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This episode is part of the January Joy(ful) Growth Club with Russell and Claire program I’m running with Claire Venus ✨. Join and get access to special challenge and interviews all month.

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In this episode, we’re joined by education entrepreneur and writer Michael Simmons to explore a radically different way of thinking about work, learning, and growth.

We start with a deceptively simple question: What if making a living didn’t have to feel miserable? From there, the conversation opens into practical and philosophical territory. We talk about how many people you actually need to support a sustainable life, why fractional work and contracting are often safer than they look, and how entrepreneurship can offer more freedom than traditional employment if you approach it creatively.

Michael shares his own journey through ambition, burnout, and reinvention, including building a seven-figure education company in his twenties, and burning out because he didn’t enjoy the day-to-day work required to sustain it. That experience led to a major shift: choosing curiosity and energy as filters for what he works on, rather than goals alone. When he began writing only what he was genuinely excited about, everything changed—traction, resonance, and sustainability followed.

From there, we dig into deeper ideas about learning and expertise. We talk about why it’s no longer possible, or desirable, to know everything, and why the future belongs to people who understand distributed responsibility: recognizing both the keys you hold and the locks you don’t. Rather than idolizing lone experts or pretending everyone has all the answers, real progress happens when people bring their specific knowledge together.

The conversation moves fluidly between AI, intuition, education, and systems thinking, touching on why the things that feel like “cheating” are often your greatest strengths, how we add by subtraction as we mature, and why so many people are over-armored for battles they’re no longer fighting.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by how much there is to know, pressured to optimize yourself into exhaustion, or stuck believing work has to be hard to be valuable, this episode offers a generous reframe: you don’t need all the answers—you just need to know which ones are yours.

Here are 5 grounded, actionable takeaways from the conversation with Michael Simmons, written to land clearly at the end of the episode:

* Design your income around fewer people, not more. You don’t need thousands of customers to build a sustainable life. Explore models like fractional work, contracting, or high-trust relationships where a small number of people pay for deep value.

* Let curiosity be a filter, not a reward. If you consistently dread the daily actions required by your goals, something is misaligned. Prioritize work you’re genuinely curious about and energized by—momentum follows engagement.

* Trust the things that feel like “cheating.” The actions that feel easiest to you are often your highest leverage skills. If they work, double down instead of abandoning them for something harder.

* Stop trying to know everything and build relational intelligence instead. Expertise now lives in networks, not individuals. Focus on knowing what you know, knowing what you don’t, and knowing who to turn to when you need the missing pieces.

* Add by subtraction as you mature. Regularly audit the armor you’re still carrying from earlier seasons of your life or business. Keep what protects you now and consciously shed what no longer serves you.

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This episode is part of the January Joy(ful) Growth Club with Russell and Claire program I’m running with Claire Venus ✨. Join and get access to special challenge and interviews all month.

Join by clicking here.

In this conversation, we’re joined by artist and writer Elin Petronella from Follow Your Gut to talk about intuition, energy, and what it really takes to build a joyful creative life over the long term.

Elin shares what it looks like to stay in business as an artist for more than a decade, across countries, life seasons, motherhood, burnout, and reinvention, without forcing herself into rigid systems that slowly drain the joy out of the work. At the center of the conversation is the idea that if you want to keep creating, you have to become ruthless about what works for you and what doesn’t.

We talk about why creators often cling to strategies that are hard but ineffective, while abandoning the things that feel easy and work. We unpack return on energy investment, how to balance “guaranteed” work with space for delusional experiments, and why knowing when something isn’t likely to work is just as important as optimism.

The conversation also explores shame around slowing down, pivoting, disappearing, or changing direction, and how external expectations can quietly push artists into building golden cages of their own design. Elin reflects on learning to trust her intuition again after burnout, recognizing when misalignment shows up as over-explaining, and why creating, privately or publicly, is often the fastest way back to clarity.

We dive into ecosystems, creative operating systems, and why some paths look chaotic from the outside but make perfect sense internally. We talk about building your own arbitrage instead of chasing trends, why originality isn’t something you find but something that emerges over time, and how everything you make eventually connects, even if it only makes sense in hindsight.

If you’re an artist or creator wrestling with consistency, visibility, pivots, or the fear that stepping off the hamster wheel will make everything collapse, this episode is a powerful reminder that alignment isn’t indulgent, it’s how you stay in the game.

Here are 5 clear, grounded, actionable takeaways that match the tone and substance of the conversation with Elin Petronella:

* Get ruthless about return on energy, not just money. Regularly name which activities drain you and which ones give energy back, even if they aren’t immediately profitable. Long-term sustainability depends on keeping energy-generating work in the mix.

* Balance guaranteed work with delusional experiments. Make sure part of your workload reliably pays the bills, then intentionally reserve space to try things that might not work. Creativity dies when either side crowds out the other.

* Treat over-explaining as a misalignment signal. If you find yourself constantly justifying a pivot or decision, pause. That urge often means you’re acting from conditioning instead of intuition.

