The Discipline of Blogging

Nearly 100 posts since early COVID. Why do I impose the discipline of blogging on myself?

For me, blogging has grown into a discipline to accomplish specific goals I have set for myself. No one specifically asked me to start a blog (they asked for other things, but those seemed too daunting to tackle…). No one assigned me the task of sitting down with a blank sheet of “paper” every week and finding my voice. Now that I have nearly 100 posts on my blog, the traffic statistics show that readers are checking out a whole variety of topics, not just the most recent one — so perhaps only a few would notice if I stopped.

Right now, when I am facing down another of my weeks when it feels like I have 25 pounds of potatoes to cram into a 10-pound sack (my husband points out that this is not that unusual! Sigh.), I have to re-discover my motivation and discipline to choose to put the blog potato in the sack.

Why do it?

Well, the resonant reasons are still those that got me started and that I reflected on in my two previous posts on blogging:

1. Because fundamentally, I care about other startup leaders. It is a lonely and difficult road, yet those drawn to it find it irresistible for a whole mesh of reasons that I have been unpacking a bit at a time throughout this blog. I will never forget the words of the startup CEO I asked for advice at the genesis of my journey as he sought to talk me out of it. My rebellious self just heard the challenge in the difficulties of this road – and plunged forward despite his cautions. And, he smiled and laughed and told me that if he had been able to talk me out of it, I should not do it. But if he couldn’t, then go for it.  And then he offered the first helping hand, gave me a place under his roof to locate that very first entrepreneurial venture, and the benefit of being able to walk across the building for advice as I began to confront the endless problem-solving that building a new company entails.
   
   Those ahead of me helped me immeasurably when I was beginning and struggling up the entrepreneurship learning curve. In my heart, I care about those who are engaging in that same struggle. I know how hard it is to get real insights into the challenges of this journey – and blogging about it makes my experiences and learnings accessible to many more people than I can touch with the occasional coffee connection I can fit in. I should stop when I have nothing useful left to give. I have not reached that point yet.
   
   When I get appreciative feedback from those in my target audience (others in the high-potential entrepreneurship ecosystem), it is a little jolt of encouragement to continue to invest time, energy, and thought into identifying topics that can encourage or be applied by others. It feels like I am offering a free helping hand just as others offered the same to me along the way. And helping other startup leaders is something I often cram into that 10-pound sack because if not me, who?
   
   
2. Because being a startup leader means taking responsibility for one’s own learning curve. When you set out to chart a new course and pathfind for an innovative startup, you do so without the support system of a bigger organization, a helpful boss to help sort out priorities and next steps, or a well-trodden path. While universities and accelerators have developed curriculums to teach entrepreneurship, they remind me a bit of business school. Such programs can provide an orientation to some of the topics that form the building blocks of a startup, but, in my experience, they only begin to crack the surface. There are so many dimensions to building a startup – and, just like individual people are unique, each startup is unique. No two are perfectly alike, and the art of startup growing is in continually figuring out what dimensions and decisions are important, what information is relevant and essential to each decision, deciding, and moving to the next one. It is all in the application.
   
   Once you are past the point where those introductory courses are helpful to orient you to some of the basic building blocks, you must take responsibility for your own learning curve. High-potential entrepreneurship demands continuous learning. If you allow yourself to stagnate, you become a limiting factor in realizing your startup’s potential.  To drive my own learning curve forward, I look for peer and other mentoring to help me. I can find inspiration and instruction from many people who have expertise and insight that I lack. Some can share the paths they walked.  Some can unpack the mysteries of a technical or functional discipline they have expertise in. Some can hold up a mirror to help me see myself more clearly.
   
   And, in addition, I deliberately create space in my life to reflect and learn from my own experiences. Blogging fills part of that space by giving me a context to note the principles I have been applying, reflect on how well they do or do not work, and whether they generalize the way I think they might.

The Blogging Process

Topic Choices

Some bloggers approach the content creation process like curriculum development. They plan, organize content into a structure, and systematically deliver that.  Some comment on current events in the news or their lives.

For me, I am seeking to distill years of startup experience into actionable insights – for me and others.  Often this means that my blogs reflect problems recently on my mind. I may choose to use older examples to characterize the outcome to illustrate my points; however, the most useful and insightful blogs often flow from something that I am actively mulling over. Regularly when I am problem-solving, I will have a moment of insight that I am applying an idea or framework or some other pattern to the problem at hand and realize that I should capture that concept in a blog. Then I have to extend my thinking more broadly and develop the idea, which helps improve my own thinking and packages it for others to take advantage of.  For me, topic generation is a very dynamic and organic process that arises out of real-world startup challenges, which I think helps keep my posts concrete and real, even as I take care to fuzz out the details of the immediate situation stimulating me to protect the privacy of others in my world.

Frequency and Consistency

Different bloggers certainly arrive at different cadences. Some blog daily. Some blog when they have something specific to say.

When I started blogging in May 2020, I kicked off with a flurry of posts at a pace of two per week for the first four months. Then a close friend firmly pointed out that the pressure of the pace I was keeping was stressing me out. He gave me the permission I needed to change my target to a weekly blog.

Now I enforce a discipline on myself to keep my weekly cadence. Endlessly inspired by the remarkable Seth Godin, whose blog is the only one I read daily, my blog forces me to reflect and be more intentional about my personal growth in my work life in addition to giving generous, creative value to my tribe in the world. Like working out, I feel that if I allow myself the excuse that there is “too much” going on this week, I will stop and never find the space again for that blog potato.  

My blog name, Startup CEO Reflections, embodies my motivations and intention. It is all about investing in intentionally generating reflections for others and for me to learn from. I hope you can put them to good use!