As I type this, I’m looking at a few pages from my notebook.

The pages in the notebook contain notes I took from two very important conversations I had six months ago.

These conversations took place in January, just after I had “re-launched” The Focus Course 2.0. I was thinking about what project to do next.

I knew I wanted to build a membership community.), and I knew I wanted to build a course that focused on creativity and business.

My initial plan for these things was to build them as their own, new, unique brands on their own websites. And the only thing tying them all together would be me — the “Shawn Blanc brand” (whatever that is).

During each of my two aforementioned conversations, I asked my friends for their input about what my next steps should be.

I told them that: (a) I wanted to start a new community membership; and (b) I wanted to build a business course.

And then I asked for their candid feedback and input. Was I on the right track, what potential pitfalls did they see, what wild ideas did they have that I hadn’t even considered, etc?

I’ll share their feedback with you in just a moment.

But first, I wanted to share something from my new favorite book…

As you probably know, a couple weeks ago I rented a car, drove 4 hours to Tulsa, bought a new (to me) family car that I’d found on Craigslist, and drove it back.

For the road trip, I loaded up the audiobook version of Creativity Inc..

There is so much gold in this book.

One particular tidbit that stuck out to me from the chapter on Honesty and Candor.

People who take on complicated creative projects become lost at some point in the process. It is the nature of things — in order to create, you must internalize and almost become the project for a while, and that near-fusing with the project is an essential part of its emergence. But it is also confusing. Where once a movie’s writer/director had perspective, he or she loses it. Where once he or she could see a forest, now there are only trees. The details converge to obscure the whole, and that makes it difficult to move forward substantially in any one direction. The experience can be overwhelming.

If you’ve ever begun working a new project, learning a new skill, or the like, and you get into it and feel completely overwhelmed, lost, and confused — don’t freak out.

As Ed Catmull says, it is the nature of things.

How do you press through that feeling of overwhelm?

For one, you keep going. You keep showing up every day, making choices, and doing the work. With patience, you will find clarity.

Secondly, you need community. People who can give candid advice, encouragement, and feedback. People who will level with you and keep you accountable to your goals.

* * *

My friends didn’t know it, but I was desperate for their feedback.

While I was excited to begin working on my new projects, I was also feeling very overwhelmed, lost, and confused.

I was in need of candid feedback from friends who would level with me.

Here are some of the notes I took during the two conversations:

• A community needs a regular gathering point.
• A community needs a regular experience of simple value downloads, where you’re putting things in front of them and not requiring homework or burdens.
• Anchor the membership to The Focus Course. Because the Focus Course is my strongest brand right now, and it’s too early to move on to something else. There needs to be a broader range of both free and paid products around the course.
• Most podcasts get to a point where you have to either stop doing them or re-boot them.
• Spend your time on what makes money and where the people are. For me this means building out The Focus Course brand (that’s what’s making money) and starting a podcast (that’s where the people are).
• If you build your new courses under one brand (“Focus”), they’ll be much bigger. And if you want to move on you’ll have to stop building the “personal brand”.

The feedback from these conversations gave me so much clarity. I knew what to do.

I ended that day with several “Ah ha!” moments, and as a result, I felt confident about the next steps to take. I knew what to do and how to do it.

The candid feedback from someone who has a clear, outside perspective was incredibly valuable.

Something Ed Catmull says time and time again in his book is just how important community and candor are to doing our best creative work.

How many of us have that as a regular part of our creative life?

If you don’t have it, you need it. Because, as I wrote yesterday, social support is your single greatest asset.

My goal for all Focus Club members, is that they’ll get that opportunity.

Here are a few things we value in the Focus Club:

• Showing up every day.
• Giving yourself permission to stink.
• Having an action plan.
• Building meaningful relationships.
• Always being honest and sincere.
• Not taking ourselves too seriously.
• Trusting our gut.
• Taking risks.
• Leaving it all on the table.
• Having fun.

At least once a month, I want to make sure you have an “Ah ha!” moment of clarity or breakthrough. Perhaps it will come from a conversation in our members-only chat, or perhaps it will come from one of our monthly coaching calls.

(I also have more things in mind that I think will be pretty amazing, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself…)

And, on top of the moments of clarity, I want you to constantly have that feeling of “I can do this.”

So: Clarity and Momentum.

If there are two more powerful forces for showing up every day and doing your best creative work, I don’t know what they are.

