Freedom and flexibility were constant features in my ‘screw the corporate world’ daydreams. I’d read so much entrepreneur porn, and I had an idealized vision of what life would be like. I believed I’d be able to do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it.

Four months later and I’m self-imposing a nine to five lifestyle. It turns out the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. Too much freedom can be stressful too.

I feel compelled to show the downsides of losing the structure in your life because I wasn’t prepared. It seems like the whole internet sings in unison against the 9–5, but it has significant upsides and might be the better lifestyle for you. If you already know it is for you, then you shouldn’t be ashamed to say so.

What’s strange about the post-pandemic world is more companies are offering their employees the chance to work hours on their terms. A new choice which was unthinkable a decade ago has emerged where you can escape the 9–5 while still being paid a stable salary. This is often portrayed as a good thing, but are we sleepwalking into a dystopia?

Restrictions are good

Hands up if you crammed everything last minute before exams at school. I know I did. My freedom in choosing when I did my work ended up in long droughts followed by massive binge sessions. I know this is unhealthy as a grown-up, but that doesn’t mean I still don’t fall into the same trap.

Being my own boss, I’ve learned that having an end to the working day is so underappreciated. I can technically create whenever I want. It sounds great in theory, but in reality, it means I’m almost always doing everything at the last moment. I’ve had days where I chill out during the day and end up at my desk at 2 am telling myself I’ll be more responsible tomorrow.

Set working hours creates an external anchor on which your mind can fixate. You want to get this done by 5 pm so you can shut up shop. This is easier when you have a physical workplace because you have the added incentive of it being home time. Some of my friends have noted that everyone seems to be finishing work on time now that they’ve returned to the office. The boundaries were blurred when everyone worked from home.

While it might sound counterintuitive, constraints encourage creativity. Games without any limits aren’t any fun. The challenge comes from trying to solve an issue within set rules. It’s easy for someone who has total control of their time to fall into analysis paralysis because of the abundance of time. Restricting your working hours forces you to get practical and triggers you to get moving.

Don’t let flexibility fool you

I dance multiple times per week because I prioritize it, but the views of some of the other dancers baffle me. They are so grateful to their boss for letting them have an hour break between 7:30 pm and 8:30 pm, then they go back to the office and work until midnight afterward.

This is toxic flexibility.

If you’re working 80 hours weeks, you don’t need flexibility; you need a more sensible workload. The corporate world’s new favorite buzzword shouldn’t distract you from the underlying problem. For some, there’s an unwritten rule for people to be available at all hours outside of where they’ve asked for something specific.

The obvious winners from the current trend are working parents who can take their kids to and from school. I had several clients who took advantage of this, but they also seemed to have the worst boundaries for calling me out of hours. They’d also take calls while driving, and it felt like their work and blurred into their life. Parents need structure and downtime too.

When my dad was my age, there were no cell phones, and you couldn’t check your emails before bed. He clocked in at 9 am and left at 5 pm. There was little room for discussion. It meant office hours were the company’s, but more importantly, free time was truly his. It worries me how many people I know can’t say this anymore.

It’s a simplicity I envy, and I will attempt to impose this on myself through technology restrictions. One way is through using an old dumber phone during the day, which has all my business-related accounts on it, but it gets locked in a drawer when it’s “me” time.

With great power comes great responsibility

The best thing about being my own boss is I can do what I want.

The worst thing is I have to make all the decisions.

It’s a trial by fire of learning what I can do when and I’ve made many mistakes. I was excited about training off-peak at the gym when I first left my company but soon realized the reality wasn’t as great. It means traveling both ways plus a shower when I get back and then having a snack, and before I know it, a few hours have passed. This squashes my productivity, so I end up working later into the night to get things done.

In the last 30 days, I’ve had social plans for 26 of them. I’m my own boss, isn’t this why I quit? But I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t exhausting. People know I’m in charge, and if they want to see me, it’s hard for me to say no. I shift all my tasks around to make space for them. Though it shouldn’t, telling people I want to get stuff done for the business sometimes feels weird. In seizing every opportunity, I’m leaving myself spread thin, whereas the routine of a 9–5 had an elegant balance.

If you currently have a 9–5 where your boundaries are respected, remember the other side isn’t as glamorous as you might believe.

