81: I'm Done Teaching the Thing That Built My Name (Going All In on Email Marketing)

🌱 The Two Diva Plants That Cracked My Whole Business Open

You can be genuinely good at something. Known for it, even. And still quietly feel like it is not the thing you want to go deep on for the rest of your life.

I sat in that exact feeling for a long time without being able to name it. I just felt scattered, a little off, doing a bit of a lot of things and never able to point to why.

It took two houseplants and three weeks off to finally make it make sense.

I have two fiddle leaf fig trees, and if you know these plants, you know they are absolute divas. Wrong light, wrong water, one degree off, and a leaf turns yellow and drops before your eyes. I have somehow kept two of them alive for over a decade, which honestly feels like a small miracle.

This post is the full story of the decision they helped me make, the one I have been building toward for nine years without realizing it.

Before we get into it, if you want the weekly version of conversations like this one, my newsletter 3-2-1 Create is where I go deepest. You can get on the list HERE.

So what does a houseplant have to do with the biggest pivot of my business? Stay with me.

🪴 What Happens When You Put the Same Plant in a New Spot

Every year around late spring, once there is no threat of frost, I do the same thing with my figs. I trim them way back, because after three-quarters of the year stuck inside they look sad and sparse. Then I have my husband carry them outside (my lower back is trash, so it is a "knock knock, Rob, can you grab these?" situation) and I tuck them under our deck in full shade.

They get no direct sun. Just bright natural light and all the rain. A completely different environment than the same old corner of my office they sit in the rest of the year.

And every single year, the same thing happens. They explode. Huge, glossy, happy new leaves everywhere. Growth I could never have coaxed out of them sitting in that same spot indoors.

This hit me in the shower the other day, because I am pretty sure what my trees feel every summer is exactly what I just felt taking three weeks off Instagram.

We went to our lake in New Hampshire, my favorite place on earth. Then two weeks at my parents' beach house with my kids, my siblings, and their kids. Total chaos in the best way. And for the first time in ages, I was not chasing anything. Not opening the app to check a post. Not in Canva every night building something for tomorrow. Not lying awake asking why something flopped.

That time away showed me how much brain space posting was quietly eating. For nine years, between owning our CrossFit gym and running this business, I have been grinding out posts six days a week. Somewhere in there, I lost the ability to tell the difference between the work that lit me up and the work I was just powering through out of habit.

You cannot diagnose the treadmill while you are still running on it. You have to step off. And when I did, the growth I could not force finally showed up. Not on the app. In my own head.

🎤 The Moment That Actually Cracked This Open

About a year ago, a group asked me to speak to 200-plus women at a conference in Nashville. They were deciding between two topics for me: Instagram and posting, or email marketing. They went off to talk it over, and the answer came back: Instagram.

And I felt let down. Genuinely deflated. Which made zero sense on paper. They picked the thing I am known for, the thing I have taught for six years, the thing I built my name on. I should have been thrilled. But I wanted them to pick email, because I knew that was what would actually move the needle for those women.

I sat with that disappointment for a full year. It kept resurfacing while I was journaling and talking things out on my break. And eventually it clicked: the disappointment was the answer. Sometimes you do not know what you truly want until you flip the coin and catch yourself quietly rooting for one side to land. That was my gut making the call. I just had not caught up to it yet.

💡 Instagram Was Never Supposed to Be the Destination

Somewhere along the way, I forgot the entire point of Instagram.

From day one, it was my top of funnel. The whole job of my posts was to get people off Instagram and onto my email list. That was it.

I have had a newsletter and an email list since before I had anything to sell. It is the one thing I have always owned. Instagram is rented land. My email list is space I own.

You do not own your audience on Instagram. You are borrowing attention from an algorithm that can change the rent any time it wants, and it does.

I let my top of funnel quietly become the whole funnel. That was my mistake. I got so busy feeding the platform that I forgot the platform was supposed to feed something else.

Email is where the relationship actually lives. It is where trust gets built, and frankly, it is where the sales happen. My last three launches, over the past year and a half, went out without a single feed post. I leaned entirely on my email list and my stories, because I already knew the feed was beside the point.

I watched this play out in real life recently, too. A friend's husband lost his entire Instagram overnight, blue check and all. Gone. He had no email list, so he had no way to reach those people again. If my Instagram vanished tomorrow, I would lose all 125,000 followers, because I never owned them. But my email list? Those people I keep.

📧 I Was Teaching the Mechanics Instead of the Principles

Instagram tactics are a treadmill. The algorithm shifts, formats change, and the hack that worked last week is dead this week. Every time it changes, I am over here trying to rebuild the whole curriculum.

