Every season, the leaves fall, the rain pours, the wind whips, or the sun blazes. So for Focus Friday, the time has come for a new tide.

Recently, I’ve been through some profound changes. To put it as concisely as possible, it boils down to two things:

1. I became a follower of Christ – this was unexpected at first but it feels more complete than any ideology I’ve experienced thus far. Including Catholicism, modern science, institutionalized Christianity, Stoicism, New Age, Buddhism, Minimalism, and Slow Productivity, among others.

2. I’ve taken my own advice from these letters and radically simplified my life.

Let me attempt to clarify the second part without rambling about my spiritual journey and how it has everything to do with building focus in this era of overstimulation, climax culture, and hedonism. 

I’ll cover the spiritual aspect in another letter but you’ll see parts baked in.

Context

When I started my personal brand online I thought way too much about how “correct” looked like and in the process watered down my message. You may like that watered-down version if you really enjoyed my letters so far. 

But the truth is, I didn’t enjoy 95% of the letters I was writing. They’re too engineered for me. They lack authentic expression. They have too much of this passive marketing smell that I’ve grown to despise. 

So there will be some changes. But first, let me explain what caused my longing for letting go of

• my social media

• holiday celebrations

• starting a business

• family gatherings

• old mindsets

• outdated philosophies

Radical simplification

As a creator with multiple interests and susceptibility to opinions of authority (habits to unlearn), I’ve worked on not getting magnetized by hype posts on social media. A good example is Tim Denning and his curiosity spiking hooks and storytelling just to get me into his marketing funnel. 

It’s so lifeless. 

But I’ve been falling for the same tricks for two years. Starting with Dan Koe. I had become a carbon copy of him, like many who swear by his teachings. He became our God. Because everyone worships something. It could be your job title, your income level, your two-story house in the suburbs, your political ideology, etc.

Whether you like it or not, you’ve chosen (perhaps unconsciously) to serve a MINDSET at a higher vibration than yours. This simply means the intent of the individual or ideology you give most of your attention to is pulling you to serve it.

This could mean your business. What would you do if your business was shut down right now? How would you feel? Maybe lost, hopeless, S.O.L. because you have a family to feed, a mortgage to pay, and debt you’re not proud of.

I’m not trying to provoke you. I’m inviting you to look at your life from a different angle today. 

But this is what I realized when I became a creator. I subconsciously gave my power of focus away to the creators who HAVE more than I do. But from what lens? Money, followers, email subscribers? Who decided that was more important than my family, my peace of mind, or the simple life I wanted to live deep down? Not me. 

I didn’t consciously decide I wanted to start a business. I did it because it was like a carrot waving in front of a starving rabbit at the time. I was influenced by the power of higher suggestion to buy Dan Koe’s products, post on Twitter, and create a bunch of things I didn’t know I needed to be a success.

Break free from mind control

Whether you like it or not, many choices like this are being made for you.

So this act of deconstructing my life and destimulating my brain is my intention to fight back against the NPC mindset within me.

It feels like my spirit wasn’t in my control. It was like an unseen puppeteer was pulling a lot of the strings of my mind through this hypnotic suggestion.

Social media is a big one. We open our phones by default when bored and the hypnotism starts. How? Because you’re mindlessly choosing to be given information you didn’t ask for. How often is a tap on X or IG an intentional choice to find a specific source of information? A YouTube search? 

It’s spiritual suicide. 

Because slowly and unknowingly, you’re given your biggest weapon, your focus, away to someone else. Someone with a stronger will than you.

And I don’t know about you but I care deeply for my spirit. I don’t ever want to sell out for a few hundred or thousand bucks on the internet. It’s just not my style.

Your most powerful spiritual weapon

So what am I doing instead?

I’m following my intuition and letting God give me the insights I need. But don’t get me wrong, there is effort and time to put in but I’m doing it on my own terms.

How? By training my mind, body, and spirit to increase my most powerful spiritual weapon: 

my focus of attention.

At a lower level, I’m reading older books and listening to creators who’re simply compelled to share what they’re excited about with some small incentives like their Patreon or Ko-fi subscription. I can live with that. Small incentives help everyone win in my opinion.

I never wanted content to become a new 9-5. As enticing as a multi-six figure one-person business is, it’s not for everyone. It still takes work. 

Look at Kieran Drew, he’s the high-performing underdog of writer businesses and he is still working 12-hour days “by choice”. Given his ‘lean’ business methods from his courses, it’s still a lot of fucking work. Especially if you have a family and a job you’re not dead set on leaving. 

If you’re historically uncertain of your path, doubling down on a niche just to pivot in six months for two years is demoralizing. But the big dawgs will just feed you more, “keep going”, and “consistency wins”, but not when you’re climbing a mountain sold to you by their stellar marketing. 

I’m no fool, and you aren’t either but some of us have wide-open mind centers (ala Human Design), meaning that you easily get conditioned by people who have a strong sense of mental clarity. It’s not a trait everyone is gifted with because I’m definitely not. 

This leads to my next point about keeping things simple and my focus for the foreseeable future (meditation practice, stimulating my brain, and allowing my life to unfold with a stronger level of discernment). What does this mean? No more, getting hyped about a new Dan Koe video telling me to post on Twitter and use Kortex to write viral content that brings in XXXX followers. No thanks, brother. 

I’m out.

Newsletter changes

So here’s what you can expect from me.

Focus Friday will now be The Focus Letter. What does this mean? It means that the letter won’t necessarily come on Friday. It might be every other Friday or a different day. You might get two letters or more in one week when I have profound experiences to share. 

Why?

I’m not consistent, in the typical sense, so I’ve made peace with that. I work best in bursts with pressure at times, and when I’m inspired. To be honest, I don’t like the strict schedules that productivity bros swear by. They don’t allow room for creativity. And my creativity will strike when it arises. It can’t be predicted. So I’ll be in your inbox when I have something to say.

Not sooner, not later.

I’ll still share helpful insights but they might come off a bit different – a bit more raw and sometimes nonsensical. I’ve also migrated to Substack. It feels more at home there. And I’ve dedicated my time now, not to building a business or anything fancy but to working on myself in silence (mostly). 

Next time, you’ll receive this letter from Substack instead of Beehiiv. If for any reason you don’t like these changes, you can unsubscribe.

Now for the call to action, because I like homework when it’s growth-related.

Take a moment to meditate and journal today on what areas of your life you’re being told what to do.

• Do you feel energized by it?

• Is your spirit hungry for it or does it feel like it was assigned by someone else?

• Can you pull away from one thing this week that’s dragging you down?

And as always,

Stay clear, calm, and creative.

Brand Marz.

P.S.

I missed many points I wanted to make but they’ll come up in future letters.

If you couldn’t tell, I didn’t edit this much but that was by design.

Reply and let me know what was the most interesting part of this and I can start on that first.

Thanks for sticking around!