Lofty words indeed...but let me explain.
George R.R. Martin and Joe Odas. Two handsome studs from New Jersey. One has several Hugo and Emmy Awards and is considered amongst the most prolific writers of his generation. The other is an up and coming media proprietor, content creator, chef, and new father. Both have beards. Both have blogs, (even though one is called “Not a Blog”.) Both haven't updated their main written series in what seems like eons.
I kind of feel bad for George. All that he wants to do is work on what he wants to while hopefully seeing his New York Jets win another Super Bowl without the constant barrage of questions of "when is 'The Winds of Winter' coming out?". I haven't had to deal with any of that for when my next edition of "The Thermo" is coming out. But like George, I've been working on many other projects that have interested me.
This website was started as a project to build up my digital marketing experience as a full time insurance agent and expectant father. I did not have any time where I would be able to get a chance to intern weekdays during normal business hours without quitting my job. That's not something that would be possible at this time, and my wife would not be very happy with me if I did that.
So without having much time what else could I do? I decided to create this here website in which I could plan out digital marketing campaigns for my own personal projects. I could create the content, manage the search engine optimization, and plan out how I will market the content digitally to get more followers. Hopefully, one of my followers would check out my content and be impressed to the point that it would lead me to a job working full time in marketing or advertising. That hasn't happened yet - but I am going to keep sticking to it and not give up. This past summer, I decided to become more involved in LinkedIn to help my job prospects. I have found several leads to many positions, but more importantly, I've been able to find inspiration in the many people who have connected with me on the platform. I don't personally know 96% of my connections on LinkedIn but if you have received a request to connect from me just know that it means that I have a ton of respect for you and what you do professionally.
I love watching food reviews online. Since pizza reviews have been done online already by the one and only Dave Portnoy, I decided to do my own little spin on it by reviewing wing sauces for wings that I cook myself. I've ordered wings from many different places in my lifetime and have always felt that they just took some frozen Tyson wings, put them in a fryer and put some Frank's Sauce on them with me feeling like I wasted my money in the end. I knew that I could do a better job myself. So I decided to create my own YouTube show called #LitEats where I would cook the wings myself using my own rub and airfryer, then review each sauce on a 1-10 scale that I cooked with. I have had so much fun creating and editing my own videos each week that it has become a style of relaxation for me, like how painting a house with pretty trees is for Bob Ross.
In addition to #LitEats, I started my own NFL Picks show called #LitPicks. One of my favorite hobbies is to handicap NFL games, so I figured why not create a livestream show on something that I really enjoy with one of my closest friends. #LitPicks is a game show style streaming show in which there is a scoring system determined from picking from each game’s favorite/underdog/point spread and whomever has the higher score wins the week. The loser has to perform a silly karaoke song of the winner's choosing. There's no funds exchanged, just sheer humiliation. If you can call it humiliation. To be honest, I enjoy performing karaoke so I guess you can say it's to our wives' humiliation.
#LitPicks was rolling along steady until the first week of November where I delayed the show since I was hired as a part time event employee for the Philadelphia Eagles. I made a commitment to follow the rules of the organization, one of them being no talk online about point spreads. It doesn't matter if you are Carson Wentz or the guy selling hot dogs, gambling is frowned upon by the National Football League. So I decided to put the show on the shelf for at least until the end of the season. In it's place we tried talking about ranking ABC's T.G.I.F. lineup and Thanksgiving food, but that wasn't really a hit with our viewers. So after the Eagles’ season ended, I decided to bring back #LitPicks in its traditional form. With the XFL here, we plan to continue the show until the season ends in April.
Which brings us to today. I've been having a great time working on my social media and video content - but I really want to get the site back to where I had started in July as a blog. With that being said, this post is my announcement that I am making an official resolution to post written content for 30 days in a row. I will still continue to produce video content, and feel that spending the Fall getting my feet wet and learning how to edit my videos on a small budget was very beneficial to the growth of my content. In the meantime, I have signed up for writing courses that I hope will enhance my skills.
While holding my son and watching the Soundscapes channel, a Maya Angelou quote flashed on the screen - "Nothing will work unless you do." I found this to be very motivating. It doesn't matter if you have to work a long shift at something that you are not passionate about and still have work to do when you get home. If you don't manage your time to do the work that you are passionate about then your dreams will never come true. I think about the podcasts that I listen to every week. Big Cat used to work in real estate. PFT Commenter used to work in software sales. Charissa Thompson and Ryen Russillo used to work as bartenders. So what if I have a long day working in insurance. If I don't take the time to do the work nothing is going to happen. When I look into my son's eyes, I want him to look back at someone who really loves what he does for a living. And I'm not going to stop until I get there.
So join me on this 30 day journey to prove to myself that I have what it takes to develop written content daily for my site. Whether it's changing a ton of diapers or dealing with a large volume of tough insurance calls every day. I will be here to produce. I owe that to myself.
Remember - #StayLit!
Song of the Day - Timecop1983 - "On the Run"
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