12 May Join The Start-A-Blog Challenge! Free 7-day Dream Job Writing Course + Video Tutorial: Start Your Blog in Under 10 Minutes (with Zero Tech Experience)
“It’s a luxury being a writer because all you ever think about is life.”
– Amy Tan
The Free Live Your Legend Start-A-Blog Challenge is Back, permanently!
Plus, we created a free writing course, just for you…
Join Us for The Free Writing Challenge!
Our founder, Scott Dinsmore, believed a blog is hands-down the most powerful passion-discovery and career-transition tool on the planet.
When he considered everything he’d done to learn about himself, build a career and make a difference, nothing was more powerful than his decision to start a blog and adopt a daily writing, reflection and discovery habit. Nothing else even came close.
His first blog led to him finding his life’s work, building a thriving global business, getting invited to give a TEDx talk that’s gotten over 8 million views, launching Live Your Legend Local communities in 150 cities in 48 countries and getting the chance to have a bigger impact with his work than he ever dreamed.
It all started with his routine writing habit, but don’t take our word for it. Check out what two recent participants have had to say:
“You and your work at LYL is what gave me the courage to start a blog in the first place. Since then, I have fallen in love with my subject matter, and figured out what I want to do with the rest of my life!”
– Bethany S.
“The Blog Challenge, for me, was the perfect way to stop dreaming about your passions and finally start making them reality. In my case it was the perfect push: when you stop making plans and start doing, the inertia breaks, you start to learn and grow, get a little better each day, and eventually figure things out. That´s how a year later that blog I created during the challenge turned into a real business and got me invited to give a TEDx Talk!”
– Matías S.
Matias now works full-time on his passion-based business, is seen as an expert in his field and has given talks to audiences of over 1,000 people, including speaking at TEDx – a lifetime dream of his.
But this isn’t even about building a business (that’s just where it led Matias) – it’s about discovering who you are and starting to share it with the world.
It gives us chills to read these experiences…
“Writing has started me on the journey to loving who I am and towards helping others who are sinking in the same seas I’ve survived.”
– Angela Y.
“It’s like I’ve adopted a more beautiful and larger pebble to make waves in a pond.”
– Haydee M.
“The most powerful result that I have experienced is that I got my courage back. As I sat down and spoke my truth on paper for the first time, I realized that I have something powerful and magical to share with the world that people need to know. With every article, I kept feeling less and less fear to speak my voice from what I know is true.”
– Itatiaia D.
The scary thing is Scott had put it off for years!
Well, the procrastination ends today. We want to remove every barrier and excuse to get you creating your blog, learning to write and sharing your work.
Each year thousands of LYLers start blogs and become writers during our challenge, and many of them have told us directly that it is the most game-changing thing they did the whole year.
And that’s why we’ve created the free 7-Day Dream Job Writing Habits Course & Start-A-Blog Challenge.
Here’s what you’ll get immediate access to (& how to participate)…
- Free 7-day email course to help you build a successful writing habit in 10-20 minutes a day
- New writing prompt each day focused on helping you find your passions & do work you love
- Private insight on my favorite tools & process for writing and building the Live Your Legend blog and business
- Video tutorial on How to Start a Blog in Under 10 Minutes with Zero Tech Experience
- Access to our private writer’s & creator’s community for built-in accountability and support (with over 2,000 members)
- The confidence that you finally acted on an idea you’ve probably had for years!
Also realize that the real benefit in participating in our Start–A–Blog Challenge will come from what you learn about yourself through consistent writing and sharing your ideas, which means that everyone who participates will win. And you’ll win big. That’s the fun part!
We know many of you have held off on this for years for all kinds of reasons. We hope this finally inspires you to take a stand and publish something. The world is waiting.
Read on for details and why writing (and a blog) completely transformed Scott’s career, or just click here to join us for the challenge!
Check and see if the domain name you want is available.
*****
Writing made Scott who he was.
In 2003, while sitting at a small café in Sevilla, Spain (where he was living at the time), Scott picked up his first journal and began to write.
From that moment, his ideas started to take on a new life.
His conversations changed.
His thinking began to develop on a totally different level.
He’s not sure why he decided to write that first line, but that ripple started a trend of experiments and discoveries that slowly took over his world. From there everything began to change.
Those first journal entries lead to discovering an online platform to do the same – a blog.
That little blog experiment turned into what Live Your Legend is today.
None of it would have existed without putting pen to paper (or fingers to keys).
Experiment and discovery is at the heart of the Live Your Legend way of life, so today, we want to share the most powerful tool we’ve found for learning, discovering and developing passions. It’s also the perfect way to learn to think like – and become – an entrepreneur.
