Why I went back to a cohort based course

I’m running the next cohort of my course Launch in 48 right now. Registration closes tomorrow, June 30. That’s something I haven’t said in a while. Because for the last two years, I told myself I was done with cohorts. I stopped doing them. I stopped updating my courses. I stopped most of the work that built my writing career in the first place. And I told myself a story the entire time about why that was fine. It wasn’t. This article is about why I left, what I learned from leaving, and why I came back. I had a list of reasons. They all sounded good. When I stopped running cohorts, I had three reasons ready. They sounded reasonable. They mostly were. First, the cohort scene had gotten loud. Every week somebody else on my feed was screaming “Last chance” in all caps. I didn’t want to be one more voice doing that. Second, my life changed fast. I got married. Within six months my wife was pregnant. A lot of attention I used to give to teaching got pulled in other directions. Third, the…