New post

6min Read | Watch | Listen

Hey there Visionaries!

Writing this from sunny Palm Springs where my family escaped the gray Washington winter.

Not just for fun.

For survival.

Vitamin D deficiency is real up in the Pacific Northwest, and after experiencing firsthand how it can drag you into deep depression, we made it mandatory to chase sunshine during winter months.

So here we are. Desert hikes. Another family sharing a rental house with us. Beautiful chaos with four kids ranging from 1 to 7 years old.

And a pool.

That's it. That's all they need.

Ten hours in that salt water pool yesterday and nobody asked for a single screen.

Meanwhile, I've been running my own experiment.

Why You Should Give All the Cares:

• Digital Detox That Actually Works: How a $50 device broke my notification addiction

  Mutual Aid Under Pressure: What an escape room revealed about my community

  Six Figures, Life First: Four years to build a business that lets me take this trip without chaos

  The Brick: My New Favorite Piece of Tech

  For Christmas, someone handed me a small device called The Brick.

The Brick: My New Favorite Piece of Tech

For Christmas, someone handed me a small device called The Brick.

It's a social media detox tool with a physical NFC tag. If I try to open Facebook, Instagram, or any app I've flagged as a distraction, my phone blocks me. The only way to override it is to physically get up, walk to wherever I've placed the tag, and tap it.

Sounds simple. It is.

It exposed something I didn't want to see: I was opening social media without even deciding to.

See, I'm not someone who mindlessly scrolls feeds. But as a content creator, I'm constantly checking notifications, responding to comments, analyzing post performance, and crafting new content to promote my business and philosophy.

For a content creator, that loop feels productive. It's not. It's a slot machine dressed up as work.

Four days without it and my mind feels like someone finally closed the 47 browser tabs.

This is what I mean when I talk about designing intentional bottlenecks between you and your tech. 100 year old Cybernetics research has studied how humans interface with machines.

We have to design these friction points into our lives so we can use technology without technology using us..

The Brick creates that friction. Highly recommend.

Week 2 of the Exodus Quest landed right on time for me.

The theme is focus. How to identify where yours is leaking and plug the holes.

Inside the quest, I share a prompt called The Focus Leak Diagnostic. You paste it into ChatGPT and it walks you through your week, asking pointed questions about when you feel scattered, which digital habits hijack your attention, and what tasks you consistently avoid.

Then it identifies your top three focus leak points and gives you a specific fix for each.

No theory. No fluff. Just pattern recognition and action.

Because you can't build the business and life you want if you can't control where your attention goes.

Every social media company is fighting for that attention.

They're using psychological manipulation to keep you glued.

Your focus has value, and they know it.

Take it back.

FULL GUIDEBOOK + PROMPT HERE

What An Escape Room Taught Me About My Mutual Aid Group

Last week, my mutual aid group did something different. We went to an escape room.

If you've never done one, it's basically a room full of puzzles you have to solve within an hour to unlock the door and get out. Themes range from prison breaks to haunted mansions.

We cleared it with 10-15 minutes to spare. Ours was about a rouge AI that wants to destroy the world, go figure.

But the real value wasn't solving the puzzles. It was watching how the group operates under pressure.

Who steps up to lead. Who hangs back and problem-solves. Who panics. Who stays calm.

For me, I noticed I tend to hover. I don't grab the reins immediately. I like to get the broader scope first, then fill in whatever gaps need filling without taking over.

That observation matters. Because when things get real, whether it's an escape room or an actual emergency, knowing how your people operate is everything.

If you're building a mutual aid group, I'd recommend doing something like this. Put yourselves in a low-stakes pressure situation and pay attention. You'll learn more in an hour than in months of regular meetings.

Four Years to Six Figures (Life First)

I just tallied up my gross revenue for 2025.

Six figures. First time ever.

Took me four years to build this business, but I did it while keeping my life first. My business doesn't demand 70-hour weeks. It doesn't collapse when I take a week off like I'm doing right now.

Right now I'm on vacation in Palm Springs. No inbox fires. No chaos. No angry clients. No systems breaking down.

That's not luck. That's architecture.

Most people build businesses that own them. They trade one boss for a hundred clients and call it freedom. Then they burn out and wonder what went wrong.

I refused to do that. And it cost me speed. It cost me bigger revenue years earlier. But it bought me this: a week with my family where I'm actually present.

If you want to design something like this, whether you're starting from scratch, scaling what you've got, or just trying to escape the corporate grind with a side hustle, I'd love to talk.

This week I worked with a woman named Karen who thought she "wasn't ready." No clear offer. Heavy imposter syndrome. Zero systems.

In one session we locked a narrow, high-impact niche. Shaped a simple first offer. Mapped a real outreach plan, not "content someday." Set a target: 7 no's, 3 yeses.

Book Your Free 15-Min Freedom Strategy Session

If you've been telling yourself you need to finish something first before you can be of service, let's talk.

We'll find your bullseye audience, your first clean offer, and your next move.

Tech Corner: The Future Is Getting Weird

Some updates from the tech world that caught my attention:

Pickle 1 dropped their "soul computer" device. Would you strap AI to your face? I have a hard no on VR but I'm on the fence about augmented reality.

NVIDIA CES announcements covered autonomous vehicles and new AI chips. Worth watching if you're tracking where this is all heading.

Razer Project AVA Razer announced an AI desk companion powered by Grok. It handles scheduling, spreadsheet analysis, and yes, it has anime-style character options. The future is strange.

Not just my intuition saying we're in for a ride.

Today’s Takeaways:

1. Design friction into your tech. The Brick or something like it. Your attention is valuable. Protect it.

2. Test your community under pressure. Escape rooms, challenges, anything that reveals how your people operate when stakes are real.

3. Build the business around your life. Not the other way around. It takes longer. It's worth it.

One Last Thing: Morals Matter

Been reflecting on the state of the world while I'm out here.

Without morals, anything becomes justifiable.

You need a strong moral framework. Otherwise you're just floating around, and you'll find yourself defending immoral activity.

That brings more chaos into your life.

Ground yourself in what you believe is right. Build from there.

Alright, back to the pool and the desert sun.

Stay curious and keep it real,

Joshua | The Holistic Tech Wizard

What did you think about today’s newsletter?

Reply with some feedback or just a 1- 5 ⭐

P.S. If this newsletter didn't melt your brain, you're probably already dead. But if you're still kicking, share it with a friend who's ready to join our army of AI-powered world-dominators!