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Category Archives: Mind Building
Covid: Cromer Minor Injuries Unit to close as infections rise
Staff will be redeployed from the unit in Cromer to support a hospital with rising Covid admissions.
Covid: ‘Nail-biting’ weeks ahead for NHS, hospitals in England warn
Doctors urge public to “take it seriously” and follow coronavirus restrictions amid rising cases.
Beginning a Year of Raw Foods
For the first time ever, I’m doing back-to-back one-year challenges. Yesterday I completed my one-year daily blogging challenge (and wrote a retrospective of the experience on the final day). Today I’m rolling into Day 1 of an entirely different kind of challenge, which is to be a raw foodist for the 2021 year.
While 30-day challenges can be good for building self-discipline, I don’t normally think of one-year challenges like that. The framing tends to be different. There may be some discipline involved for the first few weeks to get into a good rhythm, but once you’ve established the new habits, it doesn’t feel like a discipline challenge, especially when you’re a few months in.
I tend to see 365-day challenges as experiential deep dives that focus on exploring and deepening my relationship with some part of life. I regard them as having more to do with the Truth and Love principles of personal growth rather than the Power principle. They’re action-based, but the daily actions become easy and natural after a while. So once you’re into the second or third month, it’s really about the exploration and the ongoing relationship.
With this raw foods challenge, I want to explore my relationship with eating raw and how it affects me. I may have some cooked food cravings during the first few weeks, but those will likely go away after a while, and it should feel pretty natural to keep eating raw throughout the year.
In fact, part of the exploration of a one-year challenge is to make sure to get the relationship right, so it doesn’t feel like a discipline-based slog – that would be exhausting. The point isn’t to wear yourself down with an extra layer of struggle for a whole year.
I’ve eaten all raw for hundreds of days of my life, including for six months in a row before, so I have a lot of experience with this way of eating already. I’ve also been vegan for 24 years, and I normally include lots of raw foods like smoothies and salads in my diet. But it’s been a while since I’ve really invested in my relationship with raw foods, other than some additional 30-day stretches. The last time I was really into this way of eating was in 2008 and 2009.
I’ve been thinking about getting back into raw foods for a while now, and framing this as a one-year commitment feels good to me. I like the idea of taking a whole year to more deeply explore this relationship. That feels abundant to me.
It’s almost like giving myself permission to play video games for 1-2 hours every day for a year – you probably won’t see that as a struggle but rather as an interesting kind of exploration if you like games. While you could play games anytime, there’s something more meaningful about committing to one-year deep dive into gaming. You might be inclining to think more carefully about which games you’ll play during that year and why. If you do it right, you could really enjoy the experience, and you may appreciate the memories of that year of gaming for a long time afterwards.
I’m not concerned about having the ability to complete the year. That part seems relatively easy since I have a lot of experience eating raw already.
I want to see how a longer stretch of continuous raw eating will affect me. It’s possible that I’ll go longer than a year, but a year seems like a good minimum to really explore this as I’d like.
For me this deep dive actually seems relaxing. I love how I feel on raw foods. It does give me less flexibility when eating out, but with the pandemic still ongoing, it seems like a good lifestyle fit for at least the first half of the year.
While Rachelle isn’t doing this particular challenge with me on a daily basis, she enjoys making and eating raw meals too. She’s the better chef between us, so it will be nice to enjoy some of her raw creations throughout the year. I’m also looking forward to making some new raw creations myself, such as those in the new raw food cookbook Rachelle gave me for Christmas. Having her support makes this challenge seem even easier.
I’m normally a happy person, but I tend to feel significantly happier and even more optimistic while eating raw. So you may notice some shifts in the emotional tone of my work this year because of that. I expect this will be a good year for me emotionally.
On the other hand, eating raw also makes me more sensitive emotionally. I especially want to explore this aspect of my relationship with raw foods. I found this aspect hard to handle in the past, and I want to see if I can improve in this area.
I once tried to eat all raw during a 3-day workshop many years ago, figuring that it would give me the best energy. My physical and mental energy were great. The overall experience was rough though. During our workshops, the people in the room go through all sorts of transformations. Some are facing tough decisions like whether to quit their job or break up with a relationship partner. Some people in the room are processing deep emotions, even when they appear to be stone-faced. I know this from talking to them afterwards, and they tell me how the workshop has been affecting them. When I crank up my sensitivity by eating raw, I feel the flood of their emotions streaming into me while I’m trying to deliver the material. It feels overwhelming sometimes, like I just want to get off the stage and go hug them and cry with them.
Consequently, after that experience I favored eating heavier foods during live events like pasta, which had a very grounding effect. Just being vegan keeps me sensitive enough to stay in tune with what people are feeling, but cooked food gives me enough emotional padding to stay focused on the material and the overall energy in the room without feeling flooded by people’s strong emotions. I’ve been wondering if there’s a better way to handle this though. Can I handle more sensitivity to other people’s emotions without being knocked off balance by it so much?
