Why 21 Dragons Exists

Because a friend said she missed my writ­ing. It gets more com­pli­cated than that, but that was the start.

Because I got tired of writ­ing bullshit.

Because I ached to write for myself again.

But I’m get­ting ahead of myself.

Life, the Uni­verse and Blogging

I started my other blog with noth­ing but a vague idea of what to do and an opti­mistic hope that it could make me enough money to work for myself, and give me the time to read and to learn – 2 of my favorite things on the planet.

It feels like a life­time ago now, even though Life Coaches Blog has only been around for a short 3 years. It feels like I was a lot younger then. And a lot dumber.

A lot can hap­pen in 3 years. In my case, I could fum­ble through three careers in three wildly dif­fer­ent fields, get broke, make it back, get my balls busted by an ex-girlfriend before learn­ing what I really wanted in a rela­tion­ship, take a stab at get­ting a job doing what I loved (writ­ing), actu­ally get­ting that job, get busted on by my new col­leagues, which led me to find­ing the only girl in my life I could imag­ine spend­ing my life with, all the while har­bor­ing a secret hope at get­ting back into coach­ing, trav­el­ing more in the last 2 years than in my entire 29, which included med­i­tat­ing in a Thai for­est monastery, nearly slip­ping off the back of an ele­phant which was ambling down a very steep, very tall moun­tain, train­ing with nin­jas, and walk­ing a very big, very lov­able Ger­man Shepard.

And now I have 21 dragons.

A lot can hap­pen in 3 years. I’m grate­ful for the dumb opti­mism that inspired me to start Life Coaches Blog and have the gall to think that a naïve 26-year old could tell the world how to improve itself. I needed that dumb opti­mism or I would never have had the balls to do it. And I never would have learned every­thing I needed to learn to be here.

A lot can hap­pen in 3 years. You can live, learn, love, hate, fall and learn a lot of lessons. You can change your mind about a lot of things.

Los­ing the Abil­ity to Bullshit

I absolutely believe with every atom of my being: you have to lose the abil­ity to bull­shit your­self. You have to. Or you’ll be absolutely fucked.

But to lose the abil­ity to bull­shit your­self, you have to develop the abil­ity to know when you’re bull­shit­ting your­self. You have to have a keenly refined inter­nal bull­shit detec­tor to which you have to put a con­stant ear.

One of the ways your bull­shit detec­tor will let you know when you’re full of it is to give you a dull, aching feel­ing that some­thing is hor­ri­bly wrong, even when you have no clue what it is.

And that is how I’m feel­ing with Life Coaches Blog right now.

I am look­ing at it and feel­ing this dull, aching feel­ing that is telling me I am so full of it I have to bend over back­wards to pull my head out from inside my ass.

What hap­pened?

Life Coaches Blog was an idea that took on a semi-life of its own. It achieved its own mod­er­ate suc­cess and if I had worked even harder at it, it might have been even more successful.

But these last 2 years, a gnaw­ing feel­ing about my writ­ing on Life Coaches Blog has been nip­ping away at my insides. And it’s been growing.

Tell peo­ple how to improve their lives when my own is hardly a prime exam­ple of liv­ing excel­lence? What the fuck?

I tried to cover it up. Tell myself it was okay with all sorts of rea­sons. Other peo­ple are doing it. Nobody has to know. You’re not per­fect. I’m learn­ing at the same time they are. It’s okay. Help peo­ple. You want to make a dif­fer­ence, right? You want to make so much money you can spend your time blog­ging and make life much bet­ter for your hard­work­ing par­ents, right?

But all the while, Life Coaches Blog was drift­ing fur­ther and fur­ther away from who I was becom­ing. Even the name itself, Life Coaches Blog, was formed at a time when I was a self-titled Life Coach and there actu­ally were plural num­ber of coaches writ­ing to make it a life coaches’ blog. And now there was none of that.

Things got worse.

I was tired after post­ing nearly con­tin­u­ously for 2 years. I wanted my life back. So I started accept­ing con­tri­bu­tions. I screened those metic­u­lously at first. And then, I real­ized post­ing con­tributed arti­cles could give me those poten­tial hours writ­ing my own posts back. I could rest, catch up with friends and spend time with family.

I started post­ing more con­tributed articles.

All the while know­ing that buy­ing me time was dilut­ing my per­sonal brand.

And as I watched posts with mean­ing­less names like “7 Easy Ways to Turbo-charge Your Life Even if You’re a Lazy Retard” go up on my site, that gnaw­ing feel­ing nipped, and bit, and growled.

One day, I turned around, and stared at this gnaw­ing, exis­ten­tial feel­ing in the face. And then I real­ized it wasn’t my bull­shit com­ing to shame me. It was my con­science. My beau­ti­ful con­science, who hadn’t been try­ing to say any­thing other than a sim­ple; “you can do bet­ter than this.”

And so I decided to change.

But I can’t take all the credit. It took one man to stand up before I could rise to my own two feet in protest. In fact, it took The Man him­self. Mer­lin Mann, to be exact.

The Mer­lin Works His Magic

Mer­lin Mann runs the wildly suc­cess­ful 43 Fold­ers. He’s also recently been in an exis­ten­tial blog­ging funk. But to cut the long story short, he’s seen through the Matrix. He’s cut­ting the bull­shit from his blog. He’s fuck­ing genius and he’s going to show every­one how it really gets done: from the heart.

I read his declar­ing post and couldn’t work for the next few days. I read it over and over again, and thought hard about it. It was exactly what I would have wanted to say if I had been a lit­tle bit smarter, a lit­tle bit savvier and a lit­tle bit more hon­est with myself.

Cut the bull­shit. Deliver from the heart.

Or in Merlin’s words: Find your obses­sion. Every day, explain it to one per­son you respect. Edit every­thing, skip short­cuts, and try not to be a dick. Get better.

I wanted to do that. I want to do that. I want to lose the abil­ity to bullshit.

Does the World Really Need Another Blog?

No it doesn’t. In fact, I think it needs a lot fewer blogs. And a lot fewer dic­ta­tors, famines and wars. But since it’s not a per­fect world, I think another blog won’t shift the bal­ance of power either way.

And I don’t give a shit.

Because I’m not writ­ing this one for profit nor for fame. I’m writ­ing it for the love of writ­ing itself. I’m writ­ing to prove myself right or learn try­ing. I’m writ­ing because I’ve got shit to say and I need to say it, if not for anyone’s hap­pi­ness but mine.

I haven’t decided what to do with Life Coaches Blog yet. I might con­tinue writ­ing there; post more con­trib­u­tors’ posts or stop all posts alto­gether. Don’t read me wrong, there’s still stuff there from me and from its con­trib­u­tors that is good and that I am fiercely proud of, so as long as there is money in the bank the domain gets renewed reg­u­larly and it’ll have its share of space on my server. I know 21 Drag­ons will be my per­sonal space. But I haven’t really decided where to stick the stuff that could be for both web­sites into yet.

And that’s the fuck­ing beauty of it. This space is mine, bought for and paid for, to write exactly what I want when I want. I don’t owe an invis­i­ble audi­ence any­thing. The future is wide open and full of possibilities.

What more could a cre­ator ask for than this freedom?

To be able to cre­ate just for the joy of cre­at­ing itself?

And that is why 21 Drag­ons exists.

Related Posts

1. The Best Life Coaches Blog Yet
2. Life Coaches Blog Gives to Con­ser­va­tion International
3. Unleash­ing Your Cre­ative Mon­ster: Be Proud