What To Invest 5000 Dollars In? Explore The Viable Options

What can you do with $5000 in your pocket? You may buy things you want or convert them into hundreds of thousands of dollars. But how does that happen? Intelligent investment is the way to go if you wish to grow your money.

My idea of investment is to accumulate funds until it is significant enough for funding. When you have enough funds, invest and grow it. If you keep any amount of money in a savings account, it will only increase through nominal bank interest rates, which sit at around 1.75% in the UK. 

That does not make a worthy addition to it. But some of it spent on a worthwhile investment can grow into thousands of dollars in the future. It can open doors for generating more money. 

The question that might come to your mind at this state is what to invest 5000 dollars in. There might be plenty of options, but finding the most viable and profitable for yourself can be challenging. This blog provides the ultimate list of best investments for beginners to help you grow your income and wealth. 

What To Do When You Have $5000?

If you have five grand in your pocket, you can do many things with it. You may spend, save, or invest it. As time passes, every penny you have loses its value. Smart people are those who think of multiplying them through smart investments. Instead of spending a large sum of money and seeing it devalue over time, a better decision is to invest and earn money. 

The answer to “what to invest 5000 dollars in” has evolved a lot over time. Five or ten years back, the best option might be to put it in a savings account and make a profit. Over time, things have changed drastically in this fast-moving world. Now you have several conventional and unconventional ways to invest your funds and make money. 

One popular investment is in an online course that provides knowledge or training to make money. If your financial goals align with this objective, you can enrol in this amazing blogging course. It only requires you to pay a one-time fee of £799 and get access to all the secrets of success in blogging. 

Careful and smart investments can help you in your journey to become financially free and grow your wealth. Five thousand dollars might not make much difference to your life, but they can do so if you invest them smartly. 

Learn How To Make Investments

Before deciding what to invest 5000 dollars in, you must first know how to make an investment. It is not as easy as many people think. You must do your homework before you enter the market and explore investment opportunities. You can begin with the following steps to decide what to invest in with $5000. 

Putting money in the market isn't as simple as putting money into your investment account and then investing into stock markets, Roth IRA and index funds - you need a strategy to build wealth in an investment portfolio.

Determine Your Investment Goals

Your first step to making a profitable investment is to have clearly defined objectives. What to invest in with $5000? How to invest $5000 and make money? Ask these and many other similar questions to clarify what you want to achieve. When it comes to investment goals, keep the following things in your mind. 

• Your investment goals can be short- and long-term.

• To accomplish short-term objectives, you can opt for investments with quick returns.

• You might earn comparatively lesser returns for such investments.

• To accomplish long-term objectives, you can go for investments with higher interests over a long period.

• The returns do not always depend on the investment period.

Once you have defined your investment goals, all other things sort out by themselves. Make sure all of your activities are aligned with your objectives. 

Evaluate Potential Investment Options

There can be multiple ways of investing $5000. Not all of them will be compatible with your investment goals. Then how to best invest 5000 dollars? You must identify the available options and list them all. The criteria to select or drop an opportunity would be its compatibility with your investment objectives. After you have all the potential options in your hand, you can then decide what to invest 5000 dollars in. 

Do Market Research

Once you know the direction of your efforts, you can start your journey. Market research is crucial whether you are making a small or big investment. Your hard-earned $5000 must be utilised for the most profitable investments. If you are interested in investing in stocks, research the blue chips and growing companies. 

Learn about their respective industries, market competition, previous performance, and other factors affecting their productivity. Try to collect information from credible sources to ensure its effectiveness. Do the same for every investment option. 

Prioritise and Shortlist

After evaluating investment options based on the latest market information and your goals, you can shortlist the top best among them. There can be multiple viable options for your investment goals. Identify them and inject your funds into such investments. 

How to Best Invest 5000 Dollars?

As an investor, you want a higher return on your investment. You might think of what to do when you have 5000 dollars. I have mentioned a few things you must do before investing. It is better to do them before choosing what to invest 5000 dollars in. 

• Pay off your outstanding debts: Make sure you do not have any debts before investing. If you have a credit card bill, bank loan, or any other debt outstanding, it is better to pay it off first. An existing debt will keep on surging due to the accumulation of interest. It might even surpass the return you expect to earn through your investment.

• Set up an emergency fund: Having a backup fund can be your best friend on rainy days. You can do this by saving some money or investing it in a highly liquid short-term investment plan. You can use this fund in case of any medical or other emergencies.

• Invest some money in a savings account: This ensures the security and liquidity of funds. Keep some amount in a savings account, and you can easily withdraw it after three or six months for your needs.

What to Invest 5000 Dollars in? Your Investment Options!

Fortunately, you have multiple options for investing your 5000 dollars. You can choose multiple options to diversify your risk or rely on any one of them to earn the maximum return. Investing in single security might be viable in the short run, but it is better to diversify your portfolio for long-term investments. 

Before exploring the investment options, have a look at some prerequisites. You can follow any method that suits your financial goals and risk tolerance. 

• You can set up a brokerage account if you wish to invest in financial assets. This account will help you execute your transactions. You can also have a commission-free account for self-directed trading.

• You can hire a financial advisor to direct your investment activities. A financial advisor charges advisory fees and provides you with the best investment plan according to your financial status. However, it might be a costly option for a $5,000 investment.

• Try passive investment using Robo-advisors. A Robo-advisor represents an investment platform that allows you to place trades passively. These platforms use specialised algorithms to manage your investments and do everything on your behalf. You do not have to bother about what to invest 5000 dollars in.

Investment in Financial Assets

Financial assets are the most popular among investors. They offer varying risk levels as well as returns. The majority of risk-taking investors like to invest in financial assets. There is a long list of financial assets in which you can invest your $5000. I have mentioned some examples from high-, medium, and low-risk assets. 

Stocks

Stocks are the most popular investment option for people considering “what to invest 5000 dollars in”. They represent your share in a company in the proportion of the value of stocks you buy. A survey by finder.com reveals that 33% of British people own stocks. There are various profitable stocks available at exchanges that are frequently traded. Learn about them to find the most profitable ones according to your financial goals. 

It is better to seek professional assistance if you are a beginner. Your financial advisor or broker can provide you with t information about the best stocks to invest in. Diversifying your portfolio by investing in different industries’ stocks is better than accumulating all the shares in the same industry. 

Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)

Exchange Traded Funds resemble a pool of funds that invest in different securities and commodities. ETFs are also traded on stock exchanges. If you are looking for a less risky investment option, ETFs can be an ideal choice. They invest in different kinds of securities, and, therefore, the risk diversifies. 

The prices of ETFs change in real time, like stock prices. You can also get the capital gain besides the share of the profit earned from investments. 

Mutual Funds

Another low-risk investment option is mutual funds. They represent the pool of money gathered by multiple investors and managed by a professional financial manager. The professional manager designs a portfolio to invest the pool of money in various stocks, bonds, and securities. The return earned is distributed among the investors. 

If you invest in a mutual fund, you become entitled to earn a share of the income generated by that fund. Mutual funds carry low risk as the portfolio is diversified and handled by a professional. In case you want to be on the safer side while deciding what to invest 5000 dollars in, you can go for mutual funds. 

Bonds

Bonds are long-term investments in debt securities. You can invest in bonds issued by the government or corporations. They are also less risky investments in which the investor becomes the lender. The company that issues the bonds becomes the borrower. You can get your principal amount back along with the interest after the bonds mature.

You might get a low return on bonds, but they are perfect for diversifying your risk. Since they are less risky, you have a safe side of having some money if other investments do not perform well. 

Certificates of Deposit (CDs)

A risk-free investment option is that of investing in Certificates of Deposit. Credit unions and banks offer these against the money you deposit for a specific period. After that specified time, you get your principal amount, including the interest income. Different banks offer varying interest rates. 

CDs are a good option to diversify your portfolio by providing a cushion of a safe investment. The interest might be low, but your principal amount is secured for a short period. If you are worried about how to invest 5000 dollars online, you can invest in CDs in online banks. They sometimes offer a higher interest rate. 

Money Market Accounts (MMAs)

Money market accounts are like saving accounts. You can deposit your $5000 and earn interest against it. A difference between MMAs and saving accounts is that they provide a cash withdrawal facility. You have a debit card to withdraw cash when needed. However, you must keep them for a long time to earn higher interest. 

Investment in Non-Financial Assets

What to invest 5000 dollars in other than financial assets? Investment options are not limited to financial assets only. Various alternative investments are also available for those looking for non-financial assets. 

Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency has pretty much become a buzzword nowadays. It is not financial but rather a virtual asset protected by heavy encryption. It is one of the most popular investment options among young investors. One thing you must consider is that they are very volatile. 

If you are a risk-averse investor, you can invest in this comprehensive online course. You can get detailed insights into starting a profitable blog from scratch. The best thing is that a money-back guarantee backs it. 

You can use cryptocurrency to buy goods. You may also benefit from the increase in their value by selling them. The most famous cryptocurrencies include Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin. It has become quite handy to trade cryptocurrencies, but market volatility can be an issue for low-risk tolerance investors. 

Real Estate

Real estate investment is popular among investors seeking a significant increase in their wealth. It is a long-term investment that allows you to earn through the increase in the value of the real estate. You may invest in property on your own or through investment platforms. Buying a property with $5,000 might be difficult, but crowdfunding can help. 

Besides crowdfunding, there are companies offering their asset management services. They are known as REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts). You can invest in them through the stock exchange. What to invest 5000 dollars in? It is upon your discretion, but real estate can be a good addition to your portfolio.

Precious Metal Commodities

Precious metal commodities include platinum, gold, silver, and other metals. These metals have a stable value with low market volatility. Many investment platforms offer these commodities for investment. They are highly liquid, easy to purchase, and are considered to act as a cushion against surging inflation. 

Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs)

Non Fungible Tokens, commonly known as NFTs, are a growing investment option with great potential to generate income. By investing in NFTs, you get ownership of these digital assets. Once you have an attractive collection of NFTs, you can earn by flipping them.

When adequate demand is generated for these NFTs, you can sell them and earn profit through a value increase. A great advantage of investing in NFTs is that you can easily buy, exchange, and sell these in NFT marketplaces. 

Investment in Yourself

If someone asks me, what is a good investment for 5000 dollars, I would say invest in yourself. While deciding what to invest 5000 dollars in, people usually forget this important aspect. Even if you do not invest the whole amount in yourself, allocate a portion of it for your development and growth. Here are a few ways to define how to invest in yourself and make the most of it.

Develop a Skill

The best possible investment is the one in yourself. You have 5000 dollars; why not invest them in something to increase your value? The most important thing that defines you is your personality, skills, talents, and character. It is neither your bank balance nor your free cash. 

Hundreds of online courses are designed for installing skills among individuals. Out of your five grand, you can spend only £799 to enrol in this specialised course to learn how to blog. Blogging is a popular activity that can open doors for steady income. This course covers everything you need to know to excel at blogging. 

This would be an investment with multiple benefits. Not only will you learn a skill, but you will also be able to earn money through it. What is the best part about it? You only have to pay £799 once and get access to a complete mastery course. 

Start a Business

It is never too late to start your own small business. $5,000 is enough to launch a startup for you. If you are still thinking, “what is the best investment for 5000 dollars” starting a business can be a worthwhile option. This investment can grow more than you might have thought, but it requires hard work. A business is not only about investing money. Your passion, hard work, and consistency make it a success. 

I classify investing in a business as an investment in yourself because your business does not grow alone. It offers valuable learning in the form of improved management, critical thinking, and decision-making skills. These skills go a long way in your life, proving your startup a worthwhile investment.

Invest in your Health

Investing in your health might be the last thing on the “what to invest 5000 dollars in” list, but it is also connected with all ideas. All your investments are in vain if you do not have good health to enjoy their benefits. Allocate some amount from your five grand for your health. It can include anything from buying a good pair of joggers to paying your gym’s fee. You can even build the perfect home gym if you want to. 

Eat healthy food, get a good and comfortable sleep, and exercise regularly. Do not be reluctant to spend money on your health. It is an investment rather than an expenditure. Even your monetary benefits rely on your good health.

Investing money might not seem that difficult, but the real challenge is how to invest $5000 dollars and make money. To make money, you need to be careful with your investments. Make sure you make a wise decision. 

Factors to Consider When Making Investment Decision

Investing $5000 is a crucial decision, and you must be careful about it. I have compiled a list of some of the most important factors you must consider before investing your money. They can help you make better decisions and make significant profits from your investments. 

Return on Investment

The most important factor that is the basis of all investment decisions is the return on investment. Why do you invest your money? To generate income or returns, right? You must measure how much profit your investment will bring. If the returns are not compatible with your expected or planned profits, you may leave that investment or withdraw funds from it. 

Risk Tolerance

A popular principle in the investment world says, the riskier the investment, the higher the returns. There is always some risk in financial matters, irrespective of their size. Identifying and analysing the risks associated with the investment options you are interested in is mandatory. Whether you want to go for risky investments depends on your investment objectives and the amount of investment. 

What to invest 5000 dollars in depends greatly on your risk tolerance. 

• High-risk tolerance represents accepting short-term risks for long-term benefits and rewards. Higher levels of risk tolerance allow investors to invest in riskier investments such as cryptocurrency and stocks.

• Mid-risk tolerance includes diversifying risky investments without compromising too much on the profits. Investors having this risk tolerance level usually opt for a passive investment approach to invest in stocks and bonds. Diversification is necessary to mitigate the risk.

• Low-risk tolerance, as the name represents, puts investors under stress in case they face loss. For investors with low risk tolerance, you can opt for CDs or bonds. The risk on these assets is minimal to negligible, but the rate of return is also low.

Rate of Inflation

You cannot and must not ignore inflation, which is always there in an economy. It is an economic factor beyond your control but significantly impacts your investment decisions and returns. The more time you spend with the money in your hand, the more its value decreases. Keep inflation in your mind when determining the return for a better and clearer cost and benefit analysis. 

Liquidity of the Investment

The risk of uncertainty always remains there in investments. Some factors are beyond human control and can lead you to liquidate your investment at some point. If the asset you have invested in is highly liquid, you can easily trade it for cash. On the contrary, less liquid assets take more time to sell and liquidate into cash. 

What to invest 5000 dollars in depends on the asset’s liquidity also. High liquidity lets you realise the value appreciation quickly when the asset’s price changes in the market. You can easily sell it and get higher returns by investing in some other assets. 

Tax Obligations

When you make an investment or earn profits on it, you are obliged to pay tax. Taxes vary among different types of investment options. For instance, if you invest in stocks, you must pay tax when you realise the capital gain. This means that at the time of selling your stocks at an increased price, you will be entitled to pay tax. 

On the other hand, some investments make you liable for a tax right away. For instance, if you earn a stock dividend, you will be liable for paying its tax. The same is the case with ETFs and bond coupons. You must consider this before making an investment.  

Making an investment that fulfils your financial goals and helps you generate money is not an easy task. Make sure you check on all factors influencing our decision and its outcome. 

There is no one-fits-all solution in investment. What might be viable for others may not suit your financial needs. You must analyse and decide which plan suits you. 

Does Your Investment Style Matter?

Making money from investment is not as simple as purchasing security and receiving income against it. When you think about what to invest 5000 dollars in, it takes several different factors into account. The most important factor among them is your investment style.

Have a look at the most common investment styles to identify which one is yours and how to best invest 5000 dollars accordingly.

• Active Investing: Active investors are risk takers who want to execute self-directed trades. As an active investor, you might be more concerned about short-term benefits than the long-term impact of your investment.

