Hour 12 of the Write for Money and Power 12-Hour Book Launch felt like a refreshing dip into a cold plunge.
I closed out the livestream with Kyle Cords. Kyle is a formidable writer and entrepreneur who started out in Hollywood working on top TV shows before going on to build creative companies. These days, his work spans both the tech world and creative spaces as a founder of multiple seven-figure businesses — and he’s someone who understands, at a very practical level, how ideas turn into real, sustainable systems. He is a co-founder of the bestselling Substack Make Writing Your Job with me, and also writes at FounderCore.
This hour wasn’t about tactics or launches or growth curves. It was about zooming out and asking bigger questions about power, ownership, and what it actually looks like to build something over time without losing yourself in the process.
Here are a few ideas from Hour 12 worth sitting with:
Power Is the Ability to Choose
One of the central themes of the conversation was that real power isn’t visibility or scale — it’s choice.
The ability to decide what you work on.
The ability to walk away from projects that no longer fit.
The ability to design a life that doesn’t require constant justification.
Kyle talked about how power compounds slowly. It’s built through ownership, patience, and systems that continue to work even when you’re not pushing every lever at once.
Systems Create Freedom
Coming from both Hollywood and tech, Kyle has seen what happens when creative people rely entirely on inspiration or external validation.
What lasts are systems.
Whether it’s a product, a newsletter, a business, or a body of creative work — systems are what make momentum sustainable. They remove decision fatigue and protect your energy so you can keep showing up to the work that actually matters.
Freedom, as he framed it, isn’t the absence of structure. It’s the result of the right structure.
Creative and Technical Thinking Aren’t Opposites
Another thread that ran through the hour was the false divide between creative work and technical work.
Kyle spoke about how his background in storytelling informed his later work in tech — and vice versa. Story teaches you how humans think. Tech teaches you how systems behave. When you combine the two, you can build things that are both emotionally resonant and structurally sound.
That combination is where durable businesses live.
Ownership Changes the Way You Work
Owning your work changes how you think.
You stop optimizing for short-term approval and start building for longevity. You think in years instead of weeks. You care more about quality than velocity.
Kyle shared how ownership creates a different kind of calm — not because things are easy, but because you’re no longer building someone else’s vision at the expense of your own.
Long-Term Thinking Is a Competitive Advantage
In a world obsessed with speed, Kyle emphasized the underrated power of long-term thinking.
Compounding doesn’t show up overnight.
Trust doesn’t scale instantly.
Good ideas need time.
The creators who win aren’t the loudest — they’re the ones who keep showing up with clarity and patience long after others burn out.
Building Together Matters
Ending the day together felt meaningful for a reason.
Building a life, a body of work, or a business is rarely a solo act — even when it looks that way from the outside. Having people around you who understand your values, challenge your thinking, and see the long arc of what you’re creating makes everything sturdier.
This conversation was a reminder that collaboration isn’t a weakness. It’s an accelerant.
If Kyle’s perspective resonated — especially around systems, ownership, and building things that actually last — spend time inside his work over at FounderCore or at Make Writing Your Job. He’s thinking deeply about the intersection of creativity, technology, and long-term leverage, and everything he builds reflects that clarity.
If Hour 12 resonated — if it made you think differently about power, systems, and ownership — those ideas are the backbone of everything in my book:
The ebook is $0.99 because access matters. And building something that lasts shouldn’t be reserved for a select few.
Thank you for being here for all twelve hours.
Thank you Mary Beth Kaplan🪶, Kinga Magyar, ✍🏻Rebecca Dawn🌷, Nilambari Shirodkar, Amy Benavides, and many others for tuning into my live video with Kyle Cords!
-Amy
