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We believe in what we call the HAPI Compass, a simple system to keep yourself in balance and headed in the right direction. Point it at your work and your direction comse into view:
- (H)eart: the projects and inspiration that give you goosebumps and will resonate deeply with your customers.
(H)eart HAPI Compass related articles and resources
We believe in what we call the HAPI Compass to building a successful career, which revolves around four points. Point it at your work and your direction comse into view:
Russell Nohelty
- (A)udience: the people orbiting those ideas, ready to championing them, amplify your reach, and fall deeply in love with what you create.
(A)udience HAPI Compass related articles and resources
We believe in what we call the HAPI Compass to building a successful career, which revolves around four points. Point it at your work and your direction comse into view:
Russell Nohelty
- (P)rioritization: Deep focus on one high-leverage move at a time, letting it pay off, then reinvesting the space and cash it creates to widen your runway and buy yourself time for what matters.
(P)rioritization HAPI Compass related articles and resources
We believe in what we call the HAPI Compass to building a successful career, which revolves around four points. Point it at your work and your direction comse into view:
Russell Nohelty
- (I)ncome: Generating the money that sustains your ideal life while fueling the creative work that lights you up.
(I)ncome HAPI Compass related articles and resources
We believe in what we call the HAPI Compass to building a successful career, which revolves around four points. Point it at your work and your direction comse into view:
Russell Nohelty
Plot those four points, and you have more than a framework. You have a living compass. When you start to drift in one of the four points, you can use the others to center yourself again.
What’s a 🦄Hapitalist🦄?
Welcome to Hapitalist, where we’re all about helping you find the balance between the work that feeds your soul and money that pays your bills. The question we are constantly asking is “What if all this business stuff was fun and rewarding?”
Russell Nohelty
(P)rioritization
Prioritization is all about setting priorities and gaining leverage over your career, so you can do more of what you love and spend less doing the things you don’t. These articles can help.
Resources to help you
While we have an extensive archive of articles about building a writing career, we also offer several other resources to help entrepreneurs build better businesses. Some of these are available for free. Others are available only to paid members. Articles are listed below these resources.
Making more money
- The Kickstarter Launchpad
- Direct Sales Launchpad
- Secrets of Substack Bestsellers masterclass
- Evolve without Burning out masterclass
- How to Have a Successful Book Event masterclass
- How to Thrive as a Writer in a Capitalist Dystopia
- Publishing is Broken, But It Doesn’t Have to Break Us
- How to Build Your Creative Career
- How to Become a Successful Author
- Advanced Growth Tactics for Authors
- Create Profitable Facebook Ads course
- Fund Your Book with Kickstarter course
- How to set up and run an awesome anthology course
- Income reports since 2018
- The Complete Creative podcast archive
- The Hapitalist podcast
- Complete Creative data archive
Developing a stronger mindset/strategy
- 🎴Hapitalist Business Tarot
- How to Thrive as a Writer in a Capitalist Dystopia
- Publishing is Broken, But It Doesn’t Have to Break Us
- How to Build Your Creative Career
- How to Become a Successful Author
- Advanced Growth Tactics for Authors
- 10x your productivity course
- Write a Great Novel course
- Hapitalist podcast
- The Complete Creative podcast archive
- Complete Creative data archive
Articles
Recalibrating your HAPI Compass
Hi, In this webinar, I walked through how to use the HAPI Compass as a diagnostic tool to identify your actual constraint right now.
Russell Nohelty
Are your expectations even realistic given your current reality, tho?
Russell Nohelty
You're not really building an author career, you're scaling a startup
Russell Nohelty
The HAPI Compass framework
Hi, It took me years of tinkering, hundreds of tiny adjustments, countless failed experiments, and more than a few existential crises, to develop a framework that actually works for most entrepreneurs trying to build sustainable careers.
Russell Nohelty
The 4 P's of prioritization
Hi, If you have not yet, I highly recommend doing an Eisenhower Matrix to learn what’s in your zone of genius and completing our Big Domino exercise to learn what you should focus on next before reading this article.
Russell Nohelty
You're asking the wrong question
This article was originally published on Sub Club.
Russell Nohelty
How to know what to prioritize next (or first)
Hi, Every week, somebody asks me some version of the same question:
Russell Nohelty
You have nothing to lose. So why are you playing it safe?
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Russell Nohelty
How to tell what to do next when you have no idea what to do next
Hi, Completing an Eisenhower Matrix helps you understand what you’re already doing and where your effort is producing results.
Russell Nohelty
Vibe coding your way to indie success with Chelle Honiker
Can I bribe you to subscribe?
