#32 - Astrocartography, ads that work, and the hours nobody talks about


Hey πŸ‘‹

This newsletter is for independent creators, expression-minded solopreneurs, and makers who want to build meaningful work without losing heart in the process.


Playing on a Saigon rooftop on Friday, doubting everything by Monday, and letting planetary lines decide where to go next.

Let's go ;]

🧠 Reflection of the week

The hardest part of working for yourself isn't the work. It's the evenings.

During the day I have structure. Coworking space, tasks, calls, deadlines. My brain knows what to do. But around 8pm something shifts. The work stops, the apartment gets quiet, and I'm left with this weird gap between "done for the day" and "asleep."

I noticed I fill it with YouTube. Hours of it. Not even stuff I care about. Just... content. Scrolling. Background noise. And then I feel guilty about it, which makes the next morning heavier.

This week I caught myself at 9pm thinking "I should go to the gym" while also knowing I wouldn't. And instead of forcing it or beating myself up, I just sat with it. Opened a voice note and said out loud: "I'm irritated and I don't know why."

That helped more than the gym would have.

I think as solo builders we optimize everything about our work days. The morning routine, the deep work blocks, the productivity stack. But nobody talks about the evenings. The hours where you're not productive and not resting either. Just... floating.

I don't have a fix for this. I'm just naming it. Because I think a lot of you know exactly what I'm talking about.

πŸ’‘ Inspiration of the week

My visa expires at the end of this month, and my birthday is next week. Two deadlines that force a decision: where do I go next?

I could have opened Google Flights and sorted by cheapest. Instead, I remembered something a coach once told me about. Astrocartography.

It's this idea that based on your exact birth data, there are planetary lines mapped across the Earth. Each line represents a different energy. Some places activate career and visibility. Others activate creativity, transformation, or deep inner work. The lines are fixed for your entire life.

I know what you're thinking. I thought the same thing.

But I pulled up my chart anyway. And what I found was genuinely interesting. Rio de Janeiro sits on my Jupiter MC line, which supposedly means public success and recognition. Los Angeles scores highest overall for partnerships and creative business. Osaka has my strongest single line in all of Asia, Jupiter IC at exactly 7 kilometers, which is apparently extremely rare.

And here's the part that got me. South America kept showing up. Multiple strong lines converging in places I've never been.

I don't know if planetary lines are real. I don't need them to be. What I know is this: sometimes you need a different lens to look at your life. Data, intuition, spreadsheets, star charts, conversations with strangers. I'm open to all of them.

If I make it to South America, I'll go to those exact coordinates. Not because I believe the universe is pulling me there. But because I'm curious enough to check.

πŸ”§ Tool of the week

I want to talk about something I've been doing every single day for over a year and a half. Talking to my phone/laptop.

Not calls. Voice notes. Reflections. Brain dumps. Ideas that come while walking, showering, sitting in a cafe. I use an app called Letterly that transcribes everything I say into text. It's messy, raw, full of "umm" and half-finished thoughts. But it captures something typing never does: the actual shape of how I think.

On my laptop, I use SuperWhisper. Same concept but for work. I dictate emails, outlines, notes.

And when I need transcription at scale or through an API, there's Groq. They have a generous free tier, you grab an API key and run Whisper models through it. Fast, free, private enough.

The real insight isn't the tools though. It's the habit.

When I started recording voice notes daily, I noticed something shift. I wasn't just capturing ideas. I was processing emotions. The voice note from Monday where I said "I'm irritated and I don't know why" helped me understand what was actually bothering me more than any journaling session ever did.

Your voice carries information your fingers don't. Tone, pace, hesitation, excitement. Start recording. Even if nobody listens. Especially if nobody listens.

πŸ“ˆ Business development

Raw numbers. No spin.

I launched my digital product two weeks ago, a course on building websites with AI, priced at 197 PLN (about $50). I'm running Meta ads to it. Here's what happened:

Campaign 1: Course ads (LP here) Total spend: 674 PLN. Click-through rate: 5.7% (which is actually strong). Checkouts initiated: 15. Purchases: around 8. Revenue: 1185 PLN.

The ads are static images, each hitting a different angle. One targets the pain of paying too much for a website. Another targets the desire to build it yourself. Another focuses on speed. I killed the worst-performing creative (CPC of 10.57 PLN vs 3.20 average) and let the rest run.

Campaign 2: Roast My Website (LP here) Total spend: 234 PLN. Leads: 10. Conversions to paid services: 0. Decision: paused. Budget redirected to the course.

Net result after ad spend: slightly positive. 1185 PLN revenue minus 674 PLN spend. Not life-changing, but profitable. And I have data now. I know which angles work, which creatives to kill, and what the funnel looks like from the outside.

This is week two. The game is long.

🎧 DJ / Creator Journey 🌏

I played another DJ set this Friday. Different rooftop, different crowd.

But I want to tell you about a set from one weeks ago that I keep coming back to. I've listened to it probably 12 times since.

From about the halfway mark to the end, something happens that I can't fully explain. The energy builds, the tracks lock in, and it becomes this thing that still gives me excitement every time.

As a creator, you rarely make something that genuinely moves you when you experience it back. Most of the time you see the flaws. This time, I just felt it.

​Link to the set​

If you do listen, start from the middle. That's where it gets special.

I also sent cold emails to 18 clubs across Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City this week. No EPK page (my website's DJ section doesn't exist yet). Just two SoundCloud links and a genuine message. No replies yet. But the set speaks for itself. I trust that.


On the podcast side, episode 3 of Solo z Maszyna dropped yesterday. It's in Polish, on YouTube, and this one is about my full tool stack, the actual tools I use every day to run everything. If you're curious what the backend of a one-person operation looks like, that's the one.

​Link to podcast here​


πŸ’¬ Any thoughts or reflections? Text me back!


Thanks for being here.

Have a good week and see yaa next Sunday ✌️

Bart

Weekly reflections on flow, work & freedom

Sometimes it’s about business and systems. Sometimes about music, movement, and nights spent behind the decks. Always honest. Always real. Once a week, you’ll get a calm, grounded reflection - something to think with, not scroll past.

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