Which headline would have inspired you to read last week’s blog post?

This week I got an email from Brenda, a gal I had a call with back in April.

She wrote to tell me that she enjoyed last week's email. She shared that she's working on getting better at writing emails and thought that maybe I would get more opens if my subject line was more humorous to match the content of the email.

And after reading it again, I totally got her point. Thanks Brenda!

It got me thinking about why the subject line wasn't all that great.

You probably know by now that I'm a big believer in creating a business that works FOR you.

One that you're excited to build.

One that supports the other areas of your life.

And part of that is building in cushion.

For example, if you're a brand new coach and you know that you want blogging to be your main content marketing approach and you know that you want to get out a blog post (and email) every week, then I recommend you have four blog posts ready to go before you ever hit publish.

That way you're giving yourself a month's cushion so you can write at your leisure from that point forward and not feel pressure to have to come up with something for tomorrow's post.

That brings me to the reason I used the subject line I did.

See, I haven't been following my own advice.

For the past month, I've been moving my backend system over to Kartra and it has taken up A LOT of my time. And I haven't given myself that cushion.

I wrote last week's blog post on Saturday afternoon. Thus, not giving myself any time to create a more engaging subject line.

Is that a big deal?

Maybe.

How many people didn't open my email because the subject line wasn't all that interesting?

At this point, no way to tell, really, but probably a lot.

And the idea of building cushions extends way beyond just creating content.

We can build a financial cushion where we know we have enough in savings to last us a while if we need it.

(I've actually named that savings account "The Cushion" because it's much more fun to put money in "The Cushion" than a "Living Expenses" account)

We can put cushion around our coaching calls so we give ourselves enough time to take a break, stretch, or grab a snack if we need it.

We can put cushion around our morning and evening routines so that we're not stressed about getting the kids up, getting to work on time, getting dinner on the table, etc.

You get the idea.

So is there any cushion you could add to your business or life to make it extra special awesome?