The season of creator merch is upon us. Over the course of this next week, we’ll see endless promotions of photoshop mockups for overpriced hoodies, leading up to Black Friday. And for what? A coarse Gildan tee with a half-baked design or slogan on it?

There is a way to do it. People less motivated and less intelligent and less educated than we are have figured this out in the past. There is a process that will work to scale this business, and even though these processes are moving targets to some degree, they’re still out there. They exist.

As a freelancer, no one will give you a raise. No client will come along and say, “Hey, you’ve been doing a great job the past few months, here’s 10% more money.” Why? Because their job is to keep projects under budget. So how do you give yourself a raise?

Customer personal are internal write ups on the kind of person your brand’s ideal customers are. It’s best to describe, in great detail, 3-5 different customer segments of who you are trying to reach.

The greatest asset we have is many, many days. We can try to accomplish our goals in a long, sustained work session. We can try to actualize our dreams in a flurry, chasing them as fast as possible. We can aim to achieve our ambitions through completely clear decision-making. But we don’t have what it takes to do any of this.

What is a “calling” anyway? Is that just a way for us to justify the sacrifices we have to make while chasing success? Tell me what your great grandfather did for a living. Do you know? Most people don’t.

My precursor to James Clear’s advice would be to start hiking. Don’t worry if you haven’t found your “calling” when you’re starting your career. Just work on things you find interesting.

You’re going to have to do the work before someone pays you. Plain and simple. In some cases, you have to pay to do the work you want to be doing before someone pays you.

Volume controls the overall noise that the amp puts out. Gain controls the level of distortion in the tone of that noise. All volume with no gain? You’ll get a clean tone that sounds pretty boring. All gain, with little volume? You’ll get a very distorted overdrive tone that sounds pretty ugly.

I’m terrible at Christmas shopping. It stresses me out so bad. I wait until the last minute, then I can’t think of any good ideas, then I run around the picked-over malls in my hometown, finding anything that could pass as thoughtful.

Sometimes, consistency can get in the way of quality. I feel that way sometimes about this blog. On the other hand, quality can get in the way of consistency. The need to create with the best gear, or solid lighting, a good concept can paralyze us, stifling our creativity entirely.

If you have an idea that you know you should pursue, your first step should be to call someone who you know can help you make that idea a reality.

More brands should partner with real life influencers, instead of celebrities. Polestar interviewed Karen Nyberg, an astronaut who spent 180 days in outer space, orbiting earth. They pulled sound bites from a long-form interview, and put together a compelling ad.

You can spend your whole career on secondary tasks. But you don’t get the infrastructure to focus on primary tasks without taking care of the little things too.

Leveraging environmentalism for advertising can be a polarizing move. Get too moral about it, and half of your audience shuts off. Polestar nailed this ad by using a real influencer, telling a story, and acknowledging both sides of the issue.

I caught myself wishing time would pass faster the other day. I asked myself why I wasn’t a successful writer yet. I wished time would pass quicker, maybe into my 30s or 40s when I had published a few books, had a TED talk, and spoken on a few podcast circuits.

Then I remembered. I remembered all those teachers who made me feel bad for not finishing books. I remembered all those books I had to read that I hated. And I realized that school stole the love of reading from me. And since they only ever equated learning to reading, they stole the love of learning from me too.

One of the best books I read early in my career was Business Model Generation by Osterwalder and Pigneur. This book clearly shows you how to generate business models.

You may see your freelance friends I think to yourself, Wow, they’ve changed. And that’s true. They have changed. But it’s not a bad thing. Your freelance friends are probably acting.

Sometimes I search an old email from a few years back to reference a file, and I cringe. It’s amazing to me how much more concise and clear my communication has become since I began my career.