Sticky Notes - You're fired.

YOUR COMPANY CARES ABOUT YOU. BUT THEY CARE ABOUT THEIR BOTTOM LINE MORE.

TL;DR...

Due to some technical difficulties, your individual referral link is not working.

I could tell you that it's completely outside of my control and that I'm trying like hell to unfuck the clusterfuck.

I could tell you that it was quite the "blow" for this independent creator who has been working his ass off for the better part of six years building trust with subscribers like you.

I could tell you that I probably should have never launched a referral program while Mercury was in Retrograde.

Instead, I'm just going to make it right.

If you have ever mentioned Sticky Notes or shared my work with someone, anyone –– be it online or off –– I'm going to go ahead and give you your "five subscriber reward" with no questions asked.

Just go here and use discount code "retrograde" at checkout and you won't pay so much as a dime (unless you live outside of the U.S., I will ask that you help me out a bit on shipping).

Bullshit aside, let's get onto the rest of the newsletter.

"THE REST OF THE NEWSLETTER"...

Your company cares about you. But, they care about their bottom line more.

Over the past couple of years, AliExpress has laid off 624 employees, Carvana has laid off 2,500, Ford 580, Noom 500, Robinhood 300, Peloton 2,800, Nestle 474, Unilever 1,500 and QVC 1,900. The list goes on.

When folks get fired, it hurts. Especially in the United States where "what you do" is so closely aligned with "who you are" that you couldn't run a cheese cutter between the two.

I believe in capitalism, just ethical capitalism; and I wish companies gunning for the moon were a bit more conscientious about how quickly they grow and, more so, that they went about this growth, thoughtfully and intentionally.

Growth for the sake of growth is the definition of cancer and, like cancer, scaling recklessly hurts a lot of people employed by these companies chasing Icarus.

With that said, I also can step into the company's shoes doing the rapid hiring, too.

You decided to get on this roller-coaster...

You knew it was inherently risky...

So, don't bitch about the rollercoaster that just bucked you off...

It's just business...

Regardless of where you stand on the company/ employee argument, what all of us can agree on is that while most companies care about their employees, they care about their bottom line more.

History has shown us this time and time again.

I've only worked as an employee for a few months before quitting and taking up a part-time job working construction and dedicating my nights to writing. So, with that said, take everything I'm about to say with a grain of salt.

If I were working full-time at a company amid today's turbulence, I'd try and finagle my way into high-impact positions: marketing, sales, coding of any kind, etc.

If I couldn't work my way into one of those positions, I'd try and become the MVP of my department. A good way to measure MVPs is via Pareto's Law. MVPs are the 20% of a department responsible for 80% of the department's output.

Once I become an MVP –– or better yet, prior –– I would ask myself if I really want to play the MVP game. The biggest argument for working at (and giving your all to) a company is "security".

But, as companies are dropping the ax, we're all beginning to realize that "security" is nothing more than a facade; "security" just means it's someone else's job to worry about whether or not the ship is going to sink.

If you decide you want to jump ship, I would know how to swim before you do.

Yesterday, I met a guy named Carter at a vintage pop-up here in town. He quit his full-time job in Atlanta to buy and sell vintage clothes in Nashville. He told me it's a grind but he does pretty well and, more so, he has a hell of a lot of fun. His days are spent finding "dope shit" at thrift stores and yard sales.

Like swimming, there are different strokes for different folks; your vintage flip business might look entirely different. In my freelance guide, I ask folks to think about skill they do better than most people and to just design a business around it.

Chances are, whatever you're doing for your company can be packaged and sold as a freelancer or a consultant to dozens of other companies; these companies will all care more about their bottom line than they do you. But, that's okay, because you've got dozens of parachutes.

My prediction is that over the next two years, the average person will have three to four sources of income. They might work part-time at [fill in the blank company] during the day, bartend at night, flip vintage on the weekends and short the companies doing the mass firings every step of the way.

When I think about survival, I think about a Jaguar who will eat over 85 different species if it means they won't go hungry: capybaras, deer, tortoises, armadillos, fish, tapir, caiman, etc. Nothing is off-limits.

That's how I've survived my entire professional career and that's how I'd recommend others survive during the downturn, too.

Be a Jaguar.

Godspeed,

Cole

                                Get the guide (or keep reading). 
                            

STOP SIDE-HUSTLIN' –– FREELANCE INSTEAD.

When I hear some twenty-something-year-old kid talk about his latest "side-hustle", I can't help but roll my eyes.

Unless you grab a fistful of Lady Luck's hair, shove a dozen four-leaf clovers up your ass and dunk your privates in carp scales, you've got little to no chance of making any sort of meaningful income peddling NFTs, stuffing gumball machines or listening to anything spewed out of that suck hole belonging to Gary V.

Anyone who is seriously trying to make money on the side of their day job drops the "hustles" and starts freelancing instead.

In my guide, Freelancing your way to $100k, I walk you through the exact steps I took in building my six-figure freelance writing "hustle".

Whether you're looking to eventually quit your day job and make a full-time living selling your skills or are just trying to make a little extra dough on the side, Freelancing your way to $100k was made for you.

                                I'll trade you $100k for $100
                            

F*CK SLACK.

If we were really wanting to figure out productivity, we’d lock folks in a room with water, coffee and a sack lunch, give them a to-do list long enough to chock a horse and tell them they can’t come out until they’ve scratched everything off the list.

Instead, we’ve reached for more humane (but far less effective) productivity alternatives with the most notorious being, yes, email.

Email made us more reachable but less productive.

The problem with email –– and the hundreds of productivity tools that came after it –– is that while it made us more “reachable”, it created additional unnecessary work for us, which is inherently unproductive.

My great-grandfather was a blacksmith and it’s almost comical to think about him attempting to run his forge whilst gunning for Inbox Zero.

One moment he’s beating the hell out of a slab of red-hot iron and the next he’s tearing off his gloves and rushing over to his standing desk...

                                Read the rest of the rant.
                            

I'M NOT PLAYING YOUR GAMES.

I don't have competition.

I'm in a league of my own.

I know...

I know...

I know...

That reads a bit pompous.

But, please...

                                Allow me to explain.
                            

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