After writing the Kobe Bryant themed post the other evening, I immediately fell ill. Something did not feel right.
My stomach roiled.
Chills reverberated through my body with accompanying waves of heat and fever. Toss in a stuffy nose and rough cough. I immediately shut it down, going on bed rest for the next 40 hours.
My wife Kelli seemed stunned. I am almost never sick and certainly have not been on bed rest since contracting giardia during my world travels four years ago.
But today at 12 noon, I hopped back online, feeling a little energized but largely run down, depleted and wiped out. I just consumed solids now – a few bites of a potato – after 48 hours.
I proceeded to create and publish 7 blog posts between guest posts and posts for my blog. Bloggers tend to struggle writing and publishing one post daily. Toss in my sick, almost completely exhausted, state, and this seems like a minor miracle to most bloggers.
How did I do it? I prepared myself for success by practicing writing for thousands and thousands of hours. My prolific nature, laser-focused mind and successful blogger career found me halfway.
New Bloggers: Not Ready
New bloggers often buy their domain and hosting in a state of wild excitement. Some newbies add a coaching services page to their blog after writing 5 blog posts. Nobody signs up. New bloggers feel frustrated. But nobody should sign up because new bloggers who did not prepare for success by practicing for thousands of hours simple are not ready to succeed.
Prepare by learning from pros in your niche how to succeed. Practice core skills critical to your niche to the tune of thousands and thousands of hours. The same bloggers who cannot understand how I create and publish 7 blog posts after rolling out of a “bed rest scenario for 40 plus hours” usually practice blogging for like 50, 100 or maybe 300 hours at that. Of course it sounds impossible; you did not practice enough so you have not the skills to do it. I practiced blogging for 10,000 plus hours. You are not ready because you did not put in the work. But when you do put in the work you will be ready to succeed and success follows.
Coaching Example
Imagine if you never coached a single person in your niche. Picture creating a small handful of blog posts. Publish a coaching services page. Watch what happens: nothing. Nothing should hire you because you are not ready and you are not ready because you barely practiced creating helpful content and coaching people for free.
Be thankful nobody hires you; losing your reputation as a coach immediately damages the foundation of your business. Imagine paying someone $100 to $500 to tell you what they read on a fortune cookie, inter-spaced with “umms”…”likes”….ample dead air, and repetition of the same, simple concepts without any clarifying elucidation.
Coaching requires hundreds to thousands of hours of experience in your niche. Consulting people requires confidence, clarity and a certain type of sophistication. Practice. Prepare. Position yourself to succeed.
10,000 Hours or More
My blogging buddy and I released a blogging course recently. We fire up another live session tomorrow. I will roll out of bed at 11 AM likely – I need to catch up on sleep – and will speak 30-40 minutes live about blogging on topics I became aware of 5 minutes prior to the call.
Pulling that off requires 10,000 to 15,000 hours of blogging, writing, observing, studying, analyzing, mental science, immense clarity and a calm confidence in what I know. Perhaps I appear to do these calls off of the top of my head but that is code for: “Ryan spent 15,000 hours of the past decade blogging, often for free, to prepare himself for knowing this blogging stuff inside-out.”
Practice. Prepare. Ready yourself for success. Success meets you.
About the Author
Ryan Biddulph
Ryan Biddulph helps you learn how to blog at Blogging From Paradise.
Who Do You Really Follow Online?
As my mass unfollow on social media continues – 20,000 plus people in 8 days – I observe who I really followed
Watch Out for Poisonous Negative Influences
I am watching a comedy on Hulu now. Someone blames their failure on growing up in certain circumstances. A few minutes prior,
Be Open Versus Closed to Make Life Easier
I sometimes @reply my followers a greeting on Twitter. I tell them to have a great week, to enjoy the weekend, or
Find the Happy Medium Behind Torturing Yourself and Aversion
In 2016 at this time I lived in the remote jungles of Costa Rica. Amazing experience. I would not trade the 6
How to Handle Positive and Negative Reviews
“This is the first work I've read from Ryan and I must say It was pretty doggone good!” ~ 5 star review
7 Life Lessons I’ve Learned Over the Last 39 Years
Today's my 39th birthday. Statistically speaking, I'm nearly halfway through! Not sure why I said wrote that with excitement, knowing your life
Coaches Can Only Give What Coaches Have
I have 15,000 hours of blogging experience spanning 12 years of my life. I no longer actively coach but can give quite
Book of the Month: Who Moved My Cheese: An A-Mazing Way to Deal With Change
When major events happen, change is inevitable. This month's personal development book of the month is “Who Moved My Cheese: An A-Mazing
What Friends Need to Go?
Life is a series of comings and goings. People enter our lives. People leave our lives. Friends never seem immune from this
Do You Attack an Imagined Enemy?
Social media. Government. Politicians. News media. People routinely attack each as some enemy. But each is an imagined enemy. The only enemy
Stop Needlessly Judging Your Work
I developed one skill over the past 12 years of being a blogger that stands out from all else. I accept myself
Will Reading Books Make Me Successful?
I've read thousands, if not tens of thousands of books over the years. I am the owner and CEO of a multi-million