Hi, and welcome to the July 2026 edition of The Dispatch, where I talk monthly about my journey towards post-retirement entrepreneurship and share relevant finds along the way.
After a couple months of travel through Germany, Austria, Taiwan, Japan, and Tahiti, I’m happy to be home for a few months. Travel nourishes my soul and wears me out. I can’t get enough of it, but I also appreciate the productivity that comes with home.
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Something to Ponder
“Learn to have few desires carefully chosen.” -Naval Ravikant
From The Field
Focus is a struggle.
And I don’t mean the minute-by-minute fight against the tiny dopamine cravings that stem from endless scrolling, although this is an issue as well.
I mean picking one thing and sticking with it for long enough to make it work.
When I started writing fiction circa 2013, I figured this was it. I loved writing fiction so much that I wanted to do it forever. Thirteen years of deep focus later, I have eight quality novels and I’ve sold two hundred thousand copies.
But as I plan for a post-retirement personal-brand business, the job is to pick one of my many interests and re-focus. Technology, writing, travel, golf. YouTube, Instagram, a newsletter. Personal development, entrepreneurship, retirement planning. Books, digital products, classes. Lifestyle design, productivity, writing fiction. Fitness. Did I mention travel?
It’s taken me a year, but I’m close to a refocus. And I will be entirely refocused by the end of 2026 after two quarters of execution (see below).
If you find yourself in a similar boat, I’ll offer one framework and one process, both of which helped me tremendously.
The Framework
This came from a YouTuber named Alexa Saarenoja and it goes something like this:
Pick and commit to:
- One niche
- One problem
- One platform
- One audience
- One offer
- Do it for a year
I’ve recently seen similar frameworks from Dan Martel, Tintin Smith, and others.
Her point is that every time you add another product, a new platform, or try and reach another audience, you’re adding another business to manage. Stay focused until you have one business built. Then consider expanding.
The “one platform” is throwing me for a loop. YouTube has the best long-term potential but it’s also a steep learning curve and time intensive. Instagram seems to be having a moment, but not sure it creates long term value. Short-form v long-form. I’m enamored with newsletters, probably because I’m a writer at heart.
The rest is underway. I’ve picked the niche, a problem to solve, the audience, and the offer (i.e. the product). The product is designed and in progress. More on this later after I’m ready to talk about it.
The Process
I credit my wife Jill for this one, who got it from a client.
And it’s simple, but with a tricky mindset pivot.
It’s a quarterly planning process. 90 days, three months, 12 weeks of a commitment to a set of goals and tasks.
In mid-June, Jill and I set up the whiteboard in our living room and we each put a list of commitments on the board for the next quarter. July 1 - September 30. Now, they’re in plain sight every day. I also built a quarterly goal planning tracker in Notion so it’s always on my desktop.
How do you know what goal-tasks to put on the board? How do you know what to focus on?
The epiphany I had is that it’s not about the goals themselves. It’s about the commitment. You can’t take weeks to decide, instead you have to pick a handful of goals and tasks and go accomplish them.
Don’t over think it. Pick a few, work on them for 12 weeks. At the end of the 12 weeks, you’ll have built something, written something, put something out into the world. But more importantly, you’ll have learned something about yourself. You’ll have evolved.
Honor the commitment you make to yourself. There’s no one else who cares (my wife cares, but you know what I mean). No one is coming to save us. It’s only us out here flailing away at trying to build something. The commitment to ourselves is all we have.
By choosing to honor the commitment, we refocus the problem from deciding what to focus on to creating an immediate focus. It’s a bit of a Jedi mind trick, but it’s working for me. It might work for you.
Now in the fourth week of the third quarter, I’m already having second thoughts about my niche, product, and platform. But it doesn’t matter. I will complete my commitments for this quarter. Next quarter (the planning for which starts in eight weeks), I have an opportunity to pick new goals, new tasks, and new commitments.
For Q3, I picked 13 goal-tasks (e.g. Write and send three monthly newsletters) and two bonus goal-tasks (Create a Claude “skill”). So far, I feel good about my progress.
I’ll report back.
The Short List
Currated links to internet finds.
AltTab: (Mac app) I’ve been using Macs since 1986, but the keyboard shortcuts to quickly move between open windows and apps is lacking. AltTab is a free Mac app that allows you to configure your Command+Tab function to behave how you want it to. I like it so much I gave them $25 for a lifetime subscription.
Granola: (app) an AI meeting notes tool that doesn’t require a bot to join your call. It runs quietly in the background, transcribes, and hands you a clean summary when you hang up.
Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness by Magness (book). Steve Magness is a performance scientist who coaches Olympic athletes. He argues that real toughness comes from leaning into your internal reality. Said another way, real toughness is the capacity to sit in discomfort and choose to take productive action anyway.
Are.na (website): A design-forward visual bookmarking and research tool. Think Pinterest but without the algorithm, the ads, and the noise. You save things into organized “channels.” I use it as a mood board for various projects. Free for up to 200 “blocks”.
The Knowledge Project (podcast/newsletter): Hosted/written by Shane Parrish who focuses on mental models and how smart people think. Long form podcast interviews and a newsletter that does a good job of pointing people to his podcast. My recent favorite is his interview with Dr. Gio Valiante titled “The mindset that unlocks your full potential.”
Focusaur: (device): I feel like the world is moving more tactile. I use a Pomodoro app on my computer, but am looking for a focus device for my desk. This one might be over-engineered or feature-rich. You decide.
What is The Dispatch
The Dispatch is a newsletter for late-career professionals in the process of transitioning to a solo business. I write about my own journey as I plan for a day-job exit into an entrepreneur hustle, focusing on mindset, productivity, and technology. I love my day job, but it won’t last forever. Always hand-written.