Introducing Creative Companion: A new Series for creators

Hey, I'm Jay! I'm a writer, podcaster, and most importantly, a community builder. I was on the Indie Hackers podcast this year talking about the sale of my community to Pat Flynn and Smart Passive Income.

I love to help people find creative and financial freedom. So I started Creative Companion to be your digital friend, mentor, and community along that path.

Through this newsletter, you'll find:

• Stories and insight from successful creators
• An inside look at my own creator business
• Practical how-to guides for building an audience
• Encouragement to keep going when things feel pointless

...all wrapped up and delivered in a kind, warm, approachable way.

I'm here to help you get paid while becoming the best version of your creative self.

And if you're curious to know more about why I care...

I struggled to be creative

Creative Companion was really born from a personal journal back in 2017. I had this story I would tell myself that I wasn't creative. I couldn't draw, I couldn't paint, and I couldn't design...so surely I wasn't creative.

That belief got even more limiting because it evolved into a belief that I didn't even have good ideas! I was just good at executing other peoples' ideas.

But I loved seeing other people create. I had to do something to turn this around,

So to prove to myself I decided to write and publish an email every day for a year.

Every. Single. Day. For a year!

It was super rewarding. And at times, the things I wrote really sucked! I mean, who has something to say every day?

But it shattered my limiting belief. It built the habit. And with the momentum of that habit, I've now built a business that supports me full-time as a creator.

Creators are the new rockstars

When I was a kid, I would look at musicians and think, "Wow, what an amazing life." I mean these people literally got to tour the world playing THEIR music and could get rich doing it.

Amazing!

That lifestyle is available to all of us today as creators.

But we've really warped our expectations on how quickly we can get there...

Those same musicians we looked up to toured the country for years and years playing slightly larger venues, selling CDs, and getting email addresses on notepads. Most bands we know and love today spent the better part of a decade or more until they broke through.

Meanwhile, most online business influencers would lead you to believe this lifestyle is possible in just a couple of years.

I started Creative Companion because I want to be honest with you:

To be a full-time creator earning a living from your art and creativity is still a lot of hard work.

It still takes a lot of time.

It's more possible than ever, but more people than ever are pursuing it too.

You need a creative platform

To make this whole creator thing work and support you financially, you need to build what I call a creative platform.

Your creative platform is the encapsulation of all your content across platforms, your products, your services, etc.

It's everything you've made, everything you offer, the way you show up online, and all the systems supporting you.

As you build and develop your creative platform, you're creating a flywheel for your entire business.

From Good to Great by Jim Collins:

Picture a huge, heavy flywheel—a massive metal disk mounted horizontally on an axle, about 30 feet in diameter, 2 feet thick, and weighing about 5,000 pounds. Now imagine that your task is to get the flywheel rotating on the axle as fast and long as possible. Pushing with great effort, you get the flywheel to inch forward, moving almost imperceptibly at first. You keep pushing and, after two or three hours of persistent effort, you get the flywheel to complete one entire turn.

You keep pushing, and the flywheel begins to move a bit faster, and with continued great effort, you move it around a second rotation. You keep pushing in a consistent direction. Three turns ... four ... five ... six ... the flywheel builds up speed ... seven ... eight ... you keep pushing ... nine ... ten ... it builds momentum ... eleven ... twelve ... moving faster with each turn ... twenty ... thirty ... fifty ... a hundred.

Then, at some point—breakthrough! The momentum of the thing kicks in in your favor, hurling the flywheel forward, turn after turn ... whoosh! ... its own heavy weight working for you. You’re pushing no harder than during the first rotation, but the flywheel goes faster and faster. Each turn of the flywheel builds upon work done earlier, compounding your investment of effort. A thousand times faster, then ten thousand, then a hundred thousand. The huge heavy disk flies forward, with almost unstoppable momentum.

Your best path forward

Building a successful creative platform is simply a numbers game. It's just like the flywheel – as you grow your audience and your impact, things get spinning faster even without additional effort from you.

So sure, the faster you can attract (high-quality) followers, the faster the flywheel will get turning and the less patient you’ll need to be...

But you’re better off assuming it will take longer for numbers to be in your favor than you think. If you enter this not worrying about how long it will take for the numbers to be in your favor, you’ll set yourself up for success.

When you assume it will take a long time, you make decisions to allow for a longer time horizon. When you make decisions that allow for a longer time horizon, you make higher-quality work. When you make higher-quality work, the numbers come your way faster.

It's a catch-22: sometimes the slower you expect something to work, the faster that it will. So I encourage you to lower your expectations of others and raise your expectations of yourself.

I have an acronym that I think will help: you need CRAP. You don't need courses, you don't need products, you just need Commitment, Resilience, Ambition, and Patience.

Most people who start down this path have good enough tools and they do good enough work. But they fail to give enough of a CRAP.

It’s hard to be both ambitious AND patient. It’s hard to be committed if you’re not resilient.

Most aspiring creators fail simply because they aren’t patient or committed enough to let time do its work.

But that's not you.

You can and WILL be different. You have plenty of CRAP.

And with Creative Companion, I'll help make things even easier.

Creative Companion is built to save you a whole lot of time and effort. With the articles, episodes, and people you meet through Creative Companion, you'll learn what's working for creators TODAY.

You'll also have plenty of companions for your creative journey. We'll be by your side helping you build the flywheel of your creative platform.

And today is the perfect day to get started. I can't wait to meet you.

PS: Want to learn more about me? Read more here.