Why you need multiple teachers over a lifetime, not just one system.

Have you taken a lot of courses? Stuck to a personal development program for 5, 10, even 20 years?

Here's what I've noticed: people resist reverting back to their old ways. When they do, they make themselves wrong. They make themselves the enemy.

"There must be something wrong with me. It's not the program's fault. It's not the coach's fault. It's my fault. I'm not tying in tight enough. I'm not doing the work."

That's not how I've gotten to where I am.

I'm not someone who enjoys staying stuck. I give things time—maybe 3 years, maybe 5. But beyond that, if I'm not seeing progress, I'm not going to blame myself. I'm also not going to blame the program. The program was fine. I got what I got out of it. But I'm also going to say, "It might be time for something new."

So ask yourself: are you okay with being stuck? You can tie in tighter to the program. You can be more vigilant. But you're probably still going to revert back to those behaviors, feelings, and thoughts you don't like.

It's sometimes been said you can only ride one horse to the finish line. But the finish line is 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years into the future. Maybe longer. So you need more than one horse. One horse gets you to the first finish line. You need another horse for the next finish line. And so on.

The problem? You think you're not doing the system well enough. "If I just did it better, harder, with more vigilance, I'll get where I want to go." But if you've been at this for 5, 10 years, stop and ask yourself: "Is that the case? Or do I need a fresh perspective?"

You're not discarding what you've learned. You're not discarding the distinctions of the program. You're not discarding the hard work you've done. By allowing yourself to reevaluate, you're giving yourself compassion. You're loving yourself. If you're just trying to work the program harder, you're not loving yourself at all. You're hating yourself. You're saying, "The program's not working because I'm not working." You're placing the blame on yourself.

It would be convenient if one coach, one teacher, one system got you everything you ever wanted. And some people have had that experience. But how many teachers and coaches and programs did they go through before getting to that point? You don't know the journey that got them there.

I remember struggling with a concept on the guitar. I wanted to solo across the entire fretboard. But I kept getting stuck in a little box. I kept reading different articles. I took advice from different teachers. I watched different videos. Then one day, I read an article by Eric Johnson. Finally, I made the connection. "Aha, that's it." I unlocked that ability. I could solo. I could play leads across the entire fretboard.

Different teachers specialize in different things. Hearing things from their perspective could be helpful to you. To this point, you've been counting on one teacher to explain it to you. They've explained it the same way 10, 20, 30 times. It's not landing. That means one teacher can't take you over the finish line. You have to be open to looking for additional resources, additional coaches, additional teachers.

If you're done being uncomfortable, if you're done living in purgatory, if you're done repeating the same year over and over, find another coach. Find another program. Find another course. Be open-minded. Be teachable. Be willing. Be open to learning and seeing things from a different perspective.

It might not even be new material, but it'll be explained differently. You'll have a connection that makes sense. You'll have a breakthrough you're not getting right now.

In this post (and video), I share why you need multiple teachers over a lifetime, not just one system. https://davidandrewwiebe.com/?p=28071

"You're a loser if you don't build this business."

That's what I was told. In private coaching sessions. Shouted from stages at conferences.

I was young, ambitious, looking for freedom. So I bought it wholesale.

Following that advice for five years nearly cost me my identity.

The advice wasn't just about business tactics—it was about behavioral modification. In network marketing, I was told I had to fit a mold, talk a certain way, dress a certain way, only associate with winners, focus on duplication, not on questioning the system. I was told my independence—what makes me uniquely creative—was the weakness that would keep me broke.

If I wanted the homes, the cars, the watches, the suits? I had to sacrifice myself.

So I tried. I became the good soldier. I did what I was told. I even listened when they said I shouldn't sponsor certain people because they weren't at my level. I was told I was too high quality to waste time on the wrong recruits.

But it was inevitable. I started to feel miserable. My confidence didn't grow—it shrank. My business didn't explode—it stayed stagnant. I felt like a fraud.

Despite showing up and putting in the effort, I couldn't grow my business. I was building a model that made me a cog in the machine, but I was wired to be the architect of my life.

