Ask Sooner. Pay More.

There’s a kind of pride that comes with figuring things out on your own.

I’ve earned that pride the hard way. A few times.

Like many of you, I’ve bootstrapped projects, self-published books, built a business from scratch, and taught myself more platforms, tools, and systems than I care to count.

But when I look back at the moments that really moved the needle on my Great Work, they have one thing in common:

I didn’t do them alone.

This week, I released the last two short videos in the Lone Wolf’s Guide to Collaboration series, and they highlight two of my best pieces of practical, boots-on-the-ground advice: 1. Ask Sooner. 2. Pay More.

Ask for help before you're ready.

Lone wolves like us often wait to ask for help until we’ve already done 90% of the work. We don’t want to waste anyone’s time. We want to be taken seriously. Therefore, we wait for our ideas to be fully developed before sharing them with the world.

This has an unfortunate side effect: By the time you ask for help, it’s too late for the collaboration to shape the work. All it can do is edit the edges.

If I had given my first draft of Great Work to Anjanette “AJ” Harper earlier, before it was “ready,” I could have saved myself a month of panic as I tore through the total rewrite to change "The Aligned Time Method" into "Great Work". (Don't know that story? Take a listen to the most recent episode of the podcast!)

It turned out ok (no, Great!) in the end, but I know it didn’t have to be so hard.

Take my hard-won advice: Skip the panic and invite people in early. It makes everything better because it gives the work a chance to evolve... and it gives us some time to evolve, too.

So, my lone wolf friends: Ask for help sooner.

Hire experts. The Best ones you can afford.

For a long time, I thought I needed to get everything done as cheaply as possible. I hired people who were just getting started and whom I could tightly manage. I mapped out the entire process and handed over detailed instructions.

And, if all went well, I got back exactly what I asked for. No more. No less.

But also, rarely did it all go well. Sometimes it blew up, and the money I spent was a wash. Sometimes it went well, but only after 28 rounds of revisions. And, of course, sometimes things went so well I could hardly believe my luck (I'm looking at you, Flutur!).

It was a crap shoot, is my point.

And then I hired someone who turned out to be unexpectedly expert (Hi, Heather Terwilliger !). She was just getting started and was working with a friend of mine and I loved what was coming back. But when I gave her my usual hyper-detailed instructions, what came back felt kind of... flat.

Not bad, exactly. Just uninspired.

In our conversations, I realized that I was squashing all the potential for unexpected delight. I had hired someone great and then accidentally blocked her from doing her best work.

So I said: "What would you do if I wasn't over here telling you what to do?" What she came back with was AMAZING.

And then it happened again with an SEO expert (Hi Melissa McGraw !). And again with my book designer (The inimitable Choi Messer ). And again with my accountant (What's up, Mark?!?).

Each time, I grew more confident in my stance. Now, I'm rock solid:

Hire experts. The absolute best you can afford.

Let them bring what they know. They’ve spent years learning things so you don’t have to! That’s the magic of real collaboration: you stop being the only visionary in the room.

Let’s Get Practical on July 23rd

Loving all this practical how-to-magic?

Join me TODAY, July 23rd, at Noon ET for a free class where we’ll take these ideas about collaboration from theory to strategy. I'll share my best people. You'll share your best people and we'll all learn how to shift our mindset, build our skill set, and finally start creating the support your Great Work deserves.

👉 Reserve your spot now and let’s figure this out together.