I was sinking.
Each day just crashed into me like a wave. Every effort to get ahead felt pointless. It seemed like I was rudderless and going nowhere.
I’ll quit it with the nautical references now.
It was 2013 and I was just starting to make videos on social media. I could see the potential for something but I wasn’t sure how that something would manifest itself.
I tried everything. I’d work hard on ideas and they’d flop.
There’s an instinctual push to ‘try harder’ when something you thought should be successful or fruitful just isn’t. So I did.
Still nothing.
Then I kinda stopped thinking about what would be “successful” and focused more on what would be fun for me. To be clear, I didn’t stop thinking about what I was creating/making. No, I was fairly focused on that, but I was way less focused on the “success”.
So in August of 2013 I made a silly video called “Put Your Finger On The Screen”… and it blew up. It blew up so much that I’m writing you this newsletter today in 2022.
But here’s where it gets interesting…
I used that unexpected success to keep making videos that were more fun for me and less (but not ignoring) what might be “successful”. They did well. I built a following that seemed to enjoy what I was doing. That’s fun.
At the first Vine meet up (where content creators and fans get to… well, meet up) in October, 2013 in Toronto as I was walking across the street to Yonge and Dundas Square a woman in her late 50s ran up to me. She threw her arms around me and through welled-up eyes she said that my videos had helped her family through some hard times recently.
And there it was…
Meaning. Purpose. Success.
Make no mistake, most of my videos then and now are hardly works of art. They’re silly, fluff, inconsequential, ephemeral at best… but they also occasionally help people.
I had been adrift and sinking looking for “success”… when all I had to do was keep sailing.
Of course, “success” usually means money. We all need money and you need to do what you need to do to make it… but deep down and beyond the money “success” means… meaning and purpose.
You don’t always know what will earn you that kind of “success” and you usually don’t get to choose it. But I think if you focus on making you happy, you end up letting “success” find you.
You can’t pick your hits.
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(Pictured: Author searching for more nautical metaphors)
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