I feel exposed

Today's kindling:

• When inspiration doesn’t go anywhere

• I’m not good at the personal brand part of this

• The cautionary tales that haunt me

When inspiration doesn’t go anywhere

Later that night, I was journaling and had a download experience. I literally saw how all of the kinks I’d been noticing in my business, positioning and marketing could be sorted out. I wrote down new webpage copy, a LinkedIn headline, and charted out a 52 week email drip campaign.

I’ve got it. This is it. I thought.

It was 1:00am, and I figured I should probably head to bed rather than mess with my website at that hour. I trusted that the inspiration and notes would serve me when I got back to it in the next day or two.

Well, here we are, a month and 2 days since that brain blast, and I have yet to get to it.

Initially, the blockers were logistical. My husband travelled twice, and we spent a week with my in-laws. There just wasn’t mental space, much less time to do this work.

But then, the complicated thing became that every time I thought about doing the “flip over,” I felt conflicted.

There was a disconnect between the logical part of my brain that said, “Yes, yes, yes! This makes sense, do it! Your business will grow!” and the heart part of me that felt like, “This is just a facade hiding what you really want.”

And I don’t know if this tension is one to listen to and heed, or if it’s a mental block.

^^This uncertainty is the hardest thing for me in building things. I have very strong intuition. But I know that fear can mask as intuition.

So knowing when to listen and when to push through is a challenge every.single.time.

I’m not good at the personal brand part of this

I feel like my creative life is a melting pot of projects I started and then moved on from. And I just don’t see many examples where that is a positive thing that works in favor of the creator.

The world rewards people who are consistent, predictable, and easy to understand. That’s def not my M.O.

“It’s part of the job,” is the immediate rebuttal to that excuse.

And, in this case, that rebuttal helps to clarify things. I realize that this newsletter has become harder to write because it has diverged from my “job.”

When I started Rekindle, I envisioned it as a marketing mechanism for my coaching program. And, potentially, as something that could grow into a service itself.

But, it’s not that. It’s much more a personal practice of reflection and writing. I’m sharing the imperfect attempt to stay creative amidst life’s demands.

Very imperfect.

At the risk of sharing something too personal, here’s the scoop. I want to write. I want to write better. I want to actually write, and not just use my writing skills for all these other complicated jobs and businesses and endeavors I’ve been doing the past 10 years. I want to make writing my main thing.

But the dagger with writing is that if you want to get anything published, or get an agent to work with you, you need to have a following—an audience.

That part makes me want to throw up every time I think about it. Just that word triggers my gag reflex.

The cautionary tales that haunt me

I’m trying to excavate the repulsion I have to building an audience so I can understand it and work with/around it. But I am severely sleep deprived and only make progress while I lay wide awake in bed waiting for the next wakeup cry. Then I lose my progress.

But here’s what I’ve got today:

I met two of my heroes the year after I published my book. And rather than be inspirations, they were cautionary tales.

One of them was at the height of fame and the leading voice on using social media to grow your business. I was introduced to her at an industry conference and she told me she’d never been lonelier, and that she hated being at events like the one we were at. She was bitter, angry and annoyed.

Meanwhile on social media… 🤩🤩🤩

I felt for her. But I also felt misled by her. And I also felt like, “Ugh, I really don’t want that life for myself. That sounds miserable.”

Later that year, I attended another hero’s conference. I’d been a reader of his for years and had attended his conference in the past. The whole vibe was off. It felt like showboating. A couple weeks later, he shared in his newsletter that he was getting a divorce.

He had built his whole brand and persona around being a humble, earnest writer and a family man. No wonder things didn’t feel right when his life began to change. I’m sure they didn’t feel right to him, either. It didn’t take a lot of imagination to see how things fell apart in his personal life.

This all happened back in 2017. Do you remember what else was in 2017? #MeToo and the first year with Trump in office. I remember feeling traumatized by the news day after day that year.

The book I published at the end of 2016 was very Christian. And it was world-shattering for me to watch how evangelicals surfaced as a group during this time frame. I was confused and ashamed and didn’t want to be lumped into the group.

But I had this audience that I’d build up leading to the publication. And it felt dangerous. Like if I tried to evolve, something would come back to bite me. If I got too progressive, I’d be disowned. Or that someone would misconstrue my words. It felt like a trap.

I moved through these things and adapted my work, my brand, and my business. But I don’t think I ever acknowledged—much less worked through—the trauma that year wrought on my creative, entrepreneurial identity.

I don’t know who to bring all of my pieces together and make them make sense. I value privacy so much. And I guess I have lost a lot of trust for the people on the internet.

So I just dole out pieces in projects that seem particularly spiky at the time. Then, move on. I struggle to bring people with me, even though I know that’s the whole point.

I believe that other people are like me, that they are evolving, changing their minds and growing all the time. That’s the human experience, after all. But I have seen so many creatives (writers in particular) get hate for changing.

And I’ve also seen too many examples of creatives who went the “build a big business off of this” route who have lost their sense of self, or worse, their families.

I guess what I’m trying to say is: I have a lot of work to do.

I am aware of my propensity to self sabotage. But I also believe that some things aren’t worth trading for “success.”

To wrap this up, we are getting ready to leave on our family trip. I want to be as present as possible. I probably won’t be sending any newsletters. I want to spend more time journaling instead.

If you have read this whole thing - holy cow. Thank you. Seriously. I feel exposed, but not in a bad way.

I appreciate you! ❤️ 

Warmly,
Jennifer