Let’s START something new. 

Redux exists to equip and encourage you to tackle your missions. I just happened to start with hardware — watches. 

Now, I’m starting an experiment to be more intentional about ground support for your wetware (mind, soul, spirit, character) upgrades. 

Once a week I’ll debrief with you on three waypoints (like trail markers) converging on one theme.

Why three? 

Well, it takes three points to triangulate your position. When you connect the dots, and remember where you’re headed, you can course correct as needed. 

Weekly Waypoints will include: 

• Ancient wisdom
• Scientific evidence
• Workshop visit / Prototype intel
  
  And
• A personal story I’m digging into (this week literally)

Everything you need will be in the email, think of it as a heads up display. But if you want more, you can always meet me here the jump for a dive deep.

This week, in honor of this humble launch, let’s START SMALL.

It’s been an insane year. Many people are waiting for 2021 to make things better.

<Breaking News> 

There’s no point in waiting for January to get a new start. January 1 resolutions are pegged to an arbitrary date anyway. It’s only meaningful because we assign some magic to that date.

Any date will do. Today — right now — is as good a time as any, and certainly better than later.

Mission Impossible

Waypoint 1: Ancient Wisdom + Starting

How Pee Breaks Could Change Your Life

Waypoint 2: Science + Starting

A Stanford behavior scientist wanted to do more pushups everyday. We all know exercise is a keystone habit that cascades into all kinds of goodness in our lives.

Most of us would just grit our teeth and do some until we “forgot” by day three.

Instead, Fogg picked an everyday trigger and started tiny. Every time he went to the bathroom, Fogg did ONE pushup.

Soon enough he could do more each pee break. He kept going and is up to 70 a day (depending on coffee intake haha).

Make sure to celebrate small wins tangibly. i.e. *YES!* (queue: arm pump) because science confirms habits change through feeling good, not beating ourselves up.

Fogg’s TED talk. And book.

What’s a goal or change you need to make? How can you start tiny and trigger it with something you already do every day? Write it down, START today!

Cabinet of Curiosities

Waypoint 3: Redux + Starting

TL;DR:

• Over the next few weeks I’m going to open up my cabinet of curiosities (more below) and see if you’re interested in adding any of it to your kit.
• We have multiple watch prototypes underway flying evasive maneuvers through some turbulence. Partial update now (scroll down), full update next week…
• Even so, we’re not just about the watches (deep dive below). How else can I help you? Reply and let me know!

… and a little something extra: 

Rubies, Diamonds & Gold, A Story

My 7 year old son, let’s call him Scout, looked up a word in the dictionary. On the way, he came across the word “ruby” with pictures of a gem before and after being cut.

Scout is obsessed with rocks.

Recently Scout saw a roughly polished opal of mine. He grabbed some generic rocks. He sanded. He painted. He coated them to look like my opal. He’s spent hours gently cracking geodes open.

Last week he said, “When I grow up, I’m going to be a geologist, and that’s my final answer.”

Needless to say, that ruby image hooked Scout.

After hours of research, Scout told me we needed to take a trip and he knew where to go and what to do. He even had a plan:

“How to find rubies, gold, and diamonds: Shovel with Knifes, Buckit, Hammer, Chesle”

Cue big eye roll (not a proud dad moment).

I felt the urge to say, “It’s not that easy. You have no idea how many people spend their lives trying to dig up treasure. Let’s be reasonable.”

And then I checked myself — we all need to START SMALL. The last thing he needs is me telling him what’s not possible, especially when I haven’t even tried.

Heck, I (probably) wouldn’t have launched Redux if I had known all the pitfalls and frustrations.

Sometimes, the not knowing — being unreasonable — is the only way we will go on the adventures we’re meant to explore.

So, instead I said, “Pack your chisel, kiddo, let’s plan a trip!” I’m not sure we’ll find anything, but I’ll let you know what we find.

What I AM certain of is that worst case no gems, but we might just dig up something far more precious — a treasure trove of good memories and the sparkle of exploration together.

Welcome to the new abnormal.

On January 1st, I posted a message on Instagram about making 2020 epic. Little did I know… it’s been epic alright.

And now that we’re already barreling toward the end of 2020, I wanted to check in and debrief with you.

As some of you know, we planned to launch new watch design projects in 2020. Prototypes were originally scheduled to arrive last December. [Spoiler alert: We grounded those plans — actually that makes it sound almost pleasant and peaceful, it really feels more like a stomach lurching turbulence-induced stall.]

But then the world turned upside down. We hit massive delays from our industrial engineers and manufacturers.

Rest assured, we will push forward. Stay tuned for further intel next week.

In the meantime, I’m writing now for three reasons:

1. How is your “new normal” going?
2. Sharing lessons from 6+ months of turbulence
3. I’m opening my cabinet of curiosities for you to gawk at

What’s that about curiosities? I have a bunch of projects in stealth mode. These have never seen the light of day for various reasons. Sometimes I just get distracted and need to make something. Other times these were experiments to find solutions for myself. 

The End. 

We’re down to our last watches! To be exact:

COURG Zero-Hour

13 Zero-Hour

2 Minimalists

1 Type-A  SOLD!

This is a huge milestone for us since we turned off all marketing and advertising a year ago with plans to transition into the new crowdfunding.

In the meantime, we received kind requests for specific variants not actually in stock. So, I’ve built them when I have the components — and bandwidth — to make them. A few Type-A potentially, if you’re interested.

If you’ve been on the fence about owning a COURG, now’s the time. I’m not sure whether we’ll make another production run ever.

Now, with the new designs still in a holding pattern, we need to try something different. 

Just waiting around until the prototypes arrive to our satisfaction and then the months required for a proper crowdfunding launch is not an option.

We also want to respond to what’s been happening even with our limited resources. So, we will dedicate a percentage of sales from small batch projects to directly support first responders and healthcare workers on the front lines.

I hesitated a long time before sending this (I’ve been drafting this series of dispatches since April!) because I feel a bit torn. I know that most of you, understandably, think of Redux & Co. as a watch company (Reduxwatch.com @reduxwatch and all that).

Not Just Watches

But we never set out to just sell watches — they’re the flagship. Not the end goal. 

Our vision is first and foremost about redeeming the time, and helping our crew live fuller more purpose-filled days. Part of that was building a workshop-business where I could create, make, design, and see what deserves a spot in your kit.

So in some ways, what we’re asking you is also an existential question for us. Are there further ways we can equip and encourage you? How do we better support you on your missions? What do we do better than anyone else in the world for you?

A More Focused Experiment

Redux & Co. began as an experiment, and somewhere along the way I started feeling inadequate. Like I needed to be more polished — that we had to pretend that we had it all figured out. 

I tried to make it sound as if we had a larger organization. The royal nebulous “we.”

But really it’s just Wonderwoman Grace, our two littles, and I here in our NYC apartment, and we’re going to keep it real. 

We are who we are. We’ll continue to be authentic and not pour on any veneer.

P.S. Thanks to those of you who made the deep dive with me and landed here. What’d you think of this? I’d love to hear if this was helpful (or not).

In the meantime, check out pre-turtlenecked Steve Jobs talking about not playing it safe one year BEFORE he took Apple back and rebuilt it. Let’s you and I bash through some walls. [Video just under 2 minutes]