PrepOverCoffee's half birthday
Please share a minute of your time to help choose the direction for content for the next 6 months
On August 15, 2022, PrepOverCoffee was launched with an article, The Five D’s of Rocking Your IPO. Last week marked the six month anniversary of the publication. Six months of getting a giggle every time a new subscriber joins. Six months of having a platform to connect with other people, regardless of their background and experience. Six months of doing the things that I love most: writing and teaching.
A lot can happen in six months. Fun fact: Six months is longer than the gestation period for tigers, goats, monkeys, and pigs!
Contrary to some appearances, I did not start PrepOverCoffee to share photos of my typewriters and cats, or to show off my bizarre taste in music and obsession with You’ve Got Mail. My goal is to provide easy to understand and accessible information on a variety of business topics designed to help you prepare for the crazy things that may come your way in a format that can be consumed in the time that it takes to drink a cup of coffee (or ten when I am long winded). I also love to teach through writing because it helps me better understand and clarify my own thinking about a complex topic #LearnByTeaching.
Another goal is my desire to show that none of us are alone, even when we feel like we are. Whether we are already in the boardroom, embarking on our first manager role, starting a new career at any age, or moving to a new city, we all face challenges that we have no idea how to address. We all have moments of sheer terror, whether of the unknown or the visible threat that we know is right around the corner (like the masked serial killer in an 80s horror movie). We all feel overwhelmed with information, and suffocated by the constant nag of the attention economy that we live in. And sometimes, we all feel like we are trapped in a trash can filled with rabid badgers and no escape in sight.
How PrepOverCoffee content comes to be
I realized in November of 2022, during NanoWrimo, how much self-editing kills creation. That doesn’t just apply to fiction writing. With writer’s block, just writing is 90% of the battle. The editing comes later, once there is something meaningful to edit. This applies in life too. We are often hindered by editing ourselves, our thoughts, and our actions -- How will this be received? Do I know enough to do this? What if people think I am an idiot? These painful questions are the enemy of action, just like that backspace button is the enemy of writing.
This is not to say that I don’t get writer’s block. In fact, I have it right now.
But writer’s block, like so many things related to moving any project forward, involves just taking a single step. Followed by another. Putting the words on the page or just taking some action, even if it’s small, toward the goal. Especially if it’s scary (like I feel when I share more personal experiences in this very public setting).
I coach a lot of folks at various points in their careers, and one of the common pieces of advice is, touch all of your key projects on a regular basis (including when you don’t feel like it). This opens the door to creative thought, is the best antidote for procrastination, the easiest way to build credibility and confidence with clients and colleagues, and the most effective way to insulate yourself from the impact of “last minute Larry” and his emergency needs.
PrepOverCoffee Needs a Refill
This is the part of the story where I need your help. I have more ideas than I have time to write. I want to target content toward what this community wants to read. Thus, if you can take a moment to answer a couple of poll questions below and provide some comments, you will help me tremendously in prioritizing topics and developing content. Even if you are normally a passive reader, take a second and click.
Here goes with those questions and comments:
Please click “Leave a Comment” to submit other additional areas of interest or suggested content.
Notice legal, compliance, and governance are not a functional area to choose. That is because, even if I wanted to, those topics will likely never go away because I love them too much. But, I’d like to target more content in that space as well.
If you have other thoughts, questions, or suggestions, drop a comment here or email me at prepovercoffee@substack.com.
Other than PrepOverCoffee, what are some other sources that you regularly read, listen to, or watch to educate yourself about business topics? Click on “Leave a Comment” to share those with the community too!
And, with that in mind, if you haven’t recommended PrepOverCoffee to a friend or colleague, please do and help me reach my informal goal of 1000 subscribers in the first year!
Thank you….
Most importantly, as I look back on the last six months, I want to say thank you. Thank you for the feedback above. Thank you for reading each week. Thank you for the emails of support. Thank you for the suggestions and questions. Thank you for sharing your comments and experiences with the community, and for clicking that little heart at the bottom of articles. Every connection means so much.
The Morning Brew (and its other publications covering HR, Finance, Retail, Tech, etc.), Bloomberg daily updates, SHRM.
I also use Flipboard (https://flipboard.com) which is an aggregator that presents information in magazine form so that it is pleasant to browse. I've been on it so long that it has learned the subject matter that I like and does a great job of delivering right to my personal magazine all the things I want to read about (I also subscribed to some publications within the tool that don't align with my views so that I get a more well-rounded view).