Patience is Stupid (But Also ... Not)

As you know, I have been enjoying a month long journey of self discovery. I’ve been using this month to figure out what I want to do next. I’ve been working but I haven’t been taking on any new projects or even entertaining a lot of the ideas that come in my head.

At the beginning of this year, I decided to take my “personal brand” more seriously. I have held true to my commitment and have written one long form article and sent out one awesome newsletter each week for TimStodz.com

The free newsletter functions as a marketing outlet to promote my paid newsletter. In March, my friend Corey and I teamed up to create the product. It’s called The Bootstrapper.

And guess what? It’s actually been working!

I’ve been using all the skills I’ve learned from building Copyblogger and transferring them to my personal work. We have a very long ways to go but I have signed up 27 paid subscribers so far.

Okay Tim, so where are you going with all of this?

When I see something start working, I immediately start thinking of how to do more. How can I make this better? How can we charge more? How can we grow faster?

Yesterday, I rebuilt the entire platform to be on Podia (instead of Substack). This will let us add a lot more functionality to the membership and let us create a better product.

(Here’s a version of the new and improved membership if you want to see.)

But a funny thing happened.

When I woke up this morning, I instantly started thinking of the launch and it didn’t make me feel good. It felt stressful and forced and against the entire purpose of this month long mental and emotional cleansing process.

So I did something that I don’t think I have ever done in my life before.

I reached out to Corey and I said …

Hey … let’s hold off on the switch for a bit. We are building a lot of momentum already and maybe we just focus on creating the best paid newsletter we possibly can for a few months, and then we can upgrade it with focus and patience.”

I actually can’t believe I said that lol.

I feel really good about it. I feel relieved, as though I stopped a runaway train before it got to the downhill section of the tracks.

So .. we will continue onward. I will continue focusing on my part, which is to write the best articles and the best newsletter I can.

Corey will continue writing the best weekly publication for The Bootstrapper, and we will revisit in a few months.