Today you’ll learn:
- Why valuable things take time to create
- The maximum and minimum commitments needed
- The only game worth playing
Everybody wants to be a successful online value creator and entrepreneur.
Well, maybe not everybody – but more people than ever before.
In the age of the Neo-Renaissance, the world is waking up to the opportunity the internet can provide to create success, freedom, and true abundance in their lives.
Yet, so many people struggle – they don’t know where to start, and if they do know where to start, they have a hard time getting their content to connect, their offers to sell and/or scale, or both.
If you’re reading this post, you’re likely a digital value creator, so you’ve probably wrestled with these issues yourself.
I know, because I’ve been there.
I know how discouraging it can feel – like you’re spinning your wheels, hitting up against a wall, or trying to take steps in the right direction with a heavy weight locked onto one of your ankles.
I’m also familiar with the insidious whispers that start to crop up…
- This is so hard… why do I even bother?
- Does anyone even care about what I have to say?
- Nobody would buy my offer anyway.
- I’m not even an expert on this.
- Maybe being a homesteader in the remote countryside would be nice.
And I’m not going to lie, none of this ever fully goes away – doubt, insecurity, and frustration are all part of the human experience.
But it can all be significantly reduced, to the point of being non-existent (most of the time) if you approach this process with the correct perception.
Because, like all things, your experience is dependent on your perception – your content, your offer(s), and your overall message are not the core of the problem.
The core of the problem is your frame and philosophy, how you go about doing this work, and why.
And so, in today’s post, I’m going to teach you how to make the shift from a scarcity-oriented relationship with your brand and business rooted in struggle, to an abundance-oriented relationship rooted in effortlessness.
Embracing Natural Development
Imagine you’re planting a seed with the intention of growing a fruit-bearing tree.
You’ve equipped yourself with the best of the best to make sure your tree thrives, so it can grow strong and bear the best quality fruit.
You’ve invested in the best resources on how to grow a tree successfully, taken the best tree-growing programs out there, and worked with the foremost tree-growing experts.
You have all the best information, tools, and guidance at your disposal, all concentrated on growing your tree as quickly and healthily as possible.
And so, naturally, you expect to have a thriving, healthy, fully grown tree and delicious, nurturing fruit the very next day – correct?
Of course not.
You know that regardless of how much information, technology, or expertise you contribute to growing the tree, growing the tree to full maturity is still going to take roughly 20-30 years.
That doesn’t mean you won’t be able to speed up or enhance its growth to a certain extent. It simply means that there is a natural threshold – there comes a point where no amount of additional resources will make the process go any faster or happen any more efficiently.The tree has a period of natural evolution it must go through.
Your brand and business are the same as the tree.
The natural growth period isn’t as clearly defined, but it does exist.
Valuable things require time to develop, and they need to be allowed that time in order to reach maturity and bear fruit.
Will investing in your process and progress significantly cut down your time spent, energy spent, learning curve, and increase the quality of your results?
Yes, absolutely.
I’m a major proponent of going through programs, working with others, and hiring mentors to expedite your success.
But if you make these investments with the expectation of them replacing the amount of time required to build a reputation, authority, and credibility – you’ll only find disappointment.
No matter how much you invest, or how high quality the education you invest in, there is no replacing the natural development needed for a high-quality, reputable brand and business to become high quality and reputable.
The sooner you embrace this, the more enjoyable taking your journey will be. When you start with the expectation that the results you’re after are going to take time, it allows you to stop holding your breath.
You’ll be able to create value from a state that (in my opinion) is fundamental to doing this successfully – from a state of enjoyment and, above all, patience.
You’ll enjoy learning, creating, and improving.
Sometimes your work won’t get the results you hoped it would, but that will be okay – because you’re not in a rush.
You’re not hanging your validation on each new piece of work you produce and how well it’s received.
You’re not blown around by the natural winds of progress, feeling unnecessarily low when you’re stagnant and dangerously high when you’re getting massive or even explosive traction, because you know it’s all part of the natural development period required to become an authority in your space.
It’s all part of growing your tree and having faith that it will bear fruit as long as you continue to care for it.
