Have you ever had half-formed, muddled thoughts fluttering around in your mind…

… and then sat down, started writing them out, and arrived at some clarity?

This is one of the fantastic powers of writing.

Writing helps us discover what we know, what we’re thinking, what we’re pretending to know, and what we may need to learn (or unlearn).

Thinking, language, and learning are woven together.

We use words to give shape to foggier things: a feeling, suspicion, intuition, a question, memory, a pattern.

Language is a magical process taking shapeless thinking and thoughts and transmuting them into words and sentences — with shape. Writing things out (or talking them out) is a critical process for discovering, uncovering and processing our thoughts.

We can think fast, but writing slows things down.

What fascinates me is how I write and think at the same time. Yet, the thinking is quieter, as the writing dominates. Of course, this varies depending on the type of writing I’m doing.

Thus, I vary the kinds of writing I engage in. From free writing (pen and paper) in a Learning Journal — keeping my hand moving. To the day-to-day writing I do as a consultant, faculty member, and writer.

In writing, we are constantly dancing in an in-between space. In between what we know, don’t know, what we suspect or assume, what we might be pretending to know, what we’d like to learn, or maybe ignore, and so on.

But, in recent years, something is changing this — Quickly!

The Flood of Cheap Expression

With AI tools and platforms, almost anyone can “write” something and even sound somewhat competent. But there is a difference between writing your way toward clarity and prompting a prediction machine to produce fluent language.

I am not anti-AI, nor pro-AI. I use it daily.

I have paid for ChatGPT for years and use AI across research, strategy, teaching, editing, planning, analysis, and more. In some areas of my work, it has been genuinely transformative. However, writing, or more precisely, “content production”, is where I am much more cautious and skeptical.

I was an early adopter and still a daily AI user. AI-generated writing is easy to spot. Social media is full of it. Newsletters, too. Websites, bios, course pages, comments, discussion posts, and “thought leadership” pieces are now generic-sounding, same-same.

I estimate that about 70%+ of assignments submitted to the university-level Communications course I teach online are now cut-and-paste AI or deeply influenced by it.

It’s a Sea of Sameness.

AI Fatigue

I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn: on my profile, for Box Cutter Co., for D. Loewen Strategy Co., for Humanity Academy, and for a nonprofit client whose page I helped grow from zero to nearly 4,500 followers in just over two years.

I am on the feed at least 5x per week, often more. LinkedIn has been beneficial to my business of one.

And, over the past year, I noticed things shifting. My feed is clogged with AI-generated posts, promoted content, and formulaic bumpf. I rarely scroll beyond the first few posts without much personal interest.

This has become the case across most platforms… Substack, Medium, and so on. When everyone can produce some level of fluent expression… expression carries less weight.

It’s simply predictive word combos… and predictable to read.

So, I choose not to read most of it, and I’m seeing similar sentiments from many — especially those who have been at the game for a bit. For me, it’s now over 4 years. Lately, I’ve been thinking more deeply about this, more below.

Power and Prediction

This past week, I grabbed this book off our bookshelf Power and Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence.

It’s by Canadian researchers Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, and Avi Goldfarb, and I bought it near its publication date in 2022. It’s a follow-up to their 2018 book Prediction Machines.

One of their core messages is inherent in the title of both books — that advances in AI technology are improvements in prediction. AI does not make decisions; it simply provides inputs for human decision-making, they suggest.

For example, consider all the headlines about “AI taking jobs.” No, AI does not take jobs — humans still make those decisions.

Early in their book, they share a parable of three types of historical entrepreneurs, and look back to the technological transition from steam engines to electricity:

1. The Point Solution Entrepreneur

2. The Application Solution Entrepreneur

3. The Systems Solution Entrepreneur

1. The Point Source entrepreneurs focused on electricity as a new source of power, on the same sites using steam (e.g., steam-powered mills and clothing and textile manufacturers). The focus for these entrepreneurs was on providing cheaper energy by switching to a different energy source.

2. Application Solution entrepreneurs realized there were big opportunities in using electric-driven motors in individual devices, as opposed to the everything-attached to a central steam-driven apparatus in factories of the time.

   
   This meant tools could now be moved around. Rather than bringing the work to the machine… the machine could be taken to the work. But the limitation was that new tools needed to be designed to house the individual electric motor.

3. A Systems Solution entrepreneur looks beyond the status quo (e.g. cramped factories built around centralized single-point steam power). In a steam-powered plant, work and materials needed to move back and forth to the centre, where steam-driven tools were located. With electricity, all norms changed.
   
   A good systems-thinker looks beyond norms and considers what’s possible if one were to build from scratch, focusing only on the new technology (e.g., electricity). This is where Henry Ford invented the assembly line, resulting in the Model T car. It would not have been possible with steam power.

Let’s take a look at these 3 in AI economies.

Point Solutions in “The Creator Economy”

The proliferation of AI across economies and easy consumer access has resulted in all sorts of Point Solution Entrepreneurs and opportunities. Similar to early ‘point solutions’ in the transition from steam to electricity, these opportunities focus on ‘saving costs’ (often translated to time savings).

In ‘The Creator Economy’, AI tools enable anyone to produce ‘content’ at scale. Plug in a prompt, and out comes a week of posts. And for those that buy into the common Creator Economy mantra, “just be consistent.”

— Presto! magic bullet.

Anyone can post consistently (without asking, “what’s the point of this…?”)

Add to this, platforms like LinkedIn have a little button: “Rewrite with AI.” Presto! … one more point solution. Point solutions generally mean faster, cheaper and sometimes, but not always, better.

Application Solutions in “The Creator Economy”

The Application Solutions are precisely that… the wide range of AI Applications available. Some of these are tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity (all tools I use).

Or, for some entrepreneurs, this has included designing AI application tools such as prompts and templates. I think of the bigger creator-types like and who have their “Write with AI “ newsletter here on Substack.

Or, , who’s been working to develop an AI note-taking/creator app (was Kortex, now called Eden).

Some of this is useful. But much of this is attached to the early ‘creator economy’ as the frame:

• produce content

• grow audience

• sell products

• repeat

AI makes ‘the machines’ and ‘tools’ faster, more efficient — sort of like the electrical tools that began transforming the steam engine era. However, these still don’t get at the systems transformation.

System Solutions in “The Creator Economy”?

Is there a Henry Ford-like Systems Solution Entrepreneur in The Creator Economy, yet? Maybe, MrBeast? I’m not so sure.

He didn’t simply make better videos. He studied a specific platform’s incentives: retention, thumbnails, titles, pacing, spectacle, reinvestment, and scale. Then he built a billion dollar+ company around those conditions. That is closer to systems-level thinking.

A point-solution creator entrepreneur asks: “How do I make better content?”

An application-solution creator entrepreneur asks: “How do I build a better content workflow?” Or, “How do I build a better [enter thingee here]?”

Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast) probably asked something closer to: “What kind of media company becomes possible when YouTube is the environment?” But I’m not sure this is a Henry Ford-like transformation.

Thinking more about this… I don’t think we have the answer to the Systems Application Entrepreneur yet. Most AI use in “The Creator Economy” appears to be point- or application-focused: faster posts, better workflows, more content, automated production, etc.

The full systems-level shift resulting from AI may still be ahead (at least in the creative realm).

Which circles me back to where I land in this pondering, bringing me back to creativity and writing.

Writing is a process of forming thoughts into words, into language, into sentences. Writing is a way to discover what we mean — before we ask a machine to make it sound better.

This means writing starts with Self (more on this below)

The Self Expressing Itself in Systems

In my and our communication teaching and training work, we work from a systems view of interpersonal communication.

At the heart of this, all communication begins with Self — at the centre of the image below (used in a recent full-day training for trades leaders). This is where interpersonal communication begins, as well as intrapersonal communication (our internal communication).

Around each Self are:

• Others (family, friends, peers, colleagues, etc.)

• Systems (schooling, justice, marriage, etc.)

• Structures (citizenship, constitutions, official languages, etc.)

Wrapped around all of these is Time & History. Things change over time. For example, think of changing definitions of marriage. Changing nature of citizenship and official languages. And, so on.

Cutting across all of these are the common components of communication: language (verbal and body), messages (verbal, print, etc.), listening, emotion(s), context(s), environment(s), and conflict.

Every message comes from somewhere. So does every post, newsletter, offer, course, bio, public identity, and creative business.

Who is Expressing their Self?

ChatGPT was released in 2022, the same year I walked away from an employee life and became CEO of my time and energy. I’ve been a near-daily user of ChatGPT since its release. Over those almost 4 years of using AI while also building creative businesses, I’ve consistently returned to what AI cannot do.

Something along the lines of: Who is the Self behind the expressing?

When I rely on AI to write things, I have a hard time seeing myself in the writing. Even trying to ‘train’ AI on my style has produced similar results. Formulaic phrasing. Predictive.

Which… shouldn’t be surprising… that’s what it’s designed to do!

No matter how much information is fed to an AI application, it doesn’t know what shaped me (e.g. family, friends, schooling, languages, etc.). It can’t assume what I assume. Can’t fear what I fear — or even feel or perceive fear.

AI Does Not Perceive, Conceive, or Believe

AI can’t understand what I may be reacting to or against. What I believe, and why. What, where, and why I’ve lived in certain ways.

AI does not have a Self. It doesn’t discern or have tastes.

Relying on it for creating something unique is dangerous, if not pointless. The long-term costs of borrowed language are not bad writing. It’s distance from Self.

You can become fluent in a language that is not yours. You can build a public voice from phrases that travel well but reveal little. And with AI, anyone can produce and publish more while knowing less about what they actually mean.

AI will keep making expression cheaper — but with whose meaning?

The question is whether we will still do the slower work that gives expression weight.

Before asking AI to write, revise, polish, or publish, it may be worth asking:

• What am I avoiding?

• What am I borrowing?

• Where did this idea come from?

• What part of this have I actually lived?

• What do I believe enough to stand behind?

• What would I say without trying to sound impressive?

• What does this expression reveal about the Self behind it?

These are not soft, simple questions. Writing some answers out, helps.

These are questions about creativity. Questions about communication. Human questions. And, questions of Self.

This is why I keep returning to Learning Journals, reflective practice, and a systems view of communication. They help me stay in contact with the orginal source of my work.

My Self. (Not a borrowed or cheap expression of it)

How about you?

Most people wait for clarity before doing something creative.

But that’s backwards.

Most creative work begins smaller than you expect, like:

• A note

• A question

• A few lines

• A reflection

• A rough sketch

This sits behind the just launched Box Cutter Co. “100-Day Creative Invitation Challenge.”

Oh yes, groaners and eye-rollers, I hear ya, I see ya.

This is not some productivity or publicity challenge. It’s just a small, simple invitation for a little daily creativity. One a day (or more) for 100 days.

I’m challenging myself, and you’re welcome to join, or watch, or say “get stuffed, that’s stupid…”

Building a Creative Enterprise Bit by Bit

Box Cutter Co. is a creative enterprise where I explore thinking, writing, creativity, and practices that help people (including me) build a more intentional creative life.

Maybe even a creative business (or two).

A lot of people have hang-ups about creativity.

“I’m not creative.”

…is one of the most commonly uttered phrases about creativity.

And, it’s bullshit.

You don’t need to begin with a masterpiece in mind. You often only need a small, simple practice you can return to. Something that still works on ordinary days, distracted days, low-energy days.

If you’ve played sports, you know what it means to “return to basics” — even the pros do it. Whether it’s hockey, baseball, basketball, football, soccer, or otherwise… back to basics is critical.

That’s also the point of the Box Cutter Co. 👉 100-day Creative Invitation Challenge.

Back to basics. Something simple, each day. Share it.

For me, it’s usually writing

Writing is private.

Publishing makes it public.

And, creative practice thrives within both.

Private creative work helps you hear and learn about yourself, like:

• Why do I think this way?

• Where did I learn this?

• How can I change it?

Public creative work helps your thinking take shape and form in the world.

My central tool for supporting this is a “Learning Journal” Its a simple way to turn thinking into language, and language into creative artifacts. And artifacts into a larger creation.

It gives you somewhere to notice, reflect, question, and work through your thinking on paper. A lot of what I publish starts there. For example, here’s an image of my Learning Journal from the other day, as I pondered the idea for this challenge.

If you’d like to learn more about Learning Journals, I’ve unlocked some of the issues in the “Learning Journals” section here on Box Cutter Co.

Box Cutter Co. now has over 200 published issues.

On Medium, I recently hit 400 published stories. (All of this in just over 3 years.)

This isn’t intended as a ‘look at me, look at me’ stat. It’s more a demonstration of an active commitment to intentional acts of creativity (and sharing).

These issues and articles are essentially my public Learning Journals. It’s where my thoughts take shape and form — and get exposed to other folks (like you).

Almost all of what I post online is a kind of public Learning Journal. My idea labs. And this matters — because the act of sharing shifts the stakes.

• It requires some courage.

• Creates more accountability (to oneself and others)

• And, turns expression and creation into a relationship.

You move from simply having a thought to shaping something another person can encounter. This is how creative practices become steady life practices.

So this challenge is simple

100 days

One creative artifact published per day

• Create some-thing

• Publish some-thing

• Keep going

Not because every creative act needs to be profound, or huge, or glamorous. And, you definitely don’t need permission.

It’s because daily practice builds momentum, trust, and a stronger relationship with your creative process (and ultimately with your Self).

Some days, the artifact may be tiny.

• A paragraph

• A sketch

• A note

• A post

• A question

• A reflection

• A useful idea made visible

That’s enough.

The goal is not perfection. The goal is steadiness, habit-forming, and intention-laced. Continuity.

• One day at a time.

• One published artifact at a time.

• One more way to bring something authentic into the world.

This is not a productivity stunt. Definitely, not a content treadmill.

Just a light, simple invitation to steady creative practice — and sharing it.

Where to Share?

I’m sharing something creative every day on the Box Cutter Co. LinkedIn page. And, I will also post here on my Substack Notes page. Feel free to respond to these with your creative artifact, or just do it on your own, and tag me (or not).

I’ll also be sharing some insights, reflections and fun engagements in future Box Cutter Co. issues, as well as in the Box Cutter Co. Publication on Medium.

What are you creating today?

This week, I read newsletters from two high-performing creators who admitted what most in “The Creator Economy” hide. The emotional toll, impacts and weight of consistently writing, creating, publishing, etc.

Both and shared (in their own ways) that it hurts when you keep posting, and things don’t seem to work. It can feel personal when posts, articles or new products just don’t seem to land well.

It’s an important issue, as so much bumpf in The Creator Economy sells clean, neat stories— just publish, be consistent, grow, monetize. Simple. Lickety-split!

Meanwhile, the emotional costs and investments are edited out, or simply not talked about… because they can be messy, unsettling, uncomfortable.

[Note: This is an issue for paid subscribers, but it has a decent preview]

599 Published Articles Later (The Art of Life in Transition)

In a few weeks, it will be four years since I walked away from a well-paying career in the corporate public sector.

With no financial safety net, no contracts lined up, a mortgage, 3 teens, and some student loan debts, I jumped ship.

• Simple goal… become CEO of my time and energy.

• Simple strategy… deep, soul-based intention and powerful Anti-vision.

My anti-vision was, and still is: refusing (by all means possible) to never return to toxic workplaces and troubled systems and structures (e.g. for me, it was a decade-plus of higher ed and healthcare admin.)

I figured with a doctorate in Education, an eclectic career history, plus a consulting history prior to getting married, having kids, double-blending a family, buying a home, etc. — that this would be figure-out-able.

And it has been and continues to be.

Between Medium (399 published stories) and Substack (200 published articles), I’ve published 599+ articles in just over three years. (I started on both in late 2022).

So, what?

My business is writing, and writing is my business.

Over the past few years, through my writing, I’ve helped nonprofits raise millions of dollars for important and valuable projects. I have written, and continue to write, various courses - from university through micro-credit courses, through courses for our little startup .

Over the past 4 years, I’ve built a steady consulting business and writing practice (mainly in the B2B space) that generates revenue well beyond what I used to earn in the corporate public sector. I’ve also assisted organizations in writing regular LinkedIn posts and building large followings.

The 599+ articles I’ve written and published across platforms contribute little to the $ amount on my business's bottom line. (For now).

But initially, that’s not how I saw it playing out…

Unrealistic Expectations at Launch…

As I set out in late 2023 and early 2024, I was sucked into the shallow promises of online and digital writing gurus. The lines that start with something like:

And we’ve all seen the posts.

• “Just show up…

• “Just be consistent…”

• “Just niche down…”

• “Just know your audience…”

And so on, and so on.

Early on, I followed some of this advice and got caught up in the ‘hoping.’ And obsessing over the metrics. And trying to figure out ‘my niche.’ And trying to figure out who my audience is.

It’s not to say that these aren’t necessarily important things to consider…

But, what is frequently missed in this work is what do you do — inside of you — when things don’t go the way you’d like them to… or that the gurus suggest they will… or that you’ve created unrealistic expectations about in your head?

• When you’re “doing everything ‘right’ ” but the traction is just not coming. Or, when the revenue simply doesn’t add up to what’s needed (or was dreamed of)?

• When you look at your Medium earnings, and it’s only enough to buy a coffee, but you’ve been “consistent” and published 25 articles that month?

• When you’re over the moon at your first paid subscriber on Substack, and have visions of getting 100 more in the coming months, but you only get 1 more (and then they unsubscribe just as fast)?

• When you do your ‘market research’ on a product, you get all sorts of positive comments about developing a particular one, then you build it, launch it, and 3 people pay for it over the next 3 months…?

I’ve lived all of those. How about you?

And, So… Now, what?

Life is always, always in transition. Change is a permanent condition.

And, so… my approach, goals, and maybe most importantly… expectations have shifted (and continue to). Some might call this ‘mindset.’

For example, this past year on Substack, my “growth” has been minuscule, with about 25 net-new subscribers. Things rocketed in the first and second year, then fully plateaued for the last 14 months or so (even gone down a little)👇

I’m grateful for paid subscribers, and have been up as high as 8.

And when it comes to total “Followers” on Substack, the number is over double but has plateaued this past year. I post semi-regular ‘Notes,’ but they regularly get next to no views or engagement.

I’ve noticed my ‘open rate’ has faltered in recent months as well. It used to be regularly around 50%, then around 40%, and now some are even closer to 30% open rates. (Yet, not bad engagement on the ‘like’ side of things).

What are my feelings about this? (Panic!… Not at all)

It’s shrug… 🤷‍♂️ … Oh well…

My intentions for writing and publishing regularly (on Substack, Medium, LinkedIn, and beyond) are not to amass subscribers, paid subscribers, followers, or high engagement and open rates.

