Six Months on Substack: The Honest Update

Six months ago, I lost my job. I had no plan. What 6 months on Substack taught me about courage, resilience, patience, and playing the long game.

Twice now, someone had the power to alter the course of my life with one word: restructure. And as an emerging 50-something, I knew one thing: I didn’t want to spend whatever was left of my working life in the rat race, waiting for it to happen a third time.

I felt small. Embarrassed. Like I had failed, because I wasn’t good enough.

I stumbled upon Substack by accident while looking for a way to publish my draft novel. What I found instead was a place to write my stories, to say the things I never had the courage to say before. I wrote about the grief, the relief, and the shame of being laid off. And the shocking thing was, people were listening. Responding. Identifying.

I started with 5 subscribers, including myself.

Photo by Nik on Unsplash

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The Good

The connections here are unlike anything I’ve experienced. Not followers. Not an audience. Real people, who reach out because something you wrote made them feel less alone. I’ve met authors, publishers, and editors. People I would never have crossed paths with in my old world. Nobody here is obligated to me in any way. I don’t have paid subscriptions. So, every connection, every comment, every new subscriber, I know it’s because something I wrote actually meant something to them.

That has changed me more than I can explain.

In my old life, people related to me because I was their boss. Here, nobody owes me anything. And somehow that feels like the greatest gift.

Six weeks after joining Substack, I did the first scary thing. In December, I started a weekly Zoom session called “Cocktails and Mocktails, a little online gathering where readers could come together and just talk. Think Cheers, but on Substack. I had no idea what I was getting into. But I knew I needed to do something that pushed me outside of my comfort zone. Those sessions gave me something I wasn’t expecting. Real connections. That’s where I met John Rinaldo of The Positive Pen and Chris Kalaboukis - of Nomads 50+, two people who would go on to play a significant role in what came next. John invited me to be a guest on his podcast. So did Chris. I said yes to both before I could talk myself out of it.

The Cocktails and Mocktails sessions continued through January and into February. Some weeks, they were full of energy. But somewhere along the way, they started losing momentum. On February 17th, I logged on and sat alone for forty-five minutes. Nobody showed up until fifteen minutes before the end.

I felt defeated.

But it wasn’t just that night. It had been building for weeks. Somewhere around months three and four, I started noticing a shift in the content around me. The personal stories, the raw and honest writing that had drawn me to Substack in the first place, were being crowded out by something else. The same phrases appear in different publications. The same structures, the same rhythms, the same hollow inspiration. Growth hacks. Follower strategies. And underneath it all, AI doing the heavy lifting while real emotion got dressed up to look like it.

And these accounts were growing. Fast.

Meanwhile I was pouring my heart out and watching my numbers barely move. I started questioning everything. Was I doing something wrong? Was authenticity actually what people wanted, or had I completely misread this place? Was any of this worth continuing?

That night just pushed me over the edge.

The next morning, February 18th, I sat down and wrote an article in about thirty minutes. Not because I was angry, though I was. Not because I wanted to go after anyone, though I had things to say. I wrote it because I was about to quit, and writing is how I figure out what I actually think. What came out was an honest reckoning with what I was seeing, what it made me feel, and why it mattered. I had no idea if I would lose subscribers or gain them.

It took off like a rocket.

Ninety nine percent of the comments were positive. People told me I said the thing they had been thinking but didn’t have the courage to say. That’s when I understood something important: it doesn’t need to be perfect. It doesn’t need to be eloquent. It just needs to be honest.

By this point John’s podcast invitation was already on the table, born out of those cocktails and mocktails sessions. On February 8th I had been his guest, nervous in a way I hadn’t felt in years. But it went well. And that one yes gave me the courage to try something else I had never done. On February 24th I hosted my first Substack Live with Amanda from Forty and Zero F’s. We talked for thirty minutes and it just worked. Then on March 3rd I joined Chris on his podcast. That same day I hit 500 subscribers, driven largely by the inauthenticity article that had taken off two weeks earlier.

One brave thing leads to the next. You just have to be willing to start.

I began February with 213 subscribers. By April I hit 1,000. By the end of May, 1,150 and counting. One note alone brought in nearly 300 subscribers. Months five and six were when everything really started to move. Which means I almost quit right before it got good.

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The Bad

When you grow fast, you get used to it. And when it slows down, your brain tells you something is wrong. That people stopped liking you. That you did something to ruin it.

My growth stalled in May. And even though I was at 1,150 subscribers, six months after starting with 5, I felt like I was failing. I started comparing myself to others. I started spiraling.

Then I looked at what I’d actually been doing and realized I hadn’t published anything since mid March. That might have had something to do with it.

I published something last week. I didn’t gain a hundred subscribers overnight. I gained around fifty. And that’s okay.

When growth stalls, it’s not just disappointing. For me it feels like a warning. A reminder that the life I left is still out there waiting. Going back to the workforce, back to the rat race, back to waiting for someone to say “restructure” again. That’s what’s at stake. So the lesson I keep coming back to is not some polished motto about persistence. It’s just this: there will be ups and downs, and that is not the same thing as failure. I have to keep reminding myself of that.

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What I Know Now

I came to Substack looking for somewhere to publish a novel. I found out who I am instead.

Yes, there are people here gaming the algorithm, using AI to manufacture connections, chasing numbers without substance. But there are also people who are just showing up, raw and real, sharing stories that matter. Those are the people who will build something that lasts. Those are the people I am here for.

When I came here, I had no idea what would happen. I just needed to get my feelings out. A thousand subscribers felt like something that existed for other people, not for me. But showing up as myself, honestly and imperfectly, gave me something I wasn’t expecting. Courage, which turned into confidence, which turned into boldness. I didn’t just grow an audience. I evolved. I stopped feeling little. And I realized I had the power to help others who once felt like I did. That’s when I changed my newsletter to its final name. The Midlife Reset.

I’m not done. I’m just getting started.