Some things must end so other things may begin.  In this final episode of The Portfolio Life, Jeff discusses what a portfolio life is and shares the lessons he’s learned over the course of producing the podcast.  Lessons learned: Your first stab at a new medium is rarely very good. You learn as you go. Finding your voice requires experimentation.  How you end something is directly correlated to how you begin the next thing. We invite you to check out our new podcast, Hey Creator! at https://goinswriter.com/hey/.

On The Portfolio Life this week, I’m chatting with Peak Performance Expert, Eric Partaker. Eric helps entrepreneurs become better leaders using behavioral science and techniques from the worlds of elite sports and the military, where peak performance is key. Eric is the author of the new book The 3 Alarms: A Simple System to Transform Your Health, Wealth, and Relationships Forever. Check out his website at www.ericpartaker.com. What we’re talking about: How dedicated effort, planning, and tenacity help you achieve your goals How a medical emergency on an airplane changed the course of Eric’s life The three core areas of a balanced life Why living every day as your last isn’t the right mindset for a fulfilling life Eric’s method for rating how effective his days are  The concept of antifragility and the effect of the COVID-19 virus on business

On The Portfolio Life this week, I’m talking to Elida Field, a professional artist whose work has been featured in the White House and on magazine covers. She’s currently working on her first book, Nobody Dies in Art Class. To learn more about her work, check out www.elidaart.com   What we’re talking about: How reaching out to other artists and influencers can help you grow. Why so many people have preconceived beliefs that they’re not “artists” when they really are, and how you can fight against that negative belief. What happens when children realize that their parents are just people who don’t know the answers to everything. How to make a living doing what you love. How you can find different ways to use your artistic side to create diverse income streams. The process of finding your artistic flow.

The act of finding the deeper part of you that never fades may be the most important task of your life. It is certainly the best place from which to create.

We're at the end of the 5-day Paid to Create challenge and so far, we’ve identified why we create, the importance of making money off our art, how to know what to sell, and to whom. Now, it’s time to sell.

Before you figure out what you want to sell, you need to first figure out what people are willing to pay for. Your job is to create something unique, something that at first meets a felt need of a person but then, in some way, goes beyond what they thought they wanted.

To start a business, you need more than passion. Getting paid to create really is about getting clear on what people want. Before we get into the super practical work of actually accepting money from other people, we need to get clear on what we have to offer.

There are, I think, roughly three kinds of creators in this world, each with their own path. Today, I want to share with you two things. First is the three kinds of creators, and the second is the path to building an organization around your work.

Why do we create? To share a thought: an idea, a story, a paradigm. To help another person, perhaps, simply by saying something others are unwilling to say. This week, I'm hosting a free, 5-day challenge to get you to take action. My goal for you is to go from zero to one. To get unstuck in a significant way that will allow you to create momentum in your work so that you can finally get paid to create. To find out more, check out goinswriter.com/paidtocreate.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what words can do. They can cut a person down or lift them up. They can overwhelm another with beauty or devastate their soul. I am always searching for the words that want to be said because when you find them, they can change everything.

This past week, I shared the news of my marriage ending. This has been the hardest decision of my life, something I was nervous to talk about publicly, but how people responded more than surprised me.

Distraction is no friend to a writer. But we all have had our dance with her before, haven't we? She is everywhere, all around us, from the devices we use to the websites we visit, to how we consume our news and media. If we are going to truly do work that matters, however, we can't just fight distraction. We have to understand it. In this episode, you'll hear: How most distraction starts from within and why all behavior stems from the relief of discomfort. Why time management is pain management. If you don’t understand the discomfort you are trying to escape, then you’ll never master distraction. Why you can’t separate what makes something engaging from what makes something potentially addictive. The danger behind the word “addictive”. How to make yourself indistractable. The three nutrients kids are missing and why kids are drawn to technology, plus how to help them become indistractable. Nir is the author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products and Indistractable. You can find him at nirandfar.com.

