Modern Compass Newsletter

Hello there,

This issue focuses on Character, one of the four directions of the Modern Compass. Character is how you show up when things get hard, and persistence is one of its clearest tests.

When you're persisting on something that matters, you're bound to hit lows. The question pops in your mind: do I stay the course? Am I being stubborn or persistent? How do I even tell the difference?

Most frameworks or guidance on persistence falls into two trains of thought:

1st Grit-and-willpower persistence: Push harder, tough it out, embrace the suck. Winners never quit. This isn't wrong, but it does have gaps. The gaps here are treating persistence like a character trait you either have or don't, further more grit without adaptation is just stubbornness. You can also grind away for years on something that was never going to work and call it dedication.

2nd Passion-driven persistence: Follow your passion and you’ll never work a day in your life. We’ve all heard that story and balked at it because it often never holds up. Stay connected to your why and you'll never burn out. This sounds great until you hit month six and realize passion is not sustainable fuel. Passion ebbs and flows. If your strategy is "stay passionate," you're done the moment enthusiasm fades.

Here's the thing: both strategies have truth in them. You do need to endure difficulty and you do need to care. They're just incomplete in isolation. They tell you how to feel a certain way, but don't offer much when something stops working.

Persistence is extremely relevant to me being 11 months into book writing and all things Modern Compass, and encountering many failures this year and some successes. Real persistence isn't about superhuman willpower or never losing the spark. I see persistence as structural, built on 4 pillars, and when your persistence starts to show cracks, you can usually trace it back to a specific pillar.

Clarity means you know exactly what you're building and why it matters to you specifically, concrete enough that decisions become obvious and you can filter out the noise.

Adaptation is your willingness to change your approach while protecting the core intent, knowing the difference between pivoting tactics and abandoning the vision.

Grace  lets you forgive yourself when you fall short without killing accountability, treating setbacks as part of the process rather than proof you're failing. It's refusing both harsh self-judgment (I'm a failure) and empty excuses (It's not my fault), and instead asking: What happened, what can I learn, and what will I adjust?"

Belief is trusting you're capable of doing this work even when current evidence suggests otherwise, sustained through small wins and remembering why you started. Complementary to your own belief, is having others believe in you as well, but very important that you believe in yourself. Banking solely on external validation will lead to even more cracks.

Pitfalls to Watch Out For

Leveraging AI for pep talks. Using ChatGPT for motivation hits that fade in twenty minutes. Stop asking AI to tell you you've got this and start asking it to help you think through actual problems or help you identify gaps. This is very difficult for ChatGPT to do, it’s often the worst AI at gas lighting you and thinking all your ideas are great. I recommend Claude if you want AI to give you more grounded criticism. There are great things about ChatGPT, but giving you honest criticism isn’t one of them.

Chasing social proof/comparison. Measuring yourself against people further ahead, mistaking where they are for where you should be. Someone three years into their career isn't your benchmark if you're three months in. Someone who's been building their skill for years isn't proof you're behind. A quote that rings true here: "build something great before building it to be known." The catch is you need some external feedback to know if it's actually great, but the principle holds. Focus on the quality of what you're building or doing, not comparison to others who are on a completely different timeline.

Assuming success stories skipped the struggle. You look at people who made it and think they had some advantage or may not realize how hard they worked to get there. Read their early work or ask them directly (if possible) about the years before anyone cared.

3 Truths of Persistence

1. There will be lows. Do anything long enough and you'll hit them. When they come, you'll question whether it's worth it. Not once, but repeatedly. The question isn't whether you'll doubt, it's what you will doubt and often it will align to one of the pillars.

2. Progress takes time to be visible. You're putting in effort and seeing nothing change. Then suddenly things click, compound, or someone notices. Progress operates on a lag. The work you do today might not pay off for months or years. You can't see progress accumulating in real time, but that doesn't mean it's not happening. I’ve created a tool called creative equity review to document that invisible progress because it helps to see recall what all you’ve done, Check out my older issue on that topic if interested or reply and I’ll send it over.

3. The outcome you want is never guaranteed, but the pursuit is always there for you. It doesn’t matter if you’re in highs or lows, how long you pause or take a break, you can wake up the next day and the opportunity for pursuit is there, it never left.

Activities

Activity 1: Pushing Past the Lows

When you're persisting on any endeavor as mentioning, you're bound to hit lows. Sometimes a low is your gut telling you something just isn’t working, other times it's just impatience or faulty comparison spiraling into doubt. This exercise helps you figure out which one you're dealing with. Here's a quick mental exercise I use when I feel that crack starting to form.

Step 1: Isolate the feeling Name the exact thought causing the low. Not "I feel bad about X" but "I feel like I've wasted X amount of time on (fill in the blank)." Write it down on a piece of paper.

Step 2: Make it someone else's problem (hypothetically) Pretend you're hearing this from a friend, not feeling it yourself. Step outside it completely and look at that statement as a third party would. What would you notice about it that the person saying it can't see?

Step 3: Separate fact from fiction This ones crucial! Most lows aren't caused by what's actually happening. They're caused by the story we tell ourselves. Look at what you wrote. Think or write only what is objectively true. Strip out bias and assumption from reality.

Step 4: Reality check your timeline and effort Evaluate your inputs (time & effort) to your output (results). We all want more, but if you’re expecting far more results without the adequate input, there could be a mismatch. This applies to so many things but one area that comes to mind is career progression. You’re expecting a promotion but have you masted the existing role you are in and done something to prepare yourself for the role you want? If not, there is a mismatch. If there isn’t an opportunity to properly “prepare” yourself for future role, take courses, ask for more responsibility, be a board member in a volunteer group, etc.

Step 5: Determine a pivot Based only on the facts, what's one thing you could change about your approach? Not your entire strategy, just one tactical shift you could try next.

Few examples of where I’ve pivoted with Modern Compass throughout the year that may help get you started on this activity:

Reduced content creation in general to 1-2 times weekly = doing more wasn’t aligned well to outcome of writing a book and wasn’t growing a platform the way I expected.

Stopped pursuing digital Etsy shop = ended up being in direct conflict with writing as it takes a long time to produce/market and instead repurposed these as free lead magnets for this newsletter

Quick side note: If you are looking to make a decision to stop pursuing there are already some well established decision making frameworks out there and Clear Thinking book has become one of my favorites on decision making. https://fs.blog/clear/

Activity 2: Leverage AI to Properly Critique You

My results from testing the prompt: For one I test any and all prompts I co-develop with AI that go in my newsletter. This prompt was very insightful and called me out on clarity being an area I may have some cracks, mostly around ensuring there is market fit for my book. Again I suggest Claude as one of the better AI models to give grounded feedback to you.

If you’re from the camp of grit & will power and wondering if you are actually adaptive or lean more on the stubborn side, do this prompt! You will get something useful from it, I certainly did!

How was this issue?

Did this topic or activity spark any insights for you? I’d love to hear how it landed! The easiest way to engage is simply respond to this email (which also ensures all future issues go straight to your inbox not spam) or Survey Link. Getting feedback or responses is what I value most!

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Modern Compass Book updates

• I’ve nearly finished another chapter which leaves 5 chapters to go before finally finishing a first pass

• I have a professional editor scheduled for manuscript assessment in April 2026 who I’ve provided samples to and she felt there was promise. My intention is to self publish and launch Jan 2027 but I will ask for editors feedback of self vs traditional publishing to get her take

• I will be looking for Beta Readers in spring of 26 as well. If you are interested in beta reading, reply to this email and I will add you to the list.