Help people for free, generously.
Do not panic.
Hands down, both pieces of advice led to my stunning success.
Both pieces of advice also led to my more common periods of average success.
Ignoring both pieces of advice led to long, sustained periods of blogging failure during the past 10 years of my life.
Ostrich Head in Sand
Have you ever seen a cartoon where an ostrich shoves his head in the sand? He cannot see a darn thing.
I did the same thing for *years* of my blogging career. Yep; even up to recent months, I would shove my head in the sand, ignore certain fears, be oblivious to my true feelings, then, see struggles. Nightmare City.
I helped a few folks for free, not too generously, then, after doing some work, would panic when things did not seem to come together at all. This happened early in my career. Later in my career, I finally cleared the panic – which felt good – but did not quite give incredibly, next level, famous, super successful blogger generously. I did not REALLY put in the work, if you know what I mean?
10 Years Ago
If I had to give 2009 new blogger Ryan advice I would say: help as many people as possible generously and do not panic if you make $5 a month for long, sustained periods of your generous giving. Ryan; you may write 5 guest posts daily for 4 month straight and not see a sponsored post opportunity. Do not panic and give up on being generous, RB, because being generous over the long haul leads to big time blogging success.
Panicking leads to long term blogging failure. Every time.
Gary Vaynerchuk
The other day I spoke to a relative of someone in my family who has seen immense online success. I noted how Gary Vee grew up a few towns over from where we are, now, as he is a fan of this icon.
Can you imagine how generous you have to be to do 2,000 free YouTube interviews, some with YouTubers who had zero views on their videos? Bloggers are so picky, stingy and snooty, turning down opportunities for guest posting and blog commenting left and right, and wonder why their stingy butts fail. Do you now understand why there is only ONE Gary Vaynerchuk and why he is a legend? He out-generous-ed everybody else!!!
Nobody gave as much as the guy in the online world so nobody has both the skills and exposure to influence millions and to make millions like he did. He out gave everyone so he out-succeeds everyone. Did he panic when his 400th YouTube interview registered zero views? Nope. Do I panic if I publish 10 posts and guest posts daily, and see no sponsored post opportunities that day? Nope.
Be generous with as many humans as possible daily. Do not panic.
Help tons of people for free with zero expectations. Have fun, enjoy the ride, trust the process and ride out uncomfortable moments, versus panicking when you face certain fears.
Blogging can be tough at moments when you face fear but blogging gets easier and easier when you out-generous virtually all other bloggers in your niche.
If you are a newbie blogger, or even if you are a struggling veteran, think of the advice I would offer new blogger me from 10 years ago.
Save yourself tons of heartache, massive struggles and a yo-yo effect of success and failure that bedeviled me throughout much of my blogging career.
Hey Ryan!
Generally, I get panic if my traffic goes down. Earlier months, I use to worry when I wasn’t getting any sponsored posts for months.
But after reading this, I am feeling better and excited to try your advice.
Cool bro!
Hey Ryan,
Great post indeed.
I am totally agree with both of your points. Somewhere on Swadhin’s blog I have also quoted that “Your Helping Hands can make you brand”. So never hesitate to help your fellow bloggers or who are asking you for the help.
If you are helping only a person in a day, 95% chances are that he will be a loyal reader of you blog.
Thank you.
Naveen
PS: I started producing free WordPress themes 😛