Nobody clicked. Three of you wrote back.

The last email I sent you got the fewest clicks of anything I've ever sent.

It also got the most replies. Three of you wrote back, unprompted, just to talk.

I've been chewing on that all week, because those two numbers are supposed to move together and they didn't.

Then I watched this.

Aden Wang's first YouTube video · Watch on YouTube

That's Aden Wang. First video he's ever made. Product designer, eight years at Meta, laid off a few months back.

Ninety seconds in he says he's shy and feels awkward talking to a camera. He leaves it in. Later he stops, says the light's better over there, and moves chairs. Leaves that in too.

Any editor cuts both. He kept them.

Here's what got me though. He'd wanted that channel for years. Posted a reel last year saying his goal was to talk on camera more. Then didn't.

It took getting laid off. Somebody asked him straight in the comments and he admitted it. He doesn't think he'd have jumped if he hadn't been pushed.

So you're not lazy about yours and you're not behind. You're comfortable, and comfortable is a hard thing to spot from the inside.

But that's not even the good part.

That video's got 82 comments and 25 replies under them. 23 of those replies are him.

He answered nearly everybody. Properly, not with a heart. Somebody asked how he handles the piles of product brands send him. Somebody asked what actually changes going from short form to long. He answered all of it.

Then the room started talking to itself. Other designers turned up, some laid off, one who jumped before it happened. Somebody used his comments to celebrate hitting 700 subscribers on their own channel.

That's not an audience. An audience watches.

And when two people showed up to be nasty, one calling him a sheep who bought his personality out of an IKEA display room, he thanked them and explained his taste. No dunk. No block. Didn't ignore it either.

That's how a room gets safe. Everyone watches how you handle the worst person in it, then decides whether they can speak up too.

I'll be honest with you, I don't always do this well. I've let replies sit for weeks. I put a door fee on my Discord because I got sick of time-wasters, and I still think that was the right call, but it's the opposite move to his and I know it.

Anyway. Nobody clicked my last email. Three of you wrote back.

I've got a horrible feeling I've been counting the wrong one for years.

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Hit reply and tell me what you've been sitting on. I'm always reading.

Jimi