Week #39 of 2025 has arrived... It's all a distraction from the sunset, the flowers, and the people you love, and the meaningful work you love to do.

Time to walk over to your 4K Weeks poster and fill in another square.  Done?

My friend Dan, of DelaytheDecay.com, asked me if I would be one of the first guests on his new podcast.  We recorded it earlier in the summer, and it just came out this week... who knows if I make any sense, or if it is worth listening to me babble, but it is out there.

Take a listen if you are inclined!

Listen to this newsletter as podcast. We're on Apple Podcasts and Spotify!

ON WEEK #39 OF 1954...

Steve Allen hosted the newly-premiered late night talk show, "The Tonight Show."

He was 1,709 weeks or 32.77 years old.

WHAT I CONSUMED THIS WEEK

Cast Iron Skillet There's a lot of things to love about this song. I love Jason Isbell's songwriting, but there's one line that I was listening to today, and when it came on, I just said out loud "it sure is". And that line is: "it's hard to go through life without your daddy by your side." If you're lucky, your dad helped you do the work to be able to bear the load in his absence. Beautiful song. Give it a listen.

Song Exploder:Jeff Tweedy, How to Write One Song. This podcast is awesome.  Any creative human (and if you are a breathing human, you are a creative human) should listen to this. What a beautiful way to view the art of creation. "How to live one day, how to write one song. You don't write songs, you write one song. It is the song that is given to you, and you honor it, and finish it."

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time." -Andre Gide

Certainty.  We all crave it.  It takes so much courage to actually float around in a sea of "I'm not sure!" for very long.

One of the main reasons people don't start things is because they're "not sure" if they will succeed.

Nothing is certain.  Any certainty you have is a comfortable delusion.  The sun might not rise tomorrow.

Use that to motivate you to walk out into the ocean and chase that crazy sunset you have been scared to chase.

Worst case you will have lived a more interesting life than otherwise.

WHAT I AM THINKING ABOUT THIS WEEK

Comfort Zones and Missions.

We hired someone.  I am not super good at this.  It has been a learning adventure. I am WAY out of my usual (for the last 15 years) comfort zone. 

I have been working alone in the studio for so long, and I am such a self-directed and self-motivated person that I have a whole lot of hang ups about how good/bad I will be at being a coworker and manager.

Which is awesome, because I am not comfortable.  I have been thinking about this, and wondering if I could become good at it, for a while... If I am honest, I have been afraid that I would always be bad at it because it isn't a skill that comes naturally to me.

But now we are going to find out what I am made of, and that is the only way you can surprise yourself... All the skills that I know I am good at don't surprise me.  I know, given a certain amount of hours, that I can make a lump of clay look like a person.  No surprise there.

But... can I create a rewarding, challenging, and interesting job for someone and then help them succeed in that position while pushing my agenda forward?  We are certainly going to find out! 

Now, get out here with me in this Bog of Uncomfortability! Get your boots muddy and grow!

About that "my agenda" piece - there is potentially a whole lot of ego wrapped up in this, and if I know one thing, it is to be suspicious of my ego leading the way.

I basically hired a guy to follow me around with a camera.  Talk about ego!!! There are a lot of thoughts that I have had about this...

Here is where I have landed. Yes, I have decided on the mission. Yes, I have decided on the course we are charting... But, now that we know that there is a goal larger than one person, almost none of this is about me.  I am a servant of this mission. We are servants of this mission.  My job is to make sure we are staying on course, and that each contributor is rowing in the right direction. And the next guy's job is to row hard in that direction, keep the final destination in his mind, and let me know if he sees any issues ahead.  

This is the mission. It isn't about me, it is about using our skills together to do some awesome stuff and share it with the world while also being able to buy groceries and pay the rent! 

All Aboard!

P.S.  I will be sharing the work we are doing with you when we have something to show for it.

Until next week!

Spencer,

Owner of 4KWeeks

P.S. Click on this reward if you feel like letting me know you read the whole newsletter: The bubble.