Get your typing fingers ready.... it's Friend Friday!!!! That means that IN THE COMMENTS BELOW, you get to shout out a group that has provided value to you or that you think others would benefit from. But don't just drop a link, give us some context. Let us know what it's amazing, how it has helped you, or what type of person it's meant for. Then tag the person or send them a DM to let them know that you mentioned them here! You'll make their weeking - I promise. 😊 Unfortunately, shoutouts that are posted in the main feed will be deleted. Have a great weekend!

You sit down with your notebook, your favourite pen, maybe a warm drink. Today’s the day you’re finally going to validate that course idea you’ve been thinking about for months. You start doing the searching, the market research. And then you see it... A course that looks a whole lot like what you’ve been planning. The title feels uncomfortably close to what’s in your Google Doc, the creator has a bigger audience, their branding looks polished, they have testimonials, case studies, maybe even a big ad campaign behind them. And very quickly, the story in your head shifts from: “I think this could really help people." to "Great. I’m too late. Someone already did it.” Most people stop right there. They close the tabs.They tell themselves they’re being “realistic.”They quietly downgrade the idea from “potential offer” to “never mind.” But here’s what I want you to sit with: Seeing someone else teaching what you want to teach is not, by itself, evidence that you shouldn’t create your course. It might actually be one of the strongest indicators that you’re onto something valuable. In this week’s episode of The ART of Online Course Creation, I’m digging into that moment: - What’s really going on when you find “your” course already out there - How to look at competitors without spiraling into self-doubt - The difference between “it already exists” and “there’s no room for me” - A behind-the-scenes story about how I navigated this when I saw a very big, very visible creator teaching something that looked a lot like what I do I’m also sharing why some of the popular “validation shortcuts” (like quizzes that tell you if your idea is profitable, or AI tools that promise to do all your market research for you) can leave you more confused, and what to do instead. If you have: - a course idea in your notebook - a half-finished outline in a Google Doc - or just a topic you can’t stop thinking about… …but you keep seeing other people doing something similar and using that as a reason to hesitate, this episode is for you.

Imagine I'm 10 YEARS OLD. 🧒 How would you explain your: >YOUR EXPERT SUBJECT AREA >COMMUNITY >WHY COFFEE TASTES DIFFERENT THAN IT SMELLS >WORK >HOBBY >WHY THE SKY IS BLUE >HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT COLOR FOR YOUR SKIN TONE >OTHER TOPIC YOU'RE FAMILIAR WITH Choose ONE or ALL. One comment per answer 👍 Tag! You're it! 👍 Comment below. 👇 Hanging out with you, Iris

"If you lose your cool, you lose control." (DOAC interview with DESMOND O’NEILL.) We all experience moments where we might say or do something we didn't mean. What are your tips and hacks that help you maintain your COOL and therefore maintain CONTROL? I'll share mine in the comments. Staying cool with you, Iris

First, people always try to reframe the word failure, so I would like to start by saying that to me, failure is nothing more than the best opportunity to learn from something that didn't go the way I wanted. Now that's out of the way... For years, I wanted to create my own course, but I had no idea what to create it about. I stumbled and fumbled around but didn't get much of anywhere. That's when I stopped and took a closer look at affiliate marketing. I thought you needed a huge list to make money as an affiliate, but I learned you don't. I thought you needed a bunch of expensive software and complicated tools, but you don't. What I learned is that you just need simplicity. (In my opinion, Skool is the answer) You may not have wanted to create a course as I did, but there's a good chance you wanted to create some kind of online business at some point. If that's you, then maybe affiliate marketing is for you. To learn more about affiliate marketing, the simple way, check out Affiliate Freedom Collective