For all my years of experience, I completely understand why many people end up feeling frustrated, confused and absolutely unable to move forward. It isn’t because they don’t have the money to get where they need to be.

It’s that they don’t have the knowledge they require.

You want to make a video like all the cool kids do… and you don’t know where to begin. You want to get a small website going… and you don’t know the first thing about installing one. You want host a webinar… and you don’t even know how the damned software works.

Okay, fine. You don’t know how to do what you want to do. The next logical step is to ask someone for help.

So you do… except you can’t understand a word they say.…

I have a confession to make: I don’t want to be rich and famous.

Well, that’s not quite accurate. I do want to be rich, and a little bit of fame never hurt anyone. I just don’t want to become either according to today’s cool kids standards.

By cool kids, I mean the online gurus out there telling you what to do if you want to succeed. Their list of advice goes something like this:…

Chris Brogan is a nice guy. He’s also really smart, friendly and has great taste in shoes. (I know. We went shopping together.)

But I digress.

A few months ago, Chris sent out a newsletter that talked about bigger brush strokes – that painting the story of your life (and your business) means believing you can do more than you do and be more than you are.

You have to believe that you’re the painter. You have to believe you can paint bigger than what’s in front of you right now. Then, you have to actually do the work to paint the bigger picture. You have to actually think about what would make you happy, what that would look like in goal form, and what plans those goals will require for you to succeed.

It’s a very nice thought. We all have our canvas to color, and we control the paint’s application. Fear of touching the canvas means empty days. A big splash of sunny yellow here, a sweep of bold red, and you’ve created a vivid, rich life experience.

But you can’t neglect your smaller brush strokes. Fine details and special touches bring the broad brush strokes to life. And sometimes, just that small touch here or there makes all the difference.

Small brush strokes separate you from all the others.

The holidays are here.

Many of you will be welcoming kids home from school, rushing about doing last-minute gift shopping, preparing to receive guests or making travel plans to visit family.

It’s a busy time of year… but not for your business.

During the holidays, most freelancers let their business fall off the priority list. You probably backburner yours as well. All the hard work and hustling you’ve been doing the rest of the year grinds to a slow halt this time of year.

And you justify it easily.

“It’s Christmas. No one works on Christmas. Besides, business is SLOW. It’s the perfect time to kick back and take some time off!”

That’s ridiculous. The holidays are the perfect time to work on improving your business!…

My friend and I took my 6-year-old daughter to this crazy tree-climbing adventure: a place where they string logs, tubes and wires to the branches of tall trees. The result is a leaf-top playground high above the ground. You climb up, clip yourself to a safety line and clamber around like a monkey.

Full of bravado, my daughter whipped through the courses like nobody’s business, swinging from ropes, scampering over logs and asking for more every step of the way.

Eventually we reached a tougher-level course with the longest zip-line EVER, and my friend went first to lead the way, with my daughter sandwiched between us. The ladder to the first platform was pretty steep, though, and climbing it shook my daughter’s resolve. (It damn well just about shook mine too!)

Suddenly my daughter decided this wasn’t so easy or fun anymore – this was scary.  Worse, all the people in the lineup below were staring up at her. She felt exposed and uncertain.…

You know who I’m talking about – those people who suddenly burst out like instant celebrities. Sure, you’ve noticed these people from time to time before, but they didn’t seem like anyone special or important, so you moved on.

Now they’re everywhere.

More than that – they’re getting LOTS of attention. A-Listers are talking them up like they’re the next best thing to a great Shiraz. They’re getting comment after comment on their posts and seem to strike up a conversation with anyone they please.

They’re IN the “in-crowd”. They own it.

And yet, just a little while back, they were… well, nobody special.

You think to yourself: How’d they DO that? How can I do that myself?

Here’s the secret: …