There’s a tipping point in many decisions. If you’re wondering whether or not to do all the startup work for a new project you’re testing, just don’t. Get a few dry runs under your belt. It’s okay if it’s not a perfectly clean process.

You lost it. You worked overtime to put together a last-minute pitch for a client, and then…nothing. You’re not alone. I’ve lost and won hundreds of freelance pitches throughout my career. I’ve taken notes and I’m sharing my top 5 lessons with you.

Sustained greatness is so difficult to achieve. Great directors, authors, musicians, and even sports teams struggle to string together even just two or three top-tier performances in a row. Many of us are caught in the never-ending dryer spin of chasing accuracy.

I dropped somebody off and I pulled over to the side of the road and f**king bawled my eyes out. I was just like Why isn't this happening faster? Why am I not doing this creative stuff faster? Why is it that I'm still behind the wheel driving people?

I had walked too far to turn back but wasn’t sure how much further I had to go. Then, a woman driving a golf cart (decked out with neon lights and a speaker playing house music) rolled up to me. “Want a ride?” She said. “$20.” 

What’s the big deal about habits? Why do all these ice-bath-taking meat-heads keep talking about building good habits? What’s the point? The one benefit that inspires me to build good habits is this: habits make things I hate doing much easier.

The economics of buying and reading a book are amazing. A $25 self-development book with even just one simple actionable insight can help the reader make 10x-1000x that amount in their lifetime.

In a world where everyone is fighting for attention, being a good listener gives you a disproportionate amount of leverage. Good listeners are uncommon, and scarcity brings value. Beyond this, good listeners hold an incredible amount of information—not just from what is said, but also from what is left unsaid, and how things are said.

If denial is a mental fallacy, then acceptance is a super power.

I became aware of the idea of the $100,000 salary in 2005, and have held that number in my mind since then as a benchmark. Here’s the crazy thing. 2005’s $100,000 only has the equivalent buying power of $66,000 in 2023’s money.

“You’re better off with a great salesman and a mediocre product than with a masterpiece and a moron to sell it.”
–Herb Cohen

How much should your business spend on video content? In the age of the endless scroll, where a trending sound can get you 500,000 views, the answer is tough to calculate.

Here they come. Instagram captions from people all over stating that they ”couldn’t be more proud” of the year they had in 2022, and that they “couldn’t be more excited” for the year ahead of them. I hate it when people say this.

Wiffle Ball is largely seen as a backyard replica of baseball that won’t break your window. Not anything serious. So how did Kyle Schultz turn a kids’ game into MLW Wiffle Ball: a verified YouTube channel, boasting 45 million views, multiple income streams, dozens of players, interstate travel, and an avid fan base?

I’ve worked with Nike, Disney, and Toyota, and none of those logos are on my website. Why? Because I’m not that concerned with getting credit for my work. Now you may be asking, “Isn’t getting credit for your work essential to new business as a creative freelancer?” Let me tell you a story. Then you can tell me.

Switching between tabs and triangulating tasks is exhilarating. It feels like you’re in a space ship command center, shouting orders, shooting down bogeys, mapping a new course all at once. Except it’s a surefire strategy to burn out–quick.

You know the feeling, right? Staring at the blinking cursor on the blank word document? Or fiddling around with a few video clips in an editing software, not getting anywhere because nothing looks cool? Feeling stuck is the worst.

Bad habits are the bi-product of our breakneck, capitalist culture. A truck spits out Co2. We spit out bad habits.

When did you realize you won’t be a world-renowned prodigy? Maybe you realized it when you turned 20 or 30 or 40. Maybe it became clear when you stopped understanding TikTok lingo. Maybe it sank in when someone much younger than you was in charge.

Have you ever practiced a free throw? Or a six-foot putt? There are the things in sport that look so easy, but when you stand under the hoop or over the ball, a universe of possibility opens up. And most of those possibilities result in misses.