Russell Nohelty
Let's burn 2025 to the ground...but like…let's actually do it this time, tho
Hi, I’ve traveled a lot in my life, and one of the things that sticks most vividly in my mind is driving across Tanzania on safari, watching the savannah burn. It’s frightening, awe-inspiring, and frankly a little confusing to watch acres and acres of fields burn down, as far as the eye can see, smoke billowing and fire licking the sky.
Russell Nohelty
A framework for engineering winning days
Hi, How many days a year do you really need to “win” to be successful? Is it 100? 50? Maybe 20?
Russell Nohelty
Animal School
Hi, The first time I saw a post by Jonathan Goodman I reached out to see if I could interview him. He said no because his focus is on writing, and not speaking. “A funny thing happens when you become successful doing something.” He said. “The world tends to conspire to pay you lots of money to do everything
Russell Nohelty
Success is a trailing indicator...
Hi, Most entrepreneurs believe success is a leading indicator that shows they’ve arrived.
Russell Nohelty
Building a creative life that gives energy back
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Russell Nohelty
The (next) shiny thing you hate...
Hi, I know you want to chase that shiny new thing. You think it’s going to save you, and that if you could just catch it then all your problems will be solved, but let me ask you this:
Russell Nohelty
Introduction to the SCALE path system
Hi, Welcome to the SCALE paths, designed to help you find frictionless growth and build a successful, sustainable, thriving business.
Russell Nohelty
SCALE paths: Ecosystems
Hi, If you really want to grow and embrace your SCALE path, it helps to understand your natural tendencies on a deep, personal, visceral level.
Russell Nohelty
Building a team using SCALE paths
Hi, When entrepreneurs start learning about the SCALE paths, they generally map it onto their own experience to learn about themselves, but our system is equally powerful in building out a team around your work.
Russell Nohelty
SCALE paths
Hi, Every business scales differently, but most business advice doesn’t account for any of that. It assumes everyone’s building the same way, at the same pace, with the same goals.
Russell Nohelty
SCALE paths: (S)potlighters
Own the Topic. Expand the Audience. Become the Reference.
Russell Nohelty
SCALE paths: (C)ollaborators
Co-Creation. Co-Ownership. Shared Momentum.
Russell Nohelty
SCALE paths: (A)rbiters
Efficiency as a Strategy
Russell Nohelty
SCALE paths: (L)aunchers
Built to Launch
Russell Nohelty
SCALE paths: (E)vangelists
Spark Advocacy. Start a Social Contagion. Grow Through People.
Russell Nohelty
SCALE paths: Return on Energy Investment (ROE)
Hi, I see too many talented entrepreneurs drowning in overwhelm, and it’s not usually because they don’t have enough time.
Russell Nohelty
SCALE paths: Evolution tracks
Hi, Knowing your SCALE path is great, but it’s only half the equation. The other half is knowing your evolution track.
Russell Nohelty
How each SCALE path responds to trends
Hi, One of the most reliable ways to understand how a founder is built is to look at how they respond to trends. People will tell you all sorts of things about their goals, values, and working styles, but nothing reveals the truth like watching what they do when the market shifts—especially when that shift is fast, noisy, or uncertain.
Russell Nohelty
Blended Ecosystems
Hi, Before you read this, it’s would be very helpful to learn about your SCALE path and your base Ecosystem.
Russell Nohelty
The secret to beating overwhelm
Hi What you can do as a single human to overcome what seems like overwhelming odds stacked against them when building a business? It really comes down to three words.
Russell Nohelty
Is this any good? Maybe. We’ll see.
Hi, A man’s son gets kicked off a horse and breaks his leg. People tell him that’s terrible. He says, “Maybe. We’ll see.”
Russell Nohelty
Build the way you’re built
Hi, The internet is overflowing with marketing tactics, funnels, hacks, frameworks, and “proven systems.” If information alone created growth, you’d be drowning in customers by now.
Russell Nohelty
You are thinking Newtonian, and I need you to think quantum
Hi, We’ve all met people who work hard and are still stuck in hummus. Let’s be fair. We’ve probably all been people who were stuck, and we likely are people who are still stuck in at least one part of our lives.
Russell Nohelty
Finding your magic trick
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Russell Nohelty
Do fewer things better...
Hi, For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been deeply mired in our new Frictionless Growth Challenge, and the number one thing that stands out is how many times I’ve told people “Do fewer things better”.
Russell Nohelty
Path of least friction presentation record
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Russell Nohelty
WTF is Hapitalist presentation record
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Russell Nohelty
What am I missing here?
