Why You MUST Create Your Own Website To Thrive

What could you do today that will matter alot in your future? Think about that for a minute.

I can think of lots of examples:

• Eat well and live healthily
• Help other people
• Build real relationships
• Understand who I am
• Choose Financial Independence
• Start investing alot of my money etc

The one thing you don't often hear about is that you MUST start your own website.

Not starting your website is another way of robbing your future.

To put it another way, if you want to guarantee thriving in the future, you must start by creating your own website today.

I love this great quote by Andy Baio –

“Carving out a space for yourself online, somewhere where you can express yourself and share your work, is still one of the best possible investments you can make with your time.”

You see, in the old world, websites were used to state bland information about a business such as a list of services, contact us etc.

However, with influencers being created on social media every day and with the low cost of acquiring technology, the purpose of websites have moved on quite a bit.

A website in itself is super easy to create and you need absolutely no tech skills!

In fact, you can do it in 15minutes. Before we dive into this post, here's one Action point from this entire post:

Go now to www.bluehost.com and grab your FREE DOMAIN name.

Get www.[insert your name here].com. If your name is common or you just don’t like it, use an alias or pseudonym and register that instead.

Then buy some hosting as part of the above process (it’s super cheap! Especially if you pay annually) and then follow my detailed tutorial to set-up your site on WordPress.

Remember, your website doesn’t have to look pretty yet! It just needs to exist!! You can always grab a talented designer on Fiverr to make it look pretty later.

To learn what you might do with your website, all the techy bits, and how to generate followers etc, join my FREE Course on How To Start A Blog.

So why do I insist on everyone on the planet owning their own website?

Personal Brands

Do you think you currently have a personal brand? If you don't, then it's never too late for that penny to drop.

Everything we do every day either enhances that personal brand or damages it.

The most successful personal brand that I can think of is Sir Richard Branson.

I just love the guy and his free spirit. If you study him very closely, you'll realise that building his personal brand comes so naturally that it's become who he is.

Many years ago, I read his must-read book called Losing My Virginity.

I became instantly fascinated by his life of adventure, passion, and fearlessness.

Interestingly, I also became fascinated by Virgin. That fascination turned me into a raving fan and being a fan turned me into a customer.

Mission complete.

[redbar]The key point to note here is the exchange of value. The personal brand had to have had value in order to generate some more value.[/redbar]

The way I look at a personal brand is as an intangible asset with some inherent value.

Given we're all doing life on a timeline, you and I have an important decision to make.

Do we want to build our personal brands and help it add to our net worth as time passes?

Or do we want to keep cruising through life forgetting that our greatest asset is us?

A website helps you to convert your intangible personal brand into tangible assets.

The best part is, you can choose what form that tangible asset takes.

Show Your Work

Showing your work is all about exploring your creativity and interests and showing it to the world.

A website can take various forms such as a blog with the singular goal of revealing who you are and what you're passionate about.

Showing your work is also another way of teaching what you know as an expert.

A website gives you the platform to build your domain authority and get your message out to the world.

It’s also a place where you can do simple and satisfying work, whilst devoting your energy, time and attention towards practising a craft, learning a skill or running a business.

Showing your work in such a way allows for the possibility that it could be found and you could attract people with common interests.

Stock and Flow

Creating your own website gives you the opportunity to share something every day.

This could be anything from an inspiration you had today, to a piece of your process or abit of some unfinished work.

The key is to focus on days and have daily dispatches of bits of you and your work.

People are interested in what you do day to day and your daily dispatches could take various forms. For example, it could be a blog post, tweet, a post on a Facebook group, a podcast, YouTube video etc.

Day to day, this might not seem to make sense or appear to have any design element to your process.

However, as you remain consistent you'll find that you'd move from:

One day (e.g. one piece of content) —–> One Month (e.g. 30 pieces of content) —–> One Year (e.g. 360 pieces of content):

 

Now here's where this gets interesting –

You can start to detect patterns and turn your FLOW (Messy Content) into STOCK (Organised Content)

Below is an example:

Such patterns help you gather bits of content that can be brought together into something more substantial.

This can take all kinds of shapes e.g. a book or book chapters, course, webinar presentation, ebook, freebie giveaway etc.

