How writing daily helped me land a jobI have never been a particularly great writer. I have never authored a best selling novel or even published an academic paper. I am…
I have never been a particularly great writer. I have never authored a best selling novel or even published an academic paper. I am honestly more of a math person to begin with, as I am studying Finance and Computer Science at school.
So when I published my very first blog post on February 24, 2016, I truly had no idea what I would be getting myself into. Since that morning, I have published at least one piece of public content every single day. That is right. A year of blogging. And I can tell you today, with confidence, that writing has fundamentally changed my life, both professionally and personally.
To emphasize, I have never been a “great writer.” I used to suck. Now I probably suck less. But I still make mistakes and typos all the time. To prove a point, and largely credit to the power of practice and hustle, I’ll share exactly how writing has given me so much.
For starters, writing every day has helped me think clearly and become a better communicator. Writing is like exercise. If you want to get your body in shape, you go to the gym and work out. If you want to become a better communicator, you write more. I think it is that simple. My “gym” is the blank screen that I stare at every morning that I need to fill with content. And the workout is the mind bending that goes on in your brain when you start typing. Just like the gym, you cannot expect any results in the short term. There are no real magic tricks here — you just have to stick with it for a long period of time.
It may feel irrational at first. It is supposed to be really hard. You will get sore. But if you stick with it, just like going to the gym, you will see results.
Besides the internal benefits, I have also accelerated my career 100x as a result from committing to writing every day. A few months into this experiment, people started enjoying and valuing what I had to say. So I started getting jobs writing for bigger publications. Slowly, but surely, I was publishing for Forbes, Business Insider, Startup Grind, Fortune Magazine and many others. I did not stop there. This exposure led me to more opportunities, working with and generating content for influencers on a variety of other places.
I will go back to how I started this story — I had no idea what I was getting myself into. To me, that is the most important thing. I did not start writing to “get rich quick” or “make a quick buck.” I started writing because I was internally motivated to do so. I wanted to become a better communicator, and as a result these things followed. Not the other way around.
Lots of people, I think, start with the reverse mindset. They want to make money or fulfill some other external goal.
That may work in the short term — but these external motivators, often pushed by ego, are unsustainable.
Writing for other publications turned to be just the tip of the iceberg. It turns out more and more people were reading what I had to say. Startups, mainly tech companies, would often read and share what I had to say. It was a great vehicle for starting conversations with founders, and a tool I used to provide ideas & values for different companies. I ended up working for a number of these companies, but that is a different story. As a result, I went from being an 18 year old kid with a basically blank resume to, fast forward just 12 months, someone with deep experiences at multiple, fast growing companies.
My writing and thoughts became the platform I needed to start making a bigger impact, at scale. I started doing strategy/growth consulting for companies. I started launching a bunch of my own projects. And, most importantly, I began to find ways to make sure my writing and products impacted as many people as possible.
Amazingly, it all started with that very first blog post. It was a crazy, naive idea that spurred all of this and trust me when I tell you that I am forever grateful, and always willing to help out.
Writing was my vehicle of choice. You can apply this same logic to whatever it is that you may be interested in. Whether that is writing (like me), or cooking, or traveling — you can maximize your impact and minimize your regret by attacking it at full force.
“In a world that is changing so quickly, the riskiest thing that you can do is risk nothing.” Go get what you want.
Originally published at gonen.blog.
By jordangonen on April 11, 2017.
Exported from Medium on February 17, 2018.