Earlier this week, I met Brittany Dorsonne who runs a blog of her own called The Black Noodle. During our chat, we talked about the fact that we both have blogs, but rarely write in them. She wrote about our experience together (Friends and Fruition) and challenged me to write as well this week, so here I am!

DISCLAIMER: this will mainly be a stream of consciousness

Now, just about 13 months into this journey of mine, I’ve met 555 people. The experience has been incredible so far and I feel like I’m achieving my goal of leading an interesting life. Part of me wishes I had captured my thoughts on a weekly basis, though, since the beginning because I’ve experienced so many ups and downs internally (something I’ll attempt to do going forward). I understand that this occurs with anyone running their own company or project and feel like it’s best represented in this graph taken from an Adam Grant Ted Talk:

Coming off of the Thanksgiving holiday I had a few cancellations as well as a handful of open spots that I failed to fill due to my waiting too long to respond to people. I ended up meeting about 2 people per day this week, which had me feeling a lot like numbers 3 & 4 of the process. I also had about a week straight of either losing or maintaining my number of followers on Instagram. While I maintain that my project is much more than growing an Instagram following, my business side recognizes that it’s a good measure of how my project is being adopted and will likely be the justification for how I can one day fund it.

The amazing thing about my project, though, is that my mindset towards it can flip so easily. With meeting people like Brittany, who intends to reform the criminal justice system some day, it’s impossible not to stay inspired. The next day (Thursday morning), I met up with Tracy Davidson of NBC10 to chat with her about what I’m doing. We filmed a short Facebook live video while we were together, which I later shared on my personal Facebook account. That small, seemingly trivial video has now been viewed over 3,600 times and has received several words of encouragement from my friends and family.

I tell you that to tell you this. The experiences of meeting Brittany, Tracy, and all of the others I had the privilege of getting to know this week moved my mindset into the 5 & 6 areas of the process. I will definitely still have my mental ups and downs, but I know that continuing to push forward will one day reward me in ways I cannot yet grasp.

With that, I’ll leave you with a few thoughts running through my head right now:

Things I’m excited for:

• Potential features of my project on other accounts
• A potential collaboration with other movers & shakers in the city to create and highlight a sense of community in Philly
• A potential monthly event to facilitate the process of making friends as adults in the city

Things I’m not excited for:

• Running out of money – I’ve accepted that this will probably happen before my project “takes off” but am excited to see how crafty I become rather than giving up
• The cold weather – I ride my bike everywhere and on top of it getting colder, it’s supposed to rain multiple days this week (I’ll likely just accept that I’m going to get wet and will dry off during my meetings)

That’s all for now. Hope you all have wonderful weeks ahead of you!

Rob