🎂 🥳 The Diving Board Turns One!

She scooted. She crawled. She’s almost walking. Year 1 highlights are here.

Any parent remembers all too well the incredulous terror of accepting sole responsibility for a child for the first time. How did anyone - including you - possibly think you were ready for this? Shouldn’t someone stop you before you break something?

Fast forward to that first birthday party or adoption anniversary.

The child is miraculously intact, perhaps smeared with cake, the little dear. And you? Honestly, you still feel like you’re winging it, but you’ve grown considerably more comfortable with the winging it. You trust yourself, you trust the process of parenting, and bit by bit, you’re learning to trust that the kid will be alright.

In many ways, my first year of nurturing and growing The Diving Board felt not entirely unlike my first year of parenting (with mercifully fewer poopy diapers, and better sleep).

In this tell-all post, I’ll invite you into the still-figuring-it-out reality of launching and running a newsletter.

But first - let’s get acquainted!

Lots of new subscribers have joined us recently, so now seems like a good time to properly reintroduce myself.

Hi, I’m Claire! I’m an Executive Coach, Writer, and Speaker who is passionate about helping people pursue meaningful work in a swirly world.

I started The Diving Board as a business-casual newsletter for humans in the deep end of work and life.

I share perspectives, stories, and tools to help you grow your self-awareness and connect your humanity to your work. I’ve also been known to overuse puns and share pics of my naughty Goldendoodle stealing toilet paper, again.

I’m an aspiring author working towards publication of my first book. (I signed with an agent at the end of 2024 (!), and we’re about to start submitting to potential publishers.) The Diving Board allowed me to begin building what the publishing industry calls an “author platform”, or an audience who likes to read your stuff.

You can learn more about me and The Diving Board on my About page and my website.

Me, in January 2024, watching my subscriber count for The Diving Board eke towards my goal of 200 in the first week

I want to share the rowdiest possible THANK YOU to you all, faithful readers of The Diving Board. I so appreciate you being a welcoming place to land after this leap of faith I’ve taken. Your interest in reading my words is a massive gift to me and inspires me to keep going. I hope The Diving Board inspires you in return.

The birthday party starts now!

In honor of The Diving Board turning ONE, I offer you a series of ONE THINGS —reflections and inside scoops from behind the scenes of The Diving Board’s first year.

ONE THING I’m proud of:

Getting out of my head (overanalyzing whether and what to write) and just getting something onto the page - enough to share 34 posts in the past 12 months!

I’ve hemmed and hawed for so long about putting my writing out there, and this year, I actually did it. A lot.

ONE THING that worked:

Writing about provocative topics.

My most-read, shared, and commented-on posts were the spicier ones on themes like politics and gender dynamics, or the deeply vulnerable ones. As someone who prefers to be universally held in positive regard, these posts were the scariest ones for me to publish. 😬

But your responses embolden me to keep being honest where it counts. (In that spirit, watch for my upcoming post about the widespread improper construction of s’mores.)

ONE THING that didn’t work:

My advice column-style series, Poolside Chat. 😕

I loved writing this series, but my readership is just not large enough or engaged enough yet (thank you, growth mindset) to generate a steady inflow of questions. I could just make up fake questions, but that’s far less fun (and truthful), so I’m setting Poolside Chat aside for a while.

ONE THING that might surprise you:

For the most part, I don’t know who is and is not subscribed to The Diving Board.

When I launched The Diving Board, 200 people signed up in the first week, but I didn’t look to see their names. I also turned off the feature that notifies me when someone unsubscribes. That sort of information makes me unhelpfully self-conscious.

ONE THING I’m still figuring out:

And it’s not a small thing… I’m still struggling to find my writing niche.

Said differently, one year in, I’m still trying to articulate what The Diving Board is really about and to write coherently within that framing.

As I shared above, I started The Diving Board to grow my “author platform” or potential readership for my future book(s). These future books will draw from my experience as an Executive Coach and Leadership Development practitioner and will likely sit in the “business/leadership/career” section of the bookstore.

The Diving Board should be coherent with these themes. However, if you’ve ever coached with me or if you read the book I’m writing someday, you’ll know that my approach to “work stuff” is intentionally holistic and human and not confined to corporate norms.

Frankly, I would be unbearably bored (and I think you would be, too) if everything I wrote on The Diving Board had to be explicitly work-related… But I wonder, am I touching on work-related themes enough? Do the topics I write about feel haphazard and disconnected, or are the “meaningful work” threads coming through?

ONE THING I’ve learned about running a newsletter:

No matter how much I love writing an ungodly long post, you guys are unlikely to love reading it.