The turning point came when I realized: the people giving this advice didn't care about my freedom. They cared about their duplication. Their business. They weren't teaching me how to be an entrepreneur. They were teaching me how to become a high-performing follower.

If I tried to win their game, I would lose myself in the process. For an independent, that's the ultimate failure: losing yourself.

Here's the hard truth I learned: Expert advice is only useful if it aligns with your core values. If you have to modify your behavior, if you have to become something you aren't wired to be, they're not mentors. They're mechanics trying to replace a part in the engine.

I know what it means to be an independent. We're weird. We're unique. We're misfits. We need freedom and autonomy. But these aren't your bugs. They're your competitive advantage.

I finally stopped trying to fit in and dedicated myself to creating a strategy around my independence. That's when everything shifted. I didn't get rich overnight. But I got my soul back. And eventually, the money followed.

I'm not a loser for leaving that business. Why should I pay undue loyalty to things that don't serve me?

The world doesn't need more duplicate cogs. It needs more independents brave enough to go their own way and build their own systems.

In this post (and video), I share the expert advice I followed that nearly sent me in the wrong direction—and what happened when I finally stopped listening. https://davidandrewwiebe.com/?p=28067




How do you evaluate expert advice without losing yourself?

It's tough. You need a framework.

Ask yourself these six questions:

Does it align with your core values? My core values: autonomy, integrity, freedom. If someone told me, "Work 80 hours a week for $40,000 a year," I'd have questions.

Does it respect your unique wiring and personality? So much advice assumes anybody could do this, everybody should be doing this. But some people will be miserable doing what experts recommend. I'm creative. I do my best work alone—practicing guitar, producing music, writing, making art. If an opportunity requires me to be out all the time at clubs, bars, parties, networking events? That's not me.

Is it a tool or a complete system? A technique might get you the date (or contract, or opportunity). But three dates in, you're in a relationship—and all the things that worked to get attention have nothing to do with the new situation. A tool is nice. But most businesses use a variety of tools, not just one. A complete system gives you the steps, the exact process, the frameworks, the templates.

Does the advice make you more dependent, or does it empower your independence? Does this advice make me more dependent on the person giving it? Do I have to buy additional coaching, their book, their course, the next course? Or does it empower me to hit the target on my own?

Does the advice have a clear, measurable outcome you can define? What is the advice designed to help you achieve? And more importantly, is this something the expert says you should want, or is it something you want? "Build an email list" is clear. "Become a thought leader" is nebulous.

Does it encourage evolution, or is it just dogma? Does your teacher set you up to surpass them, or are they the gatekeeper to more knowledge you need to purchase to get where you want to go?

As an independent creative, your intuition is one of your greatest assets. Use people's advice as wisdom, not as gospel. Separate the wheat from the chaff. Take what works. Leave what doesn't.

We could all become the clone of our favorite guru if we tried. But that's not the goal. What's most powerful? You being your most authentic, genuine self.

In this post (and video), I share how to evaluate expert advice without losing yourself. https://davidandrewwiebe.com/?p=28064




How do you rebuild your confidence after a major disappointment?

You may go through some disappointing experiences in your artistic ventures, business ventures, or whatever else you might be pursuing. And those experiences can be disappointing—sometimes maybe even low-key traumatic.

More often than not, there are people involved. Clients. Partners. Relationships you've built up with vendors. Perhaps you've given your word to complete certain tasks or made promises to customers. And there's usually some messiness that comes along with having to pull the plug, step away, pivot, or decide to do things differently.

I certainly experienced disappointment in my network marketing efforts. It wasn't just that I lost my business. I lost my faith. I lost the girl. And my financial situation really wasn't in a great place at the time. I remember spending that summer quite depressed. And I really think it was more than just circumstantial.

But as I said in an earlier video, I hadn't given up on myself. I hadn't given up on my ultimate success or my dreams. So what was my choice? The only choice, difficult as it was, was to keep going and to figure out a new vehicle and a new way of achieving my dreams.

