The Beginning
At the end of 2022, I published a very personal essay — in it, I wanted to explore why a person with dyslexia would choose to write for a living, as I expressed at the end of section one:
On the surface the question is perplexing, a paradox. Why would a dyslexic choose to write for a living, in much the same way a one-armed man would choose to become a professional boxer? It makes no sense. Until it does.
Researching and writing that essay was an incredible journey, discovering stuff I never knew, perhaps only sensing.
The Past
I’ve been earning a full-time living online since 2003.
Well, technically, from October 23rd. The day earlier, I had been laid off, the fallout from two companies merging. Employees knew months before we all got put out to pasture — the rumor mill in full swing.
While my colleagues and friends worked on their CVs (resumes), I worked on an exit strategy from traditional employment. October 23, 2003, marked the start of a new journey.
That feels like a lifetime ago now.
The Present
While my (personal) website has been through many iterations over the past twenty years, the 2023 version is the one I’m most excited about, which I explain more about on my home page.
If you’re a creator serving an audience, you may feel disheartened by the formulaic and overly aggressive nature of the current state of online marketing.
I grew sick of the cohesion tactics and overly-engineered funnels a decade and a half ago, so I decided to do something about it.
In an N-of-1 journey, mainly led by intuition, I started to create a new playbook for myself — an expression of marketing inspired by storytelling and world-building and informed by systems thinking (to the degree I understood those concepts).
It was a slower, calmer expression of modern marketing, led by empathy, emphasizing building relationships before transactions. It was marketing that intuitively “felt right,” and that feeling guided me forward.
A calmer, slower marketing approach demonstrated that direct-response marketing could look and feel different. It was a privilege to attract and serve tens of thousands of customers.
All of which led me to this point in my life.
As I celebrated my 50th birthday on March 7th, 2023, I came to grips with a renewed sense of purpose, a fresh and vibrant drive to find a deeper, more profound meaning in life’s second half.
To that end, I wrote a manifesto to frame this next chapter, as much to myself as the new segment of people I seek to serve.
It’s a call to arms for sovereign creators like us in how we seek to attract and grow audiences that matter — Tiny Worlds: A Manifesto for Sovereign Creators & Writers.
Please reach out anytime. I read every email.
André
