Greetings from India,
If you ever get the chance to visit, Coimbatore is a city down south in India. I just wrapped up the last dinner and speaking engagements, and it was absolutely mind-blowing. The hospitality of the people was so nice, the food was excellent, and to be honest, after a month in northern Vietnam, the tastes felt so out of this world.

On Friday I gave a talk and I’ll share a little about that. One thing that struck me was that while we tested everything over and over again, I was the last speaker and my first slide came on, but the second—dedicated to my dear friend Eden—didn’t come on screen. We stopped and tried to fix it. I made a joke about my book, but the following morning I thought, maybe it was her playing one of her funny games, laughing at me while I stand there on stage saying, “that’s what I call, F*ck the Slides.”

In today’s storyletter:

• Resilience is a skill
• The personal poll
• Building in public
• From the web

  Let’s go!

THOUGHTS

Resilience requires small changes

I was invited to speak at an event titled Bounce Back Champions. Seven speakers came to share their stories about resilience, and I thought I’d share about the time I needed a couch. I wanted to tell them about all the times I started my life over and over again, but the interesting story I shared was when I realized how important having a home is, what happened with my book launch, the war, and how I needed to find my soul again.

Telling the story of how I got to Vietnam—the journey, losing weight, writing a new book about what I’m going through—felt great, but it led me to show them a few things I’m doing to help me:

1. Writing – It has helped me find my passion again. Writing meant I could be intentional again about everything I do. Write a few minutes a day about the things you are going through.
2. Talk to myself – In the best possible way, myself and I started talking about everything through writing. Not happy? Great, why? Want to go drink? Great, why? As long as myself and I came to agreements, I could continue or stop.
3. Do less – A key factor for my change this year has been finding things I do not want to—or should cut down on—and slowly doing less. When that went well, I started to find new things to fill my time, but better things: running again, cooking, better clients, etc.

I really enjoyed seeing the audience smile, laugh, and nod their heads; but more than that, I felt so lucky when people came up to me telling me the things they would change.

It’s up to you.

A challenge for you:

1. Write one thing you want to start doing – a small thing.
2. Write one thing you want to stop doing – could be stopping scrolling on Instagram.

Great. Define how and when, send me a mail with what you stopped, and what you started.

Building in public

How do you know what to work on?

The plan was simple: move to a cheap country, research, write a new book, license the methodology. I wanted to practice a no-code tool named Bubble. I figured an hour a day would be nice. Maybe a client or two—nothing major, just focus.
Since then, I didn’t do any no-code; I signed more clients than in the previous six months, didn’t write a single word in the book this month, and have been struggling to get on track with most of my plans, but…
I upload twice a week on YouTube, I write my weekly newsletter, and I did online workshops, talks, and consultations.

While I felt my focus shifted when I moved to working on my resilience keynote, it helped me find some clarity about other things and sell two seats in my upcoming mastermind. I got to validate that India would be a huge market for my content and, in general, it brought back some great vibes that Vietnam—or at least northern Vietnam—lacks.
This week, I made a small change to my YouTube channel, which saw an increase in subscribers—over 60 new subscribers in 24 hours and a total of 1,000 watch hours—which is so exciting: a tiny milestone but hey, I’m getting better.

My newsletter subscribers didn’t grow, but that makes sense; I haven’t done anything this week, and last week was a sad one. But I’m going to build a new concept for the newsletter soon.

All in all, I’m focused and ready to head back to Vietnam, this time to go write more in Hoi An—sit in front of rice fields and write like crazy.

A Quick Note About Work

🚀 Mastermind Launch – I’ve been asked to launch a mastermind group focused on marketing, sales, and brand growth. While it wasn’t originally in my plans, the demand is there, and I know my knowledge can help businesses make a real impact. If this sounds interesting, feel free to reply.

📅 Office Hours – I’ve been wanting to start this for a while, and now it’s happening! If you have questions about marketing, branding, or sales—send them in. Video submissions are best, but I’ll take anything. The plan is to start answering more of these publicly and turn them into useful content for everyone.

Final Thoughts

Feeling very grateful for this community and this journey. Let’s keep learning, building, and improving together. 💡
My YouTube channel. Subscribe and support.

About Building in Public

Sharing the journey in an open, unfiltered way, the good, the bad, and the behind-the-scenes of scaling my next idea.

