20% less money, 80% less work, four life pillars
I have been gone about eight months. The channel is at about 700 subscribers, which is a lot for the technical marketing I used to post. This is the update: where I have been, and what I am going to record.
I grew a company with my co-founder to about 130 or 140 people. Around New Year I was burnt out. That is the whole story behind the silence.
14–16 hours, seven days, until I was not thinking straight
I was in the office seven days a week, 14 or 16 hours a day. Wake up, coffee, office. Stay until I started falling asleep. Home. Sleep. Repeat.
The company needed that at the time. 140 people now take a salary from it. Families sit behind those salaries. That is a real result. I am also a person. I stopped thinking correctly.
Depression and panic when the business is the only purpose
I have been depressed four or five times. I know the spiral. I was heading down it again. Around Christmas and New Year, at parties, I would start to feel like I was going to be sick after one glass of wine — sometimes a sip. It was not the alcohol. I used to drink more than that. I have quit drinking.
Relationships suffered. I was not seeing friends. I had no other purpose. When the business is going well, that feels fine. When it is not, you have nothing else. That is when it looks like your whole life is failing, because you put the whole life into one thing.
Six to eight hours from home. Gym and diet back on
I stopped going into the office every day. I work from home. Six to eight hours, plus weekends. That is a normal week for most people. It is a lot less than what I was doing.
I also put on a lot of weight. Not from lockdown. From the company. No gym. No diet. Fitness gone. I have been putting that back.
The last six months have been personal development. The companies used to eat that. I am now in a financially stable place, still working, and I do not have videos I want to make on the current work.
I will not teach the Google Ads account or the passive-income channels
I run a large Google Ads campaign myself. There is nobody else on it. A video would be keywords and bids, all blurred, and there are already good Google Ads videos. I have always tried to put out setups that were not already on YouTube — APIs used in a way you had not seen. I am not going to start posting generic ads tutorials.
The other projects are not companies. They are passive-income channels. A how-to would create competitors and dilute the thing I am using. I will not do that.
I miss YouTube. I have made friends from the comments, people with the same interests. So the niche has to change.
Apply growth hacking to health, wealth, love, and happiness
I do not mean laundry stains. I mean the growth-hacking mentality without the acquisition-and-activation funnel: automation, thinking outside the box, being data-driven, running tests — applied to your own life. I already do this. Other people do. Most people have not seen it written down.
I already published a Notion system for that. It is still one of the best things you can implement. It is project management for a whole life, not just a company.
The four life pillars I am going to sit on: health, wealth, love, happiness.
Earn 20% less. Do 80% less work
I am comfortable on money. I still want more of it, especially passive income, and I want as much of it as I can get for as little work as I can do.
The old mentality was 24/7 to maximise the number. The new one is work smarter: maybe 20% less money, 80% less work.
If that is useful, I will record the day-to-day. Educational vlog, not a camera following me around for no reason. I am not an expert on health, love, or happiness. I am good at marketing and I am good at making money. In-person social skills are something I still want to work on. The rest is a learning process. I will document the lessons and the failures.
Notion API from the 
Apple Watch
I have a system that talks to the Apple Watch and Notion. Notion shipped an API. You can send a request from the Watch or the phone. Shortcuts can fire that request. I will make a video on that.
I stepped back as co-founder of 
Growth-Hacking.io
I am still on good terms with Frank. I still want the project to work. The hours it needed from me do not match what I can give, or the goals I have now.
I still use the product. I have lead-generation flows for a telesales team we are building, all on top of Growth-Hacking. I will keep using it and I will still make videos on it. I am not a co-founder day-to-day.
Jaguar F-Type, paid outright. Apartment in the new central park
I bought a car I had wanted for about seven years. When I was 18, in a full-time job, my old boss had a Jaguar F-Type. He told me if I worked hard I would have one. That stuck. I bought one. Not new — about six years old. Not a lease. Not rented. Owned outright.
I am not a car person. It is the one I thought looked the best, and I have now ticked that box.
The apartment is still being renovated. The views are good. They are turning the area into the central park of the city. The property has gone up.
Marketing videos when I can. Everything free. Ads only for a camera
I will still make marketing videos. I cannot make them on a schedule. New channels take time to find, and if I spent ages figuring one out and there is not room for more people on it, I will not publish the playbook.
The pivot is personal growth: automations and tests that raise quality of life, money, fitness, health, happiness. All of it free. I do not need another income stream and I am not turning this into a course.
YouTube ads are on so I can put the money back into the channel: a better microphone, a better camera, maybe an editor, maybe someone to hold the camera. That is the only reason.
If you have video ideas, leave a comment.
OFM Insider and
Automation Academy if you want the communities from this video. Tools and resources are
Bento. A one-off session is
Calendly. Four sessions is
4x Consultations.