We have opened the doors for Focus Club, and are accepting Pilot Members.

My question to you is: will you be joining us? I hope so!

You can learn more here.

I hope to see you inside.

— Shawn

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.

This coming Thursday, June 23, it will be exactly one-year since The Focus Course launched.

For those of you who have built and launched something, you know first hand just how much work goes in to it. Especially if you’re a perfectionist and need everything to be just right.

So yeah, building and launching the course was a massive amount of work. And what made things even harder is that, at virtually every step of the way, I had no idea what I was doing.

So many things about The Focus Course were new for me; I was hesitant and unsure about so many aspects. I wrestled with every decision about how to validate, market, price, build, and launch the course…

For each step, I was desperate for any help I could find.

Some of the places I found the most help were from friends and peers who had gone before me and shared the details of their experiences — including actual numbers.

I would like to pay that forward by doing an in-depth case study, sharing all that has happened behind-the-scenes with launching and building The Focus Course over the past year.

I’m going to share everything about the course launch

Over the next few weeks I’ll be posting a series of articles detailing all the stories, strategies, and takeaways I’ve learned during this past year.

• How much revenue the course made during its launch week, and how much it has made in the year since.
• Why I gutted my 17,000-word book and made an online course instead.
• My workflow and tools used for building the course.
• How I ran the pilot test group.
• My entire marketing and launch sequence.
• How I iterated on the course after launch.
• Why I offer a 60-day money-back guarantee.
• My approach to joint-venture launches and partnerships in a way that adds value to past and new members alike.
• How and why I re-invested money back into the course after it launched.
• All the software and services we now use to keep the course running day-to-day.
• What I would do the same and what I would do differently.

Like I said, I’m going to share everything.

I hope my experiences and the lessons I’ve learned can be of help to you.

(I’m also posting this information here for my future self. I have an all-new course in the works for this fall, and I plan to build and launch it very similarly to how I did The Focus Course last year.)

What questions do you have?

So, before we get started, I wanted to open up the floor for any questions from you guys.

Do you have a product you’re working on or that you’re already selling? Are you trying to build an audience? Just curious about something in particular?

If there is anything you would like to know about the launch of The Focus Course, just ask.

You can ping me on Twitter or send me an email with your questions.

I’ll try to answer as many of your questions as I can in the upcoming articles.

“Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business, is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things.”

That’s Robert Louis Stevenson.

I love that quote for two reasons. Not only is it good life advice, but it’s also a word of warning.

To be perpetually devoted to something does require perpetual neglect of many other things. This is one of the huge themes throughout The Focus Course: finding clarity about what to focus and also what to let alone. (In the words of David Allen, you can do anything, but you can’t do everything.)

Stevenson’s quote is also a cautionary one. Among the most common regrets of the dying is having worked too hard and, in turn, neglecting relationships, values, and even their own happiness.

May devotion to our business not be sustained by neglect of our health, relationships, values, and even our own happiness.

* * *

I’ve got an “all in” type of personality.

When I’m working on a project or an idea Iget very single minded. I focus in on that project and I can hardly think about anything else.

It’s why I spent an inordinate amount of time trying out clickey keyboards.

It’s why I took 10 days off of work to move my family into a new home.

And, since building a business is a project in an of itself, I discovered early on that because of my “all in” personality my business had the potential to take over every other area of my life.

I want my business to add to the quality of my life. Not only is it something I’m building with long-term goals in mind, but it’s also something I enjoy working on today — right now.

While I’m a firm believer in the importance of showing up every day to do the work, after so many hours worked in the day there is a point where time spent at work is pretty much just wasted time.

How pitiful and ironic would it be if our creative work took over our time and attention so much that it suffocated the creativity right out of us?

* * *

For the past few years on my birthday, I have been writing down a retrospective of sorts into my Day One journal.

I write down what highlights I remember from the past year, what projects and events I was proud of, what things I regret having done (or regret having not done), and more. I also write down what I want to do more of in the future.

