The other day, I had a very vivid dream about something happening within my organization.
Whenever my dreams are that detailed, I write them down to see what eventually transpires from them. In my experiences, such detailed dreams have served as forms of divination — where you are being shown something that is going to occur.
So I went looking for my notebook.
I couldn’t find the particular dream journal I was looking for, but in the process of looking through all my notebooks, I came across notebook after notebook filled with things I had written over the years.
Before I ever had a Substack, I would write down whatever I was learning, whatever ideas I encountered, and whatever concepts I deemed important enough to remember. I would write and write, not because anybody was going to read it — but simply because I loved to learn.
Seeing those notebooks again reminded me that, at my core, I am a learner.
I am a lifelong learner, and in a recent article, I talked about how we all have one purpose, and that purpose is to grow. Learning is part of growing.
There is a distinction, though, because you can learn something and never do anything with it. Growing is when you take the lessons from what you have learned and apply them to your life.
Throughout the years, I’ve learned that to further deepen the roots of learning, I would have to take these ideas and share them with the world. Thus my first attempts at writing online was born.
I intended to take this passion and love for learning and transform it into something I could eventually use to live. In doing so, I would be living my purpose — spread truth — rather than talking about it.
This is how Unorthodoxy was born. It became an avenue where I could continue learning about the world, take some of those important learnings, and share them with you.
That is the background of Unorthodoxy and I share this with you so you have the proper context before diving into my experience on this journey.
The critical difference between a hobby and a business—and why loving something doesn’t entitle you to profit from it
How “reality inertia” governs every endeavor you undertake, whether you acknowledge it or not
Why the challenges rising up against your purpose may be the exact things your spirit needs to grow
The hidden danger of chasing numbers in a system designed by influencers who tell you what success is supposed to look like
Recently, I’ve been writing about my slump on Substack and trying to understand why my paid subscriptions were falling.
I called out the changes to the Substack algorithm and even blamed Donald Trump. What made this situation more interesting was that it was not only happening to me. Other writers, including 🐺The Wise Wolf , Agent131711 — and a plethora of others — were discussing declining subscriptions as well.
It was a challenging period, but I am pleased to report a victory because I appear to be back on the come-up. I was able to stop the bleed and start gaining paid subscribers again.
Based on the trajectory I had been on, I should have continued losing subscribers. Instead, I was able to stop that trajectory and recorrect.
This is what I want to talk about, because the lesson is bigger than saying my Substack numbers went back up. The more important lesson is how you continue living your passion while understanding the environment around you well enough to keep moving forward.
To often, people chase well intentioned dreams and passions, but no one really prepares you for the ups and downs that come with chasing that passion. Only the journey itself provides you those ups and downs, but you have to be willing enough to see those lessons.
And so, the following articles, this one and the next one, will be on the struggles and lessons that I’ve recently overcome during the past couple of months.
It’s also about the distractions and pitfalls that arise when you start chasing numbers — something that must be monitored, but not stressed over — and, especially when you are surrounded by influencers who constantly tell you what success is supposed to look like, what can be potential distractions.
And somewhere in the middle of all of that, you also have to make sure you do not become a slave to the very system you are attempting to succeed within.
But more importantly, underneath all of this is the larger spiritual lesson: the challenges that arise in our lives are often the very things through which our spirit grows.
So, sit back, relax, and learn what I’ve discovered as I continue to live out this purpose.
The reason I emphasized that I am a learner is because I did not start this journey because I considered myself a writer.
I still do not consider myself a writer in the traditional sense. I like to argue and writing helps me argue. I also like to teach as teaching forces me to learn more deeply, and writing became one of the ways I could teach.
Once I started doing this and continued doing it for the four years, I had to learn about writing; specifically how to structure arguments.
Then I had to learn the basics of newsletters and how they operate. Then audience development, then editing, then marketing, and many much more. In fact, I’m still learning more about this thing called Substack.
This is where a lot of us can become confused.
We have hobbies and passions that we love, and because we love doing them, we imagine that we should automatically be able to make money from them.
But there is a difference between a hobby and a business.
A hobby is something you do because you personally love doing it. A business involves creating some type of transactional value, and the numbers give you information about whether that value exchange is occurring.
I love learning and learn about all kinds of things every day because that is something I enjoy doing. However, only a smidgen of what I learn becomes something I attempt to quantify or turn into a business.
Once my subscriber numbers began falling, I had to stop looking at the situation through the lens of someone who loves writing and learning. I had to analyze it from a business perspective.
Fortunately, one of the blessings I have professionally is that I solve problems. I love coming across a problem and asking, “How do I solve this?” So I applied the same problem-solving methodology here, and so far it has paid dividends.
One of the first things you have to do when solving a problem is measure what is happening. There is a quote I have heard throughout my life that says you cannot master something unless you measure it. So before making assumptions about algorithms, politics, audiences, or anything else, I needed to look at what was happening with my Substack.
And here is when I discovered I had something truly valuable.
One of the biggest lessons I discovered was that I have a strong core base — and first and foremost I want to thank everyone who continues supporting this work.
My subscriber count is around 6,00 and on the surface, 6,000 subscribers sounds impressive. But when I started digging into the data, I realized that only 3,000 of those people — based on an activity level of 3 stars or more — were consistently engaging with and reading the work.
