Most people believe I did something spectacular to live a life of travel through blogging. People think because I lived in a place like Fiji for 4 months that I wrote and published a viral post or perhaps landed a TV interview to live a dream life.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
I lived in places like Thailand, Bali and New Zealand for months at a time by writing blog posts, writing guest posts and generously building connections with successful bloggers. I simply publish content and build my blogger friend network daily.
Simple, basic actions lay the foundation for a successful venture. Rare indeed are successful businesses built on a viral video, a chance encounter with some celebrity or some other outlier event.
Ignorance
For about 20 years, I worked jobs on a part time and full time basis. I became completely ignorant of success principles because I only worked jobs to get money, having no interest in enjoying the ride or actually moving higher in my professional career.
Being completely ignorant of what it takes to succeed, I wrongly assumed living your dreams depended on a sense of luck, a spectacular encounter and perhaps some breakthrough, Eureka moment made famous in movies.
Boy, was I wrong.
Over the past 10 years of my life I learned how doing simple things for thousands of hours until you become highly skilled forms the foundation for a successful venture. In essence, the successful journey is quite simple but highly uncomfortable. The general public seems completely ignorant of this basic truth, instead pursuing gatekeepers, viral ideas or the next game changer in terms of a business niche. Every one of these folks whiffs because success is doing simple things for thousands of hours, even when doing so feels highly uncomfortable; no success shortcut exists.
Fear Thins Out the Field
Most people avoid fear at all costs. Doing simple things for 5,000 to 10,000 hours unearths virtually all of your deepest fears along the way.
Few succeed because most people avoid or bury deep fears versus feeling these uncomfortable energies. The few who reach their dreams see the absurdity in it all; if you face deep fears and sit with these energies for a few moments, doing simple things gets easier and easier and you become even more successful.
I recall receiving sponsored post opportunities once every few months during my early blogging days because I had not been doing simple stuff persistently enough. Now, sponsored post opportunities flow to me easily because I faced so many fears and created so much content that I gained massive exposure in my niche.
I kept doing simple things even when my fears told me to turn around. All of the simple, basic, creating and connecting I did over thousands of blogging hours gave me the credibility and exposure leading to a movie-worthy, dream life of travel.
Does this sound sexy? I write content and make friends. I also monetize my blog through multiple streams of income. Hollywood may not like it if they ever make a movie about my life, but this is how it went.
Persistently and patiently taking simple actions breeds long term success.