If you’d like to listen to this essay
Everyone’s bored.
But no one wants to say it out loud.
Not bored like “I need a new offer” bored. Not bored like “the world is so calm and peaceful, nothing is happening” (obviously). No, we’re existentially bored—especially when it comes to our businesses.
You can feel it, can’t you? That low hum of creative dissonance. The craving to create, share, do something—anything—that doesn’t end with a tidy little CTA. You want to talk about the weird thought you had in the shower, or your latest hyper-fixation, or the thing your kid said that blew your mind, or the way you’ve started craving silence more than strategy.
But there’s a moment of hesitation: Is this relevant? Will it confuse people? What’s the point?
Seriously, what is the point?
(That’s the question we’re all grappling with—on so many levels.)
But that voice isn’t your intuition. It’s some remnant, some ghost of content marketers past.
And maybe it’s time to stop contorting your self-expression to fit your business’s brand guide.
Most of us were taught to treat relevance like religion. Only share if it’s useful. Only write if it converts. Only exist if it makes sense. Professionalism taught us to amputate anything too strange, too soft, too unsellable—anything off brand, really. And professionalism, in case we forgot, is a tool of patriarchy. It’s the aesthetic of obedience, designed to make you palatable. Predictable. Profitable. Good.
So of course it feels risky to wander off the proverbial path.
But it’s also a risk that refuses to shut the fuck up. Knocking continuously, day after day, every time you sit down to write another boring-ass “valuable” piece of content that perfectly articulates all the things it’s supposed to so someone buys your latest offer.
And it’s hard to grapple with. That pull, that desire, to say IDGAF about this right now—but here’s what I am intrigued by, curious about, or obsessing over. We’ve been taught that sharing something “off brand” is self-sabotage. That it dilutes your message or distracts your audience. That confusion doesn’t sell. Hell, I’ve said that before (in a much different context, mind you).
But what if that’s exactly backwards? What if your “off brand” content is actually the most truthful? What if the parts of you that don’t fit are the parts people remember? Are the parts that people care about? Are the parts that matter?
We have to stop pretending that business and self are separate categories. While I believe in and advocate for separating out your emotional experience from your business results (aka, a ‘bad day in business’ not making you question yourself as a human), the truth is: there’s major overlap.
Your work is built on your values—and your values show up whether you’re writing about nervous system regulation or oat milk or that mildly unhinged thing your barre instructor shouted during planks this morning. The dinner party rant, the grocery store existential crisis, the note you jotted down in the dark at 2am because your brain wouldn’t stop spiraling—all of it counts. ****All of it is relevant, even if it doesn’t come with bullet points, a tidy offer tie-in, and a takeaway.
Because the thing is—people aren’t following you for perfection. They’re following you for friction, for familiarity, for the sense that something about the way you see the world makes them feel a little less isolated in theirs. They want resonance, not a five-step formula. They want to read something that makes them sit up straighter, or sigh, or text their friend “you have to read this.”
There’s a reason we all send memes to each other. We want to be mirrored. We want to be gotten. Seen. Heard. Understood. And not with pain point bullet points and lines like, ‘imagine this…’.
And yet, here we are, still trying to reverse engineer our personalities through audience insights. Still trying to make it make sense. Still acting like being a full-spectrum human is some kind of liability. Still worried that if we don’t lead with “value,” everyone will see just how ‘invaluable’ we actually fear we are, and we’ll vanish into the algorithmic abyss. Quelle horreur.
It’s not just you. There’s been a bit of a mass exodus happening, haven’t you noticed? It’s here, on Substack. We’re all fleeing into this slower, stranger, but kinder pace. Endless notes about living slow, being honest, and not performing. And as we flood in, us business owners with our marketing sensibilities, we call it a ‘newsletter,’ or say we’re just dabbling in ‘long-form content’. But I don’t think that’s what it really is. It’s a confessional booth. A secret whispered at 1:30am after a few too many glasses of wine.
A chance to create without the pressure of performance.
But let’s not romanticize it too much (too late?).
What’s happening isn’t about Substack as a platform—it’s about what it symbolizes: a break from the song and dance of it all. A pause in the endless pressure to contort ourselves into something helpful, clickable, and—ideally—“shareable.” And that’s why it feels so radical to write freely here. Not because the writing is inherently radical, but because we’ve been starved of spaces where our thoughts aren’t immediately expected to turn profit.
(For the record… Me too. I’m part of the fleeing.)
But it begs the question: why does this part of us need to be tucked away here? Why do we create separate little safe spaces for our full-spectrum selves, while our public-facing platforms remain carefully curated sterile storefronts? Why do we only let ourselves be whole in places designed to feel private—even if they’re not?
It’s not just about safety. It’s about not wanting to prove ourselves “useful” as the only metric that matters. It’s about needing a place where we’re allowed to just exist. This isn’t a strategy shift—it’s a quiet refusal. A personal protest. A decision to stop playing the game and build a new way of operating.
Normally I’d feel obliged to offer you a framework or some action items. This is where the VALUE should become apparent, so you see me as an authority, so you feel curious about how else I can help you. But I don’t know if I have one. This might be a complete waste of your time. If you’ve even made it this far. I didn’t master an art of 60% personal before I shift to professional or practical or whatever.
This is just me, trying to make it make sense—*Honestly, so proud of that name, it just always works—*but being okay with the idea that maybe it doesn’t.
But fine. If you want a little scaffolding, let’s try this: let your content be constellational. Let one story hold three meanings. Let the mess be the message. Let people work a little to feel the through-line. They’re smart enough to figure it out—or at least, you want them to be. Maybe don’t worry so much about being confusing. Your audience isn’t confused by your humanness—they’re craving it. They’re confused too. Being human is confusing.
I’m holding a belief that the most strategic thing you can do right now is let it be un-strategic.
Let it be weird. Let it be tender. Let it be honest. (My rallying cry!)
Worst case, someone hates it and leaves.
Best case? Someone reads it and exhales.
And thinks: finally…
And sticks around.
