Over the last six years, I’ve poured an absurd amount of content into the world—Instagram carousels, articles, videos, live lessons, podcast episodes, conference talks, and thousands of coaching conversations. Little gems everywhere… but scattered. For years I’ve wanted to bring all those insights—the frameworks, the mindset shifts, the sanity-saving systems—into one place.
This is that place.
This is Sanity Systems.
My career kicked off in 1996 on the edge of the dot-com boom. By 2000, I was Creative Director at Fox Studios in Los Angeles. A few years later, I jumped into freelancing and my Fox friends became my earliest clients. Eventually that small, scrappy start turned into a dream roster: ABC, NBC, Disney, Google, YouTube, Sony, Warner Bros., National Geographic, PepsiCo. Honestly, more than I ever imagined when I was a kid sketching logos on my math homework.
In 2004, I hired my first employee. By 2007, my agency rebranded as Riser—and for a decade it exploded. We doubled revenue multiple years in a row, built the glass-walled, wood-floored office I’d fantasized about, grew to a team of 20, and won every award I ever chased: FWA, Addys, Inc. 5000 (three times). In 2015, after thirteen years of sprinting, I sold Riser to a friendly competitor and joined an 80-person team. When my buyout wrapped in 2018, I finally took a breath—a six-month sabbatical to sit in my hot tub, travel a little, and figure out what I actually loved.
And it hit me: the part I loved most wasn’t the awards or the clients.
It was mentoring creatives. Helping them grow. Guiding them through the same chaos I survived.
That passion led to Burn Your Portfolio in 2013, The Psychology of Graphic Design Pricing in 2019, and, over the last six years, thousands of deep-dive coaching sessions and the birth of More Creative Academy. Every conversation forced me back into the trenches of my agency days—to reverse-engineer the actual systems and mental models I used to build and scale a creative business.
That’s what’s inside this book.
Because here’s the truth:
When I scaled my agency from my basement in 2002 to a nationally recognized firm working with the biggest brands on the planet… I did it without a mentor. No YouTube channels. No coaches. No community. Just general business books, gut instinct, and a whole lot of trial-by-fire.
You don’t have to build your career that way.
This is the book I wish I had twenty years ago—when I was overwhelmed, inexperienced, terrified, and totally winging it. I wrote it for that version of me… and for you.
Whether you’re dreaming of going full-time, already freelancing and trying to scale, or running a business and ready for the next level—this book is part inspiration, part operations manual, part no-fluff pep talk. If you judge books by ROI, you’ll probably get your money’s worth from a page or two. The rest is bonus.
I’ve always worked to keep my content authentic. I don’t read many business books anymore, and I avoid most “creative business guru” content so my ideas stay rooted in real-world experience—not recycled advice. But truth is truth. Whether you learn it from a professor or from a client meltdown at 2 a.m., the principles that make a creative business succeed are universal.
My hope is that you find gem after gem—compact, clear, practical tools you can implement immediately to reduce stress, raise your confidence, increase your profit, and build something sustainable.