I find far more satisfaction, purpose, and meaning in the periodic comments or notes I get from someone thanking me for a post and sharing how much they enjoyed reading it.

Or, how it’s shifted their approach to things. Or, they ask questions.

This 👆 is far more connected to 1) why I write, and 2) why I publish regularly, which leads me to the 5 Unsettling lessons I’ve amassed while writing daily, and publishing regularly.

These aren’t “how to grow your subscribers” tips. They’re the internal lessons that have only shown up because I keep writing and publishing even when the numbers aren’t “rewarding” me. These have been unsettling.

But, first, an important distinction…

Writing and Publishing are not the Same Thing

Related, but different. Part of a Both/And way of thinking.

Writing is private.

It’s what I do when I’m trying to figure out what I know, what I think, what I feel, and what I’m willing to claim. It’s sometimes messy. It’s where half-formed ideas become sentences I can actually look at, think about, analyze.

Writing is the alchemy-like process where thoughts are transmuted into words — into language. Sort of like how an octopus transmutes touch into taste (through its tentacles).

I write nearly daily in a “Learning Journal.” Pen and paper. Transmuting thoughts into words. I often start writing with “I’m thinking about…”

Publishing is different.

Publishing means making words and sentences public. It adds heat and friction. Other minds can engage the work. Sometimes it lands, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it comes back with a flaw I didn’t see. Or, simply comes back from a different perspective, angle, or viewpoint.

I don’t see my thinking and knowing as permanent conditions. They are fluid and flexible. Publishing writing is like speaking out loud with someone else. A conversation, or better yet, a dialogue.

And, this is where the Both/And thinking lives…

Read more

If you could know — right now — precisely when you die, would you want to know?

Most people say no. Generally, well under 5% say yes.

It’s an odd contradiction when compared to how much time many of us spend our lives chasing certainty.

We treat Not-Knowing as a flaw. “Ignorance” is often considered very negative. When, by definition, it simply means “not-knowing.” Reality is… we are far more ignorant than we are knowledgeable.

Still, many of us “research” things to death. Squeeze the future into supposed “plans,” numbers, and five-year visions. Relentlessly scan the Internet for the secret sauce, the special template, the trick or tactic to rule them all.

Yet when you offer real certainty—such as the date and time of death—people decline.

So… maybe the problem isn’t uncertainty?

👉 Maybe the problems are the feelings uncertainty creates.

For most, these feelings connected to uncertainty are familiar: tight chest, busy mind, an urge to settle things. The push to find “the answer”, lock the plan, calm the nerves, control the story.

These feelings, for example, come when asking someone on a date, asking someone if they want to marry you, asking a boss for a raise, and so on.

Uncertainty is a powerful instigator of emotions and feelings.

And… if you can get a handle on these feelings and emotions—without running, numbing, or faking certainty—you can do so many things that cause other people to stall, turn in the other direction, quit, walk away, never start or try, and so on.

This is about your relationship with Not-knowing — with Uncertainty.

And this relationship takes different shapes at different times and in different contexts, and varies greatly between people, even those in the midst of the same event.

The “Uncertainty” Trap

A common trap is thinking uncertainty is only one thing, but it actually takes many forms. If you can’t tell them apart, you’re in danger of utilizing the incorrect response. Here are at least four:

1. Chance is randomness. Life has built-in unpredictability. Even the fact that you or I are here, alive, writing and reading this—is a subset of countless chance occurrences over millennia.

2. Ignorance is missing information. You don’t know yet, or we don’t know yet. Maybe an answer exists, we just don’t have it. Or, maybe what we’re uncertain about is so far beyond human comprehension — like, what will Artificial Intelligence look like in 5 years?

3. Risk is uncertainty you can estimate. You can map a few outcomes and see downsides. However, it’s still an estimate and dependent on so many factors, including many unknowns.

4. Luck is when chance lands on you in a meaningful way because timing and context make it matter. It’s rare to hear a successful online creator suggest their success may be largely based on Luck (combined with chance).

Most people overuse one move for all four. For example, they keep researching something that was actually just chance.

They avoid learning things that might reduce ignorance — or try to learn as much as possible about something that is simply unknown and uncertain (like… AI evolution).

They treat risk as certainty, meaning they confuse an estimate with a guarantee. Or, forgetting every estimate sits on assumptions, and assumptions can be wrong. (Don’t need to look much further than weather forecasts)

Many turn luck into a story about their own worth, either positively or negatively. For example, buying into some online creators’ strategy for building an audience and revenues, and then when it doesn’t work, shitting on themselves for failing.

When, in fact, the advice came from someone who simply got lucky — but sells a story that it was pure skill, strategy, and implementation. (Look around Substack or any other social media platform — they’re full of these).

Smart people get stuck in forms of uncertainty. And here’s the deeper reason they get stuck.

Your Brain Hates Uncertainty

In uncertainty, your mind tries to protect you from discomfort — So it cheats.

It scans for threats (especially in your memory, which is fallible). It imagines losses and creates strong storylines around them. It overweights the worst-case scenario. It grabs at “clarity” the way a drowning person grabs a floating branch.

All of these are even more amplified if we’re lacking in sleep, haven’t eaten, are under duress, feeling unsafe, and so on.

This is why uncertainty often feels like danger even when nothing bad is happening. And it’s why so much “planning” is simply emotion-management in disguise.

The challenging mental work (mindset-work) is learning to stand in feelings of uncertainty long enough to choose well. Even, leaning into it. Which leads to a Box Cutter Co. idea that many might overlook.

How *Not* to Create Something New

You can’t create much new from inside what you already know.

If you want originality, you don’t get it by repeating what already worked. It comes from leaning into edges where there’s no model, or template, or script, yet.

But!… certainty is seductive. Certainty keeps us inside our box. Certainty keeps you copying. Certainty keeps you “safe” (or at least perceptions of safety).

For example, consider the difference between people’s fears of flying as compared to driving in a car. Far more people are deathly afraid of flying than driving. And, yet.. driving in a vehicle — by the stats — is far more dangerous.

A larger life requires an extended box. And that expansion happens at the edges — by pushing the margins. If we want to create a larger life (or, even different), then we must expand the size of our individual boxes… get to the edges, then lean beyond them.

That “lean” is where uncertainty rages. For anyone who skis, or mountain bikes, or sky dives… It’s those moments when gravity becomes a mighty force.

Or similarly, paddling into a building wave — surfing or paddle boarding or kayaking.

Curiosity gets you to the edge and plays a big part in acknowledging what you don’t know. Persistence keeps you steady while you learn, as well as unlearn. Grit plays a part.

But, for almost everyone, Uncertainty doesn’t go away. It’s your relationship to it that can change.

Curiosity Is How To Get Out Of Your Box

Fear says: What if this goes wrong?

Curiosity asks: What’s actually here? What’s true? What’s accurate? What’s possible? What can I learn?

Curiosity doesn’t remove risk. It simply stops our minds from shrinking the world down to threat-only thinking. It gives options, which matters even more now because the digital world is a certainty machine. It pumps out clean stories, clean frameworks, clean timelines.

And those stories come with hidden biases.

Survivor bias and the internet’s success stories

Online, you mostly see the winners.

You see the creator who “figured it out.” The business that “cracked the code.” The person who “quit their job and never looked back.”

You rarely see the thousands of attempts that didn’t work. You rarely see the offers that didn’t sell, posts that went nowhere, projects that ran out of steam, the businesses that didn’t survive (which most new ones don’t).

That’s survivorship bias: learning only from survivors and mistaking their path as the only path. This pushes people toward copying — and toward certainty. It pushes people toward “just follow my 6 steps” (for $99.99).

It also makes you uncertainty feel like a personal problem — when it’s often just part of reality. Reality, life, the universe… is … uncertain.

If you want a life that’s actually yours, you can’t learn only from the highlight reel (and social media and platforms like this are full of them). You have to learn from misses, mishaps, failures, and near-misses, too.

Or, from the folks who have been publishing online for 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, or more. And yet, keeping their day job (or night job). This is where meaningful education lies, leading to something simple… 👇

Meet the moment, then the next, then the next

The only real control we have is how we respond to what’s happening in the current moment.

Uncertainty triggers sensation. Sensation triggers emotion. Emotion triggers story. Story pushes you toward reaction.

Your advantage is the pause.

A breath. A beat. A moment of choice before your mind runs the old program.

This holds on a mountain bike when you’re on a tight downhill trail. It holds on a steep ski run as speed increases.

It holds when you’re about to press publish on something that might flop.

Often, the only certainty is this: you have to make a move. Not the perfect move — just the next move.

And you don’t build a creative enterprise by avoiding that moment. You build it by meeting it over and over and over. One decision. One post. One offer. One conversation. One turn. Then the next one…

4 Box Cutter Co. Principles For Living With Not-Knowing

These don’t remove uncertainty — they can simply improve your relationship with it.

1. Enough-ness

Enough-ness prevents uncertainty from eating you alive. You decide what “enough” effort, time, exposure, and income looks like. You stop outsourcing your standards to gurus, parents, teachers, or status games.

2. Figure-out-able

Figure-out-able keeps you moving with your intention — without pretending. You treat life as learnable and unlearnable. You don’t demand guarantees. You stay responsive. You adjust as reality gives feedback. In almost any work I’ve done over the past decades, my mantra with teams is “Stay fluid and flexible…”

3. Thinking about Thinking

This keeps you from believing every story your nervous system invents. It helps you catch the mental tricks: worst-case spirals, comparison envy, fake certainty, “I’ll do it when…”

4. Write to Learn and Unlearn

Writing turns your thoughts into language. And, vice versa, when you read others’ words, it creates thoughts. By writing these out — especially free-writing — but also public writing— You learn what you actually think (and why). You unlearn borrowed voices telling you safety is the goal. You surface assumptions (yours’ and others’). You see patterns. You see what fear is protecting and what curiosity can unleash.

Capability, possibility and intentionality all grow in these principles. These do not grow in certainty, or certain times, or waiting for a clear answer before making the first move.

A Better Ending Than Certainty?

Whether we come to the edge of uncertainty through inspiration or desperation, the principles generally remain the same. Some people arrive because they want more (or different). Some arrive because the old plan collapsed—job loss, a marriage ending, a death, a health scare.

Same edge. Similar fogs of uncertainty. Same feelings to work through.

The invitation is simple: stop treating feelings of fear as stop signs. Try to treat it as a signal you’re nearing the edges of something alive — intentional. Extending your box —maybe even cutting out of old ones.

If you can handle these feelings of uncertainty—without running, numbing, or faking certainty—you can build almost anything worth building. Approach it with curiosity (like a bird watcher), with fluidity and flexibility, and with the intention of learning (and unlearning) — and, in this, the process (and the products) can become immensely satisfying.

Or, simply open a whole new set of questions, uncertainties and new things to explore and try. Beware of those toxic partners: certainty and seeking perfection.

A little over 3 years ago, I started Box Cutter Co. Almost 4 years ago, I walked away (cold turkey) from a decade-plus career in the corporate public sector. As I left behind a six-figure salary and good benefits, I had no grand plan. No financial safety net. No clients lined up.

And yet, we had 3 kids all in their teens. We had a mortgage, student loan debts, vehicle payments, and so on. All I knew — we knew — was that it was time for big changes.

On one of our regular walks one afternoon, my wife said this below:

It still sticks in my mind today, years later.

In the meantime, we have built up Soulpreneur enterprises now fuelling revenues (and incomes) beyond what we used to make as employees.

I walked away from corporate employment in April 2022 with a sole focus on becoming CEO of my time and energy. Lisa launched her own counselling practice a year later. We’re both now as ‘busy’ as we need to be, and could be much, much busier if we so chose… but we don’t.

Our decisions and choices are driven by what we value (and prioritize) in our lives, including creativity, connection, solitude, movement, travel, and being available for our kids. Two of whom are now moved out and in the early stages of adulthood. The third is not far off from that.

The creative aspects of our lives (and business enterprises) engage The Creator Economy. We create, write, and publish (ship) weekly. In 2023, we launched a creative social enterprise called Humanity Academy.

Our work focuses on practical, usable, and accessible education and learning, with a focus on the various emotional literacy gaps left unfilled by the education system.

We also publish regularly on LinkedIn, Medium, here on Substack, and various other social media platforms.

But this is not a post about how we entered the less than 4% of over 50 million creators worldwide who make more than $100,000 per year — and are considered “professionals.”

Are You Hoping to Become Part of the 4% Deemed “Professional Creators”?

In 2023, global banking giant Goldman Sachs released a report focused on The Creator Economy. They forecast huge growth in the sector, with total value reaching half a billion dollars by next year (2027).

The report (link above) suggests: “Individual people with their own brands and online audiences have emerged as one of the biggest developments of the digital age.”

However, they also point out: “Only about 4% of global creators are deemed professionals, meaning they pull in more than $100,000 a year.” They forecast this percentage won’t change in the years ahead.

This, despite the flood of posts, Substack issues, newsletters, articles, and courses (most now AI-slop) promising you how to grow your audience, increase your subscribers, go viral, and then selling you $99.99 courses to create your ‘personal brand.’

For those that make it into the ‘professional’ bracket, good on you (if that’s what you want to be doing).

The Number One Creative Solopreneur Problem

This is my 200th published article on Box Cutter Co. In a little over 3 years, I’ve steadily written and published here almost weekly, with occasional slowdowns. On Medium, I’m approaching my 400th published article in 3 years.

In that time, I have seen vastly more people leave ‘The Creator Economy’ than remain active. Of the people I’m connected with, watch, follow, and keep an eye on, I have seen the majority ‘pivot’, switch niches, get frustrated, leave for awhile and come back — and so on.

For many, my subscriber count, given the time and effort invested, may be considered low, a waste of time, “failure.” In fact, this year alone, I’ve only grown by about 30 subscribers. Only 10 since June of 2025. 😱

Sure, I published less between June and December 2025; however, in 2024, I sometimes had 30 new subscribers in a month.

Like so many new entrants into “The Creator Economy” — or at least those who want to earn a living from their writing and creative services — these sorts of stats push most out of these endeavours.

Why?

👉 Unrealistic Expectations.

Unclear motivations and unreasonable expectations drive people out of this work — at a rapid rate.

The Creative Solopreneur’s Fix?

Some people don’t like this term: Solopreneur. They prefer the old classic Entrepreneur. But I find there’s a difference, and it’s in that keyword: Solo.

A Solopreneur does all the work, makes all the decisions, carries all the uncertainty, and eats all the admin. (And in our household, also cleans the toilet, makes dinner, and tidies up).

The realities of going solo punish fuzzy thinking, mixed motivations, and lack of clarity on values. It punishes borrowed goals and performative “authenticity.”

We’re fortunate in our household because we are business partners; however, both of our professional practices also operate independently.

And, for us, the cornerstone is simple:

Your business has to reflect who you are at the core.

Core means values. Values show up as decisions and choices. They play out in strategy.

I’ve taught Communications courses for over a decade — including Interpersonal Communication. Much of the information below is similar to materials I teach and facilitate in workshops.

Here’s the frame:

• Values = the deep anchors (non-negotiables)

• Attitudes = the link between what you believe and what you do

• Behaviours = the visible actions swinging hourly, daily, etc.

I’ve often used variations of this image below. And any of you who took my 5-Day Free Email Course: The Solopreneur Thinker, will recognize this.

Behaviours change fast. They’re like the buoy floating on the water. It’s affected by all sorts of external influencers: wind, waves, tides, animals, passing boats, etc.

Values change slowly. They’re like the block or anchor holding a buoy in place.

In between these two are our Attitudes. Not as stable and solid as our values. Not as variable and shifting as our behaviours.

The critical job as a Solopreneur (as a business owner) is to ensure your moods (and shifting behaviours) aren’t your business’s operating system.

An example from our household

With Humanity Academy, “Thinking about thinking” sits at the centre of how we make decisions, design courses and offers, and build a life we can live with and within.

Our work is held in place by our individual and collective value systems — which we reflect upon and discuss regularly. If you lose track of your value system in business, you create a significant authenticity (and personal agency) problem.

The Authenticity Problem Online

“Authenticity” online is becoming a costume shop.

I regularly come across posts and articles purporting to be “authentic” yet are clearly AI-slop. We are now in the age of mass content creation. Anyone with an internet connection can simply create a year's worth of mindless content-free content.

Values are what keep this work real and connected to you.

Your values will tell you the truth about what you will do, what you won’t do, what you will tolerate, and what you may need to change. If you move away from your values — e.g. start chasing what you think an audience wants, or chase virality, or chase ‘likes’ and ‘subscribes’ — it will catch up to you.

When the creative work gets hard (and it does), being clear on your values injects the kinds of resilience that can last: the kind you don’t have to fake (or ask AI to outline for you).

Understanding Your 'Whys?'

‘Thinking about thinking‘ fuels us to question our assumptions and biases and to consider new possibilities. (Academics call it metacognition).

I love this line from the :

“Every legendary business is a dumb idea. Until it isn’t.

Remember: Everything is the way it is because somebody changed the way it was.”

In the context of your creative enterprise (Solopreneur or not), this means not just sticking to traditional solutions when facing challenges, but using your ‘thinking about thinking’ abilities to seek innovative approaches, engage creatively, and often, push through the opinions and perspectives of others around you.

To do this requires having a strong sense of who you are, and often it can mean lowering your “give a shit” meter — so that others’ opinions and perspectives don’t limit your choice to move ahead.

Constructing Your Unique Business Identity

With a little groundwork and cornerstones in place, you can begin construction (or maybe reconstruction).

Here is a reflective exercise, ideally recorded in a Learning Journal to think deeply about your “whys?” and keep your identity at the core of what you’re constructing.

Step 1: Defining Your ‘Why?’

Start by free writing about what defines your ‘why?‘ for embarking on a Solopreneur journey. What’s the deep-seated purpose that motivates you to face the challenges of a Solopreneur?

• For me, some of the initial motivation was to Cut the Box - get out of toxic workplaces, org charts, and cubicle offices. This can be important motivation, however, as time goes on it’s important to get at the core values of “why?”

Step 2: Reflecting on Your Values.

List five core values that are most important to you in this journey. Next to each, jot down why this value resonates with you, where you think it comes from, and how it is connected to your ‘why?’

Make sure that these are your values — not ones you’ve inherited from parents, family, friends, schooling, religion, or otherwise.

Step 3: ‘Why?’ in Action.

Reflect on a specific instance where your ‘why?’ helped you overcome a difficult situation in your past, in your work, and/or your Solopreneur journey. How did your ‘why?’ influence your decision-making or actions?

