3 appropriate responses to seeing this email in your inbox:
Oh crap, heās published one?? Itās been a whileā¦
Who the hell is this guy, and whatās this about again?
This is literally the first email Iāve ever got from you.
All very warranted, all have an answer that starts with the origin story. How did I get a couple of thousand subscribers? Why did people subscribe? When did this start? What the hell did they subscribe for?
This newsletter started before Substack did, and it was off the back of an article I wrote - my first Medium article, actually.
It was about procrastination, and it went viral. This spelling error-riddled, clunky sentence, meaty paragraph, adverb-heavy article went viral. And after that, I wrote about:
Self-improvement
Marketing
Business
Fitness
Travel
I wrote about absolutely everything - the textbook case for the worst way to build a blog. Hence the name, The Professional Generalist.
I like everything, so I wanted to write about everything.
So you, you handsome devil, you subscribed to me for one or many of those topics. You just wanted to get better overall, and maybe, in particular, one of those dimensions.
That answers the What and the Why, and here we go; this is the first out of 3 times during this email that Iām going to ask you to Unsubscribe. Yes, you heard right. If youāre not interested in any of those topics, please unsubscribe now before I continue ranting here.
šØāš« Me and The Problem
So now itās time for the Who.
My nameās Sah, and itās pronounced Shah, like when someoneās talking very loudly, and youāre thinking āSHUT THE FUCK UPā in your head, and you almost let it slip, saying āShhhuuuhā¦ā while clenching your fist in anger.
Iām a 27-year-old guy living in Australia and rigorously trialling-and-erroring the shit out of life.
Iāve traveled to about 25-ish countries
Have run a successful blog
Worked full-time in a corporate environment
Worked full-time as a freelancer
Written code, written words, got a couple of bachelorās degrees
Dated quite a bit (so many hilarious stories here)
Essentially, Iām well-rounded and āexperience-chasingā enough to let you know the pitfalls and cuckery (a word I invented) of the 20s. From career, to meaning, to feeling lost, to having a good time.
What I canāt help you with is parenting, adulting, and the life of someone in their 40s. Iām not going to pretend to have the life experience to give you a step by step play of everything to do and not do, and for the record, I donāt think any of the oldies have it either - everyoneās different, and 20-years-ago is a hard time to remember.
What Iām giving you is a āright fucking nowā approach to what Iām dealing with. Reality TV without the editing. And now, this is the second time Iām going to ask you to Unsubscribe.
If youāre not looking for my perspective on the challenges of the 20s, if youāre not interested in dealing with some of these problems, hell, if you think your issues are not the same, thereās no use in sticking around.
š You and What You Want
Your email inbox is ass - all of us live this reality all day, every day. Think about your favorite YouTuber, a vlogger maybe, someone youāve āhit the notification bellā on, and think about how their videos appear on your front page; they do, right? But itās surrounded by a bunch of crap youāre not interested in - I donāt want this to be that; I want you to look forward to these.
So if at any point you think, āShit, I actually cannot be arsed to read this thing.ā Please, please, please - Unsubscribe.
ā³ The Future
I havenāt decided, but itās definitely going to be revolving around experiences, learnings, and a whole lot of creating. I think Iāll turn The PG into a lovechild of a blog and journal - Iām not too sure yet.
At the moment, Iām interested in two things.
Creating things and helping others create things too - from software to digital products, to businesses; and,
Helping people figure out their lives and goals.
All while I do the same for myself.
If you learn something thatās valuable to you, or youāre entertained at my expense - then thatās a job well done for me.
So donāt be shy, like or comment on the posts, reply, give me feedback. The more I know, the more I can do better. Stay tuned and watch this space, friends.
š Link Dump
Oh yeah, the link dump is here to stay.
I launched my first digital product recently, so I wrote a
step-by-step guide on how I chose the services, products, payment gateways, and marketing tools to do it.
Iāve released a cool method for figuring out how to take action with goals - itās all about putting rules around it.
Hereās a tweet that I enjoyed - applicable to a lot of people. And hereās a profile thatās applicable to solopreneurs. And while weāre here, follow me too, Iāll follow you back if youāre into writing, creating, productivity, or travel.
Iāll catch you guys and gals later - Iāve got a lot coming up, so stay tuned for some š„content.
Sah out.
Made my day seeing the PG in my inbox, even more reading it, love the approach!