Hello friends and welcome back to Life Reimagined, a free weekly elixir designed to make you feel good and live better. |
If you're enjoying the newsletter, don't forget to spread the love by forwarding it to a friend or sharing this link for them to sign up. |
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π¨π» beehiiv: Share Your Ideas with More People |
Last year, I started seeing a lot of newsletter creators talk about beehiiv, a company that helps you write, grow, send, and monetize your newsletter. I ignored the hype because I was happy with the newsletter service I used. |
But I had one odd problem that I needed to solve. |
Life Reimagined was growing quickly. And while I was stoked to have more readers, I was troubled by the increasing cost to reach those readers since I did not monetize the newsletter. In fact, for nearly 2 years, I intentionally throttled the growth of Life Reimagined to avoid the hefty bills that came with more subscribers. |
That's kind of crazy! Shouldn't I be able to reach more readers without having to break the bank? I thought so and started looking for an answer to the problem. beehiiv ended up being the solution I needed. |
Since switching to beehiiv, Life Reimagined has grown by 40% while my costs have been cut in half. Pretty cool. I can now grow the newsletter freely without feeling guilty about that growth. |
Money is not everything of course, and one of the pleasant surprises of the switch has been that the experience of writing and growing the newsletter has become more efficient and enjoyable. |
Not only does beehiiv have an intuitive writing interface, but it makes it easy to create an archive of previous editions and has accelerated my growth by allowing other newsletters to recommend Life Reimagined to their audiences. |
Moving forward, what I'm most excited about is how the company is making it easier to monetize my newsletter via its in-house ad network, premium subscriptions, and helping other newsletters grow. These features make my life easier and this newsletter more sustainable. |
If you have a newsletter or are thinking about creating one, add beehiiv to your list of potential partners. I'm stoked to have found them and wish that they had been around when I was first getting started in 2018. |
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π§ I. A Place to Add to Your Bucket List |
I recently visited Ojo Caliente in Taos, New Mexico. It's a charming resort with hot springs, spa treatments, and a farm-to-table restaurant. |
I've been to Ojo Caliente twice to soak in their mineral springs, which are situated in the middle of the desert. Both times, I've walked away relaxed, content, and wondering why I don't do stuff like this more often. If you find yourself in Taos or nearby, it's worth a visit. |
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π° II. A Money Practice to Try |
My wife and I did our quarterly financial review this week. It's one of the most helpful practices that we do. Four times a year, we sit down over dinner and: |
Discuss how we're been feeling about money Review our investments and overall financial picture Propose specific ways to use money to improve our lives Come up with action items for the next 3 months
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It's pretty informal and not a perfect structure, but we both walk away feeling clear and aligned about our financial picture and the role of money in our lives. And doing it every three months helps us stay in sync over the long run without having to think about money too often. |
I don't remember exactly why we started doing this, but it was at least in part to make sure that money is not an acute source of stress or conflict in our relationship. Instead, it's a part of our lives that we discuss openly and collaboratively as life unfolds. And so far, it's been working pretty well. |
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π¬ III. An Instructive Look into History |
I started watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel this week. It's a series that features a New York housewife who pursues a career in stand-up comedy in the late 1950s and early 1960s. |
Outside of being well-produced and entertaining, I'm really enjoying the show because it is a view into how different the world was in the not-so-distant past. |
The show reminds me of Mad Men, a series about advertising professionals on Madison Avenue that uses a simple story and deep character development to shed light on what life was like for different types of people in another era. |
While I generally think it's best to limit how much television you watch, I believe that shows like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Mad Men can teach you about history in a way that is both more entertaining and perspective-changing than reading the dry accounts of what life was like in different eras that fill the pages of most history books. |
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π₯ IV. Rethinking Food, Health, and Nutrition |
I started listening to Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. So far, it's an interesting book that has me rethinking my relationship with food and what it means to be "healthy." |
For most of my life, I've seen food as fuel for my body. While I enjoy good food as much as the next person, I tend to prioritize "eating clean" over "eating for taste" and often feel guilty when I eat delicious, "unhealthy" meals. |
Pollan has me asking three questions so far: |
Would I be better off if I developed a more expanded view of food, one that extended beyond seeing food as a source of fuel and added more emphasis on the social, communal, and spiritual aspects of eating? What are the core beliefs I have about food, nutrition, and health that are simply wrong? How can reduce some of the guilt I have when I eat simply for pleasure?
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I don't have the answers yet, but it's always fun when a book has me asking questions that may fundamentally change how I think and operate. |
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π§ VI. Something I'm Thinking About |
Maybe it's not the people in your life who need to change. |
"We spend all our time and energy trying to change external circumstances, trying to change our spouses, our bosses, our friends, our enemies, and everybody else. We don't have to change anything. Negative feelings are in you. No person on earth has the power to make you unhappy. There is no event on earth that has the power to disturb you or hurt you. No event, condition, situation, or person." | | | | Anthony De Mello in Awareness. Resurfaced using Readwise. |
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That's all for now. See you next Sunday. |
— Cal |
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π️ Three other things you might enjoy |
Doing Time Right: Everyone wants to get more done in less time. This course will show you exactly how to do that with the eliminate, automate, delegate, and iterate framework. Foundations. Looking for good books to read? Check out Foundations, a growing digital notebook with notes & lessons from 100+ timeless books. Listen to the Podcast: Feel like school didn't prepare you for adulthood? The Sh*t You Don't Learn in School podcast exists to help make up for this societal failure.
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