During last week’s call with the amazing Meg Lewis, I retold her story about being true to who you are, and how that brings the right people into your orbit – the people you wanna work with!

Exactly. We don’t give people enough credit. There’s so much advice out there that you need to be a certain way to be successful, to win big, to niche down… advice that goes against who we actually are, which is really complicated, interesting people.

It’s so freeing to realize that I’m constantly very complicated. My career is so strange. It doesn’t make any sense. You can’t put me in a box or even explain me to anybody else. And that goes against all the advice that everyone always gives.

But we really underestimate people’s ability to be comfortable with complexity. People are totally fine with the fact that I’m unusual, and they still somehow get it. That allows me the freedom to keep being unusual and complicated. I don’t feel like I’ve wedged myself into a category I can’t get out of.

Being loudly complicated… people get it, and I’m so amazed that they do. People understand that humans are human, and now more than ever, people really want to see real human beings. That’s how you truly innovate: being somebody and doing something different than anybody else could possibly do.

Any of us could play the game and follow the formulas for success. But we’re not going to be fulfilled. We’re going to feel terrible, because we’re still performing as this other version of ourselves.

The pressure to niche down is big – we see it everywhere, pushed especially from the social media platforms. As Jaime Derringer says, “the algorithm. The feed, the platform, the notification. These are all literally designed to sort us, to puts us into categories, so it can feeds us content that confirms and deepens those categories.”

But as Meg says, “we really underestimate people’s ability to be comfortable with complexity.” We are expansive, and deep, and there are people out there that will resonate with your depth!

If you’re done performing as the bland, algorithmic-friendly version of yourself, you belong here.

In our recent “Why Every Artist Needs a Website” group call, someone asked about including your credentials (like a Phd.) on your site.

Someone with a Phd. chimed in with a bit of caution, basically saying that if you have a professional license and malpractice insurance, talk to your agent before putting your credentials on a website that isn’t directly related to your practice.

Like, include your credentials on your psychology practice website, sure. But you’d probably want to talk to your insurer before putting it on your life coach website.

This is definitely a case of “talk to a professional” when dealing with the nuances of your particular field of work.

Sitting down to write your next newsletter shouldn’t be painful. Not when you post a few times a week on Substack Notes, or have an archive of years of posts on various social media platforms. You might even have long abandoned blogs, or YouTube channels.

You’ve put out years of thoughts and ideas and observations into the world, never to be seen or heard from again, so don’t be afraid to revisit them!

You can copy and paste them, or just write a whole new take on an idea you had five years ago – whatever you do, it’ll work because it’s from you, and where you’re at right now.

As I said in “Writing a Newsletter Shouldn’t Beat You Up,” this doesn’t need to be hard.

“Your newsletter writing shouldn’t be a prison sentence. It shouldn’t feel like digging ditches. It shouldn’t be fraught with stress, or like dealing with a horrible boss. None of these things are desirable, and yet so many times we create these situations for ourselves.”

Maybe you struggle with sending out a regularly scheduled newsletter. You know you should send something to your subscribers, but some days it just feels harder than others.

Well, come to Thursday’s NOTES TO NEWS LETTERS Zoom call and join the conversation. One blog post, or one “webinar with a presentation deck” won’t have all the answers, but meeting with other creative people with the same struggles might help you figure this out!

NOTES TO NEWS LETTERS ZOOM CALL
Thurs, May 14 from 2:00PM – 3:00PM EDT (recording available)
Register here: https://luma.com/fku24gz8

Well, this was a bit of sunshine in my inbox recently, from photographer Gritchelle Fallesgon:

“I recently attended a Zoom gathering where singer and artist Nikki Lerner said, “Stop hoarding your creativity.” Those words really hit home and nudged me to get this out of my drafts and into your inbox.”

I set up that Zoom gathering, with two lovely people who happened to form choirs, a wonderful display of not hoarding your creativity, for sure!

But as Gritchelle mentions, this also goes for sending out a newsletter that’s been sitting in drafts for awhile, too! People signed up for your email list, and you’ve been doing cool stuff – so don’t hoard that creativity from the people who most likely want to know about it!

Tweaking headlines, re-writing copy, adding testimonials, changing the color the button – you’ve done all these things, but you’re still not making the sale.

Two things – maybe your offering isn’t something that people need, or maybe there’s not enough trust yet.

I got talking about this in my conversation with Deanna Seymour, about sales pages. Well, long sales pages. You’ve seen them; two miles longs, 9000 words, and they don’t say anything.

