Starting the Journey of Daily Blogging
Fourteen years ago today, I told Cher I was going to make a significant change. I had decided that I would write a blog post every day. Why shouldn’t I? Seth Godin had done so for as long as I can remember. Tom Peters wasn’t writing daily, but he might as well have been, as he published a lot of content. Chris Brogan was publishing daily for years. Had it not been for their example, life might have gone on as it had in the past.
The Early Morning Writer's Ritual
Instead of waking up at 6:30 AM, I would wake up at 5:00 AM to write. I had spoken to a number of writers, all of them suggesting 3:00 in the morning is the best time to write, but instead of getting up in the middle of the night, 5:00 AM gave me an hour and a half to write before going to work.
Overcoming the Challenges of Writing
Writing isn’t easy. My early work was a crude attempt at writing. I was a terrible editor, and I missed typos and the many writing mistakes you can make when writing. I was like Florence Foster Jenkins, an awful singer, who said, “You may say I can’t sing, but no one can say I didn’t sing.”
No one could say I wasn’t writing, nor could they say I was a good writer. No matter what new endeavor you pursue, you will find yourself ill-equipped. You will spend more time than you expect struggling to find your way to something that passes for what you are doing, be it writing or something else.
Finding My Writing Rhythm
For some time, I wrote long posts. Then I reduced the word count to 500 words before deciding to write 1,000 words each day. That is 365,000 words per year, the equivalent of six books. In the last seven years, I have also penned six books, five on sales, and one on positivity. If you can’t say something in 1,000 words, you may not be ready to say it at all.
My normal routine now is to wake up at 4:00 AM, even though most days find me awake closer to 3:00 AM. Somehow, I have been chosen to feed the cat before getting coffee and sitting down to type my daily word count.
Developing and Refining Writing Skills
My first editor told me that if someone could write something in 500 words, then I could write it in 1,500 words. This was not provided as a compliment, and it would take me years to lean out my writing. I am still working on this. There is a wonderful little book titled: Several Short Sentences About Writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg, that is helpful.
A Milestone in Blogging
As of today, I have published 5,167 articles here. Most of the posts are focused on B2B sales, sales leadership, success, and occasionally, writing.
Insights into the Daily Writing Process
Having written every day for 17 years, minus 13 days in Tibet, I can report that writing is thinking. You only really discover what you know when you write it down. Spending an hour writing what you know will find you uncovering things you didn’t know lived inside you is worth your time.
What I have noticed is that the act of writing improves your thinking and your ability to speak to the things you know. One benefit of writing is that it helps you organize your knowledge base. As you write, you become better able to communicate your ideas to others, helping them by answering questions and providing them with strategies that will help them accomplish something important.
Writing also provides you with the ability to point someone to the answer they need by sending them to the published content. Most platforms like this one will have a search function to make it easy to find the content you might need. You can try it here:
Challenges and Rewards of Writing
I had a terrible time during my freshman year at Catholic School. First, I was bullied by a wrestler. Next, I was bullied by the wrestling coach, who pulled my hair until I was looking at him upside down. He told me if my hair wasn’t above my collar, he would shave it off himself.
To defy him, I went to a salon and had my hair cut like Billy Idol, way shorter than anyone else’s hair, except the spikes were held up with gel. I also pierced my ear. There was no written policy, but that didn’t stop the principal and vice principal from staring at me through the glass pane on the door.
I was asked to leave typing class because I looked at the keys. Right now, I am still looking at the keys. I was 13 years old, and at the time, I thought I would never need to type anything. My right hand is in bad shape, and my left hand is a little better, but soon, I will need to do something to rehabilitate these hands. At the end of the year, the vice principal invited me not to come back for what would have been my sophomore year. I accepted his invitation.
Reflection and Appreciation
This is my practice. It is something I will always do. It suits me, and after 14 years, if I could do anything I wanted to do, it would be writing, and if not writing, then reading.
If you are here, I appreciate you visiting this humble blog, and maybe I will see you again tomorrow.