Hi, We just had our final 🦄Hapitalist breakthrough session of October, and it was just as magical as all the others. It’s so weird to watch something work so well for the people inside the program, and still struggle to get even a few more people to try it.
Russell Nohelty
Building an integrated sales ecosystem
Hi, The business landscape gets noisier by the minute. Founders are constantly bombarded with “next big thing” tactics, miracle funnels, and gurus promising a shortcut to scale. It’s exhausting trying to keep up with every new platform, software tool, and marketing fad that pops up in your feed.
Russell Nohelty
Social. Media.
Hi, Creator Economy by Peter Yang has been living rent free in my head for years for writing this article about the two different types of social media companies, and how we’re thinking about them all wrong.
Russell Nohelty
Feral chaos...
Hi, My word(s) for 2025 are feral chaos. When I decided on them, I had no idea what they meant. What I knew was that I wanted to stop focusing so much on controlling my life, and more on learning how to thrive in the chaos of the universe.
Russell Nohelty
Freedom to vs. freedom from
Hi, Recently, I read On Freedom by Timothy Snyder. It’s the companion piece to his On Tyranny book everyone talks about, rooted in politics and philosophy, and not the kind of thing you’d expect to offer a profound insight about running a creative business.
Russell Nohelty
The 7 pillars that actually matter in building a publishing career
Hi, I’ve got good news.
Russell Nohelty
The strategic value of productive chaos and skill stacking
Hi, When I tell entrepreneurs that “good chaos brings stability,” I’m usually met with skeptical looks. It sounds like the kind of thing someone says to justify their scattered attention span.
Russell Nohelty
Break through a ceiling. Turn it into a floor.
Hi, When I first started my career, everything felt exponential.
Russell Nohelty
The Role of AI in Non-Fiction Writing
Hi, AI has become an indispensable tool in my creative process. As someone who has written extensively about growth practices, publishing, and building careers, I’ve found AI to be a crucial assistant, not so much in generating ideas from scratch, but in refining, expanding, and transforming them.
Russell Nohelty
How to bend reality and become a bad4$$ timespace mage
Hi, They say some people have a "reality-distortion field" around them. I think that's because they have a very specific win condition, and are willing to sacrifice everything else for it.
Russell Nohelty
Tech companies lied to us, and it's causing a creative crisis
Hi, One of the great failings of tech over the decades has been the idea that the democratization of the internet meant that anyone can be successful in anything for any reason. All you have to do is make a thing and everyone will love you.
Russell Nohelty
How to Build a World-Class Substack (and Pivot Successfully) Without Losing Sight of Your “Why”
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Russell Nohelty
Set your win condition
Hi, We finished conference season not too long ago, and wow was it sobering to see so many people I love and respect burned out beyond what I thought possible last time I saw them when they were already burned out beyond what I thought possible.
Russell Nohelty
How to trick yourself into moving forward as a creator
Hi, This year at a Loscon panel, somebody asked how we can avoid being the internet scapegoat of the day. As a white-het-cis-man there is almost no chance that I will be that person, and I know that, but the crux of my answer was:
Russell Nohelty
Part II - Mastering your content calendar: A 2024 goal guide for writers and authors
Russell Nohelty
Part I - Mastering your content calendar: A 2024 goal guide for writers and authors
Russell Nohelty
PLG, SaaS, and how the nonsense terms from tech can help supercharge your author career
Russell Nohelty
Creative Growth Strategies for a Sustainable Business
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Russell Nohelty
Tortured genius
Hi, As we toil away in obscurity, it’s normal to fantasize about being a tortured genius who will be appreciated in the future, maybe even after their death, like so many great writers of yesteryear.
Russell Nohelty
The things you cannot influence
Hi, In a world where so many opportunities seem out of reach, whether that’s landing a big publishing contract or scoring a coveted podcast appearance, it’s easy to feel like success is always in someone else’s hands. While it’s true that a lot of things are outside your control, there’s a
Russell Nohelty
How to avoid getting lost in the flurry of new Substacks flooding the site
Russell Nohelty
Planned serendipity
Hi, I always thought that the more successful you became in business, the more rational, logical, and measured you would be, but I’ve had a different journey. I started in business very “business-minded”.
Russell Nohelty
Prioritizing your business using a modified Eisenhower Matrix
Hi friends,
Russell Nohelty
I know my Author Ecosystem. Why do I even care and what do I do now?