At Entrepreneur’s Handbook, we believe writing can be the gateway to success for budding startup founders. A writing skill can help you reach millions of people, including potential investors and customers.

It was through the written word that our founder got on the radar of Hopin and helped it become the fastest-growing European startup ever.

Medium has launched a new writing competition that gives you even more reason to start typing. There are four prompts with a prize of $10k each and a grand overall prize of $50,000. The judges include Natalie Portman!

$50,000 is the kind of money that could bootstrap your startup to the next level. The prestige of winning with such esteemed judges would do your brand a world of good.

The four prompts are below. We’d love to see your work in these areas with an entrepreneurial twist:

• Reentry —Quitting your job. (tag: mwcreentry)
• Death — A company going under. (tag: mwcdeath)
• Work — Starting or joining a business. (tag: mwcwork)
• Space — Company culture or what it’s like to work at your company. (tag: mwcspace)

The full details are in the post below including all the terms and conditions. Here’s a hint: the work tag has been used the least times so far so that’s the one you have the best chance of winning!

Remember to tag your story with the relevant tag above.

Best wishes.

Sahil isn’t your typical founder.

He was only 19 when left Pinterest to create Gumroad in 2011. Within a year he had raised $8m and truly believed he could make his company a unicorn.

But he failed.

His company went from 23 employees all the way back down to one person. This crushed Sahil but he didn’t give up.

Today, Gumroad is still alive and unlike most unicorns, it’s making a profit every month. This is impressive in itself but what amazed me was this is all without having a single full-time employee. They all work part-time yet have a mean salary of $115k and a median of $100k!

From Gumroad Founder’s Twitter account

It sounds too good to be true so I had to dive in deeper.

Freedom at all costs

Gumroad has no meetings and no deadlines.

It wasn’t born out of ideological purity but necessity because Sahil was burnt out. VC expectations in the early years had taken their toll. He wanted to work as little as possible so couldn’t demand long hours of others while he took painting and writing classes.

As a former technology consultant, I couldn’t imagine Gumroad’s system working in practice but it does.

They use Notion to manage their workload and people can pick whatever task they want from the queue. Features go live when they are ready not according to an arbitrary go-live date. Again, this is music to a former consultant’s ears.

They communicate with each other through comments and people only need to check their messages once a day. New joiners are even asked to turn off all notifications from their phones!

Almost everyone I know in the tech world is glued to their devices to check their emails and messages. It’s refreshing to know you don’t have to reply within minutes to prove you are working hard enough.

Single mission

“Make our creators more money” — Sahil

Gumroad is a marketplace where creators can sell products such as e-books securely. Some of the top users make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.

The only reason Gumroad’s bizarre system works is that people who work there only need to care about is one thing. This is how to enable the users to make more money. The more money creators make, the happier they are and the more they evangelize.

There are no targets plucked from thin air to meet promotion criteria. Gumroad trusts everyone to use common sense and not endanger the brand.

They’re allowed to choose projects because they would be fun even if there are higher priority items. The belief is when a developer builds something they want to build, it’s going to be of higher quality.

The singular focus on making creators happy has led to some of the top creators coming on board to work for Gumroad. It makes perfect sense. The most successful creators are the company’s biggest fans and know the product intimately.

Daniel Vassallo became the Head of Product.
Randall Kanna became the Head of Community.
Philip Kiely became the Head of Marketing.

The best part is they only committed to 10 hours per week!

The downsides

If Sahil and is reading this and reaches out to hire me, I can’t deny I would struggle to say no. Yet there are downsides to his unconventional system too, which he acknowledges.

No social life

The stereotypical developer is an introvert who loves the idea of not needing to talk to. Not everyone fits the mold though. Many, like me, enjoy interactions with our colleagues. Social events and working in a team helps to make us feel like we belong but this isn’t part of life at Gumroad.

The low time commitment means you could fill the rest of your time with social activity to compensate. Whether it balances out is an individual thing for each person.

Hourly pay

Working for Gumroad differs from a traditional job in many ways. People must track their hours and get paid only for the hours they work. There’s no health insurance or other perks alongside the role. It’s great if you’re already of an entrepreneurial mind but lacks the stability you might want.

There’s an anti-overtime rule in place where your hourly rate is cut in half if you work more than 20 hours per week. While great to prevent burnout, if you need extra money or are fascinated by a piece of development, you lose out.

