Category: WorkCategory: Work

On our recent “Find Your People On Substack” call we talked about finding our people, which of course led to building an audience, getting more subscribers.

But what if we think beyond mere subscribers?

We dream of reaching a big audience, but what does it mean if we’ve got no one to lean on? On our lowest days, who are the people that we can text or get on a phone call with?

We don’t just need a big subscriber count, we need good people in our corner.

Come to our FINDING YOUR PEOPLE ON SUBSTACK – SATURDAY EDITION this weekend.

Saw this while walking around Portsmouth, NH, from the “Public Poetry Project.” This is run by the Portsmouth Poet Laureate Program, where they organize submissions from poets to be featured in businesses around town.

There are people who would love your work and they aren’t even on social media – they might just be out walking around town!

This isn’t about growth hacks or audience building, it’s about finding your people on Substack (and beyond).

Step by step instructions are for putting together Ikea furniture, not building fanbases. We’re dealing with real people, with complex lives, not shelving units. Through the tension of talking with strangers about our work, we gain understanding, and see the possibilities through the eyes of other people, and their journeys traveled to get there.

Our Escape Pod Zoom calls provide the on ramp to such conversations. Finding our way with intention, because we’re done hoping or wishing for an algorithm to magically deliver us our biggest fans, right?

Thursday, May 28 from 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EDT
Register here → https://luma.com/84g45pka

Saturday, May 30 from 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM EDT
Register here: https://luma.com/j33otsdz

Brye posted a video about making her song “Lemons” on an iPad issued from her high school:

“How crazy is it that a song that could be on Sirius XM Radio, streamed a hundred million times, literally chart on the global top like viral 50 or whatever… it was literally made on GarageBand. You do not need fancy equipment, you do not need a degree to make money and to do this is your job.”

The second part of the video hits on something I’m always talking about on our Zoom calls, which is talking to and learning from other people:

“Watch YouTube videos, ask the people in your life who also might do music, or people online for tips for advice. Most of the learning I have done has been watching other people produce, or asking questions, or like watching those interviews… like my favorite interview of all time I think, Ethan Groska, he’s my favorite producer, and I learned so much from like an interview called like Meet the Makers I think and he talks about his process.”

Watch the full clip here via TikTok. Link via Daring Fireball.

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.