"Realignment (Head-Heart-Gut) with a Publisher's Hat On."
Part 2: How do I make sense of grief, purpose, pressure, and all these publishing possibilities, on the fifth anniversary of two birthdays?
Today is my father’s birthday, the fifth without him.
It’s also the fifth anniversary of founding Carer Mentor as a website.
In case you missed it, Part 1: Past and Present Grief Discombobulates this Publisher's Purpose. How do I make sense of grief, purpose, pressure, and all these publishing ideas on the fifth anniversary of two birthdays?
I didn’t fully appreciate how much past and present grief was discombobulating me until recently.
In hindsight, I hadn’t considered the administrative aspects of a dynamic website publication. I don’t think anyone does at the start.
It’s easy to get mesmerised by this digital platform's endless possibilities as its functions evolve and its global outreach grows.
Stepping back, I see how I was imposing increasing pressure on myself.
Part 1, I tackled a reality-check statement to reconcile my ‘balance sheet’ of goals, costs, and values.
In this part 2, I make a head-heart-gut-aligned decision and set some actionable boundaries that meet my ambition. Please note: Much of this article is about publishing functions/actions/admin on the Substack platform, which may not interest some readers.
As I said in Part 1, based on my past website experience, I gave myself two years to 'try' this Substack platform, weigh the costs (money, time, effort, brain space, stress and pressure), and decide whether to continue.
Is Substack helping me realise Carer Mentor’s purpose and mission?
Do the benefits outweigh the costs?
The Head-Heart-Gut Decision
The website will stay on Substack, but I’m setting more boundaries1 because my time, efforts and costs have increased. I’ll also continue to create regular backups for security2. Like the platform functions, my role and mindset have evolved.
The Substack platform offers us more ownership, which means more self-leadership. We’re not just writers, content builders, creators, or participants; we’re also Publishers with administrative responsibilities and leaders of the space we create.
Since January, I’ve spent more time and effort protecting my publication space: reviewing profiles/muting/blocking subscribers from my mailing list. I was relieved to read
article (April 21) Cultivating a healthy reader community—I highly recommend reading it.When I shifted from all things ‘Corporate’ to ‘Carer,’ I was fortunate to be guided by Dr. Brené Brown's work (‘The Gifts of Imperfection’, ‘Daring Greatly’3 ). Her concept of ‘Wholehearted’4 living is akin to the ‘Head-Heart-Gut’ alignment I seek with every decision5.
Merging my ambitions of Carer Mentor and being a publisher requires some wholehearted, head-heart-gut alignment.
Wholehearted Realignment
I’ve experimented with a few Substack features and functions. They were starting to absorb too much of my time, effort, and brain space, competing with unpredictable caregiving commitments and the needs of my mentoring business clients.
This is not only a question about how I divide my time between activities, but also about creating quality time and building memories with my mother and my friends in the now. Time is a value-measure redefined by past caregiving, lifequakes (Reference: Bruce Feiler’s work6) and grief.
The more pressure I put on myself to debate how to use my time, the grouchier I can get. My beautiful reality is unique, and time and life force are its most precious assets. I can easily frustrate myself when I lose sight of what lights me up inside and veer towards other people’s expectations or definitions of success.
After everything I’ve experienced, discombobulation is an easy signal of an internal conflict. Realigning actions to my core values every three months is a much-needed health check and keeps me sane!
In part 1, I wrote about the reality of reconciling my ‘balance sheet’ of goals, costs and values. I’m sustaining the patronage model: a monthly fee of £6 or a discounted annual price of £50. I’m very grateful to the patrons7 who value my efforts and work. These funds pay for the operational costs, like the domain name and subscriptions.
All the content is free, and the website has no paywalls (if you see one from my time experimenting, let me know so I can remove it). The mission remains the same as stated in ‘Who started Carer Mentor and Why? to support caregivers and those receiving care, specifically focusing on chronic illnesses/health conditions I’ve experienced with my parents/friends/family. Collaborations and connections will continue to be essential to build our community support network.
