This week's post was inspired by a 4 minute video on brand building.

Josh makes very good points and asks great questions for anyone building their brand.

• How are you going to weave your story into your brand?

• Why should anyone listen to you? There is no definitive answer

• Could you take a stance for whatever you are preaching? Where do you draw the line in the sand?

Your brand is not for everyone, you need to draw the line somewhere. If you stand for everything, you stand for nothing. What hill are you willing to die on? Even more importantly, why? I realized I never answered those questions so here it goes

What do I stand for?

All kids are born good, and if you continue to be the good person that you were born, you will have a good life filled with love and inner peace. Oh, and when you have love and inner peace, you will be motivated and make more money than you will need! What happens is people change somewhere along the way because of negative influences such as parents negative instilling wrong values, negative experiences in society (friends mistrust, bad relationships), horrible media narratives, wrong celebrity influences, etc.

Why do I believe that?

No child at 2,3 years old wants to rule the world. No child wants to be a billionaire who profits off other people. No child wants to do shady business practices and mistreat employees. Kids just want to sleep, eat, play, and poop.

What in my personal experience has shown me that to be true?

To know who we are, we need to go back to when we were little. For me, I was about 6 years old when my mom took me to the capital city, Skopje. We passed a homeless person on the street begging for money, and my mom noticed something was wrong. She said I was so upset until she gave me money to go back and give to the homeless person. Building Block #1 - Help others

At the same time, I would go to the store, buy 10 chocolate bars, eat 1, and give the other 9 away to my friends who didn't have the money (My mom was in the US, I was in Macedonia so I was techincally rich for the Macedonian kids). I never thought about why I did all those things but now I know I did it because it made me feel good. I was told countless time by others that some kids are taking advantage of me, but in a way if you think about it, I was taking advantage of them too. I was giving them food to make myself feel better. Building Block #2 - When you give, you receive even more.

Teen love! This escalated quickly I know but hold on!! I had many opportunities here to change who I am. From being a teenager who gets rejected by girls, I was told numerous times to stop being so open. Don't text her right away...Play hard to get... Ignore her first...Make her want you...One girl is for losers...Hook up life is the best...I can go on and on. Somewhere deep inside me I knew what I wanted, which was an honest relationship built on trust, not games. I wanted to be with the right girl for me. I had numerous failings including, living in Lake George NY for 3 months in the summer to support a girl I met, only for her to play many games with me and make me look like a fool. I went all in and got nothing. Maybe I needed to change?

Then in 2016, it all changed. I texted a girl right away, didn't play any games, committed to her right away, invited her to go with me to Macedonia for 3 months just 4 months after meeting her, and did all the things I was told by society not to do....and it was the best decision I ever made. She accepted who I'm, love me as much as I love her, we got married, have a beautiful baby boy and a baby girl on the way! And I couldn't be happier. Building Block #3 - Life will throw numerous chances at you to change who you are... stay the course, clear the hurdles, and keep going strong.

My Brand - What do I want to leave in the world?

This is what I want my brand to represent. I want to inspire as many people as possible to remember who they were as a child and to stick to that. Wake up the kid inside of you. You are such good people, don't let anyone or anything discourage you from that. I will do that by creating content for children using my characters and tell stories about kindness and positivity. I will continue to share my journey and help people with reaching their own goals. I'm going to be starting a new YouTube channel which was inspired by a game I used to play in my childhood (stay tuned!).

Bonus: #Proud. I want to give props to my friend Aurlien, who started his company to help CEOs build their own brands: https: /www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7062788525485649920/ . I've been watchign Aurelien grow as a content creator, and can't wait to see what he will accomplish with his company! Doesn't matter how the company does, Aurelien following his dreams is already a big win! The hardest thing to do is start, everything else is a bonus!

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please send it to your friends who you think it will resonate with.

There have been 2 things I my mind this week, so I'm gonna talk about both.

1st thing: Balancing the use of technology to have a good life

You hear it countless times, "I'm not addicted to my phone, You should see how much other more other people use it." That sentence is such as bullshit excuse. It's like an alcoholic saying "I'm not addicted, I only drink 10 beers a day. There are people out there who drink way more than that." While that may be true, doesn't mean that your behavior is okay.

I notice this with me. When I have my phone on me, I'm constantly scrolling on it even though I do not want. It's a power stronger than me. When I put it away, I don't care for it.

Further, as a Dad, this has been on top of mind as I try to raise children to the best of my ability. I just saw this from Adam Grant:

The easy answer is just get rid of it. But that's not the correct answer either. With all the negative effects technology has on us, it has just as much positive effects. Do I want my children to turn 15 years old and to be clueless about technology..probably not as they'll be way behind career wise.

Over the next few weeks, I will be exploring different perspectives on how to maximize the positive aspects of technology while minimizing the negative effects. I will share those stories here with you as I learn more.

2nd thing: We are conditioned from a young age to look up to the wrong values. I wrote this piece up for instagram, and what I want to achieve with my BidiDobar brand!

We need to change the definition of what it means to be successful. Nowadays, when we say someone is successful, we think of someone who has a lot of money. On the Internet, we see and admire celebrities, but we do not know what kind of life they lead and whether they are happy. We hear conversations like "this guy is abroad...he's doing well" and we don't know if he's happy or how he's doing there.

