Hey :)

Every week, I sit down in front of a blank document and build a workbook from scratch.

I've done it dozens of times now — workbooks for every framework, every tool, every method we use at QFG. The whole point is to give our coaches something they can facilitate with and give our clients something they can actually work through. Learn faster, implement faster, get results faster.

But here's the thing. Even after all those reps, sitting down in front of a blank document is still hard sometimes. There's something about a blank page that creates friction. Resistance. You know you've got to create something out of essentially thin air, and the easiest thing to do is not start.

So I've started paying attention to how I talk myself into actually beginning.

The first thing I ask myself is: what do I know for sure will be in this workbook?

Not what the finished thing will look like. Not what order it'll go in. Just — what's definitely going in there? What's obvious?

Every workbook has a scorecard. If we're doing role plays, I know the role play sheets are going in. There might be two or three other things I can see clearly just from reading through the facilitation notes. So I start there. I just get those things into the document, even as placeholders. Page one might be this. Page four is probably that. I don't know the design yet. I don't know the layout. But I know it needs to be there.

That's enough. Now the blank document has something in it.

Here's what experience has taught me: I'm not going to figure this out by sitting and thinking about it. My best ideas come from working through it.

I need to create some bad ideas first. I need to put things in the wrong order and design layouts that won't make the cut. None of that is wasted. It either ends up in the final version or it leads me to the thing that should be in the final version. Either way, it's necessary.

The shitty first draft isn't a detour. It's the process.

There's a practical reality that keeps me moving every single week...

Col, our designer, is waiting for me every Tuesday morning. He's ready to go, and his job is to take my draft layout and turn it into a finished, polished workbook. If I don't do my piece, he can't do his.

That sense of responsibility is incredibly powerful. It's not just about me finishing something — it's about making sure the next person in the process has what they need to do their best work. A deadline you've made for yourself is easy to quietly push. A deadline where someone else is sitting on the other side of it is not.

And here's what I find fascinating about how this particular workflow has evolved: I've gotten the layout notes so dialled in that Col almost never needs to talk to me. The document I send him on Tuesday morning has everything. That only works because I've done the thinking, made the decisions, and handed him something complete.

When the resistance is really loud, this is the thing that cuts through it for me.

An idea on its own is worth nothing. Finishing things, shipping things, turning an idea into something a real person can actually pick up and use — that's where the value is. That's the work. And it's the hardest work, which is probably why there's so much resistance around it.

If I need a reason to open the document, that's it.

I also know — because I've done it — that I will finish this. I've started with a blank document dozens of times and every time I've ended up with a complete, polished workbook that our coaches are using right now with real clients.

That's proof. And proof is a good thing to have when you're staring at a blank page trying to convince yourself to begin.

So. Open the document. Start anywhere. Build from there.

🗣️ 👀

Chris.