Recently I’ve come to a conclusion. I’ve got to focus on achieving a state of financial thriving before I can really focus on helping the transition to a Post-Scarcity Society, which is my core aim.
Think of it like the advice that you should put your Oxygen mask on first. Side note: That’s because you’ll go loopy very quickly if you don’t and won’t be mentally capable of looking after yourself by the time you’ve put one on for your child. But if you put it on yourself first you can help the people around you.
For about a 14 years I’ve been doing web development and also learnt about The Zeitgeist Movement (with the release of Zeitgeist Addendum) for about the same amount of time. I’ve also been doing entrepreneurial things for about 12 years. Having run or been a part of a number of startups, although with only a 1% success rate, they haven’t actually gone anywhere. Some didn’t even make an MVP, others didn’t get to Product Market Fit.
Unlike a lot of my friends and family, I’ve generally focused on learning and experiences over earning money before.
But I’m at a point in my life where I’ve got a family and we have had too many times in the last few years where we’ve run out of money. Even though it was just a cash flow issue. The focus for Jen and I this year is savings. We want to pay off our debts and rebuild our financial savings.
Projects
Whilst I’ve got a lot of projects I’ve had on my plate. I’m going to have to put them into long hibernation or give up on some of them.
Just some of my personal projects and community projects I want to do include:
- Helping redo the tzm.community website for The Zeitgeist Movement
- Create more Post Scarcity Podcast episodes (I’ve got one researched and half written about Cradle to Cradle)
- A bigger but more important one is my Sci-Fi novel (current working title: The Book of New Eden) set in the future. Except I’ve been working on it for so long that things which seemed impossible when I first thought them up have already come to pass.
- There’s a platform startup I want to work on based around Machine Learning for auto-keywording video footage, especially stock videos, eventually leading to an online collaborative video editor, like the way you can have multiple people working on a Google Doc at the same time.
- My Sister wants me to create an app around tracking medicine usage. Which is something I’d have used a number of times.
- I am way behind on editing and processing videos I’ve filmed for being used in Stock Footage.
- I’d like to actually edit some interesting videos, including editing something for my Mum’s Lavender Farm in Murray Bridge.
- I even have some thoughts around narrating children’s books as part of a YouTube video series, or creating a set of quizzes for new hires to help with various types of psychometric profiling.
The reality is that I don’t have any spare time to actually work on any of these. Between family and work, I’m flat out and haven’t really been working on these projects.
But it’s also because I’ve got an opportunity.
Drivible
Drivible is one of the paid projects I’ve been working on for the last few years, although unlike the other projects I’m no longer just a developer. I’m the Technical Co-Founder.
Drivible is a startup based around car dealerships and will hopefully expand out to include more tools and information to customers.
We have gone beyond an MVP and are now trying to find product market fit, before doing some scaling.
Unlike my personal startups, this one is paid and has had plenty of angel investment already.
I don’t know how well it’s going to go, but it’s something I’ve got to take a leap of faith jump on.
There’s timeframes and deadlines to meet. Code to write and Features to Complete.
Michael Kubler
I’ve got 3 months to transition. During that time I’ll be finishing off what I need to of the projects and training up any replacements.
This means that once done my focus will be effectively 100% on work and family.
That’s especially the case because whilst I’m making announcements, Jen is Pregnant again!
Pregnancy
It’s still early days and there’s been some complications which means there’s still some risk. But we’ve had 2 ultrasounds and what we are calling “Next” (current working title only until we know it’s gender), has a heart beat and seems to be doing well.
This also means that Jen needs lots of support and if all goes well, it means we won’t be visiting Australia for Xmas because we’ll be busy with a newborn.
A startup can take a number of years. I don’t know how long it will be. But I do still want to finish my novel at some point and do a book tour with my family, travelling around the world for a while, before settling down and setting up a prototype Post-Scarcity community, or joining an existing one if that’s an option by then.
I’ve also got backup plans in case it all falls through. There’s other startups and other projects I can work on.
Reminiscing
I’m grateful that I’ve spent over a decade getting to this point. I remember making a decision when I was working at Internode that whilst I enjoyed doing Photography, 3D animation and Web Development, I wasn’t sure which one I’d focus on, so I didn’t proactively choose. It ended up being programming which paid the most and was easiest for me to self-learn. But it didn’t stop me learning both programming and some arts. They’ve fed each other. I learned PHP in order to make my own gallery system. I learned jQuery for making sites interactive then later getting more into pure Javascript / NodeJS but also doing work in Angular, Vue.js and React.
I learnt Linux bash scripting from hosting photos I took on my own servers, sometimes they were sitting under my desk. Then they migrated to the cloud.
I learned Entrepreneurship whilst going to Kino Kabaret and making a short film in 48hours, and then doing that 2 more times in a row. I learned about Human Behaviour and Biology as well as economics and systems thinking as an outgrowth of TZM. I don’t actively do any 3D work anymore but still enjoy doing film and photography work when I can. I’ve also had many great experiences.
When the price of Bitcoin went up in late 2017 I sold off some of my crypto and used it to fund a trip to Europe and Asia which meant 2018 ended being a very pivotal point where I did a lot of travelling. Whilst I didn’t end up writing my novel I did give a presentation on the Price of Zero and ended up with a book worth of experiences. Some good, some intense and some bad.
But important to me now is it also lead to Jen and I meeting. now I’m living in the Philippines with my amazing partner and our 2 year old son.
I don’t know where the next part of my life journey will take me, but instead of smearing out bits of work here and there over the next few years the aim is to effectively save up my time and with any luck I’ll achieve a state of financial thriving where I can spend a lot more time on the transition to a Post Scarcity Society.
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