Let's See Where This Goes

I've started a new personal blog here at MattWolfe.com. The site is really ugly right now and it's completely bare-bones but, for right now, that's the way I like it.

I'm using a service called "Ghost" to create this blog instead of WordPress, which has been my goto platform since 2005.

So Why Now?

I've had this itch recently to share what I've been paying attention to and studying. I've also had this itch to just write again.

From about 2005 until around 2015, I wrote blog posts almost daily. I got myself into a good flow of writing consistently, which created momentum and kept me blogging routinely for years.

Around 2015, I sold Learn To Blog to my business partner, Bradley, and then stumbled from business idea to business idea, trying to land on something I enjoyed. For a couple years, I felt pretty lost and uncertain about what I should be focused on. During this time, I also fell out of my habit of writing consistently.

It wasn't until January of 2017, when Joe and I launched Hustle & Flowchart and our newsletter, that I even started creating much content on any sort of consistent basis... But I still wasn't writing much.

In the time since I blogged consistently, Joe and I have created over 400 podcast episodes, interviewed the who's who of the marketing world, built a podcast studio away from our homes, spoken at most of the largest marketing conferences, released 3 books, launched several courses, acquired (and exited) a company, shipped thousands of physical newsletters, generated multiple 7-figures in affiliate product sales, and built one of the strongest networks on the planet.

With all of that going on, I never really slow down to reflect and I almost never take the time to write about any of it.

Sure, we talk about a lot of the wins on the podcast and discuss how we achieved them but there's just something different about writing. When I write, I'm much more methodical in my word choices. I can really think through how I want to convey a thought or an idea. I can write, erase, rethink, and rewrite sentences until I'm happy with the way it came out... With podcasting, not so much.

There's also something that feels more timeless about written content. People don't value aged audio content as much as aged written content. Podcast listeners tend to tune in to what's new. It's rare that people go tune into the oldest, despite how currently relevant it might be; at least that's the case in the business podcasting world.

So this blog (and email newsletter for those that chose to receive these that way) is my new outlet for writing. Writing about the wins, the loses, the random ideas and rants, my opinions, my interests, my travels, and everything in between.

Ideally, I'll get into some sort of flow and create a chain that I don't want to break but, in all likelihood, I'll post a bunch of posts in a row and then go quiet for a little while. Then I'll come back and write some sporadic posts. Then I'll probably get into a flow and post and handful back to back. I apologize in advance to anyone who may be hoping for an ultra-consistent schedule.

I just want to write. Hopefully people find the random thoughts and rants interesting and hopefully you'll want to keep reading them. Ideally, most will be more interesting than this one.

Why Ghost?

I've used WordPress for 16-years now (holy crap I feel old). I'm kind of over it.

We still use WordPress for Hustle & Flowchart and even the PodHacker sales page. That's only because they're so built-out now that it would be too much trouble to migrate somewhere else.

Every time I login to WordPress. Every. Single. Time. I get notifications of plugins or themes needing to be updated. Sometimes, when I update a plugin, a different plugin stops working. It drives me crazy.

The WordPress dashboard has so much going on in it. The menus and all the options are overwhelming.

I dug Ghost because it's simple. You login and there's a button that says "Post." You click it and it opens what feels like a Google Doc to start typing in. When you click Publish, the post goes live on the site and gets automatically emailed directly to everyone that's opted-in. The promotion to your existing audience is built right in.

If you're familiar with SubStack, it's the same concept. The main difference is that Ghost has themes that you can install and a back-end area where you can embed code. It's all the benefits of SubStack but with the additional design customizability of WordPress. It's everything you need in order to just create written blog posts. That simplicity just works well for my intentions with this site / newsletter.

What's Next?

I've actually roughly outlined 13 articles that I'm excited to share. These are in a range of topics like systematizing your daily workflows, book reviews and takeaways, massive mindset shifts, interesting random topics I'm studying, and even some personal journaling around wins and struggles of the moment.

Some posts will likely be one or two quick thoughts while others will be in-depth, researched articles. Hopefully all will be very valuable or, at the very least, get you thinking about certain things in different ways.

I'm excited to share and hope to be posting more often. Let's see where this goes.