Sometimes the scariest moment isn’t the post that flops. It’s the post you have to write after one that worked.
If you’re an introvert building a brand based on you, and the post you wrote last week is louder in your head than the post you have to write today, this was meant to find you today.
Because something happens when the work starts landing.
That’s what we’re uncovering today.
Issue #001
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I made the mistake of looking at the analytics on a Saturday morning.
Issue 013 had just gone out. The post I’d made about my coach Kasey was still working its way through LinkedIn. A workshop I’d run had gone really well, filled up. The attendees were doing the challenge I’d made to them about posting and tagging me
None of this went “viral.” None of it was world-shifting. It was just… more than usual. Several things, in the right direction, all at the same time.
I should have been celebrating.
Instead, I opened my phone with my second cup of coffee, opened a blank page in Notion to start the next issue (yup, this one) and watched the cursor blink at me for forty-five minutes.
(The cursor won. It always wins.)
Here’s what I’d love to tell you: that I felt energized. That a post performing better than usual was a tailwind. I mean, that’s what we want, right? That when a workshop fills up and a coach films you for YouTube and a piece of writing gets the kind of comment that lives rent-free in your head for a week, the next thing you write should feel easier.
But for an introvert, or at least this introvert, it was the opposite.
Each thing that lands raises the bar by an inch. Not in a way anyone else can see. My audience didn’t grow by twelve thousand people, my inbox didn’t catch fire, I wasn’t on the cover of anything.
That bar is internal. It’s mine. It’s yours. And it’s now standing somewhere it wasn’t last week, and the next post, the next thing, has to clear it.
Just thinking about it creates a leaky water hose of energy.
The energy required to write the next post just doubled.
The energy budget did not.
So I stared at that blank doc. Made another coffee. Went out back with the dogs. Came back. The cursor…yup, still blinking.
And then I did what introverts do when something good happens that makes us want to hide under the blankets for a week. I walked outside and told my husband I needed a vacation.
So we’re heading up to the peaceful top of a mountain this week. In the RV. Where wi-fi is more of a suggestion than a service. (I can pretend, anyway. It’s actually pretty good.)
But this introvert seriously needs a time out.
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🔎 Under the Magnifying Glass
This is the part that makes building a brand sometimes feel like you’re Lucy at the chocolate factory, just trying to keep up.
Something you make starts doing well. I don’t mean viral, I mean more than usual. The post with five extra comments, the workshop that filled when the last two didn’t, the DM from someone you admire…
Those moments are big. They feed something real. It keeps you going because it tells you you’re on track.
AND.
They also sign you up for more.
The next post you sit down to write isn’t just the next post anymore. It’s the follow-up.
The cursor isn’t just blinking alone. It has company now.
The Post That Performed (yes, we’re capitalizing it) is now an original.
And originals, by their very nature, set the bar for what comes next. The next one has to deliver everything the first one did, plus something new. The audience that loved the first one (and may have followed, liked, reacted, stood on their head, whatever…) has expectations. Notes. Opinions.
You now have a sequel problem.
(And yes we know the audience likely doesn’t care…but tell your inside voice that and see if it listens.)
Most sequels are not great.
Sandra Bullock made Speed 2: Cruise Control. (She was right to make it. The first one..big hit. The math made sense.) The plot involved a runaway cruise ship, which, if you’ve seen Speed 1, is approximately one-tenth as exciting as a runaway bus. Sandra has spent the better part of three decades politely declining to discuss it.
This is what every introvert running a brand is staring down on a Tuesday morning.
You wrote Speed.
Holy crap, the audience showed up.
And now you owe them Speed 2.
That Tuesday post isn’t just the Tuesday post anymore. It’s the follow-up to the thing.
The well-meaning, extrovert-coded advice rewards when you show up every day. Build the habit. Stay visible. Comment on everything. Yes, daily. (Whoever wrote that advice has never been an introvert at 4pm.)
So we do. For a while.
And then a Saturday morning shows up, our brains go blank, the cursor blinks back, and we wonder what’s wrong with us.
Nothing is wrong with you.
But when the advice says show up every day, what we hear is spend every day, all day, on a tank that doesn’t refill until you bury yourself in a good book or binge watch for several (quiet) hours.
🏛️ The “Rule” This World Runs On
Rule #1: For introverts, the sequel costs more than the original.
The math the standard advice runs on doesn’t track this. More isn’t a percentage harder than some.
It’s exponentially harder, because every win raises the next bar. And every bar is staring back at you on a tank that doesn’t refill from the staring.
The introverts who burn out aren’t the ones who can’t show up.
They’re the ones following an advice cycle that pretends Speed 2 is just Speed with a different vehicle.
🧠 Why Your Brain Calls This Magic
There’s actual research behind this, in case you needed to feel less crazy.
Introverts and extroverts process social and creative output through different reward systems.
Extroverts get a real-time dopamine bump from external engagement, a kind of chemical replenishment.
Introverts… don’t.
We get something quieter and slower and stored deeper, but it doesn’t refill the tank the same way.
Our tanks refill from solitude.
If you’re an introvert (or you love an introvert, which definitely deserves a bumper sticker), you know this already. I don’t need to tell you.
But that doesn’t mean you always apply it to your work when you’re building a business.
(And for the writers reading this (hi!), this includes you. Being an author is a business.)
When a post lands, a workshop fills, your email list suddenly has people on it… expectations build. Momentum builds.
Extroverts pull that goodness in as fuel.
But we sit there watching our social battery drain like we’d left the iPhone unplugged all day with Google Maps on.
🕳️ Watch Out for The Trap Door
I used to think this was a failure. Something I had to fix. Like I was the only one who couldn’t muscle through. Like everyone else had figured out a thing I was missing.
The trap is thinking the wall is the problem.
It’s just too many days of output against not enough days of solitude. The wall is your body protecting you from running on a battery that hasn’t refilled.
And the fun part? It’s a moving target.
Building a business is hard.
Building a business with work you love is hard.
Building a business with work you love and creating visibility so you get findable and get clients is even harder.
And when it starts to go well, it demands more, not less.
You’ve probably felt that. If you’ve ever had a project close well, a post do 10x your normal views, a win, a great launch, a workshop fill up… and then watched yourself go quiet for weeks afterward, you know exactly what this is.
You’re facing your Speed 2 and trying to figure out how to make the cruise ship land like the bus .
(Here’s hoping Practical Magic 2 is soo much better for Sandra.)
🧡 One Thing To Do Differently
The next time something you make does well (a post, a workshop, anything) and you feel that panic inside, name it. It’s the sequel effect.
Or Speed 2, or whatever reminds you that for you, it’s normal.
There isn’t a productivity hack or “just push through and show up” pep talk that will fix it. You need to recognize what’s happening, so you can stop apologizing to yourself for being human about it.
(And maybe pack an RV. Or whatever your version of an RV is. Mine just happens to have wheels.)
📌 Put This on the Post-It
That panic isn’t a flaw.
It’s the sequel effect.
And it’s normal.
One last thing before I disappear into the mountains this week.
I’m leaning more into writing for introverts here, specifically about how you actually build your brand and do visibility in a way that works for you, and still helps you get findable.
(Because most of the advice wasn’t built for us, and at this point I’m pretty sure you’ve felt that.)
If you saw yourself in any of this, I’d love to know. And if there’s something you’d love to read more about, tell me. Hit reply. I read every one.
Until next time,
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Mollie is already in vacation mode. We made it to the mountains and are all tucked in.
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