Freedom, Faith, Future-building and Feedback - 9 Lessons from starting my own company

After over a year of procrastination, I finally decided to give coaching a shot on Boxing Day 2023. This meant starting my own company (basically admin, but still psychologically significant), and then putting myself out there to tell people I'm doing this.

In my mind, I was ready for spectacular failure. I was ready to be laughed at, or to be fired, or to have people ask why on earth I thought I could be of any help to anyone.

And there were demoralising days. In January, I held a couple of webinars. For the first one, just over a handful of people showed up. Some were friends. For the second one, two people showed up. I got my first client, and then nothing for a couple weeks.

Then in March, I had 15 people actually book calls with me in 2 weeks: not a massive number, but I teared, unexpectedly.

I realized it was the first time I honestly thought “hey, this could actually work”.

It's like everything inside my head started to become reflected outside of it.

Of the calls I’ve already had, over a third have become clients. I don’t pressure anyone. And I'm excited to run experiments with others that could become new possibilities.

t’s funny, because I spent over 3 years watching tech founders build companies from scratch, and before that I was in corporate innovation.

I knew there would be ups and downs, but some things are only really learnt when experienced firsthand. 0-1 (or 0-0.5, frankly), looks different in every setting, even for a little coaching practice, with a bit of consulting, some experiments and some writing.

But it’s still challenging in many ways, even as I feel I’m not challenging myself enough.

2 weeks back I shared some lessons in my email newsletter. I keep returning to a few:

#2: The ability to see the future while living in the present

#4: Regularity is more important with more freedom (didn't expect that!)

#6: Humility: complacency is a warning sign

#7: Find good mentors

#9: Lagging indicators & compounding

I wanted to start Deliberate Humans not just because I love what I'm doing now, but to grow, and test myself.

Thank you for being here, and for being part of this journey in some way ??

If you'd like to read the full post with more insights and lessons, it's here: https://www.deliberatehumans.com/post/freedom-feedback-and-faith-for-future-building

If you'd like to know why I'm making you click an extra link, I explain below ??

And if you've liked any of the past issues of One Small Thing, please subscribe via the link (and check your folders to confirm your subscription), as I'll be moving completely to email by May 2024.

Thank you!

Lin

Hey there,

Thank you for subscribing to this newsletter on LinkedIn!

I really appreciate your support.

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Why?

One Small Thing started as an email newsletter, before I realized LinkedIn had a newsletter function.

After 3+ months of trying it out, I've decided to move it back to a purely email newsletter.

The readership rate there is much higher, because email is set up differently from LinkedIn posts, which tend to come in a long scroll and are time-sensitive.

And there are multiple benefits for both of us.

This may mean I lose subscribers. I know this is not a huge newsletter, but I'm super thankful for each of the 295 of you. (update: now 340, thank you! I hope you subscribe via email, because otherwise this will get lost in the daily scroll)

But I'm doing this because - I'm not chasing numbers, I'm chasing value for readers.

Moving to pure email means:

• I better understand who reads this newsletter, and can tailor content
• You get to read it on your own time, at your own pace
• You actually do see when it comes out, rather than have it jumbled with a bunch of different kinds of posts.
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Over email, I get more readers replying me directly with feedback, suggestions and appreciation.

The open rate is typically around 70-85%, and I've been surprised by how readers have found the newsletter helpful for goal-setting, career, even parenting!

So, over the next few weeks, I'll be tapering the posts here, to raise the probability that you see this and know where to head to (https://www.deliberatehumans.com/newsletter-one-small-thing )

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