Ask Me Anything: Substack Growth, Solopreneur Freedom, and Coaching in the Age of AI

We are live. Pop up, pop up live with Scott Perry, a little digital campfire. Hey, Kristen. This is kind of just a pop-up, what's on your mind, back and forth chat. I'm gonna just hang out for a few minutes to see who wants to pop on. If you want to, uh, if, if you don't mind sharing where in the world you're tuning in from. You don't have to be too specific, but I'm always interested if you want to share what state or country or province you're in. Claire is here. Welcome, Claire, Inner Circle member. Assemblywoman Deborah, back for more. Good to have you here, Deborah. Just gonna do a little pop-up, uh, broadcast, mostly interested in what's on your mind. I'm pretty much willing to jam on anything. I'll talk a little bit about some things that are going on coming up at Creative On Purpose, but I would love to, to hear from you. You know, what are you working on? What do you— what's the challenge right now? What are you trying to move forward? Any questions I can answer about a successful solopreneur business? That leverages Substack, or always happy to talk about other fun stuff like the future of coaching or Stoic philosophy and how becoming a better person can help you run a better business. Would love to start off by just having those of you that are joining now just put in the chat where you're tuning in from. Claire is from— is tuning in from Georgia near Atlanta. One of my old stomping grounds. I don't know if I've ever shared this before, Claire, but my, my professional performing life began at Underground Atlanta. I was one of the— at least back in those days, this is the late '80s— used to have to apply to the to the admin at Underground Atlanta to be a street performer there, and they assigned you a spot, and, uh, you would go there once a week or a couple times a week and hang out on the spot and perform. It's basically street performing, only undercover. You used to actually do really well performing down there at Underground Atlanta. Even got myself booked at a gig. I can't remember what the name of the club was. There used to be a blues club there in Underground Atlanta that I played at a couple times. Deborah, I think you're tuning in from New York, maybe New York City. Kristen, I don't know where you're— where in the world you are. But again, this is a pop-up digital campfire. I'm just, uh, it's cold and rainy here in southwestern Virginia. Every once in a while, paradise gets a little gray, cool, cold, and rainy. And so I am just hanging out, and I would love to hear actually what's on your mind today. What, what's on your mind? What are you working on? What's, what's a challenge for you right now? What can I help you with? What, what would you like to see shared more often or explored more often on the Creative on Purpose Substack? I sent out a Sent out a survey, my very first survey, reader survey today. And I think the 3 choices were, do you, would you like Creative on Purpose to explore coaching business mastery, which is something that I created a business around for a couple of years, very profitably helped other coaches optimize their business so that they could spend more of their time doing the work they love, which is helping other people identify what they actually wanted to accomplish and get there with greater ease, uh, and not have to worry so much about the business end of things. So that's one option, is returning to my roots in Coaching Business Mastery. Another option would be to talk more about Substack and how Substack could be leveraged as a place to attract more of the right people, create a, a better audience, maybe a bigger audience. It doesn't have to be bigger, just needs to be better, a better audience for the difference that you seek to make and for the kind of people that you seek to make a difference with. That would be option 2. And then option 3 I just put out there is Stoic Philosophy. For those of you that don't know, I— my very first book was written back in, I think, 2018. I published it. It was my very first review came from Seth Godin himself, and it was called The Stoic Creative, and I explored the intersection of thriving creativity and Stoic philosophy. Let's see. Claire says, instead of doing less this January, I decided to create a third Substack publication, but they all talk to each other. Oh, that's great, Claire. If you want, go ahead and, um, and anybody else can do that if you're here, just go ahead and, uh, you can type in the or drop the URL for your publication. I don't think you can click on links in Substack chat. So if you want to just put the name of your publication, might help people that are interested in what you're writing about find you. For those that aren't terribly familiar with the Creative on Purpose subset, Creative on Purpose is a brand I developed after a long career as a professional blues and jazz guitarist. I made a living for almost 30 years as a performing musician, predominantly as a blues and jazz guitarist. I was also the front man and lead singer in several bands, uh, bands in Charleston, South Carolina, and here in the New River Valley, Roanoke Valley area of Virginia. Uh, I actually started my career in Chicago, but for a while north of Atlanta, and, uh, really kind of got my career started in earnest there. But it was in Charleston, South Carolina, that I actually went full-time as a musician. And I didn't look back until I kind of retired from performing just a couple of years ago, just before the pandemic actually went into full close-down mode. So that is a little bit about my background. But the Creative On Purpose kind of grew out of my graduation from Seth Godin's Alt MBA. It's a program that he ran for 5 or 6, 7 years. He eventually turned it over to a couple of folks that were part of his inner circle, and it survived for a couple years after Seth left in terms of his full-time involvement in, in the program. But I graduated from Alt MBA 6. In August of 2016. I don't remember how many sessions there were, but it was something like 40 or 50, maybe even more. But when I graduated from that session, I kind of— that's when I decided I wanted to— that life was calling me to do something other than being a full-time performing guitarist and guitar teacher. And so I developed this brand called Creative On Purpose. I just started broadcasting and blogging about things that were interesting to me, things that had to do with better living and the art of living. Lots of talk about Stoic philosophy, started off interviewing a lot of the modern Stoics, people like Donald Robertson, Christopher Gill, folks like that. You can find, if you go to the Creative On Purpose Substack homepage, you can find Meet the Modern Stoics. And that was my