The Eras of 3byMe: A Journey from Issue 1 to 200
I couldn’t resist to jump on the “Taylor Swift” train for this blog post. To be honest, I don’t even listen to Taylor Swift and am definitely not a “Swiftie”, but how cool is it to seperate different chapters (or in her case albums) into “eras”? 🤩 It makes it so bold, memorable and inspiring.
And isn’t this how I want my weekly dose of inspiration (aka my newsletter 3byMe) to be remembered? 😎
After five years and 200 issues of my weekly newsletter, I believe that it is time to celebrate and look back at a journey of writing, inspiration, beautiful exchanges with you, my reader(s), and I might even share a “lesson learned” here and there.
Summarising five years of newsletter writing is quite a challenge and I decided to dedicate the specific eras to the different newsletter tools that I used for different periods of time. Don’t worry, this won’t be a technical review about the tools. It will just help to not get lost in too many emotions and too many details about the different articles I shared.
So let’s start at the very beginning!
August 2019 - March 2022: Sendinblue era
The very first 3byMe landed in your inbox on 12 August 2019. I don’t know how you feel about it, but 12 August 2019 seems quite far away, right? And a small detail that I didn’t mention there was that I got married shortly afterwards. 😃 So I don’t know why I thought that I needed to start my own newsletter during the same time, but, hey, I’m still doing it, and I might share a bit more from my life since then as well. 😉
In total, you received 112 newsletters with 336 links to inspirational articles from the categories “Work”, “Life” and “Pleasure” via the Sendinblue tool, which I used the longest since I started this newsletter.
As some of you might now, the 3byMe was born out of another newsletter called “3by3”, which I did together with two friends and where each of us shared three links every week. When the other two decided to stop the “3by3”, I wanted to continue and so the 3byMe was born.
I wanted to first see how it goes and if people are interested in receiving (another) weekly newsletter and it turns out that receiving a curated list of articles every week is an appealing offer and that people actually read the articles and like to receive my weekly dose of inspiration in their inbox.
Let’s take a visual trip down memory lane to see how the beginning of the newsletter actually looked:
1st newsletter sent on 12 Augst 2019
What else happened during that period of time? I changed jobs twice, moved countries and completed both my life coach training and certification during that time and organised the first Reflections workshop in December 2021.
Have you ever heard of “we overestimate what we can achieve in one year and underestimate what we can achieve in five years”? I believe that it is safe to say that in August 2019, I didn’t know that I would move countries…and little did I know that a global pandemic would start shortly afterwards…life is full of surprises, isn’t it?
March 2022 - May 2023: Flodesk era ✨
“Short but sweet and soooooo pretty!” would be my very personal summary of using Flodesk. And in all transparency: if the tool wasn’t that expensive, I would still be using it. 😃 As you might know, I work in communications and am basically working with words and visuals (almost) every day, which makes me quite a pain in the a** when it comes to the composition of visuals, the harmony/combination of colours and the choice of fonts. It’s not just about the content, but also how you present it. So when I had the chance to try Flodesk for 50% off, you bet I took it! And hopefully you can also still remember the beautiful mailings I sent you with it. If not, let’s have a look here (click on the different images to see them in all their beauty!🤩) :
What else changed in the 3byMe during that time?
The sparkle ✨ became a part of the subject line and if you are lucky enough to be able to see emojis in your email inbox, you could immediately identify when the 3byMe landed in your inbox.
I changed the names of the categories as well and they became “Head”, “Heart” and “Soul”.
A new category was added on 6 February 2023: “Reflection of the week” has become since then a part of the standard categories of the newsletter and I started using it because I felt like I wanted to add more of a personal touch to the newsletter and invite you to take a moment and answer a question in writing, or use it in a conversation with your friends and colleagues, or simply accompany you throughout the week. Interestingly enough, the last 3byMe survey also revelead that this was a very much appreciated category.
As the 3byMe is a very personal newsletter, I was very happy that I could add a handwritten signature. It resembled very much to my actual handwriting and I felt that it added another personal touch to my message and the newsletter in general.
