How a Membership Roundup Helped Shaped My Horizon Goal

26 May 2026 #misc

This writer made me say, “Wow! I want to do that too.”

I don’t know how I landed on Craig Mod’s site. But I binge-read his site and his yearly membership roundups for 2 hours.

Craig walks around Japan, shoots mini-documentaries, and writes fine-print books. He runs Special Projects, a membership program to support his projects.

Documenting my life in books

Craig has one horizon goal: Produce book projects until he dies.

Without realizing it, I’ve set a similar goal.

After burnout and a sabbatical, I chose to share a decade of software engineering lessons in a trilogy. Street-Smart Coding is the second installment and the first one I wrote. That’d be my magnum opus before I retire from coding.

Burnout was an awful, but it changed my life. From that experience, another book was born: 10 Surprisingly Simple Ideas That Changed My Life And Could Change Yours Too. More like a book experiment.

After finishing, my sister showed me I had a whole 10 Surprisingly Simple Ideas series ahead: Being a husband, a dad…

Reading about Craig’s horizon goal made me formalize mine: Document my life in books.

Being paid to be me

Monetizing our hobbies doesn’t kill them. It skyrockets them.

Craig’s Special Projects proves this. His membership program isn’t about his members per se. It’s a direct support to his projects with a behind-the-scenes peek.

Their supporters pay him to see more of his work. It reminds me of the $1/month club. He’s paid to be him.

In a leap of faith, after burnout and a layoff I deleted my CV.

I wouldn’t like to go back to a 9-5 and interviewing again. Just thinking about it makes my stomach hurt.

But like Craig, I want to live by my creativity. That’s now my horizon goal: to be paid for being me.

Unlike Craig, I don’t have a membership system yet. But if you’d like to see more of my work out there, you can check out my books. And if you want to support me in the spirit of a $1/month club, let me know.