I’m running my next course Launched in 1948 Now. Registration closes tomorrow, June 30th.
This is something I haven’t said in a while. Because for the past two years, I’ve told myself I’m done with groups.
I don’t do these things anymore. I stopped updating my courses. I stopped doing most of the work that initially built my writing career. I keep telling myself a story about why this is good.
This is not the case.
This post is about why I left, what I learned from leaving, and why I came back.
I have a list of reasons. They all sound good.
When I stopped running the group, I had three reasons ready. They sound reasonable. Most of them are.
First, the queue scene gets rowdy. Every week, someone on my feed screams “last chance.” I don’t want to make that sound anymore.
Secondly, my life changes quickly. I am married. Within six months my wife was pregnant. A lot of the focus I had on teaching in the past was diverted in other directions.
Third, financial pressure is reduced. My stock and real estate investments are doing well. The urgency to work for income that I had in my late twenties and early thirties slowly disappeared.
Taken in isolation, each reason makes sense. Put it all together and it looks like a clear explanation. But they are not.
The real story is that I lost my passion for writing there and I let coasting feel like a strategy.
What happens when you stop showing up for your job
Here’s what no one tells you about quitting a job you once loved.
Jobs are not disappearing. this standard Do.
Over the years I have had a clear standard in front of me. Something worth living up to. Benchmarks that have nothing to do with earnings, recognition, or achieving goals.
Just have a quiet inner sense of what good work looks like and refuse to be less than that.
That’s what keeps me improving. Not money. Not feedback. The standard itself.
Most people associate their motivation with extrinsic rewards. When the reward arrives, the motivation is gone. You hit your revenue goal, but suddenly there’s nothing to push you forward. You gain followers but wonder why you feel empty.
The most common ones are…
- salary increase
- Promotion
- Number of subscribers rises
- Positive feedback or comments
- meet revenue goals
The problem with all of these is the same. They are limited.
Once you reach them, the engines will stop. That’s not how standards work. They are not obsessed with results.
You either meet them or you don’t. If you don’t, no matter what other people think or what your bank account says, you’re going to feel it.
I make a promise to every customer who purchases one of my courses: pay once and get all future updates for free. This is still how it works.
But your commitment to your customers is actually just a reflection of your commitment to yourself. The day you start breaking your inner commitments, your standards start to drop.
Mine is also because I stopped updating.
What gets me back on track
This change did not come from a marketing decision. It comes from my son.
I started writing personal letters to him while he was on the road. Writing for the people I love, with no audience and no pipeline, is a feeling I haven’t felt in years.
This reminds me of the example I want to set. Not when he’d be old enough to notice one day, but Now.
Whether I mean to or not, the way I live and work every day is an example of this.
This attraction keeps me coming back to publishing every week. Then back to updating my class.
Then think carefully about what good teaching is. At some point I realized something obvious that I had been avoiding.
The standard cannot maintain itself. You have to constantly put yourself in situations that force you to face it.
Why managing queues will change work
You can take a long-term, self-paced course on cruise control. No one is in the room with you. The course is there. Students log in, watch, and log out. Most friction is hidden.
The moment you run an instant queue, this friction comes back. You’ll get questions you didn’t expect. You’ve heard about the parts that don’t land. You watch people try to apply what you teach, and you can see exactly where they get stuck.
You can’t cheat your way out of this problem. You have to actually teach. This means you must know your topic in the present tense, not just what you knew three years ago when you recorded the course.
Three months ago, when I started releasing update 48, I set myself a clear deadline: to have it ready by the end of June.
This deadline has a greater impact on the quality of the course than any quiet intention. I created the course, created the slideshows, edited the articles, and thought about how people go from scratch to launching a brand every step of the way. The deadline makes it happen.
Seneca figured this out long before I did. He said:
“As we teach, we also learn.”
The Romans called it docendo discimus. Teaching brings out your potential better than learning.
You don’t really understand your subject unless you have to explain it to someone who is looking at you confused. Every question needs a better explanation. Every troubled student will show you where you went wrong.
I need that friction. Without it, my standards quietly crumble.
Standards in all areas of life
This is not just a matter of curriculum or teaching. It applies to every area of your life.
Most of us have standards that we used to hold ourselves to, but that we’ve quietly let go of because life got in the way.
So here’s a question for you: What are your current good habits and standards in all aspects of your life?
For example…
Body
- Do you have a consistent exercise program that you really stick to?
- Is the way you eat something you’re proud of, or is it just okay?
- Are you protecting your sleep, or sacrificing it for something inconsequential?
mind
- Do you read regularly, or has scrolling replaced it?
- Are you limiting your consumption of low-quality content, or are you letting it fill all the gaps?
- Do you set aside time for practical thinking?
Work
- Do you still care about the quality of the products you produce?
- Or are you used to “good enough” that would have embarrassed you three years ago?
interpersonal relationships
- Do you show up for the people in your life?
- Or is it gliding there too?
These questions are just to raise awareness.
Drift always begins unconsciously. That’s how I started. You don’t decide to abandon your standards. You just stop measuring.
Choose an area where you know standards have dropped. Name it clearly. Then find a concrete way to keep yourself going this week, not when things calm down, not next month. This week.
This is how you come back.
Conference No. 48 will end tomorrow
If you’re a writer, freelancer, coach, or anyone trying to launch a product online, this is for you.
Launch in 48 is a step-by-step framework built from over a decade of online personal brand building.
You do it at your own pace and you launch a brand.
Registration closes tomorrow, June 30th. A live kick-off workshop will be held on July 1st. After that, the doors will remain closed until next year.
Join here: members.dariusforoux.com/launch-in-48
