George Kao says losing followers is inevitable and normal, even for good creators. Focus on your authentic voice instead of chasing validation. A smaller, loyal audience beats a big one that doesn't actually connect with you.
5,000+ email subscribers.
50+ percent open rate.
Don't be afraid of losing anybody, only be afraid of losing your soul. This message, I think, is increasingly important the more you wade into social media and content creation. Because, well, social media is built on validation. The posts that you see are the ones that have been validated the most, right? Like the most. That's why they show up at the top of our feedback. The ones what you don't see are the many thousands of posts that got no validation. That's why you don't see them or got very little. And so there's a natural urge that you'll have to do things to show up in a way that is going to be popular or more attractive, it seems to you. And if you keep doing that, well, guess what? You end up putting masks on yourself. Layers and layers and layers of whatever mask you believe is going to be attractive to others. And the more you do that, the more you lose your soulful expression. And the more you lose your soulful expression, it seems to me that the more ill you become in the soul and sometimes in the body. What I've noticed, as I have done what I could to show up with soulful expression, whatever that means for me, what feels true for me, the way of expressing that feels authentically powerful for me. As I keep showing up like this, I feel stronger. I feel more fundamentally and deeply well, and that's a sign for me to keep going. Now, a lot of the time when I do this, I don't get as many likes, right? And sometimes I. Well, oftentimes I lose followers too. You'll notice, by the way, if you send email newsletters that no matter how much work you put into an email newsletter, you'll probably get unsubscribes. The bigger your subscriber base, the more that's true. Now that I have, you know, 5,000 plus email subscribers from my newsletter and I get, you know, 50 plus sounds good, I get 50 plus percent open rate on every newsletter. And yet I always, always, always get unsubscriptions as well. No matter what I say, no matter if it seems attractive or not attractive or whatever, it doesn't matter, you will always lose people. So are you going to create with that fear in mind of, well, I might lose somebody if I, if I don't say it this way, if I don't say this or I do say this, I might lose someone? Yeah, you're going to lose people anyway, so you might as well practice your most soulful expression. What else is more important in this life, right, than actually meeting your Soul and allowing your soul to be the strongest that it could in its expression publicly, people are going to laugh at you. Your family and friends are going to say, who. Who do you think you are? That's not the little George we knew. That's not. What, is he so, so authentic now? Yeah, yeah. You could say whatever you want, especially of something that is so true for you. When the world wants you to act in a different way, then you need to do this every single day. And you need to understand that you're probably going to have zero likes on your soulful expression for a while. But if you keep looking at the number of likes, you continue to reinforce the need for validation. So instead say, you know what? Today I showed up to practice my soulful expression, and that was a successful day because I showed up and practiced publicly. Now, why do we show up practice publicly? Because we have the faith essentially that there is somebody out there who is our kindred spirit. And not just one person. Out of an Internet of 5 billion people, there are probably something like, if you just run the numbers out of an Internet of 5 billion people, there are probably 50,000 of our kindred spirits out there. And there's a bit of an urgency to find them because, well, we have a limited lifespan and the more we express ourselves as soulfully as we can, the more that that signal sent out there and the more that our kindred spirits find us and the more they find us. Slowly at first, at first, you're going to make a bunch of stuff and get 0 likes for months. Are you willing to do that? Well, if you keep looking at the likes, you won't be willing to do it anymore. But if you keep doing it because you're like, no, no, no, I'm going to show up every single day for the rest of my life to ping my energy signature out there and just practice my soulful expression. The more I do it, the more well I feel, the more strong I feel do it for that. But the more you do it, the more inevitably one kindred spirit will find you and then another, and then another. And you're going to lose some people, too. It's fine. But eventually you'll build up a true fan base and therefore have a real authentic business, because then you can sell whatever you want, because these kindred spirits resonate exactly with your energy signature more than anybody else. Anyway, I hope this is helpful as a reminder here on social media when it's more about validation than anything. And thanks for joining me on this journey and I encourage you to get going with yours. Thanks.