A successful person is one who wakes up in the morning and is happy and grateful for what he has. A successful person is surrounded by family and friends who love and are loved. A successful person is a person who sleeps peacefully and with a clear conscience because he knows that he has done no harm to anyone.

Let's advise our children to admire good and happy people, and when someone asks them what they want to be when they grow up, to say happy and good. #happiness #success #parents

Have a great weekend everyone!

Excited for this newsletter!!! My friend of 10+ years and brother from another mother,Juri, supported my journey by giving me a $5 donation on Buymeacoffee, and I couldn't be more thankful.

You see, it's not about the $5 dollars, but it's about the confidence boost I needed and getting me over the hump! They say making your first dollar online is the hardest, and my friend helped me with that! While the $5 dollars doesn't do anything for him, it did wonders for me. Since he sent me the 5 dollars, it seems like luck really is turning my way, as I have been reached out by multiple people to do consulting for their project. Will it materialize? I'm not sure, but it sure is better than not having any potential leads. And you know whenever Juri needs something from me, I will always be there for him!

The moral of this story is not to keep donating to me, but to support your friends when they have new ventures. Getting started takes so much courage and your support is needed and will be appreciated more than ever.

Starting a new business is like planting a seed and watching it grow into a big, strong tree. It will take a lot of patience and hard work from the founder to make it thrive. The founder is the gardener who carefully nurtures the seed with water, sunlight, and care day in and day out. Their friends are like a team of helpers who provide extra hands, tools, and encouragement to make sure the seed grows into a thriving tree. Together, they create a beautiful tree, where they can together enjoy the shade and fruits of their hard work.

And if you really can't afford it? Just reach out to them and tell them they are doing a great job. It doesn't cost anything to be kind.

Happy Friday!!

Here is a story I have been thinking about as baby #2 is on the way:

"Use this rule if you’re often over-committed or too scattered.

If you’re not saying “HELL YEAH!” about something, say no.

When deciding whether to do something, if you feel anything less than “Wow! That would be amazing! Absolutely! Hell yeah!” — then say no.

When you say no to most things, you leave room in your life to really throw yourself completely into that rare thing that makes you say “HELL YEAH!”

Every event you get invited to. Every request to start a new project. If you’re not saying “HELL YEAH!” about it, say no.

We’re all busy. We’ve all taken on too much. Saying yes to less is the way out."

As I have baby #2 on the way soon, I have to make some choices on what I will focus on outside of being a dad.

Having been working on my animation characters, this is the most fun I've had "working" in a long time. I can get myself lost in this for hours without realizing I'm actually working. While that is not my full time job now, I can definitely see this turning into one in the future. Spreading positivity and happiness through my characters.

Further, back home on the Balkans, there have been 2 mass shootings in the last 2 days, where more than 20 children and young adults have been murdered/injured. This makes me want to push my message even more as it is clear we are in dire need of more positivity on television and internet.

My project is called "Bidi Dobar" meaning Be a Good Person in English, and is the message I want to push forward even more. We need more positive role models in the world, as all we see are either jerks who are making the headlines for bad reasons or people who are rich. The people we need to hear more from and admire are the ordinary people who are living their peaceful lives focusing on their families and friends.

I'm going to be opening up this edition of the newsletter as a collectible (supply of 10). If you buy it and decide to support me, all the money will be going towards speeding up the creation of my characters. As a return of how much it means to me, anyone who owns this collectible, I will open up 30 minutes of my time for you to help you with whatever you need, from career advice to content creation to whatever you can think of. No expiration date on this and you can use this 20 years from now if you wish. a

I noticed Ethereum Gas Fees are out of control right now, and some of you might not have a crypto wallet, so I have started a new page for those of you who wish to support me: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/ivanovskia1.

I appreciate all of you for reading this, and no pressure to do anything. Only thing I can ask for is try to be the best person you can be each and every day.

It all started with a competition. I needed to make a 20 second video on the topic of "Humans can overcome fear and negativity." I had 7 days to get it done so I needed to figure this out quick. Before I dive deep into how I did it, here is the outcome:

So how did I do it?

1. I started my journey by asking ChatGPT for a story idea. My favorite book on storytelling is Made to Stick, so I asked it to follow these principals. Initial idea:

2. I already had 2 characters (a school age girl and grandpa which I shared with you last week), I then started tweaking the story to what I need and make it work with the characters I had.

3. Once I had the story and the characters, I needed someone to do the animation, so I hired someone on Fiverr. This was the most challenging part. Fiverr has a lot of artists to hire but you are not sure of their quality, their price points, and on top of that, I needed someone who will do it in less than 5 days by this point.

4. 4 days to go: I hired someone who seemed reliable and met my reqs, but one day into working on it, he/she messages me to let me know they don't have the bandwidth to work on it. Back to searching again. I ended up making a quick hire and give whoever responded first to my post a chance as I was running out of time.

5. The person says he'll work on it, but i need to do the voiceovers for the characters. Dang, where am I going to find a 8-9 year old girl's voice? My mind went to AI, and after signing up for some AI Voice apps, it didn't get the job done as it still sounds too robotic. I then went back to Fiverr, and hired a voice actress! And I did the voice of the grandpa and the third character, whom my wife calls The Magician! :)

6. About the "Magician", the character was supposed to be a boy who is of similar age as the girl, but due to a miscommunication on my end with the 2nd animator, it ended up being an old grandpa looking magician :) By the time he delivered this to me, I had less than 1 day to create a submission, so I just stuck with it.

