Well, this makes me happy. ❤️ Welcome to Skoolology, @Kathryn Zabinski! Kathryn and I have known each other for a long time, so seeing her walk through this particular door feels pretty special. I’m really glad you’re here, my friend. Now I’m curious...what made you decide to come hang out with us over here? 😊

This one is partly @Oddysey Campbell Oddysey’s fault. 😂❤️ She got us talking about how she’s bringing more music into her community, and it sparked an idea... What if we built a Skoolology playlist together? 🐼 But we're making it a little more interesting. Today, YOU are the DJ. You get to play ONE song for all of us. 💃 Make us dance. 🎤 Make us sing. ❤️ Make us feel something. 🌎 Bring us something from your part of the world. 😂 Or make us seriously question your musical taste. Any decade. Any genre. Any language. BUT WAIT... Apparently Skoolology has also installed an imaginary online karaoke machine. 🎤😂 So here's the real question: What song are you adding to the Skoolology playlist...and would you actually sing it at Skoolology Karaoke? 😂 Choose your status: 🎤 HAND ME THE MIC — I'm singing it! 😬 ONLY WITH BACKUP SINGERS 😂 ABSOLUTELY NOT. I'm the DJ, remember? Drop your song + artist + karaoke status below. 👇 And yes...I said ONE song. Let's see how long that rule lasts. 😂

I shared a shorter version of this somewhere else this morning, but I kept thinking about it. Because I realized something. Some of the most valuable things you’ve shared with us haven’t been polished wins. They’ve been things like... “I tried this. It didn’t work.” “I thought I wanted this, but now I’m not so sure.” “Here’s what my members are actually doing.” “Something feels off, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.” And occasionally... “I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing next.” 😂 I’m also grateful for the quieter people here, too. The ones reading. Watching. Thinking. Trying something in their own community. Taking what they need and leaving what they don’t. Maybe you rarely comment. Maybe we have no idea what you’re experimenting with behind the scenes. You’re part of this, too. ❤️ Participation doesn’t always look like posting. And the conversations we DO get to have have changed some of our thinking, too. There are things Todd and I were pretty sure about when we started Skoolology that we see differently now. Things we’ve changed. Things we’ve simplified. Things we thought mattered that turned out not to matter nearly as much as something else. And I’m quite sure there are still things we’re wrong about. 😂🤫🔬 Maybe that’s one of the things I love most about treating Skoolology as a research lab. We can have hypotheses. We can bring our experience. We can study what seems to work. But then real people enter the room. And we have to pay attention. Building WITH people doesn’t mean doing everything everyone asks. It means letting what we learn from people influence what we build next. That requires us to listen. To notice. To question our assumptions. And sometimes to say, “Well... apparently THAT wasn’t it.” 😂 So today I’m grateful for all of you. The people who share the messy middle. The people who ask the awkward questions. The people who challenge an idea or tell us when something isn’t working. The people who let us peek behind their builds.

Thanks @Donna Thornton for letting me share this... Something small happened today that actually feels pretty big to me. 𝗜 𝗵𝗶𝘁 𝟭𝟬𝟬 𝘀𝘂𝗯𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗧𝘂𝗯𝗲. And honestly, the number isn't what I'm most excited about. It's everything that happened before it. In August, the channel started picking up: 𝟭𝟰𝗞 𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀 𝟭𝟱𝗞 𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀 𝟭𝟲𝗞 𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀 𝟭𝟴𝗞 𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀 And VidIQ now has the channel in the 𝘁𝗼𝗽 𝟮𝟱% 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝟬 𝘁𝗼 𝟭𝗞 𝘀𝘂𝗯𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀. But when I look back, the biggest thing I learned wasn't about views. It was about 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗹 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆. Because when you're starting something new, your brain gives you a hundred reasons to wait. "𝘐'𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘱𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵." "𝘐'𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘐 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨." "𝘐'𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘐 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘸𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩." "𝘐'𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘐'𝘮 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵." I had those thoughts too. But eventually you realize... 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗱𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁. You start. You learn. You improve. And confidence comes from seeing yourself make progress. I'm still at the beginning of this journey, but I'm documenting the process and sharing what I'm learning through YouTube. And now I'm curious about everyone here: 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗻𝗼𝘄? Maybe it's a YouTube channel. Maybe it's a business. Maybe it's a personal brand. Maybe it's something completely different. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗯𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝘄𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗯𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗻?

Your community is quieter than you hoped right now. Maybe you made a change, and the room went still. Maybe you're just early, and the replies are thin. Either way, the quiet has started to whisper something cruel... "See? You chose wrong. This isn't working." I've heard that whisper, too, so let's look at it honestly. Here's the first thing I want you to notice, and it might surprise you. The quiet often gets loudest right after you've been brave. You made a change. You took a risk. You tried something new, or you started the thing at all. And the moment you step out of the safe, familiar groove into something unknown, it goes quiet, because you've moved somewhere new, and new is always still at first. So that silence you're reading as failure? A lot of the time, it's the sound of you having done something. The people who never hear the quiet are usually the ones who never changed anything. So quiet is not a verdict. It's the messy middle, after a move and before the new thing takes hold, and growth is rarely loud in the middle. It's fits and starts, still stretches, small moves, doubt, and then something shifts. So what if the silence isn't a judgment at all, but information? Not "you failed," but "something wants your attention." The quiet can be curious rather than cruel if you let it. It might be telling you to reach out, or try one small thing, rather than telling you to quit. Which brings me to the thing that actually helps, and it's something this room already does beautifully. You bring your questions here. Your doubts, your fears, the "am I doing this right?" moments. You don't hide them. You lay them out and ask. That's rarer than you know, and it's exactly the right instinct, so please, keep doing it. When the quiet creeps in, the worst move is to go quiet too and carry it alone. So do what you already do. Reach out, ask, answer someone else's question. Say "Hey, is anyone else feeling this?" It's that back and forth that works the doubt loose.