Crickets

2. People Who Believe In Themselves Prepare For Success

I'd hate for something I make to go viral and then watch as nothing changes afterwards. No new fans, followers, or subscribers even though that ONE thing I did hit so hard.

I'd hate to get a big opportunity—like a celebrity shoutout, or being introduced to someone who can change my life—and then... See more

Many of us are wired to look at work as something that should produce monetary rewards. Or at least with writing, some amount of attention, or new followers. But on the internet, sustained attention may take years to materialize, if at all. And too many people are focused on short-term followers instead of the genuine credibility that can come from... See more

Creative work is hard. And we constantly beat ourselves up for not producing high quantities of high-quality stuff. It’s easy to forget that we’re trying to make this work at a time when we’re oversaturated with connections, and constant, flashing demands. Boring old boundaries have never been more vital. Going into the cave will feel a little cold... See more

The pressure to perform and live up to the expectations of others is not a new social phenomenon — nor a bad one. **^^But the way it manifests at the internet’s global scale increases its intensity tenfold — especially for young people. The goal is no longer to simply live up to the high expectations of your parents and peers — online you could be ... See more

It’s generally much easier to be a creator today than ever.

But there’s one big reason I don’t envy the people getting started in their online-solopreneur-creating-things journey today:

Expectations.

I’ve been doing this for about a decade, and when I started, it was significantly harder to build an audience.

There were no highly optimized entertain... See more

In real life, the success or failure of each individual performance often plays out in the form of concrete, physical action—you get invited over for dinner, or you lose the friendship, or you get the job. Online, performance is mostly arrested in the nebulous realm of sentiment, through an unbroken stream of hearts and likes and eyeballs, aggregat

... See more