Author: Dan Blank

My days are spent talking with writers and creators, and many of them have shared with me that they felt frustrated in the ways that big tech companies seem to prevent them from reaching their audiences. Today, I want to share a manifesto of sorts, but also practical steps that I use every day to help people reach actual readers — real people — and develop colleagues who will support their writing.

There is a profound difference between your life being filled with a “content strategy,” vs. being filled with actual conversations, moments, and experiences with people who are moved by what you create. I say this as someone whose corporate title at a publisher years ago was “Director of Content Strategy,” and who helps writers develop a “content strategy” every single day. But that is a tool, not the goal.

So I’m going to be frank here: stop trying to please the algorithms. Full stop.

What are the algorithms? Often they are how a social network chooses what to show people. For instance, it’s not uncommon for me to hear someone say, “Instagram used to show my post to so many people, but then the algorithms changed, and now they don’t show it to nearly as many.” Algorithms seem to exist in all the big places you find stuff online.

The rest of this essay is not going to be some rant against algorithms. Instead, I want to focus on the positive, practical, meaningful actions that you can take — TODAY — to help you share your writing and connect with real people. These are actions that will help you feel connected and fulfilled as a writer and creator

To be honest, I feel like some algorithms have a super useful function. When I’m scrolling through a social network, I kind of like how they are showing me things that are getting a lot of conversation, or that seem more tuned to my interests, or posts by people who I tend to engage with first. It fills my day with wonderful posts by Meera Lee Patel, Samantha Dion Baker, Courtney Maum, and so many others. My Facebook feed this week is filled with updates from the parents of my childhood friend who are celebrating their 56th wedding anniversary, as well as those professing their love of Star Trek. These things make my days brighter.

The Spotify algorithm does an amazing job of putting new bands in front of me that I have never heard of, and whose music I end up loving. At the end of each year, Spotify shows you your most listened to artists. Do you know which artist I ended up listening to the most last year? Lomelda. Ever hear of her before? Me neither, not before Spotify put it in my feed. I listen to music for around 3 hours everyday, and in 2023 I was in the top 1% of her listeners. I don’t know anything about her, but I have listened to her songs hundreds and hundreds of times in 2023, and loved every moment of it.

I don’t follow her on social media or get her newsletter. I’ve never checked her tour schedule and have no idea if she does/did play with other bands. I don’t know her story of becoming a musician. But I know that if she comes out with a new song or collaboration, Spotify’s algorithm will put it at the top of my feed. And as someone whose primary hobby years ago was traveling to record stores to seek out new music, I do appreciate that music I love is being delivered to me the moment it is released. It’s ridiculous that Spotify only costs my family something like $20 per month. What would I actually pay that equals its true value to me? $49 per month? $99 per month? $149? More? I’m not even sure where my limit would be.

So as a consumer, I have appreciated the benefits that algorithms can sometimes bring me. As a creator, I do feel they bring value, as well. For instance, Substack’s algorithm in their Notes feed shares my messages to those that wouldn’t have reached without it.

This is my point: you can benefit from an algorithm without having to play into it. And without having to feel that algorithms dictate what you share and how you do so. Here is some advice on how to navigate this:

Instead of considering “what the algorithm likes,” consider “what people like.”

Can you align to the algorithm without disrupting your personal happiness and professional fulfillment? I think so. Simply consider the person you hope to reach. Because that is what really matters. When I am sharing a Note on Substack, I am considering what real people may appreciate — something useful or inspiring, something that aligns to their goals or challenges, or something easy to engage with.

Even if you want to take into account “things we know the algorithms favor,” you can do so in a more human-centered way. For example, it’s been clear for a while now that while many people originally came to know of Instagram through their grid format of square photos, today their algorithm prefers videos posted to Reels or Stories. Can you still post to the grid? Sure.

But we can also consider why video may be more engaging to one’s ideal audience. How it utilizes a multitude of ways to engage through different senses: one’s face and expression, nonverbal cues, language, music, movement, etc.