Here’s why a blog is so damn powerful…
Writing Leads to Opportunity
A blog is simply the easiest way available for publishing ideas on the Internet for others to see. It encourages you to get ideas out of your head and into the world, which then allows you to further develop them and give you a chance to showcase those thoughts as well as your passions and talents to others. And when you do that, interesting things start to happen.
That’s exactly how Live Your Legend came to be. Scott started a blog as a fun experiment eight years ago. He had no idea what he was doing, but he had ideas he wanted to share. Over time, as his thinking, writing and passions developed, he was able to realize the way he really wanted to help people. Live Your Legend was born.
Developing your writing also happens to be one of the best ways for learning how to communicate, process thoughts and ideas, stay accountable to big plans and life changes, build an audience, develop your persuasion skills and to simply become a more interesting citizen of the world.
And SO many of you ask about how and when and how to start a blog. Today, we have the answer.
When is the best time? To be honest, a long time ago.
When’s the second best time? Right now. 🙂
With today’s tools you can be up and running in literally less than 10 minutes, even if you have ZERO tech experience. And depending on what option you choose, it can be free or cost less than a latte a month. And you’ll love the confidence that comes with knowing you set up your own site on the web. It’s fun!
If you’re serious about living your legend, it’s something you can’t not do.
Now, it’s time for action.
Remember: In order to participate in the challenge and access the free 7-day dream job writing course, you must add your email by clicking this link. You’ll be given all the instructions you need after joining.
How to Start a Blog (& Publish a Post) in Less than 10 Minutes with Zero Tech Experience
Note: We created this video of instructions below to be intentionally very, very simple to get you up and running with a totally basic WordPress blog so you can start publishing ideas ASAP.
There are about a million other decisions you could (and eventually probably will) make regarding your blog or site. Please do not worry about that today. All that matters is getting something published. Don’t worry about how it looks. Today is about creating your sandbox and starting to play a little. Landscaping (and other excuses for being afraid of getting a little dirty) can be addressed later.
For the more advanced folks who already have a blog, this is your next step: The 4 Pillars to Starting a Blog that Actually Matters (& grow it by 160x in 2 years). But if you don’t have a blog yet, just follow the steps below. It will be much quicker and simpler.
1. Sign up for the most basic website hosting account at Bluehost.
*To make this as easy as possible, see the video Scott recorded at the end of this step that walks you through setting up a blog and publishing your first post in under 10 minutes.
We fully endorse Bluehost and we are a proud affiliate partner of theirs (and Live Your Legend readers get a special 20% discount from the public price – discount already included in each of these Bluehost links), and it’s where all our domains live. We’ve tried a lot of hosts in the past, and this is by far the best discount option available based on our personal experience and that of the people we respect online.
They’ve also been a top recommended web host by WordPress since 2005. All you need is the most basic option, which comes with a free domain (website address) of your choosing.
Check and see if the domain name you want is available.
One reason we love Bluehost is because their customer support is awesome. If you’re unsure of what to do, just start up a chat session with their support team and they’ll get your issues sorted out.
Here’s the link to set up your site on Bluehost and get the special LYL 20% off discount.
A few clarifying points:
- This Bluehost setup will run you about the cost of one latte a month. To get the lowest monthly price of $3.95, you will pay for the first couple years in advance. The month-to-month cost is still only the price of about two lattes. It’s a pretty small investment for finally getting traction on what makes you come alive. There are also some totally free options through sites like Blogger or Tumblr, although to be honest, we don’t really recommend those since you have much less control and won’t actually own the website (and we don’t have any personal experience with them). So if you go that route and decide to take your blog and site more seriously in the future, they can be a total pain in the ass to switch to something like the Bluehost option. You will also have a ton more resources and options available through the slightly less than free option we suggest. And you have the added motivation that when you pay for something (no matter how small), you become WAY more committed to getting use out of it than if it were free. That’s no small point. It’s your call, though.
- Due to the increased traffic and complexity of Live Your Legend, we host it on a more robust platform via WP Engine (which we LOVE), but at $99+ per month, that is definitely not the option you need to begin.
Step #1: Watch this simple video to walk you through every step of the process in under 10 minutes…
Don’t see a video? Click here.
For the rest of the detailed written steps, read below (but the video above should be all you need):
3. Pick your blog name (called a URL or domain name).
This is part of the sign-up process through Bluehost in Step #1. When you sign up for basic hosting, you get a website name for free.
