#people said literally that exact thing i think word per word 8 years ago

[love-fireflysong]

Got tagged by @queenofbaws like 6 seconds ago to do this thing and because I'm currently trying SUPER hard to stay awake for at least another three hours to get me back on a 'normal' sleep schedule for the next week and a half, we're doing this shit now! ...and also because if I don't do it now then I'll just forget about it and never do it asjdhkjahsdkjs

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

59! Not a bad total all things considered 😤

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

337,514. That's an average of 5,720 words per fic btw akjdshjkahsd

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Until Dawn mostly. Got a decent amount of Tales of Phantasia stuff as well as a lot of ideas for it but cause that fandom is even deader than ud's, I never actually write any of it lmao

4. Top five fics by kudos

Valentine's Day Prompts (crossed out because while it's *technically* my highest I do not count it for the sole reason that like literally not even ten minutes after I uploaded it I got like 50+ guest kudos all at once so those are clearly bots and the correct kudos count is probably somewhere between 20 and 30 lol) What I actually consider my top five fics by kudos are:

The Final Days of Our Youth

More Than Worth It (though considering it was posted only barely a week after the vday prompts the kudos may be a bit suspect here as well 🤔)

Nothing and Nobody But You

The Sound of Silence

Baby It's Cold Outside (so hold me tight in your arms and don't let go)

5. Do you respond to comments?

I did/do. And by that I mean I love to, but the last couple of years I've been letting the few I've gotten pile up due to not being in a good headspace to answer/I've just been really busy at that exact moment. Which is important, cause if I don't have the time to respond then and there, I will just keep forgetting to reply. Which is how I've reached the point where I have almost 2 year old comments that I want to respond to but I feel like shit answering them now 2 years later, and let me tell you the feeling does NOT get any less guilty the longer I wait to respond aksjdhkajsdhjk

(maybe I should use this time to answer them while I try to stay awake lmao)

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Hmmmm. I mean, technically the one I'm writing now? It's probably between Winter is Death and Not Only Monsters Hide Under the Bed where one fic involves Hannah slowly losing her free will as she spends a year with the Makkapitew taking over her body and the other is about a little girl hiding from the people sent to kill her village but being found and killed just before her brother got home to save her.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

...Somehow, this is the harder of the two to answer aksdjkjahsdkjashd uh.... pretty much any chrashley focus fic where the ending involves them actually confessing and getting together I guess? But if I have to chose one, I think The Final Days of Our Youth cause it's chrashley confessing and getting together, but also repairing their friendship that Chris very nearly torpedoed cause he's an avoidant moron.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Surprisingly no! Thankfully anyone who does not like the ships I write for does not read my fics and thus does not leave comments. And if there us people out there who just do not vibe with my writing style (understandable) they've just clicked back and not responded either.

9. Do you write smut?

Once! I did it once and only once because I just really, really wanted to read about an awkward and clumsy first time between Chris and Ashley and that, uh, did not exist. So I (unfortunately for everyone lol) took it upon myself to write it. That being said, because it is smut, it is unsurprisingly the one fic I can always count on getting a new kudos or bookmark on every now and then.

And I will probably never write another one again sorry not sorry lol.

10. Craziest crossover?

I mean the only crossovers I've ever done is my Outlast au stuff but I don't really consider that a 'crazy' crossover lol.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of! Like I'm not even sure that they've been scrapped by AI sites. Not sure why anyone would want to steal my fics in the first place though honestly.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I mean, no one's ever asked so I assume not? If they did though than all the power to them.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope! Never been asked and never asked anyone lol.

14. All time favourite ship?

I mean, Chris/Ashley easily, though Chris/Josh/Ashley is a *very* close second lol. (Chester/Arche is also a very close third but no one other than me here knows who they even are so askldjaslkdjsa)

15. What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Oh god, the actual main outlast au fic that really delves into how the initial prank on Hannah snowballed into climbing chrash being thrust into experiencing the events of the Outlast video game. Except that's not a wip I've even started despite all the notes and timelines in my head 😭

16. What are your writing strengths?

I do think dialogue is my strongest strength personally. I think it flows fairly naturally, to the point where I've sometimes gotten stuck on a scene and switching over to some dialogue either earlier on or just throwing a line in randomly will just unstick *something* in the brain and my creativity output stops being a blockage and returns to it's trickle aksjdhaskdhj

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Literally everything else? Descriptions. I just feel like I can't describe things very well and so I'm always worried that my writing tends to read flat because of it.

Also, due to being told that I'm a waste of space, stupid, ugly, blah blah blah by like 99% of my classmates from like grade 1 to grade 9 my self-esteem when it comes to shit like this is unsurprisingly pretty fucking abysmal! So every time I go to post something new I spend way too long hovering over that upload button convinced that this is the fic that will convince everyone that I'm actually a terrible writer and they won't like me anymore lol

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

Never had to use it before myself but it's neat when done... not right or well but, like, done to achieve something you've planned out. I'm not sure what ways I would use it myself, I think it would depend on what use I need it to have in the story itself.

19. First fandom you wrote in?

Oh Class of the Titans easy. Inuyasha is where I discovered fanfiction, but CotT is what inspired me to try it out for myself (my first attempt was uh, not great aksdjklasjdlkasj)

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Oh god, there's a tough question lol. Uh, probably between Baby It's Cold Outside (so hold me tight in your arms and don't let go) and Artificial though. Both are my babies, but Baby It's Cold Outside is the fic that finally started me writing again regularly since middle school after a like almost ten year drought. And Artificial is the one where I finally got to really sink my teeth into what makes my outlast au actually outlast and really get to experience a bunch of shit I had never really written before (torture (physical and psychological), whump, body trauma) and it turns out it was a lot of fun sdlkajsldkjaslkdj

Oh god I have to tag people to do this now don't I? Uhhhhh, @chris-hartley, @icequeen-07, @hannahwashington, @eurazba but if there's anyone else who follows me that wants to do this than please by all means go ahead! Share your work with the rest of us 💖

[scribeofred]

Thanks to @onereyofstarlight for the tag!

 1. What fandoms have you written for?

This is embarrassing but I actually had to look at both FFnet and AO3 because I couldn’t remember all of them. TRON: Legacy, Assassin’s Creed, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, Sherlock, Final Fantasy VII and XV and Kingsglaive, Voltron: Legendary Defender, Merlin, Skyrim, and, of course, Thunderbirds. I have a couple other fandoms that crop up in various wips, including a Tom Swift/Thunderbirds crossover that I really should finish.

2. How many works do you have on AO3 &/or FFNet?

FFnet has 45, and AO3 has 41. There’s also a couple stories lurking on tumblr, notably a final chapter for Reflection.

3. What are your top 3 fics by kudos on A03 &/or Favs on FFNet?

AO3 dominates in this area, if I can use a word like “dominates” for stories that have less than 125 kudos each haha. Oh well, the numbers don’t matter!

1.     118 kudos on tell the shades apart (my world is black and white)

2.     94 kudos on Reflection

3.     91 kudos on The 43rd Hour

4. Which 3 fics have the least kudos & Favs?

Again on AO3:

1 kudos on I Am You (And You Are Me)

5 kudos on The Dragonborn Chronicles

6 kudos on cynosure

5. Which Fic has the most comments and which has the least?

Reflection has the most at 29 threads, and I Am You (And You Are Me) has the least at zero.

6. Which complete fic do you wish had gotten more attention?

Lodestar, definitely. Sure, it’s for something of a rarepair, but they aren’t that rare, and I just really really like the way the story came together. On the other hand, of course my unfinished Merlin fic has gotten probably the most attention, because that’s just the way it goes, eh?

7. Have you written any crossovers?

None that I’ve published! I have various crossovers lurking in mostly unfinished states, including the aforementioned Tom Swift/Thunderbirds crossover, and an Assassin’s Creed/Thundeerbirds crossover that is very good and I should also finish. There’s an Expanse/Thunderbirds fic lurking in my brain that I may or may not ever commit to paper, who knows. I’ve also very vaguely toyed with a Batman/Thunderbirds crossover, in the sense that “nebulous” is too strong a word for the kind of toying I’ve been doing.

8. What is the craziest fic you’ve written?

I don’t really write crazy or crack or humor in general, so probably the closest thing to “crazy” is On the Lam, which was the result of wanting to throw Scott and Penelope toward an Egyptian stud farm. It ended up being the host for a bad joke about that, courtesy of one @thebaconsandwichofregret, who consistently gives some of the best dialogue advice I’ve ever encountered.

Actually, the true answer is probably a chapter in Glimpses into a Supernova, maybe the one about blood? It seems bonkers when I think back on it now, but I admittedly haven’t read it in many years. Possibly I am misremembering. Glimpses has some weird ones, though.

9. What’s the fic you’ve written with the saddest ending?

It’s a tossup between The Painting and a place where the water touches the sky. The former deals with a prior off-screen death; the latter is (maybe??) an on-screen death. People seemed upset by it, at any rate. I said it was ambiguous!

10. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

“Happy” is probably a matter of perspective? Depends on the overall reading experience and the ending within that context. Either septet or Three Towels and a Tracy, they’re both pretty fluffy overall.

11. What is your smuttiest fic?

protoinstincts, which I completely forgot I wrote and then rediscovered like a year later and realized “hey, this is actually pretty good” and you know what, despite it not being overly spicy, it is pretty good.

12. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not hate, per se, but someone left a review on Less Than Nothing saying they “didn’t like” that I “wrote the story as a series of drabbles.” Cool, I didn’t write the story for you, random guest reader, and the back button exists, friend 😂 It didn’t bother me on a personal level because I wrote the fic for an audience of one (incidentally, not myself and rather the recipient of a secret santa event), but I was mad because the reviewer had no way of knowing where I was at as a writer, and I know from longtime observation how that kind of comment can crush less experienced or confident writers.

Don’t leave flames, kids, you don’t understand the power your words have. Don’t like, don’t read.

13. What is the nicest comment you’ve received?

The nicest? Goodness. Hmm. I’d have to go hunting to find the nicest, but in recent memory, @ayzrules sent me a couple passages from Spanish texts she’s been studying that reminded her of my writing, and I was honestly so touched by the fact that she even thought to make such comparisons, much less mention them to me. Taking the time to familiarize yourself with someone’s style until you can make comparisons between it and someone else’s work is so much more meaningful to me personally than a basic “Nice story!” or “Loved this!” type of comment ever could be. <3 Ayz <3

14. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I’m aware of, but I’ve never gone looking on any sort of copycat site or whatever either.

15. How many fics do you have marked as incomplete?

Two. First is The Dragonborn Chronicles, which is a retelling of Skyrim from Lydia’s perspective via her journal, to complement the in-game journal. It’s a slog of a style to write, though, even for someone who loves writing first person and doesn’t really want to write a lot of dialogue, and the outline is huge, and the story will be many times more huge, and just. Some day. Some day.

Second is tell the shades apart (my world is black and white), which has always been unfinished because the outline itself is over seven thousand words and the fully written story would undoubtedly land between 100,000 and 200,000 words, and there’s no way I’m writing that. I’ve always meant to upload the outline, but I got kind of self-conscious about the way I formatted it, and ugh I just haven’t bothered. One day, one day, right?

Moral of the story is I’m intensely a short story writer, and I’ve really found myself settling into that role over the last couple years. Better a clipped, punchy short story than a bloated slog of an epic.

16. Which of the WIPS will most likely be finished first?

Literally no one knows that. I wrote 95% of the observable entropy of a closed system over five years ago, and then I proceeded to pull it out roughly once a year and write and rewrite various endings until last month, which was when I finally figured out how I wanted to end the story. septet, too, languished for about five years before I finally remembered it existed and managed to wrangle an ending. Endings are hard, man. So are those third plot points. Terrible creatures, those, bog me down every time.

17. Which WIP are you looking forward to finishing?

Uh... mm. See. If I were looking forward to finishing any of them, I’d be actively working on them. At this moment, writing fic isn’t exactly high on my list of priorities, but I am also coming off a four-day idle game bender, so I still feel like I haven’t quite reengaged with myself as a living person. Give me another few days and I might have an answer.

(I am always most looking forward to finishing this ridiculous Ignis-drives-the-Audi-R8 fic that’s been languishing in my wips for literal years. As mentioned above, third plot points. Killer, man.)

(oh and also the working-titled the art of murder. Scott and Penny attend a private art auction. Things don’t go to plan. It, too, is stuck at the third plot point. I know, I know I have a problem, shush.)

18. Is there a WIP that you’re considering abandoning?

Any wip has the potential to be revived—this year and the old wips I’ve unearthed, dusted off, finished, and posted have been proof of that. I don’t intentionally permanently abandon anything for that reason, some stories just probably will remain dusty old wips forever because I didn’t actually need or want to write the full story for one reason or another.

19. Which complete fic would you consider rewriting?

Now that’s an interesting question. Hmm! Honestly? None of them. Once I finish a story, I’m not inclined toward rereading it again any time soon, to the point of years in some cases, and I feel like I’ve moved on from the stories I wrote one, two, five, eight years ago in the actual writing sense. They’re finished stories, and on top of that are relics of their time, which doesn’t mean the stories don’t have any ongoing significance on a reading level—I just don’t have any interest in rewriting those particular stories. I’ve gotten them out of my head, to the point of not remembering at least a third of them on demand anymore, and I don’t have any desire to “retell” those exact stories. I do tend to tighten the wording and fix perceived errors/weaknesses whenever I do end up rereading an old story, and I usually silently update the AO3 version if I make any significant changes because AO3 makes it a breeze to update a posted fic. I might do FFnet too if I’m feeling up to it or have the time.

20. Which complete fic is your favourite?

Once upon a time I would’ve said Holding On, but I honestly find it kind of unbearably melodramatic now. the observable entropy of a closed system is equally melodramatic, as it was written in the same era, but at least it has the excuse of being told in second person and via a style that is a half step away from being poetry. Possibly I will reread it in a few years and find it equally obnoxious and overly dramatic, but it received some shockingly positive comments, which I wasn’t expecting at ALL, and I’ve been honestly blown away by the amount of praise it’s received. <3 to everyone who’s said anything about it!

21. What’s your total published word count?

141,000 on AO3, 160,000 on FFnet, but technically the light of my life SS wrote fifty thousand words of each. It’s too late for math.

 I tag @velkynkarma, @lurkinglurkerwholurks, @writtenbyrain, @thebaconsandwichofregret, and anyone else who wants to play!

[pestopascal]

While I will absolutely agree that CB2077 isn’t the ONLY game doing all this bullshit, or that other AAA studios don’t deserve the flack CDPR is getting, I have to say that this is absolutely the perfect storm and I think people are FINALLY seeing the problems in modern AAA gaming. CB2077 might be fun to play, may have a good story, but it’s almost impossible to see because of the glaring issues. Which, honestly, is a good thing. I hope games change after this.

under here

AAA studios have been like this and this sort of release has been completely normalised on all accounts by both the businesses themselves and fans because of the inherent reliance on modders (bethesda at the forefront of this), as well as the pushback every time companies actually go ‘uh we need a lil more time’ (although... they just shouldnt announce potential release dates, im even of the camp they shouldnt even start releasing the game until like 6 months out from their official date because they fuck it up every time. borderlands 3 being the only game i know of being in “secret” development and then announcing itself in march for a september release. game itself aside, thats how companies should do it). easily i can remember a lot of 2011 release games which have had the exact same issues as cp77′s release, and then every other game in between since. very rarely do you actually have a game that isn’t a fucked up mess of a pile of pixels. and it is always the customisable character ones that are honestly, genuinely, ugly looking at release. but you can definitely say its been happening looooooong before 2011, with unrealistic expectations, word limits, 11 month time frames, offloading sequels to smaller companies so they can suffer if it fails, etc etc. the entire system has been like this for so long... they dont know any real different nowadays.

i mean look. tlou2 released under crunch conditions this year, and was rewarded. it was ALL over the social media feeds, it was quite the controversy because, surprise surprise, the company promised they wouldnt do it uwu and then. bam ! crunch conditions. literally around that time too, bioware employees came out with a statement saying ‘man we wish dai FAILED so that back in 2014 we couldve proven crunch was a wrong practice’. they say this as well after having to produce da2 in 14 months, which just suffered from fans and journalism for reusing environments, because it was produced in 14 months, and honestly? no one pointed that out back then, bioware themselves pointed it out again this year, 6 years after release, that that game was produced in 14 months. rdr2′s release was hounded by stories of crunch, and they all disappeared into the night because... it was heralded as the best game of all time. that was 2018, 2 years ago.

i think too is that some people get kind of ... morally and ethically concerned. which is understandable. can you consume something when you know it was made under conditions like crunch? and i think one of the most confronting things about it is that 9/10, not only has your favourite company engaged in crunch conditions, they almost actively choose to continue with them. and then that’s a whole other bag of issues blown up over there when it comes to what is able to be consumed what isn’t etc etc

i think also like a mix of marketing, promises and then the expectations of what the game will be like have really had cdpr earn the ire of fans which is just like... you don’t believe what these companies are saying. you never should, esp when it’s their ceo’s saying it who don’t work on the actual floor. bioware itself is the main culprit of doing this to the point they finally came around with all the da4 concept art and teasing to be like ‘ummm but actually dont get invested?’. remember all that qunari lady fanart that bioware management was like ... please dont get attached? yeah. yeah. like at what point as well is there going to be heavy level of apprehension to approach this? and i can’t really talk either, i cracked open the door for mass effect again. i know exactly what kind of shit bioware will pull, i know they are teasing it already on social media, but mass effect is my ride or die series. that’s why people keep opening the door on letting these companies get away with it. and you can’t fault fans entirely either because this is down to a science of how to get money. i mean, fuck, mass effect andromeda’s entire advertising campaign HINGED on the n7 logo. for the nostalgia value. and i see text posts in the same vein of both ‘guys, disney isnt gonna fuck you if you consume every remake for nostalgia value’ and ‘its understandable why people do it’.

so then you have to go ‘well are fans as just to blame’ and then that’s a whole other argument.

i think also like. i personally havent run into aaaannnyyyyyyy of the issues that you see posted online. which is ironic bc 1) i play on ps4 and 2) its an old dusty ps4. in fact a lot of ppl i have spoken to who have had issues have played on pc. does this mean the glitches dont exist? ofc not, the vids and screenshots are right there. but like... ive had a basically unhindered experience so far, and i get where ppl are coming from (i do, i promise) where theyve basically found the game unplayable. is there also a standard of what ppl consider unplayable because ive played most AAA games at launch when they basically rushed to slap the box label on the game and called it a day until they work on patches. when ppl consider unplayable is also just... different per person. some people have a slight blur on the screen when turning too fast even in an MMO and decide the game is horrible and unplayable. some people can have broken quests and npcs not loading and falling through maps and still be fine. there’s no agreed statement of what makes a game unplayable either, which is why you read threads on twitter and someone goes ‘yeah this npc t-posed so i quit in the first hour’ with a dozen replies. everyone has different levels of it.

it’s a mixed bag of issues. im not excusing cdpr, but the ppl who worked on the game are honestly likely not the ones who pushed for a release. you’ve gotta look at sony and microsoft and ceo’s with bonuses coming up and the investors and shareholders and people who sit behind computers and read numbers detailing interest and demand and supply and how every single time they had to delay this game, the loudest (but smallest) bunch of assholes on like reddit and in the twitter threads complained that it was delayed AGAIN even though back in what 2015? they said it’ll come out when it’s ready. and yeah there are times when game delays result in a mismatched half assed sort of story (kh3... p5... ffxv... dai...) and then there are times when, if they need to delay the game... they probably need to delay the game. sometimes delays are bad sometimes theyre good sometimes you are sitting there like whew if you only didn’t try to be like THIS TIME this is the release date.

the ONLY WAY this will stop happening is, quite frankly, unionising. and everyone is allergic to that whole concept so like... this is “the perfect storm” as you put it. but it’s also not. people have been so disappointed over the last 2 years alone for gaming companies, the final product, the attitudes from higher ups, that i think cdpr is receiving a good few years worth of anger. i think theyre also on the receiving end of misdirection from american fans who still don’t fucking get the company isn’t american, because that’s another bag of issues as well. like we’re holding at least 8 bags of groceries out of the back of the car now, and we don’t want to take another trip, because there are so many little bits of this entire situation to look at. there’s so much back and forth.

i think the worst, but most realistic thing is: games won’t change. how they will social media wise will. maybe. assuming bioware gets their heads out their asses but... they’re going to be a lot more careful. i mean, hell, sony offered refunds. that was just a publicity stint. they dont give a fuck if the game was bad. as i said before, if they did, they would make all companies fix trophy problems, starting from like 2010 or whenever the trophy system first came out. they just don’t wanna fall in alongside cdpr being thrown on its sword. but the companies are gonna learn from this, get smarter, still do the same shit to their employees, still pay off journalists, still do media blackouts, etc etc. and we’re gonna be here in another year’s time, with another game, having these same roundabout arguments, and cp77′s issues are gonna fade into just a wikipedia article.

[creatingnikki]

Dearest Alyssa,

I kid you not but I have been trying to figure out whether you mean it literally or as a metaphor when you say you can curl your toes and walk on them. Because if you can like actually do that, how fucking strong is your body and your balance? I just came back from my Yoga class (after missing it for two weeks) and I can vouch that the things that look the easiest when someone else is doing them are the hardest when you have to do them.

I have dyed my hair once – back in 2017 in college around Valentine’s Day. I wanted to get them dyed bright red but my mom coerced me into getting a maroon sort of shade to kinda tone it down. I don’t regret it, I love how my hair looked then and even after – for the next 1.5 years the colour kept fading and giving me different shades of beautiful brown and golden and it was gorgeous. However, I don’t see myself doing it again. I don’t know what your reasons are for now dying your hair but maybe you’d like to know this study that says using hair colour/dye can increase cancer risk in women. However, here I will spill some interesting thing I’ve learned lately.