Is Instagram promoting video for some horrible agenda? Possibly. Do people tend to like seeing other people, and get engaged when there are more ways you are aligning to a multitude of senses. Yes.

So if you choose to do more video Reels on Instagram, don’t do so because you are being “forced to” by the algorithm. Explore it — if you like — to consider how it can truly make someone’s day brighter.

Focus on one person, not “an audience.”

I’ve shared this advice extensively over the years, but want to apply it to the idea of the algorithm, social media, and your ability to have agency in sharing your creative work.

I haven’t posted to Instagram since March, X/Twitter since November, my Facebook page since December, or my podcast since February. Now, my work is the only way that my family is supported from a financial perspective. So it’s important that people learn about my work and ways that they can collaborate with me. It would be easy to justify that social media is essential to this.

Yet… my business hasn’t fallen apart since I went silent on social media.

To be clear, I’m on social media constantly throughout the day viewing what others share, hundreds of times I would estimate. And I will be coming back to posting on social media in the fall.

But I want to challenge this perception of things you “have to” do. You don’t have to do anything. You can delete your Instagram, give away your mobile phone, and stop dancing on TikTok. The world will still spin. You can still create, publish, and connect with readers.

Ignore “the data.”

Just do what feels right. Learn from observing and talking to other real people. In my experience, you will drive yourself bonkers trying to identify “the exact right time to…” or “the exact right way to…” do something.

What is the best time to send a newsletter? When it is least stressful to you personally, and least disruptive to your own creative process.

Why is that? Because “the data” can often be read multiple ways, and is sometimes incomplete. And “data” can age poorly when people act on it. For instance, if everyone reads that Tuesdays are the best time to send a newsletter, then everyone does it. Then suddenly Tuesdays become the worst days because people’s inboxes are inundated. So the reality is now “any day but Tuesday is the best day to send a newsletter,” But the “data” doesn’t reflect that. (I made up this data, by the way, just to illustrate the point.)

Also, it could be “proven” that sending a newsletter on weekdays has a higher open rate and more engagement. But I subscribe to incredibly smart people whose business relies on their newsletter, and they send it on… the weekend. Oh no!!!!

Yet, they and their businesses still survive.

Want to feel better about how to share? Engage in the process of finding out what feels right to you. When you are unsure, talk to others who are sharing and learn about the nuances of their process, and the reasons behind it.

Choose creative clarity over algorithms.

I understand why people seek to understand and align to the algorithms — they want to know “what works right now,” and they hope that by aligning to them, they will benefit from what they offer. That’s totally fine.

But I speak to so many writers and creators who bemoan the algorithm, and feel it has ruined the ways they enjoy sharing. I get that too.

For myself, I tend to feel that the algorithm isn’t the primary problem to solve, but rather, creative clarity is. This also gives me practical and meaningful things to work on each day:

• Identify clear ways to communicate
• Identify clear ways to publish
• Identify clear ways to engage
• Identify clear ways to connect

This week, I’ve been working with a group of writers helping them find clarity in their creative work through my Clarity Cards process. (You can still join us — just become a paid subscriber and you will get immediate access to the first 37 minute lesson, and our private group Chat here on Substack.) Here is one person’s work in process as we work towards a pyramid of 10 cards:

In this process, I am not just teaching, but going deep by redoing my own Clarity Cards, and collaborating with the group as we all work through this together. As I reassess my life, I am focusing on the personal connections, meaningful experiences, and moments that truly matter.

When you consider how you find clarity and share your work, I encourage you to focus on things that give you meaningful experiences and lead to personal & professional fulfillment with real people.

Please let me know in the comments: what kinds of experiences do you hope to have as you share your writing and creative work with others?

Thank you for being here with me.
-Dan

Today I’m thinking about the distance between you and your readers. The audience that you hope your writing reaches. Those who will receive what you create with open arms, and whose lives it will change in some small, but important, way.

