The Graph Went Down. I Stayed In The Chair
February 2026 Report Card
The Monthly Audit. Real Numbers. Hard Truth.
February Was a Purge
This month I got some storage boxes. Put the things I use at least once a week in the top box. Then I threw out a lot of things I do not need. Then I donated a huge bag of cat food my cat refused to eat to a man who takes care of feral and stray cats in the neighborhood. Left it at his door with a handwritten note, “REGALA LOS GATOS” a small cat drawing, a smile, and my phone number. Some trust, so he would know it was safe to use.
That is February. The whole month in one story.
The graph went down. The burn went down. The follow list went down. The tool stack went down. Everything that was taking up space got a hard look. Most of it went in the bin. What stayed earned its place in the top box.
This is not a bad month. This is the month you find out what you actually need.
The Traffic Truth
671 unique visitors in January. 308 in February. Views dropped from 1,985 to 641.
The 55-year-old in me has seen this pattern more times than I can count. One breakout moment sets a false baseline. Then the real work begins and the numbers tell the truth.
“Be a Neighborhood Lunatic” was January’s spike. It caught fire because the title was sharp, the video moved, and the PDF gave something real away for free. February had no spike. It had eleven solid posts and a much quieter room. That is not a content failure. That is a reach problem. The posts held up. The distribution did not.
The traffic sources tell a better story than the raw numbers. In January, direct traffic dominated. Casual browsers finding a post. In February, email opens led the way. Those are people who waited for the email. They did not stumble in. They came back. A smaller room with people who chose to be there beats a bigger room full of people passing through.
The top performers were “The Queen Has Spoken” at 35 opens and “The 10 Minute Trade” at 33. The highest open rate went to “Engage Because You Mean It” at 24.5%. One in four subscribers opened that post. That is a relationship being built, not a number to apologize for.
The gap to close in March is not quality. It is one post with enough edge to stop someone cold. “The Lunatic” did that in January. February needed one of those and did not have it. That is the only honest criticism of the content this month.
Content Audit
Eleven posts in 23 publishing days. 4 Sentient. 3 Forge. 3 Hoard. 1 Venga.
The Venga count is the one that bothers me. One editor’s letter in a full month means the personal voice showed up less than it should have. That series is where the slow life lives on the page and February was a slow life month worth writing about. The rain. The purge. The cat food donation. That was a Venga post sitting in real life waiting to be written. It did not get written. March fixes that.
The Hoard held steady. Friday, high-value finds, no filler. That series is working because it is disciplined. It knows what it is and it does not try to be anything else.
The Sentient posts are where the real pattern recognition lives. Four in a month is the right cadence. Too many and the 55-year-old view becomes a lecture. Four times a month is a mentor. More than that is a manual.
The Forge is the one that needs a breakout moment. Three Forge posts is correct. One of them needs to crack something open in March the way the Lunatic did in January.
The Notes Engine
52 Notes in 23 days. 2.26 per day. The engine ran.
The comment output dropped and I know exactly why. I was following the wrong people for me. Not bad creators. Just not my room. When the content in your feed does not move you, commenting becomes a chore. I was showing up out of obligation and the writing knew it.
So I cleaned the feed the same way I cleaned the storage room. Took a hard look at who was in the top box. Most of them went in the bin. Reciprocity is not a strategy. It is a distraction with good optics.
March is quality over volume. Ten real comments in the right rooms beats fifty obligatory ones in the wrong ones. The reputation gets built in the right room or it does not get built at all.
Tooling ROI
$75 in January. $15 in February.
Canva stayed. It runs every day for Notes and post thumbnails and it earns its seat at any price. Nano Banana handled image generation without friction. Descript and Opus never got subscribed to. The original plan was to add them the first day a video post needed them. That day did not come. When a tool waits for permission to prove itself, you have your answer.
The real move this month was DaVinci Resolve by Blackmagic. Free. More complicated than CapCut. But free and capable beats paid and convenient when you are running a lean operation. The learning curve is real. The monthly bill is zero.
The honest creator stack for February: Canva at $15 and everything else free. That is the top box. Everything else got donated.
The January Promise Check
January closed with one clear declaration: February is about live videos and more video posts.
It did not happen. Here is the honest account.
A creator reached out after my Notes comment. The approach started fine and turned impersonal fast. A calendar link in a DM. I had commented on a post where they said they wanted to do more live videos. When I suggested a live collaboration their reply was that they were not doing live videos. Then an offer to tell me what was wrong with my Substack instead. That is not collaboration. That is a pitch dressed as generosity. It killed the energy around live video before anything was built.
There was also a live interview on Skool. It happened. But the follow-through stalled because the platform felt wrong and the fit felt thin. Forcing the wrong relationship in the wrong room is worse than not starting it at all. That is a veteran read, not an excuse.
The grade: incomplete. Not failed. Incomplete.
Failed means the idea was wrong. Incomplete means the conditions were not right yet. Live video is still the move. March needs one real moment, on the right platform, with a real reason to show up.
What We Are Killing
The random follow habit is gone. We do not subscribe to creators to get a follow back. The feed is a tool now, not a social debt.
The guilt around skipping a Saturday Venga is gone. When the signal is not there, the post does not go out. The slow life does not publish on a schedule set by anxiety.
The overbuilt tool stack is gone. We kept what we use. We let go of the rest. Same principle as the storage boxes. Same principle as the cat food.
The Life Test
I got a big box of premium cat food my cat decided she hated. $50 worth. It was just sitting there taking up space and making me feel guilty every time I looked at it.
I know a man in the neighborhood who takes care of feral and stray cats. I left the whole bag at his door. Wrote a note. Drew a small cat with a smile on it. Left my number.
That is the slow life working correctly. The mountain pace means you notice things. You notice the bag of cat food your cat ignores. You notice the neighbor who needs it. You have enough time and enough quiet to do something small and real about it.
February did not expand the slow life. It did not shrink it either. It clarified it. Removed what did not belong. Made room.
March starts lighter.
V➤ The audit does not lie. The graph went down. We stayed in the chair. Threw out what we did not need. Left the cat food at the door with a drawing and a smile. That is the whole story of February and it is enough.
ABOUT THE 55/35 METHOD
Veteran intuition meets modern velocity. Pattern recognition from decades of cycles applied to today’s tools. We move fast. But we move with weight.
THE ARMORY
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