Tim Stoddart started blogging anonymously with no audience, which led him into SEO and digital entrepreneurship. He reflects on his early writing habits and how blogging changed his life.
My AA sponsor bought me a subscription to Success magazine. It used to have those CDs in it, which cracks me up every time I talk about that. It's only like 12 years ago, right? And so I remember I put this CD in and I was cleaning my room. And at the end of the interview, Seth Godin said, you know how they always say, like, what's advice that you'd give to somebody? And so we said, start a blog. Don't tell anybody about it, and write in it every day. And that's just what I did. I didn't know why I did it. I started a blog spot blog, and I just wrote every night about the most random things. I remember writing a story about walking my dog. I remember writing about making a perfect peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I would write about getting sober. And that's really how I became an SEO, because I didn't tell anybody about it. And then people started leaving comments on it. I'm like, who the fuck is this person leaving a comment on my blog about being grateful that I'm not in withdrawals anymore? And so I'm kind of telling two stories at once. That really was the beginning of my journey into SEO and digital entrepreneurship. But really more than that, anytime I'm writing, I don't know, I really feel like it's just sort of the thing that I'm supposed to share with the world. And when I'm sitting behind a keyboard or even with my notebook, I'm one of those kids that brings a notebook with me anywhere and I can put my thoughts down. Didn't tell anybody about it. I would hit Publish every night, and I'd be listening to deadmau5 at like, one in the morning, just writing these terrible, ridiculous blogs and feeling like, damn, like I think I can be somebody. And I've been doing it ever since.
