As I gear up for my annual review, I'm seeing a lot of online entrepreneurs push out their "X Lessons from X Years in business" posts. It occurred to me that, after 25 years in the online world, I'd never done one of these posts.

I'm actually doing a series of lessons learned on the Podcast over the next couple of months before the launch of Creative Freedom Season 6 (oh, it's happening, folks!). In January, I'll share a detailed post with 5 more lessons on Charlie Gilkey's blog. Today, here are 5 biggest lessons I've learned from 25 years of building a "portfolio career" as a creative entrepreneur. My clients will likely recognize most of them as things I say ALL the dang time. Well, if it's been true for 25 years, it's probably worth repeating one more time!

1. Your mindset is more important than the mechanics. I talked more about this one on the podcast this week.
2. As Eisenhower said, "Plans are worthless. Planning is everything"
3. You can't control the outcome. You can only influence it through your actions.
4. Your goal isn't always THE goal.
5. Consistency isn't sexy, but it works.