In this conversation, we uncover the tension beneath that question: the pull toward growth and challenge on one side, and the desire to protect freedom, flexibility, and a life he actually enjoys on the other. Together, we explore how to move beyond rigid either/or thinking and into reversible experiments that generate real information instead of endless planning.

Because whether you’re a founder, consultant, or creator, most big business decisions don’t get solved by more thinking. They get solved by taking the next small step, seeing how it feels, and letting that experience guide what comes next.

In this conversation, Mohammad and David uncover the real tension beneath that question: the difference between marketing a company and marketing the founder behind it. Together, they explore how the recognition and visibility comes from the story only you can tell.

Because whether you’re a founder, creator, or consultant, the hardest story to tell is often your own. But that’s where your unique value lives.

Latham shares his passion for education, the challenges of transitioning his ideas into a business, and the importance of understanding his potential market through meaningful conversations.

The discussion covers personal experiences, strategies for validating ideas, monetization, and overcoming the fear of rejection when presenting a new concept.

Join us as we dive deep into creating impactful learning experiences and the entrepreneurial steps involved in making a significant societal contribution.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Setting the Stage

00:17 Reflecting on Personal and Educational Journey

01:14 Transitioning from Personal to Professional Goals

01:52 Exploring Business Opportunities and Challenges

02:32 Strategies for Engaging Potential Clients

03:42 Understanding the Market and Client Needs

04:54 Overcoming Personal Barriers to Business Conversations

06:45 Developing a Business Model and Pricing Strategy

09:03 Executing the Plan and Seeking Feedback

19:00 Final Thoughts and Encouragement

In this Hidden Value conversation, David Sherry and Charlie explore what it takes to scale a hybrid business model, balancing physical operations with digital growth. Together, they unpack how sequencing, delegation, and education can unlock new levels of scale—without taking on unnecessary risk.

Charlie shares how he’s reframing growth from “open another space” to “build digital leverage”, and why his sweet spot lies in teaching founders how to find and validate ideas through smart market research.

Key Takeaways

• A hybrid model can leverage the best of online and offline communities.

• Scaling a physical business requires different strategies than scaling digital.

• Educational content creates scalable, de-risked growth opportunities.

• Market research should come before user research when validating ideas.

• Finding your “sweet spot” means aligning business potential, customer need, and personal excitement.

Key Takeaways

• Visibility is a double-edged sword — it can both empower and intimidate.
• Aligning inner values with outer expression builds authentic leadership.
• Transitioning from corporate to personal work takes courage and experimentation.
• Being seen and being perceived are not the same thing.
• Redefining success on your own terms leads to fulfillment.

Chapters

00:00 – Exploring Visibility and Authenticity

01:56 – Transitioning from Corporate to Personal Paths

05:04 – Balancing Public and Private Selves

07:04 – Aligning Internal and External Values

09:10 – Embracing Authenticity in Professional Spaces

11:51 – Redefining Success on Personal Terms

13:57 – The Power of Being Seen

17:12 – Navigating Professional Growth

19:39 – The Journey to Personal Fulfillment

26:53 – The Courage to Be Seen

Credits & Links

Host: David Sherry

Guest: Saara Lampwalla

When some people get stuck.. they get really… really… stuck. They find that multiple areas of their life start to feel stagnant. They can’t choose where to live. They can’t decide if they should quit their job or leave a relationship. They seem to be caught oscillating between these decisions, never moving forward.

The good news is that if you can start to make progress in one area, you can start to make progress in many. All it takes is a little momentum, and suddenly the damn will burst. If you aren’t feeling like you’re making progress, the good news is the worse it gets, the more likely that it will get painful enough to break the tension.

Tension is what you feel when you get pulled forward and backward or left and right with no progress.

The trick that’s being played on you is that you think it’s about deciding. Being so focused on a decision, such as “Should I quit my job or not?” Or “Should we break up or not?” Is actually the wrong focus. It’s not the decision that is the problem, it’s something deeper which is preventing you from trusting yourself and hearing yourself enough to make natural decisions that move your life forward without so much effort, thinking, overplaying, and pain.

What we’re really talking about here is our energy, and whether or not it is flowing or whether or not it is trapped and stagnant. We stop our own energy from flowing, and that keeps us stuck.

The trick to breaking the damn is to get your energy flowing again, and that involves trust. Trust is needed to move forward, because decisions we feel are important require us to take a leap into something unknown. No matter how much you want to predict your future, or how much you think you can even project the future, you can’t. Ultimately it takes a leap of faith to move forward.

The good news is you can start small. You can domino small decisions into larger ones. What’s one thing that has been put off due to your inability to decide or take action? What’s one small thing you can clear from your backlog?

A client of mine, a CEO of a $30M+ company, he realized that he was prone to letting his metaphorical “Desk” get messy. It was so messy with so many problems and decisions and moments of not saying how he truly felt that it was covered with so much it was hard to work.

The trick was to start clearing his desk. One thing at a time until he finally started to get some space again. Then, in the future, it was about being proactive enough to clear things before they became a problem for him.

Your energy unlocks when you let tiny decisions compound into bigger ones, and when you let your energy flow instead of stopping it by trying to predict and protect yourself from the unknown.

Poor Patrick.

Patrick showed me that who you choose as your customers matters. And that if you’re going to choose someone to serve, choose someone great.

I had another friend who was a photographer for new startup retail businesses. They had very little money, fast turnaround times, and often burned through the images quickly. This other friend was constantly struggling with business and was frustrated. 

Given that you can choose your customers, who are the best customers worth choosing?

This probably comes after I ask someone some questions that I’m curious about. You get better at asking questions when you begin seeing them as a tool to have better and more valuable conversations. Questions set the frame of the discussion, and so leading someone is often about questions rather than making statements. Questions can be used for a variety of different purposes. Today I wanted to outline 5-levels of value oriented by particular questions that people ask of me and ask themselves. 

If you want to create/expand value, ask questions higher up the ladder.

The Value Ladder: 5-Levels of Questions for Leaders

1. “What do I do?”

When you are working in a new role you’ve never been in before, you get tripped up on the question “What do I do next?” When you don’t know what to do, you don’t act. And so you wait or search for someone or something that can tell you what to do. Most often, this is a way of procrastination. You can’t act until you clearly see a specific, short-term step and action you can take. What do I do is the lowest leverage and least valuable question to ask of yourself or others. But it is often the place we start.