I’m keeping the patronage model simple—there are no additional discount mechanisms or other payment systems to promote a membership. Currently, I don’t offer additional products or services requiring pricing or bundling.
Useful information, links and publishing considerations.
I keep it all simple because I’m more aware of the publisher fees and costs, are you? STRIPE charges a fee for refunds and disputes. I recommend reviewing the Refunds process, the time for reconciliation, and understanding fees for refund payments.
It’s worth setting a minimum balance in your Stripe Account. For example, if someone accidentally makes a paid subscription, and your usual Stripe balance is zero, you could go into a negative balance (Refund + Stripe refund fee).8 This is also worth knowing as a consumer—any refund pushes an additional fee onto the publisher.
“What happens when a subscriber disputes a paid subscription on Substack? Substack is integrated with Stripe through "connect" accounts, which means that individual publishers are the merchant of record responsible for refunds and chargebacks.” “When a subscriber disputes a charge with their card issuer, Stripe will charge the writer $15.00 per dispute, regardless of the outcome.”
Are you aware of how Stripe can collect the tax for you (see footnote9) and make the necessary registrations? ‘Stripe Tax monitors compliance requirements, such as if a user has reached a tax threshold in a given location.’
I have no bandwidth to decipher tax for 'Buy me coffee,' 'tips,' or other third-party payments. Precise accounting with minimal admin is essential for me, and I’m relieved that Substack and Stripe offer this. With the Stripe registrations and automatic monitoring, it’s simple to check and take action.
I don’t use ‘in-app payments’ (Check your Publication’s Dashboard Settings>Payments>Billing)
Apple manages in-app subscriptions. What to know about in-app payments.- Substack support information:
Apple applies a service fee for in-app purchases, which, along with Substack’s fee, is deducted from your take-home revenue. You can choose to adjust your in-app prices to account for the fee—or keep prices the same and accept a lower per-subscriber payout.
Apple Fees and longer payout times before reaching your Stripe account could make tax compliance difficult. It’s a convenient service for readers, but potentially more of an administrative tangle for the accounting.
The Bottom Line: After covering the website’s operations and publishing costs, my company will continue to donate to Hospice at Home and Macmillan Cancer Support. I’ve done this each year since I founded my mentoring company in 2017. Hence, operating time, effort, and op-costs must be kept to a minimum to maximise donations.
Given my previous work career, it was easy to imagine what I could do with the potential of the Substack platform's features, functions, and community connections.
This is why past and present grief discombobulated me into thinking, ‘I should be doing more’ or ‘I need to grow the publication and earn more’.
This happens when I have an insatiable curiosity and big ideas, let that swear word ‘should’ enter my mind, and try to take on more than time and energy allow. I became untethered from my core values and the website’s purpose.
The reality is that this realigned path with more precise boundaries feels aligned with the me now, not the corporate me of before. My ambition has changed.
At this Fifth Anniversary, I’m relieved to feel aligned, confident and clear again.
Dad’s birthday naturally exposes more grief because now it doesn’t have to be relegated or boxed anymore. Having Carer Mentor’s founding anniversary on the same day makes even more sense now.
The bottom line is that I need to embrace being a carer, a mentor, and a publisher. The potential and accountabilities of being a publisher were not things I had encountered or considered before Substack. I’m more wary of the time and effort required to sustain the Carer Mentor vision and protect this dynamic community space.
This realigned frame of reference makes it easier for me to make the head-heart-gut-aligned decisions that speak to the website’s mission, the publication’s operations, and the everyday weave of my core values. (Reference to Part 1 ambition)
It’s a beautiful tapestry as long as I remain mindful of the tension in its frame. Untangling these discombobulations was a wise investment of my time, for sure!
A last word
Returning to Frankl’s books and videos in April helped me recenter my purpose. My annual reread of ‘Man’s Search For Meaning’ came just in time!
Despite the discombobulation, one big personal goal of the year is complete. The Cancer Support Index was established before the 5th anniversary, including a specific anthology for Bowel Cancer Awareness Month. This was the cancer my friend had, who passed on New Year's Eve 2024.
