tldr: I wrote a thing about shame and numbers for a cool publication! Deets below and you can read the full piece here

—

A kind soul named Ciara who works at

I threw the kitchen sink at them and they said 'wtf that hurt' and i said 'who?' and they said 'what' and I said no, what's on second and we never talked again.

No of course that didn’t happen, but I did pitch her a bunch of ideas.

Her favorite was about the great lengths I go to make sure i weigh as little as possible for my daily post-workout weigh-in at the gym.

Luckily for us all, and with great thanks to editor’s Jocelyn Florence magic, the final essay ended up being about a lot more than just weight, though it sure did stay HEAVY re: shame, data, and whether there’s anything beyond the quantified (spoiler: there is, double spoiler: it’s also hard).

read my essay

You can read the whole thing here or check out the intro paragraphs below and then jump over to PRISM to read the whole thing.

Me, my shame, and I (plus the metrics that won’t save me): Confessions of a guy addicted to the numbers

"Alex Dobrenko, 89, was a loving father, husband, and friend. But we'll remember him most for his seven NY Times bestsellers, an impressive Substack conversion rate of 3.4%, and his unwavering commitment to staying at his target weight of 146 pounds."

No one’s going to say this at my funeral. Why would they? There’s too much other cool stuff to talk about—that I’m a silly guy, humble, and great at “needing to do some work.”

The stats, in the rearview, won’t matter at all. Yet, I track and obsess over them like a religion of my own self-worth.

How I measure me, let me count the ways

The other night, I performed live at a storytelling competition called The Moth. It was my first time up on stage in over a year, and I got second place!

That’s how I tell people about it, leading always with second place.

Not, “It was cool, I improvised my way through the story and felt super connected to the audience, like I could tell I really had ‘em hooked, and how, seeing my wife Lauren’s reaction, how into it she was, made me feel so attractive and reminded me of the early days of our love when she’d see me perform all the time,” but second place.

“Ohhh, second place, that’s awesome!” people said. No faster way to make my mom proud of me than second place.

Well, there is.

First place.

My email signature reads “both are true (absurd comedy + vulnerable stories -- my top 10 humor newsletter with 17k subscribers.)" Impressive, right? Also a stretch. I’m not in the top 10 anymore, and I’ve recently dipped back down below 17k. Why not update the numbers? Why have them there at all?

Because the numbers feel objective. True. Shorthand for value and worth. Otherwise, what, I’m supposed to… trust my feelings? Like a goddamn psycho?

And of course the big number, literally, my weight.

(read the rest here)

lemme finish the essay wtf

a lil request from me alex

I know this sounds crazy but Prism actually…paid me to write this?

I was 99% sure it was illegal to get paid for your writing so am checking with lawyer friends to see what's going on here but as far as I can tell, it’s legit?

Anyway, I really want to show ‘em the power of THE BAT so it would mean a lot if y’all could go over to the piece and do the classic stuff of:

1. read it and, if so called and it is in your practice, like it lol (yes i realize the irony here dont worry)

2. restack it IF YOU WANT

3. add a comment?? Seriously I do want to hear from people about this topic bc its one I feel like everyone relates to but we don’t talk about in this EXACT way, i.e. shame <—> analytics

4. subscribe to Prism

Love yall, happy m*nday, and remember: history is now and England.

read alex's full essay