2. “How do I do it?”

Many people take similar actions, but not all get the same results. Why? When you don’t understand the “why” behind how something works, you lack proper form. Form is “how” you do something. “How” is a question about form. 

How helps get you to feel/experience the action rather than intellectually understanding it. How is for practitioners seeking to learn how to apply something they’ve learned. How is for doers… in an organization, team, community, or political structure. “How” is, relatively low value. Often, to succeed with how, you sell something at lower price points and therefore must have a large audience.

This is why “how” is the most prevalent form of content on Youtube, for example. “How” is also the easiest question to waste your time on. “How” is a great game of telephone. You read someone else’s “how” and translate it poorly to your own situation and then get frustrated by not getting the right results.

3. “Who?”

When you wake up to the limits of your own “doing” you begin to see the benefit of collaboration, hiring, delegation and managing and leading a team.

Who is the first leadership question outside of self-leadership. Who is the shift from Founder-Doer to CEO-Manager, from actor to recruiter. Who marks the beginning of systems-level questions. Before you get to “who” you focus on your input into the system.

When CEO’s come to me with struggles for their personal productivity, I often take them out of “how” questions and into “who” questions. I’m less interested in them and more in the teams and systems that support them.

4. “Where should we go?”

Systems need direction. “Where?” charts the course. “Where” is about the future, whereas the previous questions are more about the present. Where questions are about owning the responsibility of taking people into the unkown. If organizations don’t know where they are going, then everyone is working out of sync and unison. Where is one of the greatest possible filter questions because it completely changes the course of a company or team. 

Change the where, change everything. A where question for Kodak Cameras was: “Double down on Film, or Enter the Digital Camera Space?” A question for NASA is: “Moon or Mars next?” As you can see, asking “Where” is risky. This is why “Where” is the CEO's question. With “Where?” there are consequences, or regret. Aligns a system to a destination, puts resources on the line, and creates definitive direction.

The trick of understanding organizations, communities, and political parties is that they crave direction. They ask, “Where are we going…together?”

5. “What does it mean?”

The final level of value is in meaning questions. When you’re so distracted by the doing of things, you try to ignore lives deeper questions around meaning or meaninglessness.

The good news is that we are meaning-making machines. Meaning making is about how we interpret the events around us, and how we contextualize every other question listed above. The highest levels are about context.

In meaning questions, you are playing with the container, not the contained. You start playing with the rules, the stadium, the field, not the game or players on the field. You start working on the museum rather than the art sitting in it. Meaning is about creating context, and context is how we come to understand ourselves and the world. Context creators, meaning makers are storytellers. This is why Steve Jobs didn’t say, “The most powerful person in the world is the doer, the creator.” 

He said,

“The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller.”

Stories write and create invisible scripts and lines of action. Leaders working at this deeper level are playing a more invisible game of power and creation that comes from generating systems without being stuck inside of them. These leaders allow, encourage, and generate the success of others without being seen or heard.

“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” Lao Tzu

These inventors challenge our current frame of reality. They see outside of the container. If Tom’s Shoes invents “Buy one pair of shoes, donate one pair of shoes” as a way of making our consumption, and then other companies follow suit, eventually forgetting the original creator of such an idea or protocol. Tom created new meaning.

Climb the Ladder of Your Own Questions

The next time you feel stuck, I want to offer a little challenge:
Don’t immediately look for a better answer.

Ask:

Say you want to charge more, be more known, get better testimonials, get more respect from others… the simplest pathway is to expand the value you create for others.

Value creation is often thought of as a skillset, but what if how you think about value shifts your potential for creating more of it? 

Here are some ways I think about creating more value…

1. Make Their Vision Bigger

When I meet with a client for the first time, my gut reaction is often to ask, 

“Are they thinking too small?”

They might say they want to launch in one market, and I’ll ask, 

“What would it look like to launch in five markets this year?”

Thinking bigger increases excitement for projects. You want to increase excitement only to the point of slight impossibility so that the discomfort isn’t too strong. 

We’re not here to merely make happen what is expected, we’re here to help make the unexpected occur. In teams, 2+2 = 4, or 6 or beyond. That is the beauty of working with others.

Each person adds new capability, new insight, or possibility. Even if you’re an employee, thinking this way can expand the value you bring to whoever you work with. You’re not always going to follow through on every huge idea you propose, but at least you’re expanding the potential reality you can help create.

You want to move beyond assumed value or possibility for how well things can go, and contribute your part to create a greater whole. 

2. Multiply Value by Overdelivering

People say, “Charge what you’re worth.” 

I say: “Overdeliver on the project significantly beyond what you charge.”

Whenever possible, you want to add to the “multiple” of value someone receives when working with you. In an ideal world, customers should get 2x-5x+ of the value that they’ve paid. Skewing value in the favor of your customer creates an abundance loop. 

Ask yourself, “How can I overdeliver on this project?”

 It might be sending your clients extra resources or even something as simple as remembering birthdays and sending a quick message. 

Some examples…

• Send monthly progress recaps, highlight new opportunities that weren’t previously seen. 
• Offer bonus calls to brainstorm and problem-solve.
• Connect your customer to people you know who can also help them. 
• Share mini “toolkits” of templates, how-to guides, etc. with clients.

3. Stay Focused on Transformative Change

Great products create transformative change. They transcend beyond what someone “wants” and explore and expand into what someone needs, dreams of, and has never considered before. 

If you do only what your customer wants you to do, you are creating products based on a view of the world with limited knowledge. The benefit of expertise and mastery is your ability to see significantly more than others in a particular area or subject. 

It’s hard to say “no” to someone. Doing so, though, create the ability to guide and lead someone through a process that they might not have been able to previously imagine or understand. 

When you hire a travel agent, you don’t want to just tell them what to do and have them book it for you. You want them to think of what you never thought of, make decisions you might not immediately understand, and recommend what you would never find yourself. 

Steve Jobs knew, simply, that people wanted to buy the latest CD player, and yet he said no so that he could create something much greater with his iPod.

Creating more value isn’t about just having the skills to do so – it’s often understanding what’s possible, having and building confidence to deliver, and being willing to explore unknown territories that may feel uncomfortable at first but help you expand what’s possible for yourself and others.

