Most of us won’t make a living making “pure art” that only serves our creative expression. But you won’t make a reasonable living writing cynical garbage, either. Hope your new year is going well! Brian Clark and I have had some great conversations about what we want to write and teach in the new year,... Listen to episode

I don’t believe in predictions. The future isn’t a mystery novel, with carefully selected clues left for us to decipher. But there’s something I do think is useful to watch. Rather than trying to make predictions, I’m a big fan of looking at significant trends — at watching what’s happening now, and looking for what’s... Listen to episode

January is the traditional month to work on goals for the new year, but there’s a lot to be said for starting in December. Today, in the middle of a month that can often be hectic and chaotic, I thought I’d talk about three things to noodle on for the upcoming work. Nothing you have... Listen to episode

Why do some of the most talented people see the least success? Sometimes they’re held back by misconceptions about marketing and sales. Some of the most talented people out there don’t get the recognition they deserve because they’re apprehensive about marketing themselves — or they’re apprehensive about marketing in general. I’ll do what I can... Listen to episode

It’s hard enough to come up with ideas — but when we do, how do we know they’re any good? How can we evaluate our ideas and make sure we’re choosing the ones that will create the best content? Shannon left us a great comment on the blog with exactly this question, so I thought... Listen to episode

Do the usual “gratitude practices” ever feel formulaic or simplistic to you? Here are some that I’ve found can go a little deeper. This week as we head toward U.S. Thanksgiving, you’ll see a lot about gratitude around the web. But sometimes gratitude practices can feel like just another obligation. And on those days when... Listen to episode

William Maynard of the Bates agency once wrote that “… most good copywriters fall into two categories. Poets. And killers. Poets see an ad as an end. Killers as a means to an end.” And David Ogilvy famously added,”If you are both killer and poet, you get rich.” We’ve talked before about the Killer and... Listen to episode

Does search engine optimization seem depressingly hard to stay on top of? Things do move quickly, but that doesn’t mean you have to let it drive you nuts. Over the past 10 years, Brian Clark has drummed some important things into my head about what we should (and shouldn’t) do to keep Google and the... Listen to episode

Happy Halloween week! Today we’re talking with Rebecca Tracey about entrepreneurial fear — how it holds us back and what we can do about it. I’ve been talking this month about entrepreneurial fear — on the blog, in our private content marketing community, and today on this podcast. Today, I invited Becca Tracey to talk... Listen to episode

Neuroscience tells us that making decisions for our content strategy or our websites is “cognitively expensive.” In simpler terms — it’s exhausting. Here are a few “back of the envelope” factors that can help you zero in on the right choice. The internet is an endless parade of exciting shiny things we could be doing... Listen to episode