Lack of promotion opportunities

Gumroad is intentionally lean. If there are no teams and most people work on individual projects then there are fewer opportunities to take on new roles. This suits developers who don’t want to manage others but limits those who do.

Many people working with Gumroad are founders or creators in their own right. For them, it’s an income stream where they can work on a project they believe in while they build their own startup on the side.

Is this the future of work?

Gumroad’s model is extremely successful and an interesting case model for other tech startups.

As we can see from the downsides, it’s not for everyone but I’m sure it’s exciting for many people reading. You could earn enough money to live comfortably and fill your time with leisure or use it to build your own startup.

The increased focus on remote work in the post-Covid era means the time is ripe for startups to experiment. Gumroad has proved a hybrid model with high compensation and low hours is possible. I predict other like-minded founders will install similar systems inspired by them.

All the information in this article came from Sahil’s writing directly and he’s transparent about his processes. If I’m ever in the position where I can hire people, I’m going to rereading his outlines to mimic his system.

It feels like the future.

I finally handed in my resignation after a year of pandemic-induced full-time working from home. I calculated the timing so I would never return to the office despite my long notice period.

Yet, I wasn’t driven by a hatred of the office environment. It was the opposite. Before the pandemic, I was mostly happy with my work-life balance. I could work from home a couple of days if I wanted to but I went into the headquarters because I wanted to be there.

But something happened while I was forced to be home. I managed to build significant side hustles, and the temptation to work for myself grew stronger and stronger, leaving me with a difficult decision to make. Go my own way, or go back to the old way? The idea of leaving the job I’d had for nearly 7 years was terrifying, yet equally exciting. I knew I had to make the decision soon. If I went back to the office, I’d fall back to my comfort zone, and it would become even harder for me to take the leap. I’d get wrapped up in busyness, and then my opportunity would fade away in the background.

In the end, I quit because I wanted to avoid sleepwalking into regret. It wasn’t easy, and the stress tormented me into sleepless nights, but I think I made the right decision.

I knew what I was giving up

Despite being an incredibly unpopular opinion on the internet, I’ll miss the office. I wonder how much of this is selection bias, where those most likely to comment online are those most likely to prefer the virtual world to the real one.

My commute was my daily ritual where I was forced to rest. My 20 minutes on the London Underground in the morning was where I could lose myself in a good fiction book. I know others have impressive pandemic morning routines, but I suspect many are like me, who roll out of bed and start working straight away.

I’ll miss going for a morning coffee and catching up with my colleagues. I liked having other human beings around me and sharing ideas throughout the day. Sure, sometimes it was mindless chatter, but I’m not a robot, and I need that in my day. I’ll miss the spontaneity of random after-work drinks without a Zoom link needing to be sent.

The year spent working at home has increased my anxiety and made me feel lonelier. And I’m not the only one dealing with this consequence of remote work. In October 2020, a survey found 36% of Americans feel lonely “frequently” or “almost all the time”. For some people, their colleagues were their social hub, and without it, they feel isolated. Loneliness carries significant risks in the long term, and these cannot be dismissed.

It’s something I’m taking seriously, and I have planned out how to maintain a healthy social life in my new path. For me, giving up colleagues and work social interactions in the office was a significant con rather than a pro of doing my own thing.

Good people can distort career choices

I’ve acted as a mentor for several students who were stuck because they didn’t know what to do with their lives. I always told them they could figure that out later, but a good team matters the most in the short run.

You could have your dream job but have a boss who’s a micromanager, and you hate it. Or you might work in something you never thought you’d like but every day is a joy because your colleagues have your back.

I stayed at my job for so long because of the people. I could have left earlier for places that seemed better aligned with my interests on paper. The risk of being surrounded by people who I couldn’t trust held me back from taking the chances I had.

Yet this is a terrible way to make career choices in the long run. What if the people I liked the most at my company left? What if lots of new people joined and shifted the company culture?

Working at home made me reckon with the actual content of my job. Without the social aspects that I enjoyed so much; it was just me and my to-do list. Time moved much slower. It turns out that jobs aren’t much fun without people around to lift the morale. I didn’t have a burning passion for what I did, and the toil became greater.

You have a decision to make

I’ve seen all the headlines about how work has changed forever now, but I’m a skeptic. We fall back into our usual routines quickly, and the “new normal” may go back to being the old one sooner than we think.