very first podcast, Meet the Modern Stoics. There's lots of really fascinating conversations on there. Hello, Judith. Judith is also a member of the Circle community. Great to have you here, Judith. We are just— this is actually— I'm, I'm here to talk about what you want to talk about. So the title of this live is What's on Your Mind. So I would love to know what's on everyone's mind. What are you working on? What are you finding a challenge right now, but would you like to hear Creative on Purpose explore more of or more often? So yeah, if you click on Claire's— I, I was inviting Claire and Judith, if you, you can do the same. Deborah and Kristen, you're welcome to do the same. If you want to let folks know what your Substack publication is and maybe what it's about, you can drop that in the chat, but you can also just click on, on Judith or Claire's profile. And Judith, I think you just— did you not just publish your very first Substack post? I think, I think, I think I saw that you just posted your very first. I, I became one of your early adopters, one of, one of the innovators on your, uh, the Fusion of Innovation Curve. And I have subscribed. Claire, I'm subscribed to at least one or two of your publications. I'm not sure that I've seen the third one, but— oh, Judith, it was the 16th. Okay, well, I'm not an innovator, but I'm probably still in the early adopters. So excited to be following you and Claire both and what you're putting out there. So again, drop, drop whatever it is, any questions you have, any, anything that's on your mind. Would love to hear what's on your mind and what you're working on, what you're challenged by. I'll talk a little bit about some things that are going on here at Creative on Purpose. Uh, so Judith is a member of the Circle community. That is the, the annual and monthly subscriber tier paid subscriber tier. We have 3 calls per week: a Monday On Purpose call at 11 AM on Monday, a Friday On Purpose call at 1 PM Eastern on Friday, and then on Wednesdays we have a Catalyst coaching call, which is— you can sit in as a member of the Circle community and, and watch me coach my one-on-one clients and learn over the shoulder, learn from what other people are doing and get some, some free coaching by learning over the shoulder as other people are getting coached. And then Claire is a member of the Inner Circle community. Inner Circle community is the founder level of paid subscriber, and those folks, in addition to getting access to all the weekly calls, and there's also a monthly workshop for Circle and Inner Circle. I'll talk about that in a minute. But the Inner Circle, the big perk for the Inner Circle is they have access to what's called the Inner Circle All Access Vault. And that's where you can find the Purpose Driven Prosperity Model operating system accelerator. It's about 3 hours of recorded content with worksheets and GPT prompts for the Cornerman Coaching app. And in just a matter of a few hours, one afternoon, one morning, or over the course of just a couple of days, you can actually refine and optimize your offer, construct your Be a Blessing marketing web, your system for attracting the right audience and the right prospects and leads into your ecosystem so that you can have conversations, permission-based conversations with them and earn the privilege of having some of those people become clients by using what we call the conversation engine, which is a way of turning prospects into leads and leads into clients by simply showing up and doing your thing and letting people watch instead of wasting all of your time grinding out content for social media that almost nobody that follows you sees. You can create, you can just simply show up as you are with what you have, do your thing with and for the people that are around. Let other people watch. You'll earn greater skill at whatever craft it is that you're practicing, whether you're a freelancer or a creative or a coach, consultant, teacher, healer. And the great work that you do as you improve in that craft will become the marketing to attract more of the right people. So you spend— instead of spending 80 to 90% of your time on marketing and sales activities just to earn the privilege to have a few clients to do your work with, the work that you actually started your business for, you spend 80 to 90% of your time doing work you love with people you care about, and you turn that into your marketing. And so that's all available in the Inner Circle all-access vault, and that, uh, you can, you can get there when you sign up at the Founder level, the Inner Circle level of a paid subscriber. Claire says, you are— were my first subscriber. Awesome. And for now, the only likes on my post. It makes me so happy. Well, I am happy to lead the way. I don't think, Claire, that it's going to be too long before I am just another one of those people that is reading and liking your, your stuff. It takes a little time for sure to get some traction here on Substack. Um, however, I will say that for me, Substack is the most powerfully network effect-propelled audience growth engine out there. You will— I, I find that most of the folks in the community and my clients are getting much better traction with audience growth here on Substack than they have ever experienced, either through their own website with a, you know, lead magnet newsletter, blog, email sequence, or trying to generate, um, generate interest and, uh, audience on social media. So I think you're in the right place. Mostly it's about frequency, intensity, and that will lead to greater intention and, uh, and, and leveraging the network effect. So for those like Claire and Judith, uh, I not only subscribed to your publications, but I'm also make sure that I am recommending the publications of all the folks in the community. So when someone subscribes to Creative on Purpose, often they will see your publications also listed as publications that are recommended by my publication. And that's one of the examples of the network effect. Like if we're all following and, uh, recommending each other, we are creating that kind of collective momentum where people like us are able to help each other get the word out about not only our own work, but each other's work, each other's publications. So hopefully that will be kicking in here at some point soon. So again, just, uh, gonna sit here and, and jibber jabber for a few minutes to see if anybody wants to drop a question, uh, in the comments here. I'm here to find out what you're up to. I'm somewhat aware of what Claire and Judith are up to because they are members of the Circle and Inner Circle community of subscribers. But if there's something that you're working on that you need some help with, or if there's something that you're trying to