7 Lessons to Build a Substack That Feeds Your Soul

The Song Unsung in a Life of Purpose

“I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument while the song I came to sing remains unsung.” – Rabindranath Tagore

Several years ago, the American Medical Association found that most heart attacks occur around nine o’clock on Monday mornings.

This undoubtedly has something to do with what most people are doing at around nine o’clock on Monday mornings, which is going back to work, or more precisely going back to work they don’t like, to lives that are ill-matched to their spirits.

It is not, in my estimation, an undue stretch to say that if we are living lives that are wrong for our spirits, then we are lost souls.

If the earth calls for the apple and it does not come, it tends to rot on the vine. If a panther is confined to a cage, “a great will stands stunned and numb,” as the poet Rainer Maria Rilke once observed.

If the timorous heart is too fearful of failure and loss, too panic-stricken to relinquish the status quo, we won’t be propelled through the door. We’ll remain outsiders to our own selves, and the air around us will fill with the smell of something burning on the stove.

Eventually, our feelings of inauthenticity and restlessness, our envy of others’ successes, our panic at the passage of time and our own reflections in the mirror, all become like tombstones—they remind us where someone is buried—and we will measure our fear of death by the distance between our desires and our actions, between the life we want and the life we have.

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A few years ago, when I first settled into my current home, I was fortunate to meet my neighbor, Mr. B, a kind and generous man about a decade older than me.

Retired and living a quieter life with his wife in the rural house next to mine, Mr. B had sold his original home to embrace a simpler existence.

To supplement his retirement, he took on odd jobs, including a firewood business and work with his tractor, equipped with a plow and bushhog.

That first winter, I hired him to stock my firewood, and he went above and beyond, even plowing my garden the next spring at no charge. His selflessness and work ethic left a lasting impression, and I quickly came to see him as a good neighbor and a better man.

One chilly early fall day, Mr. B invited me to ride with him to the general store a few miles away.

I hopped in his truck, and we took off.

As we drove, I mentioned needing firewood for the upcoming cold snap I had just heard about on the weather.

“Okay, when do you want it?” he asked.

“As soon as possible,” I replied, noting the forecast.

He suggested Friday morning, then added with a wry tone, “I don’t get going these days before noon. I got up early and worked every day my whole life, and I’m not doing that anymore.”

His voice and his eyes carried a noticeable weight—bitterness, perhaps, or regret for a life spent laboring without pause. It was a rare glimpse into a man who seemed to carry the burden of years spent toiling, now questioning what it had all been for.

Not long after he delivered that firewood as promised, I learned Mr. B had been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer.

Within months, he was gone.

The news hit hard.

I couldn’t shake the memory of our conversation in the truck—his voice, heavy with resentment, now seemed to echo a deeper struggle.

Mr. B’s kindness had touched my life in small but meaningful ways, from the firewood that warmed my home to the plowed garden that bloomed that spring. But more than that, his story left me reflecting on how fleeting time is and how the choices we make shape not just our days, but the way we look back on them.

I wish I’d had the chance to tell him how much his generosity meant, and I carry his memory as a reminder to live with intention and gratitude.

Mr. B’s life, though marked by hard work and quiet generosity, revealed a deeper truth about finding purpose beyond the daily grind.

His story taught me that true fulfillment comes not from relentless effort or material gain, but from aligning our actions with what nourishes our spirit.

Reflecting on his legacy, I’ve distilled seven lessons that can guide anyone toward building a business and a life that not only succeeds but also feeds the soul.

The 7 lessons to build a Substack that feeds your soul: