🪄The unsexy middle (when the lust wears off)

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Hey Reader,

When I went solo in October '23, my naivety came across as charming.

I went on podcasts and waxed lyrical about how I "bet on myself so I could reach my potential."

People listened and sent me "damn, that resonated" messages (like this one) in droves:

At the time, I found the whole experience so f*cking awesome. I was on a dopamine high. It was exhilarating. Terrifying, but exhilarating.

But now, 1.5 years on, the lust hasn't just worn off, it's melted to within an inch of its life.

Today, I'm in the extremely unsexy middle.

We love rooting for people when their star is on the rise. We can't help but feel pulled towards the narrative tension.

Will they succeed or fail?

The uncertainty keeps us engaged. Emotionally invested. Glued to their updates.

But then, time wears on.

Once they've achieved some success, that narrative tension resolves. We can't help but seek more novel, unresolved stories to pay attention to.

This is why creators and businesses have to work so damn hard stay relevant by providing endless updates: career updates, life updates, new products lines, new partnerships, new episodes, etc. etc. etc.

(This is why repurposing is so important because holy hell, there's no need to actually create new things all the time when you're sitting on piles of content. But I digress.)

Even though we, the audience, say we want to hear about the messy middle, the failures, and the hard, unsexy part of business building...

There's really only so much we can take. We don't actually want to see failure after failure after failure. It all gets a bit boring.

So we, the creators, curate our feeds to include just enough of the hard stuff to keep you invested, but not so much that it warrants pity.

The truth behind the curated feed?

It's boring, and yeah, a little bit depressing.

It's waking up day after day, doing mostly the same tasks.

It's making small, incremental improvements that nobody but you will notice.

It's the quiet discipline of showing up even when the dopamine hits are few and far between.

It's convincing yourself, sometimes hourly, that you're still on the right path despite the evidence feeling scarce.

I've spent the past few months deep in this messy middle, questioning everything:

Am I focusing on the right things?
Should I pivot my offer?
Is my content strategy working?
Should I be creating more courses?
Am I building a real business or just playing at one?

These questions aren't as sexy as excitable statements like "I just quit my job!" or "I just hit six figures!" or "I just sold $11k worth of my product in 12 hours!"

But they're the real work.

The messy middle is where the actual business gets built.

It's where you learn to trust yourself.

It's where you develop real resilience.

It's where you find out if you actually love what you do, or if you just loved the idea of it.

My friend Nick Bennett and I talk about this all the time on our Full Stack Solo podcast.

There's a massive gap between the excitement of going solo and the satisfaction of having built something sustainable.

That gap is filled with doubt, iteration, small wins, frustrating setbacks, and a whole lot of unsexy work.

But here's the thing...

The people who make it through this unsexy middle are the ones who build something real. Something lasting. Something that actually changes lives, beyond a quick win and a dopamine spin.

So if you're in your own messy, unsexy middle right now...

I'm right there with you, showing up, doing the work, and trusting that on the other side of all this questioning and iterating is something worth building.

Would I trade the security of my old job for this rollercoaster?

No. And maybe that makes me crazy. Maybe that makes me really tired. Or maybe, just maybe, that makes me perfectly positioned to keep going.

Cheers,

Erica

PS. If you're looking for a community of other solos who are navigating their own messy middles, check out Full Stack Solo.

Nick and I built it to support you through the dopamine highs, like...

"Omg my new offer is live and I booked 3 discovery calls!"

And the messy lows...

"Wait, what do I do when all my discovery calls ghost me?"

Because nobody should have to navigate business building alone.