Keep it simple. Don’t hold off just because you can’t come up with some brilliant name. Using your first and last name (or a similar rendition) is fine and might even be better since you might not know the specific niche you want to focus on. You’ll be free to cover whatever topics you choose. Using your name can also allow the site to serve as a simple online resume if nothing else, and it helps with your name’s Google rankings.
4. Set up WordPress on your new site (or better yet, have Bluehost do it for you for free).
Scott covers all of this in the above video, but once you’ve purchased your hosting/domain, you are ready to install WordPress, which will allow you to edit and update your site without needing to do anything technical. Most every blog on the planet from LYL to ZenHabits to The 4-Hour Work Week are all run on WordPress.
Installing/setting up the very basic version of WordPress on a new Bluehost account is a pretty straightforward process. But we’re always a fan of having customer support do it for us. They should be happy to set it up. Just tell them something like, “Hey, I’m excited to get started with my blog. A big reason I chose Bluehost is because I’m not technical, and I heard you guys could get WordPress installed for me super fast. Could you please install WordPress on my new site so I can get started publishing content? Thanks so much!”
If you stall out on any of these steps, be sure to watch the video above. That should clear it all up. And you can always search Google or YouTube for other video tutorials on setting this stuff up, but again, that’s what customer support is there for. They love helping new clients.
5. Write consistently.
Do it daily or weekly. Ideally, make it happen first thing in the morning. Start with one sentence. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself, but any time you get an idea that excites you or notice something on your mind, open up your computer and get it out there. Treat this as your online journal of sorts. Write about what fires you up or catches your interest. Developing your writing is a priceless skill, and the refinement of ideas that will result is magical.
If a passion or idea doesn’t have room to breathe, it will die.
6. See what happens.
Our favorite part!
None of this would be here without a blog.
Eight years ago, Scott built his first blog without even knowing it. It started as an experiment to see if a guy who didn’t know a thing about technology could start a website.
It worked.
The site was hideous, but he was damn proud of it – he loved it. The focus of Reading for Your Success initially was writing book summaries and recommendations on all the personal development books he was reading. He had no intention of turning it into a business, let alone its own movement. He didn’t even know that was a possibility.
Most importantly, it was an outlet for him to explore his ideas about what actually mattered to him. At first his writing absolutely sucked – the posts are still in this site’s archives and popular posts if you really want to see them!
Over time, he learned what topics made his heart race and what seemed to connect with others. Knowing people were watching (even if only his parents and girlfriend at first) motivated him to continue to learn and grow.
An audience naturally makes us want to get better.
Before long, more and more people were asking for help on different fun things, especially related to quitting a keyboard-pounding job and doing work that mattered. One thing led to the next (i.e. he worked his ass off), the community grew along with his passion, and then Reading For Your Success eventually became Live Your Legend. Those three initial members of the community turned into tens of thousands.
The site and topics started to become his personal brand. A brand he was proud of. One he believed in.
That brand turned into a career.
People had a reason to come to Live Your Legend, and a specific way they wanted help. And he absolutely loved helping them.
The confidence and conviction that came with it were priceless.
As an LYLer by the name of Libby highlighted in our recent post…
“Even on the smallest scale, as you start to act in a way that’s congruent to what matters to you, you begin to notice more and more actions following suit. People start to pay attention. You and those around you begin to expect it from you. So you continue to show up in a bigger way. Before long, the only actions you take are ones deeply rooted in the difference you want to make.”
But building a business and movement is not why Live Your Legend started. If it was, Scott likely would have given up.
It started because Scott was pursuing something that he thought might interest him. That continued for four years of exploring and refining, without any publicly visible progress. He kept at it because he’d found an outlet for focusing and honing the impact he wanted to have. And it was published in a place the whole world could see, if they decided to look.
Momentum is a powerful thing.
Once a snowball starts rolling, it become difficult to stop.
Give your ideas a place to grow and transform, and you might be surprised where they take you.
Actually, we know you will – and that’s the most exciting part of all!
It’s about time you get those ideas out of your head and share them with the world.
Serendipity is waiting,
– The Live Your Legend Team
Now it’s time to take some action. We want to see how many blogs we can start or revive as a team!
- Join our Start A Blog Challenge & free 7-day email course and private writing community here. Do it right now.
- Start your blog. Visit Bluehost, click the green button and take 10 minutes (your 20% discount is already included on the linked page).
- Write your first post. Anything goes, no matter how short or simple.
- Tell a few people and follow the steps above. And have some fun!
How it began – Discover. Learn. Travel. Be.
Posted at 01:33h, 14 May[…] – Be brave and take on the Start A Blog Challenge at LYL – and here we […]