Channel & Life Update | I'm Not Challenging Myself Enough

It's been a while since I've created a video. I just wanted to provide an update with what's going on with coding, fitness, and the future of content on my channel.

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Transcript

Why I've Been Away

Don Hansen 0:00

Hello , it's been a while since I've created a video , so I just wanted to create this and share an update with kind of why I haven't been creating videos lately and am I gonna be creating videos in the future and how long is it gonna take . So yeah , just a quick update . My light's burnt out . I'm not in a dungeon , I promise you . I have to redo my entire lighting . I don't know what I'm going to do with that , so we're just clicking record and we're going with it .

Don Hansen 0:31

But essentially , I hit kind of a burnout point where I have just been spinning my wheels , not really progressing in any particular direction that I wanted to , and I've kind of just been getting by , and I am not someone that is satisfied with just getting by . It drives me nuts and it burns me out . Anytime , like even when I was a developer and I like coding I really do Even when I was a developer and I was building stuff and I had a great team , I always , like , had these additional ambitions . Always I've had it my entire life where if I was only just putting in 40 hours towards the company and being a developer , I would get burned out if I wasn't working on stuff that actually really excited me . And so , yeah , I've kind of been going the entrepreneurship route . I've been making this work , I've been paying my bills , but I haven't been doing anything significantly challenging at all , like I'm kind of just doing the same thing , that's just paying my bills . And then I was even live streaming and pretending like I was being productive and pushing myself towards more ambitious goals , and I just wasn't . I was being productive and pushing myself towards more ambitious goals and I just wasn't . I was doing live streaming because I was avoiding what I really wanted to do and what I really want to do and what I really want to talk about . I don't want to talk to you about that yet , because I've also discovered another thing Some people maybe you're like this , but some people will hold themselves accountable or get others to hold them accountable by sharing what their goals are , what they're going to do .

Don Hansen 2:13

I'm not like that . It's almost like if I share what I'm going to do , I'm not going to do it .

The Problem With Public Goals

Don Hansen 2:20

If I share my New Year's resolutions , I'm not going to do it . By the way , one of my New Year's resolutions was stop drinking . I did that for a couple months . I shared that right in the beginning I'm going to do this , get really excited . I shared that for a couple months and then , nope , I fell off on that goal and you know I've definitely tackled that and I'm back on kind of the grind of losing weight , just being really healthy again . But you know it took a while to recover from .

Don Hansen 2:50

But I feel like every time I share stuff with you guys that I'm going to do , I just end up failing it , I end up just not succeeding . And so I've discovered for me I am someone that kind of just needs to grind on my own , and if you find that like you're sharing a bunch of stuff and then you don't succeed with those goals , I feel like maybe it's just me , but I feel like it just reinforces a lack of confidence that I can get things done and it almost doubles and triples like the effect of it , the feeling of it , when now I'm disappointing everyone else and I'm just not someone that can publicly share my goals . And so what I'm going to start doing is sharing stuff that I have already made pretty significant progress on , and so that's what I'm going to do for this channel . I have a ton of stuff , a ton of challenges that feel impossible that I've set for myself in the future and I don't want to share those yet . But that's what I've been doing .

Don Hansen 3:59

I've kind of just been taking a step back and thinking about , like what the hell do I actually want to accomplish ? Let's revisit these like really almost impossible ambitions that I kind of set aside , and let's revisit these and figure out , like what the hell I really want to do in this world for myself , for others , um , because I just can't keep getting by . It's fucking boring . It is so boring and uninspiring and I'm done with it . So I kind of I like this idea of like monk mode if you've ever heard of it where you kind of just go solo , don't really talk to anyone about it , and you just grind and you focus on what you want to focus on , without like sharing it to the world . Like it's just you

Monk Mode & Content Strategy Change

Don Hansen 4:50

shut out the noise and you just focus on you and you don't need to convince anyone else but you . You don't need to hold anyone else or have anyone else hold you accountable . You were the one holding yourself accountable , but you just have anyone else hold you accountable . You were the one holding yourself accountable , but you just I feel like I had to shut out the noise , and I'm also revisiting a content strategy .

