Intuition is always speaking to you in subtle ways. Are you listening?

Intuition isn’t a gift that is only bestowed on a special few; everyone can strengthen this muscle—how loudly you hear these signals, and the trust in yourself to take action on the information you’re receiving.

“Let’s build ESPN.com for strength, and convince *everyone* they can lift weights.” With this mission in mind, the first six months of building the BarBend platform were a blur for today’s guest. By the end of the first year in 2016, they had had 1.4 million readers. By 2022, they had over 31 million registered users, allowing them to sell the business in 2023.

In this conversation, we cover David Tao’s take on the media landscape and how to build a profitable content-based business; raising a seed round of funding from friends and family after getting rejected from every venture pitch; the biggest mistake he made while experimenting with monetization strategies; and how he navigated a successful acquisition with a shared vision at the new parent company, Pillar4.

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” —Maya Angelou

Earlier this summer, I arrived late one day to the podcast studio, laying on the floor in lieu of actually recording anything. Should I take that as a sign to reduce my creative output?

Not necessarily.

If you haven’t already, check out our previous conversation in episode 165: Are your clients bringing out the best in you? Engineering the Evolution of Your Business with Ilise Benun and episode 465 of Marketing Mentor on How to Free Your Time.

“I’m at my wit's end.” That was the conclusion of a text message that broke my heart a little bit when a friend and fellow business owner showed it to me the other day.

Their team member sent it to them, expressing exasperation at the state of unfinished tasks in the business where they were waiting on an answer or action from the owner.

Seeing it bummed me out for both of them because it was neither person’s fault per se (though we can all take responsibility, of course). As I say in [Free Time](http://itsfreetime.com/book), business stress is a systems problem.

Today I’m sharing the signal flares to look out for indicating that something needs to change, with ways to communicate (and delegate) to stop the stressful pile-up languishing on your desk.

“Nobody’s soul is moved by swag.” So says longtime friendtor of the pod, John Ruhlin, founder of strategic gifting company Giftology.

Since the day I met John and encountered his work in 2016, I have been inspired by his commitment to elevating the relationship game with generosity, “heart bombs,” and expressing genuine appreciation in the business world and beyond.

He does this all while setting up brilliant systems to make sure it all actually happens (such as setting a robust annual gifting budget aside off of top-line revenue). John is long overdue for a free time appearance, and I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did!

I used to refer to myself as a hot mess often in the early blogging days circa 2008, until someone scolded me saying it wasn’t a nice way to describe myself, that maybe it wasn’t the best self-image to curate. So I stopped. But I lost something in dropping the “hot” and the “mess” as I now approach middle age (and grandma-status in my soul).

Today's post is a crossover from my newest project, Rolling in D🤦🏻‍♀️h: Divine disaster diaries from a bread-winning business owner living in New York city. This is a paid Substack where I share personal essays about the real nitty-gritty aspects of running a business, especially when sh*t hits the fan. My friend Leanne calls it “business reality TV.” My husband Michael says it's picking up where Sex and the City left off, but this time about money.

“A book is not about something. A book is for someone.” That’s the mantra that drives AJ Harper’s work, which includes ghostwriting over one hundred books (and working on many more one-off chapters and projects).

In this conversation, she shares the “life of a book” process in her writing partnership with Mike Michalowicz (ten books together and counting!), what most authors get wrong when writing the conclusion, her favorite tried-and-true question to solicit “unexpected, delicious responses from interviewees,” and how to calibrate expectations for timing around the writing, editing, and creative process.

Do you already have an elegant way of wrapping up with clients? If you work with people one-on-one, it's important to systematize business values that you say are important to you, like surprise and delight, or giving clients a red carpet experience from start to finish.

Many of us have thought more about that on the front end than when we're actually closing out with a client—that's why I'm super excited to bring you this listener submission episode from previous guest and BFF, Jacqueline Fisch.

“Have you ever looked at someone else, someone you admire, who has accomplished a lot, and just assumed they must be wildly confident and always winning at everything? You’re not alone. But, the truth, it turns out, is much more complex.

So many of those luminaries are not, in fact wildly, or even remotely confident. And if they are, they go through cycles of profound change, self-doubt, struggle and, when they learn to harness these experiences, revelation and even reinvention.”

Now that I’m one month into Rolling in D🤦🏻‍♀️h, I’m sharing my reflections on Substack as a software platform for personal writing (and potentially moving my newsletters soon too). I recorded this bonus episode for the BFF Community at the end of July; since then, I decide to officially migrate my Pivot and Free Time mailing lists and go all-in, and ‘doh has

;TLDR: I’m utterly delighted! The last time I felt this thrilled about software was when I first started tinkering in Notion four years ago, which became one of the best things I ever did for my business :)

“I see in books,” says today’s guest. “Every book is, at its heart, an argument for something—for a belief, a way of life, a vision of the future, a way to solve a problem, a way to make a friend, a way to lose your soul. The point is what the entire story drives to. It’s the thing your reader will come away from your book feeling.”

That’s just one gem from today’s guest, Jennie Nash, book coach and author of a blueprint series on how to approach your writing. Jennie and I discuss the tumult happening in hybrid and traditional publishing outfits; risks inherent in the publishing process; red flags to watch out for in selecting partners; determining the right genre for your work (i.e. nonfiction, fiction, memoir), how to “make room for the reader,” and what it means to write for the marketplace.

I broke one of my own big rules this summer. For the last few weeks, I've been kicking myself, saying, how could I do this? I know better. I wrote a book called Free Time, after all!

Well, as I said in the introduction, business stress is a systems problem. Listen in for more on the mistake I made, and the systems and reminders I set up to ensure I have ample free time next summer.

As the saying goes, “Worrying is praying for what you don’t want.” A close cousin is future-tripping: projecting and living in the future instead of being present with what is actually happening, keeping an open mind about whatever might happen next. 

This crossover episode originally aired on the Pivot podcast on March 5, 2023.