I Messed Up, and I’m Sorry

Hey y’all,

If lately it seems like I’m hopping around like a hot mess, well, I kind of am. You see, this online content creation game doesn’t come with simple instructions. It’s up to each creator to determine what their readers want and then produce the right content. 

I thought I knew where I was going, but then a powerful gift changed everything.

Today I want to tell you a story about living with bipolar disorder. As much as I love to give you good advice, I’m not always so great about following it myself. 

Speaking Bipolar is primarily about understanding and thriving with bipolar. To that end, I’ve been working on both a book and an online course to help you.

About the middle of November, I was noticing many people post on social media about how depressed they were feeling as the holidays approached. Many people were wondering how they were going to survive the rest of the year. 

Sitting at my desk at work one day, I had the wonderful idea of creating a gift for my readers – the 30 Days of Positivity email course. I feverishly went to work, and the first of you signed up on November 21st. 

I danced around my house like Meredith and Cristina in the early days of Grey’s Anatomy. (Anyone else wondering why they don’t “dance it out” anymore? I miss that.)

Since then, I see two or three new people sign up for the course every day. I can’t tell you how much that touches my heart. Those of you who have completed the course and left reviews have rated it an average of 9.5/10.

As incredible as the success of the course is, it left me questioning which direction I should go next. Producing all the positivity emails took me 1-2 hours per post, so I put both the book and the course on hold.

Because I’m bipolar, I have about a dozen projects going right now, but I want to focus on the one you want first.

My next thought was I need to take advantage of the success of the 30 Days course. The 30 Days course is free, but if people loved it, I thought maybe there was a way I could provide the emails every week for a small fee.

My next step was to create the Speaking Bipolar Positivity Club. It would continue the best of the 30 Days course while adding in more content about living with bipolar and chronic illness and even a little poetry along the way. 

Full of excitement, I launched the Club, knowing it would be a massive success. 

However, when I presented it to you, exactly one person signed up. (Laura, girl, I love you! I will reward you soon for all your encouragement and support.)

In true bipolar fashion, I freaked out and shut the club down. 

Now granted, in reality, probably only about a dozen of you even knew the club existed, but still I took rash action and brought everything to a screeching halt. 

So what’s next? I’m not sure. This is where I need your help.

Here are my main options. 

1. I can finally finish the book I’ve been telling you about for months. It’s a collection of 30 of my most popular posts about bipolar.
2. I could finish the bipolar course. It will be a deep dive into bipolar symptoms and how to cope with each one.
3. I could focus on getting the Positivity Club up and running.
4. I could combine the bipolar course and the Positivity Club and release one bipolar lesson each week inside the Club.

I’m leaning towards option four, and if I do that, paid members will get access to exclusive content. I will publish some of the content later on the Speaking Bipolar blog, Medium, or Vocal Media, but it will exist exclusively in the club for the first 30 days. Any workbooks or bipolar course videos will only be available in the club.

Start Today!

Even though I have a professional job, my pay doesn’t match my ability. I understand that signing up for another subscription will be impossible for many of you, so there will always be a free option. You will still get daily content with the free version.

In fact, I am opening the free tier right now. When you sign up, you’ll automatically be signed up for the Positivity topic, but you can easily follow any other topic. For now, there are five topics: Positivity, Bipolar, Chronic Illness, Writing, and Poetry. There’s also a fun, short-post topic: 365 Days of Bipolar, where I post a brief message every day.

Here’s the weekly schedule for new content:

• Monday: Writing Tips
• Tuesday: Bipolar Life
• Wednesday: Positivity
• Thursday: Chronic Illness Life
• Friday: Poetry

I strongly recommend that you complete the 30 Days of Positivity before signing up, and I say this for three reasons. 

1. If you’re in the middle of the 30 Days course, signing up for the Club may cause you to receive two daily emails until the 30 Days course ends. I don’t want to overwhelm and lose you.
2. It will show you my writing style and help you decide if you find the content useful. 
3. It’s some of my best writing so far.

Here’s my biggest problem. I’m a tax preparer, so that means that my life right now is taxes 24 hours a day, six days a week. I don’t know what I was thinking of trying to launch a club during this time or year when I barely have time to eat or sleep. Again, I am bipolar.

In the meantime, I want you to know that it’s okay to freak out and sometimes make poor decisions. It’s part of being bipolar. Heck, I make terrible decisions every day. But I’m not giving up, and I hope you never will either. 

One last thing, for those of you waiting for the 2022 Edition of The Best So Far, it is now available. You can download a free copy through the the Speaking Bipolar Store. Similar to past years, the 2022 Edition contains links to all my online content from last year.

I appreciate all of you for being on this bipolar journey with me, and I hope you’ll stick around to see what’s coming next. I’m excited to see what that is, too.

Until next time, keep fighting.