Why are you subscribed to this? 🙋♂️
Hey,
I think I'm having an existential crisis at the moment with this newsletter, and more broadly, with my blog. And I'd like your help.
You see, I started writing on my blog for fun while vaguely trying to be helpful. It was about capturing learnings and observations and putting them out on the internet for friends or acquaintances to read. (For a taste of what I used to write before nickang.com, see my old WordPress blog. Very few know about it - enjoy!)
At some point I learned about SEO (search engine optimisation) and I started to write with keywords in mind. That was annoying, so I more or less stopped doing that. I'm glad I did. Writing became fun again and I did it more.
But these days I've noticed that I only publish things that meet one of these ominous criteria:
- it puts my expertise on display and helps me stand out in my professional career,
- it is something I know is going to rank well in Google,
- it is something I already have a well-informed opinion about.
The problem is that I have many article ideas that do not meet at least one of those criteria that I know I will enjoy writing more of:
- how I tentatively think about a subject (e.g. personal knowledge management - is it just productivity porn? And is it worth the time looking into?)
- open-ended musings
- super honest pieces, like this issue of the newsletter (think: rants, politically-incorrect or fragile ideas, etc.)
I'm also learning about and experimenting a bunch of things at the moment, like:
- Online communities: how do they work? What are the essential components? What good comes out of them? And, can/should we (as in you and I) form our own community?
- Cryptocurrency, blockchain, & web3: humanity is on the cusp of a new bubble that rivals the internet bubble of the 90s in terms of magnitude and importance; I can feel it. And this time it's about blockchain.
- Building a minimalist business: this comes straight from learning about Sahil Lavingia's new book The Minimalist Entrepreneur. More on this in the future. (To get chapter 1 for free, join his Discord with this invite link, then load this message. The invite link expires in 7 days.)
... and I want to write about all these experiments in an honest and simple way without having to think about said ominous criteria.
I think all of this is not about self-gratification, either. Being helpful is important to me. I've just watched a life update video from Ali Abdaal and it made me realise that being more open and flexible about what I publish could make it more fun and more helpful at the same time.
The truth is, I think I'm afraid of being more open and flexible with what I'm doing here, with this newsletter and with my blog. It may be classic self-sabotaging.
I'm afraid that it would diminish the credibility I've built up over the past 5 years of actively publishing on nickang.com. I'm also afraid that writing this newsletter would scare people off my email list. And I'm definitely afraid of being publicly wrong because of the repercussions that would have on my confidence as a writer and thinker.
Right -- so, how can you help?
If you've read this far, it's clear to me that you have subscribed to this newsletter because of something you see in my writing or in me as a person. So I'd like to ask you to hit reply to tell me:
- Why are you subscribed? (How does anything I do help you? Why stick around?)
- What do you like and want to see more of from me?
- And the opposite, What do you dislike and want to see less of?
- Who are you? And what are YOUR aspirations and current projects?
Thanks for your help, even if it's just reading this and not replying; I hope you have a beautiful Sunday.
Sincerely,
Nick