Don Hansen 5:09

I feel like I've just been creating content around topics that I don't give a shit about anymore . I've been given developer advice for so long and I still will be giving developer advice , but I don't want to give developer advice to satisfy the YouTube algorithm . I want to share advice that really revolves around things that I'm currently growing with , excited about , challenged with and then integrating that back into hey , how can I share this in a way that might help other people ? And that's the route I want to go with my content , and so I've actually taken I'm taking a course called Two Hour Writer by Dan Kau or Ko . It's really changed my perspective , like I've been watching his videos for like a year now , but I feel like what I need to do for my channel is drastically different than what I'm doing , and what I want to do now actually really excites me . Again , I'm not going to share that with you , but you'll see the videos come out starting a few weeks from now , and I think the result like what you guys are going to see is just more well thought out content around topics I actually want to talk about , around things that I'm currently overcoming , things that I'm learning and I want to share back with you guys . It's not just gonna be hey , let's only shit on AI , hey , let's only give these five to ten tips for new developers to land that job . Like , Just fuck the algorithm . I'm so sick of it and I actually feel like the more that I just talk about what I want to talk about , it actually does well in the algorithm . There's something about the YouTube algorithm that just really screws you up as a content creator , if you let it . But YouTube is one of the best platforms out there , so at least for , like , building your audience and building a business , I can't really complain . It's just man . It's just a lot of things that I've had to learn as a content creator . I think I'm just tired of doing the same thing over and over . So , anyways , you should see newer content , variation of topics , and if they do well , great . If they don't , I don't care . I'm just going to post them . I just don't care anymore .

Don Hansen 7:30

So a couple things that I can share that I made pretty significant progress on .

Fitness Journey & Back Recovery

Don Hansen 7:35

I'm doing intermittent fasting , really checking my diet . I've been pretty good about it . I actually started progressing towards trying to . I want to participate in my first triathlon but I'm still dealing . I don't know if you've known this about me , but I've shared this previously .

Don Hansen 7:54

I was dealing with back issues where my back was going out . Like that got to a point where it's going out once every month . It was crazy and I have this , like they call it , like this interior pelvic tilt or something like that . This is from like sitting , not doing a bunch of squats , having really weak glutes , really weak hamstrings , and I found that the bike portion of the triathlon not to mention it completely numbs my balls and penis . Not a fan of that . I got to like find a different seat or whatever . I'm just using the bike at the gym . I hate riding a bike . I don't know how men do it , but I think it's something you get used to , and I think I got to get a wider seat . But I think I'm more focused on just fixing the pelvic tilt , getting stronger glutes and hamstrings and starting to do legitimate squats with good form and put weight out of that . I think it's going to be a long journey for me because I've really screwed up my back , but it's getting a lot better .

Don Hansen 8:49

Again it like last year I was throwing out my back once every month . I'm like I'm 30 something years old . Like my back should not be going out this early . This is crazy , but it's because I you know what I think it is . I think it's because I've done the elliptical for like 10 years straight and I could do like max settings with the elliptical . Any elliptical you give it to me I do max settings . I do it for like 30 to 45 minutes , easy . My glutes are or wait , not glutes uh , quads front of the legs . They are way over trained , way over trained , and I think that's what's causing the instability and I have like a tight hip . So my focus is stability and then going into like more compound movie movements and then getting into heavy lifting again , but with focusing on a good foundation and not just bigger arms like I did when I was younger . Um , so that's my goal and it's it's a journey for me . It's really's really fun , um , but I am very much focused on improving myself with bodybuilding and getting a solid foundation and I'm going to be focused on that for many years .

Don Hansen 9:58

Um , and I'll share , like , if I start getting into more compound movements where , like because I've never squatted in my entire life . I actually want to share that . Maybe it bores you . I don't care , like I have never squatted , never squatted in my entire life . I actually want to share that . Maybe it bores you , I don't care , like I have never squatted with good form in my entire life , with significant weight . I think that's going to be a huge milestone . Um , that might not seem impossible to you , but it feels very , very difficult for me . Um , just because of how my body is , uh , screwed up at the moment . So I've been doing that , uh , um , but in terms of like , fitness , I'm having fun with that , but I'm also I want to build my game like a game , just , even if it's a really shitty

Learning Game Dev & Technical Goals

Don Hansen 10:35

game .

