Here’s the selfish truth about content creation. There’s a part of me that wants the people that read my content to hopefully act on what I mention.
I don’t give answers. I like when people figure it out on their own. I write about my struggles in hopes someone plays follow along.
Of course that’s not fair on the both of us because I can’t make you play “Jen says” a version of “Simon says”.
Yet, that’s how we play in this day and age. We want everyone to understand our world or control them so we don’t have to seemingly figure it out on our own.
So as much as I want you to understand mine, it’s important I first talk about this bold statement and gradually build and feel into the true me and how I get to show up and help.
Because here’s what I’ve noticed about how this whole content game works.
The “I’ve Figured it Out” Industrial Complex
We’ve been trained to package everything as lessons. Every struggle becomes a teaching moment. Every breakthrough gets wrapped in a bow with “3 steps to transform your life”.
I’m not saying this mechanism is bad, but there’s an underlying question where most creators don’t openly admit: have I lived it?
With these “3 steps”, have you gone through and done it yourself?
With your struggles, where are you in your journey now?
I’d say the 1% don’t go into a story of how what they preached transformed them—the process of it.
Instead, I see creators online constantly positioning themselves as the person with answers. They’ve figured it out, and now they’re going to show you how to figure it out too. The formula is always the same: identify the problem, present the solution, sell the transformation.
But then, what if that’s backwards?
What if the most powerful thing we can do is admit we’re still figuring it out, and invite people to figure it out alongside us? Again the 1%.
I learned this through my own painful experience of following advice that didn’t fit my reality.
The Truth about Content Creation? When Expert Advice Doesn’t Fit Your Reality
There are many parts to my journey and my story, but if I were to pick one, it’s to go back to last Friday (June 13, 2025) where I visited the doctor’s office for insomnia, only to be diagnosed with major depression.
Of course, I didn’t believe it nor the protocol because the questionnaire I filled out didn’t account for:
- I was in a group where they indirectly taught how to suppress emotions.
- Because of that and me leaving the group, the floodgates opened. NOW, my functional freeze is gone and I’m feeling my nervous system.
- I have to feel and move through this very slowly
- Which in turn, I was feeling in to my recovery of my chronic stress and tension—stored stress I hadn’t touched which any “nervous system work” would’ve taught to just go slow and at your own pace.
The only thing I’ll account for from the visit is I need to start moving, gently moving. But all to say, doctor after doctor gave me protocols that didn’t work for my specific situation. Wellness “experts” told me to do a one-size-fits-all co-regulation practice that left me more anxious.
The breakthrough came when I stopped looking for the right answer from someone else and started listening to my impulse and orienting, something I’ve been delving into through people that actually know how to teach what nervous system is.
Then of course as I write this, this is where the selfish part comes in.
When I write about how I’m learning to trust my body’s signals in business decisions, part of me hopes you’ll start paying attention to your own signals too. When I share how I’m starting to build income streams around my energy fluctuations, I’m secretly hoping you’ll question whether your business model actually works for your life.
On the other hand, I’ve also learned there’s a difference in wanting to inspire versus trying to control.
The Difference Between Inspiring and Instructing
There’s a world of difference between someone copying your moves and someone finding their own path because they saw you walking yours.
When people try to replicate exactly what I’m doing—the same income streams, the same schedule, the same approach to client work—it usually doesn’t work. For one, they’re not me. They don’t have my specific health situation, my family dynamics, my particular strengths and limitations.
But when someone reads about my process and it sparks them to examine their own situation differently? When they use my experience as permission to trust their own instincts? That’s when real transformation happens.
This is where I find myself in an uncomfortable place as a content creator.
The Uncomfortable Middle of Influence
To get this out of the way (and why this feels complicated):
I do want to influence people.
I want my writing to matter.
I want it to shift something in how you see your own possibilities.
But I’ve learned the hard way that trying to control outcomes through my content backfires. The more I try to make people do specific things (again, not opposed to these types of content) and control and outcome, the less impact my writing actually has.
The most powerful responses I get are from people who tell me: “I appreciate you for this. It encouraged me to share my own transformation (soon to become a post).
Over the years I saw that my leadership style was empathetic, flexible, communicative, resourceful, and adaptive. Then, realized I doubted my developer side and had put it on hold. In the past year, I’ve resumed that and forging forward with the possibility of being a Technical PM or manager.
Your story deep resonates in the being kind to myself and let myself spread my wings 🪶”
This realization has completely changed how I approach creating content.
What This Actually Looks Like
So what does it mean to create content from this place?
It means sharing the messy middle, not just the polished outcomes.
It means admitting when something didn’t work without immediately packaging it as “what I learned from failure.”
It means trusting that people are smart enough to extract what’s useful for their own situation.
It means writing about my struggles not as case studies, but as real-time processing. When I’m figuring out how to balance client work with unpredictable health symptoms, I’m not writing “How to Build a Business with Chronic Illness.” I’m writing “Here’s what I’m trying right now and why, and I have no idea if it will work.” Maybe I give three pointers or highlights of what I’m learning and that’s it!
The selfish part wants you to try your own version of what I’m exploring.
The wise part knows that your version will look completely different from mine, and that’s exactly as it should be.
Which brings me to what I’m really after with all of this.
The Real Invitation
I’m not trying to get you to play “Jen says”. The invite here is: how do you play your own game based on invisible permission I just gave you?
Permissioning. It’s just that.
When I share how I’m learning to trust my inner guidance over external advice, I’m hoping it reminds you that you have inner guidance too.
When I write about building websites that honor my body’s reality in the future, I’m hoping you’ll consider what honoring your reality might look like.
This is the uncomfortable middle of influence—the wanting to matter without trying to control.
It’s sharing your path without prescribing the destination.
It’s being selfish enough to hope people will be inspired, while being wise enough to know that their inspiration will take them somewhere entirely their own.
Maybe that’s actually the most generous thing we can do: show people what it looks like to trust yourself completely, and then trust them to do the same.