Are you wondering where the Mid-Week with Mack emails have gone?
(If you miss them and RIGHT NOW know that you want to get them again, just click HERE.)
I stopped writing them.
When I started doing my blogs back in 2008 (I’ve been writing a weekly blog since then), the purpose was to build rapport with people, and that lead to building some business. That worked well for long time. But a couple of years ago, maybe coinciding with COVID and everything else, people began responding saying that those blogs and emails were helping them personally. I too was dealing with all the changes from COVID, and writing became some sort of weird therapy.
As life began to transition back to normal, fewer responded. Nowadays, any response is rare.
Then, this year, Rachel Wolohan, who runs all our social media redid the template for the weekly emails where are you now have to click a link to read the rest of the blog post.
I didn’t think anything of it because the weekly email would go to 3800 people and we would have a high open rate, usually over 30%. But then I looked at the numbers of opens and realized that the amount of people who clicked the link to read the rest of the post was less than one percent. Most weeks less than 60 people clicked. So that said, even though I know it was useful for me to talk about things, and meaningful for a few readers, on a grand scale it wasn’t making any real difference.
On one hand, I believed what I was doing was important. I’d spend Sunday afternoons writing them to launch on Wednesday. In the Summer, when we spend most weekends doing yard work, I’d have to write in the evenings or in between workshops. I didn’t want to let my audience down.
But on the other hand, it wasn’t making my business grow and apparently, not helping that many people.
And then right after that, I recorded my podcast episode about The Unlock Moment, and told myself, just like my guest Dr. Gary Crotaz said in a recent podcast he did with me, “ You don’t have to do this anymore if you don’t want to.”
I decided to stop just to see if anyone noticed.
The first week, only one person did. I told them that I was not able to get one done because I was traveling but I was also thinking about taking a little break (Lisa noticed, but I told her it didn’t count because she gets paid to notice).
The second week, that person was again the only person who noticed. And I decided to quit the blog. I love writing, but if it’s not helping my business grow and if it’s not helping people develop, then maybe I should put my efforts somewhere else.
(This ends the pity party portion of this post).
In my last few posts, I mentioned our daughter who moved from St. Louis to Dallas to take a new job with Southwest Airlines. Well, she was selected to go on a business trip to Germany, so I offered to house and dog sit for her while she went as it was for a full seven days. It was easy for me because I have lots of points for travel and all my workshops for the next few weeks are virtual. I flew out two Fridays ago, dropped her at the airport, and then it was just me and Apollo, my goldendoodle grand-dog.
I don’t have a problem being alone. I think all the years of business travel conditioned me to it On the road (and at home), I connect to the world through television. I grew up in front of the TV and it’s been my constant companion. Allison doesn’t have regular TV. She has Internet with one of those smart TVs and so she has apps. Netflix, Paramount+, Disney+, YouTube, Max, and a couple of others. That’s great because I love documentaries and enjoy watching them back-to-back. On the other hand, I like watching the evening news to see what the weather is going to be like, and to see local and national events. I couldn’t do that. Oddly enough, I found myself missing commercials. Two days later I realized you can watch YouTube for some live news programming, but it still felt weird.
When I was working, teaching the workshops with a few of our cohorts, everything seemed normal. In between those I would take Apollo down to the little dog park down the street. And then after my work was finished, I drove him to another one called MUTTS. MUTTS is a pay-as-you-go or membership dog park. But this one is great for the humans too. They have a little counter where you can order food and drinks at a complete bar with cocktails. The dogs run free in a park that resembles a child’s playground. There’s an area with kiddie pools where the dogs can splash around, and they run around on mulch. It is lively and exciting on the weekend, and after five, but in the early afternoon it’s pretty quiet.
It’s funny watching the dogs. They’re a lot like kids on the playground. There are the shy ones that don’t want to leave their parents and then the wild ones that run around trying to fight with everyone. Some dogs resemble their owners. Certain breeds of dogs tend to run together. Apollo will stay by my side until other goldendoodles show up and then he’ll run over and investigate. I wonder how many steps down the evolutional chain our dogs are from us? Sometimes they seem a lot like people. Sometimes their owners do too.
But it was when I was back in my daughter’s apartment with just Apollo, that I really felt the isolation. Mind you, I live on 32 acres where my nearest neighbor is only visible in wintertime when the leaves are down, and the night is clear. Here there are people all around walking their dogs and walking the streets, but nobody makes eye contact, smiles, or greets you. Strangers looked at Apollo, smiled and talked to him, but never made eye contact or spoke to me. Even though I’m not a lonely person, I can certainly imagine that this might be how lonely people feel on a regular basis.
As I start edging toward what I see, is the fourth quarter of my life, I am trying to figure out the best path forward. Writing that blog helped. Some of them may seem like a rant and some of them may seem like preaching, but when I write these, they come from the heart. It’s something I’m experiencing that I think might be useful for you as well. I’m starting to wonder if maybe that isn’t important to everybody, but it might be important to a few. And even if it’s only a few, maybe I owe it to them. And the reason I think I owe it to them, is, because for the last eight days, I have certainly felt like what one of them might feel like.
So here is the reason I wanted to have you read all the way to the bottom. If you found this rant helpful, and, you find yourself a similar place in life where you are just trying to figure out the next step and trying to make sure that next step is a lot better than the last ones, then just click THIS LINK! That will create a list of just people who read all the way down to the end of this email and I really want to get back on the weekly email. I don’t know what I’ll call it, but it won’t be Mid-Week with Mack because that is done. And here is the caveat. I will do the weekly email if I get 250 people to sign up. If not, then I won’t.
So again, if you want to get back on the weekly or at least somewhat regular blog emails, click HERE. You’ll also hear some business stuff for me periodically because it comes out of the same list and also, don’t forget that’s how I pay my bills is by doing management training and consulting so if that’s something you need right now, we’d certainly love to hear about it and see how we can help you.
For those of you that get this and are already in and you know people who might really benefit from this, just go ahead and send them THIS LINK so they can get in. Again, in this weekly email I will never try to sell you anything. It will just be reflections, ideas, thoughts, and stories that might help you as they have helped me.
Have an awesome week, and I really hope that you want to stay in touch!