These days, I seem to be going through a personal renaissance, re-thinking who I am, what I do, and my contribution to the world. I keep running into other writers, artists, and creative professionals who seem to be struggling with the same thing: What does nurturing your creative life in a pandemic actually look like?

Before you can create anything, you must first create yourself. The process of changing your life—of pursuing a vocation, finding a true love, even making a career transition—always begins with an understanding of who you are. But it doesn’t stop there.

What if the point of becoming a professional artist or writer was not what you thought it was? What if success wasn’t the ultimate goal? What if each phase of your journey, even the frustrating ones, was a necessary stage to better understand what it is you’re here to do? In creative work, there is a spectrum from “starving” to “sellout,” and somewhere in the middle is where most of us find ourselves. How do we make sense of this? When you give yourself fully to your vocation, I think, what unfolds is a lifelong process of self-discovery. And so, this work reveals itself to us in stages.

The world is in crisis, and many people are telling you to do something new. But what if you didn’t have to do that? What if, instead of pivoting into new and exciting opportunities, we who make things considered this a call to our true work? What if we doubled down on our strengths, taking these familiar skills deeper than we thought they could go, seeking new ways to do old things? What if we asked, “What role is being required of me right now?”—and then did that?

How do you respond to something like a pandemic? A crisis when the whole world goes upside down. What role is being required of you when you feel like the thing that you offer the world isn't even needed? In this week's episode of The Portfolio Life, I interview my longtime friend and mentor, Michael Port. Michael is a best-selling author, fantastic speaker, and co-founder, along with his wife, Amy, of an organization called Heroic Public Speaking, where they train communicators on how to change the world one great speech at a time. What I loved about this conversation was Michael's response to the question of what do you do when you feel like your craft isn't necessary, such as during a crisis like we're experiencing right now. When the world changes, do you double down on what you've always done, or do you adapt and evolve? I think his answer will surprise you. His response to the current crisis we're all experiencing is that sometimes a crisis reveals your true values, and in many ways, forces you to focus on the things that have always been most important to you. What happens when you ask yourself the question, "how can I share these gifts and skills, in a way, right now, where they're actually needed?" Michael and I talked about public speaking and communication, and how to respond both as an artist and as an entrepreneur when the world seems to be changing. I think you'll really enjoy it. A few things we discussed: How training as an actor prepared Michael for a transition to author, speaker, and public speaking coach Why he and his wife founded Heroic Public Speaking and their training center in New Jersey Why he pivoted his mission to helping people stop speaking and start performing so they can create transformative experiences for audiences What it means to embrace the art of performance and why it’s a good thing How maintaining a rigidly fixed view of who you are and how you behave can be disastrous and why being flexible and fluid in your behavior can help you influence an outcome The logic behind the idea of changing how someone thinks by changing how they feel and how actions produce emotions How to pivot what you offer and how you offer it to the people you serve and what those people actually need right now The dangers behind having a personal brand Deep work versus surface work and distractions Resources we mention on the show: Steal the Show by Michael Port Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port Heroic Public Speaking Download Michael's Primer on Virtual Presentations

Hello there from quarantine. You might be feeling some shame for being unproductive or lazy or depressed during this time of crisis and social distancing. Please allow me to make you feel better. I am doing this worse than you, promise. How are you coping in these times of uncertainty? What stable, stupid, and new things are you doing to stay sane? I’d love to hear about it.

Is it an act of bravery to merely survive a crisis? Maybe. But if you have the potential to be remarkable, why wouldn’t you be? Now is the time to give your greatest gift to the world.

“What did you do with this crisis?” This may be what our children ask us about this time. And as you'll see, a crisis is an opportunity to create something new. Links from this episode: If you are a creator and in financial need, check out this fund that ConvertKit just created. Also, if you have the means to contribute, please do that. I’ll be making a donation later this week as I know these are hard times for many of my friends. For a little levity, I am launching a cooking show on Instagram where every morning for breakfast, I’ll cook something different and show you how in my live feed. Make sure you’re following me and don’t miss it on Instagram. On Wednesday, March 18, at 1:00pm Central time, I’ll be hosting a free digital meetup for writers and creatives to share their struggles and opportunities presented by the current coronavirus crisis. You can sign up for that right here. 

