The pressure before the eruption
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Hey Reader,
There’s an active volcano three hours from where I grew up.
Mt. St. Helens. Erupted in 1980. Killed 57 people.
© Richard Lasher |
Growing up in the 90s, we’d hear stories about it in elementary school. I remember sitting in class, staring out the window, thinking:
Holy shit. There’s a volcano just… chilling in my backyard.
One day I asked my teacher, “Isn’t it going to blow up again?”
She looked at me and said something I never forgot:
“It’s not erupting right now. But it builds pressure over years. One day, it does.”
That stuck with me.
Because we work the same way.
Pressure builds in the background. Slowly. Invisibly. You think nothing’s happening. Then one day… everything happens.
Most people see this play out in the negative:
- Someone goes off on their spouse over something that doesn’t matter
- The mom who snaps at her kids for being loud when she’s just exhausted
- The breakdown in your car before you walk into the house
The breaking point that seemed to come out of nowhere, but didn’t. It was years in the making.
But here’s what most people miss:
It works the same way in the positive.
All the work you’re doing in the background? All the books you read, the courses you bought, the reps you’re putting in that don’t seem to be paying off yet?
It’s never wasted.
Today’s newsletter is all about that pressure before the eruption.
I’ve seen this play out over and over, in my life and others’.
Let me show you.
I think back to my first million-dollar year in business. I can’t point to one specific thing. There was no lightbulb moment, no Tony Robbins seminar.
But when I think deeper about what caused the eruption… it didn’t just happen.
You see, I’d been grinding for six years before that. Six years of trying things that didn’t work. Six years of doubting if I was cut out for this. Six years of watching other people take off while I stayed stuck.
Then one year, I made $1.1 million.
What changed?
Everything I’d been building finally became active instead of dormant. The copywriting skills I’d picked up years earlier? I could finally use them at a level that mattered. The sales calls I’d fumbled through? Suddenly, I knew how to close. The coaching programs I’d bought and barely touched? I could model what they did and apply it to my own thing. The connections I’d made over five years? Those turned into key hires and partnerships.
It wasn’t wasted.
It was all there waiting.
Same thing with YouTube.
I started creating content when I was living in my mom’s basement. Didn’t know what I was doing. Thought I had to be “official,” so I put on a suit jacket, hung a white bedsheet on the wall to make it look professional, and talked to a camera. Didn’t even own suit pants. Just the jacket.
I’d go to coffee shops at 5 a.m. and edit until my eyes hurt and I was sick of hearing myself talk. Did that five times a week.
After the first year, it felt utterly pointless.
No one was watching. The views were embarrassing. I started thinking: Is this just a waste of time? Maybe my ex was right.
But something told me to keep going.
Flash forward 7 years later: 80,000 subs a month. Nearly 5 million views. Total eruption.
I can’t tell the one thing that made it “take off.” It just did.
But none of it would’ve happened without those basement years. The early videos where I knew it was cringe but posted anyway. The long editing sessions, despite no one watching. The slow, invisible grind of getting 1% better every time.
Even the podcast gig I got fired from right before I started YouTube: learning how to create content, how to speak on camera, how frustrating it is to have something in your head and feel like you can’t translate it into video.
That was part of the pressure building.
One day, the dam breaks. All that water rushes out.
That’s your built-up potential.
I remember when this lesson hit me yet again…
I knew someone who struggled with their weight their entire life. Tried everything. Different diets, different programs, different trainers. Nothing stuck.
Then one day I saw them… they were 30 pounds lighter.
I thought: Okay, what’s the secret? Wegovy?
They laughed.
“Nah, man. Just the boring stuff.”
I said, “What do you mean?”
They paused and said something that’s never left me:
“You know… I already knew how to do this for so long. One day I was just… ready.”
That’s the frustrating part, isn’t it?
90% of the time we already know what to do. But we’re not doing it.
We’re waiting for a new solution. A faster path. A different approach that won’t feel as hard. So we quit the thing that was working, right before it works. And then, six months later, we’re right back where we started. Except now we’ve added a new story:
“I’ve tried everything.”
But you haven’t. You’ve tried a lot of things for a little while.
Here’s what I’ve learned after 14 years of doing this: Most of the shit you do won’t work. That’s the brutal truth. Pro baseball players making $30 million strike out 7 out of 10 times. And that’s a Hall of Fame-worthy average.
So yeah, most things don’t work. But the dangerous part isn’t the failure rate, it’s the story you tell yourself about it.
Because once you believe “I’ve tried everything,” you’ve given yourself permission to quit before you even start.
You almost WANT that next thing to fail just so you can feel right. ‘
See? I told you!’
So let me ask you:
What do you already know how to do that you’re not doing?
What story are you telling yourself about why you can’t?
What would happen if you dropped the story and just kept going for six more months?
Because I guarantee, the thing holding you back isn’t a lack of knowledge. It’s the story you keep repeating. “I’m not cut out for this.” “I’ve tried everything.” “Maybe I’m just not the type of person who…”
You’re not starting from zero. You’re filling the reservoir.
Every book. Every rep. Every time you showed up when you didn’t feel like it.
All of it matters.
One day, you’ll look back and realize: the pressure was building the whole time.
See you next saturday,
CK