move forward but you're finding yourself bumping up against a bottleneck or an obstacle, happy to spend some time sharing some insight that might help you take the intentional action that helps you navigate whatever challenge you're experiencing. Claire says, thanks, I'll make you proud because our values are the same. Yeah, it's one of the things that's really important to me. Uh, I've been intentionally growing my Substack community pretty slowly. We're at 63 members currently between the Circle and Inner Circle, uh, community tiers, uh, the paid subscriber tiers. I don't do any comp, uh, I'm not comping my way into becoming a bestseller. I'm not discounting my way into becoming a bestseller. I just actually raised the, the, the, the enrollment prices, the subscription fees for all of the, the subscriber tiers, because the value is, the value is there. You get, uh, you get really worthwhile paid content every Friday. The free content, of course, that's delivered every Monday or Tuesday is, is also of really high value, but we do a deep dive on Fridays, often with worksheets or GPT prompts. Circle and Inner Circle subscribers have access to a coaching app, the Cornerman coaching app, which is based on all of my coaching IP around creating a thriving solopreneur business on your terms without compromise. So building a business that doesn't rely on social media, doesn't rely on funnels, doesn't rely on niching or ideal customer avatars or email sequences or sexy landing pages or power offers or any of that. You can build a business without any of the digital marketing BS. And the Cornerman Coaching App is actually a tool that if you're a Circle or Inner Circle member, you have access to prompts that will help you craft a forever offer, which is an offer that's based on positioning, positioning your values, your talents, and the people that share your values and need your talents to enhance their lives based on becoming the best in the world at making the difference only you can make in the way that you can make it. So it's based on positioning and being perennial and you— and increasing your preeminence in that domain. You can create your offer using the app and the GPT prompt in less than 5 minutes and start testing it. Uh, there's also a tool there that will help turn your offer into an idea virus. It's kind of this idea of a self-spreading idea that's super sticky, that when it collides with the right person becomes instantly interesting. And spreadable by those people. So it's a way of amplifying and accelerating the spread of the difference that you seek to make in the world, uh, and helps you do more work that matters with more people that you care about. In addition to that, you can— it— there's prompts that will help you create your marketing web. It'll help you get off all of the platforms that aren't moving the needle for you, so you can save a ton of time, money, and effort. And focus on the 2 or 3 places where you're actually earning interest and awareness and attention and trust and permission so that you can bring people to the place where you can have permission marketing-based conversations, conversations that are anticipated, personal, and relevant. And then there's also prompts that will help you create your conversation engine, your marketing system based on what has always worked instead of relying on digital marketing stupidity like power offers and ideal customer avatars and super leaky funnels and having to be everywhere all the time all at once on social media. Gives you a way of just being a human being and starting simple conversations, uh, something that you've been doing for a very long time in a way that is authentic and interesting and engaged and empathetic. And we give you a process for how you can turn those icebreaker conversations into conversations where you can actually provide real assistance for people that makes them intrigued about and interested in how they can work with you at a deeper level of proximity and access so that it can collapse time to target to the things they're trying to accomplish or the problems we're trying to solve. So for those of you that join at the Inner Circle or Circle level, access to 24/7 coaching on demand through the coaching app. And of course, if you want a deeper level of proximity and access personally to me, that's also something that happens on weekly calls. You get 3 calls per week with me and a monthly deep dive. And speaking of the monthly deep dive, our next Monthly deep dive is next Tuesday. And we are going to do— we've been talking for the last month about auditing our Q1, our 2025 fourth quarter business systems, how we are attracting the right people, how we are enrolling clients into our offers. And after doing that audit, we have a very clear system for how you can set your first quarter priority for the new year and craft the most effective and efficient success plan for accomplishing that priority. And what I'm going to do on Tuesday is I'm going to do an over-the-shoulder where I and Judith and Claire are relatively new members of the community, but for members of the circle and inner circle, what you'll be able to do is especially if you've been following for the last couple of, couple of months, you can see the evolution of how I have used this Close the Gap process of 90-day sprints, 90-day accelerators to optimize my business systems so that I am attracting more of the right people easier and faster. By identifying the most immediate bottleneck to the goal that I, that I have in terms of my client numbers or my audience numbers or what have you. And so you'll see an audit of my Q4. My, my Q4 numbers are pretty impressive, but that's only because I've been working the system for over— well, I've been working the system for over 3 years now, but Over the course of this last year, I've seen some real acceleration in my progress. You'll be able to see an audit of what, what was working and what was not working in Q4. And then, um, I'll show you how I'm using that audit and that diagnosis to define my priority for Q1 of 2026 and my plan for how I'm going to accomplish that. Lillian is also here. Great to have you here, Lillian. We are just— I'm just— I just built a little digital campfire, and I'm hosting this call as a gathering of the tribe. If you have anything that's on your mind, I would love to hear about it. What's on your mind? What are you working on? What are you challenged by? Do you have any questions? Is there anything I could do to help you get clear about closer to what it is that you're trying to accomplish. Judith says, I am thinking about doing a live regularly, monthly, I think. Do you have a tip how to find topics for that? And what do you do if nobody shows up? Uh, Judith, that is a great question. Um, if you