Last fall, I paid $2,000 to spend a day at a writing retreat with Steven Pressfield—yes, the OG on creative resistance and author of one of my favorite books The War of Art.

I showed up thinking I’d walk away with tools to tell better stories all in an effort to help me sell more books.

What I got was something entirely different:

A spiritual ass-kicking from the godfather of creative discipline himself.

Pressfield didn’t really talk about writing.

He talked about what stops us from writing—from creating, from stepping into the very thing we feel called to do.

Midway through the retreat, I realized something painful but powerful:

I had been trying to use my book ( The Creator’s Call ) to avoid the chaos in my life (my wife had just gotten out of rehab, and shortly after we learned her cancer had returned), instead of letting the work of the book alchemize my life’s chaos into clarity.

I wrote down notes furiously. Thirteen pages of notes to be exact—then I promptly lost them—wisely leaving my legal pad on a chair in the venue.

Gone.

One frantic phone call to the event organizer and a few agonizing weeks of waiting later, those sweet, sweet yellow pages showed up in my mailbox (I think the universe wanted me to feel the pain of not having them so I’d remember to take care of them from now on).

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I call them my Lost Pages on the Laws of Creation.

And now, I’m sharing one of them with you:

📜 Law of Creation #3 Embrace the Chaos.

Chaos is not the enemy—it is the cocoon.

Trying to create from outside the mess and drama in your life is like trying to give birth without labor.

The resistance you feel isn’t a sign to stop.

It’s a sign you’re close.

The noise gets louder right before the breakthrough.

These notes changed my creative process. They also became the foundation of something new:

The Clarity Code Cohort

A 14-day guided journey to help you stop spinning in the resistance and start moving forward with clarity—whether that’s a book, a business, or navigating a cancer diagnosis (I’ve used it for all three).

I’ll be sharing the rest of the Laws of Creation notes inside the Clarity Code Cohort.

Want in?

I'll be taking 50 people through the Clarity Code Cohort. Join the waitlist now and be the first to know when we open doors.

👉 Join the Waitlist for the Clarity Code here!

The chaos isn’t the enemy.

It’s the birthplace of the real you.

See you inside,

Raleigh

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