We don’t need more books in the world; we need better books. We don’t need another mystery novel or cancer survival story or career advice tome. We don’t need another seven steps or four laws or twelve rules for anything, really. Sorry. We just don’t. The world is full of bad books, and we don’t need any more of them. This is a job. It’s a calling, a sacred responsibility that ought to be taken seriously. If you can get out of it, you should. When Augustine became bishop of Hippo, he wept. Any leader who grasps the weight of her vocation understands this. Writing is a gift and a privilege, to be sure, but it is not an indulgence. It is not something you are owed. Writing is work. And we need you to do your job.  We don’t need more bad books. We don’t need another author in the world who takes a selfie at a book signing. We don’t need a book at all—at least not unless it’s going to be a better one. Download the Better Book Manifesto here.

This week, my first ghostwriting project, The Successful Speaker, comes out. This was a collaboration with Grant Baldwin, the leading expert on what it takes to build a successful speaking business. It was a lot of fun, but what I didn’t expect was how much it would make me a better speaker. For more information on The Successful Speaker, visit www.speakerbookbonus.com.

I tend to think of life as a journey these days far more than a destination. If I could summarize what I believe about almost everything in life, it would be this: Clarity comes with action. This is harder than it sounds. Do I quit my job or not? Do we make that big move or stay here another year? Do I take the risk, letting go of my fears of what I want, or is that selfish? How do you know what the next step is? The wisest people I’ve met have all said the same thing: You don’t. You may have an intuition, a sense of what should be. But there is no absolute clarity. Fear is always strongest before the first step.  

"Why do we need art?" In a world that seems to more and more focused on "work works," is there still a place for beauty? Do artists matter anymore? I think they do.

There are three messages creativity can communicate, and these messages are what connect us as human beings. Which is to say, without the arts—without the ability to creatively express who we are and what we care about—we lose a bit of our humanity. 

We are all hyphens. That's what Chase Jarvis, founder of CreativeLive, amazing photographer, and best-selling author of Creative Calling, told me in our recent conversation: we are all hyphens, and I couldn't agree more.  In this episode, I have a chat with my friend, Chase Jarvis, a brilliant photographer, entrepreneur, author, thinker. Chase is a bit of a Renaissance Man. We have a fantastic conversation about creativity, the arts, and the business world and why we need you to do your art, why we need you to make things more than we ever have before, and why we need the world to care about art and creativity. This is a great conversation, a bit of a lengthy one at almost an hour, so get your coffee ready and listen in. We are all hyphens -- we are more than just one thing. I love that. Listen to Chase share all of his wisdom and be sure to check out his book, Creative Calling: Establish a Daily Practice, Infuse Your World with Meaning, and Succeed in Work + Life.

Whether you’re bored, out of work, or simply wanting a more fulfilling career, I believe that by embracing a portfolio life, you will finally have the peace and contentment you seek in your work.

When it comes to achieving goals, many of us may be thinking about them the wrong way. You and I have been told that you can have everything you want in life if you work hard enough and persevere long enough. But is this really the way life works? Is that even what you want? How often in life do we set our stubborn sights on some goal — a relationship, a kind of work, or even something we want to possess — and as soon as we get it, we are disappointed?

All good stories involve dying. The often-literal death of a mentor requires the hero to grow and move on in his journey. But there is also the shedding of a character’s old identity in exchange for a new way of being. Not to mention, the loss of friends and foes throughout any adventure is a necessary part of the process. Death is a part of every great story, and so it must be for all great lives.