I predict it will be a lot like coming back to school after the summer vacation. Despite the long break, it only takes a couple of weeks of the grind to forget things were ever any different. Life has a way of happening to us without us realizing if we let it.

It’s terrible that it takes a global pandemic to stop us from living on autopilot. But it has, and you can use this moment to stop and reflect before “business as usual” swallows you up. Change is scary, but the return to normal life is a big change anyway. You can use it as an opportunity to make your move. Things will settle, and the stability might keep you from chasing your dream. So ask yourself, is there something you’d rather be doing? Now is the time to seize it.

I started creating content in January 2020 and 15 months later, I quit my job after accumulating millions of views. It’s been an exciting and sometimes terrifying journey and I’ve learned many things along the way.

But that’s enough about me for now.

Let’s focus on you. Here are 10 tips you can start using today.

#1 Find a voice checker

Almost everything possible online has already been done. The main way we can stand out is through our personality but it’s harder than it sounds.

People were too kind when they complimented me on my writer’s voice when I started. I gained loyal fans but I had no idea what I was doing.

My little sister is the secret sauce as she reads everything I write before I publish. She knows me better than any of my readers and has no problem with calling me out if I sound fake or it seems like I’m trying to be someone else. This means my writing actually sounds like me.

Find someone to do this for you and you’ll gain followers who resonate with who you are. It must be someone who knows you from before you created content. Someone who knows you not your persona.

Message your chosen person today.

#2 Stop finding causation in randomness

When most people tell me about how they have taken a data-driven approach to their content, I smile and nod at their sample size of 5. I paid far more attention when 

Tim Denning

 with a sample size of thousands of articles talked about his findings on a call.

Most people don’t have a large enough data set to make meaningful conclusions.

There are a million and one factors why one piece of content did well and another didn’t. On one day, it was cold and rainy so people spent more time online. On another day, the latest Brigerton series was released and everyone was binge-watching.

You have to go with your gut in most cases about what is higher quality. Stop obsessing over tiny swings in data and put your energy into being creative instead.

I check my stats once a month. Pick how often you will check yours today and stick to it.

#3 Talk to non-creators

I see other people post on Instagram how their real friends don’t support them as much as their online friends.

I’m sorry but I don’t expect any of my friends to read my content because I don’t visit my doctor friends and clap after they treat each patient.

Most of your audience won’t be in the same world of work as you. It’s critically important to get out of this bubble and connect with others in completely different fields. Don’t lose sight of the rest of the world.

I went out for dinner with some friends at the weekend and we talked about my writing for maybe 10 minutes. The rest of the time we were laughing and joking about I can’t even remember what. I need this to keep me fresh and stop me from creating unrelatable content that no one wants to read.

Reach out to a friend today and try to not talk about your side hustle or work at all. There’s way more to life.

#4 Generate if-then plans

My mind loves being creative but it’s less keen on actually doing the work.

I have way too many ideas and it pulls me all over the place. It’s exhausting and stops me from getting things done. I’ll spend hours investigating some new thing I could potentially do then never actually do it.

The way I manage this is through if-then plans. I ban myself from chasing a shiny object until I’ve met some other criteria.

For example, I’d love to start a podcast one day but I certainly don’t have the time. If I can consistently write 3–4 articles per week then I’ll start a podcast. Until then I don’t spend time worrying about it.

This helps you build quality in one area first before moving on.

Get a piece of paper and write down some of your if-then plans today. Make sure you stick to them!

#5 Create a blacklist

Going one step further, create a list of what you’ll never do. As soon as you join any online community you’ll be flooded with things you could do even though realistically you know you never will.

Expel these distractions from your brain by writing them down on your blacklist. Maybe you never want to create content about money or sexual relationships or maybe you want to avoid creating TikTok or Instagram reels.

Whatever it is just write them down today and feel lighter afterward. The internal strain of being in forty-seven places at once isn’t worth it.

#6 Consume what you don’t like

There’s a tendency for people to pick a few others who they like and follow them religiously. It’s a great way to learn by dissecting what works for them.

The path less traveled is also studying those with who you disagree. The ones where you’re wondering how anyone wants to follow them. Just because you don’t like them, it doesn’t mean you can’t learn valuable lessons.