This week my family and I took a little trip to Long Island and stayed in an adorable A-frame on the water:

Right outside our window was a dock with a light, and across the water was the other shore of the bay, with lights of their own beckoning. Here is the view at sunset:

Of course, the house had a copy of The Great Gatsby in it:

It’s been awhile since I last read this book, but my memory is that Jay Gatsby lived on one side of a bay, and the woman he pined for — Daisy — lived on the other. A green light on the end of her dock beckoned him. In the end, so much of Gatsby’s life was spent seeking a love and acceptance he desperately desired, yet could never seem to reach.

This had me considering the distance between what we each write and our ability to reach our readers. How the intention of our writing (why we write) meets the fulfillment of that potential (when someone becomes aware of it, and embraces it.) I’ve often said that creative work is complete when it reaches someone. In that magical moment, it is the blend of the intention of the writer, and the life experience and perspective that the reader brings.

I’ve spent decades helping writers reach their readers, and the full-time work I’ve done for 14 years is exactly this. This week is actually the anniversary of my little company, WeGrowMedia, and the moment I took a risk to work directly with writers and forge a new path, instead of seeking the safety in corporate employment.

I spend every day talking with writers. I hear about their goals, their frustrations, their dreams, and their realities. And we discuss the distance between them and their readers.

Staring across the bay on Long Island, it’s interesting to consider how a writer might feel: “Am I Gatsby or Daisy? Am I someone drawing people to my writing, or am I seeking readers who always feel somewhat distant, just out of reach?”

I often hear people talk about how much more challenging it is to reach readers today than it used to be. If I’m honest, I tend to hold the opposite view. I marvel at the idea that you can be a writer living somewhere that may feel distant from your creative dreams — perhaps those around you don’t support your writing, and you don’t have an obvious creative community local to you. And yet, you can:

• Write! The tools of writing have never been more accessible. I keep a collection of typewriters in my studio to remind me that in the past you would have to be able to afford these big clunky machines, maintain them, and have a place for them that was safe for you to write. Today, you can write nearly anywhere on a wide range of tools. I know an author who is incredibly prolific, and does quite a bit of writing on his phone. Or another who has told me about writing their novels while waiting in the car line at their kid’s school.
• Publish! I work with writers who publish in a myriad of ways, from the traditional path of signing with a literary agent and then an established publishing house, to hybrid publishing, indie publishing, and everything in-between. And even this very post sent via Substack is me publishing. I spent years printing and distributing my own zine in the 1990s. It was very expensive, labor intensive, and reached a tiny audience. Today the options are so much more accessible and powerful.
• Share! There are a myriad of ways to share your work in a manner that may actually reach someone. Most social networks are free to use, the internet celebrates good writing, and the offline world of bookstores, cafes, book clubs, and events is still thriving.
• Connect! Is there someone you admire, or an influencer you hope to reach? Today, you have more avenues to reach them than ever before via email, a direct message, social media, or other means. So many people write and create, but feel they don’t have access to others. Yet, that access is possible if you are willing to take a very reasonable social risk of sending an email. Not sure where to begin? Simply send a gratitude email to someone you admire.
• Engage! There are so many more ways to engage with like-minded people today around your writing. Engaging with like-minded writers, readers, and those who support work like yours is an amazing way to not only feel validation and community, but to live a life filled with conversations and experiences around the themes you love exploring in your writing.

I would love to know in the comments: do you feel there is a distance between you and your readers? What is one thing that has worked for you in the past to reach a single person with your writing or creative work?

And a final reminder to join me for Clarity Cards, which begins Monday. Become a paid subscriber to be a part of this:

Thank you for being here with me.

-Dan

My mom turns 79 today, so I want to share a story that illustrates a valuable skill that she taught me. It’s a skill that I still teach to writers every week, and it is central to your ability to effectively share your writing with readers. If you are someone who feels your books, essays, newsletters, stories and ideas should matter to readers, then this post is for you. Oh, and please say ‘Happy birthday, Barbara!’ to my mom in the comments.

