Voted World’s Okayest Blogger 2022.
(Here’s a short and fun video on the term “sellout.”)
What I’ve done
I don’t actually think I’ve sold out. But I’ve just done something I thought I’d never do: I created a Patreon.
For those who don’t know, Patreon is a service where people can support creators they enjoy—YouTubers, artists, bloggers, etc. Oftentimes, those creators offer bonuses and exclusive content for those who help at different degrees.
This seemed silly to me for the longest time. But then I started interviewing creators for my book.
James and Anthony Deveney took me through their journey of quitting their full-time jobs to run their podcast, Raiders of the Lost Podcast. (If you like movies and television, I highly recommend their show.) They were able to do so because of the level of support their patrons provided.
Eric Rosen, my favorite YouTuber, broke down all of his revenue streams when we spoke. Merch, ad revenue, Twitch subscribers. But in the early days, he said it was mostly from people donating on his streams.
It’s never been easier for one person to reach (dare I say…influence?) a large number of people. Steph Smith made a great point. She said, “Britney Spears was a content creator. She wrote songs and shared them with millions of people. Today, some bro can film himself in his apartment and have a million followers on TikTok.”
I’m not some bro and I don’t have a TikTok. But it’s been wild to type my thoughts out and have a bunch of friends, family, and strangers read them.
And with the popularity of things like podcasts and YouTube, free content has never been more prevalent. It’s expected, actually. Anyone else get triggered when they click on a NY Times article and get asked to pay for a subscription?
I do every time. But then I think, There’s a team behind this…It’s someone’s job to produce this.
Why I did it
To be clear, this blog will always be free.
The site has a simple system:
I live my life
I reflect on all my insights, mistakes, and fears
I write about them here
You either enjoy them or go, “meh.” 🤷🏼♂️
Repeat
I don’t see that ever having a price tag. Making a subscription service like Substack doesn’t interest me.
But there is a dream life I’m working toward. It’s pretty simple.
I want to be a full-time writer and coach. I’ve got the coaching thing down. But in the future, I’d like to be publishing a new book every 2-5 years, write 2 or 3 blogs on here each week, and have 5-10 coaching clients. In between would be plenty of time to travel, work on other projects or programs, and do all the non-work things I love (chess, friends/family time, jiujitsu).
With all that said…if any of you get value out of these posts and want to support the blog, you now have an avenue to do so. Only if you really want to. If not, you’re dead to me.
Whoops. I mean, *if not, that’s totally fine! Nothing will change on here.
But for those who do, you’ll get some bonus stuff. Extra blogs, video updates from me, access to a Q&A, monthly Zoom calls, the running draft of my book Do The Thing, and polls for what you’d like me to write about next. I’m even working on setting up an advice column.
Whether they’ve chipped in financially or not, I’m forever indebted to anyone who has taken two minutes to read anything I’ve written. I wasn’t even planning on having ten readers. Now this blog has hundreds. Onward!
If you’d like to become a patron, you can do so here.
Thanks, thanks, and ever thanks. 😎