7. The video that was delivered to me was 26 seconds, so I ended up editing it myself for the final touches in Wondershare (you can use any app). And voila, I submitted on time, and now waiting for the results. Regardless of the results, I was ecstatic to get over the hump, and create my first animation. Now I have a lot more animations that I'm working on, I have an animator who will be with me long term, and can't wait to create more!

What I learned?

To create something like this before the internet and before technology, it would've taken probably months and lots more money. With technology, I was able to do it in less than 7 days, and this was on my first try. If you have any dreams, you can achieve them! Just stick to your strengths, and hire where your weaknesses are. I ended up spending about 400 dollars to create the animation.

Second highlight of my week

Had the opportunity to spend time with the person who has inspired me and pushed me over the edge to become a creator and follow my dreams. Still in disbelief that this actually happened. My lessons from GV here: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7057079034953752576/

It's been a great week, and I hope to keep the momentum going.

Feel free to email, message me on any platform if you have any questions/comments.

See you next week!

What in the world am I talking about being a donkey? Why would you want to be a donkey? You don't (most times)! There are some ways donkeys win over humans, but we'll leave that for another day.

I'll share my favorite fable with you

"A donkey is standing halfway between a pile of hay and a bucket of water. It keeps looking left and right, trying to decide between hay and water. Unable to decide, it eventually dies of hunger and thirst.

A donkey can’t think of the future. If he could, he’d clearly realize that he could first drink the water, then go eat the hay."

So what does this have to do with me?

I want to have a newsletter, I want to DJ, I want to play soccer, I want to be there always for my family, i want to build out DataCareers, I want to learn new skills for my job, and on, and on. Well we can't get to everything.

And this week? I've been asked to go back to the office after more than 2 years working remotely. I knew of this possibility when I accepted the job, but things have changed as I didn't have a child then. And 2 hours of commute each way (4 hours in total) has got me thinking.

I had to sit back, reflect, and prioritize what is important for me. I can have a career and a family, but can't put the maximum effort in both (at the same time). I want to practice what I preach, so I'm not going back to the office. I won't be disobedient, but I will exercise all options I have to not go back. And if I have to quit and find another remote job, then so be it. I can focus on my career when my kids are grown! We need to know our values and stand by them. I know everyone is not in that position, and I'm grateful and blessed to have options, but so do many of you in whatever that your values are.

This isn't about Artificial Intelligence, but it is about a different AI (ME) :)

Get busy living or get busy dying!

BONUS as an email subscriber!!!

I have been wanting to work on my own Intellectual Property animations for a LONG TIME NOW, but I always been hesitant. Well no more, I have my first 2 characters, one of which is my grandpa as my inspiration (See Below). He is wearing a traditional macedonian folk dancing outfit (which he did for 40 years) and an American cowboy hat as he always wanted to be a cowboy! By next week, you will be able to see my first animation, and I will go for you into detail about how I made it happen! Let me know what you think. I would greatly appreciate it.

Hope you are all doing great on this wonderful Friday. I'm just grateful to be healthy and have a wonderful family. I wish you all the same. That's ultimately what matters in life.

So what's A.I. been up to? It's been too much going on to keep up. This newsletter is about being actionable, so I will share things I've worked on and things I found interesting.

What I have done

Huge Timesaver

• I put too many things on my website DataCareers.Tech, and is not optimized for converting people. I came across 10Web.Io, which promises to build you a website in less than 10 minutes. I had to try it, and decided to see what it can come up with for my DataCareers site. Let's see how it did.

  1. I open the site, and it wants me to describe what kind of site it is and what it is about.

  

  

  

  

2. Results. I didn't know what to expect, but wow! Everything you will see next is A.I. generated based on my inputs. The text, the pictures, the slides, everything!

Verdict: I actually think I prefer this site as it is optimized for the online trainings I'm creating. I struggle with advertising myself as I don't like asking people for money, but if I'm going to run a business, making money is sort of the point :)

Other than the great layout, 10web.io optimizes my website for load time, SEO, among other cool features I'm excited to explore so I'll definitely be giving it a try.

Something Fun

• As a Father, and person who grew up on cartoons, I'm excited for A.I. to help me create some. Check out this cool easy site where you can upload a drawing of yours, and make it dance alongside you!

  • https://sketch.metademolab.com/canvas

Time Savers I'm looking to explore

6 A.I. Chrome Extensions that will save all of us a lot of time:

Pratham

@Prathkum

Stop using ChatGPT for everything!

Use these Chrome extensions to work faster than the rest of the crowd (all free):

3,956

2:45 AM • Apr 13, 2023

ChatGPT is old news - AutoGPT is the now!

AutoGPT can act as an autonous agent, and can do tasks like searching the internet for information and formulating a plan based on that. GodMode UI seems to be one of the tools for it

Asim Shrestha

@asimdotshrestha

Introducing #AgentGPT, an attempt at #AutoGPT directly in the browser

Give your own AI agent a goal and watch as it thinks, comes up with an execution plan and takes actions. Try for free now at agentgpt.reworkd.ai

4,490

10:03 PM • Apr 8, 2023

That's plenty of things for now!

