Why I share on social media and the 6 reasons it created happiness in my life
It built my confidence, it built my skillset, it built my community
I never really thought that social media would be such a big part of my life. When I left my 9–5 job in 2016, I had 250 Instagram followers, I had maybe 3 videos on YouTube, and I had never written a blog post in my life. But over the past nearly 3 years, social media has become a daily, and often hourly habit that I’ve put into my life.
And while yes I consume a lot of content from others, what I’m really talking about here is all of the content I produce. I’m talking about the daily instagram stories, my medium blog articles, my occasional YouTube video, and my LinkedIn profile. Now if all of that sounds like a lot, it is. It was impossible to manage all of this myself 3 years ago, but over time, I practiced and I got better; and it just became a part of my life; a habit.
So what are the real reasons I love posting on social media and why it’s such a big part of my life?
1. It made me grow as a person
When I left my 9–5 job, I felt stuck. I felt stuck wondering if there was something more to see out there in the world. I felt like there was something missing. And through the process of traveling around the world and sharing my story with the world through social media; that feeling of being stuck turned into a feeling of being free.
Free to know that I can create anything I want in my life, free to know that I still can make a living while also exploring all that this life has to offer.
At the time, I felt that if I didn’t make this jump, I would always have this fear of regret if I woke up 30 years later and asked myself “What if?” That fear of regret disappeared about a year ago, and I feel so free with it gone. That question of “what if” changed to “what can I create?” and excitement for what happens next.
Through this whole process of sharing on social media, I already have created so much. I have created photos, videos, blog posts, travel adventures, and a community. I have improved my writing skills, my coding skills, my video editing skills, and my interpersonal skills with other people; both on and offline.
I really don’t know what other thing you can do in your life that would teach you all of these skills in such a short period of time. There is nothing else that will do this other than producing content each day and sharing it with the world.
It’s so scary to start. It’s scary to think what people will think and what people will say. But the more you do it, you stop caring about all of that. You stop caring because you have a story to share and you want to put it out there into the world.
2. It made me accountable
There was a specific conversation I had with my friend Barbara in Sintra, Portugal that made a huge shift in my life. We went hiking one day after arriving in Lisbon on the Nomad Cruise and I spent the afternoon discussing social media with her. She told me how she had grown her Instagram account from 1000 to 18,000 followers over 18 months.
I never had thought that would be possible for me, I was just some nerdy engineer that knew how to code and wanted to explore the world. But the main takeaway from that conversation was to be consistent; to post daily even if it seems like nobody is watching.
So that’s what I did, I started posting 3 times a day, every day, for 9 months straight. I wanted to make each row of my Instagram account a day in my life and share my story of my travels.
And it was that consistency that made me accountable to my audience, and my audience grew. With 12 months from that day in Sintra, I grew my Instagram account from 250 to 6000 followers, and that made my life change forever. More on this in a future post, but once I reached about 5000 followers, I gained confidence and connections that changed everything.
I started to be able to stay in Airbnb’s for free, I started to make videos for hotels in Bali, and I started to meet interesting people from around the world that were on a similar path as me.
3. It gave me a community
Until the age of 30, I think I always struggled to make friends and connect with people. I mean, that’s not to say I didn’t have communities; I had classmates in college, I was in the marching band, I had co-workers. But a deep sense of community and connection felt like it was still missing.
As most of you know, I have been on the Nomad Cruise 4 times and I’m now deeply engrained into that community; that was the beginning of the transformation. But I stress that that was just the beginning. I started to realize how important community was and how I could build my own communities. I started to realize that I never had to feel lonely if I had a whole community behind me.
And consistent posting on social media was such a big part of this process; the cruise was great to meet everyone, but how would we stay connected after we reach port? Social Media.
Social Media kept and continues to keep us connected. The people I interact with daily may be down the street, or half way around the world, but it really doesn’t matter anymore; we are all still connected.
And the great thing about the community we have formed is that we all still actually meet in person. Social media is the tool to keep us together, but it’s those in person meetings that really build and maintain the community.
We are more powerful together that we are by ourselves, so I hope you all realize the power in building community and what it can do for yourself and others.
4. It taught me new things
Each day the people I interact with on social media teach me new things and give me new ideas that I never even thought about before. I can now sit with Gary V or Lewis Howes at the breakfast table, I can learn from someone else that has been there before.
We have accelerated the process of learning so much by sharing our experiences and stories on the internet. I can learn things from entrepreneurs, digital nomads, software engineers, celebrities…and the list goes on and on. We can do this like never before.
But it also taught me skills to share my own story and be like these people. I had to learn how to edit photos better, I had to learn how to make videos, I had to learn how to write better so people would hear my story.
5. It made me happy and mentally healthy
Last year I did my first 90 day content challenge. I think I credit that challenge to the biggest piece of my mental development in my life. To have content to write on medium, I needed ideas. And those ideas came from several places, including recent conversations.
So after I had a conversation, I would sit down at my computer and then think about it. I thought about what I liked about the conversation, what I learned from the conversation, and how I could improve that conversation in the future. I thought about different pieces of content I could include in my blog posts that supported what I wanted to write about, which strengthened my thoughts and mental awareness.
And all of that together made me happy. I had better conversations with people which built more community, which made me less lonely and more confident. I felt like I was more educated on different topics and I felt like I had a message to share with others. I felt happy and I AM happy.
6. It made me want to create happiness in other people and let them live their best lives
So once I learned all of this stuff and got better at social media and all of these skills, I wanted to share it with others; I wanted to make other people happy. And that’s why I’m writing this blog post for all of you, to create happiness in your life. To teach you how to be happy.
That’s why I run sailing retreats in Croatia, that’s why I create groups like Those That Inspire, and that’s why I post so much on all of these different platforms. I want to share my message with you so you can learn everything I have experienced over the last few years.
And the amazing thing is I’ve started see to the same thing that happened to me happen in other people. I’ve started to see our current Those That Inspire 90 day content challenge change lives, like it did with Theresa after she watched this Yes Theory video and understood the concept of Seek Discomfort.
I continue to learn from others each day and I will until the day I die, but that’s what is so cool about this, we all get to teach each other and change each others lives.
So I ask you, what’s stopping you from sharing your story with the world?
As a side note, writing is truly a practice you can get better at. I just finished this article in about an hour. It’s approximately 1,500 words. I never would have been able to write 1,500 words without all of this practice. So go out there and start today. You won’t even recognize yourself in a few years if you start now. You can join our 90 day content challenge to get your feet wet to learn what producing content on social media can do for you.
If you want to learn about more inspiring ideas and people, be sure to join my Facebook group called Those That Inspire. We are a like-minded community of doers that help each other succeed in business and in life; and we have a lot of fun at the same time. You can find out more about the group and our current 90 Day Content Challenge by clicking on the links.
