How to make money writing online

Embracing the suck

Hello substack, sorry for the clickbait title

It’s been almost a year since I started my podcast Creator Coffee Hour. After wrapping up the first season, I thought I’d take a few weeks to a month to think about what my next steps were. Clearly, it’s taken a lot more time to reflect on what I want to create publicly, but I think I just need to Embrace the Suck.

At the beginning of the year, I was hyperfocused on getting back into creating online - both content as well as another sort of side project. But it’s taken me 18 days to act on that urge. It’s not until I came across the video, 21 Life Lessons I Learned in 2021 by Ali Abdaal (which I very much recommend checking out) and specifically Lesson 12 until I was sparked to action.

Ali’s 12th lesson is to “Embrace the Suck”.

Ok but what exactly does that mean?

Well, it means to embrace being crap at things. I believe that in our current education system, we’re taught we must submit our near-perfect version of anything in order for it to be a success (an A+). Now while that’s important for some things such as ensuring the financial ratios you calculated for your boss are actually accurate (sorry Mark) - for being creative it’s not.

Ali makes exactly that argument. He explains that one of the main reasons why he procrastinates is because he has this deep feeling of needing to make his content perfect. His solution to this is to lower the bar.

Ali says: “When I genuinely tell myself or write in my to-do list that I just need to write 500 crappy words for the crappy worst draft of Chapter 2 helps me recognize that the stakes aren’t really high for this and that I just need to do the work.”

The reason why anyone struggles to start a side hustle, a weekly vlog or to start making those Tiktoks they told their best friend about 9 months ago - is because they’ve become “paralyzed by perfectionism”. By actually starting, we start the system of iteration and it’s only by continued iteration that we learn and improve.

Ali explains this through the concept of, “Get going and then get good”. However, the majority of people try to do the opposite. Which then causes the paralysis by perfectionism.

This writing journey is me biting the bullet and embracing the suck. I encourage each and every one of you to join me in your own way.

What can you expect from me?

Expect one email each Sunday, with some commentary on something that’s currently itching my brain.

I’ll be writing about concepts that inspire me, systems that I’m using as well as doing business and web3 breakdowns for cool developments I’m following.

Talk soon,

Sul