"she's a bitch. she's on your side. & she wants you to fucking win. 🖤"

I have spent my entire life being told I should care about being hot. I spent years intellectually rejecting that premise.

and now, I have decided to deliberately weaponize it. here's how to do it.

zeropercentup.substack.com

Ever wondered if you could turn your life around in one month's time? I'm trying exactly that (and holyshit i really need this to work). Welcome to: THE OCTOBER EXPERIMENT.

Topics covered

• returning to content creation after a month-long hiatus

• building a creative business from scratch

• financial runway and the pressure to make a business work

• overcoming procrastination and perfectionism

• taking your creative career seriously

• entrepreneurship vs. traditional employment

• work-life balance and ambition

• productivity culture and the 5 a.m. routine

• Casey Neistat and early-morning creative work

• building a consistent content schedule

• daily short-form content

• long-form YouTube strategy

• overcoming insecurity around creative work

• shipping imperfect work instead of endlessly optimizing

• discipline vs. self-compassion

• becoming more comfortable being seen online

• authenticity and commercial pressure as a creator

• dating and finding someone aligned with your values

• using October as a one-month personal/business experiment

Want access to extended show notes, transcripts, exclusive HOTGIRL HOMEWORK , and the MOTHERFUCKING SCREENSHOTS?! Jump over to our substack for all the juicy deets x

TimeStamps:00:00 — I'm back, Mom, I can explain
01:25 — Where I've been & why September disappeared
02:40 — The financial runway is getting real
04:15 — The life I said I wanted is actually happening
05:20 — Maybe I need more structure
05:48 — The Nepo Baby Jealousy Confession™
07:00 — Yes, I need to look cute on camera
08:10 — The “either way, I have to work” reframe
10:00 — What happens if I actually go all in?
12:20 — Why I'm done pretending I don't hate certain things
14:15 — Authenticity vs. commercial palatability
16:15 — The weird isolation of building online
18:00 — Fuck work-life balance?
20:15 — Why I'm trying to build wealth instead of just survive
22:20 — Getting out of my head
23:25 — Enter: the 5 a.m. club
26:50 — Five half-baked videos and the fear of being bad
28:10 — Is social critique sometimes just procrastination in disguise?
32:20 — Have I been too gentle with myself?
34:00 — THE OCTOBER EXPERIMENT
35:55 — One long-form a week + one short every day
38:20 — Quality vs. consistency when you're a tiny creator
40:30 — What if I actually commit?
42:20 — The energy I want on camera
45:30 — Why being seen online isn't actually that different from having a job
46:45 — Dating update 👀
48:50 — Lock in with me
49:20 — See you in a monthSearch Terms:creative business / entrepreneurship / content creation / YouTube / productivity / procrastination / 5 a.m. routine / consistency / creator burnout / perfectionism

Yeah.... So, I blew my wildly ambitious deadline, and now... I'm running out of runway. Excellent.

In this month's brutally honest Zero Percent Up update, I talk about falling behind, watching my financial runway get shorter, realizing I've been treating my creative work with too much flexibility, and confronting the possibility that I'll need to take on temporary work if I can't make this business pay for itself fast enough.

I also dig into why I've stepped away from the doom-cycle of the internet, my growing concerns about employment and economic instability, why I keep coming back to entrepreneurship, and what it actually means to bet on yourself when the stakes aren't theoretical anymore.

Topics Covered this Week:

• Missing the original 100K YouTube subscriber deadline

• Reassessing goals after falling behind
• The reality of running out of financial runway
• Building a creative career while facing financial pressure
• Why the online world can feel like an escape hatch from traditional employment
• Taking a temporary side job to protect financial stability
• Balancing entrepreneurship with practical backup plans
• Setting stronger boundaries around creative work
• How flexibility can become a liability without structure
• Procrastination, intimidation, and the uncomfortable parts of building a business
• Dealing with judgment from people who don't understand your goals
• AI, layoffs, and changing employment conditions
• Entrepreneurship, ownership, and financial independence
• The tension between traditional employment and building your own thing
• Social media doom cycles and stepping away from constant negativity
• Why consuming endless negative news can contribute to fear and inaction
• Recommitting to 100K YouTube subscribers by the end of November
• Building income streams before the channel fully monetizes
• Exploring sponsorships, paid offerings, and short-term client work
• Learning to take the business side of a creative career seriously
• What happens when the "fun experiment" becomes financially consequential
• Choosing intensity now in pursuit of long-term autonomy
• Continuing to build despite fear, missed deadlines, and uncertainty

Thank you for listening!! 🖤🪽

If you need: extended shownotes, bonus resources, mini updates, or accessibility tools and episode transcripts, they can all be found on substack. xx