I work as a content creator/specialist at a marketing agency and I can tell you this – from my regress research and reading to write – there’s a study for literally everything. Everything we do or don’t do increases our risk for something – cancer, heart disease, dementia, obesity. And there are always 10 other studies that will say the exact opposite. And then there will be studies that prove something that a study proved 10 years ago wrong. Because what really is a study? It can have a sample size of as little as 50 people (yes, I’ve seen people carry on an experiment on 20 people for 4 weeks and call that a study and then say 90% people stated …. as per our recent study. So, wow, I should base my life decisions on the basis of 18  people? No, thanks!) I mean sure, some things by now are common sense. For instance, not sleeping for 7-8 hours every night is one of the worst things you can do to your body and mind. But everything else? We just have to take with 10 spoons of salt! Maybe not, because then that will lead to heart disease. But you get what I mean, right?

And oh my god this was just a low-key rant because I have been thinking about this for a while. Of course, it has nothing to do with your decision to not get your hair coloured. It just made me think of this.

About love…yes, as you said it’s about accepting people as they are and being with them through thick and thin. But that is so bloody hard! Recently, in this comedy sketch, I watched by the comedian Daniel Sloss, I heard him talk about how if someone doesn’t love you 100% like everything about you then they don’t love you! Because even that 1.11111 annoying per cent is you. Everything is you! And to love you they have to love all of it. Accept all of it, at least? Over the last one week, I came to the realisation that I am not ready for a relationship because I am not physically, emotionally or financially there yet for a serious, healthy and long-term one. And gosh I definitely want the next one to be a serious, healthy, nurturing, and long-term one. And it wouldn’t be fair of me to accept that from the other person when I can’t be that person yet. And I know, I know, it shouldn’t matter that I am fat or that I cry almost every day or that I am yet to figure out my career moves – the guy should still love me.

But how can I let someone love me when I don’t love myself? When I’m not happy with where I am and as I am. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate myself. Oh no, no. I quite like myself but I also know there’s so much to work on. So I’m going to start and maybe when I feel stable enough, I can let someone be there on the rest of my journey. Right? What about you? Are you there yet? I hope that irrespective of where you are in the journey, you can be kind to yourself and take care of yourself.

I’ve been learning Korean and I know Hindi. And you know what’s one similarity between these two languages that is strikingly different than English? The word ‘sorry’ and its use.

English – I’m sorry

Korean – Jesuhabnida

Hindi – Mujhe maaf karna

Consider this situation – You just misplaced your bag with your phone and wallet and everything else in it and I see you and I’m like hey what’s up and then you tell me about it.

In English, I may say something like – gosh, that sounds terrible! I’m sorry that happened

But in Korean or in Hindi I would never say sorry. I would probably just be like gosh, that sound’s terrible! Because in these two languages sorry is more like ‘excuse me’ or like ‘I made a mistake, forgive me’. So if I told you in Korean Jesuhabnida or in Hindi mujhe maaf karna it would sort of be like I had something to do with you losing your bag. Am I making sense or do I sound a little crazy right about now? It’s just that it’s so interesting how different languages change how we interact with others. English is a funny language. That’s my conclusion after being trilingual (almost).

So, about your grandmother, I will not say, ‘I’m sorry’ and I know you may not like when people say, that. I wouldn’t like it either. But know that I send you love and strength. It must have not been easy being the only one with her when she passed away. But at least she had you, and that’s something.

February is approaching its end. We’re officially in 2020, living this new year, this new decade. I hope if not in big, explicit ways but in tiny and meaningful ways it’s going your way and that it continues to.

Love, Nikki

PS It warms my heart to know that you’ve said ‘I love you’ the most to your family. It makes me think that you’ve had a wholesome, safe and loving home and that is just the best thing.

I wrote this letter for Alyssa basis some questions they answered. You can read the questions and their answers here. 

Guys - I have received 29 people’s responses for The Love Project - 29 days of love letters. So I won’t be accepting anymore, however, you can read other letters here.

I may do this again later in the year and if you would want to receive a love letter from me then, you can drop in your email ID here xoxo

[united-we-stand-politics]

Another Trumpet Bites The Dust

So, I got called a "creep" for defending Biden against this dumb fuckery. I'm a creep because they were embarrassed...... not because they reflected for TEN SECONDS and realized, okay you have a point. This DOES make me look like a hypocrite and quietly deleting the post hoping no one else would see it. They did it because they knew DAMN WELL how WRONG they really were and can't stand how much they embarrassed THEMSELF. The typical Chump supporter is a fellow narcissist and the narcissistic personality can never admit fault, even when they're caught RED HANDED. They post all this crap about Holy Trump this, and Godsend Trump that, and then post something criticizing another for the EXACT SAME THING?! There's a word for that.

hypocrite

 noun

hyp·​o·​crite | \ ˈhi-pə-ˌkrit  \

Definition of hypocrite

1: a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion

2: a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings

I wonder if they realize that they are the literal definition of this word when it comes to definitions 1 and 2? 🤣🤣

So, here's what happened. Sean Hannity tried to make a big deal of #JoeBiden kissing his own granddaughter on the lips. I don't BELIEVE that I have to explain this, but some families do that. I kiss my daughter on the cheek, but she's a mouth kisser. So, I kiss her on the mouth. I researched this a few years ago when she started doing this as I was raised to kiss the cheek and felt weird about it. What I found was that child psychologists say there's nothing wrong with it and in fact, encourage it in some instances. Truth be told - there's no "right way" to show affection to your children, loved ones and that any affection shown to a child is a good thing.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election/biden-kiss-granddaughter-lips-hannity-trump-ivanka-a9315351.html

Now, it's one thing to talk about someone politically, but to say the things that some are saying about him is just plain wrong. Imagine someone said that about you...?! Not to mention the fact that the guy these people support has ACTUALLY been ACCUSED of sexual assault by over FIFTY women, two of which were minors, one of which came out with her allegations against Trump and Epstein BEFORE the election and BEFORE Epstein was EVER accused by anyone else!!! 😲😲

https://www.snopes.com/news/2016/06/23/donald-trump-rape-lawsuit/amp/

I find it rather hypocritical, ignorant and foolish, (not to mention embarrassing), how Trump's base constantly accuses others of doing the same exact shit that Trump does, with NO EVIDENCE to back up their claims WHATSOEVER. That is HIS granddaughter and she seemed perfectly content to me. You'd think they'd learn after they got caught doctoring that one video of Joe Biden, Jeff Sessions and his grandkid. It turns out that the video was doctored by a "YouTuber". (Surprise, surprise.) They call these "deep fake" videos, mostly purported by the right.

Furthermore, by their own standards, Trump HAS to be a child molester. If pictures of kissing a family member on the mouth makes one a child molester, than he is guilty as all get out. I highly doubt they would like to address the PLETHORA of pictures and videos of Trump inappropriately touching his daughter at young ages? Or do they not know anything about that? (Of COURSE they know.) Or is it okay because no matter what that PIG does, people back him up anyway because the non-existent-never-gonna-happen wall is more important? (Racism at it's HEIGHT).

Picture 1:

Ivanka and her Dad at age 14. His hand is under her breast. He must be a child molester!

Picture 2:

Ivanka at age 14 being inappropriately touched by her father.

Picture 3:

At age 17 sitting on her Dad's lap. Sorry. That's a bit inappropriate in my OPINION. He must be a child molester.

Picture 4:

Ivanka at age 15. Her Dad's hand around her hip again. I find this also inappropriate. He must be a child molester per your observations.

Pictures 5-7:

The Trumps in 2017. His hand is on her hips while his fingers rest on his daughter's ASS. DEFINITELY not cool. He must be a child molester!!

Pictures 8-9:

And last but not least, TRUMP KISSING HIS OWN DAUGHTER ON THE LIPS.

They walked into that one, just like Hannity did. He's the epitome of a hypocrite, so I'd steer clear of repeating anything he says if you folks want people to ever take you seriously.

Now, at the end of the day, I ALWAYS do my research. I read...a LOT... and I am VERY intelligent. I know the difference between real accusations and a smear campaign, especially after Trump got CAUGHT smearing Biden, Yovanovich, and several others. (This is why you can't just spew forth anything that comes to the top of your head. No one believes you - even when you're telling the truth.) Now... Joe Biden is one of those touchy feely people. I'M A TOUCHY FEELY TYPE OF PERSON. I DARE someone to call ME a child molester. Im not Joe!! I'll find you and beat the fuckin brakes off of you. But, since Joe IS A GOOD PERSON, he put out a statement saying he understands why some might misconstrue his intentions. That's funny, because I sure the hell can't. I can tell you that I am a VERY affectionate person and no one has EVER accused me of such a thing. Why? Besides the obvious, it's not NORMAL to compare a touchy feely personality WITH A CHILD MOLESTER!!!!!!!!!! What the actual fuck, man? I'm sick of these dirty politics and Russian propaganda in my face every day. No offense to the Trump supporters on my buddy list, but if this post describes you, than you need to WAKE UP. Joe took the HIGH ROAD. He not only answered to his incredible allegations, and said that he would work on not being so touchy feely in the future.

https://youtu.be/1jc5Ec8SWQk

So, now all you have left is the very real lawsuit against Trump for RAPING a THIRTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL. Make a post of your outrage at this incident or SHUT THE FUCK UP because no one worth a fuck is falling for it.

I will also explain WHY this doesn't make sense EITHER WAY you spin it, to those of you who STILL just don't GET IT. Let's say for shits and giggles that yesterday I posted something nasty about another clean addict on the methadone clinic and said that they weren't really clean. Then today, I post something else congratulating a different methadone patient on their "sobriety". Now, would you be able to take ANYTHING I said in the future regarding addiction, or anything else for that matter, seriously? No. Of course you wouldn't. Why? Because you would have seen that I had contradicted myself via hypocrisy. You would have seen that I had already stated that I don't believe such a person is clean, so why the FUCK would I congratulate someone for something I believed they were NOT. I WOULDN'T. I'm not a hypocrite. You do the math. 😉😉❤❤

[league-of-light]

2019 What’s the Weekly Challenge Rankings Week 1 Weekly Challenge What Is It IDP Flex Weekly Challenge? Rankings

What’s up YouTubers it’s the Will + Dyl show back at it again with another set of power rankings. And by Will + Dyl back at it again I mean Dylan back at it again while I incoherently ramble nonsensical garbage next to him. We’re off to a great start. Per usual, Dylan will provide his EXPERT level statistical analysis of players and teams, and I’ll pick some stupid meme to run with. This week we’re going with Super Smash Bros because Banjo Kazooie just dropped and it’s the only light in my life outside of Ace and Dairy Delight. Anyway, take it away Dylan.

__________________________________________________

Howdy folks! It’s been a while. I’ve wanted to get back into writing Power Rankings, but it seemed like a bad idea. I haven’t followed football late in the 2017-2018 season, and honestly, I have no idea what’s going on. But Will has convinced me that it doesn’t matter, and that I can do these anyway. So without further ado, here are my power rankings, based on what I understand about the league from almost two years ago. 

11. Cleveland Browns

The Browns have been the worst organization in football for about 15 years. Last I checked, this team was losing every single game, finishing the season 0-16. And now it seems that Josh Gordon DeShone Kizer aren’t even there anymore? This team has no shot. I don’t know who this Daniel Jones fellow is, but hopefully he can help; otherwise, this team is primed for a lot of losses. 

Super Smash Bros character: Pichu. If you’ve played Smash Bros, you know that Pichu has nearly the same moveset (if not the same exact moves, sue me Evan I don’t use Pichu) as Pikachu. The only difference is, anytime Pichu attacks, it also hurts itself. Just like me, every time I look at this stupid gimmick team I decided to go with instead of actually trying to win free money.

10. Honedge Heroes

Antonio Brown AND Le’Veon Bell? I’m not a fan of taking the two Steelers, who will steal touches from each other. Brandin Cooks is great, and I like Derrick Henry, but I’ve never even heard of half of this team. This team should suspend any hope they had of being a contender. 

Smash Bro: R.O.B. Rob is a robot, so is Dylan.  I am reminded about a thing I read today on Reddit about a robot. It was written by Douglas Adams. Please hold while I find the quote:

A robot was programmed to believe that it liked herring sandwiches. This was actually the most difficult part of the whole experiment. Once the robot had been programmed to believe that it liked herring sandwiches, a herring sandwich was placed in front of it. Where upon the robot thought to itself, Ah! A herring sandwich! I like herring sandwiches. It would then bend over and scoop up the herring sandwich in its herring sandwich scoop, and then straighten up again. Unfortunately for the robot, it was fashioned in such a way that the action of straightening up caused the herring sandwich to slip straight back off its herring sandwich scoop and fall on to the floor in front of the robot. Whereupon the robot thought to itself, Ah! A herring sandwich...etc., and repeated the same action over and over again. The only thing that prevented the herring sandwich from getting bored with the whole damn business and crawling off in search of other ways of passing the time was that the herring sandwich, being just a bit of dead fish between a couple of slices of bread, was marginally less alert to what was going on than was the robot.

^ This is Dylan, and the herring sandwich is the New York Mets.

9. Cursed Will

It’s tough to rank the team with the best player in football (Aaron Rodgers) this low. But Jordy Nelson is getting up there in years, so I’m not sure how good Rodgers receivers will be. 

Super Mash Potato: King K. Rool.  Dylan had a pretty fire one for this, so I’ll let him take it away:

IT’S NICE THAT AFTER YEARS OF FREELOADING IN SMASH GAMES AS A TROPHY AND A STICKER, KING K. ROOL FINALLY DECIDED TO CONTRIBUTE AND BE PART OF THE SMASH ROSTER. THIS DOESN’T HELP ALL OF THE PEOPLE WHO SPENT YEARS WITH THE EARLIER SMASH GAMES, BUT I’M SO FUCKING HAPPY THAT NOW THAT HE’S OLD AND IRRELEVANT, HE FINALLY DECIDED TO BE USEFUL.

For those who don’t know, Evan now pays rent. For those who also don’t know, Evan and King K. Rool are both thousands of years old, have leathery skin, and eat Taco Bell every other day. Also, check out this screenshot of K Rool from when Banjo was announced, it’s literally the most Evan photo on the internet.

8. Float Like a… Whine Like AB

I’m not sure why they have Alex Smith’s backup at QB. Davante Adams and Michael Thomas are great, but Mark Ingram seems to be their only competent RB. Maybe they’ll get Alex Smith and find a way to contend. Otherwise, I’m not really sure what this team is doing. 

Smush - Donkey Kong. For those of you who don't know, Donkey Kong got his name because Nintendo wanted to convey that the ape was stubborn, so they picked the most stubborn animal they could think of. Or at least that’s how the story goes. That alone would be fitting enough for Jason, but really he gets DK because of DK’s affinity to charge up a punch and wiff on it, only to CHARGE UP AGAIN LATER.

7. tbt to K88 being platonic

I’m glad to see Larry Fitzgerald is still around, and they have Andrew Luck’s long-time favorite target Eugene Hilton. Ben Roethlisberger could have a huge year with the talent on that Pittsburgh offense, and Alvin Kamara is great. Still, I’d expect Devonta Freeman to split carries again, and the Bills’ defense can’t be very good. 

Super Dunk - Young Link.  Young Link has been out of the Smash Brothers games for over a decade which is almost as long as Harnsowl has been out of America.  Also, YL can drink a seemingly endless amount of Lon Lon Milk, just like Harnsowl with alcohol. 

6. Spicy Meatballs

From what I’ve been told, James White should be the best RB in football by now. I’ll take Phil’s word for this. And Drew Brees is awesome. But I’m not sure about the rest of the team. JuJu Smith-Schuster will have trouble getting touches over the Killer B’s, and all I know about Anthony Miller is that he was a mediocre NBA player in the 90’s who had a brief cameo in Space Jam. Tough to see this team doing well if they can’t improve on that depth. 

Super Meesh Pepe - Samus. Another soulless human robot thingamabob whose only purpose is to watch the New York Mets. Dark Samus for when the Mets lose. So I guess always Dark Samus?

5. No Content

I don’t know if Kyler Murray is actually good, but I’m expecting a big year out of Eric Decker. And the Colts QB has always loved throwing to TE’s, so Eric Ebron should have a huge year. A definite sleeper who might take the league by storm.

Supper Dinner Brother - Lil Mac.  Dylan beat me to it again:

I respect the effort that they put into making Little Mac a better character. They improved his aerial gameplay and his recovery, and made a bunch of other improvements. It must have taken them, like, 12 weeks of work! But, despite all that effort, he’s still in a low tier and can’t compete with the stronger characters.

Honestly, the biggest difference here is that Lil Mac definitely never skips leg day (see photo)

But apparently Kyle has been for the past 84 days.

4. Shit Outta Luck

For some reason, their team page says that they dropped Andrew Luck, but I’m going to assume that there’s some kind of issue in the database that will be resolved shortly. I’m assuming some team that already had a franchise QB took Saquon Barkley at a completely reasonable pick in the draft, and he’s doing great there. And Mike Evans is a star. Once Andrew Luck is re-added to the roster, this team can be a real contender.

Smash Bros Character - N/A. Dylan, Who’s fuckin team is this?

3. I’m Still Here Bitches

A shockingly strong showing for Team Arielle. David Johnson, from what I recall, is the best RB in football. Julio Jones is awesome. Dak Prescott is pretty good, although honestly, I still think Tony Romo is better. Damien Williams might not get a ton of carries in KC, but I still think this team could go a long way.

Daisy. Daisy doesn’t belong in Smash (yeah, I said it Andy), and Arielle doesn’t belong in the league

2. Team Mar

The squad from the 845 is looking very strong. Two superstar WR’s in Alshon Jeffrey and Keenan Allen, a perennial MVP candidate in Matt Ryan, and two top 5 caliber RB’s in Leonard Fournette and Christian McCaffrey? I have no idea how this roster is even possible.

Mashed Potato: Joker.  I honestly know nothing about you, just like I know nothing about this anime (?) character who is in Super Smash Brothers. His name is Joker but he’s clearly not from Gotham and your instagram handle is Marisa845 and you’re clearly not from the 845 otherwise Bowers would’ve remembered seeing you at South. He knows everyone who went to South.

1. Venice Beach Hulkamaniacks 

Now here’s a team of people I recognize. A.J. Green? Trey Burton? Melvin Gordon? Shady McCoy? DION LEWIS? I honestly don’t see how things could possibly go wrong with that kind of talent. This team shouldn’t lose a single game. And there you have it. Hopefully by next week, I will have learned a little bit about the modern NFL and can take a better stab at these, but hopefully this helps get you excited for another great season of the NATIONAL! FOOTBALL! LEAGUE! Back to you Boom.

Smash Boo: King Dedede. The people’s champ. The Penguin with the Hammer.  Just like Kirby, King Dedede can suck in opponents.  Just like Bowers, if those opponents taste like carbs, he will not swallow them. King Dedede has an unrelenting hammer akin to Bowers’ unrelenting trade offers for LeShady McCoy, and had this other game where he got swol af just like Bowers is gonna be at the end of his journey. At least his 12 week journey has seen results. 

Also, I’m genuinely unsure if Bowers wrote this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jibCSdZ8xG0 

73. Andy Brown

A late addition that we had to shoehorn in here even though they don’t belong in the Power Rankings.

[elfigmlinkbf16insurance-blog]

Which has cheaper auto insurance: 2012 Hyundai Elantra GLS or 2012 Honda Civic?

Which has cheaper auto insurance: 2012 Hyundai Elantra GLS or 2012 Honda Civic?

2012 Honda Civic LX to be more specific *

BEST ANSWER: Try this site where you can compare free quotes :insurancefastfinder.xyz

SOURCES:

2012 Honda Civic LX to be more specific *

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[part2coral]

Fall Break in SF, pt 1

Well, this trip was nothing short of an absolute shit show. 

It all started the morning of Monday, when Tori and I headed to the Salt Lake International Airport at around 6am. We arrived two hours early to ensure things would go on without a hitch. We found our gate, sat down, and chatted for two hours while we waited. Our flight was to depart at 8:25am, and as it became closer and closer to then, I begin to wonder why we hadn’t boarded yet. Last time I flew was like five years ago with my parents. They figured everything out, and I just tagged along. 

In hindsight, I hate thinking about this because we were literally being so, so stupid and so, so oblivious. We were at the wrong gate, and by the time we realized this and sprinted a few gates down for our actual gate, the doors had closed. The flight attendant told us, “that flight has departed.” When she said those words, my heart sank to my butt. It was the most devastating feeling, especially because this was our school sponsored trip! Our boss was going to be LIVID. 

The next two hours consisted of us frantically calling customer service, admissions, our boss, the lady in charge of booking flights in our office, our friends, etc. We were total messes, and thinking about it literally gives me shivers because it was so stupid on our part. Pure negligence. 

We somehow ended up booking a flight for $75 per person to Oakland rather than SFO, which was fine. But it was in six hours. We spent the remainder of our time at the bar, where Tori proceeded to drink a very, very tall beer and I attempted to do some homework and get my mind off of the fact that we had just ROYALLY fucked up. 

Anyway, we made it. Eventually. And Tori was being really nice to me, so that was nice. It’s kind of sad that when she’s a decent human being I get really happy. Anyway, when we were riding the BART to the Mission in SF, where our Airbnb was, we played this game where we would make up stories about people we saw on the train. And sometime during this I thought about how I am still kind of in love with Tori, and I thought for a minute about how I would maybe put up with her being a total psycho bitch if it meant I could date her for a little bit. But then I pushed it out of my head! Because that’s never going to happen!

So, we get to our Airbnb. The Mission District of SF is really cool, it’s very cultural. They call it the cultural district, I guess. Every street has a different country theme, I think. There are flags on each street with a different latin american country. There was a large population of latino people! It was a cool place. 

We get to our airbnb, and it’s a super cool place. The hosts are very cool, their names are Zain and Duncan. In the living room, there is a huge painted map of the Mission, with pictures and pins of their favorite spots for food, bars, and different activities. The adjacent wall was covered entirely with polaroids of all previous residents. 

The airbnb is hostel-style, meaning there are a few different rooms with bunk beds. Tori and I pick an open room, and two open beds that are next to each other. We ate dinner at a dinky, greasy little Mexican joint that reminded me of Albertos or Betos here in Utah, and came back. By that time, it was late in the evening. We had plans of what we were going to do that day, but since we had to take such a later flight, that sucked up most of our time.