Hi friends,
Russell Nohelty
Prioritizing your business using a modified Eisenhower Matrix
Hi friends,
Russell NoheltyDaily newsletter testing
Hi friends,
Russell Nohelty
How Wannabe Press is structured
Hi, Wannabe Press has been the holding company of everything in my business life since I launched it as a DBA in 2014. I count June 2015 as our anniversary, because that is when I left the last company I hope to ever work for, and also the anniversary of when we moved to LA back in 2008. Additionally, it is when I filed as an LLC for the first time, so that timing feels right to me, even though Wannabe Press technically started in October 2014.
Russell Nohelty
The two major subscription models
This article is about how to choose the subscription model for your business. Hopefully, it will give you some context for which platform and strategies will work to get you to the next level and start seeing serious results.
Russell Nohelty
Time has to happen
Hi, Too often in life, the answer to “why am I not having success?” is that time has to happen. It is the not satisfying so most teachers and coaches will never say that part out loud, which leaves entrepreneurs thinking that something must be broken in their own process.
Russell Nohelty
You build the structure for your next launch during your current launch
Hi, When people come to me after a poor launch, often even after gathering a big audience, I always ask this question:
Russell Nohelty
How can we survive and thrive in the new media landscape?
Hi friends,
Russell Nohelty
Craft+Commerce lessons
I just finished going back over my notes from Convertkit’s Craft+Commerce conference in Boise, and some of the things I learned there blew my mind. Other things were good refreshers on things I forgot.
Russell Nohelty
Are you finding arbitrage or building arbitrage?
Hi, When I first started building my career in earnest, Gary Vee was using the term “attention arbitrage” to explain what people needed to be concerned with in the then-nascent creator economy. In short, arbitrage results from a gap between demand and supply. If there is more demand than supply, the delta, or difference, between the two is arbitrage.
Russell Nohelty
How to build a sustainable and profitable subscription into your author business
Hi friends,
Russell Nohelty
How to build a basic, beautiful one page website
Hi, I whole-heartedly believe that you need a “home base” that you wholly owned. That said, it’s not without technical difficulty to set up a website. Luckily, with the existing tools at our disposal, we can create an absolutely stunning website without a lot of tech knowledge at all.
Russell Nohelty
When to burn it all down and how to rise from the ashes
Russell Nohelty
Why you probably need a break...right now
Russell Nohelty
How to successfully repurpose your book into new formats
Hi, As an author, completing a book is a monumental achievement, but it’s only the beginning of your creative journey. Once you have a story that works, it tends to keep working forever.
Russell Nohelty
The hidden danger of hyperproductivity: How I sabotaged myself with action
Hi, Most people sabotage themselves through inaction. They dream but never start. They talk but never ship. The blank page beats them. The market intimidates them, so they freeze.
Russell Nohelty
The power of the cult-hit author
I don’t understand why people want fame. The path is long and capricious, relying more on luck more than hustle — and, therefore, almost entirely beyond a person’s control. You have to be in the right place at the right time, born under the right stars. And then, even if you
Johnny B. Truant
A Sustainable Substack
Russell Nohelty
5 Substack 'Secrets' To Take Your Publication To The Next Level
Hi, Easily one of the best groups of humans I’ve met in the past year were the team of Jari Roomer, Sinem Günel, and Philip Hofmacher from Write • Build • Scale. I had been recommending Sinem’s publication on Sparkloop for a while, so having them come to Substack was super cool. I’ve since gotten to know them better, and now they’re launching a new Substack program.
Russell Nohelty
Ditch the Circus Act: Automate Your Indie Author Life (and Get Back to Writing!)
Hi friends,
Chelle Honiker
How not to f*ck up your newsletter
Hi, When Erin Shetron emailed me out of the blue to ask if I would host this essay since she didn’t think it fit on her publication, I believe my exact words were “F*ck Yes! I’m in.”
Russell Nohelty
Why 45% of Substacks go inactive, and other findings from combing through 75k newsletters
Hi, I’ve been reading Ciler Demiralp’s Newsletter Circle since long before they featured me in an issue. When I saw they released a massive study analyzing the habits of 75,000+ Substack publication, I took the opportunity to ask them some questions about what they learned through the process.
Russell Nohelty
Creating a sustainable Substack content plan that doesn’t take up a ton of time
Hi friends,
Claire Tak
Inefficiency is the real flex
Hi, Somewhere along the line, we got tricked into believing that efficiency equals success.
Russell Nohelty
Did you find what you are looking for? If not, you can use the below to try another section.
Or, you can have yourself a reset by going to our resources page.
Available resources
While we have an extensive archive of articles about building a successful business, we also offer several other resources to help authors build better businesses. Some of these are available for free. Others are available only to paid members.
Russell Nohelty
If you’re ready to dive deeper, we have an extensive list of resources to help help you get your HAPI COMPASS back in alignment.