On Hiatus

I'll see you in 2026, at least here on Substack

I spent the weekend celebrating 19 years of marriage with my amazing wife doing the type of thing we fell in love doing: spending as much time in the mountains as we could.

When we were younger, that time was spent rock climbing. Three kids later, we’re not climbing as much as we’d like, so hiking fills the void until they leave the nest. We’ll return to the cliff/crag when our weekends aren’t spent driving them to countless soccer games and martial arts competitions.

But the weekend gave me, for the first time in a long time, a chance to reflect.

Of late, I’ve had a lot on the go. Too many projects. Too many commitments. Work. This newsletter. A podcast. Managing and playing in a football team. Coaching football. Writing a book. And much, much, more.

My brain has been, in hindsight, incredibly scattered as a result.

So, I need to trim back, focus on the core stuff I do, and see where we end up by year’s end. This project is one of the things I’m cutting back. The content creation game is a real treadmill. Especially in a very niche industry like ours. My audience growth has been limited, and spending time writing to a small audience is really an exercise in ego. And as Substack has evolved, it's become clear what I need to do to grow this newsletter: crank out 3-5 content items per day to grow. Even if I leaned into AI, this is a massive cognitive distraction. I’m choosing to hop off the treadmill, at least for now.

That doesn’t mean I’m going dark. You will still find me working on the Craft Politics podcast with my friends Percy and Holly. And while I’ll be reducing the volume of content I’m producing on LinkedIn, I’ll still post the occasional thought/observation there, and cross-post those thoughts on Substack Notes.

Otherwise, I’ll take stock of my commitments in late December.

Cheers,

Joseph