Step 4: Authenticity Check.

With the rise of bullshit online, ‘authenticity‘ becomes crucial.

Reflect on what ‘being authentic‘ and ‘genuine’ mean to you and how it aligns with your ‘why?’ Are there any areas where you could improve the authenticity in your business operations? Are there areas where you feel your ‘authentic Self’ may not be getting properly voiced in your work?

Step 5: Future Alignment.

Lastly, think about your future decisions and actions. How can you ensure they stay aligned with your ‘why?’ And, with your core values. Write down at least three practical steps you will take to ensure this alignment moving forward.

Some of this ‘thinking about thinking’ exercise may seem cheesy or dumb.

However, if you spend some time simply free-writing it, you will find a deeper voice inside you that will come shining through. It’s not the voice of social media posts. It’s not the voice worrying about what others think. It’s a genuine, authentic voice of who you are.

Hear it out. Document it. Revisit it regularly.

Remember, your ‘why?’ is not static, and it will evolve as your business and personal self grow. Make sure to revisit this exercise periodically to keep your ‘whys?’ up to date.

Re-run this quarterly. Run it again any time you feel resentment toward your business or creative enterprises. Our creative work — including writing and publishing regularly — is directly aligned with our values.

Engaging in this type of work is guaranteed to generate deeper and more active self-knowledge. And that relationship is the most important one you will ever have.

Much of this exercise above is drawn from Day 2 of my 5-day Crash Course. Interested to learn more? Check out the course. It’s free. No spam, no catch.

“Just be authentic” might be the Internet’s most hollow instruction.

So much “Be Authentic” advice reads like paint-by-numbers or IKEA furniture instructions. Authenticity has become about filling in a template, producing content without authorship, or as calls it “content-less content.”

The roots of the word “authenticity” come from the Greek authentēs, meaning one who acts on one’s own authority; principal; doer; originator.

Thus, being authentic in your writing means putting words to your thinking — to your values, motives, and limits. All of this is about self-knowledge and your relationship with your self.

To write generally means being in a room by yourself with all the various corners, caverns and thoughts in your mind. Writing generally means moving through all the many thoughts, many of which conspire to move you away from writing.

• What will they think?

Then there’s the move from writing to publishing.

The word “publish” comes from the Latin word publicāre, meaning “make public, show to the people.” The move from writing to publishing is where one’s thoughts move from private to public.

This is one of the darn hard parts.

This Hard Part Has a Name…

Self-exposure.

Writing exposes you to yourself first. Good writing often has less to do with technique alone and much more to do with inner conviction and self-knowledge.

And, by ‘good’ writing — I don’t mean the grammatically correct, red-pen laden, stuffy classroom “good writing.”

I mean good writing that makes other people move. Instigate feelings and emotions in a reader. Creates heat and surprise and learning and action.

However, if you sit down to write and discover you don’t have a clear opinion. That you only have some swimming senses of things. Some meandering thoughts.

Or, maybe some borrowed phrases. Some rented thinking. Maybe it’s a half-belief absorbed from a podcast, a social media post, a boss, a parent, a culture, a religious idiom, or a platform.

This is where writing can do some hard slogging for you. Moving from wandering thoughts to thought-full words.

Sitting down to write often forces sticky questions, like:

• What am I thinking here? Why?

• What do I mean here? Why?

• Do I actually mean this?

As we write, we put our thoughts on paper (or the screen). We transmute thoughts to words (like an octopus transmutes what it touches to smell).

And, vice versa, words generate thoughts. It’s a self-supporting cycle.

Publishing adds a second layer. An often scary and complicated one. Our thoughts to words — plus our words to thoughts — become public.

• What will they think?

A sentence creates consequences. Someone might disagree, or maybe agree vehemently. Someone might misunderstand. Many might ignore it. Someone might quote it back later.

This is the exposure part — and it can be nerve-wracking. It can also be freeing. Exhilarating. Terrifying.

So a lot of people learn coping strategies to avoid this ‘exposure’ anxiety. Many do this by collecting more “how-to…” Buy another famous writer “On writing…” book. Purchase and enrol in another course. Read more. Watch more. Tweak the draft. Scroll some more.

Wait for confidence and certainty to arrive. But clear confidence rarely arrives. Certainty remains fleeting.

Clarity shows up through contact. With your own mind. On the page. And over time, clarity emerges when you push “post” or “publish.”

Added to this, the more you engage in writing (private or public) and continue transmuting thoughts into words — you develop an authentic voice and a genuine voice that is yours.

But, beware of The Authenticity Trap.

The Authenticity Trap

In this age of rapidly expanding Gen AI… many folks are pushing authenticity.

Audiences say they want real people. Platforms like Medium suggest they reward personal stories.

Various creatives talk about “showing up as yourself.” But then the incentives start shaping what “yourself” is allowed to, and supposed to, look like, like the classic: “Write for your audience.”

(Which, in many ways, is the exact opposite of “authentic”… because it’s about doing what you think others want to hear, read, etc.).

And, this is where so much “Be Authentic” online advice lands hollow. It treats authenticity like a flippable switch. It skips the reality that many people don’t yet know what they think. Or, why they think it. Or, what might put those thoughts in their head in the first place?

• Maybe it was family of origin? Maybe it was church? Maybe it was school? Maybe it was too many Hollywood-produced movies?

Most folks aren’t entirely clear where their beliefs came from. They don’t know which parts are theirs and which parts are borrowed. Without building this foundation, “authenticity” becomes a style choice, a template to follow.

Self-knowledge is where most where people stall and sputter in writing — And… this is where “how to…” advice falls flat.

The Writing Prerequisite Few Want to Pay For

Self-knowledge is slow. It feels exposing (like the nightmare of showing up in public naked). It feels messy, revealing, and embarrassing. It creates responsibility and accountability. (Yikes! and Yuck!)

Yet, self-knowledge also changes everything — especially if it becomes a life-long pursuit and practice.

When you know what you believe, writing gets cleaner, public speaking gets easier, and communication in general becomes simpler and more consistent.

When you’re clearer about what you value and why, writing and other communication forms get sharper.

When you have more clarity about what you want, writing stops wandering. Or, at least, what you write in preparation for publishing, has steadier directions and coordinates.

When you have a better understanding of what you fear, and why, you will procrastinate less on applying bum to seat and pen to paper (or fingers to keys) —and write more.

This is why writing feels hard for many people with plenty of intelligence and plenty of tools. The page becomes a mirror. Mirrors don’t flatter. They show you what’s there. Authentically. Genuinely.

It’s there where you will find entrances to agency and the ability to author authority. You become an authority on you.

Agency means your work isn’t a reaction to trends. Agency means your voice isn’t rented from a platform or well-known creator. Agency means you can see, or maybe even create, the incentives and then decide how close you want to stand to them.

A person with agency and authority can use AI without disappearing inside it. A person without agency (or avoiding it) uses AI to sneak past the mirror.

Being an Author with some Authority

Publishing online has changed many incentives.

It’s far faster than publishing used to be (e.g., before the Internet). It’s louder, but also quieter, because so much published writing is simply noise upon noise upon noise.

Gen AI has added all sorts of twists. Now, creating content is cheap. Everyone can generate words. This doesn’t make writing irrelevant, but it sure raises the bar on authorship — because scarcity is no longer published output.

The rare part is human beings who can say something real in their own words and stand behind it.

For example, I was reading recently, and he predicted that the future will reward agency, taste, perspective, and sense-making. Those aren’t “skills” you download or find in a template or AI prompt. They come from being the kind of person who can choose, filter, frame, decide, and commit.

Writing is one of the cleanest places to practice that. Both self-writing for just you, and writing that is published… e.g., made public.

The Internet and Gen AI have endless “how to…” tips. However, only you can practice the “being” part of this. For example, shifting some AI “how to…” template, such as “How to write authentically…”

Into: Being an authentic writer. Or, Being someone who writes authentically.

• What’s ‘authentic’ to you?

Only you can author that reality.

A Box Cutter Co. Practice

Authenticity doesn’t come from trying to sound authentic. It comes from knowing what’s accurate for you, then supporting your writing to reflect that.

Here are two linked practices I’ve leveraged in recent years. One private. One public.

Practice 1: The private page (10 minutes, 3x/week)

Open a Learning Journal. No audience. No performance. Just seeking clarity. Write short answers to the folling:

1. What’s taking up space in my head right now?

2. What am I feeling, exactly?
   (use plain words: envy, dread, relief, irritation, excitement)

3. What story am I telling myself?
   (“I’m late.” “This should be easier.” “Everyone else has it figured out.”)

4. What do I want?
   (not what looks impressive—what you want)

5. One sentence I believe right now: [______]

That last line is the start of authoring your own authority.

Step 2: The idea lab (publish small things)

A lot of people publish to perform. I’ve done this. Now, after four years as CEO of my time and energy and building independent creative businesses… I publish to think.

Social media is my idea and thinking lab. A place to test my thinking, ideas, a sentence, and so on.

At least once a week, take an idea or a line from your Learning Journal and make it public:

• a short post

• a paragraph

• a sticky question

• a claim you’re playing around with

Your goal isn’t reach. Your goal is authoring authority. Yours’

The Warning

When you feel the urge to hide behind a template, pause and ask:

• What am I trying to achieve with this?

Approval? Relief? Proof? Belonging? Metrics?

Write the answer in your Learning Journal.

Do this for a month, and you’ll have two assets:

• A Learning Journal full of patterns (what you avoid, what you want, what keeps repeating)

• A trail of published thoughts, ideas, sentences, etc. that sound like you because they came from you

If you want structure for this, we (Humanity Academy) cover it in Learning Journals 101 (three modules) for people who want their writing (and thinking) to feel like theirs again.

Building a one-person creative enterprise often looks simple from the outside — and is frequently presented online as easy.

The promise of creative independence, autonomy, agency, and a professional life free from 9-5 hours, water cooler gossip and endless meetings.

Yet, on the inside, it’s still a world of human affairs (as in the image above on the right): taste, trust, timing, emotion, attention, manipulation, decisions, and so on.

Often, the feedback you receive can be messy, convoluted, and hits dead ends, looping back and retracing steps. Frequently, it rolls on slow proof and long stretches where trusting your work and process matters more than metrics.

I see a lot of people in creative gigs, trying to run things like it’s engineering. They expect linear progress (like the “Technical Matters” image above). They expect and sometimes even demand clean timelines. They hunt for tactics to erase unease and uncertainty. Constantly searching, analyzing and evaluating.

If not managed carefully and mindfully, this pressure becomes a steady form of self-betrayal and feeds a loss of agency. You realize you're trading creativity for performance and sacrificing autonomy and uniqueness to compliance (with whatever you think the environment rewards).

Almost 4 Years Now (As a Soulpreneur)

In the spring of 2022, I walked away from corporate public sector employment. I set out, with no safety net, no big financial reserve, and no lineup of contracts or clients.

My goal? CEO of my time and energy. Creative pursuits and enterprises. Personal agency and autonomy. More time and flexibility for family.

One of the clear pathways I saw in this work (but not the only path)? — The Creator Economy.

Now, over 3 years into projects connected to The Creator Economy, I’ve found the key isn’t “better tactics.” It’s about leveraging effective ways of thinking and observing, specifically in ways keeping your agency intact while results take the time they need.

The Creator Economy tends to amplify status, comparison, envy, and urgency. It also amplifies one of the most expensive questions in the game: How long should this take?

In technical domains, that question is useful. In human affairs, it distorts thinking and decisions.

For example, in The Creator Economy, time gets treated as the evidence (faster the better, is the sense). Slow feedback becomes a verdict. Emotions drive control systems. Decisions start serving relief from anxiety.

Soulpreneurship — especially in The Creator Economy — is the discipline of keeping your agency when incentives (and platforms) want to rent your identity. Soulpreneurship is about building (and practicing) in public without letting public feedback (e.g. claps, likes, followers, etc.) become your only internal compass.

So here’s a practice to try, to keep this approach. Bird-watching.

Bird-Watching (“What?!” You Say)

Observation before analysis. Looking for patterns. Accumulating observations, behaviours and experiences over time.

Almost every day, I walk a gravel section of rural road near where we live. It crosses a wetland area near the lake we live beside. In the spring and summer, it’s busy with birds. On many days, dedicated bird watchers set up on the road. Some with cameras and remotes. Others with binoculars.

We’ve learned that some pretty rare birds frequent this wetland area.

What the heck does bird watching have to do with soulpreneurship or The Creator Economy?

Bird watchers don’t show up expecting a rare bird to appear on demand. They don’t treat an empty hour as a verdict on how good or bad their birdwatching is. They watch, take notes, and come back.

Over time, they learn patterns: where birds tend to be, when they move, and what changes with weather and seasons.

That’s the stance I’m borrowing for The Creator Economy. More observation, less judgment and verdict-making. Sort of like an anthropologist observing and making field notes.

Keeping Field Notes in The Creator Economy

So many people scroll and react. They treat their reactions as “research.” They let what gets rewarded pull their attention and shape their choices. They copy tactics because it feels safer than uncertainty and experimentation.

Bird watching is different. You stay calm. Pay attention and look for patterns. You keep your identity and emotions largely out of it. You’re not there to judge the birds or their behaviours. You’re there to observe and learn what’s happening.

You’re not there to argue with the birds. You’re there to learn what birds are around and how birds behave.

It’s challenging to be both an actor and an observer at the same time. It’s really tough to engage in thinking about something while also observing the style of that thinking or its patterns.

In the time I’ve spent in The Creator Economy—building in public, running idea labs, and slowly assembling my own creative infrastructure—I’ve noticed something consistently.

Most people don’t study and observe platforms — they analyze and judge them. They ask questions like:

• Is Medium dead?

• Is it worth posting anymore?

• Where is the “best” place to build?

• Should I focus on LinkedIn or Substack?

Those questions are fair. The problem is how people try to answer them. A lot of the answers are verdicts. Hot takes. Pronouncements.

Lately, I’ve seen more posts and articles like:

“After 10 years on LinkedIn, I’m leaving.”

Then a list of reasons follows: AI slop, low-quality content, spam, fake engagement, declining reach, etc.

Some of those reasons might be real. That’s not the point. The point is the stance taken, and how.

Most of these posts are written as judgments and land as conclusions. They invite agreement vs. non-agreement — not learning. They highlight the writer/poster's emotions and also trigger emotions in the reader: urgency, cynicism, relief, envy, and fear of being late.

That is a terrible basis for strategy in a one-person business. Here’s why.

Platforms are human systems

Human systems shape your thinking while you use them. If you take in platform commentary as verdicts, you end up making decisions to calm your state—copying what feels safe, quitting in a wave, pivoting for relief.

That’s how the systems affect you. Box Cutter Co. is built on a different move: clear (often slower) thinking before action. So the question is not “Is LinkedIn good or bad?”

The question is: What’s going on over there? What patterns are showing up, what do they reward, and what do they do to me?

That’s observation. And observation helps you keep your agency and autonomy. It turns “platform mood” into observations and information instead. It helps you choose your relationship with a platform rather than getting pulled into someone else’s verdict, emotions and decisions.

That’s the reason for the bird-watching approach.

Using Field Notes in Creative Enterprises

Pick one platform for the week: LinkedIn, Medium, Substack, X, Instagram, YouTube. You are not trying to decide if the platform is “good” or “bad.” You are simply observing to see what is happening and how it affects you.

1. Collect five online “specimens”

Save five items from that platform. Examples:

• a popular post

• a comment thread

• a “here’s why I’m leaving” post

• a piece of advice about growth

• a piece of content that looks like AI-filler

Pick items that pull your attention or change your mood.

2. Write one sentence: “What is this?”

For each specimen, write one plain sentence describing it. Look to facts. Examples:

• “A post warning people to leave LinkedIn because of AI content.”

• “A personal story with a lesson and a call to action.”

• “A thread promising growth if you post daily.”

No opinions. No rating. Just the facts.

3. Write one sentence: “What is this post trying to do?”

For each specimen, write one sentence about its purpose. Here are some examples:

• “It’s trying to sell a course.”

• “It’s trying to get agreement.”

• “It’s trying to trigger urgency.”

• “It’s trying to signal expertise.”

  ---

4. Write one line: “What did it do to me?”

Name the effect on your state, such as:

• “I feel behind.”

• “I started feeling cynical.”

• “Now, I want to post right away.”

• “Made me want to copy the format.”

• “I felt angry and wanted to leave the platform.”

This is important. It’s where you regain agency.

5. Answer three questions

For each specimen, write short notes:

• What pattern does it rely on?

  (certainty, outrage, fear, status, identity, confession, “one trick,” etc.)

• What does it reward?

  (attention, agreement, followers, sales, praise, belonging)

• What does it skip?

  (tradeoffs, time, risk, context, prerequisites)

6. See if you can name one pattern you saw across the five

Sometimes these are hard to identify, but try to find just one. For example:

• “Doom posts travel fast.”

• “Certainty gets rewarded.”

• “People use numbers to sound credible.”

• “AI content is changing what gets seen.”

7. Make one decision for the next 7 days

Choose a move, such as:

• Refuse: “I won’t build around this pattern.”

• Borrow: “I’ll use the useful part in my own voice.”

• Redesign: “I’ll make a cleaner version for my work.”

Write one sentence: This week, my rule is: ________.

Examples such as:

• “I don’t post to calm anxiety.”

• “I don’t copy certainty. I share what I can stand behind.”

• “I use LinkedIn for reach and my newsletter for depth.”

8. Ship one small thing

One sentence. One paragraph. One short post. One email. One note. The point is to stay in the work, in your way. Field Notes are not another reason to delay. It’s a way of thinking differently about what you’re doing.

Why this fits Soulpreneurship (and other parts of your life)

Soulpreneurship builds some quiet skills, like staying open to learning without being pushed around. This matters online. It also matters in other parts of your life. So many modern environments run on fast judgments:

• workplace politics

• family tension

• social media

• news cycles

• group chats

• markets

The common mistake is the same: you treat your first reaction as the truth. You treat the first week of data as the whole story. You rush to a conclusion so you can feel settled again.

Taking a bird-watching approach trains a different habit. You can:

• notice what is happening.

• notice what it does to you.

• extend your timeframes.

• decide from a steadier place.

And, that’s agency.

It’s also expectation management. You stop demanding fast proof from systems that may need to move slowly. You stop turning normal slowness into a verdict on your talent, or progress, or creativity.

Over time, your Field Notes become an asset. You build your own field guide:

• what pulls you off your path

• what gets rewarded

• what gets ignored

• what supports your work

Doing something like this can reduce panic, comparison envy, constant pivots, or frustration-driven quits. It helps you choose how you use each platform. It helps you keep your voice. It helps keep you… you (and that’s the soul part).

