How Blogging Can Change Your Life and Career

From my latest manifesto, “Blog Is a Platform”

This is a random selection of chapters from my latest book (manifesto) — Blog Is a Platform. You can find it the Kindle and Paperback versions on Amazon.

Blog Is a Platform — by Sergey Faldin. Book mockup by author.

A Blog Is a Platform

«The secret to success is to build the foundation for it,» wrote James Altucher.

It’s true. To become successful in anything (business, freelance, job, life), you need a platform.

What is a platform?

A «platform» is anything that can give you external opportunities. Having a platform makes life easier.

Having an audience is more important than having savings, real estate, investments, or business in today’s world. A blog is an ultimate platform.

Other examples of platforms in life:

– Business

– Investments

– Trust fund

– Fancy college degree

– Real estate

– Fame

– Good genetics

– Good looks

Not everyone is privileged to have these things.

I have none of those.

I don’t have a business (although I’ve built one in the past).

I don’t have any investments (only debts).

I don’t have a trust fund (my father went bankrupt when I turned 20).

I didn’t finish college (I dropped after 7 months).

I don’t own real estate (my family rented apartments).

I am not famous (yet). I don’t have great genes (my family has ample cases of cancer, obesity, mental disorders, and alcoholism).

My looks are pretty average, too (I wouldn’t be able to be a Hollywood star).

Sometimes I laugh when I look in the mirror because I look like a sloth (literally speaking, my face looks like that of an animal sloth).

But anyone — even someone with a sloth face — can build a blog. Anyone can build an asset — a platform — which will give them other opportunities (and I am talking about way more exciting opportunities than just making money from ads).

Anyone can have a platform if they set their mind to it.

Pick Yourself

It was 2007. My school friend was at my house in California for a sleepover. I showed him a new computer which dad bought me for my birthday. He took it from me, typed something and said:

“Here, check this out. It’s called YouTube. You can watch any music video you want on this website for free.”

Too bad, my childhood friend was wrong.

YouTube doesn’t exist so that you watch more Lady Gaga videos. It wasn’t created so that you could waste more time.

YouTube wants you to make your own show. To broadcast yourself. Medium wants you to write. Anchor wants you to upload a podcast. Spotify and Soundcloud are waiting for your latest song.

Yet, they are not going to pick you. Nobody is going to call and say, “Hey, congratulations! You should start a podcast right now. Here’s what it’s called…”

If you’re an aspiring movie director, waiting to be picked by a wealthy Hollywood producer, stop. If you’re someone who wants to become a writer when they grow up, don’t wait. And if you’re a musician, looking for a label to sign up with, please don’t waste your time any longer.

Because in today’s world, the only permission you need to do what you love is your own.

What Blogging Can Do For Your and Your Career

A blog is an ultimate platform because it can give you all of the things you need to become successful.

A blog will make you famous (i.e., help you build social capital). A blog will make you money. A blog will get you hired (and be an alternative to your obsolete resume). A blog can be an asset, which you can sell. It can help you build a business with no marketing costs. It can help you make friends. Showcase your work. Promote an important cause. Teach you how to communicate. Multiply your efforts a thousand-fold. Allow you to learn all your life.

You can even obtain an immigrant visa to the United States (yes, you can actually apply for an O-visa as a blogger, given that you fulfill specific criteria).

The opportunities and by-products are endless. We’ll explore them more in the later parts of this book.

And yet, most people view a blog only as a way to make money by selling ads. These people don’t realize, however, that they are artists.

The “Starving Artist” Problem

I have a good friend, he is a professional musician. Let’s call him George. Most people find his music tastes weird. But he can’t help himself. He keeps listening to the same songs over and over. He replays them on either the piano or the guitar and sings along, too.

Because he has to make money, George takes on odd jobs every now and then. Mostly it’s web design (although he is a terrible designer). In essence, he would make some company a logo for $100, buy groceries, and spend the rest of the week «off,» playing and listening to his music.

The problem came when George started to compromise his taste. He suddenly stopped playing and listening to music he liked and started listening to naysayers who told him he was weird.

Soon George learned that a local club would pay him to play electronic music. George decided to become a DJ. He followed the money.

Now, there’s a rule that you may or may not know about money and wealth generation in general. It’s this: money only comes from doing something valuable to others. And it doesn’t necessarily mean that what you find valuable will be valuable to others. That’s something called a “starving artist problem” — you do what you personally like. Still, you confuse what you find valuable with what other people find valuable.

In the old world, you’d have two options:

A) Adapt. Become like my friend George, and compromise your taste to make money. You would take gigs that would pay well to play something you don’t want. You would change your music style and adapt it to the audience. You would produce what other people find valuable, and you would follow the money. After all, the bills won’t pay themselves, right?