This helps to teach you about the wider audience beyond your bubble. It challenges your beliefs of what works and makes you more resilient in the long run.

You’ve probably already got someone in your mind who is where you want to be but you don’t like their content. Check them out today.

#7 Bring your external skills

I believe it took me 28 years to become an overnight success as a writer.

All the skills I gained at work and the life experiences I went through formed who I am and the way I connect with people.

I find it strange when people start a new venture online and act as if they’ve never done anything else before. Don’t try to grow as one of many on a production line, you’ll get lost in the crowd.

Instead, try to work out how what you’ve done before can help you in what you’re doing now. It’s likely your competition can’t do something else as well as you can so why wouldn’t you use your advantage?

Take a piece of paper today and draw a line down the middle. On the left, write down a skill and on the right write down how this could help you create great content.

#8 Have a different colored brain buddy

My friend 

Nabil Alouani

 has an odd way of looking at the world but it’s rubbing off on me.

He often talks about the colors of the brain using Herrmann profiles:

• Blue = analytical
• Yellow = intuitive
• Green = organized
• Red = emotional

The easiest way to work out which one you are is to ask your friends because we always self-identify as what we’d like to be rather than what we are.

Now find someone at a similar stage of their journey who you respect and has a different colored brain. They will give you insights you wouldn’t see yourself and add an extra dimension to your end product!

Send the message to your new buddy today.

#9 Do a complete re-do

Whatever your field, if you’ve been doing it for a while, you should be improving all the time. Going back to your earlier content should make you cringe.

Many podcasters sound wooden in their first few podcasts.
Many YouTubers look like they used a potato to record their first few videos.
Many writers have terrible flow in their first few stories.

This is ok and it is normal. Rather than avoiding your old work, you can use it as an exercise to flex your creativity muscles and see how far you’ve come.

Pick something you’ve made and makes you embarrassed and remake the entire thing.

Comparing what you’ve done between versions increases your awareness of the techniques you’ve subconsciously learned so you can apply them more mindfully in the future.

You can do this today.

#10 Have a ‘Why I do this’ list

Some of you are here purely for the money and I’m not going to judge you. As long as you understand your fans aren’t following you to get you rich but for what you offer them.

Proving this value can be difficult and take a long time. If you’re in it only for the money, you’ll find it even more stressful. I know as I quit my job, I feel so much pressure for each story I write to do well. It’s a horrible feeling and blocks my creative process.

So write down a list of the other things that motivate you. For me, it’s the fun of working out how to craft messages, the friends I’ve made in the online world, and the amazement that I can reach people with my words and find value in it.

These things keep me going on a tough day and pushing through. I would have given up a long time ago if not for them. I don’t want you to give up if you love what you’re doing. Just remind yourself that you do.

Get your pen and notepad out and write down what your reasons are today. Stick them up somewhere you can see.

It’s easy to forget where you began but luckily every week I write down 10 things I’m grateful for.

A year and a half ago, I wrote down:

“$0.98 first-ever article!!!”

I’d have laughed in your face if you told me I would write a title someday like the one you clicked on. I’d have laughed even harder if you tried to convince me I would quit my job to pursue writing.

Yet here I am.

I had already read hundreds of side hustle porn articles like many of you. I never believed I could do it myself because I knew I was nothing special. My writing was only meant to be a little habit to make sense of the mayhem of my mind.

I’d love to tell you I had a master plan and executed it to perfection but I would be lying through my fingers. I made mistakes and learned along the way but here are the three crucial lessons that allowed me to thrive.

#1 Use your competitive advantages

Most online advice about side hustling seems to assume the reader jumped out of the womb with a keyboard in hand.Everyone reading this has unique skills they have built from their day job and the other areas of their lives. These are what can make you stand out from the crowd rather than trying to clone those already in your niche.My day job as a technology consultant is challenging and I have to constantly adapt to be effective at what I do. It would be senseless to forget these skills are transferable and not use them to grow my side hustles. I’ve got no doubt my professional background has helped me:

• UX skills mean I can create my own unique imagery.
• Consultancy skills mean I can explain complicated ideas in a simple way.
• Networking skills mean I can create long-lasting relationships.
• Presentation skills mean I can jump on interviews and podcasts without nerves.
• Technical skills mean I can handle all my accounts with ease.

