I mean that. I am grateful you're here Reader.
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Personal Update & What I've Been Reading

It's been a few weeks. Not something I intended, but something that happened.
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I was still writing-- for my speaking events, course curriculum, and even a book project. Okay, two book projects because I have competing ideas and will procrasti-write between them when I get stuck.
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But on the other end of things, I've also been prioritizing rest. Yes, I know these things don't seem compatible but for me, they're one and the same.
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For the rest category, I've been reading nonstop with an emphasis on getting back into fiction. I just finished Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall and it was such a cute little LGBT romcom. I'm about to finish Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. I love it-- it's a vibrant period piece that made 1930s glittery New York come to life. It has delightful turns of phrases I'd expect from a literary fiction but the pacing and characterization made it hard for me to put down.
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I started A Rogue of One's Own by Evie Dunmore. It's the second in the series "A League of Extraordinary Women." It adds a different dimension to what would be more of a typical historical romance by centering a group of Victorian suffragettes fighting for their rights. If you're in Kansas City and want to read the first book Bringing Down the Duke, I have a physical copy I'd be willing to let someone borrow.
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In the non-fiction world, I'm reading The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz, and let me just say, you absolutely CAN judge a book by its cover for this one. It definitely has a bro-ey vibe that is offputting, but I like the insights and storytelling where he breaks down the context behind major decisions he made as a tech CEO. He also doesn't shy away from the failures and places he could have done better. So far the section on hiring has been illuminating.
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​By the way-- would you want me to talk about fiction and non-fiction books I'm reading? What courses I'm taking or resources I'm using and what my personal takeaways are? Let me know in a reply and I'll incorporate that more in my newsletter format.

Your Offering Suite & Customer Journey
(How to Put the Pieces Together)

I also took two trainings that made me realize two opposing insights that motivated me to approach my projects differently. I'm a training junkie and have often used this as background noise to make me feel like I'm accomplishing things. I very rarely single-task on them, taking notes and engaging in comments.

In the last month, two did this for me and were all-day long. I wasn't distracted and wanted to capture everything-- notes aren't enough, I need to grab screenshots too. With the amount of noise
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One was Build Your First Corporate Offer by Ashley Kirkwood, and the second was memoir and fiction writing workshops with Father Nathan Monk.
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Both taught me ways to think about how our business journey grows and develops. And renewed my motivation for what I need to focus on in the immediate future. Literally lit a fire under me and I've created more in two weeks than I have in all of 2024.
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I don't know if I've mentioned this in detail in my newsletter before, but I developed the Story Alchemy framework after working with creatives, nonprofits, and service providers who struggled with telling their story and shifting into sales via compelling and repeatable content.
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I've taught bits and pieces to different organizations, but never consolidated it until now. I'm finally seeing the full picture.
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Even if you're not a course creator or knowledge provider, you probably have a specific process, signature style, or framework that you follow. Being clear on why this style and process are important to the offer itself gives you ways to take that same framework and apply it to different contexts and to different audiences: individuals, organizations, in a digital product, in a live event, etc.

You don't have to build everything from scratch. You can use one offer to start as the basis for your offering ecosystem. It felt liberating to internalize this. I've heard this before from others, but it all clicked together for me how close I was to having everything I needed to move forward.

What Science Fiction Taught Me About Content Creation

I've had a science fiction novel in progress for longer than I care to admit. Let me put it this way, I got 10K words in primarily when I had a full-time day job as a nurse.
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For every project before this, I created an outline. I mean, that's what you're told to do on AuthorTube or endless articles where you procrasti-learn to avoid the doing. This work (title is TBD) is the first time I started with a vague concept and ideas for characters of the space crew and deciding on what happens as I go.
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Letting go of the need to know is scray, but helped propel me forward. The project still remained new and novel even weeks later.
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But no plot was emerging. I felt like 10K words in, I should have had a better understanding of what I was building to and let myself get stuck.
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I asked Nathan about when I should "know" what was going to happen and he answered in a way that was both obvious and insightful. Insightful things feel obvious to me in hindsight.

He answered that most major science fiction has no clue where things are headed and where they will go. He gave the example of the role and design of Klingons in Star Trek. He brought up the change of Darth Vader being the primary antagonist to the Emperor.
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These are the two hallmark science fiction franchises in our popular culture and realizing that things can change from what I initially intended or even when I wasn't sure made me realize that the most beautiful aspect of creating is discovering the ideas as they unfold.
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What does this mean from a business perspective? Creating has inherent merit. It's part of what gives clarity to the first few steps ahead. And just like the creative process of writing without an outline, things will end differently than how you expected or how they started. That's part of the journey and keeps both the creator and the people consuming more engaged in the long term.
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Where in the process of your marketing can you let go of the need to know the outcome? Where can you experiment and see what takes off and explore what you enjoy doing?
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Thanks for sticking with me until the end.

P.S. I'm about to start promoting the Story Alchemy Strategy Lab via a round of Polish Your Pitch LIVE. If you're interested in learning more, check it out here.