A few weeks ago, I did an episode of The Portfolio Life called "Don’t Build an Empire, Find a Few Friends Who Care." It was about how the secret of marketing and getting your ideas to spread is really just about having a few friends who care. You want to create remarkable work and put it into the right hands to get it to spread. So, in the email that I wrote for that podcast and blog essay, I asked people to email me a question, something that they were struggling with or need help with, and I got a ton of questions. Here I am a few weeks later, still not having answered those questions (sorry!) and so I decided to just turn on the old mike, pull up the inbox, and answer those questions in a podcast. Hopefully, these are answers to questions not just a handful of folks asked but maybe questions that you're wondering about. Often, when you're in a classroom or workshop setting, some brave soul raises their hand to ask a question. It's often something lots of other people around are wondering as well so hopefully, that's the case here, and you get your question answered, even if you didn't ask it. 

Often, we think the way to stand out from the pack is to be better. And sometimes that is the answer: to become an improved version of who you were yesterday, to do what the “other guy” is doing with a few added features. However, this is often a losing strategy, as you are making iterative improvements on someone else’s work. A better way to become world-class at what you do is to change the game completely. Don’t be better; be different. 

I've often wondered what would it be like to be a nomad and travel the world. I did this for a brief time in my early 20s and then stopped, and recently I've been falling back in love with travel. I’ve bumped into some really interesting people who have traveled the world. I've learned that travel is not so much about the places you go or the people you meet, but instead, it's about the person you become. In this episode of The Portfolio Life, I talk with Matt Kepnes, aka Nomadic Matt. Matt spent 10 years of his life traveling the world. He's the New York Times bestselling author of How to Travel the World on $50 a Day, as well as a follow-up book he just published called Ten Years a Nomad. In this interview, Matt and I discuss: How a movie changed Matt’s trajectory and a vacation led to a new career What is means to like the “art” but not the “job” of being a creative professional as well as the difference between a hobby and a profession How travel and a change of environment makes you uncomfortable and why you should lean into that Why you should travel alone at least once How familiarity leads to complacency Why one of the greatest gifts of travel is learning to be your own best friend

"Just be yourself" is probably the worst advice we could ever receive or give a person. Few of us actually know who we really are. And yet, if we can acquire this art of self-awareness, everything changes. Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, "To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment." But how do I do that? For full show notes, click here: https://goinswriter.com/unbearable-lightness/

Recently while speaking on stage, I heard myself say something I didn’t plan on sharing. I didn’t rehearse it. I didn’t have it in my notes. It just came out. The line was: “Sometimes, the good has to end before the better can begin.” Full shownotes available here: https://goinswriter.com/pruning

The best marketing you can do for your work is not to build an empire, but to find a few friends who care. We all want to reach the masses and see our work get into the mainstream. We want to have an “impact.” But the only way to reach the many is to first reach the few. This is all marketing is: Finding a handful of misfits who appreciate your work before anyone else does, then giving those people the tools to help spread the message. The way we get a Harry Potter, Apple Computer, or Amanda Palmer is not by trying to reach everyone all at once. Quite the opposite in fact. Full shownotes available here.

Whether you want to write books, make art, or share your music with the world, having an email list of fans is a must. Email is the most effective way to communicate with your people. Social networks come and go. Marketing trends fade. But email is forever. Today, I want to share with you how to pull all of this together. Full show notes here: https://goinswriter.com/elist

It’s one thing to understand the importance of email marketing and quite another to actually build an email list that allows you to reach a large audience. One of the best things I ever did as a blogger was to build my own email list. It gave me the power to no longer beg for attention, but be able to communicate regularly with an audience of people who wanted to hear what I had to say. Not only that, it changed my life and work forever. Full show notes here: https://goinswriter.com/email-list-build

Over the years, I’ve seen all kinds of marketing fads come and go. MySpace FriendFeed Xanga1 Google Plus Blogging Podcasting Some of these have come and gone and come back again. And some have stayed gone. But do you know what has always remained? Email. Email marketing is the best, most reliable way to grow and communicate with an audience online. Full show notes here: https://goinswriter.com/enewsletter/