are inclined to go live, I think the algorithm and Substack is, are, are giving some juice and some love to, to live broadcast right now. So I think it's, if it's something you're comfortable doing, I think it's definitely an edge worth exploring. In terms of topics, I think, so for instance, this is just kind of a random, I'm just felt I was bored. I had nothing else to do. So I got on I got on Substack Live and I, my, the title of this, um, of this broadcast was What's on Your Mind. So it's just, I know that when I push out a notification that I'm, that I'm live, that a certain number of people are likely to show up. And a lot of them are going to be folks that are familiar with me and my work and that maybe I'll get some, some fun questions, or at least at the very least have some fun hanging out with some cool people, uh, on a rainy, gloomy Saturday when I got nothing better to do. Um, you can be more focused. I think you've been on some of the other lives that I've done where I've like had a specific topic. Like, I've done a couple now on what I think the future of the coaching— of what the future of coaching looks like in the age of AI. And frankly, really bad news for a lot of coaches that are not very good at what they do and really great news for coaches that are good at what they do. But those are specific topics where I had something in mind and maybe a couple of bullet points to talk about. So to answer your question directly, Judith, what I would say is I would— whatever your publication, the focus of your publication is and whatever audience you're speaking to, what are the things, what are the aspirations that they're trying to achieve? What are the problems that they're trying to solve? What are the challenges that they currently are facing? What are the things that are on their mind and that they're talking about? And just craft topics around that those kind of things. I use ChatGPT as an idea generator sometimes when I'm thinking about topics for posts or lives or notes, because my GPT has been super trained up on all of my intellectual property. It's familiar with all of the things that I've written about, all the books that I've written. It's helped me draft outlines, bullet points for all the lives that I've done. It's, it's helped review and revise all of the posts that I've put out there, many of the notes I put out there. So it's really familiar with who I am, what I'm good at, where I belong, who I'm talking to, what their challenges, aspirations are. So I just, I talked to the GPT when I'm not really, you know, when no clear topic of discussion is coming up for me. But oftentimes I do this a lot where I just kind of come on and say, hey, I got nothing better to do. I want to talk to my people and see what's on their mind and see if I can't help them. So I would play with it, play with different formats, play with different ways of doing it. In terms of what do you do when nobody shows up? If nobody shows up, nobody shows up. You, you delete the broadcast if you want to, or you're going to end up with a recording. And if you've said some things that, you know, are insightful or worth sharing, you can— Substack will create clips for you. You can create clips for yourself. You can post it as a post on Substack and share it with your audience. You know, I mentioned earlier my career as a musician. Early on in my career, when I first got started in Chicago especially, I was very familiar with the sound of one fan clapping. And things really changed for me when I decided that if there was one person in the audience, they were going to get the same show that I gave when there were 1,000 people in the audience, that I just always showed up as who I was, did the best I had with, you know, whatever I had at that moment for whoever showed up. And over time, the sound of one fan clapping became the sound of 2, 4, 8, on and on and on. Um, you know, I even late in my career experienced performing for really small crowds. And of course, I performed at some big venues, bigger venues, big festivals where there were thousands of people in the crowd. Everybody got the same show. So it's, it's a great way to learn how to, you know, practice the virtues of acceptance and humility and patience and resilience, and, and also just the virtue of, of doing your thing and letting people watch regardless of how many people are there. Uh, so I hope that's helpful, Judith. Hey, Lillian, uh, Lillian says, what do you think about Substack Notes versus social media in general? Well, it's a great question, Lillian. Um, I mean, Substack Notes is obviously social media on Substack. The founders have come down, uh, with, you know, uh, announced that they consider Substack to be a social media app, and Notes is definitely the most social media-esque function. Um, I see a lot of, uh, you know, anytime a platform begins to gather some traction, the gurus and the digital marketers show up. And, and the gurus and the digital marketers are here on Substack, and you can tell because of all the people that are basically here as Substack growth hackers. They're telling you how to, you know, have a notes strategy for audience growth or how to hack the algorithm and, uh, you know, the notes algorithm to increase your reach and your impressions and, and grow your audience and all that sort of thing. I'm not— I have no interest in trying to outsmart an algorithm. I have no interest in reaching random strangers who don't have any clue of who I am or what I do or much interest in that. Um, I do post frequently on Notes, and the way that I think about Notes is Notes is my notepad. I have hundreds of good ideas every day. I know they're good ideas because I came up with them, and one of the ways I can test them in the wild to see if they're actually good ideas that other people might be interested in is I'll put, put my little one or two liners out on Substack just to see if anybody notices or anybody comments or pay attention. And sometimes it's a way that I can test an idea for resonance and decide if I'm going to build it out, um, as a longer post that I want to share with my audience, with my subscriber audience. I also do take my posts on Substack and create notes from them. Uh, this last week, the, the topic, the topic, the theme of this past week has been freedom and, uh, defining success, significance, freedom for yourself as a solopreneur and how to, to Cultivate greater success, greater significance, and greater freedom in your endeavor. Those posts and the notes about those posts have done really, really well. And it's the first time in a long time that I've posted things that are kind of more philosophical and based on kind of time-tested principles rather than the kind of strategic or tactical things that I sometimes talk about. Around