How did we get here?

At one point, you had an interest or passion that was driven by only one thing, the feeling of being lit up.

You spent nights and weekends absorbing everything you could about that subject.

And then someone told you that you could make a lot of money off this thing.

This is the sixth installment in an ongoing series breaking down innovations in Web3 for creators and why it matters to writers, course creators, coaches, consultants, and anyone looking to create value on the internet.

Today, I'd like to discuss a topic that you often comes up in association with Bitcoin, Web3, or the blockchain: What crypto wallet should I use?

This is usually one of the first questions a creator will ask themselves when getting started with exploring the brave new world of Web3.

My goal is that hopefully once you've read this article, you'll have a high-level understanding of the various types of crypto wallets (enough to sound reasonably intelligent to your peers). You'll also have a few suggestions of steps you can take to get some direct experience working with crypto wallets quickly and safely.

I hit a bit of a health speed bump yesterday. Apparently, my body doesn't tolerate coconut cream in the same way it does coconut milk. I've put in years of trial and error into getting my diet dialed in to support my autoimmune challenges, but sometimes I still hit an unexpected snag.

Couple this with the time change, and I'm just flat out tired this morning.

Being tired can have a huge effect on our ability to show up fully, especially when we've committed to something big, like taking on a writing challenge, for instance.

So what can we do?

In this essay, I'll share a few reasons why you might want to perk up at the news that Stripe is adding crypto to their payment tools.

If you've been selling online as a consultant, coach, or course creator for any amount of time over the past few years, chances are you have a merchant account with Stripe.

It's one of the de facto payment options for the online creator economy, and seamlessly works with all the major shopping cart tools including my favorite, ThriveCart.

John Collison, co-founder of Stripe shared the big news via Twitter yesterday:

I don't know how writers do this.

Creating this newsletter has given me more empathy and compassion for those who have chosen this game as a profession.

It's one thing when you are a marketing strategist talking about how content dovetails with other growth and funnel strategies for your clients. Having put myself in the driver's seat these past two months has been an entirely different beast.

And while I often experience heavy resistance to the creative process, the conversations and chats that have been the result of this endeavor have made it all worth it.

On March 9th, 2022, President Biden signed an executive order to examine the risks and benefits of cryptocurrencies on the global economy.

The cryptocurrency market reacted positively as a result of this announcement, as many take this order as a sign that crypto is here to stay, and as an acknowledgment of what many already believe - that this is the official beginning of a rapid digitization of our economy onto a new standard.

The White House has also signaled a move towards further exploring the creation of a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency (CDBC), and to investigating what will be needed from an infrastructure standpoint to make this a reality.

Once you've read this article, you'll be conversational about the 6 key priorities that are addressed by this order, and how it impacts the future of technological innovation, and the global economy.

This is the fifth installment in an ongoing series breaking down innovations in Web3 for creators and why it matters to writers, course creators, coaches, consultants, and anyone looking to create value on the internet.

Today, I'd like to discuss a topic that you often comes up in association with Bitcoin, Web3, or the blockchain: Cryptocurrency.

My goal is that hopefully once you've read this article, you'll have a high-level grasp of the historical background of Cryptocurrency, and how it came to be (enough to sound reasonably intelligent to your peers). You'll be able to start thinking creatively about how cryptocurrency factors in to the future of online business, and building community.

So without further adieu ...

This is the fourth installment in an ongoing series breaking down innovations in Web3 for creators and why it matters to writers, course creators, coaches, consultants, and anyone looking to create value on the internet.

Today, I'd like to discuss a topic that you often comes up in association with Bitcoin, Web3, or the blockchain: Ethereum.

My goal is that hopefully once you've read this article, you'll have a high-level grasp of the historical background of Ethereum, and how it came to be (enough to sound reasonably intelligent to your peers). You'll be able to start thinking creatively about how Ethereum factors in to the future of online business, and building community.

So without further adieu ...

Something I’ve been reflecting on this week is how a single action can lead to two very different results based on where your energy is centered.

It’s easy to get highly focused on a strategy, and lose sight of the original intention behind it.

It’s also far too common that we try to imitate others success by operating on their playbook prematurely.

We don’t take the time to really understand the subtle nature of why a strategy works for them in the first place.

This is the third installment in an ongoing series breaking down innovations in Web3 for creators and why it matters to writers, course creators, coaches, consultants, and anyone looking to create value on the internet.

Today, I'd like to discuss a topic that you can't help but associate with any conversation about Web3 or the blockchain: Bitcoin.

My goal is that hopefully once you've read this article, you'll have a high-level grasp of the historical background of Bitcoin, and how it came to be (enough to sound reasonably intelligent to your peers).

You'll be able to start getting creative about how Bitcoin factors in to the future of online business, and building community.

This is the second installment in an ongoing series breaking down innovations in Web3 for creators and why it matters to writers, course creators, coaches, consultants, and anyone looking to create value on the internet.