What is this skill that I speak of? It’s not some special button on Amazon, the secret to social media ads, or how to go viral on Substack. It’s this:

How to ask.

Ask for what? For anything. For attention. For someone to buy your book. To attend an event. To review your book. To be there for you when you need them the most. Learn this skill to ask for the stuff that makes our lives worth living: connection, validation, and meaningful experiences that ties us to each other.

So I would like to start with an example of asking, then dig into practical tips and advice for how you can do this for yourself.

In the 1980s, my family had a small baseball card business. On the weekends we set up a table at card shows to buy and sell cards with collectors. At a show in Manhattan, one of the people signing autographs was Muhammad Ali. My mother paid for the tickets for us to meet him and waited in line with my brother and I. I was maybe 9 years old, and my brother was around 13. Here is my family behind our table at a show (I’m on the right):

When we met Ali, he signed autographs for us and shook our hands. I was in total awe. He was gracious and fully present.

But then, my mom did something unexpected. She asked, “Can I take a photo of you with my boys?”

This was more than two decades before selfies were a thing, and in an era where conventions didn’t offer photos with the celebrity guests. Ali said that there was a long line of people he didn’t want to keep waiting, but he would see what he could do later on.

Sure enough, a couple of hours later, we heard an announcement over the PA system: “Would the woman who wanted to have her kids’ photos taken with Muhammad Ali please come to the front? He has to leave now.”

They took us into an empty corridor in a random corner of the hotel, and we began to pose to take a photo side-by-side, facing the camera. But then Muhammad stopped and said, “Wait a minute.” He turned to me and pretended to throw a punch as a pose for the photo. Here it is:

Okay, that is a (slightly) edited version of the original, which had my brother in the background, see below left. Plus he got his own photo with Ali:

My mom did the unexpected in that moment. She took a risk to ask for something special and the results created one of the best moments of my life.

When I met Brené Brown, I asked for a selfie and she was quick to agree:

We talked about the work I do with writers and after I walked away, she yelled and called me back over. “You are like a midwife for writers,” she said. It was a generous thing for her say, and a description I could never use because of my profound respect for the work that midwives do.

Brené didn’t have to call me back over — there was a long line of people waiting to meet her. Muhammed didn’t have to spend time taking a photo with me and my brother after signing hundreds of autographs. But they chose to do this, just as my mom chose to ask.

So much of marketing is not about doing the expected — the same practices as everyone else — but about doing the unexpected. I’m not talking about shock and surprise tactics, but rather, efforts that are authentic and meaningful.

Where might the skill of outreach and simply asking come in handy for a writer? Some ideas:

• Emailing another author who writers in your genre to just say ‘thank you’ and perhaps establish a connection.
• Asking for a book blurb.
• Asking an author to be a part of a virtual or in-person book event with you.
• Asking readers to subscribe to your newsletter.
• Querying an agent or publisher.
• Pitching yourself as a guest on a podcast.
• So many other aspects of what it means to be public, share your work, and develop a platform around your writing.

Too many authors wait to do these things, often until just before book launch. They wait for what they perceive to be a “perfect” time ask. But by then, they have often waited too long to really develop the connections they need.

As I considered my mom and Muhammad Ali, I remembered the many ways that my parents taught me to focus on outreach, connection, and relationships as being the core of what it means to share one’s work and find success.

• My mom sold Tupperware in the mid-1970s
• My mom sold Avon in the late 1970s to early 1980s
• My parents had a stamp business in the 1970s
• My family had a baseball card business in the 1980s and 1990s
• My mom was a realtor in the 1980s and 1990s

It’s funny to consider how much of my childhood was spent behind a table at a show, watching my parents prepare orders, and joining my mom and/or dad on visits with customers and colleagues.

