Welcome to the box

Where projects get finished.

This world is overwhelming.

We’re pulled in a million directions,
and it’s only getting worse.

We’re told we need a better plan, strategy, or framework, but taking focused action is often the hardest, and most important part.

The Box is where projects get finished.

In The Box, you’ll get organized, prioritize your projects, and finish what you start.

You won’t learn anything new, you’ll simply see what amazing things lie on the other side of finished.

The Box solves 6 main problems…

  • Unfinished work
  • Imposter syndrome
  • Underselling
  • Shiny object syndrome
  • Procrastination / perfectionism
  • Lone wolf syndrome (going it alone)

Take a look inside the box

A community for creatives.

What’s the Box?

A container for your creative & entrepreneurial energy.

  • Live cowork sessions
  • Coaching + support
  • Accountability
  • Community
  • That’s it.

Without a Box

With a Box

What isn’t the Box?

It’s not a program, course, or mastermind.

  • It’s not worksheets
  • It’s not videos
  • It’s not presentations

It’s not teaching you anything new, it’s giving you the structure to create with what you already know.

In other words, a great way to stay accountable, do the work, and actually finish what you started. Because amazing things happen on the other side of finished.

overthinking = underacting

How many of these can you check off?

  • I love starting projects…not great at finishing them
  • Selling is really scary and I don’t like promoting myself or my work
  • I check email, IG, or the fridge instead of what I sat down to do #procrastination
  • Both of my plates are full (wait, you have more than one plate?)
  • Pro at making to do lists, doing the to do's...not so much
  • I don’t have a lot of “biz buds” to hold me accountable
  • “Ohhh…..shiny object!”

If there’s more than two…no shame. This is what the Box was created for.

Without a “box” our creative energy will run wild and never come back.

How does it work?

Join

The Wall of Finished

join A Small Community of Doers…

…creatives, coaches, entrepreneurs, marketers, copywriters,
musicians, writers, photographers, freelancers.

Top Priority

Before you do anything, we need to figure out what project you need to work on. What most requires your focused energy.

Is it client work, starting that podcast you’ve been putting off, building an offer, writing that book, planning that trip, or finally paying taxes!

Ahhh the space you’ll create once you finish…

Create Your Box

Once you’re clear, we’ll create your specific box.

This is the what, when, how part.

What does finished actually look like. When is it due. How will you get it done.

Then…you get to work! Come to the live cowork sessions, ask a question to get unstuck, and update your progress sheet.

Finish

This is what it’s all about. You actually finished!

You can ship it, get feedback, or move onto the next project.

Either way, we celebrate the sh*t outta you!

Why Should You Care

Parkinson’s Law states that work takes as long as you give it to take.

For example, which do you think you’ll finish first?

  • Write a new song.
  • Write a short song about birds in 2 days.

Yes, the more specific one.

The other one could take months (if you even finish). 

You’ll likely get off to a quick start, but then find any and all reasons to put it off.

If you wait too long, it’ll slowly slip into the abyss never to be worked on again.

And so the cycle continues.

“Entrepreneurs Are Struggling With Mental Health — But Where’s the Support?” – Article by the Hustle

The Hustle surveyed more than 300 entrepreneurs on the state of their mental health, and a whopping 63% reported dealing with burnout, with 59% saying they’ve dealt with anxiety.

“Entrepreneurship affects people with and without prior mental health conditions, and personality has something to do with your vulnerability,” he explains. “If you are an introverted person, but as an entrepreneur you can’t succeed without building relationships, that personality trait creates a vulnerability for you.”

accountability increases your chances of completion 10x

Here’s why it works:

Goal Sharing + Progress Monitoring

Research has long convinced us that sharing goals increases our likelihood of success.

Beyond that, monitoring goal progress in a social setting translates into major action.

Both are baked into the Box to ensure you get things done.

Body Doubling

Body-doubling is simply having another person in the room with you, working quietly alongside you. They can work on something similar, or something completely different.

Scientists haven’t exactly figured out why, but they all agree this type of group focus works. (Yes, even online.)