Today, I'd like to discuss one of the most fundamental concepts, and a buzzword that gets thrown around quite frequently: Blockchain.

My goal is that hopefully once you've read this article, you'll have a high-level grasp of the technical concepts (enough to sound reasonably intelligent to your peers), and you'll be able to start getting creative about what use cases might exist for you and your business in the future.

So without further adieu ...

In this brief essay, I’d like to break down the shift that’s happening right now on the internet towards new decentralized models, and why it matters for creators.

Web3 has begun to shift the emphasis away from big tech companies like Facebook and Google, towards individuals who can create and fully control their own digital assets.

Examples of “owned assets” could be music, artwork, book publications, and online courses.

Imagine a world where individuals own 100% of their creative output, and true fans can also own part of that success rather than large corporate entities whose only motive is profit.

The Crypto Tech Women NFT is the third community project I've invested in over the past week. This is part of my attempt to develop a point of view on opportunities for community leaders and creators that I support to begin to take advantage of Web3.

I learned about the project from a share in the Decentraliens Discord channel, and I was excited to see I had joined early enough to be part of the public mint.

Not quite early enough to experience being part of a "whitelist" or pre-sale, but that's a goal for another day.

The Crypto Tech Women community describes their project as an NFT collection of 8,888 unique ERC-721 tokens stored on the Ethereum Blockchain. Each are unique and randomly generated, consisting of 14 different traits and 140 different attributes.

I remember exactly where I was when I decided to wind down Hearing Experts Alliance. Janice and I were living in Boston. It was mid-January, we were right in the middle of a brutal snow storm, and all I could think of was how I wanted to be anywhere other than where I was right at that moment.

I wanted to be back in Costa Rica with my homies, meditating under the Vida tree.

We still had the physical private practice, and I felt trapped by all the structure we had created over the previous four or so years.

At that moment, I was unable to enjoy any of the success and abundance I was currently experiencing.

I’m pretty excited to share my initial review of The Invisible College with you, as it really speaks to two big goals I’ve had for the first half of 2022:

• Find easy to digest, and fun resources for learning how to break into Web3.
• Start building a point of view on what it might look like to integrate this model into the communities I support with my work.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard about Web3, and all the potential for disrupting current online publishing models for creators.

That being said, all this possibility is accompanied by a ton of hype, that makes many people want to steer clear completely. I know, because this was my stance for the better part of all last year. It can be really difficult to discern what’s real and useful in a world that’s littered with failed projects and straight up scams.

If an application process is part of your coaching, consulting, or course creation business, there are three key steps that you can take to set the stage and confidence for an amazing call with your future customer.

Sadly, most people overlook these steps, and instead end up on calls that fall flat, and experience a lack of connection, coupled with zero confidence of their own ability to coach towards a decision.

There’s nothing more deflating, and the result of experiencing sales calls in this way can create a negative ripple of impact on your future energy and confidence levels.

Your application process is meant to pre-empt a lot of potential confidence killers, while allowing your future customer to feel a strong sense of resonance towards you as someone who can help them achieve their goals.

I didn’t understand what the big deal was about Drafts App until yesterday.

I use the 2021 iPad Mini as my main content consumption device. And while it’s great for consuming content, if you want to avoid a ton of copy/paste and app switching, it’s quite difficult to save links and articles into Obsidian, as part of a “read it later” strategy.

And copy/paste is the last thing I want to be doing on a device with small screen real estate. I’ve been looking for a frictionless way to save links and articles into Obsidian, and I finally found it.

I still find myself dreaming that Obsidian will eventually have its own share extension for Safari, but Drafts makes link capture a delight.

Last week, I shared that Mirror.xyz and other web3 writing platforms likely represent an early mover's opportunity for writer's looking to create an audience during the Social Token Revolution.

Since then, I've found a few other similar platforms, and it's still unclear which, if any, will emerge as the winner.

I plan to continue to investigate, but I thought it might be useful if shared the actions I took last week in getting started, as well as a few initial observations I've had along the way.

That's the question I've been asking myself this week as I somehow managed to stumble down a rabbit hole into the brave new world of Web3, and more specifically, Mirror.xyz.

It's my intention to develop a strong point of view on whether this is a platform that matters in support of two of the authors I'm partnered with in my business. Both are looking to self-publish in 2022, and I love the idea of minting these publications as NFTs.

I always feel late to the party when it comes to learning about things like this.

It’s hard to admit that it’s 2022, and I’m a complete Twitter newbie.

No more fronting.

I joined Twitter way back in 2008, and then performed an unforgivable act: I bought a bunch of bot followers on Fiverr, so I could “look cool” to all my corporate cubicle mates.

Then I checked out of Twitter and nothing much happened with my profile for the next decade.

One of my big personal goals for 2022 is to write more.

In service of this, I’ve invested in two programs and communities that I believe will arm me with some new skills and frameworks, while also creating accountability to show up for myself:

I’m working on fine-tuning my Personal Knowledge System (PKM) for faster recall of thoughts, ideas, and information.