Lightning strikes

4 min readDec 14, 2023

When everything suddenly, magically, clicks.

The past several years have been tough. Not too long ago, I wrote a Medium post to share my story of living in the shadows of severe burnout. But over the past few months, I’ve begun emerging from those dark places.

Of all the shadows, the one that struck deepest was the lack of purpose I felt in my work… until three months ago.

See, I’ve been running my company, New Haircut, for close to 14 years. I’ve shared publicly how it felt like a prison I’d built for myself. How I’d been ceaselessly chasing the wrong thing. Too proud to let it go and spiraling as a result.

But back in November 2019, before all of the work-related stress began to mount, I began tinkering with a way out.

I created some no-code, digital products that my company began selling online.

Instead of me having to fulfill the services that my consulting clients hired me to do, I packaged up all of my skills and expertise into toolkits they could use on their own.

I absolutely loved the process of creating and selling these products. But no sooner had I built and launched them, I was setting them aside.

See, I was only making a few hundred bucks for each toolkit. And as a business owner with mouths to feed, I felt like the responsible thing to do was to focus on selling my high-ticket services.

Flash forward to January of 2023, and I can tell you that my decision to chase money resulted in overwhelming stress and depression. The kind that knocks you down and out. Until three months ago.

Three months ago, I remembered my toolkits. I remembered the fire I’d felt while creating them. And so I started dabbling again.

I worked on the toolkits. I refreshed the website. I created content and funnels to help prospective customers discover them. And wouldn’t you know, people started buying them again. In fact, I’m about to cross $80,000 in sales.

One morning, a few weeks back, I woke up to Stripe notifications that several people had purchased while I was asleep.

That flickering flame inside me turned to a steady burn.

Lightning bolts

I started sharing my experiments with friends, some of whom are also business owners. One founder friend spent all of 10 minutes listening to my story before offering me 50% revenue share to do the same thing for him!

50%… really?!

As a life coach, he wanted to grow his practice but was already working long days to meet with his clients. Even if he could work around the clock, many would-be clients on the other side of the world couldn’t meet because of timing conflicts.

Many other prospective clients simply couldn’t afford his 1:1 coaching. But an online coaching course would solve all of these problems, for him and his clients.

And so he had been trying for the past few years to package up his coaching services into online courses. Unsure how to do it himself, he hired people that overpromised and under-delivered.

He didn’t know where to go from there. He was stuck.

Now here’s the inflection point in my story

Three more founder friends I chatted with a week later described the same growth challenges. When I shared my story, they offered me the same revenue split to help them…

Have you ever had one of those bolt-of-lightning experiences?

Where you have this massive aha moment.
Where everything becomes quiet and clear.
Everything aligns, perfectly.

Three months ago, that charge ran through me from head to toe. And I haven’t stopped working on the idea since.

And so here’s the reason for today’s post

I’ve started a new company to give founders everything they need to know to grow their services business — coaches, consultancies, agencies…

I’ll teach them how to build revenue engines with digital products that unlock new income streams.

I’ll help them grow without having to constantly hire.
I’ll help them stop trading their time for money.
I’ll help them diversify their revenue.
I’ll help them expand their reach.

I’ll help them spend less time working and worrying, and more time earning and thriving.

I’ll help them build self-sustaining growth loops that create profits they reinvest back in the business, without all of the burnout.

And the most exciting part, I’m helping them for free.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to earn a healthy living. But I’ve figured out a way to help busy founders without charging.

To do that, I’ve started a free newsletter called Passive Profits.

The newsletter serves up deep dives on real growth strategies.

Each week, I devote dozens of hours of research to curate guides, tools, and success stories packed with ideas and inspiration.

Each newsletter is a playbook founders can follow to build digital products: courses, digital downloads, ebooks, and newsletters that not only earn revenue, but boost sales of their premium services.

Man, do I wish I had a resource like this three years ago.