We ended up chatting with our hosts and a few other residents, and the night eventually led into us going to a bar. Not sure if I mentioned this, but I have a fake ID now. I only used it to go to one gay bar one time in SLC, and to buy beer a few other times. But, they told me I could sneak in to the restaurant next door, because they shared a back hallway. So, I did! It was interesting to be in a bar. I ordered a drink after way more deliberation than I probably needed, and I had to watch everyone else first because I wasn’t sure if there was some sort of etiquette that I needed to know to order. 

The bar’s menu was in the form of a children’s book. Each drink had a funky name and a poem to accompany it, as well as a funky cartoon illustration. It was very interesting. They all made jokes all night about how young I was, which was pretty funny. 

We went home. That night, Omar and Dustyn flew in, but since their flight was so late they just went straight to their airbnb which was a few blocks away. 

The next day, we met up with the boys. It was great to see them! But this quickly disintegrated when Dustyn fell into a TERRIBLE fucking mood and exacted all his anger out on me, Tori, and Omar. 

We went to the modern art museum, which was seriously so cool! Then we stopped by China Town, and the Golden Gate bridge, golden gate park, and botanical gardens. We drank wine in the park and that was fun, and it also lifted Dustyn’s mood.

But, for the most part, I felt like we were doing all these things sort of aimlessly. As in, it was kind of like we’d get done with one activity and say, “hmm, what do we do now?” I wanted to plan more, but Tori insisted we just leave it more up to chance and do whatever we were feeling the day of. 

Besides Dustyn and Tori butting heads especially, it was fine! At one point, we split up for dinner because i was going to meet up with my Uncle Steve and my cousins Jason and Sean. Before that, though, Tori and I lied on my bed, exhausted from the day. Why do I remember these parts of the trip the most? Definitely because I’M IN LOVE. Just kidding, I’m not, but nothing else is better evidence that I am emotionally attached to Tori. Because I keep thinking about how she played with my hands on that bed. I have really weird hands, and they’re rough and leathery and I’m a bit insecure about them. Tori knows this, so she makes a point to touch them--like, a lot. So we talked in this bed while she held my hands and touched literally every part of them. 

Then I left for dinner! We went to a place called FOREIGN CINEMA. It was close by, so I walked. It was super nice and they played a movie up on the wall with a projector. It was very dim lighting. I feel like all nice restaurants have minimum lighting. I ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, which was $24. It was risotto, which I still don’t even know is comprised of. 

During this dinner, Uncle Steve told me about my dad’s ex wife! Her name is Melissa, and she tried to stab him. They were married in the temple and everything, my dad even had garments. He had to admit her to a psych unit in the emergency department, and then he filed for divorce. Insane. 

When I got back to the airbnb, I found that Tori and Omar and Dustyn hadn’t gone to dinner together. Tori was pretty annoyed with the two boys, and had treated herself to dinner alone. The boys ate McDonalds hahaha. 

We invited the boys over to our airbnb. Meanwhile, I played around on Duncan’s guitar. Tori tried very hard during this time to woo Duncan. He’s a pretty cute guy--man bun, beautiful voice, puts on a good facade of being smart and cultured, reads books, etc. He wasn’t having it though, and Tori’s attempts were pretty fruitless.

We decided to go watch the movie It at this cool theatre that serves you food. IT is the clown movie. 

The next day, we did a lot of walking around and thrift shopping. The day didn't consist of that much, and then they had to leave for the airport for their flight home. 

This is getting really long so I’m gonna make a part two. 

[peteypan232]

As noted from my previous posts, I’m a planner. A very shitty planner, as it were, since not a single one of my plans has ever really worked. Except for one: I got Frank to fall madly in love with me. But that story is for another day. So, it’s safe to say I’m a slow learner – I planned and prepared by body, mind and soul during those 9 months for an all natural birth, following the Bradley method. And then the day came when I received my very own human… Francis. Here is his birth story.

May 23rd 2017

4am: I woke up with contractions. I had a cup of raspberry leaf tea, sat in the living room, read a couple pages of one of my many pregnancy books and noticed these particular contractions were a bit different from my normal pregnancy ones. I decided to time them and noticed they had a pattern! DUDEeeee this is it. I started pacing around the flat and cleaning up like a mad woman – just waiting around for  Frank to wake up.

6:30am: The minute I hear his alarm go off, I burst into the room and in the calmest voice I possess, said “Hey, what’s up? There’s a slight chance I’m going into labor.” Frank had his typical ‘Rosie, you cray” look on his face. Probably because 1. I was leaning over his face real creepy. 2. I don’t think anyone would ever imagine me saying “I might be in labor” in a calm voice.

8am: I told Frank to go into work for a big meeting he was hosting that day and I would message him if anything changed. I felt good, I was excited, and I didn’t want to jinx it in case it was a false alarm. It was, after all, a week and a half before my American due date (40 weeks) and 2 weeks before my french due date (41 weeks).

10am: I cleaned the entire apartment, drank 4 cups of red raspberry tea, peed about 20 times and just couldn’t find the patience to pace about any longer. I put on a Harry Potter movie in the background while I napped.

12:30pm: I woke up from my Harry Potter induced nap (my favorite kind of napping) and received about 50 messages from Frank and discovered my contractions were completely gone. (insert sad emoji) Frank came home and we decided to go for a walk around the park, and after only a few minutes in, the contractions were back.

3pm: We went back home, I was bouncing around on the birthing ball, listening to my bad ass birthing playlist, practicing breathing techniques, having nervous poops every 30 minutes and just loving it.

5:30pm: We watched Adventures in Babysitting while I worked on the birthing ball and by the time the movie was over my contractions weren’t any closer together.

7:30pm: We went for another walk and things started to really pick up. We quickly tried making it through the park as it was closing soon, but my contractions were getting more intense so there was LOTS of stopping and moaning. Yes, people were staring – and the women with children were smiling. Although things were picking up speed and intensity, I still felt good – like I was still in charge. I kept telling Frank “yo, i got this”. 

8:15pm: We went home, I lit all the candles in the apartment and put on my birthing playlist all while I was pacing, dancing, bouncing, stretching, breathing, singing.

10:30pm: We put on Star Trek and didn’t make it 10 minutes into it when shit got cray. Everything thus far was gradual – and in a matter of minutes, seconds, shit got real.

11pm: My thought – ‘Alright, lets go”, but our birth plan included staying at home as long as possible before going to the hospital. Frank, being my birth partner told me he didn’t think it was time to go yet….. ok, I agreed with him. It couldn’t have been more than 5 contractions later, and I’m screaming some weird shit. I believe my exact words were “We gotta go! I’m fucking crowning!”.

May 24th 2017

this is the moment when time and space and sanity just completely escape me.

12am(ish): We get to the hospital and it was hot as balls. Hot, muggy, sweaty, balls. A goddamn incubator. The midwife examines me and said, and I quote “You’re about 1 cm, and I’m being gracious”.

Frank and I reflected and laughed our asses off about this later. Here is the 40 something year old midwife, with broken/limited english – and somewhere along his training or life experience, someone taught him the english word gracious. The guy didn’t know the word for clothing! But gracious fell into his vocabulary.

Fuck. I was barely 1 cm. It was well past midnight at this point so the midwife staff was shorthanded and they had an emergency on their hands. He said we could leave and come back, but fuck that. I’m crowning! Can you check again bro?! We waited there for what seemed like an eternity. I looked Frank directly in the eyes and told him, I can’t do this. I’m going to die. This is the end. I’m not going to survive this. 

1:30am(ish): When the midwife came back in he was covered in blood and super sweaty. Christ. What the hell is going on out there?! I told him I was going to die and that I needed the epidural. He moved me to the pre travail (literal translation, before work) room with a lay down bed and less harsh lights that took away the sterile hospital vibe. He put an IV in my arm.

Ok lets do this – bring on the epidural.

I’m sorry to say Ma’am, you have to be 3 cm.

ERMMMMM I was 1 cm HOURS ago – I’ve got to be 3 at this point.

Believe me, you’re not.

Check again bro.

I wasn’t.

3am(ish): My birthing playlist was playing repeat on the Jambox and it was pretty fucking intense. The pain was so real and I was exhausted – for the final hours in that room, I was passing out in between contractions. I had hit the 24 hour mark and could feel the crushing fatigue on my body.

5:30am(ish): The midwife comes back into the room to check me – just at 3 cm. He calls the anesthesiologist, sets me up in the birthing room and gets ready for a shift change.

6am(ish): I’m being set up for the epidural. That sweet, sweet epidural. Once they set it up, I had a few more painful contractions and then just like that, I could catch my breath and breathe again. The best way I can describe the feeling of an epidural: when your foot falls asleep, but before the pins and needles. I could still feel, but the pain was softer, like it was earlier in the day when this whole thing began. The new midwives said some words, but I instantly passed out.

7am(ish): I woke up an hour later, they were checking my dilation. 9 cm. 3cm to 9cm? oh sweet beautiful epidural. The new midwife said to me, “Your baby was waiting for you to relax”. They broke my water, emptied by bladder and I drifted back to sleep.

8:30am(ish): 10cm, I was fully dilated – but the baby was in the ‘sunny side up’ position, so they turned my legs and waited. My super hot doctor came in to say Hi, examine me, pep talk and explain that he had to deliver a c section baby, think you can hold on. oh yea. Per our birth plan, Frank was to help the doctor pull the baby out, so he had Frank take a look at my vagina. Frank looked up at me with his eyes full of tears. “I started crying back. Oh jesus christ… WHAT?! Is it a fucking mess down there?!”, “No” he said, “I can see our child’s head”.

9:40am(ish): The midwives start prepping me and my super hot doctor comes back in.  We’re ready. I was fucking ready.

9:57am: 5 pushes later, my birthing playlist still in the background, I delivered my child. The most powerful surge of energy was vibrating through my entire body, through the entire room. Frank helped pull our child out and brought him to my chest. He was so warm and so small. It was the most amazing moment in my life – the greatest high I have ever felt. I felt the entire universe vibrating through every part of my body. Have you ever had a panic attack? The way your body doesn’t feel like your own and you completely lose all sense of control. But rather than being fueled by overwhelming fear, or stress – it’s love and warmth, and happiness. I thought I was going to explode, implode. I had no idea what was happening next – I only had eyes for my baby. Baby was silent, laying on my chest, with eyes slightly open, looking at me.

It was me, and Frank and … wait, what’s the gender?! We didn’t even check. The midwife said “c’est un garcon”, it’s a boy. It’s Francis.

Me. Frank. Francis.

Just the 3 of us.

The day I birthed my human. As noted from my previous posts, I'm a planner. A very shitty planner, as it were, since not a single one of my plans has ever really worked.

[richardrobertsimsuccessblog]

26 Crazy Stories about “OMG!” Opportunities that Blogging Made Happen

Will it all be worth it?

You can’t help wondering sometimes.

Every spare minute, you’re glued to your computer, reading, writing, doing all you can to grow your blog and build your audience — all on the shaky promise that someday your efforts will pay off.

But sometimes, that someday feels far out of reach. Sometimes, you can’t help wondering whether that day will ever come, or whether you’re just wasting your time.

Well, hang in there, my friend. Because you never know what kinds of opportunities your blog can bring you.

And they might take time, but for all you know, they might be right around the corner.

To prove it, I asked 26 of my blogging friends to share the coolest, craziest opportunities their blogs made happen in their early days — that is, before they amassed a huge following and made tens of thousands of dollars off their blog.

Ready to dive in?

#1. Jeff Bullas / Jeff Bullas

One of the “craziest” opportunities I had happened about a year after starting the blog when I was invited to speak in New Zealand.

It came about because a millionaire who was reading my blog, loved my content and had an idea and sent me an email.

After the event he asked me to join the board of a new tech startup and offered shares.

Five years later the company has raised $3 million and is continuing to grow.

That company is Shuttlerock.

We were a winner in Facebook’s 2016 Innovation Spotlight providing a scalable creative solution to unlock the true power of Facebook Advertising.

#2. Ryan Biddulph / Blogging from Paradise

The coolest opportunity that arose for me as a beginning blogger was being asked to interview Thrillionaire celebrity Nik Halik. I had no clue how to blog, let alone conduct an interview. Since this was some 7 years ago I literally pressed “record” on a tape recorder – I am not kidding – received the call on my land line (resistant to cell phone usage back then) and preserved the interview for transcribing.

I learned a valuable lesson too; be prepared! I asked two canned questions sent to me by his press guy and Nik told me he was bored of the same old questions as this was his 10th interview of the day. Because I spent 20 minutes researching him earlier that day I nimbly shifted and asked probing, interesting questions that made for a great interview.

#3. Chris Guillebeau / The Art of Non-Conformity

In my early days of blogging, Air New Zealand flew me to the Cook Islands for a 24-hour event.

It was a whirlwind visit and I learned that I don’t like sponsored trips (too much expectation on behalf of the sponsor, even when they say otherwise…), but I was still grateful for the experience.

#4. Danny Iny / Mirasee

The craziest opportunity that arose from blogging was that I ended up co-authoring a book with Guy Kawasaki and other A-listers when I was an unknown. Here’s how it happened:

Firepole Marketing (now Mirasee) was just a tiny blog with less than 1,000 subscribers, when I had the opportunity to guest blog on Copyblogger. My post was “38 Critical Books Every Blogger Needs to Read.” Number 12 on the list was The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki.

It must have caught the attention of Guy and/or his publicist, because a few days later, I received an email from Guy thanking me for including his book. He said he had a new book coming out and offered me a review copy and an interview.

Of course, I seized the opportunity. I spent 15 hours preparing for the interview to make it so good that Guy would want to share it with everybody. Afterwards, I posted the interview on my blog and created a video to promote the book on YouTube. I wrote reviews on Amazon and other bookseller websites—I did everything I could think of to get the word out.

Months later, I invited Guy to contribute to my book, Engagement from Scratch!, and he said yes. And that’s how blogging helped me co-author a book with Guy Kawasaki.

#5. Richard Lazazzera / A Better Lemonade Stand

Blogging quite literally changed my life. Within months of starting my ecommerce blog, A Better Lemonade Stand, I wrote a really long-form piece of content that drove thousands of brand new visitors to my site. One of those visitors was the director of marketing for Shopify. He reached out to me via email and we started to build a relationship.

About a year later, I moved to Toronto. When the director at Shopify heard, I was offered a position at Shopify which I jumped on. That position allowed me to reach two million visitors per month through their blog (while still growing my personal blog), write a full length book, and participate in the IPO of Shopify.

I’ve since left Shopify and continue to build A Better Lemonade Stand and several other companies. To think it all began with a single blog post still amazes me.

#6. Ian Cleary / Razor Social

Within six months of launching the blog it was voted one of the top ten social media blogs in the world by a competition run by Social Media Examiner.

That was pretty amazing for me because I started the blog based in Ireland and I was the only European blog on the list. This rapidly helped me become an influencer in the Social Media Space and generated me significant business.

#7. Amy Lynn Andrews / Amy Lynn Andrews

In 2006, when I had been blogging only a few years and blogs were still somewhat of a novelty, I was contacted by a writer from TIME Magazine. She had found my blog and wanted to interview me for a story she was writing about one of my main topics.

For some reason I didn’t think it could possibly be true, but a few months later I found myself in the print edition of TIME Magazine (in March 2007). Unfortunately I wasn’t savvy enough to maximize the exposure, but I did keep in contact with that journalist and enjoyed her friendship for several years.

#8. Dave Chesson / Kindlepreneur

You never know who is reading or following your content. I found out that my all time favorite writer, and multi-NYT Bestseller, Ted Dekker, had come across my work.

This led into getting to meet him for coffee, and ultimately, become an Advanced Review Copy (ARC) reader as well as helping with some of his book marketing projects.

#9. John Lee Dumas / EOFire

Very early on I had the opportunity to be featured on some pretty big sites as a guest poster, which wouldn’t have been possible if I hadn’t had the EOFire blog up and running. One of the first was on Think Traffic​ (now Fizzle.co), and we were featured there within just one month of having started our own blog.

This first guest post gave us powerful momentum and exposure, which we then used to request to guest post on other big name sites like Social Media Examiner, Copy Blogger, Content Marketing Institute and over twenty others.

Each new guest post opportunity brought with it exposure, more momentum, and most importantly, a very valuable friendship with people I’m proud to still call friends today.

#10. Aaron Orendorff / Iconicontent

Back in March 2014, I had just started blogging. Basically, it was me, my mom, and literally 261 unique visitors (I checked with Google Analytics just to be accurate).

I’d posted six times, when — out of the digital blue — I got an email about this post, Getting Your Customers to Hold It, Love It, and Give It Money:

I nearly lost my newbie-blogging mind. Of course, I said yes. And somewhat embarrassed myself by asking for a link:

“This is for a book project, so the linking is tough — but I’ll give you lots of love otherwise,” was Ann’s kind response.

Three months later, I’d secured my very first guest post at Copyblogger and I knew enough — just enough — to immediately turn around and pitch Ann on a MarketingProfs guest post. I composed a full article, sent it off, and was in. Everything I’ve done over the last three years has been built on that foundation. And I owe it all to one nice lady who stumbled on my blog when I had no business getting visitors of her clout (or visitors at all for that matter).

#11. Sean Ogle / Location Rebel

About six months after starting my blog, I wrote a post about quitting my job as a financial analyst. I had no idea what I was going to do after that, but I knew I was ready for something different.

The following week I received an email from a reader congratulating me on taking the leap, and telling me that he was looking to bring an intern out to Asia to help him with the online marketing for his company. I’d work part time and he would pay my basic living expenses, while teaching me the ins and outs of the digital world.

Six weeks later, I was on a flight to Bangkok where I would live for the next seven months – and it would set the foundation for my life and business for years to come. I haven’t had a real job since.

It never would have happened had I not started the blog, and positioned myself for a big opportunity to come my way.

#12. Camilla Hallstrom / Influence with Content

Back when I got started, I had NO clue what I was doing.

I wasn’t sure what worked and what didn’t. Sure, through programs like Serious Bloggers Only I knew what sorts of posts got results, but I still felt uncertain about putting anything out there. What was the point, really? What if I was just wasting my time on this blogging thing? A nagging voice inside my head told me I would end up empty handed without anything to show for it…

That’s why it felt amazing when one of my first posts got tons of shares and comments. But the best part? Brian Tracy (the sales mogul) shared it on his Facebook page (at the time, he had around 1.5 million followers). And that same post went on to win the title of “Most Epic Post” in a contest here on Smart Blogger (Boost Blog Traffic back then).

That’s the moment I understood exactly how powerful blogging can be. You can get noticed by anyone and you can open doors that right now seem firmly shut.

Apart from this, blogging has made such a difference in my life. I have met new friends who have the exact same interests as I do — that NEVER happens offline (for some reason, people’s eyes glaze over whenever I try to start a discussion about a content idea I just heard about). I’ve gotten job offers in big part thanks to my blogging experience and I started my freelance career because of it.

#13. Ashley Faulkes / Mad Lemmings

When you are just getting started, you don’t really expect anything crazy to happen. But sometimes you get a big surprise!

One of the things I did when starting out was to create a post featuring all the influencers in the blogging and social media scene. It got a lot of people’s attention and connected me with a lot of influencers very quickly. After all, it was a post with the sole purpose of highlighting these influencers (and letting them know of course :>).

Now, having connected with these influencers, I had the opportunity to take it a step further. I started inviting a lot of them on my brand spanking new podcast. Of course, I did not expect many of the bigger names to say yes. Surprisingly, I got quite a few big bloggers on the show, including some who were very reluctant to put themselves out there (not everyone is a lover of the microphone you know :>). Some of the people I got on my podcast included: Rebekah Radice, Ileane Smith, Ann Smarty, Susan Gilbert, John Paul Aguiar, Ian Anderson Gray and more. No, not Seth Godin, but still, for a complete beginner not bad I think!

What blew me away is that getting in contact with people you look up to is not as hard as it seems (if they don’t have an assistant answering their mails :>). Don’t forget, they were exactly where you are not too long ago. And most are more than happy to help out a newbie! Give it a shot.

#14. Daniel Scocco / Daily Blog Tips

Blogging is a great way to showcase your expertise and expand your network. I learned this when, back in 2009, I landed a consulting gig with an agency of the United States Government! The guys from Voice of America (the official external US broadcaster) were planning to launch a new site, and they wanted to learn what would be the best ways to optimize and promote it. It was a very interesting experience, and certainly a nice touch to my CV!

Practically speaking, this happened because I wrote a lot of content on related topics (website optimization, SEO, content marketing, website promotion), and that content got linked from other bloggers and site owners, and eventually it ranked well on Google. Then when the guys from VOA started doing some research they came across my stuff, liked it, and decided to get in touch.

#15. Meera Kothand / Meera Kothand

One of the craziest opportunities I received when I started out was not only having my guest post accepted at Marketing Profs but also getting an invitation to record a mini video training for their paid members.

It was scary but I took the plunge and did the training for them and got paid for it as well. This was when my blog was barely six months old. I’ve always believed in guest posting but its benefits reach far wider than just getting traffic and growing your list. It gets you exposure, introduces you to a new audience and paves the way for other opportunities like it did in my case!

#16. Dave Schneider / Ninja Outreach

Well I got the opportunity to join my current startup, Ninja Outreach! The opportunity arose when I was invited on a podcast with my now partner Mark, who read my blog, only a few months after I started it.

After the podcast was published he reached back out to me and we discussed some ideas we had for building marketing tools in the space. We decided it made sense to work together on it. That was three years ago, and NinjaOutreach is doing over half a million dollars a year now.

#17. Nathan Chan / Foundr

I can’t put this down to any one situation! Ever since we started the Foundr blog this has given us opportunities to interview some of the greatest entrepreneurs of our generation (Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington, Seth Godin etc.) and with this we’ve also been able to connect with some amazing entrepreneurs in our community which has been an extremely rewarding experience.

#18. Julie Harris / Whiskey and Red

The craziest opportunity that arose from blogging was being invited to speak at my first live class. I had been blogging for about six months when I was contacted by the Hawaii Chapter of a national women’s entrepreneur association, “Femfessionals” to speak at their Hawaiian Chapter dinner. They had found my name through another local business I had worked with in the past and found their way to my blog. I had just posted about “Charging What You’re Worth” and they loved the post so much they asked me to present on the same topic live, in front of their whole local chapter.

