'Working In Public' Progress Update and Self-Leadership Highlights for 2024
A few months ago, I decided to ‘bite the bullet’ and started writing this fortnightly, Lead Self | Lead Well newsletter.
For a long time, I had been wanting to do something impactful with the knowledge and experience I have gained during my life that has helped me overcome the various challenges I have experienced from my childhood.
After much deliberation, self-doubt, procrastination and overwhelm, I realised a newsletter would be a good place to start and when I finally did, I also did something that made it very real for me…
…I posted my newsletter not only Substack (a purpose-built platform for online creators), but on LinkedIn — the place where I am most active and visible.
To acknowledge this and the year coming to a close, I wanted to take a pause on the usual content, and instead, share a ‘working in public’ progress update and also a bit of a yearly wrap up to share some of my self-leadership highlights this year.
Starting this newsletter is definitely a self-leadership highlight for the year, and I will share more on that in a moment.
But for the curious and numbers-oriented people, I thought I would share a brief overview of the engagement statistics from my 6 newsletters so far:
Substack Stats:
Total Subscribers: 27
Total Reads: 236
Total Likes: 17
Most Engaged and Read Post: Are You Internally or Externally Self-Aware?
Reads: 68
Likes: 4
LinkedIn Stats:
Subscribers: 216
Total Reads (all editions): 857
Total Likes (all editions): 134
Total Comments (all editions): 59
Most Engaged Post: Welcome to Lead Self | Lead Well
Reads: 122
Likes: 46
Comments: 26
Most Read Post: Big Life or Average Life?
Reads: 177
Likes: 16
Comments: 6
I think for my first several editions this is a great start, and as I write this I am also reminded of a quote that runs through my mind frequently:
Progress over perfection
The main benefit of writing this newsletter and publicly posting it is the self-accountability it encourages and the subsequent progress it enables.
This progress in itself is also a self-leadership highlight, which brings me to the rest of them…
Self-Leadership Highlight #1
Obviously, the first one is starting this newsletter!
Particularly though, as noted within the statistics above, LinkedIn is where I have gained the most engagement, so a specific self-leadership highlight is showing up with courage and vulnerability to post my newsletter on the platform I am the most visible.
I am also proud of the commitment I have shown to myself and you all, to maintain the regularity (give or take a couple of days, whoops!) of posting each fortnight.
Self-Leadership Highlight #2
Last year I decided to ‘burn down’ the foundations I had been building for myself, because I didn’t like the trajectory of the career, relationship and life path I was on. This looked like selling my house, quitting my job and travelling overseas for a while, before I coming home and hitting the ‘reset button’ on my path’s trajectory.
So my second self-leadership highlight is the incorporation of all the self-knowledge and wisdom I have gained through my 'trial and error' era of my twenties, into the intentional rebuild of my life’s foundation.
Self-Leadership Highlight #3
My final self-leadership highlight for 2024, is the subsequent deliberate choices I have made as part of the intentional rebuild of my life's foundation.
These choices have put my career, relationship and life path on a trajectory more aligned to who I am, and has helped me make steps towards achieving what I want to achieve in my life.
The main deliberate choices I made this year include:
Pursuing a career in strategy and leadership consulting, which strongly aligns with my strengths and interests.
Moving to the Brisbane CBD area, enabling me to have a beautiful walk to work most days along the Brisbane River.
Becoming actively involved in The Brisbane Club (a private member’s club), resulting in me finding a great community of people who I have now shared many fun memories with (over many drinks).
Actively dating with my heart open and clear on who I was willing to share it with, and being lucky (read: preparation meeting opportunity) enough to come across a wonderful person who I am now in a relationship with.
As I have been writing these highlights, I am also reflecting on the wonderful people I have met or reconnected with this year, in part because of this newsletter.
So, once again, thank you to all of you who have supported me by reading, liking and commenting on my newsletters over the past few months.
Your support and encouragement have been instrumental in helping motivate me to write this newsletter each fortnight and keep ‘working in public’.
This year has been a great start in the rebuild of my life’s foundation, and I am excited by what 2025 will bring.
With that said, I am going to take a break over the holiday season, and that includes from writing Lead Self | Lead Well. I aim to return mid-late January with the next edition of Lead Self | Lead Well. So look out for the next edition then.
Now, one last thing, I am curious what are some of your own self-leadership highlights from 2024, so please share your highlights in the comments!
I hope you all have a happy holiday season!
Until next time —
Crystal McKendrick