Issue #43: Meta Complete

Welcome back, everyone!

42 issues ago, I had no meta. Today, I do.

Over the past 42 weeks, I've written approximately 105,000 words for this newsletter. That's more words than The Great Gatsby. More than Of Mice and Men. Hell, it’s more than most books people pretend to have read on LinkedIn..

357 words a day. Rain or shine. All in a completely unstructured attempt to figure out what the hell comes after 30 years in real estate.

For those keeping score at home, that's exactly what this newsletter was supposed to accomplish.

Mission complete.

Time to shut down the experiment and file the final report.

Except here's the thing nobody warned me about when I started this public soul-searching adventure: finding your meta isn't the end of the story. It's just the end of chapter one.

Let me explain what actually happened...

What "Finding Your Meta" Actually Meant

When I launched this thing back in September, I was basically a 30-year real estate development veteran having an entrepreneurial identity crisis. I'd spent three decades building subdivisions, navigating municipal politics, and turning raw land into communities.

But somewhere along the way, I'd lost track of what came next.

"My New Meta" was supposed to be about figuring out my new identity as an entrepreneur. What I discovered instead was that my meta was never actually lost - it just needed updating.

Turns out, after 42 weeks of writing about my development adventures, current projects, and various entrepreneurial experiments, the pattern became obvious: I'm a developer. Not an advisor, not a consultant, not a coach. A developer.

I develop land.

I develop solutions.

I develop understanding by breaking complex problems into manageable pieces.

That's what I did for 30 years in land development. That's what I'm doing now with current projects. And apparently, that's what I've been doing every Friday morning in your inbox.

The newsletter became the laboratory where I figured this out.

Every story I told, every lesson I shared, every time I explained some arcane aspect of land development or business strategy - I was just being myself. My meta wasn't missing. It was just waiting for the right platform.

The Conversation That Changed Everything

Two weeks ago, I'm having a glass of scotch with my wife Kirsten (who, after 366 newsletter mentions, over 42 issues, probably deserves her own byline by now).

KIRSTEN: "So what happens when you run out of stories to tell?"

ME: "Are you kidding? I've got 30 years of development stories, plus everything happening with current projects. I could write for decades."

KIRSTEN: "But is that really the best use of your time?"

ME: (pausing mid-sip) "What do you mean?"

KIRSTEN: "Well, you've figured out your meta, right? The newsletter served its purpose. You're back in the development world, you understand your value, people are paying attention to what you have to say..."

ME: "Yeah, so?"

KIRSTEN: "So maybe it's time to aim that energy at something bigger than just your personal brand."

And that's when it hit me.

This whole newsletter journey taught me something I didn't expect: I'm really good at taking complex, intimidating topics and making them accessible. Whether it's explaining how municipal approval processes work, breaking down development pro formas, or sharing the unwritten rules of business relationships - apparently, I have a knack for development.

Not just land development. Idea development. Solution development. Understanding development.

The question Kirsten was really asking: What if I applied that same development approach to problems that actually matter?

Not that your Friday morning entertainment doesn't matter. But you know what I mean.

What I Learned Along the Way

Here's what 42 weeks of public building actually taught me:

Stories beat lectures every time. Nobody wants to read a business advice column. But tell them about the time I almost got thrown out of a franchise convention (Issue #12: Three Easy Steps To Get Thrown Out Of A Convention), and suddenly they're paying attention to the lesson hidden inside.

Authenticity is the only moat left. You can't fake 30 years of experience or pretend to have stories you don't actually have. In a world of AI-generated everything, being genuinely yourself is becoming the ultimate competitive advantage.

Community beats audience. The best part of this newsletter wasn't writing it - it was reading your replies. Turns out, when you're honest about your own struggles and mistakes, people feel safe sharing theirs. That's not an audience. That's a community.

Consistency compounds. 42 weeks of showing up every Friday, regardless of how busy work got, taught me more about building trust than any business book ever could.

Meta isn't a destination. It's more like a GPS recalibration. Once you figure out where you actually are, you can start plotting a course to somewhere worth going.

The Stories That Built This

Looking back through 42 issues, some highlights that defined this journey:

• The $100K in a Day revelation where I discovered that preparation plus technology could amplify development impact exponentially

• Chucky's entrepreneurial evolution from confused side hustler to niche market maven with his vintage bowling ball empire

• Frank's unfiltered takes on everything from government housing programs to why experience beats enthusiasm

• The franchise convention disaster that became a masterclass in authentic networking

• Various development war stories that somehow turned zoning bylaw explanations into entertainment

• Real-time entrepreneurial experiments including the Freedom Stack (Issue #14: The $27,000 Pandemic Side Hustle Experiment) concept and multiple pivots

• Kirsten's reality checks that kept me grounded whenever my grandiose plans got too grandiose

Each story taught me something about communication, business, or just being human in a professional world. More importantly, each story confirmed that my instinct for breaking down complexity into digestible pieces wasn't just useful for land development - it worked for almost everything.

What Comes Next

Here's the thing: there are still hundreds of stories to tell. Thirty years in development generates enough material to fuel newsletters until 2050. Current development work keeps adding new chapters. And Kirsten keeps providing perfectly timed reality checks that practically write themselves.

But Kirsten was right. Finding your meta is just the beginning.

There are bigger problems worth tackling. Challenges that need someone who understands how to take intimidating, complex systems and make them accessible to regular humans. Issues where three decades of development experience combined with newsletter-tested communication skills might actually make a difference.

I'm not ready to reveal the specifics yet, but let's just say there are some problems in this country that could use a newsletter guy with a hard hat.

The Bottom Line

My New Meta accomplished exactly what it set out to do. Mission complete.

But completing the mission just revealed the next one.

Over the next few months, I'll be transitioning to a new platform (probably Substack) and a new focus. Still me, still authentic, still mixing business wisdom with dad jokes. Just aimed at problems that matter beyond my personal brand development.

Stay tuned for details on how to follow along. I'll send updates as we make the transition.

For now, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for reading, for replying, for sharing your own stories, and for being part of this experiment in public building. You made this newsletter better than it had any right to be.

The meta is complete. The real work starts now.

Cheers,

- Greg "Meta Complete" Mills

P.S. Don't worry - Chucky will definitely be making appearances in whatever comes next. And Frank too. Some characters are too good to leave behind.