B) Tell the world to ‘fuck off’. And accept that you probably won’t achieve any monetary success. That would be George before he found out about the DJ gig. If you chose this option, you would sit at home, play your music, listen to whatever you want, and not care what the world thinks. These are the street artists of the world, creating something only they find valuable, not caring if somebody likes it.

Both of these options are viable. But again, they work for the old world.

The new world — the one we live in today — allows you to instantly connect to people who have the craziest, weirdest tastes imaginable. These people don’t have to live nearby.

If you’re obsessed about pink silk pillows, you can tens of thousands of people on the web who are just obsessed about them as you are. These people will be from various backgrounds and walks of life, someone will be from Pakistan, someone from Russia, and someone from Uganda, who was so happy to log on the local library computer and find a soulmate. This is the key principle of the ‘1000 true fans’ concept developed by Kevin Kelly, which we’ll’ go over soon.

Now back to the old world solutions. The problem with telling the world to fuck off is obvious: you die poor. The myth of a ‘starving artist’ is that — a myth. Most great artists are rich. The problem with adapting is not that obvious though.

What happens when you adapt your work to the audience, trying to fit their tastes — not yours — is that your art ceases to be art. Your writing becomes a copywriting job. And what used to be your unique music becomes CD office landlords use for elevator jazz songs. Remember, whenever money becomes the sole purpose of art, it ceases to be art and becomes a transaction.

Your art today has two variables: the content and the audience. In the old world, there was only one — the content, while the audience was constant. You couldn’t find a new audience that easily in the pre-Internet era. You had only one audience — the one in your city or village. Today though, you can find any sort of audience with a click of a button.

Go on Reddit. You will find a ‘subreddit” (a forum thread) for just about anything: from cat-video lovers to people obsessed with FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early).

The rule of money still holds true, you will need to create something other people find valuable to get paid. That’s just how the world works.

But unlike the old world, today you have a choice: you can either change your content (thus, adapting and turning your art into a freelance gig) or change an audience — and globally source the people who will understand and relate to your work.

The “starving artist” problem turns out to be not a problem after all. And I hope my dear friend George reads this, and will never compromise his taste again.

Blog Is a Scam

If you want to become a successful blogger, I’ve got bad news for you. You’ve been scammed.

A blog is a scam because people get into it, wishing to end up in the top-1%. Yet, blogging is like a lottery in this sense. Everyone wants to become Kim Kardashian, yet only 0.001% will.

By celebrating people like Kim Kardashian, you’re secretly celebrating your own potential success at winning the lottery.

People don’t know what they’re getting into. And they’re not to blame, because all they see on Instagram these days are rich, money and champagne. All you see on social media is top-1% of life, so you think that all life is that way.

(It’s not true even for the people you follow on Instagram)

The truth is, you don’t need a lot of followers to become a successful blogger. You don’t need to sell your soul, and you don’t need to do things you hate and say things you don’t believe in. Quite the contrary, to become a successful blogger (or artists of any type), you need very little.

What you definitely don’t need is to constantly check your stats and obsess over your follower count. To be able to drive ahead, you have to look forward. You won’t be able to drive if all you’re doing is watching the rearview mirror, wondering how much you’ve gone so far.

Make it easier for yourself. Lower your expectations.

Start with 1,000.

1,000 True Fans

This is an idea developed by Kevin Kelly — the founder of Wired magazine, that went viral among creatives. You can read about it on Kevin’s blog by googling: «kk 1000 true fans».

In short, it says the following:

1. The Internet allows you to find, connect to, and aggregate people with your unique tastes. The Internet is a big village, and there is no limit to the number (or variations) of communities you can build. One person can be a part of several communities at once.

2. To make a decent living as a creator, you just need to find 1,000 people who truly love your work. Your ‘true fans.’

3. The definition of a ‘true fan’ — is someone who is willing to drive 30 miles to the other side of the city for your next CD. It’s not the same as your ‘Facebook follower.’ These people will buy anything you produce. Such loyalty is earned through hard work on your part.

4. This model works if you’re able to find those 1,000 ‘true fans’ and are able to generate $100 worth of value per year. Then the following math takes place: $100 x 1,000 = $100,000 per year — that’s living to most folks.

The beauty of this idea (and why it spread so quickly) is that you don’t need to be a millionaire-blogger. You don’t need the same amount of subscribers as Kim Kardashian to become successful.

Pick your niche. Find your 1,000 true fans. Build genuine relationships with them. Produce $100 worth of value per year. Enjoy life.

149 Farnam St.

$149/year.