What mindset helps you stay focused on creating more value for others? Or what have you done as a habit that has helped you?

Streaks have always been helpful to me, building a chain of habits that help you see your own progress. For entrepreneurs, they are especially important because it’s so easy to feel like you aren’t making progress. Many entrepreneurs tell me, 

“I get to the end of the day and it feels like the scoreboard is reset to zero.” 

Yikes.

Jerry Seinfeld was always a big proponent of this idea, saying that the best thing you can do as a comedian is “Write jokes, every day” and “don’t break the chain!” 

He uses a calendar and writes a big “X” on the day when he would write jokes.

Right now, I’m following “The Way” meditation app, and I’m about 80/100 or so Meditation sessions in. It’s nice when apps track your streak for you, however, I have also been using Excel spreadsheets a lot lately. 

Simple Tracking

I used to be a heavy user of different tech and tools like Notion or Evernote and kept up with my work with more intense systems. Today, I mostly use Excel, my Apple notes, and then one-off Google docs for simple reviews. ChatGPT, of course, is up regularly and is sort of a booster pack to whatever I’m already doing. 

It’s been fun to track what I’m reading, the comments I’m getting, and what my workouts are for the day. I feel good tracking because I’m able to better recollect progress. 

I think that when you have ADHD, you do more than most people and feel like you’ve done less. 

Mostly, what’s probably missing is a sense of completeness of tasks. I notice that even on weekends that there are days when I make a to-do list, I simply feel better and feel more productive. 

Tracking my Writing

What metrics do you track?

What we choose to track really matters. You probably don’t spend nearly enough time thinking about this. If we track outcomes and external validation, we’re going to be stuck in a terribly difficult loop that we can never get out of. 

Tracking our effort as an input helps separate who we are from what we do, or maybe it combines it, in a way that makes us feel better when we’re taking action. 

This simple point; knowing what to track, and then tracking it, while avoiding the trap of tracking things that simply don’t matter – is surprisingly difficult. Social media tracks things on your behalf, they are a default metric that you are forced to care about. 

On social media, I believe “comments” are the best thing to track. Or you could say you track positive interactions with your community. I think that’s a fairly decent metric as it involves connection. Most other metrics are totally pointless. Even then, I can’t really *create* comments and not all comments are the same. 

Knowing what to track, and why it matters to you will take your life in completely different directions. Mr. Beast has optimized his entire life around a game that I think is somewhat silly: Youtube’s algorithm. He’s the best person in the world at optimizing for Youtube’s algorithm. Because of that, his choice of what to create is limited by that filter. I don’t look up to someone like Mr. Beast because it’s not something I care about at all. 

And that’s OK. I’m mostly talking about knowing that for yourself rather than feeling the allure of someone else’s game that actually means nothing to you. 

That’s obvious because I’m not doing it.

The Good Life

Tracking what matters to me let’s me stack my good days, good sessions, and good moments together. 

If you can design your life in such a way that you have many good or even great things happen every single day, that, to me, makes a great life. 

Feeling successful doesn’t have that strong of a connection to achievement. That’s another false metric we link and track. Typically, people feel successful when they are in pursuit of their dream. You don’t even have to succeed at it. You simply have to succeed in doing the things that you desire and dream to do. Athletes lose most games they play, that’s the essence of the sport. Maybe they will dominate for a while. It doesn’t really matter, they are chasing their own dream.

My friend Kristi said something profound that was a great visual and quote,

Tracking actions related to your dreams is a great start, and you don’t need any fancy software. What streak are you starting or continuing today?

Making this your own

So, how do you apply this in your life?

1. Pick 1–3 Key Metrics – Make sure these matter to you (e.g., meditation streak, pages written, workouts, interactions with your community).
2. Use Any System That Works – Calendar, spreadsheet, or a simple notebook. Apps are great if they help you—but if it’s too complicated, don’t force it.
3. Celebrate Your Streaks – Even a three-day streak is a success. Don’t underestimate the power of small wins.
4. Avoid Comparisons – Don’t let other people’s metrics distract you. Focus on what keeps you fulfilled.

I was talking to a client today, and we discussed the opportunity to resolve a major problem in their business that needed attention. 

The tone of the team and the discussion centered around the idea that now was the time for them to “Buckle down, get to work, roll up their sleeves, and make sacrifices for a little while to resolve the issue.”

I questioned the idea that this time was any different than before, and I wondered (with them) about what they were really getting at in this moment. Is it that the team isn’t really working hard? Is it that the team isn’t working on the right things?

• What makes this time truly different than other times?
• What does self-sacrifice mean to you? 
• What is your connection between self-sacrifice and success? Are they linked?

I cautioned that self-sacrifice, a common trait among entrepreneurs, works to drive towards goals and is also unsustainable. 

The Drawbacks of Self-Sacrifice

When the setup for success is based on self-sacrifice…

1. You are thinking short term: Your focus is only on immediate fires, and being the hero to save the latest one. You lose perspective for your larger vision in pursuit of short-term fixes. 
2. You lose sense of who you are and what you want: Self-sacrifice is based on “giving up” part of you for a cause. Do the causes you truly care about mean giving up yourself in the process? 
3. There will always be more things to sacrifice for: There is always a new issue, fire, or problem that needs to be handled, and the more used to using the fire alarm as an incentive to act, the more you begin to rely on it. 
4. Self-sacrifice is Unsustainable: It drains your reserves, leaving you to lack the resources for the long game. It only works for so long, leads to burnout or team problems.

Crossing the Finish Line

In Olympic Skiing, it’s not just the person who finishes first who wins the race. It’s the person who didn’t get injured and was able to compete that day. 

You can’t win if you can’t compete tomorrow. 

Winners win sustainably over the long haul. 

Ownership, Choice, Freedom

You want to watch for the tone and energy of self-sacrifice on your teams. Other people will try and impose their need for it as fuel. 

If a team operates under the idea of self-sacrifice, it will create disconnection and isolation, preventing the development of a collaborative team environment characterized by connection, support, and even enjoyment while solving significant issues.

You might think back to a time when you achieved something without self-sacrifice. If you can think of one, then maybe these things are not as linked as they initially appear. 

