I’ll start blogging again — here’s why
Yes — I will start writing again. Despite having more responsibilities today than ever before, I am also privileged to have been having really amazing experiences that I couldn’t stay another month without sharing.
My story with blogging goes back to May 15th, 2015. Alongside one of my closest friends, Daniel, I launched Successcode. Initially it was an Instagram page where I shared reviews about the books I read, then our following started growing significantly and by May we thought about launching our own blog.
Successcodeblog.com was initially a book club and then evolved to a portal on entrepreneurship and personal development — one of the areas I am the most passionate about to this day.
We did multiple book reviews, interviews with entrepreneurs worldwide — most predominantly from Angola, covered events and competitions and more. It was extremely fun and the beginning of an amazing journey on self-discovery and entrepreneurship.
Successcode brought me close to really amazing people and helped me to understand the principles behind their success. I learned quite a lot about what it takes to start and grow a business, productivity, personal development and helped me to reach the lives of many young people across the continent who were looking for authentic content about african entrepreneurs.
After publishing more than 500 articles — in Portuguese, English and French, a few videos and having an audience of more than 50k people across all our channels, I decided that in addition to just sharing my findings, it was time to put it into action. I knew that what we shared was valuable and worked for those who applied and believed that the only way to prove it was to try it myself.
At the time, multiple startups reached out asking for advertising services on the blog. Another chapter started.
In February 2017, Daniel and I started Kuenda Digital — a technology and digital marketing agency, awarded multiple times since then as one of the top digital marketing agencies in Angola. We helped launch and promote some of the country’s leading startups and SMEs and due to the work we were doing at Kuenda Digital, I got recognized a few times as a prominent young entrepreneur in the continent.
As my responsibilities grew, it got harder and harder to read as many books, carry-out as many interviews and dedicate time to writing. Successcodeblog.com was taken down in 2020 and although I tried a few times to revive it, I would create all the excuses on why it was not the right time.
My biggest goal is to live a happy, simple and fulfilled life and I want to transform all my learnings, experiences and findings into inspirational education content. Writing helps me to structure my thoughts and ideas better, evaluate my opinions, document my journey, connects me to extraordinary people, exposes me to multiple opportunities and above all — the more I share insights and experiences that other people feel inspired to seek their best versions, the more it gives me a sense of significance and value.
Due to how fast my professional growth has been lately, I started receiving emails and messages from other young people asking for help with the different projects they have, on how they could grow professionally or find something that they are really passionate about. The bell rang — it was time to start writing again, then I found the book “Share Your Work!” by Austin Kleon and I couldn’t help but to write this article.
In a nutshell, the author brings 10 ways in which we can share creativity and get discovered. His aim was to create a book for people who hate the idea of self-promotion (my case) and present an alternative to it.
Here are the 10 principles behind it:
1. You don’t have to be a genius
Austin presents the model of the scenius which states that great ideas are not created in a vacuum but birthed by a group of creative individuals-articles, curators, thinkers and other tastemakers — who make up an ecology of talent. Becoming a scenius is not about how talented we are, but about the ideas we share, the quality of the connections we make and the conversations we start.
“Forget about being an expert or a professional, and wear your amateurism on your sleeve. Share what you love, and the people who love the same things will find you.”
2. Think process not product
We all have different goals, dreams and aspirations. If like me, in many instances you also get into the trap of thinking “I will share once I get the result I want,” or “What if I announce something and I fail or it doesn’t work?” Austin tells us to think differently.
The idea is to organise and structure the journey into some interesting bit of media that can be shared. Read again — the journey.
3. Share something small everyday
Practice sharing a piece of your process daily. “If you’re in the middle of executing a project, write about your methods or share work progress. If you’ve just completed a project, show the final product, share scraps from the cutting-room floor, or write about what you learned. If you have lots of projects out in the world, you can report on how they’re doing — you can tell stories about how people are interacting with your work.”
4. Open up your cabinet of curiosities
Humans connect with humans. Share with people what you are passionate about, who are and where do your influences come from. When you share your taste and influences, have the guts to own all of it. Don’t give in to the pressure to self-edit too much. Remember — your tribe will find you.
5. Tell good stories
We love stories but in writing them don’t underestimate structure. Be tidy, sturdy and logical.
The author speaks about the importance of always keeping your audience in mind and speaking to them in plain language, being brief and learning how to communicate.
6. Teach what you know
This principle is pretty straight — forward, anything that you discover brings with it the opportunity to share with others. Share as you learn.
7. Don’t turn into human spam
Find time to be interested in other things other than yourself and don’t share with the sole intent of getting fans. “If you want fans, you have to be a fan first. If you want to be accepted by a community, you have to first be a good citizen of that community. If you’re only pointing to your own stuff online, you’re doing it wrong. You have to be a connector.”
8. Learn to take a punch
Surely sharing your work, ideas and experiences also means that you are exposing yourself. As you do, not everyone will celebrate or agree with you. It is okay. Don’t take criticism personally and ignore the trolls — those who aren’t really interested in improving your work, only provoking you with hateful, aggressive and upsetting talk.
9. Sell out
Get over the idea that money corrupts creativity. As your sharings become uniquely valuable to other people, start searching for ways to monetise it. Also pay it forward by throwing opportunities and supporting those who helped you reach where you are.
10. Stick-around
Be resilient when it gets harder to share, when no one consumes what you publish or when you feel like giving up. It also applies to the great times, do not stay comfortable. We must avoid stagnation by never losing momentum.
Thanks for reaching the end of this article and feel free to share with me the links to your work in the comments section. “Share Your Work!” gave me the push I needed to start blogging again, if you’re interested in reading it, find it here.
