When the universe is ready for you, it'll knock you onto your fucking feet.
That's right, not off of them. Onto them.
Since Facebook's rise in 2008, I have been told how clever my personal posts were. I have long been told I should write a book about various topics - my life, my brothers, my travels, etc. Even so, as an entrepreneur, I have always struggled to find my niche and market myself.
What am I doing wrong? Why do I so frequently hear I'm great at this but I can never gain traction?
I cobbled together pitches and RFPs and had them reviewed, and collaborated with others, and networked, and...very little stuck. I was able to make ends meet, but something wasn't right.
And then, one video changed it all. The niche I had been struggling to define, the "thing" that made me unique, the topic I could talk about easily and passionately...was already written in my dissertation years before. And literally overnight, I had thousands of followers and the vision of how it all came together was so clear it felt silly I hadn't seen it before.
It didn't happen before, not because I couldn't do it. But because it wasn't time yet.
This is a lesson I have learned twice in the last year and a half (maybe I'll tell that other story another time). And once I had this clear vision, I dove into it head first. Making the content (videos for TikTok and Instagram, newsletter/blog content for website and LinkedIn, the slide decks and quotes for advertising it, etc.) that has earned me over 20,000 TikTok followers. It's brought me business from places I never would have thought to look and helped me connect with very cool creators, businesspeople, and researchers I never would have known otherwise. But it has also inspired something else, which I now need time to work on.
I am working on a book that expands my current research on the Unwritten Rules of Work. A book that will outline all of the rules, who it impacts, and what the consequences are. It will be written with recommendations for leaders and employees on how to navigate these rules and to build healthy work cultures. I even collected a whole new round of quantitative and qualitative data for it, expanding my original research on white and Black women and men to include all races and genders in the United States, immigration status, and neurodivergence. Many of you have asked, "when is it coming out?" And I haven't been able to give a straight answer because I am still a one-woman show. My increased client load and the time it takes to record and write all of my content takes the majority of my time. And I have loved every second of it! But I must dial back a bit so I can work on product development. For this reason, I am pausing this blog and my daily videos for the rest of this year so I can finish this book.
Through the end of the year, I will do weekly updates on my TikTok and Instagram. I'll continue to host LinkedIn Lives with my co-host Raquel, and share some of those clips on my pages. But the majority of my focus will be on serving my current clients and analyzing new data/writing the book so I can update my workshop, speaking, and coaching services with research that will be even more applicable to my audiences.
I am so fortunate to have enough client work to keep me busy. There were times when that was not the case. Last New Year's Eve, my dad asked me what my new years' resolution was. I told him "to survive" because as a small business owner in this economy, it has been scary. My first effort this year was starting a 6-month content plan for this blog. After 10 months of once-a-month posts, it now has over 800 followers between the website version and LinkedIn version. I know that's small potatoes in the internet world, but I am grateful every day that each of you are here. And I feel guilty to "disappoint" you with taking a break (and the Type A is SO annoyed not to pause at EXACTLY A YEAR later). But I hope to be back with fresh content from my new data analysis, and a product you can take home and to work for regular use.
Thank you for being here. I hope you stick around and like the new work I have coming out. If you are interested, the waiting list for the book is here. I'll be sending out updates when the publisher and I have some dates set.
In the meantime, if there's something within you trying to claw out and be shared with the world, trust it. Don't fight it. I'm a Type A, cynic, scientist who HATES being told to "follow my heart" or "go with my gut." But sometimes you can't think yourself into the next step. You have to just let it happen. But when it happens, put a seat belt on. The internet is a wild tool in the universe.
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