Till next week friends!

It's been one of those weeks. Which kind of week is that? One of those weeks where I didn't do any work on my passion projects.

Luckily, I couldn't be happier. I have been fully immersed spending time with my family. And when I've had free time at night, I have been DJ'ing, working out, and watching Friends with my wife!

Taking creative breaks (even though it was unplanned) really helps me to see what matters. When we are deep in a project, we can get caught up in it and forget to reflect on our values and what matters to us.

What did I realize during this break?

• My #1 metric for my newsletter, my Datacareers.tech site, and anything else I do is: Is this taking time away more time from my wife and son?

  • Example: If I do consulting as part of datacareers, I will have to be on someone else's schedule and be away from them. Solution: Create evergreen content that will be relavant for years and doesn't need me to be on a set schedule.

• I enjoy helping others get the career and job they deserve because you are all so qualified and for those who have trouble getting a job, it's usually more that they need a confidence boost than a skills boost.

• I see a gap for a course that should exist, and I will work on creating it. A lot of courses exist on Excel, SQL, R, Tablaeu, etc. but they none that I could find that help you put it all together in a big project. Message me on LinkedIn if you would be interested.

I'm here to bring value to all of you and I'm pumped to continue working on my projects!

See you all next week!

As I have talked about in previous newsletters, my number top goals with my online content creation is to connect with cool people (like you all) and bring at least some value to every single one.

The way to figure out where you can provide value is simple:

1) Think about what comes easy to you but others seem to struggle with and talk about that

2) I learned this from Dickie Bush and Nicolas Cole's and copying it word for word:

"The easiest place to start is by doing “The 2-Year Test,” reflecting on the past 2+ years and asking yourself:

• “What skills have I built?”

• “What struggles have I faced?”

• “What hobbies have I picked up?”

• “What problems have I overcome?”

• “What life transitions have I made?”

• “What stories have I experienced?”

• “What topics have I learned about?”

Answer one of these questions and you will find where you can provide value.

And remember, you don't have to know everything about a topic, you just have to know more than your audience.

What are my answers?

When I was getting out of college, I had no idea how to make a resume, prepare for interviews, choose a job, network properly, know which skills to learn, etc.

Today, I can talk about these things for hours without preparation.

I want to share all those lessons with all of you.

And I have officially launched my new site, DataCareers.Tech

You can find all the knowledge I have in one place.

What about A.I.?

A.I. is just a tool to create and build things. I don't want to use A.I. just for the sake of it. With that being said, I did find a use for it. I was coding my website and wanted to embed some code, and A.I. delivered as always!

Simple but it saved me time! Remember, doesn't have to be complicated.

That is all we have for today. If you want to support me, sharing my new site on your LinkedIn will be tremendous help.

See you all next week!

What have I been working on this week?

Using A.I. to build a full web application.

I've had an idea about an app, but don't want to go through the process of hiring developers. I will use ChatGPT as my sole developer!

I have a problem (receiving too many emails) and I want to create a service where you can plug in your email, and it will automatically unsubscribe you from emails you don't open.

I will just share the link and you can check out the work here!

https://www.linkedin.com

Antonio Ivanovski (A.I.) on LinkedIn: Make a full web service app using ChatGPT

Can we build a full web application using ChatGPT as our developer? If you get frustrated from having too many emails but you are too lazy to unsubscribe, then welcome to the club! This week I'm using ChatGPT to help me create a full on product, which should work like this: 1.

Lessons:

• The Good

  • A.I. can absolutely replace hiring a developer as long as you have some background in coding and know how to read it and implement it

    • I don't know how to code efficiently to build an app, but I can read the code and I know where to place it to make it work. And when I don't know what to do? Well I just ask ChatGPT for an answer.

  • A.I. knows the full process, even told me step by step how to setup a Google Clould Platform account and sign up to their API service.

  • If it makes a mistake, and it will, it can correct itself if you ask it.

• The Pains

  • It will make mistakes and you have to be patient like you would be with a real developer.

  • Sometimes it forgets what it worked on previously and gives you conflicting code. To mitigate that, I would copy and paste the exact code saying "this is what we did so far, what do we need to do next to accomplish x,y,z"

What's next?

I will continue adding features and try to push this service into production for anyone else who wants to use it!

Until then, stay well my friends, and reach out if you have any feedback!

One of the software I use for DJ'ing is called VirtualDJ, and it has been implementing great features driven by A.I. and data, which has made becoming a better DJ 10x easier!

I want to tell you about some of these, and hopefully you'll see that the possibilities with AI are endless.

1. At a fundamental level, the DJ plays music for an audience, and one of his main jobs (besides playing music people like) is to transition from one song into another as seamlessly as possible without breaking people's dance flow too much. Don't you hate it when you are getting down on the dance floor, and the DJ just switches to a totally random song and kills the mood! Well, AI is here for that!

VirtualDJ has a feature called Live Feedback, which recommends a track based on what other DJs have played most of the time, right after the playing the current track.

In yellow it's showing me that if I don't have an idea, I can play James Hype - Ferrari after playing I'm Good by David Guetta & Bebe Rexha!

To take it a step further, it has a feature called GeniusDJ, which offers smart track suggestions based on what thousands of DJs play. The GeniusDJ engine will provide you with a folder of track suggestions to choose from instead of just a few songs. The algorithm is based on the feedback of what hundreds of thousands of other DJs play around the world.

