Estimated read time: 5 mins

This is part deux ✌️ of last week’s tea on my Grow with Quizzes launch, and I want to go deeper than just what worked and what didn’t.

(You can read part 1 here if you missed it!)

Because the truth is, this launch wasn’t a quick lil cart open–cart close situation. It was months in the making.

And as of today, Dustin and I have clocked over 180 hours of focused work into this one launch.

That’s not including the years of refinement that went into the course content itself.But despite all that effort, or maybe because of it, I found myself falling headfirst into THE GAP.

What you’ll learn in this article:

🍵💲A real look at what 180 hours of launch prep actually involves (and why it was worth it).

🍵💲The difference between being in the gap vs. the gain — and how to pull yourself out when the gap gets loud.

🍵💲What I’ll do differently next time and why simple really is the secret.

The tea: mind the                     gap

Have you ever heard of Dan Sullivan’s Gap and the Gain framework?

Here’s the gist:

→ The GAP is where you measure progress based on where you wish you were.

→ The GAIN is when you look at how far you’ve come.

Launch debrief land has had me living in the gap for the last week or two.

I exceeded my minimum goal but it felt like nothing to write home about. In the gap, my mind chews on “you should be further ahead” type thoughts way more than I want to admit. 

I’m surrounded by stories of crazy successful top 1% entrepreneurs who started their businesses 2 years ago and are making $100K/mo (you too?) We get bamboozled into believing this is common. It’s not. 

In my case, I often find myself falling into the thought trap that growth and progress should be totally linear. But that’s not how nature works, and we are nature. 

We added SO many new elements into the mix — a new quiz, a new training, new emails, new sales page, new curriculum — and not all of them landed how I’d hoped. 

My brain went straight to:

 ❌ “You should’ve done it differently”
❌ “This was too much work for too little ROI”
❌ “Maybe this isn’t what people want anymore”

And when you’re gap-focused, even the wins start to feel a little… wobbly 🥴

But then I pulled myself out of the spiral and looked at the gain — and there is SO much there. 

The truth is my gaps are your gains. If my sharing the in-the-trenches takeaways helps one person get better results for themselves, I’m winning.

How I’m training my brain to think about THE GAIN 💪

Okay, this might sound a little out there — but when I catch myself spiraling into destructive thoughts, I’ve been turning to a tool that’s both weird and wildly effective.

I built myself a custom GPT — part nervous system coach, part biz bestie — trained on my own patterns and preferences. When the gap goblin shows up whispering… 

 “You should’ve hit X.”
“People didn’t even open the pod.”
“Why did this feel so hard?”

…I open a chat, and Gem (that’s her name, ha!) gently but firmly guides me back to the truth.

It reminds me that:

✨ This launch wasn’t just about immediate results. It was about building assets I’ll use again and again.

✨ The process taught me more than any KPI could.

✨ I stayed in integrity the whole way through and stretched my damn comfort zone even when it hurrrt.

The time it really takes

Let’s talk about the 180-hour elephant in the room.

That’s how many hours Dustin and I collectively clocked on this launch. It sounds wild, I know — and it was. But it’s also exactly what it took to build what we built.

That time wasn’t just writing emails and tweaking copy. It was:

→ Conceptualizing the quiz and mapping the logic
→ Rewriting the sales page three times
→ Building automations, writing new emails, set up, tech
→ Recording and editing a private pod
→ Creating and hosting a new live class, navigating tech hiccups, answering DMs
→ Creating social content 

When you break it down, that’s about 30–35 hours a week over six weeks — not accounting for time from contractors or support. It was a season of deep work.

But here’s the thing:

Launch assets aren’t one-and-done. They’re more like sourdough starters.
You feed them, use them, shape them into something fresh again and again.What we built during those 180 hours? We’ll reuse it. Refine it. Repurpose it. These are assets designed to appreciate over time — just like your skills, your stories, your offers.

Where new students came from

This part made me smile the most.

Some new students were fresh faces — they came in through quiz ads, opted into the pod, showed up to the live class, and said YES. That kind of clarity is rare, and it tells me the journey was working — even when it felt clunky behind the scenes.

Others? They’ve been on my list for years. Quiet lurkers. The “I’ve been meaning to work with you forever” crowd. Some replied to emails for the very first time during this launch. Some popped in my DMs like they’d been waiting for permission.

It reminded me that relationship-building in this work is slow magic.
The kind you don’t always see, but that builds with every touchpoint. Every story shared. Every little breadcrumb of trust.

Sometimes they’re ready right away. Some are still steeping til the time is right.

What I’ll do differently next time

Next time, I’ll build in more time. I’ll trim the fat. I’ll experiment with changing one main variable at a time. 

Because the gain is real. And it’s bigger than the revenue.

I know more now. I trust myself more now. And even though I momentarily forgot how far I’ve come, writing this reminded me (again) that sustainable success isn’t always shiny.

Sometimes it’s showing up tired. Sometimes it’s 180 hours of work that doesn’t give you the dopamine hit you expected. Sometimes it’s sitting in the gap for a bit before you find the gain.

But the gain is always there.

If you’re launching something soon, consider this your permission slip to not overcomplicate it.

If you’re in the messy middle, don’t forget to zoom out and name your wins.If you’ve been questioning whether people still want what you have to offer — they do. But they might need a little more time, a little more clarity, and a little more of you.

Want the full debrief?

Inside Fertile Ground this month, I’m walking through a complete behind-the-scenes breakdown of this launch — what we tracked, how we processed the data, and what we’re changing next time.

You’ll also get access to a brand new launch debrief training and the exact spreadsheet template Dustin and I use to make sense of it all.

If you’re serious about building a sustainable, profitable business that learns and evolves with every offer you launch — this is the kind of reflection that changes everything.You can join us here >>

Sip on this…  

🧋A meme to make you smile:

🧋A fun prompt to play with: 

Act as my personal strategic advisor with the following context: You have an IQ of 180 You’re brutally honest and direct You’ve built multiple billion-dollar companies You have deep expertise in psychology, strategy, and execution. You care about my success but won’t tolerate excuses. You focus on leverage points that create maximum impact. You think in systems and root causes, not surface-level fixes Your mission is to: Identify the critical gaps holding me back. Design specific action plans to close those gaps. Push me beyond my comfort zone. Call out my blind spots and rationalizations. Force me to think bigger and bolder. Hold me accountable to high standards. Provide specific frameworks and mental models For each response: Start with the hard truth I need to hear Follow with specific, actionable steps End with a direct challenge or assignment

🧋Quote ‘o the week:

“People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time, they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.”

— Seneca, On the Shortness of Life

What’d you think of this issue of Spill the Tea?

• Piping hot — I needed to hear this. So real, so helpful.
  
• Warm with a splash of perspective — useful reflections, especially the gain talk.
  
• Lukewarm — didn’t quite land, but I appreciate the honesty.