solopreneurship. So it's like a signal like, oh, people, people do like this side of me, this kind of more philosophical, conceptual, high, high-level thinking, you know, view from 30,000 feet, view of what it means to live a purpose-driven life and have it funded by a business that is built with intention and integrity. So those, that traction on Notes has helped signal that maybe I can do some more of that. So, um, there will be more of that coming up as a result of just seeing what it does on Notes. So again, for me, Notes is just, um, a notepad. It's a place where I can throw out ideas just to get them out of my head. Sometimes they land with a thud and go nowhere and I forget about them. And sometimes they they get picked up and resonate. And I know that that's something that— an edge that I can explore further. But personally, I don't have any interest in, um, hacking the notes algorithm here on Substack. And, um, you know, in terms of comparing Substack notes to social media, Lillian, I, I have been off of legacy social media since October of last year. So I, I deactivated Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter, or X, um, on October 1st of last year, uh, my business has only grown, uh, in terms of both audience and revenue. And, uh, I had not been dedicating much time to creating content for social media for the, the previous 6 months. So I stopped advertising on Facebook and LinkedIn and YouTube on January 1st, 2025. I stopped generating new content for social media in the second quarter, in April of 2025. And then after 6 months of just simply sharing my Substack posts on social media, decided I'd didn't even want to waste time doing that. What I will tell you is that since I have been off of legacy social media and only on Substack, my subscribership has gone up both in terms of free subscribers and paid subscribers. My revenue has increased. The quality of my open rates have gone up. Because a lot of the folks that were coming in from other social media platforms just were not really readers, and they were not really interested in, um, going deeper into things I was talking about because they were on Facebook to get distracted, or on X to get outraged or to fuel outrage, or on LinkedIn to brag about how great they were. And, you know, coming to Substack just didn't do anything for them. There was nothing in it for them by coming here because it was— I was providing, um, what they were getting on, on traditional social media platforms. So it's been nothing but a benefit to me, um, and I didn't think it was going to matter much because I spent less than a half hour a day on all social media, uh, in the second, third quarter of 2025. But getting off entirely in the fourth quarter has been an incredible boost to my, my bandwidth and peace of mind. Like, not having it on my phone, not having to do— to ever go there, it's just— it's been really liberating and really fantastic. So that's advocating that for anybody else. I'm saying— just saying that's my experience. Um, so, uh, Substack is— is— I'm all in. For right now. I, you know, every, every platform goes through the end shitification process. I'm sure Substack's time is coming. It— for some people it's already here. Uh, that's okay. I can take, take everything I've done here and move it to my, uh, website when, when I've decided that Substack is no longer serving a purpose for me. Hey Rhonda, great to have you here. Rhonda says, do you think coaching is the best use of time? Isn't it trading time for dollars? I realize in a way we all do that, but I do try to ways that are at least a little bit passive. Yeah. Well, Rhonda, there's— I've broadcast a couple times on the subject of coaching, and so it's like there's a lot of things that come to my mind in going into answering your question. I mean, ultimately, I think whether we identify as coaches or not, those of us that are teachers or healers or difference makers or writers or small business owners, we benefit when we bring coaching skills into what we do. I mean, even I've had a number of clients that are counselors people that are psychologists and psychiatrists that bring coaching skills into their practice. And it only enhances their ability to make change happen with the people that are hiring them to help them achieve aspirations or solve problems. I think that coaching is simply the act of helping people we care about get clearer about and closer to the things they actually want in their lives. And that in a way, we're all coaches. I know that, you know, I see how coaching has made me a better spouse, a better partner, a better father, a better grandfather, a better friend, and a better writer and a better coach, obviously. There are all sorts of ways that you can create passive income around coaching businesses. The Purpose-Driven Prosperity Model Operating System Accelerator, which is part of the Inner Circle, is an example of that. I know, I think Claire is going through some of that. I don't know if Judith has gone through any of those modules, but I do have some passive income just in recurring revenue is a part of my growth strategy. My paid subscribers have access to all sorts of coaching content, including an app built exclusively with my coaching IP. So basically, all of my paid subscribers have access to me and my coaching 24/7 on demand., and I'm not showing up. It's not costing me hours of my day. Um, I personally love one-on-one work when I'm working with the right people, which is the only kind of people I work with one-on-one. And, uh, I do a ton of, um, asynchronous one-on-one coaching through Voxer. Uh, I don't think any of my Voxer clients are on this call, but— we've had many of them on calls in the past, but I'm able to coach people asynchronously at times that are beneficial to me or workable for me. I'm still able to make a difference and have an impact. And I think everybody that's signed up for the beta back in April of 2025 is still subscribed to the Voxer Velocity program. It's a monthly recurring revenue, you know, coaching by, uh, asynchronously over Voxer, but on subscription, by subscription. I've got, you know, I, I, I've got 10 clients that I can count on showing up daily, 5 days a week, uh, month after month. I work less than an hour, hour and a half a day coaching 10 folks on a daily basis, 5 days a week. So there's lots of ways, you know, so to your point, do you think coaching is the best use of time? It depends, depends on how you're coaching, who you're coaching, whether or not that endeavor gives you a sense of fulfillment and significance. For me, it does. And I'm able to do it in all these different ways where I can have an impact on a number— there's 63 paid subscribers that are all getting coaching from me through the app and through