To Be Famous Online, You Need To Go On A Journey

“Either write something worth reading, or do something worth writing about.”

-Ben Franklin

There he was.

Nas Daily telling me he just started a podcast. In a Facebook ad.

After 1,000 straight days of traveling and 1,000 daily videos, he was ready to settle down.

I remember this like it was yesterday. The dude had 16,000,000 followers. He’d traveled to 80+ countries. He featured countless amazing people from all around the world.

And he felt it was now time for him to sit and talk about his adventures.

As creators, we need to follow his lead..

1. Go on a journey.

2. Talk about what we learned.

Far too often I see this, though..

1. Do nothing.

2. Blog about personal development, even though we haven’t accomplished anything.

How can you blog about personal development when you don’t know how to develop yourself? Well, by repeating what other bloggers have said before.

And that’s stupid, cheap, fake, not creative, and dare I say.. wrong.

Here’s why going on a journey is a great prerequisite for creating..

You‘ll Never Say Anything Interesting If You Don’t Draw On Personal Experience

What’s interesting?

I’d wager that INTERESTING things are what you’ve never heard before.

Something isn’t interesting if you’ve already heard it or read it.

And sure, writers do say a lot of the same thing sometimes, but what gives color to their posts are the personal elements to it.

I once wrote a blog post called “Want to be a successful blogger? Do cool sh*t first.”

I did that. I wanted to be a travel blogger back in 2016, and I knew I needed to TRAVEL to be a travel blogger. So I did just that.

I went on a 5-month road trip across the United States. I visited 23 states, woke up to wolves howling in Montana at 3 AM, saw huge arches in Utah, and spent Labor Day next to the Golden Gate Bridge.

I learned a lot about life, people, and myself, and that trip was the backbone for my early career in writing.

Being Good At Writing Isn’t Enough

Being a good writer isn’t enough. I know a lot of vloggers who know way more about filmmaking than I do, yet nobody knows who they are.

Why?

Because becoming popular online generally requires two things.

1. Creative talent.

2. A compelling point of view.

To get #2, you need to experience shit. You must experience life.

Do you think Nas Daily would have 16,000,000 followers if he didn’t set off on a journey?

No, he wouldn’t.

I see so many people start blogs who really don’t have anything interesting to say. To remedy this problem, I suggest drawing more on existing personal experience or going out on a journey.

What makes Star Wars so much fun is that there’s a journey involved. A hero’s journey. Do you think Star Wars would be successful if it just followed Luke staying at home the whole time?

I don’t think you need to go on a 5 month road trip to be a blogger, but do something. Move away from home. Volunteer. Go teach English overseas. Do something.

One Last Thought..

I was pondering what the term “thought leader” meant the other day. Well, it’s a person who LEADS with new ideas.

Someone who comes up with NEW ideas and thoughts that lead the rest of us to a better world.

You will never ever ever be a thought leader if you just copy other people. To be a thought leader.. to be someone truly compelling..you need to draw on personal experience. You must forget about everything that has been written before, because your goal is to create something new, not something old.

The way to get there, period, is to do one of two things..

1. Be radically loyal to your story.

2. Go on a journey.

Before you write, make sure you’ve been through something worth writing about.