I want you to think about the moment you realized your life needed to change.

Not the vague “someday I’ll do something different” feeling, but the actual moment where you looked around at your reality and thought, okay, this can’t be it. There has to be more than this.

For me, that moment happened in a 20 square meter studio apartment, working hotel reception shifts that were destroying my mental health, scrolling through other people’s lives at 2am and wondering when mine would finally start feeling like mine.

I didn’t have a business plan. I didn’t have some grand strategy mapped out. I didn’t even really know what I was doing.

I just started writing emails to strangers on the internet about my real, messy, unfiltered life.

And somehow, that one small decision to just show up and write every single week changed absolutely everything.

The Beginning Was So Small It Felt Pointless

When I sent my first email diary to my list back in early 2025, I had maybe 100 subscribers.

I remember sitting there wondering if anyone would even open it. If anyone actually cared what I had to say. If this whole thing was just me shouting into the void and pretending it mattered.

Those first few emails were honestly terrible if I’m being completely honest with you.

I was trying so hard to sound like other newsletter writers I admired, using their voice instead of mine, following all the “rules” about what emails should look like.

But then something changed.

I stopped trying to sound like anyone else and just started writing like I was texting my best friend.

I stopped worrying about being perfect and just let myself be real. I shared the hard stuff, the messy middle parts, the doubts and fears and moments where I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.

And people started responding.

Not thousands of people overnight or anything dramatic like that. Just a few women here and there sending replies saying “I needed to hear this today” or “this is exactly what I’m going through” or “thank you for being so honest about this.”

Those responses kept me going when I wanted to quit. When I felt like nobody was reading or caring. When I convinced myself this whole email thing was pointless and I should just give up.

I kept showing up anyway. Every single week, without fail, I wrote and sent another email diary.

What Actually Changed (And When I Started Noticing)

The first thing that changed wasn’t my subscriber count or my income or anything external like that.

It was how I felt about my own life.

Writing those weekly emails forced me to actually pay attention to what was happening in my world. To notice the small moments and lessons and realizations that I would’ve just scrolled past otherwise. To process my thoughts and feelings instead of just numbing out and avoiding everything.

It became this practice of showing up for myself every week. Of taking my own life seriously enough to document it, to share it, to believe that my story mattered even when I felt completely insignificant.

And slowly, without me even realizing it was happening, I started building this incredible community of women all over the world who felt the same way I did.

Women who were tired of the hustle culture bs.

Women who wanted to build something real without burning out. Women who were craving genuine connection instead of another perfectly curated Instagram feed.

They weren’t just subscribers or numbers on a spreadsheet. They became real people I genuinely cared about. Women I looked forward to writing to every single week. Women whose replies and stories made me feel less alone in everything I was going through.

By the time I hit 1,000 subscribers, something had fundamentally shifted. I wasn’t just writing emails anymore. I was building relationships. I was creating this sacred little corner of the internet where honesty actually mattered more than perfection.

The Money Came Because The Connection Was Real

Here’s what nobody tells you about building an email list.

You can have all the strategies and funnels and automations in the world, but if people don’t actually trust you and feel connected to you, they’re not going to buy from you.

I see so many people treating their email list like this thing they need to “monetize” or “leverage” or “convert.” Like their subscribers are just potential dollar signs instead of actual human beings.

And then they wonder why nobody’s buying when they finally launch something.

But when you spend months showing up authentically, sharing your real life, being genuinely helpful without constantly trying to sell something, people start to trust you in a way that can’t be hacked or shortcutted.

When I launched my first small offer to my email list, I was terrified nobody would buy. I had maybe 300 subscribers at that point.

Not a huge list by any means.

But people bought. Not because I had some perfect sales funnel or scarcity tactics or aggressive marketing, but because they’d been reading my emails for months.

They knew me. They trusted me. They wanted to support what I was building.

That first launch made me a few hundred euros. Not life-changing money, but enough to prove that this could actually work. That I could make real income just by being myself and serving people genuinely.

Fast forward to now, and those weekly email diaries have helped me to make full-time income from my writing without any video content. Not through manipulation or aggressive selling, but through consistent connection and actually caring about the people reading my words.

In simple terms, my business has officially taken off.

The Life I Have Now Started With Those Weekly Emails

I’m writing this from Bali right now. In a few weeks I’ll be somewhere else. Next month, somewhere after that.

I work from cafes and coworking spaces and sometimes from bed when I don’t feel like getting dressed. I make my own schedule. I answer to nobody but myself. I built a business doing the one thing that’s always come naturally to me, writing.

And it all started with those weekly email diaries that felt so small and pointless in the beginning.

If I hadn’t started writing those emails when I had 100 subscribers and zero proof it would work, I’d still be stuck in that studio apartment working hotel shifts and dreaming about a different life instead of living it.

The emails gave me a reason to keep building even when I couldn’t see any results yet. They gave me a community that supported me through every messy phase and pivot and moment of doubt. They gave me the foundation to build offers and products that actually helped people because I knew exactly what they needed.

But more than any of that, they gave me my voice back.

For so long I’d been trying to be what I thought I was supposed to be. Following everyone else’s guru advice on Instagram. Doing what worked for other people. Performing instead of just existing.

Those weekly emails became this space where I could just be myself without apology. Where I didn’t have to perform or pretend or try to be perfect. Where my messy, real, unfiltered thoughts were not only allowed but actually valued.

And the more I showed up as myself in those emails, the more my actual life started reflecting that version of me too.

What I Wish I’d Known When I Started

If I could go back and tell myself anything when I was sending those first few emails to 100 people, it would be this: trust the process even when you can’t see any proof it’s working.

Those first months felt like I was building in complete darkness.

I couldn’t see if anyone was reading or caring or connecting. I had no idea if this would ever turn into anything real or if I was just wasting my time.

But every single email I sent was building something, even when I couldn’t see it yet. Every story I shared was creating connection. Every vulnerable moment was earning trust. Every week I showed up was compounding into something bigger than I could’ve imagined.

You don’t need thousands of subscribers to start. You don’t need a perfect strategy or the best email platform or any of the things you think you need to have figured out first.

You just need to start writing and keep showing up.

The emails I sent to 100 people mattered just as much as the ones I send to 3,000+ people now.

Because it was never about the numbers. It was always about the connection. The honesty. The willingness to just be real with other humans even when it felt scary.

This Could Be Your Starting Point Too

I know you probably have a million reasons why you can’t start your own email diary or newsletter or whatever you want to call it.

You don’t have enough subscribers yet. You don’t know what you’d write about. You’re not a good enough writer. Nobody would care what you have to say anyway.

I thought all of those same things and I started anyway.

Because here’s what I’ve learned… the life you’re dreaming about late at night when you can’t sleep? The version of yourself who’s doing the thing that lights you up and making money from it and living with actual freedom?

She’s not waiting for perfect conditions or validation or some magical moment of clarity.

She just starts. Messy and scared and unsure. But she starts.

For me, starting looked like writing weekly email diaries to 100 strangers and trusting that it would lead somewhere even when I had zero proof.

And it led me here. To a life I genuinely love. To a business built entirely on my own terms. To freedom I used to think was reserved for other people but never me.

Your starting point might look different. But the principle is the same.

Just start, show up, and keep going even when you can’t see the results yet. Your version of this life is waiting on the other side of you actually beginning.

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