Hiya 🌊,
Quick house notes:
Ask me anything 1-hour weekly session is back after summer break, starting this Tuesday 9th at 2:00pm BST, 3:00pm CET. I’ll pop you an email when it opens. Bring all your questions.
If you are a paid member and missed it, don’t forget to catch up on our workshop for workshops with
📹 A workshop on workshopsHiya! I’m Lucy from Hype Yourself. I’m rebuilding my archive after this happened. Join to receive a weekly email to help you Get Seen & Get Paid.
Lucy Werner
And as a September, back from summer bonus, we have a how to get paid for public speaking with on Tuesday 16th September. You can register here
June 2026 retreat has sold out so we are looking at opening dates for September 2026. We are thinking slightly more autumnal, fireside, forest walks flavour….
If you want to be added to the waitlist when we announce dates, hit reply and say: ME and I’ll add you on!
Back to it…
I wrote to you all at the beginning of August about how I was going to take the month off.
Spoiler alert: it didn’t quiet work out that way.
As this was my third summer in France, I felt very confident in knowing my rhythm to navigate the 8-week summer holiday.
I had planned to get as much done in possible in July when I had my youngest in creche and my eldest two in in centre aéré (the equivalent of local council supported childcare).
My fails
🏝️ I planned on using my family co-working holiday as the opportunity to sell-out my creative writing retreat. I put a lot of pressure on myself to be online and answer queries and chase interested guests.
📣 You would think given that I work in promotion I would remember how much time it takes but I vastly under estimated the time I needed to share about the September retreat. (You can read more about how I launched it here).
Lucy Werner
💌 There is always a natural newsletter churn. Not focusing on growth over summer made the return to September dashboard stats a bit daunting.
👻 I’m building a new website on Ghost. I was hoping to have it finished mid-August and live by first week of September but it also took longer than expected.
🤖 Lucy AI. CoachVox delivered me some great AI prompt bases which I can use as a template to start but I can’t execute the recommended next steps with the nurture sequence until the website is finished.
🥸 Other paid content work for my expertise landed on my desk and they were both two good opportunities that were not were turning down.
What I will do differently next time:
📆 Not launch something over the summer holiday period.
🙈 Have a longer waitlist. Takes the pressure of selling in a small window and means if I do get any cancellations I’m not having a stress breakout as I can have a waitlist in place.
💌 Prepare more in July for next September. Rather than knowing I need to find relaunch energy straight after four weeks childcare of 3-kids under 8 and then hosting my own first retreat.
✏️ Pre-written articles. Have some more in surplus because sometimes circumstances change or people have not signed off.
♻️ I had historically taken all the social media apps (I include Substack as one of those) and email off my phone. Over time, they had slowly one-by-one crept back on which meant I ended up doing the digital addiction refresh dance cycle of app refreshing. I want to go back to taking the apps off and just checking on my laptop when I have proper space and time to interact.
What I am doing next:
📏My biggest takeaway is I need to have a waitlist for everything. I should have had one in place for:1 working with me one-to-one and 2. cancellation/waitlist reserve for September ‘26 retreat and next June (creating one for September 26 instead)
📆 Get my monthly lives and weekly DM chats in a more organised calendar format for my paid community. I know my best work comes from the face-to-face and bespoke consultation.
😮💨 Breath about the website, I’m the only person who cares it’s late.
🗃️ I’m looking for a work experience placement in January 2026. I’ve already had an Instagram DM with one creator entrepreneur based in NYC who I’m interested in shadowing.
👣 Walk my talk by continuing some big pitching moves. I’m going to set up my own list of stretch goal opportunities.
🏝️ After I finish drafting this newsletter, I’m going to practice what I preach and take a few hours off to enjoy some silence and space at my own retreat.
Lucy x
P.S. Keep on hyping and send me any tips on how you manage taking time off as a self-employed person!
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