Make Substack Real Again
The algorithm wants you to write about the algorithm. Don’t.
If you spend enough time on Substack, you’ll notice a pattern.
There is a long line of people buying tickets to a seminar. The seminar is titled: “How to Sell Seminar Tickets.”
The people in line aren’t bad people. They are hopeful. They have been told that the only way to make a living is to teach others how to make a living.
This is a Hall of Mirrors.
It is a closed system where creators sell “how to be a creator” to other creators who want to be creators. It is a feedback loop that feels like momentum, but it is actually just noise.
The algorithm loves the Hall of Mirrors. Content about “growth” gets clicked by people who are anxious about growth. The platform amplifies the signal, implying that this is what success looks like.
But a Hall of Mirrors has no exit. It generates heat, but no light.
The alternative is to open a window
We don’t need another post about how to get 1,000 subscribers. We don’t need another breakdown of a viral note.
We need you.
We need the you that existed before you started worrying about your open rates. We need the you that has a craft, a struggle, and a life outside of this browser tab.
The strategy that builds a resilient asset isn’t found in studying the platform. It is found in leaving it.
Go do something interesting in the real world
Learn to bake sourdough. Train for a marathon. Fail at a garden. Struggle with a philosophy that creates tension. Have an adventure that cannot be summarized in a six-second video.
Then, and only then, come back and write about that.
We are drowning in advice. We are starving for wisdom.
Advice is cheap. “Post at 9 AM.” “Use this subject line.” That is a commodity.
Wisdom is expensive. Wisdom comes from doing something hard and failing at it, and then figuring out why.
When you bring your wisdom into the Hall of Mirrors, you break the glass. You stop being a reflection of a reflection. You become a source.
This is scary. It is scary because “How to Get Rich” is a proven commodity. It feels safe to sell shovels to gold diggers.
But writing about your specific, idiosyncratic, real-world journey? That feels risky. The algorithm might not recognize it immediately.
Good.
If the algorithm doesn’t know what to do with you, it means you aren’t a commodity. It means you are building an asset that is unique to you.
The people who built this platform didn’t start writing to get famous. They started writing because they had a gift.
The gift wasn’t “content.” The gift was a perspective on a life actually lived.
Don’t trade your unique perspective for a listicle that ChatGPT could have written.
Go outside. We’ll be here waiting when you get back.
P.S. The only thing remembered is the people who made this platform real. To be real, you have to know the difference between the performance you give for the algorithm and who you actually are.
I created The Archetype Navigator to help you find that clarity. It’s a free and takes less than 5 minutes to uncover your natural pattern, so you can build a body of work that actually looks like you. It might save you years of climbing the wrong ladder.
Your piece lands with the weight of someone who has actually stepped outside the Hall of Mirrors and come back with dirt under their nails. There’s a difference between advice and wisdom, and you articulated that tension beautifully. What you wrote reminded me that the algorithm can only amplify reflections, never origins. It can’t recognize a lived life — only a repeated one.
I’m curious how you navigate this in your own work. When you feel the pull of the “safe” content the algorithm rewards, what signals tell you it’s time to close the tab and go live something worth writing about?
Very powerful read