10,000 Subscribers!

Hey there!

It struck me that last week, I completely dropped the ball and didn't release a newsletter. I think this is the first time in over a year that I haven't dropped one. Usually, I have a backlog prepared but life has been busy and y'all are getting me practically in realtime each week.

Last week featured a few major milestones:

• I began teaching at Edmonds College and the Pacific Northwest Film Scoring Program.

• I reached 10,000 subscribers on my YouTube channel nearly four months ahead of my goal.

In the furor of it all, sitting down to write to you all on Monday morning slipped my mind. My apologies!

The power of sharing a goal

I talk a lot about my YouTube channel in this newsletter and the vast majority of you found your way onto my subscriber list by way of my channel. Some of you have been here from the very beginning and many of you have been watching each week as I shared my 10,000 subscriber goal - something I've done since January of this year.

I am normally not very public with my goals, like most people. There are countless reasons for this. Nobody wants the embarrassment if they fail at their goal. It can also be hard to publicly proclaim a goal if it feels too lofty. In the case of my YouTube channel, I was less concerned with the former and very concerned with the latter.

10,000 subscribers felt like a goofy goal to throw out there when my channel was in the triple digits. This was particularly true given my focus on long form content. Some people find YouTube more challenging for that exact reason. I'll admit that for me, it was a shoot for the moon so you land amongst the stars sort of situation. I expected to get into the mid thousands but not the actual five figures. Hell, even my wife told me as much.

I think the exact reason why I reached 10,000 subscribers in less than a year has everything to do with the fact that I was sharing that goal so publicly at the end of every video. It allowed me to stay present and focused in the (sometimes) weekly slog of producing a new video.

Inviting your audience to be a part of the ride

I think something I learned throughout this milestone is that it's good to invite the audience into your attempts at success. For the last two months, I received so many comments along the lines of "so close to 10k!!!" and it meant so much to me that y'all were tracking that goal alongside me.

Even though this week's video isn't doing my usual numbers, it has felt pretty celebratory if only because so many of the comments have been "Congrats on 10k!" It's been really wonderful.

So what's next?

I am in the final stages of getting the EP I've alluded to here and there out the door. I'm sharing that goal with y'all so we can celebrate together once it is released and also for accountability. Life is busy right now but I don't want my music to fall to the wayside.

I can't wait to celebrate that one with all of you!

Til next time,

ZW