Desire, excitement, team-work, responsibility, vision… these are all great motivators. When you pursue things from these motivations, you are less likely to put yourself in the frame of mind that this is “hard” and requires you to give up parts of yourself to get it.

Yes, there is work to be done. Also, it will take the long-term sustainable path of consistently showing up to work which will help resolve it, not short-term heroism. 

I notice the subtle ways in which my body opens up, or closes down, how certain topics create constriction in me or the other person. 

This type of awareness can itself be draining; rather than being fully relaxed in a conversation, I’m paying attention to too many different cues.

For a long time I was really exhausted by meetings. It wasn’t until I noticed that I had this dual process going on: I was speaking, while also trying to pay attention to how I was being seen while I was speaking.

This is surprisingly common – you notice that you’re both trying to pay attention while also worrying about how you’re seen. This is especially tough when you’re leading meetings and you feel like it’s getting out of your control. 

Now I can get into a pure awareness type quality where when I speak with others I simply direct my focus on them. There’s no more dual track, and when I speak I speak with my own energy going towards them. Dropping the need to “see” how I’m being seen. How do you do that? 

No Agenda Mindset

Years ago, I had a (temporary) podcast that was called No Agenda. The name came from a Tao like idea of having no view about where things need or should go. When you have less of an agenda for others, things can unfold naturally. 

Having an agenda for someone else, we feel them trying to push us in a particular direction, and most times when we feel pushed we push back and it creates resistance. 

No Agenda as a mindset is about creating less resistance in conversations. When you drop your agenda (needing to create an impact) you also drop the need to track your impact as much. Of course we all have some type of intention or agenda, but the more you’re in your own being as you speak, without it needing to make an impact, the less you care about the way you’re received.

Often the better you feel as you speak, the less you are paying attention to the crowd. 

See what it’s like to drop the agenda you have with others when speaking and feel the weight get lifted. 

What lights you up to talk about?

One of my favorite questions is, “What is something you love to talk about but people rarely ask you about?”

It’s fun for you because everyone has areas and topics that you know way more than you other people. Even if that topic is how to fix an old Mustang or deep knowledge of a board game.

My first business partner and I worked together simply because I had enthusiasm that I think they could feel, and this turned into their enthusiasm, which allowed us both to partner together profitably. Creating mutual excitement is underrated as way to move partnership forward. 

What Coaching Is

On a deeper level, conversations are how we learn about who we are and learn about who others are. If you want to learn more about yourself, have more new types of conversations. 

This is part of what coaching is, helping people have new conversations with themselves and others.

Another hint here is that conversations are more fun when you feel like you’re entering new territory. As part of this, you want to ask questions that people have never been asked before. 

Some of the best questions sort of stop people’s brains from processing on autopilot. You can ask new questions or ask questions in weird ways. You can feel people trying to give you their stock answer and it’s fun to see if you can help them get into new territory. Some people won’t be open to that and will shut you down or simply pretend they don’t hear you.

Sometimes, when I talk with people about certain topics that they are unable to allow themselves to access (due to vulnerability, taboo, belief, etc) I ask them a question ,and they simply just act like they didn’t even hear what I said and keep talking. 

Here, I don’t push, I take it as a sign that they don’t want to talk about or are not ready to talk about it.

Conversations are much easier when someone is engaged, excited, and almost can’t help themselves from telling you more. 

This only works when you’re spontaneous

People are incredible at picking up authenticity, so you can only do this type of work if you have genuine curiosity. Even a question like I listed above becomes stale when used as a stand-in question. It needs to be alive in you to be alive in the other person and needs to happen spontaneously. 

Where do you get the most joy when having conversations? Where are you stuck or held back?

• Escape the corporate life
• Make a lot of money
• Create a meaningful product or service
• Have flexibility in daily life
• Build relationships and be seen

They’re chasing something that they believe that business, as a vehicle, can give them.

But once you're in the midst of creating the business or doing the new type of work, you realize it might not always give you what you are looking for.

For one thing, you don’t achieve freedom once and check it off the list. Purpose isn’t something you discover and then never have to think about again. 

Money comes and goes (often). 

Running a business isn’t a static experience—it’s a constantly shifting process. And the sooner we recognize that, the sooner we can start to see our business for what it actually is: something that evolves alongside of us, and even changes depending on the day, depending on how we feel, or how we’re choosing to show up.

I remember learning a tough lesson about freedom and business.

I remember walking down the street on a beautiful sunny Tuesday, heading to get some work done (this was 2018), and then realizing I was feeling completely anxious about the day ahead. 

On paper, I was free. I didn’t have a boss, a fixed schedule, and no one telling me what to do. But internally, I wasn’t free. I was carrying stress, worry, and pressure with me everywhere I went. I couldn’t enjoy the sunshine, and I was feeling a bit terrible walking into the coffee shop to check my email. 

I learned that external freedom—no boss, no set hours—doesn’t mean much if you’re not also free inside. I hadn’t considered that I would need to learn internal freedom as much as I would learn about creating external freedom.

That’s a tough lesson to learn, and it made me question what I was really after at work in the first place. I had forgotten where I started, or maybe I had evolved and found myself seeking something different. 

What Do You Want from Your Work?

At different phases, our work can provide us with different things. 

I often find that businesses give you exactly what you need when you need it. 

Sometimes, I see business owners who really need stability in their business because their home life is having a huge crisis, and it somehow supports them through. Othertimes, a business owner is undecided, and the business forces them one way or another. 

What we want and need evolves, and maybe now for you, it’s more about your creativity, your relationships or finding financial security for the first time.

The best thing you can do is check back in with your current set of needs. 

What do you want, right now?

If you look for it, you’ll find it.

Instead of waiting for some distant milestone—freedom, success, purpose—how can you start connecting to those things today?

It exists there, however small, and if you recognize where it exists, you can put effort into expanding that part of your work and life to have more of it.

Right now, I’m really focused on my own creativity and experiencing my own creativity. My work is giving me these beautiful moments of feeling fully creative and fully alive through my work and writing and video creation. I’m seeking this out, I’m recognizing when it’s there and when it’s not. I’m allowing myself to give myself more of what I want. 

You’d be surprised at how much of success (in any area) is about allowing and embracing it instead of pushing it away. 

