Home → Products → Ideas to Assets → Sunday (Dec 1)

I returned from NYC safely. Landed early Saturday morning.

I don't sleep well on flights, so I opted for watching back-to-back movies and listening to a handful of podcasts I had previously downloaded.

I survived through most of Saturday with no sleep until 9pm, when it finally overcame me (32 hours awake).

I slept for 11 hours 25 mins, according to my Oura ring.

That's the only way I know to get the upper hand on jet-lag.

Anyhoo…

As much as I'm sure you're excited to hear about my sleeping habits (not!), I want to let you know that our Ideas to Assets Masterclass is live:

Full deets here: https://tinylittlebusinesses.com/products/ideas-to-assets/

(Please read the whole page carefully.)

I want to keep this email short because it is your Sunday after all, which means sports to watch or kids to play with.

Before I sign off tho, I want to say this:

Selling a course on the creative process of finding and expressing ideas, is not sexy.

It's not like selling the next whizz-bang traffic-getting secret loophole course.

After all, there's no direct ROI attached to being more creative.

Don't allow this to put you off.

There are few things in business that I think is more valuable than getting good at learning a process for expressing ideas.

It's a transferable skill that you'll use forever, and, as with any skill, you will get better over time the more you apply it.

Last Monday in NYC, Shawn and I had a pile of research and a handful of ideas…

But there is a world of difference between an idea and expressing that idea in words, in a way that connects and moves the reader in the desired direction.

We all start by looking at an idea from a first-order perspective. Most people operate in this zone their entire lives.

But all of our breakthroughs came when we asked ourselves questions that forced us to consider second and third-order consequences, from the perspective of a perfect (happy) customer.

I kid you not when I say that this could be one of the most valuable things you've ever purchased around creativity and knowledge-work for ideation, strategy, and then the execution.

Shawn's note, Sunday, Dec. 1, 2019, 11:53 a.m.

I ‘landed' my Toyota Tundra at 7:15 p.m. Friday evening. Note to self — Black Friday traffic around NYC is miserable.

I had six hours to think about all the work André and I did last week, and my brain has been on fire ever since.

It's hard to explain how amazing that experience was, and how excited I am to do it again.

I had a few questions in mind before I picked up André at JFK…

Could we work together successfully?

Could we produce something for the client that will produce amazing results?

And, finally, could we create a framework for creativity we could use again (we'll be doing this frequently), and share with all of you?

We'll answer each of those questions in detail in the masterclass and, if anyone is interested, in the follow-up Q&A.

The short version is that working with André last week was one of the most amazing experiences of my 26-year professional life.

And I am confident we have created a framework we can use and teach that is equally amazing.

Finally, I've been thinking about something that I haven't shared with André yet (he'll read it here first):

The whole drive home and most of my day yesterday I was trying to figure out what made the experience so great.

How did we work so well together — how could it feel simultaneously exhilarating and effortless?

What I realized is that André and I both approached the work from the same place.

Every time we talked through an idea (about the work we were doing or describing the work we had done), the focus was on the needs of the audience.

That's the critical difference, and it's something I want to spend time discussing in the masterclass.

The moment the needs and desires of your audience are front-and-center the complicated questions and creative challenges become so much easier to answer.

So many times the question that unlocked progress was “why does this matter to the reader?” Followed by “why does that matter?” …

It's the second and third-order thinking André mentioned above, in action, in service to the reader.

Embedded in that simple idea is profound wisdom and we can't wait to share it with everyone in the masterclass.

Tomorrow (Cyber Monday) is the FINAL day to enroll in our Ideas to Assets Masterclass.

That's all I have. Enjoy your Sunday.

Final email tomorrow.