Why I left...

Why I left Cyclone Fanatic and why I'm doing my own thing

Life is all about growth.

It is about the opportunities to grow that come our way. It is about constantly striving to grow as an individual and avoid the feeling of plateauing. We all want to keep getting better.

That feeling and desire to grow was the driving force behind my decision to leave Cyclone Fanatic after 10 years of writing and podcasting about Iowa State athletics. It wasn’t an easy decision to come to, and it’s one I’ve continued to grapple with in the week since making the move official.

Change is really hard, but sometimes change is needed in order to promote growth.

That feeling of hitting a plateau wasn’t the fault of anyone at Cyclone Fanatic. I was given every opportunity to showcase my skills for the world and I’d like to think I took advantage of each and every one of those opportunities.

Someone can open a door for you, but you still have to be the one who goes crashing through the door in order to make your mark. I’m the kind of person who sees an open door and sprints through it.

That’s how you end up working 10 years for the first company that gave you an opportunity. I was 19 years old when Chris Williams first opened a door for me. I sprinted through that door and everything felt perfect for the longest time.

Until it started to feel like I’d hit a plateau.

There are so many benefits of working for a small company. The ability to move quickly on things and adjust on the fly is so important. The relationships that come with it are special. Leaving those working relationships with people like Chris, Jeff Woody, Connor Ferguson, etc. was the hardest part of all this.

The downside of that is there’s only so far you can climb. Chris earned his spot as the big dog, and that big dog isn’t going anywhere. That left me feeling as though I’d reached a ceiling.

That ceiling left me feeling uncertain about my future, depressed and scared of the idea that I’d already reached the maximum my potential would allow. My anxiety and fear about my future never went away and felt like 10 million pounds sitting on my chest at every moment of the day.

Going to work started to feel more like a chore. I started to second-guess everything I did because nothing felt good enough. Everything felt like something I’d already done before.

Everything felt stale. I felt stale. I wondered if I’d let my love for Cyclone Fanatic stunt my growth. I wondered if I was really cut out for this anymore. I wondered if I was even good enough to keep doing this thing.

I felt like I’d stopped being the guy who sprinted through the open door.

I never want to feel like I’m just standing still, waving in the wind and watching as other people continue to grow in their own lives and careers.

I didn’t want to be the guy who stayed in one place for 20 years and felt like I left things on the table. I didn’t want to be the guy who didn’t live up to his potential.

So, two weeks before my 29th birthday, I finally decided it was time to move on. It was time to find a place where I felt like I could continue to grow. I needed to find myself as a content creator again. I needed to get the 10 million pound weight off of my chest.

By changing nothing, nothing changes. I had to take the trajectory of my life back into my own hands in order to feel like I could grow for myself and for my future.

It’s not that I’d lost the passion for the business. I still love this business and almost everything that comes with it. I love the camaraderie of being part of a team. I love striving to put out the best product possible.

I badly want to be in the content creation business, but I won’t do it at the expense of my personal growth.

So, that leads us to today, and this Substack. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, but I’ve kept putting it off. I honestly started this today out of frustration from applying for other jobs. It’s a cold world out here for content creators on the open market.

I’m going to keep writing on this Substack because I need an area to continue honing my craft. I’m going to keep writing about the Cyclones. I’m going to write about the Big 12. I’m going to write about whatever the hell I want to.

I’m going to make this my thing. Welcome to my growth area.

In a perfect world, I’d make this growth area my career. I’d only need about 500 subscribers at $5 a month in order to nearly match what I was making every month at my old job. That doesn’t seem like much, but, right now, it feels monumental.

I’m not going to charge anyone for my writing right now, because I feel it’s necessary to prove to everyone that my writing is worth paying for. I hope you’ll take the time to subscribe and follow along as I try to turn this growth area into a business.

If it feels like the demand is there, I’ll consider getting back into the podcasting space, too. I know I haven’t run out of things to say.

I felt the need to explain why I did what I did to you all. I hope you’ll be willing to follow me into this next chapter, and I can’t wait to get back to writing about the things I’ve always enjoyed writing about.

Change is hard, but change is growth, and I’m not done growing yet.

Peace.