paul jarvis: bye

Paul Jarvis, author of Company of One, wrote a Sunday Dispatch for years. It was an amazing newsletter. He recently shut it down and wiped his entire website.

Now, if you go to pjrvs.com all you’ll see is:

While I respect his desire to focus on his work and himself, I also wanted to preserve his final post because it’s really a masterclass in understanding yourself. Also because I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since!

One topic I’ve been mulling a lot lately is motivation. I love writing on this blog. It gives me an outlet. It starts a conversation - at least with myself. But Paul was having a conversation with thousands every week and that wasn’t what he wanted.

I don’t want attention or power or admiration. I don’t want to be a personal brand or a known dude on the internet. I just want to exist and do my work privately.

I don’t want attention or power or admiration. If I wanted a personal brand, I’d spend a lot more time writing for others than I do for myself.

Despite all of that, I have never had the courage to state it like Paul. Also, not having the weight of attention, I can focus on doing my work - privacy is not the concern, which is fortunate because it means I can learn in public.

Thank you Paul for all you did with your Sunday Dispatches and all you’re continuing to do with Fathom Analytics. Best of luck!

Below, you can find the full post in its entirety thanks to the Internet Archive.

Bye

The Sunday Dispatches (my newsletter) has come to an end.

I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and I keep coming back to, “Would it be the worst thing in the world for me if I didn’t write this newsletter any longer?”

And while I’m not going to be convinced to change my mind, I do want to explain my reasoning for killing off my weekly newsletter:

• I’ve been writing to this list for 8 years (about 400,000 words) and I’ve been sharing my thoughts, expertise and understanding for over 20 years blogging and writing online.
• I don’t want attention or power or admiration. I don’t want to be a personal brand or a known dude on the internet. I just want to exist and do my work privately.
• While I’ve enjoyed writing to and connecting with so many awesome folks, I feel like I’ve run out of things to say… 8 years is a long time, and amounts to the equivalent of writing several books. There’s nothing left that I feel, “Ooo! This topic needs to be a Sunday Dispatch!”
• I’m also going to say no to any/all interviews, summits, speaking, presentations, public-anything for at least a year. I’ve done about 1,000 interviews (I wish I was exaggerating), and need a long break.
• I’d like to focus more on Fathom Analytics and continue to build it as a company that exists outside of my own personal brand and audience.

I started this list not imagining how huge it’d grow. I started this list without knowing how big of an impact it’d have on my work and my world. I started this list completely mis-guessing that others would actually want to read what I had to say. And, I needed to fully explore all of this to realize that it wasn’t for me.

So there you have it. The Sunday Dispatches is finished. It’s been a fun and wild ride, and again, I appreciate the attention you’ve given my writing—that’s no small thing, and not something I’ll ever forget.