Welcome to Erebus Growing, a weekly email where I share little snippets of life to help you change and grow into your highest life.

It’s been quite the week for me.

A trip home for the Christmas holiday followed by a COVID diagnosis which has left me in isolation for the past few days.

But now headed into a new year with a lot of new experiences coming this year!

And this is issue 52 of Erebus Growing! A full year of weekly newsletters.

2024 starts the next stage of my journey with eventually moving, a new 9-5, leaving the part time, continuing Erebus Growing, changing over to a more plant-based diet, fostering an additional meditation and movement practice, and working more on my personal brand to build my business and ideal life.

Wishing you a wonderful next phase in your life!

👨🏻‍💻 Meditation

In 2010, I came across a website of some guy who was writing a blog about how he was paying off $90k in student loans.

It was utterly fascinating to me.

He lived someplace in Texas, likely Austin as that sounds vaguely familiar, and was doing whatever he had to do to pay off the loans.

I remember a story about how he had purchased a used rickshaw and was spending weekend evenings in downtown Austin (or Dallas, I truly don’t recall) providing rides to earn some extra cash.

It was this mystery guy that kickstarted my personal finance journey.

From there, I came across The Simple Dollar website run by Trent Hamm at the time (which seems to be defunct now).

This was what I wanted! A life where I could write about what I was doing to build a successful life!

I chose to start a blog and write articles three times a week and was successful for probably three weeks. (Even that may be optimistic!)

I got sucked into a pyramid scheme that same year which I quickly got out of. You know, the old “you buy this membership, and then you get five other people to buy in and you get a percentage of their membership then they get five other people to buy in, and” path to riches.

I graduated with my bachelor’s degree and went off to grad school.

Then I graduated with my master’s degree and went off to my first 9-5.

Then I left my first 9-5 and went to my second.

Throughout all of it was this underlying need to become free of money filled with the same sayings.

Spend less. Save more. Create a budget. Don’t use credit cards. Live below your means. And on and on and on. Don’t save, invest it. Don’t invest, save it. Pay off your “bad” debt.

Chances are, you know them all.

And chances are, you know that while they work, they also don’t work.

Eventually, you can’t spend any less. You can’t save any additional money. Your budget is thrown off by an unexpected expense because you don’t have an emergency fund because you can’t save enough money for it. You have to use credit cards. You try to live below your means but then inflation hits and suddenly the same grocery trip costs $30 more because companies have decided it costs them more (which can be debatable, but that’s an entire book’s worth of discussion). You can’t invest because you don’t have extra money and your “bad” debt is growing because, well, everything.

It’s a spiral and you have to stop somehow.

But how?

That is the real question isn’t it?

How do you stop the spiral?

Today, we’re going to talk about how I’m stopping the spiral.

I’m a single person with two cats and many houseplants as dependents. I rent an apartment and own my car outright.

I may be in a very different position than many of you.

But, here are the basics of stopping the spiral that I’ve been focusing on.

1. Recognize you’re on a path to a life you don’t want.

2. Find inspiration from those who appear to be on the path you admire.

3. Change from a scarcity to an abundance mindset.

4. Build your life with small, simple, foundational steps.

5. When you fail, acknowledge it, thank it, and grow from it.

Those are the simple steps I’ve been using.

And the change is extraordinary when you start to focus intentionally.

Let’s dive in…

— ⏳ —

One: Recognize you’re on a path to a life you don’t want.

Step number one, the most foundational component, is to recognize you don’t want the successful version of whatever life you’re leading right now.

Without this, none of the following steps change.

You won’t be inspired to change.

The best way to explore this step is to explore who you are right now.

If you keep doing you as you are right now, if you’re successful in your current habits, job, or relationships, what does that look like?

For example, if I remain at my current 9-5, I can become a very good federal compliance officer. I work in a particularly niche area that can and will have a significant impact on institutions of higher education. Some schools that have failed to comply with the law I work with have been fined millions of dollars for not complying.

I know my law fairly well after three years of working with it, but I’m still learning. If I had another five years or so, I would be very good at my job and could help institutions comply with a huge federal law that they have to follow to receive federal funding.

But do I want to become that person? Do I want to constantly review reports about the worst of our community members and know all of the terrible things that happen that get covered up or swept under the rug?

While this doesn’t happen at my current institution, there are larger institutions where these things happen all of the time.

It’s a lot of work, often thankless, and people don’t know who you are until you show up saying they didn’t do something. And, if you get audited and caught (whether through an innocent mistake or an intentional decision), chances are you won’t have a job after.

I don’t want to be a successful compliance officer.

Two: Find inspiration from those who appear to be on the path you admire.

What I do know, what I uncovered in 2010, is that I want to live a life where money isn’t a concern for me.