The outcomes are the outcomes.
(And most people refuse to accept this reality early enough)

Most people enter ‘The Creator Economy’ and stubbornly reject the long-odds system, and vehemently ignore the most likely outcomes.

Which is … a slow, unglamorous creative life with limited visibility and modest to low financial returns. Added to this, you will experience:

• Optionality instead of certainty

• Limited visibility relative to effort

• No moment where it all ‘clicks’ publicly

• Slow, uneven progress without clean take-off points

• Meaning and skill accumulation that outsiders won’t see

• Supplemental modest income, far below what hustle culture promotes

These sorts of outcomes are what break the majority of creative types seeking quick financial riches. It’s not laziness, nor lack of talent, nor even insufficient hustle.

It’s misaligned consent — with oneself.

This is clearly not a post about how to gain 10,000 Substack followers.

Or… how to earn more subscribers.

Or… how to cold DM more people earn your riches.

If you’re looking for that, this is not the place. ; )

The Simple Math Nobody Wants to Sit With

Last year, over 70% of creators earned less than $49K.

In 2025, the top 10% captured 62% of all creator payments. Within that group, the top 1% alone captured 21% of payments. Which means the remaining 90% of creators share the other 38%.

If you are a creative-type looking for success (and payouts) in The Creator Economy, ponder those numbers. (And recognize these gaps are growing annually)

If these stats feel unacceptable, uncomfortable, and raise uncertainty, then your creative work and enterprises will most likely eventually feel unbearable (if you’re in it just for the money).

This isn’t pessimism. It’s math.

How do other long-odds systems handle reality without breaking people?

I grew up off the west coast of Canada. Like so many youth, I obsessed over hockey. We lived on islands off the Pacific northwest coast and, unfortunately, had no ice rink. However, this didn’t stop us from loving one of our country’s national obsessions.

In Canada, there are huge numbers of kids, especially young boys (and their parents), who dream of making it big and playing in the National Hockey League (NHL).

This is similar to many other nations around the world and their national sporting obsessions (soccer/football, rugby, cricket, swimming, baseball, basketball, etc.). Many a child dreams of becoming like their national sporting heros.

In Canada, some estimates suggest 1 in 4,000 kids who play hockey will ever reach a pension-level NHL career. Every year, over 600,000 kids play hockey in Canada.

Parents know these long odds. Kids learn it quickly. And yet—rinks (inside and outside) are full every winter. This paradox matters.

Hockey never promises elite professional outcomes as a default for youth. It never even pretends the NHL is even close to the median case. There are also no slick marketers running around trying to recruit parents and kids into hockey with stories of big payouts.

The system is pretty darn honest early. And any parent or kid not prepared for the ruthlessness of making elite teams… learns how to navigate disappointment quickly.

And because the terms and odds are pretty darn upfront, people stay and continue playing hockey — many for a lifetime.

Kids don’t keep playing hockey because elite paycheques are plausible.

Kids who eventually become adults keep playing because the game pays them immediately—in non-monetary terms.

• identity

• belonging

• community

• competence

• rhythm and structure

• mastery (matched with abilities)

The game, the act of, the process, etc. … deliver value long before some outcomes are known.

However, The Creator Economy flips this logic and I’ve watched many get seduced, so as to ignore the odds. People enter creative work expecting professional-athlete outcomes from day one:

• Financial freedom

• Escape velocity

• Recognition

But the actual, real numbers say something else:

• Income concentrates sharply at the top

• Most creators never reach a stable living wage

• The median case is modest, slow, and unglamorous

That doesn’t mean the system is broken. It means the bargain was probably misunderstood (or ignored).

As , part of said in a LinkedIn post this past week 👇

If you are an up-start looking to “The Creator Economy” or even seasoned… it may be critical to ensure the damage doesn’t start immediately, because you refuse to look at the odds (and outcomes) early enough.

Why Smart Creative Suffer More

Smart, creative types entering and even active in The Creator Economy don’t fizzle and fail because they’re naïve. For many, they refuse to accept the math, or… ignore it, or try to outrun it.

“Not me! I’m special!! I’m the outlier! ”

In youth sports, kids who realize they won’t go pro don’t automatically quit. They adjust. They play differently. They extract different rewards and outcomes.

Sure, some quit; however, consider all the other sports that youth engage in. I’ve coached many, including: Volleyball, track and field, freestyle skiing, alpine skiing, softball, floor hockey, basketball, and more.

These don’t promise riches as an outcome. Sure, a few might earn a university or college scholarship, but those odds are low, too. People participate in sports because of a lifetime worth of outcomes (that are rarely financial).

Actually, in many cases, many people continue to pay to participate in athletic activities. Cycling, skiing, running, and so on. (I do, too.)

Too Many Creatives Don’t Make Expectation Adjustments

Long-odds systems require adaptation (from the start). But for whatever reason, most creatives refuse it. And, in the over 3 years I’ve been playing in this particular Creator Economy arena, I see it repeatedly.

The breaking point is when people come to terms with the odds, look at them deeper, but then, rather than changing how they play or shifting expectations, many disappear.

Here on various platforms posting away one day — repeating the same content-less content: “be consistent” … “add value” … “niche down” … and so on, and so on — then gone. Poof.

Expectation management (and adjustment) is critical work in developing creative maturity. Yet, so many people skip it.

What should be a recalibration moment becomes a stress-and-panic response. And that’s when things unravel.

Once thoughtful, smart people more regularly notice:

• income concentrating upward (for just a small # of creators)

• timelines stretching longer

• effort outpacing returns

They panic.

And, then instead of recalibrating expectations, they:

• change their “niche”

• follow louder advice

• chase another latest trend

• copy successful campaigns

• buy another course from a top earner

• accelerate output (following the likes of Gary V, Hormozi, and others)

This feels strategic and useful. It feels like “I’m doing something.”

Yet, it’s often avoidance, stress-induced, panic-laced — and directly connected to managing expectations, and understanding odds.

Many are trying to escape the median outcomes (be that special one) instead of deciding how they might live within the odds. These tensions, and heightened emotions, begin to corrode the process; the creative work, then:

• Originality fades

• Judgment falters

• Endurance fizzles

Then the inevitable burnout, which isn’t generally a discipline problem. It’s what happens when expectations reject reality and realistic outcomes.

A Mindset to Maneuver Long Odds

Many sports get something right. They don’t sell financial certainty (even though a small few earn it). They sell process, mastery, participation.

Most kids play hockey, knowing the NHL is unlikely. Dreams are great, but reality is real. Kids who become adults stay because the process pays them anyway.

• Does your creative work operate by a similar standard?

Before you publish, monetize, or look to “build an audience,” consider developing informed consent with yourself.

• Does the process itself pay me?

• What is my most likely outcome?

• Can I live inside that outcome?

• Would I keep going without validation?

This isn’t about lowering ambition or not aiming high. It’s more about choosing work whose median outcome is tolerable. Because when the odds are long, one must have a mindset to navigate things, such as:

• Patience beats hustle

• Systems beat fantasies

• Endurance beats intensity

In my many, many years of publishing online, creative work, and Box Cutter-like approaches, I often use the old Mike Tyson (former world champ boxer):

Participating in The Creator Economy? Building a creative business?

Make sure you know the odds before setting your expectations.

A Box Cutter Co. Lagging Reward Rule

Creative work and systems survive when money is a lagging reward—not the expected early entry outcome.

Hockey (and most sports) would collapse overnight if kids only stayed if money was an early outcome expectation. The Creator Economy ruthlessly collapses and forces people out, for exactly that reason.

If you wouldn’t do the work knowing the odds, don’t pretend discipline, or the latest ‘get more followers’ strategy, or the newest Creator course, or the newest AI Tool, will save you later.

The odds are the odds. The outcomes are the outcomes.

Your agency in creative work lives in whether you accept them, build expectations around them, and manage mindset, before the simple math shapes you.

That’s the difference between creative longevity and endurance versus fizzle and collapse.

If you haven’t seen this Free 5-day email course before, it may assist. No catch, no spam. Simply sharing what I’ve learned along the way.

Simply enter your email at the link. Receive an email each day for 5 days. Let me know what you think of it.

If you’re on LinkedIn, I recently added Box Cutter Co. as its own organization page, and I’ve added D. Loewen Strategy Co. (it’s already up to almost 100 Followers in just a few weeks).

“Simplify” is a popular New Year’s resolution. But, beware of premature simplification. Why?

Because “simplify” doesn’t mean “clarify.” It simply means reduce folds. The word simple comes from Latin simplex, meaning:

• one fold

• single

“To simplify” literally means to reduce to a single fold.

On the other hand, complex comes from Latin complexus, meaning:

• many folds

• interrelated

• woven together

They are opposites. Simple vs complex.

And here’s where many people (and organizations) get into trouble.

Some Complexity Isn’t Optional

Many folks treat “simple” as good and “complex” as bad— as if complexity is something to eliminate rather than get curious about and maybe understand better.

In complex systems—work, organizations, learning, strategy—complexity isn’t optional. Multiple things matter at once.

They interact. They’re entangled. (And often, we are part of that entanglement.)

Years ago, I read in one of Seth Godin’s books something to the effect of:

We don’t get “stuck in traffic,” we are a part of it.

That line stuck with me because it calls out a reflex we all have. When things feel messy, we want to treat the mess like it’s “out there.” A problem separate from us. Something we can escape by shrinking it.

But often, the issue isn’t complexity. It’s our discomfort with thinking clearly inside it.

Strategically.

(And recognizing our roles within complexity.)

The key task isn’t simplification—It’s often discrimination.

Not discrimination in the social sense—discrimination in the thinking sense: the ability to tell things apart (“distinguish between”).

A strategic mind can hold complexity without getting lost in it. Because “strategy” and being strategic are about:

• making clear choices

• establishing clear boundaries

• focusing on what NOT to do (as much as what to do)

Here’s an illustration that I used ChatGPT to assist with in a recent LinkedIn post 👇

The fence represents clear choices, a clear boundary, and clarity about what we say “yes” to as much as we say “no” to.

This is where premature simplification becomes dangerous. “Simplifying” too early often doesn’t create clarity. It can remove (or ignore) important information—sometimes critical information.

It compresses reality until only the convenient parts remain. And then we’re surprised when:

• blind spots show up later

• hasty decisions result in unintended consequences

• the plan doesn’t survive contact with complex environments

Often, a good strategy doesn’t erase complexity by jumping to “simplifying” (the opposite side of the spectrum).

Complexity Doesn’t Need to be Erased

Instead, it can be valuable to make relationships visible:

• What matters?

• What’s connected?

• What can be ignored?

• What influences what?

• What cannot be ignored—even if you wanted to?

That’s the heart of strategy, too. Not reduction for its own sake. But responsible reduction after building more understanding.

Two stronger questions for the year

So this year, maybe instead of jumping to: “How do I/we simplify?”

More strategic questions may be:

• 👉 “What complexity might I need to understand better, not try to escape?”

And a second one that people skip:

• 👉 “What’s my role(s) in this complexity?”

Because “simple” reduces, yes. But “complex” is relational. And confusing “simple” with “clear” causes people and organizations to make poor decisions, often as an unintended consequence of premature simplification.

Where This Gets Expensive in Creator Businesses

Creative and creator economy-related work is a complex system: identity, voice, audience, offers, energy, and economics are all intertwined (to name a few)

Premature simplification can show up as:

• “I just need to pick a niche.”

  (When the actual work is often coherence: what you stand for, who you help, and why people trust you.)

• “I just need to post consistently.”

  (When the key work is signal quality: what you’re reinforcing and whether it sticks (consistently). And whether it also still resonates with you, not some strategy a hustle-bro-guru recommended.)

• “I need just one offer.”

  (When the work is fit: what people actually want from you, and what you can sustainably deliver.)

• “I need more followers.”

  (When the real work is trust depth, relationship, conversion, and a clear path from attention to value.)

In The Creator Economy (and many Soulpreneur ventures), premature simplification often creates a business that looks neat—but doesn’t hold.

In over three years in this work, I’ve seen multiple creators and businesses fizzle out and disappear (sometimes overnight), especially after repeating the common mantras above.

A practical test

If you want a simple test (yes, ironically):

• 👉 If simplifying makes you feel relieved rather than clearer, you might be falling prey to premature simplification.

Because clarity doesn’t come from reducing complexity on contact. It comes from understanding it long enough to reduce (and simplify) responsibly.

So yes—simplify.

But do it after you can name what you’re losing by simplifying. That’s not overthinking. It’s strategy.

Beware of Premature Simplification.

If you’re on LinkedIn, I recently added complexity by segmenting my different work and areas of expertise. Box Cutter Co. has its own organization page, and I’ve recently added D. Loewen Strategy Co. (and it’s already up to 80 Followers in just a few weeks).

So much online publishing and “Creator Economy” advice plays on the myth that you have a content problem.

You don’t.

But… you might have an attention problem (and probably not the one you expect).

If you’re building a creative business connected to “The Creator Economy,” you’ve probably felt pressure to keep “showing up” (even if you don’t really have anything to say).

And, not because an audience demanded it, but more because silence can feel like falling behind. Uncomfortable. Missing out.

It’s a trap: “being consistent” stops being a creative practice and instead becomes a coping mechanism.

A lot of people post in a similar fashion as to how they relentlessly check their email and social media feeds…

Email and social media do not demand constant checking… but not-checking can create unease and discomfort. Thus, our nervous systems get trained into a coping loop. I’ve felt it.

However, early in 2025, I began to sense that work like Box Cutter Co. was edging away from a creative practice. Maybe, it was becoming an unhealthy addiction — an obsession. One soothed by posting “more content.” Like these cycles below:

• Publish → response → relief.

• Miss a post → unease → discomfort.

Maybe you also get those uneasy feelings on days you don’t “publish” — the itch to prove you’re still here, still building, still relevant, still somebody.

The irony in satisfying these itches?

• They create situations opposite to guidelines for basic communication (e.g., ‘consider your audience.’)

Posting content to satisfy one’s discomfort and unease means it’s no longer about serving an audience or about being useful to others. It morphs into a feeling of falling behind. Falling prey to FOMO.

That loop gets dangerous.

At some point, the constant posting will become dull, meaningless, and empty-feeling. (Might this be why we observe so many creators fizzling out, or “pivoting” their niche, or moving on to the next fad?)

There is no shortage of apparent ‘creator economy’ gurus relentlessly jamming this approach: post, post, post, post, rinse and repeat. Folks like Gary Vaynerchuk, Alex Hormozi, and many more.

If you’re engaged in “The Creator Economy” long enough, you see these proponents of relentless content production in so many circles.

And the Age of AI supports production of ‘content’ at exponentially absurd rates. The internet is flooded with templates, and content producers, and automated content calendars, and ‘Write with AI’ prompts.

The result is a flood of AI slop, slock, and splock.

If you’ve been watching the internet fill up with apparently “helpful” content that’s instantly forgettable, this isn’t a mystery. It’s a predictable outcome of a system promoting absurd frequency, and “be consistent” advice and post relentlessly demands.

But constant production and frequency, for whom? For what?

Slowing Production at Box Cutter Co. in 2025

If anyone were to look at the publishing frequency of Box Cutter Co. in 2025 versus, say, 2024… You might think, gee, it’s petering off.

Fewer published issues. Longer gaps between publishing. Less evidence of “showing up.” (I’ve seen this in notes left by paying subscribers)

The easy story is “oh, he lost interest.” One more of the 99% of people who start a Substack, or a newsletter, or a blog, then disappear.

If you look at “number of posts published” in my stats — yes, there was a slowdown. However, the assumption that I lost interest… That misses the mark.

I didn’t write less in 2025. I redirected it to other initiatives and priorities.

2025 Was a Record Business Year

About 2 weeks ago, I posted on LinkedIn (see below), and this post has gotten a lot of traffic.

2024 was a good year for business, and 2025 was even better.

In the spring of 2025, my publishing frequency on Substack and Medium slowed significantly. Not because I lost interest, but because I prioritized my energy to other projects and to my self and family.

Business-wise, things picked up on various fronts:

• In the spring, I got a contract to write a 4th-year university ‘Communications’ course. It was on policy writing and development, and the ‘Communications’ required to support it.

• I continued writing and designing 3 micro-credit courses for a First Nation organization (in partnership with a BC-based university). Those launch this month.

• I continued assisting non-profits in development and communications work — including raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for critical projects.

• I am still a faculty member teaching six online Communications courses (from first to fourth year)

• In 2025, I travelled to the US, New Zealand and all around British Columbia, Canada, including completing at least 3 gravel cycling events.

Much of this work doesn’t create a neat public trail of ‘consistent’ or relentless posts.

Added to this, in the spring of this past year, I noticed something else: relentless publishing wasn’t solving much.

This isn’t to suggest consistent publishing is bad. It’s more… that publishing relentlessly can become an anesthetic for something brewing internally.

When you’re posting constantly, you can avoid sitting in the quiet room, or avoid the quiet solo walks. The places where your mind can go deeper. Think through layers. Unpeel and unpack. Ask a lot of “Why?”

With relentless ‘posting’ and ‘publishing’, you can easily feel like you’re moving. Useful. And feel like you’re proving something (to who knows who?).

You can keep collecting little hits of relief. You can call it discipline and never ask what you’re running from (or towards).

But this is probably inaccurate.

So… for me, I chose “quiet” (on some fronts). And, to ask more challenging questions of myself — especially those connected to:

• Why?

• And… for whom?

Not the “take a day off” kind, but deeper, quieter practices.

Quiet to sit long enough for internal noise to distill into something that can be named: maybe fear, or resentment, hope, ambition, exhaustion, desire…

And then, “Why?” - connected to the identified emotions.

This past year, in the moments between my business commitments and contracts, when previously I would have pounded out a post, published another article… instead, I went for a walk.

As a result, my fitness app Strava reflected a record year of walking: 1,500 km worth and 332 days with activities, and well over 500 hours of movement 👇

If I wasn’t walking, I was writing in a Learning Journal. Or, sitting quietly and pondering before diving back into work projects 👇

What Slowing Down Provided

When I started Box Cutter Co. late in 2022, I intended it to be a place where I share how I’m going about solving some of my own challenges, what I’m working on, and what I’m learning.

Slowing down on the Box Cutter Co. publishing cadence in 2025 provided a lot of return, for example:

1. Slowing down provided more clarity

Previously, when I published to ‘satisfy a streak’, my standards drifted toward what’s fast, what’s acceptable, what the creator economy hustlers say: “works” and what one “should” do.

When I slowed down the publishing cycle, I was able to explore better questions:

• What’s useful and practical?

