Nikhedonia – Game on (Again!) - Lost in Hospitality

In Oxford, England, there is an exquisitely carved statue behind a wall and visible only by reaching in with a mirror through holes in the plaster. Medieval artists walled up some of their best work because they believed God himself saw it and left it for God eyes only. The art remained hidden until uncovered by modern restoration projects.

That is how I feel about my work….

Nah kidding, I can do better than them….

Well, we did it. We drop-kicked 2020 into the history books.

Now, 2021 is here. It’s a clean slate. It’s an injection of hope.

Are you one of them who is trying to pursue many different directions at once? Are you frustrated that the world wants you to pick one thing because you want to do them all? The problem is thinking short term — assuming that if you don’t do all the things now, they won’t happen.

The solution is to think long term. Do just one thing for a few years, then another for a few years, then another.

I made every mistake —- except one: not getting started. I jumped in, I tried things, and I learned from my mistakes.

Nikhedoinia – It refers to the feeling someone gets when they know they are about to succeed, perhaps in winning a game.

It took me 2 full years to start this channel. I didn’t care how long it took, though I wanted the channel to succeed, I felt good about the investment of time regardless of the outcome – because I felt so certain that working on it in general and making YouTube, in particular, was the right thing to do.

Only until I had the time and space to think about life outside the hermetic culture of hospitality, I could figure out what I really wanted to do.

“Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.” Paulo Coehlo, The Alchemist

So, here we are with another YouTube Launch

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A post shared by Lost in Hospitality (@lostinhospitality)

I mean, great Ideas take time:

Basketball was invented in 1891. It took 21 years before it occurred to anyone to cut a hole in the bottom of the basket.
It's all about timing, it was good to launch the iPhone in 2005 but Google Glasses wasn’t.
You always have to take a risk, so when they blow up the first nuclear bomb there was a chance of 1:33 million that the atmosphere would blow up.

Don’t want to compare my little Video to Basketball, the iPhone and the nuclear bomb (getting dark here), but have a look for yourself:

Some last words:

Everyone’s on their high right now, but very quickly people will get to next week and will realize it’s all the same.

People will realize that Corona didn’t go away with the new calendar year. Much of 2021 will be similar to 2020…the biggest difference is how you approach it. It's about where you are mentally and the execution. What will you do when it gets hard?

Make 2021 the year where this mind shift happens and your perspective on your community changes. Right now you’re optimistic, but the key is to execute when it’s March 6th or April 29th or July 17th!

Keep working–on yourself, on making a difference. Remember that age is no barrier. It doesn’t matter what’s happened in the past either. Now is now.

Reading about the pandemic and politics last year has been challenging at times — reading continuously on social media and in the news about how the sky is falling for months on end isn’t great for one’s mental health.

I don’t really know what “Lost in Hospitality” is supposed to be right now — an escape? the spearpoint of the resistance? hopeful? realistic?

Anyway, Big things coming your way!

Much love to you and yours,

Dan Draper

(Please let me know what you think about this new approach and if you haven't yet please sign up to my Newsletter X)

Reading recommendations:

The Glorious, Almost-Disconnected Boredom of My Walk in Japan (wired.com)

52 things I learned in 2020 (medium.com)