2. The above example is just using data and analysis to give you the next song. Another new feature, called Stem Seperation, is where VirtualDJ and other similar software are taking it to the next level.

Stem Separation uses "advanced AI technology to separate any song into a multi-track, during the mix, in real-time. Allowing DJs to adjust on the fly the components of their tracks (vocals, instruments, kicks, hi hats, etc) to create new mash-ups, remixes and transitions."

What this means is that with a click of a button you can remove the vocals of a song, or maybe you don't like the instruments, you can get rid of them too!

You can see examples and learn more here: https://www.virtualdj.com/stems/#:~:text=VirtualDJ%20uses%20advanced%20AI%20technology,%2Dups%2C%20remixes%20and%20transitions.

TLDR: Just like A.I. is not getting rid of writers, A.I. is not getting rid of DJs. Rather, it is democratizing the process of becoming a DJ, and creating more of them! Separating the vocals from the instruments used to take real advanced skill, and now it took me 5 mins of practice to learn how to do it!

And if you don't think the world needs anymore DJs? I wouldn't disagree with you. BUT, I will encourage you to think about how A.I. can enhance your hobby/job/side hustle.

You will not be the builder, but the architect.

This week, I will show you how I do the thinking about a topic, in this case Being a Data Analyst, and let A.I. do the doing (the writing).

On Tuesday I “wrote” on LinkedIn about “The 5 Essential Skills You Need to Become a Data Analyst”.

I then posted a poll asking people if they got any value out of the post. Here are the results:

I asked them this question because I didn’t write the post, ChatGPT did. And I wanted to explore if A.I. generated posts can bring value to people.

I feel like a lot of people wouldn’t take it as seriously if they knew in advanced it was A.I. generated, but that shouldn’t matter.

After all, it is still my thought! We need to switch our mindset from who did the writing, to who did the thinking.

Now, that you know that, I created a step by step of the framework I used to generate 100s of these posts in a relatively short amount of time.

Before we go further, we need to define the framework we will use:

TIP (Topic, Incentives, Proven approaches)

Topic: What you want to talk about

Incentive: What you want to help your audience with

Proven Approaches: Give it some prompts to send it in the right direction

This took me ~15 minutes. With practice I can get it down even further. Best part is, I believe in this advice 100%, it's not just a fluff post.

I then went on and repeated with the other proven approaches to generate 20+ posts.

What are other type of incentives you can choose?

I used:

To Get Your First {outcome}

To Become {outcome}

Other ideas:

To Learn

To Master

To Overcome

To Hire Your First

To Save

To Make Your First $ as

You get the idea!

Now, go and put it into action! Reading without action is worthless!

Till next week!

I have to admit I was wrong. Not about taking over people’s jobs, I still think it won’t do that. I was wrong about my tone and the way I brushed it off as a fad.

Now that I have spent a lot more time with it, I realized I was wrong because I was using it the wrong way. In the same way, the people I see online who say ChatGPT doesn’t work, are 99% of the time using it the wrong way as well.

I spent money on courses and lots of time experimenting with these, but you will get all of this for free!

By the end of this email, you will know what to avoid when asking for prompts and how to write better ones.

Now, let’s go!!!

3 mistakes people make when using AI Writing Tools and how to correct them

Mistake #1: Asking it to generate ideas with minimal constraints

Generic questions give you generic answers

Better way: Get specific. ChatGPT is your new A.I. intern. The more specific you get, the better answer it will provide. Just by getting a bit more specific, it already generated better ideas.

Mistake #2: Asking it to make subjective decisions (about style, prefrence, etc.)

Better way: Treat it like a new relationship. The more you open up, the better it will be able to satisfy your needs.

Mistake #3: Ask it to answer open ended questions

Again, a generic and open ended question.

Better way: Ask close ended questions

2 things to remember:

1. Generative AI is more of a creative outlet than a truth oracle. Everything should be fact checked before being treated is truth.

2. If asking it to write stories, always check for plagiarism

Take some time this weekend and play around with the tools! The more you use it, the better you will get at it.

Thank you once again for subscribing to my email. If you would like to get advice on ChatGPT or talk about anything else, I have 15 min sessions and I would love to get to know you: https://calendly.com/ivanovskiantonio/free-consultation-15-min?back=1&month=2023-02

See you next Friday!!!

One of the big challenges with creating quality content is that it is time consuming. Most of us who are new to this have family obligations, full time jobs, and have 0 employees helping us out. On top of that, we are not making money off this so every time we pay someone to do something for us (as I pay my podcast audio editor) we are spending money and it adds up.

That is why I couldn’t be more excited about the power of AI tools (such as ChatGPT, MidJourney, name any other model that is out there..)!

These tools, if used properly, will make you 100x more productive (not exaggerating) while costing you very little money (if at all) compared to hiring employees.

I truly believe the technology is changing the world, changing the way we live and work, and those who start now will be wayyy ahead of everyone else!

I believe this technology is so life changing that my newsletter will be focusing on that going forward. I’ll be providing you 1 Actionable use case how you can use these AI tools. I want to give you all the information, and you decide where you can and want to use it.

