I grabbed the throttle and cranked it down to a low purr. I’ve recognized the error of my ways and I’m taking a beat to reevaluate my Medium journey moving-forward.

As we all know, the only thing consistent about Medium, is change.

A strategy that works one week may flop the next. With the total fire hose of daily content on Medium, it’s important to get your publishing strategy tuned-in, else no one will find your stuff.

This is where my ‘big mistake’ comes in:

I thought I cold grow my platform faster if I only tried harder.

This mindset backfired on me. Clearly, readers smelled the desperation and ran as fast as they could. My Medium traffic suffered a lot. While I still get plenty of reads every month, they’re nowhere near what I used to. …

There’s this glass ceiling with creative folks, especially writers. When it comes time to sell our work, self-promotion feels gross. For some, it’s as if they have to take a shower every time they send an email or make a Facespace post.

But what really happens when you tell the others?

For one, you sell your best work. Not only do you help the people who love what you make (because you let them know it’s available), but you also start earning money for your craft.

This means you get to practice your best work longer.

It’s hard to eat hopes and dreams. Creativity doesn’t taste good on hot dogs and wishes won’t fill an empty stomach. …

Want to live a fulfilling life? Using this simple method from one of the smartest minds in business, Jim Collins shares his little scorecard system for tracking the quality of…

Customers are tired of sparkly, cotton-candy-unicorn-infested language and over-the-top descriptions used to pitch them new products. It’s as if business owners think we won’t notice.

We’re now immune to the stuff.

The less we respond the worse the copy seems to get. Where we could once order a ‘grilled cheese,’ we’ve now got a ‘world-famous, artisanal, farm-to-table, hot dairy delight.’ Nope, it’s still a grilled cheese.

On Shark Tank recently, I watched some brilliant noobs try to pitch an offer for ketchup that comes in slices — freaking sliced ketchup! …

There’s nothing worse than spending a few hours researching, writing, and editing a Medium story, only to earn thirteen cents. However, this is the approach most new writers take.

While it’s tough to make a go of Medium, your stories can work a lot harder for you if you’ll allow them.

Here are some mistakes new Medium writers make:

• Write for everyone (i.e. not choosing a niche)
• Write once or twice a month and say “this isn’t working!”
• Work to build you Medium following while ignoring your own list

Here, we’ll tackle all three of these no-nos.

Fist, it’s time to choose a niche.

Why? Because the real benefit of Medium is not to make money writing on Medium. The benefit of Medium is they’ll allow you to build your own tribe, using the power of your writing. …

I get this question a lot, so I figured I’d attempt to answer. Content consumption occurs along a spectrum. And, like all good things, you’ve got zero at one end and medication likely required at the other.

Most of us fall somewhere in-between zero and whoa!

If you want to be a prolific writer, you’ve got to be a reader first. We can’t make the good stuff come out if we don’t put the good stuff in first.

I have a near-clinical issue with content consumption. I talk about this more in my story about my content-collecting system here:

Since I have no right to give someone else a prescription for the correct amount of content to consume each day, what I can say, is there is such thing as not enough and there is also too much. …

I’ve been where you sit. I’ll admit it was a while ago, but I’ve been there. I sat. The blank page screamed at me — almost daring me to write one word. I couldn’t think of anything to say, nor believed enough in myself to publish what came out.

With time, a system emerged.

A crude, clunky, analog system. But one that works, nonetheless. I write a lot of content. And say what you wish about the quality of said content, but the work does its job.

There’s a five-faceted approach that works for me.

Maybe this approach will work for you too. …

It’s here. December went. January landed. All those wishes, hopes, and dreams for last year are now gone. It’s time for new ones — wishes, hopes, and dreams that’ll get you to where you want to be, writing-wise, by December.

This. Starts. Now.

If you want to make 2021 your year of prolific content, you’ve got to grab your work process by the huevos and not let go until the ball drops on the night of the 31st.

July is a bad month to start worrying about your level of content.

October — worse.

The purpose of your content creation is not the content itself. If you’re a savvy writer, the goal of your content is built to grow your tribe on a platform you own and control. …