Tom Scoble 🌱

Farm life! Lettuce is so gorgeous!

This week's Monday Meditation is live: on the mini miracles in our lives and what we do while we wait. open.substack.com/pub/tomscoble/…

Happy Mother’s Day from our farm to you!

@alexisohanian Amazing. Love it! Still hoping to hear about some magical results with Soil Love! Just humics, fish and kelp. So pure. So potent. Microbes love it and your rows will pop. Do a side by side and you will see the difference. The biology doesn’t lie.

Farm views!

The crux of this post: “Let the identity that's attached to the old level dissolve.” The crux of the work—of the inner work—the dissolution. The question is simply this: what are the rituals and routines that comprise the practice for the old self to dissolve and allow the unified field to emerge. It is a practice like any other. And it begins with exactly this: awareness. Thanks you @evolvee33 for the reminder. Always appreciate your perspective. Always.

Dan Koe failed. The guy with millions of followers. The guy who built one of the biggest personal brands in the creator space. The guy who looks like he's got everything figured out. His platform Eden went broke. He had to let go of more than half his team. Give pay cuts to the rest. Woke up one morning, looked at the bank account, and realized he had maybe 2 weeks of money left. He wrote about it this week. Publicly. To his whole list. And I read that email and I felt something. Not sympathy, a recognition. Because I know exactly what that moment feels like. When the thing you've been building, the thing your identity is wrapped around, the thing that makes you feel like you're somebody, starts falling apart in your hands. And here's what I want you to see: You look at Dan Koe and you think he's got it sorted. You look at any big creator, any successful entrepreneur, and you think they're playing a different game than you. They're past the hard part. They cracked it. They don't wake up at night with their chest tight wondering if this whole thing is going to collapse. That's a lie you tell yourself. And it's a dangerous one. Because it makes you think that once you get THERE, wherever there is, the suffering stops. The uncertainty goes away. The fear dissolves on its own because you finally made it. It doesn't. Every level you enter triggers something new. Or more accurately, it triggers something old that was hiding underneath the level you just left. Think about it like this: you're climbing and each level up requires you to leave something behind. Old beliefs. Old identities. Old ways of operating that got you here but can't take you there. You can't pour old wine into a new cup. Dan Koe built Eden as a massive platform competing with Notion, Claude, ChatGPT. He said it himself: "that's kind of stupid for a small team to be doing." He knew it. Somewhere inside he probably felt it. But the identity of building something massive, something that competes with the big players, that identity is hard to let go of when your whole brand is built on thinking bigger than everyone else. So the game did what the game always does. It externalized the blockage. It showed him, in the most brutal way possible, that the current identity couldn't survive at the next level. And look what happened after. He didn't quit. He got specific. He got simple. He said "we finally feel like we have a product worth promoting." That clarity was always there. It was just buried under an identity that needed to build something enormous to feel worthy. When the identity got shattered by the bank account hitting zero, the clarity emerged on its own. That's how the game works. At every level. You at 10k a month will face challenges that trigger identities you built at 0. You at 100k will face challenges that trigger identities you built at 10k. You at a million will face challenges that trigger identities you built at 100k. There is no level where you arrive and the game stops testing you. Because the challenges aren't punishments. They're invitations. Each one is pointing at something inside you that needs to go before you. can operate at the next level without suffering through it. The entrepreneur who can't slow down because slowing down feels like dying? That's an identity from the level where hustle was survival. It worked there. It's killing him here. The creator who can't simplify because simplifying feels like shrinking? That's an identity from the level where "more" meant "better." It got him there. It's bankrupting him now. The founder who can't let go of control because letting go feels like the whole thing collapses? That's an identity from the level where he had to do everything himself. It built the company. Now it's the ceiling. Same game. Every level. The identity that got you here becomes the wall at the next door. And when the wall shows up, you have two options. You can resist it. Fight it. Try to push through with the same identity that's hitting the wall. Work harder. Plan more. Control tighter. Grind through the uncertainty. Suffer for months or years trying to force the old version of you through a door it doesn't fit through. Or you can feel it. Sit with the charge that fires when the challenge hits. The fear in your chest when the numbers drop. The shame when the thing you built doesn't work. The terror of not knowing what comes next. Sit with it. Let the identity that's attached to the old level dissolve. When it dissolves, you fit through the door. The next step becomesobvious. The solution shows up from a place you couldn't access while you were gripping the old identity with both hands. Dan Koe lost half his team and his bank account and the first thing he built after was simpler, clearer, and more aligned than anything he'd made before. That's not a coincidence. That's what happens when the old identity gets stripped away and you build from what's left. You're going to face this. Maybe you're facing it right now. And when you do, remember: the challenge isn't the enemy. The challenge is the game telling you what needs to go so you can play at the next level. You don't need to be afraid of it. You just need to stop bringing the old you to the new door. Let the identity go. Walk through. The next version of you is already on the other side. He always was.

