I’m tired again.
Last week (as you may have heard – unless you dodged all seven of my emails, which I can respect), I launched my course on Spotify growth. It was great, and this week, I have the emotional and mental energy of a wrung-out dishrag.
Launches wear me out, I think largely because I’m not the kind of person who deeply enjoys writing a daily email asking you to buy something.
It’s not that I think selling is immoral or something. Shoot, I’ve been professionally marketing for like a decade, so I don’t even have the option to think that. I think, when selling is done ethically, it’s actually a really honorable, good thing.
But I think running a marathon is an honorable, good thing, too, and I’m not trying to do that every day.
Anyway, all of this is a roundabout way of saying that I can’t think of much to say today. I have a few ideas listed out on my trusty “Email Ideas” sheet, but I don’t feel ready to write anything super technical / educational yet.
So I’ll leave you with this:
A couple of weeks ago, I hiked Mount Bierstadt.
Bierstadt is a 14er. That’s a weird term, especially if you’re not from Colorado or a pretentiously hip outdoorsy person, but it just refers to any mountain whose summit reaches 14,000 feet or more above sea level.
Supposedly, other than the ones you can drive up, Mount Bierstadt is the easiest 14er to summit. I couldn’t tell you whether or not that’s true, since Mount Bierstadt happens to be the only 14er I’ve hiked, but I can tell you that eight-year-old kids were trotting up it, so it seems likely. Still, easy or not, it wore me out.
I went with a buddy who does a lot of hiking, and he practically ran up and down the whole thing. I kept pace as best as I could because I was too proud not to, but at the top of the mountain I was wheezing like a Walmart-brand vacuum cleaner, and by the time we made it back to the bottom my legs felt like limp linguine.
You get up super early to do these things, because you’re supposed to be down from the summit before afternoon thunderstorms. So, I got home at 2pm, and I literally went to sleep for the next three hours.
Physically, it was kind of awful.
But I also loved it.
I was talking to a friend about that weird dichotomy, and he said something like, “Yeah, not gonna lie, in the moment, I always think 14ers suck.”
“But then as soon as I’m recovered, I always want to do another one.”
For whatever reason, I think that’s how a lot of worthwhile things work.
Launching courses. Hiking 14ers. Having kids (I’ve heard). Running marathons. Releasing music.
I talk a lot about how making and marketing your music is like pushing a snowball: You have to be steady. You have to push. You have to keep things rolling, and as you stay consistent, you’ll see your success grow slowly over time.
I think that’s true. But I also think that maybe making and marketing music is like all those other hard things, too.
There’s the effortful rush to the summit, and there’s the aftermath where you feel like a wrung-out dishrag.
You have to push. You have to rest.
You’ll hate it. And after that, you’ll realize you love it.
And after that, you’ll want to do it again.
I’m glad that you’re making music. Here’s hoping you find the energy to push or the wisdom to rest this week. Both stages are part of the journey.
As always, here’s wishing you good luck.
