I'm a designer who turned into a writer who turned into a startup CEO. My mission is to help creators earn a living. Subscribe for essays on building an audience and earning a living as a creator.
How to live a meaningful life
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Hey Reader, I started my career as a designer, so when I had the opportunity to sit down and interview Bill Burnett and Dave Evans for my podcast, it felt like meeting legends. Dave was the product manager for the original Apple mouse and was a cofounder of Electronic Arts. Bill worked at Apple for seven years on the team that pioneered the modern laptop. Getting to talk with them was really special for me. They took everything they learned designing products and applied it to designing your life. Their book, Designing Your Life, has sold over a million copies. It helped people figure out what to do with their careers and how to make decisions. But they started hearing something unexpected. People came back and said, “I did what you taught: I designed my life, I built the business, I achieved my goals, and… it's still not fulfilling.” That question led them to write How to Live a Meaningful Life, which just published today. Bill and Dave spent decades studying what makes life feel meaningful and they found that most people define meaning entirely through impact or the change they make on the world. But impact is temporary, and it's largely outside your control. Which sets you up to feel like you're always chasing something just out of reach. They’ve identified four categories of meaning that are within your reach:
The book shows you how to access each one in your life right now. After they joined me on the podcast, I kept thinking about one thing Bill said: When you're designing a product, you make it simple so people can actually use it. That's what they've done with the question of how to live a meaningful life. PODCASTHow To Partner With Anyone In 2026Julia Taylor, founder of GeekPack, went from the intelligence community to building a profitable company teaching tech and business skills to women. She has already empowered more than 100,000 women and is on a mission to reach one million by 2030. In this episode, we break down her embedded partnerships framework—the strategy driving most of her revenue through collaborations with brands like TikTok and Verizon. She also explains why she chose to shrink revenue to rebuild with positive margins and long-term impact. Here's what we cover:
Watch or listen to episode » WORKSHOP5 Steps to Legally Protect & Grow Your Online Business in 2026Sam Vander Wielen, who's been on my podcast and spoken at Craft + Commerce, is hosting a free live class on February 9th covering the key legal protections every online business needs this year. Sam has taught 150,000 online business owners how to make their businesses legally sound. She'll walk through five specific steps to protect yourself from challenging client situations, refund disputes, copycats, and more. The class is designed for online entrepreneurs who want to make sure their business is set up properly without getting overwhelmed by legal jargon. PODCASTLiving in a garage to building the $1B+ 'Savannah Bananas'Jesse Cole took over a college summer baseball team with 200 fans and $268 in the bank. Three months into their first Savannah season, they'd sold two tickets total. They ran out of money, sold their house, and moved into a garage. Now they have a multi-million person waitlist and 10X more followers than the New York Yankees. They're essentially the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball. Crazy story. Jesse's been a friend for years and I've enjoyed going to a hometown Bananas game back when there were just 5,000 people at a game! Have a great week! —Nathan |
Nathan Barry
I'm a designer who turned into a writer who turned into a startup CEO. My mission is to help creators earn a living. Subscribe for essays on building an audience and earning a living as a creator.
Hey Reader, If I say something dumb, I'm probably still replaying it in my head 11 years later. Just me? It’s an exhausting feeling. You're not really solving anything, you're just reliving the moment over and over. And when you're building a business, there's always something new to add to the pile. After a while, it gets hard to tell which things actually need your attention and which ones you've just been dragging around. Start by writing everything down. When a worry stays in your head,...
Hey Reader, Attending a conference is one of the highest-leverage things you can do as a creator. Three days in person will accelerate a relationship more than six months of talking online. The people you meet at events can often become your business partners, collaborators, and even some of your closest friends. But only if you know how to use the time. Here are my top 10 tips for getting the most out of conferences: 1. Choose the right conference Not every conference is worth your time. The...
Hey Reader, Every person I know who's built something remarkable is obsessed with speed. They don't get there by taking the safe, methodical approach. That's how middle managers think, not the people actually building things. Learning at a steady cadence and iterating thoughtfully sounds defensible. But the world is no longer moving slowly enough to justify that approach. Innovation is changing faster than methodical execution can keep up with. The gap between those who move fast and those...