More Than Motivation

Hello, Standing on the Ledge. How are we today?

In addition to the other posts going up, I needed to make this one.

Lately, I have been going off the rails a little bit about certain motivational posts and motivational memes put out by various individuals. I am not going to name them at the moment. That point is not really necessary.

Here is what I find frustrating with them: they sound good. They sound great. They make you feel good for the moment. They make you feel like you are on top of the world, like somebody hears what you are saying. Some of them even go a step further and try to motivate through shame, by downplaying your troubles or treating your struggle like a personal weakness that can be shouted away.

That is where I hit the wall with them.

As somebody who has lost a major source of income, who is currently struggling to find ways to keep what I have, I decided to bare all and put that out there to you, to the world, and to myself as well. I have been using this medium as a way to build tools to help me along my way and, hopefully, to help you along yours.

That, I think, is my biggest animosity toward these kinds of motivational posts. They uplift you for the moment, but they do not give you anything to sustain you with. They do not help you build. They do not help you watch for warning signs that something may be about to go sideways. They do not help you recognize those signs early enough to maybe head it off before things collapse. And if you do wind up in the kind of predicament I am in right now, they often do not give you anything usable to get through it.

That is the difference I have been trying to build here.

I have spent countless hours setting up the phases, setting up tools and protocols, building quick cards, and putting this work out there further in book form. I am still working on book number three. It is going to take some time. I have some groundwork laid out at the moment, but I need more material, more structure, and more time to make it into what I want it to become.

That is the reality of it. Money is tight right now. I am struggling to figure out how to keep the lights on, keep food on the table, and keep transportation in place so I can work. I debated setting up a GoFundMe, but I doubt I will do that.

Instead, if you want to support me, please check out my book on Amazon: Standing on the Ledge: Field Notes, Rebuilding from the Rubble. There are two editions there if you want to have a look.

I have also been looking into the possibility of building a system so I can do more research and compile data locally instead of constantly eating up bandwidth. It is honestly wild how much data this work is using right now. On my phone alone, I have probably gone through around 300 GB of data so far this month, and that is not a small amount.

But the bigger issue is not the data. The bigger issue is the gap between feeling encouraged and actually being equipped.

A lot of motivational content gives you a momentary lift, but not a framework. It gives you a surge of emotion, but not a method. It gives you a line to repeat, but not a tool to use when things get ugly at 2:00 in the morning, when the bills are due, when your income is gone, when you are trying to figure out how to make it through the next day without coming apart.

What I have wanted to build here is something different.

Not just words that sound good.

Not just a dopamine hit.

Not just something that tells you to think positive and push harder.

I want this to be a place that helps you make it through the next 24 hours, the next 72 hours, the next 30 days, the next 60 days, and the next 90 days. I want it to help you recognize warning signs sooner. I want it to help you understand collapse before you are buried in it. And if you are already in it, I want there to be something here you can actually use.

That is why this exists.

This project was never meant to be empty motivation. It was meant to be a field manual. A set of notes from somebody who is in the middle of trying to rebuild, trying to stay afloat, trying to learn in real time, and trying to leave behind something practical for the next person who finds themselves standing on the ledge.

I am not speaking to you from a mountaintop. I am speaking to you from inside the work.

And maybe that is why I get so frustrated with motivational content that stops at “feel better.” Because feeling better for five minutes is not the same thing as having what you need to survive the next stretch of road.

If you have been following along, thank you for bearing with me. There is more coming. More tools, more material, and more work toward the next book when I can get it there.

Until then, thank you for reading.

Godspeed.