A lot of self-help advice has aged terribly.

Mental illness used to be weird and taboo when I battled her more than five years ago. I was embarrassed to tell anybody about the craziness going on in my head. A guy at work once asked me, “What’s it like to be you?”

I accidentally let out two words: “It’s torture.”

He thought I was joking. But that’s seriously what daily mental illness feels like. Torture. Nothing you do is good enough.

But what does it really feel like? Well, you stop trusting yourself. You stop trusting yourself to be happy…

It can be perceived as disrespectful to ignore the comments on your stories.

I have been ignoring comments on my stories. I feel guilty for doing it. I don’t do it because I’m arrogant or I don’t care about comments. There’s more to the story. Comments can become a huge problem as a writer. Here’s why.

Comments can stop you writing

Go and read ten comments on your stories that accuse you of being an a-hole. I promise you, you won’t feel like writing today or for a week or forever.

I want to keep writing. I don’t want negative comments to kill my writing…

Experimentation is how you make money online.

I read a lot of content about all the ways you can make money online. What is rarely spoken about is all the ways that don’t work. Thankfully, I’ve done the experimenting for you. I’ve spent seven years playing around with what works and what doesn’t.

My findings are not immovable facts, but they will help shape your decision on how you could make money online if that’s what you choose to do.

Making money online is a lifestyle and it’s not for everyone. Working a normal job is perfectly honorable too.

Let’s start with the biggest trap

Creating…

The almost dead have their fate sealed. They’ve been told they are going to die — and crucially, they believe it.

That last part might surprise you. If you are sick and you believe you’ll die then you will.

I learned this lesson from a 1990s audiotape from Tony Robbins. At the time Tony’s father-in-law Cecil was ill. Tony did everything he could to protect him from the nurses who wanted him to desperately know his fate.

Instead, Tony gave Cecil reasons to live. He set tasks for him such as coming to Tony’s Fiji resort to help with the…

Mistakes were made — God (via twitter)

Getting modestly paid as a writer has happened to me because I’ve been willing to make mistakes.

I heard somewhere the other day that many people take jobs because they never have to fail in their role. Making money as a writer is the opposite.

These are the skills I would cultivate if you have a goal to make a modest amount of money as a writer.

The ability to put yourself out there

You put yourself out there so others can relate to you. It’s why hiding your real name as a writer behind a pen name rarely works…

I went down the Gumroad.

While preparing to build my second course focused on LinkedIn, I bought a course from another creator named Justin Welsh as part of my extended research. Justin uses Gumroad to promote and sell his course, which I’d never heard of. What’s interesting about Gumroad is its quirky founder, Sahil.

Sahil broke social media when he said, “Invest your time before you invest your money.”

It’s a different way to look at earning money online. Rather than going out and buying a bunch of digital products to get you all hyped up, he suggests the following:

…

I got engaged. It scared the crap out of me.

On the big day, I circled the engagement spot by the lake several times with my partner. The nerves were punching my weak stomach.

“Commit for life? Sure, why not,” is the self-talk.

The week after I get engaged the big question comes: “When and where are you getting married?”

Honestly, I haven’t thought about it. I’ve still got an engagement hangover. For the guys out there who have had to buy an engagement ring, you’ll know what I mean.

You walk into a jewelry store. The owner approaches. They’re…

Even though WeWork is now a bad tech fantasy experiment gone wrong, they’re still thriving in Australia where I live and handing out free Kombucha.

I admittedly go to their offices where my friend Ben works, just so I can get my daily dose of gut-loving Kombucha. I walk in. Nobody says anything. I flip the Kombucha tap downwards. I skull it. I drink more. *Drinks six more glasses*

My secret office fantasy is to quit my job and rent a desk at WeWork.

You can’t blame me, can you? I recently watched the documentary called WeWork: Or The Making…