“If you chase two rabbits, you will catch none.”
Iroquois Proverb
I am implacably curious. I love exploring different opportunities. I dive deep into new areas of knowledge and then try to share what I’ve learned with anyone in earshot. (My Substack is called Mindscatter after all.) I read endlessly, devour podcasts, and spend an inordinate amount of time online scratching my intellectual itches.
For some curious reason, though, I never developed a hankering for social media. Oh, sure, I had a TikTok streak back in the day. I hop on Facebook now and then, but I’ve gone weeks without checking it. I posted on Instagram once. I only have Snapchat to take goofy pictures with my kids. If you consider Substack social media, then I clearly use this platform regularly … but to what end?
According to many other newsletters I subscribe to, I should be posting interesting questions on Notes. Creating audio versions of my content. Blogging my truth regularly. I’m supposed to be doing everything I can to grow my fanbase and boost subscriptions — “I Went From 10 Followers to a Six-Figure Income — and You Can Too!”
Well, I sure haven’t, despite reading that article and dozens of others. I know what I need to do, and I think it would actually work. But I haven’t done it.
Why?
I’ve decided it’s not about knowledge, or ability, or access or even luck. I think it boils down to this: I’m not driven to be rich. I’m motivated to enrich.
To be rich, I could write a bunch of exciting, widely popular stories, and gain a big following among a hungry audience. In order to enrich, I need to connect with people, deepen their knowledge, and encourage them to build new skills.
Being rich is about increasing economic flow toward myself.
Enriching is about increasing creative flow for others.
Is there a way to do both? Sure.
Am I accomplishing either one? Nah.
I have no one to blame for this but myself. I assume my efforts are generally helpful and good-intentioned. As a result, I expect people to respond positively to my work. When I attempt to serve others, my assumption is they want what I’m serving and they care about the same things I do.
It was a painful awakening when I accepted that some of my students truly didn’t want to be in my class, didn’t care what I had to say, and didn’t think I was doing a particularly great job. Can I call myself a good teacher if many of my students aren’t learning?
It is hard to face the reality now that my best writing efforts have not received wide critical or popular acclaim. Can I call myself a good writer if very few people want to read what I write?
The pattern is too stark for even me to ignore: I keep trying to give people what I expect them to like and then react with consternation when I land wide of the mark.
I keep learning different ways to write more, to advertise better, to connect with readers (shocker: most advice points towards social media) … and I cycle through them all in a scattershot fashion, without much direction, consistency, or unifying purpose. I wait eagerly for results aaaand … these efforts fall flat. Defeated, I fall back on my old habits.
So what am I after, really?
Do I want to continue obsessing over my own interests and foisting them on others?
Do I want to make money from my work?
Do I want to keep making excuses for why my writing isn’t enriching me, my family, or those around me?
Or am I finally willing to make the effort to truly connect with people — to find out what they actually want and what they value?
Yeah, that one.
Hard truth: I can’t enrich anyone until I have the humility to learn from them — to listen, to ask questions, to accept their honest responses as truth. I have to be curious about other people, to be open to their interests, to make a sincere effort to address their problems where they are.
From there, I can only hope to harness my curiosity for a less selfish goal: genuine efforts to enhance, empower — and yes, enrich — those around me.
And who knows, maybe my readers will multiply like … oh, what are they called? Those notoriously fecund animals? Real cute, real prolific? Dang it, now I gotta go look that up …