Infused in every part of this was how they established a sense of clear communication and trust with the other person. My parents pursued these activities because they truly enjoyed them. And that meant that everything was more fulfilling when you cared about the people you were engaging with. I was able to observe thousands of asks during this time. My parents making deals, and ensuring that both they and their customers felt it was a fair trade.

My family developed friendships that lasted years and years with customers. I can still see their faces and hear their voices — the specific customers I would expect to see at different shows we went to year after year.

These were businesses built on connections between people, and their shared appreciations for the product they were there for. I’m actually getting emotional as I write this, which means there is a strong likelihood of you seeing an upcoming post of me titled, “What Authors Can Learn About Book Launches from Selling Avon in the 1970s.”

I would imagine that in your history, you have your own version of this. Perhaps not inside businesses that your parents ran, but with someone you knew growing up who seemed to get stuff done because they knew about the value of how to engage with other people.

While that isn’t why a lot of people start writing, I do think it is a critical part of how writing gets shared, and how readers engage. With the examples above, my parents weren’t selling random goods just to make a profit. They really liked what they sold and understood how these things helped people. Theirs were businesses built on joy, appreciation, and connection.

How can you effectively ask other people for things that support your writing? Some tips:

• Be clear. Too many people try to make the ask without ever actually asking. That usually leads to confusion and frustration.
• Focus on one ask at a time, when possible.
• Don’t hide the ask — put it up front. In other words, don’t write a 7 paragraph email, just hiding an ask in the middle of paragraph 6.
• Understand if the ask is reasonable. Is it a small, but meaningful action? What steps would the person need to take and do they understand them?
• Consider the objections the other person may have, and address them. This is not about “talking them into it,” but about empathy.
• Consider how what you are asking could align to the goals/preferences of the person you are asking — how it would be something they truly want to do.

For instance, there is a difference between emailing a friend and asking:

“I was told I have to ask people to post reviews for my book on Amazon. I know it’s a pain, but I’m trying to get a hang of this author platform thing. Anything you could post would be great.”

Vs.

“You have been such a big supporter of my writing thank you. I want to ask if you could do something important: post a review of my book on Amazon? Doing so helps potential readers know if this book is for them. It means more people who will love this book may find it.”

The first one sounds like a chore, and the second is filled with purpose for both the person asking and the person being asked. Of course, asking works in both directions. You can also reach out to a writer you know and ask, “How can I help share your writing?”

You never know unless you ask. It may lead to extraordinary experiences and connections that last a lifetime.

Please let me know in the comments: do you have a story of taking a risk to ask for something that lead to a meaningful experience?

Thank you for being here with me.
-Dan

I am launching a brand new workshop series, and invite you to join me. The first workshop focuses on something I have taught for more than a decade: Clarity Cards.

Clarity Cards are a simple process to find more time and energy to make writing and creativity a priority in your life. This is the foundation for setting milestones and goals that will truly move your writing and creative work forward. Most people I speak with struggle to find the time and energy to write and create amidst so many other responsibilities and distractions. Clarity Cards solves that. Without this process, you don’t have a firm footing for creative growth.

In helping writers reach their audience, I have found that the first essential ingredient is creative clarity. When you have creative clarity, you:

• Know exactly what to create.
• Have confidence in your identity as a creator.
• Prioritize what to work on (and what not to.)
• Focus your attention on what matters most to you.
• Create a clear plan.

Clarity Cards are a tool. The results are a clear sense of what to focus on first, and how it will lead you to the milestones and goals that matter most to you. What you will end up with is a pyramid of 10 prioritized cards that will help you feel focused and make clear decisions to find more time and energy to write. I have taken hundreds of people through this process, and have used them myself for years. In fact, I will be redoing my own Clarity Cards as part of this workshop. This is what they look like:

They look simple, but they have a powerful way of reframing not just your creative goals, but your entire life. I have seen this exercise lead to profound breakthroughs for people, as well as practical ways to find more time and energy to write.

