First, Money
Several years ago, I talked to a person I really, really admired. They wanted to know about my consulting life and business.
“I made $120,000 this year,” I said, proudly.
“Wow,” the person responded. “I thought you made a whole lot more.”
😶
😶
😶
Later, when I recovered, I felt a lot of anger over the shame I felt over the comment. Who were they to define my success by my cash revenue??? Over the last 10 years, the consulting business helped me:
Dedicate more time to my art and craft
Travel, work on cool projects, and meet cool people
Keep me calmer and less stressed in my career
Pay off all my student loans
Buy a home
Pay for cancer treatment—during a global pandemic
If that wasn’t successful??? Then what is! And that’s when I realized the fallacy this person was working under. They thought I made “more.” But what does “more” actually mean?
$200,000
$300,000
$500,000
$1.6732 million
?????
When you’re running a business, it’s so so easy to look about and find people who are doing/making/being “more.” But what’s really key is defining what success means to you. It’s a simple thing to say, but hard to do.
Second, Product
I do digital product consulting, which means if you want to build a cool, useful, profitable digital product, we should talk!
In Product World, you always take apart a grand vision and try to build out the framework of its most important components. Here’s some examples:
Airbnb first tested out its business service by having people rent out their rooms to eventgoers. This validated that people would a) rent to strangers and b) stay in a stranger’s home.
Instagram originally started as a mobile check-in app called Burbn, but since people loved the photo sharing most, then stripped everything else away.
Before launching the product, Dropbox got a whole lotta signups to show people where interested just through an explainer video.
This technique is called Product-Market-Fit in that you are trying to de-risk the product build through iterative experiments that give you positive signals that you’re moving in the right direction.
That direction is generally predicated on two obvious things and a less obvious one:
Who you are trying to attract
What you are attracting them with
What you the Product Maker/Entrepreneur want to actually make
All this is to say, that businesses, industries, empires rise and fall on these things. There are many variables that affect them; and it’s very easy to try to gerryrig together what others’ are doing instead of keeping a clear eye and firm heart on those three things.
I work daily on making it happen.
Third, Art
The artist thinks differently. Or rather I should say, I as the Artist think differently. My art always starts with a seed—something that makes me go …. Hmmmmm… Interesting.
My art starts with me. It starts with my interests. It follows whatever I think is compelling. I can’t help it. But I also don’t want to help it. The art is a journey to expression. It helps me clarify how and why I think something, but also it transforms me as I go through the journey.
We’ve discussed how this is transformative for the artist but also the audience.
But one of the biggest issues I’ve always had as an artist is want to jump into “more.” If I make this thing, how will it rival the Mona Lisa? Harry Potter? The movie conception? FACEBOOK?!!!?!?!
I jump ahead, forgetting how everything is just one step forward toward three things:
What do I feel compelled to explore, make and express
How do I share that with others?
And in ways that transform them, too?
Four, What Does It All Mean???
I’m trying to do something here between business, product and art. And I’ve been paralyzed for a long time thinking about what the end product should be. But I’m trying to be the consultant to myself right now.
I’ll share some more in Pt 2.
Going to eat lunch now.
Nom nom
Looking forward to pt 2!