our weekly calls and through our monthly workshops. There's a dozen or so people that are getting coaching from me on a daily basis through the Boxer Velocity program, and I have a handful of, of one-on-one clients that I meet one-on-one weekly on, on a Zoom call. I work less than 10 hours a week, um, and I do just fine, uh, and I get to spend the rest of my time taking care of my grandsons, going on coffee dates with my wife, and having a good old time, and That works for me. So again, to answer your question, you have to decide what it looks like and feels like to be playing your game on your terms without compromise. Right now, coaching my 63 community members, my dozen or so clients asynchronously over Voxer and having a handful of one-on-one Zoom calls with clients, working 10 hours a week and being able to hit my monthly revenue number consistently or exceed that number consistently month after month works for me. And so ultimately you have to define what works for you. But yeah, and to your point, Rhonda, there's plenty of passive income in there as well, just through the recurring revenue from monthly coaching programs and through the SubSec subscriptions. Jude says, yeah, you're right. That's good advice. I'm not sure which advice that was. Judith also says you did a live about the future of coaching yesterday. I couldn't make it, but would like to watch the recording. Are you going to publish it? The truth is, Judith, I tried twice to talk about the future of coaching. Just on a live broadcast, just kind of shoot from the hip and running my mouth off the top of my head. I didn't feel great about how either of those came out. Just this morning, I drafted two posts that are going to come out at the end of this month. And they just, they came out really great. And I think they're really clear. And I, you can expect those to come out, but I will give you the punchline, which is the way that I see it. And I talked about this a long time ago. I, you know, one of my offers way back, in fact, the first offer I ever had that where I achieved the elusive goal of, you know, the consistent $10,000 month was around this offer of Coaching Business Mastery. Like, if you're a coach and you're actually good at the craft of coaching, you should be able to make a very good living doing work that you love with people that you care about and not having to do all the digital marketing BS that most of the gurus and digital marketers tell you you have to do to run a successful coaching business. And As part of that, I had this little rant about the 3 levels of coaching. And these are 3 levels that I think every coach kind of goes through in their quest to become a successful, impactful coach. When we begin, most of us are coaching for agreement. We like to be liked. We want people to like us. We know that if people like us, they're likely to continue to come back to us over and over and over again. And so a lot of us at the beginning are coaching for agreement. We're basically glorified cheerleaders. We're telling people how wonderful they are and we are aligned in terms of values and maybe we have some talent, some skill that we have that helps them feel like they're making progress to their goals. But, you know, for the most part, coaching for agreement is something that we grow out of because at a certain point, people will realize that just having someone that agrees with them week after week and tells them how wonderful they are week after week is not actually getting them closer to what they want. So for those of us that stick with it and elevate our game, we become coaches that, that coach for insight. And I think this is where most coaches live. Most of the high-ticket programs that I have purchased with famous coaches who I will not name, but if any famous coaches come to mind, I probably have worked with them and given them a lot of money. They are masterful at coaching for insight. They are great at helping you see what you don't see. They are great at helping you reveal blind spots. They are great at helping you, you know, achieve some sort of epiphany. And it's an amazing feeling. It's an amazing feeling for the client when they have that insight, when they have that epiphany. Because it feels like the epiphany itself, the insight itself, actually is an accomplishment, which it is. But it's only an accomplishment. It only helps you get closer to what you want if you actually do something with that insight. And most coaches that coach for insight are just really masterful at the Socratic method and getting you to arrive at that insight. And then once you arrive at the insight, it's kind of like, okay, well, our work here is done. I'll see you next week. Usually nothing happens between the insight and the next meeting. And so they, you know, they'll sit you down and help you arrive at the next insight. Insight after insight after insight that does not lead to action is kind of useless. And so a lot of those coaches make a very good living because people come back stay enrolled in programs, come back and roll back into events and programs because that the, the, the dopamine hit that comes from epiphanies and arriving at these insights is really addictive, even though it doesn't actually move the needle and get you closer to what you want. So it's a pretty seductive model, business model to be a coach that coaches for insight, that becomes masterful at asking the more beautiful question, the Socratic method, that where people arrive at insights and they feel great. They come back the next week or the next session or the next program or whatever. But here's what I think is happening for those two levels of coaches, the coaches that coach for agreement, the coaches that coach for insight. We are entering an age where an AI tool like ChatGPT or Claude AI is essentially able to do that for free or for $20 a month. I mean, if you haven't noticed these AI, ChatGPT, Claude AI, they are incredibly agreeable. They love to just— they're mirrors. They They are programmed to search for patterns and to try to tell you what it is that you want to hear, to give you what you want to get. And then, you know, with a little bit of training and prompt engineering, yes, you can get them to arrive at— it's like you can create a chatbot that will coach you in any certified coaching program right now. You could say this, you know, I want this kind of coaching and I want you to model this particular guru or certification programs coaching system, and you can get pretty good coaching, average coaching, maybe slightly above average coaching from ChatGPT or Claude AI-built coaching GPT. And so the, um, I think the door has already closed on coaches that coach for agreement. Like, if people can get agreement for free or for $20 a month using