• Passive Investing: Those investors who do not want to keep a check on market performance every now and then follow a passive investment approach. The investment is usually medium to low risk and for the long term.

• Buy and Hold: This approach includes investors seeking long-term investment benefits. Instead of trading frequently, they tend to buy and hold their portfolio to realise a capital gain. This approach is sometimes called HODL in the crypto community.

• Growth: The growth-focused investment style represents investors who invest in stocks that are expected to grow in the future. Instead of getting high dividends, such investors prefer long-term growth of the company and stocks.

• Value: This style is somehow the opposite of a growth approach. Investors preferring value over growth usually invest in undervalued shares that are expected to perform well in the future. They buy the stocks for a lesser price and wait till it increases in value.

Wrapping Up

Now you know where to begin to make the most of your 5000 dollars investment. Investment is probably the most productive way to generate income. It takes the long-term view and helps you increase your wealth and net worth over time. The key to successful investing is a strong and well-planned beginning. 

Hopefully, you no longer have the query about what to invest 5000 dollars in. Instead of limiting yourself to one choice, I suggest making a diverse portfolio. Better to include something from each investment options section for a balanced portfolio. Do not forget to include the Blog Lifestyle Mastery course in your investment basket. This one-time investment comes with a money-back guarantee and will open doors for a steady income.

Create a diverse investment basket, including traditional and unconventional investments. It will provide you with more exposure and increase your profitability. 

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is The Smartest Thing To Do With $5000?

The smartest thing to do with $5000 is to invest them in a profitable investment option. You may invest in financial assets, non-financial assets, or in yourself. Run a cost and benefit analysis to determine which is the most profitable and viable option for you. 

Should I Invest $5000?

Yes, you should definitely invest your money. Nothing stops you from doing so except that you have an urgent need to fulfil with this money. Investing helps you multiply your income and increases your wealth. 

How To Invest In Yourself?

You can invest in yourself by spending the money on learning some skills. You can make good money when you are equipped with lucrative and in-demand skills. Investing in yourself means making yourself capable of multiplying your investment. 

What To Do When You Have $5000?

When you have $5000, you can either spend or invest them. If you are not in urgent need of money, it is better to invest and grow them. There are plenty of investment options available according to your risk tolerance, investment objectives, and financial goals. 

Is It Necessary To Diversify Your Portfolio?

No, it is not necessary to diversify your portfolio, but it is exceptionally beneficial. Diversification not only mitigates risks but also provides you with the opportunity to maximise your earnings. It is effective for an investment of $5,000 as well as $5,000,000.

How To Invest 5000 Dollars Online?

You can invest 5000 dollars online by opening a saving account or getting Certificates of Deposit from an online bank. You can also trade in stocks, bonds, cryptocurrency, and other assets online. 

How Many Blog Posts To Make Money In 2023? Secrets revealed

Have you been dreaming of making money with blogging like many others? Well, it is not as easy as you might think, but every bit is worth the hype. If you plan to make money through blogging, you must gear up to go out of the way and know the answer to “how many blog posts to make money?”

Blogging has gained popularity as a lucrative career all around the world. One of the major reasons for its popularity is its effectiveness as an SEO strategy. People also opt for it as a side hustle activity for generating passive income.

Many bloggers, especially beginners, get distressed by how many blog posts to make money are enough in 2023. Let’s discover it in the article below. 

I have found many beginners struggling with the number of ideal blog posts. How many blogs do I need to make money? I got this question so many times that I thought writing a detailed article on it would be helpful for you. Read along to find out my views about it. 

This article discusses everything you need to know about your blogging earnings. Let’s get into the nitty gritty of earning through blogging. 

Source: Pexels

How Do Blogs Make Money?

Before getting into the details of how many blog posts to make money in 2023, you must first know how it happens. For instance, if you are a blogger in the UK, you need to find out “how do blogs make money in the UK?” It will help you design your strategy to excel in blogging and earn money through it. 

There was a time when even I didn't know how to make money from blogging and had to learn everything from scratch. As of today, I know many ways you can use your blog to generate income. Here I have mentioned the three most popular ways bloggers use. 

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is an excellent and probably the most popular way to grow your blogging income. The most popular affiliate programs include Adobe Affiliate Program, Amazon Associates, and eBay Partner Network.

Being one of the most popular forms of digital marketing, it is not something new. You might have heard of it. Here is how you make money through it. 

• You can advertise any brand's product or service on your website and earn a commission against it.

• Your website earns money when a visitor clicks on the link and buys the product or service you were promoting in your blog.

Advertising

Besides affiliate marketing, you can also earn through placing PPC or CPM ads on your website. When you grow a significant audience on your blog, advertising networks such as Google AdSense, Mediavine, Propeller Ads, and Monumetric place their ads on your site. 

• Against PPC ads, you earn money when a visitor clicks on the ad.

• You get money for every 1,000 visitors who view CPM ads.

Now you might think, “how much can I make with 1000 views on my blog?” It mainly depends on the advertising network for which you are displaying ads. The higher number of views leads to the greater chances of visitors viewing and clicking on ads. 

Selling Digital Products

Another popular method of earning money is selling digital products. It includes online courses, eBooks, workshops, and consultation services. A great example here is basetemplates.com. They earn a handsome amount of revenue by selling digital pitch decks. How can you make money through it? 

• You can earn high profits by converting visitors into customers for your digital products and services.

• If you choose to sell them as an affiliate, you can earn a commission against sales.

How Much Money Can You Make from Blogging?

There is a huge potential to make money through blogging. How much money you can make from writing a blog depends on how much time and effort you put into it. Besides that, several other factors also determine how much money you can make from a blog in the UK.

As reported by Indeed, the average salary for a blogger in the UK is £30,221/year. This is the national average for full-time professional bloggers in the UK. If you have just begun blogging, you might earn between £150 and £10,000 a year.

How many blog posts to make money? You need views more than the posts. As your audience grows, you can earn £3,500 to £4,500 monthly. 

I know bloggers who easily make six to seven figures a year with their blogs. The more effort you invest, the quicker you will multiply your first year blogging income. Getting your first earnings through blogging might take six to eight months.

The key to success is to make consistent efforts. There is no specific amount on how much money you can make from writing a blog. 

Your viewers and subscribers are the main sources of generating income. The more subscribers and page views you have, your income will increase. You must focus on what your audience is looking for. Work hard to design your content around their needs; nothing can stop you from massive growth. 

Source: Pexels

How Many Blog Posts to Make Money?

You might have heard about bloggers earning millions, and let me tell you, it is all real. However, you might not get your first year blogging income in millions. There are several ways in which bloggers make money, starting from scratch.

The question in many bloggers’ minds is, “how many blogs do I need to make money posts to make money?”. What is the magic number?

Let me make it clear before we proceed; there is no magic number of blogs guaranteeing steady income. It depends on several other factors, among which your content’s quality tops the list. 

But wait here for a second. Does prioritising quality means you can publish one blog a month? No. If I intend to earn through blogging, this is the last thing I think of doing. Let me make things a bit simple for you. 

• Some bloggers recommend writing a blog daily, while others think 3-6 posts a week are enough. I recommend setting a schedule at your convenience.

• Blogging daily might seem challenging at the beginning and may even overwhelm you. Instead, set a schedule and follow it. Whether you start with 3 blogs a week or 5, be consistent.

• Your aim must be to drive traffic to your website. You can do it with 2 blogs a week as well as one blog daily. What matters the most is that your blogs are unique, interesting, and valuable to the audience.

• High-value blogs quickly make their place among the audience. Once you gain experience, try publishing 15-25 new blogs monthly. Make sure they are all high-in-value, and search engine optimised.

Keep in mind that the numbers vary depending on your niche. It depends on your market competition, website authority, search volume, and the number of visitors per month. 

My experience in this field exceeds 3 years now, so it’s taken me a while to figure out what works. I used to post daily, but now I just don’t have the time with other projects going on! But that’s after I’ve put the graft in to get to this point.

Factors Affecting Your Blogging Income

Successful blogging helps you earn enough that you might think of quitting your job. Here are other factors that determine your blogging income besides the number of blogs on your website. 

• Your website’s niche and blog topic

• The amount of traffic and page views.

• Your blog’s monetisation.

• The quality of your content.

• Search Engine Optimization.

• Type of the affiliate product.

This is a comprehensive list that pretty much says it all. It is difficult to determine how much money a single blog can make, but some high-quality blogs on your website can help you earn thousands in a month. To determine how many blog posts to make money, you need to consider these factors as well. 

Your Website’s Niche

When making money through blogging is your concern, the niche you choose has primary importance. It determines your targeted keywords, audience, market competition, and many other factors.

Choose wisely. Do not forget to consider your interest, expertise, and commercial value of the niche. The higher the commercial value, the easier it would be to maximise your profits. 

Traffic on Your Website

Your website’s traffic is a defining factor for your blogging income. Let’s suppose you write about a topic in your selected niche. You did the best research, found authentic information, wrote it eloquently, and still got minimal traffic.

Why? Because the number of people searching for what you are offering is low. You cannot expect 1000 visitors when only 100 people search for it online. 

You might be thinking about how many blog posts it takes to grow traffic. Once again, there is no specific figure. Your website’s traffic depends on the quality first and then the quantity. I think 20-25 well-written blogs a month is a good figure to draw an audience towards your blog, but the right number could be 10 in your circumstance.

Website’s Monetisation 

The monetisation methods you use for your blog are very important. I have already mentioned the widely used monetisation methods above. If you choose only one of them, say Google AdSense, you will have a small revenue.

Affiliate marketing and ad networks offer higher income to blogging sites than Google AdSense. Try multiple methods to maximise your earnings.

Quality of the Content

If you have concerns about how to make money from a blog in the UK, focus on content quality. High-quality content is essential for growing a blog. It attracts an audience and ad networks that can help you make significant money.

If the content is not good enough, you will have to sacrifice the credibility of your website. Keep the content relevant and easy to read for your audience.

Search Engine Optimisation

Search Engine Optimisation is crucial for your blog. Even if thousands of people are searching for the keyword you have picked for your blog, you might not get any traffic unless you rank high. People visit your website when you are visible to them. Make sure your content is well optimised to appear on the search results. 

Type of Affiliate Product

The type of product you are doing affiliate marketing is also an important factor affecting your blogging income. It determines the commission you will earn as a result of affiliate marketing. Some products and services offer higher commissions than others. 

For instance, software affiliate marketing is considered one of the most profitable affiliate products. It may even lead you to earn lifetime revenue. You must choose the affiliate product wisely, considering the resulting revenue. 

For Squarespace websites, the best way to ensure you’re doing this right is using a Squarespace SEO plugin. Squarespace is great and used by many successful bloggers as it deals with all web hosting and design for you.

Source: Pexels

How to Make Money from a Blog?

One of the questions most beginners ask me is, “how to make money from a blog?” Finding effective strategies to earn through blogging is very crucial. If you are new to blogging, a comprehensive beginner’s guide might help. Here are some of the tried and tested tips followed by top bloggers to earn a handsome amount of money. 

Leverage your Platform

The greatest learning in my blogging career is understanding and utilising your platform's power. Do not take your blog for granted. It is the foundation for helping you earn money and scale your earnings. It can make more difference in your career and life than you may think. 

You can test different ideas to identify the one that fits your blog the most. It can also serve as a platform to connect you with your audience and increase your network. How much money you can make from writing a blog depends on how better you utilise your website. Make the most of it.

Only until you have leveraged your platform, can you start getting sponsored posts, sell products and gain revenue through affiliate links.

Focus on Your Audience

Rather than stuffing your website with plenty of blogs, focus on creating value for your audience. It would automatically attract them to your website and increase your page views. You should focus on increasing the number of visitors to your page rather than “how many blog posts to make money”. Your well-written blogs are no use for the monetary benefit if no one visits them. 

Social Media Promotion

 Successful and high-earning bloggers use smart marketing strategies to promote their blogs. You can simply use social media platforms to promote your blog without spending a single penny. Define your targeted audience, reach out to them, and increase their engagement to enhance your site's visibility. 

These tips are not limited to any particular niche. You can use them for your respective niche and get your desired results. Implement them and see how much money a single blog can make.

What Do I Recommend?

Well, I have explained it pretty clearly in the entire article. You can neither compromise the number of blogs for quality nor quality for the numbers. Your blog posts and the resulting traffic go hand in hand.

You need a comprehensive plan that covers all important factors affecting your blogging income. It might not be that easy, but it is worth it at the end of the day. 

If you have a knack and flair for blogging or want to make money faster, this amazing course can be a game changer. It offers everything you might need to become a pro blogger and opens the doors for making crazy money. You might get a detailed answer to “how many blog posts to make money in 2023, and how many blog posts does it take to grow traffic” also. 

Designed after years of experience and a trial-and-error process, it is the perfect foundation you need for a head start in your blogging career. It guarantees to transform your blogging career with significant results. What if it does not happen? It is rare, but you can always have your money back. 

Seems too good to be true? You must try it to believe it. So, what are you waiting for? Book your slots and begin earning today. 

Wrapping Up

Up till now, you might have got a clear answer to how many blog posts to make money in 2023. Luckily, making money from blogging is not a challenge if you are a passionate blogger. It initially offers slow but steady success opportunities, but once you are into it, you can expect to elevate your income significantly. Keep growing your audience and establish your brand. 

Starting a blog and making it profitable for you is not an overnight job. You need the patience to establish and grow your blog gradually. Remember, there is no shortcut to success in blogging. You have to be patient in the beginning until fruitful results start coming. 

I hope the article has answered your queries regarding blog posts and earnings. Browse below to explore some other amazing stuff also. 

How to Create a Blog for Free on Google and Earn Money

Can you make big money from a free blog? The short answer is yes. However, there’s a lot involved. If you want to know how to create a blog for free on Google and earn money from it, this detailed guide is an eye-opener before you hop on this lucrative bandwagon.

However, before we dive into the guide proper, I will address some things most guides won’t.

Why a Free Google Blog Can Be Lucrative

Let me start by stating that free blogs can bring you money.

Here are six reasons to back up my claim:

• Some free blogs allow monetisation.

• Even free blogs appear in Google searches.

• People will barely be able to tell the difference between free and paid blogs.

• You can design it to be attractive.

• You don’t have to spend.

While you still have a lot to learn about creating a blog for free on Google and earning money from it, you could obtain all the required skills within weeks by purchasing my Blog Lifestyle Mastery course.

1. Some free blogs allow monetisation.

The biggest reason you can make money with free blogs is that some platforms allow monetisation in any form. Luckily for you, this includes Google’s Blogger — which seems to be your current choice.

A significant reason why people ask whether free blogs earn money is the blanket financial prohibition on most platforms. Google’s Blogger doesn’t have such bans.

Tip: if you have a substantial budget to run your blog, I’d suggest you opt for other paid online blogging platforms like Squarespace. This platform has juicy perks, such as the choice of purchasing website design templates created by others. Personally, I have an award-winning Squarespace design studio and boast over 190 custom Squarespace website designs.

2. Even free blogs appear in Google searches.

One of the biggest concerns of wannabe free Bloggers is whether their articles will rank well. Google clarified that free blog articles could rank high if they provide valuable content and employ proper SEO practices.

3. People will barely be able to tell the difference between free and paid blogs.

Although free blogs are at a slight disadvantage in terms of professionalism, people will trust any free blog that publishes quality content that solves users’ problems. Just focus on offering value to readers and following the right SEO strategies to increase your monthly pageviews. This is critical to earning money with Google blogs.

4. You can design it to be attractive.

Free blogs are pretty limited in customisation. But the available customisation options are enough to design a simple and catchy blog acceptable to visitors. The good part is that you can continue to improve your blog’s design as you publish content.