Here's what helped me rebuild my confidence: I started searching for things on YouTube. I think one of the things I searched up was "how to live as a super sensitive person," or something along those lines. I was very surprised to find some of the materials that ended up lifting me out of some depression. I purchased Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD. It actually wasn't very good, but I didn't notice how bad it was because of how I was feeling.

One of the things that certainly helped me regain my confidence was having conversations with other people who had gone through similar situations. They'd been in similar businesses or similar training systems. They had very similar experiences with their upline mentors. And they'd come out on the other side, making certain decisions about their lives. Having those conversations with others who shared those experiences really helped me separate the wheat from the chaff—the stuff that was going to continue to be useful to me versus the stuff that maybe did more to hurt than help me.

Something that I had started doing quite intentionally before ultimately choosing to leave network marketing was writing my first book, The New Music Industry. That turned out to be a great decision because I had a project that I could turn to, that I could focus on, that I could pour myself into. Even though I pretty much knew the book wasn't going to act as a replacement for the business I just left, I also knew that I would probably end up moving a lot of copies. And I did.

There are different ways of navigating difficult situations like this. You might benefit from therapy. You might benefit from meditation, journaling, or reflection. Just know that there are different approaches.

Even though you might feel down, even though you might feel depressed, even though it really might suck to have to go through all that and process it and feel like maybe you wasted years of your life on something you ended up choosing not to do—there's a lot of good that can come out of it too. It's just a matter of choosing to work through it to find the golden nuggets.

In this post (and video), I share how I rebuilt my confidence after network marketing disappointment—and what helped me move forward. https://davidandrewwiebe.com/?p=28059




"You'd be a total loser if you give up on yourself."

That's what they tell you in network marketing. "This is the best business ever." "You'd be an idiot to quit."

And clearly, this is coming from people who believe what they're saying. But here's the thing: the business pretty much works with or without you—especially if you're at a low pin level. It works on attrition. They know a certain number of people are going to leave after a certain point. They can predict when that's going to happen. The business really does work on a whole bunch of people buying products every month and doing nothing else in their businesses.

So are you a loser if you quit? Are you a loser if you give up on yourself?

Here's the thing: I never gave up on my dreams. I may have said, "This business isn't right for me." I may have said, "This other opportunity wasn't right for me either." But that doesn't mean I gave up on myself. I didn't. And I didn't give up on my dreams either.

There's usually a little bit of processing and adjusting that happens after you let go of something, or you pivot, or you decide to quit. But if you've got an entrepreneurial spirit in you—if you're someone who wants to accomplish something, if you're ambitious on any level—you're going to come to the same conclusion I did.

I looked around and said, "Well, I'm still alive. My heart's still beating in my chest. And I've still got dreams. There are still things I want to accomplish."

So what's my alternative? There are no alternatives. I'm not going to stop striving towards my dreams. So what are the alternatives? There are none. I'm going to get my feet under me. I'm going to get back up. And I'm going to get to work. I might do it through another vehicle. I might try another way. I might seek another model. But the bottom line? My dreams are alive. They're not dead. I haven't given up on myself. And I haven't given up on my dreams. So the only option—there is no alternative—the only option is to keep going.

At the end of the day, some opportunities are right for certain people. You basically just never know when the popcorn is going to pop. People pop at different times. They're ready to go, or they're not ready to go.

Don't worry about where you're at today. Simply look to the future to know what you want and allow yourself to become the person who can create that future.

In this post (and video), I share why you're not a loser if you don't join the "best business model ever"—and why the only option is to keep going. https://davidandrewwiebe.com/?p=28053




Let me tell you something: if you're planning to get into network marketing, you should rent out your brain to your mentors. That's how the business works. Ask them about everything. Changes in your life. Spending money. Travel plans. Everything should be brought to your mentors and filtered through them. That's how you grow your business in network marketing—by working with your mentors and listening to what they tell you to do.

But here's the problem: If you have any counter intentions—if you aren't actually looking to build the business, if you're still poking around, going, "I'm not too sure this is for me"—then there are definitely some dangers in renting out your brain to mentors.

Bottom line? They're gonna make a lot of decisions on your behalf. Including financial decisions. And they're not necessarily thinking what's going to be best for you, how they can support your passions, how they can support your personal goals. They're thinking in terms of how to support you on a business level.