One way I can explore this is on our group coaching calls in Conscious Growth Club, which we do 3x per month. I’ve done more than 100 of these calls, so I have a good baseline for what to expect. I can see how eating raw affects my emotional sensitivity and what effect that has on the coaching. I think this will be an especially good year for coaching in CGC because of that. The coaching is done with one person at a time, and it’s over Zoom, so it’s unlikely to be emotionally overpowering. I think more sensitivity and awareness will be beneficial in this context.
I also tend to be way more intuitive when eating raw, so that will be nice to explore more deeply as well. I’m especially curious as to what new personal growth insights and business ideas I might generate this year. My mind is clearer and sharper while eating raw, like I have about 30% more mental RAM for thinking.
My life is also in a very different place than it was when I was last really into raw foods. Back then I was in my first marriage. Eating raw for a significant stretch raised my sensitivity and awareness to the point where long-term issues had to be dealt with. I went through a period of major changes, leading to the end of that marriage and getting into a beautiful new relationship with Rachelle. I had some wicked misalignments to deal with back then. Eating raw helped me find aligned solutions in a way that nothing else did.
Today I’m not feeling the presence of major misalignments. Even given the pandemic situation, I like my lifestyle. I’m super happy in my marriage with Rachelle. I enjoy my work and the way it’s flowing so nicely. I love connecting with people in CGC each day. So eating raw doesn’t seem like it would turn my life upside down like it did in the past. I’m glad for those transitions, but it was a lot of change to go through in a relatively short period of time.
Given how my life is now, eating raw seems like it will be more of a gift. I’ll feel better and will have more energy. Exercise will be easier. I’ll feel happier. This will probably be one of the best years of my life.
Sex feels significantly better too when eating raw. It’s more pleasurable. The sensations are stronger, richer, and more nuanced. The emotional connection is stronger, so it’s like pleasure and love woven together. I definitely enjoy that aspect of being a raw foodist.
With a one-year challenge, I like to give myself a decent amount of flexibility. Some wiggle room is good but not too much. If there’s too much, you could wiggle your way out of the challenge. But the right amount of wiggle room can improve your relationship with the challenge by making the experience feel more casual and relaxed, so you don’t feel too boxed in.
I let myself do batch blogging in advance last year, so I could take some days off from writing when I wanted to. I committed to publishing every day but not to writing every day. Then if my mind ever started to think, “I could really use a day off of writing,” I could say in response, “You can have one. Just write an extra post today, and queue it up to publish tomorrow.” Most of the time I didn’t do that, but just knowing that I could was like a pressure release valve. It kept me from feeling trapped by the challenge. I didn’t want to feel trapped at any point since that would mess up my relationship with the challenge.
I don’t want to feel trapped by my raw foods challenge either. I know I can do it strictly because I’ve done that before, including sharing photos of everything I ate for 30 days in a row back in January 2008, but that was my least favorite way of eating raw. For a whole year I don’t want to have an overly strict relationship with raw foods. I want to have a little bit of wiggle room, enough that I can feel good about my relationship with this challenge throughout the whole year.
Part of my intention for this challenge is to see what it’s like to eat raw as my baseline way of eating. So my default way of thinking will be to eat raw vegan food for every meal. After I’ve been doing that for a while, eating a meal of cooked foods isn’t going to feel good. It will probably make me sick. I’ve tested that in the past. So as long as I stick with raw as my baseline for the year, I’m unlikely to be tempted to sneak a meal of cooked food from time to time. It’s not going to be a very pleasant experience.
However, I do like the idea of giving myself a little bit of wiggle room for emotional reasons. Suppose Rachelle makes a really nice cooked food meal for herself one night, and I would love a little taste of it. I might have a small nibble, which would probably be plenty to satisfy me emotionally, and then go back to my big salad or raw soup. I don’t expect that I’d actually want to do this too often, but I like having the option.
In fact, this is an aspect of a raw food lifestyle I’d like to explore in more detail this year. What wiggle room would I appreciate that would actually improve my relationship with this lifestyle? Where do I appreciate having some flexibility but not too much? In my case I expect such wiggle room to be bite-sized, not meal-sized, and definitely not a daily thing.
Another thing I would like to test at some point during the year is whether it feels good to include some lightly steamed veggies now and then. Some raw foodists think it’s better to incorporate such foods, especially if it means eating less raw fat. I’m not sure sure if I’d feel good eating a cup of steamed zucchini with a salad from time to time. But I may want to test it during the year to see how it feels. I’d also like to devise more small experiments to test the boundaries around eating raw as my baseline. I want to discover what feels good and what creates negative effects. I want to fill in some gaps in my knowledge and experience.
So my intention for the year isn’t to be 100% purist as a raw foodist. Few long-term raw foodists are like that. There are a lot of different ways to eat a raw foods diet, and many include some wiggle room. A little bit of flexibility can go a long way with this lifestyle.
