Zero To Blog

I had zero experience when I started my blog last year. I came across a few resources online and made the decision it would be valuable to learn the basics of SEO.

When my partner Jayson and I bought Green Spaces Coworking in 2018, we quickly learned the value of SEO. All of our leads for the coworking business came through the website — and still do to this day. We've spent very little on paid ads over the last 2.5 years operating the business. And this is the products of a well positioned SEO strategy + time.

Seeing the value of SEO unfold under my eyes with the coworking business challenged me to think about future businesses with a long term strategy in mind.

I came up with a hypothesis — ”if I invest time in learning SEO now, then all of my future businesses will benefit from this knowledge in the long run.”

I knew that I would need a writing habit to make this happen.

So, I built a simple blog in Webflow & started writing down my thoughts. It was uncomfortable. (For the record, over a year later it's still uncomfortable.)

But I'm running head first into this fear. I was really scared to publish my thoughts online because I'm a people pleaser by nature. I want everyone to like me & I hate upsetting people.

Ultimately, I'm scared that I'll upset someone if I publish my real thoughts in public. This is something I'm working through. But if I have learned one thing about personal growth, it's boiled down into the following statement:

"No pain, no gain." 

It's one of those meat head weight lifting concepts. But I’ve experienced long term benefits from running towards pain in the past as it relates to physical training. When I was training as an athlete growing up, one superpower I always felt like I had was the ability to withstand physical pain longer than most others around me. This built up a confidence over time in my physical training.

And now, as I’m building businesses and honing my skills as an entrepreneur, I'm working to do the same thing with my mental & emotional training. If it's uncomfortable, I'm running towards it.

Around this time last year, I was so afraid of what people would think of me if I published my thoughts online. But the reality we're living with is there's a massive opportunity right now for people who are willing to publish content online. We're living in a time of "Infinite Leverage," as Naval Raviakant states.

"If you can't code, write books and blogs, record videos and podcasts."

It's still uncomfortable for me to publish my thoughts over a year later. But it's getting a little bit easier each time I publish. Deep down I know if I continue to practice facing my fear of publishing my thoughts online, good things will come with time. By doing this, I'm allowing my brain to free flow with thoughts.

Nothing needs to be perfect. I realize that I'm a terrible writer at best.

But just like anything else, the 10,000 hour rule applies. Malcolm Gladwell states that with 10,000 hours of practice one can master any skill. So, here’s to creating a writing habit & chipping away 1 hour at a time.