Rob's writing roundup (roasted potato edition)

mmmmmmmmmm potatoes 😋

Sup homie.

I just popped some thin-sliced potatoes into the oven, so I've got like 30-ish minutes to crank through this newsletter lol.

One thing that's top of mind for me this week, as I continue to publish daily, is noticing when I feel bored by my own work. It's happening more and more often, and part of me suspects that if I'm bored myself, readers will be too. Maybe that's not actually true, but it certainly feels true right now.

That's partly why I just signed up for a series of poetry workshops my friend Ellen is running. Perhaps in the coming weeks I'll shake things up by publishing a poem or two (which feels scary af). Or I'll just have fun with making my other writing more poetic. Either way, I'm looking for ways to protect and preserve my felt sense of aliveness as I continue to publish every day. Not everything can be a banger, but I do want to prioritize play and joy and experimentation.

Anyhow, that's what's on my mind this morning. But I've got potatoes roasting away, so here's a single sentence summary of everything I published this week!

• ​Entering the forest 🌲 - I just started working on a new product called The Forest, which will be a "choose your own adventure" guide to 1,000 true fans, while also perhaps ushering in a new educational paradigm centered around honoring the uniqueness and agency of every human.

• ​A garden of new possibilities - Speaking of The Forest, my plan is to make it insanely actionable instead of yet another "infotainment" product, and I will do that by layering in four distinct types of activities, all of which will contribute to homies coming alive and walking their own path.

• ​The mechanics of "choose your own price" - Several people asked about the mechanics, messaging, and technology I use for my "choose your own price" coaching calls, so I wrote this thing where I explain all of that.

• ​The Pattern - "The Pattern" is my cheeky catch-all term for the set of forces that erode our spirit and homogenize our culture, and it is the entire project of Ungated to break The Pattern in ourselves and the world around us.

• ​Burrito-Based Pricing™ - A few years ago I started a silly pricing experiment centered around my love for burritos, but now I'm thinking it wasn't so silly after all and might play a bigger role in my business going forward??

• ​Should I ditch Substack? - Substack keeps shipping new features that feel like the antithesis of non-coercive marketing, so I used Substack's polling feature to get a sense of whether people care if I ditch Substack or not lol.

I can smell the potatoes crisping up nicely. The plan is top 'em off with some sunny-side-up eggs and a bit of hot sauce.

So here's the last thing I'll leave you with. I'm starting to fall down the rabbit hole of Tai Chi and Qigong. I will definitely write about how I ended up veering so sharply into the realm of Taoism at some point. But for today, I asked my twitter homies for good online resources to start learning this stuff, and they delivered some great ones. So if you're interested in exploring these practices with me, check out the replies on this.

Hope you have a great week!

-Rob "it's potato time" Hardy

Rob's Weekly Invitation

I spent all week working on The Forest, and damn, I don't think I've ever felt so excited and energized by a new product. Like I mentioned, it will be a "choose your own adventure" guide to 1,000 true fans that ties together my entire philosophy in one place. I want it to feel like a delightful digital garden, where around every corner you will find something that encourages you to explore what’s most alive for you, and start creating your own path through the worlds of online business and creativity. It's gonna be rad.

The Forest won't be ready until April at the earliest, but anyone who pre-orders now will get instant access to the UngatedOS Workshop, which was my best previous attempt at codifying my philosophy into one place.

So yeah, you are hereby cordially invited to come join me in The Forest.