My framing for this year’s challenge is really about the experience and what I’ll learn and discover as I go. I’m not thinking of this as a succeed or fail type of challenge. I know I can trust myself to stay aligned with the purpose as I go through the year. There’s a sort of lock-in that occurs as I get into eating raw foods, where cooked foods seem lifeless and unappealing after a while, and I just naturally want to keep eating raw. It takes a deliberate decision to push me back to cooked foods and to overcome the raw inertia, so I don’t see there being a significant risk of that happening by accident or mistake.
Mostly I’m going to begin by reloading the way I’ve eaten raw in the past. That seems like a good place to start. Then I can experiment around that baseline. I like that a year gives me a feeling of time abundance for exploring my relationship with this lifestyle. It doesn’t feel stressful, and even though I might call it a challenge, it doesn’t seem challenging. It feels like I’ve allocated an abundant stretch of time to explore something that fascinates me.
I also see this as a gift for my future self. I want him to know what it’s like to eat raw for a full year. I want him to understand this diet and lifestyle even better than I do now. I want him to have the memory of delving into this relationship for all of 2021, so he can make wiser decisions regarding his diet and lifestyle going forward.
Today I began with a green smoothie, which I’ve been sipping on while writing this. This will be an interesting year. 🙂
Putty-like composites of gallium metal with potential for real-world application
Gallium is a highly useful element that has accompanied the advancement of human civilization throughout the 20th century. Gallium is designated as a technologically critical element, as it is essential for the fabrication of semiconductors and transistors. Notably, gallium nitride and related compounds allowed for the discovery of the blue LED, which was the final key in the development of an energy-efficient and long-lasting white LED lighting system. This discovery has led to the awarding of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics. It is estimated that up to 98% of the demand for gallium originates from the semiconductor and electronics industry.
In addition to its use in electronics, the unique physical properties of gallium have led to its use in other areas. Gallium itself is a metal with a very low melting point and is a liquid at just above room temperature (30 °C). Also, gallium is capable of forming several eutectic systems (alloys that have a lower melting point than any of its constituents, including gallium) with a number of other metals. Both pure gallium and these gallium based liquid metal alloys have high surface tension and are considered “non-spreadable” on most surfaces. This renders them difficult to handle, shape, or process, which limits their potential for real-world application. However, a recent discovery may have unlocked the possibility for broader use of gallium in the field of functional materials.
A research team at the Center for Multidimensional Carbon Materials (CMCM) within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) in Ulsan, South Korea and the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) has invented a new method for incorporating filler particles in liquid gallium to create functional composites of liquid metal. The incorporation of fillers transforms the material from a liquid state into either a paste- or putty-like form (with consistency and “feel” similar to the commercial product “Plasticine”) depending on the amount of added particles. In the case when graphene oxide (G-O) was used as a filler material, G-O content of 1.6~1.8% resulted in a paste-like form, while 3.6% was optimal for putty formation. A variety of new gallium composites and the mechanism of their formation is described in a recent article published in the journal Science Advances.
The mixing of particles inside the gallium based liquid metal alters the physical properties of the material, which allows for much easier handling. First author Chunhui Wang notes: “The ability for liquid gallium composites to form pastes or putties is extremely beneficial. It removes most of the issues of handling of gallium for applications. It no longer stains surfaces, it can be coated or “painted” onto almost any surface, it can be molded into a variety of shapes. This opens up a wide variety of applications for gallium not seen before.” The potential application of this discovery includes situations where soft and flexible electronics are required, such as in wearable devices and medical implants. The study even showed that the composite can be fashioned into a porous foam-like material with extreme heat resistance, with the ability to withstand a blowtorch for 1 minute without sustaining any damage.
In this study, the team was able to identify the factors that would allow the fillers to successfully mix with liquid gallium. Co-corresponding author Benjamin Cunning described the prerequisites: “Liquid gallium develops an oxide ‘skin’ when exposed to air, and this is crucial for mixing. This skin coats the filler particle and stabilizes it inside the gallium, but this skin is resilient. We learned that particles of a large enough size have to be used otherwise mixing cannot occur and a composite cannot be formed.”
The researchers used four different materials as fillers in their study: graphene oxide, silicon carbide, diamond, and graphite. Among these, two of them in particular displayed excellent properties when incorporated in liquid gallium: reduced graphene oxide (rG-O) for electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding and diamond particles for thermal interface materials. A 13-micron thick coating of Ga/rG-O composite on a reduced graphene oxide film was able to improve the film’s shielding efficiency from 20 dB up to 75 dB, which is sufficient for both commercial (>30 dB) and military (>60 dB) applications. However, the most remarkable property of the composite was its ability to provide EMI shielding property to any everyday common material. The researchers demonstrated that a similar 20-micron thick coating of Ga/rG-O applied on a simple sheet of paper yielded a shielding efficiency of over 70 dB.
