Week #42 of 2025 has arrived... A year is full of seasons, and it is easy (in most places) to watch them change.  A life is full of seasons as well, but we aren't as good at noticing the gradual change.

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

I am shifting into a new season of life.  Here is Episode #3. I think it's the best one yet.

I heard Tim Ferriss talk about this a few years ago... how it seems that every 5-10 years he shifts into a new phase of life. It's easier to see in your own life if you are at least 40, and look back and try to draw brackets around different chunks. It's a useful practice to try to notice the seasons of your life changing.

I have noticed the leaves falling from the trees in my own life recently.  When we bought the 4K Weeks brand, I was looking for my next ecommerce venture and covid had wiped the project board of the sculpture studio clean.

Over time, writing this weekly newsletter has been the highlight of our time with 4K Weeks.  Much of the rest of the business hasn't held my attention, but as of today, I have written this email every week for three years.

I hope you find it worth it! Thanks for reading.

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

ON WEEK #43 OF 1986...

Artist and social activist Keith Haring was commissioned by Checkpoint Charlie to paint a 300-meter mural on the Berlin Wall.

He was 1,485.57 weeks or 28.49 years old.

WHAT I CONSUMED THIS WEEK

	Episode #3, The How a Monumental Sculpture is Made Giveaway.  This is where my focus has been lately.  It seems to be finding an audience... If you want to watch and subscribe, I would be forever grateful!
	The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern   OMG, I really love this... I had started it last week, but now I am fully engaged.  I haven't finished it yet, so it could still go off the rails, but so far, so mysterious!
	Against The Rules: Adam McKay is still Angry About 2008. I love Michael Lewis, and this is a great conversation.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you won't do anything with it." -M. Scott Peck

In last week's podcast I really got on a soapbox about this.  There is a real possiblity that this is your only 100 year period in the entire sweep of the universe to have a physical form with opposable thumbs!  How could you possibly squander that opportunity!

If that's true, and you only get one go round... or even 10, that's still only 1000 years out of 13.8 billion and counting... the worth of each second is more valuable than any other thing in the universe.

Not to mention this fact... which is truer than you can ever imagine... that's how rare you are.

WHAT I AM THINKING ABOUT THIS WEEK

Magic and your work.

I spontaneously recorded this reel for our sculpture studio this week... Here is the song...Only Children

I have to work hard at all of my creative... stuff.  I have never felt like I shared in the effortless talent of some of the people around me.  That was true on the basketball court in school, the long hours of art studio classes in college, and in various business groups as an adult.

It has always felt like hard work for me.

And thank goodness.  Because of that, I learned to love the work. I have known many who were seduced by their early talent and gave up when it got hard, as it always ineveitably will.

There really isn't anything else other than "the work".  It comes in many forms, and each of us has many different frontiers where we are doing different kinds of "the work". At their core, they are all the same...building our skills in an uncertain, untested environment.

Other people's creative "stuff" can feel like magic to us because we don't witness the sausage being made.  It is actually a great gift.  The magic of Disney World is nice to live in, the effortlessness of a Michelangelo is beautiful to behold, the fantasy of Tolkien is wonderful to be able to escape into.  I don't always want to see the greasy trash cans behind the Main Street facade, or hear Michelangelo cursing at the rough stone, or be sucked out of the fantasy by reading a rough draft of The Hobbit.

We need their work to seem easy so we can enjoy it, and we need our work to be hard so we can create magic.

Because if you fall in love with the work (and not the product), then there is a chance that a few times in your life, you will make something that transcends your abilities and feels like magic even to you.  

No one is a genius.  But sometimes, when we are diligent chaperones of all the creativity the universe is offering to us, we might be able to welcome the spirit of a genius into our work for a while. 

Figure out a way to love your work and also their magic, without comparison.  Comparison is the thief of joy.

Listen to this excellent Ted Talk from Liz Gilbert to hear more. 

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: You are SOMEBODY!