Last week I was driving down to Tulsa to buy a new family car.

We got a 2006 Lexus GX470, and it is awesome.

My favorite part of the trip was leaving the bank with the keys and title in hand after the previous owner signed it over and got his lien release…

And the previous owner asks me: “What sort of interest rate did you get on your car loan?”

“None.” I told him. “I paid with cash.”

Now, if you’ve read my Focus Course launch case studies, you may be thinking, that’s fine for Shawn.

But here’s the thing, I would have paid cash for our car even if The Focus Course had not done 6 figures in 7 days.

Here’s how:

• My wife and I have been driving a 1994 Chevy Cavalier Wagon for over 11 years. The thing is ugly, but it’s reliable and very inexpensive to own and maintain.

• Five years ago we bought a 2001 Jeep Cherokee (paid cash then, too). And since then we have made “car payments” to ourselves. We knew that one day we would have to replace our car. So, we started saving, and now, 5 years later, we had the cash saved up ready to use for our next car.

• Lastly, is the challenge of keeping a frugal mindset and finding the best car we could that was within our budget to buy with cash. I spent months looking for a car that was in good shape, low miles, that had been garaged, and would last us for the next 5-10 years without troubles.

* * *

The way you live beneath your means is by living beneath your means.

It’s a choice.

It’s not always an easy one (I have never liked that white-on-rust Chevy Cavalier). But I was happy to hang on to it because it allowed us the financial margin we needed to stay ahead and stay debt free.

Right now I’m wrapping up the second article in my Focus Course Case Study. (The first article, that’s all about the launch of the course is here).

As I’m working on this next article, something I’ve realized is that I have two modes of work:

1. Monk Mode
2. Publishing Mode

(Well, there is also the “Super Distracted Mode” and “Ugh, Bookkeeping Mode”…)

Long-time readers of this site have seen my Monk and Publishing modes first hand. I really went into “monk mode” early last year in the months leading up to the Focus Course launch. My days began to get very full with “deep work”. I was working longer-than-normal days and also usually working a few hours on the weekends as well.

All those hours were spent in research, reading, and writing for the course. Pretty much the only thing I was publishing was my once-a-week articles — a huge difference in publishing output compared to the first several years of this site when I was posting links and articles every single day.

What I’ve discovered is that when I’m in Monk Mode, I kinda go dark to the outside world. I spend all of my working hours with my keyboard, some books, my team, and a whiteboard. I don’t publish much to the site, my podcast episodes get sparse, I don’t update Twitter or Instagram all that much.

But when I’m in “Publishing Mode” then it’s the opposite. Most of my working hours are spent publishing things to my site, tweeting, etc. But I’m not focusing on any particular project or product.

A goal of mine right now is to get better at operating in both of these modes simultaneously.

I’m a huge advocate of showing up every day. But that coin has two sides: you’ve got to show up and do the work, but you’ve also got to share that work. You have to show up every day and do something, but you also have to show up every day and share something.

Lately I’m great at the former, not so great at the latter.

To peel the curtain back, I am in search of a work environment and rhythm that supports (a) deep work and creating huge pillar products while also (b) frequent publishing of articles, podcasts, ideas, links, inspiration, etc.

I’d like to get better at sharing artifacts from my daily work and opening the door to my creative process while also keeping my ability to stay in “Monk Mode” on a regular basis, focusing on building big projects.

And!… I want to do it all while working reasonable hours and maintaining margin in my day-to-day life. Piece of cake, right?

Austin Kleon has a fantastic book about this. And one bit of advice Austin gives is to build a daily dispatch into your routine:

Once a day, after you’ve done your day’s work, go back to your documentation and find one little piece of your process that you can share.

I’m now beginning work on my next big course, that will be all about content creation and building an audience. And as part of the creative process for this course, I’m also committing to share more of my work as I go. It’s with the understanding that the process of doing our best creative work every day is a messy one — it’s a fight to stay creative.

Tomorrow is my birthday. And every year around this time I open up Day One and jot down an unordered list of reflections and thoughts on life.

It’s a chance for me to give advice to my future self. What are the things I’m learning and observing in this season of life that I may need to be reminded of in a year from now?

Here are a few from previous years:

• Serving others always has a reward.
• Generosity is never regretted.
• It’s worth it to sweat the details and do work you’re proud of.
• Don’t be afraid to take a risk – the biggest “risks” I’ve ever made, such as proposing to my wife, starting a business, moving to another state, they have all proven to be some of the most important life changes and have been so positive.
• Life is almost entirely a series of small, almost inconsequential choices and moments. All the little things that you do (and don’t do) are actually what paint the picture of your life. If you want a different life, make a small change to one thing and stick with it. Then change something else. Then something else.

And here are a few from this year:

• Never underestimate the power of having a plan and keeping accountable to your progress. Because it’s far too easy to confuse activity with progress. I’m really good at “being active” but it takes much more intentionality to make sure that what I’m doing each day is putting one foot in front of the other.

• Reading (learning) is becoming a competitive advantage in today’s knowledge worker / creative entrepreneurial landscape.

• Be more cautious not to squander a few minutes here and there throughout my day. Stay on top of batch processing my Instapaper / Safari Tabs / Email / etc. Take more frequent breaks away from the desk in order to make space for longer hours of focused work.