* Stop forcing consistency across seasons. You’re allowed to disappear, slow down, or change mediums as your life changes. What looks chaotic from the outside often creates coherence over time.

* Keep creating, even when it’s private. Creation is how you stay connected to your intuition. If you stop making things altogether, clarity gets harder, not easier, to find.

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This episode is part of the January Joy(ful) Growth Club with Russell and Claire program I’m running with Claire Venus ✨. Join and get access to special challenge and interviews all month.

Join by clicking here.

In this conversation, we’re joined by artist and illustrator Adam Ming from Ten Minute Artist to talk about what it actually means to build a creative life that fits how you work, not how you think you should work.

Together, we explore the quiet tension many artists feel between joy, sustainability, growth, and why forcing yourself into someone else’s model is often the fastest path to burnout.

Using Adam’s experience as a working illustrator and creator, we unpack the myth that artists are fundamentally “different” from everyone else, and how that belief can quietly keep people stuck. Making art is creative, but sharing it, selling it, and building a life around it is still entrepreneurship. Once you radically accept that, everything gets clearer.

We talk through ideas like:

* why ease is often mistaken for cheating,

* how identifying your personal “magic trick” can stabilize both income and energy,

* the difference between how you operate day-to-day and how you actually grow,

* and why repeating what works isn’t selling out, it’s refinement.

The conversation also dives into scale paths, ecosystems, positive feedback loops, and why copying someone else’s strategy almost never works unless you share their temperament, constraints, and incentives. Growth isn’t about doing everything—it’s about doing the right few things, consistently, in a way that nourishes you.

If you’re an artist, writer, or creator who feels like you’re working hard but still swimming upstream, this episode offers a grounded reframe: build the way you’re built and let joy do the heavy lifting.

Here are 5 clear, actionable takeaways tailored to this conversation and suitable to drop at the end of the episode:

* Identify your “magic trick” and keep using it. Pay attention to the thing that consistently works for you—the action that feels easier and produces results. Don’t abandon it just because it feels repetitive or unglamorous.

* Separate how you operate from how you grow. How you like to work day-to-day isn’t always the same as how your work spreads. Figure out both, then design your strategy around that intersection.

* Stop copying people with different temperaments. If a strategy drains you, it’s probably not yours—even if it works for someone you admire. Growth models only work when they match your energy, constraints, and incentives.

* Cut the work that isn’t working. If something hasn’t produced a positive feedback loop after sustained effort, it’s not “discipline”—it’s drag. Let it go and reinvest that time into higher-leverage actions.

* Trust ease when it’s backed by results. Ease isn’t cheating. When something feels natural and moves the needle, that’s your signal to double down, not look for something harder.

* Listen on the app of your choice

This episode is part of the January Joy(ful) Growth Club with Russell and Claire program I’m running with Claire Venus ✨. Join and get access to special challenge and interviews all month.

Join by clicking here.

In it, I sat down with Seth Werkheiser from SOCIAL MEDIA ESCAPE CLUB to talk about why social media is making people miserable, and how it’s not actually helping most of us build sustainable creative careers.

We talked a lot about:

* Why creators keep chasing scale before they’re ready for it

* Why people want the audience now without putting in the reps.

* Why “nobody cares” is actually one of the best places you can start.

* And why building something small, slow, and human often beats trying to impress strangers on the internet.

One of my favorite threads in this conversation was that musicians don’t build careers by going viral once. They build them by playing to five people on a Tuesday night, learning what works, getting better, and slowly expanding outward. That model works for authors, artists, and entrepreneurs too, but social media keeps convincing us to skip the middle.

We also dug into why email lists matter, why platforms always get worse over time, and why you should never confuse attention with access. At the end of the day, a thousand followers you can’t reach is worth far less than a hundred people who actually opted in.

At its core, this episode is about choosing work that compounds instead of work that drains you. It’s about trading performative growth for durable growth. And it’s about remembering that success is a trailing indicator, you only see it after the work has already been done.

If you’ve been feeling burned out, behind, or like you’re doing everything “right” but nothing is clicking, this conversation might help you recalibrate what actually matters—and where your energy is best spent.

Key takeaways

* “Nobody cares” is a gift. When the stakes are low, you get to practice, experiment, and make mistakes without pressure. That’s how you build skill and confidence before scale.

* Reps beat reach. Playing to five people, hosting a small Zoom call, or writing for a tiny list builds muscles that going viral never will.

* Success comes after the work, not before it. People don’t blow up out of nowhere—they just make the invisible work look sudden in hindsight.

* Attention isn’t the same as access. If you can’t reach your audience directly, you don’t actually have one.

* Energy exchange matters. If a platform consistently gives you less back than you put in, it will eventually drain your joy—no matter how “important” it seems.

* Build where you can leave without it damaging you. Platforms change. Owned channels travel with you.

If you want growth that actually feels good, start by asking a different question—not “How do I get bigger?” but “Where does my energy come back to me?”

That question changes everything.

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In this episode, we kick off the new year by slowing down on purpose.