That means if you have other priorities, those must be communicated to your mentors. And they may advise you to drop those priorities—or, in some rare instances, support you in them. But either way, if you happen to have other priorities and network marketing isn't really your main thing—and you haven't communicated this—then seeking advice from your upline mentors could actually be a hazard to you.

I realized this for myself as I was starting to go through some financial difficulties. In my experience with network marketing, I went through financial difficulties two or three times. And it was really around the third time that it finally hit me: If I continue to prioritize what my mentors are telling me to prioritize, I'm just gonna continue to go further into debt. Broke. Possibly unable to buy another car. Things weren't gonna turn out well for me if I just kept renting my brain out to my mentors.

At the end of the day, you still have to make the decisions. You have to make a decision that's in alignment with you. That feels right to you. That feels good to you. Others can give you counsel. You can ask for advice, strategies, tactics, and techniques. And that may not necessarily be a bad thing. You are going to get some feedback that will prove useful.

But you shouldn't expect anything that isn't fully in alignment with you to work out in the real world. And that's the danger of renting out your brain to your mentors.

In this post (and video), I share why renting out your brain to mentors works in network marketing—and when it becomes dangerous. https://davidandrewwiebe.com/the-danger-of-renting-out-your-brain-to-mentors/

I spent 5 years in network marketing. And honestly? I was excited about every aspect of it.

The business. The compensation plan. The products. The people—because they were ambitious, chasing financial freedom, and actually living personal development.

The company I joined had a world-class training system. I got exposed to books, CDs, MP3s, training from upline mentors who'd achieved higher levels in the business. That's where I learned the core fundamentals of business. I'd had some business experience before, but what I got through network marketing? I couldn't find anywhere else.

I learned how to legitimize a business, how to work daily towards your dreams, the cashflow quadrant—fundamentals that still sit at the foundation of everything I do today.

So there were a lot of positives. Including new business ideas. I even invested in a company because I had an idea and found people already doing what I wanted to do. That investment didn't exactly work out. But I don't regret taking a chance. If I had to do it over, I probably would've started out of my basement and kept it simple—less overhead, fewer people, fewer tools.

But there was a cost to doing it. For a good while, I was convinced this was the right business model for me. I liked the products. I wanted to stretch myself, talk to more people, get out of my comfort zone, build relationships, have financial freedom. I wanted the home. The car. The watch.

So I really started doing the work. I wasn't perfect at it. I wasn't necessarily great at it. But I got to the point where I was talking to one person per day. Then two or three. Then five or more people in a day.

My business didn't grow much at all, though. And I didn't sponsor anyone.

That experience still gave me valuable things—things that still influence the way I think about personal development, business, and life today. But I probably stayed in the business for too long. I was starting to feel discouraged long before I actually quit.

Seems like I always find a reason why I shouldn't leave in many situations. But in network marketing specifically, the odds were just stacked against me. And there was no way to make a graceful exit.

I'm not here to tell you I lost my shirt in network marketing. A lot of people tell that story. That's not my story. Yeah, I kind of had to start over financially. But it wasn't just because of the business. And I don't really blame the business.

I think the business model's fine. I think it works perfectly for some people. But again, it was something that didn't quite fit for me. Just like teaching guitar—which looked amazing, which I thought might be a dream job—I learned pretty quickly it wasn't quite right.

In this post (and video), I share what 5 years in network marketing taught me about business—and what it cost me. https://davidandrewwiebe.com/what-5-years-in-network-marketing-taught-me-about-business-and-what-it-cost-me/

I taught guitar for over 10 years. And I hated it.

It should have been a dream job. I got paid to play music. I connected with other musicians. I could practice or write between students. But teaching guitar one-on-one, 30 to 40 students a week? It felt like a grind.

Meanwhile, I knew teachers handling 60, 70, even 80 students a week—and they loved it. They'd been doing it for 10, 20, 30 years.

That's when I realized: The problem wasn't me. It was the vehicle.

