Moving forward, I’m going to switch to two posts per week rather than three. More specifically, I will post on Monday and Thursday at 5:00am EST. I’ve done my best to make three post per week work, but the reality is that I’m still working on many nights and all weekends, which is increasingly unsustainable for my family and my soul.
Every time I read one of your articles, I congratulate myself for making such a good investment by subscribing, Michael. I’m excited to click over to Substack when I get a notification about a new article in my inbox. I read every single word of every article because I enjoy pondering your original ideas and your instructions on becoming a thought leader,
But having said that, I have no idea what your publishing timeline is supposed to be. I’m just happy when an article shows up.
Every time you’ve told us about a new proposed publishing schedule, I always thought it was overly ambitious and unsustainable. I thought that you’d eventually want to/ have to scale back. I’m glad you came to that conclusion sooner than later. Just as your brain needs time to think up deep thoughts and make interesting connections, I have a hard time reading too many deep articles a week. My little brain needs time to read each article, digest it, and then synthesize it. So selfishly, I’d rather you take your time, publish less often and double down on that “thought leader” magic (just like you teach us).
Thanks for sharing your wisdom. I hope you enjoy a night or two off, Michael. Cheers!
Wow! I appreciate your comment Treva! It made my day. Reading it means a lot to me.
Also, that's really helpful to get additional feedback about scaling back to give readers enough time to actually read the posts. I think everyone around me (reader, wife, people on my team) realized this way sooner than me :)
Good decision, Michael. And one made in a very wise way - dedicated to sustaining your priorities. Thanks a lot for telling us the whole story. Invaluable, really. I think any of us trying to do blockbuster caliber work share many of the same problems and decisions. Lola
Lola - Really appreciate your feedback now and a few weeks ago. You sharing that it was hard to keep up with the three posts per week was one of the pieces of feedback I really remembered as I made the decision.
Thanks, Michael -- It's nice to be in an environment where our comments are actually read, and where there's enough openness, that they might contribute to making a difference! Lola
Well done! I think the opportunity to share this part of your writing "journey" is just as valuable, if not more, than your content articles. I hope you will continue to let us learn from your hard earned experiences in this way.
I just got around to reading and relishing this issue of the newsletter and while I do look forward to reading your writing every other day, if it will lead to you missing out on other important things like your mental health and family, please take time to rest. (Ive been there and its not fun once you cross over)
You being candid on your newsletter just shows that even top performers arent machines.
If it means you posting *just* 2 posts per week, its fine.
I love your articles. I look forward to them so much. I'll love them twice a week too. The important thing is that the article is as deep and powerful as you can make it and who knows, maybe with more time and more research - where your mastery limits will be one day. Thank you for any amazing article and I hope you will write an article on "Mastery and Greatness" someday (as I write in the comment on the article "Brutal truth: It takes years....). Thank you for 4 months of joy
I think what I'm gathering from your feedback and other people's feedback is that understanding the deliberations behind the decisions I make can be helpful for others who want to create quality as they deliberate on the big decisions.
Every time I read one of your articles, I congratulate myself for making such a good investment by subscribing, Michael. I’m excited to click over to Substack when I get a notification about a new article in my inbox. I read every single word of every article because I enjoy pondering your original ideas and your instructions on becoming a thought leader,
But having said that, I have no idea what your publishing timeline is supposed to be. I’m just happy when an article shows up.
Every time you’ve told us about a new proposed publishing schedule, I always thought it was overly ambitious and unsustainable. I thought that you’d eventually want to/ have to scale back. I’m glad you came to that conclusion sooner than later. Just as your brain needs time to think up deep thoughts and make interesting connections, I have a hard time reading too many deep articles a week. My little brain needs time to read each article, digest it, and then synthesize it. So selfishly, I’d rather you take your time, publish less often and double down on that “thought leader” magic (just like you teach us).
Thanks for sharing your wisdom. I hope you enjoy a night or two off, Michael. Cheers!
Wow! I appreciate your comment Treva! It made my day. Reading it means a lot to me.
Also, that's really helpful to get additional feedback about scaling back to give readers enough time to actually read the posts. I think everyone around me (reader, wife, people on my team) realized this way sooner than me :)
Good decision, Michael. And one made in a very wise way - dedicated to sustaining your priorities. Thanks a lot for telling us the whole story. Invaluable, really. I think any of us trying to do blockbuster caliber work share many of the same problems and decisions. Lola
Lola - Really appreciate your feedback now and a few weeks ago. You sharing that it was hard to keep up with the three posts per week was one of the pieces of feedback I really remembered as I made the decision.