Perhaps most exciting was the thermal performance when diamond particles were incorporated into the material. The CMCM team measured the thermal conductivities in collaboration with UNIST researchers Dr. Shalik Joshi and Prof. KIM Gun-ho, and the “real-world” application experiments were carried out by LEE Seunghwan and Prof. LEE Jaeson. The thermal conductivity experiment showed that the diamond containing composite had bulk thermal conductivities of up to ~110 W m-1 K-1, with larger filler particles yielding greater thermal conductivity. This exceeded the thermal conductivity of the commercially available thermal paste (79 W m-1 K-1) by more than 50%. The application experiment further proved the gallium-diamond mixture’s effectiveness as a thermal interface material (TIM) between a heat source and a heat sink. Interestingly, the composite with smaller size diamond particles showed superior real-world cooling capability despite having lower thermal conductivity. The reason for this discrepancy is due to the larger diamond particles being more prone to protruding through the bulk gallium and creating air gaps at the interface of the heat sink or heat source and the TIM, reducing its effectiveness. (Ruoff notes that there are some likely ways to solve this issue in the future.)
Lastly, the group has even created and tested a composite made from a mixture of gallium metal and commercial silicone putty — better known as “Silly Putty” (Crayola LLC). This last type of gallium containing composite is formed by an entirely different mechanism, which involves small droplets of gallium being dispersed throughout the Silly Putty. While it does not have the impressive EMI shielding ability of the above-mentioned Ga/rG-O (the material requires 2 mm of coating to achieve the same 70 dB shielding efficiency), it is compensated with superior mechanical properties. Since this composite uses silicone polymer rather than gallium metal as the base material, it is stretchable in addition to being malleable.
Prof. Rod Ruoff, director of CMCM who conceived of the idea of mixing such carbon fillers with liquid metals notes: “We first submitted this work in September 2019, and it has undergone a few iterations since then. We have discovered that a wide variety of particles can be incorporated into liquid gallium and have provided a fundamental understanding of how particle size plays a role in successful mixing. We found this behavior extends to gallium alloys that are liquids at temperatures below room temperature such as indium-gallium, tin-gallium, and indium-tin-gallium. The capabilities of our UNIST collaborators have demonstrated outstanding applications for these composites, and we hope our work inspires others to discover new functional fillers with exciting applications.”
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Comb of a lifetime: a new method for fluorescence microscopy
Fluorescence microscopy is widely used in biochemistry and life sciences because it allows scientists to directly observe cells and certain compounds in and around them. Fluorescent molecules absorb light within a specific wavelength range and then re-emit it at the longer wavelength range. However, the major limitation of conventional fluorescence microscopy techniques is that the results are very difficult to evaluate quantitatively; fluorescence intensity is significantly affected by both experimental conditions and the concentration of the fluorescent substance. Now, a new study by scientists from Japan is set to revolutionize the field of fluorescence lifetime microscopy. Read on to understand how!
A way around the conventional problem is to focus on fluorescence lifetime instead of intensity. When a fluorescent substance is irradiated with a short burst of light, the resulting fluorescence does not disappear immediately but actually “decays” over time in a way that is specific to that substance. The “fluorescence lifetime microscopy” technique leverages this phenomenon — which is independent of experimental conditions — to accurately quantify fluorescent molecules and changes in their environment. However, fluorescence decay is extremely fast, and ordinary cameras cannot capture it. While a single-point photodetector can be used instead, it has to be scanned throughout the sample’s area to be able to reconstruct a complete 2D picture from each measured point. This process involves movement of mechanical pieces, which greatly limits the speed of image capture.
Fortunately, in this recent study published in Science Advances, the aforementioned team of scientists developed a novel approach to acquire fluorescence lifetime images without necessitating mechanical scanning. Professor Takeshi Yasui, from Institute of Post-LED Photonics (pLED), Tokushima University, Japan, who led the study, explains, “Our method can be interpreted as simultaneously mapping 44,400 ‘light stopwatches’ over a 2D space to measure fluorescence lifetimes — all in a single shot and without scanning.” So, how was this achieved?
One of the main pillars of their method is the use of an optical frequency comb as the excitation light for the sample. An optical frequency comb is essentially a light signal composed of the sum of many discrete optical frequencies with a constant spacing in between them. The word “comb” in this context refers to how the signal looks when plotted against optical frequency: a dense cluster of equidistant “spikes” rising from the optical frequency axis and resembling a hair comb. Using special optical equipment, a pair of excitation frequency comb signals is decomposed into individual optical beat signals (dual-comb optical beats) with different intensity-modulation frequencies, each carrying a single modulation frequency, and irradiated on the target sample. The key here is that each light beam hits the sample on a spatially distinct location, creating a one-to-one correspondence between each point on the 2D surface of the sample (pixel) and each modulation frequency of the dual-comb optical beats.
Because of its fluorescence properties, the sample re-emits part of the captured radiation while still preserving the aforementioned frequency-position correspondence. The fluorescence emitted from the sample is then simply focused using a lens onto a high-speed single-point photodetector. Finally, the measured signal is mathematically transformed into the frequency domain, and the fluorescence lifetime at each “pixel” is easily calculated from the relative phase delay that exists between the excitation signal at that modulation frequency versus the one measured.
