Trying to Get my Head on Straight
I left Boston last Tuesday. I’ve been at home, without my family for 6 days. It has been much more difficult than I thought it would be.
I have been having trouble gaining control of my thoughts. The only coping mechanism I have for this is to write. So I will write, because that’s what I do.
1. What should I do with my newsletter? - I have spent the last 4 years building my subscriber base at TimStodz.com. I now have 15,000 email subscribers. I haven’t missed a Friday newsletter in over a year. The commitment means a lot to me. However, things have changed.
Now that I am the owner of Copyblogger, it makes a lot more sense for me to send my newsletter out to that audience. The structure of the content is perfectly suited for Copyblogger and there are 100,000 subscribers on that list.
So I will continue to send out my newsletter as planned, but what do I do with my personal site?
I have this strange compulsion to create and to create under my own name. It’s not about building a brand as much as it is about investing in my future. My “personal brand” is coming with me for the rest of my life. I want to keep building upon it, but I don’t know what to do.
Maybe I’ll shut down this blog and do my free writing over there. Maybe I’ll use it to document my adventures. I have no idea.
I hope the answers will come.
2. I am not writing enough - The last 6 months have been HAARRDDDDDD. Jules and I are raising two kids, on our own, with no family, in a new city, half way across the country. It’s just us. There is no one here to help us.
In addition, we still work out every day and try our best to find time for ourselves.
If you combine that with the added tension of the Copyblogger deal, I feel as though my mind hasn’t had any space to be free. It’s been GO GO GO! and THINK THINK THINK!
I tell myself that I should be able to handle the stress. That I should be grateful for having such an amazing life and family. I think I should be able to do more.
Maybe that’s true, maybe I’m working too hard. Regardless, this busyness has cost me my writing.
I wake up at 4 am every Friday to get my newsletter sent out. That’s how busy it’s been.
I have to find a way to get utility over my thoughts and I have to learn how to be comfortable in the stillness. I have the time, but it will require me to do less and to lean on my team more and most importantly, to have faith in an uncertain future without filling up every second of my day because I will force a more favorable outcome for myself.
If I am not writing, then I am not processing life.
I need to write. It’s part of who I am. When I have a regular writing schedule, I feel as though I can more easily make sense of the world.
I need to restructure my priorities. I need to write.
3. I have to start taking outbound seriously - I’ve been thinking so much about my sales process. I have rested easy at night knowing that I have a sales skill and that at the end of the day, I could always depend on myself to create content, book calls, and make sales. But as time goes on and as the ship gets bigger, I think the next step for me is to seriously look at building an outbound team.
I’ve been talking about it for months. I know I have to do it, but I feel intimidated by it. I’ve never done it before. Where do I even start?
I will start in the same place I always do … with a book.