5. You don’t have to spend.

Spending money eats a chunk of your blogging income. Some hosts will cost you several hundred dollars a year, which reduces your overall income, especially if you live in a third-world country with a weak currency.

The hosting fee attached to some blogging platforms is one of the main reasons why some people question whether you can earn money with Google blogs. Thankfully, you don’t have to shell out to create a Google blog.

Monetising Your Free Google Blog

It’s pretty easy to monetise a blog today, free blogs inclusive. In the early days of the internet, just setting up a blog will cost you thousands of dollars, and monetisation was difficult due to limited options and the fact that most internet services were still in their infancy.

Despite the relative ease of monetising a blog today, most bloggers don’t tap the full monetary potential of their blogs. The reason is that most simply don’t understand or fully understand blog monetisation strategies.

According to reports, most bloggers make as little as $2,400 in their first year, while pro bloggers rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars yearly. You can follow my step-by-step guide on how to create a free Google blog—outlined in the latter part of this article—to get started on your hopefully rewarding blogging adventure. Or, even better, enrol in the Blog Lifestyle Mastery course.

When to Start Monetising Your Free Blog

So, when is the right time to monetise your blog?

It varies by niche and strategy.

Some niches bring more money than others, regardless of your income strategy. The products and services of a particular niche may be multiple times more expensive than those of other niches, generating higher affiliate earnings, pay-per-click, etc.

How Does Your Target Monthly Revenue Influence Monetization?

When to monetise your blog also depends on your target income before monetisation. This requires a little maths.

Let’s say you want the blog to be able to dole out up to $200 a month before you implement a monetisation program. Yes, you read that correctly; free blogs earn money, but there are stringent requirements to meet first.

Assuming you intend to offer a course that costs $10 a month, you need 20 people to buy the course to meet your monthly target. If your readers become habitual visitors and are active with comments, it’s reasonable to say even 100 monthly pageviews will give the target income.

But if your income avenue is Google Ads and you only see 100 visitors monthly, you’re less likely to make $200 from that unless your niche has an incredibly high click-through rate (CTR) and your blog has a reasonable conversion rate. Similar reasoning applies when you rely on affiliate programs for your income.

There’s no free blog that you can’t monetise, but others have less wiggle space, such as being unable to monetise through ads, affiliate marketing, etc. You can use any free blog to advertise your freelancing services or sell courses that readers will buy. You only need to learn how to create a free blog and make money, which I’ll address briefly.

Monetisation Strategies for Free Google Blogs

In this section, I’ll discuss the various ways to monetise a free Google blog. You can choose to implement two or more income streams — the more, the better.

1. Offer a freelance service.

Before starting a blog, it’s believed that you have some knowledge, skill, or experience worth sharing. That will attract people to your blog until they take some desired actions that earn you money. This may be by clicking on ads, buying affiliate promotions, paying for your courses or freelance services, and others.

If you have a great passion for any particular niche, nothing convinces prospective employers like setting up a blog around that passion or writing extensively for websites in that niche. If freelancing is your intended or one of your intended income streams, then focus on a particular niche and publish some of the best content in that vertical.

The Blog Lifestyle Mastery course not only teaches and provides blogging resources but also explains how you can earn money with Google blogs.

Your blog is your portfolio and the best asset for convincing employers, primarily if you collect several client feedback that praises your handwork. I don’t think any seasoned employer will hire you without seeing a good portfolio.

Don’t wait for clients to find your website. There are many ways to reach clients — freelance marketplaces, online forums, QA platforms like Quora, Guest posting, and many others.

2. Join affiliate programs.

Do free blogs earn money with affiliate marketing?

Yes, they do.

Some affiliate programs pay hundreds of dollars for a single sale through an affiliate link.

You’ll see many products and services in your niche with affiliate programs. Once you start receiving visitors, even if you have fewer than 100 visits per month, it’s okay to start promoting affiliate links in your articles.

The income will likely be negligible during the first few months, but your participation will give you experience and insights that will improve your affiliate marketing strategy and skills. You can learn much about affiliate marketing in the Blog Lifestyle Mastery course and use that knowledge to earn hundreds of thousands later.

Some free blogs earn money primarily via affiliate programs, as little as it may seem.

3. Sell books or courses.

Even with just 100 monthly visitors, you can start selling items and services on your free Google blog. Your success with such a monetisation strategy depends on your knowledge and skill in the niche. If you’re an expert who publishes unique, robust content, people will be more willing to buy your books and courses.

Don’t overprice your products and services. It’s good practice to offer discounts to email subscribers or those who comment on your posts. You can host those products on marketplaces like Payhip, Gumroad, Amazon, etc. and link to them from your blog.

If you have an exceptionally loyal fanbase, sometimes you don’t need to write anything unique for your eBooks. Some bloggers just collect and organise all their previous blog posts into a single eBook and ask readers to pay whatever they want for it — quite an easy way for free blogs to earn money.

4. Partner with brands.

After growing a massive readership, try contacting brands about advertising their products. Some will be so desperate to cooperate with you that you’ll get away with charging much higher than you thought possible.

But to get the attention of brands, you must have a relevant and sizable market to which they can advertise their products. This gets more lucrative if you have a significant social media following.

5. Advertise with Google.

This is perhaps the most popular and easiest way to earn money with your free Google blog.

All you have to do is follow the steps outlined by Google to join the AdSense program. Following your account approval, Google will begin to display ads on your blog and pay you per click.

The most significant disadvantage of this method is that you need a lot of traffic to make any reasonable amounts. By following the steps below to grow your blog’s traffic, you should earn a lot from Google AdSense. Combined with the other monetisation options, you may make far more money than you ever thought possible from a free blog.

How to Create a Blog for Free on Google and Earn Money? — A Step-By-Step Guide

Creating a Google blog is quite simple. However, you must adhere to the blogger content policy and terms of service if you want the blog to last long enough to start generating revenue for you.

Here are the basic steps involved in creating a free Google blog:

• Log in with your Gmail to blogger.com.

• At the top left of the screen, click on “Create Your Blog.”

• A title box pops up. Enter the name of your blog and click “Next.”

• Choose a URL for the blog (note that a .blogspot.com extension is added to the address you specify).

• Click on “Save.”

That’s it; you now have a free Google blog.

Your next step is to beautify the blog with themes and other features and start publishing. There are no easier alternatives for free blogs to earn money using Blogger than a good design and publication.

1. Customise the theme.

From the menu list on the left side of your screen, select “Theme.” The default theme for Blogspot is Contempo. You can choose a different one from the many options under the “Themes” menu.

In my opinion, the best themes include Contempo, Essential, Soho, Notable, and Emporio. These are the fastest themes and have virtually the same customisation leeway as the other themes. You can use Google’s PageSpeed Insight to test each theme for speed and other factors and settle for the best.

After selecting a theme, click the “Apply” button to implement it.

Since a free blog is what you want, the list of free themes will suffice. While you can customise them to a level of average beauty, the most beautiful Blogspot themes require a one-time purchase.

So, if you were wondering how to create a free blog and make money, now it’s somewhat clear. However, there’s still a lot to discuss.

The HTML editor.

Blogger has an HTML editor with which you can further customise a theme. This editor is tailored towards people with technical skills like coding. It enables further customisation by altering the underlying code of the theme.

The need to self-educate.

No one will teach everything about customising a Blogspot theme in one article. You’ll have to learn by testing and previewing unless you hire a website designer. In fact, some things require online research to understand.

Again, you can’t learn all you need in one day or one week unless you already have experience running or designing websites. However, the good thing is that you mustn’t learn everything before starting to publish.

Do free blogs earn money even without much investment in educating yourself? Highly unlikely unless you were born lucky.

Tip: You can publish a post immediately after a theme is activated. All themes come with a basic design that allows you to publish a post without customising the theme.

2. Confirm search engines’ visibility.

Double-check whether your blog is set to be visible to search engines.

From the menu, click “Settings” and then under “Privacy,” verify that the toggle button is green.

You can access any desired changes through one of the items in the menu, provided such changes are allowed. From Layout to Pages, Comments, and Stats, everything your free blog needs is tucked under one of these menu items.

By following these steps, you’ll barely find the need to ask anyone: how do I create a free Google blog?

3. Begin posting articles.

Posting with Blogger is as easy as sending an email. The post editor has rich formatting features, allowing you to upload images and other files easily. Click “NEW POST” on your Blogger dashboard and then type or copy and paste whatever you want to publish.

Click on the pencil icon at the far left corner of the composer toolbar to change between “text view” and “HTML view” accordingly. The text editor contains all the tools you need to organise your article, insert links, add images, etc.

Make use of these tools like you would any word processing software. This feature allows free blogs to earn money via beautiful text formats.

It’s good to spend time exploring the post editor before you’re ready to publish anything. This will familiarise you with the tool, save time, and maximise formatting when publishing your first and subsequent posts. You can always preview your posts before publishing them.

4. Linking your domains.

You can launch a free blog if you don’t have the money to go premium yet, or because you just want to test the waters. However, a time may come when you’d like to expand the blog’s coverage. This is when you’ll become aware of some anti-income limitations.

At this point, a lot of people and many search engines are already familiar with or used to your free blog. While you can easily refer most visitors to any new website you set up, convincing search engines to transfer your blog’s SEO power to the new website will take time, and some SEO juices will drop along the way. Free blogs earn money but have restricted scalability, which often demands migration.

The best thing would be to link the two domains. It’s not a 100% SEO-friendly migration method, but the process should go through successfully. Moreover, it should result in fewer SEO disadvantages than just attempting to direct visitors and search engines to the new website.

How to Link Your Domains

Linking a Blogger domain to your custom domain is possible, but the steps are a bit technical and slightly different from host to host. You must set up your custom domain in Blogger following these steps before proceeding to your website host and completing the design.

Some website hosting companies have at least one detailed article on how to link your blogger and custom domains. Sometimes these articles are published by third parties. The most important thing is to get the guidance you need.

You should contact your host for instructions if you can’t find a complete article guide. So, it’s clear that “how do I create a free Google blog?” isn’t the only question you’ll be asking about Blogger. Ultimately, you’ll need to scale it via linking or migration.

To succeed financially at free blogging with Blogger, you need to receive enough monthly traffic. There are numerous means of boosting your blog’s traffic. The following sections will describe these processes in considerable detail.

How to Drive Traffic to Your BlogSpot Blog

Here are the most effective ways to drive traffic to your new or old Google blog without just posting on social networks:

1. Use Q&A platforms.

Plenty of free blogs earn money, thanks to Q&A platforms like Quora. This is possible as it allows bloggers to jump-start their website’s traffic and subtly sell services. Quora is getting more than 500 million views monthly; chances are, you’ll find several answerable questions related to your blog’s niche.

Providing helpful answers and linking to your blog is the best strategy for channelling traffic from Quora to your free Google Blog. Just be careful not to post duplicate content or use affiliate links excessively; otherwise, Quora will ban you from posting anything there. An excellent way to avoid this is to read up on the dos and don’ts of Quora before leveraging it for traffic.

Besides pushing traffic to your free Google blog, Quora will also give you quick discovery by search engines. Such accessible traffic sources make it possible to create a free blog and make money in no time.

I think Google somehow discovers the popular contributors and answers on Quora, Reddit, and similar websites that use an internal voting system. If you already have answers on Quora that people are benefiting from, users will start discovering your blog the first day you publish on it.

Suppose Google figures that you are a successful contributor on Quora. In that case, it’ll value the links you share because the assumption is that a helpful personality on Quora won’t usher people to a trashy blog or website. This will be a massive SEO boost for your free blog to earn money.

2. Comment on similar platforms or content.

Identify the largest online communities about your niche that allow commenting. You’ll find that people ask questions, share opinions, and even argue about things you understand. Join the community and share valuable insights without being rude.

Many websites and forums have millions of monthly visits, and most visitors usually read user comments. If you realise that a website receives many comments per blog post, such as 20+ comments, try to be among the first ten people to comment. This is an effective way for free blogs to earn money via diversification of traffic sources.

The lower you drop in the comments string, the less viewership you get. Most websites moderate a linked comment and may ban you or at least censor your posts if you violate linking rules. It’s best to wait until the community knows you before starting to link to your free blog.

3. Guest post on other websites.

Nothing rivals content writing when it comes to the difficulties of managing a website or blog. It’s a challenge that every web admin deals with. Therefore, if you offer someone free and quality content, they’ll likely allow one or two do-follow links to your free Google blog.

This means you can earn money with Google blogs via guest posting - this is an effective content strategy that will allow you to promote your blog and start making money.

As long as “content remains king,” guest posting will never phase out as an effective SEO strategy. Your new Google blog will receive link juice and traffic from websites you guest post on. This is why you mustn’t neglect this strategy.

4. Practice Whitehat SEO.

Discussions on Whitehat SEO require a separate article, but I must mention it because it’s crucial to your blog’s success.

Before you scribble down the first word of an article’s draft, conduct thorough keyword research and then analyse the keywords to develop the best content for readers and Google. I’ll still recommend the Blog Lifestyle Mastery course if you want to learn really fast how free blogs earn money with solid SEO.

Conduct keyword research.

Keyword research is easy, but you can mess it up without correctly judging which keyword groups to target. Since your blog is new and depends on Blogger’s generosity, your SEO position is relatively feeble. But that doesn’t mean you can’t rank naturally for some keywords. 

Choose keywords with a low ranking difficulty even if their monthly search volumes are below 1000. Typically, each main keyword has several variations that may depict slightly different search intents. Combine these keywords in one article and separate them using paragraphs that address each search intent.

One way to find out these different keywords is through Keyword Sheeter.

Carry out keyword analysis.

Now that you’ve collected a list of related keywords, it’s time to see the results Google displays for each.

From the results, you should get a good idea of what Google thinks the search intents are for each keyword. If you think Google is wrong, still cover those search intents but focus on the ones you are sure users want.

Ultimately, free blogs earn money only if Google rightly categorises them.

Craft good titles and meta descriptions.

You’re unlikely to get the title right on your first attempt. But keep analysing Google search results and tweaking the title until you arrive at the best one for both Google and your readers.

Your titles should be descriptive and compelling. Similarly, your meta descriptions should have a solid call-to-action (CTA).

Format your content appropriately.

Nobody wants to read an unorganised wall of text even if it contains the info they want. Give your articles the best design you can.

Use as many formatting tools as possible, including subheadings, bullet points, quotations, italics, bolds, etc., to make the content appealing and skimmable. This will increase the chances of your free blog earning money by having good readability.

Use appropriate images after every 300 words if possible, even if such images are illustrative only. You can use free snipping tools to cut out pictures from websites or utilise free stock images.

Also, include one or two YouTube videos that’ll further enlighten readers.

Should You Create a Free Google Blog?

This depends on your present financial situation and long-term plans for the blog.

Tip: If you struggle with your finances, here’s a blog on how I became financially free.

If you intend to expand massively in the future when the blog succeeds, you might want to go with a paid blog. Again, the Blog Lifestyle Mastery course offers a lot of advantages. Notably, you learn about the blogging craft, including SEO, writing, promotion, monetisation, and more.

In addition to these benefits, you’ll also have free access to all the tools you need to make your blog a success. These include keyword research tools, email software, premium themes, larger disk spaces, and more.

But if you don’t intend to scale up your blogging activity in the future, a free Google blog is all that you need to earn a decent income blogging.

Starting your blogging journey and creating evergreen content is the hardest part, but once you start to get traffic to your blog, it's easy to monetize your blogs.