That’s how much Shane Parrish (of Farnam St. fame) charges members of his ‘Learning Community’ at www.fs.blog. You can pay more if you want, but that’s the minimum.

Even though most people are now familiar with Shane’s work, he is still very niche. His blog was first created by high-level individuals from the investing world, who would benefit from learning the methods of ‘value investing’ (Warren Buffet) and accurate decision-making.

Warren Buffet’s office is located on Farnam St. Hence, the name.

At the time of this writing, Shane has almost 200,000 followers on Twitter.

Imagine if just 1% of those people became a member of his community (which is super conservative).

1% x 200,000 = 2,000 members. Or $298,000/yr in recurring revenue.

Not bad for a blog, right?

How To Be a Great Leader

On a high level, the Internet is nothing but a collection of networks. And because we spend so much time online, our lives start to be dominated by these networks.

A real-life example of a network: association. An association of modern-day leaders. Entrepreneurs. Association of musicians. Writers. Poets. Any society is, essentially, a network.

The Internet allows anybody — with a click of a button — to create their own society, their own network. If you’ve got more than 2 people on Instagram, congratulations — you’ve got a network.

You can’t lead the Internet — that’s the whole point of it. But you can lead within the Internet, by creating your own networks (societies, communities). By creating your own network, you become its leader.

As a blogger, influencer, or content creator — you’re a network leader.

«The great leaders I’ve studied are all people whose energy and drive are directed outward. It’s not about themselves. It’s about something greater than themselves,» wrote Jim Collins.

As a blogger, you have a responsibility. You’ve got influence, and people are watching, reading, or listening to you. To be a great blogger — a great leader of your network — it has to be more than just about you.

You dedicate yourself to a mission. You use your content to either promote that mission or build on top of it (business, charity, organization). If you — as a blogger — can be a business, why can’t you be a charity and use your influence to fundraise for important causes?

You don’t have to do all of that. It’s a matter of choice, and an «if/then» question: if you want to become a great blogger, then that’s what you do.

You can make money from ads and talk about yourself all day long, or you can dedicate yourself to something more important, and use blogging as a tool to build a business, promote an important cause, or even advance your own career.

It’s your choice. The good news is, you don’t need to become great.

Greatness Is Overrated

No matter where you go on YouTube, you’ll see advice from «great» people giving out «great thoughts» so that we, too, can become «great.»

But greatness is overrated. It’s oversold.

What I love about ‘1,000 true fans’ model (or ‘100 true fans’ which I’ll talk about later) is that these things are doable. While being great — not as much.

You don’t have to be great to get 1,000 true fans — you’ve just got to be diligent about your work.

You don’t need to write like Neil Gaiman if you want to be an author. Being average is good enough. You don’t have to be like Steve Jobs if you’re an entrepreneur, simply being patient and attentive, and having a healthy dose of risk tolerance can make you a few million dollars. It’s absolutely doable to build an email newsletter with 2,500 people on it.

It’s not The Secret, and there’s no payment-upfront-after-signing-up-to-my-free-webinar. I am not saying cliche bullshit like, follow your passion.

I am telling you the truth, which I realized myself in 2019 and then started living it.

You can make a living doing something you love.

It’s far more reachable than being great. And unlike greatness, it’s less likely to break your heart. You can go extremely niche, be yourself, follow your passion, be a complete wacko, and still make money.

The biggest change that the Internet brought to the world is this: the ability for anyone to just be themselves — and monetize that.

It’s time to get rid of the old world mindset our parents instilled in us.

Don’t be great. Being yourself is more than enough.

Give and Take

The Internet is a network comprised of networks. Medium is a network. YouTube is a network. Your Instagram account is a network, which you are a leader of.

When you’re a part of the big network (such as the Web or YouTube), the value of the network expands as more people come into it. This is called the Metcalfe’s Law.

«Metcalfe’s law states the effect of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system», says Wikipedia.

Networks created a new type of economy. Some people call it ‘connection economy,’ you’ll hear me use the term ‘passion economy’ further in this book. The name doesn’t matter, the idea is the same: this new economy is the opposite of the industrial zero-sum, dog-eat-dog economy.

In the old economy, you took what you could — and you protected what you had. You had scarcity.

In the new economy created by the Internet, you don’t care about any of that because the rules are different. It’s not zero-sum. The more you give, the more you get.

By Metcalfe’s law, if you join the network, everyone benefits. 1+1 = 3. At the same time, when you give value to the network, everyone benefits. If you don’t give value, everyone suffers because we miss out.

As an artist and blogger, focus on what you can give to the network. Don’t leave anything to yourself. Show us your gifts.

If you focus on giving, the taking (money, followers, fame) will take care of itself.

You can find it the Kindle and Paperback full versions of this book on Amazon.

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