The Minimum and the Maximum
Fortunately, you can build a successful online brand and business in 1-3 years, and you can achieve time, energy, and financial freedom even sooner than that.
But you should always consider that your minimum time investment is a decade, and if you really want to make waves, you need to be committed for life.
This is a hard truth I refuse to shy away from in my work – you look to me to give you guidance on how to succeed online – not only in a traditional sense (following, sales, scale, etc), but in a deeper sense (purpose, fulfillment, impact.)
Trying to sugarcoat it for you would only be doing you a disservice.
I’m not interested in giving you shortcuts, hacks, or workarounds – I’m interested in helping you build something you can happily commit your life to.
And for you to do that, you need to accept the potential reality that this is going to take a decade at minimum, a lifetime at maximum.
Building a high-value personal brand and online business is a long game that requires patient investment because it involves so much more than just creating content and offers.
It involves:
- Refining your message
- Carefully cultivating ideas and perspectives that are widely appealing but presented in unique and novel ways
- Understanding who you’re serving and why.
Building a presence and authority online requires patience, perseverance, and adaptability.
It requires continuous reflection, observation, and understanding.
It demands consistent action, output, and antifragility.
My favorite anime of all time is Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, and one of the core ideas presented by this series is that of equivalent exchange – stating that in order to obtain something, something of equal or greater value must be given for it.
And so, if you want to reap all of the rewards of building a personal brand and online business – with all of the success, opportunity, optionality, and fulfillment that comes with it – you need to be willing to give at least a decade and be prepared to commit a lifetime.
Will it likely take you that long?
No – especially if you do it well – but you need to embrace that it might and accept that it’s okay and you’re not a failure if it does.
The Only Game Worth Playing
Finally, we get to the heart of this overarching philosophy: playing the infinite game.
Let me tell you a brief story.
In 2021, I took a nearly year-long hiatus from my brand and business.
My life was in a transitory state, and I was finding it difficult to be consistent.
This, coupled with the fact that I was doing exceptionally well in the crypto and web3 space (a tale for another time), led to my work taking a backseat.
At least, that’s what I told myself.
The reality was, I wasn’t playing the infinite game.
I was creating for the sake of getting results instead of for the sake of creating.
I was comparing my progress to others instead of comparing my progress to my past self, and I was focused on the ways I felt I had fallen short instead of the ways I had succeeded.
As a result, I had lost virtually all of the momentum and traction I had built since 2018.
And then, at the end of 2021, something shifted internally.
I realized that by not providing value, by not creating content and building offers, I didn’t feel like myself.
I had a sense that something fundamental to my life, to who I am, was missing – because it was.
That was also the moment I realized consistency wasn’t something I was ever going to struggle with again.
Barring a catastrophic emergency (God forbid), long-term hiatuses from my work are a thing of the past – because this work is more than my entrepreneurial journey, it’s my art.
It’s my highest form of self-expression and self-actualization.
It’s the way I channel my gifts, talents, and skill sets into the world in hopes of making it a better place than it was before I was in it.
And from the start of 2022 until now, that’s the place I’ve acted from – and the results I’ve experienced speak for themselves.
This is the most fun I’ve ever had as a digital creator.
I have more authority and credibility than ever, and my growth has never been more consistent or rapid.
It’s not a coincidence; the external outcomes are all a result of the internal shifts I made – from finally quitting the finite game in favor of playing the infinite game.
My hope in telling you this is for you to avoid the pitfalls I needed to go through in order to learn this lesson.
If you can start from this perspective, you’ll be able to accomplish more than I have in a fraction of the time. Helping you do that is part of my mission as a creator.
It’s what I want for you as someone who follows me and enjoys my work – for you to find success (whatever it means to you) in greater degrees and shorter amounts of time than I have.
So embrace the infinite game.
Cultivate long-term thinking and a focus on sustainability.
Make every move from longer time horizons, and you’ll be more likely to prioritize strategies and actions that contribute to lasting success rather than short-term gains that usually aren’t sustainable in the long run.
Consider the broader implications of what you’re doing, and always, ALWAYS let the creation of a better future for yourself and others be the beating heart for why you do what you do.
Much love and, as always, thank you for reading.
– JCS
