PB088: The Most Important Thing You Will Ever Do as an Entrepreneur

Note: you can listen to this episode above or load it up in iTunes. How Doing This One Thing Will Help You Become a Successful Blogger In today's episode, I share the most important thing you'll ever do as an entrepreneur. Thirteen years ago I opened an email that changed my life forever. I share the story of what it was I read, why it changed me, how it helped me become the entrepreneur I am today, and how it can help you to become the successful blogger and entrepreneur you want to be. In This Episode You can listen to today's episode above or in iTunes or Stitcher (where we'd also LOVE to get your reviews on those platforms if you have a moment). In today's episode: The 'sliding doors' moment that ignited my blogging career How I began as a blogger, even though I wasn't a writer and didn't know anything about how to do it Why it's so important to start things Why starting isn't everything How to turn ideas into real, finished results and change peoples' lives for the better, including yours Further Reading and Resources for How Doing This One Thing Will Help You Become a Successful Blogger The blog I mention, TallSkinnyKiwi.com The tweet I mention: Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Darren: Hi there and welcome to episode 88 of the ProBlogger Podcast where today, I want to share with you perhaps the most important thing you'll ever do as an entrepreneur. You can find today's show notes at problogger.com/podcast/88. It was a completely unremarkable moment in an unremarkable day, 13-and-a-half years ago, but it completely changed the trajectory of my life. The moment was when I opened an email. A friend shot me this email that I could quite easily have deleted. It only had four words in it and then a link but something in those four words made me curious. He wrote this, “Check out this blog,” and then the link tallskinnykiwi.com. I've not heard the word blog before, so I clicked the link to find out what it was and to find out who the Tall Skinny Kiwi was as well. Two hours later, I was completely hooked—hooked on the Tall Skinny Kiwi blog—written by a guy called Andrew Jones, but more so, I was hooked on this blogging thing that I saw Andrew and many other people doing. To cut the long story short, I started my first blog that very day. I did so despite a very long list of reasons why I probably shouldn't have started that blog. I wasn't a great writer. I've never designed or set up a website before, I didn't know how to code, I had no money for a domain or hosting. I didn't know any other bloggers. I'd never even heard the word two hours beforehand. I was worried about what people would think about my ideas. I wasn't very technical. I didn't have a niche or any idea that would be central in my blogging. I had this long list of excuses and reasons why I wasn't qualified to start blogging, but I did. In doing so, I changed the direction of my life. That might sound like a big statement but it's completely true. I didn't know it at the time but just a few years later, I would be a full-time blogger. I'd be offered a book deal. I'd be speaking around the world—at conferences—and have millions of people every month reading what I wrote. Now, by no means am I the biggest or the best blogger going around, far from it, but every day I pinch myself at the opportunities that have opened up as a result of starting that day. I often speak about this day and some of you have probably heard me tell that story before as a bit of a sliding door moment in my life, but it struck me a while ago that this a life changing moment, but it wasn't just that moment that changed my life. Starting has been something that I've actually done a whole heap of over the last 13-and-a-half years. Starting wasn't just something that I did on that November afternoon in 2002;...