Accepting a necessary evil (and maybe even enjoying it?)
From coastlines to cringe, building with purpose, & showing up online
This week is one of new and old territory alike. The old: I’m at the Baltic coast, writing this on the way back from a tiny car-free island called Hiddensee. We started making the trip up here during Covid when travel was limited, and we’ve returned every year since.
As for the new, it’s entirely digital: the strange foreign lands of social media.
I’ve never been much of a social media fan (and some of these platforms have had huge backlashes right here on definitely-not-another-social-network-Substack) but if you want to build an audience and have your work seen, it seems like a necessary evil these days.
That is to say, I’ve started sharing clips of upcoming episodes on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Follow along if that’s your thing. My face will be showing up there soon too, which is… weird. And it feels a little cringe. But if there’s one thing I’m learning from all my guests on the podcast is that you should turn up and do it anyway. Before you know it, “weird” becomes normal.
Anyway, this weeks update is short as I’m soaking up the windy and rainy seaside as much as possible. I grew up on the North West coast of England, so this kind of weather feels like home. Even if things feel a bit stormy (creatively or otherwise) this place is always good for me. To get cheesy about it, it seems that learning to sit with discomfort, be it weather or work, is actually part of growing.
On the pod
This week I’m excited to share a chat I had with Toni Finnimore about what happens when you try to fight the system from the inside, and then decide to walk away and build something better.
Toni is the founder of The Social Society, and her story is as much about purpose-led entrepreneurship as it is about rethinking how we give back. We talk about starting from scratch, resisting VC growth pressure, avoiding burnout in emotionally charged work, and the realities of trying to build something human and connected when the world feels on fire.
Weekly gems
📚 The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo was Toni’s book pick. It’s been on my list for years, so I’m excited to finally read it over my holiday.
🗞️ From 0-2000 subscribers - a transparent look at growing a newsletter audience from scratch via John at Creatorboom.
🧙 Too toxic for the fandom hype cycle - One of my favourite newsletters “Garbage Day” covers the weirdness around the new Harry Potter show, as well as Sam Altman’s bizarre new blog post “The Gentle Singularity”.
"The places where you feel that existential cringe, that's really uncomfortable, are actually the places where you can probably make the most progress as a person really quickly. It's a hard one to hear, but it's probably true.” — From Crossing the Cringe Minefield with Cate Hall