When people come together with a common goal to focus and work, productivity soars.

Coaching

The crazy thing about blind spots, is we don’t see them…until someone points them out. And even then we can’t always see them.

Having a coach point out a mindset, creative, or business blind spot could save you and extraordinary amount of time and energy going in the wrong direction.

You’ll have 2 coaches + community support.

Listen to The Subtle Art of Coaching.

Let’s be real for a second…

We are lazy. Like truly lazy.

And maybe you are too. But not in the shameful way – just that our brains aren’t built to consume so much info and then work all day on stuff we don’t enjoy.

You can only do that for so long.

There’s a big difference between anxious grinding and inspired hard work.

One leaves you drained, overwhelmed, and unhappy. The other leaves you fulfilled, spacious, and excited.

But we can’t just decide to turn on “inspired hard work” whenever you want. There’s no switch.

We have to create it. And that requires focused energy. A container.

A box with rules. Rules like this one from Neil Gaiman:

“You can sit here and write or you can sit here and do nothing, but you can’t sit here and do anything else.” – Neil Gaiman, rule for writing

But here’s what we realized…

  • It’s really hard to create a box for ourselves.

We tend to struggle with putting ourselves in this focused container, even if we know it’s what we need.

The box allows you to give yourself the gift of finished.

Accountability increase your chances of finishing by 10x!

The Box solves 6 main problems…

  • Unfinished work
  • Imposter syndrome
  • Underselling
  • Shiny object syndrome
  • Procrastination / perfectionism
  • Lone wolf syndrome (going it alone)

less talking. Less planning. more doing. more finished projects. more space.

What boxers are saying

Arguably, it’s not art if no one sees it. It’s certainly not a business if no one buys it.

Your Hosts + Co-Boxers

Miles Hanson

I’m an ex-bro marketer. Like many, I learned all the “bro tactics” and then left marketing altogether after 7 years because it felt cringy and forced.

Today, I help brands get clear on their story, strategy, and design to craft a simple and scalable brand ecosystem. We specialize in brand identity, strategy, and web design at BrandThrive.

I love playing the guitar, tennis, coffee, and a nice cold west coast IPA. I’m from Austin, TX, lived in Denver for 4 years, and am currently seeing if I’m a “beach guy” in Hermosa Beach.

Bill Small

Not long ago, someone asked me, “What do you create?” I had to think for a minute… Then I replied, “I create music and conversations!”

It’s true. That’s what I do. I make music. I coach amazing people. I have conversations that make a difference.

I ride my bike when I can, and try to be a good dad.

Why “The Box?”

Bill and Miles (we) are very particular with what we give our energy to.

We don’t do very well with discipline, consistency, and grinding our way through the creative process. We’re not machines.

But we also want our businesses to thrive. We want to build wealth and create a lot of cool stuff for the world.

We both have our own businesses and we’re always healing our relationship with the words “sell” and “promote.”

“The Box” was created on accident.

We came up with “The Box” while recording one of our episodes (this one). We discussed a few topics…

  • Shipping your work
  • How many things we've started, but failed to finish
  • The creative muscle
  • Perfectionism + procrastiation
  • Imposter syndrome
  • Structure and masculine energy in the creative process
  • Inviting others into your creative process

We realized that in order for us to move things forward, we needed a container.

Structure. Boundaries. A clear target. Accountability. Support. Feedback.

The Box, provides masculine/focused energy that’s needed to contain and direct your feminine/creative energy.

It eliminates obscurity and gives you the accountability to see it through.

Super early ep, we’ve made some improvements since this one lol 🙂

“There is no such thing as a bad writer and a bad salesperson. There are simply people who practice, and people who don’t.” – @margoaaron

The Circle around our Box (Community)

Once you sign up, you’ll get access to the community. We use a tool called Circle to host The Box…I mean come on!

It’s like a facebook group, but without the facebook (and way better).

We’ve kept it super lightweight. No overwhelming discussions, long videos, or endless list of resources. Everything that is added in has to pass the no BS test.

