The True Cost of The Things That Matter
2 Special Announcements
I. I’m super excited to announce the launch of my first ever online class. You can check it out here.
It’s on the topic of creativity and developing your voice online, which I get asked about a lot. I share the things that I wish I knew when starting out this process of sharing my work online.
I talk about how to deal with insecurities that arise when sharing creative work, techniques to keep your work cohesive & methods to tap into your own creativity.
This is a class for any artist looking for clarity in further developing their voice online, no matter your creative outlet or where you are at in the process.
I’m really happy with how it came out and if you want to check it out, it is available now on Skillshare. You can sign up for a free 2 month trial with Skillshare here and try it for yourself.
II. New Nathaniel Drew x Tom Fox music is available to stream (original soundtrack of my videos online):
→ Spotify
As many of you know, since last year, I have been commissioning Tom Fox, an incredibly talented composer, to create an original sound track for my videos online. You may be familiar with some of the music already if you’ve been watching for a while, and last week we released the very first track online. It’s called “Memento Mori” and I am so happy with with how it came out.
Take a listen if you get a chance, and help Tom and I out by sharing it if you like it! If we get a positive enough reaction to this track, we will continue releasing pieces in the future. We have an entire album’s worth already.
Here are 3 ideas/bits of inspiration that I’ve run into recently.
1) I love this quote from the Bhagavad Gita:
“It's better to be an honest street sweeper than a dishonest king."
2) When people ask me why I travel, for the longest time I struggled to provide what I felt was an adequate response. My current answer to that question has two parts:
Nothing makes me feel alive quite like the immense novelty of being in a foreign place enveloped in foreign sensations.
I need urgency in my life. When you travel somewhere, you have a finite amount of time to take in what you can, whether it’s 6 months or just a weekend. Urgency makes me pay closer attention, prioritize a little more carefully and get out of my head.
Urgency can be overdone of course, which is important to remember. It can make you miserable. I think it’s about context and moderation. Overall, I like a little bit of urgency about my time on planet Earth, and travel does that.
Branching off of that idea – when I boil things down that way, it makes me realize that I’m actually able to “travel” in non-physical ways. This is why I love learning foreign languages or putting myself through personal tests/experiments. They bring novelty and urgency into my life.
3) When I’m calculating if something is worth purchasing, I often come back to this simple thought:
The truly important things in life will cost what they cost, and the rest doesn’t matter.
This rule doesn’t work in all circumstances because life isn’t black & white but I’m finding it rather helpful in a lot of situations.
This thought saves me a lot of mental energy when I’m struggling to decide between buying the €1.37 pack of pasta in the supermarket or the €1.99 version.
It turns out, we do that kind of thing a lot.
So here’s a question to ponder on: What is one thing you can stop needlessly worrying about because it doesn’t matter in the bigger scheme of things?
Bonus
→ Part I in a new series of mine on building momentum in life
→ Just a few thoughts on living in a simulation
→ A little trip I went on to a beautiful country
Thanks for reading!
Nathaniel Drew