There was a whole catered dinner, wine and beverages, and a room full of local entrepreneurs waiting to hear what I had to say. I was so crazy nervous but excited. This opportunity then opened more doors to new clients, new projects, and continued speaking gigs. My business was so new at that point, I didn’t have much of a portfolio, and my small social following was pretty slim, but I had a pretty extensive business blog, and that was what convinced them that I was the perfect speaker for them.

#19. Franklin Hatchett / Online Dimes

When I first started blogging I came across a new internet marketing method with Shopify. I ended up writing about it on my blog and uploading a Video to Youtube. To my surprise this became a great opportunity and the opportunity grew my blog from around 1,000 visits a month to over 25,000.

This is the single biggest thing that grew my blog and I seized every moment of it. The blog post and video in question were posted all over the internet because people had doubts and talked negatively about it. That negativity grew my email list to 35,000 and Youtube to 30,000 subscribers in a year. I also launched a private Facebook Group four months ago that quickly grew to 15,000 members and counting.

The blog post that was shared and talked about now has over 400 comments with the video having over 300,000 views. Some might not call this the perfect opportunity, however controversy is used on a daily basis for advertising and any publicity is good publicity.

#20. Zac Johnson / Zac Johnson

When you put yourself out there in any industry and start to gain a following and audience, new opportunities are going to come up all the time. I’ve learned to not get excited by any of them, as only a very small percentage will actually come together. However, when they do, it’s pretty cool!

One such example was when Michael Bayer contacted me through email and asked if I’d like to be featured in a documentary on internet entrepreneurs. At the time I said yes… but always fully aware opportunities and emails similar to these come in every day and usually result in nothing.

Long story short, Michael was able to pull it all together and release the film! We had a nice premiere party in Hollywood, CA and it was pretty cool! Definitely a fun and exciting opportunity that never would have happened if I didn’t start ZacJohnson.com.

#21. Scott Chow / The Blog Starter

I would have to say that the craziest opportunity to come from blogging as I was getting started was the opportunity to be interviewed by a journalist from a nationally distributed magazine.

I’m generally a pretty shy person so it felt a little strange to have that kind of spotlight on me. However, I think for a lot of people that’s what blogging is all about: finding your voice and sharing that with the world.

I am proud to share that message with people and also to help so many people establish blogs of their own!

#22. Joe Bunting / The Write Practice

The craziest thing that happened to me as I first got into blogging was in 2008, after blogging for just a few months, I connected with another blogger who had been doing it for years for the organization he ran. We started emailing back and forth, and once, when he was going to be traveling in my city, we met and he introduced me to his daughter.

A few years later, I was traveling through his city, helping him with a book he was working on, and I saw his daughter again. We hit it off over coffee, started talking, and very long story short, less than a year later we were married. All from blogging.

#23. Tor Refsland / Tor Refsland

There are a lot of crazy opportunities that have happened thanks to blogging.

Let me mention two of them:

1. I got featured in a book with some of the best marketers in the world: Seth Godin, Chris Brogan, Brian Clark and Grant Cardone.

2. I got headhunted by Noah Kagan (I graciously turned him down, since I wanted to focus on building my own business).

#24. Ryan Robinson / Ryan Robinson

I got to work with Tim Ferriss, Neil Patel, Lewis Howes and dozens of other entrepreneurs right after I started blogging.

A few months after I started to write about my experiences running side projects, I applied for a job as a content marketer for the business classes at CreativeLive—the online education company. Thanks to the fact that I had already been blogging for myself about business related topics and essentially doing everything the content marketing job would entail, I got the gig and overnight started working with some of the most prominent names in the business world, helping them to create content and market their classes.

By going after a day job that put me in close proximity to the most influential people in my industry, I’ve since been able to grow these relationships and they’ve led me to do things like become a contributor on Forbes, land interviews with people like Pat Flynn and to launch my own consulting business. Blogging is all about relationships—go out of your way to forge meaningful ones that’ll help you progress within your industry.

#25. Nick Loper / Side Hustle Nation

The craziest opportunity that came from blogging was the chance to speak at my local TEDx event. I was about a year into writing the Side Hustle Nation blog when I was accepted as a speaker, and without any relevant public speaking experience I could point to, I think it was the blog (and Side Hustle Show podcast) that tipped the scales in my favor.

I was incredibly nervous leading up to the event, but it was an awesome “bucket list” experience and a chance to step out of my comfort zone in a big way. Plus it forced me to refine my message into a (hopefully) coherent and concise talk. I went through a half dozen different drafts and rehearsed like crazy before the big day, but the talk ended up receiving a standing ovation and has now been viewed almost 10,000 times on YouTube.

#26. Kiersten Rich / The Blonde Abroad

My first ever client was Visit Jordan for a video campaign where I got to produce a series of videos in the capital, Amman.

I’d always been passionate about videography, so it was an incredible opportunity and I was humbled that a tourism board had such faith in me despite only having just gotten started as a “blogger.” I learned early on that my audience and influence was only one aspect of my worth, but that my content also had value!

What Crazy Opportunities Are Waiting for You?

I know those pesky doubts are hard to shake sometimes. I know sometimes you feel like your day will never come; like you’re just wasting time and you might as well quit.

But let these stories inspire you to hang in there.

Blogging can (and often does) pay off in big and unexpected ways.

It is worth it.

So keep reading, keep writing, and (this is important) keep honing your skills.

Keep growing your blog and audience, and opportunities will find you.

Your turn will come.

And it might be right around the corner.

Author the Author: Eli Seekins is the founder of Launch Your Dream. He helps bloggers and entrepreneurs turn their passion into a business. Want help getting your first 1,000 email subscribers and making your first $5,000? Check out his FREE Job To Blog Virtual Summit — where 25 expert bloggers teach you how to quit your job, start a blog and make money doing it.

26 Crazy Stories about “OMG!” Opportunities that Blogging Made Happen

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26 Crazy Stories about “OMG!” Opportunities that Blogging Made Happen

Will it all be worth it?

You can’t help wondering sometimes.

Every spare minute, you’re glued to your computer, reading, writing, doing all you can to grow your blog and build your audience — all on the shaky promise that someday your efforts will pay off.

But sometimes, that someday feels far out of reach. Sometimes, you can’t help wondering whether that day will ever come, or whether you’re just wasting your time.

Well, hang in there, my friend. Because you never know what kinds of opportunities your blog can bring you.

And they might take time, but for all you know, they might be right around the corner.

To prove it, I asked 26 of my blogging friends to share the coolest, craziest opportunities their blogs made happen in their early days — that is, before they amassed a huge following and made tens of thousands of dollars off their blog.

Ready to dive in?

#1. Jeff Bullas / Jeff Bullas

One of the “craziest” opportunities I had happened about a year after starting the blog when I was invited to speak in New Zealand.

It came about because a millionaire who was reading my blog, loved my content and had an idea and sent me an email.

After the event he asked me to join the board of a new tech startup and offered shares.

Five years later the company has raised $3 million and is continuing to grow.

That company is Shuttlerock.

We were a winner in Facebook’s 2016 Innovation Spotlight providing a scalable creative solution to unlock the true power of Facebook Advertising.

#2. Ryan Biddulph / Blogging from Paradise

The coolest opportunity that arose for me as a beginning blogger was being asked to interview Thrillionaire celebrity Nik Halik. I had no clue how to blog, let alone conduct an interview. Since this was some 7 years ago I literally pressed “record” on a tape recorder – I am not kidding – received the call on my land line (resistant to cell phone usage back then) and preserved the interview for transcribing.

I learned a valuable lesson too; be prepared! I asked two canned questions sent to me by his press guy and Nik told me he was bored of the same old questions as this was his 10th interview of the day. Because I spent 20 minutes researching him earlier that day I nimbly shifted and asked probing, interesting questions that made for a great interview.

#3. Chris Guillebeau / The Art of Non-Conformity

In my early days of blogging, Air New Zealand flew me to the Cook Islands for a 24-hour event.

It was a whirlwind visit and I learned that I don’t like sponsored trips (too much expectation on behalf of the sponsor, even when they say otherwise…), but I was still grateful for the experience.

#4. Danny Iny / Mirasee

The craziest opportunity that arose from blogging was that I ended up co-authoring a book with Guy Kawasaki and other A-listers when I was an unknown. Here’s how it happened:

Firepole Marketing (now Mirasee) was just a tiny blog with less than 1,000 subscribers, when I had the opportunity to guest blog on Copyblogger. My post was “38 Critical Books Every Blogger Needs to Read.” Number 12 on the list was The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki.

It must have caught the attention of Guy and/or his publicist, because a few days later, I received an email from Guy thanking me for including his book. He said he had a new book coming out and offered me a review copy and an interview.

Of course, I seized the opportunity. I spent 15 hours preparing for the interview to make it so good that Guy would want to share it with everybody. Afterwards, I posted the interview on my blog and created a video to promote the book on YouTube. I wrote reviews on Amazon and other bookseller websites—I did everything I could think of to get the word out.

Months later, I invited Guy to contribute to my book, Engagement from Scratch!, and he said yes. And that’s how blogging helped me co-author a book with Guy Kawasaki.

#5. Richard Lazazzera / A Better Lemonade Stand

Blogging quite literally changed my life. Within months of starting my ecommerce blog, A Better Lemonade Stand, I wrote a really long-form piece of content that drove thousands of brand new visitors to my site. One of those visitors was the director of marketing for Shopify. He reached out to me via email and we started to build a relationship.

About a year later, I moved to Toronto. When the director at Shopify heard, I was offered a position at Shopify which I jumped on. That position allowed me to reach two million visitors per month through their blog (while still growing my personal blog), write a full length book, and participate in the IPO of Shopify.

I’ve since left Shopify and continue to build A Better Lemonade Stand and several other companies. To think it all began with a single blog post still amazes me.

#6. Ian Cleary / Razor Social

Within six months of launching the blog it was voted one of the top ten social media blogs in the world by a competition run by Social Media Examiner.

That was pretty amazing for me because I started the blog based in Ireland and I was the only European blog on the list. This rapidly helped me become an influencer in the Social Media Space and generated me significant business.

#7. Amy Lynn Andrews / Amy Lynn Andrews

In 2006, when I had been blogging only a few years and blogs were still somewhat of a novelty, I was contacted by a writer from TIME Magazine. She had found my blog and wanted to interview me for a story she was writing about one of my main topics.

For some reason I didn’t think it could possibly be true, but a few months later I found myself in the print edition of TIME Magazine (in March 2007). Unfortunately I wasn’t savvy enough to maximize the exposure, but I did keep in contact with that journalist and enjoyed her friendship for several years.

#8. Dave Chesson / Kindlepreneur

You never know who is reading or following your content. I found out that my all time favorite writer, and multi-NYT Bestseller, Ted Dekker, had come across my work.

This led into getting to meet him for coffee, and ultimately, become an Advanced Review Copy (ARC) reader as well as helping with some of his book marketing projects.

#9. John Lee Dumas / EOFire

Very early on I had the opportunity to be featured on some pretty big sites as a guest poster, which wouldn’t have been possible if I hadn’t had the EOFire blog up and running. One of the first was on Think Traffic​ (now Fizzle.co), and we were featured there within just one month of having started our own blog.

This first guest post gave us powerful momentum and exposure, which we then used to request to guest post on other big name sites like Social Media Examiner, Copy Blogger, Content Marketing Institute and over twenty others.

Each new guest post opportunity brought with it exposure, more momentum, and most importantly, a very valuable friendship with people I’m proud to still call friends today.

#10. Aaron Orendorff / Iconicontent

Back in March 2014, I had just started blogging. Basically, it was me, my mom, and literally 261 unique visitors (I checked with Google Analytics just to be accurate).

I’d posted six times, when — out of the digital blue — I got an email about this post, Getting Your Customers to Hold It, Love It, and Give It Money:

I nearly lost my newbie-blogging mind. Of course, I said yes. And somewhat embarrassed myself by asking for a link:

“This is for a book project, so the linking is tough — but I’ll give you lots of love otherwise,” was Ann’s kind response.

Three months later, I’d secured my very first guest post at Copyblogger and I knew enough — just enough — to immediately turn around and pitch Ann on a MarketingProfs guest post. I composed a full article, sent it off, and was in. Everything I’ve done over the last three years has been built on that foundation. And I owe it all to one nice lady who stumbled on my blog when I had no business getting visitors of her clout (or visitors at all for that matter).

#11. Sean Ogle / Location Rebel

About six months after starting my blog, I wrote a post about quitting my job as a financial analyst. I had no idea what I was going to do after that, but I knew I was ready for something different.

The following week I received an email from a reader congratulating me on taking the leap, and telling me that he was looking to bring an intern out to Asia to help him with the online marketing for his company. I’d work part time and he would pay my basic living expenses, while teaching me the ins and outs of the digital world.

Six weeks later, I was on a flight to Bangkok where I would live for the next seven months – and it would set the foundation for my life and business for years to come. I haven’t had a real job since.

It never would have happened had I not started the blog, and positioned myself for a big opportunity to come my way.

#12. Camilla Hallstrom / Influence with Content

Back when I got started, I had NO clue what I was doing.

I wasn’t sure what worked and what didn’t. Sure, through programs like Serious Bloggers Only I knew what sorts of posts got results, but I still felt uncertain about putting anything out there. What was the point, really? What if I was just wasting my time on this blogging thing? A nagging voice inside my head told me I would end up empty handed without anything to show for it…

That’s why it felt amazing when one of my first posts got tons of shares and comments. But the best part? Brian Tracy (the sales mogul) shared it on his Facebook page (at the time, he had around 1.5 million followers). And that same post went on to win the title of “Most Epic Post” in a contest here on Smart Blogger (Boost Blog Traffic back then).

That’s the moment I understood exactly how powerful blogging can be. You can get noticed by anyone and you can open doors that right now seem firmly shut.

Apart from this, blogging has made such a difference in my life. I have met new friends who have the exact same interests as I do — that NEVER happens offline (for some reason, people’s eyes glaze over whenever I try to start a discussion about a content idea I just heard about). I’ve gotten job offers in big part thanks to my blogging experience and I started my freelance career because of it.

#13. Ashley Faulkes / Mad Lemmings

When you are just getting started, you don’t really expect anything crazy to happen. But sometimes you get a big surprise!

One of the things I did when starting out was to create a post featuring all the influencers in the blogging and social media scene. It got a lot of people’s attention and connected me with a lot of influencers very quickly. After all, it was a post with the sole purpose of highlighting these influencers (and letting them know of course :>).

Now, having connected with these influencers, I had the opportunity to take it a step further. I started inviting a lot of them on my brand spanking new podcast. Of course, I did not expect many of the bigger names to say yes. Surprisingly, I got quite a few big bloggers on the show, including some who were very reluctant to put themselves out there (not everyone is a lover of the microphone you know :>). Some of the people I got on my podcast included: Rebekah Radice, Ileane Smith, Ann Smarty, Susan Gilbert, John Paul Aguiar, Ian Anderson Gray and more. No, not Seth Godin, but still, for a complete beginner not bad I think!

What blew me away is that getting in contact with people you look up to is not as hard as it seems (if they don’t have an assistant answering their mails :>). Don’t forget, they were exactly where you are not too long ago. And most are more than happy to help out a newbie! Give it a shot.

#14. Daniel Scocco / Daily Blog Tips

Blogging is a great way to showcase your expertise and expand your network. I learned this when, back in 2009, I landed a consulting gig with an agency of the United States Government! The guys from Voice of America (the official external US broadcaster) were planning to launch a new site, and they wanted to learn what would be the best ways to optimize and promote it. It was a very interesting experience, and certainly a nice touch to my CV!

Practically speaking, this happened because I wrote a lot of content on related topics (website optimization, SEO, content marketing, website promotion), and that content got linked from other bloggers and site owners, and eventually it ranked well on Google. Then when the guys from VOA started doing some research they came across my stuff, liked it, and decided to get in touch.

#15. Meera Kothand / Meera Kothand

One of the craziest opportunities I received when I started out was not only having my guest post accepted at Marketing Profs but also getting an invitation to record a mini video training for their paid members.

It was scary but I took the plunge and did the training for them and got paid for it as well. This was when my blog was barely six months old. I’ve always believed in guest posting but its benefits reach far wider than just getting traffic and growing your list. It gets you exposure, introduces you to a new audience and paves the way for other opportunities like it did in my case!

#16. Dave Schneider / Ninja Outreach

Well I got the opportunity to join my current startup, Ninja Outreach! The opportunity arose when I was invited on a podcast with my now partner Mark, who read my blog, only a few months after I started it.

After the podcast was published he reached back out to me and we discussed some ideas we had for building marketing tools in the space. We decided it made sense to work together on it. That was three years ago, and NinjaOutreach is doing over half a million dollars a year now.

#17. Nathan Chan / Foundr

I can’t put this down to any one situation! Ever since we started the Foundr blog this has given us opportunities to interview some of the greatest entrepreneurs of our generation (Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington, Seth Godin etc.) and with this we’ve also been able to connect with some amazing entrepreneurs in our community which has been an extremely rewarding experience.

#18. Julie Harris / Whiskey and Red

The craziest opportunity that arose from blogging was being invited to speak at my first live class. I had been blogging for about six months when I was contacted by the Hawaii Chapter of a national women’s entrepreneur association, “Femfessionals” to speak at their Hawaiian Chapter dinner. They had found my name through another local business I had worked with in the past and found their way to my blog. I had just posted about “Charging What You’re Worth” and they loved the post so much they asked me to present on the same topic live, in front of their whole local chapter.

There was a whole catered dinner, wine and beverages, and a room full of local entrepreneurs waiting to hear what I had to say. I was so crazy nervous but excited. This opportunity then opened more doors to new clients, new projects, and continued speaking gigs. My business was so new at that point, I didn’t have much of a portfolio, and my small social following was pretty slim, but I had a pretty extensive business blog, and that was what convinced them that I was the perfect speaker for them.

#19. Franklin Hatchett / Online Dimes

When I first started blogging I came across a new internet marketing method with Shopify. I ended up writing about it on my blog and uploading a Video to Youtube. To my surprise this became a great opportunity and the opportunity grew my blog from around 1,000 visits a month to over 25,000.

This is the single biggest thing that grew my blog and I seized every moment of it. The blog post and video in question were posted all over the internet because people had doubts and talked negatively about it. That negativity grew my email list to 35,000 and Youtube to 30,000 subscribers in a year. I also launched a private Facebook Group four months ago that quickly grew to 15,000 members and counting.

The blog post that was shared and talked about now has over 400 comments with the video having over 300,000 views. Some might not call this the perfect opportunity, however controversy is used on a daily basis for advertising and any publicity is good publicity.

#20. Zac Johnson / Zac Johnson

When you put yourself out there in any industry and start to gain a following and audience, new opportunities are going to come up all the time. I’ve learned to not get excited by any of them, as only a very small percentage will actually come together. However, when they do, it’s pretty cool!

One such example was when Michael Bayer contacted me through email and asked if I’d like to be featured in a documentary on internet entrepreneurs. At the time I said yes… but always fully aware opportunities and emails similar to these come in every day and usually result in nothing.

Long story short, Michael was able to pull it all together and release the film! We had a nice premiere party in Hollywood, CA and it was pretty cool! Definitely a fun and exciting opportunity that never would have happened if I didn’t start ZacJohnson.com.

#21. Scott Chow / The Blog Starter

I would have to say that the craziest opportunity to come from blogging as I was getting started was the opportunity to be interviewed by a journalist from a nationally distributed magazine.

I’m generally a pretty shy person so it felt a little strange to have that kind of spotlight on me. However, I think for a lot of people that’s what blogging is all about: finding your voice and sharing that with the world.

I am proud to share that message with people and also to help so many people establish blogs of their own!

#22. Joe Bunting / The Write Practice

The craziest thing that happened to me as I first got into blogging was in 2008, after blogging for just a few months, I connected with another blogger who had been doing it for years for the organization he ran. We started emailing back and forth, and once, when he was going to be traveling in my city, we met and he introduced me to his daughter.

A few years later, I was traveling through his city, helping him with a book he was working on, and I saw his daughter again. We hit it off over coffee, started talking, and very long story short, less than a year later we were married. All from blogging.

#23. Tor Refsland / Tor Refsland

There are a lot of crazy opportunities that have happened thanks to blogging.

Let me mention two of them:

1. I got featured in a book with some of the best marketers in the world: Seth Godin, Chris Brogan, Brian Clark and Grant Cardone.

2. I got headhunted by Noah Kagan (I graciously turned him down, since I wanted to focus on building my own business).

#24. Ryan Robinson / Ryan Robinson

I got to work with Tim Ferriss, Neil Patel, Lewis Howes and dozens of other entrepreneurs right after I started blogging.

A few months after I started to write about my experiences running side projects, I applied for a job as a content marketer for the business classes at CreativeLive—the online education company. Thanks to the fact that I had already been blogging for myself about business related topics and essentially doing everything the content marketing job would entail, I got the gig and overnight started working with some of the most prominent names in the business world, helping them to create content and market their classes.

By going after a day job that put me in close proximity to the most influential people in my industry, I’ve since been able to grow these relationships and they’ve led me to do things like become a contributor on Forbes, land interviews with people like Pat Flynn and to launch my own consulting business. Blogging is all about relationships—go out of your way to forge meaningful ones that’ll help you progress within your industry.

#25. Nick Loper / Side Hustle Nation

The craziest opportunity that came from blogging was the chance to speak at my local TEDx event. I was about a year into writing the Side Hustle Nation blog when I was accepted as a speaker, and without any relevant public speaking experience I could point to, I think it was the blog (and Side Hustle Show podcast) that tipped the scales in my favor.

I was incredibly nervous leading up to the event, but it was an awesome “bucket list” experience and a chance to step out of my comfort zone in a big way. Plus it forced me to refine my message into a (hopefully) coherent and concise talk. I went through a half dozen different drafts and rehearsed like crazy before the big day, but the talk ended up receiving a standing ovation and has now been viewed almost 10,000 times on YouTube.

