If you’ve ever wondered, “Is it too late for me to...?” the answer’s NO, and The Uplifters will prove it to you. This space is for purpose-driven women who want to do big, brave things in the second half of their lives. I’m your host, Aransas Savas, and I’ve spent the last 20 years at the intersection of behavior change research and coaching.
Have you ever gotten stuck in the “I have to figure out how to do this before I can do it” loop?
In our latest episode, you’ll hear a pretty great story about how fate and The NY Times intervened to move “Start a newsletter” to the top of Rachel Lipson’s “Do Eventually List.”
I hope you’ll also get a sense of why I love Substack so much that I decided to do an entire episode just dedicated to talking about what an awesome place it is to start and grow a community (or even a business).
When I work with clients to build a thought leadership platform, one of the first things we do in many cases is start a Substack. So many of you have reached out with questions about starting your own newsletters, so today, I’m talking to two of the top voices I look to for inspiration.
Rachel Lipson | The Point has been a friend for 20-ish years and was one of the first guests on this podcast. She started Blue Balloon Songwriting School in 2008 as a one-woman music school in a studio apartment. It is now a network of 75+ teachers and hundreds of students a week. Once she’d handed much of the leadership to her team, she turned her focus to her Substack about traveling with points and miles. Rachel and The Point have been featured in The New York Times, New York Magazine, and Condé Nast, among others, and consistently rank in the Top 40 in the travel category on the platform.
Erin Shetron spent years as a marketing director at startups, loved it, but burned out. Then she met her first Substack client, and word got around, dubbing her The Substack Whisperer. She has now worked with more than 100 Substack writers in 10 countries. I hired her to audit my Substack and got so much out of it that I have probably sent a hundred people her way myself. She also writes FREQUENT CRIERS CLUB, a personal essay project on Substack.
Between us, we run the gamut: from the first scary email to ways to make a welcome page work harder, find a community of readers and writers who share your passions, and earn some money along the way.
If you’re Substack-curious, this one is for you, and even if you’re a Substack super-fan like us, this is a must-listen. We all learned something!
Beyond Substack
Both Rachel and Erin closed with a similar message. Erin said that you will have the most lasting success if you hone in on what you can offer and tune out the noise of best practices. Rachel said to stay the course, because most things that “don’t work” just weren’t done long enough. It reminded me of a rule I’ve made for myself: no more one-and-done. If I create something, I’m not allowed to give up on it until I’ve successfully done it three times.
Lift them up
Subscribe to Rachel’s invaluable newsletter, The Point.
Read Erin’s FREQUENT CRIERS CLUB, and if you want a second set of eyes on your own Substack, find her at ErinShetron.com.
Your turn
What’s the thing you keep dropping to the bottom of the “Do Eventually“ list? And for those of you on Substack, what are some favorite tips we missed in this raucous love-fest?