Examples of things from the past year I’m glad I did:

• Building and launching The Focus Course
• Putting energy into building a thoughtful approach to content “marketing” and “strategy” through my email newsletter. (Something I plan to write much more about.)
• Taking a week-long vacation in Steamboat Springs with my wife to celebrate our 10-year anniversary.
• A last-minute trip to Atlanta to connect with a new friend.
• Attending and speaking at Circles Conference.
• Attending game 6 of the ALCS before the Royals went on to win the World Series.
• Reading more books

These are just a few things. And they remind me that the day-to-day minutia of running a business is necessary, but it’s not nearly as urgent as it often feels. And that I’m happiest when I’m on a memorable trip or event or else creating something of substance with a long-term shelf life.

Choosing something until it chooses you back

Last July, on my birthday, I wrote this in my Day One:

Life is almost entirely a series of small, nearly-inconsequential choices and moments. All the little things that I do (and don’t do) are what paint the picture of my life. If I want a different life, make a small change to sone thing and stick with it.

It’s a choice to live a life with healthy boundaries. It’s a choice to give our time and attention to the things that matter most.

And, probably the best way to learn how you best balance work and life is through trial and error.

Life will zig and zag. It will ebb and flow.

Something I can’t unpack right now is the idea that margin in your work schedule can actually give you the strength to take risks and have fun in the process.

Don’t let the boundaries between your work and family life be dictated by social expectations. Rather by authenticity to your goals, visions, and values.

P.S. The podcast interview I did with Havilah Cunnington was awesome. We discussed balancing family with creative entrepreneurship.

As I type this, I’m surrounded by cardboard boxes.

My desk is temporarily crammed here in the corner of the guest room.

The Monument Valley soundtrack is playing (as always), but this time it’s via my iMac’s not-so-great, built-in speakers.

You see, we just moved.

I feel like the above photo sums up my life pretty well right now: a bunch of stuff packed into a bin; mostly construction tools plus my Baron Fig notebook and trusty pen.

Here in my “office” (a.k.a. the guest room), I see boxes of kids toys and books we haven’t yet unpacked. There are all of our picture frames and paintings leaning against the wall. Even a couple of lamps sitting on the floor.

To my right: more boxes! Pretty much my entire office is in those boxes. Cables, podcasting gear, even the books I’m currently reading (or at least was reading before we packed them up two weeks ago).

And all this is after I spent the past 3 days ruthlessly unpacking what was in this room. It’s a miracle we’ve slimmed it down to just the 10 boxes here right now. (Whatever you do, don’t look in the garage.)

* * *

It was a little less than 12 weeks ago that my wife, Anna, and I first had a conversation about moving. Now, three months later, we’ve sold our old house, bought a new one, and are moved in (ish).

It was a sprint. But we also had incredible fortune along every step of the way…

The first day we went out looking for houses with our realtor, we found the home we wanted. A few days later we put in our offer, and, despite it being a seller’s market here in Kansas City we were able to buy our new home for less than market value.

To sell our old home, the only fixing up we had to do was refinish the hardwood floors. When we listed it, we got 3 offers the first day and sold it for asking price in less than 24 hours after putting it on the market.

Despite everything going so smoothly, the process itself of moving has still been incredibly time consuming.

I completely underestimated how much time it would take to move.

I also underestimated how many boxes we’d need, how much would be left over to pack up or throw away after we got the obvious stuff taken care of, and how much time it would take to unpack.

Friends warned me about all of that. And I thought I had a pretty good grasp on the scope of work. But I was wrong.

And, the way things landed, we closed on our new on April 4th. The very same day as the 5-year anniversary of when I began writing at shawnblanc.net full-time.

I had a series of articles I had written out for that week to share what I’d learned after 5 years of being an indie writer and running a small business.

But the events surrounding our closing completely took over my time.

Our scheduled closing on the new house was delayed by 72 hours.

And the delay in closing had a whole slew of challenges that came with it, and it ate up all the margin I had in my work schedule.

I had to choose to take some unexpected time off of work in order to focus on moving and being as present as I could with my family during the transition.

Though I had planned ahead for my writing schedule, I clearly didn’t plan ahead enough. I ended up not writing for 10 days in a row. Which is why it’s been silent here for so long.

My apologies for the extended period of silence.

This morning is the first time I’ve been able to sit down and write in almost two weeks time. It feels great to be writing again.

Now that we’re past the craziness and things are slowly returning to normal, so too will my writing and podcasting schedule.

This week I’ll be picking back up where I left of with my series about creativity and entrepreneurship. You can catch the first three articles here, here, and here. And the timing is actually pretty great — on Wednesday I’ll be sharing about work-life balance and always keeping family first. Something I literally just walked through.