Can you allow yourself to have the freedom, purpose, or income from your business that you’ve been seeking?

What if you already have the freedom or meaning you’re after? Look for it in the small ways, or recognize what your work is telling you about what you’re truly after – like a reflection in the mirror….

Your business isn’t going to give you freedom or purpose—you get to discover it for yourself through your business as the vehicle for your growth and exploration.

I wish I had been more grateful to have noticed my insecurity and stress in the moment, seeing how my work was telling me what I needed to hear and showing me what I needed to see. It sent me on a path of finding internal freedom after I found it externally. 

I’m on another type of pathway now – one related to creativity, and I believe that I’m more aware of its gift to me now.

A big theme of mine this year is exploring connection – how we connect with others, how we open up to connection, and what forms of communication lead to connection.

I became more seriously interested in this area of my life after spending a week in Costa Rica with a group of people with the highest quality communication skills of anyone I’ve ever spent time with. It led me to not only learn rapidly but also experience more depth and duration of connection that I typically feel day to day. 

As part of this exploration, I’ve been in Art of Accomplishment Connection course with my wife. 

What people really want to experience in community, with friends, and with family is depth of connection. But the number of walls we have up are numerous, and we often seek connection all of these strange ways that are indirect. 

People sometimes show their care through safety, fear for others, or they create connection through gossip or shared anger/struggle. 

Connection through Fear

Instead of connecting, you use fear as a stand-in for vulnerability, and you unconsciously feel “If I worry about you, that’s me caring about you.”

This isn’t necessarily bad, but rather that it leaves you less satisfied than having a full connection experience with someone else. Often your pseudo-connection pushes others away, rather than connecting which was the point in the first place.

Connection through Taking up Attention, or Hiding from it

Another common stand-in to connection is allowing others to have attention but not receiving it yourself. I’m guilty of this one. 

When you’re afraid of connection, you feel more comfortable putting attention and caring for others instead of allowing others to care for you. It’s like the spotlight is better on anyone else but you.

Here…it feels good to give but not to receive. Connection doesn’t fully happen in this experience because two people need to be both open to giving and receiving, and you’re shut down and playing the part of connection rather than truly participating. 

The Quality of Our Experience

What surprises me most about these experiences or courses is how much connection is not in the actions you take or don’t take, it’s an experience, a quality of attention that you feel. You might have experiences at holidays or after a long weekend with friends or a long dinner? Or maybe you get this experience at Church or with a local community group you volunteer with? You can attend those same events and have little connection.

Connection itself is satisfying, significantly more satisfying than many other things we spend our time doing, possibly even more than praise at work or accolades. 

When you truly get deep, prolonged connection time with others it feels like having a glass of water after being very thirsty. You’re nourished, recharged.

In this way I think connection can be addicting, but it’s a good addiction, one that is fun to experience and play in the nuances with. 

Connection is something we can have more or less of every day depending on how we choose to relate to ourselves or others. That’s the big lesson.

It takes openness with yourself, and some skill re-building for you to find and create more connection in your life. 

It’s worth it.

I’ve been testing a new approach to writing, thanks to my work with the amazing writing coach and friend Azul Torronez.

It feels entirely different. I let the writing come through me rather than forcing myself to come up with ideas. I sit down to write with no preconceived plan, and as I write I explore what’s on my mind. When I do it this way, without a specific agenda, but rather for me to discover what it is that I have to say, I’m able to feel what I write more than think it. The key way that I know that I’m writing well is when I feel it.

Strangely, when you write in this way, you read through what you wrote and think to yourself, “huh, I had no idea I wrote that?”

This type of writing feels complete in a whole different manner. The piece itself is complete, even if it needs editing. I know it’s complete because I can’t feel anything else to say.

And what I end up writing comes as a surprise, even to me!

In writing, and possibly in many other domains, my best work is when I don’t try so hard. 

When I surrender, It feels like I’m disappearing into the process and allowing it to happen rather than trying to make it happen.

This is very difficult for those who believe that they should have a plan or every outcome.

Creation as Discovery & Vulnerability

What Azul taught me is that everyone gets the craft of writing backwards. Many people have an idea for a book or a topic, and then they outline it, and then they try and write their point. At least for me, what I’ve discovered is that I can do the opposite. I get curious about something and then explore it through writing. 

The point of what I write arrives at the end, as does the title and as does me understanding what I have to say. I feel into different ways of communicating as I’m sunk into the writing process without being so directed. I can write something that I *know* I should write without me knowing that I should have written it moments before. It’s like pulling a thread and seeing where it leads and then getting clear signals about what you must say or share. 

In this way, I’m writing as a discovery process – the ideas are ahead of me, not behind me. My best writing exists in what I discover, not in what I know.

The more vulnerable I am to go places in my writing, the more I feel connected to the thread I’m following, and the better the writing feels for me. There’s a time and place for editing and categorization, and that comes after you’ve gotten out what you want to say. 

Going Beyond Your “Self” in Your Work

Where do I pull my ideas from if not myself? How do I write things that I don’t already know that I have to say? I believe that this is where artists get it right, that there is some other aspect of consciousness, our own or others, that we can tap into that is more spontaneous. 

When you write from a source beyond yourself, you are able to pull ideas out from beyond your own mind’s limitations.

Because I’m pulling from a source that is expanded beyond myself, my ideas themselves are more expansive and whole in their form. 

If I was writing only what I already knew, I would only be writing over well-worn territory. How did Einstein come up with novel ideas in physics? He used his imagination to go beyond his own limitations, he connected to something beyond thinking. He dismissed logic and praised imagination. 

The mind knows the past, and where you’ve been. As you go beyond your own thinking, your creative future is in an intuitive synthesis, connecting to a consciousness beyond yourself. When you go beyond your individual self, you connect more with the whole. 

All of this has me wondering and learning more about how and where I can apply this process beyond writing. How can this same process work in speaking, recording, coaching, coding… even making decisions? 

Another interesting area related to this is learning. 

Have you ever just “known” something? 

Or have you ever picked up a new skill set and it just “clicked?” immediately? I felt this way when I picked up a camera.

Everything about how a camera worked to me was intuitive. I didn’t *technically* understand a camera but I knew intuitively how it functioned so that I could use it well despite not having technical understanding. 

Have you ever said something or seen something or created something genius that didn’t feel like it was yours at the end of it?

