I've been working hard the last year, and it's finally paying off... just not quite how I expected it to.
I worked hard for many years before this too, but that was borderline hedonism--I did the work I liked to do
but skated by the hard stuff, believing that the universe would eventually take care of it.
That skewed belief brought me into fatherhood with nothing in the bank, no career, and a basket of skills that seemingly had no connection.
See, what they don't teach you in new age hippie school is that
you can set all the pure intentions you want, align yourself with the divine and all that jazz,
but all it means nothing if you're not taking actual steps towards making those dreams real in the real world.
And those steps = the hard work.
Phase 1: Do it All
Last spring, I set myself to personal branding and marketing the business I was improvising.
I had always resisted any sort of marketing and putting myself out there,
but I sucked it up and found the confidence inside of me to get excited about it.
I desired to make content for a living, so I started making lots of content consistently.
I'd always had trouble being consistent.
But I sucked it up and discovered the drive inside of me to deal with it
and release a weekly podcast, publish a bi-weekly newsletter, and tweet daily.
Phase 2: Narrow it Down
That's when I started recognizing problems I could help people solve.
What came easy to me was not easy for others.
As I endeavored to build solutions to help people solve these problems,
I learned that until people are aware of the problem,
they won't care to solve them.
So I pivoted to solving problems people knew they had,
but soon learned that the demographic I spoke to was a lot like I had been before I got serious.
I worked with people closely and saw varying results.
Some succeeded, some failed simply by lack of effort.
I kept trying to improve what I was offering, but something felt off.
I was doing the hard work but felt frustrated that it was all for naught.
I wasn't making an impact.
Phase 3: Take A Good Hard Look in the Mirror
As James Clear elaborates upon in his book Atomic Habits,
our habits strongly influence the beliefs that form our self-identity.
Create a habit of content creation and eventually that's going to be how you see yourself.
A month ago I went back to Hawaii to pack up and all but say goodbye to the house we built and raised our young kids in.
There, I saw that my identity was also entangled
in smoking a healthy amount of weed,
going to play at the beach every day,
and still trying to figure out what kind of specific content people wanted out of me.
All three of these things were just holding me back from the utmost goal of creating a sustainable living for my family.
So I stopped everything.
When I returned to California, everything was suddenly illuminated in a different light.
Sober, beachless, and now surrendered to low-effort daily content musings
(as me instead of a business),
I was able to start observing this whole Package of Jordan as a new thing.
(Follow these musings on YouTube, Instagram, or X, by the way.)
Phase 4: Let it Go to Let it Flow
As soon as I let those entanglements go, I noticed that
all that content creation,
business kickstarting,
and attempts at coaching
had lead me somewhere I didn't know I'd been going.
It was suddenly clear that others had a need for that Jordan Package,
stripped of its identity beliefs.
Everything I'd been learning in the practice of building a brand & business
suddenly came full circle, to close a loop I'd been stuck in for a decade.
During this last year doing the creator thing, I learned more about the formulas for success in this online realm than I've actually experienced... and that's because these things take time & resources to build.
And for the many out there that do not share my skillsets,
even just getting started to build is a huge obstacle.
So I was left with a choice:
I could choose to hold onto that identity
put everything into the perfect creator business
and remain stuck in non-productive habit loops–
or take this new opportunity to give it my all
and dive deeper into the full value I can offer others.
Really dedicate myself to something that extends past me.
Once upon a time it would have been a hard decision
to step away from the identity I'd been building
but I'm proud that I've become mature enough
to see this next step as just a new leg on the journey.
Success comes in wild ways
These last few weeks in my digital absence have seen more material progress towards my ultimate goals than the last 10 months combined.
I'm now entering a new stage of the career you've been following me build for the last few quarters.
And it's not being a video coach.
It's not "being a creator."
It's being a producer.
Just a dude offering other people services.
There are inspired, knowledgeable, and (in my opinion) powerful people out there
who are building something epic of their own
and they need support from the Jordan Package on the backend.
At long last, that basket of random skills and the unique-ness of what I can offer as a full-service human is now finding compatibility with others' missions
(and paying me for it, to boot)
And despite my own unavoidable desire to come off as a powerful person like that myself,
I'm excited to support them.
I'm excited to see how far someone will go with my commitment to supporting them.
Where this goes for me
Unlike the typical "do it with you" coaching model, where the goal is to get as many new monthly clients as calendar slots allows,
"doing it for you" is almost a full-time gig, just to work with 2-3 people.
And this whole thing still presents the concern of "selling my time."
(That's the appeal of being a full-time content creator, right?
You work for yourself [and the algorithms.])
But I do have loftier ambitions, so my goal is to retain some sense of autonomy
and create an agency to eventually scale this out (because go big or go home, right).
When all is said and done,
the next few months will teach me loads
while scaling my highest ticket offers to levels I couldn't have even fathomed 6 months ago.
Can't argue with that.
So I'm writing this to you sitting in a new seat, wearing a new hat.
We're still uncovering the details, but I'm finally starting to reap the rewards of keeping at it over this last year.
I get to do what I love (create content), with others, while creating powerful case studies for my personal brand and career.
Coming up soon I'm going to dive into this concept of high and low leverage offers, because I'm starting to see/feel things differently than what the masses on Money X preach.
Here's to a new era.
