Arcs, Chapters, Sprints: The Cycles of Sustainable Business-Building
Ever since my book released six weeks ago, I’ve been feeling a deep tension.
My head keeps saying, “What’s next? Come on, we need to keep building your vision.”
My body and soul are saying, “Stop. No more right now. No new things.”
And I'm listening to my body.
Because it’s not just the end of a book launch.
It’s not just the end of the year.
It’s the end of the entire first five-year arc of my business.
When we see our work as a series of nested cycles—each with its own horizon—we start to understand how to harness energy at the peaks and honor the natural pauses at the ends.
The Micro: Seasons and Sprints
This is the smallest cycle: the season or sprint, usually two to three months long.
This is where launches, projects, and deliverables live. It’s the rhythm of doing.
Every year, I have at least two major sprints when I launch Define Your Foundations, each lasting about eight weeks.
This year, there were four extended sprints layered on top of those:
Q1: Finishing the book
Q2: Rebrand + Website
Q2: Ending my last COO engagement and launching my first course
Q3/Q4: Launching the book
Sprints focus effort and create momentum. But stacking too many of them leaves no room for recovery, and some take far more out of you than others. (No wonder I was tired this year!! Do not recommend trying to do this all in a single year.)
This is the Mars energy—the planet of action and motion.
Reflect: What sprints have you taken on this year?
The Mezzo: Chapters and Years
This is the rhythm of focus and meaning: the orbit that asks, "What am I exploring or strengthening in this year?"
Two to three months is rarely enough to complete a transformation, but a year can hold a distinct evolution—a visible growth ring on the tree.
Each chapter of my business has carried its own theme:
Years 1–2: Getting started and building my book of business beyond subcontracting through fractional COO work.
Years 3–4: Creating my body of work—the essays, illustrations, videos, and curriculum—and strengthening my network.
Year 5: Culmination—rebrand, book, and course launch.
I couldn’t have imagined in Year 1 that this is where I’d end up in Year 5. But I didn’t need to. I only needed to decide how I wanted to grow this year and then choose projects and sprints that supported that growth. And importantly, not take on "Year 5" projects in Year 1.
Reflect: What was the primary focus of your chapter this year?
The Macro: Arcs
When we start a business, we expect rapid results. That’s what the Entrepreneurial Casino sells us.
But in reality, it takes at least three to five years to go from seed to stable ecosystem.
Taken from my colleague Corey’s blog:
Kevin Kelly, renowned entrepreneur and writer, once talked about a friend who arranged his life in blocks of 5 years:
“Five years is what he says any project worth doing will take.
From the moment of inception to the last good-riddance, a book, a campaign, a new job, a start-up will take 5 years to play through.
So, he asks himself, how many 5 years do I have left?
He can count them on one hand even if he is lucky. So this clarifies his choices. If he has less than 5 big things he can do, what will they be?”
If the sprint is what you do, and the chapter is how you build, the arc is who you’re becoming.
It’s the layer of discipline, foresight, and identity—the Saturn energy that sets direction for the long term.
As I reflect on the book, the rebrand, and the change in my client profile, it’s clear this year was prolific because it marked the harvest period of a five-year arc.
Launching the Leaving the Casino book and the Deeper Foundations brand closed the first major arc of my business life.
This cycle is complete.
And while ideas for the next one are already forming, the end of a cycle isn’t a moment to push forward.
It’s the moment to release what’s not coming with me, to rest after the harvest, and to quietly begin cultivating curiosity again. It’s the time to plant the seeds of the next arc.
Reflect: Where are you in your current arc of business and life?
The Pause between Cycles
Sure, I could keep pushing—jump from one sprint to the next, ignoring the true end of an arc. But that would ignore where I am in the rhythm of my own business.
Right now, the work isn’t about acceleration; it’s about completion—finishing what’s already in motion, closing open loops, and taking the rest I’ve been promising myself for five years.
Because when you build in arcs, you don’t just work harder perpetually. You build assets that compound over time, systems that sustain you during quieter seasons, and space to dream before deciding what’s next.
That’s the true rhythm of sustainable work: not endless momentum, but movement with meaning.
The sprints teach us to act.
The chapters teach us to focus.
The arcs teach us to trust the long game—to recognize where we truly are in the cycle and to let time do some of the work for us.