Yesterday I had a really good conversation with David McIlroy on my podcast - the You World Order Showcase - He's a best seller over on Substack with over 33,000 followers. We talked about vulnerability which might sound like an odd topic for Substack - but when it comes to notes and content it's one of the most important pieces to get nailed down. There is a fine line between oversharing and being vulnerable. And the difference will cost you. The thing that it costs you is confidence. Not your confidence - but others confidence in you. Being vulnerable, in the world today, often shows up as being you, having your own opinions and letting others have theirs - that last bit - super important. As human beings we like to have our positions validated so it's often difficult to just state where you stand on things - but in doing so you pull your people towards you. I have to say that as a person who has always leaned toward people pleasing it's hard for me to take rejection - it always feels personal, so I get the allure of being vanilla. Though saging (as @Karen Langston puts it) has allowed me to care less about what people think about me on a personal level and more about helping them move towards stepping into the spotlight themselves. Which is where notes comes into the picture. The most powerful notes aren't notes that cause controversy but notes that allow people to feel aligned to something. I have note right now circulating around that has 16,000 likes, 771 comments and 1.7K restacks - it's brought in 255 new subscribers. I've had other notes go viral too and sometimes they go viral at the same time. You all have had notes go viral too - @Soph Newman 's spectacular one and @Evelyn Beatrice Bourne had one go crazy (I know they've had others - but I saw these go viral)

Love that it is still dark at 6am here. Something about drinking coffee with a candle for light that really makes my day feel special. I don't know if it's just me so I'm going to throw this out here - are you all feeling an energy shift right now? Not really looking to label it as I'm not sure how to label it - things feel different to me - not good or bad just not settled. Anyone else feeling this or have some insight around this? 🪻🍀🌺🔥🌺🍀🪻 Today is the weekly Q&A/Social Hour - we start at 1pm mtn - here: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82141442688?pwd=xJ9W2bYfTXnBptWKuoOgEH4P2enq6p.1 come for 5 minutes or come for the hour. Tomorrow we will be enjoying the wisdom of @Rasheed Hooda who will be sharing a workshop with us on Monetizing Your Weird - Rasheed has a great backstory and I personally am really looking forward to this. Join us at 2pm mtn here: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82173053137?pwd=LvWmj0jftv7dmZv7xB0lKcaarU1YHs.1&jst=2 Tuesday September 22nd at noon mtn we will be hosting the Substack Setup Intensive LIVE. Whether you've been on Substack a minute or are just starting out this is a great opportunity to dial in your publication so that the visibility you create by boosting your content over there leads to free and paid subscribers. Learn More here or upgrade here #🎯START HERE (you don't have to wait until Tuesday - you can jump right in today and watch the replays and go through the set up guides so that when we are live you have the ground work done and can really take advantage of asking me questions. 🪻🍀🌺🔥🌺🍀🪻 Post your links to notes, chats, lives and articles for boosting here - we will like, restack and comment where appropriate

Feels like Monday today - even though it's Tuesday. Yesterday was fun though a lot for this ole gal. I don't get to spend alone time very often with the second born grand kids because - well they have older siblings and usually we get them both - yesterday was really special in that way. Theo though 2 and half is learning to talk and count and likes to sing movie themes apparently - we had all the fun singing along to Frozen and Moana. The surgery went well for his brother, but he will need another one in March to actually fix the issue. (Which should have been fixed when he as 12-18 months old - but we have morons for doctors in our next of the woods. There is always a tradeoff for living in the country and unreliable medical support is the main thing here) 🌴🌼🥀🪻🥀🌼🌴 @Vinayak Ramesh 's interview with Substack best seller - Phillip Hofmacher is live today! https://substack.com/@vinayakramesh1/note/c-337284012 Tomorrow we have the Q&A/Social Hour happening at 1pm mtn here: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82141442688?pwd=xJ9W2bYfTXnBptWKuoOgEH4P2enq6p.1 and then on Thursday we have the Monetize Your Mission Mastermind at 2pm mtn with @Rasheed Hooda who will be talking about leaning into monetizing your personal brand of weird. 🌴🌼🥀🪻🥀🌼🌴 Next week will be the Substack Setup Intensive live happening again - on Tuesday the 22nd at noon mtn. If you're new to Substack or even been over there for a while but not sure if you have your publication set up optimally you are going to want to go through this. There are many replays in the classroom and guides to get you started so you don't need to wait until next week - upgrade today and gain access. #🎯START HERE