• What’s honest?

• What matters?

2. Slowing down made writing more useful and practical

Course-building has a way of exposing fluff. Learners don’t care about your vibe. They care whether the material is usable and clear, whether it helps them do something, and whether it respects their time.

Those tensions force more structure and more empathy (walking in their shoes).

It also forces you to mean what you say. AI-generated slop does not.

3. Slowing down exposed assumptions and motives behind “be consistent”

A lot of consistency advice online is about BS proof-seeking. Proof that you’re disciplined. That you’re still relevant. That you’re not falling behind (FOMO).

When I stepped back and thought about these more deeply, I could see how often my urge to publish was really an urge to soothe my own crap. To prove something to a non-existent individual or force.

4. Slowing down supports stronger creative infrastructure

Course modules, frameworks, lesson sequences, email courses, and durable essays—these don’t require daily performance (e.g., post relentlessly) to keep paying dividends.

For example, I had a nice surprise from Medium the other day. A story I published in January 2025 got picked up somewhere. I got an $80 US payout in Dec. for the story below (a ‘friend link’ so anyone can read it).

Changes Underway in “The Creator Economy” (And a prediction)

I’ve been participating in and watching “The Creator Economy” for almost four years. I’m observing a shift in recent months.

The Internet is flooded with content that is cheap to produce and easy to forget. More takes. More templates. More “useful” posts that sound like every other useful post. More post volume to feed an algorithm or guru-take.

This will continue. Let it. The Age of AI-slop.

But it does create a split and opportunities.

On one side is the content output optimized for pace. Constant publishing, proving, and apparent responsiveness. Lots of surface area, but little depth. Easy to scale.

And!… Easy to replace.

On the other side is work optimized for reality, usefulness, and practicality. Fewer public and published artifacts, more upstream thinking…

This will translate to more ideas and initiatives that can’t be faked by volume and AI slop—because they require judgment (by real people), taste, and, for those publishing, an openness (maybe even willingness) to be temporarily invisible.

The second path seems quieter. But, it’s not. It’s about deeper thinking and reflecting in one’s own brain, before pressing ‘publish’. (Trust me, it can be noisy in there)

That’s the lane I’m navigating.

What this means…

If you’re a subscriber, you probably don’t need more content from me. I’m assuming you appreciate content coming from a mind not trying to escape itself or soothe addictions like FOMO or the constant urge to post.

The kind tested by reality, reflected on for usefulness, and not padded with AI slop.

Don’t get me wrong… I leverage AI every day. In my work building and designing courses, I use AI relentlessly. However, I also constantly fact-check it, challenge it, and use it to look at things from endless angles.

If you’re on LinkedIn, you can see how I’ve recently segmented things out to align with things I’m working on and building, including:

• my standard personal LinkedIn page, where I post every week (3-5x)

• a new D. Loewen Strategy Co. page reflecting my consulting work and projects

• A Box Cutter Co. page, where I share what I’m working on and thinking about, connected to my creative business and this Substack

• And, Humanity Academy, the educational startup and social enterprise my wife Lisa and I started about three years ago

Similarly, on Medium, we have publications aligned with each of these, along with a specific writing account called The Learning Journals Initiative.

Stepping back from the relentless posting-and-publishing ‘mode of thought’ and approach provided some space to think.

With that space came more clarity about setting up ‘lanes’ for my many areas of interest, curiosity, and what I do to support a living in the making (not ‘making a living’).

Have you experienced anything like this in your work? Wondering how to do it? Have a question? Reach out.

Happy new year! And looking forward to 2026.

Have you uttered the phrase “life is short”?

I have, and I no longer do.

It survives mainly because it flatters human impatience and our constant search for novelty. Our brains are wired for it.

But it also excuses and supports shallow thinking. It can distract us from an authentic audit of how we’re actually living. A lot of advice built on “life is short” collapses the moment we examine it—even briefly.

In our household, we stopped using and taking this shallow slogan at face value. Upon examining it deeper, things shifted.

On the obvious front… Life didn’t feel short anymore. (What’s the rush?)

Life feels long—long enough to live intentionally, authentically, deliberately, and:
live thought-full-y.

Which brings me to the recent season when I stepped back from the creative enterprises. Or… at least slowed down some production and output.

Over 2 Million Words Published (Then Pressed Pause)

I walked away from corporate public sector employment in early 2022. For three years, I wrote and published as if I had unlimited things to write, a bottomless well of creativity:

• Almost 400 articles on Medium

• Nearly 200 Box Cutter Co. issues

• More than 1,000 LinkedIn posts (on my profile)

This is also in the midst of my wife , and I launching our little education startup . We wrote and designed several free 5-day email courses, along with one larger multi-module course each. Plus articles and newsletters and social posts.

Two years ago, Lisa also left the world of employment and started her own private counselling therapy practice (part of Humanity Academy).

In the meantime, I continued securing consulting contracts, Ghostwriting projects, and teaching six university-level online Communications courses, plus taking on some curriculum and course-writing contracts.

We also have three kids—two that have launched into young adulthood, and one in their last years of high school.

It’s a full life. Not generally frantic, but busy. Often… busy enough.

Plus, it’s an intentional commitment by both of us to honest, authentic, meaningful work, as business owners, and not as employees.

Then…

…last spring, a realization kept surfacing in my regular writing in a Learning Journal, plus thinking, reflecting, pondering:

• I was producing (often relentlessly), but I wasn’t replenishing and refuelling at the same rate.

At the same time as I was writing and publishing relentlessly, I was also in the heart of course development for a client — micro-credit courses for First Nation communities in western Canada.

Added to that, over the past year and a bit, I’ve also assisted nonprofits in raising well over $1 million and assisted in facilitating some development and governance work.

So, in the late spring, I decided it was time for a summer of less relentlessness on the writing and publishing front. I asked myself more frequently, things like:

• “Why the drive to overachieve, overproduce, outperform?”

And… I decided to provide more quiet, steady focus to my consulting work and wrap up some curriculum writing projects for the open online learning program I work in.

I also decided to combine this with:

• More time outside

• More riding my bike

• More golfing with our youngest

• More thinking without writing and publishing relentlessly

And in that pause, some longer, sustainable shapes of things began to emerge. Plus, we also installed/built another studio on our property. Lisa has had one since we moved in about 5 years ago.

We added a second to be my ‘office’ and creative space (the brown one below).

And, now, my office/studio has one of the best views on the property.

1. Creative Enterprises Don’t Have to Be Built for Speed (Build for Longevity Instead)

There’s a modern superstition… faster is better (closely connected to “life is short”).

Linked to this are ideas that speed is proof of ambition, and slowness is some moral failing. But, I’ve come to recognize, when I stop chasing “more,” I begin to see more hidden math and hidden stories — that I probably don’t need to carry any longer.

Over the longer term, “enough” is sturdier than frantic ambition.

• “Enough” lets you steer into the skid when life swerves.

• “Enough” doesn’t require you to perform urgency (often, that you don’t feel).

I experienced too much of that as an employee, especially healthcare — living and accomplishing on others ‘urgent’ agendas and career trajectories.

The digital world — and Creator Economy — is full of high-urgency creators. Post and publish relentlessly. Treating creativity like endless extractive wells. (Or, simply offloading it to ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok…)

Look across Substack, especially Notes, and your feed is most likely plugged like mine, with: “How to Grow on Substack” posts, advice and newsletters. (It’s not all that different on Medium, or multiple other platforms).

Many of these operate from the “Life is short…” myth.

When I step back from that, and reflect, I realize…

No, actually… Life is Long… the false urgency and “Post, Grow, Post, Grow” of The Creator Economy flutters away, like I’ve put on noise-cancelling headphones, or retreated to a mountainside far from urban kerfuffle.

I’m interested in living a life full of creativity and writing, BUT…

…in a way that’s sustainable across a long life. I call it: sustainable.

1.1 A Recent Reflection on a Successful Creator Drove This Home For Me

I’ve appreciated reading stuff from successful creator . He’s open and transparent about his work. In a recent newsletter, he shared the graph below, which illustrates his Annual Profit and Losses (P&Ls) for his Creator Economy business (e.g., “The Lab”).

I was struck by the level of output (expenses) and its relation to net income. Last year, he had about half a million dollars ($500,000) in costs, which when subtracted from gross income, generated a bit over a quarter million ($250,000) in net income.

Good on ya, Jay! And, thank you for sharing these openly.

What got driven home for me…

…was that at this juncture, my (and our) creative and professional enterprises require a fraction of those expenses/costs to generate net incomes not that far off (granted the graph is US$).

Not a criticism in the least… simply an observation of differences in business models and approaches. We’ve made a conscious choice to not spending an inordinate amount of time ‘online’ —

…or “on the line” from the old Hollywood movie (2013) “The Internship” with Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson.

2. “Life Is Short” Makes Us Hurry (“Life Is Long” Keeps Us Real)

I often find “Life is short” is a slogan of the rushed, restless and dicontent. Shift one word to — “life is long”— and the pressure (often false) shifts.

Step back, slow down, and presto, there’s breathing room:

• Time to think deeper before publishing

• Space to build slowly rather than inflate unsustainably

• Room to design creative work outlasting the latest trend and fuss cycles

I see too much creative anxiety emanating from those pretending we’re running out of time.

But when we shift from “life is short” to “life is long,” we might realize we’re simply running out of patience, not years.

And patience is a renewable resource (if you stop sprinting relentlessly).

3. Quiet Seasons Are Critical “Creative Infrastructure”

Stepping back late this spring didn’t make my work any more fragile or unstable or precarious.

It actually facilitated clearer thinking and vision on the distinct future structures of my creative work and enterprises.

I realized, much more clearly, how I wasn’t building one business; I was designing and establishing more of a creative ecosystem. Recently, I started laying this out more clearly with distinct LinkedIn pages.

• D. Loewen Strategy Co. — the consulting and client arm, with its constraints and cadence. This currently takes up much of my time and generates the majority of revenue.

• Box Cutter Co. — this is where I write, publish, question, and think in public— specifically about creative business, creative infrastructure, The Creator Economy, and related topics like Soulpreneurship, and so on.

• Humanity Academy — the educational venture with my wife Lisa that follows a different rhythm and pace. Small, steady, baby steps—in the midst of a busy solo counselling practice.

I also have my university teaching gigs, which generate good revenue and keep me connected to the higher ed sector. A sector under a lot of pressure to change, and one that often sparks my curiosity on things like governance, strategy, design, and planning.

Upon reflection over the summer and this fall, and as I focused on consulting projects, the creative sparks began to fly again. Sometimes, longevity benefits from clearer boundaries. And even creativity can benefit from guardrails.

4. A Return to Writing and Publishing Without The False Urgency

Coming back to Box Cutter Co. and other creative enterprises feels like easing back into a longer rhythm—one that assumes I’ll still be doing this in ten years, maybe twenty, maybe thirty.

Life is long.

And when you build from that belief, things settle:

• Less noise. More meaning.

• Less pressure. More clarity.

• Less mimicry. More originality.

The ride becomes something one can enjoy—literally and figuratively.

For example, early in the summer, I completed a 190 km (120-mile) gravel bike race, then a 120 km road race, then a 120 km gravel race (all in June).

Three questions to ponder for a long, sustainable creative life:

1. Where am I pushing for “more” when “enough” could serve me better?

2. What part of my creative ecosystem might need its own container?

3. If I believed life were long—not short—how would I adjust my pace?

We don’t need to hurry. Life is long.

We love success stories. We obsess over them.

Billion-dollar startups. Best-selling books. Viral threads.

They’re celebrated, dissected, emulated, and held up as blueprints. “The way!”

The problem?

Most success stories create illusions. They become false guidebooks, maps, and yardsticks, instigating internalized pressures and false goals.

These success stories rarely reveal the whole picture. And without realizing it, many creatives start building from distorted (and inflated) assumptions and beliefs.

After three years of building creative businesses (from scratch), I’ve seen how three invisible forces persistently sabotage creative momentum:

• 👉 Survivorship Bias — you’re only seeing the winners

• 👉 Decision Fatigue — too many choices erode clarity

• 👉 The Paradox of Choice — too much freedom creates paralysis

These forces shape your strategy, and they shape your stamina. Plus, they might be slowing you down more than you think. Let’s unpack these a little.

1. Survivorship Bias

Survivorship bias means noticing only the winners. It’s missing the thousands who tried similar things and didn’t make it. The illusion is dangerous but straightforward:

“If I simply follow the same playbook, I’ll succeed too...”

In “The Creator Economy,” this path has left countless others frustrated, broke, and burned out. And, we rarely hear their stories. Survivorship bias doesn’t mean success is impossible. It means the data is often incomplete.

If your creative business decisions rely solely on what’s public and celebrated, you’re operating on a sliver of reality.

This illustration represents a classic example of survivorship bias. During World War II, engineers studied where returning bombers were hit to determine where to add armour.

At first, they focused on the areas with the most bullet holes. However, statistician Abraham Wald pointed out the backward flaw in thinking, as they were only analyzing surviving planes.

The missing (and critical) data were the planes that didn’t make it back.

These would show where armour was truly needed (the engines and cockpit), as the surviving planes were demonstrating that a plane could still make it back when it was hit in certain places.

It’s a powerful reminder: what we don’t see often matters more than what we do.

2. Decision Fatigue

Here’s another quiet trap: decision fatigue.

Every decision costs energy — mental, emotional, strategic. The more decisions you make, the worse they become. In creative work, where the choices are endless, this gets exhausting. What to write. Where to publish. Who to serve. What to say yes to.

I didn't notice the drain when I started building my creative enterprises three years ago. I was tired — not from the work (as I was full of excitement for that)— but I got worn down from the weight of options.

So I started doing something unsexy: Making fewer decisions, sometimes by deciding ahead of time. I created personal rules, such as:

• When and how I write.

• What projects I say “yes” to (it’s very few)

• What platforms and strategies I don’t chase.

Fewer choices = more energy for the right work.

3. The Paradox of Choice

Then there’s the paradox of choice — maybe the subtlest trap. We often think freedom means more options. Yet, creativity thrives on constraints.

Too many options = decision paralysis.

Dr. Sheena Iyengar’s “jam study” demonstrated this clearly. A store with a table sampling 24 different jams drew crowds, but only about 3% of them bought.

Whereas a table with six jams drew fewer browsers, but ~30% of them bought. Abundance attracts. Constraint converts.

It’s easy to get stuck researching, tweaking, delaying — instead of choosing a direction and going.

The result?

Confusion. Half-built projects.

‘Progress’ that feels like treading water.

What can change this?

Deciding once, clearly — and letting other options die. No more waffling. No more panic-pivoting.

From Career Ladder to Creative Business

Three years ago, I walked away from corporate public sector employment. I was steadily moving up the career ladder, but in early 2022, I chose to step off it — cold turkey.

After more than ten years in the public sector (healthcare and higher ed), I’d earned a master’s and a doctorate, was included in regular conversations about “succession planning”, and had almost tripled my salary.

When I walked away from all that, plus a healthy, steady salary — with three kids, a mortgage, vehicle payments, etc. — I had no clients lined up. We had no financial runway.

We had a simple, but powerful belief in: the art of the figure-out-able.

I knew I wanted to build something more values-aligned, more creative, and more resilient. I aimed to build inside what’s called “The Creator Economy” — a sector Goldman Sachs estimates over $250 billion US of activity annually (with estimates it will double by 2027).

I called part of my creative enterprises: Box Cutter Co. However, I quickly ran into a lot of noise. Endless strategies. Growth hacks. “How I hit 10,000 followers in 8 weeks” playbooks. Every week, a new promise. Every success story louder than the last.

And for a while, I chased them. But the deeper I built, the more obvious it became:

• The loudest paths rarely lead to sustainable creative businesses.

• The people who endure don’t chase viral hits — they build systems.

That’s when I started watching the quieter ones. The ones still publishing, still iterating, still aligned after two, five, maybe even ten years. Or someone like Seth Godin, who’s been posting daily for two decades.

Success, I realized, isn’t constant visibility. It’s durable, persistent creativity. To build this, one needs to avoid falling into survivorship bias and others (some of which are explored above).

Durable Creativity

These traps — survivorship bias, decision fatigue, and the paradox of choice — aren’t just abstract concepts. They shape how (and whether) you build something lasting, durable, and sustainable.

They are why I now frame my creative work around what I call: Durable Creativity, which is:

• Growth NOT measured in noise, but in quiet persistence

• Creativity NOT built on viral tactics, but resilient systems

• Strategy NOT driven by scarcity, but by self-awareness and subtraction

The longer I’m at this, the more I recognize: Creative lives aren’t the loudest. → They’re the clearest.

Try This

Here’s a practical way to test these ideas for yourself. Grab a notebook or open a blank doc. Write your answers to these three questions:

1. Where am I mistaking success stories for reliable blueprints?

2. What daily decisions am I repeating unnecessarily, draining my creativity?

3. What one clear choice could I make today to eliminate dozens of others in the future?

You might be surprised how fast clarity follows subtraction.

Levelling-Up With Creative Infrastructure

We’re taught to admire those who scale fast. But creative business is rarely about speed. I’ve found it’s often about building slow, steady, simple systems you can live with — and grow from — persistently.

I have found it’s often about developing systems you can live with and continue to build upon. Creative infrastructure, I call it.

It’s about building practices and systems that don’t fall apart when life gets messy and uncertain. And it’s about choosing constraints sustaining your best creative work.

The longer you stay in the game, the more leverage your creativity earns —  Not through viral spikes, but through friction-tested, durable and persistent creativity.

How About You?

• Have any of these biases captured you?

• How do you ensure you don’t get caught up in the ‘success stories’ of other creators?

• When you read the success stories of other creatives, do you also stop and think about how many people you don’t hear from who tried, but then moved on to other things?

Thank you to those who have recently become paid subscribers.

If you’re not already, consider becoming a paid subscriber. It’s only $ 5 per month (or $50 per year). This helps fuel more of this kind of clarity-driven, soul-aligned writing, as well as the support and tools that accompany it.

Watch for more paid-subscriber issues on their way, with more practical tips and tools.

Based on what I’ve learned in building creative enterprises, which now generate revenues well beyond what I walked away from in salary in the corporate public sector, just over 3 years ago.

You’re not behind. You’re just refusing to fake it.

Have you seen this type of social media post lately? 👇

“I’ve been posting every day for two months and I’m just not seeing results…”

I’ve come across several recently, especially on LinkedIn (and not just from beginners).

Some folks will say “this is a ‘mindset’ thing…”

And they’re not entirely wrong.