AI, that's what they're going to do. And the coaches that are just okay and doing average work in terms of coaching for insight, I don't think that they're gonna be able to sustain themselves for long. The folks that are going to win going forward in the age of AI with coaching businesses are going to be the coaches that are able to create communities of practice, communities built, you know, where, that are built on culture. People like us do things like this, create communities around shared values, shared beliefs, shared aspirations. Shared problems that they're trying to solve. And those coaches are going to— the coaches that thrive are going to be the kind of coaches that I certainly aspire to be, which is coaches that, that coach for insight that leads to intentional action. Meaningful change for the better does not happen unless the client does something because Basically, in order for a client to truly experience transformation, to make a meaningful change for the better happen, they're going to have to see things differently. Yes, that's the insight. But they're also going to have to start to be and do things differently. They're going to have to become the thing by doing the thing. And the best coaches, the coaches that survive and thrive in the age of AI, may use AI tools. I certainly do. To help not only create insights for their clients, but also inspire them to take intentional action and make meaningful change for the better happen. It's so that they can earn the clarity and confidence of the direction and their ability to achieve the things that they want to achieve and solve the problems that they want to solve. So I think, you know, I think we've been in a coaching bubble for a long time, certainly since the pandemic came around when suddenly everybody seemed to become a coach all at once. That bubble's, if it hasn't burst already, it's going to burst very soon. And a lot of average and below average coaches that are just coaching for agreement and coaching for insight are not going to be coaches for much longer. And the ones that are in it to win it and actually dedicated to the craft of coaching and for making a difference and for making meaningful change for the better happen within 4 people they care about. Those people will learn to become coaches that create communities of intent and communities of practice and coach for the insight that leads to intentional action. So that's the punchline about the future of coaching as I see it right now. Judith, I reserve the right to change my mind, of course. Hey, Dharma, great to have you here. Recognize your name. I think maybe you've been liking or commenting on some of my stuff, or maybe I've just seen some of your notes. I recognize Diana, Diane Beam. Uh, I recognize your name, Jonathan. Great to have you here. Uh, Rhonda says, I see now that there are more ways than one-on-one to do coaching. Thanks for answering the question so well. Oh, I appreciate that, Rhonda. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing is I think the only way to succeed as a solopreneur, the only way to succeed as a coach, and again, I think we're all coaches, even if we identify as teachers, healers, small business owners, freelancers, creatives, what have you, there's an element of coaching in what we do because we help people achieve— other people achieve their aspirations and solve solve their problems. And ultimately, the best— the way to succeed is, and the way to feel that what you do is significant, that you're doing work that matters with people you care about, is to figure out who you are, what you're good at, where you belong, and play your game. You are— everybody on this call, you are the differentiating value proposition of your offer. It's you. You are the differentiating value proposition. It's who you are, your values, your guiding principles, your non-negotiables, your boundaries and guardrails, what you're good at, your skills earned in school and on the job, your talents, the ones that you were born with and the ones that you've been cultivating ever since you exited the womb. And mostly those are what we used to call soft, soft skills, what Seth Godin calls real skills. Your values, your talents, and doing and being who you are and doing what you do out loud and in public in places where people who share your values and need your talents to enhance their lives are gathered. If you get clear about who you are, what you're good at, and where you belong, and you go to those places and you do your thing, if you show up as you are with what you have, do your thing, out loud and in public and let people watch, your people will find you. And if you learn just some of the basic principles that we talk about at Creative On Purpose around the conversation engine, if you learn how to start conversations, authentic, empathetic, truly engaged conversations with the right people, you will earn their awareness, their attention, their trust and permission. And that is the fastest way to encourage people to become interested and enrolled in the journey you can take them on. And those people will ask to invest in the difference that you can help them make. And it's not going to require that you do a ton of selling. I don't think I, I haven't been on a sales call in over 2 years, maybe over 3 years. Um, I show up for my subscribers, for my community, free and paid, and I do my best to help them clarify what it is they're actually trying to accomplish, where they're starting and what they're starting with. And once we define that gap, I help them try to stop doing all the things that are unnecessary, that are just sucking their valuable time, attention, money, and effort so that they can invest those precious resources into the lives they want to live and maybe invest some of that time, attention, money, and effort into the 1 or 2 or 3 things that have to go right for them to start closing the gap between where they are and where they want to be and do it on their terms without compromising their values., without doing anything, creating business systems and audience attraction systems and client attraction systems based on their personality and preferences. Uh, and by just showing up and being helpful and earning that goodwill, I have been able to consistently earn my annual revenue number before the end of June over the last 3 years. I anticipate I will do it again this year. And I work less than 10 hours a week, make everything I need, get to spend the rest of my days hanging out with my grandsons and with my wife and taking naps and going to the playground and reading books and doing all that kind of fun stuff. It's and it all feels aligned and easy. I'm a big fan of, you know, ease in our lives and efficiency and, you know, and also living with and working with