I talked to 300 of you. Here's what I learned. 📞📞📞

My Zoom call journey.

Back in May, I made a big announcement: I would do a 30-minute, one-on-one, Zoom call with ANYONE who became a paid subscriber to this newsletter.

My wife was, um, skeptical. You are going to get some weirdos, she told me.

My more business-minded friends were astounded — and not in a good way. You are going to spend 30 minutes with anyone who pays $6 a month to become a subscriber???, they asked incredulously.

And I was, well, a little clueless about it all.

When I sent out the email to paid subscribers saying that they could sign up for a 30-minute chat with me, it was pretty late at night. I sent it, closed my computer and went to bed.

I got up the next morning and opened my calendar. I had — and I am not exaggerating here — 2 straight months of 30-minute meetings booked. From 10 am to 5 pm. Every day of the week.

(Sidebar: I use the Calendly open calendar to allow people to book meetings. It’s great!)

Which, uh, wasn’t workable. Because while I know people like the chance to talk with me one-on-one, the content I create is what drives this whole thing. And I couldn’t create content if I was talking for 7+ hours straight every day. Also, I needed time to go to the bathroom. And to eat!

I quickly decided that I would do 2 hours of Zoom calls every weekday — from 1 pm to 3 pm eastern. And I’ve tried to, mostly, stick to that schedule over the last 5 months.

In that time, I have done — by my back-of-the-envelope calculations — more than 300 Zoom calls with paid subscribers. (And I have HUNDREDS more on the books.)

Before I get to what those calls have taught me, I wanted to quickly share why I wanted to do them in the first place.

I am not a business guy — even though I have come to realize that I run a small business now. I didn’t do some sort of calculation on what my return on investment would be from these calls. I didn’t have some grand strategy.

Here’s what I did know:

• I wanted to give a unique incentive for people to become paid subscribers. Like, beyond access to my archives or audio versions of my posts.

• I wanted to meet the people who were willing to invest their own money in me. I wanted to, well, interview them about why they decided to become a paid subscriber and what they liked (and didn’t like) about what I was doing.

• I wanted people to know me. No, it’s not as though we were having a weekly lunch or something — it was just 30-minute Zoom call — but I felt like being able to see a real person behind the writing and the videos was important. And that when people became paying subscribers, they could see that they were directly investing in me and what I was building.

So, I did it.

And here’s what have I learned: Not only are people kind and good but a whole lot of them see the grey areas that exist in politics — and life! They don’t feel totally at home in either party. They don’t love Kamala Harris or Donald Trump (although I have talked to people who LOVE each of them!) They want honest brokers to help them navigate the news environment.

More on all of that in a minute. But let me go through a few fun facts about who I have talked to over the past 5 months.

• A former pro wrestler

• A guy who moderates focus groups for a living

• A candy distributor (He sent me some — you know, for the “kids.” 😂😂😂)

• Someone who got divorced, sold all of his belongings and now lives on a beach in central America. (Literally. I could see the beach and ocean behind him on our call.)

• A local elected official in Ohio

• People from South Africa, New Zealand, England, France and more than half the states in the U.S. (I stopped counting once we got past 25!)

How many of these people were, to my wife’s worry, “weirdos”? Honestly, none!

Now, have there been people I have spent 30 minutes with who were, uh, somewhat socially awkward? You bet! But it’s a small number — and they weren’t mean or nasty. They were just awkward! Which, as a somewhat awkward person myself, I get! (My kids would describe me as more than “somewhat” awkward, for the record.)

And, not ONCE in 300+ Zoom calls have I ever had to end it before the time was up. Not ONCE!

This isn’t to say it has been perfect. It’s a HUGE logistical challenge to try to fit these calls into all the other stuff I am doing. And it has led me to have to reschedule a lot of times — which sucks because I am disappointing someone.

It’s also a LOT of time every day. Two hours might not seem like much but it’s a big chunk of every afternoon. Which is why, by the way, I have cut down the Zoom calls to 15 minutes recently. I would love to chat for 30 minutes but I can’t make it all fit in the day!

But, all in all, these Zoom calls have succeeded — at least in my eyes — beyond my wildest dreams.

I have met hundreds of people from all walks of life. And while I have talked to many of them about politics, I’ve also talked to them about struggling with anxiety. About getting laid off and how I (and they) dealt with it. About losing a loved one. About travel sports. About being a dad. About being a husband. About Substack — and starting a small business.

People have given me advice. They have offered to help me — in marketing this newsletter, in building my YouTube channel, in trying to develop a TikTok presence. They have told me to email them if I ever come to their state. They have become, well, like friends.

Which gets me to why these calls work. And why they matter. Because, ultimately, this is about community. This is about finding like-minded people. People who see you as more than just who you vote for.

These conversations have reinforced to me that people are GOOD. That we have SO MUCH in common. That much more unites us than divides us.

For everyone I have talked to, thank you. Thank you for helping to renew my faith in who we are and who we can be.

If you want to join the ranks of paid subscribers — and chat with me! — you can do it below.