How did I use it this week

I have a student who I’m training to be a data analyst. I needed to come up with practice questions based on what we’ve been learning, so I decided to see if I can speed up the process using A.I.

I’m not sure how to share this with you on here yet, so I posted a step by step on Linkedin. I’ll figure out a better way by next week.

Antonio Ivanovski (A.I.) on LinkedIn: ChatGPT Use Case 1: Generating Datasets + Q&A

Current Numbers (delta from 2 weeks ago as I forgot to do it last week) - 2023/02/13

YT Subscribers - 689 (+21) - Not bad at all! This is from talking about it on LinkedIn!

LI Followers - 8030 (+1285) - WOW! This was mainly driven from being tagged by Neil’s post about people to follow in the data space (Host of AI Stories, awesome podcast). The power of your friends supporting you is key!

I’m not going to be doing my podcast anymore as I need to focus down on 1 topic as I’m spreading myself too thin. While I have a lot of interests, I will still be working with data and web3 but with a main focus on how to use Generative A.I. to enhance those fields.

I have to admit it's a bit confusing, so I'll explain. Focusing too much on self-improvement can disrupt your inner peace if done in an unhealthy way. Let me give you some examples.

1. When I started reading self-improvement books, I got so consumed with it that I never had time to create my own content. I felt a false sense of achievement because I was just reading about other people’s successful outcomes. I realized I was spending too much time reading about others' successes and not enough time creating my own. So, now I focus on Producing >= Consuming by reading slower, taking notes, and taking action.

2. There's such a thing as toxic productivity. Have you ever skipped a day of posting online or skipped a day in the gym and felt AWFUL about it? it is a sign of toxic productivity. Over-focusing on improvement can lead to burnout and self-conflict. It's important to remember to have fun and not let productivity become a source of stress. My rule is to get it right >80% of the time. Eat healthy, workout on time, and post online > 80% of the time and I’ll feel successful.

3. Watching/reading about successful outcomes made me feel like everyone had it figured out but me. The truth is, we only see the exceptional people and what they choose to show us. Comparing ourselves to others does no good. Remember, success and productivity look different for everyone.

So what can you do?

Naval says "If we want peace, we have to give up on self-conflict. We even have to give up on self-improvement, because self-improvement is just a dressed up form of self-conflict. Instead, we need to use our natural curiosity to understand things better. Through understanding, we will naturally improve ourselves.

Once we truly understand the effects of unhealthy food on our bodies—when we see the extra weight we’re carrying, or we track the glucose spike and crash after eating too much sugar, or we see how caffeine hops us up and then crashes us—we automatically change for the better."

When I started learning about the benefits of having a network and a community, I started being more motivated to continue creating online. When I learned the truth about the negative effects of chemicals in our body did I take my wife's advice seriously and started buying more natural and healthy products. When I learned how physical fitness affects my physical, mental, and emotional states, only then did I start working out consistently. Focusing on understanding things helped me become a better, more accepting of myself, happier person.

So, the path towards peace is truth.

I’ve been reading a lot looking for different perspectives and trying to find what is true. What stood out to me? What do I try to remind myself everyday to live a good life?

1. Don’t seek happiness, seek peace. If you have peace externally and internally, it will eventually result in happiness (Naval)

   1. How do you have internal peace? Limiting your desires. (Naval, Buddha)

   2. Don’t focus on self improvement.

2. Love is the most important and always will be

   1. Without love, life isn’t worth living. You can have everything else, if you don’t have love, you’ll be miserable.

   2. If married, put your wife/husband above your parents. Your parents will be gone one day (hopefully very long time from now), your kids will grow up and find their own lives, your wife will be by your side till the end

   3. We all have regrets, but real regret can happen only from within your inner circle. Over-invest time in your wife, kids, parents, closest family and friends.

   4. For those with kids, the only thing your kids want is your attention.

3. Physical fitness is crucial. Don’t treat it as optional, treat it as seriously as you finding the time to eat.

4. The point of life is to enjoy it. It’s great to be productive, build businesses, etc. Doesn’t matter what you do in life, if you don’t find time to enjoy it, it’s not worth it. The universe has been around for way too long before you and it will be around for way too long after you are gone, so any work you do will not matter in the long run. This is a good thing. Enjoy the moment you are given.

5. Always stay kind. It will return to you double. If it doesn’t return to you, it will return the kindness to your family.

That’s all I got for now, if I add anything else to the list, I will let you know!

If you want to read more on happiness and living a good life:

Happiness

Current Numbers (delta from last week) - 2023/01/27

YT Subscribers - 668 (+0) - Haven’t created or advertised anything so no surprise

LI Followers - 6748 (+43) - Only 1 post, but interacted with others in their comments.

Podcast Episode Plays (Spotify + Apple Podcasts) - 254 (+8) - Again no advertising done

Episodes released - 8

Question to leave you with?

What are the things you find to be true for living a good life (whatever that might mean for you)? Please message me on LinkedIn OR email me at ivanovskiantonio354@gmail.com and I will include them in next week’s addition

I mentioned in last week’s newsletter that I will be exploring the idea focusing on what I’m good at (concept from Cal Newport’s So Good They Can’t Ignore You book), rather than my passion. The things I’m good at are talking about how to get a job, be successful at one, and be fulfilled by it.

What did I find out?

