Once you’ve committed to do your best creative work, you may find that it can get lonely.

Sometimes it’s lonely by default…

You’re in “monk mode”. You’re disappearing to your cave for hours at a time to get some serious work done.

Or it’s lonely because the project is top of mind — it’s all you’re thinking about. Except it’s still the early stages of the project, and so you’re not yet clear enough on things to have any sort of coherent conversation about it. Your words just come out as fragmented ramblings while your conversation partner stares back blankly, trying desperately to follow along.

Showing up every day is hard enough work by itself. And because of how natural it can be to do the work in isolation, community becomes all the more valuable.

Last summer, a few weeks after I launched The Focus Course, my wife and I hosted a backyard BBQ party to celebrate.

I had just spent the better part of my past year working on it, and the vast majority of that time I spent alone. But it’s not a project I could have done completely alone.

There were so many people who were involved, those who helped with the project itself and those friends who encouraged me along the way.

So we invited anyone and everyone who had been involved at all with the building of the course. We served BBQ, played games, and told them thank you.

Building something can often be isolating and lonely. Especially for the independent creative entrepreneur.

You put in hours and hours and hours of work while sitting alone in your cave. Don’t let that work stay isolated.

Don’t let yourself experience your failures and successes alone.

Share them with others, invite your friends and family into what you’re doing. They need you just as much as you need them.