Conclusion

This lengthy blog has delineated how to create a blog for free on Google and earn money. All you need is to digest the guide and implement the lessons one after the other to start making good money blogging for free with Blogger.

To become a pro blogger earning $100K a year, you need to learn a lot and work extremely smart — emphasis on “smart,” not “hard.” The Blog Lifestyle Mastery course is what I recommend for to-be bloggers because it shortens their learning curve and provides all the resources a blogger needs to make it.

Can I Make Money Blogging About My Life? — A Detailed Guide

You can make thousands of dollars a month blogging about your life as a man — it’s called lifestyle blogging. You’re the central theme, and the blog posts revolve around your past and present experiences, ideas, activities, etc.

This article answers, in great detail, the question: can I make money blogging about my life? I’ll provide satisfactory answers to questions about attaining financial success with a lifestyle blog. You’ll also discover the few critical things to get right when starting a lifestyle blog. All my answers are grounded in reality and backed by scientific, statistical, and social proofs.

Generating Income From a Blog

Before you can make money from any blog, it must have a substantial readership. Therefore, I’ll start by investigating whether people will read lifestyle blog posts. While the short answer to this question is yes, I want to delve deeper to cement your conviction.

Most people asking questions about making money from a lifestyle blog aren’t sure people will spend time reading about another person’s daily activities. And they don’t want to invest in something that might not bring them income. Hence, the quest for answers.

If you have a lot of doubts about lifestyle blogging and its chances of success, I’d suggest you give my Blog Lifestyle Mastery course a shot. Here, I delineate the important secrets that most bloggers won’t reveal to you.

Regarding how many pageviews a blogger needs to get paid, I’ve explained this in the later sections of this article.

Why Will People Read My Lifestyle Blog Posts?

There are many reasons why many people will read your lifestyle stories. Online readers generally seek information and entertainment or simply want to satisfy curiosity. If written properly, your lifestyle articles will satisfy one or more of these needs and attract readers.

Just think about how many people watch vlogs on Youtube. Often, these are just a documentation of some people’s daily lives, so why wouldn’t they also read a lifestyle blog documenting yours?

Here are 17 compelling reasons why people will follow your lifestyle blog.

1. You’re telling a story.

Humans love stories — that’s why folktales are preserved and passed down from generation to generation.

Scientists have long discovered a neurological connection between stories and parts of the brain responsible for empathy, compassion, and cooperation. These are strong emotions, and we know that titles and contents that trigger emotions get the most clicks. The freedom to narrate stories is one of the biggest reasons you can write a blog about your life.

If searchers see your title implying a life experience, they’ll like that content better than expert articles not backed by such experiences. Part of the reason is that it’s a story, not some boring opinion or factual content.

2. You’re writing facts, not fiction.

Every reader wants to spend their time on information they can trust. As shown by many statistical studies, there’s no information readers trust like other people’s experiences and life stories. This is why positive customer reviews drive sales more than anything else.

Simply put, people trust reviews because they’re facts, not fiction. Hence, they’ll be more willing to read your lifestyle blogs because you’re presumably telling the truth, making it rewarding to write a blog about your life.

3. Perhaps they could learn a lesson.

Blog titles about life experiences will draw clicks from even users who may not be undergoing that experience or planning similar actions. The reason isn’t far-fetched — humans love to learn from the successes and failures of others.

If a blog is about your lifestyle, some people will read it just to learn something about your life that may benefit them in the future. Not only can you make money blogging about your life, but you can also help other men in the process.

Let’s say you live a cool lifestyle, earn money or have something about you that other people desire, this could lead to them learning and getting closer to their goals. If they can do this for free by just reading your articles, then you’ll get readers.

4. Your experiences are similar.

While certain people may not be interested in your lifestyle, let alone your daily experiences, many men are likely to read your blog posts that share similar experiences, even if they aren’t currently undergoing that experience. The reason is that it reminds them about what they lived through or are living through. They may also get curious about how you handled it.

5. Your experience is unique.

No two people can have the same experience in any event. So, they can’t read the same experience anywhere else apart from your lifestyle blog.

Don’t misunderstand me, though; I’m not saying no one has ever lived through your kind of event. My point is that many factors influencing that event will differ from anyone else’s. In other words, such uniqueness is a major reason you can make money blogging about your life.

For example, if you travel somewhere new and the citizens greet you with unwelcoming looks, another foreigner there may also receive the same treatment. Despite this, prospective travellers would want to know about your experience and the other person’s because you two will not say the same thing.

That’s why when someone is planning a journey to an unknown location, they would be interested to hear from anyone who’s been there before.

6. Your stories move them.

Sometimes, it’s not that people want to learn from your experience or even be entertained by the story. What you’re telling them may be quite alarming or moving.

Moved by shock, sympathy, or humour, they’ll click your title to read the post. That’s how some people will develop an interest in you and read many other articles you publish. In essence, you can write a blog about your life experiences anytime and still get readers.

A big example of this is my article “how to be financially free” — what man doesn’t want to achieve that? It creates desire and leads to clicks.

7. They’re looking for answers.

Suppose a man is failing to achieve something you already achieved. In that case, he’ll be eager to understand the processes you followed to get where you are. And if he finds your methods effective, he’ll repeatedly visit your blog and most likely interact with you via email or comments.

The benefit of the WordPress dashboard and how easy web hosting is now is you can monetize your blog by just giving people the answers to their questions.

8. They’re simply curious.

Some people have an irresistible urge to learn about people’s lives. In such instances, they’re unlikely to visit your blog for answers or to learn from your experience. Rather, they find reading about other people’s lives entertaining.

Your stories give them conversation points with those around them. It’s easy to write a blog about your life that makes people curious. But your title needs to be intriguing to draw their attention.

9. Similarities in your lifestyles.

Unless someone is completely nuts, there’s no lifestyle they’d pursue passionately in today’s world that millions of people won’t follow or be curious about. For any lifestyle you lead, there are millions like you, and they’re online. They’re either currently living that life, interested in doing so, or simply curious to know more about it.

You and a reader may also adore the same role model. For example, like me, you may be nuts about the British thriller writer Rene Brabazon Raymond, who wrote under many pseudonyms, the most prominent of which is James Hadley Chase.

I like this man’s books, and I’m usually attracted to any online community about his thrillers. Lifestyle similarities like this are one of the main reasons why you can make money blogging about your life.

10. You’re their role model.

Are you extremely good at something that some people try to learn or perfect?

Do you already have a huge online following?

If yes, then there’s a part of your life that will make people interested in you, your story, and your daily lifestyle.

Bringing your daily life online and presenting it correctly might attract a crowd you never dreamed of. People are unbelievably loyal to their role models, and if there’s something you know or do exceptionally well, you can easily be a role model to other people.

One thing here is you can’t come across like a douche — if you’re over flashy and rub it in people’s faces, it’ll turn them away from you. As someone whose lifestyle is of interest to many out there, I developed a comprehensive Blog Lifestyle Mastery course to guide you on how to avoid this mistake and many others.

11. It’s a community of people with a similar lifestyle

Your lifestyle blog will gather like-minded people. This in itself is an incentive that’ll make users regular visitors.

If the community grows and you allow commenting, some users may not spend a day without visiting the blog. Others will likely recommend it to like-minded members of other communities who may not be aware of your blog. Your email list will get longer, and whenever you email users about new articles, many will show up within 24 hours.

Newbies usually wonder what type of blogs make the most money. Well, now you have your answer — it’s usually blogs that are communities of like-minded people.

12. They want honest advice.

Some of the best individuals that people turn to for advice are lifestyle bloggers. Because you live similar lives and your experiences are closely related, you’re in a better position to understand them and more likely to have faced a similar challenge.

On top of that, some of the blog’s community members can provide sound advice based on experience. This is why they’re likely to regularly visit your blog and ask questions there.

13. It’s an autobiography in progress.

Experience is the best teacher, they say. When you experience something, you’ll understand it better than anyone’s explanation. However, if you’ve never experienced an event, your next most precious information will come from other people’s experiences.

This is one of the main reasons autobiographies are popular. Ongoing autobiographies are among the types of blogs that make the most money.

Your autobiography matters too.

It’s not only the autobiographies of great people that are important. You can learn from someone who succeeded or failed at something by just observing their life or hearing about them.

Basically, you, too, tried some things that worked and others that didn’t. Readers will avoid your failed methods and try the successful ones, saving them time, money, and effort.

Many people love autobiographies. 

What you write about specific aspects of your life can serve as a mini-autobiography. Because a lifestyle blog is a biography in progress, many people will be interested in your articles.

There are different benefits of a biography that motivate people to read one, such as promoting self-discovery, etc. Your blog will also provide such benefits. This is why you can easily write a blog about your life since you won’t lack what to share.

14. You won’t get tired of blogging.

A major defeating factor for most bloggers is that they quit along the line due to a lack of motivation.

No blog can succeed without firm dedication by the owner. Writing great posts regularly is feasible if there’s a passion but next to impossible if there isn’t. This is why a lifestyle blog is among those blogs that make the most money, as long as it’s by someone with the ultimate passion for it.

Visitors like blogs and social media channels that receive new content daily because every visit guarantees them something new. If you’re blogging about your passion and have even a handful of visitors to your blog—especially if they engage with the content—you won’t get tired of writing. And this will ultimately encourage continuous visits.

15. You’ll appeal to different personalities.

Not everything about your life will interest a particular reader since you can be many things simultaneously—such as a football fan, an adventurer, a political fanatic, etc.—and can share your experiences about all these interests.

However, some readers will follow your blog because they subscribe to your political views, for example. Regardless, your wide range of interests makes it easy to write a blog about your life at any moment.

On the other hand, you may dislike specific topics like wrestling and want to discourage people from patronising it. While readers who love this sport will disagree with you—perhaps rudely in the comments—like-minded visitors will love to read such blog posts.

16. Less reliance on Google.

You’ll have more advantages over a blog that relies fully on Google for its traffic. Since most people coming to your blog will remember it, they can easily find your blog since they intend to visit again. This advantage will benefit you in many ways.

First, it’ll increase your monthly pageviews. Secondly, it’ll protect you from any negative impact of a Google algorithm update. Thirdly, it’ll build trust in your followers, which will help your affiliate marketing. All of these ultimately help you make money by blogging about your life.

17. Many successful lifestyle blogs abound.

If all the previous reasons don’t convince you that people will follow your blog, this one will. Hence, why it’s listed last.

There are hundreds of successful lifestyle bloggers, many of whom are making at least $5,000 monthly. Some also make over $100,000 per month.

One great example of a successful lifestyle blogger is Martha Stewart. She attained resounding success with what you’re thinking to do — talking about her life and stuff she likes.

Why can’t you join this list? The only thing stopping you is starting.

Why Start a Lifestyle Blog?

Several benefits make starting a lifestyle blog a good idea. The icing on the cake is that you and your readers will benefit.

I’ll discuss only three points here, enough encouragement for you to make money blogging about your life experiences.

1. You’ll benefit someone.

I don’t have to stress this point because I previously emphasised how a lifestyle blog benefits readers. Summarily, people will learn from your mistakes and find answers concerning their lives. Moreover, you’re creating a community of like-minded people that will be happy to help one another.

2. You’ll make money from it.

People are making up to $100,000 monthly from their lifestyle blogs. The average monthly income for some lifestyle bloggers is $5,000, but it can be higher if you dedicate more time and effort.

Your blogging journey will likely start through earning £0, but you can soon find your feet in the lifestyle blog niche through getting your search engine optimization right and picking appropriate affiliate programs.

If you need help with SEO on your Squarespace website, then check out the Squarespace SEO plugin with step-by-step processes to follow to make a profitable blog through organic traffic.

There are many ways to make money blogging about your life experiences. I’ll address that in detail towards the end of this article.

3. You get stuff off your chest.

Blogging can be highly effective for warding off boredom. Plus, you’re unlikely to ever get tired of writing about your daily life.

Joining a community of your lifestyle buddies online will motivate you to try new things, some of which you never knew about. Most importantly, it’ll create an avenue for voicing your ideas and even sharing your grief with thousands of people — an audience you’re unlikely to get in the physical world.

How Soon Can You Make Money off Your Lifestyle Blog?

The many income avenues for a lifestyle blog guarantee you some revenue if people start visiting the blog. As a blogger, the first income I received came from an affiliate sale, and the second was through a guest post.

Many wannabe lifestyle bloggers often ask how many views a blogger needs to get paid. This depends on the monetisation strategy.

Depending on the products or services you promote in your articles, you can make hundreds of dollars monthly from affiliate sales with just 1,000 pageviews a month. But if you limit yourself to Google AdSense, you’ll require at least 10,000 monthly pageviews to make over $100 a month.

I have to admit — a common question I encounter frequently is “how can I earn money off my lifestyle blog in the shortest time possible?” This and many other factors inspired me to create what I tag as the most well-rounded course on the internet for launching a profitable lifestyle blog. Purchasing this course will speed up your blogging success and help you cut costs with the many free tools provided there.

Challenges of Lifestyle Blogging

One of the main challenges of running a lifestyle blog is writing the posts yourself to maintain originality. If someone is ghostwriting your blog posts, you may lose the authenticity that people follow you for. This means your blog will no longer be an autobiography but a heterobiography, which rarely reflects originality.

Life story blogs typically have another weakness that, if not overcome, can kill it. This weakness is their reliance on the reader’s emotions, which compels you to write thought-provoking titles for each post.

These are the two most important reasons why many people fail to make money blogging about their life experiences.

How to Start a Lifestyle Blog

Lifestyle blogging isn’t hard if you get the right resources and coaching.

Here are the steps to take when starting a lifestyle blog:

1. Choose a niche.

Your strongest passion is the best niche for your lifestyle blog. You can focus on fashion, diet, health & fitness, hobbies, travel, finances, home decor, and many more.

To ease your niche selection process, I’ve put together the Blog Lifestyle Mastery course to help you discover your biggest passions and monetisation opportunities.

2. Choose a suitable name.

Pick something that rhymes with your lifestyle and is easy to remember.

I’ll strongly discourage you from using free hosting platforms that add an extension to your blog’s name. This is because they mess up your unique website identity and derail your SEO (search engine optimisation) when you decide to get rid of the extension.

This begs the question: how can I make money blogging about my life experiences with an unmemorable URL?

Since you intend to monetise the blog someday, you ought to set it up in a way that allows you to scale it when the time comes.

Free blogging platforms like Blogspot, Wix, WordPress, etc., offer limited wiggle space for scaling and monetisation. Using the free hosting and scaling resources provided in the Blog Lifestyle Mastery will be a great advantage.

3. Use the right hosting platform.

You can run your lifestyle blog smoothly with many website hosts. But many factors make some more suitable for a lifestyle blog than others.

Key among these factors for a lifestyle blog include the costs and support for newbies like you. Website hosts without any dedicated programs for lifestyle bloggers can’t give you much support specific to this space.

The Blog Lifestyle Mastery course is a great option for newbie lifestyle bloggers as it provides all the training and resources necessary to make money blogging about your life experiences.

4. Be specific when starting out.

Your blog’s peculiarity sets it apart from others, especially in its infancy.

Don’t discuss different subjects on your blog. For example, don’t talk about a shoe you bought today and a burger you ate yesterday because burgers and shoes have nothing in common, and Google doesn’t favour unspecified websites.

This is called “topic authority” - if you stick to one topic, you’ll be known for being an expert in it and Google will rank you higher.

I’m not saying you should limit your blog to one aspect of your lifestyle. But if your blog is relatively new, this is the best approach for SEO.

Why’s this so?