#26. Kiersten Rich / The Blonde Abroad

My first ever client was Visit Jordan for a video campaign where I got to produce a series of videos in the capital, Amman.

I’d always been passionate about videography, so it was an incredible opportunity and I was humbled that a tourism board had such faith in me despite only having just gotten started as a “blogger.” I learned early on that my audience and influence was only one aspect of my worth, but that my content also had value!

What Crazy Opportunities Are Waiting for You?

I know those pesky doubts are hard to shake sometimes. I know sometimes you feel like your day will never come; like you’re just wasting time and you might as well quit.

But let these stories inspire you to hang in there.

Blogging can (and often does) pay off in big and unexpected ways.

It is worth it.

So keep reading, keep writing, and (this is important) keep honing your skills.

Keep growing your blog and audience, and opportunities will find you.

Your turn will come.

And it might be right around the corner.

Author the Author: Eli Seekins is the founder of Launch Your Dream. He helps bloggers and entrepreneurs turn their passion into a business. Want help getting your first 1,000 email subscribers and making your first $5,000? Check out his FREE Job To Blog Virtual Summit — where 25 expert bloggers teach you how to quit your job, start a blog and make money doing it.

from Julia Garza Social Media Tips https://smartblogger.com/blogger-opportunities/

[cherylxsmith]

26 Crazy Stories about “OMG!” Opportunities that Blogging Made Happen

Will it all be worth it?

You can’t help wondering sometimes.

Every spare minute, you’re glued to your computer, reading, writing, doing all you can to grow your blog and build your audience — all on the shaky promise that someday your efforts will pay off.

But sometimes, that someday feels far out of reach. Sometimes, you can’t help wondering whether that day will ever come, or whether you’re just wasting your time.

Well, hang in there, my friend. Because you never know what kinds of opportunities your blog can bring you.

And they might take time, but for all you know, they might be right around the corner.

To prove it, I asked 26 of my blogging friends to share the coolest, craziest opportunities their blogs made happen in their early days — that is, before they amassed a huge following and made tens of thousands of dollars off their blog.

Ready to dive in?

#1. Jeff Bullas / Jeff Bullas

One of the “craziest” opportunities I had happened about a year after starting the blog when I was invited to speak in New Zealand.

It came about because a millionaire who was reading my blog, loved my content and had an idea and sent me an email.

After the event he asked me to join the board of a new tech startup and offered shares.

Five years later the company has raised $3 million and is continuing to grow.

That company is Shuttlerock.

We were a winner in Facebook’s 2016 Innovation Spotlight providing a scalable creative solution to unlock the true power of Facebook Advertising.

#2. Ryan Biddulph / Blogging from Paradise

The coolest opportunity that arose for me as a beginning blogger was being asked to interview Thrillionaire celebrity Nik Halik. I had no clue how to blog, let alone conduct an interview. Since this was some 7 years ago I literally pressed “record” on a tape recorder – I am not kidding – received the call on my land line (resistant to cell phone usage back then) and preserved the interview for transcribing.

I learned a valuable lesson too; be prepared! I asked two canned questions sent to me by his press guy and Nik told me he was bored of the same old questions as this was his 10th interview of the day. Because I spent 20 minutes researching him earlier that day I nimbly shifted and asked probing, interesting questions that made for a great interview.

#3. Chris Guillebeau / The Art of Non-Conformity

In my early days of blogging, Air New Zealand flew me to the Cook Islands for a 24-hour event.

It was a whirlwind visit and I learned that I don’t like sponsored trips (too much expectation on behalf of the sponsor, even when they say otherwise…), but I was still grateful for the experience.

#4. Danny Iny / Mirasee

The craziest opportunity that arose from blogging was that I ended up co-authoring a book with Guy Kawasaki and other A-listers when I was an unknown. Here’s how it happened:

Firepole Marketing (now Mirasee) was just a tiny blog with less than 1,000 subscribers, when I had the opportunity to guest blog on Copyblogger. My post was “38 Critical Books Every Blogger Needs to Read.” Number 12 on the list was The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki.

It must have caught the attention of Guy and/or his publicist, because a few days later, I received an email from Guy thanking me for including his book. He said he had a new book coming out and offered me a review copy and an interview.

Of course, I seized the opportunity. I spent 15 hours preparing for the interview to make it so good that Guy would want to share it with everybody. Afterwards, I posted the interview on my blog and created a video to promote the book on YouTube. I wrote reviews on Amazon and other bookseller websites—I did everything I could think of to get the word out.

Months later, I invited Guy to contribute to my book, Engagement from Scratch!, and he said yes. And that’s how blogging helped me co-author a book with Guy Kawasaki.

#5. Richard Lazazzera / A Better Lemonade Stand

Blogging quite literally changed my life. Within months of starting my ecommerce blog, A Better Lemonade Stand, I wrote a really long-form piece of content that drove thousands of brand new visitors to my site. One of those visitors was the director of marketing for Shopify. He reached out to me via email and we started to build a relationship.

About a year later, I moved to Toronto. When the director at Shopify heard, I was offered a position at Shopify which I jumped on. That position allowed me to reach two million visitors per month through their blog (while still growing my personal blog), write a full length book, and participate in the IPO of Shopify.

I’ve since left Shopify and continue to build A Better Lemonade Stand and several other companies. To think it all began with a single blog post still amazes me.

#6. Ian Cleary / Razor Social

Within six months of launching the blog it was voted one of the top ten social media blogs in the world by a competition run by Social Media Examiner.

That was pretty amazing for me because I started the blog based in Ireland and I was the only European blog on the list. This rapidly helped me become an influencer in the Social Media Space and generated me significant business.

#7. Amy Lynn Andrews / Amy Lynn Andrews

In 2006, when I had been blogging only a few years and blogs were still somewhat of a novelty, I was contacted by a writer from TIME Magazine. She had found my blog and wanted to interview me for a story she was writing about one of my main topics.

For some reason I didn’t think it could possibly be true, but a few months later I found myself in the print edition of TIME Magazine (in March 2007). Unfortunately I wasn’t savvy enough to maximize the exposure, but I did keep in contact with that journalist and enjoyed her friendship for several years.

#8. Dave Chesson / Kindlepreneur

You never know who is reading or following your content. I found out that my all time favorite writer, and multi-NYT Bestseller, Ted Dekker, had come across my work.

This led into getting to meet him for coffee, and ultimately, become an Advanced Review Copy (ARC) reader as well as helping with some of his book marketing projects.

#9. John Lee Dumas / EOFire

Very early on I had the opportunity to be featured on some pretty big sites as a guest poster, which wouldn’t have been possible if I hadn’t had the EOFire blog up and running. One of the first was on Think Traffic​ (now Fizzle.co), and we were featured there within just one month of having started our own blog.

This first guest post gave us powerful momentum and exposure, which we then used to request to guest post on other big name sites like Social Media Examiner, Copy Blogger, Content Marketing Institute and over twenty others.

Each new guest post opportunity brought with it exposure, more momentum, and most importantly, a very valuable friendship with people I’m proud to still call friends today.

#10. Aaron Orendorff / Iconicontent

Back in March 2014, I had just started blogging. Basically, it was me, my mom, and literally 261 unique visitors (I checked with Google Analytics just to be accurate).

I’d posted six times, when — out of the digital blue — I got an email about this post, Getting Your Customers to Hold It, Love It, and Give It Money:

I nearly lost my newbie-blogging mind. Of course, I said yes. And somewhat embarrassed myself by asking for a link:

“This is for a book project, so the linking is tough — but I’ll give you lots of love otherwise,” was Ann’s kind response.

Three months later, I’d secured my very first guest post at Copyblogger and I knew enough — just enough — to immediately turn around and pitch Ann on a MarketingProfs guest post. I composed a full article, sent it off, and was in. Everything I’ve done over the last three years has been built on that foundation. And I owe it all to one nice lady who stumbled on my blog when I had no business getting visitors of her clout (or visitors at all for that matter).

#11. Sean Ogle / Location Rebel

About six months after starting my blog, I wrote a post about quitting my job as a financial analyst. I had no idea what I was going to do after that, but I knew I was ready for something different.

The following week I received an email from a reader congratulating me on taking the leap, and telling me that he was looking to bring an intern out to Asia to help him with the online marketing for his company. I’d work part time and he would pay my basic living expenses, while teaching me the ins and outs of the digital world.

Six weeks later, I was on a flight to Bangkok where I would live for the next seven months – and it would set the foundation for my life and business for years to come. I haven’t had a real job since.

It never would have happened had I not started the blog, and positioned myself for a big opportunity to come my way.

#12. Camilla Hallstrom / Influence with Content

Back when I got started, I had NO clue what I was doing.

I wasn’t sure what worked and what didn’t. Sure, through programs like Serious Bloggers Only I knew what sorts of posts got results, but I still felt uncertain about putting anything out there. What was the point, really? What if I was just wasting my time on this blogging thing? A nagging voice inside my head told me I would end up empty handed without anything to show for it…

That’s why it felt amazing when one of my first posts got tons of shares and comments. But the best part? Brian Tracy (the sales mogul) shared it on his Facebook page (at the time, he had around 1.5 million followers). And that same post went on to win the title of “Most Epic Post” in a contest here on Smart Blogger (Boost Blog Traffic back then).

That’s the moment I understood exactly how powerful blogging can be. You can get noticed by anyone and you can open doors that right now seem firmly shut.

Apart from this, blogging has made such a difference in my life. I have met new friends who have the exact same interests as I do — that NEVER happens offline (for some reason, people’s eyes glaze over whenever I try to start a discussion about a content idea I just heard about). I’ve gotten job offers in big part thanks to my blogging experience and I started my freelance career because of it.

#13. Ashley Faulkes / Mad Lemmings

When you are just getting started, you don’t really expect anything crazy to happen. But sometimes you get a big surprise!

One of the things I did when starting out was to create a post featuring all the influencers in the blogging and social media scene. It got a lot of people’s attention and connected me with a lot of influencers very quickly. After all, it was a post with the sole purpose of highlighting these influencers (and letting them know of course :>).

Now, having connected with these influencers, I had the opportunity to take it a step further. I started inviting a lot of them on my brand spanking new podcast. Of course, I did not expect many of the bigger names to say yes. Surprisingly, I got quite a few big bloggers on the show, including some who were very reluctant to put themselves out there (not everyone is a lover of the microphone you know :>). Some of the people I got on my podcast included: Rebekah Radice, Ileane Smith, Ann Smarty, Susan Gilbert, John Paul Aguiar, Ian Anderson Gray and more. No, not Seth Godin, but still, for a complete beginner not bad I think!

What blew me away is that getting in contact with people you look up to is not as hard as it seems (if they don’t have an assistant answering their mails :>). Don’t forget, they were exactly where you are not too long ago. And most are more than happy to help out a newbie! Give it a shot.

#14. Daniel Scocco / Daily Blog Tips

Blogging is a great way to showcase your expertise and expand your network. I learned this when, back in 2009, I landed a consulting gig with an agency of the United States Government! The guys from Voice of America (the official external US broadcaster) were planning to launch a new site, and they wanted to learn what would be the best ways to optimize and promote it. It was a very interesting experience, and certainly a nice touch to my CV!

Practically speaking, this happened because I wrote a lot of content on related topics (website optimization, SEO, content marketing, website promotion), and that content got linked from other bloggers and site owners, and eventually it ranked well on Google. Then when the guys from VOA started doing some research they came across my stuff, liked it, and decided to get in touch.

#15. Meera Kothand / Meera Kothand

One of the craziest opportunities I received when I started out was not only having my guest post accepted at Marketing Profs but also getting an invitation to record a mini video training for their paid members.

It was scary but I took the plunge and did the training for them and got paid for it as well. This was when my blog was barely six months old. I’ve always believed in guest posting but its benefits reach far wider than just getting traffic and growing your list. It gets you exposure, introduces you to a new audience and paves the way for other opportunities like it did in my case!

#16. Dave Schneider / Ninja Outreach

Well I got the opportunity to join my current startup, Ninja Outreach! The opportunity arose when I was invited on a podcast with my now partner Mark, who read my blog, only a few months after I started it.

After the podcast was published he reached back out to me and we discussed some ideas we had for building marketing tools in the space. We decided it made sense to work together on it. That was three years ago, and NinjaOutreach is doing over half a million dollars a year now.

#17. Nathan Chan / Foundr

I can’t put this down to any one situation! Ever since we started the Foundr blog this has given us opportunities to interview some of the greatest entrepreneurs of our generation (Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington, Seth Godin etc.) and with this we’ve also been able to connect with some amazing entrepreneurs in our community which has been an extremely rewarding experience.

#18. Julie Harris / Whiskey and Red

The craziest opportunity that arose from blogging was being invited to speak at my first live class. I had been blogging for about six months when I was contacted by the Hawaii Chapter of a national women’s entrepreneur association, “Femfessionals” to speak at their Hawaiian Chapter dinner. They had found my name through another local business I had worked with in the past and found their way to my blog. I had just posted about “Charging What You’re Worth” and they loved the post so much they asked me to present on the same topic live, in front of their whole local chapter.

There was a whole catered dinner, wine and beverages, and a room full of local entrepreneurs waiting to hear what I had to say. I was so crazy nervous but excited. This opportunity then opened more doors to new clients, new projects, and continued speaking gigs. My business was so new at that point, I didn’t have much of a portfolio, and my small social following was pretty slim, but I had a pretty extensive business blog, and that was what convinced them that I was the perfect speaker for them.

#19. Franklin Hatchett / Online Dimes

When I first started blogging I came across a new internet marketing method with Shopify. I ended up writing about it on my blog and uploading a Video to Youtube. To my surprise this became a great opportunity and the opportunity grew my blog from around 1,000 visits a month to over 25,000.

This is the single biggest thing that grew my blog and I seized every moment of it. The blog post and video in question were posted all over the internet because people had doubts and talked negatively about it. That negativity grew my email list to 35,000 and Youtube to 30,000 subscribers in a year. I also launched a private Facebook Group four months ago that quickly grew to 15,000 members and counting.

The blog post that was shared and talked about now has over 400 comments with the video having over 300,000 views. Some might not call this the perfect opportunity, however controversy is used on a daily basis for advertising and any publicity is good publicity.

#20. Zac Johnson / Zac Johnson

When you put yourself out there in any industry and start to gain a following and audience, new opportunities are going to come up all the time. I’ve learned to not get excited by any of them, as only a very small percentage will actually come together. However, when they do, it’s pretty cool!

One such example was when Michael Bayer contacted me through email and asked if I’d like to be featured in a documentary on internet entrepreneurs. At the time I said yes… but always fully aware opportunities and emails similar to these come in every day and usually result in nothing.

Long story short, Michael was able to pull it all together and release the film! We had a nice premiere party in Hollywood, CA and it was pretty cool! Definitely a fun and exciting opportunity that never would have happened if I didn’t start ZacJohnson.com.

#21. Scott Chow / The Blog Starter

I would have to say that the craziest opportunity to come from blogging as I was getting started was the opportunity to be interviewed by a journalist from a nationally distributed magazine.

I’m generally a pretty shy person so it felt a little strange to have that kind of spotlight on me. However, I think for a lot of people that’s what blogging is all about: finding your voice and sharing that with the world.

I am proud to share that message with people and also to help so many people establish blogs of their own!

#22. Joe Bunting / The Write Practice

The craziest thing that happened to me as I first got into blogging was in 2008, after blogging for just a few months, I connected with another blogger who had been doing it for years for the organization he ran. We started emailing back and forth, and once, when he was going to be traveling in my city, we met and he introduced me to his daughter.

A few years later, I was traveling through his city, helping him with a book he was working on, and I saw his daughter again. We hit it off over coffee, started talking, and very long story short, less than a year later we were married. All from blogging.

#23. Tor Refsland / Tor Refsland

There are a lot of crazy opportunities that have happened thanks to blogging.

Let me mention two of them:

1. I got featured in a book with some of the best marketers in the world: Seth Godin, Chris Brogan, Brian Clark and Grant Cardone.

2. I got headhunted by Noah Kagan (I graciously turned him down, since I wanted to focus on building my own business).

#24. Ryan Robinson / Ryan Robinson

I got to work with Tim Ferriss, Neil Patel, Lewis Howes and dozens of other entrepreneurs right after I started blogging.

A few months after I started to write about my experiences running side projects, I applied for a job as a content marketer for the business classes at CreativeLive—the online education company. Thanks to the fact that I had already been blogging for myself about business related topics and essentially doing everything the content marketing job would entail, I got the gig and overnight started working with some of the most prominent names in the business world, helping them to create content and market their classes.

By going after a day job that put me in close proximity to the most influential people in my industry, I’ve since been able to grow these relationships and they’ve led me to do things like become a contributor on Forbes, land interviews with people like Pat Flynn and to launch my own consulting business. Blogging is all about relationships—go out of your way to forge meaningful ones that’ll help you progress within your industry.

#25. Nick Loper / Side Hustle Nation

The craziest opportunity that came from blogging was the chance to speak at my local TEDx event. I was about a year into writing the Side Hustle Nation blog when I was accepted as a speaker, and without any relevant public speaking experience I could point to, I think it was the blog (and Side Hustle Show podcast) that tipped the scales in my favor.

I was incredibly nervous leading up to the event, but it was an awesome “bucket list” experience and a chance to step out of my comfort zone in a big way. Plus it forced me to refine my message into a (hopefully) coherent and concise talk. I went through a half dozen different drafts and rehearsed like crazy before the big day, but the talk ended up receiving a standing ovation and has now been viewed almost 10,000 times on YouTube.

#26. Kiersten Rich / The Blonde Abroad

My first ever client was Visit Jordan for a video campaign where I got to produce a series of videos in the capital, Amman.

I’d always been passionate about videography, so it was an incredible opportunity and I was humbled that a tourism board had such faith in me despite only having just gotten started as a “blogger.” I learned early on that my audience and influence was only one aspect of my worth, but that my content also had value!

What Crazy Opportunities Are Waiting for You?

I know those pesky doubts are hard to shake sometimes. I know sometimes you feel like your day will never come; like you’re just wasting time and you might as well quit.

But let these stories inspire you to hang in there.

Blogging can (and often does) pay off in big and unexpected ways.

It is worth it.

So keep reading, keep writing, and (this is important) keep honing your skills.

Keep growing your blog and audience, and opportunities will find you.

Your turn will come.

And it might be right around the corner.

Author the Author: Eli Seekins is the founder of Launch Your Dream. He helps bloggers and entrepreneurs turn their passion into a business. Want help getting your first 1,000 email subscribers and making your first $5,000? Check out his FREE Job To Blog Virtual Summit — where 25 expert bloggers teach you how to quit your job, start a blog and make money doing it.

from SEO and SM Tips https://smartblogger.com/blogger-opportunities/

[laurendcameron]

26 Crazy Stories about “OMG!” Opportunities that Blogging Made Happen

Will it all be worth it?

You can’t help wondering sometimes.

Every spare minute, you’re glued to your computer, reading, writing, doing all you can to grow your blog and build your audience — all on the shaky promise that someday your efforts will pay off.

But sometimes, that someday feels far out of reach. Sometimes, you can’t help wondering whether that day will ever come, or whether you’re just wasting your time.

Well, hang in there, my friend. Because you never know what kinds of opportunities your blog can bring you.

And they might take time, but for all you know, they might be right around the corner.

To prove it, I asked 26 of my blogging friends to share the coolest, craziest opportunities their blogs made happen in their early days — that is, before they amassed a huge following and made tens of thousands of dollars off their blog.

Ready to dive in?

#1. Jeff Bullas / Jeff Bullas

One of the “craziest” opportunities I had happened about a year after starting the blog when I was invited to speak in New Zealand.

It came about because a millionaire who was reading my blog, loved my content and had an idea and sent me an email.

After the event he asked me to join the board of a new tech startup and offered shares.

Five years later the company has raised $3 million and is continuing to grow.

That company is Shuttlerock.

We were a winner in Facebook’s 2016 Innovation Spotlight providing a scalable creative solution to unlock the true power of Facebook Advertising.

#2. Ryan Biddulph / Blogging from Paradise

The coolest opportunity that arose for me as a beginning blogger was being asked to interview Thrillionaire celebrity Nik Halik. I had no clue how to blog, let alone conduct an interview. Since this was some 7 years ago I literally pressed “record” on a tape recorder – I am not kidding – received the call on my land line (resistant to cell phone usage back then) and preserved the interview for transcribing.

I learned a valuable lesson too; be prepared! I asked two canned questions sent to me by his press guy and Nik told me he was bored of the same old questions as this was his 10th interview of the day. Because I spent 20 minutes researching him earlier that day I nimbly shifted and asked probing, interesting questions that made for a great interview.

#3. Chris Guillebeau / The Art of Non-Conformity

In my early days of blogging, Air New Zealand flew me to the Cook Islands for a 24-hour event.

It was a whirlwind visit and I learned that I don’t like sponsored trips (too much expectation on behalf of the sponsor, even when they say otherwise…), but I was still grateful for the experience.

#4. Danny Iny / Mirasee

The craziest opportunity that arose from blogging was that I ended up co-authoring a book with Guy Kawasaki and other A-listers when I was an unknown. Here’s how it happened:

Firepole Marketing (now Mirasee) was just a tiny blog with less than 1,000 subscribers, when I had the opportunity to guest blog on Copyblogger. My post was “38 Critical Books Every Blogger Needs to Read.” Number 12 on the list was The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki.

It must have caught the attention of Guy and/or his publicist, because a few days later, I received an email from Guy thanking me for including his book. He said he had a new book coming out and offered me a review copy and an interview.

Of course, I seized the opportunity. I spent 15 hours preparing for the interview to make it so good that Guy would want to share it with everybody. Afterwards, I posted the interview on my blog and created a video to promote the book on YouTube. I wrote reviews on Amazon and other bookseller websites—I did everything I could think of to get the word out.

Months later, I invited Guy to contribute to my book, Engagement from Scratch!, and he said yes. And that’s how blogging helped me co-author a book with Guy Kawasaki.

#5. Richard Lazazzera / A Better Lemonade Stand

Blogging quite literally changed my life. Within months of starting my ecommerce blog, A Better Lemonade Stand, I wrote a really long-form piece of content that drove thousands of brand new visitors to my site. One of those visitors was the director of marketing for Shopify. He reached out to me via email and we started to build a relationship.

