Analog Action by Matt Ragland

Hey Reader, as you read this I'm waking up the North Carolina mountains, next to a lake with coffee brewing and fall colors on full display. I hope you're having an equally good day, but I gotta say this is pretty awesome for me 🏕️ Here's what's up… I just finished a week of review, rest, and (outdoor) recreation. It's the "sabbatical week" in my new work cycle experiment—read more about it at the end of the email. I did a pretty good job hitting most of my goals for the past six weeks. But I...

Hey Reader, welcome to October! This is my favorite month of the year. Cooler temperatures, camping, football, my birthday, and stout beers. What could be better? In this edition of the WRAP you'll learn about having an infrastructure mindset. I'll show you how George Lucas (Star Wars) and Taylor Sheridan (Yellowstone) built infrastructure businesses that supported creative work while becoming very profitable on their own. We'll also talk about how the systems you built to support your work...

Hey Reader, did you know you're different from most people on my email list? How do I know this? Because you actually DO stuff with what I send you. Most people just save emails to a folder called "read later" and never look at them again. You can actually take action. That's pretty rare these days. 💡 One Big Idea: You Are The Outlier I was thinking about this yesterday after I skipped the gym for two weeks. That little voice in my head started whispering "You're out of shape now. You've lost...

Hey Reader, I joined a church softball league this fall. It’s slow pitch. You know, where they lob the ball to you like you’re a toddler learning to swing 🥎 I started strong. Got on base 8 out of my first 10 at-bats. I was feeling pretty good about myself. Then game three happened. I struck out. In SLOW PITCH softball 🫨 The ball was coming at me slower than my morning coffee brew. And I whiffed 💨 To make it worse, I’m pretty sure I pulled something swinging so hard at nothing. My back...

Hey Reader, I've been thinking about something that might sound different than a lot of the advice you've heard. It's that most side hustlers actually do too much early in their journey, which is odd because you don't have much time to begin with. Instead of trying to be everywhere at once, you need to make clear decisions and stick with them for at least 100 days. Let me explain why this works—and share how it completely changed my creator journey. 💡 One Big Idea: Four Decisions That Create...

Hey Reader, I did something weird this past week that hit me way harder than I expected. I took 119 pictures of old journals—one from 15 years ago, another from 10 years back—and fed them all to Claude. It shot back a detailed analysis of my past self that was more revealing than I'd bargained for. Here’s what happened. What I Discovered The biggest thing wasn't what had changed, but what hadn't. The core values that mattered to me 10-15 years ago are still important today. But seeing them...

Hey Reader, it's Labor Day weekend here in America and the official return of college football! One benefit of being back in Florida is the opportunity to see my beloved Gators play more often. I'm taking my two older boys to next week's game and can't wait for the experience with them. If you're rooting for a college football team this fall, write back and let me know who! Even (especially?) if you're a rival like Georgia, Tennessee, or FSU. And bonus points if you use a fun GIF. 💡 One Big...