Don Hansen 10:35

I am learning three JS and I'm actually taking it seriously and I'm um . I'll show you once I get done with the first module . Um , it's a lot of hours just for one module , a lot of modules . But I'll show you what I built and it's . It's going to be pretty bad , but I'm still having fun building stuff with three JS . If you don't know what it is , you could essentially build kind of like um , take advantage of web GL or like isn't there something that's replacing web GL ? It's a little bit more optimized . I don't know , but I'm going to be building a game with it . You could build , like more animated stuff for websites . Um , I think it's a really cool tool , a lot of depth . It's not a game engine per se , but I think you can combine some stuff Like I think there's like a physics library that's recommended in the course Um . By the way , I'm going through three journey . I think it's a fantastic course Um , but I'll I'll kind of share like just milestones with that with you guys .

Don Hansen 11:29

Um , I'm diving deeper into nest . I'm diving deeper into actually building something that's scalable on the back end , not some hacky , uh node application . I just , um , I'm kind of sick of the node environment . I think nest gave me a new , revitalized uh excitement for it and I you know I was going through bootdev for the longest time learning Python . I'm going to be honest , like I'll probably finish it .

Don Hansen 11:56

But I think I'm just going to double down on TypeScript . Typescript has come a long way . It's gotten faster and , man , there's a ton of stuff I want to build and I don't think I want to rotate languages . Ton of stuff I want to build and I don't think I want to rotate languages . I'm completely fine with JavaScript or TypeScript everywhere , and I prefer TypeScript over JavaScript . Now , by the way , that wasn't the case before . I think I'm just going to like double down on TypeScript and I'm just getting really . I'm just getting a lot more comfortable with it , getting a little bit more comfortable . I want to get more comfortable with Docker . I want to get more comfortable with trying to spit it up through AWS , but I want to deal with problems that force me to optimize how I handle requests on the backend , and whether I continue Twitch Sprout or not for that purpose , I don't know , but I'm just diving deeper into the backend and I'm tripling down on TypeScript . So I just wanted to share that and I have been creating anti-AI videos just to feed the algorithm and do reactions and stuff like that , to keep up with videos on my channel . I still might do those .

Don Hansen 13:12

Ai is really fucking cringe . The overhype is

My Thoughts on AI Hype

Don Hansen 13:15

really cringe . I'm tired of AI being sold as something it isn't . Ai has been extremely disappointing and I don't like how there seems to be a pocket of people in our society that doesn't really respect human creativity , doesn't really respect humans . I get that feeling from some people , from some CEOs , where they kind of just sell this utopia where AI is going to fix everything and all I see is AI creating low quality , more problems at work , kind of preventing people from actually tackling stuff in their life that they need to tackle , especially socially and relationship wise , and people getting addicted to like building friends out of AI and building girlfriends and boyfriends out of AI . I feel like I like everything that I'm seeing points to AI being much more of a detriment to society than people had initially proposed it , as in this utopia , and I don't like the progression that I'm seeing . So I'm going to continue talking about that . In what capacity , I don't know , but you will probably hear more from me with that . Yeah , that's it .

Don Hansen 14:46

If I have more to share , I'll probably create another video . Give me like two to three weeks before I start creating the content that I want to create . I think it's going to start with writing

Future Content Plans

Don Hansen 14:55

. It's going to start with maybe a newsletter , maybe a blog post , I don't know . I'm going to finish to our writer and see where I land up with that , but I do believe in writing out a lot of my thoughts , doing a little bit more proper research and just being able to solidify my opinion on things that's well thought out , well articulated , and be able to deliver that to you .

Don Hansen 15:18

That's my goal to improve my content , because I feel like I've always joked about it , but I'm kind of just like I'm not a professional content creator . My videos suck . I'm not able to articulate things as well as I want . My videos suck . I'm not able to articulate things as well as I want , um , and I just rant and sometimes stutter and I want to do better with that . So that's like a big focus of my uh , big focus of mine just stuttered there . We're getting better , but I want to focus on creating better content and it's just going to take me a little bit to like really change everything that I'm doing . So please be patient with that . I'll probably create a couple of updates or talk about a random topic until I get to that point , but hopefully you start seeing a shift in my content for the better . If not , I tried . But anyways , here's my update . Hope you guys are doing well and I'll see you guys in the next video .