Thanks to its superior speed and high spatial resolution, the microscopy method developed in this study will make it easier to exploit the advantages of fluorescence lifetime measurements. “Because our technique does not require scanning, a simultaneous measurement over the entire sample is guaranteed in each shot,” remarks Prof. Yasui, “This will be helpful in life sciences where dynamic observations of living cells are needed.” In addition to providing deeper insight into biological processes, this new approach could be used for simultaneous imaging of multiple samples for antigen testing, which is already being used for the diagnosis of COVID-19.
Perhaps most importantly, this study showcases how optical frequency combs, which were only being used as “frequency rulers,” can find a place in microscopy techniques to push the envelope in life sciences. It holds promise for the development of novel therapeutic options to treat intractable diseases and enhance life expectancy, thereby benefitting the whole of humanity.
Covid-19: New variant ‘raises R number by up to 0.7’
A study finds the new coronavirus variant is responsible for pushing the R rate above the crucial 1.0 mark.
See live cells with seven times greater sensitivity using new microscopy technique
Experts in optical physics have developed a new way to see inside living cells in greater detail using existing microscopy technology and without needing to add stains or fluorescent dyes.
Since individual cells are almost translucent, microscope cameras must detect extremely subtle differences in the light passing through parts of the cell. Those differences are known as the phase of the light. Camera image sensors are limited by what amount of light phase difference they can detect, referred to as dynamic range.
“To see greater detail using the same image sensor, we must expand the dynamic range so that we can detect smaller phase changes of light,” said Associate Professor Takuro Ideguchi from the University of Tokyo Institute for Photon Science and Technology.
The research team developed a technique to take two exposures to measure large and small changes in light phase separately and then seamlessly connect them to create a highly detailed final image. They named their method adaptive dynamic range shift quantitative phase imaging (ADRIFT-QPI) and recently published their results in Light: Science & Applications.
“Our ADRIFT-QPI method needs no special laser, no special microscope or image sensors; we can use live cells, we don’t need any stains or fluorescence, and there is very little chance of phototoxicity,” said Ideguchi.
Phototoxicity refers to killing cells with light, which can become a problem with some other imaging techniques, such as fluorescence imaging.
Quantitative phase imaging sends a pulse of a flat sheet of light towards the cell, then measures the phase shift of the light waves after they pass through the cell. Computer analysis then reconstructs an image of the major structures inside the cell. Ideguchi and his collaborators have previously pioneered other methods to enhance quantitative phase microscopy.
Quantitative phase imaging is a powerful tool for examining individual cells because it allows researchers to make detailed measurements, like tracking the growth rate of a cell based on the shift in light waves. However, the quantitative aspect of the technique has low sensitivity because of the low saturation capacity of the image sensor, so tracking nanosized particles in and around cells is not possible with a conventional approach.
The new ADRIFT-QPI method has overcome the dynamic range limitation of quantitative phase imaging. During ADRIFT-QPI, the camera takes two exposures and produces a final image that has seven times greater sensitivity than traditional quantitative phase microscopy images.
The first exposure is produced with conventional quantitative phase imaging — a flat sheet of light is pulsed towards the sample and the phase shifts of the light are measured after it passes through the sample. A computer image analysis program develops an image of the sample based on the first exposure then rapidly designs a sculpted wavefront of light that mirrors that image of the sample. A separate component called a wavefront shaping device then generates this “sculpture of light” with higher intensity light for stronger illumination and pulses it towards the sample for a second exposure.
If the first exposure produced an image that was a perfect representation of the sample, the custom-sculpted light waves of the second exposure would enter the sample at different phases, pass through the sample, then emerge as a flat sheet of light, causing the camera to see nothing but a dark image.
“This is the interesting thing: We kind of erase the sample’s image. We want to see almost nothing. We cancel out the large structures so that we can see the smaller ones in great detail,” Ideguchi explained.
In reality, the first exposure is imperfect, so the sculptured light waves emerge with subtle phase deviations.
The second exposure reveals tiny light phase differences that were “washed out” by larger differences in the first exposure. These remaining tiny light phase difference can be measured with increased sensitivity due to the stronger illumination used in the second exposure.
Additional computer analysis reconstructs a final image of the sample with an expanded dynamic range from the two measurement results. In proof-of-concept demonstrations, researchers estimate the ADRIFT-QPI produces images with seven times greater sensitivity than conventional quantitative phase imaging.
Ideguchi says that the true benefit of ADRIFT-QPI is its ability to see tiny particles in context of the whole living cell without needing any labels or stains.
“For example, small signals from nanoscale particles like viruses or particles moving around inside and outside a cell could be detected, which allows for simultaneous observation of their behavior and the cell’s state,” said Ideguchi.
Covid: 12-week vaccine gap defended by UK medical chiefs
The UK will now leave a 12-week gap between both parts of the Covid vaccination, rather than 21 days.
One Year of Daily Blogging: Lessons and Insights
Today officially concludes my one-year daily blogging challenge that I committed to a little over a year ago. I started on December 24, 2019 and have published a new blog post or video every day since them. So that’s 374 days in a row if you include today’s post.