There are exceptions, but I’m learning that writing on the internet works best in shorter formats. I’ll save the book-length posts for the books.

ONE THING I’ve learned about myself:

My inner gremlins are both as bad as I suspected, and yet somehow not so bad.

ONE THING that has kept me sane:

“I’m learning in public”. - Nishant Jain

When the aforementioned gremlins hit me with their sh*tstorm of commentary (“Do you think you have something unique to say here? You’re just adding to the noise/seeking attention/making a fool of yourself!”), I remember what I read in an interview with

Nishant Jain

about his early days on Substack. He said, “I’m learning in public.”

The point is not to crush it every time. The point is to learn and get better.

ONE THING you might be wondering:

Will I ever go paid?

Many Substack newsletters charge for subscribing or offer a free tier and then a paid tier with exclusive content. As for me, never say never, but going paid was not and is not the plan. The plan was and is to grow my audience in service of my bookish ambitions. Going paid creates a barrier for some subscribers, which runs counter to my goals.

ONE THING I wish were happening more:

More comments, more likes.

Comments and likes (clicking the little heart button on a post) help me know, when I send a piece of writing out into the ether, that it’s collided with something solid. Comments create a sense of conversation and community. And yes, comments and likes signal the Substack algorithm to point more people to my work.

ONE THING I’d like to experiment with this year:

More video!

My one video post in 2024 generated noticeably more engagement than my text-only posts. I’ll always be a writer first, but I enjoy a good chat, too. Stay tuned for more videos in 2025!

ONE THING I’m avoiding with all my might:

Digging into metrics and analytics on my Substack dashboard to more fully understand what’s resonating and what could be better.

Sending my creative work out into the world feels vulnerable enough.

Attempting to stoically analyze the metrics associated with these acts of courage as if they are as impersonal as multiplication tables intimidates the crap out of me.

But I know professionalizing any creative endeavor requires looking at the data objectively while tending to any emotions it triggers. And so, I do plan to face the numbers in 2025 and use them to get better.

P.S. Curious what my Substack dashboard looks like? Here’s the landing page:

One thing I’m particularly proud of is my open rate. Substack says 50-60% is a good sign of engagement, so 55.5% feels groovy.

ONE THING I’d like to accomplish in 2025:

I’d love to grow my subscriber base to 3,000.

Why? Because platform size matters in book publishing. Somewhere along the way I heard that while 3,000 followers is not considered a large platform, it’s big enough to show publishers you’re serious.

ONE THING that contributed most to my subscriber growth:

Recommendations from other Substackers.

You can see my Subscriber Growth over time below, from conception back in 2022 (!) to launch (the big cliff), followed by slow growth to 678 subscribers in this first year.

See those spikes and little bumps? Those are moments when a fellow Substacker recommended The Diving Board to their audience. (Thank you,

Andy and Michael Nelson

and

Spring Cheng

, among others!) Readers, I hope you will check out their Substacks, too.

ONE THING I’m planning for 2025:

Well, folks, I’m planning to plan, that’s what.

Year 1 was scrappy. At first, I had no plan, then I made a plan that was too ambitious, so I neglected the plan.

Each writer needs a different balance of planning what to write in advance vs. pantsing it (that’s writer shorthand for “flying by the seat of my pants”). I still haven’t found my ideal balance. I do believe a predictable rhythm and consistent post types appeal to readers, but the ebb and flow of my paid work makes predictability and consistency elusive.

My amazing Operations Lead, Jill, recently helped me designate “Focus Fridays” to accomplish specific strategic & creative activities. Next up, she’s going to help me develop a 2025 Content Strategy for posting more intentionally and thoughtfully across platforms (here, LinkedIn, and Substack Notes).

My job will be to follow through with the plan, even when my paid work picks up. Wish me luck. 😉

ONE THING you can do to support my work in 2025:

Please share The Diving Board with someone you think would enjoy it!

I will literally give you the easy button:

I’m grateful!

Will you share your thoughts on The Diving Board to help me shape my 2025 Content Strategy?

• What kinds of posts, features, or other qualities make The Diving Board compelling for you?

• What one change would make The Diving Board even more compelling and shareable?

Got a thought you’d rather share directly with me? DM me.

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Ok, party’s over.

Y’all go on home, I’ll clean up the balloons and the leftover cake. (Nom, nom.)

Thank you again - truly - for coming along on this ride. I’m so grateful to be in your inbox on a regular basis.

In 2025, I’ll try my best to make The Diving Board too good to delete. 😘