* * *

Also, on the nerdy side, I’ll soon be posting an update to my Sweet Mac Setup. Right now we’re still in the middle of building out my office space here at the new house. Though it won’t quite be my dream workspace, it will certainly the best so far.

A few days ago I asked this question:

Is there a path to creative success?

As I’m sure you know, the answer is yes.

Now, the definition of success varies wildly. But I like to define creative success like this:

The ability to do creative work we’re proud of and to keep doing that work.

By that measure, most of you reading this are already creatively successful. You just might not know it yet.

If there is a path to creative success, what is it?

Here’s part of it: Consistency.

Choosing to show up ever day.

Choosing to do the hard and frightful work, day in and day out. Not waiting for permission. Not waiting for inspiration. Not waiting for a faster, fancier, more expensive gizmogadget.

Whatever it is you want to do with your art, you have to show up every day and make something. Failing to do this will be your single biggest roadblock to doing your best creative work.

As you know, I’ve been at this full-time writing racket for 5 years now. And still, day after day, for 5 years, one of the biggest challenges is to get my butt in the chair and write.

Once I’m here, typing, the second biggest challenge is to be honest.

Because — as I mentioned yesterday — when it comes to creativity and entrepreneurship, I consider the most important advice I to be this: focus on consistency and honesty.

Consistency and honesty are, I believe, the backbone for how you can make a living as a creative entrepreneur / artist.

Consistency is important for two reasons:

• First off, the internet thrives on patterns and regularity; showing up every day lets people know they can rely on you to be there. It also keeps things moving and is the “machine” you use to build your business assets and stock and flow content.

• Secondly, even if you’re a talentless dweeb like me, writing (or doing anything) every day will help you become better at that craft.

Honesty is important because it’s how you build trust with others. (Obviously.)

Do you want to earn the respect and long-term attention of your audience? Be honest. Always seek to provide at least 51% of the value between you and your readership.

Regardless of how you serve your audience, always give as much as possible. It’s not about you, it’s about them.

Do this and you’ll be signing up to play the long game. By building trust and providing “preeminent” value, you’re proving to folks that you’re the real deal and you have something to offer.

Five years ago, when I first announced that I was quitting my job to write here for a living, I asked people to sign up for a subscribing membership at $3/month.

400 of you signed up the first day.

As much as I like to think you signed up because my sales pitch was awesome and heart-felt, the truth is that it was awesome and heart-felt… No, seriously, those of you signed up for a membership back in 2011 did so because I’d been writing consistently on my site for several years. Over those years I built up trust you guys — with my readership — and so when I asked for your direct support, it was an easy decision for hundreds of you.

A few years later, when I launched The Focus Course, 600 of you signed up in that first week. And it wasn’t because The Focus Course has an awesome landing page (Though it certainly does. Thanks, Pat!). It’s because I’d been writing about focus for so long that you guys trusted the course was not just snake oil.

* * *

To sum this all up:

• People want to connect to the artist as much as (if not even more than) they want to connect to the art. That’s why a signed book is so much more valuable than the Kindle version; a live concert more memorable than listening to an album on iTunes.

• Consistency means relationship building. Remember from 1,000 True Fans? This is where you connect with your readership, audience, customers, and provide ongoing value to them.

• Consistency is also means doing the work every day. Never wait until you’re inspired to do the work because quantity leads to quality. (Which is a whole other topic we’ll dive into later.)

• Honesty means making the choice to be transparent and genuine. Have fun.

Showing up to do the work every day isn’t easy. And there’s more to it than just putting your butt in the chair and writing for an hour.

You’ve also got to think about how you’re spending your time and energy when you’re not in the chair. Up next, I’ll be sharing about keeping life in balance.

Quitting my job to blog for a living was so embarrassing.

It didn’t seem like a “real job”.

People would always ask me questions like: “So what exactly is it that you do?” And I never knew how to answer them.

(Actually, I still don’t know how to answer that question.)

It’s been five years now, and I’m so glad I took that dorky risk.

As I reflect on these past five years and share what I’ve learned, my default is to focus on the creativity aspect. I love talking about how to show up every day or how to build an audience of awesome and smart people. I want to dive in to to the topic of doing our best creative work.

But over these past five years I’ve also learned about bootstrapping and running a business. I’ve learn the ins and outs of starting and building a business through experience, trial, success, and error.

