Bruce Kasanoff* discovers that his new project — launching a newsletter on social media — is a marathon rather than a sprint.
After years of writing on social media — and many millions of views — I suddenly feel like an insecure amateur.
At times, my efforts to launch a free newsletter on Substack feel more like a toddler trying and failing to walk than a trained professional taking one more step forward.
My intention is pretty simple: To create an outlet for my work that is outside of the business and career space in which I’ve spent so much of my life.
Seek Awe (that’s the name of my fledgling newsletter) explores many possible paths to experiences that are incredibly uplifting and life-affirming.
To say this another way, if your average day is about 7.5 on a scale of one to 10, I’d like to help you experience a bunch of ‘100-level’ days.
Yet, it seems as though everyone is launching a newsletter right now; I get a dozen invitations a day.
It’s hard to break through the clutter and convince you that my effort will be different, more engaging, motivating and entertaining than all the others.
My original hope was that I’d sign up 10,000 to 20,000 subscribers in a couple of months. After all, it’s free, right?
The reality was a slow climb to around 1,200 over the same period.
It’s tempting to be discouraged. Some days — especially the ones when three people subscribed — that’s exactly how I felt.
Then I remembered the only thing I have to fear is my own lack of resolve.
It might take two months; it might take eight years, but eventually I will have an engaged group of readers who not only look forward to my non-business posts, but who also are active participants in the Seek Awe community.
I dream about sharing adventures, insights and images that come from ‘readers’, which means subscribers who choose not just to read but also to jump in with both feet and share their own journeys.
When this happens, I will have succeeded.
In the meantime, I am re-learning that it is both unsettling and energising to adopt a beginner’s mind.
As Rachel Carson, the late author of Silent Spring, wrote: “A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement.”
I would add, it also is a life in which one scrapes a lot of knees and dissolves into tears with quite a bit of regularity.
As adults, we tend to avoid such disappointments and mishaps. Somehow, I’ve decided to return to that precarious stage.
Perhaps it’s my lifelong desire to avoid living inside the box.
Much as I love working with entrepreneurs, and writing about business as well as careers, I still am driven to stretch whatever boundaries define my existence.
If that occasionally makes me look unfocused or fickle, so be it.
What scares you? And why do you pursue it anyway? I could really use a bit of inspiration as I climb the steep trail ahead of me.
*Bruce Kasanoff is the founder of The Journey, a newsletter for positive, uplifting and accomplished professionals. He is also an executive coach and social media ghostwriter for entrepreneurs. He can be contacted at kasanoff.com.
This article first appeared at kasanoff.com.