This episode is all about our new January Joy initiative we’ll be talking about all month as part of our Joyful Growth Club. Join at:

https://www.joyfulgrowthclub.substack.com/

Rather than jumping straight back into optimization, output, and “doing it right,” we talk about what it actually means to grow with joy—and why joy isn’t the opposite of ambition, discipline, or sustainability. It’s often the prerequisite for all three.

We explore the idea that a rich creative life isn’t just about happiness or meaning, but also psychological richness: the kind that comes from doing hard, stretching, sometimes uncomfortable things that still move us forward. That tension between ease and challenge, rest and momentum runs through the entire conversation.

From there, we dig into practical realities creators are quietly wrestling with:

* Why ads can feel exposing (and how to approach them without betraying your nervous system),

* How audience growth can become destabilizing if it isn’t tethered to boundaries,

* And why “return on energy investment” matters just as much as return on money.

We talk candidly about burnout, visibility, paid work, boundaries, and the invisible labor of holding space for other people—especially online. We unpack why sustainability isn’t about forcing the thing you love to carry everything, and how building systems that support you creates room for rest, depth, and long-term creative freedom.

This episode also introduces Joyful Growth Club, our shared January-long experiment in community, collaboration, and conscious growth—daily posts, live conversations, challenges, and a final masterclass designed to help creators find momentum without self-erasure.

If you’ve ever felt torn between wanting more and wanting peace, worried that slowing down meant giving up or whether joy can coexist with real growth…

This conversation is for you.

Here are 5 actionable takeaways you can take away from this one:

* Audit your return on energy, not just results. For the next week, notice which activities give you energy back (ideas, clarity, momentum) and which quietly drain you, even if they “work.” Start shifting time toward the former.

* Choose one boundary to enforce this month. Pick a single boundary and make it explicit. Boundaries aren’t about controlling others; they’re about protecting your capacity to keep showing up.

* Stop forcing the thing you love to carry everything. Identify one way your creative work could be buttressed, repurposed, systematized, or supported, so it doesn’t have to perform nonstop to justify its existence.

* Design growth that fits your nervous system. If a tactic makes you freeze, avoid, or spiral, don’t push harder. Break it into lower-stakes steps (e.g., awareness before conversion, presence before pressure) until it feels workable.

* Reconnect with the people who are already there.Instead of chasing numbers, spend time learning who your current audience, their names, patterns, and reasons they stay. Depth builds stability faster than scale.

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This is the recording from December’s Path of Least Friction presentation. While I didn’t record the breakthrough sessions, I took a video of the presentation bit for you.

It breaks down your path of least friction, the place where your natural strengths, joy, and effort align to produce disproportionate results with less unnecessary struggle.

After working with authors, creators, entrepreneurs, tech companies, and even street performers, I’ve found that everyone essentially faces the same challenge: they keep hitting blocks and have no idea how to move through them or where to start.

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This week, I’m bringing you sneak peek into Craft Con, a free two-day virtual summit I’m hosting with my friends at Plotdrive happening Thursday, Nov. 20 and Friday, Nov. 21.

Craft Con is all about helping authors break through their biggest creative blocks whether you’re stuck in the middle of your novel, struggling to start a story you’ve been dreaming about, or just feeling totally burnt out as the year winds down.

I interviewed 12 of my most amazing friends about the blocks they face, how they got through them, and most importantly, how they would train you to get through them as well.

We’ll be talking to amazing, superstar writers Ines Johnson, Johnny Truant, Melissa Storm, Joe Nassise, Kevin McLaughlin, Jennifer Hilt, Heather Hildenbrand, Mal Cooper, Lee Savino, Jennifer Probst, Alex Dobrenko, and Kern Carter.

You’ll hear from bestselling authors who’ve been in the trenches, facing every kind of writing block, from losing momentum and getting tangled in the messy middle to doubting their own talent, and the strategies they used to break through and become successful.

​All registrants will also receive the Blockbreaker Digital Bundle for free, packed with tools and ebooks from our speakers to crush your own writing blocks!

​The Blockbreaker Bundle includes ​The Zero to Sixty Author: One Road to Writing Success (ebook) by Kevin McLaughlin, ​The Write Naked Affirmation Deck by Jennifer Probst, ​Book Launch Checklist and Marketing Quickstart Guide by Lee Savino, Manifest Your HEA (ebook) by Heather Hildenbrand, and ​How to Write Irresistible Books That Readers Devour (ebook) by me.

In today’s episode, I’ve pulled together some highlight moments—golden nuggets from those interviews that’ll light a fire under you and remind you: you’re not alone in this.

✅ And the best part? You can join us live at Craft Con for free.

Register now and you’ll also get the Blockbreaker Digital Bundle—ebooks, checklists, and tools from our speakers designed to help you crush your own creative blocks.

Register here:

👉 https://luma.com/obukrp1h

Whether you’re stuck, stalled, or just creatively scattered, this event will help you reset, refocus, and finally get that book done.

🎙 Now, let’s jump into the highlight reel.