🏆 What's your success metric in life?

The one stranger goal

Hi friends!

I'm sorry I missed last week's newsletter. I was traveling with family, and finding the time to write during travels was hard.

I hope your spring is going well.

A photo while visiting Chicago

Mine consists of nerve-wracking days as I look for travel nursing assignments. I was hoping to leave somewhere new by now, but agencies are taking forever to reach back with contracts.

Anyways, I've been distracting myself because it's been 5 months since I've had a decent income (more than $1 - 2K a month), and I'm panicking.

But I digress.

Today, I'd like to discuss the idea of a success metric.

I was listening to a webinar by Hassan Osman, author of multiple best-selling short books on Amazon.

He teaches others how to write on the side and helps managers become good managers. He works full-time as a project manager and has a lovely family with two children.

During this webinar, he explained his success metric for his side hustle is the "one stranger goal."

He explains, "One stranger goal has two buckets (objective and subjective). The objective goal is financial. It is a win if I get a single sale from one stranger (someone who's a non-follower who's never bought anything from me.)"

For him, it means that the stranger bought something from him without getting influenced by his previous work. It also means that he created something good enough for one person.

"The subjective goal is when someone contacts me to let me know that I've added some sort of value to their life. The ones that mean the most are the ones by email.", he explained.

As a creative, I love the idea of using one stranger's goal as a success metric.

Because I'm barely making an income doing the things I do online, I have to rely on other things like:

• Receiving an email

• Receiving a D.M.

• Receiving heartfelt comments on YouTube

to feel that I've succeeded in what I did.

This also comes with the fact that you like what you're doing.

Besides the stranger goal, your first and foremost goal should be, "Do I enjoy or like what I'm doing?"

If not, you're already unsuccessful.

Another caveat to this success metric is that you're doing this work as a side hustle. 

You might have a different success metric if you're doing this full-time.

In addition to all of this, success metrics can also be applied to other areas of your life.

Let's take a look at the career example. If I have a lifestyle-driven career, I would be successful.

So what exactly does this look like?

My work or career lets me have a balanced life—freedom to pursue creative work, freedom to spend time with family and friends, and I don't mind what I do for work.

(I've come to realize that separating what makes me money and what brings me joy is the best approach to life. )

This is exactly what I've been able to achieve with travel nursing, considering I haven't travel nurse for 5 months.

But honestly, it wasn't always like this.

Before, I associated success with titles like "chief nursing officer" or "director of nursing." But now I know they're just that: titles and nothing else unless they bring meaning to your life.

Anyways, I'll leave you this week with one question to ponder:

What is my success metric regarding (insert area of life you're working on)?

Leave a comment if you're brave enough to share it with others!

Until next week, 

J 💛

💌 P.S. I've jumped around in multiple platforms, but nothing beats the simplicity of substack, so I'm back here. 

Now, you can like, comment and share. 

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