No matter how interesting your stories are, if your posts don’t rank well on Google, all your efforts will come to nought. While you can write a blog about your life based on any experiences, having specific categories will increase your readership.

How to Manage a Lifestyle Blog

Before you publish anything, ask yourself how it’ll benefit the reader. Don’t just write anything that comes to your mind unless you have an intended benefit for the reader. It’s good to mention this benefit directly or indirectly, preferably at the beginning of the article.

Here are key tips that’ll help you manage your lifestyle blog excellently:

1. Do SEO research for each post.

No matter how spectacular your post is, Google must categorise and rank it before it can benefit your blog.

Do in-depth keyword research to understand how people look for your type of content and the type of articles that Google displays for relevant queries. Talk about any stuff you like or dislike, but always use the words and phrases people use to search for such content.

If you follow a particular diet and want to talk about it, research the internet first to know what people are searching for about that diet. You’ll discover some of their questions are about things you have already experienced, and you can confidently answer such and related questions.

Summarily, since a blogger needs many pageviews to get paid, strong SEO is mandatory for success.

2. Post titles must imply experience.

From your post title, let it be clear to the reader that this content is NOT based on research but on experience. Unless you’re a renowned expert in the field, people will rather hear from someone with experience.

This post about my experience with a Vitabiotics Multivitamins formula is a great example of an article with an experience-reflecting title. It has the title “How Vitabiotics Changed My Opinion on Multivitamins Forever.” This is a more befitting title than say “Are Vitabiotics Multivitamins Worth It?”

3. Learn to narrate your stories well.

No one dislikes a good story that’s well expressed. For that reason, choose events in your life that you find interesting, but always have a purpose for sharing such experiences.

You can narrate past events to entertain, warn, or encourage your readers. For example, you could warn readers about pitfalls when trying to learn a particular skill.

Proper expression is key to hooking readers, and you can perfect that skill with the Blog Lifestyle Mastery course.

4. Never lie in your posts.

Don’t lie to your readers or fans, no matter what.

Some people will be so interested in your life that they’ll read virtually everything you post online. And if you contradict yourself even once, especially with obvious lies, the reader may think you spin lies just to publish something.

This will hurt your loyal followers. Such readers will begin to doubt your stories, and nobody wants to keep reading an author they can’t trust.

5. Think before you write anything.

No matter what, some people will dislike the entire blog or a particular article you wrote. Internet trolling is something all celebrities grapple with.

Once you have a popular lifestyle blog, be ready for some hate speech from your personality counterparts. You can write a blog about your life on any subject, but don’t make inappropriate statements.

6. Put up posts regularly.

There are many reasons why people follow celebrities. Some are just curious to peek into the celebrity’s life. Listening to people’s stories is something they love very much, even if they lead different lifestyles.

The moment they discover your blog is regularly updated with interesting life events, they’ll keep coming to read your articles. Try your best to post daily because there’s no disadvantage to that besides the stress.

If a fan visits your blog twice or more without seeing anything new, they’ll be disappointed and won’t visit regularly.

How Can I Make Money Blogging About My Life?

Once you grow a loyal following, monetising that popularity is the juicy part.

The best way to generate income from your blog is through affiliate marketing or partnering with brands. You can also join advertising networks or sell ad spaces.

Moreover, some lifestyle bloggers write their complete autobiographies and ask readers to pay anything they want for it.

According to research, nothing convinces people to buy like reviews — a staggering 92.4% of B2B buyers tend to make a purchase after reading a trusted review.

If your readers trust you to always tell the truth, they’ll gratefully buy whatever you recommend, especially if it concerns something they’re planning towards.

Departing Words

There you have it — more than enough answer to the question: can I make money blogging about my life?

In summary, you’ll do a lot of work if you want your blog to rise quickly; otherwise, you’ll blog for a year or more without making a dime from it. Every aspect of your life will have an online community of like-minded people talking about it. These communities will help greatly, especially when your blog is new.

Engaging with online communities will help channel traffic to your blog. And if you do a good job blogging, most newcomers will become regular visitors and even share your posts. The Blog Lifestyle Mastery is a great opportunity for new lifestyle bloggers to fast-forward their progress as it teaches all the skills you need and provides the necessary resources.

How to become financially free

How do I become financially free?

It’s a question I used to ponder a lot without really trying to do anything about it. I knew what it meant to be financially free - make enough money to do whatever you want whenever you want to do it. Make that money from anywhere and never have anyone tell you what to do. Ever.

I knew I wanted it, and I knew I had to find a way.

Fast forward 5 years and I have done exactly this, freeing myself from the 9-5 rat race and making more money than I know what to do with - all at the tender age of 26. Do you know how powerful that feeling of TOTAL freedom is?

It’s something only a few will ever experience.

But you can.

I’m not here to sell you anything, I just want you to realise your potential.

So this blog post is going to outline absolutely EVERYTHING that has ensured I live each and every day to its fullest, maximising my output, my time and my wealth creation.

You can pick at this list like a buffet. No need to do it all, but maybe build up with 4 or 5 and add a new one every week or two. When you are doing every single one of these consistently every day, you simply won’t recognise the person who you once were.

I know I did.

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START USING GOOGLE CHROME

This is a non-negotiable if you are serious about optimising your life. Safari is absolutely god awful.

Not sure of the capabilities of Mozilla Firefox, Duck Duck Go or whatever weird browser you may use, but Chrome allows for lots of amazing extensions, which leads me onto…

DOWNLOAD UNHOOK FOR YOUTUBE

I have been using this for at least 6 months now. It gets rid of your suggestions, home feed, sidebars and all other bullshit that sucks you down rabbit holes of pointless nonsense. You can still click your subscriptions but it will really take the addictiveness out of YouTube. It's insane how much this cut my pointless YouTube watching time.

DOWNLOAD FEED ERADICATOR

Another game changer. This gets rid of every social media feed on desktop. Instagram, FaceBook, LinkedIn, etc. This will again free up another one or two hours of your day and stop you getting sucked into comment sections, tangents and other stupid stuff that ruins deep work.

DELETE INSTAGRAM

Go ghost mode for at least a month and see how you feel. You will realise how much time we truly spend checking stories, feeds, reels, explore page and just doing meaningless bullshit. This will free up at least 2 hours of your day.

I have written about this at length here.

DON'T WATCH TV OR MOVIES AND DON’T PLAY VIDEO GAMES

If you're serious about winning your day, you can gain an extra 2 to 3 hours just by not consuming mind numbing content. How dare you think that you can play video games and watch TV for dozens of hours every single week whilst being productive?

I used to think maybe you could strike some sort of balance, but it’s just not possible. Your brain will never focus on problems to overcome in business and life because it’s too busy thinking about all that dopamine-laden entertainment that you fill your head with.

Grow up.

HAVE A SET SCHEDULE

Get up and go to bed at the same time every day. Know at what time you will eat, brush your teeth, do your hair, have a shower - absolutely every second needs to accounted for.

By doing this, you reduce the fatigue placed on your brain. If your clothes are ready to go from the night before, you know at 7:05 you take a pee and at 8:00 you sit down to work then these things become automatic and your mind registers them as non-negotiable.

Even when you don't want to do them, you just simply *do* because that's what you do. To not do these things would be as weird as not walking.

Run your life like clockwork and the results will come in every aspect of your being.

TURN ALL NOTIFICATIONS OFF ON YOUR PHONE

Why even have them on?

I have calls on. Everything else I need to physically go into the app to check. That's it. If you don't go in to check, how important are those notifications really?

By doing this, you reduce the allure of your phone. It's not constantly reeling you in with red dots and it allows you to develop momentum without needless distractions.

SIDENOTE

So you can see the above are all based around optimising your time and making your day as long as possible. By cutting out all of this stuff that saps your attention, you can genuinely gain up to 6 or 7 hours of dedicated focus time back. Imagine that compounded over just one week? If you put the work in every weekend (and don't fall victim to the calendar effect like a civilian moron) then imagine how that compounds over a month? A year? In 5 years you'll be so far ahead of your peers you won't even be able to see them.

You'll be so far in the stratosphere of success that they will be infinitesimal little specs of dust.

GET A BUSINESS, GIVE IT A NAME, DEVELOP A WEBSITE AND SECURE A DOMAIN & EMAIL

This is the fun part. Develop a sick business idea, give it a name and make it real by getting a site, domain and associated email (and pro signature to adorn all outbound emails).

To become who you want to become, you need to look the part. A website and online identity for your professional life does this with aplomb.

Also, if you ever need a site. Head here.

PITCH TWICE A DAY, EVERY DAY

Your ideal client doesn't exist on one time zone. Pitch in the morning and in the early evening. Make it easy for them to talk to you by including a Calendly link.

This pitch has been BUSSIN for me of late. Keep it simple, show them the work and make it as smooth as possible to discuss further:

"Hi,

{NAME} here. I’d love to {WHATEVER SERVICE YOU PROVIDE} for you. As an {WHAT ARE YOU?}, I can guarantee a flawless service.

You can find my full portfolio at {PORTFOLIO LINK} but I’ve picked a few examples I think you’ll like below:

LINK TO EXAMPLE 1

LINK TO EXAMPLE 2

LINK TO EXAMPLE 3

If you want to discuss things in more depth, please book in for a call at a time that works for you here: {CALENDLY LINK}”

Make it even easier for YOU by including all the places you pitch every day in a Trello card.

For your reference, here are the links to places I pitch that reside in my personal Trello:

• Peopleperhour.com

• Dribbble.com

• Behance.net

• 99designs.co.uk

• Worksome.co.uk

• Linkedin.com

• Upwork.com

• Facebook.com

I would recommend looking for lots of other platforms too such as Freelancer. This is one area where spreading yourself thinly is a good idea. I caught one of my biggest on Worksome and haven't had a client there since, but because I was on there every day I managed to snag them. Imagine you do that across every platform every day. You might snag 3 clients a week that you would have otherwise missed because you weren't putting yourself in the right shop window and forcing the initiative.

Optimise your online profiles

Your website, LinkedIn, People Per Hour, UpWork, Behance, Dribbble, etc. All of these profiles need to be a coherent narrative that describes who you are, what you do and why you're the best.

Don't you dare be humble here.

Clients want THE best and THE best doesn't talk themselves down.

I guarantee if you don't talk about how amazing you are, someone else will do about themselves and they'll be the ones getting the clients.

Be confident.

USE LINKEDIN LIKE YOUR DIARY

Just post win after win. Jazz up how big it is, it doesn't matter if it's not - just make it sound like it is.

You may think people aren't watching, but they are. You'll also need to optimise your profile to be found by people looking for your service. Make sure it’s clear what you do and that you are available for hire. Commit to being one thing and be it. Don’t have a jack of all trades vibe going on. No self-respecting client will ever hire you if you present yourself like this.

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learn more about How I became financially free and how you can too

If you want to find out how I became a digital nomad using this blog and how you can do exactly the same thing, check out my course here. For more information about how to free yourself, check out the video below 👇

Or if you want to jump ahead, feel free to skip this.

It teaches you everything you’ll need to create a successful blog, freeing yourself from the 9-5 and allowing you to travel the world for free, making crazy money whilst doing it.

What are you waiting for?

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PROFESSIONALISE YOUR ENTIRE WORKFLOW

Onboarding form > Proposal / Contract > Deposit > Deliver > Final payment > Handover

This is how your workflow should look. You should set up a Google form to get all the info you need from your client.

Then you should send over a proposal/contract document that outlines what you will deliver. It should be mocked up in Canva and sent via Signwell which is a free e-signature software. This covers you and the client.

Once this is signed, send over a professional invoice. Bite the bullet, pay for a professional bookkeeping subscription and use their invoicing tool. This ensures zero mistakes can be made and looks extremely professional.

Deliver your work with a watermark somehow. Google how top players in your industry do this to see how you can supply work that you still have jurisdiction over. You don't EVER want a client to take the work and bail on payment. Always have your power play so they pay on time.

Then when they pay, you can deliver it to them via your project hub, which you should always set up for new clients to encourage repeat work. You can repurpose my project hub here.

JOIN FB GROUPS

Join some that are based around your industry, offering free advice to those looking for it and look around for people requesting paid help or recommendations.

INVEST IN SOFTWARE

If you know of software that will help cut your working time down and allow you to pump out more projects then do it.

PAY FOR A COURSE

Further down the line, but one to keep in mind. Up-skilling yourself and learning from the very best in the world will be invaluable.

I’ve invested in around 4 courses so far and each has propelled me to a different level in some way or another. Sometimes you will just get one beautiful little nugget of info that changes the game.

This is what makes courses so valuable to those who want to be the best at what they do.

DO IT EVERY DAY

Don't go balls to the wall one day and then take the next off. Even if you feel lazy, just do the easy stuff. Pick that low hanging fruit and box your admin off. Add portfolio pieces across your site and online profiles - just at least tick some boxes and you can go to bed knowing you moved the needle forward. If not directly that day, then for future you.

If you do this every day for even just a month you will be a completely different animal.

Most of all, you need to believe you are that guy.

Become who you always knew you were.

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Be sure to follow me on socials to keep up with the daily goings on of The Man Blueprint. You can also sign up for my inner circle using the newsletter form above. Just drop your email in there and it’s job done. Completely free and completely brilliant. Whilst you’re here, have a little browse of some other article you might like below too. You won’t regret it.

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How to get brand deals as an influencer with a small following (with templates)

Influencers, bloggers, vloggers and pretty much anyone with an audience have seen brand deals as the pinnacle of 'making it' since forever. Whilst this isn't really the case, it is a nice perk to the job. So in today's article, I'm going to be taking you on a step by step guide to getting brand deals as an influencer.

This will even work for those with small followings. No matter what size your audience is, you can always be useful to some brand, somewhere.

Before we get into it, if you want to watch the video version of this, do so below.

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Why me?

First off, a bit about me, why I’m writing this in the first place and why I’m qualified to give you advice.

I started my journey as a blogger back in 2017 and have built a decent audience on my website as well as an engaged, albeit smaller instagram audience too.

And despite not having a huge following like, say, Ali gordon or Alfie Deyes - I’ve managed to do some amazing things over the last 3 years.

I’ve been out to Metz in France, Bergen over in Norway, Lisbon - even a little jaunt to Bristol earlier this year. All paid for.

In fact, when I went out to Lisbon, I had less than a thousand followers.

Having also had the likes of Reiss, Panasonic, ASOS and Canali feature on the blog, I'd like to think I'm well placed to offer you advice on extracting the most amount of cool stuff from the least amount of followers.

So let's dive into the step-by-step guide to landing brand deals as an influencer (even if you have a small following).

#1 have a bit of bottle

First up is more of a mindset tip.

Have a bit of bloody bottle, balls, gumption - however you want to spin it. You can be the least confident person in the world but it doesn’t matter online.

You can hide behind your laptop screen. Honestly, the person on the other end gets hundreds of emails a day. They’re not gonna sit there and think “wow, what a cheeky sod - asking for compensation for creatively promoting our brand to their audience and increasing our sales”. It just doesn’t happen.

I send out dozens of emails a day sometimes. The law of averages dictates that you will get at least 1 or 2 eventually, so step up, puff your chest out and get typing.

#2 Never use contact forms

This is speaking from experience.When I used to work in customer service and saw someone’s message in our spam box - even when it shouldn’t be - I’d just delete it and laugh.

It was the virtual equivalent of a McDonald’s worker spitting in your burger before serving it up. It was terrible customer service, but it’s what happens.

And if some horrible gatekeeper like me doesn’t click delete, your message will probably just get lost in their system alongside millions of other stupid emails anyway. Plus, it’s impossible to track your email’s progress through the departments (more on that later) this way.

