Separating My Blog from My Brand
The reason I write every day is to help me process all the ideas I have.
This mini empire I have built inside my head doesn’t always translate itself properly into real life.
I need to be able to write to get my head on straight each morning and to constantly clarify what I want.
For me, there’s always been two sides of writing.
Free, creative writing.
Marketing / SEO / long form sales writing.
It’s been a challenge to find where the line between those two is.
This weekend, I did some meditation of the subject and things became even more clear.
Simply put, I have my blog and I also have my brand.
My Blog
What are you reading is my blog. The idea is that when my kid is grown up, I want there to be a record of what my life was like. This blog allows me to have full freedom and creativity to write whatever I want without expectation.
Travel
Random thoughts
Outlines (like this one)
Rants
Great restaurants I find
Sobriety
Idk whatever I want
I write in my blog each morning. I model my blog after Seth Godin and Fred Wilson.
I don’t tell anyone about my blog. It is for me, and whoever god decides needs it.
My Brand
Timstodz.com is my brand.
I want my brand to help people, (especially young people) become better entrepreneurs. I firmly believe that we should strive for a world that generates wealth for everyone and I believe that entrepreneurs are the catalyst for progress.
Sure, we have some innate problems with capitalism. Such as…
Crony capitalism
Right wingers who still pretend trickle down works so that they can horde money
Left wingers who think Marxism is a good idea
Climate crisis / mismanagement of externalities
But it is my belief that the only way we can solve these problems is by helping the next generation become educated and literate in how open markets work so that we can all participate in creating wealth for ourselves and our families.
Overtime, I am going to create an entire portfolio of companies / investments and products.
In addition, I am going to write long form articles and publish long form interviews on my podcast. Nothing will get published on my brand site unless it has significant value and research behind it.
Taking Myself Too Seriously
Last year, I lost a lot of sleep over this.
From a strategic / technical standpoint it makes a lot more sense to have everything under one brand. But you know what? There are many sides of me and I need to have space to do creative writing. I also need space to build my “digital brand” so I can create leverage in my career.
When I was in Arizona, and I made the decision to move my blog to substack, my mind just opened up and the overall quality of my work started to improve.
There’s a lesson in there, about taking ourselves to seriously, isn’t there?