I Made a Huge Mistake

The wake-up call that changed everything...

Read time: 4 minutes

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January 2nd was the day I screamed into the void.

With the origin story of David to Goliath.

I had lost it all and was standing at the crossroads of ruin and redemption.

But let me take you back.

I had previously built Alpha Inbound (a marketing agency) to $140,000 a month.

On the outside, everything was golden.

The money was flowing, the smiles were wide, and everyone thought I had it all.

But inside, I was falling apart.

The woman I loved, who was supposed to be my greatest believer, betrayed me, leaving me with nothing but doubts, and for the first time, I questioned everything I had become.

Left with a shattered heart and a crumbling sense of identity, I had two choices:

Stay down, or come again.

I chose the latter.

The only way to claw my way back was to go bigger.

To prove, not to her, not to the world, but to myself, who the hell I was.

And that’s when I came up with the most insane, borderline delusional goal I could think of:

100,000 Newsletter subscribers in one year.

It was a declaration of war.

Not against the world, but against the version of myself that was ready to give up, to roll over and believe that voice whispering in the dark, “You weren’t good enough.”

The goal became my redemption.

The mission that kept me alive, driving me to pull myself out of the wreckage of my life and rebuild.

Chasing a goal like that changes you.

It makes you hungry, desperate, and obsessed.

And in the frenzy, I made a mistake—a big one.

I lost sight of the most important thing.

You.

The Vanity of the 100k Chase

I’m not here to sugarcoat it.

I screwed up.

Somewhere in the middle of grinding for that 100k subscriber count, I became so fixated on the number that I forgot why I started in the first place.

I was chasing a goal that didn’t matter.

The 100k subscribers wasn’t about value, it wasn’t about you—it was about me.

And it took hitting 40,000 subscribers for me to wake the hell up and realize it.

I plastered that number everywhere.

But as I climbed higher, I wasn’t seeing the fruits of my labor.

I was just grinding for the sake of grinding, like a hamster on a wheel, racing toward a hollow victory.

And that’s where I lost myself.

But something snapped me out of it:

A recent conversation with Kieran Drew.

He reframed my perspective, knocked me on my ass, and gave me the hard truths I needed to hear:

1. My Posts Are Too Long

I’ll be real – I love storytelling.

I love diving into the details, painting the full picture.

But Kieran hit me with the truth bomb:

"Your emails are too long, man. No one’s got time to sit through a life story to get to the point."

And he was right. People were dropping off because I was drowning them in details, when all they wanted was value—straight to the point, no BS.

2. Nobody Cares About Eddie Hall

I thought that building out life stories of high-profile figures like Eddie Hall would draw people in.

And maybe it did, for a second.

But as Kieran said, "No one’s going to join your community because you wrote a post about Eddie Hall."

People don’t care about the story unless it serves them.

I was making it about me, not about what you needed.

3. The 100k Subscriber Goal Means Nothing

This one hit like a freight train.  

No one cares about the journey to 100k subscribers.

Not my new readers, not my loyal ones.

Because why should they? No one’s here for a number.

You’re here for value.

You’re here because you want something real, something that can change your life.

And the truth is, I lost sight of that.

The Shift: Making It About YOU

The posts, the stories, the lessons—it all has to come back to you.

What can you take away? How does this help you in your life, with your challenges, with your goals?

That’s where I went wrong.

I wasn’t connecting the dots.

I wasn’t showing how these lessons could change your game.

But now that’s exactly what I’m planning to do.

On the new mission, we fight together. 

David to Goliath is evolving, but the core remains the same:

We’re here to dream like giants and fight like underdogs with self-belief as our sling.

Me and you, side by side, taking on the world and winning.

So here’s what you can expect moving forward:

• Shorter, sharper, more impactful emails: Every email is going to hit hard, get to the point, and leave you with something actionable that you can use immediately.

• More focus on YOU: Every story is going to come back to how it serves you.

• Real, actionable takeaways: You’re going to walk away with clear, actionable steps. Mindset shifts, strategies, life hacks—something that you can use to push yourself forward.

• A focus on connection and conversation: This isn’t a lecture. This is a community. I want to hear your wins, your challenges, your struggles. We’re in this together.

• No more vanity metrics: From now on, it’s about real progress, not chasing some arbitrary goal that in reality is just a number on a screen.

The world is full of noise, of people shouting 100 different strategies and hacks at you, so I’m goinna to keep it simple.

One core lesson—a single takeaway designed to help you take the next step in your journey.

And with that being said, here’s lesson one…

Todays Lesson

Don’t fall into the trap like I did of setting arbitrary goals. Chasing numbers just to say you hit them will leave you hollow, questioning why the victory feels so empty. Goals should ignite a fire inside you—driven by purpose, not ego. When your targets aren’t rooted in your core values, you lose yourself in the grind, forgetting why you even started.

The real challenge isn’t the milestone. It’s who you become on the journey. The growth. The impact. The character.

When you’re sat in that rocking chair at 85 - what will have really mattered?

Ask yourself that today.

Yours truly,

-Nigel Thomas

P.S. Whenever you are ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

#1 Mentoring: If you’re a marketing agency doing between $5k-$25k/mo and want to scale twice as fast in half the time learn more about the 1-1 mentoring program Here

#2 Mindset: Find out the real secret to winning in life in this short article I wrote

#3 Motivation: For more daily tips, stories and lessons on how to develop a winning mindset follow us on LinkedIn Here