Two weeks ago, I woke up around 3:45 AM with an intense fever and tonsils so swollen I couldn’t even drink water.
I got dressed, threw my phone charger in a bag, and immediately booked a Lyft to the nearest ER.
One of the benefits to going to the ER at 4am is that virtually no one else is there. I was admitted basically immediately and proceeded to spend the next twelve hours getting pumped full of IV steroids, antibiotics, fluids, and having the doctors run every test imaginable.
The worst part is… I wasn’t even in my home state at the time.
I was on vacation in DC, visiting friends, and ended up being so sick that I ended my trip early, changing my flight home (while in the ER!) to a red-eye that night.
If I was going to be miserable, I wanted my own bed. And my cat Spooky.
The two weeks that followed were a massive stress-test for my business.
The timing on all of this couldn’t have been worse.
Some of you might know that we recently launched the very first live cohort of Creating Your Content World, my content strategy course and seven-week posting challenge.
Over 100 folks are in that challenge. And it’s incredibly important to me that everyone feels like they learned something and got their money’s worth.
So me, the primary instructor and face of the business, suddenly being completely unavailable??? NOT IDEAL.
Admittedly, I was pretty messed up and feverish while at the ER, but I definitely remember thinking to myself “oh fuck, did I just ruin this entire experience for these students? Do I need to issue 100+ refunds?”
But my team stepped UP.
Josephine, our amazing community manager and operations lead, cleared my calendar and told me in no uncertain terms that my job was to REST.
Kaeli (whose marketing experience has helped her clients make over $11M) and Andrea (formerly at Netflix and Pixar) stepped up and spent dozens of hours giving students feedback on their content.
I honestly can’t believe how I made things work before I had a team. Without them, this would have been a disaster.
But because I spent the past year building those systems, hiring an amazing team of experts, and doing the hard work of learning to delegate… I was able to get the rest I really REALLY needed after being discharged.
And while Spooky and I recovered and watched Pride and Prejudice, students STILL got amazing results.
One of the most dramatic success stories from this cohort so far (and trust me, there are a lot!) is Anne Goesel.
Anne is an incredible woodblock printmaker, and her recent IG content went from getting 3,000 views to over 129,000 (and counting!!) after applying my framework and getting feedback from the team.
We have enough success stories right now that I genuinely think this is possible for absolutely every creative. Whether you’re a beginner, not tech savvy, don’t want to show your face, use a super unusual medium, whatever.
Students in this cohort are proving over and over again that this system just WORKS. Regardless of niche.
This is my first week back full-time since the ER visit, and I can’t wait to share even more lessons and success stories with you.
All my love,
