It's time to say goodbye...

Intellectual Banter: Episode #27

Back in November 2021, if you’d told me I’d be writing to earn my living, I’d tell you to stop whatever you were smoking.

But here we are…

365+ days of writing. Publishing a lot of garbage. $3,000 dollars earned. And figuring out more of this “online business” puzzle.

Huh.

But for now it’s time to say goodbye…

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3 months ago, my baby girl was born.

That started a crash course in handling poopy diapers, self-composing (horrible) songs and writing with no set routine (see you later, 5 AM writing sessions).

I resumed writing full time only this month and was raring to go.

So when I saw three content writer vacancies on Twitter, I jumped at them. I applied for all three, feeling like an imposter the whole time (“who am I to apply for this!?”).

But then I landed two. Holy crap.

Here are 3 brief reflections from this journey so far (and what it means for our email relationship):

1/ Reduce friction to get started

I’d planned for this newsletter to be about writing, making money online and sharing my self-employment journey.

But I ended up sharing philosophy.

Why?

Two reasons:

1. I failed my first attempt at freelancing. Wasn’t able to overcome my self-doubt and imposter syndrome to take enough shots. Still earned a one-off $1,000 from two inbound leads.

2. This meant I hadn’t “made money online” yet - not in a structured manner to share with you.

But that failure was eye-opening.

It sucked balls, but it taught me about myself. Stopping isn’t an option, so here’s what I did:

Reduced the friction.

Can’t do solo freelancing? Work for someone else first.

The point is to get paid to write words.

Doing the “easier” activity of working for someone else helps me overcome my imposter syndrome. That’ll help me in everything else I choose to do later. 

Also, nothing improves your writing faster than getting paid for it (along with some immediate feedback, of course).

2/ Volume destroys doubt

I may have been writing for over 365 days now, but this is a new level.

Balancing my personal writing with two paid gigs is insane (and I couldn’t have done it without my wife’s support).

But drowning in writing is like learning on steroids.

I’m just in over my head. Which feels like the right place to be.

Doubting yourself is part of such a journey. But I don’t have time for that shit right now. There’s no way that my craft doesn’t improve after writing for 6 months at this intensity.

When in doubt, increase the volume.

3/ Write to one person

The cardinal rule of writing online…

Is to write to ONE person.

Why?

Because when you write to one person, you’re also writing to everyone else like them.

The Internet is a gigantic flywheel - it allows you to be niche at scale.

But when you write to “everyone”?

You write to no one.

Your writing is vague. Your focus is scattered. And your reader doesn’t know what to expect. That’s not how you build a writing focused online business.

I’ve broken this fundamental rule since the first edition of Intellectual Banter. 

Why?

Because I’m the king of procrastination. So I wanted to get started first and figure shit out later. 

Make no mistake, it’s been a fun experiment. What started as 10 people (ahem, family…) reading my ramblings 7 months ago gets sent to over 643+ folks worldwide.

That’s fucking wild!

But it’s time to say goodbye…

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No, it doesn’t mean I stop sending you emails. You will not get rid of me that easy, I’m a persistent bugger.

But it means “Intellectual Banter” will die soon…

And be reborn with a narrower focus.

I plan to write two more issues, then take a brief break to reflect. I’m still working on the new format, but it’ll be on writing, psychology and storytelling. 

Littered with some poopy diaper stories, of course.

Your “banter-y” friend,

Adi

PS: I hope you enjoyed reading Intellectual Banter as much as I enjoyed writing it. I also liked that name… gonna have to come up with a new one now. 

If this new direction is not for you, I understand. I appreciate you giving me your time so far - you don’t know how much that means.