Five words that I tell myself every day

On mantras.

To be honest, I have never been big on mantras.

They always felt a little too new age-y to me. Like the kind of thing you adopt after spending a week on the West Coast “finding” yourself and doing a juice cleanse.

This is, admittedly, a view almost entirely built off of Jeff Goldblum’s cameo in “Annie Hall”:

God I love that movie.

But, as you might have guessed, the last 18 months have forced me to reexamine a lot of the assumptions and convictions I previously held. Getting laid off in a very public way can have that effect!

Having a mantra — a phrase that quickly sums up how you want to approach the day, week, month, year — is one of the things that I have changed my thinking on.

Why? Honestly because I spent the first nine months after CNN laid me off thinking to myself — at least once a day — some version of this sentence: “I am a failure.”

Know what I realized? That has a MASSIVE effect on how you see the world! If you think of that sentence at least once a day, every day, for months, you wind up feeling pretty terrible about yourself! I don’t recommend trying it. Just take my word for it.

---

This is a free post. Please share it with anyone who might need to hear what it says. Most of my content will remain free. But to continue doing this work I need your financial support. I hope you consider becoming a paid subscriber. It’s $6 a month or $60 for the year.

---

That experience convinced me that words — even (and maybe especially) the ones we say to ourselves — have real power. They can shape how we see ourselves. How we interpret external events. How we walk through the world.

Which brings me to the point of this post: For the past few months, I have started — without really even trying — to find a positive mantra. Something I can say to myself every day (or so) that helps me frame how I want to think about what I am doing and where I am going.

Here’s what I’ve come up with: “Up and to the right.”

Let me explain.

This all started with Substack — and the subscriber data they provide me. And this chart in particular, which shows subscriber growth over time (yes, this is my real subscriber growth chart):

Not bad, right?

But, if I am being honest, I was always hoping that the growth chart looked more like this:

That, by the way, is a chart of Netflix’s revenue growth in its early years. And it’s a chart anyone who has ever taken a business class — or read a business book — is familiar with. It’s called “hockey stick growth” — a slow(ish) start followed by rapid and huge expansion.

It’s also not super-realistic. Yes, it happens. But it is the exception, not the rule.

Pining for hockey-stick growth — or setting that as the only way you can truly feel you have succeeded — is a recipe for failure. Or at least feeling like a failure.

This is true in Substack. But it’s also true in life.

I have people, on a pretty regular basis, tell me how impressed they are with what I have built here. These are big guys who come up to me with tears in their eyes and say “Sir…” 😂😂😂

But, seriously, it does happen! And, for the longest time I would say “thank you so much” but in my own head I would think “Sure, it’s good. BUT it’s not good enough. Not enough subscribers. Not enough money. Just not enough.”

I would go to my Substack dashboard page every morning — waiting for that hockey stick growth moment, and then find myself disappointed when it wasn’t there. (See above where I told myself I was a failure every day.) I would scroll Substack — jealously looking at other people who did seem to be experiencing the rapid growth that I wanted so badly. (Comparison is my toxic trait.)

Let me tell you this: That is no way to live!

What I have started to realize over these last few months is that as long as things are moving “up and to the right” — even marginally — I need to take that as a win.

On Substack, it means that our community is continuing to grow. More and more people are deciding to becoming paid subscribers. We are up to 3,197 people paying to support me and this work. Sidenote: Join them!

I am now regularly getting more than 1 million page views every month. Other great Substacks are recommending me.

In short: There’s momentum. We are moving up and to the right!

Stepping back and thinking about my life, “up and to the right” fits too.

I am in a better place — mentally, professionally etc. — than I was a year ago. Or even six months ago. I am not where I would, ideally, want to be — just a totally chill dude who doesn’t worry about, uh, stuff. (Do people like that actually exist?)

Not every day is amazing. But there are more good ones than there were a year ago. And a lot more good ones than bad ones.

Up and to the right.

It works for me. Maybe it might work for you too. But, even if it doesn’t I strongly recommend finding some sort of self-talk — short and easy to remember — that does make you realize that by the very act of living, trying, succeeding and, yes, failing, you deserve credit and grace.