The Beginning of The End

Welcome to the last newsletter of the Jewish Year.

Photo by David Holifield on Unsplash

In the next 24 hours, millions of religious and non-religious Jews worldwide will sit with friends, family, or even by themselves to celebrate the coming of the new year.

Every year, during the last month of the Jewish year, we are encouraged to look back on our failures, accomplishments, sins, and mitzvos, among other aspects of the year that ended. Do we have grievances to settle between ourselves and god? Do we have grievances to settle between friends? All should be taken care of so we come into the new year with clean hands to receive the best chance to get the best year possible.

10 days after the new year begins, we have Yom Kippur, the holiest of days in Judaism. Most Jews from every walk of life observe this holiday and fast for 25 hours. If Jewish New Year was the writing of our fate, Yom Kippur is the signature of approval. Did we get a bad fate? It could still change by fasting and observing the holiday.

While there are many religious aspects of these days called in Hebrew The Terrible Days, many people take these days to reflect on the coming year in more secular aspects of their lives. While I observe the religious holidays, I’m also aware of what happened in my life. Here are a few of them.

Geek Peek Was Born

This year, I changed my YouTube channel from Oren Cohen to Geek Peek - a decision I don’t regret. Now I’m free to build my own brand from scratch while still keeping afloat all the work I had already done for my channel.

I intend to keep building that brand in the new Jewish year.

I Tapped Into My Programming Experience

This year, I leaned into my Programming knowledge and wrote a 30-day Python Programming Challenge that I gave for free. And I still made 21 dollars from people who were generous enough to compensate me for my work.

The challenge is still ongoing, and by tapping into the feedback from these 80+ people, I can build a paid offer and finally make some money online from the knowledge I’m experienced enough in to help people in need.

I Made The Distinction Between Work and Pleasure

My programming content is purely for work, but my podcast has not grown into a paid thing yet, and I decided this year that while I’m still stretched thin financially, I need to make the distinction between what content I create for pleasure, and what content I create for business purposes. For now, anything I create for programming has a monetary purpose in mind.

I Wrote a Book About Podcasting

I wrote a book about four years of podcasting this year, and today, I’m giving it for free. Yes, I initially wanted to publish it as a book on Amazon, but today I decided I won’t do that for now. Instead, I’m giving it away. You can find it here.

That’s It!

There are many other facets of myself that I’m reflecting on for this coming year, but they are better suited for either my journal or a 1:1 discussion with my best friends. I want to thank you all for being here! I enjoyed creating this year, and I hope the next one is even better for all of us.

Much love to you and yours and Shana Tova!

Oren