Progress report: No matter the odds, I'm building this baby to fly!

byrkoobs

224 followers

11 years ago

Our story so far...

It's been just under three weeks since I first ambled over to WA from another site where people were speaking highly about it. I cam to see what was happening; I stayed for the party. It's almost a mantra here: "I'm amazed by all I've accomplished in so short a time." And it's true for me as well.

• I've completed Course 1, selected a niche, set up a rudimentary site, and made a lot of connections with folks here on WA.
• I went Premium and even bought my first domain (Design Your Own Education: Inspiration for Independent Learners).
• I quickly moved on to Course 2 and have reached Lesson 10 of that, along the way developing my site somewhat – writing a couple of blog posts and doing all the other that each of the lessons directs me to do. Most of us already know this, but the line upon line, precept upon precept method of teaching presented here at WA is remarkable, allowing fledgeling Web publishers and internet-marketers-in-training to lay solid foundations and build steadily, solidly upon them. I'm loving the little bits and bobs I've learned (like the usefulness of Google+ for building search ranking, for instance). The instructional methodology here is simply the best and most thorough I have ever encountered.
  

Beating back the gremlins of self-doubt

I think the greatest success I have met with in the short time I've been here — besides actually getting a new site off the ground and getting a couple of posts written — is coming to the realization that, yes, I can do this thing. At first, I'll admit, once I'd selected this niche (self-directed learning and brave new world of [mostly] free online education), and set up a site, I was besieged by no little self-doubt:

"What do I know?" "How am I going to fill an entire site?" "What will I write about?"

Fortunately, I have managed to overcome this nagging doubt (at least until the next attack comes along, and I'm sure it will!). It helped that Kyle, in one of his lessons, said to "forget about the gurus, or having a guru level of knowledge." It's OK to learn as I go. After all, isn't this site of mine is all about?

I'm happy to report that I'm already coming up with lots of good ideas for blog posts, which was a big concern of mine at first. Heck, I'm even having great ideas for new blogs in other niches... though I think I shall hold off on actually creating another site until I've got this one off the ground and flying.

The sky's the limit: Inspiration from the Wright Brothers

Speaking of getting airborne and being in the early stages of starting something really BIG, it's significant that, as of tomorrow morning, just before Christmas, my wife and I are taking a road trip up to the Outer Banks, here in North Carolina. We're headed to Kill Devil Hills to visit the site of the first motorized flight by Orville and Wilbur Wright, 110 years ago this week. I have, in fact, been in the process of building a scale model of the Wright flyer, so it will be an excellent opportunity to study the life-sized replica, for model detailing purposes.

But even more importantly, the Wright Brothers and their story are an inspiration to me — a reminder of those things that are most important: vision, ingenuity, persistence, the unshakeable belief that, come what may, I'm going to this get thing up, up and away, and I'm going to fly... and fly higher than I or anyone could ever have imagined.

Right then... off to Kitty Hawk. Happy holidays, my friends and colleagues, and to all a prosperous, success-filled New Year!