I’ve almost got my new Statamic site ready to launch. No, it won’t have quite everything that I have now. My WooCommerce stuff will run at store.curtismchale.ca (not live yet), at least for now.
I also made a few hours progress on The Freelancer’s Guide to Marketing. Needs a complete read through for proofing then I’ll do a cover and look at the marketing workbooks. I may launch this with eCommerce for Statamic and slowly convert over the “older” stuff as I go.
> If you’ve found my content helpful I’ve opened up a [Patreon page](https://curtismchale.ca/patreon). You can help ensure that more helpful content keeps coming.
## I Shipped
While I didn’t do an official video Monday, and you got no email about it, I did record myself [working through the Statamic build](https://youtu.be/s2vw-LKCzpM). Watch me muddle through some new tech at that link.
The other thing I did before coding on Monday was take a 23km run along some mountains in my area. It’s beautiful, but I still don’t think it beats the first time I was on Mt Mercer in the night with a huge moon and all the peaks around highlighted by that bright moon. Anyway, [check out some pictures of the mountains in my area](https://curtismchale.ca/2019/07/30/elk-thurston-and-mercer/).
I recently read The Revenge of Analog, and it was a good book. [My review of it came out on Wednesday if you’re interested in this whole analogue thing](https://curtismchale.ca/2019/07/31/the-revenge-of-analog-a-book-review/). I’ve also [written a book called Analogue Productivity, if you want to walk through what I do](https://amzn.to/2LRSbwJ).
## Friday Five
**1. Why is there so much personal data to protect**
[In this good article on privacy this made me laugh out loud](https://idlewords.com/2019/06/the_new_wilderness.htm)
> The question we need to ask is not whether our data is safe, but why there is suddenly so much of it that needs protecting. The problem with the dragon, after all, is not its stockpile stewardship, but its appetite.
Basically if Google and Facebook and other companies didn’t grab all this crap, we wouldn’t need to talk about privacy because we would be private.
> The large tech companies point to our willing use of their services as proof that people don’t really care about their privacy. But this is like arguing that inmates are happy to be in jail because they use the prison library.
We can’t fix the problems of data security by voting with our wallets, just like the author says, we couldn’t fix the problems of tetraethyl lead increasing violet crime for 50 years. It took something bigger. We need ambient privacy, which is not strong data protections because as it says at the beginning, we only need to protect data because it keeps getting collected whether we want it to or not.
**2. We love a flash of creativity and forget about editing**
[From Ryan Holiday](https://ryanholiday.net/the-first-draft-of-anything-is-shit/):
> As a culture, we love flashes of inspiration and we love finished products. We have little interest and little understanding, however, of what goes on in between—of the essentialness of editing and improving and tweaking until whatever we are creating is just right.
This idea was echoed in his book [Perrenial Seller](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0143109014/?tag=strugwithfait-20) which [I thought was great](https://curtismchale.ca/2017/12/14/ryan-holidays-advice-takes-build-something-sells-forever/).
Sure, have a flash of inspiration, then back it up with the refining process that is going to make it the work you think it can be.
**3. They’re Just Ecouraging – They Don’t Care about Your Idea**
[From Scott in regards to your friends saying good things about your products](https://theproductbusiness.com/validate-your-product-idea/):
> The problem is that your friends are lying to you. They don’t actually care about your idea, they are just trying to be encouraging. While this type of feedback is well intentioned, it tells you nothing about whether there is actually a market for your product.
I’ve launched to _meh_ numerous times and it’s always a bit frustrating but on I plug. Next time with The Mom Test book in tow. Read Scott’s excellent post to find out about the book.
**4. The Obsession with Early Success**
> Your life and career were supposed to have a steady linear timeline. Finish high school, go to college, get your degree, land your first real job, get married, work hard, get noticed, move up steadily, buy a home, start a family, get promoted into management, make more money, and so on until you eventually retired to fish and play golf.
[This is the author’s “normal” slow](https://invincible.substack.com/p/its-never-too-late-to-be-successful) and steady path to life which contrasts with what we talk about most now. The thing we idolize is the 28 year old millionaire (probably a tech person) that has some crazy huge company.
This person is an outlier, so why do we idolize and compare ourselves to that?
The article talks more about why this change has come about. It ends with five things to think about for those that haven’t hit millionaire status before they’re 30.
**5. The more I write my thoughts**
[From Joe](https://joebuhlig.com/re-inking-the-pen/):
> The more I write out my thoughts, the more I understand myself and the more I want to write out my thoughts.
I too journal my thoughts on the day in my Bullet Journal. Sometimes it’s intimate, sometimes it’s me saying I wish I could read more without needing to do “billable” hours for clients.
Joe also talks about the burnout of sticking with productivity and how-to articles. I was “freelance” only for a long time. While I still write to help you run a better business, I also write about other things like spending time in the mountains and really whatever sparks my fancy.
I will continue to write about whatever interests me.