What’s the lesson here? Never use contact forms. Source an email instead (more on that later too).

#3 Who do you want to work with?

So who do you actually want to work with? And how are you gonna get your list together?

Easy peasy. It’s time to go old school.

Get yourself a notebook, write down all the brands you can think of. If you’re into fitness for instance, list all the fitness brands that you can think of straight off the dome.

Then once you’ve done that, break fitness up into every sub category you can think of. Fitness supplements, clothing, home gym equipment, workout programs, etc. etc. etc.

Then go to Google, type in “best…{your niche}” and click the top 5 results. if you want to filter down even more, put your location, so “best 'your niche' UK”.

All you have to do then is go through these list articles and write down all the companies you find that you think are cool. Once you’ve done that, start Googling all of the companies and open up their websites. You’re probably gonna have about 50 tabs open at this point, so make sure your computer can handle it.

#4 How to find the right people

This follows on from point 2. As I said, don’t settle for a contact form. Always go for the jugular.

If you can’t find any email addresses on the company’s contact page, there’s a few things you can do.

First, try to look for a "press" section. In there you’ll usually find some contacts and names for people in various PR roles. From there you can find exactly who you want to contact.

Second, if you can’t find the press section in the general site navigation, just Google the company name and add “press”, “press contact”, “pr” or something like that to the end. Usually this will bring up an email address in the page description on the Google results. Failing that, just click the page link and have a poke around there.

And third is our nuclear option. It’s our big red button for landing right in their stinking inbox. We’re gonna go into either the privacy policy, terms and conditions or terms of service. Click Command + F if you’re on mac. If you’re on PC, buy a mac and then click Command + F. When you have the search bar up, type '@' and then boom, you’ll have their info@ email.

It’s not the most desirable option but it’s a million times better than a contact form.

That way, you can customise your email and you’re not limited by their form's confines.

#5 Streak

This is gonna be a game changer for your pitching.

When I used to hammer the pitches out like clockwork, I had all sorts of different drafts that I would tap into to copy and paste across into pitch emails.

The problem with that is that when you copy the company’s email, you have to revisit the draft and recopy that over for the next pitch. I had to manually type out the subject line every time to boot. It literally took me hours every day.

I also had no way of seeing whether my emails were being opened. It was just a mess. Then I discovered Streak. It completely changed everything for me when pitching with the blog and with my business.

Just download it, sign in with your gmail account and you can start right away.

Turn on email tracking to make sure you can see the progress of your email. This can actually inform the tone you take when following up with potential leads, which is invaluable for closing the deal.

You can also create things called snippets which let you paste your message and your subject line in an instant. This will drastically reduce the amount of time you spend on your pitching workflow.

I’m not sponsored by Streak by the way, I just can’t believe software like this is free. I can’t recommend this enough. Get streak people.

#6 Your pitch

Right. Here we go.

This is what you came for. Here’s the exact template I use.

The key here is to pitch in two stages. Let’s call this the Crawford Method. That’s not its actual name but I want you to think of me when you’re landing collabs with Prada and Versace every week.

In your first email, you don’t want to give much away, so keep it vague.

You just want to say:

Good morning/afternoon {name - if you have it},

Hope you're well.

I'm emailing you today to check what sort of work you do with online publications?

My name is {name} - I run the {describe your website}, {website} and would love to work with {business} on a collaboration.

Let me know what you think and I can have a full proposal sent over asap.

Best,

{name}

It’s simple, it’s intriguing and they’re gonna come back and ask what you want. This is when you can add in links to your work and sell them.

For your second email, we’re gonna go in for the kill.

Hi {name},

Thanks for the response.

I would love to feature yourselves in an article on {website} alongside some Instagram coverage on a gifting basis.

I've attached my media kit which outlines all my key stats, demographics, etc. Hopefully that shows what I can offer, but if you want any more info please feel free to ask.

What do you think?

Best,

{name}

If you don’t have a media kit, don’t worry. You can knock one of them up on Canva for free no problem. If you can’t be bothered to mock one up, just list your stats instead. And if your stats aren’t up to much, just don’t include them. If you can offer something unique to the brand then it won’t matter.

Anyway, once you’ve sent this, it’s game on. Honestly, the hit rate on this email is like 70%. It’s magic.

After that, it’s up to you to work your individual charm if they have any specific questions, but if you’ve come this far you should be golden. Also, don't forget to follow up. Sometimes, people need one or two chases before they come back to you. There’s nothing wrong with that, they’re busy people, so put yourself in their shoes and just give them a gentle nudge every 2 or 3 days.

#7 Be prepared for some knockbacks

This goes without saying, but when pitching to hundreds of people, you’re gonna get some knockbacks.

Most of them are formal, but some people can be real buggers. One time I had a brand that was being sold on Mr. Porter come back to me and started calling me all sorts.

I can’t remember exactly what now but isn't it mad to think that your email might be the reason that some CEO somewhere snaps and goes on a murderous rampage decapitating interns?

Anyway what I'm trying to say is get some thick skin. You’re gonna experience a few idiots, but when you’re tearing the town up in your newly gifted Gucci robes, you won’t care that Bob from Lonsdale called you a money grabber.

#8 Quick tips

• Make sure you actually have something to leverage or offer.

• Never put links in your initial email - it will get you a one-way ticket to the spam box.

• Follow up 3 times - any more and you’re just searching for no’s.

• Don’t expect this to pay your bills.

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That’s your lot people. How to get brand deals, every step of the bloody way.

Hopefully these steps will have you on your way to superstardom in no time.

Be sure to follow me on socials to keep up with the daily goings on of The Man Blueprint. You can also sign up for my inner circle using the newsletter form above. Just drop your email in there and it’s job done. Completely free and completely brilliant. Whilst you’re here, have a little browse of some other article you might like below too. You won’t regret it.

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How my blog helped me quit my job

Since the dawn of COVID-19, we've been spending virtually every waking second indoors. Despite this, it's actually given us all a taste of true freedom - in some sort of twisted, ironic way.

We no longer have to spend our time travelling to work, sitting in work or going to other boring work-related nonsense. We've all had the taste of what it's like to work from home and I would wager a fair portion of us like it.

Luckily for me, I've had the pleasure of working from home for the past 2 years. This article will explore how my blog helped me quit my job and how maybe creating one can help you to quit yours too (if that's the dream...).

Anyway, enough waffle, let's do it.

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When and where did the blog start?

I think my blog started around April 2017, which means at the time of writing, I've been in the game for 3 years. It's a bit mad that I still have things to natter on about come to think of it...

And where? It was actually on a train down to the Midlands where my girlfriend told me she had started her own blog called The Adopted Scouser. We're overly competitive and I like to try and beat her at just about everything, so I thought I'd give this a whirl. Whether or not I have done the whole blog thing better than her is still questionable though. Go over to her site and make your own mind up. Oh, and if you think our sites look similar, that's because I copied her design too lol.

When did I realise you can make money from blogging?

It was when Canali reached out to me and said they'd pay me the grand sum of £200 to write an article about them. This was at a crucial point as it turns out, because I was having serious doubts about whether or not my blog was even going anywhere. Traffic at the time was less than 300 visitors per month and I lacked any real love for the graft.

This collab really gave me motivation and gave my blogging zest a real kick up the jacksy. Fast forward to now and I'm getting 500 views per day (not mind blowing but not bad), have done well over 50 collaborations and genuinely had my life changed by this little corner of the internet that I am lucky enough to call my own.

When did I use my blog to help me quit my job?

April 2018, 12 months after starting the blog, I realised there was something in it.

I wasn't quite sure what that was yet but I knew it was there.

At the time, I worked in tourist information. There were just too many idiots in the general public coming up to me and asking stupid questions. If anyone ever tries to tell you the customer is right, I hereby give you permission to spit in their face and tell them what a stupid assumption that is.

The customer is always wrong.

And after one customer (I say customer, it was someone else that worked there - and I did accidentally ask his wife whether she was his mum) in particular ground my gears, I handed my resignation letter in and set off on my journey to become the internet's most phenomenal and respected source of all knowledge ever.

Can you make a good living from blogging alone?

The unfortunate answer for about 90% of bloggers is going to be a big fat no.

That's just how the cookie crumbles.

I would have been back in my 9-5 long ago if I had stuck with just my blog instead of diversifying out to other bits and bobs. In fact, it was because I stuck to trying to make my blog my sole source of income for so long, that I wasted about £15,000 in savings.

That's a lot of money to wager on some words that you write on the internet.

Don't get me wrong, if you become the next Ali Gordon or Alfie Deyes then yeah, you can make a good living, but I get a kick out of crushing dreams so the chances are - you're not gonna make it.

I mean, if the world's greatest wordsmith (aka, me) can't make a full time living out of this gig, then there's NO WAY you can - you nitwitted imbecile.

I kid, I kid - but just think about it logically for a bit.

How can you use a blog to help you quit your job?

So after crushing your dreams and telling you blogging probably won't make you exorbitant sums of cash every month, I'm about to make it up to you. I'm going to give you 4 ways that a blog can help you quit your job. These aren't rocket science but they might just be life changing...

1. Collaborate

This is the one I had my sights on since day 1. I remember how amazing it felt when I landed my very first collab with beard oil brand Thatchface. I thought I'd made it.

The truth is, most collabs don't pay in the initial stages, but by building up a good base of previous work, you can show brands what they're getting when they work with you.

Then it's up to you to set your rate and get pitching. Before I started my business, I'd be pitching to dozens of brands per week, sometimes I'd do outreach to over a hundred in a day.

Make a huge list of brands you want to work with, get their emails (if you find it hard to find, they're usually hidden away in their privacy policy or terms of service) and start firing them badboys off like your life depends on it.

2. Monetise the blog

Good one Sam. How do you make money from your blog? Monetise it. Groundbreaking.

Let me explain.

There are ways you can make money from just doing simple things on your blog. Now, not all of these are considered to be high-horse worthy, but they're just ideas if you want to eek out as much money as you can.

• Paid links in existing articles

• Paid guest posts

• Amazon affiliate links

• Banner ads

Just make sure you declare all of these clearly where you can. Some people make megabucks off the above, but I would suggest not relying on any of them.

I've tried 'em all and they're okay but there's a reason I don't do them anymore...

3. Develop your skills

This has been THE biggest one for me and I think it will be for you too.

Literally everything that I charge my clients for now, I have self-taught. Do you realise how effective just setting up this blog has been at throwing me in at the deep end and forcing me to learn?

• Writing

• SEO

• Email marketing

• Social Media management

• Web design

• Google PPC

• Facebook/Insta Ads

Everything on that list, I had no clue about back in 2017. I wanted to be a well-to-do psychology researcher at some swanky lab. Rewind a little before that and I wanted to be a sports coach, further back...architect, further back...footballer, further back...a dinosaur.

As you can see, having my own digital marketing agency never even entered my noggin until about 2 and a half years after getting The Man Blueprint fired up.

And why can't you do this too? There's so many applicable soft skills and life skills that starting up and monetising a blog will teach you.

4. Teach others

This follows on nicely from the above.If you're good at something, never do it for free.

Well, most of the time.

When you've been at the blogging game for long enough, you will have built up a huge wealth of experience that you can pass on to others in a tiny percentage of the time.

Start a course, build a business that offers training - hell, start conferences where you teach people how to do something. Although to establish a morsel of authority, it's probably best that you spend at least a year or two dishing out swathes of value-ridden content.

That's what I am currently in the process of doing. I have stupid amounts of know-how in building a serious income from nothing and I want to teach others how to do it 10x as quick as me.

It'll take a long time to put it all together but keep those eyes peeled. I've also done my time in the free-content game so don't chastise me lol.

Anyway, this isn't the time to hard sell...

Take a skill you've mastered from your blog (getting collabs, building email lists, growing Instagram accounts - whatever it may be) and teach people how to do it quicker and better than you for a price.

Set for life.

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Hopefully this has helped at least a few people realise that there is abundant opportunity out there when it comes to quitting your job and pursuing a dream.

And hopefully it has managed expectations of those who believe that starting a blog is the magic bullet for superstardom and riches. It's a long, hard process but one that is worth the graft if you've got the stones to stick it out.

Be sure to follow me on socials to keep up with the daily goings on of The Man Blueprint. You can also sign up for my inner circle using the newsletter form above. Just drop your email in there and it’s job done. Completely free and completely brilliant. Whilst you’re here, have a little browse of some other article you might like below too. You won’t regret it.

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My advice to new bloggers | A beginner's guide

So, you're a new blogger?

It can be a daunting task setting up a blog and writing stuff you're passionate about whilst running the risk that no one will read it, people will hate it, or your friends and family discover it and disown you.

It can also be daunting trying to build your own website from scratch, setting up a hosting plan, buying your domain, keeping on top of dead links and learning SEO.

Basically, there's a lot of daunting stuff.

I get it. I've been there.

But all that you need to concentrate on from the off is the actual bloody blogging. In this article, we're going to go over my advice to new bloggers in this article. It'll be my top 5 tips that you should be making a note of and trying to implement as soon as possible.

Do as I say and your blog will be as top banana as it can possibly be. Maybe.

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What qualifies me?

There are absolutely all sorts of how to blog articles out there and there are some genuinely interesting people writing decent pieces, but so much of is just churned out by ghostwriters who are regurgitating and rephrasing existing articles that were written by other ghostwriters doing the same thing.

And so the cycle of misinformation and un-implementable advice continues.

I am always one to bang out the self-depreciating humour, but on this occasion, I'll actually big myself up a bit so you know that the advice you're getting isn't just wishy-washy drivel that won't get you anywhere.

In the 2 and a half years since starting this blog I have done the following;

• Published over 150 articles.

• Been nominated for a best male blogger award.

• Published my own book.

• Worked with brands like Reiss, ASOS, Bvlgari and Canali.

• Had over 100,000 visitors to the blog

• Used my new writing skills to earn thousands of £'s doing freelance copywriting for businesses.

• Started my own creative writing studio, later expanding to social media marketing and web design.

• Have now worked for myself for over 18 months.

• And of course, the obligatory...met loads of great people!!!!

Please don't think this is a big brag list. I mean, obviously it is, but I'm just trying to illustrate a point. There have been times where I've felt like I've made absolutely zero progress, felt like a failure and really had to battle with imposter syndrome. But when you list out all the things that you have accomplished, it can put things into perspective.

As the famous quote from C.S. Lewis goes; "day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different". Don't underestimate the power of small but consistent steps and always make time to look back and assess how far you've come during your blogging journey.

Way back when, I did an article featuring interviews with already-established bloggers on how people could get started and succeed in blogging because at the time, I had absolutely no idea. I never thought one day I'd write a big bastard of a post all by myself. Maybe all the other bloggers in that article have better advice than me so go and check that out when you get the chance.

But for now, PLEASE READ WHAT I HAVE TO SAY.

Why blogging?

I could give you a million and one mind numbing stats about why and how blogging is taking over the internet, with bloggers being the new rockstars, travelling the world and making millions.

The fact of the matter though, is that I'm too lazy to do so and you probably don't need selling on the idea that blogging is the dog's bollocks if you're reading this.

Should I have said "the blog's dollocks" there? That would have been a bit funnier wouldn't it?

Oh well.

My top 5 bits of advice to new bloggers

Now for what you're actually reading this godforsaken article for. My wise words. The blogging grand master is about to impart his eon's worth of experience and #knowledge upon you mere mortals/peasants/n00bs.

So grab a notepad and pen and get ready to have your head swelled to dangerous proportions with ancient blogging wisdom.

