Day 52 — The Honest Truth (Do the Thing that Scares You)
By: Nvule Studios
Tags: Clothing Brand, Brand

Photo by Tolga Ahmetler on Unsplash

Pre-text: As I go through iterations of how I want to communicate brand story and generally discovering who my audience is. I want to put more substance in these posts to embed more meaning and value with what I produce. Based on data I have access to, Medium attracts an audience that is generally more intellectually curious and these readers tend to want to get into the roots of the subject matter. As a result, these posts will be better thought out and provide some kind of revelation, insight, or piece of information for you, the audience, to use.

Try to build something meaningful (a brand, a piece of technology, a social movement) and just watch what happens…

I want to challenge you: build something. Anything. Put it out for the world to see and observe what happens…

To build a brand, a piece of technology, or a company is a revealing process. Revealing in the sense that you get to see how much you do not know and how you respond to pressure. But more-so, it’s revealing in the sense that you get to observe other people’s actions or lack of action towards what you are building.

Now, I have digressed from the intention of this article as I want to get more into the origin story of how all of this started and delve into crypto content. But before we move on, I want to say — with no malicious intent, if you decide to respond to the challenge — you’ll figure out who your real friends are and who your true supporters are (most often it is people that barely know you).

The Honest Truth: Your Closest Friends Will Not Support You

As I alluded to, to build something of value is a painfully revealing process. In these moments of introspection, I’m often reminded of Robert Greene’s quote:

“The best way to neutralize our natural impatience is to cultivate a kind of pleasure in pain — like an athlete, you come to enjoy rigorous practice, pushing past your limits, and resisting the easy way out.” — Robert Greene

As I see it, the, “easy way out,” would be to retreat back to a stable corporate job.

To have a 401k match program and a life of certainty. A life where uniqueness is dulled and creative expression often goes unnoticed. That’s the honest truth and the way I’ve come to view corporate America vs the entrepreneurial world— a life indebted to working for someone else or a life of fulfilling your life’s task.

“At your birth a seed is planted. That seed is your uniqueness. It wants to grow, transform itself, and flower to its full potential. It has a natural, assertive energy to it. Your Life’s Task is to bring that seed to flower, to express your uniqueness through your work. You have a destiny to fulfill. The stronger you feel and maintain it — as a force, a voice, or in whatever form — the greater your chance for fulfilling this Life’s Task and achieving mastery.” — Robert Greene

Let’s talk about cryptocurrency for a second…

For my senior capstone computer science project; I decided to tackle a cryptocurrency project to unpack complicated cryptocurrency concepts.

What I loved about this project was I had creative control for what I wanted to do, so I opted to create an ebook that explained topics such as Bitcoin’s hashing algorithm (SHA256), how blocks are added to the blockchain, and identifying who these infamous miners are and what they are doing.

The nitty-gritty of crypto… My intention was to make these complex terms make sense to the average, non-technical person.

Here’s a link to that page — (You can see that some of the posts where Bitcoin was still under $10,000!)

Following this project I created somewhat of an online resource with a website that unpacked these topics and then soon found myself creating Spotify streams as well (yes I know some of these are cringe-worthy, but I was historically correct.)

The honest truth is this: I was looked at as a crazy person for believing, so whole-heartedly in a new technology, and truthfully that’s when I wish I had doubled down.

Conclusion: Do the Thing that Scares You

I know the general tone of this piece of writing sounds negative, but it’s the honest truth. As I continue to move forward, I hope to more openly share what I discover along this journey of both building a clothing brand and exploring the world of crypto.

As I think about this clothing brand and how to fully unpack and express what 改善 actually means; I’m often reminded to do the thing(s) that scares you — even if you have no idea how it will turn out.

→ There’s currently 24/48 clothes left in the 改善: NYC Collection: www.nvulestudios.com/merch