How Medium Changed My Life
Exactly one year ago I wrote my first Medium post about How Twitter Changed My Life. After blogging for a year, I’ve reflected on how Medium has impacted me, and the benefits of writing publicly.
Two years ago, Ryan Hoover blogged about how Everyone Has Something to Teach, no matter your level of work experience. I’ve taken the same approach to my writing, from blogging about my career transition and job hustling, Wisdom Shared From 78 Tech Trailblazers, How to Optimize Referral Programs, and 8 Steps to Optimize Emails — amongst others.
Blogging has helped me establish a reputation as a hustler and growth marketer that people can turn to for advice.
When I posted How I Hustled to Get the Perfect Job, I received lots of tweets and emails, for reasons including:
- Career advice sometimes from people 20 years older!
- Job opportunities from VCs/founders
- Request to advise startups on their growth strategy
I wrote the blog post for my immediate circle who asked about my career journey, and encouraged me to publicly share it to inspire others. I’ve been transparent, and have given strangers the opportunity to understand how I think.
In a strange way, writing — beyond tweeting and Facebook status updates — allows you to connect with people on a deeper level.
Tweet
Many people reached out, including my friend Greg Koberger, who I previously helped with growth marketing for his startup ReadMe.io. He made an introduction to some people he thought I should meet.
This intro email led to the usual coffee/tea meeting. I thought it would be like most chats where you get to know someone briefly, connect with them on LinkedIn, then continue through Twitter afterwards.
I was surprised to be connected with two ladies with whom I was able to not only talk endlessly about my career and startups, but also relate to on a personal level. We quickly became close friends over dinners, birthday celebrations, learning Swift together to build an iOS app, and motivating each other to achieve our goals.
I never expected that blogging on Medium would change my life in the way it did. Sharing my story publicly sparked an offline conversation that led to close friendships. It’s these special personal relationships that makes life meaningful.
Medium is not a publishing tool, as Ev Williams describes:
“[Medium is] a network of ideas that build off each other. And people.” Tweet
Take time to blog, and reach out to people whose ideas resonate with you. You never know what may happen next.
Thanks, Medium.
Thanks to Kim Pham for feedback — and being a great friend :)
Feel free to reach out on Twitter: @inaherlihy.