1. Niche down (at some point)

Listen, when I started, I was writing slow cooker stew recipes. I knew I wanted the site to be about lifestyle and self-improvement, but I had no idea how much of it I wanted to cover.

So I just covered every bit of it.

I had all sorts of categories like book reviews, politics, album reviews - it was so scatterbrained.

Eventually, I niched down.

I decided on my 3 categories about 18 months ago; Style, Wellbeing & Culture. They're still quite broad, so if I wanted to go off on a bit of a tangent I could probably still put it under one of these. But that's beside the point.

The point is, I tried everything - literally everything - and eventually found what I wanted to write about. Then I doubled down on doing my very best work in these subjects.

It's that simple.

2. Write 400 words every single day

This is very similar to the Jerry Seinfeld ' don't break the chain' method. I split the 400 words up into 2 chunks throughout the day. 200 words is extremely easy to write so it won't be as scary to start as if you had set a goal to write an entire blog post in the day.

Once you reach 200 words though, you'll likely find yourself in a flow state and you won't want to stop. This often means you'll end up doing closer to about 500 words instead of the 200, meaning 1,000-ish words per day if you keep that state going.

Don't beat yourself up if you just want to write your two, 200 word chunks and be done with it though. 400 words every weekday equates to 2,000 words per week. Depending on how long your blog posts are, that could mean as many 4 blogs written in a week just from about 20 minutes of writing per day.

If you want to really up the ante, try carrying on your 400 words per day on the weekends too. This will amount to an extra 41,600 words written per year.

Blogging really is all about them little, consistent steps.

3. Fall in love with what you write about

It goes without saying, you should start your blog with the intention of writing about things that interest you. But what is often overlooked is the journey that you need to go on to really fall in love with the stuff that you write.

Treating each post almost as its own piece of art is an important step in making the best content you can possibly produce. It sounds so daft - trust me I know - but you have to fall in love with the process.

So many people set out with the grandest intentions of having all these catchy-titled blog posts with amazing photographs, eye-catching formatting and witty prose, but they get de-motivated when they have to start from scratch.

They throw the towel in when they need to actually go out, get some pictures for the article, sit down for several hours per week to plan and write their dream blog posts, SEO-format the text and all the other nuts and bolts that make up a successful piece.

Do you think Michelangelo got in a huff when he had to climb up ladders and chill on a ceiling for four years to complete his work in the Sistine Chapel? Well, yes, probably. And you're not Michelangelo. But let's not dwell on that - you know what I'm getting at.

If you want to become a blogging pro, you've got to love the work that it takes and that becomes so much easier when you are also in love with whatever it is you write about.

4. Reach out to people

When I was getting started out, I followed as many bloggers as I could find. I'd message them, like all their stuff, read their blogs and just interact with them.

This sounds a bit generic I know, but just casting your net out, being interested in what other people are doing and generally just being a sound person will get you far in the blogging game.

I've actually met up with a load of bloggers in real life from doing this and it genuinely is a great way to meet people who are probably a lot different to the types of pals you normally gravitate towards.

Being active and always checking out other bloggers' content is also a great way to steal ideas. Don't tell anyone I said that though...

5. You want collabs? Email, email, email

So many bloggers are scared out of their minds to approach brands. They daren't email or message companies they want to with out of fear of being rejected, laughed at or blacklisted (which is an absolute myth).

I used to email the likes of Ted Baker, Rolex and John Lewis pitching for collabs when I had less than 500 followers. Hell, I rang the Gucci head office to try and get a meeting with the marketing director even before that!

This is the sort of embarrassing self belief you need to have in what you do and what you can offer. It goes without saying that I obviously didn't get anywhere with these brands, but since then, I've sent over 5,000 emails and had all sorts of collabs as a result.

I even worked with the Lisbon Tourist Board when I had less than 1,000 followers on Insta! It just goes to show, if you know how to pitch, you are clear and confident in what you can offer and most importantly - you send out an absolute boatload of emails, you'll get the partnerships that you're after. It's a numbers game, simple as that.

I know people will say it's not all about freebies and getting paid as they gallop off on their high horse with their zero readers - and they're sort of right to be fair. If you're in it for fame, freebies and money, you're probably not gonna get any of those.

That being said, collabs are a great way to boost your profile, get more readers (thus helping/entertaining more people with your content), making somewhat of a living online and having nice things in exchange for a few hours of your time.

Why not go for them? Don't be one of those sourpusses who is too afraid to go after what they want and then scorns others for doing so. Just go balls to the wall and start whacking those emails out.

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That's pretty much that gang.

They are my 5 best tips. Hopefully this advice for new bloggers has really helped you in your quest to start and grow your very own little corner of the internet.

I don't think there's many better things than having a space where you can be truly yourself without having to care what anyone else says or does.

And it doesn't matter whether the blog ever takes off because you'll always have it to look back on and be proud of for even having a go and having the bottle to do everything by yourself.

But enough of that motivational nonsense. That's the loser's mentality. Go out there, implement my tips and smash the backside off it will ya!

Be sure to follow me on socials to keep up with the daily goings on of The Man Blueprint. You can also sign up for my inner circle using the newsletter form above. Just drop your email in there and it’s job done. Completely free and completely brilliant. Whilst you’re here, have a little browse of some other article you might like below too. You won’t regret it.

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Why I bought a Tesla Cybertruck...sort of

Where do we start with the Tesla Cybertruck?

Having been showcased a couple of weeks ago, it has quickly become one of the most polarising cars of all time. Their supposedly shatterproof window demonstration failed spectacularly when a weighted bullbearing smashed it up big time - much to the derision of basically every news outlet in the world.

Not to mention, there are large swaths of critics calling it one of the ugliest cars they've ever seen.

So why on Earth did I buy one?

Well, that's where you have been clickbaited somewhat my good sir. To 'buy' one of these, it costs £100 - which is also refundable...

But fret not, there are other reasons at play, so read on.

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What is the Tesla Cybertruck?

It is Tesla's new baby and it's completely unlike anything else I've ever seen before. There have been all sorts of comparisons, ranging from a badly rendered lego brick to the robot dogs from the Metalhead episode of Black Mirror...

You can find the full details of this absolute monstrosity of a vehicle here. Safe to say, it's barmy. Specs include 0-60 in a proposed 2.9 seconds.

Erm, how?

It almost defies the laws of the physics to make something that heavy go that quickly on land, but here we are.

In short - I need it.

Do you actually have the money?

Not quite yet. In fact, no, I'm nowhere near being able to afford the Cybertruck.

I doubt I could scrape together the £30k+ that's needed for the base model, let alone the £60k+ that I'll be needing for the top dog that I 'ordered'.

It seems stupid to put my name down doesn't it?

Well, yeah.

So why have you done this then?

In short? Motivation.

Does that sound like the most wannabe entrepreneur thing to say? Probably lol.

But sometimes, having a deadline can be the biggest motivator of all and having a little bit of pressure on you can make great things happen. Have you ever entered a crazy zen state of flow when you left your assignment until the last minute?

You sit there for hours on end doing some of the best work you've ever done, right?

Well think of that state, then prolong it for about 3 years. That's what I'm trying to achieve by placing my poxy little £100 wager. It's a small fee to pay for such a potentially massive motivator.

The way I see it, I will have a £60k bill land through my letter box in 3 years and I'll be screwed if I haven't made the big time by then. Obviously this isn't the truth because you can just get a refund on your £100 and forget anything ever happened but that feeling of needing to succeed is refreshing.

And listen, I don't want to become the next Zoella or anything - some of the niche bollocks I spout on this site will never go mainstream. But I have started my own business recently and having this added incentive might give me that extra 10% that makes the difference between it failing or becoming a roaring success.

At the time of writing, I started the blog 2 years ago. Since then, my life has completely done a Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Who the hell knows what another 3 years is going to bring?

Hopefully a lottery win, but failing that, this lovely big Cybertruck will do just nicely...

When does it come out?

Supposedly in 2021, with the tri-motor version (the top tier one) coming out in 2022. Knowing their track record of delays though, I'd say we're probably looking at another year or two on top of that.

And that's if it even comes out at all. It might be hard to justify a 5 tonne stainless steel battering ram to safety authorities so we shall see. If Tesla do manage to make this thing road legal AND bring it to production though, then you better believe I'll be having one on my driveway.

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All in all, I think we can conclude that I haven't really bought a Tesla Cybertruck, much like the other 250,000 people that have dropped £100 to reserve a spot.

But I do intend to. And what better motivation to make it than a massive stainless steel mini-tank?Mortgage? House deposit? No thank you! It's all about this big electric man-child toy.

Woohoo!

Be sure to follow me on socials to keep up with the daily goings on of The Man Blueprint. You can also sign up for my inner circle using the newsletter form above. Just drop your email in there and it’s job done. Completely free and completely brilliant. Whilst you’re here, have a little browse of some other article you might like below too. You won’t regret it.

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Luxury cars | Future classics to look out for

This isn't your usual future classics article. We're going deep into the luxury cars market today.

It's not a stupid slideshow, nor is it a measly 9-car list. This is a comprehensive guide to the cars you should be investing in today.

These motors will start appreciating in no time (if they haven't already).

If you've got a spare 100k lying round - this is the article for you.

To be fair, I've thrown in a good few cheaper options for us mere mortals, but this article is all about unbridled luxury baby.

Let's get into it.

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How to spot a future classic

There are a few key points to look out for and a few questions you should be asking yourself when analysing what makes a car a potential future classic.

The rule applies to luxury cars just as much as it does to normie cars too.

Here are some points to mull over before making your decision;

• Brand (and its current prestige)

• Build quality

• Drive quality

• Everyday usability

And here are questions to ask yourself;

• Is its design timeless or a product of its era?

• Is this car a paradigm shifter (revolutionary tech, etc)

• How many of these cars were made?

There's loads more factors to consider obviously, subjective judgement being a huge one, but hopefully this list will give you some food for thought.

Luxury cars to consider

I count 33 cars on this list, but I'm thick, so there may be a couple more or a couple less - anyway, that's besides the point. These 33-ish luxury cars have been picked from far and wide.

We've got newer stuff, older stuff, cars that aren't even out yet - it's all here.

Basically, there's a luxury future classic in here for everyone, even if you're not bringing in six figures a month (join the club...).

Alfa Romeo 8c

An absolute beauty. One of the most attractive cars to ever grace the tarmac, the Alfa Romeo 8c is a luxury car through and through. They are very rare and have held their value immensely - get 'em while you can.

You could always opt for the somewhat more attainable Alfa Romeo 4c if you want a taster for a fraction of the price.

Alpine a110s

This little offering from France is a bit marmite looks-wise.The Alpine brand has huge pedigree though and this reimagining of their most recognised chassis is guaranteed to age well.

Bentley Continental 6.0 W12 GT

Every Continental GT has been splendid. They've all aged immaculately like the fine wine that Bentley embodies.

This new one is off the charts gorgeous though - look at that grill! All Bentleys are future classics but this one is the pick of the bunch for me.

BMW i8

The BMW i8 revolutionised how we think about supercars. It was the first to really mix the old-school petrol engine with the new-school electronic motor - to devastating effect.

It's also one of the most highly rated cars amongst reviewers from the last decade and marked a complete paradigm shift in the motoring world - the sort of notability you look for in a future classic car.

Prices depreciated quite quickly with these (you can pick one up for £40-50k at the time of writing) so it's probably about time to invest before we see that bell curve start ascending again.

BMW Z4 M Coupe

Another BMW - and probably not one people would think of.

However, this Z4 M Coupe is the stuff of dreams for so many kids who draw supercars. Look at that shape - isn't it exactly the sort of thing you'd draw when you were trying to design your ultimate car back when you were a wee'n?

It seems people agree with me on this - prices for the M coupe are still high compared to the Z3 and other Z4 models.

Performance, looks, M series - everything about this screams future classic.

One of the more attainable on the list too.

Bristol Fighter T

Completely barmy. Not to mention that it's debatable as to whether any road legal ones exist.

If they do though, this car is one to snap up.

Ferrari Enzo

The last of the great analogue Ferraris before they started going all super high tech and such.

Who remembers the Enzo on every racing game as a young whippersnapper? And what about its Top Trumps card? Oh and when it featured on just about every supercar calendar ever?

The good old days. What a car.

Ferrari 812 Superfast

Ferrari can be a mixed bag with their ageing - think the F430. The new Portofino is nice and all, but I think it'll have the same depreciative fate.

Then think of the F40 and F50, regarded as two of the best cars ever. I think the future proof design of the 812, plus the fact it is literally called 'Super Fast' is going to see this one stand the test of time.

Fiat Barchetta

Cheap, cheerful and absolutely gorgeous.

What's not to love?

Fiat Coupe

Astonishingly fast and pretty. Madness, considering you can pick one of these up for well under a grand.

Go for the higher spec models in good condition for about £2.5k though if you want the best return on your investment. These have a bit of a reputation, if you know what I mean.

Ford Puma

The third cheapo on the trot!

The Puma is the king of future classic cars - there, I said it.

You can literally buy one for about £500 and it'll be some of the best fun you've had in years.

Keep it in good nick because they are just starting to get desirable - like, really desirable.

Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworth

I think it speaks volumes that Ken Block has one.

Ginetta Akula

Will it even be brought to market? Only time will tell.

But look at that design.

Jesus.

Honda NSX

The new NSX is based on the legendary status of its predecessor. It might not be quite as ground breaking but this is a car that's going to age well.

It's a supercar that you can drive day to day, it has one of the most intelligent computer systems to date and it does 28 mpg.

These will be like gold dust in 25 years.

Jaguar F-Type (V8 Turbo)

One of the most beautiful Jags of all time. Just be sure to invest in this version over the standard F-type for the most bang for your buck.

Jaguar XJR-15

You literally have to wear an on-board communication headset if you have a passenger - the engine is that ridiculous.

Koenigsegg Regera

The best Koenigsegg to date - hands down. This beast is going head to head with Bugatti for the fastest production car of all time, which says a lot.

These are also super rare, so if you have a few million quid in your back pocket, don't wait around.

Lancia Stratos (NEW)

You'll have to find a Ferrari F430 donor car before they'll make it, but it'll probably be worth it - right?

Lexus LFA

The Lexus LFA has the potential to be in the same bracket as the Diablo. Its engine note is widely regarded as one of the best of all time.

Lexus will never make something like this ever again (admitting they "wouldn't even know how to") and has already increased £150,000 in value.

If ever there was a poster child for luxury cars becoming instant future classics - this would be it.

Lotus Evora GT430 Sport

Manual is rare nowadays - it holds value, believe me.

This version has much higher horsepower than the average Evora (which is still pretty bloody cool) and will likely translate to higher value down the road.

Maserati Granturismo

At the time of writing, these are actually still in production, but its just so bloody gorgeous!

I usually wouldn't include a Maserati in a list of cars that appreciate but I've just got faith in the GT.

Mercedes AMG GT C

You want my opinion? No? Well I'm gonna give it to you anyway...

I think this is the best looking car Mercedes have ever made.

Yes I went there.

Morgan Aeromax

If I had the means, I think this would be the car I'd daily drive.

There aren't many more luxury cars out there that divide opinion quite like the Morgan Aeromax but it has barely depreciated a penny since it was brought to market and its rarity will make this a solid investment for the future.

Nissan Figaro

A bit 'girly' but this is one of the coolest cars about.

They are so so rare but are still quite reasonably priced so if you want something that already looks like a classic then the Figaro is the car for you.

If you want performance on tap, I don't quite think its 3-speed auto transmission will tickle your pickle though.

Noble M600

One of the last true supercars.

