I've found that pulling industry standard documentation or providing links directly to that documentation for things like 'best practices' 'security hardening' etc is more effective then using the associated terms. I'm thinking that since there is so much old data out there, best practices from 5, 10, 15 years may occasionally take precedence/get mixed in if you are not super specific.

Nope and I think people will also get snagged by that hourly rate being so high. Honestly the only reason I can read all the terms now is because of AI. Before the time commitment was too much. Much easier now to drop the link into Claude and get an instant review.

Genuinely appreciate all the responses. Let me give you more to work with. I've covered a lot of ground. Air Force in my early 20s, then traveled Australia after I separated, went back to school for Adventure Education in AZ, shifted into trades and IT in NC, tried to freelance in Mexico but found no work, came back and did fabrication and renovation work in WV. Experimented with ebooks along the way, sold a handful of copies but never figured out the marketing side. I learn fast and starting something new has never been the problem. What I've never managed to do is sink my teeth in long enough for it to compound. The pattern underneath all of it is pretty consistent. I work hard for a stretch, stabilize, then either drift or blow it up, and long gaps of not working follow the productive ones. The financial stress that creates pulls me away from what I actually want to build, so I end up spending energy just trying to get stable again instead of moving forward. The vision of what life could be is big enough that it ends up acting like a weight instead of a lift. Layered on top of that, I find it genuinely hard to grind for money inside a system I think is extractive by design. Taxes aren't neutral, and most of what gets taken doesn't go anywhere I'd voluntarily send it. It's hard to stay motivated optimizing for a game I think is rigged. I've had the idea for a long time to make content that fuses tech with something closer to the solar punk philosophy. We have more than enough tools to work efficiently and still have real free time. Time to connect with people, to be outside, to enjoy our lives but our systems seem to resist that. I've slowly been pulling all of my experience and ideas together into a coherent through-line so I can show it to others and help people build toward a life that balances meaningful work with spending time outside with the people they care about. But making money doing that is going to take some time.

@Joshua Hubbard Yeah man. I'm kinda in the same boat. I'm pretty comfortable behind the camera, but I hate the idea of putting my face and opinion out there. I've been practicing recording some this morning and I'm trying to suppress my rant and rave reflex. Staying on topic is the tricky part for me.

@Joshua Hubbard pretty good actually. Been finding that I really enjoy yapping at the camera and talk about what I'm working on. My flow is clunk, but thats expected. I started building out an automated pipeline and content workflow so I can focus on creating small 2-5 minute videos on projects or concepts. Hoping to get it a solid v1 this week and I want to pump out a handful of videos to post here, linkedin, and x.