integrity, intention, and impact. And it's all possible right now. I'm bullish on the platforms, the Substack platform and all the tools, tactics that it makes available to make that happen. So good, Rhonda. I'm glad that, that was helpful. Yeah. Yes, Judith. I am not. I mean, that's one of the great things. When I first started going live, I first started going live on Instagram back when I was on social media. And if I didn't like my live, I just deleted it. After I, after I finished broadcasting, I would just get rid of it. And if I liked it, I let it float out there. I mean, the honest-to-God truth is, at the beginning, so few people will see your thing, your broadcast, either live or recorded. I really wouldn't worry about it too much. But, you know, you get, you kind of get to control. I think that going live is a great way to start to, you know, stand up, be seen, speak up and be heard, and to speak and share your truth. And that's how you're going to attract more of the right people and encourage more of the wrong people to move along. So we've got a few more folks that have hopped on. I've been on for almost an hour, actually just a little over an hour now. This is just been a digital campfire. I just, just created a digital campfire and put the word out and to encourage other people to gather around and share what's on your mind. If you want to share what's on your mind, what's the thing that you're trying to move forward right now? Can be in your life or in your business. What's the biggest challenge you're experiencing right now? I've answered a bunch of questions. Rhonda and Lillian and Judith, and Claire have been generous and generously sharing some of their questions and some of their challenges. I'm happy to hang out for another minute or two just to see if anybody else comes on. Um, Casey von Newman, oh my God, great to have you here, Casey. So in addition to Casey and Claire, who have excellent Substacks, I Hi, uh, I'm sorry, Claire and Judith, um, who are Circle and Inner Circle members. Casey is also a Circle subscriber and a former compadre in the Akimbo workshop. She was a head coach for the marketing seminar and, uh, someone I have looked up to for a very long time. She has a fantastic Substack and has some really interesting programs going on. So click on Casey's profile and check, check out what she's up to. She is making a difference that is definitely worth checking out. Great to have you here, Casey. So final call. This is— I've been on for an hour plus. I love the questions that have come in. Thank you for the, for your question, Lillian. Thank you for your questions, Judith and Rhonda. And if anybody has anything that they want to drop in the chat before I decide that enough is enough, I'm happy to hang out for a few more minutes. What are you trying to accomplish right now? What's the biggest obstacle? How can I help you navigate whatever challenges you're experiencing and collapse target— time to target between where you are and where you want to be? I'm happy to do that. And I'm also happy to just give everybody the rest of their afternoon back, or afternoon here on the East Coast anyways. And if nobody has anything, we'll just go ahead and call it. Otherwise, I'm going to be forced to start my bad dad joke stand-up routine, and nobody wants— nobody wants that. So just a little quick update on what's coming up at Creative Our Purpose. Um, just to see if anybody wants to drop anything in the chat around questions or challenges. Um, this past week we have talked about freedom. We have talked about, uh, purpose. We have talked, uh, about Significance and what does success actually mean? These, these are all things that you have to define for yourself. What does success mean to you? What does significance mean to you? What is enough success, significance, and freedom to make you feel that you are living a fulfilled and flourishing life? These are things that I think are worth thinking about. The posts on Tuesday and I'm sorry, on Wednesday and Friday on this topic. I've gotten a lot of love and a lot of comments and shares. I encourage you to go to the Creative on Purpose homepage. Just click on the last two posts and you can check out what we've been talking about there. Those have also been the topics— Judith, I think you were on one of those calls, and, and Claire was also on one of those calls where The— I think, Judith, you were on the Monday, maybe both the Monday and Friday On Purpose call. And I know Claire was on the Friday On Purpose call. But yeah, the, the, the Circle and Inner Circle communities— Circle is monthly and annual subscribers, paid subscribers. Inner Circle are founder-level subscribers. They have access to 3 calls per week. With me and the rest of the community. The Monday On Purpose call at 11 AM Eastern, the Friday On Purpose at 1 PM Eastern on Friday, and then on Wednesday we have a Catalyst coaching call at 1 PM Eastern. And that is where Circle and Inner Circle subscribers can sit in and watch me coach my one-on-one clients and learn over the shoulder. We have, uh, Circle and Inner Circle community members also have access to a monthly deep dive This month's workshop is this coming Tuesday at 12:30 PM Eastern. We are going to build on the Q4 Audit, Q1 Priority and Success Planning workshop that we did last month. And I'm going, going to do an over-the-shoulder where I will actually be showing my numbers from Q4 in terms of my audience attraction and my, my, my client attraction numbers. I'm going to show the Conversation Engine system that I use to grow my free subscribers, my paid subscribers, and create prospects that I'm able to turn into leads and turn into perfect fit clients. I'm going to share all the numbers. I'm going to talk about what those numbers tell me in terms of what I need to optimize for and the first quarter of this year and my plan for doing that. So for those of you that have been participating and following along with the Q4 audit, Q1 planning, it'll be a chance to, to see what that system looks like in action. Of course, going to be answering your questions. And yeah, and that's what's going on. That's what's coming up. I can't— mostly next week's Substack post will be about the Q1 priority and success plan, uh, planning. So be on the lookout on Monday for some details about how to create your forever offer, your Be a Blessing Marketing Web, and your client attraction system. And we'll wrap up with a follow-up post on Friday or Thursday or Friday, where I'll, I'll share all the highlights from the workshop. That's what's coming up. All right. Well, doesn't look like anything else is coming in. So appreciate the gift of everyone's time and attention. Great to have you all here. And until next time, be well, do good, have fun. Thanks.