Clarity Cards Changed My Life

Fifteen years ago, I sat down on the floor of my old apartment and took out a stack of index cards. The floors were wildly uneven, and whoever installed the carpet in the living room did it wrong — there was this harsh ridge running diagonally across the floor. There I sat, on one side of the carpet ridge, and on each index card I wrote down a goal for my life.

After I had around 10 cards, I organized them into a pyramid where the single biggest goal was at the top. This became the Clarity Card process. Not long ago, I found my original Clarity Cards. They included a mix of intentions, but one card jumped out at me:

At the time, my wife and I did not yet have kids. I was working at a large publishing company, commuting about an hour and a half each way to work.

With these index cards, I reassessed the distance between my daily reality and the life I hoped to lead. The “stay at home dad” thing was my way of saying that I wanted to be present in the lives of my family once we had kids — not always on a train or in an office 30 miles away from my wife and kids.

The second part of that card included a frantic question: “Earn money from home. How?!” A year or so later, this is me:

In this photo, I am signing forms to formalize the ending of my employment at my job. To the right are the stacks of thank you cards from my wife’s baby shower. That summer, I started my company working with writers at the moment when we were the most uncertain about our future. We took the leap represented in the Clarity Cards.

Since that time, I have run my own business for 14 years. I work in a private studio a mile away from my house, or in my home office, and see my family regularly throughout the day.

It’s astounding to look at this index card and consider the moment I wrote it, and then look at my life today, which has answered the question of “how?” My life has lived up to the intention of that goal. I’m thankful for this every moment of every day.

I have been thinking a lot about what the next version of my Clarity Cards will look like. I’ll redo them this summer, and decided it would be fun to have a collaborative process where we all work on our Clarity Cards together!

Join Me!

This is a 3-week program where you join me and my community to develop your Clarity Cards. This is how to join us and how it works:

• To be a part of it, simply become a paid member of my Substack. That’s it.
• The cost is $9 per month, or $6.58 per month if you pay for an entire year up front, which is a 27% discount. You can sign up or upgrade here:
• This is a 3-week program. We begin on Monday, July 8th.
• Each Monday (July 8th, 15th, and 23rd), I will send you a lesson via email that includes a video in which I take you through each step. I’ll also work through my own Clarity Cards to show you a specific example of how I navigate this process.
• What do you need to participate? Maybe some index cards or pieces of scrap paper. And a pen or pencil. That’s it. Oh, and a willingness to go deep into what truly matters most to you and what you write and create!
• At the end of each lesson, you will receive a specific homework assignment.
• You will gain access to my brand new private Substack Chat where I will share prompts, and you can share your work, stay accountable, and engage with other writers and creators moving through this process.
• You will end the three weeks with a completed set of Clarity Cards.

The results of this workshop will be you saying, “I’m proud of myself,” and me and my community saying, “We’re proud of you too!” And maybe you will have some new creative friends too!

If you aren’t already a paid subscriber, you can become one here:

The official name of this workshop is: Clarity Cards: Create More of What Matters, and it is the first of a new series I am running under the banner of The Creative Success Workshop Series.

My mission is to help you create more and ensure it connects with your ideal readers in a meaningful way. I’m excited for this series because it is more collaborative. Success only happens if you put in the work, and I find that is best done with others. We all get stuck with too many ideas, too much overwhelm, too many habits that feel comfortable, but don’t move us ahead. Collaboration changes that. And to be honest, this summer, I want to spend more time with people like you — writers and readers. This is going to be fun!

If you are a paid subscriber, or become one, please introduce yourself in my private Substack Chat! You can access Chat either in the Substack app on your phone, or when logged into Substack on your computer.

