Oversharing
People (including my relatives) wonder why I write so much about topics like my personal life and my health.
It’s very simple. I have a blogger’s creed. It looks like this:
If you learn something that would be valuable to others, share it.
Privacy
There’s an exception. I won’t violate the privacy of my family or my clients.
That’s why you don’t see me writing about my wife’s health, my children’s struggles, or my clients’ private business.
What about my own privacy? I really don’t care. Obviously I’m not going to share my bank account balance or what I overate last night, but if you can learn from my life, I’m probably going to make it public.
So you’ll hear what I learned from my cancer, my freelance experiences, my work on books, my political musings, and any other insights I have.
There’s a switch in my head that says “Hmm, learned something there, gotta share it.” With 40 years of work experience, 20 years as an analyst, 42 book projects, and a couple million words of blogging under my belt, there’s always something to share.
Why share?
Very few of you should adopt my practice of sharing everything I learn. Most people aren’t like me. But if you’re curious, here’s why I do it.
I like writing.
Sharing insights makes me think about them more deeply, and learn more.
Sharing them publicly gives me access to your feedback, which helps me learn even more.
Taken together, everything I’ve shared creates a body of work that I’m proud of. I’m on record.
It’s not a life for everyone. But it’s a good part of who I am.
Thanks for listening.
And we’re the better for it.
I’ll bet you also choose your topics with an eye on the future: “If I write about X today, will anyone care what I wrote in 20 years?”
Sorry to hear about your cancer! I hope your treatments are successful. I may be going through the same struggle soon, so hearing about yours is helpful
This is good to read, Josh. I don’t think there are many people my age (75) who blog and I’ve long thought it would be useful to share what I’m learning as I face the exigencies of becoming one of the elderly. However, I’ve struggled with how much to share or if I have any right to share since there are so many others whose struggles are likely greater than mine. I’m slowly loosening up. I’m thinking I’ll get it together somewhere around 80 … if I make it.
It’s your bully pulpit – you get to say whatever you feel like saying.
I like writing something about something I learned and sharing, too – usually it is about writing and self-publishing, often something I had to work hard to figure out. The posts also serve as a record, and a review (and a place where I took the time to be clear) – even if no one else goes back to them, I do.
If you have a publication that would publish anything you wrote, you’d keep feeding it things so its readers wouldn’t forget you. Same with a blog.
But if it satisfies only me, I still got a chance to tighten how I expressed it, which is good practice all by itself.
Solo mom of three who has just stumbled upon an interview with you on Publishing Profits podcast via rabbit hole style research inspired by an email newsletter marketing gig I fell into recently.
Your Bullshit book is en route to my mailbox as I type.
I am a wordy writer. Shakespeare’s “Brevity is the soul of wit”, has become my new maxim. Especially since I’m making moves to produce and serve ACTUAL content to consumers! Your blog looks like something I could devour, thanks for offering it. Can’t wait to get into your Truth and Influence stuff. -j