The strategy of talking about things you know is EXCELLENT if you want to turn it into a job/career, but if money is not your focus (which for me it isn’t right now), then it’s hard to stick to it. It’s hard to sit down and write about it consistently when you have other things on your mind!

I still have my website running and will work with anyone who needs help (I also have free 15 min slots to chat with any of you about anything so let’s talk https://calendly.com/ivanovskiantonio).

I can't stick to it because I was following advice from people with different goals than mine. I quoted Cal Newport’s book which is a career oriented book. I also quoted Justin Welsh, who teaches others how to have a side hustle. Again, that is not my current goal.

I just finished reading Morgan Housel’s Psychology of Money, and the quote that stuck out to me is “Beware taking financial cues from people playing a different game than you are."

I will take it a step further, and the lesson I will leave you with is, beware following advice from people playing a different game than you are. I want to highlight that Cal Newport and Justin Welsh are both great and can be followed in many situations, but first you have to define the game you are in.

So what is my game?

To change the world for a better future for my son.

My new podcast guest, Giraldo Luis Alvare, puts it better than anything I could’ve said! Full episode is out now on YT, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. Check out the <60 seconds clip

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/i4SWbzYRk_Y

Current Numbers (delta from last week) - 2023/01/27

YT Subscribers - 668 (+5)

LI Followers - 6705 (+80)

Podcast Episode Plays (Spotify + Apple Podcasts) - 246 (+19)

Episodes released - 8

Newsletter Subscribers - 97 (Share with your friends so we can get it to 100!)

Growth on LinkedIn was driven by 1 post which I talk about letting employees choose whether they want to work from home or from the office. I’m not surprised people resonated as they are pissed, and so am I! These types of posts work, but you don’t want to overdo it because it will come off as inauthentic if you post every week about being pissed lol

Post: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7021931353705205760/

Question to leave you with

What game are you playing? Are the people you are taking advice from playing the same game?

Good Things Start Happening to YOU When You Provide Value for THEM #Shorts

The question I ask myself is “How do I change the world?”

As Gary says, the answer is by providing value for others!

With that, I decided to test something this week. As you know, I have been posting about Web3 a ton! As you also know, it hasn’t been getting a ton of traction. I have noticed it takes me a lot longer to write a good quality web3 post.

In the same time, I ran into a post by Justin Welsh, who says “pick a topic you could talk about for 30 minutes unprepared” when writing about how to choose what to talk about. For me, that is talking about how to get a job, be successful at one, and be fulfilled by it.

I decided to give this a try.

The 7 days before posting about data, I generated ~4000 impressions, the last 7 days where I have been posting relating it to data, I got >38,000 impressions. (I was trying to embed a picture to show you the day by day, but I can't figure out how to embed a picture on here).

What does this mean for me going forward?

Am I going to give up on web3 and other topics I’m passionate about? Heck no. I’m not a donkey (read my favorite short story here: https://sive.rs/donkey)

However, I’m exploring a concept from Cal Newport’s book “So Good They Can’t Ignore You.” (view summary here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFjTD8v7xuw) In his research, Cal Newport found out that people who loved what they do, didn’t necessarily follow their passion, but rather did what they are good and ended up turning it into a passion.

I will continue learning about Web3, but look to combine it more with helping people with, as I mentioned above, how to get a job, be successful at one, and be fulfilled by it.

With all the layoffs that are happening, I will 1) help people feel safe at work, and 2) feel confident they can get another job if layoffs do affect them. After all, you have to secure yourself first before you can focus on changing the world.

Since this is a newsletter about action, I immediately had to take it. I signed up for Calendly (https://calendly.com/ivanovskiantonio) and have offers to work with people if they want it.

I also will continue building upon my old videos of how to get a job: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB2Wi0AUwxQ&list=PLHFS4TqOa5FZIu1u4HUgzUv3oBqrdibMC

My strategy is that my content will forever be free, but I will charge for 1 on 1 training.

Current Numbers (delta from last week) - 2023/01/20

YT Subscribers - 6663 (+5)

LI Followers - 6625 (+86)

Podcast Episode Plays (Spotify + Apple Podcasts) - 227 (+13)

Newsletter Subscribers - 94 (new number). I had an old email list which I imported into here, so from now on we will track how the numbers are going up. Or down (hopefully not down).

Episodes released - 7 and 1 more ready to be released this month

TLDR:

Focus on bringing value to others and you will reap the benefits.

1 Lesson from my journey from this week

You’ve all heard the term passive income and earning money while “you sleep”. I thought it meant doing very little work but making lots of money from it, but I learned there is no easy work if you want great results.

When I started the podcast, I thought it would be easy. Just record 1 episode which takes 1 hour, take 15 minutes to publish it, and you are done for the week. But if you want to bring quality, there is so much more to it. What do I do on a weekly basis?

Look for guests

Interact with them to come on the show

Do research about topics to discuss

Record the episode

Edit the episode. (I have an editor now who is helping me but I still interact with him)

Publish the episode

Rewatch it to find content for YT shorts and lessons learned.

Market on LinkedIn to get viewers (including write my own posts, commenting on other people’s posts, liking others’ content, etc.)

Shout out guests.

All this on top of my full time job, being a full time husband and father, and keeping social relationships with friends.

I do all this only to receive 50 views.

There’s no such thing as easy income as you are always sacrificing either time or money or health, so choose wisely what you choose to pursue!

