Long time no see...

Yeah, I am sorry, ok?

Today, it is a story of what I went through the last few months - and there is a lesson learned too, I promise.

Going dark

I have ghosted LinkedIn and basically any public writing for most of the last few months - and it all started with a little bit of burnout.

Not connected to work though - but to family life. You know, I think that it is the worst kind of burnout, because there is nowhere to escape, do distraction, nothing like that. You just need to endure and hope for the best - especially if your partner has it even worse and you need to support him/her.

I don't want to go deep into details, but the implication was that I switched into "energy saving mode" - very carefully considering what should I be doing with my energy (leftovers of energy) and time.

Content creation did not bring me the same amount of joy for some time, and I struggled to also get some more practical outcomes among other things, so it was one of the first victims.

Later on - like a month ago - everything was getting much better, and I was even prepared to get back on track, but...well now that I analyze it, I think I was just stalling.

Why? Because I am sure about one thing - when I come back to content creation, it needs to be FOR REAL. And I will not be satisfied with anything less than taking it all to a whole new level.

Because - despite taking it all more seriously last year - I still feel like just scratching the surface.

The decision has been made - let's get to work.

Motivation and other creatures

The first fact I realized when searching for energy to get going was, that it would be a shame to just throw away all that I did up to now.

In a little bit over a year (and not being consistent all the time) I managed to:

• get my LinkedIn following increase 6 TIMES - 600 to 3600.
• get hundreds of views of my posts
• get 800 subscribers of this newsletter
• and almost 300 people subscribing/following my substack newsletter.

That's not hopeless, right? That's a good starting point for THIS moment!

And the best thing? Throughout the year I met a lot of interesting people thanks to content creation and posting - so there is that practical value I was missing!

One of these people was John Crickett - and he recently came with a month-long cohort focused on building a personal brand.

I did not hesitate for a bit - and just bought a spot, because that is great additional motivation to go all in, and I am very much looking forward to it. We are starting May 20th, and btw I think there are still some spots left...

Let's reconnect

I mean it - I would love to hear from you.

Can I help you with something around software engineering, or linkedIn and posting? Just leave me a DM, I will answer all.

Do you run a podcast or something similar and you would love to talk with me about my journey, total career change into software engineering at 32 years or any other topic? GREAT please reach out.

You have some collab idea? GREAT please reach out.

Let's just reconnect ... I am back. For good.

That's all - see you next time.

With something more ordinary - getting better together.

Pavel.