Remember in Private Benjamin where Judy Benjamin played by Goldie Hawn joined the Army, but the Army she thought she joined was one filled with Condos and trips around the world because that's what her recruiter sold her. See, in the beginning, I was kinda like that too thinking that the career I signed up for as a Pro blogger was one that would be filled with flowing lattes at cafes, travel to hot spots, and lounging all day in pajamas.
I even thought geez how hard could this blogging thing be because it's just writing funny witty stuff about your life and then hitting publish with no idiot Dilbert boss telling you what to do. You get to be a free agent, do what you want, any time you feel like it. Plus, I was a marketing whiz. I managed multi-million dollar marketing campaigns. I got the world's largest computer makers to give me money for co-marketing opportunities, and I even got cc'd on an email to Steve Jobs. So, blogging for a living should be a piece of cake. Right?
Cut to rude awakening in the latrene
Like Benjamin, I discovered that flowing lattes and croissants actually make you gain 10lbs in no time flat thus giving you the dreaded blogger butt, travel to hot spots is really a trip to your local Starbucks for free WiFi, and if you lounge in pajamas, the only decent thing you can write is pointless dribble about bacon or dumb kitty videos which really no one will link to let alone click to read from their RSS reader.
Damn, you people! Leave your RSS, and click onto my blog so I can get the traffic number because I am pathetically sitting here checking my traffic stats at least twice a day. I can't believe how easy it was to get addicted to a bar chart. Indeed, I'm a recovered stataholic because I learned that going to my stat counter every hour only made me more nutzoid or depressed because no one was acknowledging my brilliance with loads of traffic. I have no doubt that as more people become Pro level bloggers that there will be a pill for us for NTSD, No Traffic Stress Disorder. You laugh because you know it's true.
Sometimes I kinda miss the cubicle farm
I can tell you this. It was actually much easier to get those OEMs to give me money than it is to try and get traffic, create content, AND manage the business end of your blogs. Getting yelled at by your boss is nothing compared to getting flamed when the web turns on you. And that piddly bonus check I used to bitch about, now seems like a bag of gold compared to the nickels you get from Google AdSense. And at the j-o-b you actually didn't have to bust your hump too often or at all depending on where you work, you still got a paycheck every 2 weeks. Oh how I miss those regular 2 week payments straight into my bank account.
The life of a Pro Blogger is not filled with glamor, a life of luxury, or ease, at least in the beginning. No, you will probably work harder than you have ever worked in your life. You will have to learn how to stay disciplined and manage yourself, and yeah, you will have to experience some if not a significant adjustment in lifestyle. I didn't plan the money side too well, so I've been living like a college student for the last couple years.
If Deepak Chopra could see me now
However,and there is a big old but, but the good kind of big but, being a Pro Blogger for me has been nothing but utterly amazing and has filled my life with such a sense of meaning and purpose that I could never have imagined. Really, you can't write this stuff in a book, you just have to experience it.
I have never felt this alive in a job - ever. Have you ever had a job that made you feel alive? I didn't until now. Don't get me wrong, I had some real high points in my former corporate career, but the happiness never lasted that long and I never felt the satisfaction as deep as I do since I started blogging for a living. So despite all the hardships, I've been able to stick with it and continue to do so because it feels like my life purpose work.
Right now, I'm really struggling with the monetizing part, and how to get more traffic despite being one of the top healthy living bloggers, but I see it as a problem to solve versus something to feel like I've failed at or am no good at. Admittedly too, not all days are that sitcom rosey either. I do have days where I cry after looking at my bank accounts online, and I lie on the floor in fetal position wondering what the eff I'm doing? That's human.
Seeing Life Through Edison's Eyes
The other day a friend asked, "So, if you haven't really been able to make it on your own two feet with all this blog stuff after 3 years, do you think anyone will listen to you and your advice at The Everyday Blogger?" He meant well with the question, and it is a legit one to ask.
My answer, "Well, I don't know. But I really won't know unless I actually do it, and I'm not going to let my inner perfectionist stop me like I used to let it. And I can tell you this, I have discovered about 50 ways to NOT make money effectively online and there is value in that. Like Edison who didn't see over 900 attempts to make the light bulb a failure. He found over 900 ways to not make a light bulb. And people would pay for that kind of info in order to learn from my experience so they don't do the same. So see, even in my "failures" I'm still winning something."