What if the most innovative ideas, the ones with true creative spark, show up only when I’m willing to loosen my grip and let go?

This idea I’m talking about is not new or novel. Artists across history have spoken about the muse, or how they pull from something larger from themselves to create their work. 

The direct experience, however, for me is still and always completely new and novel, because it’s always surprising, spontaneous, and more enjoyable than working with your mind as the planner and control.

Create Freely, Then Organize.

A big takeaway from this process for me is to create first and organize later. When I let go, the raw material emerges in a way that’s more authentic and surprising. 

Afterward, I can refine, categorize, and polish. You want the initial spark to come straight from the source—wherever that mysterious muse might live. Then you can edit and organize, and often it needs it. The material is raw, it’s precious, but needs refinement. 

There is often a need to edit and adjust after the initial spark.

Boundaries and constraints help as well, for example, word counts or lengths of a song. I like to use 1,500 word counts as a basic constraint. Constraints help bottle the creative stream of consciousness and help you pour it into something more structured and concrete. 

You can still do “planning” just enough to create direction and constraint, and then you can let go and allow the experience or work become what it wants to be. 

What I’ve noticed is this work also feels more “complete” than work that I would have otherwise tried to plan to a T. 

I love this sense of completion, it’s satisfying because you feel like you reached into the depths and grabbed something and now that you’ve pulled it out, you’ve done your job and the work was the work it was meant to be at that time.

I talk a lot about enjoying your work as you do it, and there’s no better enjoyment than getting into a flow state with your work and not forcing any agenda. 

When I ask you, “How are you doing?” I don’t mean as a founder. I mean as a person. Often, those two selves give very different answers.

The entrepreneur might say they’re making major decisions, hiring, pivoting, scaling.
The person might say they’re exhausted. That they feel like they should be happier by now. Despite all their progress, they still feel behind.

You know that feeling. The work that used to light you up has started to feel dry, mechanical. The spark has dimmed. It’s not burnout, not exactly—but it’s something close. You’ve become efficient at producing outcomes, but in the process, you’ve started losing yourself.

I don’t want to just write you to get this done. I want to write because I mean it. 

Because when I’m fully present in this process—when I actually connect to what I’m saying—it feels different. And that difference comes through.

What if work wasn’t just a means to an end? What if the goal wasn’t just an outcome, but the experience itself?

We tell ourselves we’re building a future where we’ll finally feel free, confident, at peace. But what if you could feel those things now? What if waiting wasn’t necessary?

Some things keep you from feeling that way:

• The editor in your head. The constant critique while you’re creating. If someone interrupted you every two minutes to point out mistakes, you’d never finish anything. Yet, you do it to yourself all day.
• The belief that somehow the future you has the answer. The idea that life will begin once you’ve made enough, built enough, proven enough, and then you will make a change.
• Self-sacrifice. The belief that your worth is measured by how much you give up. That working harder, longer, and carrying more weight than anyone else somehow makes you deserving of success. But when your entire identity is built around pushing through, what happens when you finally stop? Who are you outside of the struggle?

But time doesn’t wait. You don’t get it back. If you skip the moments that matter—if you trade them for the promise of later—there’s no refund. You can’t buy back your child’s first years. You can’t relive the friendships you let drift. You can’t rewind the nights you spent working instead of really living.

I’m not saying don’t invest in your future. I’m saying don’t abandon yourself in the process.

Because if you do, what parts of you will be left to enjoy it?

The most productive people you know aren’t focused on systems and hacks.

They are driven, energized, and enthusiastic.

They do a lot all of the time without really thinking about productivity. They make tweaks here or there to enjoy themselves more. 

Productivity hacks are what we use when we don’t have intrinsic motivation. 

Productivity is obligatory and external.

The soul’s pursuit is joyful and internal.

If you’re not productive, there are two things you can do:

• Change your mindset
• Change your context (Focus)

Changing your mindset means seeing your work in a new light. We have agency over how we view ourselves and our world. What we expect to see, we see, and because of that, our attitude, thinking, and point of view changes how we look at what we do. It might be that the more productive person than you has a different story about their work. 

Changing your context means putting yourself in a space where you naturally thrive. I’m attending a conference this week, and I was SO drained after one of the afternoons, and then the next day I was totally fired up. I realized that the talks I listened to on the first day were not in my zone of genius and interest, but on the second day the people and workshops I did were right up my alley. I was so energized. The first series was energy draining. The second was energy giving.

If you do something and it gives you energy, wouldn’t it be easier to do more than if you do something and it takes your energy away?

If you do something and it gives you energy, wouldn’t it be easier to do more than if you do something that drains your energy?

Your favorite Productivity Youtuber is in their zone of genius. They love productivity for productivity’s sake – so much that they spend their time making videos about it. 

The deeper lesson behind their work is not the productivity hacks they may or may not actually be using. The deeper lesson is that they have found something that they love to do so much: YouTube, and a topic they love so much: Productivity that they enjoy doing it all of the time.

Love is the best fuel source for productivity. Desire is a good fuel source but not as strong as love. Obligation is a poor fuel source, even though we use it all of the time. 

When you love doing something, you win twice.

First, when you get to do it, and then when or if you get an external outcome related to it. 

Focusing on your productivity is an unnecessary step in the process. 

As Yoda wisely said, “Do, or Do Not, There is No Try.”

A good productivity question to ask yourself is: 

“What do I most love to do?”

You either:

• Struggle to figure out what work to hand off.
• Have a ton of work but don’t know how to communicate what needs to get done.
• Or (less talked about) even feel a little guilty about giving work to someone else...

Delegation, when done right, isn’t a burden—it’s an opportunity to align your team with the highest-impact work.

1. The Telescope Approach: Start big picture

The first step in effective delegation isn’t where you’d expect. I always tell entrepreneurs to start by zooming out—like using a telescope.

A telescope can either give you a wide view of the entire night sky or zoom in on a specific planet or star. When you’re thinking about delegation, start with the widest lens possible.

Ask yourself:

• What is this person’s role?
• What are the most important projects this month, quarter, or year?
• What actually matters most in the business right now?

Before you get lost in the details of small tasks, take a step back and list the top three most important priorities for the business. This helps you delegate work that actually moves the needle, rather than just keeping people busy.

