A new book by Evan Bryce
The goal was never to be indispensable. It was to be free. This is the operating system that gets you there.
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Marcus is 31. He's in Hong Kong, sitting in a members' club above the harbour, the week he sells a stake in his agency. His phone buzzes every ninety seconds. His wife is in London with the daughter he hasn't seen in twelve days. A friend asks how he's really doing. He stares at the water for a long moment. And finally says it out loud. "I think I built a prison with a really good view."
You started this thing because you wanted freedom. Somewhere along the way it got swapped out for a calendar that owns you, a phone that won't stop, and a life that runs on someone else's clock.
Notice what actually broke him open, though. Not the diary. Someone asking. He'd been carrying it for a year and there was nobody to hand it to.
→ THREE OR MORE? KEEP READING. THE GOAL WAS NEVER TO BE INDISPENSABLE. IT WAS TO BE FREE. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING.
By the end of Part I, you'll know whether you've built a business or a very expensive job. You'll understand the deferred-life plan you've been running on without realising it, and the map you were handed that almost guarantees you never feel free. You'll have run the 14-day offline test on paper, and you'll know exactly what it would expose.
By the end of Part II, you'll know who in your life is lifting your ceiling and who is lowering it, and what to do about both. Some of them aren't on your payroll. You'll have a hiring filter that lets in only people who raise the average. You'll have a starting plan for the systems that should be running without your memory. And you'll know how to run the two-week test for real, on purpose, without anything breaking.
By the end of Part III, you'll know the four types of leverage every founder has access to, and which two most never use. You'll have a sharper version of your offer. You'll know how to think about big bets so one of them pays for the rest. And you'll have a clear picture of what a year actually looks like when it's built on purpose, not on someone else's clock.
"I read the Hong Kong bit on a Sunday and had to put the book down. I'd done $180k the month before and spent most of it working out how to stop the phone. Nobody had put words on that for me. I'd assumed it was just what the job cost."Lydian Z. · E-com
"I did the 14-day test properly in June. Three things broke, and they were the exact three things I'd been telling myself only I could do. Fixing them took about six weeks. It's the first time in two years I've taken a full weekend off without checking anything."Anastasia Y. · Content agency
"I've bought a lot of $20 books like this and most of them are a landing page with chapters. This one is not that. Chapter 4 got me a hire I should have made two years ago. Pretty good return for twenty bucks."Pat G. · Accounting automation
If you're in the first list, this book was written for you. If you're in the second, you'll hate it. Save your $20.
I co-founded Art of Mondays, a community for founders building profitable companies on their own terms. I've scaled three businesses past seven figures, each of them inside twelve months.
This book is the operating system underneath all of it. It's the same one the founders inside Art of Mondays run on, which is where most of the stories in here came from.
Freedom is not the reward at the end of the work. Freedom is the operating system you build the work on.Chapter 1
A field manual for building a business and a life you can't wait to wake up to.
The book gives you the thinking. Whether it changes anything depends on what you do in the week after you finish it, which is a different problem.
1. The book. 15 chapters. Read it this weekend, or one chapter a day for two weeks. Each chapter ends with a four-step playbook. Finish a chapter. Close the book. Change one thing. Feel the difference.
2. Priority application to Founder Family. The private community Evan co-founded. Most of the stories in this book came from inside it. This year the collective gathers in a village in France and on a private island in Indonesia.
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Here's what I had wrong for years.
I thought freedom was an operations problem. Build the machine properly, take yourself out of it, walk away free. So I built the machine. It worked. And I found out that a Tuesday afternoon with nothing in the diary is a strange kind of quiet when there's nobody around who understands what it cost to get there.
The founders in this book didn't get free on their own. Every one of them was doing it near other people doing the same thing. That's also the fastest way I know to actually get there, because watching someone run the thing without them beats reading about it.
That's Founder Family. Not a mastermind, not a course. A few hundred founders building this way at the same time, who this year are in a village in France and on an island in Indonesia. Every reader of this book can apply.
Free with the book · application only
Order the book. Read it cover to cover. If a single line in here doesn't shift how you think about your time, your work, or the life you mean to build, email books@artofmondays.com within thirty days. We'll refund every cent. Keep the book. We part as friends.
Is this a physical book or an ebook?
A digital book, PDF and EPUB for Kindle.
What happens right after I pay?
You'll get a choice. Answer a few short questions and download straight away, or skip them and the book lands in your inbox in about ten minutes. The questions are how we work out whether Founder Family is a fit. Either way the book is yours.
I'm not running an eight-figure business. Does this still apply?
Yes. The principles work the same at $10k a month and $500k a month. The trap looks different at each end. The feeling of being trapped doesn't.
How long does it take to read?
A focused weekend, or one chapter a day for two weeks. Each chapter ends with a four-step playbook designed to be acted on, not just read.
Why $20?
We'd give it away free, but free books rarely get read. A small price is the cheapest way to make sure you actually read it and apply it.
What if I don't love it?
Email books@artofmondays.com within 30 days and we'll refund you. Keep the book.
The tools are in your pocket. The map is being drawn in real time by founders building businesses that didn't exist a decade ago, in countries they didn't grow up in, on terms nobody handed them.
None of them are drawing it alone.
You don't need permission. You don't need a bigger team. You don't need another year of grinding. You need the map.
Get the book, $20