Canva is the same story. That tool changes constantly. I build a course, and within a month the buttons have moved and it is half obsolete. As a 45-year-old mom of two running a business as the main earner, keeping up with two massive platforms that reinvent themselves every few weeks is exhausting. I do not want to do it anymore.

You do not get to keep what you build on Instagram tactics. It expires. But email is a durable skill. Learning to write to your people, to think about what your reader actually needs, to make an offer without feeling gross about it, that does not expire. You will use it for the entire life of your business.

I want to teach the stuff that lasts, not the stuff I have to relearn every 60 to 90 days.

To be clear, I am not quitting Instagram or Canva. I will still show up in my stories, still post, still proudly wear my Canva Verified Expert hat as one of 43 in the world. Instagram stays one of my top of funnels. It is a channel, not a subject. I just do not want to teach it as the main thing anymore.

📱 The Drain Wasn't Strategic. It Was Personal.

The most honest reason is also the least strategic one.

The metrics, the comparison, the why-did-this-flop spiral at midnight when I could not sleep. That was not a business problem. That was a me problem. And I could not keep building my entire livelihood on a platform that was quietly eating me alive.

I know how dramatic that sounds. But I could not feel how much it was costing me until I got put in a different environment for three weeks. The rest. The distance. The not-checking.

If you have felt this too, I need you to hear something. You might think it is a flaw, that you are not disciplined enough or tough enough or built for this solopreneur thing. It is not true. You might just be pouring yourself into the wrong spot, and you cannot always tell until you step away from it.

🎯 The Math Was Completely Backwards

Then there is the simplest math of all.

I post on Instagram six days a week, and that is the channel that was draining me. I send my newsletter once a week, and that is the channel that reaches my people and pays my bills. One is a grind. The other is pure growth.

My email open rate is 53.6%. More than half my list opens what I send, week in and week out. Now think about Instagram. When is the last time even close to half your followers saw a single one of your posts? For most accounts it is a tiny sliver, and it has gotten worse every year since about mid-2023.

I was pouring the majority of my energy into the channel that gives me the least back, and treating the channel that gives me the most like a side project. I had it completely backwards.

📌 If You Want the System, Not Just the Story

This pivot comes with an offer, and I am building it in real time.

I am opening the waitlist for The Newsletter System, my complete system for writing a consistent, high-converting newsletter without ever dreading the blank screen again. It is my former Start and Grow Your Email List program with a major glow up.

Doors open September 14th; we begin September 20th, and it will be a limited number of supported spots. The waitlist gets first access, plus any early bonuses or discounts (you know I love doing that).

Get on the waitlist here: [Newsletter System waitlist link]

✅ And No, You Don't Have to Be a Writer

I have sent a newsletter every single week for more than five years. Over 290 of them. I have never missed one. And the kicker? I am not a writer, and I am the least techy person you will ever meet.

Starting a newsletter was the most terrifying thing I ever did in my business. I dreaded it. Put me in Canva and I will happily lose three hours. Put me in front of a blank page and tell me to write something worth someone's time every week, and I wanted to throw my laptop out the window.

So if you are sitting there thinking you cannot do the email thing because you are not a writer, or you have no clue what you would even send every week, I promise you it is not about being a good writer. It is about having a system that makes it feel easy and doable. That is exactly what I am building.

🛠️ Resources & Links

• The Newsletter System September Waitlist — first access when doors open September 14th, limited spots available!

• Flodesk — the email platform I use and swear by. Grab 50% off your first year with code THECREATIVEBODEGA

• Canva — still my go-to for email headers, freebies, and launch graphics:

• Opt Into 3-2-1 Create Newsletter — my weekly newsletter, where this whole conversation keeps going!

💪 You're Allowed to Change Your Mind

This is what I most want you to take from today.

You are allowed to change your mind. Especially as a solopreneur, you are allowed to be great at something, even known for it, and still decide it is not the thing you want to go deep on forever. Being good at something is not the same as it being your life's work.

I spent years feeling scattered, doing a little bit of everything, never quite able to name why I felt so off. It took getting trimmed back and set outside for three weeks to see it clearly. I want to be known for one thing now, not a little bit of everything. So this is me going deep on email.

My membership, The Content Coven, is not going anywhere either. If anything, it is shifting more toward email, newsletters, freebies, and launching, which I think makes it even better. It is still the home base for women building this way, and you are welcome in it.

I do not have every answer yet, and I am telling you that on purpose. Over the next few episodes, we are figuring this out together.

If you have ever felt scattered doing a bit of everything, or you have quietly wondered whether the thing you are known for is still the thing you want, tell me in the comments. I would love to know where you are right now. And if this one hit home, share it with a friend who needs to read it too.