Here are some FAQs (or what I imagine your FAQs to be, this is a brand new workshop after all):

Q: “Dan, what is the schedule?”
A: From Monday, July 8th to Friday, July 26th, we will move through three weeklong lessons. You will receive a lesson (with a video) from me on Mondays via email, and I will give you homework for that week. Throughout the week, I will share prompts in my Substack Chat, and you can also engage with others in the workshop and share your work (if you feel comfortable with that).

Q: “Dan, do I have to show up anywhere at a specific day or time?”
A: Nope! You will receive lessons via email and any collaboration with others in the workshop happens in Substack Chat. Attend to this when you can during the week.

Q: “Dan, will you give me specific feedback on my goals and challenges with this?”
A: It’s possible, but not guaranteed. I’m going to be active in the Chat, sharing a lot of smaller updates and answering questions as we work through Clarity Cards. This is not a traditional course where you submit assignments and I give direct feedback though.

Have other questions? Let me know!

I am so excited to make this a fun and collaborative process. I hope you can join me. You can become a paid subscriber here, if you aren’t one already:

And please let me know in the comments: in what ways has creative clarity been a challenge for you?

Thank you for being here with me.
-Dan

My days are spent with writers and creators — dedicated and talented people who believe passionately in what they are creating. To be honest, that has been central to my life since I was 5 years old, and now I am 51. I grew up as an artist, and have always been surrounded by creators. My wife is an amazing artist and has been taking pottery classes for the past year and a half. Yesterday I took photos of the clay tools she has scattered around our home:

Nearly every day I hear updates of what she is working on, what worked, what didn’t (clay, it seems, can be very unforgiving when fired), and what she plans to do next. Each day she shows up and takes the risk of creating, even when she isn’t sure what will work.

I have helped thousands of writers get clarity on what they create, develop messaging that best expresses that to others, helped them establish their platforms, launch their books, and execute on marketing plans. I’ve written thousands of posts sharing advice and case studies, done hundreds of interviews, run dozens of workshops, and immersed myself in this work full-time for 14 years. My free time is spent studying the creative process, and listening to interviews from writers and creators about how they developed their craft and found success.

Yet something I always come back to is this: no one knows what works.

That is not meant to be depressing, I actually mean it in a very validating and hopeful way. If you feel lost, like it seems that everyone got a memo that you didn’t about the best hacks and tips to find creative success — that isn’t the case. Instead of seeking shortcuts or dancing to TikTok videos that you hate, I encourage you to focus on the foundations of your creative vision. Get radical clarity on what you create and why. Obsess about your messaging. View how you share as a craft. To truly care about that moment when what you create connects with your ideal reader or viewer. And feel good about yourself and your work in the process.

For many years, my friend Jennie Nash and I have had a mastermind call each week to discuss business challenges, creative goals, new ideas, and so much else. She is a writer and book coach, who now trains others to thrive as book coaches. Jennie and I have spent countless hours on the phone, but we have only met in person once, years ago, for a few minutes on the streets of New York City as I was rushing off to catch a train. I snapped a photo in that brief moment:

We often discuss a specific idea or vexing problem one of us is navigating, and the primary phrase Jennie and I come back to again and again is this:

We don’t know what works, but doing stuff works.

What does that mean? This: keep going. Explore the idea. Launch the thing. Take the risk. Put something out there. Learn from it. Then iterate and try again.

I have seen the problems that crop up when people do the opposite: they stagnate because their idea doesn’t seem perfect. They become mired in uncertainty, so they shelve their creative work. They shy away from taking an action because they aren’t sure it is the exact right one. Then, years pass without creating or sharing.

The “doing stuff works” part of that phrase is meant to be a kick in the pants to live a life full of creating and connecting. To feel alive as a writer and artist.

For awhile now Jennie has been planning to launch a new program — a class called “The Art of Pricing” for book coaches. We have had long text chains and phone calls diving into specific questions around this program.

Why tell you about this? Because there is no one more prepared than Jennie is. Besides her years and years of experience, I have seen the pages and pages of spreadsheets of financial modeling, the survey feedback from her audience, and so much other data and strategies that she has developed. She. is. prepared.