If you have the means and would like to support the publication, I welcome monthly (£6) and annual (£50) subscriptions.
Please remember to ‘❤️’ LIKE the article to guide others to these resources
List of boundaries that I’m employing:
No paywalls anywhere
No Live feed, no podcast,
Limit Notes and Chat
Not for profit, but keeping the Patron paid subscription model to meet operations costs (Domain names, Subscriptions to Notion, Evernote, Publication subscriptions, fixed costs)
Focus on strengthening the community support network and its outreach.
Building/creating/sharing empathy and inspiration to support caregivers, those with dementia, suffering bereavement/grief, Cancer, heart issues, and Arthritis.
Connecting and collaborating with subscribers in the Carer Mentor community, 1-2-1, or small groups.
How to make a backup: Go to Publisher Dashboard>Settings>Import/Export and make an Export to download all your data as a backup.
Shoutout to
who made this in response to horrific incident of losing her work! The Substack Safety Kit (Made After Watching a Friend’s Substack Vanish) BE AWARE and take action. Please restack Danusia’s noteThe Gifts of Imperfection. Be You. Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are. Brené Brown. Published November 30, 2010.
Daring Greatly. Be All In. How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. Brené Brown, 2013
The Guideposts to Wholehearted Living.
Wholehearted living is not a one-time choice. It is a process. In fact, I believe, it’s the journey of a lifetime. Dr. Brené Brown
If you like questionnaires you may like the ‘Wholehearted Inventory Instrument’
The Wholehearted Inventory instrument assesses your strengths and opportunities for growth. We spent several years building, testing, and validating the Wholehearted Inventory. You’ll see that the subscales align with the guideposts. Dr. Brené Brown
Head-Heart-Gut alignment is something I have used ever since I read the book as part of a leadership training course: Head, Heart and Guts: How the World's Best Companies Develop Complete Leaders (Published 26 April 2006) David L. Dotlich, Stephen H. Rhinesmith, Peter C. Cairo
This book reveals the three most important capabilities leaders must demonstrate the ability to set strategy, empathize with others, and take risks--all at the same time. Goodreads review.
Patronage vs Subscription - A few examples,
A note on Patronage vs Subscription model by
.No paywalls and an option for monetary support? Can both be true?
The best articulation of a ‘No Paywall’ policy that I’ve discovered, and also fits for Carer Mentor: Empathy and Inspiration, is by Anne Kadet in her guidelines for CAFÉ ANNE. Anne, please could I use this guideline for Carer Mentor?
Paywall Policy
CAFÉ ANNE will always be 100% free—no paywalls. It trusts that the readers who can afford a paid subscription will keep it going for those who cannot.
Substack support information:
A negative balance occurs when the cost of refunds, disputes, or fees exceeds the available balance. Your business won't be able to send refunds to customers until the issue is resolved. To fix a negative balance, Stripe may automatically initiate an account debit from the bank account on file within two business days. In most countries, you can also add funds directly to your account from the Dashboard.
The original charge authorization will be dropped as if the transaction never occurred, and this process can take 5-10 business days to be fully reflected in the system.
On Stripe Dashboard, click on ‘More’ in the left sidebar and Tax
Thanks to
for flagging the need for us to check tax compliance in this Sept 29th 2024 article: I can't put my head in the sand about this one...Important info for those in the UK who offer paid subscriptions here on Substack. I recommend watching the video Claire shared VAT MOSS: How to report your digital supplies in a post-Brexit landscape.It is important to remember that digital supplies like online magazines must be charged VAT where your customers are located, not where you are as a supplier. - Simply VAT
In the UK, “automated digital products” are liable for tax paid by us (the creator) at the point of origin of the customer.
This is in addition to your self assessment tax return due at the end of January each year.
If you’re in the UK and selling to Europe there is a liability you have to pay tax (VAT) at the country of origin for the customer as soon as you make one sale. (Yes even if you’re not at the VAT threshold in the UK (earning £90k+). - Claire Venus