Stop treating your side hustle as an alien life force. There’s probably far more overlap with the expertise you already have than you think.

What you can do today:What you can do today:

Grab a piece of paper and split it down the middle.

On the left side write down the different skills you’ve gained from your day job. They can be specific technical skills or soft skills. On the right side, write down how you could apply this to whatever you’re trying to achieve.

You don’t have to have a high-flying corporate job for this to be relevant. I like Jon Brosio’s example of working as a waiter at a fancy restaurant. Through his experience, he gained the skills to talk to business people with confidence and he’s used this to win clients of his own.

#2 Take the T-Shaped path

There are a million ways to make money online but you can’t do them all at once.

I have terrible shiny object syndrome where I get distracted by anything and everything. Many creative people share my problem and it stops them from reaching their potential.

I made the mistake of trying to diversify too early. My mind became scrambled by trying to learn too many different things at once and I wasn’t seeing results anywhere. I have over a dozen subscriptions I took out for various shiny objects that I canceled within months.

Then I focused on this platform. If you google me you’ll see I have 34,000 followers here but less than a thousand on Instagram, Twitter, and Quora. By abandoning these other accounts for a while, I built authority and credibility here.

My self-confidence has grown because of this and I no longer need to chase so desperately. Proving myself in one space has meant opportunities for other side hustles and collaborations have come to me. I have my solid foundation to take on the rest of the internet.

Don’t rush through the early stages, take your time to pick one thing you want to pursue and learn as much as you can about it. It’s far better to be great at one thing than mediocre in 10.

Success on one path will open up the other doors for you.

What you can do today:

Choose one place to focus your efforts on and build a reputation for quality. Whenever a sparkly new object comes into your eye line, set yourself a challenge before you investigate it.

If-then plans are great for this. Right now, I will wait until I can write 3 articles a week easily before carving out an in-depth Instagram strategy.

If you are a YouTuber, you may decide to wait until you are regularly creating two videos a week before spending hours trying to grow your Twitter following.

#3 Find reasons beyond money

This isn’t a lecture about needing to want to change the world. You’re starting a side hustle not creating a campaign for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Yet the cold reality is most creative side hustles won’t make you rich overnight. If you’re only motivated by money, you’ll get bored quickly and give up. If you need stability, it might be better to focus on more guaranteed work.

I’m an abnormal story because I got lucky right at the start as my second ever article earned me over $2000. I became delusional and thought I had things all worked out. I didn’t and it took nearly 6 months for lightning to strike again.

If I only cared about money, I’d have given up and would never have seen my income grow to where it is today. It was the other non-monetary aspects giving me joy and encouraging me to continue:

I made friends from all over the world.
I geeked out on learning about my craft.
Structuring my thoughts was like free therapy.

These kept me going and because I had a day job, I didn’t need to worry about needing to pay my bills. My writing was a hobby that could earn me income rather than a shortcut to being rich.

Even now, my side hustle income is volatile. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve had multiple mini-heart attacks as algorithms change and expected income disappears. It’s stressful and few have any real security, even those at the top of their powers. I’m under no illusion it will become easy when I make the move to being full-time.

It’s a myth at the heart of hustle culture. If you hate your side hustle and are only doing it for the money, how is it any different from working for a boss you hate? Pick your poison carefully.

What you can do today:

Write down your reasons for picking a particular side hustle.

If it’s only Bob says I can earn $100k a week from this then it’s probably too good to be true. Look at the worst-case scenario for income and decide whether your other reasons are enough to keep you going.

What to take with you and me being emotional

As I make the transition from side hustle to a full-time creator, I’m terrified. I’ve come a long way from being excited by $0.98 yet in many ways I’m still the same person.

The mental models I used here to grow my income whilst having a job will need to adapt when I am free. I hope to bring the same thought process despite all the extra pressure that will come. Who knows, I may hate my new lifestyle and return to my side hustle ways.

The three key lessons from my side hustle journey:

• Use your competitive advantages — Don’t copy the people at the top, use your complimentary skills
• Take the T-shaped path — Get good at one thing first and see opportunities in other areas open up.
• Find reasons beyond money — Creative side hustles are unreliable, you need to find joy in what you’re doing to stick it out through the barren periods.

If you’re a regular reader, thank you, you’re a big part of the reason I’ve been able to change my life.