One year down

If you could redo the last year of your life, what (if anything) would you change?

It’s a question I’ve been pondering more than usual this week. Today marks one year since I launched Thinking Is Cool—one year of betting on myself, one year of trying to trust my instincts, one year of rejecting the life I had once planned for myself and one year of loving every minute of it.

On May 17, 2021, I was brimming with nervous energy. I was motivated by my carnal need to prove people wrong. I was ambitious, optimistic, and a little bit stupid.

On May 17, 2022, my energy is more grounded than ever before. I am motivated by thoughtfulness and community and creativity. I am ambitious, optimistic, and still just a little bit stupid.

As luck would have it, this week marked a Scorpio blood moon eclipse (devoted readers know that witchy sh*t like this has been a big interest of mine this last year). Like a good betch, I saw Kendall Jenner share this infographic to her Instagram story (Kendall and I have the same birthday but thankfully not the same approach to basic kitchen skills).

So…in solidarity with my Scorpio sister and in the spirit of purging emotional baggage & opening my heart to what life has to offer, I’m sharing some quick-hitter reflections on the last year of my life—on the first birthday of my first child, Thinking Is Cool.

Lesson 1: Creativity is a muscle. When I kicked this journey off, I was so amped up on Mountain Dew that I had almost too many ideas. Then I made all the things I’d wanted to for so long and I railed through my idea list in two seasons. Then I took a break to realign myself creatively and let’s just say…it wasn’t easy to get back on the horse. My brain turned to mush for a couple months there (thank you for sticking with me through late fall/early winter).

Lesson 2: Will power only gets you so far. Sometimes, what you want to make and what the people consuming your product want to watch/read/listen to are…nothing alike. Something something lead a horse to water? The good stuff is in the balance between what I want and what y’all want and what doesn’t already exist—that’s the content market fit.

Lesson 3: It’s true what they say about overnight successes. If I’m being honest with you and with myself, part of me thought Thinking Is Cool would blow up right away—that, one year in, I’d be fielding book offers and Netflix contracts and hobnobbing with the names on the inside cover of the New Yorker. I was a bit off—I’m proud of this community’s steady, sustainable growth, but we haven’t gone supersonic just yet. Rejiggering my expectations has been a humbling but deeply necessary task in personal growth.

Lesson 4: There’s a time and a place for the solo mission. Because this show is new-ish and young-ish and still getting its footing, I’ve convinced myself at times that I’m the only one who can steer the ship. But you know what happens when someone who’s exhausted steers the ship on their own? You hit an iceberg or something. Anyway, I’ve learned to ask for help and that’s important.

Lesson 5: Change is good. This show has pivoted majorly at least three times by my count. With each change, I’ve learned to set intentions and I’ve been happily reminded that one of the most beautiful opportunities we have in life is to change our mind.

Lesson 6: Change is bad. Because I’ve changed my mind so many times in pursuit of what I think is honestly just the right vibe (I think I’ve got it now) I've forfeited some primo opportunities to get really good at whatever I’m working on at the moment. At times, I’ve been super frenetic, jumping from idea to idea without digging in and honing my craft. Without sitting still. Armed now with the keen awareness that everything in media is shiny at some point or another, I’m working on being open to new ideas without being fundamentally distractible.

Lesson 7: My path will be different from yours. I have always been big on having heroes, and my heroes typically take the form of successful women in journalism and media who’ve made possible careers I’d never in my wildest dreams imagined. But the thing I’ve learned this year as I really, earnestly embark on my own goals is that my journey to achieving them simply won’t look like the paths that have already been carved. And that’s good! Because if I make good on my biggest ambitions, someday I’ll inspire other young women to take risks and talk shit online and think boldly—and their ideas and creativity will far outstrip what I deem possible today.

Lesson 8: Figuring out what you’re really good at is euphoric. I’ve done a lot over the last year that has completely drained my tank. But I’ve recently gotten better at focusing my time on doing the things that energize me—interviews, business content, and making TikToks? Yeah the last one was as big a surprise to me as it is to you.

Lesson 9: Media tropes are dumb and we spend entirely too much time on them. Here, please find a brief rehash of all of my inside baseball lessons from the last year. Podcast reviews are not the growth tactic you think they are. Whatever you think your built-in distribution will be at launch, divide it by, like, 15. If you’re doing more than a couple thousand downloads a month on your podcast, you’re doing just fine (and if you want to do more than that, let me put you in touch with my friends Josh & Jenny).

Lesson 10: I need a routine. I don’t have one yet, like not even close. But I feel it in my bones that I need one. Call it a task for the next year.

Lesson 11: I should have written more down. Chronic oversharer with everyone but myself??

Lesson 12: Tell yourself what you need to hear when you need to hear it and don’t feel guilty about it. Some of the mantras I’ve lived by at various points in the last year?

• Literally none of this matters. Not a lick of it matters.

• Now is the moment to aspire to greatness. You’re never too old, too young, too stupid, too inexperienced to shape the future.

• No one is thinking about you as much as you’re thinking about you.

• Build and grow in public, because what you’re doing matters.

• Be the forgiveness you want to see in the world. What comes around goes around. Lead with kindness.

• Hold shitty people accountable. Nothing changes if you don’t make it change.

Lesson 13, for good luck: Gratitude is a powerful force. In that spirit, here are some thank yous I’d like to send out into the universe.

To Josh, Jenny, Ali—my team at Smooth Ops—thank you for bearing with me when I was really grumpy, for shooting ad hoc merch campaigns, for giving me Thursday giggles, for including me and tending to me and inspiring me to be more organized. And to use Notion.

To my family—thank you for never telling me to be quiet and for raising me on discourse. And for not doubting me when I recorded episode 1 about porn at home. Tremendously chill of y’all.

To my boyfriend, Coleman—thank you for listening intently to every single thought that knocks around between my ears (including the thinking that is most certainly not cool), for reassuring me that this is more than just making silly little podcast episodes, and for helping me be big when it feels like the world wants me to be small.

To all of you reading this, whether you were here for episode one or this is the first time you’ve gotten an email from me—thank you for affirming to me that, in a world that feels more unthinking every day, there is always going to be space for thoughtfulness. I’m obviously not a woman of few words (she says like 5,000 words later), but this is the rare case in which I’ve got very few. I still can’t believe that people want to listen to my show, and yet here you all are. There aren’t enough thank yous in the world.

So with that, I’m off to see Haim at Madison Square Garden. Then I’ll wake up tomorrow morning and start working on year two of Thinking Is Cool, fulfilled so deeply by the knowledge that it’s still just the beginning of our story.

With all my love,

Kinsey