And the only reason I’m able to keep doing this is because you keep showing up and reading it.

I say this with zero snark or sarcasm: 

Thank you. ❤

I’m truly honored that you have trusted me with a coveted spot in your inbox. Your messages of support and appreciation over these last couple of years have meant the world to me.

👉 If you want to be great at something, get great teachers.

And now — the story behind why this advice matters. 👇

Call me on my bullshit if you disagree, but I believe the title of “writer” is earned once someone gets paid to do it.

Up until that point, you might “write” — but you’re not a “writer”.

For instance, I play the piano, but I would never call myself a “piano player”. A piano player is a highly trained, paid musician who other musicians and audiences rely on to deliver flawless performances. 

I play the piano to relax at the end of a long day, and I occasionally compose when I’m feeling creative, but mainly I just bang out drunken choruses of “Oh, What a Night” when friends come over and stay too late.

It’s their signal to leave. 👋

And adding the prefix “professional” is redundant. If you tell me you’re a…

…you don’t have to use the word “professional”. You would sound like a moron.

All of this is to say that I didn’t become a “writer” until March 7, 2023, when my first article was published in Trends — the (then) premium research arm of the popular business & tech news publication, The Hustle.

Trends was a premium newsletter, which meant ~16k subscribers were paying $300 to read it. That’s some insane pressure for a newbie. But I strangely felt right at home, and in a matter of weeks, I went from writing a few stories, to stepping into the Managing Editor role.

This didn’t happen because I was a terrific writer, or an editorial savant —  it was because our audience was composed of entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs. And I knew how to talk to them.

This is how I learned my first major lesson about the media industry:

👉 People enjoy good writing — but they pay for insight.

Up until this point, I had never worked on an editorial team. I always imagined writers as moody lone-wolves, constantly at odds with their peers, their editors, and their publication.

Maybe that’s true in some cases, or maybe I just watch too many movies. And I’m still relatively new to this, so my perspective here is limited.

But let me say this—

The editorial team at Trends was the absolute #GOAT.

The only reason I’m now a “successful” writer is because of three wily wordsmiths who unapologetically shredded my early writing, while somehow simultaneously making me feel warmly valued:

It’s a hugely vulnerable experience to pour yourself into a piece of writing, then hand it to someone else to critique. But Shân, Ethan, and Brad took everything I wrote and made it 10x better with their coaching. They weren’t simply red-penning the shit out of my work — they were teaching me how to be an effective writer, and a potent editor.

They truly cared.

Soon, I was editing stories from powerhouse writers like Chenell Basilio and Chris Orzechowski (who are also, coincidentally, delightful f*cking humans).                              

This illustrates what exemplary teachers Shân, Ethan, and Brad truly are, and I’m boundlessly grateful to them.

Every story I edited made me a better writer. Every story someone else edited made me a better writer. There wasn’t a single interaction I wasn’t learning from.

I fell in love with this process, and quickly decided that I wanted my next entrepreneurial venture to be in the media space.

Thanks to some opportunities brought to me by Ethan Brooks and Brad Wolverton (again, the power of the team is paramount), I launched Polymath Media, a little CEO ghostwriting outfit.

It was absolutely the best thing I could have done at that stage. 

I was forced to operate on a super regimented publishing schedule, writing from the “desk” of powerful CEOs with huge audiences and spiky points of view. In a year, I published 150+ thought leadership stories totaling 115k+ words, which garnered over 4.7 million unique reads.

I had to treat writing like a real job. Because that’s exactly what it was.

This experience gave me undyingly consistent practice. I was writing almost every day. And when I wasn’t writing, I was reading interesting things to fill my brain with inspiration.

(Which is a magical way to live, tbh.)

I’m forever thankful for those opportunities. But after a while, I thought…

“I’m publishing incredible stories for other business leaders, and people are f*cking loving them. But I’m also a business leader. I’m not just a writer. I should be doing this for myself.”

So I birthed Drunk Business Advice. (The word “birthed” is intentionally chosen, because it’s probably the closest thing I’ll ever have to a child.)

And for eight months, I was publishing Drunk Business Advice alongside my CEO ghostwriting commitments. 🤯

So when I stepped away from ghostwriting, I felt like a bodybuilder who usually lifts 300 pounds being handed a 50-pound kettlebell. While 50 pounds is a lot of weight for most people, I had been lifting 300 pounds so damn consistently, and for so damn long, that 50 pounds felt light as a feather.

So today, as I hit “send” on my 100th issue of Drunk Business Advice, I must ask myself: What comes next?

Jerry Seinfeld has a joke that goes like this:

Yep. I feel that. With death, there might be pain. There might be judgement (depending on your beliefs). 

With public speaking, there is definitely pain and judgment. It’s guaranteed.

But I’m one of those weirdos who kinda likes a little pain and judgement. It comes with the territory of publishing a newsletter like Drunk Business Advice. And frankly, it fuels me.

Public speaking is something I’ve dabbled in a lot over the years, but never formally pursued. So with 100 issues of DBA under my belt, now is as good a time as ever to get serious about it. Especially because I have some incredible mentors in this space, like the prolific Carmine Gallo. 

And as I learned with writing, having badass teachers makes all the difference. ♥

So y’all are the first to hear —

Kristin Kenzy is now a speaker on the keynote circuit! Oh god.

And I have a new personal website to promote it. 

(This is different from my old personal website where I just hee-hawed about LinkedIn shitposting, and had an OnlyFans icon that Rick-Rolled anyone who dared to click it. I’m, like, a real grownup now.)

So if you or someone you know is putting on an event, and you want to add a little spice to the speaker lineup, let’s talk! (It’s not a shameless plug if I never had any shame to begin with.)

Until we meet again…

🍻 Cheers to the next 100 issues of Drunk Business Advice. 

🍻 Cheers to bringing it to life on stage. 

🍻 And cheers to you — for all the support, friendship, and laughs. Y’all are the best.

Love,

-Kristin