Here's what creatives often don't realize: You could be doing something you're great at. Something in your field. Something you're getting paid for. And you think, "I should be grateful. Maybe I just need to push through, and the hate will turn into love."

But that's how we justify things as creatives. We stay loyal far longer than we should.

So how do you know if your vehicle is wrong?

Here are 5 signs: (1) You dread it. (2) It doesn't give you leverage. (3) You feel trapped by someone else's rules. (4) You're constantly in survival mode. (5) You can't see a future that excites you.

If you resonate with three out of five of those? Chances are you're not in the right vehicle right now.

So, what do you do next? You don't need to burn it all down tomorrow. I didn't. But it's good to examine what parts were good, what parts you enjoyed, what didn't work, and what you'd change. And then explore other formats. If one-on-one isn't working, try one-to-many. Teach groups. Hold workshops. Create courses. Sell something online.

Teaching guitar wasn't a waste. It gave me an income. It allowed me to sustain my music career. It funded other experiments. It gave me skills I still use today. But did it cost me years of energy, income, and clarity? Perhaps.

Here's what I learned: You don't owe anything that degree of loyalty. Yes, leave things on good terms. But you're doing yourself a disservice if you stay in something too long that drains you.

In this post (and video), I share how to tell if your creative work vehicle is wrong for you—and what to do next. https://davidandrewwiebe.com/?p=28043

I thought teaching guitar would be my dream job.

At 15, I knew I wanted to be a performer. At 17, I picked up the guitar. I had a great teacher who told me I surpassed him within one lesson (impossible, but it kept me motivated). I had a natural knack for it. Some talent. But I still had to develop it as a skill.

About a year and a half later, my teacher was leaving his job at a music store. He asked if I wanted to take his place teaching guitar. I said yes. It sounded cool.

So I started teaching. And within a very short amount of time, I realized: This might not be for me.

Teaching guitar drained me. Fast. Sure, it was nice that I got to play my instrument so much. If a student didn't show up, I could sit there and practice, mess around with tone, try different things. But I had to give a lot of attention to the students. Make sure they were doing the right thing. Make sure they were practicing.

And I'd often find a face staring back at me. "Have you mastered that skill already?" They hadn't gotten anywhere with it. They'd played it once or twice and were just sitting there. I thought, "Wait—is it not obvious that you need to repeat and practice this over and over to get good at it?"

I guess it was super obvious to me. Not so obvious to my students.

Don't get me wrong—I have my good moments with teaching. I appreciate it. It was an income source in my early career. I was a full-time musician for over 10 years, and teaching made up a part of my income. Yes, I ended up teaching for over 10 years. And every once in a while, even in recent years, I'd take on the occasional student.

But I thought for sure: This is a shoo-in. This is a dream job. I get paid to play guitar. Isn't that what I want to do?

And I found pretty quickly that it took up a lot of time. A lot of energy. I was supposed to have all this other time and energy to practice at home, rehearse, record, make music—and I just could not find it.

People sometimes think you can't figure these things out without going at it for five, 10, 20, 30 years. But in my experience? You can figure out pretty early on if it's not a perfect match.

I did my best through the years to conduct myself as a professional. To provide my students with the best quality training I could offer them. But teaching guitar just wasn't for me. It drained me too much.

In this post (and video), I share why teaching guitar wasn't the perfect fit I thought it would be—and what I learned about energy, time, and "dream jobs." https://davidandrewwiebe.com/?p=28039

How did I get to where I am today?

People ask me this all the time. And honestly? It wasn't by picking a destination on a map and saying, "This is where I want to go."

Sure, I had visions. Feelings. Notions of where I wanted to go. But it was never clearly articulated or defined. There were different steps. A lot of lessons. A lot of years in between.

From 2014 to 2016, I said yes to everything. Opportunity was flowing. I was juggling multiple gigs—teaching, blogging, ghostwriting—whatever came my way. In 2016, I stepped away from everything else and focused on blogging and ghostwriting because they were the most profitable things in my life. I focused on the goose that laid the golden egg. That took me all the way up to 2024.

Then 2024 happened. Everything fell apart. No contracts coming in. Sponsorship deals weren't working out. Freelancing gigs weren't coming together. And the few gigs that were coming together? They weren't paying me enough.