About a year later, I moved to Toronto. When the director at Shopify heard, I was offered a position at Shopify which I jumped on. That position allowed me to reach two million visitors per month through their blog (while still growing my personal blog), write a full length book, and participate in the IPO of Shopify.

I’ve since left Shopify and continue to build A Better Lemonade Stand and several other companies. To think it all began with a single blog post still amazes me.

#6. Ian Cleary / Razor Social

Within six months of launching the blog it was voted one of the top ten social media blogs in the world by a competition run by Social Media Examiner.

That was pretty amazing for me because I started the blog based in Ireland and I was the only European blog on the list. This rapidly helped me become an influencer in the Social Media Space and generated me significant business.

#7. Amy Lynn Andrews / Amy Lynn Andrews

In 2006, when I had been blogging only a few years and blogs were still somewhat of a novelty, I was contacted by a writer from TIME Magazine. She had found my blog and wanted to interview me for a story she was writing about one of my main topics.

For some reason I didn’t think it could possibly be true, but a few months later I found myself in the print edition of TIME Magazine (in March 2007). Unfortunately I wasn’t savvy enough to maximize the exposure, but I did keep in contact with that journalist and enjoyed her friendship for several years.

#8. Dave Chesson / Kindlepreneur

You never know who is reading or following your content. I found out that my all time favorite writer, and multi-NYT Bestseller, Ted Dekker, had come across my work.

This led into getting to meet him for coffee, and ultimately, become an Advanced Review Copy (ARC) reader as well as helping with some of his book marketing projects.

#9. John Lee Dumas / EOFire

Very early on I had the opportunity to be featured on some pretty big sites as a guest poster, which wouldn’t have been possible if I hadn’t had the EOFire blog up and running. One of the first was on Think Traffic​ (now Fizzle.co), and we were featured there within just one month of having started our own blog.

This first guest post gave us powerful momentum and exposure, which we then used to request to guest post on other big name sites like Social Media Examiner, Copy Blogger, Content Marketing Institute and over twenty others.

Each new guest post opportunity brought with it exposure, more momentum, and most importantly, a very valuable friendship with people I’m proud to still call friends today.

#10. Aaron Orendorff / Iconicontent

Back in March 2014, I had just started blogging. Basically, it was me, my mom, and literally 261 unique visitors (I checked with Google Analytics just to be accurate).

I’d posted six times, when — out of the digital blue — I got an email about this post, Getting Your Customers to Hold It, Love It, and Give It Money:

I nearly lost my newbie-blogging mind. Of course, I said yes. And somewhat embarrassed myself by asking for a link:

“This is for a book project, so the linking is tough — but I’ll give you lots of love otherwise,” was Ann’s kind response.

Three months later, I’d secured my very first guest post at Copyblogger and I knew enough — just enough — to immediately turn around and pitch Ann on a MarketingProfs guest post. I composed a full article, sent it off, and was in. Everything I’ve done over the last three years has been built on that foundation. And I owe it all to one nice lady who stumbled on my blog when I had no business getting visitors of her clout (or visitors at all for that matter).

#11. Sean Ogle / Location Rebel

About six months after starting my blog, I wrote a post about quitting my job as a financial analyst. I had no idea what I was going to do after that, but I knew I was ready for something different.

The following week I received an email from a reader congratulating me on taking the leap, and telling me that he was looking to bring an intern out to Asia to help him with the online marketing for his company. I’d work part time and he would pay my basic living expenses, while teaching me the ins and outs of the digital world.

Six weeks later, I was on a flight to Bangkok where I would live for the next seven months – and it would set the foundation for my life and business for years to come. I haven’t had a real job since.

It never would have happened had I not started the blog, and positioned myself for a big opportunity to come my way.

#12. Camilla Hallstrom / Influence with Content

Back when I got started, I had NO clue what I was doing.

I wasn’t sure what worked and what didn’t. Sure, through programs like Serious Bloggers Only I knew what sorts of posts got results, but I still felt uncertain about putting anything out there. What was the point, really? What if I was just wasting my time on this blogging thing? A nagging voice inside my head told me I would end up empty handed without anything to show for it…

That’s why it felt amazing when one of my first posts got tons of shares and comments. But the best part? Brian Tracy (the sales mogul) shared it on his Facebook page (at the time, he had around 1.5 million followers). And that same post went on to win the title of “Most Epic Post” in a contest here on Smart Blogger (Boost Blog Traffic back then).

That’s the moment I understood exactly how powerful blogging can be. You can get noticed by anyone and you can open doors that right now seem firmly shut.

Apart from this, blogging has made such a difference in my life. I have met new friends who have the exact same interests as I do — that NEVER happens offline (for some reason, people’s eyes glaze over whenever I try to start a discussion about a content idea I just heard about). I’ve gotten job offers in big part thanks to my blogging experience and I started my freelance career because of it.

#13. Ashley Faulkes / Mad Lemmings

When you are just getting started, you don’t really expect anything crazy to happen. But sometimes you get a big surprise!

One of the things I did when starting out was to create a post featuring all the influencers in the blogging and social media scene. It got a lot of people’s attention and connected me with a lot of influencers very quickly. After all, it was a post with the sole purpose of highlighting these influencers (and letting them know of course :>).

Now, having connected with these influencers, I had the opportunity to take it a step further. I started inviting a lot of them on my brand spanking new podcast. Of course, I did not expect many of the bigger names to say yes. Surprisingly, I got quite a few big bloggers on the show, including some who were very reluctant to put themselves out there (not everyone is a lover of the microphone you know :>). Some of the people I got on my podcast included: Rebekah Radice, Ileane Smith, Ann Smarty, Susan Gilbert, John Paul Aguiar, Ian Anderson Gray and more. No, not Seth Godin, but still, for a complete beginner not bad I think!

What blew me away is that getting in contact with people you look up to is not as hard as it seems (if they don’t have an assistant answering their mails :>). Don’t forget, they were exactly where you are not too long ago. And most are more than happy to help out a newbie! Give it a shot.

#14. Daniel Scocco / Daily Blog Tips

Blogging is a great way to showcase your expertise and expand your network. I learned this when, back in 2009, I landed a consulting gig with an agency of the United States Government! The guys from Voice of America (the official external US broadcaster) were planning to launch a new site, and they wanted to learn what would be the best ways to optimize and promote it. It was a very interesting experience, and certainly a nice touch to my CV!

Practically speaking, this happened because I wrote a lot of content on related topics (website optimization, SEO, content marketing, website promotion), and that content got linked from other bloggers and site owners, and eventually it ranked well on Google. Then when the guys from VOA started doing some research they came across my stuff, liked it, and decided to get in touch.

#15. Meera Kothand / Meera Kothand

One of the craziest opportunities I received when I started out was not only having my guest post accepted at Marketing Profs but also getting an invitation to record a mini video training for their paid members.

It was scary but I took the plunge and did the training for them and got paid for it as well. This was when my blog was barely six months old. I’ve always believed in guest posting but its benefits reach far wider than just getting traffic and growing your list. It gets you exposure, introduces you to a new audience and paves the way for other opportunities like it did in my case!

#16. Dave Schneider / Ninja Outreach

Well I got the opportunity to join my current startup, Ninja Outreach! The opportunity arose when I was invited on a podcast with my now partner Mark, who read my blog, only a few months after I started it.

After the podcast was published he reached back out to me and we discussed some ideas we had for building marketing tools in the space. We decided it made sense to work together on it. That was three years ago, and NinjaOutreach is doing over half a million dollars a year now.

#17. Nathan Chan / Foundr

I can’t put this down to any one situation! Ever since we started the Foundr blog this has given us opportunities to interview some of the greatest entrepreneurs of our generation (Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington, Seth Godin etc.) and with this we’ve also been able to connect with some amazing entrepreneurs in our community which has been an extremely rewarding experience.

#18. Julie Harris / Whiskey and Red

The craziest opportunity that arose from blogging was being invited to speak at my first live class. I had been blogging for about six months when I was contacted by the Hawaii Chapter of a national women’s entrepreneur association, “Femfessionals” to speak at their Hawaiian Chapter dinner. They had found my name through another local business I had worked with in the past and found their way to my blog. I had just posted about “Charging What You’re Worth” and they loved the post so much they asked me to present on the same topic live, in front of their whole local chapter.

There was a whole catered dinner, wine and beverages, and a room full of local entrepreneurs waiting to hear what I had to say. I was so crazy nervous but excited. This opportunity then opened more doors to new clients, new projects, and continued speaking gigs. My business was so new at that point, I didn’t have much of a portfolio, and my small social following was pretty slim, but I had a pretty extensive business blog, and that was what convinced them that I was the perfect speaker for them.

#19. Franklin Hatchett / Online Dimes

When I first started blogging I came across a new internet marketing method with Shopify. I ended up writing about it on my blog and uploading a Video to Youtube. To my surprise this became a great opportunity and the opportunity grew my blog from around 1,000 visits a month to over 25,000.

This is the single biggest thing that grew my blog and I seized every moment of it. The blog post and video in question were posted all over the internet because people had doubts and talked negatively about it. That negativity grew my email list to 35,000 and Youtube to 30,000 subscribers in a year. I also launched a private Facebook Group four months ago that quickly grew to 15,000 members and counting.

The blog post that was shared and talked about now has over 400 comments with the video having over 300,000 views. Some might not call this the perfect opportunity, however controversy is used on a daily basis for advertising and any publicity is good publicity.

#20. Zac Johnson / Zac Johnson

When you put yourself out there in any industry and start to gain a following and audience, new opportunities are going to come up all the time. I’ve learned to not get excited by any of them, as only a very small percentage will actually come together. However, when they do, it’s pretty cool!

One such example was when Michael Bayer contacted me through email and asked if I’d like to be featured in a documentary on internet entrepreneurs. At the time I said yes… but always fully aware opportunities and emails similar to these come in every day and usually result in nothing.

Long story short, Michael was able to pull it all together and release the film! We had a nice premiere party in Hollywood, CA and it was pretty cool! Definitely a fun and exciting opportunity that never would have happened if I didn’t start ZacJohnson.com.

#21. Scott Chow / The Blog Starter

I would have to say that the craziest opportunity to come from blogging as I was getting started was the opportunity to be interviewed by a journalist from a nationally distributed magazine.

I’m generally a pretty shy person so it felt a little strange to have that kind of spotlight on me. However, I think for a lot of people that’s what blogging is all about: finding your voice and sharing that with the world.

I am proud to share that message with people and also to help so many people establish blogs of their own!

#22. Joe Bunting / The Write Practice

The craziest thing that happened to me as I first got into blogging was in 2008, after blogging for just a few months, I connected with another blogger who had been doing it for years for the organization he ran. We started emailing back and forth, and once, when he was going to be traveling in my city, we met and he introduced me to his daughter.

A few years later, I was traveling through his city, helping him with a book he was working on, and I saw his daughter again. We hit it off over coffee, started talking, and very long story short, less than a year later we were married. All from blogging.

#23. Tor Refsland / Tor Refsland

There are a lot of crazy opportunities that have happened thanks to blogging.

Let me mention two of them:

1. I got featured in a book with some of the best marketers in the world: Seth Godin, Chris Brogan, Brian Clark and Grant Cardone.

2. I got headhunted by Noah Kagan (I graciously turned him down, since I wanted to focus on building my own business).

#24. Ryan Robinson / Ryan Robinson

I got to work with Tim Ferriss, Neil Patel, Lewis Howes and dozens of other entrepreneurs right after I started blogging.

A few months after I started to write about my experiences running side projects, I applied for a job as a content marketer for the business classes at CreativeLive—the online education company. Thanks to the fact that I had already been blogging for myself about business related topics and essentially doing everything the content marketing job would entail, I got the gig and overnight started working with some of the most prominent names in the business world, helping them to create content and market their classes.

By going after a day job that put me in close proximity to the most influential people in my industry, I’ve since been able to grow these relationships and they’ve led me to do things like become a contributor on Forbes, land interviews with people like Pat Flynn and to launch my own consulting business. Blogging is all about relationships—go out of your way to forge meaningful ones that’ll help you progress within your industry.

#25. Nick Loper / Side Hustle Nation

The craziest opportunity that came from blogging was the chance to speak at my local TEDx event. I was about a year into writing the Side Hustle Nation blog when I was accepted as a speaker, and without any relevant public speaking experience I could point to, I think it was the blog (and Side Hustle Show podcast) that tipped the scales in my favor.

I was incredibly nervous leading up to the event, but it was an awesome “bucket list” experience and a chance to step out of my comfort zone in a big way. Plus it forced me to refine my message into a (hopefully) coherent and concise talk. I went through a half dozen different drafts and rehearsed like crazy before the big day, but the talk ended up receiving a standing ovation and has now been viewed almost 10,000 times on YouTube.

#26. Kiersten Rich / The Blonde Abroad

My first ever client was Visit Jordan for a video campaign where I got to produce a series of videos in the capital, Amman.

I’d always been passionate about videography, so it was an incredible opportunity and I was humbled that a tourism board had such faith in me despite only having just gotten started as a “blogger.” I learned early on that my audience and influence was only one aspect of my worth, but that my content also had value!

What Crazy Opportunities Are Waiting for You?

I know those pesky doubts are hard to shake sometimes. I know sometimes you feel like your day will never come; like you’re just wasting time and you might as well quit.

But let these stories inspire you to hang in there.

Blogging can (and often does) pay off in big and unexpected ways.

It is worth it.

So keep reading, keep writing, and (this is important) keep honing your skills.

Keep growing your blog and audience, and opportunities will find you.

Your turn will come.

And it might be right around the corner.

Author the Author: Eli Seekins is the founder of Launch Your Dream. He helps bloggers and entrepreneurs turn their passion into a business. Want help getting your first 1,000 email subscribers and making your first $5,000? Check out his FREE Job To Blog Virtual Summit — where 25 expert bloggers teach you how to quit your job, start a blog and make money doing it.

from Lauren Cameron Updates https://smartblogger.com/blogger-opportunities/

[stevenshartus]

26 Crazy Stories about “OMG!” Opportunities that Blogging Made Happen

Will it all be worth it?

You can’t help wondering sometimes.

Every spare minute, you’re glued to your computer, reading, writing, doing all you can to grow your blog and build your audience — all on the shaky promise that someday your efforts will pay off.

But sometimes, that someday feels far out of reach. Sometimes, you can’t help wondering whether that day will ever come, or whether you’re just wasting your time.

Well, hang in there, my friend. Because you never know what kinds of opportunities your blog can bring you.

And they might take time, but for all you know, they might be right around the corner.

To prove it, I asked 26 of my blogging friends to share the coolest, craziest opportunities their blogs made happen in their early days — that is, before they amassed a huge following and made tens of thousands of dollars off their blog.

Ready to dive in?

#1. Jeff Bullas / Jeff Bullas

One of the “craziest” opportunities I had happened about a year after starting the blog when I was invited to speak in New Zealand.

It came about because a millionaire who was reading my blog, loved my content and had an idea and sent me an email.

After the event he asked me to join the board of a new tech startup and offered shares.

Five years later the company has raised $3 million and is continuing to grow.

That company is Shuttlerock.

We were a winner in Facebook’s 2016 Innovation Spotlight providing a scalable creative solution to unlock the true power of Facebook Advertising.

#2. Ryan Biddulph / Blogging from Paradise

The coolest opportunity that arose for me as a beginning blogger was being asked to interview Thrillionaire celebrity Nik Halik. I had no clue how to blog, let alone conduct an interview. Since this was some 7 years ago I literally pressed “record” on a tape recorder – I am not kidding – received the call on my land line (resistant to cell phone usage back then) and preserved the interview for transcribing.

I learned a valuable lesson too; be prepared! I asked two canned questions sent to me by his press guy and Nik told me he was bored of the same old questions as this was his 10th interview of the day. Because I spent 20 minutes researching him earlier that day I nimbly shifted and asked probing, interesting questions that made for a great interview.

#3. Chris Guillebeau / The Art of Non-Conformity

In my early days of blogging, Air New Zealand flew me to the Cook Islands for a 24-hour event.

It was a whirlwind visit and I learned that I don’t like sponsored trips (too much expectation on behalf of the sponsor, even when they say otherwise…), but I was still grateful for the experience.

#4. Danny Iny / Mirasee

The craziest opportunity that arose from blogging was that I ended up co-authoring a book with Guy Kawasaki and other A-listers when I was an unknown. Here’s how it happened:

Firepole Marketing (now Mirasee) was just a tiny blog with less than 1,000 subscribers, when I had the opportunity to guest blog on Copyblogger. My post was “38 Critical Books Every Blogger Needs to Read.” Number 12 on the list was The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki.

It must have caught the attention of Guy and/or his publicist, because a few days later, I received an email from Guy thanking me for including his book. He said he had a new book coming out and offered me a review copy and an interview.

Of course, I seized the opportunity. I spent 15 hours preparing for the interview to make it so good that Guy would want to share it with everybody. Afterwards, I posted the interview on my blog and created a video to promote the book on YouTube. I wrote reviews on Amazon and other bookseller websites—I did everything I could think of to get the word out.

Months later, I invited Guy to contribute to my book, Engagement from Scratch!, and he said yes. And that’s how blogging helped me co-author a book with Guy Kawasaki.

#5. Richard Lazazzera / A Better Lemonade Stand

Blogging quite literally changed my life. Within months of starting my ecommerce blog, A Better Lemonade Stand, I wrote a really long-form piece of content that drove thousands of brand new visitors to my site. One of those visitors was the director of marketing for Shopify. He reached out to me via email and we started to build a relationship.

About a year later, I moved to Toronto. When the director at Shopify heard, I was offered a position at Shopify which I jumped on. That position allowed me to reach two million visitors per month through their blog (while still growing my personal blog), write a full length book, and participate in the IPO of Shopify.

I’ve since left Shopify and continue to build A Better Lemonade Stand and several other companies. To think it all began with a single blog post still amazes me.

#6. Ian Cleary / Razor Social

Within six months of launching the blog it was voted one of the top ten social media blogs in the world by a competition run by Social Media Examiner.

That was pretty amazing for me because I started the blog based in Ireland and I was the only European blog on the list. This rapidly helped me become an influencer in the Social Media Space and generated me significant business.

#7. Amy Lynn Andrews / Amy Lynn Andrews

In 2006, when I had been blogging only a few years and blogs were still somewhat of a novelty, I was contacted by a writer from TIME Magazine. She had found my blog and wanted to interview me for a story she was writing about one of my main topics.

For some reason I didn’t think it could possibly be true, but a few months later I found myself in the print edition of TIME Magazine (in March 2007). Unfortunately I wasn’t savvy enough to maximize the exposure, but I did keep in contact with that journalist and enjoyed her friendship for several years.

#8. Dave Chesson / Kindlepreneur

You never know who is reading or following your content. I found out that my all time favorite writer, and multi-NYT Bestseller, Ted Dekker, had come across my work.

This led into getting to meet him for coffee, and ultimately, become an Advanced Review Copy (ARC) reader as well as helping with some of his book marketing projects.

#9. John Lee Dumas / EOFire

Very early on I had the opportunity to be featured on some pretty big sites as a guest poster, which wouldn’t have been possible if I hadn’t had the EOFire blog up and running. One of the first was on Think Traffic​ (now Fizzle.co), and we were featured there within just one month of having started our own blog.

This first guest post gave us powerful momentum and exposure, which we then used to request to guest post on other big name sites like Social Media Examiner, Copy Blogger, Content Marketing Institute and over twenty others.

Each new guest post opportunity brought with it exposure, more momentum, and most importantly, a very valuable friendship with people I’m proud to still call friends today.

#10. Aaron Orendorff / Iconicontent

Back in March 2014, I had just started blogging. Basically, it was me, my mom, and literally 261 unique visitors (I checked with Google Analytics just to be accurate).

I’d posted six times, when — out of the digital blue — I got an email about this post, Getting Your Customers to Hold It, Love It, and Give It Money:

I nearly lost my newbie-blogging mind. Of course, I said yes. And somewhat embarrassed myself by asking for a link:

“This is for a book project, so the linking is tough — but I’ll give you lots of love otherwise,” was Ann’s kind response.

Three months later, I’d secured my very first guest post at Copyblogger and I knew enough — just enough — to immediately turn around and pitch Ann on a MarketingProfs guest post. I composed a full article, sent it off, and was in. Everything I’ve done over the last three years has been built on that foundation. And I owe it all to one nice lady who stumbled on my blog when I had no business getting visitors of her clout (or visitors at all for that matter).

#11. Sean Ogle / Location Rebel

About six months after starting my blog, I wrote a post about quitting my job as a financial analyst. I had no idea what I was going to do after that, but I knew I was ready for something different.

The following week I received an email from a reader congratulating me on taking the leap, and telling me that he was looking to bring an intern out to Asia to help him with the online marketing for his company. I’d work part time and he would pay my basic living expenses, while teaching me the ins and outs of the digital world.

Six weeks later, I was on a flight to Bangkok where I would live for the next seven months – and it would set the foundation for my life and business for years to come. I haven’t had a real job since.

It never would have happened had I not started the blog, and positioned myself for a big opportunity to come my way.

#12. Camilla Hallstrom / Influence with Content

Back when I got started, I had NO clue what I was doing.

I wasn’t sure what worked and what didn’t. Sure, through programs like Serious Bloggers Only I knew what sorts of posts got results, but I still felt uncertain about putting anything out there. What was the point, really? What if I was just wasting my time on this blogging thing? A nagging voice inside my head told me I would end up empty handed without anything to show for it…

That’s why it felt amazing when one of my first posts got tons of shares and comments. But the best part? Brian Tracy (the sales mogul) shared it on his Facebook page (at the time, he had around 1.5 million followers). And that same post went on to win the title of “Most Epic Post” in a contest here on Smart Blogger (Boost Blog Traffic back then).

That’s the moment I understood exactly how powerful blogging can be. You can get noticed by anyone and you can open doors that right now seem firmly shut.