Transcript
hey guys it's nathan again uh been a very long time since i've since i've done this it's been about eight months since we put our last video out i think um so i just wanted to like give a little update on what i'm doing what i'm working on where i've been um like i don't know like the future of the the youtube channel which is now at like 700 subscribers which is like really really quite cool considering that it's like such a niche um like audience that i focused on like quite complex technical marketing
um i think that's really quite cool that like that there's like a small community there so i'm always like really happy about that so yeah i just thought i would like record an update so um i think as i mentioned before like i was i was growing this company with my like co-founder and we had grown to about 130 or 140 employees and i i had like just sort of burnt myself out um multiple times this is back around like new year time so like five five months ago now
um but i was i was working like literally uh yeah seven days per week for for about like 14 or 16 hours per day um so i would just wake up and get a coffee and go straight in the office and then stay in the office until i start falling asleep come back home and go straight to sleep and just repeat and um it's sort of like it's what was necessary for like the the company at the time um in order for it to grow into what it has now which is yeah there's like 140 people that now benefit from the company
and sorry like in terms of salaries and so on like we support 140 people probably even more than that when you look at people's they have family and children and so on so it's quite like a nice accomplishment but um like i am a human at the end of the day and i i just completely burnt myself out like i wasn't thinking i didn't not not thinking correctly i i think i just brought on like some mental health issues for for myself um i was starting to feel like quite depressed
and um i was also having i don't i'm not quite sure what they were like some type of like anxiety or panic attacks i have been depressed like quite a few times in the four or five times in the past for various different reasons but i and i was i could feel that i was starting to like head down that depression spiral because i i know what it feels like so i've been there before and then also when we were like at parties and stuff like i said this was around like the new year time around christmas time i was having these like just weird
um yeah like i'm not sure if there were panic attacks but something like that uh i would i'd start to feel like i was going to be sick um just like often when i would like consume like one glass of wine or like not even like a sip of wine sorry so it wasn't from actually the alcohol itself i i don't think because i used to drink a lot more than that although i have quit drinking recently as well um but anyway i was just going through like this like psychological issues let's just call them that was stemming from just not taking
and not having any like balance in my life just being purely focused on this like my relationships suffered but um like just not spending any time with friends or having any other purpose in life and then the problem with that is um when like if the business is successful and it's doing very well you're it's fine and like you're you're happy right because the thing that you're putting all your effort into is is going very well but the time when you encounter a real issue is when the business stops doing well
and that is what your whole life revolves around because you have no other hobbies or per you have no other purpose in life because that's what you've invested your all of your time into and that is when it starts to lead to i don't know like quite a um yeah just like to like the depression i think is is what it leads to um because you you it seems like you haven't got anything going well in your life because you've been solely focused on that one or on your business
um so anyway i decided to take like a step back from like going in the office every day and i've been like working from home and like working a lot less to be honest um like still working, I'd say, like normal hours for most people but i'm probably doing like six to eight hours per day um and i do work weekends as well but i have like a lot more balance and um also i put on a lot of weight from like lockdown not even lockdown actually i started putting on before like just from again being focused on this company
so much in fact i i wasn't going to the gym i wasn't watching like my diet diet at all or anything like that so um i like completely just lost my fitness and physique so i've been working on that again as well um so i've really been focused for like the past six months a lot on like personal development um which is something that i am i've always been like i'm quite focused on but just like my companies have often like taken priority um but i'm now in like quite a financially stable place
um and i am still like i said i am still working but there is not really things that i want to make videos on um like we we manage like quite a large google ads campaign sorry i manage quite a large google ads campaign uh i'm the only person that works on it but um i i i don't really want to share a lot of the like information there in terms of like keywords and and things like that so it would just be like everything would be blurred out if i was to make a video on it which i don't think is that interesting
and there are some already some really good videos on youtube on um like google ads management so i like i've always been focused on like trying to put out content that is a little bit more unique and maybe hasn't been seen before on youtube or using apis in ways that haven't been seen before um so i didn't want to start putting out just like generic generic content um and also there are like some other projects that i'm working on as well but i i don't again i don't really want to put up content on them just to like generate competitors like these aren't businesses they're
more like um passive income channels that um that it doesn't make sense for me to put to make videos on how to do it because i i would just be like diluting them for myself um sorry i would be diluting the channels which would like negatively impact myself um but i do miss like youtube and putting out like youtube content um and i i have also made like a lot of good connections and like even friends from people who found like my um youtube videos because generally of course they have like similar interests to myself
so i've been thinking to change like the niche even or yeah like the narrative of the the channel into more of like a personal development um i like i don't want to use the word like life hacks because it sounds like i'm going to be teaching you like how to remove a stain from your laundry or something which is what most life hacks are about but i'm talking about applying like the growth hacking mentality of not like acquisition activation and so on but of automation of thinking outside of the box of sort of i mean growth hacking is even part like being like sort of
