Are You Playing Your Own Game Or Someone Else’s?
The creator entrepreneur’s guide to building a business that you actually enjoy running.
The #1 Mistake Holding You Back
from Building a Business You Love
Creator entrepreneurs are great at making, building, and creating - but less so at crafting a business that has lasting power. To compensate for the inherent self-doubt, insecurity, and other mindset roadblocks that every new entrepreneur faces, we often look to what others have done and try to model our businesses off of them. If they’ve been successful, surely copying them is the key to our own success, right? It’s not that there aren’t valuable lessons we can glean from those who have gone before; of course there are. But trying to mimic others creates a host of problems in our own businesses:
- Chasing tactics & “what’s working now” (instead of focusing on building a solid foundation in your business)
- Looking like everyone else - not standing out in a noisy space, making you easily ignorable
- Following someone else’s vision (not building a business aligned with what you want from your life & business)
- Doing what made someone else successful rarely gets the same results for those copying them
- Constantly hustling for any progress (because you’re spending more time trying a bunch of different things than committing to a path and making it work for you)
- Ultimately, our businesses fail because they aren’t sustainable enough to survive algorithm changes, market shifts, recessions, or any other threat
What’s the answer? Building your business the intellectual entrepreneur way.
The Intellectual Entrepreneur’s Path to a Sustainable Business
If you’ve ever gotten sick & tired of all the advice online trying to shove your business into some expert’s “system” or telling you that you “have to” do XYZ tactic because it’s “what’s working now,” this is for you. And The Acropolis Model is your path to building your business this way. Here’s what’s inside. ⇩
An intellectual entrepreneur is someone who opts out of the traditional hustle & grind culture of business building in exchange for a more thoughtful, intentional approach.
This model is based on:
- Creating based on your own vision instead of someone else’s
- Focusing on a solid foundation & alignment over tactics
- Building for decades, not just next quarter
- Being intentional about creating the life you & your family want
- Designing a business that supports your life, not the other way around
- Crafting a business that is uniquely YOU, not a clone of someone else
Build a Business That Supports a Lifestyle You Love & a Legacy You Can Be Proud Of
Here's what you can expect:
- Are you approaching your business like Achilles or Odysseus (from the Trojan War)? Pg. 5
- What studying ancient history can teach us about facing uncertainty, change, & chaos in our own time. Pg. 8
- Are you building a “churn & burn” business? What this is, why most entrepreneurs build this way (unintentionally), and why it can kill your business. Pg. 10
- Why copying top creators is a recipe for failure (and which Trojan War hero finally took down Achilles - by playing his own game). Pg. 13
- Should you spend time tracking all your metrics & asking your audience what they want? Get the hot take. Pgs. 14-15
- What’s the single biggest factor that keeps people coming back to your business over & over, and telling others about it? Pgs. 19-20
- The “good enough to go live” mentality that is ruining content marketing campaigns for thousands of businesses. Pg. 23
- The shifts happening in the ad tech & “performance marketing” world that are keeping marketers up at night (see the last paragraph for the hidden advantage you as an independent creator have to sidestep online marketers with big ad budgets). Pg. 27
Like changes anywhere, what’s happening in online marketing & the creator economy can be scary. You can ignore them…. Or become fearful, nervous to step out & take any risks…. Or you can choose to seek out opportunities within the chaos. This is how innovators, pioneers, & visionaries have made a difference all throughout history. Take this third approach, and the possibilities are endless. You control your destiny & the world you want to build for yourself & your family. It’s a much better way to live.
But let’s keep going.
- What one marketing expert believes is the solution to these changes in the online marketing world. Pg. 30
- The key to creating financial sustainability in your business - and why most businesses aren’t doing this. Pg. 35
- Two paths to position your brand so that your ideal customers never consider your competitors - and a handful of the iconic brands who built their empires off of these paths. Pgs. 44-45
- Does your business have a moat? What this is and why you need it to stay competitive. Pg. 46
- The two elements you should lead with in all of your content, marketing, and messaging to stand out, get attention, & build an audience that is hooked on you. Pgs. 48-51
- How to create a sense of belonging so that your customers never want to leave (and so you actually enjoy spending time in your business!). Pg. 55
- Going beyond your own world: how crafting a sustainable brand using the Acropolis Model will expand your ability to create a positive, lasting impact on those around you - your family, community, & the broader world. This is thinking big, and it’s where building your own business becomes truly fun, exciting, & meaningful. Pg. 58
When you build using the Acropolis Model - a framework that helps you build something uniquely your own - you’re optimizing for sustainability & impact. You stop restricting your potential based on limitations imposed by someone else - and instead choose to play your own game.
My hope for you after reading this book is that you’ll come away with a new sense of excitement for what’s possible, that you’ll feel empowered to leave your own mark on the world, & that you’ll find your path to falling in love with what you do.
What You Need
to Know:
- The book: a 60-page ebook that you can read in an afternoon. After a first read, I suggest you step away then come back to it to sit with the ideas. Give yourself some time to think through how you can apply these concepts to your business.
- The price: pay what you want (minimal price is $5).
- The terms: no refunds. This is a conceptual model for building a high-impact, long-lasting business. It’s not for someone just looking for tactics or another free PDF to dump on their hard drive that they never read. Only buy this if you’re serious about changing the way you think about building your business.
©2025 Acropolis Publishing