If you already set clear quarterly goals, this gets easier—you already have the right context in place. From there, you can start focusing on what specific work needs to be assigned.

2. Focus on 80%

Once you have the big picture, think about what this person should spend 80% of their time on. This give you a starting context.

Ask:

• What is this person best at?
• Where should they be focused?
• Are they currently aligned with their highest-value work?

If they’re already spending 80% of their time on the right things, then you’re just tweaking the remaining 20%. But if their focus is off, that’s where you need to start making adjustments.

For example, if someone’s role is to lead brand marketing, then ask: What part of brand marketing does the business need most right now? 

Instead of just handing them random tasks, make sure they’re working on what will have the biggest impact.

Delegating small, unimportant tasks effectively doesn’t help if your team isn’t aligned with the most important work in the first place.

Communicating

One last thing—these conversations don’t have to feel heavy or overwhelming. A client of mine recently shared how much anxiety they felt about these discussions. But the truth is, you don’t have to approach delegation conversations with a super serious tone.

Yes, delegation is important, but keeping it light makes the process easier for everyone. Instead of making it feel like a high-stakes, make-or-break situation, try saying:

• “Hey, let’s take 10 minutes to check in on this.”
• “I love a lot of what you’re doing, I just wanna tweak one thing.”
• “I must not have been super clear before—let’s make sure this is aligned.”

This makes people more open to feedback and less defensive. The more relaxed and collaborative you make it, the more effective the conversation will be.

A lot of times, when you’re frustrated with a team member, the issue is actually pretty small. But in the moment, it feels like everything is wrong. They’re probably doing a great job in most areas, but one small detail is off.

Instead of assuming everything is a mess, take a step back and recognize what’s going well. This makes the conversation with your team much more productive:

1. Acknowledge what’s working – “Hey, I love the work you’re doing on X.”
2. Identify the one thing that needs tweaking: “I think we could improve Y a little bit.”
3. Collaborate on a solution – “How do you think we could approach this better?”

This keeps the conversation positive and solution-oriented instead of turning it into a stressful critique.

Here’s a quick recap of how to delegate more effectively:

1. Zoom Out First – Start with the big picture before diving into the details.
2. Focus on the 80% – Ensure your team member is working on the right 80% of their role. 
3. Communicate Big & Small – Most issues are small; recognize what’s working and adjust from there.
4. Keep It Light – Delegation doesn’t have to be a stressful, serious thing.

I hope this helps you think differently about delegation. Let me know—where have you struggled with delegation?

You might rationally know what you want—whether it’s raising your prices as a freelancer, launching a new project, or taking a big step forward.

But despite your conscious desire, something always seems just out of reach…

The way to recognize subconscious resistance is to look at areas where you're putting in a lot of effort but never seeing the results you want. It’s like hitting an invisible wall. You get excited, you try, you push, and then suddenly, something stops you. You fall back to where you started, and the cycle repeats.

Usually the subconscious makes itself known through strong fear (ah!), discomfort (in the body), or resistance but you can’t rationally explain why it’s there.

Here are a few examples:

• You know you need to raise your prices, but every time you go to send that email, you freeze up.
• You're about to record your first podcast, but seeing yourself on camera makes you feel terrible.
• A casual conversation suddenly makes you deeply uncomfortable, and you just want to leave.

These are signals that something deeper is at play. In the healing and personal development world, this is often referred to as a “trigger”—an unconscious emotional reaction that doesn’t have an obvious logical cause.

Work with your emotion, not your logic.

The good news is that once you recognize this dynamic, you know where to focus your energy.

Instead of trying to rationally “figure it out” (which can be exhausting and often ineffective), shift your attention inward to observe what’s happening emotionally.

1. Pause When You Feel Resistance – When irrational fear or discomfort shows up, don’t ignore it. Instead, acknowledge it as valuable information. Thank you!
2. Stay With the Emotion – Instead of pushing it away, sit with it. Ask yourself, What am I actually afraid of? Usually the fear is deeper and wider than the task at hand.
3. Identify the Conflict – Example: You want to start a podcast, but deep down, you fear being misunderstood or criticized. This is why there’s a “push-pull” effect – we have a conscious desire and an unconscious fear. 

Curiosity and awareness help you detect the bigger pattern at play. Shockingly, whatever is coming up for you right now related to this fear is probably something that is affecting other areas of your life as well. 

Look for your resistance

If you feel stuck in an area of your life—whether it’s business, relationships, or a creative project—start paying attention to where resistance shows up. Often, there’s another voice at the table, one that isn’t rational but still deeply influences your actions.

Find someone to help you identify, map, and learn more about this fear; be it a coach, therapist or just a good friend! 

Have you noticed any recent irrational fear or discomfort holding you back from something important? 

How do you work with your subconscious fears?

The real safety net? Trusting yourself to respond.

“Oh,” he said. “I just spend a few days at the beginning of the quarter writing and scheduling about 3-4 months’ worth of emails.”

“You can do that?!” I asked.

For Paul, his workflow meant batching and scheduling, but to the outside, it looked like extreme willpower. To him, it probably felt like a short burst of focus and then leisure to think about other aspects of his business.

It’s easy to look at others and think they possess some type of magic we don’t have. But when the “trick” is shown, we see that it was our perception that was false. We just didn’t see the possibility.

In working with Founders, sometimes all I do is simply point to the potential that someone wasn’t able to see for themselves. It’s obvious when you know it, and yet it remains frustratingly hidden when you don’t.

The first step to making something happen is seeing that it’s possible.

Some people look at magicians and leave confused, amused, or annoyed. 

Others ask the magician to learn and then practice their sleight of hand…

Here’s what I noticed along the way: He’s still him, and yet the way that he sees his work has changed drastically at each step. He’s embraced a change of role, and a change of leadership; how he serves his clients and what problems he solves for them.

Each change in revenue was preceded by an unlock, you could feel it happen in our conversation.

Suddenly it was no longer about him doing the work, but finding others to help. Suddenly it wasn’t about just hiring others, but creating new products. Suddenly, his business was about client experience, and now how much value he creates for his network.

This is the seamless process that happens when you are entering a growing market with a high propensity for flexibility and complexity.