We’re not here to add work, we’re here to help you get to work.

Inside, the community, you will introduce yourself, share your box, share your wins, ask for and get support, and be an important part of a growing community.

Simple Project Tracker (Trello)

We use a simple Trello board for our project tracker. Once you have your project created, you’ll add a card in the active projects column with all the project details for everyone to see.

What’s Boxing

“Boxing” is the back and forth process (coaching) of figuring out your top priority, your top distractions, and then creating a structure around it.

Thus allowing you to finish, ship, or promote your work and free up space for the next thing.

When you and the community understand your box, you’re held powerfully accountable.

Be a part of a small community of doers.

As of writing this, our global Box community about 10 strong with an awesome mix of musicians, artists, copywriters, brand designers, yogi’s, coaches, and more!

Check out our growing WOF (Wall of Finished)

The Deets

The Box community is always open. We’ve decided not to close the doors. Come in, try it, and leave whenever.

You get:

  • (8) 90-min calls a month (Tuesday + Thursday @ 10AM PST, 1PM EST
  • 7 coworking calls, 1 boxing call
  • Community support in-between
  • Project tracker in Trello
  • Rewards for finishing

Once You Sign Up

Once you sign up, you’ll go through our super simple (kinda fun might I add) onboarding process and get access to the community (in circle…isn’t it funny that the tool we’re using for the box is called circle. I love life).

It’s like a facebook group, but without the facebook (and way better).

Okay…enough blabbering. Let’s do this.

Price

Sign up and join the community for $65 per month. Get access to everything, cancel anytime.

Here’s what I would suggest. If this feels like it could be a good fit, jump in for a month. Try it on, feel it out. If you love it, stay in. If not, you can leave.

Read about our transparent pricing.

FAQ

Most members are freelancers, business owners, musicians, podcasters, copywriters, designers, and web developers.

It’s for someone who needs to get things done. It’s for someone who needs to finish writing a book, a song, or a sales page. It’s for someone who needs to catch up on client work. It’s also for someone who keeps making things, but not promoting / selling them.

Sound like you’ll fit in?

We believe in transparent pricing. Here is exactly why we charge that price.

8 calls per month. 1 boxing call and 7 coworking calls

The boxing call (coaching) is the first call of every month. We do individual coaching to create your box or support you in your existing box.

The remaining 7 calls are coworking calls dedicated to making progress on your box using the power of body doubling.

The community supports you inbetween calls. Think of a facebook group, but way better and not on facebook.

If you have a questions, need support, need motivation, find an interesting resource, experience a win, or want to see when the next call is…everything happens inside this community.

One thing that DOESN’T happen in here is overwhelm…

We’ve kept it super light weight. There are no videos or resources that you need to go through to learn new stuff. The entire point of the box is to get you focused on trying stuff, finishing what you start, and shipping/promoting your work.

Aside from Bill and I helping you create your box and checking in on every call — there is also a live sheet shared by the community that holds your projects and the progress you make.

Anyone at any point can see your project and where you stand.

Sort of. On the live boxing calls (once a month) you will be in the seat. We (bill and I and anyone else who wants to jump in) will support you in creating and making progress on your box.

Our primary goal is for our boxers (members) to finish what they start. If you’re needing extra support, we are happy to jump on a call with you for 1-1 support from time to time.

Simply… Body doubling refers to doing a task with another person present.

If you have difficulty staying focused on a task, the body double’s presence can cue you to remember what you were doing and provide light pressure to stay on track. You can think of the task as a favor to the body double, which can increase your motivation to finish it. The body double is a physical reminder of the task you are trying to complete as well as a way to boost accountability.

We plan to keep it small for the first year so that every member gets plenty of boxing. Somewhere between 7 and 15. If it begins to grow too big, we will likely create separate cohorts for the live calls. As of writing this, there are 10 boxers.

Not sure yet? Book a coffee chat with Miles to see if it’s a good fit.

amazing things happen on the other side of finished.

Wall of Finished

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