[DAY 2] You don’t need to "fix" yourself to succeed challenge post
Post your challenge responses here.
Thank you for being part of the Frictionless Growth Challenge. Today, we start to label your path.
Easeful growth comes from increasing meaningful progress while eliminating unnecessary effort. Imagine yourself as a Jenga tower. Frictionless growth is when you find that block that slides out with barely a touch.
There are five major frictionless growth paths. We call them SCALE paths.
Here they are:
(S)potlight (Thought Leadership): You make essays, newsletters, podcasts, and ideas that ripple through your industry. You’re a lighthouse.
(C)ollaboration (Partnerships): You grow by building with others. You co-create products, join collectives, align with complementary brands, and tap into shared audiences. Your strength lies in working inside ecosystems instead of going it alone. You’re a builder of collectives.
(A)rbitrage (Virality & Data Trends): You scale by seeing opportunities others miss. You spot rising trends early, leverage platform gaps, follow the data, and build predictable systems around attention. You turn analysis into action, and timing into profit. You’re a tactician.
(L)aunches (Big Spectacle Moments): You thrive on momentum and big moves. You build campaigns, run summits, host events, and orchestrate high-energy moments that capture the market’s attention. People watch because you make noise intentionally and strategically. You’re a firestarter.
(E)vangelists (Community & Advocacy): You grow through people who believe in you. You rally superfans, brand advocates, influencers, customers, and ambassadors who spread your message faster than ads ever could. Your community is your engine — and your differentiator. You’re a connector.
At least one of those paths will very likely give you frictionless growth. You can succeed with any of these, but spending 100% of your time in your most frictionless path will lead to the most growth in the least time.
You might get growth from several strategies, but one will give you the most growth, which is where you should focus most of the time.
If you need specific examples or want to dig deeper on this idea, I wrote a whole post about it here.
It’s not that you can do anything, but that there’s something inside that you already love, which can lead to frictionless growth, and we just have to find it. Think of it a bit like Anton Ego’s famous line from Ratatouille “Not everything inside you can lead to frictionless growth, but frictionless growth could come from anywhere.”
Today’s task: Read that list again. Gut reaction: which one feels like a relief to focus on?
That’s the path we’ll be working with as a base for the next couple of days. Now, be brave and share your path and why you think it’s right for you in today’s challenge post. Then, post it on your social media #fgchallenge
If you’re having trouble figuring out which feels right, or are torn between multiple, post that too and let us help you as a group. You gain no brownie points suffering in silence and confusion. Let’s get you aligned, together.
That’s your path. Now, post it below. Then, post it on your social media #fgchallenge
I would have said I was a Spotlighter (and that's what the quiz said) but based on yesterday's response, I think I might actually be an Evangelist. I think I resonate with the idea of a Spotlighter because I deeply aspire to create a well-considered body of work over time and to be known for in-depth thinking on certain topics, but at the same time, I'm very multipassionate and have trouble integrating all of my interests into a single cohesive personal brand. So that's where the Evangelist thing comes in -- the people who really resonate with my work and way of thinking are happy to hear from me on a variety of topics, even things they thought they weren't interested in, because they resonate with how I think or how I talk about things. I think I didn't see myself as an Evangelist because I don't really do social media, especially these days, and because I struggle to experience myself as having a cohesive personal brand that people resonate with, even if, now that I think about it, I guess that's true. So now I'm wondering if I've been feeling stuck because I am really an Evangelist but was thinking I was a Spotlighter.
I am without a doubt a Spotlighter. I wouldn't have guessed that about myself, but after reading (and then re-reading, multiple times!), I don't even question it now. The funny thing is, in the Day 2 email you mentioned how much negativity people have been heaping on themselves (myself 100% included in that!) -- but it was the "negative" struggle parts of the Spotlighter that made me go: "Wow, ouch... yeah, this really is me." Especially the part about: "Spotlighters don’t often crash, they stall…and that stall is deadly." Yep. Exactly that. I have so much content / backlist that I have under-promoted and rarely asked for the sale for (and all the rest of the Spotlighter struggles too!)
What's interesting though, is in going through a major author-career (and life) rebuilding and rebranding this year, I've been struggling to find my "routine" again... and reading through the what's needed to stay healthy part was like taking a long, deep breath after being underwater for too long. Cliché sounding? Definitely - but hey, I'm a writer, I take creative liberties! LOL