Francesco Celli

31/07/2026

If I listened to everything I read on my timeline today...

• “Substack is dying”
• AI writes better than me now
• "Everything's already been said"
• "You need to post 3x daily or you're invisible"
• I'm doing this writing thing all wrong
..I'd probably never publish another thing.

The timeline will always give you another reason not to publish.

At some point, you have to learn to ignore the noise.

If you find yourself second-guessing your work, look at the people you admire.

They read the same things. They have the same doubts. They compare themselves to others. They get things wrong. They still get criticized.

But they don't wait until they feel certain.

They don't let a random post decide whether they hit publish.

They tune out the noise, do their thing, put their work out there, and let it speak for itself.

30/07/2026

Haven't read the book yet.
Also not sure who needs to see this today, but...
This is a pretty good way to tell if you're heading in the right direction.

30/07/2026

I just spent a month at my family's little house in the Italian Dolomites.

Hiking in the woods, mushroom picking, lunches by the river, tennis, books, slow walks, long conversations.

I haven't felt this present in a long time. Came back completely regenerated, feeling more creative and alive.

It's amazing what a few weeks of ordinary life, far from constant stimulation, can do to your mind.

Highly recommend making more time for the "boring" stuff.

28/07/2026

Most people struggle to come up with ideas.

I struggle to stop writing.

Every time I sit down to write, one idea turns into five.

A simple article somehow turns into a 7,000-word rabbit hole.

Even a short email starts as a Google Doc full of ideas, angles, random thoughts, and scrappy notes.

Before I know it, I have a dozen half-finished drafts, endless tangents, and almost none of it ever gets published.

The irony? I’m a copywriter.

My job is literally to cut thousands of words down to the few that matter.

Yet when I write for myself, I struggle to do the exact same thing.

I’m trying to see it as a good problem to have. After all, it’s probably easier to cut than to create something from nothing.

But I’d be lying if I said it isn’t frustrating sometimes.

Does this happen to anyone else?

24/07/2026

2030: AI agents selling to other AI agents, neural ads projected into your dreams, holographic funnels.

Also 2030: some random dude sending plain-text emails to his 500-subscriber list, still outperforming them all.

23/07/2026

I hate starting to write. Then I start, and I don’t want to stop.

I hate getting on calls. Then I’m on, and they’re always better than I feared.

I hate going to the gym. Then I go, and it's the best hour of my day.

The hardest part is never the thing itself.

It's starting.

22/07/2026

My social anxiety got a lot quieter the day I realized:

- the people I admire weren’t nearly as confident as I thought
- everyone’s too busy thinking about themselves to judge me
- most people are just as awkward, they’re better at hiding it
- nobody remembers my awkward moments as much as I do
- if I can’t say it out loud, I can always write it down
- being liked by everyone was never the goal

21/07/2026

The most rebellious thing you can do today is stay in a good mood when you have every reason not to.

20/07/2026

As a kid, I'd disappear in a nanosecond every time my parents started telling stories about their lives.

I found them boring and repetitive.

I had no idea those stories were passing on their values and would end up playing such a big role in who I’d become.

My mom passed on her childlike curiosity. Her love for books, learning, arts, nature, life, and freedom.

My dad passed on his discipline, his passion for sport, music, cinema, and travel. He also showed me what it takes to build something of your own.

Now, whenever I see them, one of the first things I ask is, “Tell me a story.” Even if I’ve already heard it a hundred times.

I don’t know about you, but I’m so grateful I grew up listening to those stories instead of spending my childhood glued to a screen.

I wrote more about why the stories, experiences, and “silly” ideas we often struggle to share matter more than we think in my latest letter.

Why the stories, ideas, and "silly" projects you keep to yourself matter more than you think.

11/07/2026

Nothing drains your energy more than constantly putting off your own projects. You can work all day and still feel empty.