The advantages to breaking out line items for people is that it takes a lot less thinking and story management. The advantages to pitching an all-in rate are usually that you can find more profit on all ends, and keep the client from parsing things out and finding leverage on specific line items.

It’s simple yet profound: if we create a frictionless environment in which we can create, it becomes much easier. Those who achieve extreme consistency don’t necessarily have more willpower than the rest of us—they simply have designed an environment in which a large amount of willpower isn’t necessary.

Hiring someone for a role you aren’t familiar with is a scary task. You aren’t sure what to look for, and once you find it, you don’t know if what you’re looking at is good or not.

Brands, hear this: A recommendation from a trusted source is the holy grail of marketing. You can’t achieve a more effective form of marketing than this. So when creators are on board for a paid sponsorship on their channels, let them recommend the product the way their audience is used to hearing from them.

This is the magic of the daily creative routine. Most days are good. Some days are great–lightning strikes and everything comes together. And even on the bad days, it’s still good.

“One of the most effective things you can do to build better habits is to join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior. New habits seem achievable when you see others doing them every day.”

If you decide to take a week off, it’s unlikely most of your audience will notice. This isn’t a reflection of you or your content, but of the platforms. There’s an endless stream of content, personalized to each person. If you don’t add to the stream this week, no one will be knocking on your door.

You can be the most brilliant person in the world. You can know everything. But unless you’re kind and generous, no one will listen to you.

As a freelancer, I’m pretty protective of my time, as the optimal freelance business model delivers a high-quality service in the most efficient way possible. I didn’t want to spend time driving to pick up furniture, because that would mean I couldn’t spend time working or relaxing.

99 times out of 100, it’s unadvisable for a company to tell their history in an ad. Customers don’t care. But this video has 65 million views, a 95% like rate, and hundreds of super fans in the comments expressing how much they love the ad and the company.

The key concepts of The Power of Habit are in the title. Duhigg explains how much power habits have over our lives, as well as how to understand and leverage that power for our own good. He doesn’t just talk about snacking or fingernail biting either–he focuses on how community habits affected the social justice movement and how corporate habits destroyed massive organizations.

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
–James Clear, Atomic Habits

If it’s taking you a long time get a quote over to a potential client, it might be a good indication that you shouldn’t be pitching for the project at all.

Creating work that serves your goals is better. If you want to get a job as an ad copywriter, write 100 ads and put them in your portfolio. It won’t grow you a huge audience, but it will serve as a key to the door you really want to walk through.

But when I got on Spotify, it became a common thing for me to listen to an album one time, and then never hear it again. I didn’t pour over the lyrics, I didn’t remember the song names, and I quickly forgot about many of them. There wasn’t any investment.

Every social interaction comes with a generally agreed-upon duration. A dinner is a 90-minute engagement, 60-minutes minimum. A picnic is 2 hours. A guest at your house is at least 2 hours, maybe more. But a beer? That’s a beautifully concise, sub 40-minute thing.

This week in the ads review, I’m breaking down State Farm’s “Surprisingly Great Rates” ads. State Farm’s recent ad set, featuring their spokesman Jake from State Farm, is an interesting and successful approach to integrating a tagline in a natural-sounding way.

When I wear this gold ring, it feels so much different than my necklace and my watch, because I know it’s real gold. But if it wasn’t, no one would really know the difference.

Culture is the strongest force in the world. People will do illogical, and sometimes insane things–for better or for worse–because of a culture that inspires them.