Three and a half years ago, the math I was doing in grad school got boring. I had invested five years of my mid-twenties in post-graduate education, and now I wondered what it was all for.
So I started my first blog. A free, wordpress.com blog; anyone, right now, can start one in five minutes.
I didn’t have any world-changing ideas scratching and clawing to get out. No business model. No experience writing.
But I knew I wanted to do something different than what I was doing, so I just started.
A very quick two years later (the second one especially quick after our first son was born!) that blog became my full-time job. I quit my PhD program and was out on my own — free of what I viewed as work, but also free of a dependable paycheck and a backup plan — and with a wife, a baby, and two dogs depending on my little blog to support them. (To be clear, my wife still works a few days a week.)
For a decade I had known deep down that no other path than running my own business would ultimately make me happy. But I didn’t understand just how much it would teach me: in the 500 or so days since we made that scary decision, I’ve learned skills far more valuable than any I took from nine years of college and grad school. And I’ve also learned more about my myself — my emotions, strengths, weaknesses, values, and beliefs — than in any other time of my life.
Most of the experience of working for myself has been wonderful — a flexible schedule, meaningful work for a cause that I care about, thank-you emails from readers nearly every day, and my family’s freedom to live where we want and not be tied down by a traditional job — but it hasn’t been without stress and difficulty.
I understand now that the reason everyone doesn’t run a business is because not everyone would like running a business. Among other things, it’s a hell of a lot scarier than knowing that if you just show up for 40 hours a week and do what you’re told, you’ll get a paycheck every other Friday. (Which, viewed a different way, is the same thing those of us who love it, love about it.)
So that’s why I’ve decided to start this personal blog — after a few years of finally doing the thing that fulfills me most, there’s a lot I have to write about that doesn’t quite belong on No Meat Athlete. About time management, habits, happiness, and who knows what else.
And although this is by no means a business blog, I do have a lot to say about starting your own thing and spreading your ideas, whether those ideas take the form of writing, art, business, activism, or whatever else. We’re living in a time of incredibly rich opportunity to stand out, lead a tribe, make a difference … and if you’re in the position I was a few years ago, well, I hope you’ll find something here that helps you to finally make it happen.
With that, I start. Again.