Through decades of work with small businesses I’ve noticed two distinct patterns with entrepreneurs that appear over and over. The first approach I see is founders who identify a problem then create a unique solution that serves a specific audience. The second approach I see is founders who create a...

On this journey of Creatorship, I’m always searching for the fuel I need to keep going. The people closest to me, my wife, family, and friends, provide constant support and encouragement, especially in times of uncertainty. I’ve also found camaraderie with others who stepped away from a traditional ...

Lately I’ve been wondering if the term “entrepreneurship” properly describes this journey I’m on.

I spent many years working in the trenches building companies, advising founders, and helping CEOs think through growth and fundraising. When I started Creators Creed, I assumed I could translate that ...

In the last journal, I wrote about my relationship with boredom and how I’ve come to understand it differently. For most of my life, I didn’t believe there was room for idle time because there was always something I should be doing. Even when I began to value it, I treated boredom as a luxury that h...

I grew up in Texas, where summers were hot, humid, and relentless. Once school let out, summer break meant three months of unstructured and unsupervised days, spent mostly indoors to escape the heat. My parents worked all day and couldn’t afford camps or daycare, so my older brother and I were left ...

As we close out the year, I’ve been thinking about the pressure to measure progress in tidy increments. One year to the next, one quarter to another. As if growth were supposed to be linear and compounding, like interest in a bank account. That might be the game in corporate environments, where numb...

A couple of months ago I pitched a concept for a major opportunity. I knew it was a long shot, but that didn’t stop me from pouring myself into it. The proposal reflected where I am creatively right now—sharp, confident, and fully committed. Winning the pitch didn’t feel like a vague possibility. I ...

I am a student of entrepreneurship. For many years I studied the founders I thought I was supposed to become. The icons, disruptors, the ones who built billion-dollar companies by outworking, outsmarting, and outlasting everyone around them. I read their biographies, studied their habits, and copied...

Many years ago, in what feels like a completely different life, I worked in medical sales. My friends had launched a startup while I was in business school, and it felt like the perfect chance to apply everything I was learning in real time.

It was old-school, traditional sales. No email campaigns,...

I’ve spent years trying to build and maintain momentum as an artist. Most of my projects require complete dedication and working around the clock for months at a time. The stakes are high and the deadlines are tight. Each project brings visibility to large audiences where the environment is intense,...

Looking back over the course of my career, timing has often felt like it was working against me. One of my first careers was in real estate, and once I was doing enough business to become an equity partner in my company, the mortgage crisis hit. In 2019 I started my own business to design experience...

There was a time when I held my ideas too tightly. I worried that if I shared them too soon they might be judged or dismissed, or worse, that I might run out of new ones altogether. It felt safer to wait, refine, and guard them closely until I was sure they were ready. 

Over time I realized that th...