You need an email list. It's just that simple. If you want to write a book that sells thousands of copies or more, you need people paying attention to your work. If you want your message to spread, you need people's permission to communicate with them. And if you want your words to change something, then you need an audience. The best way to do all that is by building an email list. Full show notes here: https://goinswriter.com/email/

Is it possible to live life on your own terms? Can you do what you want when it defies the expectations of others? Is the way you’re living right now a story that others would want to tell? And how do you do all this with bills to pay and responsibilities to manage? In this episode of The Portfolio Life, I talk with my friend Lex Latkovski (who also happens to be a member of my Tribe Writers Mastermind). Lex has been to 80 countries, all 50 U.S. states, lived as a Zen monk for 16 months, and recently launched a successful Kickstarter campaign that led to his first book Passport Forward. Full shownotes here: https://goinswriter.com/lex-latkovski

As you may know, I’ve been traveling quite a bit this year. It’s been fun to meet many of you at the various events I’ve spoken at or attended. One question I keep hearing is: “What’s your favorite writing tool?” It’s always good to ask what’s working for someone, but this question represents a popular misconception about creative work. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/jarvis

You didn’t fail. The goal was to learn something, so if you learned, you succeeded. It’s only when the unexpected happens and we don’t learn from it that we really fail. The reason why you may not have achieved what you set out to achieve was that you were measuring (and therefore expecting) the wrong thing. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/quick-win/

Why does anyone buy anything? Because the cost of not having it is greater than the cost of acquiring it. This is true for almost everything but especially for sales and marketing. If you want to thrive as a creative professional, you need to understand what it takes for someone to buy from you. Otherwise, you just might starve. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/close-sale/

When is it time to launch your latest product? The answer is before you think it’s ready. This is where you make your product public. Is it a book? A course? A new coaching program? Now is the time for you to let the world know. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/quick-launch/

Digital products have changed my life. Courses. Ebooks. Coaching programs. Masterminds. Membership sites. All of it. Making things and sharing them on the Internet has revolutionized the way I live, learn, and earn a living. And if you aren’t taking advantage of this revolution right now, you are missing out on a lot. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/walkthrough/

How do you create something from nothing? You don’t. You always start with something. Creation comes from chaos. And so will your next book, course, or big project. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/scratch/

One of the challenges of being a creative professional is that you aren’t always sure what people will buy. It often feels like a game of Roulette, in which you have to create a lot of work, hoping someone will buy something. But what if it didn’t have to be that way? What if you could sell something before you ever created it? Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/minimum-viable-product/

So many people set out to create a product—whether it’s a book, a coaching service, or an online course—and assume they know what people want. Don’t do that. Instead of assuming, just ask. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/test-it/

People don’t typically buy what they need. They buy what they want. Which is why I love the saying: “Sell them what they want, give them what they need.” But how, exactly, do we do that? Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/first-product/

It’s time you started thriving, and that really begins with you changing your mind. But maybe you don’t realize that you’re a starving artist. Maybe it didn’t occur to you that the way you think about yourself and your work is actually holding you back. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/challenge/

What I’ve learned since leaving the nonprofit world and starting a business, which included becoming an author, speaker, and digital entrepreneur, is that you can do a lot of good through business. I now believe that the best way for me to help people is through business. I don’t think that’s true for everyone, but it’s been true for me and for many of my friends. I know a lot of people who come from a ministry or a nonprofit background who are now doing more good in terms of the number of people they are able to help through for-profit enterprises. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/start-business/

Learning how to be unapologetically ourselves in our writing and creative work is the first step to becoming effective at what we do. If we don’t do this, our writing will not resonate with our audience. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/writing-sucks/

In life, there are so many decisions to make. And so it is with creative work. As is often the case, art imitates life (and vice versa). We are constantly choosing one thing over another. And this can be a real struggle for many of us. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/next-right-thing/

How do you get busy, important people to notice you? In this age of connectedness, it’s easier than ever to meet your heroes and even partner with them—as long as you know how to do it. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/heroes-partners/