Apart from this, blogging has made such a difference in my life. I have met new friends who have the exact same interests as I do — that NEVER happens offline (for some reason, people’s eyes glaze over whenever I try to start a discussion about a content idea I just heard about). I’ve gotten job offers in big part thanks to my blogging experience and I started my freelance career because of it.

#13. Ashley Faulkes / Mad Lemmings

When you are just getting started, you don’t really expect anything crazy to happen. But sometimes you get a big surprise!

One of the things I did when starting out was to create a post featuring all the influencers in the blogging and social media scene. It got a lot of people’s attention and connected me with a lot of influencers very quickly. After all, it was a post with the sole purpose of highlighting these influencers (and letting them know of course :>).

Now, having connected with these influencers, I had the opportunity to take it a step further. I started inviting a lot of them on my brand spanking new podcast. Of course, I did not expect many of the bigger names to say yes. Surprisingly, I got quite a few big bloggers on the show, including some who were very reluctant to put themselves out there (not everyone is a lover of the microphone you know :>). Some of the people I got on my podcast included: Rebekah Radice, Ileane Smith, Ann Smarty, Susan Gilbert, John Paul Aguiar, Ian Anderson Gray and more. No, not Seth Godin, but still, for a complete beginner not bad I think!

What blew me away is that getting in contact with people you look up to is not as hard as it seems (if they don’t have an assistant answering their mails :>). Don’t forget, they were exactly where you are not too long ago. And most are more than happy to help out a newbie! Give it a shot.

#14. Daniel Scocco / Daily Blog Tips

Blogging is a great way to showcase your expertise and expand your network. I learned this when, back in 2009, I landed a consulting gig with an agency of the United States Government! The guys from Voice of America (the official external US broadcaster) were planning to launch a new site, and they wanted to learn what would be the best ways to optimize and promote it. It was a very interesting experience, and certainly a nice touch to my CV!

Practically speaking, this happened because I wrote a lot of content on related topics (website optimization, SEO, content marketing, website promotion), and that content got linked from other bloggers and site owners, and eventually it ranked well on Google. Then when the guys from VOA started doing some research they came across my stuff, liked it, and decided to get in touch.

#15. Meera Kothand / Meera Kothand

One of the craziest opportunities I received when I started out was not only having my guest post accepted at Marketing Profs but also getting an invitation to record a mini video training for their paid members.

It was scary but I took the plunge and did the training for them and got paid for it as well. This was when my blog was barely six months old. I’ve always believed in guest posting but its benefits reach far wider than just getting traffic and growing your list. It gets you exposure, introduces you to a new audience and paves the way for other opportunities like it did in my case!

#16. Dave Schneider / Ninja Outreach

Well I got the opportunity to join my current startup, Ninja Outreach! The opportunity arose when I was invited on a podcast with my now partner Mark, who read my blog, only a few months after I started it.

After the podcast was published he reached back out to me and we discussed some ideas we had for building marketing tools in the space. We decided it made sense to work together on it. That was three years ago, and NinjaOutreach is doing over half a million dollars a year now.

#17. Nathan Chan / Foundr

I can’t put this down to any one situation! Ever since we started the Foundr blog this has given us opportunities to interview some of the greatest entrepreneurs of our generation (Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington, Seth Godin etc.) and with this we’ve also been able to connect with some amazing entrepreneurs in our community which has been an extremely rewarding experience.

#18. Julie Harris / Whiskey and Red

The craziest opportunity that arose from blogging was being invited to speak at my first live class. I had been blogging for about six months when I was contacted by the Hawaii Chapter of a national women’s entrepreneur association, “Femfessionals” to speak at their Hawaiian Chapter dinner. They had found my name through another local business I had worked with in the past and found their way to my blog. I had just posted about “Charging What You’re Worth” and they loved the post so much they asked me to present on the same topic live, in front of their whole local chapter.

There was a whole catered dinner, wine and beverages, and a room full of local entrepreneurs waiting to hear what I had to say. I was so crazy nervous but excited. This opportunity then opened more doors to new clients, new projects, and continued speaking gigs. My business was so new at that point, I didn’t have much of a portfolio, and my small social following was pretty slim, but I had a pretty extensive business blog, and that was what convinced them that I was the perfect speaker for them.

#19. Franklin Hatchett / Online Dimes

When I first started blogging I came across a new internet marketing method with Shopify. I ended up writing about it on my blog and uploading a Video to Youtube. To my surprise this became a great opportunity and the opportunity grew my blog from around 1,000 visits a month to over 25,000.

This is the single biggest thing that grew my blog and I seized every moment of it. The blog post and video in question were posted all over the internet because people had doubts and talked negatively about it. That negativity grew my email list to 35,000 and Youtube to 30,000 subscribers in a year. I also launched a private Facebook Group four months ago that quickly grew to 15,000 members and counting.

The blog post that was shared and talked about now has over 400 comments with the video having over 300,000 views. Some might not call this the perfect opportunity, however controversy is used on a daily basis for advertising and any publicity is good publicity.

#20. Zac Johnson / Zac Johnson

When you put yourself out there in any industry and start to gain a following and audience, new opportunities are going to come up all the time. I’ve learned to not get excited by any of them, as only a very small percentage will actually come together. However, when they do, it’s pretty cool!

One such example was when Michael Bayer contacted me through email and asked if I��d like to be featured in a documentary on internet entrepreneurs. At the time I said yes… but always fully aware opportunities and emails similar to these come in every day and usually result in nothing.

Long story short, Michael was able to pull it all together and release the film! We had a nice premiere party in Hollywood, CA and it was pretty cool! Definitely a fun and exciting opportunity that never would have happened if I didn’t start ZacJohnson.com.

#21. Scott Chow / The Blog Starter

I would have to say that the craziest opportunity to come from blogging as I was getting started was the opportunity to be interviewed by a journalist from a nationally distributed magazine.

I’m generally a pretty shy person so it felt a little strange to have that kind of spotlight on me. However, I think for a lot of people that’s what blogging is all about: finding your voice and sharing that with the world.

I am proud to share that message with people and also to help so many people establish blogs of their own!

#22. Joe Bunting / The Write Practice

The craziest thing that happened to me as I first got into blogging was in 2008, after blogging for just a few months, I connected with another blogger who had been doing it for years for the organization he ran. We started emailing back and forth, and once, when he was going to be traveling in my city, we met and he introduced me to his daughter.

A few years later, I was traveling through his city, helping him with a book he was working on, and I saw his daughter again. We hit it off over coffee, started talking, and very long story short, less than a year later we were married. All from blogging.

#23. Tor Refsland / Tor Refsland

There are a lot of crazy opportunities that have happened thanks to blogging.

Let me mention two of them:

1. I got featured in a book with some of the best marketers in the world: Seth Godin, Chris Brogan, Brian Clark and Grant Cardone.

2. I got headhunted by Noah Kagan (I graciously turned him down, since I wanted to focus on building my own business).

#24. Ryan Robinson / Ryan Robinson

I got to work with Tim Ferriss, Neil Patel, Lewis Howes and dozens of other entrepreneurs right after I started blogging.

A few months after I started to write about my experiences running side projects, I applied for a job as a content marketer for the business classes at CreativeLive—the online education company. Thanks to the fact that I had already been blogging for myself about business related topics and essentially doing everything the content marketing job would entail, I got the gig and overnight started working with some of the most prominent names in the business world, helping them to create content and market their classes.

By going after a day job that put me in close proximity to the most influential people in my industry, I’ve since been able to grow these relationships and they’ve led me to do things like become a contributor on Forbes, land interviews with people like Pat Flynn and to launch my own consulting business. Blogging is all about relationships—go out of your way to forge meaningful ones that’ll help you progress within your industry.

#25. Nick Loper / Side Hustle Nation

The craziest opportunity that came from blogging was the chance to speak at my local TEDx event. I was about a year into writing the Side Hustle Nation blog when I was accepted as a speaker, and without any relevant public speaking experience I could point to, I think it was the blog (and Side Hustle Show podcast) that tipped the scales in my favor.

I was incredibly nervous leading up to the event, but it was an awesome “bucket list” experience and a chance to step out of my comfort zone in a big way. Plus it forced me to refine my message into a (hopefully) coherent and concise talk. I went through a half dozen different drafts and rehearsed like crazy before the big day, but the talk ended up receiving a standing ovation and has now been viewed almost 10,000 times on YouTube.

#26. Kiersten Rich / The Blonde Abroad

My first ever client was Visit Jordan for a video campaign where I got to produce a series of videos in the capital, Amman.

I’d always been passionate about videography, so it was an incredible opportunity and I was humbled that a tourism board had such faith in me despite only having just gotten started as a “blogger.” I learned early on that my audience and influence was only one aspect of my worth, but that my content also had value!

What Crazy Opportunities Are Waiting for You?

I know those pesky doubts are hard to shake sometimes. I know sometimes you feel like your day will never come; like you’re just wasting time and you might as well quit.

But let these stories inspire you to hang in there.

Blogging can (and often does) pay off in big and unexpected ways.

It is worth it.

So keep reading, keep writing, and (this is important) keep honing your skills.

Keep growing your blog and audience, and opportunities will find you.

Your turn will come.

And it might be right around the corner.

Author the Author: Eli Seekins is the founder of Launch Your Dream. He helps bloggers and entrepreneurs turn their passion into a business. Want help getting your first 1,000 email subscribers and making your first $5,000? Check out his FREE Job To Blog Virtual Summit — where 25 expert bloggers teach you how to quit your job, start a blog and make money doing it.

from SEO and SM Tips https://smartblogger.com/blogger-opportunities/

[felixdgreen]

26 Crazy Stories about “OMG!” Opportunities that Blogging Made Happen

Will it all be worth it?

You can’t help wondering sometimes.

Every spare minute, you’re glued to your computer, reading, writing, doing all you can to grow your blog and build your audience — all on the shaky promise that someday your efforts will pay off.

But sometimes, that someday feels far out of reach. Sometimes, you can’t help wondering whether that day will ever come, or whether you’re just wasting your time.

Well, hang in there, my friend. Because you never know what kinds of opportunities your blog can bring you.

And they might take time, but for all you know, they might be right around the corner.

To prove it, I asked 26 of my blogging friends to share the coolest, craziest opportunities their blogs made happen in their early days — that is, before they amassed a huge following and made tens of thousands of dollars off their blog.

Ready to dive in?

#1. Jeff Bullas / Jeff Bullas

One of the “craziest” opportunities I had happened about a year after starting the blog when I was invited to speak in New Zealand.

It came about because a millionaire who was reading my blog, loved my content and had an idea and sent me an email.

After the event he asked me to join the board of a new tech startup and offered shares.

Five years later the company has raised $3 million and is continuing to grow.

That company is Shuttlerock.

We were a winner in Facebook’s 2016 Innovation Spotlight providing a scalable creative solution to unlock the true power of Facebook Advertising.

#2. Ryan Biddulph / Blogging from Paradise

The coolest opportunity that arose for me as a beginning blogger was being asked to interview Thrillionaire celebrity Nik Halik. I had no clue how to blog, let alone conduct an interview. Since this was some 7 years ago I literally pressed “record” on a tape recorder – I am not kidding – received the call on my land line (resistant to cell phone usage back then) and preserved the interview for transcribing.

I learned a valuable lesson too; be prepared! I asked two canned questions sent to me by his press guy and Nik told me he was bored of the same old questions as this was his 10th interview of the day. Because I spent 20 minutes researching him earlier that day I nimbly shifted and asked probing, interesting questions that made for a great interview.

#3. Chris Guillebeau / The Art of Non-Conformity

In my early days of blogging, Air New Zealand flew me to the Cook Islands for a 24-hour event.

It was a whirlwind visit and I learned that I don’t like sponsored trips (too much expectation on behalf of the sponsor, even when they say otherwise…), but I was still grateful for the experience.

#4. Danny Iny / Mirasee

The craziest opportunity that arose from blogging was that I ended up co-authoring a book with Guy Kawasaki and other A-listers when I was an unknown. Here’s how it happened:

Firepole Marketing (now Mirasee) was just a tiny blog with less than 1,000 subscribers, when I had the opportunity to guest blog on Copyblogger. My post was “38 Critical Books Every Blogger Needs to Read.” Number 12 on the list was The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki.

It must have caught the attention of Guy and/or his publicist, because a few days later, I received an email from Guy thanking me for including his book. He said he had a new book coming out and offered me a review copy and an interview.

Of course, I seized the opportunity. I spent 15 hours preparing for the interview to make it so good that Guy would want to share it with everybody. Afterwards, I posted the interview on my blog and created a video to promote the book on YouTube. I wrote reviews on Amazon and other bookseller websites—I did everything I could think of to get the word out.

Months later, I invited Guy to contribute to my book, Engagement from Scratch!, and he said yes. And that’s how blogging helped me co-author a book with Guy Kawasaki.

#5. Richard Lazazzera / A Better Lemonade Stand

Blogging quite literally changed my life. Within months of starting my ecommerce blog, A Better Lemonade Stand, I wrote a really long-form piece of content that drove thousands of brand new visitors to my site. One of those visitors was the director of marketing for Shopify. He reached out to me via email and we started to build a relationship.

About a year later, I moved to Toronto. When the director at Shopify heard, I was offered a position at Shopify which I jumped on. That position allowed me to reach two million visitors per month through their blog (while still growing my personal blog), write a full length book, and participate in the IPO of Shopify.

I’ve since left Shopify and continue to build A Better Lemonade Stand and several other companies. To think it all began with a single blog post still amazes me.

#6. Ian Cleary / Razor Social

Within six months of launching the blog it was voted one of the top ten social media blogs in the world by a competition run by Social Media Examiner.

That was pretty amazing for me because I started the blog based in Ireland and I was the only European blog on the list. This rapidly helped me become an influencer in the Social Media Space and generated me significant business.

#7. Amy Lynn Andrews / Amy Lynn Andrews

In 2006, when I had been blogging only a few years and blogs were still somewhat of a novelty, I was contacted by a writer from TIME Magazine. She had found my blog and wanted to interview me for a story she was writing about one of my main topics.

For some reason I didn’t think it could possibly be true, but a few months later I found myself in the print edition of TIME Magazine (in March 2007). Unfortunately I wasn’t savvy enough to maximize the exposure, but I did keep in contact with that journalist and enjoyed her friendship for several years.

#8. Dave Chesson / Kindlepreneur

You never know who is reading or following your content. I found out that my all time favorite writer, and multi-NYT Bestseller, Ted Dekker, had come across my work.

This led into getting to meet him for coffee, and ultimately, become an Advanced Review Copy (ARC) reader as well as helping with some of his book marketing projects.

#9. John Lee Dumas / EOFire

Very early on I had the opportunity to be featured on some pretty big sites as a guest poster, which wouldn’t have been possible if I hadn’t had the EOFire blog up and running. One of the first was on Think Traffic​ (now Fizzle.co), and we were featured there within just one month of having started our own blog.

This first guest post gave us powerful momentum and exposure, which we then used to request to guest post on other big name sites like Social Media Examiner, Copy Blogger, Content Marketing Institute and over twenty others.

Each new guest post opportunity brought with it exposure, more momentum, and most importantly, a very valuable friendship with people I’m proud to still call friends today.

#10. Aaron Orendorff / Iconicontent

Back in March 2014, I had just started blogging. Basically, it was me, my mom, and literally 261 unique visitors (I checked with Google Analytics just to be accurate).

I’d posted six times, when — out of the digital blue — I got an email about this post, Getting Your Customers to Hold It, Love It, and Give It Money:

I nearly lost my newbie-blogging mind. Of course, I said yes. And somewhat embarrassed myself by asking for a link:

“This is for a book project, so the linking is tough — but I’ll give you lots of love otherwise,” was Ann’s kind response.

Three months later, I’d secured my very first guest post at Copyblogger and I knew enough — just enough — to immediately turn around and pitch Ann on a MarketingProfs guest post. I composed a full article, sent it off, and was in. Everything I’ve done over the last three years has been built on that foundation. And I owe it all to one nice lady who stumbled on my blog when I had no business getting visitors of her clout (or visitors at all for that matter).

#11. Sean Ogle / Location Rebel

About six months after starting my blog, I wrote a post about quitting my job as a financial analyst. I had no idea what I was going to do after that, but I knew I was ready for something different.

The following week I received an email from a reader congratulating me on taking the leap, and telling me that he was looking to bring an intern out to Asia to help him with the online marketing for his company. I’d work part time and he would pay my basic living expenses, while teaching me the ins and outs of the digital world.

Six weeks later, I was on a flight to Bangkok where I would live for the next seven months – and it would set the foundation for my life and business for years to come. I haven’t had a real job since.

It never would have happened had I not started the blog, and positioned myself for a big opportunity to come my way.

#12. Camilla Hallstrom / Influence with Content

Back when I got started, I had NO clue what I was doing.

I wasn’t sure what worked and what didn’t. Sure, through programs like Serious Bloggers Only I knew what sorts of posts got results, but I still felt uncertain about putting anything out there. What was the point, really? What if I was just wasting my time on this blogging thing? A nagging voice inside my head told me I would end up empty handed without anything to show for it…

That’s why it felt amazing when one of my first posts got tons of shares and comments. But the best part? Brian Tracy (the sales mogul) shared it on his Facebook page (at the time, he had around 1.5 million followers). And that same post went on to win the title of “Most Epic Post” in a contest here on Smart Blogger (Boost Blog Traffic back then).

That’s the moment I understood exactly how powerful blogging can be. You can get noticed by anyone and you can open doors that right now seem firmly shut.

Apart from this, blogging has made such a difference in my life. I have met new friends who have the exact same interests as I do — that NEVER happens offline (for some reason, people’s eyes glaze over whenever I try to start a discussion about a content idea I just heard about). I’ve gotten job offers in big part thanks to my blogging experience and I started my freelance career because of it.

#13. Ashley Faulkes / Mad Lemmings

When you are just getting started, you don’t really expect anything crazy to happen. But sometimes you get a big surprise!

One of the things I did when starting out was to create a post featuring all the influencers in the blogging and social media scene. It got a lot of people’s attention and connected me with a lot of influencers very quickly. After all, it was a post with the sole purpose of highlighting these influencers (and letting them know of course :>).

Now, having connected with these influencers, I had the opportunity to take it a step further. I started inviting a lot of them on my brand spanking new podcast. Of course, I did not expect many of the bigger names to say yes. Surprisingly, I got quite a few big bloggers on the show, including some who were very reluctant to put themselves out there (not everyone is a lover of the microphone you know :>). Some of the people I got on my podcast included: Rebekah Radice, Ileane Smith, Ann Smarty, Susan Gilbert, John Paul Aguiar, Ian Anderson Gray and more. No, not Seth Godin, but still, for a complete beginner not bad I think!

What blew me away is that getting in contact with people you look up to is not as hard as it seems (if they don’t have an assistant answering their mails :>). Don’t forget, they were exactly where you are not too long ago. And most are more than happy to help out a newbie! Give it a shot.

#14. Daniel Scocco / Daily Blog Tips

Blogging is a great way to showcase your expertise and expand your network. I learned this when, back in 2009, I landed a consulting gig with an agency of the United States Government! The guys from Voice of America (the official external US broadcaster) were planning to launch a new site, and they wanted to learn what would be the best ways to optimize and promote it. It was a very interesting experience, and certainly a nice touch to my CV!

Practically speaking, this happened because I wrote a lot of content on related topics (website optimization, SEO, content marketing, website promotion), and that content got linked from other bloggers and site owners, and eventually it ranked well on Google. Then when the guys from VOA started doing some research they came across my stuff, liked it, and decided to get in touch.

#15. Meera Kothand / Meera Kothand

One of the craziest opportunities I received when I started out was not only having my guest post accepted at Marketing Profs but also getting an invitation to record a mini video training for their paid members.

It was scary but I took the plunge and did the training for them and got paid for it as well. This was when my blog was barely six months old. I’ve always believed in guest posting but its benefits reach far wider than just getting traffic and growing your list. It gets you exposure, introduces you to a new audience and paves the way for other opportunities like it did in my case!

#16. Dave Schneider / Ninja Outreach

Well I got the opportunity to join my current startup, Ninja Outreach! The opportunity arose when I was invited on a podcast with my now partner Mark, who read my blog, only a few months after I started it.

After the podcast was published he reached back out to me and we discussed some ideas we had for building marketing tools in the space. We decided it made sense to work together on it. That was three years ago, and NinjaOutreach is doing over half a million dollars a year now.

#17. Nathan Chan / Foundr

I can’t put this down to any one situation! Ever since we started the Foundr blog this has given us opportunities to interview some of the greatest entrepreneurs of our generation (Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington, Seth Godin etc.) and with this we’ve also been able to connect with some amazing entrepreneurs in our community which has been an extremely rewarding experience.

#18. Julie Harris / Whiskey and Red

The craziest opportunity that arose from blogging was being invited to speak at my first live class. I had been blogging for about six months when I was contacted by the Hawaii Chapter of a national women’s entrepreneur association, “Femfessionals” to speak at their Hawaiian Chapter dinner. They had found my name through another local business I had worked with in the past and found their way to my blog. I had just posted about “Charging What You’re Worth” and they loved the post so much they asked me to present on the same topic live, in front of their whole local chapter.

There was a whole catered dinner, wine and beverages, and a room full of local entrepreneurs waiting to hear what I had to say. I was so crazy nervous but excited. This opportunity then opened more doors to new clients, new projects, and continued speaking gigs. My business was so new at that point, I didn’t have much of a portfolio, and my small social following was pretty slim, but I had a pretty extensive business blog, and that was what convinced them that I was the perfect speaker for them.

#19. Franklin Hatchett / Online Dimes

When I first started blogging I came across a new internet marketing method with Shopify. I ended up writing about it on my blog and uploading a Video to Youtube. To my surprise this became a great opportunity and the opportunity grew my blog from around 1,000 visits a month to over 25,000.

This is the single biggest thing that grew my blog and I seized every moment of it. The blog post and video in question were posted all over the internet because people had doubts and talked negatively about it. That negativity grew my email list to 35,000 and Youtube to 30,000 subscribers in a year. I also launched a private Facebook Group four months ago that quickly grew to 15,000 members and counting.

The blog post that was shared and talked about now has over 400 comments with the video having over 300,000 views. Some might not call this the perfect opportunity, however controversy is used on a daily basis for advertising and any publicity is good publicity.