As you can verify from the blog archives, I successfully completed the challenge.
I’ve been blogging every year since I started in 2004, but this is the first year that I’ve published something new every single day. This was an interesting experience, so I’ll share some thoughts about what it was like, some of which might surprise you.
I had no doubts that I could and would cross the finish line. As I’ve noted before, these kinds of challenges are won or lost in our minds before we begin Day 1. Quitting or skipping a day wasn’t a temptation at any point. I was all-in with this from the beginning.
Partly I did this as a gift to my future self. It creates a powerful new reference experience. I now know what it’s like to publish something every day for more than a year, and for the rest of my life, I’ll always know that I’m capable of at least that much. Even 20 years from now, I’ll be able to remember that in the wild year of 2020, I published something new every single day.
I’ve created and published more new material this year than in any previous year of my life. I’ve been earning a living from my creativity since 1994, so I have a lot of years of that behind me. It seems I still have a lot of years of that ahead of me too.
A New Level of Creative Output
I would estimate that I created and published around 400,000 new words of material to my blog this year, which is about 5x the length of my book Personal Development for Smart People.
Additionally, I recorded and published the new Stature course this year. That course is more than 16 hours of audio, which would be around 160,000 words (more if you count the bonuses too). So that bumps it to about 560,000 words for the year – all published.
Beyond this I wrote hundreds of Conscious Growth Club forum posts, which are privately published in our members-only forums. And there were 36 new CGC video coaching calls with educational segments plus 4 new quarterly review calls, all published for CGC members. Then there was material recorded for outside sources like interviews, which would bump it even higher. And this doesn’t count personal journal entries – I do a lot of journaling too, easily 100Ks more of words per year.
All together if you just count the new material created and published for the benefit of my blog readers, YouTube subscribers, and CGC members this year, I’d say it’s well beyond a million words of text, audio, and video. That may seem like a lot, but a million words in a year is only about 2700 words per day.
Oh yeah… in November I also wrote 55,051 words of a new novel for NaNoWriMo (currently unpublished). I’d love to work on that more in 2021.
Suffice it to say that this was my highest year of creative output ever. It adds a substantial amount to my lifetime body of published work, which was already in the millions of words. While the courses and CGC members-only materials are copyrighted, my blog posts, YouTube videos, and social media posts are uncopyrighted and donated to the public domain. So everyone is free to republish, translate, or to create derivative works (including for sale) from the new articles and YouTube videos I published this year and in all years prior.
It does feel nice to make a bigger personal contribution to the collective work of humanity this year. And it gives AI more to chew on as well.
So that’s the external side. Let me share a bit about what the personal experience was like since I know some people are curious to know about that.
The Experience of Daily Blogging for a Full Year
First off, this level of output was really no sweat. It may seem like it was a discipline challenge, but it didn’t land that way for me, and I didn’t expect that it would be particularly discipline-based before I started. I figured that I’d get into a decent rhythm early in the year, and then I’d mostly stick to that rhythm throughout the year. And that’s pretty much what happened.
I knew that this could be a miserable challenge if I resisted it at any point, so I built in enough flexibility in how I framed it before I started. There was no minimum word count, so some days I only wrote 300-500 words, which might take as little as 15-20 minutes. That gave me some nice flexibility on busier days. Most days I wrote considerably more, but it was nice to have the option to write less.
I knew that one post per day was a reasonable standard that I could trust myself to honor. I wasn’t going to write a whole year of crappy trivial posts just to meet the letter of the challenge. What would have been the point in doing that?
I also committed to daily publishing but not to daily writing. This allowed me to try batch blogging by writing extra posts in a single day and queueing them to be published one day at a time. I didn’t do a lot of batching throughout the year, but I did do this a few times, writing as many as 7-8 posts in one day or recording a batch of YouTube videos. That way I could take up to a week off from daily writing to give myself a little break here and there. For the vast majority of posts, however, I wrote them on the same day I published them.
I can say in retrospect that publishing something every day did feel meaningful. I don’t feel that not writing every single day reduced the feeling of accomplishment. In order to “earn” a day off, I had to pre-write material earlier, so that definitely didn’t feel like cheating.
The added flexibility of batch blogging was nice to have, but I didn’t lean on it as much as I thought I would. I still prefer to publish most material as soon as it’s done. It feels a bit weird to force an article to be held back for a few days once it’s ready. I feel more in sync with the flow of life when I share something immediately after creating it, and I think that syncs up better with the people who read the articles and watch the videos too.
I never created an editorial calendar or a mega-list of ideas to write about. I prefer to invite the flow of inspiration as a present-moment experience, as I shared previously in the How I Write article. So on almost all days of this challenge, I decided what I was going to write about just before I began writing each day. If you asked me an hour before I started writing what I was going to write about that day, I usually couldn’t have told you.