Yes—clarity, persistence, and perspective matter. But what they’re missing isn’t minor—it’s at the core of creative work and building a creative enterprise. The struggle isn’t just mental. It’s also emotional.

You’re not just reframing beliefs. You’re confronting discomfort.

You’re managing ambiguity. You’re doing real creative work—in public—even when no one claps, likes, or comments. It’s full of uncertainty. Not-knowing.

This isn’t a ‘personal branding’ or niche-down or content calendar problem.

It’s a wanting-to-be-seen problem.

And the cost of navigating this isn’t paid in effort alone. For example, the incessant “just be consistent” advice plastered across social media ad nauseam.

The price is also in emotional energy—the kind no content strategy accounts for.

“But what’s the difference between mental and emotional?” some will ask, “Aren’t they the same thing?”

No, here are a few differences:

• Mental = thoughts, mindset, self-talk, decisions, strategy.

• Emotional = feelings, fear, shame, grief, uncertainty, exposure.

Someone might know comparison is toxic. But still feel gutted by it when they see someone having more ‘success’ than them.

They might decide to keep showing up, but still carry dread when the silence returns, continues, and even prevails.

That’s the emotional labour of building something creative, authentic, maybe even soul-aligned, maybe more on the non-obvious side of things.

And I’m speculating there's no course coming to help you with it. (Drop in the comments if you have come across one)

At the Same Time…

I’m watching some other shifts in creator circles: more seasoned creators—people like , , and — are rethinking where and how they show up in their creative enterprises

• (including all three showing up here on Substack in recent months).

Jay, for example, recently shared how becoming a new parent is reshaping his priorities and focus. For instance, less social media, more intention, and focus on other areas of what he’s built.

This isn’t retreat — It’s recalibration.

And often underneath these shifts?

A shared experience most gurus, advice posts, and digital courses gloss over:

What Most Courses and Creator Gurus Gloss Over

Most digital courses and guru playbooks cover the visible, strategy parts of building a digital presence and creative enterprise:

• How to grow your email list

• How to build a content system

• How to monetize your skill stack

• How to optimize your personal brand (a bullshit notion)

For beginners, this can be useful stuff. , for example, has a practical free course on being a one-person business. But here’s what the vast majority of courses leave out:

• What happens emotionally when no one responds

• What to do with comparison bias, ambiguity, and doubt

• How to keep showing up when it feels like nothing is working

• How to manage the friction between revenues and authentic alignment

These are all components of emotional labour — and ‘mindset coaches’ probably won’t be able to address.

Building a creative enterprise… Every day, you create from the inside out. You’re doing work no content calendar captures, no Notion template optimizes, no AI prompt productizes.

You’re not just making decisions. You’re often unmaking identities.

• You’re metabolizing fear.

• You’re writing without applause.

• You’re coaxing yourself through the silences.

• You’re asking if what you’re building is something you can live within.

It’s not “impostor syndrome” (a bullshit term, as well).

You’re not lying.
You’re not deceiving anyone.
You’re not performing a false identity.

(All key components of defining the term “impostor”)

You’re showing up—uncertain but honest.
That’s not imposture.
That’s volition.

It’s holding the mirror long enough to feel what it shows you, not just what you see in a quick reflection.

👉 What do I know about this? 👇

I Didn’t Just Quit a Job — I Dismantled an Identity

I left a decade+ career in 2022.
Cold turkey.

But I didn’t just leave a job—a 10+ year career in education and healthcare leadership—I left a version of myself that knew how to play the game:

• How to chase recognition (instead of alignment).

• How to be productive in toxic systems built for burnout.

• How to be agreeable in meetings where silence is safer than truth.

That version of me was good at surviving, but not at living with soul-alignment. And when I walked away, that identity didn’t just disappear. He lingered. Sometimes Loudly — especially when things got quiet.

The doubts would creep in.

• Were the doubters right?

• Did I make the right decision?

• How will I continue to generate revenue to pay the mortgage and bills?

(And so on, and so on…)

Moving from permission-based systems to permission-less ones…

These are the parts no course prepares you for. Leaving the old story is easy to post about. But living without it?

👉 That’s part of the emotional labour.

For example:

• Choosing clarity over agreement — labour.

• Showing up before you’re fully ready — labour.

• Listening to what your soul may be asking — labour.

• Offering something real to an Internet optimized for speed — labour.

• Putting boundaries on your time, your attention, your body — labour.

And the most challenging part?

• 👉 You still have to do the work (anyway).

  • Even when no one claps.

  • Even when your voice shakes.

  • Even when the metrics are flat (or falling).

As a mid-aged fellow, early in his fifth decade, with three kids, a mortgage, debts, and so on… societal and cultural norms did not support my decision to walk away from stability, security, and good benefits.

(One family member didn’t talk to my wife Lisa and I for almost two years — they thought we were endangering our family). 🤷‍♂️

This is also labour.

The Labour You Probably Didn’t Expect (But Can’t Avoid)

This is some of the emotional labour I’ve navigated in establishing creative businesses:

1. Turning questions over one more time.

Not for content, but because your direction, your voice, and your value are still taking shape. And clarity doesn’t arrive on a schedule. (It may never come)

2. Refusing to package your identity into a “personal brand.”

Because you’re not a product — You’re a person. And sometimes the parts you’re not sure how to market are the most worth keeping. (Personal branding is a ridiculous, bullshit term)

3. Protecting your clarity instead of selling your personality.

Because chasing visibility without inner alignment is a trap, and attention without integrity is a tax.

4. Holding the tension between revenues and real alignment.

You could make more. Faster. But not without fracturing something inside you. And you’re probably not here to repeat the systems you left behind (I know I’m definitely not)

5. Showing up again, (and again, and again) even when it doesn’t feel good or certain.

Because volitional work rarely does. But that doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong.

It means you’re doing it for real.

There are easier ways to make money.

Faster ways to get attention.

But if you’re building a creative enterprise from the inside out (not outside-in)… What you’re also building is the capacity to feel without fleeing.

• You can outsource admin.

• You can automate scheduling.

• You can template a content strategy.

But in this work, in creative work, emotional labour is non-transferable. It’s yours. And it will shape you. Not by simply pushing through (often my go to strategy), but by witnessing.

By identifying. By navigating. By staying awake to it.

The discomfort of progressing with meaning (to you) is better than the comfort of meaningless motion (like chasing applause and likes).

You don’t move forward by feeling ready. You feel ready by moving forward.

Fast is easy. Real is hard. Worth is rare.

The work that pleases algorithms isn’t the work that builds a creative life with personal meaning and intention. And the creative work that builds a life rarely pleases the ever-changing algorithms.

You can scroll. You can post. You can perform. But can you stand what you’re building 6 months from now, 12 months, 18 months, and so on?

Not everything that performs is real and genuine. And not everything that’s real and genuine performs.

By doing the more soul-aligned work, which can mean almost daily friction of building with integrity, which will rub up against hustle-bro strategies and comparison bias.

Call it a contract.

The one you didn’t know you signed. The one that costs more than you expected. Yet gives you back more than you thought possible.

Not freedom. Not fame. But something rarer:

👉 Congruence.

And the creative business that can be built on that?

Isn’t just a product. Isn’t a brand. It’s a creative life.

A living in the making—(instead of the commonly phrased opposite).

This is Part 1 of a longer series on emotional labour in creative work.

Watch for the next issue.

P.S. Box Cutter Co. is growing.

We now have a dedicated LinkedIn page

After two and a half years, we’re approaching 200 issues on this site (this is #193). Paying subscribers can access the full archive.

What started as a weekly dispatch about building creative enterprises from scratch is becoming more:

• a business,

• a philosophy, and

• a practical approach to building from the inside → out.

More courses, tools, and deeper resources are on their way: for creative folks, professionals, and organizations building something real (without faking it and falling into hustle-hype).

And, for those navigating the more non-obvious realms. The long-term sustainable builds.

Thank you to those who have recently become paid subscribers.

If you’re not already, consider becoming a paid subscriber. It’s only $ 5 per month (or $50 per year). This helps fuel more of this kind of clarity-driven, soul-aligned writing, supports, and tools.

Watch for more paid-subscriber issues on their way, with more practical tips and tools.

Based on what I’ve learned in building creative enterprises, which now generate revenues well beyond what I walked away from in salary in the corporate public sector, just over 3 years ago.

So many people are writing and posting for approval, recognition, or applause.

But your soul doesn’t need public approval or anyone’s permission — to flourish.

We’re all trained early:

• Wait your turn.

• Raise your hand.

• Get permission first.

It’s baked into schools. Into jobs. Into social norms. We hesitate before we create, waiting for someone to nod, smile, and say, “Yes, that’s okay.”

But here’s a key shift underway in The Creator Economy, and sub-sector The Business Creator Economy (B2B).

• 👉 Creativity (and creative businesses of one) don’t require permission.

They run on clarity. On courage. And on quiet alignment with your purpose (on purpose) and in line with your unique calling.

In this issue, how to build a permission-less creative practice. And, how to stop waiting for validation and listen to something deeper.

Permission-Seeking Keeps You Stuck

It happens everywhere:

• Asking employers if you can post

• Polling peers before launching your project.

• Asking course creators if it’s okay to try something new.

• Pausing ideas because no one else seems to do things that way.

Permission-seeking doesn’t just slow you down—it keeps your soul’s unique calling trapped and shrunk.

You might be thinking:

• “That’s nice in theory. But I can’t just quit my job and start creating.”

I get it. Permissionless doesn’t mean reckless. It means beginning a shift—subtly, steadily—toward listening to yourself more than you listen to others.

It can start in 10 minutes daily, and level up from there.

Waiting for permission is often status quo comfort disguised as caution. It feels safer to follow (the rules, others, the ‘successful’ ones). Easier to blend in and “not rock the boat.”

But your best creative work—your soul’s authentic work—never comes from imitation. It comes from trust. It comes in the quiet pull, not always explaining itself, but never really leaving.

It’s who you are when no one’s watching, applauding, or supervising. It’s when you continue to build even when no one’s clapping or re-posting.

It comes from action without approval, permission, or someone else’s deadline.

Moving from Permission to Practice

I left corporate public sector employment three years ago. Since then, I’ve been writing every day. Some of this is in private Learning Journals. A lot of it is posted openly and publicly online.

Writing daily, quietly and consistently, is an excellent practice for connecting (and reconnecting) to your inner authority. Authoring your unique, personal authenticity.

Your creative voice strengthens as you shift from:

• Approval to… authenticity

• Validation to… experimentation

• Seeking permission to… giving yourself permission

The quiet practice of writing regularly builds something deeper than an audience. It builds discernment. Then clarity. Then direction, belonging to you.

I know this can sound fru-fru. Impractical. But permissionless practice isn’t vague or soft.

It’s a system—a daily rhythm of reflection, testing, and creating—without waiting for someone’s green light.

Strategy isn’t always spreadsheets — sometimes, it starts with listening.

I was very clear when I left secure employment to launch a creative enterprise… that creativity, writing, and permissionless building would be my business's core creative infrastructure and long-term foundation.

Writing as a Soulpreneur isn’t about being seen. It’s about seeing clearly.

• Not writing to be seen, but so I could see better.

• Not creating to be followed, but so I could follow through.

So many people are waiting for approval and permission. Writing is a quiet defiance and an escape from those psychological drags.

Soul-aligned Businesses are Permission-less By Design

Permission is often a shaky concept. It relies on consensus, applause, and someone else saying, “You’re ready now.” Or, “Yes, you can do that.”

And yes—feedback matters. But not before clarity. The trap is outsourcing direction before you define what you want. Soul-aligned work welcomes feedback—but it doesn’t depend on it to begin (or to continue).

Clarity doesn’t have to come from consensus. Or from someone else. It comes from listening inward—persistently, quietly, stubbornly.

And thus, Soul-aligned Businesses of One flip the dynamic entirely:

• You don’t chase the trend. You build from the inside out.

• You don’t wait to be certified. You validate through processes.

• You don’t crowdsource your confidence. You cultivate it through rhythm.

• You don’t ask if your content is “permitted” — You experiment and observe.

Permissionless creation is quietly rebellious. It resists the need to be impressive. It bypasses digital dogma.

And, it reconnects you with your internal compass—where strategy meets soul, and clarity becomes your creative fuel.

I consistently find, the most resonant work doesn’t come from following all the rules. It often comes from remembering what I’m here to make, then making it.

Or using writing to put shape and substance to my thoughts, where soul-aligned work can flourish.

• Not louder. But deeper.

• Not with scale. But with substance.

And once you taste that kind of creative autonomy, there’s no going back to waiting rooms (to secure permission).

Writing as a Diagnostic Tool for the Soul

Your soul doesn’t crave engagement metrics. It craves coherence. Alignment. Peace of direction. When you write—without the pressure to perform—you will notice:

• What lights you up versus what drains you

• Which decisions are yours versus borrowed

• Where the deeper voice is trying to get through

Writing becomes a calibration practice. You realign with rhythm. You return to yourself.

Creative Endurance is About Rhythm, not Rush

Quiet creative businesses aren’t built overnight. They’re built persistently over time.

• Rhythmically

• Steadily

Without seeking constant reassurance from outside voices. Permission-less soulpreneurs measure progress differently:

• Not by hustle, but by rhythm.

• Not by virality, but by authenticity.

• Not by permission, but by personal alignment.

This doesn’t mean growth, revenue, or reach don’t matter. It means they’re downstream of clarity, not substitutes for it.

Soulpreneurs can make great money. But the approach to business honours energy, integrity, and creative rhythm. (Keep in mind: Many people can bring their soul to work in their employment, too.)

The most powerful creative businesses quietly sustain themselves by honouring this deeper truth: Your soul already knows the way.

Permissionless Principles for Quieter Creatives

To move away from permission and toward more soul-aligned creation, try these principles:

• Build quietly. Noise distracts; silence guides.

• Think clearly. Clarity leads; applause follows.

• Move steadily. The soul values rhythm, not frenetic fuss

• Repeat relentlessly. Persistency creates alignment and inner trust.

A question to consider:

👉 “Am I creating from approval—or from clarity?”

Sit with this question. Write about it. Let your soul answer honestly. Then build around the quiet clarity that emerges.

Soulpreneurs and creative businesses don’t wait for permission. They build quiet systems and rhythms, sustaining their creativity and supporting their unique calling.

It’s not about being loud. It’s about being clear.

That’s the shift.

Your soul doesn’t need permission or applause to flourish. It simply requires your attention, rhythm, and readiness to begin.

P.S. Box Cutter Co. is expanding.

After two-and-a-half years of weekly publishing, Box Cutter Co. has expanded to Medium and LinkedIn.

I’m evolving this initiative from a newsletter into a full creative strategy practice, focusing on thinking, writing, learning design (& redesign), and permissionless creative work.

• → Follow along on LinkedIn and Medium.

Most people think success in “The Creator Economy” has to be LOUD, BUSY, HUSTLE:

• Build Big Follower Counts

• Daily content grind

• Perpetual motion

Too many smart creatives are stuck between burnout models (grind-till-you-scale) and influencer illusions (go viral or go broke).

This Box Cutter Co. paid issue is about showing a quieter path—one that scales trust, not impressions, followers, or subscribers.

I run creative enterprises that have moved well beyond what I used to make as a senior leader in the corporate public sector—and most people wouldn’t know it from the outside.

There are no complex sales funnels, complicated content calendars, and definitely no TikTok.

What I have is a small, high-trust client base, a few critical tools, and creative systems keeping things moving persistently without grind, hustle, or burning me out.

This work isn’t about going viral.

It’s about solving real problems for real people and organizations.
It’s about being practical, strategic, and hard to replace.
It’s about quiet impact over noisy metrics.

All of this occurs largely in The Business Creator Economy, and:

• It’s quiet

• It’s business-to-business (B2B)

• It’s built on writing, trust, and delivery—not likes or impressions

If you’re a writer, strategist, learning designer, or communications pro, this model might feel more honest and aligned with how you want to work.

Here’s my breakdown.

How a One-person Business Creates Leverage (and Revenues)

While most creatives are chasing visibility, followers, and hype, many creative entrepreneurs are quietly growing creative businesses under the radar.

Businesses rooted in writing, communication, learning, and systems can scale trust, profitability, long-term sustainability, and meaning.

We’re living through two overlapping digital shifts:

• “The Creator Economy” (built on audience, reach, monetization)

• “The Business Creator Economy” (built on services, trust, delivery)

One isn’t better than the other, but one is definitely noisier—the first.

And the other, The Business Creator Economy (as a subset of the larger Creator Economy), is much more sustainable. And, over the long run, will most likely have the highest percentage of successful, sustainable enterprises.

Writing-as-a-Service

Most of my work—and many others quietly doing well in this sector—is built around Writing-as-a-Service (WaaS)

This isn’t “build-a-following” content. It’s not performative posts, growth hacks, or mass-market threads. More followers and subscribers are not the objective.

It’s writing as a service for organizations, executives, teams, service providers, and individuals where clarity is the problem they’re trying to solve — and writing (or communication) is the product they need.

This is writing as creative infrastructure.

Think, for example:

• Executive voice for founders, directors, or thought leaders who need clear, compelling internal or external communications.

• Strategy documents shaping how teams align or communicate across functions and levels.

• Ghostwritten reports or position papers representing an organization’s unique POV, values, and expertise (esp. in the non-profit sector).

• Learning or training content helping people actually understand and apply ideas — not just fill out course materials using ChatGPT (or other AI tools).

• LinkedIn, social media and/or newsletter content that builds credibility, not running around searching for virality

This isn’t about being the face, or the BS notion of ‘personal branding’ — it’s about assisting the right people, organizations and movements in being more powerful and precise.

It’s business-to-business (B2B). It’s often behind the scenes. And it’s about providing actual value to individuals and organizations — not manufacturing false needs and fuss with hustle-bro marketing and sales.

Why does this work for one-person operations now?

Because the tools of today provide tremendous leverage.

I primarily run my creative solo business with Notion, AI, and LinkedIn. That’s enough to think clearly, deliver persistently, and stay visible.

You don’t need a big team. You only need small, tight systems.

A system that includes:

• A repeatable writing and review process

• Tools to manage flow without creating chaos

• Clean templates, docs, supported by asynchronous feedback

And yes, social media helps, not for clout, but for credibility. Not to attract the masses, but to secure a few meaningful and awesome clients.

This is the Business Creator Economy:

• Low-noise. High-value. Quietly profitable.

After walking away from the corporate public sector in April 2022, one of my first clients came through LinkedIn. They said they’d seen my regular posts, and wanted assistance to do the same.

Mindset: Ditch the Hustle-Hype

To build in The Business Creator Economy, you don’t need:

• 10k followers

Read more

We love success stories. We obsess over them.

