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But… if you stick around, we’ve got something fun: ENGAGEMENT PRIZES!
🅱️3 readers can win FREE access to thee Online Writing Club. Everyone who’s leaving a comment, sharing this podcast on Notes or forwarding this to a friend can win!
Today’s podcast guest is this year’s Substack Notes Kicksatrter Bootcamp co-host, behavioural change expert and bestselling author (2M books sold!) Karen Salmansohn.
65-year-old Karen doesn’t shy away from the truth:
“So, you’re alive. Congrats. Now what’s your game plan?”
Her mission is simple: to help you dust off your “Someday” goals and build a life that’s more than wake, work, and worry.
She calls herself a Middle-of-Life Doula (and sometimes a Beginning-of-Life Doula too). Her work is about mortality awareness as fuel.
If you share freely of yourself, you will leave a very big ripple. But if you don’t share fully of yourself, then a very small ripple will be left behind.”
That’s the heartbeat of her new book, Your To-Die-For Life.
How I found Karen Salmansohn on the Internet streets
This all started with an article she wrote: Death is Like Getting Laid Off from the Best Job Ever published in The Stand Up Philosopher: Weighty Musings, Lightly Served.
Tribe member and viral Bootcamp alum Patricia Ross (86yo!) shared it.
It hit me so deeply that I reached out right away to ask for an interview.
Only later did I realize how wildly successful she is.
1M followers on Facebook
85,000 Substack subscribers
Rising in #Philosophy and Substack Bestseller
Featured on Oprah, CNN, Psychology Today, and the New York Times
Even Deepak Chopra praises her writing style:
So the numbers and the praise didn’t drew me in.
It was that personal essay and the way it made me stop, think, and want to bring her to you.
We became friends. For this interview as preparation for our Substack Notes Bootcamp together we talked 3 hours in total. 3 hours of sitting and not going to the bathroom. This means something… don’t you think?
And today, we had Day 2 of the Substack Notes Bootcamp. Karen was joining us from her sleek New York City skyscraper to talk about the weirdest, truest, most scroll-stopping thing she's figured out about Notes and writing online and all 50+ bootcampers loooved our “faboulous” session together…
The bootcampers learned how to write scroll-stopping notes and visuals that convert followers into subscribers and subscribers into paid ones and make a huge impact in the lives of others…
If you couldn’t attend the Substack Notes Kickstaretr Bootcamp or missed it, this is the last chance to join with:
LASTMINUTE
Then the next chance is in 2027.
🎙️ Can’t wait any longer and want to listen to the full conversation?
Oh and did I mention Karen once even met Madonna. Yes, THE Madonna.
The YOU-ier you are, the better
Yes. YOU-ier. It’s a word. Karen made it one. And she’s been right about weirder things.
Karen didn’t sugarcoat it.
“You have to stand out. You have to find your own voice. And this is where AI can be a curse and not a benefit.”
Because AI is generic. Slick. Stepford wife content, as she calls it. You can feel it when you read it that uncanny valley of perfectly structured paragraphs that somehow say nothing about anyone.
Karen calls the antidote being YOU-ier.
“The YOU-ier you are, the happier you will be. The more authentic you’re living your life, the more happy you’ll be. The YOU-ier you are about who you pick as your partner. The YOU-ier you are about what you eat for lunch. The YOU-ier you are about your Substack. People can feel the YOU-iness in you.”
She tests AI on her own writing sometimes. Just to see how good it’s getting.
AI still can’t write “like Karen Salmansohn”. She’s glad about that.
If AI can’t write like you, be glad. That means you have your own voice.
The weirdest writing framework that actually works
Karen was a film major in college. And she says every piece of writing, even a three-sentence Substack Note, is act one, act two, act three.
She shared one she’d posted:
Act one: “The brain has a charming habit of confusing familiarity with safety.”
Act two: “That’s how people stay in jobs they hate and relationships that shrink them.”
Act three: “Your comfort zone is another form of Stockholm syndrome.”
One. Two. Three.
Scroll-stopping. Human. Unmistakably Karen.
That’s the formula. A three-act story, even when it’s three sentences long.
Inter-Painment
This is the part of the conversation I didn’t expect.
Karen told me she’s shedding a skin.
“I’m not writing like a personal development author anymore. I’m writing like a person in development.“
She said it and then immediately laughed because she’d just thought of it.
She started as a novelist. Became an accidental self-help author. Built a career around it. Then looked around at the crowded personal development landscape and thought …no more listicles. No more do these three tips. More stories. More memory. More weird.
She’s been writing about her 30s. The hilariously stupid mistakes. A narcissistic, controlling ex who her readers are apparently obsessed with.
“My pain is your entertainment. I call it interpainment.”
People are asking for more. And now Karen will write another book!
Of course there’s so much more you can learn in today’s episode. That’s just a sneak peak. Also if you want to join the LIVE Notes Kickstarter Bootcamp 2026 last minute because you fogot to sign up, thougt you would have grabbed a ticket but didn’t, this is the last call.
Join with
LASTMINUTE
to join Day 3 with Ellen Scherr, viral Notes writer who went from a Bootcamp grad with zero subscriber to 21,000 and a bestseller badge. She found her “so Ellen” voice on the internet streets.
So can you become YOU-ier!
PS. 🅱️ As an indie publisher, your feedback is a spark that keeps me going. Drop a comment to share your thoughts + win an engagement prize! 2–3 people can win FREE access to the Online Writing Club
PPS. For some extra love 🔁, re-stack (share) this with a friend who might need to hear Karen’s message today! 🔁
Hey, I’m Kristina, the heart behind The Online Writing Club.
I started writing on the internet in December 2020, newborn in arms, during one of the most disorienting and beautiful seasons of my life. What began as a creative outlet quietly became something I never expected: a 6-figure business, a global community of 18,000 writers, dreamers, builders, and work I genuinely fall in love with every single day.
In my corporate life, I’m an award-winning marketing professional and brand strategist. Here, I pour everything I know about writing, growing an audience, and building something real into every post, every lesson, and every conversation.
If you’ve ever believed your story deserves to be heard and want to get paid to be you, you’re exactly who I built this for.
Want to go deeper? Here’s how I can help:
📲 Book a life-changing 1:1 Substack Strategy Session or FREE Discovery Call (email to kristina@godknows.de).
🪩 Find me on YouTube and LinkedIn.
🔵🟠 And if you want to fire up your LinkedIn-Substack Flywheel, grab a seat in the course. It’s now availble on-demand with weekly Q&As.
