What are you working on?
Is it your business? Is it your side hustle? Is it your health? Is it your relationships? Or your mindfulness?
Turning Denial into Acceptance
I’ve had a pile of clean laundry sitting on my armchair for a week. I haven’t folded it. I hate folding laundry. This again? I have two weeks worth of underwear and a bunch of extra shirts that I hate wearing just so I don’t have to do laundry.
Irresponsible Thinking
Maybe the Twitter outrage factory that brings us so much dopamine is digging a deeper trench in our minds. Maybe the one-sided explanation of the world that comforts us is sinking us deeper in neural mud. Maybe the thoughts that we can’t get out of our minds are wrapping their tentacles around us more and more each day.
Getting into (and out of) a rut
Sometimes you fall into a rut. Everything is annoying and nothing seems like it’s going to work and it feels like you’re stuck inside a black and white photograph, slowly deteriorating in a box in God’s attic.
Fake humility is the reason you don’t post your work
We convince ourselves not to share our work out of fake humility. We tell ourselves that not posting really is a generous act because we aren’t bothering anyone. Our meekness is a moralistic leg up in our minds—at least I’m not clawing for attention like that guy!
The Idiot’s Advantage
My friend started a disc golf company that creates discs from 100% recycled material. Anyone who knows anything about plastics knows that this is a difficult thing to do. It’s a good thing my friend didn’t know anything about plastic.
The Tipping Point (or—how to make decisions)
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.
5 Reasons Why You Lost Your Last Freelance Pitch (and how to win your next one)
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.
The Irony of Accuracy
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.
“Healthy Pressure of the Uber Days” - How Bobby Hobert is hunting big ambitions with daily habits
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?
Charge what it’s worth—not what it costs
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.”
Habits make things I hate doing much easier
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 highest-value entertainment out there
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.
Listening is Leverage
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.
Acceptance is a super power
If denial is a mental fallacy, then acceptance is a super power.
$100k isn’t $100k anymore
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.
Masterpieces and Morons
“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 Money Should Your Brand Be Spending on Video Content?
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.
When you “couldn’t be more excited” (hint: you could, and that’s okay)
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.
“I'll be the weird YouTube Wiffle Ball guy” – How Kyle Schultz grew a niche passion into a thriving internet business–with a serious fanbase
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?