Billion-dollar startups. Best-selling books. Viral threads.

They’re celebrated, dissected, emulated, and held up as blueprints. “The way!”

The problem?

But most success stories create illusions. They become our false guidebooks, maps, yardsticks, and our internalized pressures and false signposts.

These success stories rarely reveal the whole picture.

And without realizing it, many creatives start building from distorted assumptions and beliefs.

After three years of building creative businesses (from scratch), I’ve seen how three particular invisible forces quietly sabotage creative momentum and stability:

• 👉 Survivorship Bias — you’re only seeing the winners

• 👉 Decision Fatigue — too many choices erode clarity

• 👉 The Paradox of Choice — too much freedom creates paralysis

These forces don’t just shape your strategy. They shape your stamina. And they might be slowing you down more than you think.

Let’s unpack these three traps.

1. Survivorship Bias

Survivorship bias means noticing only the winners. It’s missing the thousands who tried similar things and didn’t make it. The illusion is dangerous but straightforward:

“If I simply follow the same playbook, I’ll succeed too...”

In “The Creator Economy,” this path has left countless others frustrated, broke, and burned out. And, we rarely hear their stories.

Survivorship bias doesn’t mean success is impossible. It means the data is often incomplete.

If your creative business decisions rely solely on what’s public and celebrated, you’re operating on a dangerous sliver of reality.

This illustration represents a classic example of survivorship bias.

During WWII, engineers studied where returning bombers were hit to decide where to add armour.

At first, they focused on the areas with the most bullet holes. However, statistician Abraham Wald pointed out the backward flaw in thinking, as they were only analyzing surviving planes.

The missing data was the planes that didn’t make it back. These showed where armour was truly needed (e.g. the engines and cockpit).

It’s a powerful reminder: what we don’t see often matters more than what we do.

2. Decision Fatigue

Here’s another sneaky trap: decision fatigue.

Every decision costs energy — mental, emotional, strategic. The more decisions you make, the worse they become. In creative work, where the choices are endless, this gets exhausting.

• What to write.

• Where to publish.

• What to say ‘yes’ to.

Three years ago, when I started building my creative enterprises, I didn't fully realize the drain of decision fatigue. I was tired — not from the work (it was full of excitement)— but I got worn down from the constantweight of options.

So I started doing something unsexy: Making fewer decisions by deciding ahead of time.

I created personal rules, such as:

• When and how I write.

• What projects I say “yes” to (it’s very few)

• What platforms and strategies I don’t chase.

Fewer choices = more energy for the right work.

3. The Paradox of Choice

Then there’s the paradox of choice — maybe the subtlest trap.

We often think freedom means more options. Yet, creativity thrives on constraints.

Too many options = decision paralysis.

It’s easy to get stuck researching, tweaking, delaying — instead of choosing a direction, going, shipping — pushing “publish.”

The result?

• Confusion. Half-built projects.

• ‘Progress’ that actually feels like treading water.

What can change this?

Deciding once, clearly — and letting other options die. No more waffling. No more panic-pivoting.

Here’s how some of this has worked in my creative endeavours.

From Career Ladders to Creative Business

Three years ago, I walked away from corporate public sector employment. I was steadily moving up the career ladder, but in early 2022, I chose to step off it — cold turkey.

After more than ten years in the public sector (healthcare and higher ed), I’d earned a master’s and a doctorate, was included in regular conversations about “succession planning”, and had almost tripled my salary.

When I walked away from all that, plus the healthy, steady salary — with three kids, a mortgage, vehicle payments, etc. — I had no clients lined up. We had no financial runway.

We had a simple, but powerful belief in: The Art of the Figure-out-able.

I knew I wanted to build something more values-aligned, more creative, and more resilient.

I aimed to build inside what’s called “The Creator Economy” — a sector Goldman Sachs estimates at over $250 billion US of activity annually (with estimates it will double by 2027).

I called part of my creative enterprises: Box Cutter Co.

However, I quickly ran into a lot of noise. Endless strategies. Growth hacks. “How I hit 10,000 followers in 8 weeks” playbooks. Every week, a new promise. Every success story louder than the last.

And for a while, I chased them. But the deeper I built, the more obvious it became:

• The loudest paths rarely lead to sustainable creative businesses.

• The people who endure don’t chase viral hits — they build systems.

That’s when I started watching the quieter ones.

The ones still publishing, still iterating, still aligned after two, five, maybe even ten years. Or someone like Seth Godin, who’s been posting daily for two decades.

Success, I realized, isn’t constant visibility. It’s durable creativity. And to build this, one needs to avoid falling to survivorship bias and other biases.

“Durable Creativity”

These traps — survivorship bias, decision fatigue, and the paradox of choice — aren’t just abstract concepts. They can shape how (and whether) you build something lasting, durable, and sustainable.

They are why I now frame my creative work around what I call: Durable Creativity, which is:

• Growth not measured in noise, but in quiet persistence

• Creativity not built on viral tactics, but resilient systems

• Strategy not driven by scarcity, but by self-awareness and subtraction

The longer I’m at this, the more I recognize: Creative lives aren’t the loudest. → They’re the clearest.

Try This

Here’s a practical way to test these ideas for yourself. Grab a notebook or open a blank doc. Write your answers to these three questions:

1. Where am I mistaking success stories for reliable blueprints?

2. What daily decisions am I repeating unnecessarily, draining my creativity?

3. What one clear choice could I make today to eliminate dozens of others in the future?

You might be surprised how fast clarity follows subtraction.

Levelling-Up With Creative Infrastructure

We’re taught — or cajoled — to admire those who scale fast.

But creative business is rarely about speed. I’ve found it’s often about building systems you can live with — and grow from — persistently.

I have found it’s often about developing systems you can live with and continue to build upon. Creative infrastructure.

It’s about building practices and systems that don’t fall apart when life gets messy and uncertain. And it’s about choosing constraints sustaining your best creative work.

The longer you stay in the game, the more leverage your creativity earns —  Not through viral spikes, but through friction-tested, durable creativity.

If you’d like to learn more about a fantastic tool to support creativity, our course:

• Learning Journals 101 (Shift your thinking, Change your life)

Is still open for Free enrolment. There’s an intro video at this link above. No spam, no catch. Just solid content (and I’d love to hear your feedback).

Thanks for being here. Thanks for reading.

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You’ve seen the playbooks. The ones promising $10K/month…
(with 25-step funnels, AI content engines, and rapid growth hacks.)

Seems like maybe the $10k per month in “The Creator Economy “…has become the new 10,000 steps per day… silly metric.

(Both are largely arbitrary marketing gimmicks.)

After three years of building creative businesses from scratch, I’ve learned something these frequently-touted playbooks rarely say out loud:

• 👉 Success isn’t built on tactics alone.

In this multi-billion-dollar Creator Economy, sustainable success is built on mindset, creative orientation, and foundational systems.

The more these reflect your values — the stronger and more sustainable your enterprise and efforts. Here’s what that could look like. 👇

The Wild Leap (And What Followed)

I left the corporate rat race three years ago to build a creative business (or two) from scratch.

No investors. No playbook. No guarantees.
No financial runway. No clients.

Most people said I was nuts. (And… they weren’t wrong)

I didn’t leave because I had a perfect plan. I left because I knew I couldn’t stay. Toxicity in workplaces and silly office politics had worn me down — worn me out.

Walking away is not the expected path for a “mid-career professional” climbing the corporate ladder. After a decade of climbing that ladder, I’d almost tripled my salary, progressively moving higher in the corporate public sector.

But the ‘higher’ I moved in the corporate hierarchies and the bigger the budgets I managed, the more my soul shrivelled. The more I saw humanity shrink, too.

Walking away was a darn challenging choice. And yet, it remains one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

Thus, in early April 2022, I started building something new, from scratch. Something far more fulfilling and soul-filling — and often damn scary.

The Struggles Weren’t What I Expected

My decision to leave was a family decision, but we also set some timelines and targets. (Leaving a six-figure salary with no contracts lined up is a pretty scary proposition for a family of 5 with a mortgage, some debts, etc.)

And yet, the challenges weren’t really what I initially expected. It was:

• Not the clients.

• Not the cash flow.

• Not the daily writing or publishing.

The core challenges as one month moved into two, and two into three — and writing and posting daily. Studying everyone I could who’d had some success in this expanding “Creator Economy.”

Trying things.
Pondering the “niche down” advice, and POV and MVP and VIP, and bla, bla, bla…

None of these were the real challenge or issue.

It was the mindset traps tripping me up the most. (And it’s these that so few folks talk about in the usual materials, posts, and mini-courses)

The quiet psychological weight of a creative life and building something from scratch in this new, fascinating, and fantastic wealth of opportunities — in the purported $250 billion annual Creator Economy (estimated to double by 2027)

The “$10K Per Month” Playbook Mirage

Lately, another wave of $10K/month creator playbooks has been circulating social media channels (including here on Substack).

You’ve probably seen them:

• Funnel formulas

• AI content machines

• 25 “Secrets” to passive income

• 50-step monetization checklists

Sometimes there’s value inside. But often, they’re buffet-style hustle noise or they are long on hype, short on substance.

The harsh reality for most — especially those earlier in the foundation-building?

You don’t need a bigger funnel, a stronger magnet, or a clearer POV, or a ‘niche’.

Often, you just need clearer lenses.

What those playbooks almost always miss:

• → The psychological toll of constant visibility

• → The internal churn when metrics don’t move

• → The slow erosion of confidence in the frequent silence

And few warn you about how these eroding impacts sap momentum, and worse yet, your creativity.

Mindset: The Engine of Creative Businesses

After three years of engaging deeply in this “Creator Economy” gig — and an analytic, research-oriented approach to things — I’ve learned and realized a few things…

If you’re feeling a bit stuck in building your creative endeavours in these online spaces:

• It’s probably not a strategy problem.

• It’s certainly not a ‘niche’ challenge.

• And, it’s definitely not a monetization model problem.

It’s most likely mindset tools, skills, and approaches.

I’m talking about the mindset skills keeping you going:

• When your metrics are a month-long flatline,

• When your posts are maestros for the crickets, and your ROI, such as time allocated to revenue earned, is a negative number (let alone a $0.03 per hour calculation, or less).

The mindset skills will steady you when the algorithm shrugs and the platform pivots (àla the writing and publishing platform Medium).

Early on in my journey of building from scratch, as things moved into month 5, month 6, several internal questions whispered (and sometimes shouted):

• “Is this enough?”

• “Is this working?”

• “Were the doubters right?”

• How the f**c^ am I going to make this work?

The Shift From Performing to Building

When I left the employment rat race, I had already spent over a decade “performing” in the public sector.

I knew what it meant to optimize for optics. To meet others’ expectations. To climb a ladder (built in old, outdated sets of systems).

So I made shifts. Big ones:

• From chasing → to creating

• From performing → to building

• From output → to orientation (mind, soul, values)

• From tracking metrics → to measuring what matters

Yet, these are easy to say and theorize — but much more difficult to put into daily practice.

Where My Creative Business Actually Works

“The Creator Economy” is a term now immersed in common dialogue, especially with over 5 billion souls globally accessing the Internet AND social media…

… it’s a space redefining careers, occupations, businesses and more.

Much of the over $250 billion US annually driving this ‘economy’ is in the Influencer space. Most people are familiar with the likes of Mr. Beast and the Kardashians, and so on.

These are primarily in the Business-to-Consumer (B2C) spaces. This is also the space where LinkedIn guru Justin Welsh operates, and many other build-on-social-media-types.

Lots of hype, big followings, sales funnels, go, go, go.

However, most of my current business and revenue lives in a sub-section of The Creator Economy, called: “The Business Creator Economy.”

• (I prefer different terms: The Creative Economy and The Business Creative Economy)

This is where creativity meets and mingles with organizational and institutional systems.

• Where thoughtful design rules over relentless sales funnels.

• Where building leverage compounds over time.

• Where quiet strategy may be key.

I still build and create in the B2C space, such as this newsletter, daily social media posts, and publishing on Medium.

(There’s also a growing C2C space: Creative to Creative, but that’s for another day)

Over the longer term, I see more of my trajectory in those spaces (B2C and C2C), for example, with books, courses, newsletters, etc.

But these days, most of my creative business revenues are driven within The Business Creative Economy.

And, there aren’t many flashy playbooks or guidebooks for this space. Because it’s not built for overnight returns and pretend get-rich-quick schemes.

• It’s built for leverage.

• For durability.

• For long arcs.

Rather than trying to drive everyone and their dog to some ‘sales funnel’ or some ‘lead magnet’ or through relentless email sequences … to have 0.05% of those buy a $100 product.

Which you then need to sell 50-100 monthly to keep a business viable…

For example, selling 50 products in a month priced at $100 generates $5k in income. This means, to make the famed $10k/month, you would need to sell 100 products.

Or, here on Substack, to make that same amount, I’d need to have 1,000 paying subscribers at $5/month to make $5k. Or, $10/month to make $10k. And so on, and so on.

To do that requires having a very large audience, or a shit-tonne of paid ads, and so on.

These sorts of things are simply not built overnight. Not even in a year. Not in two. Probably not even in three.

Instead, I’m active in the B2B arena (The Business Creator Economy) where I bill at rates equivalent to selling multiple “low-ticket” (e.g. $100) products — in one day.

And these days, that means I only need a tiny audience. Theoretically, even just an audience of one (if it’s a business that’ll pay $10k per month, for example).

What I Do in The Business Creator Economy

Most of my creative business revenue comes from work that doesn’t fit into Influencer culture or the latest creator monetization trends.

I operate in a quieter corner of the Creator Economy, The Business Creator Economy. It’s where creative thinking and strategy meet organizational systems.

Where clarity, trust, and problem-solving matter much more than amassing followers or driving people to sales funnels and lead magnets.

Here’s what that looks like for me:

1. Ghostwriting, including newsletters, social media content, proposals, strategies, and communications for professionals, nonprofits, Indigenous organizations, and public agencies

2. Designing courses and learning experiences for academic institutions, non-profits, and professionals.

3. Consulting on education, workforce, and governance strategies.

Sometimes I charge by the hour. Sometimes by project. Sometimes on retainer. But the model is similar:

• 👉 Creative, strategic work solving real-world problems.

I don’t need to hustle 14 hours per day trying to amass an audience of 100,000 so that 0.05% will buy a $100 course from me (= $5K).

Meanwhile, I also quietly continue to build in the B2C — the more well-known components of The Creator Economy:

• 👉 Publishing regularly to build creative leverage and long-term visibility

• 👉 Building systems to compound—beyond one-time content or cash grabs

But this is my long game. Damn long game.

To build something meaningful and connected to your values — it won’t happen overnight.

How about You?

If you’re in the early days of your path, I suggest starting here: 👇

• → A rhythm of publishing

• → A clear, repeatable set of offers

• → Building a body of work that keeps working when you’re not

That’s how I’ve consistently surpassed $10K/month. Not through hype or hacks.

But by designing a business around what I do best, inside spaces that fit how I work, and more importantly, how I like to work and with whom I like to work with.

The Invisible Work That Actually Moves Your Needle

Much of what matters in creative business is invisible.

• → Quiet confidence

• → Momentum without burnout

• → A business aligned with your values

• → Writing that sharpens your thinking and attracts aligned projects

It’s not content.

It’s creative infrastructure. Creative ecosystems.

• A body of work compounding over time.

• A rhythm of presence, persistence and clarity.

• A library of posts and articles, building trust without shouting and always selling.

What to Reflect On (If You’re Building Something To Last)

Creative business isn’t just a test of ideas. It’s a test of endurance, attention, and inner stability.

So instead of chasing better tactics this week, ask yourself (and write out):

1. What mindset trap do I keep circling back into?

2. What signal am I waiting for that I probably don’t need?

3. Where am I measuring progress based on someone else’s definition of success?

And then ask:

• What’s one way I can re-commit to clarity over growth?

• What would sustainability look like—not just financially, but emotionally?

Write these down.

Maybe stick them on a wall. Return to it when your energy wobbles.

👉 Because the tough love reality?

The biggest creative challenge is rarely the work.It’s believing the work matters—even before the results arrive.

⸻

If you’d like to learn more about some mindset tactics, and you haven’t already gone through it — I have a Free 5-day Educational Email Course:

• The Solopreneur Thinker: Mastering Thinking About Thinking

Thanks for being here. Thanks for reading.

Have a question or comment? Please drop it here.

Like what you read? Consider sharing it. 👇

Most systems train you to wait your turn.

• To seek approval

• To raise your hand

• To follow instructions

They reward you for solving problems you didn’t choose.
For staying quiet. For succeeding inside pre-approved guidelines.

You get good at showing your work to people who grade it, evaluate it, give it a ‘pass.’

You get good at asking before acting. Good at not going off-script.

And then— one day, the script is gone.

You leave the institution or system or move out from beneath the gatekeepers. Or, they move you out (“cutbacks”, “reorg”, etc.).

You start building your own paths. You try writing, creating, sharing, or building something… from (and for) yourself.

But something feels stuck. You hesitate.

You wait (without realizing you’re still waiting).

Is it because you are waiting for someone to say:

• “You’re allowed”

• “You’re ready now”

• “You have permission”?

Only…………… no one’s coming. It’s you.

The Myths of Creative Permission

Most of us have been trained to believe that creative work begins with an invitation.

• A job description

• An assignment

• A credential

• A title

That you need “a degree” before you can teach. And you will repeatedly read online the quasi-permission experts that you need:

• A platform before you can speak

• A publisher before you can write

• An audience before you can share

• A following before your ideas are valid

We’re taught you can’t go until someone says “go.”
Your voice needs to be chosen to matter.

You must have ‘signal’ (meaning likes, impressions, followers…) before you create more.

But most of this is Bullshit.

Creative work is often a subtraction process (not addition, not more).

Creative work often begins with a refusal

• A refusal to wait.

• A refusal to stay in inherited roles.

• A refusal to believe someone else needs to say “yes” before you begin.

Creative work doesn’t ask for permission.

It moves when you move.
It listens when you speak.

It reveals itself not to the qualified, but to the curiously committed.

• To the persistent

• To the relentlessly resilient

Creativity and creative work often start mid-thought, mid-doubt, mid-life. It’s built in fragments and posted before it’s perfect.

Drawn out slowly (or quickly) in public, awkwardly, messily—honestly, and real.

• 👉 You write the first line.

• 👉 You post half-formed ideas.

• 👉 You move before you feel qualified.

It’s actually a slippery truth behind every creator who looks “confident” or “successful.”

