I want to sincerely thank everyone who has hit reply (or messaged on LinkedIn) to introduce themselves over the last few months.

The most poignant theme that has resonated with me is how many of you want to start writing. ✍️ 

That’s so badass.

I’m honored that my little newsletter has helped awaken that aspiration in you. My cup overfloweth. 🥹

So today, I’m going to give you a peek behind the curtain, and show you how the Drunk Business Advice sausage is made.

What is a “writer”?

I’ve only been a writer for 18 months.

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 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 stupidly redundant. If you tell me you’re a…

• Mechanic  🛠️

• Web Developer 💻

• Marketer 📣

• Congressman 🇺🇸

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

(Unless you’re a Congressman… then you’re likely just a “professional moron”.)

So—

👉 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/yr 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 at Trends.

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.

Because I’m an entrepreneur myself.

This is when I learned my first major lesson about writing:

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

Writing is team sport

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 most cases, or maybe I just watch too many movies. And I’m still 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 two wily wordsmiths who unapologetically shredded my early writing, while somehow simultaneously making me feel warmly valued:

• Shân Osborn (who now publishes Oh look another health trend)

• Ethan Brooks (who now publishes Austin Business Review)

It’s a hugely vulnerable experience to pour yourself into a piece of writing, then hand it to someone else to critique.

But Shân and Ethan 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.

Within weeks (seriously… weeks), 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 and Ethan sincerely are, and I’m boundlessly grateful to them.

When our media group’s Editor in Chief, Brad Wolverton (who now publishes Newsletter Examples) offered to begin personally reviewing some of our stories, I truly hit the jackpot with editorial mentorship.

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. ❤️ 

Drunk Business Advice began as a podcast

That was a horrible idea. 🤦 

Why?

A few reasons…

❌ I know nothing about podcasting. I don’t even listen to podcasts.

❌ I suck at marketing, and you have to be a killer marketer to achieve any remotely meaningful traction with a podcast. 

❌ Podcasting is a broadcast medium. You don’t “own” your audience, and it’s hugely difficult to create a conversation with them, which means you can’t collect early feedback and iterate.

The reason I liked the idea of a podcast is because I wanted to have conversations with business leaders about their biggest f*ck-ups.

And I still think that’s a solid reason.

But if no one ever hears those conversations, then it’s a colossal waste of time. 🤷

I recorded four episodes (with four brilliant guests), and had three other interviews lined up, when I realized that my plan was deeply flawed.

So I went back to the drawing board and began crafting a plan to launch Drunk Business Advice as a newsletter.

Have you ever tried to launch a business by yourself?

If my time at Trends had taught me anything, it was the importance of community — both in writing, and in business.

So last year, I launched an experimental mastermind for a very selfish reason—

I wanted to surround myself with the most talented and generous entrepreneurs on the planet. 🌎

And I can honestly tell you that Drunk Business Advice wouldn’t exist without them — especially one particularly altruistic member, Rob Capili. 👏

Rob (who recently kicked-off an insanely cool YouTube series on Mastering The Art of War) is an accomplished screenwriter and creative entrepreneur. 

He agreed to be my accountability partner for the project of launching Drunk Business Advice.

And if it weren’t for Rob…

• Checking in with me daily…

• Providing unfiltered feedback on my landing page, messaging, welcome flow, and early stories…

• And constantly challenging my assumptions…

…Then I’d still be sitting on my hands, rather than atop a mountain of 40k epic words of Drunk Business Advice that I’ve published since May.

👉 I cannot stress this enough — surrounding yourself with talented people who care about your goals as much as you do is the universal cheat-code to life.

Not only will you accomplish the shit you set out to do, you’ll also be blissfully happy while you’re doing it. It makes the adventure heaps more fun.

But getting shit done wasn’t the only major challenge I faced

The biggest hurdle I needed to overcome was getting comfortable sharing my own stories (I touched on this in last week’s issue).

And, like everything else, the solution to this problem didn’t come from reading a book or watching a TED Talk—

👉 It came from working with people who truly cared about me.

The first step on this journey actually dates back to 2019 when I (brag alert) attended executive grad school at Harvard.

In my first week on campus, one of our professors, Carmine Gallo, walked up to me and asked me what my story was.

I froze. 😬

I f*cking hated talking about myself. I never knew what to say. I always felt like I came off either too braggy, or too boring (a fear I carry to this day).

But in that initial conversation, Carmine asked me a series of questions that immediately put me at ease, and after working with him over several years (as a teacher, and a friend), I finally discovered the power of owning my story.

But there was still something holding me back.

I was deeply uncomfortable with the idea of people knowing me…

…Without me knowing them. 

But if I wanted to be a successful writer, I would need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

This is when another mastermind member, PR expert Cahill Camden (founder of Press Jockey and Echo Jockey) proposed a brilliantly simple solution—

To give myself a pen name. ✍️

🚨 NEWSFLASH: Kristin Kenzy is not my real name.

Everything I write is still 100% “me” — I haven’t created a “character”. But for some inexplicable reason, using a pen name dissolves my insecurities and empowers me to say what I’m really thinking.

And it’s hella fun coming up with a new name for yourself. 👊

Reps matter

Because of a connection from Ethan Brooks (again, the power community is paramount), I took on a CEO ghostwriting gig — for an entire year.

This was absolutely the best thing I could have done.

Over that year, I published 140+ thought leadership stories (110k+ words), which received over 4.7 million unique views. 🤯 

Being on such a regimented publishing schedule, with such a large audience, taught me how to treat writing like a job. 

Because that’s exactly what it is.

But more than that, it 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.

(It’s a magical way to live, tbh.)

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

So when I stepped away from ghostwriting last month, I felt invincible—

Like I was a bodybuilder (who usually lifts 300 pounds) being handed a 100-pound kettlebell. 💪

While 100 pounds is a lot of weight for most people, I had been lifting 300 pounds so damn consistently, and for so damn long, that 100 pounds felt light as a feather. 🪶

—

Based on our conversations, I’m going to start producing more content on the topic of business storytelling (while still, of course, telling “highly entertaining and shockingly useful” business stories in the weekly Drunk Business Advice newsletter). 

This may include an exclusive cohort of writers and business leaders who want to improve their business storytelling. I dunno. I’m noodling on the idea.

If that sounds like something you might be interested in joining, let me know here.

Cheers! 🍻

-Kristin :-)

Don’t be a lurker. Hit reply to say hello.

👉️Like my storytelling? Hire me to write an op-ed.

👉️Have a story you think I should cover? Tell me about it.