Kill the dream, make the sausage
I can’t watch a YouTube video the same way anymore. Not since I tried making one, anyway.
Whenever I saw one of those shots where the creator walks away from the camera and down the street, all I used to think was that it looked cool. Now I see someone walking twenty meters, stopping, jogging back, checking the footage, realizing they were out of focus, and doing it again three more times.
I learned this the hard way when I tried filming my own video walking around Berlin. That’s what happens when you actually do the thing you’ve been daydreaming about.
You kill the dream.
This has happened to me over and over since I started creating online. Podcasting was a dream for a long time. Deep conversations, meaningful connections. And it is! But it’s also hours spent editing, fixing audio issues, juggling schedules, doing guest outreach… the list goes on.
It’s the same with this newsletter, or the book I’m writing, or any other “dream project” I’ve started. I’ve written about it before and still keep relearning it.
The dream version is easy and wonderful. The real version is full of unexpected, unsexy details you never thought about until you started.
And that’s beautiful!
Once you know how the sausage is made, you can’t un-know it. You spot the hidden details behind everything. It’s the feeling of growth in real time.
I watch stuff differently now. I see the cuts, I notice when someone nailed a transition, I appreciate the lighting. I’m definitely not an expert, but I’m a tiny bit more literate after trying it once myself.
You can watch endless videos about starting a business or read a hundred articles about writing a novel, but none of it teaches you what you learn in the first day of trying it.
The only way to graduate from fantasy into knowledge is to ruin the fantasy.
I try to remind myself of that every single time I start something, and weirdly, the more I do it, the more I’m starting to enjoy the process and find it kind of addictive.
So I hope you kill your dreams, make a few sausages, and see what happens.
On the pod
This week’s episode is a perfect companion to this newsletter. I spoke with Jacob O’Bryant, who describes himself as a “recovering entrepreneur”, and his story is about exactly this: killing the dream by actually doing the thing.
Jacob quit his job in his early twenties to build his own products full-time. He spent four and a half years working on projects like The Sample (now Yakread, which is how I found him). And after all that, he realized that entrepreneurship wasn’t actually what he wanted. The dream didn’t match the reality.
What I loved about this conversation is how honest Jacob is about his journey. He’s not bitter and he doesn’t regret it. He just learned what the work actually required, and discovered it wasn’t for him. Going back to a day job wasn’t defeat, it was clarity. He’s now exploring “invention” as a career path and building meaningful things without the pressure of turning everything into a business.
Listen to the full conversation with Jacob O’Bryant →
Worth your time
- on seriousness, the difference between people who talk about doing things and the people who actually do them, and how to be committed without losing your sense of humour.
This cold message got me $100k of work — Another banger from
. Honest, practical advice on outreach that doesn’t feel slimy. The 100 Connections challenge is also great!Last weekend whilst browsing in my favourite bookshop I picked up a copy of “Poor Artists”. The book is “fictionalised non-fiction”, following the struggles of an artist trying to make a living off their work and navigate the art world. It’s honest, funny, and sometimes surreal. I’m already almost done reading it. It may be my book of the year. Highly recommended!