Why I stopped writing to teach, when I’m learning more than ever

The truth is, I loved writing to help people — to teach what I learned.

I loved sharing that with others to help them improve on the things they do, but it was also a good marketing avenue for me and my business.

I would teach what I’ve learned, and I would show examples in the work I’ve done, and that I know other’s have done well.

I’m learning more than ever now, and my business is growing more than it ever has now, so why am I not writing as much?

Honestly I think it’s because of a few reasons that I think are really important:

1. I realized I was writing with recency bias — in other words, I was just learning something, and felt I knew it well enough to teach it to a large audience. After I realized a few of the things I heralded as amazing really led me to crippling stress, I thought “maybe this isn’t a good thing to be spreading” and instead I decided to wait before I write about something that I had just experienced.
2. I wrote with a lot of excitement due to what I had just discovered — which wore off over time when I decided to not write right away after learning or experiencing something. This is less about a reason not to write, and more about an emotion that is more or less keeping me from writing down my thoughts as effectively as I did before. I am compelled only to write about things that are consistent and important to me now over a long period of time, which for me is harder to do.
3. I’m busy learning instead of busy writing what I’ve learned — I’m learning more now than I ever have before, the business is growing faster than it ever has before, and I don’t feel that it would be smart to just share what I have learned in the short term as a new standard that you should aspire to as a new entrepreneur, or even a seasoned entrepreneur — because I don’t know if the things I’m doing right now are for the best, time will tell that. I feel that I am leading in the right direction, but I won’t know for a while.

Maybe this is what is the problem with blogs in general; we spread tactics, strategies, and ideas like it’s the gospel after first discovery. We get caught up in the momentum rather than reporting back once we get washed over the waterfall.

Maybe this is why wise people write books, more often than not because they’ve had enough time to understand what was good, and what wasn’t, and now they know so much about what was good that they can’t fit it into 1500–4000 words, they need 500 pages to do it justice.

I’ll still write blogs, but I’m going to wait until I really know what is true gold before showing off my pan full of sparkling rocks.

I’ll sift out the real gems and get back to you after a while. Perhaps we should all try to do the same, and stop sharing recency bias like it’s Warren Buffet’s handbook.

I’m looking forward to reporting back after my company hits a couple new milestones.

Until then, cheers!