There is so much involved with being an independent creative entrepreneur.

For one, you have to have the creativity side. This includes:

• Finding own vision and voice for your creative work;
• Showing up every day to do that work;
• Being focused with your time and energy;
• Staying inspired;
• Having fun.

Creativity is critical. And, as we’ll get to another time, it’s so important to show up every day to do the hard, creative work.

But just as important as creativity is the entrepreneurial side…

• You’ve can’t be so romantic about making money that you never get around to earning a dollar.
• You have to be willing to take risks and experiment with new ideas.
• You have to get good at making money.
• You have to learn how to budget, project, save, invest, make a return, and live well beneath your means. Otherwise your business will never get the financial root system it needs in order to thrive.

Creativity and business chops. You need both.

Later this week I’ll be sure to share some of the things I’ve done over the past five years to make money. But first…

Knowing that both the creative aspect and the business aspect are so important, I want to dive into what’s I think is needed to write on the internet for a living.

(This could go for just about anything, really. Writing is what I know best, but this stuff goes for podcasts, newsletters, photography, etc.)

Basically, if I were brand new and starting out fresh… if I were giving advice to my past self… these would be the highlights of that conversation.

• Show up every day: I’m going to touch on this more, but showing up every day is vital. This is how you strengthen your own creative muscle, it’s how you improve your skills, and it’s also how you build your audience. (Recommended reading: Show Your Work.)

• Plan ahead: It took me years to figure this one out. You’ll do better work in less time with less stress if you know where you’re going. (Not sure how to have a plan for your creative work, The Focus Course will get you there.)

• Invest in mentorship, learning, and courses: Because you don’t have all the answers, you have blind spots, and you need someone to cheerlead for you and help you figure things out.

• Celebrate your progress: When you’re able to recognize that you’re making progress in your work, it helps you stay motivated. Also, journaling about your business and creative endeavors as you go through them today is an asset you can use in down the road as a sort of “advice to your future self”.

• Sell stuff: You get good at making money the same way you get good at anything else: practice. So, sell early and sell often. This will help you learn about pricing, sales, and providing value to others. It also helps you to get comfortable with charging money for the work you do. Something many of us aren’t naturally comfortable with.

• Automate / eliminate / delegate as much as possible: It seems everyone know says they waited too long before learning to delegate. This is a great way to break your broken workflow habits and free yourself up to spend your time better. And it’s not just for the sake of being more “productive” at work — it’s also so you can have more down time to rest, think, and be with friends and family.

• The tools you have are almost certainly good enough: This one applies to the nerds in the room. I’m an incessant tinkerer. While it’s fun to always be looking for the next best thing, it’s also a huge distraction. Maybe it’s my old age, but I’m far more content with the tools I have today that I ever have been. If it works well and helps me do what’s important, then I’m not going to try and replace it just for the sake of change.

• Always be honest and sincere: This is critical because the best way to build an audience is through trust. Being genuine and telling your story is how you build trust.

• Work hard, but don’t work nonstop: Easier said than done for many of us. The ideas and action items are never-ending. That’s why I schedule my time off and even plan ahead for how I’ll spend that down time. Otherwise my tendency is to work on just one more thing.

• Have an ideal reader / customer / client / fan: When I first began writing, there were two specific people who I wrote for. I would always gauge my articles and topics through their eyes, making sure I was writing something that would be interesting and helpful to them.

Now that I’m working on building The Focus Course website, we’ve spent a ton of time defining what our ideal customer looks like. We’re using surveys, personal emails and conversations, and more. It’s a much different approach than just guessing or making stuff up, and it means we’re actually able to help people with what’s most important to them.

• Take risks: Every time I’ve felt out on a ledge, not sure if something would work, it turned out pretty great in the end. This is not an advocation to be reckless, but it is permission to try something new.

• Trust your gut: I don’t know about you, but I spend a lot of time second guessing myself. I question if I’m doing things right; if I’m missing something; if I’m even making progress. Other people can give advice and input, but to do your best creative work you’ve got to follow the dream in your heart.

Not to go all Mr. Rogers here, but it’s true. If you’ve got an idea or a hunch that just won’t let go, then focus on it.

Which is why, if I had to boil it all down to what I consider to be the most important advice I have for creative entrepreneurship, it would be this: focus on consistency and honesty.

We’ll dive more into that one tomorrow.