For the rare batch blogging days, I would generate the ideas on the same day I wrote those posts. One day I tried to pre-outline some article ideas on index cards, planning to write those articles the next day. I ended up scrapping all of those ideas because the energy behind them was too dead after 24 hours. The cards that felt lively on one day felt lifeless the next. It’s always a better experience if I give expression to ideas on the same day they show up. An idea is pretty much worthless when the inspirational energy that delivered it has receded. I have to ride the waves as they arrive. I can’t surf yesterday’s waves.
Testing the Limits of Creative Expression
One reason I wanted to do this challenge was to more deeply explore my relationship with creative expression. I gained some interesting realizations along these lines, but they didn’t come from the directions that I expected.
Before I committed to this challenge, I wondered what it would be like to demand more from the flow of inspiration. I’ve had a great connection with this flow for many years. I never get writer’s block. I was curious what would happen if I really amped up my output by demanding more from it than ever before.
It turned out that as I demanded more ideas, more ideas showed up with relative ease. I didn’t feel like I had to scrape the bottom of the barrel for more to write about. I actually feel like I did some of my best writing this year, and I received a lot of feedback to that effect as well. While I did write about some old and familiar topics, I also discovered and shared many new insights. And I stretched myself in a lot of different ways. This was a year of a lot of growth and change, and I always had plenty of ideas to explore through writing.
The coronavirus situation was a bit of a gift in that regard. This was a very different kind of year than I expected. I actually felt lucky that I picked this year for this challenge. I thought I was going to have to work around a lot of trips that I’d be taking this year, such as by writing some articles in airports, on planes, or at hotels, but I haven’t left Las Vegas since January. At least I got to visit the Panama Canal that month.
I thought the most interesting part of this challenge would be having to stretch myself to keep up with a faster creative flow. Would I need to develop new ways of accessing the flow of inspiration if my old way of interfacing proved inadequate? That part was actually pretty easy though. Demanding more ideas just invited more inspiration, and it never dried up. If there was a creative limit there, I never reached it.
That alone is a cool realization to have. It makes me feel a bit more ambitious about future creative work. I pushed myself along one creative dimension this year, and I felt connected to even more inspirational vastness.
It’s like playing the game where you fall backwards into someone else’s arms, and you have to trust that they’ll catch you. This year I fell into the arms of inspiration, and it caught me. Then it gave me a look that said, Was there ever any doubt?
I’ve long had an abundant relationship with the flow of creative expression. But this year it feels like I took that relationship to a new level of trust and depth. This is actually kind of exciting. I feel like it opens up a bigger world of possibilities. I’m not sure where I’ll take this next. I’d like to give myself some time and space after this challenge to ponder those possibilities. I still feel like I’m inside the challenge right now as I wrap it up.
I’m really looking forward to NOT doing the daily publishing in the coming year. It does take up significant creative bandwidth, and I want to see what else I can do with this bandwidth. I would like next year to have a lower volume of publishing, so I can explore this fascinating relationship in other ways.
I’m especially looking forward to creating and publishing an all new deep dive course about creative productivity in the first quarter of 2021 (most likely in the range of February / March); of course you’re invited to join me for that. Would you like to learn how to create and publish a huge volume of quality material without breaking a sweat, without worrying about criticism, and without getting writer’s block? I think there’s a lot that I can teach about this that would make for a unique and different approach.
Note that it’s also pretty easy to enjoy financial abundance if you can do the equivalent of writing and publishing several new books each year. Being able to consistently tune into the flow of creative expression is a gift that keeps on giving.
My Relationship with Other Publishing Platforms
With such frequent publishing, I was able to notice more subtleties and nuances in how I felt about various decisions along the way, like which topics I wrote about, when I did my writing, and where I published material. I feel that this helped me clarify which decisions felt most aligned and which felt semi-misaligned.
For example, it became even more obvious that the morning hours are my best time for creative work. I did most of my creative output well before noon each day, and that still feels good to me.
What probably surprised me most was getting more clarity about how I felt about different publishing platforms.
I love publishing to my blog/website and within CGC best. Those outlets always felt beautifully aligned.
While sharing in other places seems like a logically good idea – for business reasons, for reaching more people, and for creating more ripples – this year I’ve felt increasingly misaligned with that choice.
I thought I might do more YouTube videos this year, but I only created about a dozen more of them, including recording 8 videos in one day. I’m super comfortable on video, and I’ve been doing live video recordings in CGC most weeks since 2017. I have to face the truth that I just don’t like YouTube that much though. The vibe of it feels a bit off to me. I like watching other people’s videos there, but I don’t seem to mesh with using YouTube as a major publishing platform. Occasionally posting something to YouTube is okay now and then, but I don’t feel drawn to invest in that platform in a bigger way as a contributor. I just feel really blah about using it.
For a while now I’ve been toying with the idea of publishing future public videos to Vimeo only (I have a paid Vimeo account) and to my blog and not bothering with YouTube at all. Sharing on YouTube would mean more views of course, but I’m more into alignment than viewer counts. I think I might actually enjoy making more videos if I cut YouTube out of the picture. I enjoy doing the educational segments and coaching calls in CGC, and those are never published to YouTube. As soon as I weave into my thinking that I’ll be publishing a video to YouTube, my motivation to make the video actually goes down.
