Howdy Reader! The Creative Freedom Retreat is behind us! What an amazing week with some brilliantly gifted leaders. I can't wait to see what next year's event will look like. Actually, I can. In fact, I intentionally took time away from the socials during and after the retreat just to create some breathing room. Jim and I watched the new Matchbox movie with John Cena the other night. Pure brain candy. We loved it! But while I was watching, I started wondering... Mattel spent decades making...
5 days ago • 1 min read
Howdy Reader! When I was a kid, I would wrangle the neighbor kids and charge them money to watch me perform. Every holiday party or family gathering, I was doing the "look at me!" thing to anyone who would watch. I could usually get a few well-meaning aunts to pay attention for a song or a dance, but invariably someone in the room would try to shame me into silence. I was showing off, too loud, too big for my britches, or whatever their story was. Never mind my talent or ambition. I was just...
13 days ago • 2 min read
Hey Reader! I’m heading into the home stretch on a couple of BIG things around here. The new website is almost ready. The new speaker reel is coming together. And I’m getting closer to showing you what this next chapter of my work actually looks like. I can't give you all the details yet, because my brand strategist would throttle me. 😉 But there’s something important I want you to know about the Creative Freedom Archive All-Access Pass: it's still growing. Yes, you’re getting more than 20...
23 days ago • 1 min read
Hellooo Reader... I'm about a week out from the last Creative Freedom Retreat and I'm already feeling nostalgic. It's the first, last, and only time these people will convene in this room for this event. I'm excited and also sad, because this event marks the end of all things Creative Freedom for me. There WILL be another retreat next year, it will just be different. Creative Freedom won't be part of it anymore and I'm having big feelings about the changes going on behind the scenes. More on...
24 days ago • 1 min read
Heya Reader... I've been wrestling with a question all year as my own business continues to change: What kind of organization am I actually trying to create? Not what I want to sell next or what makes the most money. Not even what will help the business survive, because survival isn't the same thing as preservation. I could keep my business alive by turning it into something I don't particularly want to run. I could keep doing work because people know me for it, and the business might...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Howdy Reader! A few days ago, I told you about it, and now... the doors are open. Current community members got first dibs and now I'm opening the Creative Freedom Archive All-Access Pass to you. The archive contains more than 20 years of my business training - from my direct sales days through Creative Freedom - including workshops, tools, client trainings, and resources that have never all been available in one place before. Your All-Access Pass includes: access to the complete Creative...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Happy Sunday Reader... A few days ago, Google Maps made me cry. I pulled up the corner of Dort and Davison in Flint, Michigan. Across the street from the General Motors complex were the parking lots where my mom worked when I was a kid. Years later, I worked inside that factory myself. Now there are trees growing through the cracks where factories once stood. TREES! That green line outlines the old lots where Mom worked. Across the street you can see where the factory once stood. That doesn't...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Heya Reader... About every 10 years my work evolves enough that it's time to move on to something new. I've been online entrepreneur for over 30 years. About 10 years in, I started coaching and consulting. First, I worked primarily with direct sales professionals. Then my work expanded into Creative Freedom, where I spent more than 10 years helping creative entrepreneurs build businesses that worked for how they were uniquely wired to work. While the book endures (and I'm planning an...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Heya Reader... Three years ago, I gave a TEDx talk called Enoughness and the Marginalization Tax. I still use the Enoughness Number exercise I talk about in that video at my retreat every year. I re-watched the video in preparation for the retreat and had an unsettling moment of clarity. You know, when you hear your past self say something and think: Oh. I was talking about something bigger than I realized. At the time, I was talking mostly about entrepreneurs. ...about the pressure to keep...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read