30 Days, 1 Experiment: What I Discovered About Mastery, Momentum, and Marketing
- Priscilla Shumba
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
I started this Substack as a 30-day Challenge.
30 days of showing up and writing. It’s been a challenge for sure.
Here’s what I learned, the mistakes I made, and how you can do something like this to force yourself to take massive action on that thing you’ve been thinking about.
01 Pressure Creates Speed. Force Your Back Against The Wall.
In just 30 days, I’ve created 60% of my usual yearly blog output. How? I gave myself no other choice.
To give a clear picture, my goal for the past 4 years has been to write 1 blog a week. 52 posts a year, and on most weeks I’ve failed to do that. It felt impossible to be consistent… until it wasn’t.
This was HARD, but not impossible.
Create your own challenge. Put your back against the wall purposefully.
📌What goal have you been calling “impossible” that might just need a 30-day no-excuses decision?
02 Mastery Requires 10,000+ Hours
I’ve written over 200 blog posts over the past 4 years.
Not bad, but when I think about mastery, that pace makes me pause. How long will it take me to truly become the writer I want to be at this rate?
This insight applies to any skill: At times, we want to be successful at something (and we’ve got the chops for it), but we’re not considering the ‘time value’ of developing skill.
If we reach mastery in 5 years instead of 15, we get to enjoy 10 additional years of reaping the benefits of that skill.
The skill in year 5 is more valuable to you than the same skill in year 15.
Timing is critical.
Daily effort compounds faster and will help you reach your goal in record time.
Now imagine if I wrote 100 posts a year. What would that do for my credibility and authority in my niche, and for my skill as a writer?
📌What is one skill that, if you reached true mastery in the next 3–5 years instead of the next 10–15, would completely change the trajectory of you life and business?
03 Momentum Is Destroyed By Consistent Effort With No Wins (Burnout)
There’s a pace of doing things that creates this strange situation where you’re doing all the right things but aren’t getting the expected results.
It’s like going to the gym consistently and not losing any weight. It sounds strange on the surface, like surely that can’t be true.
But it can… I’ve been there.
You’re doing all the right things, but:
not enough of the right thing. Walking for 2km instead of 6km.
not at an intensity that makes a difference. Casually walking the 2km instead of speed walking, jogging, or running.
you’re mistakenly thinking this 1 thing is all that matters. Getting in your gym time and not making any changes to your diet.
When you’re a new Founder, it’s easy to fall into this exact trap.
Doing all the right things, but not enough, not at the right intensity, and not in the right combination to create success.
This is huge!
📌Ask yourself:
What am I doing that’s “right,” but not at a high enough volume to move the needle?
Where am I going through the motions instead of playing at a level that would truly challenge and grow me?
What am I treating as “the thing” (like gym-time without diet) that actually needs to be paired with another habit/strategy to work?
Why I chose to do a 30-day Substack challenge?
As a marketer, I’m always interested in where attention is going. What’s the next “new” thing, and I stumbled upon Substack. It fits the current narrative:
People are tired of social media, because it’s gone from social to commercial. Every post is a Founder selling something (we’ve spoilt social media founders lol).
Every platform has a set of unspoken rules to be “successful”. Social media was supposed to be a place of free expression. It’s become a noisy space, with more people doing more of the same.
Video has taken over, and most people don’t feel comfortable with being on camera.
AI has created an unexpected layer of verification that consumers will rely on increasingly going forward. Just like people once said, “I’ll Google them”, we’re shifting toward, “I’ll ask AI about them”.
My prediction is that social media will remain a place of discovery for consumers looking to make purchases, and AI will act as a trusted referral and filter, helping them decide whom to trust and buy from.
Social selling has become the norm for physical products: recommendations, reviews, and live-selling influencer content.
Service-based businesses still largely depend on word of mouth. AI is about to super-charge that word-of-mouth effect.
AI will determine which businesses signal authority and credibility based on what it knows about you, your body of work, your ideas, and your track record.
Social media posts alone won't cut it.
A catalogue of ideas and thought leadership will.
Going forward, when we think about marketing, we have to think depth, not breadth.
📌This is the question to answer:
Am I building a rich enough body of work that, when AI goes looking for receipts, it actually finds them?
If the answer is NO, it’s time to make this shift.
Let’s get to work.
Blessings,
Business Communications Strategist
Founder-Led Media
P.S. The next 30 days are critical. In January, every Founder will be ‘pounding the pavements’ looking for business. Start marketing your 2026 offers now. Use a #30DayChallenge to get you moving faster and further.
P.S.S. The foundation of a magnetic client-attraction system starts with your authentic Founder’s Voice. Take the 3-minute quiz.