• The Blog Post Where I Confess My Deepest Digital Fear

    For a guy who has created 30+ different blog websites, you might think that blogging is second nature. You would be wrong. Dead wrong. The fact that I’ve created 30+ different blogs is a shameful testament to the truth:

    I AM TERRIFIED OF BLOGGING

    I’m not stirring the pot. I’m not embellishing the truth. I’m not talking about the obligatory cyclical post about how I’m about to start blogging consistently. I mean REAL blogging. Where you’re already consistently putting your thoughts and ideas and research out there.

    Scares. Me. Senseless. Why? There’s are TONS of reasons why. Here’s just a few:

    1. Spoken words are temporary. Internet is FOREVER.

    When you’re not doing what you think is your ultimate purpose in life, you fantasize about what life will be like when you finally are. And, if you’re like me, you imagine how embarrassed you’ll be then by all the things you published on the Internet now.

    2. Pro bloggers have too many formulas

    How could I ever possibly get it right? I mean, I’ve read just enough pro blogging tips to paralyze myself with fear of failure for the rest of my life. Know what I mean? I mean, the reality is that I was perfectly content blogging at CultureFeast.com back in 2005 before Copyblogger.com and ProBlogger.net came along and told me I needed to pick one niche and become the master of that niche. So I started a sports blog. Then a reputation management blog. Then an SEO blog. Then a spiritual blog. I forget what came next. But they just kept coming. I wish someone had intervened and forced me to stick to ONE blog. Just one.

    I was listening to Michael Hyatt’s podcast today as he covered the 10 most common mistakes bloggers make. It wasn’t his list that grabbed my attention, but the story of his blogging history. He began just one year before I did, on a Typepad site. He blogged for THREE YEARS before he ever had more than 1,000 visits (pageviews?) in a single month. Three years? Are you kidding me?

    And yet, here he is, with a gazillion pageviews now, considered a guru of sorts when it comes to blogging and entrepreneurialism. Had I been faithful to my first blog, who knows where this would all be now.

    But I’m not there, because I spread myself way too thin with too many blogs trying to specialize for the sake of my readers and my own numerous interests.

    3. I have the attention span of a tweetie bird

    Wait. What? What was I saying? “Words. Words. Words.” It’s what I say when I’m mid-sentence and I can’t think of the everyday words that should come next. It happens a lot, ya’ll.

    Bloggers should publish a minimum of 300 words per post, if for no other reason than because that’s what Google seems to want. And I suppose it’s what it takes to make a decent point on any given subject.

    So Why AM I Writing, Then?

    Because I need to be healed! Can I get an AMEN?!?!? Consider this blogging therapy. Ooh! That’s a great domain name idea! [rushes-to-the-web-to-see-if-it’s-available… Oh, God, it is! Wait, no! I was just talking about how… But! But! It’s such a good domain! Sigh… CLICK]

    Now then… what was I saying? Oh yes, why I’m writing. I consider this therapeutic. If today’s blog post tanks so bad that even my own mom won’t read it, I haven’t failed. I’ve merely elminated one of the necessary crappy posts that had to be flushed from my system to get to the gold that lies somewhere beneath.

    At least, that’s what I’m rolling with. Why do YOU blog?