How I got into blogs

I don’t think I’ve ever shared this story with anyone. Not because it’s a secret – it just hasn’t come up. So I’m bringing it up.

One day, I decided I needed to get my act together. So I thought, Wouldn’t learning to get up early be an excellent place to start? If I could get up early, I could start on a couple projects before the day even began. Plus, once I’m up, it feels wonderful.

I was new to online stuff – I really didn’t start doing anything with it until around 2005, I think… a decade after the Internet launched (if you want to call it that).

Still, I knew about Google. I didn’t know it’s power. But I knew about its search function.

So I googled “How to become an early riser” (without the quotes). It might have even been one of the first times I directly asked Google a question (instead of typing in keywords).

Of course, the first result was Steve Pavlina’s article “How to become an early riser.” I didn’t recognize it then, that was a turning point in my life.

After reading that article, I read Part 2. And after I read Part 2, I started in on the Polyphasic Sleep articles.

I was hooked. I spent over three hours there the first day.

It was the first time I’d discovered a blog. I had heard about them and then read about them in a magazine in 2004. But at the time, I hadn’t heard of any that I wanted to follow.

But I followed Steve Pavlina’s blog. I read almost every article in his archives. (I still follow.)

One of his other most popular articles is “10 Reasons You Should Never Get A Job.” It made me want to… never get a job. I went on to read about how bloggers make money, discovered Problogger, and started to realize it’s what I wanted to do.

Blogs have led me to some wonderful connections, and I’ve learned more from guys like Steve than most of the books I’ve read. I’m extremely grateful for all the effort bloggers have put into sharing with me.

They’re not all good, but many have inspired me… in a real way, in a way that makes me actually do something about it.

So that’s part of why I blog: I want to be that influencial and that inspiring for someone else… even if it’s just for one person, it would be worth it.

And that, my friends, is how I got into blogs.