But you know what? I think it was a good thing. All the noise got out of the way. No noise in my inbox. No noise on social media. No noise on my phone. It all disappeared. It all dried up. It was gone.

And that's how I noticed a message in my inbox one day from LinkedIn. Someone was looking for a writer who had reviewed media—video games, TV shows, things like that. I'd had some experience doing that. That turned out to be the contract I now have in big tech.

The contract has paid pretty well. And one of the things I started doing was saving 10% of my income every single time a paycheck came in. That's one of the reasons I'm able to operate in greater solvency now. And when that part of my life was restored? Other contracts and other opportunities started showing up for me again.

Here's the thing: I don't have backup plans. I have multiple Plan A plans. There's no Plan B. My Plan A includes my big tech contract, IndieCareerFormula.com, and a referral marketing business. Those are the three or four things that continue to create not just financial stability in my life, but an opportunity to thrive.

In this post (and video), I share the full story of how I got here—and what I'm building now. https://davidandrewwiebe.com/from-financial-chaos-to-solvent-how-i-stopped-bleeding-money/

Why do so many brilliant creatives stay broke?

You do great work. You put your best foot forward. You pour everything into your craft. And yet… you still struggle to make an income. You still can't get your work in front of the right audience.

Sound familiar?

In this post (and video), I break down three reasons why so many talented creatives struggle financially—and what to do about it.

First, stubbornness. I'm guilty as sin of this one. My value of freedom was so strong that I refused to compromise. It had to be my way. I was unyielding. Unbending. But you know what happened when I started saying yes instead of no? I found a lot of work. High-paying work. In a variety of different capacities. Some of the coolest contracts I've ever done came through things that initially looked like nothing I would normally do.

Second, you're convinced of the superiority of your product. I've worked really hard on my craft. I think my writing is really good. I think I'm a great teacher. I think my courses and programs are top-tier.

But here's the problem: If you're convinced your work is better than most of what's out there, you probably don't put as much effort into sharing it, promoting it, or marketing it. And the customer? They have no idea until they buy it.

So having a superior product is nice… but it often convinces us creatives that there's no need for promotion. And that's just not the way it works. There's no market advantage to having the best product.

Third, you're unwilling to be a true do-it-yourselfer. Author, entrepreneur, and investor James Altucher wrote a book called Choose Yourself. There's a quote in it where he basically says, "Artists must be entrepreneurs. That is your choice,” suggesting there is no other choice.

A true do-it-yourselfer is an entrepreneur. I didn't identify this as a personal struggle until 2011, when I was introduced to network marketing. That's where I got all my fundamental core training in business. It was like someone turning on a light switch in a dark room.

The bottom line: We've got to be willing to create our own opportunities. That's the only way forward now. There's no one coming to save you. We've got to go out there and share our work, create partnerships, and develop opportunities. That's what it looks like to be a true do-it-yourselfer. https://davidandrewwiebe.com/?p=28028

I almost didn't pick up the phone.

2011. The worst year of my life. Working five jobs. Falling behind on mortgage payments. Barely keeping my head above water.

Then one day, my phone rang. I didn't recognize the number. It looked like spam. I was in the habit of ignoring calls like that. But for some reason… I picked up.

It was the bank. "We can refinance your mortgage," they said.

I had no idea what that even meant. "What would that allow me to do?" I asked. They started explaining how it would change the amount I was paying. How it could put a bunch of money back in my pocket. "Sign me up. Say no more. If it's going to put money back in my pocket, I want to do this immediately."

It was a windfall. And here's the weird thing about windfalls: Most people find themselves back in the same situation they were before they got the windfall about a year to a year and a half later.

Refinancing my mortgage was the right move. It made a lot of sense at the time. It was something I needed to do. But only about a year and a half later? I ended up selling my house.

So that was the solution that saved me… temporarily.

