Steve Pavlina Interview

[rosegold]

Blogging God Steve Pavlina Interview: On Motivation, Handling Email, Daily Routines, How He Got Started, and Much More | Zen Habits

I enjoyed reading this interview

[rosegold]

I’ve learned to trust the flow between student and teacher modes. The worst thing I can do is push myself to keep writing when I feel drawn to study something new. Equally bad is to hold myself back from expressing ideas when I feel motivated to share.

When I honor the flow of these different modes, I usually feel driven to action. Sometimes that means I’m mainly motivated to teach; other times it means I’m mainly motivated to learn. Neither mode is better than the other. They actually complement each other wonderfully.

Very nice saying.

[rosegold]

So I stopped looking to publishers to give me what I wanted, and I declined to renew my contract with the agent who was lining up those deals. I had a major epiphany and said to myself, “I’m just going to make a game. I don’t care if it sells. I’m just going to create something new and unique. Screw everything else. If I go broke doing this, so be it. But I’m going to finish this one game no matter what.”

I had virtually no income at the time, and shortly after making this commitment, Erin and I got kicked out of our apartment because we fell behind in our rent. I had to do C++ tutoring on the side while Erin did some web consulting. We’d often end each month with less than $100 total. We cut our expenses to the bone and lived very frugally. We barely scraped by, but somehow we managed.

Amazing story.

[rosegold]

Because I assumed total responsibility for completing that game, it didn’t matter that I had no money, few resources, and a mountain of debt. I focused all my energy on my goal, a goal that I truly desired. I stopped making excuses. I finally understood the difference between wanting success and choosing success. Wanting it wasn’t enough. If I only wanted to succeed, I’d have failed.

That was a very powerful lesson for me. Financially it may have been a low point, but creatively it was a high point. I applied this same strategy when I started blogging in October 2004. I was brand new to blogging and didn’t know how I could turn a blog into a successful business. But I just decided that I was going to succeed. I got in touch with my true desires and did my best to shed the false ones. I just wanted to create a website that would help people grow and that would help support my own path of growth. That was the seed of my true desire, so that’s what I focused on.

Very nice.