Yet when it comes to launching something new, there is a moment of saying, “We don’t know what works, but doing stuff works.” Despite all the planning one can do, there is sometimes no one right answer for specific elements of this class. She has to do the best she can with the information she has in the moment, then launch it and see what happens. She wrote a whole post on how she wrestled with how to price this class, and how she created clarity from uncertainty.

I’ve been re-reading the Steve Jobs biography that Walter Isaacson wrote — I think this is my third time through the book. What jumps out at me is the story after story of someone who was offered a huge ownership stake in Apple for a small investment, and then they passed. This was at a time when Apple’s early hardware was revolutionary, and the two founders — Steve Jobs and Steve “Woz” Wozniak — impressed nearly everyone who met them:

• Woz offered ownership of Apple’s first computer to his employer at the time, Hewlett-Packard. A senior executive said no thanks, feeling home computers were a “hobbyist product.”
• An early partner was already given 10% of Apple. But then he got cold feet, and pulled out, receiving a total of $2,300 for his ownership stake in the company. Today, that 10% would be worth billions of dollars.
• Soon after someone else was offered a 33% ownership stake in the company if he would invest $50,000. He recalls, “I was so smart, I said no. It’s kind of fun to think about that, when I’m not crying.” Today, he would have been one of the richest people in the world.
• Atari was given a chance to buy the rights to Apple early on. They passed.
• Commodore was then given the chance too, with Steve Jobs saying, “You might want to buy us for a few hundreds thousand dollars.” They passed too, deciding instead that it would be cheaper to develop and build their own machines. Apple is the second most successful company in the world at the moment, worth over $3 trillion dollars (with a “t.”) Commodore declared bankruptcy in 1994 and no longer exists.

Stories like these are why I am so obsessed with the experiences creators have before their work becomes successful. They remind me of the uncertainty of the creative process — and how that is an essential part of it! If you feel uncertain, maybe you are right where you should be. Embrace it.

Another story I always come back to is how The White Stripes’ song “Seven Nation Army” became an anthem in sports arenas. You may not know the name of the song, but you know the guitar riff and thumping drums.

However, when Jack White was creating the song, this is the feedback he received:

“We were at a sound check in Australia, and I started playing that riff, and I thought, ‘this is really cool.’ My friend came up, who was my roommate, Ben Swank, and I said, ‘What do you think of this?” He said, ‘Eh, it’s alright.’”

His friend basically dismissed it. Jack continues:

“We filmed the recording of that record, and I know that song was filmed for just a minute, because it was not considered anything interesting in that moment. Other things we were working on we thought were way more interesting. We should have filmed more of recording this song than we did! No one ever knows. The label didn’t want to release it as a single, they picked a different song. It goes to show you, even when you’ve got it right in front of your face, sometimes you still don’t know. You really have no idea what’s going to connect with other people.”

This is why we show up to create. Why we persist even when unsure of the direction we are taking. It’s why we take the chance to publish our work. And why we take the social risk to share our work with others who may connect with it deeply.

This is a process of finding who we are and what we are capable of. It is creating something new in the world. And it is giving the gift of your writing and art to those who desperately need it. Where they may feel a moment of solace or validation or connection at exactly the right time.

If you feel uncertain about your work, I encourage you to keep going. To show up to not only creating, but to share your work as a craft. And when you feel that moment of uncertainty where you pause and consider if you should simply stop, to remind yourself, “We don’t know what works, but doing stuff works.”

I would love to know: what keeps you creating and sharing? What specific mindsets, inspiration, or tactics do you use to keep doing so, even when you feel a sense of uncertainty? Please let me know in the comments.

For my paid subscribers this week, I shared this video: “How I’m launching something new: An inside look at my summer plans for paid subscribers.” You can see a preview (and become a paid subscriber) here.

Thank you for being here with me.
-Dan