๐น Ten Things Worth Pausing For
Hey Reader,
Dolly Parton died this week. ๐ Tim Curry also died this week. ๐ And I watched the internet do something it rarely does anymore: Just stop, and feel something together.
I am not going to pretend I have a hot business take about either of them. What I have is a quiet kind of shared grief. It's that specific loss you feel when someone who made the world more alive in it is suddenly gone. The kind of person whose existence gave you permission to be a little more yourself.
I could keep you here on email for a very long time incorporating Tim Curry into this and much as I can quote him from the movie Clue or Rocky Horror, nothing has been more perfect for this week's email than a video of Dolly giving a pep talk directly into the camera for a Netflix special. She asks you to make a list of ten things you like about yourself, big or small, and sit with them... just to see yourself clearly for a minute.
โจ I took that as a direct instruction from the universe and I did it.
This week I'm sharing my list, not because I think you need to know all of this about me, but because I think you should make your own. And sometimes it helps to see someone else go first.
1. I built something real.โ
I didn't just dream about having a studio or talk endlessly about what I could create someday. I opened Sasquatch Media Grounds. There is a physical place in the world that exists because I imagined it, figured out the money, signed things, bought equipment, hauled stuff around, learned new technology, and kept going. Something that once existed only in my head now has an address.
2. I have reinvented myself without abandoning myself.โ
I've been doing this internet business thing for a long ass time. I've watched platforms, tactics, industries, and entire careers come and go. And instead of desperately clinging to an old version of my business because it used to work, I've kept evolving. The through-line has always been me: storytelling, strategy, creativity, curiosity, and helping people communicate something that matters.
3. I learned to recognize when I'm being underestimated.โ
I used to spend a lot more energy wondering whether I needed to prove that I belonged in the room. I'm getting much better at asking a different question: Is this room capable of recognizing what I bring to it? That's a huge difference.
4. I am becoming a person who trusts herself.โ
And I don't do this blindly or because every instinct I have is automatically correct. I gather information, I interrogate my assumptions, and I look at the data. And then I check in with the quieter part of myself that usually knew something before my brain finished assembling the evidence. I'm learning the difference between fear, wishful thinking, and intuition.
5. I keep choosing courage before I feel completely ready.โ
I've spoken up for others and for myself when it would have been easier to stay quiet. I've put my name on things. I've walked into rooms where I wasn't sure how I'd be received. I've asked people for money. I've pitched ideas. I've taken leadership positions. Courage hasn't always felt brave while I was doing it. Sometimes it felt like nausea with a calendar invitation. I did it anyway.
6. I have gotten much better at leaving things that aren't working.โ
I've left clients, offers, collaborations, events, business models, and ideas I once loved. I've learned that changing my mind isn't failure. Sometimes the smartest thing I can do is stop pouring sacred energy into something simply because Past Mary thought it was a good idea.
7. I create places where people can belong without performing.โ
Whether it's a studio, a meetup, a podcast, a room full of creators, or a weird little corner of the internet, I instinctively build spaces where people are allowed to be interesting, complicated, imperfect humans. I don't just create content. I create containers where people become more themselves.
8. I am building a business that increasingly reflects what I actually believe.โ
I'm not trying to squeeze myself back into the solopreneur internet machine anymore. The vision got bigger because I finally stopped requiring my future to fit inside my past.
9. I have survived some profoundly shitty chapters without letting them make me small.โ
There have been losses, disappointments, betrayals, abuse, financial fear, exhaustion, grief, people who didn't show up, plans that collapsed, and stretches when I genuinely didn't know how the next part was going to work. I'm still here. More importantly, I'm still curious. I'm still making things. I'm still laughing. I'm still capable of getting wildly excited about an *idea.* The shitty parts of life didn't get to take that from me.
10. And perhaps the most Dolly thing of all: I haven't finished becoming myself yet.
Neither have you.
That is the whole point of the work, this week and every week. Not to arrive somewhere perfectly formed and finished. But to keep making things, keep showing up, keep building the containers where other people get to become more themselves too.
Dolly did that at a scale most of us will never touch. But the scale was never the point. The point was that she meant it with every rhinestone, every lyric, and every time she showed up as completely herself in a world that would have been just as happy with something smaller and easier to categorize.
You do not have to be Dolly to mean it.
You just have to mean it.
Now go make your list. ๐
๐ซ Check out what happened for the studio last week, below... โคต๏ธ
๐ฃ We Made the Press. Come See Why.
SCORE just published a success story about Sasquatch Media Grounds and honestly? We earned this one. ๐ฅ
The piece covers how this studio came to exist, why the barrier to podcasting is almost never the equipment, and what it actually looks like when strategy meets sound in a room designed for exactly this kind of work. There is a quote in there that I stand behind completely: "Your show should make you money. That's not radical. It's just good business."
This is what we do around here. And if you want to be part of it, the Creator Economy Dojo is the door. General admission to the September 25th summit is closed but Dojo members walk right in, whether you are local or watching from across the country via private podcast replay.
๐ Read the full SCORE articleโ
๐ Join the Dojo at the founding rateโ
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โGoing to keep following this one โโ
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โSee the method to the madness โโ
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DOAC just posted a carousel showing exactly how many people and how much money goes into a single episode. It is a lot. You are not there yet and that is completely fine because that is not the next step. Your job right now is the proper next step for your size and stage, not fifty steps ahead. Stay in your lane and build. I see you out there.
โDo you want to be famous โโ
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I released a 90-minute Astrology and Tarot forecast covering July through December 2026 for $47. The second half of this year has a lot going on energetically and I had an absolute blast recording this. Several of you grabbed it immediately which tells me we are onto something here. This is my first experiment in bringing readings back in a sustainable way and it will not be available forever.
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You Don't Have a Production Problem. You have an architecture problem.
My free white paper breaks down what creator studios actually sell, what most creators actually need, and why those two things are rarely the same. Includes a self-audit to find out if you are ready to launch or ready to build.
Free. No catch. Just clarity.
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