Hey all!

About 3 weeks ago, I made the decision to (among other things) create a newsletter and send out exactly one email to all of my subscribers until the end of the year 2021 - 66 weeks in total. In this email, I will tell you the story of how that process got started and how it got me a job offer from an 9-figure business from Austin, Texas.

I've been playing with the idea for an email list or a blog for a couple of years now, but for some reason I always found excuses for not taking action. I always figured that I didn't have anything interesting to talk about or that you first need to accomplish something before you are "allowed" or "good enough" to create great content. And so I pushed the idea away and ignored it.

This is of course a very stupid way of thinking about it that is in no way founded in reality. It's actually a very common phenomenon called "imposter syndrome", which is nothing more than a defense mechanism that we have inside of us to defend ourselves against "failure" and embarrassment. Research suggests that over 70% of all people experience this feeling in their lives, with varying degrees of severity.

In the end though, these feelings can be countered pretty easily by simply changing your perspective on the entire situation. Instead of wondering if you are "good enough" to do something (I mean, how would you even objectively measure something like that), I think it makes a lot more sense to ask yourself if you could provide value to someone else by doing so - even if it's just one person. And rest assured: the answer will always be "yes"!

Back to my email list: so after months and months of putting it off, I was finally pushed over the edge by watching a video from Noah Kagan, founder of AppSumo, on YouTube. In the video he talks about setting goals and sticking with them to grow your business and improve your life. I've been following Noah for a while now and I actually met him in Austin, Texas in 2016 when he organized the SumoCon for the first time. You can read all about it in the blog post I wrote about it back in the day.

So after watching the video, I went to Sendfox.com and signed up for my own personal newsletter. Immediately after that, I got an email from a guy named David Kelly, who works for Sendfox, asking me about what my goals were and how I was planning to use their platform.

Sidebar: I actually know for a fact that this is automatically generated email that goes out to every new subscriber. How do I know this? Because Sendfox is also created by the company owned by Noah Kagan and he frequently goes into detail about how he contacts all of his customers and listens to their replies to make his product better.

Nevertheless I responded with my goals and objectives, but I also asked him if he was open to some feedback on their product. I pretty much already knew the answer given that I've followed Noah for a while now and sure enough, David responded enthusiastically and I sent over an email with about seven small to medium improvements and suggestions.

And I figured that would be the end of it. I assumed my suggestions would end up somewhere on a list of tasks that may or may not be picked up at some time in the future by the Sendfox development team. I also assumed that David gets quite a lot of these emails every day so he can't possibly keep responding to everyone all the time. But then I got another email from him:

This one brought a real smile to my face. I've been in the business long enough to know where this was going, or at least I had a feeling. I played it down a bit because I didn't want to jump to conclusions but sure enough, after I explained my situation he got back in touch with me and asked if I would be interested in working with them, at AppSumo:

Now to be clear: this was by no means a done deal. He clearly says they "may have" a position opening up, which doesn't guarantee that I would have gotten the job if I had applied and it definitely doesn't mean that they would have been happy with my work if it had all worked out. That said, all of that is beside the point since I'm currently not looking for a new project for a number of reasons, but that's not the reason I'm so happy with how this exchange went down.

For me, this was a confirmation of I had heard and read about so much: providing value to someone else is one of the easiest ways to advance yourself on a personal as well as a professional level. It allows you to grow as a person, to grow as a business and opens doors to new opportunities that you otherwise would have missed out on.

And that's what I've been trying to do for you guys with this email list. I hope these emails have been at least of some value to you. If so, you can always help me grow my email list by sending this email to someone else in your network who may find them interesting. If not, don't hesitate to get in touch with me and tell me how I can improve myself and make these emails better for all of you.

That's it for now. Once again, thanks so much for supporting me on this adventure. Please let me know how you liked this content. This is supposed to be a conversation, so don't hesitate to hit reply if you have any questions or remarks. I will read (and respond to) every reply!

Jan