#20. Zac Johnson / Zac Johnson

When you put yourself out there in any industry and start to gain a following and audience, new opportunities are going to come up all the time. I’ve learned to not get excited by any of them, as only a very small percentage will actually come together. However, when they do, it’s pretty cool!

One such example was when Michael Bayer contacted me through email and asked if I’d like to be featured in a documentary on internet entrepreneurs. At the time I said yes… but always fully aware opportunities and emails similar to these come in every day and usually result in nothing.

Long story short, Michael was able to pull it all together and release the film! We had a nice premiere party in Hollywood, CA and it was pretty cool! Definitely a fun and exciting opportunity that never would have happened if I didn’t start ZacJohnson.com.

#21. Scott Chow / The Blog Starter

I would have to say that the craziest opportunity to come from blogging as I was getting started was the opportunity to be interviewed by a journalist from a nationally distributed magazine.

I’m generally a pretty shy person so it felt a little strange to have that kind of spotlight on me. However, I think for a lot of people that’s what blogging is all about: finding your voice and sharing that with the world.

I am proud to share that message with people and also to help so many people establish blogs of their own!

#22. Joe Bunting / The Write Practice

The craziest thing that happened to me as I first got into blogging was in 2008, after blogging for just a few months, I connected with another blogger who had been doing it for years for the organization he ran. We started emailing back and forth, and once, when he was going to be traveling in my city, we met and he introduced me to his daughter.

A few years later, I was traveling through his city, helping him with a book he was working on, and I saw his daughter again. We hit it off over coffee, started talking, and very long story short, less than a year later we were married. All from blogging.

#23. Tor Refsland / Tor Refsland

There are a lot of crazy opportunities that have happened thanks to blogging.

Let me mention two of them:

1. I got featured in a book with some of the best marketers in the world: Seth Godin, Chris Brogan, Brian Clark and Grant Cardone.

2. I got headhunted by Noah Kagan (I graciously turned him down, since I wanted to focus on building my own business).

#24. Ryan Robinson / Ryan Robinson

I got to work with Tim Ferriss, Neil Patel, Lewis Howes and dozens of other entrepreneurs right after I started blogging.

A few months after I started to write about my experiences running side projects, I applied for a job as a content marketer for the business classes at CreativeLive—the online education company. Thanks to the fact that I had already been blogging for myself about business related topics and essentially doing everything the content marketing job would entail, I got the gig and overnight started working with some of the most prominent names in the business world, helping them to create content and market their classes.

By going after a day job that put me in close proximity to the most influential people in my industry, I’ve since been able to grow these relationships and they’ve led me to do things like become a contributor on Forbes, land interviews with people like Pat Flynn and to launch my own consulting business. Blogging is all about relationships—go out of your way to forge meaningful ones that’ll help you progress within your industry.

#25. Nick Loper / Side Hustle Nation

The craziest opportunity that came from blogging was the chance to speak at my local TEDx event. I was about a year into writing the Side Hustle Nation blog when I was accepted as a speaker, and without any relevant public speaking experience I could point to, I think it was the blog (and Side Hustle Show podcast) that tipped the scales in my favor.

I was incredibly nervous leading up to the event, but it was an awesome “bucket list” experience and a chance to step out of my comfort zone in a big way. Plus it forced me to refine my message into a (hopefully) coherent and concise talk. I went through a half dozen different drafts and rehearsed like crazy before the big day, but the talk ended up receiving a standing ovation and has now been viewed almost 10,000 times on YouTube.

#26. Kiersten Rich / The Blonde Abroad

My first ever client was Visit Jordan for a video campaign where I got to produce a series of videos in the capital, Amman.

I’d always been passionate about videography, so it was an incredible opportunity and I was humbled that a tourism board had such faith in me despite only having just gotten started as a “blogger.” I learned early on that my audience and influence was only one aspect of my worth, but that my content also had value!

What Crazy Opportunities Are Waiting for You?

I know those pesky doubts are hard to shake sometimes. I know sometimes you feel like your day will never come; like you’re just wasting time and you might as well quit.

But let these stories inspire you to hang in there.

Blogging can (and often does) pay off in big and unexpected ways.

It is worth it.

So keep reading, keep writing, and (this is important) keep honing your skills.

Keep growing your blog and audience, and opportunities will find you.

Your turn will come.

And it might be right around the corner.

Author the Author: Eli Seekins is the founder of Launch Your Dream. He helps bloggers and entrepreneurs turn their passion into a business. Want help getting your first 1,000 email subscribers and making your first $5,000? Check out his FREE Job To Blog Virtual Summit — where 25 expert bloggers teach you how to quit your job, start a blog and make money doing it.

from IM News And Tips https://smartblogger.com/blogger-opportunities/

[alanajacksontx]

26 Crazy Stories about “OMG!” Opportunities that Blogging Made Happen

Will it all be worth it?

You can’t help wondering sometimes.

Every spare minute, you’re glued to your computer, reading, writing, doing all you can to grow your blog and build your audience — all on the shaky promise that someday your efforts will pay off.

But sometimes, that someday feels far out of reach. Sometimes, you can’t help wondering whether that day will ever come, or whether you’re just wasting your time.

Well, hang in there, my friend. Because you never know what kinds of opportunities your blog can bring you.

And they might take time, but for all you know, they might be right around the corner.

To prove it, I asked 26 of my blogging friends to share the coolest, craziest opportunities their blogs made happen in their early days — that is, before they amassed a huge following and made tens of thousands of dollars off their blog.

Ready to dive in?

#1. Jeff Bullas / Jeff Bullas

One of the “craziest” opportunities I had happened about a year after starting the blog when I was invited to speak in New Zealand.

It came about because a millionaire who was reading my blog, loved my content and had an idea and sent me an email.

After the event he asked me to join the board of a new tech startup and offered shares.

Five years later the company has raised $3 million and is continuing to grow.

That company is Shuttlerock.

We were a winner in Facebook’s 2016 Innovation Spotlight providing a scalable creative solution to unlock the true power of Facebook Advertising.

#2. Ryan Biddulph / Blogging from Paradise

The coolest opportunity that arose for me as a beginning blogger was being asked to interview Thrillionaire celebrity Nik Halik. I had no clue how to blog, let alone conduct an interview. Since this was some 7 years ago I literally pressed “record” on a tape recorder – I am not kidding – received the call on my land line (resistant to cell phone usage back then) and preserved the interview for transcribing.

I learned a valuable lesson too; be prepared! I asked two canned questions sent to me by his press guy and Nik told me he was bored of the same old questions as this was his 10th interview of the day. Because I spent 20 minutes researching him earlier that day I nimbly shifted and asked probing, interesting questions that made for a great interview.

#3. Chris Guillebeau / The Art of Non-Conformity

In my early days of blogging, Air New Zealand flew me to the Cook Islands for a 24-hour event.

It was a whirlwind visit and I learned that I don’t like sponsored trips (too much expectation on behalf of the sponsor, even when they say otherwise…), but I was still grateful for the experience.

#4. Danny Iny / Mirasee

The craziest opportunity that arose from blogging was that I ended up co-authoring a book with Guy Kawasaki and other A-listers when I was an unknown. Here’s how it happened:

Firepole Marketing (now Mirasee) was just a tiny blog with less than 1,000 subscribers, when I had the opportunity to guest blog on Copyblogger. My post was “38 Critical Books Every Blogger Needs to Read.” Number 12 on the list was The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki.

It must have caught the attention of Guy and/or his publicist, because a few days later, I received an email from Guy thanking me for including his book. He said he had a new book coming out and offered me a review copy and an interview.

Of course, I seized the opportunity. I spent 15 hours preparing for the interview to make it so good that Guy would want to share it with everybody. Afterwards, I posted the interview on my blog and created a video to promote the book on YouTube. I wrote reviews on Amazon and other bookseller websites—I did everything I could think of to get the word out.

Months later, I invited Guy to contribute to my book, Engagement from Scratch!, and he said yes. And that’s how blogging helped me co-author a book with Guy Kawasaki.

#5. Richard Lazazzera / A Better Lemonade Stand

Blogging quite literally changed my life. Within months of starting my ecommerce blog, A Better Lemonade Stand, I wrote a really long-form piece of content that drove thousands of brand new visitors to my site. One of those visitors was the director of marketing for Shopify. He reached out to me via email and we started to build a relationship.

About a year later, I moved to Toronto. When the director at Shopify heard, I was offered a position at Shopify which I jumped on. That position allowed me to reach two million visitors per month through their blog (while still growing my personal blog), write a full length book, and participate in the IPO of Shopify.

I’ve since left Shopify and continue to build A Better Lemonade Stand and several other companies. To think it all began with a single blog post still amazes me.

#6. Ian Cleary / Razor Social

Within six months of launching the blog it was voted one of the top ten social media blogs in the world by a competition run by Social Media Examiner.

That was pretty amazing for me because I started the blog based in Ireland and I was the only European blog on the list. This rapidly helped me become an influencer in the Social Media Space and generated me significant business.

#7. Amy Lynn Andrews / Amy Lynn Andrews

In 2006, when I had been blogging only a few years and blogs were still somewhat of a novelty, I was contacted by a writer from TIME Magazine. She had found my blog and wanted to interview me for a story she was writing about one of my main topics.

For some reason I didn’t think it could possibly be true, but a few months later I found myself in the print edition of TIME Magazine (in March 2007). Unfortunately I wasn’t savvy enough to maximize the exposure, but I did keep in contact with that journalist and enjoyed her friendship for several years.

#8. Dave Chesson / Kindlepreneur

You never know who is reading or following your content. I found out that my all time favorite writer, and multi-NYT Bestseller, Ted Dekker, had come across my work.

This led into getting to meet him for coffee, and ultimately, become an Advanced Review Copy (ARC) reader as well as helping with some of his book marketing projects.

#9. John Lee Dumas / EOFire

Very early on I had the opportunity to be featured on some pretty big sites as a guest poster, which wouldn’t have been possible if I hadn’t had the EOFire blog up and running. One of the first was on Think Traffic​ (now Fizzle.co), and we were featured there within just one month of having started our own blog.

This first guest post gave us powerful momentum and exposure, which we then used to request to guest post on other big name sites like Social Media Examiner, Copy Blogger, Content Marketing Institute and over twenty others.

Each new guest post opportunity brought with it exposure, more momentum, and most importantly, a very valuable friendship with people I’m proud to still call friends today.

#10. Aaron Orendorff / Iconicontent

Back in March 2014, I had just started blogging. Basically, it was me, my mom, and literally 261 unique visitors (I checked with Google Analytics just to be accurate).

I’d posted six times, when — out of the digital blue — I got an email about this post, Getting Your Customers to Hold It, Love It, and Give It Money:

I nearly lost my newbie-blogging mind. Of course, I said yes. And somewhat embarrassed myself by asking for a link:

“This is for a book project, so the linking is tough — but I’ll give you lots of love otherwise,” was Ann’s kind response.

Three months later, I’d secured my very first guest post at Copyblogger and I knew enough — just enough — to immediately turn around and pitch Ann on a MarketingProfs guest post. I composed a full article, sent it off, and was in. Everything I’ve done over the last three years has been built on that foundation. And I owe it all to one nice lady who stumbled on my blog when I had no business getting visitors of her clout (or visitors at all for that matter).

#11. Sean Ogle / Location Rebel

About six months after starting my blog, I wrote a post about quitting my job as a financial analyst. I had no idea what I was going to do after that, but I knew I was ready for something different.

The following week I received an email from a reader congratulating me on taking the leap, and telling me that he was looking to bring an intern out to Asia to help him with the online marketing for his company. I’d work part time and he would pay my basic living expenses, while teaching me the ins and outs of the digital world.

Six weeks later, I was on a flight to Bangkok where I would live for the next seven months – and it would set the foundation for my life and business for years to come. I haven’t had a real job since.

It never would have happened had I not started the blog, and positioned myself for a big opportunity to come my way.

#12. Camilla Hallstrom / Influence with Content

Back when I got started, I had NO clue what I was doing.

I wasn’t sure what worked and what didn’t. Sure, through programs like Serious Bloggers Only I knew what sorts of posts got results, but I still felt uncertain about putting anything out there. What was the point, really? What if I was just wasting my time on this blogging thing? A nagging voice inside my head told me I would end up empty handed without anything to show for it…

That’s why it felt amazing when one of my first posts got tons of shares and comments. But the best part? Brian Tracy (the sales mogul) shared it on his Facebook page (at the time, he had around 1.5 million followers). And that same post went on to win the title of “Most Epic Post” in a contest here on Smart Blogger (Boost Blog Traffic back then).

That’s the moment I understood exactly how powerful blogging can be. You can get noticed by anyone and you can open doors that right now seem firmly shut.

Apart from this, blogging has made such a difference in my life. I have met new friends who have the exact same interests as I do — that NEVER happens offline (for some reason, people’s eyes glaze over whenever I try to start a discussion about a content idea I just heard about). I’ve gotten job offers in big part thanks to my blogging experience and I started my freelance career because of it.

#13. Ashley Faulkes / Mad Lemmings

When you are just getting started, you don’t really expect anything crazy to happen. But sometimes you get a big surprise!

One of the things I did when starting out was to create a post featuring all the influencers in the blogging and social media scene. It got a lot of people’s attention and connected me with a lot of influencers very quickly. After all, it was a post with the sole purpose of highlighting these influencers (and letting them know of course :>).

Now, having connected with these influencers, I had the opportunity to take it a step further. I started inviting a lot of them on my brand spanking new podcast. Of course, I did not expect many of the bigger names to say yes. Surprisingly, I got quite a few big bloggers on the show, including some who were very reluctant to put themselves out there (not everyone is a lover of the microphone you know :>). Some of the people I got on my podcast included: Rebekah Radice, Ileane Smith, Ann Smarty, Susan Gilbert, John Paul Aguiar, Ian Anderson Gray and more. No, not Seth Godin, but still, for a complete beginner not bad I think!

What blew me away is that getting in contact with people you look up to is not as hard as it seems (if they don’t have an assistant answering their mails :>). Don’t forget, they were exactly where you are not too long ago. And most are more than happy to help out a newbie! Give it a shot.

#14. Daniel Scocco / Daily Blog Tips

Blogging is a great way to showcase your expertise and expand your network. I learned this when, back in 2009, I landed a consulting gig with an agency of the United States Government! The guys from Voice of America (the official external US broadcaster) were planning to launch a new site, and they wanted to learn what would be the best ways to optimize and promote it. It was a very interesting experience, and certainly a nice touch to my CV!

Practically speaking, this happened because I wrote a lot of content on related topics (website optimization, SEO, content marketing, website promotion), and that content got linked from other bloggers and site owners, and eventually it ranked well on Google. Then when the guys from VOA started doing some research they came across my stuff, liked it, and decided to get in touch.

#15. Meera Kothand / Meera Kothand

One of the craziest opportunities I received when I started out was not only having my guest post accepted at Marketing Profs but also getting an invitation to record a mini video training for their paid members.

It was scary but I took the plunge and did the training for them and got paid for it as well. This was when my blog was barely six months old. I’ve always believed in guest posting but its benefits reach far wider than just getting traffic and growing your list. It gets you exposure, introduces you to a new audience and paves the way for other opportunities like it did in my case!

#16. Dave Schneider / Ninja Outreach

Well I got the opportunity to join my current startup, Ninja Outreach! The opportunity arose when I was invited on a podcast with my now partner Mark, who read my blog, only a few months after I started it.

After the podcast was published he reached back out to me and we discussed some ideas we had for building marketing tools in the space. We decided it made sense to work together on it. That was three years ago, and NinjaOutreach is doing over half a million dollars a year now.

#17. Nathan Chan / Foundr

I can’t put this down to any one situation! Ever since we started the Foundr blog this has given us opportunities to interview some of the greatest entrepreneurs of our generation (Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington, Seth Godin etc.) and with this we’ve also been able to connect with some amazing entrepreneurs in our community which has been an extremely rewarding experience.

#18. Julie Harris / Whiskey and Red

The craziest opportunity that arose from blogging was being invited to speak at my first live class. I had been blogging for about six months when I was contacted by the Hawaii Chapter of a national women’s entrepreneur association, “Femfessionals” to speak at their Hawaiian Chapter dinner. They had found my name through another local business I had worked with in the past and found their way to my blog. I had just posted about “Charging What You’re Worth” and they loved the post so much they asked me to present on the same topic live, in front of their whole local chapter.

There was a whole catered dinner, wine and beverages, and a room full of local entrepreneurs waiting to hear what I had to say. I was so crazy nervous but excited. This opportunity then opened more doors to new clients, new projects, and continued speaking gigs. My business was so new at that point, I didn’t have much of a portfolio, and my small social following was pretty slim, but I had a pretty extensive business blog, and that was what convinced them that I was the perfect speaker for them.

#19. Franklin Hatchett / Online Dimes

When I first started blogging I came across a new internet marketing method with Shopify. I ended up writing about it on my blog and uploading a Video to Youtube. To my surprise this became a great opportunity and the opportunity grew my blog from around 1,000 visits a month to over 25,000.

This is the single biggest thing that grew my blog and I seized every moment of it. The blog post and video in question were posted all over the internet because people had doubts and talked negatively about it. That negativity grew my email list to 35,000 and Youtube to 30,000 subscribers in a year. I also launched a private Facebook Group four months ago that quickly grew to 15,000 members and counting.

The blog post that was shared and talked about now has over 400 comments with the video having over 300,000 views. Some might not call this the perfect opportunity, however controversy is used on a daily basis for advertising and any publicity is good publicity.

#20. Zac Johnson / Zac Johnson

When you put yourself out there in any industry and start to gain a following and audience, new opportunities are going to come up all the time. I’ve learned to not get excited by any of them, as only a very small percentage will actually come together. However, when they do, it’s pretty cool!

One such example was when Michael Bayer contacted me through email and asked if I’d like to be featured in a documentary on internet entrepreneurs. At the time I said yes… but always fully aware opportunities and emails similar to these come in every day and usually result in nothing.

Long story short, Michael was able to pull it all together and release the film! We had a nice premiere party in Hollywood, CA and it was pretty cool! Definitely a fun and exciting opportunity that never would have happened if I didn’t start ZacJohnson.com.

#21. Scott Chow / The Blog Starter

I would have to say that the craziest opportunity to come from blogging as I was getting started was the opportunity to be interviewed by a journalist from a nationally distributed magazine.

I’m generally a pretty shy person so it felt a little strange to have that kind of spotlight on me. However, I think for a lot of people that’s what blogging is all about: finding your voice and sharing that with the world.

I am proud to share that message with people and also to help so many people establish blogs of their own!

#22. Joe Bunting / The Write Practice

The craziest thing that happened to me as I first got into blogging was in 2008, after blogging for just a few months, I connected with another blogger who had been doing it for years for the organization he ran. We started emailing back and forth, and once, when he was going to be traveling in my city, we met and he introduced me to his daughter.

A few years later, I was traveling through his city, helping him with a book he was working on, and I saw his daughter again. We hit it off over coffee, started talking, and very long story short, less than a year later we were married. All from blogging.

#23. Tor Refsland / Tor Refsland

There are a lot of crazy opportunities that have happened thanks to blogging.

Let me mention two of them:

1. I got featured in a book with some of the best marketers in the world: Seth Godin, Chris Brogan, Brian Clark and Grant Cardone.

2. I got headhunted by Noah Kagan (I graciously turned him down, since I wanted to focus on building my own business).

#24. Ryan Robinson / Ryan Robinson

I got to work with Tim Ferriss, Neil Patel, Lewis Howes and dozens of other entrepreneurs right after I started blogging.

A few months after I started to write about my experiences running side projects, I applied for a job as a content marketer for the business classes at CreativeLive—the online education company. Thanks to the fact that I had already been blogging for myself about business related topics and essentially doing everything the content marketing job would entail, I got the gig and overnight started working with some of the most prominent names in the business world, helping them to create content and market their classes.

By going after a day job that put me in close proximity to the most influential people in my industry, I’ve since been able to grow these relationships and they’ve led me to do things like become a contributor on Forbes, land interviews with people like Pat Flynn and to launch my own consulting business. Blogging is all about relationships—go out of your way to forge meaningful ones that’ll help you progress within your industry.

#25. Nick Loper / Side Hustle Nation

The craziest opportunity that came from blogging was the chance to speak at my local TEDx event. I was about a year into writing the Side Hustle Nation blog when I was accepted as a speaker, and without any relevant public speaking experience I could point to, I think it was the blog (and Side Hustle Show podcast) that tipped the scales in my favor.

I was incredibly nervous leading up to the event, but it was an awesome “bucket list” experience and a chance to step out of my comfort zone in a big way. Plus it forced me to refine my message into a (hopefully) coherent and concise talk. I went through a half dozen different drafts and rehearsed like crazy before the big day, but the talk ended up receiving a standing ovation and has now been viewed almost 10,000 times on YouTube.

#26. Kiersten Rich / The Blonde Abroad

My first ever client was Visit Jordan for a video campaign where I got to produce a series of videos in the capital, Amman.

I’d always been passionate about videography, so it was an incredible opportunity and I was humbled that a tourism board had such faith in me despite only having just gotten started as a “blogger.” I learned early on that my audience and influence was only one aspect of my worth, but that my content also had value!

What Crazy Opportunities Are Waiting for You?

I know those pesky doubts are hard to shake sometimes. I know sometimes you feel like your day will never come; like you’re just wasting time and you might as well quit.

But let these stories inspire you to hang in there.

Blogging can (and often does) pay off in big and unexpected ways.

It is worth it.

So keep reading, keep writing, and (this is important) keep honing your skills.

Keep growing your blog and audience, and opportunities will find you.

Your turn will come.

And it might be right around the corner.

Author the Author: Eli Seekins is the founder of Launch Your Dream. He helps bloggers and entrepreneurs turn their passion into a business. Want help getting your first 1,000 email subscribers and making your first $5,000? Check out his FREE Job To Blog Virtual Summit — where 25 expert bloggers teach you how to quit your job, start a blog and make money doing it.

from Internet Marketing Tips https://smartblogger.com/blogger-opportunities/