Heyy Reader, Hope your week has been great! 😊

Here are the highlights for this week:
​❇️ What losing my job taught me about waiting too long
🦄 Creator of the week - Josh Diaz
🤖 ChatGPT Prompt: The Backwards Calendar
🧃 Creator Juice - Behind The Scenes
⏯️ You can still make great videos with an AVERAGE LIFE
🖼️ Fun AI-Generated Images of the week

❇️ What losing my job taught me about waiting too long

April 15th, 2026. I got laid off.

At first my brain was in shock. Unable to process what the future would look like. But little did I know, the next 24 hours would spark something in me that had been missing for a while. With sweaty palms, I started writing a pros and cons list of the situation.

My options were clear:

1. Find another job and re-live the same corporate life I had before.
2. Take a risk and go full time trying to build my own thing.

I chose option 2, and there are three reasons why:

1. I'd been building alongside my 9-5 for the past 6 years. I used to wake up at 4:30am to get content work done before driving an hour to my office. I'd come back from work and make videos. I really enjoyed it. I wasn't able to hit every goal I set, but I showed up consistently. I had built some momentum.
2. I don't want to ever regret it. A year from now, I don't want to look back at this moment and think "what if I had gone full time?"
3. I truly enjoy this work. Writing, making videos, expressing myself, and sharing my experience so someone else can learn from it.

So after spending the past 2 months re-building my life, here are two key things losing my job abruptly taught me:

1. Don't wait. The smartest thing you can do is build your personal brand while you're still working your job. If anything happens to your 9-5, your personal brand gives you an edge over everyone who didn't spend that time and energy with intention. You'll have people who want to hire you, other revenue channels, and pitching yourself to anyone becomes a lot easier. I still wish sometimes that I'd started a YouTube channel years back while I was working. Even if it wasn't life changing, I would've picked up more skills and built momentum over the years. But no point looking back now. The best time was yesterday, the second best is today.

2. Your close circle matters. I would not have been this okay had it not been for all my creator and business owner friends. The ones who gave me the courage to pursue my passion. The ones who provided guidance for my new initiatives. Surrounding yourself with amazing people is something that genuinely helped me through this transition. They say if you're the smartest person in the room, you need to find better rooms. This is something I'm still intentionally working on.

Action items:

1. Do an audit of your current circle of friends and peers. Are they smarter than you? Can you learn from them? Do they support your growth without thinking about how it affects them?
2. Do a personal brand audit. Use my checklist to see where your personal brand stands right now. It's a free Notion resource I built. I hope you'll give it a try 🙂

🦄 Creator of the week - Josh Diaz

Josh Diaz is a filmmaker who tells stories through cinematic pieces, often built around relatable, quietly personal themes like introversion, social awkwardness, and self-reflection. He's one of my favourite YouTubers right now!
Every video is a story beautifully told.

If you're looking for inspiration this week, you can look to Josh. You can be inspired by his approach to documenting an "average life" and ask yourself "How can I turn my every day moments into visually memorable short films?"
Check out his Instagram and YouTube Channel.

🙊 You can still make great videos with an AVERAGE LIFE

I figured I would also highlight one of Josh's videos that I feel is a great reminder for us all that even our ordinary lives can be shared in interesting ways. I love what he says in the end of this video. He says "Go out there and master telling your own story, and I promise everything else will follow." That's the kind of mindset I'm approaching life these days with. Happy watching!

​

🤖 Prompt: The Backwards Calendar

The Backwards Calendar — plans your week backwards from Friday's results instead of forward from your to-do list.
Good fit for people juggling a job + a side project. (wink.. wink.. that means you!😄)

"Act as my weekly planning strategist. We are going to design my week backwards, starting with results, then my energy, then the schedule. Start by asking me this one question and wait for my answer: 'What needs to be true by Friday for this week to count? Give me concrete results I can measure.' Then work through these steps, one question at a time. Step 1. Pull 3 to 5 measurable results from my answer. Rewrite any vague goal as something I can verify happened. Step 2. Ask when my thinking is at its best and when it drops off. Sort my time into high-focus, medium-focus, and admin. Step 3. Put my most important results into the high-focus blocks first. Drop shallow tasks and admin into the lower-energy slots. Tell me which goals do not fit the time I have. Step 4. Build a simple weekly schedule in plain text. For each result, show what it is, when I will work on it, and what 'done' looks like. Follow these rules. Ask one question at a time, push back on anything vague, skip the motivational talk, choose realism over ambition, and keep this under ten minutes. Finish with one line: 'This is your week, built backwards.'"

Source: r/ChatGPTPromptGenius on Reddit

🧃Creator Juice - Behind The Scenes

We've been working hard behind the scenes to re-launch the podcast. Here's a sneak peek of our recording set up! Brick by brick... can't wait to show you what we've been working on. :)

Direct Links to: Spotify | Apple Podcasts​

🖼️ Fun weekly AI Generated Images

This week we have: Unlikely Apple Products

🧞‍♂️Your wish is my command

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Thanks for reading.

Until next time!

​​VJ​​

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