How do you sell 1.7 million copies of a self-published book? You demonstrate unwavering faith and extraordinary effort. Hal Elrod knows a thing or two about that. A cancer survivor, bestselling author, and successful entrepreneur, Hal has been inspiring people for years to tackle their days with his Miracle Morning book and process. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/miracle-equation/

The point of marketing is not to convince people to buy your stuff. It’s to help you find the people who need your work. Don’t create something for everyone. Create something for someone. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/not-for-everyone/

I have always believed in ending things well. Recently, I shared with you why I decided to end my conference. Now, I want to share with you more about it. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/final-tribe-conference/

How do you know when it’s time to quit something and when to stick with it just a little longer? All of creativity—and life, it seems—is really just an attempt to answer this question. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/quit-something/

People often ask me how I work and I refuse to answer the question because it has absolutely no value at all. Almost every morning after dropping off my kid at school, I go to the same coffee shop, sit at the same table, drink the same cup of coffee, and write. It’s the same ritual, every day. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/how-i-work/

Do you remember when you started it, this thing you now call your craft? Do you remember when you did it because you loved it, because you couldn’t stop doing it? I don’t. But I’d like to remember. I’d love to go back to being an amateur if I still can. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/amateur-again/

Is your work timely or timeless? That is, is it something that is relevant to your current place in history, or does it transcend the limitations of its context? You may be thinking that the goal of every artist is to do work that lasts, but this is a myth. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/the-great-gatsby/

It’s one thing to call yourself a writer; it’s quite another to actually write. So what separates the pros from the amateurs? Is it God-given talent? Natural skill? Or something else? Of course, we all have gifts that we’ve been given. This is grace, the fact that we have things we are good at — and don’t deserve them. But what we do with those gifts is what separates the outliers from the rest of the pack. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/start-writing-daily/

Has a really good story every moved you to feel or to act? That is the true art of storytelling. Someone who knows this well and has honed this art is Scott Harrison of charity: water. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/scott-harrison/

It was late that night as I sat on my friend Ian’s porch and poured out my heart. What I had to share, though, I hadn’t told anybody, and it had been eating me up inside for a few years now. It was time somebody knew. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/transformative/

For the longest time, I despised marketing. Couldn’t stand it. It just felt like pure dishonesty. I felt this way long before ever becoming a writer. Little did I know that just about everything I did was marketing. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/everything-is-marketing/

How does inspiration happen? Where does it come from? Do we wait for it to come or simply get to work? And how does one go about capturing such a thing? Most importantly, how does a writer actually write? Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/manual-labor/

There’s plenty of advice in the entrepreneurial community on habits. But what are atomic habits and how can you take the reins on creating atomic habits of your own? And why would you want to? The man to answer those questions is my friend, James Clear. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/james-clear/

What’s the secret to writing a great book? Is it having a great book marketing plan? Hiring a PR agency? Studying grammar for years so you can craft the perfect sentence? Nope. The secret to writing a great book is coming up with a great idea. It all hinges on the idea. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/great-idea/

There was a time when artists were commissioned to create for royalty and other wealthy patrons. While it isn’t widely done today, there is a way for you to become the patron of your own art and our guest will tell us how she did it. Cathy Heller is a musician, podcaster, entrepreneur and deep soul. In her own words, she helps people do the things they are called to do in a way that no one else can do them. And she does this in a variety of ways including her podcast, online courses, and an upcoming book. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/patron-of-art/

Do you ever think about how you can be happier? Someone who knows is here to tell us! Our guest today, Alli Worthington, is sharing her knowledge on the how of happiness. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/how-of-happiness/

Have you ever been afraid to share something special about you? Our guest has, but her journey has shown her how to overcome that fear and stand beautiful in her uniqueness. Chloe Howard joins us on The Portfolio Life to talk about being born different, and what happened to give her the strength and courage to speak her truth. Full shownotes: https://goinswriter.com/stand-beautiful/