The Output — Issue #1

Hey Friend,

This used to be called something else.

I stopped calling this newsletter "Creators That Crush Weekly," because something changed.

Not the content. Not the cadence. Just the name. When I looked at what I was writing, "crushing it" wasn't the main idea. It was something else. 

The new idea: you are the input.

I worked with a coaching peer for years. Every week we'd get on a call and it was the same thing. He'd have a new course he'd taken, a new book he'd finished, fifteen different things he was thinking about doing. But he never executed on any of it.

I remember sitting there thinking, when are you just gonna go and do it, dude?

The more I sat with it, the more I saw myself in it too. He wasn't lazy. He wasn't disorganized. He was dealing with something deeper: the belief that he didn't have the answer in him. That he wasn't enough to put himself out into the world without one more book, one more framework, one more reason to wait.

I've been there. For a stretch of my own career, I was afraid my ideas weren't enough, my experience wasn't enough. So I hedged. I hid behind my high-performance framework instead of working out what I believed.

I call this a creator clarity problem.

Creator clarity isn't a strategy. It's your point of view. Your deeply thought out ideas. Your beliefs and your personality showing up in your work. It's that artistic gut feeling you boldly follow.

You are THE input. Your self-knowledge, your convictions, your willingness to go after your own ideas. Those are what go into the work. The output is just a translation of that.

If the input is unclear, the output will be too. No posting schedule fixes that. No framework fills that gap. You can't systematize your way into having something worth saying.

This newsletter isn't about better output strategies. It's about the inner work that makes the output mean something. That's what it's always been, before it had the right name.

Speaking of inputs — here's what's been feeding mine this week.

What I'm paying attention to:

Set Up Claude Cowork Better Than 99% of People — A walkthrough on setting up Claude Cowork from scratch. I've been deep in ChatGPT for a while and wanted to see what a different workflow actually felt like.

Bad Sleep Is No Longer a Problem If You Do THIS — One practical tip for recovering from a bad night. Personal stress has hit my sleep hard this past month, and I'd rather work with that reality than pretend it isn't there.

Why Your Show Feels Messy (And How to Fix It) — Breaks down what "production" actually means for creators working in audio and video. I'm reworking the podcast and this helped me think through what a more video-focused version could look like.

Now your turn.

Before you go:

What's the piece of content you've made that felt most like you? Hit reply and tell me.

— Shawn

You're getting this because you subscribed to what used to be Creators That Crush Weekly. Same thinking, better name. If this isn't for you, hit unsubcribe at the bottom of this email.