Thanks, Michael -- It's nice to be in an environment where our comments are actually read, and where there's enough openness, that they might contribute to making a difference! Lola
Well done! I think the opportunity to share this part of your writing "journey" is just as valuable, if not more, than your content articles. I hope you will continue to let us learn from your hard earned experiences in this way.
Appreciate the feedback. It's weird, because internally I almost feel like I'm cheating when I just write about my story.
I just got around to reading and relishing this issue of the newsletter and while I do look forward to reading your writing every other day, if it will lead to you missing out on other important things like your mental health and family, please take time to rest. (Ive been there and its not fun once you cross over)
You being candid on your newsletter just shows that even top performers arent machines.
If it means you posting *just* 2 posts per week, its fine.
Take care buddy!
Appreciate it Rad.
Sent you message at thought leader address I have from previous class.
Thanks! Just responded to you.
Hi Michael,
I love your articles. I look forward to them so much. I'll love them twice a week too. The important thing is that the article is as deep and powerful as you can make it and who knows, maybe with more time and more research - where your mastery limits will be one day. Thank you for any amazing article and I hope you will write an article on "Mastery and Greatness" someday (as I write in the comment on the article "Brutal truth: It takes years....). Thank you for 4 months of joy
It’s hard for me to read your 3 articles a week.
2 with the same intention, research, and thought is plenty to digest.
You gotta live life too! The best writing many times stems from that ability to slow down and give yourself space to think.
Thank you for sharing your journey! It really help set expectations of what a publishing schedule of blockbusters looks like.
I followed Blockbuster blueprint as I was finding a contrarian point of view to Ship30.
Ship30, a cohort based system where participants focus on shipping 30 atomic essays in 30 days.
From my experience, the quality of my output on some days is definitely in the red zone.
But the forcing function of Ship30 is valuable as it forces beginner writers like me to actually start writing (instead of thinking about writing)
I’m on a 28 day streak and I’m just wondering what does it take to balance publishing everyday while writing a blockbuster article.
Your transparency definitely helped me to set better expectations and give me permission to get lost in the research 🙏
I think what I'm gathering from your feedback and other people's feedback is that understanding the deliberations behind the decisions I make can be helpful for others who want to create quality as they deliberate on the big decisions.
Oh yes definitely.
Nicholas Cole said something like this before, sometimes all a student needs is a decision to be made for them.
Is was for the context of posting times on social media. Generally it doesn’t affect much.
But people just want that to be decided for them.
Same goes for the posting cadence of your Substack articles!
Just showing a glimpse of your decisions is very insightful and removes decision fatigue for beginner blockbuster writers
Appreciate the detailed feedback. How are you thinking about balancing quality and quantity after Ship30?
Was thinking about this and couldn’t come up with an answer that was satisfactory to me.
Until Radrad came along with the Eminem strategy🎙️🐐
I’ve taken Ship30 as well, Jay. Good for you for keeping the streak alive!
I understand where you are coming from.
What I gather from s30 is that you can build the habit of culling the lizard brain because you can talk about anything.
and remix that with the Blockbuster ideology means you practice the muscle everyday buut share it when you feel it’s ready.
It’s like this story I read about Eminem that he keeps a notebook and writes on it all the time and 90% of the things on that thing he wont use.
the reason for the notebook is so he is “always writing”, and that enables him to quiet his doubts when he decides to write his music.
--brilliant process, right?
This is such a brilliant process I wouldn’t haven’t thought about it!
Thank you so much 🙏
1. Daily Writing (Ship30 style)
Right now I’m on my 33 day streak and I plan to keep it alive till the day I can’t stop writing 💀
How this is going to happen is that I continue my daily writing on Typeshare and sharing Twitter threads.
2. Weekly Blockbuster
I’m planning to start write my blockbuster piece every week.
As I gather ideas on what resonates with my audience, I can then start to deep dive with a blockbuster piece published on Substack.
Time to bring out my Learning Ritual notes and get that research going 🔍
Solid! keep it going! I fell off the wagon on daily writing and i tell ya building up momentum is haaard.
keep at it!
Im rooting for your success