And of course it doesn’t seem so seamless at all. Each block in thinking is caused by what previously worked, and it’s hard to change roles. It takes a small ego and a big desire to learn.

If you don’t know where to start, here’s a question to consider;

• How has your role changed, even though technically you still are the same title?
• If you could promote yourself, what would your new title be?
• How can you start doing some of that work, today?

Business growth comes from leadership growth and change.

It’s been teaching a simple framework for noticing more about how our minds work. 

What can you do about being stressed, having anxious, coming back into the present?

The framework is very useful for getting yourself out of your head and back into the present. It all starts with awareness and noticing – catching yourself getting out of presence. There are so many different ways that we stop being present.

So it helps for you to get a basic understanding about how you, specifically, leave the present moment:

Presence/Out of Presence:

• Audio/Past: We remember a conversation that we were having (and maybe cringe about it). 
• Audio/Future: We’re practicing a conversation that we’re going to have.
• Audio/Present: You’re hearing something in the room you’re in, right now.
• Visual/Past: We see images of some past event or person.
• Visual/Future: We are imagining how we’ll act, we’re in a fantasy of the future.
• Visual/Present: You’re seeing the room you’re in, the color, the texture. 

Etc.

Those senses, those same senses that were distracting you become an anchor to getting present again. 

Talk about a counter-intuitive move! 

Start by “labeling” what you’re noticing. Understand a bit better and get curious about yourself in this way.

And, you can download the app the way if that's helpful to you. 

What helps you get outta your head and back into the present? 

The biggest misconception of sales and selling to clients is that you’re convincing someone to buy from you. This manipulative view leads to poor processes and poor outcomes. 

It’s very unlikely this potential client values what you value.

This is where the manipulation shows up in attempts to correct this misalignment.

(rarely works).

Instead, see if you can learn what your client values.

Become a detective to understand how they see what they need and want.

Become a partner to them in creating or capturing that need together – and ask yourself how you can help bring them to that better future faster, easier, or more artfully.

Even that is not enough.

Your job isn’t even just to deliver and meet expectations but to go beyond them.

The best client relationships go beyond the initial scope into an even more expanded and valuable future.

Selling is the art of transformation. 

The faster you identify what transformation is needed, the faster you can start delivering value to your clients.

The first is that you’re not intending to think about anything in particular. This “release” from our problem-solving mind seems to allow to actually… solve problems for you. But done in a holistic manner that skips the direct logic of pouring energy through the known problem space.

The second is the heat. You’re relaxed. You’re no longer in the rush or the stress of the day and that gives your system a chance to calm down. Strangely, the calm also works well for solving big problems in simple, effective ways. Stress as a stimulus may give your work more distance, but perhaps not more depth.

Third, is the sound. There’s a white-noise effect, a hum of the water pressure and splash of the droplets. Attuning to this sound, you center yourself unconsciously into a type of meditative state. This meditative state anchors to sound, the consistency of it allows you to drop into a more open state giving you some separation from your thoughts.

You can take a few lessons from this confluence of factors – that you have a system of senses that are all intelligent. That your mind-based logic is only one system and is a blunt tool.

That your environment matters for your consciousness and your experience of being.

And – that turning away from something is also a useful method for working through something.

Without understanding this, business success can feel random.

That being said, there are some patterns we can learn. And, if we understand these patterns, we align ourselves with success.

I'm going to dig into why and how you can build a better understanding of human nature, but first, let me give you a bit more context:

I really enjoyed this conversation and if you're looking to learn more, you can find more about his company and their processes here: https://florissgroup.com/

Find Andy on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/ThatDetroitAndy

You can follow Will on Twitter or check out his blog here!
https://twitter.com/will_mannon
https://www.will-mannon.com/

You can check out Mac at...

https://www.commsor.com/
https://the.community.club/
https://twitter.com/TheTeaGuns

And, how the governance built by the Braintrust team is built that allows aligned incentives between investors, freelancers, and companies they serve. This concept is part of a larger shift to how the creator economy will function and how freelancers can create value while retaining power in the networks that they create for.

You can check out Braintrust here which is in open Beta until early next year: https://www.usebraintrust.com/

You can view some her collabs here as well as the video referenced in the podcast. 
https://www.copsonlondon.com/collaborations

You can follow Maria on Instagram here:
https://www.instagram.com/copsonlondon/

What caught my attention about Nicks' work was his posts on career journey: https://junglegym.substack.com/p/the-jungle-gym-february-2019-159274

As well as creators and communities: https://junglegym.substack.com/p/the-social-architecture-of-impactful

You can also find Nick on Twitter: https://twitter.com/nick_dewilde

In this episode, I speak with Robert about the creative process and his years of studying and speaking on this topic. This episode is different in that it's less about brand/creator strategy but more about the individual process for being a creator. 

I've loved his books, most notably "The Path of Least Resistance" which covers his expertise in depth.
https://www.amazon.com/Path-Least-Resistance-Learning-Creative/dp/0449903370

In this podcast, Li joins me as a co-host to discuss a co-written blog post we wrote as an open letter for community leaders. 
You can read it here:
https://li.substack.com/p/community-leaders-deserve-better

She is a widely read columnist, speaker and advisor.

This conversation was hosted via Jacuzzi Club, so the format is a bit different. You'll hear questions from other members on the show later in the episode, so don't mind that. Also sorry for any slight Zoom lags :) 

Check out her newsletter: https://andjelicaaa.substack.com/
Or her new book: https://thebusinessofaspiration.com/

Our conversation covers how brands and creators are using new models for product development and monetization.

Check out Zoe's writing here: https://zoescaman.substack.com/
Or follow her on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/zoescaman

Or, the talk that got me introduced to her work:
https://zoescaman.substack.com/p/are-business-models-the-new-frontier-for-innovation-438506c76eb9

RadReads:
https://radreads.co/

Link to his Notion course:
https://radreads.teachable.com/p/syp5?affcode=367310_ppqaxa7o

https://www.annagat.com/
https://www.interintellect.com/

https://www.theproofwellness.com/about
https://twitter.com/adrianalfieri

http://makerpad.co/
https://twitter.com/bentossell

Her site: https://www.kaleighmoore.com/
Creative Class: https://creativeclass.co/

http://danshipper.com/
http://everything.substack.com/

Learn more about the host: https://www.davidsherry.me/