The Easiest Challenge You'll Ever Fail

'Now over how'

Hi everyone, welcome to this week’s Hit/Record.

I’ve got a challenge for you. It’s a challenge we all fail at over-and-over again, until we don’t.

And all you need to do is the very thing you’ve either been wanting to start, or putting off. Do it now. Yep. Now.

• Instagram reel?

• Idea for a beat?

• YouTube channel you’ve always fancied starting?

• X post? Business idea? Email you’ve been putting off for weeks?

Do it now. Literally now. Like stop reading this, and do it this actual second.

If you’re like me, just the thought of doing whatever it is NOW gets you stressed. There are a million reasons why that might be, all personal to you, but one foundational concept that underpins them all.

It matters

If the ‘thing’ you need or want to do is something important (and it is, which is why you haven’t started it yet), it’s that importance filling you with fear, raising your blood pressure, making your palms sweat. Because when there are stakes, even when the only person knowing the stakes is you, there’s also the potential for rejection. Even if that rejection is coming. From. You.

“Are you paralyzed with fear? That’s a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do.”

Steven Pressfield - The War Of Art (buy on Amazon)

So that’s the challenge. Start the thing. The universe loves momentum. Starting isn’t a commitment to doing it for the rest of your life. But that action opens up more opportunities, more creativity, more ideas. And yeah, maybe some rejection too, and some dread. But failure is just an inevitable part of the process. It’s not actually failure anyway. It’s only failure if you give up. Otherwise it’s just a pivot. Like prime Michael Jordan.

Here’s some things I’ve started recently, for context

Football content - decided it wasn’t for me and I didn’t want to force opinions about football when I had none.

Game streaming - spoiled my preciously solipsistic moments playing single player experiences, or spoiled social time with friends on multiplayer games.

A newsletter - hello. This one’s working out pretty well.

Anime Reaction Channel - nearly 30,000 subscribers and over 1000 members on the Patreon community. Incredible. Check it out here

After I’ve finished writing this newsletter. I’m going to do something else NOW. I can’t talk about it yet. But I look forward to sharing more very soon.

So here’s the challenge. DO THE THING NOW. And then let me know what it is in the comments, and what you did to start it.

I got the inspiration for this week’s email (and nicked the subheader) from this Ali Abdaal podcast with Noah Kagan. I picked up Noah Kagan’s new book, Million Dollar Weekend, off the back of it. I’ll let you know how it is next week.

ON THE RECORD - My week in pop culture

Music

It’s been a quiet week for music… well good music anyway. The beef between Megan Thee Stallion and Nicki Minaj has taken centre stage, meaning there’s not been much room for anything else. You can see my reactions to HISS and Big Foot here:

The Smile (Thom Yorke, Greenwood and co.) released their second album, which reminded me to get stuck back into my Radiohead journey. This week, a nice (if that’s the word) refresher with OK Computer. This may well turn into a video. Watch this space

TV

I’m alarmingly close to finishing Attack On Titan over on my anime channel (or the Patreon, at least). Only a few episodes to go (no spoilers!) but I’m already comfortable calling it one of the greatest television shows of all time. This could turn into a video too.

Books

Considering how much I adore narrative cinema, television and even games, it’s criminal how little fiction I read. I’m committed to change this year, but me being me, I can’t do things lightly. After giving up on Red Rising (didn’t enjoy the author’s writing style), I decided to grab Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein off our book shelf. I’m ashamed to say, mainly because it was the thinnest ‘classic’ we owned. Turns out the font size is about .2 so it’s taking me a while. The writing is tough but beautifully constructed, and I’m determined to get to the end. Although I’m pretty sure I know what happens.

Games

Tekken 8 on Xbox Series X is absolutely stunning. I still have the fondest memories of seeing the original being played on a dusty CRT in a local video rental store, and being blown away by these chunky, boxy pugilists battling in 3D space. That was 1995, I think. Nearly 30 years later (oh god), and it’s almost still the same game, but my word is it beautiful. The days of me studying moves lists and honing ten-string combos are long gone - but I’m still up for dishing out some justice with Law.

Right, that’s it for this week. Look out for another issue before next week - all will be explained in due course! Please do leave a like and a comment too.

Peace! JD x