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.
Quantity leads to quality
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Hey Reader, Imagine you live a relaxed life in South France, you only have to work 2 hours per week, and half a million dollars is automatically deposited into your bank account every year. Sounds like a dream, right? Well for Lars, it’s not a dream. It’s his life! And it didn’t happen because of random chance. He intentionally engineered it. Lars Tiger is a classically trained jazz pianist who lost his passion after a long music career making hit pop songs when it became increasingly difficult to generate a stable income. But then, he figured out the secret to getting unstuck as an artist and solving perfectionism once and for all. This one mindset shift led him to producing an astonishing 25,000 tracks. Tracks that produce a significant amount of money for him on autopilot. The whole story is fascinating, and I’m excited to share it with you, because Lars actually flew all the way out to Boise to join me on my podcast to tell it. He hasn’t ever done a podcast like this before, so it’s a really inspiring story if you’re a creator who struggles with perfectionism. Whether you’re an artist, musician, or any type of creator, you’ll be inspired with some great ideas for generating passive income. Here it is: I’m a firm believer that quantity leads to quality, and Lars is the perfect, living example of this. In our episode, he shares how a lot of creators see quantity and quality as being at odds. If your taste is high, it’s easy to believe that quality is what matters and quantity is something you only focus on if you don’t have taste. But Lars flips this idea on its head. He points out a few things about the idea of 100% perfect:
A lot of people know me as the CEO of Kit—a software company making $45M+/yr. But I launched my career and became known as a creator by writing 1,000 words a day, every single day. I did this for 600 days in a row. Not all of those words were perfect, but when you write 600,000 words, those imperfect words will have an impact, and people are going to notice. But they’re only going to notice if you share what you make as you go—if you publish the imperfect and perfect words alike. Ask yourself: What’s keeping me from creating more? From sharing more? From doing imperfect work? Is it perfectionism? Is it fear of judgement? What are some ways you can remove those barriers? For example, if fear of judgement is holding you back, what if you made an anonymous account and shared your work as a faceless creator for a while? You could always merge that work back into your actual name later on. If you want to If you want to do quality work, you need quantity, You need to put in the reps. Publish your work, get feedback, and iterate as you go. Quantity leads to quality. Watch or listen to the episode with Lars here » PODCASTHow Your Business Can Make $1,000,000 From Partnerships (in 60 Days)Have you noticed how creators like Alex Hormozi and Amy Porterfield seem to always make millions with every launch? Today, I’m joined by Laura Sprinkle, the founder & CEO of Rootabl—an effortless affiliate tracking platform that helps you grow revenue, automate payouts, and reward your biggest fans. Having been responsible for $44M in partner-generated revenue, she’s an expert in affiliate marketing and knows exactly what goes into these big launches. We discuss:
Watch or listen to episode » VIDEOFix Your Bottlenecks: The Secret to ProductivityIn this quick, 5-minute video, Tiago Forte shares a powerful framework that will transform your personal workflows and skyrocket your productivity. It’s all based on a revolutionary philosophy originally shared by Israeli physicist, Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt, in the 1980s: Every system has one bottleneck or constraint that limits its performance. Tiago shares 5 simple steps that will radically improve any outcome. TV SHOWBlack Doves (Netflix)I’m really enjoying this British spy thriller series which stars the always-fantastic Kiera Knightley. Helen Webb is a politician's wife who leads a double life as a spy for a clandestine organization known as the Black Doves. I like that the show has fun with itself while still embracing its serious side. It’s an interesting look at what happens when work, loyalty, and family collide. 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 could solve only one thing in my business, that would have the biggest impact, what would that be? This is the question every great entrepreneur obsesses over. Rather than trying to do everything at once, you look for the bottleneck and focus on solving that. There’s a book called The Goal by an Israeli physicist named Eliyahu Goldratt. It’s a 1984 business novel that business systems nerds love. However if you’re not a business systems nerd you probably… won’t love it. It’s...
Hey Reader, Have you ever spent money on something and immediately felt guilty afterward? Will Guidara spends his money foolishly on purpose. And he thinks you should too. He once bought an entire barrel of whiskey and put it in his basement. He also put a skee-ball machine in the office. Is he going to get a monetary return on either of these things? No. But that’s kind of the point. He calls it the 95/5 rule: Manage your money and time like a maniac 95% of the time (no expense is too...
Hey Reader, Have you ever spent a whole day on something almost nobody saw? It's painful when the whole reason you worked hard was because you wanted to reach people. If you teach a workshop in person, you reach the 20 people in that room. But if you record that same workshop once, you can keep teaching for years on autopilot. This is the concept of leverage, and it's something I talk about in my upcoming book, The Ladders of Wealth (you can pre-order it now). A lot of people will look back...