The Empire Takes Physical Form (week 3/12)
Letter 005: The Fabric of Empire
The Captain’s Log
Fundamental shift to report:
I opened a package containing my own t-shirts. Shirts I designed. Shirts bearing symbols I created. And when I pulled one over my head oh baby was it good.
I feel like I have agency again. Like the power to affect things is back.
We can just do things. It’s crazy.
For years I’ve been learning and building in the digital void while trusting that eventually it’d matter. Holding that fabric in my hands, and now feeling it against my skin as I type this, is proof my ideas can cross the threshold from the ethereal to the tangible.
From “maybe someday” to “when the work is complete”
Naturally, I showed some classmates and threw images up on a few stories. A few of my classmates liked, and want to eventually get together to learn how to build their own things as well.
Lester’s Legion takes first muster. Recruiting in progress.
It’s groovy, very groovy, yo’.
What Shipped This Week
On the Blog via Isaac’s Ideas:
- Operating From The Far Side of Time - Decision Making Frameworks: How I think in decades while acting in days
- Going on Campaign - The 4 Phase Protocol to Freedom: My Marine Corps mental model for civilian battles
Website Infrastructure:
- Launched dedicated Projects Hub with individual pages for each active operation
- Revived Project Broadsword to Pending status (all working .io files now public)
- Expanded Open Notes Archive (ONA) with space for Latin phrases, neologisms, and personal isms <--that one was mostly for me, but soon, you’ll be able to look up some of the terms that I use without going to Google for guidance.
Physical World:
- First merch drop complete and tested!
- Lester’s General Store officially has inventory
- The Grand Standard now exists in textile form
The Lesson: Pixels to Atoms
On “Building Digital Empires”:
They feel totally fictional…
…until made even remotely physical.
You write. You record. You publish. You watch numbers tick up slowly (or not at all). And there’s that one problematic part of your brain keeps whispering
“is any of this even real?”
Through seemingly endless planning and over countless iterations, an idea is made manifest into something physical.
When you hold something you made.
Something with weight.
Something someone else can touch.
That’s when the whisper stops.
The framework I’m applying:
Every SeasonQuarter, create one physical proof point.
Doesn’t have to be merch. My merch store is very open, and all sales support my sailboat restoration project, but there’s an entire ecosystem behind my merch store.
Start with a business card that someone will actually pay attention to, a physical notebook of your system to share with others. The medium matters less than the crossing.
Digital work is infinite and therefore feels ephemeral. Physical work is finite and therefore feels real. Your brain needs both to believe you’re actually building something.
Your assignment this week:
Identify one thing you’ve been building digitally that could cross into physical form. Just one. You don’t have to make it...yet...just acknowledge and imagine what it could be.
Let that ferment in the back of your mind for a few days and see where you land by next week when I have a guide ready for you to act on.
Behind The Bulkhead
I almost didn’t order the test batch.
Sat in my floating command centre going over the obligatory:
What if they looked terrible?
What if nobody cared?
What if I wore one and someone laughed?
Then I remembered:
The first version of everything is typically cringe
I care.
This has literally never happened.
Chicks dig me, men envy me.
It’s the power of carrying Bobert. (long story, another newsletter)
I survived my father leaving, the Marine Corps, divorce on deployment, living in my cousin’s basement, cutting off my entire family, and buying a sailboat with $4,000 and no plan.
Nobody’s laughter can touch me anymore.
Clicked confirm. Wore the shirt. Got compliments.
Now I’m making more designs.
Turns out the only person who doubted this was real... was me.
Next Weeks Battle Plan
Creating:
- Kicking off the creation of my “1,000 Hour Tutorials” framework series (how to replicate any piece of my digital empire)
- Designing three new shirt concepts
- Documenting the entire merch creation process for the blog, with drafts located within the ONA.
And since it’s spooky season and all that, Bobert is going to assist me in performing a resurrection.
Struggling with:
- Resisting the urge to launch everything at once (discipline over enthusiasm)
- Balancing “show the work” with “do the work”
Open question for you: What’s the one piece of your digital work you wish existed in physical form? Not what you think you “should” want, but what do you actually want to hold in your hands?
Hit reply and tell me. Best answer gets featured next week with your story. I read everything.
Reply of The Week
The work continues. The empire expands. The shirts are groovy.
Until next Sunday,
- Isaac, Bobert, & Robert
P.S. - If you want to see what I’m building (or grab one of these shirts before I redesign everything), hit up Lester’s General Store. (l. Fair warning: I’m threw several designs up there with generic info “just to see if it worked”, so if you find something you like, it might not be there by the time I get around to giving the store an official audit.
P.S.S. - If you want to see the exact system I’m building in real-time, check out the Open Notes Project. Specifically the “By Date” section of my Publishing Hub, it’s where I keep all the receipts.
P.S.S.S. If no one has told you recently, I give you permission to be as weird as you want. I love you, and I believe in you. Forreal forreal, yo’
Thank you thank you! I'm making slight adjustments and adding more this weekend, and the next step is to get a flag for Matilda,
Then custom sails 😁⛵️🏴☠️
Great looking shirts!