This doesn’t seem to have anything to do with any reactions or interactions on YouTube. By and large those are normally pleasant and positive, although I don’t engage in the comments much. People do seem to like and appreciate the videos I post there. Some have been asking for more videos too. I can’t point to anything external as being a source of problems. Logically it looks okay to me. On the inside though, my intuition keeps signaling that continuing to invest in that platform isn’t part of any meaningful path with a heart going forward. Somehow YouTube feels like yesterday’s index card.
I’d say that’s the main reason I didn’t publish much to YouTube this year. The vast majority of video that I recorded this year was published elsewhere and won’t be appearing on YouTube. I also feel that the material I share on video that isn’t published on YouTube is way better than what I have published on YouTube. It’s like there’s something about that platform that creates enough friction to make me want to keep my best video material away from it.
I share these feelings because I’m being honest, not because I fully understand them. If you’ve felt similarly towards YouTube or other publishing platforms and you have any insights or thoughts about this, I’d love to hear about it.
I also mostly shunned Instagram this year. That platform really doesn’t resonate with me. Mostly I just find it annoying and crippled, like trying to blog with only one finger. The people I’ve connected with there are mostly great. I just don’t like the platform itself. I’m not a photographer and have no desire to become one. I’m also not a heavy phone user, and I don’t want to become one either. On a scale of 1 to 10, I don’t see Instagram going higher than a 2 for me. I gave it a shot a while back. I just think it sucks. If you like it, that’s fine for you. It’s not for me though.
I shared most blog posts this year on Facebook, but I’ve mainly been on that platform to participate in a paid coaching program whose community is in a private Facebook group. That program ended a couple of weeks ago. So I’m pondering if I want to bother using Facebook going forward. It also feels pretty blah as a platform choice these days.
I think part of these issues stem from CGC. The interactions I experience in CGC have spoiled me because they’re richer and more meaningful than what I experience elsewhere. While it’s sometimes nice to connect with people on other platforms, especially old friends, those interactions are usually pretty shallow compared with what I’m accustomed to in CGC. So while I feel semi-repulsed by some external publishing platforms, I feel a more magnetic pull to engage with other CGCers. I think this feeling has amplified within the past few months.
This year has encouraged me to question other ways to frame how I think about my online business. More than 25 years ago, I adopted a try-before-you-buy business to sell computer games. I would share the free demos far and wide, and this would attract some percentage of the freebie downloaders to become customers. Some people think of this as a funnel-based model.
I can also view my current business model through this lens. I can say that my free material attracts lots of people to my website or social media accounts, and some of them become customers. My reach and conversion rate have been strong enough for many years to make this a viable business model.
But what’s the pathway to grow with this approach? You have to cast a wider net, or you have to improve the conversion rate, right? And that framing really doesn’t excite me. People aren’t fish, and I don’t see myself as reeling them in or seducing them. I’m really not interesting in sucking people into a funnel and optimizing the funnel. Blah!
If you’ve been reading my blog this year, you’ll notice that the vast majority of my posts aren’t salesy and have no links to anything paid. They really are just meant to help people, and that’s the intention I hold when I write them. I’ll link to courses and such when it seems relevant, but I don’t want to go out of my way to do that when it doesn’t fit the flow of inspiration.
So I recognize that my natural actions and behaviors aren’t really aligned with a funnel-based frame anyway. Even if I presume that such a model has been working for me all these years, I normally don’t hold this model in mind when doing creative work or serving CGC members. So it seems rather out of sync with my actual experience. It doesn’t mesh with how I normally think about my business and the creative work I do.
I actually like writing articles just to share and explore ideas and to connect with people. I don’t need anymore motivation than that. And obviously this kind of motivation works well for me. It would screw up my creative flow if I tried writing with a funnel-based framing in mind.
I am curious what would happen if I just stopped bothering to participate in other publishing platforms and focused entirely on my blog, customers, and CGC. I like to serve the people who show up, and I prefer not to worry about where they come from. When I branch out from this core, I tend to do a half-assed job of it anyway since the motivation and inspiration just aren’t there.
I also like that within a certain sphere around my work, I’m able to maintain a certain purity of intent. On other platforms I feel like I’m enmeshed in some corruption of that intent, which doesn’t feel good to me.
I like to create abundance through depth. Instead of having to do tons of outside research to capture and analyze ideas, I generate most of my creative output from within. I explore and experiment a lot. I dialogue with reality. I tune into the flow of inspiration. And it seems like I can do this indefinitely without burning out.
What does burn me out is when I try to do anything that feels misaligned for too long. My life seems to get better in direct proportion to my willingness to shun and reject misaligned approaches, even when I think I have good logical reasons for clinging to them.
So this year of daily blogging has given me a lot to think about. I’m glad I committed myself to this and followed through.
Overall I enjoyed the experience. I’m definitely not burned out by it. I still feel creatively inspired.
I don’t need to have another year of the same though. It will be very nice to channel my creative flow differently in 2021.
Happy New Year! 🙂
