Testing The High Level Blog Feature

Hello readers,

I am back again to test the features of the High-Level Blog. As some of you know, this year I made the move from Weebly to High Level. Weebly was acquired by Square, and although I had hoped that meant that their platform would be updated, they were slowly phasing things out.

I had moved back to Weebly when I could no longer afford the upsells from Wix, who also made changes to their packages and removed Ascend. It was getting too expensive to keep adding things on when they were needed, in comparison to other platforms like WordPress.

I've been around the block on blogging platforms and remember my earliest days on Live Journal and Blogger.

A good friend of mine, Karl, heard about my struggles with Weebly and offered me an opportunity to join High Level through him. This was one of the best choices that I've made to date on my creative entrepreneurial journey.

I've tested many different platforms and this one has almost earned five stars from me, the only part I yearned for, was a better set up for the Blog. When I first tried it, I am not afraid to say that it was pretty clunky and needed a lot of work.

As I write this, I am happy to share that High Level has listened to their users and has made a lot of updates since I last tried this out. Thanks, GHL.

What brought me back here today? When I realized that I couldn't use the blog feature here, I tried out Substack. I really liked the platform, but they are changing thier business model. Many creators are at a crossroads at this time, with some chosing to refund their subscribers because they don't know what the future of their time will be there.

I haven't written a lot, but it felt like I had a good start. I liked the features that Substack has to offer, but while I don't really know everything that is changing to really say here, it seems like I may not have a future there either.

Writing has always been a part of my healing and liberation, and I need to keep it that way.

I don't like the idea of monetizing everything, and that includes my writing. The closest I've ever gotten to that was to join Medium's Partnership Program, but when I did that, something changed for me. I lost my creative spark, and my writing didn't flow. It no longer felt joyful sit down and open my computer, it felt more like an obligation.

To be clear, it's not that I don't belive I am good enough to get paid to write. I was thinking too hard about writing for a paying audience than my loyal readers. I did not like that feeling, and I am thankful that I recognized it. There is a lot of stigma out there that those of us who offer things for free have to break through. Our intention and reasons are often misunderstood and widely misrepresented by our peers.

I am not one to chase the dollar, and while I do believe that people should get paid for their labor and creativity, I also see a lot of exploitation when it comes to focusing on profit, too. More than one set of things can co-exist at the same time.

I understand and respect the need to keep up with relevance and be innovative, but I also have to wonder about company sustainability in a time like this one. Changes and updates are coming hard, and fast. Mistakes will be made as part of the natural process of change and evolvement. I understand this.

Will some of these companies be around in the future when they are moving so hastily to replace, replicate, and innovate? Will they forget that they needed us to help them get where they are today?

Time will tell.

Thank you for your patience with me as I move through the process of adapting my own vision and work. I feel troubled that things like opening my community and your susbcribership become part of the things that have to shift with me every time things change.

I am deeply appreciative of you and thank you for sticking with me.

In transparency, I am still figuring out the blog feature and other GHL updates that have been made. You will likely see changes and rolling updates as I play around and continue to figure things out.