The best way to do that is through writing.

Writing also happens to be something I enjoy.

It also happens to have changed a lot since 2010.

These days, the people who inspire me the most are Dan Koe and Justin C Scott.

I look at what they are doing and realize, that’s what I want to be doing too!

I want to take time to share my thoughts as I build my life to bring others along and push us all, as a whole, forward. Beyond, if possible, a need for money because it will always place the power in the hands of a few.

So I use them as inspiration.

Most importantly, this applies to all areas of my life.

My social media is filled with five types of people:

• Solopreneurs or one-person business owners

• Fitness minded folks

• Whole-food plant-based folks

• Folks with houseplants, refinished furniture, etc.

• Homesteaders and gardners

And I don’t use them to compare against but rather for inspiration.

At the center of myself, that’s the type of life I want to lead.

• I want to have a whole-food plant-based diet while growing my own food.

• I want to live a simple life in a house with refinished furniture, tons of houseplants, and happiness.

• I want to honor my body and mind through simple exercise and meditation.

• I want to manage my own business so that I’m in control and can earn as much or as little as I need while doing what I want.

Social media is here to stay. Use it to your advantage.

At the same time, surround yourself in other places with those goals to.

Find the right people in your face-to-face life. Read books. Listen to podcasts. Watch videos.

Surround yourself with those lifestyles, and your inner self will start to change naturally.

Three: Change from a scarcity to an abundance mindset.

Perhaps the most important step after recognizing you want to change is this one.

Despite what you hear from almost everyone around you, life is not a zero-sum game.

Someone else does not have to lose for you to win.

We can all win.

Put out of your mind that you can’t figure out what to do to change your life.

For me, what is holding me back most right now is my financial situation, so I’ll focus on that as my example.

And I’ll go with the simplest (and strangest) example I can think of.

There is an entire website related to buying pictures of other people’s feet.

Just take a moment and let that sink in if you haven’t before.

There’s a website where it’s possible that I could take a picture of my foot, put it on the site, and sell digital copies for $10 each.

If I can do that with a picture of my foot, I damn well can do it with something better than that.

There is always a way to make more money. (Which, incidentally, is the actual secret to getting out of debt; it’s not spending less, it’s earning more.)

We need to get it out of our heads that life is zero-sum; that if I’m winning that means someone else is losing.

The world is big enough for all of us if we take just what we need and no more.

Four: Build your life with small, simple, foundational steps.

Key item number two. When you try to change too much, you just get overwhelmed.

You’re not the person who can live that changed life yet. You have to become that person.

Choose simple steps.

2022 was a year of physical movement for me. I rowed 10,000 meters virtually every single day. That habit hasn’t been broken unintentionally.

2023 was a year of journaling daily and writing Erebus Growing weekly. This is issue 52(!) of Erebus Growing and I’ve journaled every single day this year.

2024 is a year of social media posting, meditation, and physical stretching.

Each of these is leading towards my future life.

And they are simple.

I have no expectations beyond just doing that one thing.

Because it’s simple, the mind game of “what if I just skip a day?” goes away.

How can you skip writing three sentences for your daily journaling session?

Five: When you fail, acknowledge it, thank it, and grow from it.

And finally, you’re going to fail.

You’re going to skip that day.

You’re going to forget to exercise because it’s not a part of your routine yet.

That’s okay.

Acknowledge it.

Thank yourself that you recognized you missed the change you want to make.

And identify what happened to address and change for the future.

I tried exercising after the 9-5, but then I’d stay late because of a meeting or project, and my evening was occupied with an unexpected dinner invite, and so on.

I moved it to the morning.

It was done before I did anything else for anyone else.

I saw the problem, was happy to recognize I wanted to change, and addressed it.

It’s easy because it’s just one simple habit you’re focusing on.

That’s it!

The steps to stopping the spiral are simple once you know what you’re looking for.

And if you are sufficiently motivated to build your ideal life, things become even easier.

Make this year your year.

1. Recognize you’re on a path to a life you don’t want.

2. Find inspiration from those who appear to be on the path you admire.

3. Change from a scarcity to an abundance mindset.

4. Build your life with small, simple, foundational steps.

5. When you fail, acknowledge it, thank it, and grow from it.

📚 Inspiration and Resources
Every week we all consume content and I share my favorites here.

Learning.
A fun video that I found earlier today about building an aquarium. From my ventures a couple of years ago with a full fish tank, it was cool and I learned a couple of things. I feel like in a couple of years I’d like to give it a go again with some new knowledge. Give it a watch here.

📓 Journaling Prompt
Journaling is one of the most important things to do when exploring our own lives. A new prompt for you to use this week is below.

What are you most proud of from this past year?

Until next time, I wish you enough and send you off with love and a sense of urgency in your life.