recommend reading this before your day starts.

📹 Your next video

For many, video can be intimidating and hard to pull off. It’s easy to get caught up in the tools and gear to make a video, but it’s much simpler than most realize. It’s also a medium that can be used for the unexpected.

I love to talk about what’s next, and video can play an important role in doing just that. Consider making a video for your next job interview, or thanking an author for the book you just read, or just by sending a hello video to a friend.

Cam Houser teaches how to lower the bar to making useful, and impactful videos. He’s launching his course later this year, so let me know if you’re interested.

🎙Your next podcast

What I love about The Random Show with Tim Ferris and Kevin Rose, is the brain dump of garbage that they spew into a microphone.

I’ve long thought about having this medium for myself, where I get to do the same without the pressure of producing an official podcast.

I met Reza Saeedi through the Ness Labs community, and since we’re both going through OnDeck’s writing fellowship together, we thought it might be fun to do something similar. I’ll post more when we have something to share.

See you next Sunday

Are there certain topics you would like me to cover? Hit reply and expect a response!

As always, my calendar is always open to chat about your crazy ideas.

Have a great week!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planyournext.com