Have you heard - NOTES ARE DEAD - just kidding ... Notes are still a huge driver of discovery on Substack - BUT there is a new "favorite" on the block. That new favorite driver is recommendations. The way you can recommend other is to go to their profile>3 dots to the right>find the star/recommend and then chose the publication to recommend and then write a blurb. 1-2 sentences about why you're recommending them. If you don't pick your recommendations, then Substack will pick some for you. At least 5-10 is a good starting place. Not everyone you recommend will recommend you back - that's okay. I feel creating the blurbs are important especially if you're recommending publications with a substantial following - they can choose 3 blurbs to put on their welcome page. To find the recommendations - both yours and those who recommend you - go to your publication dashboard>audience>recommendations Once there you will find those who recommend you and how many subscribers that has sent you and those that you recommend and if you click the 3 dots to the side you can then add a blurb there - if you add a blurb it allows the publication to post that blurb on their welcome page. This is a big deal. Especially if the publication is active and growing. If you go to the bottom of the recommendations page after where your recommendations are - you will see the option to share blurbs on your welcome page. If you have recommendations with blurbs post them - they work as little testimonials. If you chose to recommend my publication and leave a blurb I'm going to make it a part of my process to rotate the welcome page blurbs out at least once a week. Also, you all have each other's publications you can recommend too - I'm not sure if more is better but if you're leaving blurbs I'm not sure how it can hurt. ☘️🪴🌻🥚🌻🪴☘️ I've been exploring the whole recommendations thing this morning so am going to make this notes boost thread a little on the shorter side - on a personal note Monday's VIP mastermind is going to be moved to Tuesday next week - I've got a grandchild going in for surgery down in Salt Lake on Monday morning - and we will be babysitting his brother. The mastermind will go back to Mondays at their normally scheduled times after that.

25 Years ago, today - was THE 9/11 - a friend of mine called and told me to turn on the tv that the twin towers were under attack. I remember watching those building fall and thinking no way - those were pulled. My youngest son was just 9 months old, and my oldest daughter had just joined the army. She was in bootcamp when it happened. One of those very surreal days where I just knew things were going to be very different from that day on - Do you remember that day? And then there was yesterday.... While my husband and I were walking a gal we didn't know slowed down her vehicle like she wanted to talk to us and handed my husband a bunch of flowers and told him to give them to me! they are beautiful don't you think? Just a random act of kindness that really brightened my day. 💜☘️✒️🐉☘️💜 Yesterday's mastermind was fun. We talked about notes, how to create them, schedule them and then talked about the analytics and I shared a super-secret tip for taking Substack's analytics and getting AI to help you interpret it. And then we wondered into different ways to monetize your Substack. If you tried to watch it last night - I had forgotten to change the visibility on the video - sorry about that but you can catch it now. https://youtu.be/gc3DrMOrcrk @Deborah Oppenehim - asked some great questions about sharing notes on other platforms which generated some ideas that might be pertinent to what you are doing. 💜☘️✒️🐉☘️💜 I'd like to take a minute and welcome the new community members today... @Courtney Richardson @Pam Woodisde @Enoch George While some of you might not have Substack accounts just yet - you're still welcome to click through the links here and get a feel for how notes work and what is happening over on Substack. Also like to let you know I offer Client Acquisition Audits for free where we can chat about how Substack might fit into what you're already doing and streamline your workload rather than making it more complicated. You can reserve yours here: https://hartlifecoach.com/client-acquisition-audit