Oh I’ve had plenty.  My corporate years I really only worked for two companies but before that I had done all kinds of work from pressure-washing pool filters to gassing up go-karts and everything in between.  I grew up in Regina, Saskatchewan and was an aspiring filmmaker in High School, I was part of the first inaugural class of the only accredited high school film program in Canada at the time, and I even did an internship with the CBC.  I never saw myself making money in film so I applied and was accepted into an I.T. program in Toronto.  I was a computer nerd, I spent hours and hours on the internet and my parents thought it make perfect sense that I make a career out of it.  The program sadly was not high caliber and towards my senior years I couldn’t wait to be done and over with it so I could happily begin “my life” and start earning some real money.  Upon graduating I got a sales job at IBM which lasted nearly 3 years.  I was an inside sales rep for the DB2 line of Information Management software.  Soon the euphoria of making a regular income and working for a big company wore off. I felt disenchanted with the daily grind and constant struggle within a corporate bureaucracy so I left and took up a similar inside sales position with a very successful startup – PlateSpin.  The company had just made a very big exit at the time of my joining (swallowed up by Novell), which begin the slow and steady decline of its’ famous company culture.

Not yet. I am striving to setup multiple streams of income that combined will eventually replace my former income.  It’s a tall order – I used to make pretty good money for a twenty-something year old in Canada.

I don’t think I ever really consciously learned blogging.  I just started doing it and at some point I picked up ProBlogger at the recommendation of a friend, and that’s when I started learning about the craft and started making an effort to improve.  Before that I read a lot of blogs.  I read Get Rich Slowly (to learn more about personal finance), and then I started reading The Art Of Non-Comformity by Chris Guillebeau and bought some of his business building products to learn how to earn income online.  I’m also huge fan of Seth Godin and his daily words of wisdom.

It wasn’t that long – perhaps a month or two.  But I wouldn’t call it a haul.  It was after a systematic effort to try different techniques, literally throwing things against the wall and see what sticks.  Different methods work for different people – you have to find what works for you.  I’m always looking for different ways and trying different things – its part of the challenge and helps me filter out what works and what doesn’t.

When I left my job I didn’t say – “Ok I’m going to start a blog, do consulting and build an online business” – I had no idea what I was going to do.  I always knew I wanted to build something online.  I had already experimented and done some research, I even had an affiliate site baked but not really launched (It’s finally coming together – almost one year later since the project began). Years before I had dabbled with internet business, in high school, long before blogs were even blogs.  I made a lot of money for a 14 year old – but it wasn’t a legitimate business that I could tell my parents about (if you get my drift), so I stopped doing anything online for over 10 years in favour of a traditional education and get “real” job because I thought it was the right thing to do.  I often wonder how I would have fared had I stayed on that original track.

The Art Of Non-Comformity.

Just start writing.  It doesn’t matter how long it is, or what you write about it.  Blogging is all about getting into a groove.  Once you find that groove you’ll want to do more and more.  Don’t let it be a chore – find something fun about it, and do it regularly.  And lastly – make your blog appealing and easy on the eyes.  Its worth the extra dough for a premium theme, it will pay back in spades in the long run.

It would be very very hard for me to go back, but there are rewards and benefits to both. I think it mostly depends where you are in life.  When I’m 40 and just want a steady paycheque and solid benefits for my kids, it might be appealing for me at that point in my life.  I’m 27 –  this is the right thing for me right now, but ask me in 10 years I might have a different answer. If I ever do go back and work for someone its going to be conscious decision that I make because its the right decision at that particular point in my life.

There a lot of learning curves to blogging.  Theres the technical aspect, theres the writing, theres the marketing, and so on and so on.  The answer to that is to write and deliver value to your readers.  When you find your flow and writing groove you’ll naturally pick up on the rest.  Go to any authority on blogging on the internet and they’ll all tell you the same thing – its content above all else.