Like Deanna says during this conversation, by the time she’s on a sales page, she already knows she wants the thing, to which I replied:

“I think it’s a trust thing. The trust that (is) built. Like, there are people that we both know, they could send a Google Doc with a PayPal button on it. Yes, I’m signing up because we built that trust. We trust them now. I don’t know that an 18-page sales page builds trust. I think the trust comes way before someone clicks on your sales page.”

You don’t fix trust with more copy. You fix trust by, well, building trust.

You build trust by showing up and doing what you say you’re going to do. By fixing the things you say you fix, and showing how you do it. Every step of the way, you’re reinforcing the belief that you’re the right person for the job.

I’ve seen a bunch of coaching websites with the “click here to book an intro call,” but not a single video showing their face, their tone, their vibes.

How do you build trust with a “book now” button?

Why would any woman hop on a call with a man in 2026 without seeing some videos?

Why would anyone sign up for a virtual yoga class without hearing your voice, or seeing how you manage an online session?

These things aren’t fixed with 5,000 word sales pages, or reading testimonials from people we don’t know. Trust is built brick by brick, by showing up as your full human self, and sometimes that includes seeing your face and hearing your voice.

Listen to “Building a Business Without Social Media with Seth Werkheiser” on Deanna Seymour’s Big Fun, Small Business podcast here.

Everything you post, big or small, can inform the next thing you post. This from Debbie Weil, emphasis mine:

“I had decided not to publish this week; my editor Erin Shetron was taking a week off to drive across country, as she moves from Oregon to Philly. So I figured I’d take a week off too. But I missed writing and publishing; I pulled out my laptop yesterday afternoon and wrote this in about three hours. It’s not deep or difficult (it’s partially based on some Notes I wrote earlier).”

Your ardent supporters are on your email list, but most will never see your Note on Substack, or a random post on Threads, so repurpose that work for your subscribers!

I’ve said this for years – if you’ve been posting on social media for years, writing your next newsletter is easy, because it’s already written.

Most of your followers didn’t see your latest social media post, so re-use the photos and text and ideas and craft them into your next newsletter, where more people will see it. Give those “random posts” oxygen, new life – you never know where they might lead with the right attention!

NOTES TO NEWS LETTERS ZOOM CALL
Thursday, May 14 at 2:00 PM EDT
Replay available if you sign up.
Pay what you want, starting at $3.00
Register for the Zoom call here: https://luma.com/fku24gz8

Meg Lewis recently posted “The Grown-Up’s Guide to Growing Down,” a permission slip to skip acting our age:

“The way out is to tap into humanity, love, joy, curiosity, and play. Just like we were all born to do. The adults want us to think doing this is nonsensical and ‘childish’. But ‘childish’ is a term created to keep us alienated from what we were all supposed to be this whole time.”

Grown ups say we need to be on every social media platform, save 10% using the code BORING for our lame Square Space site, sand off all the corners of our personality, and definitely listen to what everyone says on YouTube.

Instead, we can just never log into LinkedIn again.
We can stop playing venues that serve alcohol.
Stop chasing book publishers or record labels.

We can make the things we want, the way we wanna make ’em.

So hey, sign up to hang out with Meg and I on Thursday’s Escape Pod Zoom call, and hear how Meg is navigating her own Candy Land world and soak up the inspiration from her and others living how they wanna live!

ESCAPE POD #118 W/ SPECIAL GUEST MEG LEWIS
Thursday, May 7th at 2:00pm EST
Replay available if you sign up.
Register for the Zoom call here: https://luma.com/jzdkvpp2

I get to talk to a lot of creative people, and whenever I mention the whole “having a website,” folks tune out. I think this happens because for the last decade we’ve been hammering our creative round pegs into the templated square hole website builder platforms, and they feel gross.

Not to mention we’ve been throwing our best work onto social media platforms, where at least we get some LIKES and replies on occasion, right (even when hardly anyone sees them).

For me, posting to my site (like right now) is lower stakes writing. I don’t need to think about if an algorithm will pick it, or if someone might misinterpret me and leave a nasty comment.

This site exists between something like Morning Pages, which no one will see, or a full-blown email newsletter, which goes to thousands of people.

Here is where ideas germinate, in public, with just enough tension. Something I write is likely to be referenced a week from now, or even a year (or more) later.

“My blog posts inform the posts I haven’t written yet, they become the solutions to problems I didn’t know I had. They get referenced in member calls and workshops. They become subconscious scripts for future conversations I’ll have months from now.”

Good ideas have to start somewhere.