Just for Fun

Enjoy these nuggets

🎵 Music: This week’s newsletter was created while listening to the Jamiroquai playlist. Perfect background music for focus and creativity. Listen here.

🎥 Video: Fun, dark zombie comedy – a great web series. Watch here.

🎬 A Trailer: Seth Rogan’s upcoming Holywood-set comedy series on Apple TV+
Watch here.

Thank you
To everyone here, on WhatsApp, phone, and email, asking how we are doing during the missile attacks from Iran — thank you.

This means the world. And remember, we always want to get along, find peace, laugh, and dance.

Sadly, that is not the case for some people.
Stay strong, positive, hopeful. One day, peace will come for everyone.

In today’s Storyletter:
• Don’t skip sleep or it will cost ya
• Building in Public – war message
• Fun stuff – trailers and music

Key learning

The most important thing you didn’t put on your calendar

Sleep is the most important thing your body needs to function. If you need to prioritize work over sleep, we often choose work, resulting in less productivity, less creativity, and a constant struggle to focus.

Years ago, I was a young employee and student, trying to make some money and open a business while working night shifts and weekends and going to class every day. I could barely keep my eyes open, focus, and worse, I made some critical mistakes.

Fast forward a few weeks, I would just get to class to sleep, felt tired while driving my scooter, and didn’t see real progress in my venture. But the real problem started with… beers.

At the time, I loved going out and having a few beers. The problem was, no matter how few I had, the morning after felt like a very bad hangover. And yes, even after one beer.

It took the doctor a few tests to find the problem. My body was so exhausted, my liver stopped working. Every beer kept running through my bloodstream until I got drunk.

The good doctor suggested a few tests, and when I came back, there was only one thing to do: restart the body.

• At least 7 hours of sleep every night
• No alcohol
• No junk food, just healthy things
• Maintain a routine

Within weeks, my body started to feel better. I started to lose weight slowly, my energy levels were back to normal, and my liver got its well-deserved rest.

We often push ourselves to the limit, not noticing that all we need is less. Work less, focus on one thing instead of many, and get rest instead of losing your mind. You might make less money today but have a better life and probably even a better business tomorrow.

This past week, with constant missiles and less sleep, it was a reminder of how important sleep is. It was also a reminder that sometimes, life happens. Don’t stress. Don’t be mad at yourself.

Give yourself a break. Tomorrow is another day to work. Today, it’s about survival.

Building in public

Entrepreneurship is hard
Now add to that sleepless nights, missiles over your head, in shelters with your family.

While this is happening, the whole world keeps working like everything is normal.
Now that is entrepreneurship for you: running your life and business while people are trying to constantly kill you.

Thought I’d dedicate this week’s building in public to all those out there around the world struggling with getting stuff done, and beating yourself up.
You think you should be doing more, working harder, but life, and things, and family (and bombs).

Don’t. Don’t be hard on yourself. That is just how life goes.
Be kind to yourself.
Find one thing you can do to promote work.

We are dumb creators. We can trick ourselves.
Do the smallest thing. Claim the win.
And if you can’t, own it.

With sleepless nights, finding the energy to write felt like a burden instead of my fun thing. So I let it go. I decided all I needed to do was read my drafts, add or change one sentence.
By the end of the week, I had rewritten three pitches, got a new sales demo ready for my biggest client, and even written two new blog posts.

And if you feel down, mail me. Let’s talk.
Keep rocking, people.

Join me on my journey

Feeling very grateful for this community and this journey. Let’s keep learning, building, and improving together. 💡
My YouTube channel. Subscribe and support.

About Building in Public

Sharing the journey in an open, unfiltered way,the good, the bad, and the behind-the-scenes of scaling my next idea.

Just for Fun

Enjoy your weekend

🎧 Music
This week’s newsletter was created while listening to Buena Vista Social Club on Tiny Desk

🎬 Guillermo del Toro is back with Frankenstein
He knows how to bring a character back to life
Watch the trailer

🍿 Never give up on being funny
Saturday Night Live auditions: it’s scary, it’s tough, and a behind-the-scenes look at one of the funniest shows on TV
Watch the behind-the-scenes video

Resources

💡 The Business Storytelling Guide – A complete guide on how to implement storytelling to improve your business quickly. Available here

📕 My Amazon best-selling book F*ck The Slides – How to Create a Winning Pitch. Available here: Kindle/Print/Audio

📺 My YOUTUBE Channel – Interviews, tips and some fun content Available here