Some people subscribe, check something out, and eventually leave. This is what I realized was driving the sudden influx in new subscriptions, but then also fueling the rapid decline as well. These were individuals simply checking out the publication as the publication grew on Substack.
This is where numbers can provide a false sense of identity. I began chasing the growth, with more content, more work, looking to please the algorithm, without focusing on my core audience.
What’s rather interesting about my core audience is that most — and I mean most — people never comment or like anything. This is surprising, but then again, not so much. Personally, if I read something and it moves me, I do try to comment and share, but I can do better at liking it as well.
What this deep dive showed me is that there are supporters who are quietly reading everything and supporting the work. These people matter tremendously, and the data helped me see what the headline subscriber count had hidden.
Instead of constantly obsessing over how I could turn 6,000 into 7,000, then 8,000, then 10,000, how do I better serve the 3,000 people who are already here and genuinely resonate with what I am doing?
That is my core audience. That is the group I need to focus more on, serve, and grow alongside. And if I can provide enough value to those individuals that some of them eventually decide to become paid subscribers, that is a tremendous win.
This is just one of the lessons I learned during this tough exercise and there are a few more I’d like to highlight.
There was another lesson that came from this exercise, one that I had to come to terms with.
This is Substack and Substack has a social-media component to it, which means — whether I like it or not — there is an algorithm game involved. There is a certain amount of content I have to put into the system for the algorithm to recognize the work, distribute it, and give new people opportunities to discover it.
This is something I discussed multiple times: the reality inertia.
Just because I like to write and I like putting ideas out into the world, doesn’t mean that the thing is automatically going to grow. Every endeavor exists inside of an environment, and that environment has its own rules, forces, constraints, and inertia. If you want to accomplish something inside of that environment, you eventually have to learn how it operates.
This does not mean becoming completely consumed by the system. It means understanding the reality you are operating inside of.
Once I began doing that again, I was able to reengage my focus and see more clearly what needed to be done. I was able to stop this bleed, and both my paid subscribers and overall subscribers began increasing again.
Solving this problem — and the multiple problems I’ve faced in the past four years — has forced me to expand beyond the idea I originally brought into this.
I started as someone who simply wanted to learn and teach, but along those lines, I had to become an editor. I had to become a marketer. I had to become someone who understood algorithms and the core audience. I had to learn all of these things because the challenge demanded that I grow into them.
And when you think about it, that is the story of life.
Whenever you have goals and whenever you have a purpose, challenges are going to rise. These challenges are not necessarily evidence that you are moving in the wrong direction. Sometimes — oftentimes — the challenge is there because it must be overcome.
This is the great struggle of life. We say we want to grow, but growth requires overcoming things we do not yet know how to handle.
I did not have experience with many of the things I suddenly needed to understand, but I could learn them. I could investigate what was happening, make adjustments, and overcome the problem.
This is just one lesson that I’ve learned in the past two months of this challenge. Not only have I had to redefine myself, I’ve also had to learn how to keep my blinders on when it came to distractions. I had to ensure I worked hard — but not too hard — to where one becomes a slave to the algorithm. Both of these lessons I’ll dive deeper into in part two.
To close, one of the greatest things I have going for me is that I am building this while still having a foundation underneath me. That gives me the ability to experiment without one mistake destroying everything. There are people who quit everything, go all in on a business opportunity, and remove every safety net before they have enough evidence that the opportunity can support them.
This is a pitfall that is being fueled by the influencers today. In today’s world, a world that looks to steal, kill, and destroy from you, you have to be realistic about your enterprises.
I hope you’ve enjoyed part one! Looking forward to engaging with you all in part two.
PS: If you’re interested in solving any problems in life, send me a message:
The headline number lies. 6,000 subscribers looked impressive, but only 3,000 were the real core. The vanity metric hid the truth about who was actually there.
Learning and growing are not the same thing. Learning gives you information; growth is the application of that information to your life.
A hobby is not a business. You can love something deeply and still not be owed money for it. A business requires a genuine transactional value exchange—and the numbers tell you whether that exchange is happening.
Every endeavor operates inside reality inertia. The environment has its own rules and forces. You must learn how it operates without becoming a slave to it.
Challenges rise because they must be overcome. The obstacle isn’t proof you’re going the wrong way. Often it’s the exact thing your spirit needs to grow through.
Build with a foundation underneath you. Stability gave the room to study the problem instead of panicking about it.
Measure before you assume. Before blaming the algorithm, the culture, or the politics, look at your own data. You cannot master what you do not measure.
Separate your engaged core from your headline count. Identify the people who actually read and resonate—then ask how to serve them better, not how to inflate the total.
Name the reality inertia in your own endeavor. Whatever you’re building, identify the rules and forces of the environment you’re operating inside. Learn how it actually works.
Reframe your current challenge as a growth demand. Ask what identity the obstacle is forcing you to grow into—editor, marketer, student—rather than treating it as a sign to quit.
Protect your foundation. Don’t remove every safety net before you have evidence the endeavor can support you. Stability buys you room to experiment.
As always, thanks for the time and attention. Have a great and wonderful day.
— Ashe,
Franklin O’Kanu
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