On a more personal level, I moved houses and on a semi-professional, semi-personal level, I also started preparing for the launch of the founding members round of the Growth Club. I still remember how I was following an online workshop on memberships while sitting in my new home, surrounded by moving boxes…what better way to spend your first evenings in a new home, right?! 😉
May 2023 - May 2024: Squarespace era
The Squarespace era was the shortest 3byMe era and I must say that I don’t regret leaving that tool. I wanted to try it out because I had developed a new website on the tool, and loved the idea of having one tool for both my website and my newsletter. However, it became very quickly very clear that this tool wasn’t for me.
From another perspective, that era was extremely eventful when it came to the developments of other projects:
Growth Club launch: Creating a community of personal growth lovers with regular workshops and accountability calls has been my dream for a while and I finally made it happen in 2023. There is currently a pause and I know that I will launch it again, so if you want to me the first to know, feel free to add your name to the waiting list (at the end of the Growth Club page). You will also find testimonials of the founding members there so that you can get a feeling of how it is to be a part of the Growth Club.
First retreat: After the founding members special of the Growth Club, I organised my first retreat at the beginning of 2024. The location was a house from the Middle Ages that was beautifully renovated and which is located in a village along the river Moselle. It was a beautiful experience and bringing people together in person, after having spent several months in workshops and accountability calls, is so satisfying and very special. Hopefully, this will become a part of the Growth Club experience and I will meet many of you in person.
Blog (“On my mind”) launch: If you are reading this (and have been subscribed to my newsletter for a while), it will come as no surprise to you that I love to write. That is why I started writing a blog in 2023. I want my blog to be the place where I write more about personal experiences, which I might not be able to do on Forbes. I didn’t manage to keep the pace of publishing one article per week, but also that is a part of the learning process and of being able to go at my pace.
Following the creation of my blog, I created a specific category for it and changed also the other two. The “3” in the “3byMe” stands since then for:
On my mind: Blog article, Event announcement, new Forbes article
Sparks of inspiration: inspirational articles to support you in your personal and professional growth journeys
Reflection of the week: Your journaling question (or food for thought) for the week
What else is there to say about his era? The subject lines of the 3byMe changed and it changes now every week as I wanted to make it more specific and appealing. This was also the reason why I added a header summarising the topic of the month, this week’s highlight, reading time, next 3byMe (date).
June 2024 - Today: ConvertKit era
“Here to stay” would be a suitable subtitle for this era. I say this with a lot of hope and good intentions. After trying out several tools, I believe that with ConvertKit (which recently changed their name to “Kit”) is the platform I will settle with.
(I’m also writing this while listening to forest noises…so it might be also that calming noise that fills me with hope and excitement.)
This week (14 October), I also started a “bi-weekly” phase of my weekly newsletter and it somehow feels right at the moment. One of my biggest learnings on this newsletter journey is that it is in the end my newsletter and it has to work for me. Of course there would be no newsletter without you, the many inspiration lovers, who tune in every week to go through the inspirational content and think about the reflection of the week. And (the famous “And” from my ambiguity article…) I also want to enjoy preparing it and don’t believe that it will do us both good if I prepare the newsletter in a rush, or if I feel stressed.
In the end, the 3byMe beautifully incorporates many values and activities I often talk (or preach ;) ) about:
Reflections: By sitting down every week and curating the newsletter for you, I think about the topic of the month (or week) and what might be going on right now (outside in the nature and inside yourself). And isn’t it ironic that by sitting down and having a moment of calm and reflection, I am actually creating also a moment of calm and reflection for you?
Focus: The world around us can get very loud and cruel. And if you are a bit more sensitive than the rest, you will feel this on a personal level, too. That’s why it is so important to decide what YOU want to put your focus on. Is it scrolling through social media? Or finding other ways to numb and distract yourself? Or do you want to put your focus on yourself, your thoughts, your personal development, and to actually face your fears, emotions, needs, and get out as more resilient, knowledgable and feeling well equipped to face your challenges? (If you are reading this, I might have an idea of which one you chose!)
Growth: To grow, we have to let go of limiting beliefs, old habits, illusions…and make space for opportunity, curiosity and joy! I’m not saying that there’s a so-called growing paing involved from time to time and that you also need the space, environment and time to be able to grow (it’s all about the timing, too), but it all starts with a first (micro)step! So let this be your reminder that you are doing what you can, that you are on the right track and that your growth journey is only beginning.
Thank you for a space in your inbox. ❤
Take care,
Lidija
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