Dear New Wave Coach,
I’m writing this letter today after a 2 week pause on “work.”
I haven’t opened my laptop in 14 days. Haven’t responded to an email. Haven’t written a new page in my upcoming book. Haven’t been on Twitter.
I needed a pause.
I needed to think.
I needed to evaluate.
After the pause, I’ve returned well rested, well read, and well refined in what I want.
What I see.
And what I believe in.
So here is what I have for you.
Free Newsletter
Today, February 10th will be my last free newsletter that comes every Thursday.
The free newsletter will now come on the first Thursday of every month. Once per month.
What I’m Doing
I’m going from 50/50 free to paid content to 80% paid and 20% free.
Why?
After joining a writing community, a coaching community, a paid newsletter, purchasing a coaching course and making various other “skin in the game” investments into myself, I’m doubling down on a belief that I have:
You get more out of what you pay for
The content can be the same, but if you pay for it, you’re more likely to:
read and reread it
critically analyze and question it
spend more time thinking about it
email the author/creator and further the discussion
apply something that you read
Build on top and improve upon the creators model
When something costs something, it matters more to you.
I want this to matter to you.
I want you to have skin in the game.
I want you to “invest” in your development.
Free stuff gets read, and closed out of, deleted from your email and then repeated next week. So I’m not going to incentivize behaviors I don’t want.
There’s a coaching lesson in there.
It’s also a commitment to myself to “turn pro” in writing. If you haven’t read “Turning Pro” by Steven Pressfield, I’d recommend it. The publishers summary will give you an idea of why I’m making the choice:
The follow-up to his best-seller The War of Art, Turning Pro navigates the passage from the amateur life to a professional practice.
"You don't need to take a course or buy a product. All you have to do is change your mind."
Turning pro is free, but it's not easy. When we turn pro, we give up a life with which we may have become extremely comfortable. We give up a self we have come to identify with and to call our own.
Turning pro is free, but it demands sacrifice. The passage from amateur to professional is often achieved via an internal odyssey whose trials are survived only at great cost, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. We pass through a membrane when we turn pro. It's messy, and it's scary. We tread in blood when we turn pro.
What we get when we turn pro is we find our power. We find our will and our voice, and we find our self-respect. We become who we always were but had until then been afraid to embrace and live out.
Part of who I have become in this last 2 years is a writer, so I’m turning pro. It’s a commitment to myself and my audience that there will legitimate value exchange. Turning pro updates the social contract between us.
The yearly plan comes out to about 1 dollar for every paid article and that’s before the podcast episodes, video library(to be added) and full access to the previous 2 years worth of knowledge on the website.
If You’re Still Reading…
Some of my audience hasn’t made it this far into this letter.
“All coaching knowledge should be free.”
“You’re a sell-out.”
Those are their objections and opinions. And that is okay.
You can stay on the free plan, you’ll just get 1 article a month instead of 1 a week.
I’m challenging you to invest, because like I said at the beginning… This isn’t an agreement where only I benefit with more of your money.
You get more out of what you pay for…
You know this to be true.
If you’d like to accept my challenge, upgrade here and turn pro with me:
With your choice I will see you on February 13th on the paid newsletter or March 3rd for the next free edition.
To turning pro,
Drew Carlson