[Creative Orbit] Why Drawing Your Character Beats Designing Your Life

“Hey, human! This is a story about how I stopped obsessing over lifestyle design and started drawing a character…which turned out to be way more useful. If you just want the step-by-step guide, skip down to the Process section.”
—Andrew, F the Lines

February 2019 — I just got off the most expensive call of my life. It was a coaching session with The Futur CEO Chris Do and it cost $1,000.

I’m exhilarated by the story he told me…

You’re going to fire all your low-paying web design clients. You’re going to start charging $10k per project. You’re going to create a web series called “Trek to Toronto” and move by August 1st.

I feel a powerful sense of clarity, like I’m falling headfirst into a Rocky training montage. This is what I’ve been waiting for—now that someone's given me a winning game plan, all I have to do is put in the work.

Except I never bothered to ask myself…

Whose game am I trying to win?

Problem: Someone Else’s Story

Conflict: Bad at Video

The wheels started to come off my “winning” plan embarrassingly early. As soon as I went to shoot…