Tonglen is a Tibetan meditation practice. You breathe in suffering — visualizing it as a dark, heavy cloud. You transform it with compassion. You breathe out golden light. It taught me that even the heaviest energy can be metabolized into something good. If you're in a hard season right now and looking for a daily practice to help carry it — GroundworkOS is what I built for exactly this. Link in bio.

When we had a light malfunction in one of our cultivation rooms — a single light flickering on during the dark cycle — the plants began shifting hormonally within days. One interruption to the sleep cycle. Significant biochemical stress. We are no different. The body runs its maintenance cycle at night. Protect the dark hours. They are doing more than you think.

The harsh critic that was quick to judge and shame becomes the parent who is endlessly supportive and encouraging. The alcoholic father becomes the soulfully sober parent in the next generation. We can and we must find ways to transform ourselves. We all have the ability to leverage the crap of our close ancestors and transform it into something useful and generative.

The spring equinox is the moment when light and dark stand in perfect balance. And then the light begins to win. The shift is real long before the full bloom arrives. From dormant brown twigs and cold earth, the first signs of bright green are already everywhere. That is a mirror I cannot get enough of.

The big wave surfers don't experience panic on a 100-foot wave. Studies show their amygdala — the brain's fear center — is wired differently. Instead of fear they feel flow. Focus. Presence. The pursuit that would paralyze most people is the one that brings them fully alive. What is the wave that brings you fully alive?

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche said: "Samsara is the mind running outwards, seeking something. Nirvana is the mind resting at ease in itself." The true homecoming is not a place. It is a state of mind.

What would my life have been like if I had walked through that first open door at Capitol Records in 1992? I think about it sometimes. But then I think about all the magic that came from the alternate path. The breadth of experience. The two sons. The sobriety. The farm. The life I now love. "Thanksgiving for every wrong move that made it right."

Cultivation has four stages. Seed. Seedling. Flower. Harvest. The seedling phase is the most fragile. The most vulnerable. The most likely to fail. This is true for plants and for people. What gets you through the seedling phase is a strong why, an accountability partner, and the willingness to be kinda terrible at something while you figure it out.

The lettuce row is absolutely crushing. Every night we are harvesting salad and let me just say, you’ve never had a salad until you’ve had fresh lettuce that was growing 15 minutes before you ate it.

Wow! GroundworkOS made it into Google Play Store yesterday! Another milestone. We are now in the App Store and Play Store. play.google.com/store/apps/det… apps.apple.com/us/app/groundw… This app was built for the hard season. The AI guide was built on a master prompt of mindfulness practice and ancient wisdom. Give it a try. So many tools here.

@myfirstmilpod @chadjanis @alexisohanian this is the money gate in GroundworkOS. We’ll ship something close to this later this week. Just made it into the Play Store. Another milestone. Plus tomatoes are in the ground. Some bangers! This is Soil Love season!

Whoever builds this idea first is guaranteed a $1B exit in two years. @chadjanis just sold Gruns to Unilever for $1.2B. Here is his next top-tier idea that he's giving away for free: The problem: your paycheck hits your checking account, then you need willpower to allocate it. Put 10% in savings, pay bills, invest, whatever. Most people FAIL. The solution: become the distribution layer between direct deposit and your bank account. Before the money hits your account, it automatically splits: 20% → taxes (sitting in money market until tax season) 25% → rent/car payment/bills 15% → investments 10% → savings What hits your checking? $500 for groceries You never see the full amount. You can't fail at budgeting because there's nothing to budget. This works for businesses too. Founders want guaranteed profit extraction. VCs want forced financial discipline. Everyone buys. The infrastructure exists and the market is waiting. The first person to build this is getting acquired in 24 months. @thesamparr @ShaanVP

When bad news arrives, the surge of energy feels enormous. Like it could swallow you whole. But in that moment there is a choice: fear or curiosity. Curiosity is bright, open, spacious. Full of potential energy waiting to become something new. Fear is low-ceilinged and claustrophobic, the mind racing in circles. We can train ourselves to choose curiosity more often than fear.

In Bhutan they meditate on death three times a day. It is called Maranasati. Not morbid. Clarifying. When you bring your awareness to the impermanence of your life, what remains is what actually matters.