Essentially, your messy content become assets with present and future value.

The key point here is that small things, over time, get bigger.

Take Control

Social networks are great, but they come and go. Think of MySpace! Add to that, they’re constantly changing their algorithms to suit them!

If you really want to show your work and have authority, then nothing beats having your own piece of the internet where you have complete control.

With your own website, you can achieve two things:

1. Own traffic
2. Control traffic

By doing this, you gradually start to build true fans who actually want to reside on your own platform and not on social media.

[yellowbar]A blog is the ideal machine for turning your flow into stock. One blog post on its own seems insignificant. However, do it for 5 years and with hundreds of posts and it soon becomes your life’s work.[/yellowbar]

Check out the below FREE course on how to start your own blog. It even covers all the techy bits that might ordinarily scare people off:

Address A Weakness

As someone who has grown up excelling at math and the like, I have had two major weaknesses:

1. Perceived lack of creativity,
2. Poor form in my written grammar, not helped by the ‘C’ grade in my English GCSE, which has since haunted me….Arrrgh!

As such, I have focused on excelling in my areas of strength – Anything to do with numbers, logic and the like.

However, I have always believed that we’re all inherently creative and that somewhere deep down within me, I had it.

I see flashes of this creativity when it comes to solving problems, I had openly explored my creativity.

This blog website is basically my canvas for exploring the public side of my creativity. I have made a decision about every aspect of its design – Colour, theme, structure, feel etc.

This process has been empowering for me and it’s like I have created a piece of art that many walk up to in a gallery to check out.

If you’d like to go on this creative journey, read my Detailed Tutorial On How To Start A WordPress Blog.

Have Fun and Make Friends

Although I am a private individual, I am fairly extroverted and always looking for opportunities to have fun and meet new people.

This blog post is a good example of what I consider fun. It has taken some time to write it, however, it has given me the opportunity to:

• Think about my process and how to make it better
• Do a mind map, which I see as a way to improve my radiant thinking and concentration
• Consider what transformation I would like for my reader

This activity isn’t about the money. It’s about enjoying the ‘creation process’.

Moving an intangible thought into something tangible. One of the key transferable skills for entrepreneurship and wealth creation.

Related: 5 Ways To Change Your Life Through Mind Mapping

Perform An Experiment

Nothing beats trying stuff out and seeing what happens.

I started this website partly to dare myself. Could I possibly influence people from across the world with just a few hours of work a week?

Last I checked, this website had been read in 57 countries within 4 months of launching. The experiment seems to be going well and remains a fun work in progress.

Build Relationships

The other day, I got the opportunity of an invitation to hang out with an influential UK blogger at his home.

Driving up there, I reflected on the many reservations I had about starting my website.

Would I have anything meaningful to say? Would I run out of content? Will I build meaningful relationships?  

It is definitely the best thing I have ever done. I have connected really well with other bloggers around the world and had the opportunity to meet some of them at events.

More importantly, I am growing in my connection with fans of The Humble Penny, many of whom write me emails thanking me for my work having stumbled across my site. I am tremendously grateful to you all.

Leave A Legacy

A huge part of what I am passionate about is doing things that will be game changing in people’s lives.

As a first generation immigrant, I am passionate about changing the game financially for our children, leaving them with valuable things to remember me by.

I would like them to look at this blog one day and say “Dad was here”. He did life well and did it fearlessly helping others.

In the same vein, I am super passionate about educating millions (I know….scary right?) across continents through this platform for FREE.

Do I dare believe I could achieve these things? YES! Although writing it gives me a scary thought, I imagine that the founders of platforms such as Khan Academy felt the same too.

That journey, which began as a desire in my subconscious mind, becomes a reality by starting a website.

To conclude, creating your own website is the beginning of an exciting future path. Don’t see it as a self-promotion machine but instead as a self-invention machine.

It’s your space to be who you really want to be and show your work. Fill it with stuff you really care about and see it as a long-term investment.

When the next shiny thing comes along, don’t abandon it and don’t give up! Stick with it and let it grow with you over time.

Related:

Tutorial: How To Start A WordPress Blog

7 Day FREE How To Start A Blog Course

 

Do please share this post if you found it useful, and remember, in all things be thankful and Seek Joy.