A few weeks back I interviewed Heather Solos, a blogger who you may or may not know. When Heather and I first started speaking on Twitter and when she was commenting on some of my posts here I wasn’t aware of just how successful she’d been with her blog. It turned out she had over 4000 subscribers and she had inked a book deal. But what’s interesting about Heather’s story is that there really are no tipping points, no break out moments, no stories of something going viral. When I asked her about the story she said it’s been a slow but steady path to growth over the course of about 4 years.
Many of us are so caught up in the ego inflation statistics of page views, tweets, and other measurable statistics that we lose site of something that you can’t quite quantify: writing awesome, inspiring content. Dan Andrews from the Tropical MBA told me that before he starts any project one of the most important question he asks himself is “Do I want to be doing this 5 years from now.” We may not know what the world is going to look like 5 years from now, but I think we can determine whether we’d enjoy doing what we’re doing 5 years from now. I can say with certainty that book deal or not, profit or not, I will still be writing at The Skool of Life.
I actually think there’s tremendous power in the 5 year perspective. A 5 year perspective takes the pressure to hit measurements and metrics off of you and enables you to aspire to something greater. What this technology has given us something amazing: the ability to share our stories of who we are and what we love with the world. Even if your story only touches the hearts and lives of a few people, it’s still a worthwhile legacy. In a recent post Joel Runyon described the power of creating a compelling story. If you looked at your blog from the 5 year perspective, I think you’ll be less attached to the common measurements of success and have a hell of alot more fun.
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