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The minimum viable momentum approach
Last month, I started posting on Instagram. If you’ve known me for a while, you know I’m not an IG enthusiast — content should be about how good you think, not how good you look. But my hairline’s on a limited timeframe, so I figured best get started
How I've designed my day for creativity, clarity, and enjoyment
I grew up in a military school, so I love discipline and routine. But I always believed creativity was about throwing the structured life in the trash, picturing an electrified-looking Einstein or an earless Van Gogh. Turns out, many clear thinkers swear by constraints to produce great work. This is
How to use the 5 pillars of leverage to scale your business
It’s been 2 years since I gave birth to my business (it’s felt that painful at times), but I’ve only just begun to appreciate how powerful leverage is. There’s a famous quote from Archimedes: “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to
A lesson from my disastrous first golf lesson
Recently, I had the pleasure, or more accurately, the pain, of taking my first golf lesson. Now, I’m not the sportiest of people. Since my neck and back surgeries, I have the manual dexterity of a goldfish and the spinal mobility of a plank of wood. I’m much
Hungry sharks vs Kieran Drew
As part of my travels to South Africa last month, I spent several hours at sea among a mob of hungry sharks with nothing but a steel cage and my silent screams to protect me. How was it? Well, let's just say I left the waters a slightly
What I learned about email marketing after 30,000 subscribers
It’s crazy to think that 30,000 people might read this email. I want to give you an important lesson about newsletters, but first — thank you for your support. Some of you have been reading for years, some of you, a lot less. Regardless, it means the world to
January’s Business Breakdown
Welcome to January’s business breakdown. Each month we take a peak under the hood of my business, discussing: * Freedom (leverage) * Revenue (income and expenses) * Growth (audience and newsletter) Let’s dive in. The Freedom Meter The aim of 2023 was to disconnect my earnings from my time, so I
9 Lessons I Learned From a Broken Neck, Neurological Tumour, and a 56 Degree Bend in My Spine
“There’s a problem.” I’m sitting with my mum in the cramped, poorly-lit consulting room — rocking the graphic T and terrible haircut only a 16-year-old thinks is cool. My mum smiles at me, grasping my hand under the table. You can tell she’s nervous. She’s lost her
Don’t compare pictures. Compare movies.
Three years ago, if you told me I’d be a writer with a 200,000-person audience in 2024, I’d have laughed you out of the room. “No chance”, I’d have thought, flipping back open the first book I read on copywriting — Sugarman’s Adweek Copywriting Handbook — as
Armoury of insights: how to engineer exciting ideas
Why do you follow a writer? What keeps you coming back for more? Why do you recommend them to friends? I’ve been thinking about these questions a lot recently. Especially with AI and the crazy amount of competition — you can’t afford to be a commodity in today’s
2023 Annual Review
2023 marked my second year as an entrepreneur, and what a rollercoaster it’s been. I: • Attracted 100,000 new followers • Hit two 6-figure months • Grossed over $500,000 Today, I want to share with you the five key decisions that impacted my business growth the most. Including killing my
My podcast appearances
If you have an (understandable) urge to spend countless hours listening to me drone on about writing and what I'm working on, you're in luck — here's every podcast I've featured on so far. The Copywriter Club Podcast The Calum Johnson Show Jay