Midnight - June 2022
It's midnight.
I'm on my laptop scheduling my post cause tomorrow's my 42nd birthday.
It’s been 2 months since I started Captain’s Table and I just hit my first 1,000 followers today! To celebrate, I'm writing my first thread with my top 10 visuals.
Next Morning
I wake up and check Twitter--I pause...check again.
Am I logged into the right account?
Where it should say: "Followers: 1,003", it reads: "Followers: 2,487".
3 months to 1K. Less than 24 hours to 2K.
Did I just go...viral?
Present Day
I debated long and hard about joining the Captain’s Table. It was a big investment to make on a teacher’s salary. But after thinking about how much I paid for a Masters degree in Education, I sobered up real quick and took the leap.
I’m glad I did because the continued support and accountability are exactly what I need to keep me on the ship. For anyone on the fence about joining, if you frame your decision around what you could potentially gain next to how much a college education is…it's a bargain every time.
I spent years trying to find a community, a group of people like me and unlike me, but with a common goal. Community is different from friendship. You can have a lot of friends, but if those friends aren’t all connected to you AND each other, it’s not a community.
I started all of this because I was always stuck in analysis paralysis when it came to creating anything. When I started Ship30 I didn't know what I wanted to write about or focus on, or even if I should be doing it in the first place. I think that's okay.
I’ve grown my audience to almost 10K on Twitter and 70K on IG. My work has been seen by over 150,000,000 people.
Not bad for someone who’s still making it up as they go. The funny thing is one of the biggest lessons I learned in Ship30 and Captain’s Table is EVERYONE is making it up as they go. Everyone.
“Make noise, listen for signal” was a critical unlock for me.
Instead of waiting for conditions to be perfect (which they never will), make some noise and see what happens.
It's okay if it’s imperfect. That's kind of the point.
The more you write, the more you shrink the gap between uncertainty and clarity.
Think of the journey as if you’re crossing a bridge. It’s scary if you look down.
That's why you take the advice of every movie character climbing anything ever: ”Don't look down!”
Look ahead. Look around to see the people on the bridge with you.
Give them encouragement as they do you.
You want them to succeed for the sheer thrill to know that someone who started out as you did can succeed.
And if one of you can do it, then all of you can.
“Success leaves clues,” as Jim Rohn says, and the clues are in each of the relationships you build on that bridge. Hop on board.