Inner Growth

I was watching the Ed Sheeran documentary, Jumpers for Goalposts, the other day. I also read his book.

It's an incredible story. He's an incredible guy. Only 24 years old, he's working with a who's who of the industry, has Elton John on speed dial, and has played the UK's biggest venue, Wembley, three nights in a row, 77,000 people per night, just him, his guitar, and his loop station. Un-f**king-believable.

Two things that really stood out for me from studying him:

He says he's never set a g…

I like to challenge myself and my employees to make at least one major fuck-up per week.

Why? Because if you're not making mistakes, you're playing it too safe. Life and business is about taking risks. Not blind, uncalculated risks. But if you're not risking anything, then you're not pushing the boundaries.

But there's another reason too: Mistakes can be great for your business.

There was one moment in particular during the first online course I ever bought that made a lasting impression on m…

The Edge.

That's the name of U2's guitarist.

It's also a pretty great place to live.

When you're complacent, you just want to stay where you are, stay on the couch, watch sports (world series, anyone?), and not be challenged. That's staying well within your edge. May feel great in the moment. Pretty sure it requires an increasing amount of substances to numb out the voice whispering inside. Not a good long-term strategy. 

Then theres' what I used to do. So full of hate and resentment towards…

Sorry I skipped the newsletter last week. I was spending some quality time in Denmark with my kids who live there with their mom.

Today, I wanted to share a great book/program with you. It's Gay Hendricks' book "The 10-Second Miracle".

I've raved about Gay before, he's a great great human being, but oh boy! I think that book has completely changed my life. It's definitely the most important book I've read this year, maybe even the most important book since I read his other book, Learning to lo…

Dear Reader,

I want to share a personal story with you that I think you'll probably resonate with, and I'd love to hear from you.

About ten years ago, I was sitting in my apartment on Kong Georgs Vej in Copenhagen in Denmark with my newborn daughter (I love you Flora) and my now-ex wife.

I was developing a new software product for my startup with a co-founder who lived in Silicon Valley, who had written my favorite user interface design book, and led the UI team at Yahoo. I was so counting on…

Before I got into the information business in 2008, I paid my bills as a freelance programmer, and I hated it.

I knew I wanted to get away from selling my time and into a product business.

I knew in my heart I could do it. That I could make information products and make it work. Not because I'm particularly gifted. But because I was determined. And I know that when I commit myself to something, I will figure it out.

So I just made the choice one day in the spring of 2008 to draw a line in the…

I wanted to do something I don't often do, and send my conscious entrepreneur insight as a video.

It's about decision-making, and specifically you'll learn why it's sometimes great to NOT make decisions.

Watch now:

Someone mentioned to me the other day that there were speculations about my ongoing commitment to Simplero now that I'm relaunching my coaching business.

So just to dispel any notions of that: My commitment to Simplero is as strong as ever.

In fact, Simplero wouldn't exist if it weren't for me starting my own coaching and online training business back in 2008. I was looking for software to run that business for me and didn't like what I found, so I wrote my own. Simplero came to be from me scr…

It's always valuable to think deeply about what your business is about. It's never about what it seems to be about.

Apple, the way I see it, is about fusing spirit and technology. Steve Jobs talked about certain products having a "spirit of enlightenment" about them, that would impact people whether they realized it or not. That's what I see that they do with technology products. They don't always get it right. They don't always have the best feature set. But they almost always have this spirit…

Just watched some old episodes of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. I love that show. I love entrepreneurship, I love restaurants, I love food, I love systems and processes that work, and I love seeing him take things that don't work and make them work.

What really strikes me about the program is that it always comes back to those fundamental basics: Is the food good and delivered on time? Is the menu and the decor inspiring and inviting? Is there leadership and re the systems working? Is the…