1. They simply pushed through the discomfort more often, and

2. They stopped waiting for permission

This requires a mind shift. It requires preparing the mind (and body) to feel some fear, and do it anyway.

— (the title of a popular 1980s self-help book by Susan Jeffers)

The Quiet Work of Belief-Shifting

After three years of engaging in “The Creator Economy” — and its subset: “The Business Creator Economy” — I have seen some patterns.

These patterns indicate most people on social media platforms are lurkers — the vast majority.

Then there are the fits-and-starts posters. One post per week, which on LinkedIn, is often providing free marketing for an employer. (Such an odd practice, when you break it down)

Then, a tiny percentage are actively creating and posting every week. Some every day. And, connected to what they are working on, building, learning, and intending.

(Creative enterprises)

Even within this small percentage of active creatives, many still wait for a signal. Wait for signs of ‘permission’:

• Likes

• Reposts

• Subscribers

• Impressions

• A favourable algorithm blip

• A dopamine hit translated into “permission granted!”

But when you’re building, creating and posting more on the Non-obvious side of things:

• Work that doesn’t cater to trends,

• That cuts across categories or slows the scroll

You won’t get applause right away. Signals. Virality.

You may hear nothing at all. Crickets. Silence. The sound of one hand clapping…

And that’s where the mindset shift lives

To keep going anyway. Not blindly, not stubbornly ignorant. But with some persistence and faith (based on reflection) that others are thinking about similar things.

Maybe they are struggling or doubting, and potentially needing to read (or hear) precisely what you post.

This means not measuring your resonance or effectiveness by the first wave, nor even the second, third or fourth. It can mean:

• Trust the work.

• Let longer time frames be part of your signal catching.

The system teaches you to expect results. Often, Fast!

Many folks post on social media about the ‘rules’ or the guidelines, or ‘this is how you do it.’

And, so if you’re earlier in your journey, or you post in the Non-obvious realms, you start feeling and saying:

“I must be doing something wrong!”

Then the thoughts of “rebranding” begin. “Changing my niche.”

• “I must be posting at the wrong time of day.”

• “My posts are too long.”

• “Too short.”

Slow down. Breathe. Consider for a moment… big wave surfers.

Sometimes big wave surfers wait a year or more for the just the right conditions, at the right place, at the right time.

This doesn’t mean they sit idly. They continue to surf, train, and prepare. They also study, watch, listen, synthesize, and collaborate to hit the right spots at the right moments.

You don’t start surfing, then jump into big waves.
You level up over the years. You apprentice. You train. You watch, you learn.

Creativity can be similar. Creative enterprises are no different.

It asks you to listen and watch more deeply, and in time frames which social media and algorithms do not recognize (or ‘reward’)

Creative enterprises take time.
Creativity requires time.
And this time it’s taking, is also in an ever-shifting environment.

What You Can Do

Start small!

This is almost always the answer.

• Post a half-finished idea.

• Be the niche. Be the anomaly.

• Be the quiet one who shows up anyway.

• Share thoughts on what you’re building.

• Don’t wait for the green light—be the signal.

And if you feel resistance? That’s normal. (It would actually be odd if you didn’t feel resistance).

Creative work will often not feel like a reward right away. (Sometimes it can feel downright abrasive, full of friction, and a little painful)

It asks for deeper reasons.

It relies on intrinsic motivation—clear, steady, and self-sourced. But it will shape you. Sharpen your thinking. Clarify your values.

It reveals what you care enough about to keep doing, even when no one is watching. This is the difference between promoting/broadcasting and creating.

Between chasing validation and building something that will last.

So, if you’re waiting, pause and ask:

• What exactly am I waiting for?

• And who told me I needed their “Yes”?

Because you have the pen, you can post into the permissionless economy. It’s called “The Creator Economy” or maybe better yet: “The Creative Economy.”

You are allowed. Write anyway.

• Say it.

• Sketch it

• Post it.

• Build it.

No permission required.

The Box Cutter Co. example

Box Cutter Co. has just under 900 subscribers, and thankfully has up to 10 paid subscribers recently.

In the eyes of many, that’s slow.

“What’s your ROI?” they might ask.

“You’re not even making pennies per hour!”

But that’s the wrong metric. This isn’t a funnel. It’s not a path to virality or riches.

• It’s a sandbox.

• It’s a foundation.

• It’s a place to practice in public.

It’s also a body of work. A creative ecosystem.

It’s long-term signals, where I think aloud, show up without certainty, and build systems for myself first—then share them so others might do the same. (In a way that works for them)

It’s creative infrastructure for the next decade, not a sprint for short-term rocketing growth.

Here are some things I’ve found matter to me (maybe they do for you too?):

• Create (and post) before feeling qualified.
  The best ideas rarely show up when you’re waiting. They show up when you’re moving.

• Post the unfinished.
  I’ve done this nearly every week—writing before it’s perfect, publishing before it’s obvious. That’s how ideas and thinking sharpen. It’s learning in motion.

• Build without a signal.
  The silence is data. So is your persistence. Over time, the right people find you—and stay.

This is the kind of work most systems don’t prepare you for.
This is the kind of work forcing mindset shifts.

But it’s the work that lasts. It’s work with so much meaning.

4 Simple Reasons Why You Won’t Find This in Growth Hacker Playbooks

1. Slow isn’t sexy

Most growth strategies rely on urgency, speed, and immediate return. But meaningful creative work (often in Non-obvious realms) moves at slower frequencies. The kind that compounds quietly. The kind that lasts.

2. There’s no guaranteed ROI

Not in the beginning. Not for a while. Because this isn’t transactional—it’s foundational. The “return” is clarity, depth, resilience, and systems that can support you for the next decade. And, it’s not all monetary metrics.

3. It’s not designed for virality

Box Cutter Co. isn’t designed to chase trends. It’s intended to challenge assumptions. It sits in complexity and uncertainty.

4. It builds something you can’t fake

Consistency. Thoughtfulness. Integrity. You can’t hack those. You can only live them, build with them, and trust they will connect with the right people, over time.

How about you?

👉 What are you working on without permission?

👉 What could you start working on if you stopped waiting for permission?

Watch over the next few days for the next post for paid subscribers with more of the “How?”

Thanks for reading this far. Did this land with you, please share out broadly. Leave a comment.

My biggest struggles as a creative entrepreneur aren’t creative at all.

They were (and often still are) structural, and:

• Invisible.

• Relational

• Emotional.

It’s stuff few people talk about in this work.

For example, when you leave structured employment—the 8 to 5, steady paycheques, hierarchy of expectations, etc.—you don’t just leave a job. You often leave a system.

A scaffold. A sense of built-in worth. And suddenly, you’re the one building it all — often from scratch.

Here’s what’s actually hard:

• Letting go of external approval.

• Creating without a guaranteed return.

• Measuring value in integrity, not in analytics.

• Staying in the work when metrics don’t move.

• Learning to be your own source of momentum.

• Saying “This is enough” when everything screams “scale up.”

This isn’t about imposter syndrome (a term that often pathologizes what’s systemic and, I feel, is a Bullshit term).

This is about identity. About disorientation. About unlearning mental and emotional infrastructures, we have been taught to rely on. Belief structures and beliefs that need re-visiting.

It’s about who you are without the feedback loops and about:

“What happens when you stop performing productivity and start practicing presence?”

And that’s terrifying for a lot of folks, especially high-functioning professionals.

You’re left asking: Who am I when no one’s watching?

And the problem isn’t creativity…

The problem is all the invisible conditioning that told you, or telling you, for example:

• You’re only as good as your productivity.

• Your value must be tracked and proven.

• Creativity is a luxury, not a foundation.

And here’s what muddles things even further…

Most professionals still think creativity is for artists — like it’s flair. A side thing. A hobby.

But a real creative life?

It reshapes how you think, how you decide, how you build.

It’s not decorative. It’s foundational.

And it’s the engine of The Business Creator Economy (B2B) and the larger Creator Economy (B2C).

In this quickly expanding arena:

• Visibility is strategy.

• Systems are scaffolds.

• Expertise becomes an asset.

• Distribution becomes leverage.

• Thoughtfulness becomes positioning.

But there’s a catch. It often doesn’t feel productive at first. If often doesn’t feel ‘productive’ even over the long term.

I’ve posted weekly on Box Cutter Co. for almost two and a half years. I’ve still not moved past 1,000 subscribers. (And I’m grateful nearly 10 of you support this endeavour as paid subscribers.)

Some metrics and evaluation gurus would see this as a waste of time and effort, like:

• “Dude, terrible ROI!”

• “Where’s your funnel?”

• “Bro, you need to niche down.”

• “You post every week for free?”

• “Still under 1,000? After how long?”

• “You should automate and scale that.”

• “You could 10x this with the right offer!”

• “Sounds like a passion project, not a business.”

And yet—I keep showing up. Thinking. Synthesizing. Writing. Posting.

Because the creative life I live and am actively building isn’t built on conversion rates or click-throughs. It’s being built on clarity, practice, and deep persistence.

This isn’t just content. It’s creative infrastructure.

Every post adds to a growing library. A long-term body of work. Each is part of a creative ecosystem—designed not for virality but resonance, reach and relationships.

I don’t know which post someone will find six months from now. Or which phrase might stick in their mind and make them reach out a year later?

But I trust the process.

I trust that this library of writing will work harder over time than any single viral hit ever could.

This work generates thinking, is generative thinking, and invites responses, engagement, and new friendships. This wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t post.

I notice what lands, what lingers, and what falls flat. I get to shape my ideas in public. Refine my frameworks.

• 👉 It helps to filter noise.

• 👉 It attracts conversations.

• 👉 It’s not passive marketing. It’s active meaning-making.

The ROI is often invisible, like:

• A DM that turns into a deeper collaboration.

• The subtle evolution of how I think, decide, and create.

• A prospective client who says, “I’ve read everything you’ve written.”

• The confidence that grows not from applause but from alignment (and simply doing the work)

I love writing. Not in the abstract. But the actual act.

The rhythm, structures, and overall puzzling of it. The surprise of clarity arising on a page, or in a post. Pressing “publish” still brings satisfaction. It hasn’t worn off, not after three years.

Not even close.

This isn’t a side hustle… It’s soul infrastructure.

And the only way it works is by showing up again, and again, and again.

What’s grown from my creative enterprises?

• I own my calendar.

• My energy is cleaner.

• My thinking is sharper.

• My conversations deeper.

• I am less reactive. More rooted.

• I feel more honest and connected in my work.

Because it’s not about output. It’s about orientation. I’ve also been able to build creative enterprises to revenues well beyond what I used to make as an employee.

And that brings me to the real shift—

It forces you to confront beliefs you’ve carried from corporate life, from schooling life, and maybe even from past family life, like:

• Value = $$

• More = better

• Output = value

• Busy = important

• Meetings = momentum

A creative life dismantles all that, reveals much of the Bullshit. And makes space for many things that are deeper and real.

• Not bigger. Not louder. Just clearer.

If you’re on the edge of choosing it— or already deep in it:

• Don’t wait for permission. Don’t chase perfect timing.

• Make something small and honest. Then, keep going.

• Persistently. (Not just consistently.)

Because creativity isn’t the hard part.

Staying with it is.

What about you?

• What mindsets from past structures still shape how you work today? Are they helping—or holding you back?

Thanks for reading, Box Cutter Co.

P.S. If this resonates, pass it along. Or leave a comment and tell me what staying with it looks like for you right now.

Leave a comment

You may not know what you’re chasing—only that something’s off.

Like you’re doing all the right things, but still slightly off-course.

Do you sometimes feel like you are living slightly beside yourself?

• Things get done, but you still feel restless.

• Still waiting, but unsure for what?

We tell ourselves or get told by others on social media, that the answer is simple… It’s just “consistency”!

• Or a clearer Vision.

• Or purpose.

• Or a better system

• Or more cold outreach…

Or, it can be found in six easy modules (for $199).

But our souls don’t move in straight lines— neither does personal meaning. And they certainly don’t care about your productivity, output, or follower count.

More Metrics Myths

The Creator Economy is obsessed with more. The metrics of more.

• More subscribers. More followers. More measurable reach.

Visibility is a virtue, suggests some prolific myths.

Some deeper, peddled illusions?

• If you just post enough, write enough, and show up enough— you’ll eventually build a thriving, successful business.

• That one person—maybe you—can change the whole game. Be the next breakout. The next story people quote in case studies or on CNBC.

We’re sold a story that visibility equals impact, and scaling up is proof of success.

However, most of this is built on several biases.

Focusing Illusion

One of these — psychologists call it the focusing illusion.

When you shine a light on one area of life, it begins to dominate your mental landscape.

You become convinced everything depends on it, that your identity rides on engagement rates.

And that your worth, progress, and success are whatever the internet reflects back to you on any given day (in coloured line graphs and updated counts).

If you are caught in this, shine the light elsewhere. Move your focus elsewhere.

Intentional Stance

There’s also intentional stance, a bias suggesting significant changes occur because one specific individual willed it into existence.

• Without Steve Jobs, no iPhone.

• Without Musk, no SpaceX or Tesla.

• Without you, this whole corner of the internet may collapse!

For many, it’s a comforting thought. But it’s an exaggerated one. And, false.

Most significant events, shifts, and movements aren’t the result of a single visionary. They’re messy. Deeply enmeshed with the past, including the work of others.

Einstein didn’t develop the theory of relativity in a flash of genius. It was built on years of other people’s (and his own) work. While he developed it, he worked in a patent office.

Big events and breakthroughs are interconnected with the past. They’re full of contradictions and interpretations, plus some luck and timing.

Even the stories we tell about them are cleaned up in hindsight.

For example, despite Einstein’s brilliance in several breakthrough theories, he spent the last 30 years of his life trying to devise theories which never came to much…

And yet, this myth of singular, scaled influence (like Einstein, or Benjamin Franklin, or Ghandi-even) still drives many creatives to try and build things unaligned with themselves.

The myth isn’t just that one person changes everything. It’s the glorified myth that everyone should. Which quietly turns meaningful work into a ridiculous performative false destiny.

Biases like the ones above shape perception, as well as how we build and what we believe we must become. But those stories aren’t ours.

The Machine of Perceptions

I’ve done some of this in the past.

For example, taken on work because it “moved the needle.” Agreed to projects because they were visible, not because they were right.

At the time, it felt “strategic.” In hindsight, it was reactive—a way to feed the perception machines.

Somewhere along the way, I must have stopped asking:

• What’s useful? What’s sustainable? What’s mine?

And probably started asking:

• How do I get more eyes?

• How do I match the pace of others?

• How do I not fall behind in a race (I never agreed to participate in)?

The answers to the above are predictable.

Make more. Move faster. Be everywhere.

But that’s how erosion works. Not in a single collapse—but in tiny, almost invisible shifts.

It starts with just one compromise: one project that doesn’t feel right but looks good. One “just this once” agreement to work you don’t believe in—one week where increasing your metrics feels more real than your authentic self.

These sorts of slips don’t break you. They wear you down.

Quietly. Gradually. Strategically.

[We have a cat like this — she’s 13 years old and Relentless when she needs something]

The problem with a business operating this way is it runs on perceptions. False ones. Ones not your own — instead of purpose and meaning (defined and lived by you).

My Creative Enterprises

I don’t run my businesses to scale them. I run them to stay rooted. Translating to fewer projects but ones with deeper meaning.

• It means resisting the pressure to chase what’s trending.

• It means treating my attention like a precious resource.

• It means letting go of certain myths.

Like the myth, I can plan my way to certainty. The myth that scale equals security.

The myth that every worthwhile project must grow an audience, grow more subscribers, grow more impressions.

Yet, much of what sustains a creative business isn’t glamorous. It’s small, habitual, persistent, and quiet.

Like the weekly email or newsletter, you post even when no one replies or gives you a 👍 or ❤️.

The client project you refine for the third time—not because you had to, but because it matters.

The decision to ignore a trend, even though it could boost your visibility.

It’s not just quiet — it’s rebellious.

Because in a world shouting for more, showing up small, true to you, and understanding your “just enough”—is radical.

Clarity in Small Sizes

There’s clarity in being small. You can see your work more plainly.

You know who it’s for. You stop chasing abstraction and tend to reality.

I’ve had posts with zero likes lead to new clients—five-line posts with 10 impressions that opened deep conversations.

I’ve had my quirky illustrations on LinkedIn posts draw in comments from someone on the other side of the globe. (A digital dialogue that continues 2 years later)

I’ve had stories go primarily unnoticed—until someone sent me a note (weeks or months later) saying it was exactly what they needed.

This is the thing about meaning and Soulpreneurship. It doesn’t always arrive on time. And it rarely scales cleanly and immaculately.

Look through history for people who died unknown to most, but their work rose to immense fame and value after passing.

Their work didn’t go viral. It went deep. Passed hand to hand.

Quietly. Persistently.

Until it outlasted the noise.

There are elements to this approach, in how I try to build these days.

No hacks. No hype.

Just keeping the work meaningful to me and shared in small cycles. Relatively quiet, steady, persistent.

Thankfully, it’s grown into revenues more than the corporate sector job I left behind.

Not by chasing scale. But by staying aligned.

Some Things to Try 👇

1. Question the impulse to scale

Before chasing and pursuing bigger—ask, “why?”

• Is it about reach? Or recognition?

• What are you hoping to feel once you get there?

2. Define “enough” (without the algorithms)

What is:

• Enough readers.

• Enough clients.

• Enough revenue to live well (and create freely).

Write your ‘enough’ metrics before the internet and social media write it for you.

3. Build for sustainability, not applause

• What systems support the life you want—not just the business you admire?

• What can you keep doing, even when it’s quiet?

• What do you want to do even when it feels like getting ghosted?

4. Separate cause from illusion

You don’t need to believe you’re changing the world to do meaningful work. You only need to act in alignment, respond with care, and create with integrity plus some level of authenticity.

• What narrative are you telling yourself about why your work matters—and is it your story?

• If your work never went viral, would it still feel meaningful to create?

5. Accept the partial, the slow, the sufficient

Not all good things have to become big.

Not all resonance is measurable.

Not all impacts can be traced.

So What? Now What?

You don’t have to be the hero of a movement.

You don’t need a stage. You probably don’t even need applause.

A life of value and meaning isn’t built by audience size. It’s built by attention (especially yours’) and meaning (also yours).

It’s built by craft. By rhythm.

By the quiet, daily return to work, reflecting who you are.

You don’t find your voice by scaling it.

You find it by listening to what won’t leave you alone.

The soul doesn’t care about reach.

It cares about resonance — the kind lingering, disturbing, healing, and maybe sometimes haunting.

Let your work grow roots, not just branches. And let those roots be tangled, imperfect, and real.