data driven and running tests um and applying that type of mindset to your own life which is something that i actually do and i do already um and i know that there are other people in the world who do it as well but i don't think many people are familiar with um with anything like this and i did previously put out a video on like the notion um management system like productivity system which is actually like it's still i think is one of the best things you can implement in your life because it's not just for business it's for it's like a project management system
but for your entire life and helping you achieve like your goals um and so i've been like playing around with that a lot more as well so i was thinking to push the channel yeah more into something like that direction so focusing on like i i guess what are considered like the four life pillars which is health wealth love and happiness um and so well for like i i'm now like in quite a comfortable situation like financially as i did say but i am still focused on like making money particularly like passive income
and making as much money as possible or doing as little work as possible which isn't a mentality that i took before before i just like worked 24 7 to earn as much money as possible whereas now you can like shift that mentality now i've shifted my mentality sorry to work smarter and earn maybe 20 less money but doing 80 less work um so if people are interested in things like that i would love to like record just even what i'm doing like day to day i guess it will turn more into like a a vlog
um but a uh like more like sort of educational vlog content i don't want like a camera just pointlessly following me around it would be like because i'm not an expert on all of these subjects as well and i don't want to like pretend to be um it's a lot of it is still just like a learning process for me so it would be sort of like documenting the journey of of my own like personal development sharing like the lessons and failures and and so on
and hopefully like you can learn something from from it as well um so that was like the general idea i've built like a really nice system that integrates with like the apple watch and notion um because now notion have released their their api you can actually send like api requests from the apple watch or from your phone and i don't know if people knew that but you can send an api request from like apple shortcuts um so i'll make a video on that as well um yeah
and in terms of like growth hacking like the company growth hacking i've basically like stepped back from there um i'm still getting really well with frank and i still want to like support the um the project but it just uh i don't know it does did not really align the amount of work that is needed and input from me it doesn't really align with what i'm able to provide at the moment and align with my like current goals um so i'm still like an active user of like the product as well
um i have quite a few like lead generation flows for a telesales team which which we're currently building out and they're all built on top of growth hacking um so i'm i'm still like a big supporter and like active user of the um of the platform and like we'll continue to support it and make videos on it but i've basically just stepped back as a um as a co-founder um yeah uh other than that like i bought a new car which i've been like really enjoying
um it was a goal of mine for about seven years uh when my like my old boss used to have one when i back when i had like a full-time job when i was 18 yeah like seven years ago he had like a jaguar f-type and i just he actually said to me one day that if i worked very hard one day i would have that car and it just sort of stuck with me and um yeah and anyway i've i've finally bought one um and it's not on like i've bought the car outright it's not brand new it's 6 years old
but um it's not on like a lease or on a just no it's not rented or anything like it's really nice to say that i own the car outright so and i'm not like massively into cars either this was just like my the best my personally for me the best looking car that i just loved and i've had as a goal for ages it was really nice to um to take off one of one of the boxes um of like one of my big big goals i also have like my apartment here which is still being renovated you can see all this rubbish in the
corner but like the views up here are really nice this was quite a good investment that i made as well they're turning this area into like the central park of the city so the property value has gone up gone up quite a lot and yeah you can see the pleasant um yeah like this video yeah it's just really like to give you a little update and also i'd like some feedback on if people are interested to see this um this type of context it'd be quite a big shift yeah other than that just feel free to leave any like comments
and sorry i will i'll continue to make like marketing videos as well i'm just like i guess the primary point i i i can't consistently make like marketing content because it does take a while to find like new channels and often when i found them i don't really want to depending on what the channel is like if there's room for multiple people to use it then fine but if i spent ages like figuring it out i don't really want to share it with with everyone um
so i'm i would really like to like pivot this channel into more yeah like personal growth development and applying like a hacker type mentality to your your life and building like automations running like tests in your life to improve the the quality of your life to earn more money to improve your fitness health happiness yeah and like also i i i want this to be is everything's going to be like completely free of course yeah i don't really need like another income stream and i don't it's not i'm not really interested to turn this into a course i would like to keep it like completely
free and just put like all of the information out there um and yeah as i said it's like going to be a um i'm not pretending to be like an expert on life or any of these subjects in fact like the only thing i'm really good at is marketing and i'm quite good at making money um but in terms of health love and happiness i i definitely haven't figured out those departments yet so it will be like a a documentation of um yeah of growing in in those areas like i'm also i would also like to work on my like communication skills quite a lot
like ironically i work in marketing which is in essence a form of is just communication um but my more like social skills like in person social skills um i'd really like to work on um yeah so like if you're interested if you have any like video ideas feel free to leave like a comment and i'll be happy to um to reply and yeah like hopefully this i i can start making like much more consistent content um like any money that is made from this youtube channel like the only income source is actually through like ads
and the only reason that's turned on is so that i can invest back into the um into the channel itself like buying a better microphone and a better camera and maybe even hiring like a video editor and a like someone to follow me around with a camera which would just mean that i can produce content much much easier um yeah anyway i'll leave it there i hope everyone is safe and well and enjoying their summer and uh yeah i really look forward to getting back into