In this post (and video), I share the story of the phone call that changed everything—at least for a little while. Because sometimes the thing that rescues you isn't the thing that changes everything. It's just the thing that buys you time. And sometimes, that's exactly what you need. https://davidandrewwiebe.com/?p=28013




I was working five jobs in 2011. Driving all over Calgary. 50, 60, 70 hours a week. Falling behind on bills.

And the hustle? It didn't save me.

Not because I wasn't working hard enough. I was working too hard at the wrong things.

In this post (and video), I break down why hustle alone doesn't work—and what I learned from one of the hardest financial seasons of my life.

I was living in established patterns that weren't serving me. I was supporting a lifestyle I couldn't actually afford. I was too spread out—five jobs meant no focus, no leverage, just survival mode. I had no time to find better opportunities. I was trying to do too much myself without the support I needed. And there were invisible expenses to the hustle—costs I couldn't see because I was too busy to notice.

My mindset was also off. I wasn't trying to find a job. I was trying to find a calling, a purpose, a passion. And while that's noble, I wasn't being pragmatic about my practical needs.

Here's the truth: Virtually everyone who makes their dream a reality works a job at some point. Sometimes for months. Sometimes for years. Sometimes much longer.

But one thing I've learned about financial setbacks is this: It puts you in a different mode. It bypasses your inhibitions. You start having conversations you wouldn't normally have. You start doing things you wouldn't normally do. You start texting people, messaging people, calling people—asking for things you wouldn't normally ask for.

And there are seeds of lessons within that. Lessons that can prove very valuable.

The hustle didn't save me. But what came after? That's a different story. https://davidandrewwiebe.com/?p=28008

If you watched my last two videos, you probably heard some of my values come screaming through. In this post (and video), I want to break down the three values that define success for me: freedom, love, and self-determination.

Freedom means the ability to do what I want, when I want, with whom and where. This is why I was so drawn to self-employment initially and entrepreneurship ultimately. I love how Derek Sivers describes it as "the Playground for adults." I never wanted to stop playing. I haven't stopped being a child ever. I just want to keep playing, keep experimenting, and keep enjoying myself for the rest of my life.

Love is something that's emerging as a value of mine. I'd often hear people talk about things like self-love and think to myself, "That's just nonsense, isn't it? What does that even mean?" But there were some valuable lessons for me in that. It seems like most things in life begin with self. The outer world reflects your inner world. If you don't have love on the inside, if you're unable to demonstrate love, if you don't have love for yourself… how can you expect the external world to respond in kind?

Self-determination is a synonym for entrepreneurship to me. It's you making an empowered decision. It's you going after the things that you want to go after. It's you pursuing opportunities that are in alignment with you. That's what it means to be self-determined to me.

If you're reading this right now, I imagine at least one of these values completely resonates with you. Share your values in the comments. I look forward to reading them. https://davidandrewwiebe.com/?p=27990

It's 2014. I'm living in a basement room in a house full of roommates, working away at my own venture. The year before, I'd lost pretty much all my contract work, freelancing gigs, and part-time jobs. Now I was trying to drum something up from scratch, surviving on maybe $500 a month.

I had an unpaid intern working with me at the time. He didn't always show up on time or put in a full day's work, but he was looking for something too — and he thought maybe internet marketing was it.

As with most things, there's no such thing as overnight success. But I had a decision to make: Do I go looking for work again? Do I try to find a job? Or am I going to keep building my business?

The decision I made was: I'm going to keep building my business. Because I didn't see the alternative as an option. I'd already been in jobs where I did things I didn't like, for far too little money, around people I didn't enjoy. It was time to take a chance on myself.

I'm tempted to leave this as a cliffhanger… but here's how it all turned out: I struggled for months. But when summer rolled around, things started to change. The wheels started to turn, and all of a sudden, opportunities started landing in my lap. People started throwing money at me to blog for them. I was asked to teach guitar again. I was asked to work at the university as a theater tech.

Suddenly, all these opportunities showed up for me. Maybe it wasn't exactly what I imagined… but there was still a miracle in that moment. The way things started showing up for me made me feel valued.

In this post (and video), I share that exact moment I realized the "safe path" wasn't for me — and what happened when I took a chance on myself instead. https://davidandrewwiebe.com/?p=27987