I truly enjoy it, so despite all the challenges, I’m sticking around. I enjoy meeting and learning from new people, thinking about creative ways to reach my audience with my ideas, learning how to make short video content, and more!

1 New Podcast Episode this week - The Builders of Web3

Listen to today’s new episode with the one, the only James Turner! Had a lot of fun listening to James’ experience as a founder and community builder, such as the time he scaled from 2 projects to 30 in a few months and had to hire 100 employees! Or the time he spent $8,400 on an online course !!

This is one of my favorite episodes I have recorded so far as James is so passionate about the work he does!

Full episode:

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0tBiYw7lf98gqfLF1OCKnI?si=1a572888c5e8496c

YouTube:

Apple Podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/james-turner-community-building-founder-and-ceo/id1616856510?i=1000593969961

Current Numbers (delta from last week) - 2023/01/12

YT Subscribers - 658 (+1)

LI Followers - 6,539 (+55)

Podcast Episode Plays (Spotify + Apple Podcasts) - 214 (+20)

Episodes released - 6 and 2 more ready to be released this month

My content creation for this week

I don’t post everyday because I don’t have the time, and I don’t like posting just for the heck of posting. If you are looking to optimize follower growth, posting 4-5x a week is important, but I’m not ready for that yet. Again, know yourself!

• Posted last Thursday when the podcast was released and Friday when the newsletter was released.

• Joined 1 group on Telegram where we support each other’s content.

  • Pros: Met great people who are looking to create, are very passionate about it,

  • Cons: A lot of people are in the group, and it is very time consuming to go through everyone’s content everyday.

• Posted 2 YT Shorts (short clips cut from the podcast episode), which have gotten less <10 views combined. I’m not sure yet how to get people to watch my YT shorts.

Why this newsletter?

Most of us spend too much time consuming and not even time creating. We scroll through our devices endlessly reading LinkedIn success stories, laughing at TikTok videos, and liking pictures and videos of work others have created! What's wrong with that? Nothing, as it is a form of entertainment, relaxation, and in some cases, education.

However, spend too much time watching and life will pass you by. A great quote says "It is easier to create the future than to predict it." I want to inspire you to start creating, whether that's creating a project from scratch, making videos online, starting a podcast, or writing posts.

When you start creating and building things, it does a few things for you

1. Helps you learn a new subject better as you are getting immersed in the details

2. Puts you in control. You become an active participant rather than passive listener. You get to experience life for yourself rather than living through others’ stories. I personally am tired of having our future be dictated by a small handful of individuals at a few tech companies.

3. You can influence a change in the world you see is missing.

With this newsletter, I want to achieve 4 things:

1. Show you that you are good enough to make an impact

2. By showing my weekly progress around my podcast, my newsletter subscribers, and social media followers, I want to show you that real growth takes time and effort, and that patience combined with perseverance is key to making a change.

3. Inspire others to start building and creating, and join me on this journey!

4. Help others pursue their goals while staying mentally and physically healthy. As a husband and father, my wife and son are my first priority. I do this work because I love it and want to create a better future for my son. I will share what is working, what is not, challenges (there are many of them), and lessons learned.

When can you expect this newsletter?

Once a week, on Friday!

Now, let's go!

1 Actionable Lesson

Most important thing is to just start. I said to myself I will start this newsletter, and even though I have no idea what platform to use to share this newsletter on or who is going to read it, I’m sitting here at 10:56 pm writing and finalizing the newsletter. They say if you aren’t embarrassed of your first edition, you waited too long to release it (idk if they say it, but i said it now).

The biggest mistake (it's more of an excuse than a mistake) I see people make is not starting something because they haven't come up with a name! I know because I have used that excuse way too many times. To start this newsletter with a little romance I'll quote the G.O.A.T. creator, Billy Shakespeare “What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.”

1 Lesson from this week's podcast episode

This week I hosted Raphael Hyde, Head of Design at MotherDuck and former Google UX designer, and I discuss low hanging fruit in web3, why data and web3 go hand in hand, productivity tricks, and so much more!

My favorite part of this episode was how Rafa ruthlessly prioritizes his time, and ALWAYS makes time for physical fitness. Taking care of yourself physical health makes you more energized in all aspects of life, including building your side hustle. To change the world, first you need to change yourself.

Full Episode:

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAlWxYOuVjA&t=2828s

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7MUfnuJdQpoZ8QGzS894KQ?si=ffffdbf190c74577

Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-builders-of-web3/id1616856510?i=1000592723074

Current Numbers - 2023/01/01

• YT Subscribers - 657

• LI Followers - 6,484

• Podcast Episode Plays (All Platforms) - 194

• Episodes released - 5 and 3 more ready to be released this month

Goals for 2023

• 100 YT Shorts posted

• 35 podcast episodes recorded and released (8 down, 27 to go)

As you see, I don’t have specific goals around how many followers I want to reach, I just want to create quality content. How will I know if content is quality? If it is quality, people will talk about it, and followers will grow.

If you made it this far, thank you so much! To thank you, I want to send you a ten dollar Starbucks gift card. Reach out to me on LinkedIn or email me at ivanovskiantonio354@gmail.com and I will send it your way. It would mean so much to me if you could provide me some feedback. It would mean even more if you decide to join me on this journey!