Growing through the unknown with Tish Dignam
Overcoming the cringe, detoxing from an individualistic mindset online, following the emergent path
Tish Dignam is a clarity coach, brand strategist, and writer of the Substack Shapes, based in NYC.
Tish works with founders and leaders who are navigating a pivot, building a personal brand, or reimagining their next chapter. Her work blends inner work (identity, values, healing, confidence) with outer expression (brand, content, audience growth, visibility) - a combo that I’m obsessed with because a content plan is not going to fix anything if you don’t know who the hell you are.
I wanted to speak to Tish about emergent growth - working it out as you go rather than always sticking to a master plan - because this approach strikes me as more relevant now than ever in a world characterised by unknowns.
We spoke about Tish’s own journey as well as how she supports clients to embrace emergent growth. Highlights:
🍒 How Tish’s early diary entry style Substacks, on things like butchering her eyebrows, attracted her first clients
🍒 Why we’re often too quick to outsource our innate individual power
🍒 How detoxing from our individualistic society helps Tish to see the bigger picture and decentre herself to create content that connects
Enjoy :)
Matilda x
You’re reading Broken Growth by Matilda Lucy - a newsletter asking why brands chase growth at all costs on a planet with finite resources, and exploring the more creative, interesting ways we can grow instead. This post is part of the series Growing XYZ, featuring conversations with leaders forging new paths beyond capitalist, patriarchal blueprints.
How would you define emergent growth?
Emergent growth starts with a hypothesis or something you feel intuitively that you want to test out and then allowing the action to determine your next step versus the path being predetermined by a strict plan.
It’s contextual; it depends what stage of business you’re in. It’s for growth periods either creating something new, pivoting, testing market appetite. You don’t need it when you’re sustaining something.
How has emergent growth played a role in your own career and business?
Reflecting on my career in general, I look back and see how the whole thing has been emergent.
My brother and my sister always knew what they wanted to do. My sister wanted to be the best hair stylist in the world and my brother wanted to join the army reserves and work in a hospital. I had no idea what I wanted to do and it made me feel all over the place, or scat, as we say in Melbourne.
So I just kept choosing things that were interesting to me. Cookie shop, health and fitness centre, butcher, bartending on a boat, bridal registry, door to door sales.. All these things led me to realising a communications degree would be interesting.
Having a degree allowed me to get a visa for America which in turn built the foundations of the career I have today: working in brand and communications in NYC and London before starting my own coaching business three years ago.
The start of my career played a significant role in starting my business because it gave me proof that trusting the process has worked out for me before and the same could be true in starting a business.
What challenges come up when taking an emergent path?
You have to be willing to see and act on the truth and that’s not always comfortable. I often say "the truth will set you free", but freedom doesn't mean it's easy.
One of my favourite creators, Flex Mami, said in a recent post "remember, if you're seeking freedom, you're also inviting chaos (an advanced curriculum)" and I akin this to emergent growth. Not knowing the answer and taking action anyway isn't always comfortable in the moment, but it's how you create authentic, resonant and legacy type brands, businesses or projects.
For example, I had to cut my salary to a quarter of what I was earning when I left full time employment in order to test this hypothesis, this business idea that I couldn’t know whether it would work out or not.
What indicators show that you are gathering momentum and things are clicking into place?
People are indicating they find value in your work; either through engagement (social media, conversations etc) or through paying you.
It sounds so fucking obvious but numbers online don't mean revenue. When I started out I was writing these weird poetic essays on Substack like rogue diary entries opening up about my life and showing everyone my tits. Now looking back it’s so hilarious. But it got me clients. It connected me with new people, who became paying clients; the first steps in building my business.
Sometimes it doesn't make sense because we’re bombarded with messaging like “follow this plan and make $100k” “post three times a week and get rich” but obviously that is all bullshit. The thing people are missing is themselves. We’re addicted to looking outside of ourselves for answers and essentially outsource our own unique innate individual power.
This is where it links to religion or spirituality for me - whoever the creator is to you. Getting quiet and knowing that answers come from being still then taking aligned action. It’s very simple in that way but we as humans easily complicate things.
How does following an emergent path relate to the macro shit show environment we’re all operating in today?
There was a time where we could work on autopilot and the structures around us kind of encouraged that. It was kind of like, work, put the TV on and call it a day. Numbing essentially. And you could kind of do the same running a business, I call it like business numbing out.
That’s not possible anymore but we’re also ill equipped to deal with how fast things are changing with technology. So we need new tools to navigate our way forward. Nervous system regulation, being in community, hugging people. Being seen, heard and understood!
Picking up on what you said about community, I love your approach to social media - it’s so rooted in wanting to share value and create meaningful connections. Can you talk me through how you got to this place?
I'm detoxing from an individualistic society. We flourish in community and we flourish with people around us, and we flourish with collective understanding. So I have to accept myself even if no one likes my shit and I get no validation because it’s not about me.
It’s why getting to know yourself and anchoring to your why is so important. You can come back to these things even if you don’t like the way you look or sound which is hard because we see influencers who have been creating content for years and compare our first video to their however many thousandth.
You have to go through step one to two to three to four. There is no shortcut for anyone.
I’ve worked with millionaire founders who wants to get everything “right” first time and it’s like dude the initiation is the initiation. Do you shit? Yes, you shit in the toilet. Great. Then you’re not any better or worse than me. We are all the same.
And in the society that separates us via class and how many followers you have and how much money you have and what's your background and what tech companies you worked at? It’s actually the same for everyone. Self-love is self-love, baby.
I love this so much. What’s your goal for creating content online today?
Firstly I find it easy and it helps me practice my craft of strategic comms and connecting with people. It also drives all my leads inbound. But beyond this I’ve learnt so much from mentors and people I follow online so I hope to contribute and give back to people who are just starting out through sharing free content.
What blocks people from carving the path they truly desire?
Not knowing what they truly desire or feeling too cringe about making it happen when they don’t see instant results.
One of the things I've been doing with a group programme that I'm running is an earth meditation where we zoom out and we meditate on being in space so that we can get some perspective and remind ourselves we are a tiny dot on the planet.
We all have these inner voices telling us we’re not good enough, but you are, we are. I deeply believe that if you want to share something, launch something or create something, that you have a responsibility to gift that to the world. Often creating something can feel cringe, but the price you pay is losing a part of yourself. We're meant to create, and we're meant to give. It's none of your business what strangers are hypothetically thinking about you. Find the courage, be brave, and have integrity. The magic is on the other side of your fear.
You can connect with Tish Dignam on her website, Instagram, Substack.
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Thank you so much for having me contribute! Such fun and good chats as always xxx