It is rare that a modern day luxury car with *this* much power has a manual gearbox but the Noble M600 has gone and done it anyway. It's definitely a driver's car and is bound to be a sought after classic.

Manual, mid-engined and rear-wheel drive powered by a 4.4L twin turbo V8. What's not to love?

Porsche Macan GTS

There could have been all sorts of Porsches in here - the Carrera GT to name just one, but I felt like that was a bit obvious.

So I've gone with the Macan.

Will it have the same ill fate as the first generation Cayenne? Doubtful. I genuinely don't think it will have the same depreciation as its peppery-named counterpart.The GTS model is a thing of beauty. Paired with its performance, I think we'll see this stand the test of time.

Smart Roadster (Brabus edition)

I very almost bought one of these.

It had the Brabus mods but it wasn't actually the official Brabus model - so be wary of that if you're in the market for one. This thing has comically low BHP, but it weighs less than one of my poos, so it goes like stink (pardon the pun).

The Smart Roadster Brabus edition is a road legal go kart and is still pretty cheap. There is a real market for them now though, so don't wait too long if you're on the fence.

Spyker Spyder

The Spyker came out well over a decade ago now and still looks phenomenal. With detail akin to a Pagani Zonda and performance to back it up, this is car has it all.

Along with the Aeromax, I'd buy one of these in a heartbeat if I had the money.

They are still making iterations now, with a new one called the Prelator in production (although Spyker haven't been active on social media for a few years now...) and it is unbelievable.

And do yourself a favour, google its interior. Just look at that shifter. Absolutely iconic.

Trident Magna

Bit of a wildcard, but if these come out they will revolutionise what we think luxury cars - and supercars in particular - can achieve. Apparently this will have a 2,000 mile range using groundbreaking patented tech.

It's a big if, but if they do eventually come into production, this will be a dead cert for future classic status.

TVR Sagaris

Exhausts that pop out sideways...

Vauxhall VX220

Vauxhall and luxury cars do not go hand in hand. Except they sort of do.

They've had some absolute corkers over the years. One of the most iconic cars of all time - the Lotus Carlton - was from the Englishmen, as was the Monaro.

So there - get with the program.

Volkswagen Scirocco 

Should this be in here? Unsure. Maybe. Probably not.

Doesn't matter - it is.

Much like the Peugeot 106 GTI's, Audi Quattros, Golf GTI's and Ford Escorts of yesteryear, I genuinely believe the Scirroco has the credentials to become a future classic in the hatchback world. It came out over a decade ago and the styling is still as modern today as it was then.

It could well go down as one of the greatest hot hatches of all time. If you want one, be sure to get the biggest engine you can find. Performance equals value when it comes down to it.

No one remembers the 1.4 litre...

Weismann MF5

Much like the rest of the cars on this list, the Weismann MF5 is well over a decade old now so has done its depreciation.

It is an absolutely gorgeous car - almost like a lesser known, prettier and more powerful Morgan Aeromax. It's like a batmobile on steroids.

Worth a punt.

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There we go folks - this future classics list with a little luxury twist has come to an end.

There's a few cheaper options in there, so for those of us who aren't quite millionaires, there's still a chance...

But if money were no object, what would you go for?

Be sure to follow me on socials to keep up with the daily goings on of The Man Blueprint. You can also sign up for my inner circle using the newsletter form above. Just drop your email in there and it’s job done. Completely free and completely brilliant. Whilst you’re here, have a little browse of some other article you might like below too. You won’t regret it.

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How To Invest in Yourself in Your 20s as a Man

It’s often said that investing in yourself is the best investment you can possibly make. I’m here today to tell you that this is one of the truest sayings of all time. This blog is going to give you a comprehensive guide into how to invest in yourself in your 20s as a man.

Obviously the best investment to make would have been Apple about 25 years ago but you get what I mean…

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Investing in yourself in your 20s

So what do I mean by ‘investing in yourself’? Am I saying put your limbs on the stock market and let people trade you on the FTSE100?

Maybe…

But no.

We’re talking about making investments that are going to improve your mind, body and soul - basically stuff that is going to make you a better, more complete and well-rounded bloke.

With that being said, we can classify investing in yourself as buying or experiencing things that not only help to improve your physical self, but also things that can improve your quality of life - the stuff that indirectly improves your being.

This all sounds a little bit Tai Lopez - giving you cool sounding words without actually offering any substance.

But ya boi doesn’t do low-level substance, so we’ll go into more depth in just a mo.

Am I really my own best investment?

Of course you are - especially when you’re in your 20s.

At the end of the day, if you buy a nice car or a nice house, eventually you’re gonna want a new one. The same goes for clothes, gadgets - anything.

The one timeless investment that will yield results forever and actually improve your life is yourself.

I’m not bashing buying any of those things by the way - I’m just illustrating my point.

Now this doesn’t mean you can just stuff £20 notes in your pockets and say you’ve invested in yourself.

It is about making good choices with whatever income you have that will benefit you long-term.

So, in answer to the question of this section - you truly are your best investment.

Let’s see how you can get started (and no, the answer isn't to hire a business coach or make free money).

How?

Here we are.

We know investing in ourselves is the best thing since sliced bread but how can you actually do it? It's not all about making sure to set goals and starting a side hustle.

Well, since we’re talking about investing, let’s kick it off with the most boring of all…

Investments

Yep. You're going to have to stop spending money at the club every weekend (try every other weekend 😉).

This is actually a bit out-of-place on this list but investments are going to make your life so much easier in the long run.

Thanks to compound interest, money invested today will be worth a whole lot more in 30 years time. Having your money sit in a managed investment portfolio will yield £100’s per year - maybe £1000’s depending on how much you lump in.

Now compare that to the £5 a month - if that - interest you get when you have your money sat dormant in a bank account.

Be smart with your money now to give future you the best life imaginable. Imagine what it’d be like to have £100,000+ when you’re 45 just because you put a couple of grand away each year starting at age 20-25?

Personally, I use the Hargreaves Lansdown managed portfolio (shout out to Martin Lewis for putting me on to this) so I don’t have to do anything except put money in. At the time of writing, I have £5,500 invested and have earned about £150 in 2 months in just interest which isn’t bad for doing literally no work. As I'm self employed, this will grow to be my retirement account and lay the foundation of my retirement plans.

Languages

The best thing you can possibly do to enhance your experience of this godforsaken thing we call life is to learn another language.

I know, I know - most people can speak English.

But it’s about more than just getting by isn’t it? Being able to immerse yourself in a culture, speak to local people properly instead of just expecting them to understand you like a big ignorant idiot.

I tried learning my hand and French and Italian with the former being slightly more successful but if I was to recommend any language other than English to learn, it would be Spanish.

It is second only to English in countries spoken in and is the easiest to learn apparently so the bang for your buck on this one is going to be solid.

You don’t even have to invest either here - Duo Lingo is free! My app of choice is Babbel, which I’ve spoken about on the blog before but there are loads of options out there so just give it a Google.

Invest in your fitness in your 20s

This is more than just the gym, but the gym is a huge part of course.

My favourite aspects of fitness currently are the weights, sauna, ice baths and good food. These might be different for you - you may enjoy running, sports, whatever it may be - but fitness is an investment that you simply can’t afford to not make.

Fitness boils down to physical activity, mental acuity and everything you put into your body.

Fitness investments that you should make are (just a few ideas);

• A gym membership or home gym

• Organic food

• Personal trainer

• Fitness encyclopaedia

• Stress-relieving cooking equipment (Slow cooker, chef’s knives, etc)

How To Invest In Yourself As A Man - A trade/skill/course

Taking an online course is probably the best thing you can do to increase your prospects of landing a well paid job or getting freelance contracts. Plus, you don't have to deal with crazy student loans.

I’m currently smashing through courses on productivity, photography and web design on Udemy which have really helped improve the quality and efficiency of my work.

As a blogger, these 3 are integral to my business expanding and being successful, so I dropped £10 on each which has worked out to an absolute steal.

There is absolutely all sorts on there that you can invest in. You get to keep the courses for life and download them for use offline - very useful for one of my points further down.

Obviously Udemy isn’t the only place to invest in courses but it is a good starting place.

If there’s a specific course you want to enrol in, then go for it. I recently enrolled in the Wim Hof 10-week course and I’ve literally never felt better in my life.

After months of reading reviews, watching Youtube videos and trying out the free method, I took the plunge and got it (which was the first course I’d ever bought online). It turned out to be one of my greatest decisions and really hammered home the age old adage - you get what you pay for.

Why books are a great way to invest in yourself in your 20s

Read, read, then read some more. Books ensure you're continually expanding your knowledge.

Reading is the greatest thing you can do to expand your mind and books are the greatest investment you’ll ever make for acquiring knowledge.

Imagine being able to absorb the life’s knowledge of the most famous, successful people who have ever lived?

That is the window of opportunity that books offer.

Amazing people have dedicated their lives to learning and perfecting their crafts, then condensed it down into a handy little book-sized memoir just for you.

We can take in, in a day, what others spent their lives learning - if that doesn’t show you the truly unbelievable power of books then I don’t know what will.

Here are some of the best books that I have read so far;

• The Secret

• The Alchemist

• Stuffocation

• The Monk who sold his Ferrari

• The Bulking Blueprint

• The Power of Now

• The Death of Cool

• Farenheit 451

Some of these are fictional books that offer perspective on life or actionable advice, some are pure self-improvement, some are in-between and The Death of Cool is just unbelievably funny.

Each of these books will teach you something about life though and I can wholeheartedly say that I would recommend them all to anyone.

Set yourself challenges in your 20s

Another way of investing in yourself - without actually technically investing - is to set yourself challenges.

One way that I have recently done this is to have no internet at home. This was a little bit tough at first, but it allowed me to concentrate on my writing, get stuck into my Udemy courses (downloaded offline…) and actually unplugging after my day instead of watching Youtube compilations of Jay Jay Okocha until midnight.

It also made me realise how much time we waste on the internet and it allowed me to enjoy going the library again. Plus, if you were to go permanent with your internet-less-ness then you’d actually be saving money instead of investing it - just saying.

Another challenge I enjoy is the thrill of climbing a mountain. It’s good old fashioned hard work and the pay off is incredible once you get to the top.

Views for days, a sense of accomplishment unlike no other and a workout to burst your lungs and snap your legs.

Every man should climb a mountain at least once in his life - try a hike sooner rather than later.

Accountability

And our final investment - accountability. How you do something is how you do everything - this is a great principle when thinking “how to invest in yourself in your 20s as a man”.

This simply means that you need to start holding yourself accountable for your actions. As a man, you should always own every decision you make and not try to make up excuses as to why something has gone wrong.

A way I like to do this is with my finances by using something quite new to me - Monzo.

Monzo is an online bank that has an app which tells you exactly where your money is going. There are loads of categories such as general, food, shopping, drinks, etc that breaks your money down into a summary which can be downloaded at the end of the month.

You can also set budgets, set a round-up feature (that rounds up transactions to the nearest pound and puts the difference in a savings pot), create tabs with people for trips, ongoing expenses, etc and loads more.

It has been a revelation since I ordered one of their cards and it has allowed me to grow up a bit in terms of finance now I can see exactly where my money is going (shopping).

Obviously every online banking system offers this, but they don’t give such a detailed breakdown and keep it as simple as Monzo. Personal finance is a great way to Invest in Yourself in Your 20s as a Man.

I’m not endorsed by these by the way - I just think they’re the best out there - plus it's all free.

There’s a few companies out there who offer similar stuff but Monzo seems to be the far more favoured by the good old general public.

The Bull Excretion List

Here’s a few things that the business gurus/lifestyle hackers/shmucks will sell you. Effectiveness varies from mild to absolute zero.

• Seminars (just a load of pseudo-inspirational talks that offer zero value - watch Ted Talks on Youtube instead for free)

• Fast-track courses (insider groups from the usual types; Forex traders, crypto traders, property investors, angel investors - it’s all bollocks. Take a proper course)

• Exclusive content (if you can think of it, it’s probably out there for free - don’t buy into people’s exclusive content that you have to pay a subscription for).

• Merch (this is self-explanatory, but don’t buy merch from your Gurus - it’s awful and it doesn’t help your cause one bit).

When?

The earlier you start investing in yourself, the better. It’s like with all good investments - the best time to do so was 10 years ago, but the second best time is today. There is no better time to start than now.

Try and get started on the free stuff first; learn a language on Duo Lingo, make better food choices, go running, read books from the library, go on a hike, remove the Wi-Fi router from your house and get a bank account that lets you budget like a real adult.

Once you’re in the swing of things and you have a taste for just how amazing it feels to invest time and energy into making yourself a better human you can take the plunge and put your money where your mouth is.

Try lumping £1,000 a year in an investment portfolio, sign up with a language tutor, start buying local organic food, join a gym, buy some high-end kitchen equipment and enrol in an online (or physical) course.

The possibilities are endless, so the quicker you can apply these ‘investments’ the earlier you’ll be able to reap the rewards.

Why?

This is a bit of a benefits section for investing in yourself.

We’ll just touch on a few things that you can expect to experience when you start actually treating yourself like the #king you are.

Competence = Confidence

When we’re competent at a certain thing, we have confidence in that area. For example, a teacher is extremely confident in a classroom, but probably not as confident behind a bar. That’s because being a barman isn’t their area of competence.

Well, what happens when that area becomes every aspect of your life?

Being competent in all areas gives you so much unwavering confidence in your day-to-day life that you’ll feel like a completely new man.

Imagine if you stick with your self-investment journey properly and you look at yourself 5 years down the line...

...You’re a top-tier gentleman who speaks 3 languages, is fit as a fiddle, doesn’t rely on the internet for his entertainment, climbs mountains for fun, has thousands of pounds accumulating wealth on his behalf in investments, cooks like a chef, has multiple skill sets that bring in thousands each month and has an accountant-like handle on his finances.

Imagine that?!

It’d be hard not to be a confident sod - maybe even arrogant one at that level of competency!

You see, investing in yourself is all about the long game. Like with all investments, it doesn’t happen overnight - you’re going to see results reasonably quickly, but the big wins come much further down the line.

Better opportunities

Opportunities will just start to manifest constantly - But make sure you're not just thinking in the short term.

Once you put out into the world that you are on a self-improvement journey and start taking steps towards your dream smart goals, opportunity will start to present itself at every corner.

If you’ve never read The Secret you need to - it explains this phenomenon it in much more detail.

You should also read The Alchemist which shows you the importance of the insignificant occurrences of daily life and how to follow these little omens to reach your destiny.

It all sounds a bit woo-woo but trust me, when you want something so badly that you’re willing to invest everything you have into it, the universe will conspire to make it happen.

Healthier

This means in both the physical and mental sense.

Investing in going to the gym, eating better quality food and cooking nourishing meals are all going to make you much healthier.

But along with building Mount Bicephious, fitness also boosts mental clarity and happiness whilst lowering two of the biggest enemies of our generation - anxiety and depression.

As the old saying goes - Health is Wealth.

Taking time to invest in this area will pay dividends for years. Not only will being healthy add years to your life, it’ll add life to your years.

The benefits of stress-alleviation on health has also been widely documented, so taking time to read, getting your finances in order and having fun learning can also be excellent ways to stay young and healthy for much longer.

Improved relationships

One thing you will definitely notice is improved relationships with those people in your life. Partners, friends, family and co-workers will all benefit from your improved relationship skills.

The way to think about is this; if an airplane is about to crash and the oxygen mask falls down, you are supposed to put yours on before you help anyone else put theirs on - even if you have a child.

It perfectly demonstrates that we need to put ourselves first all the time. We must improve ourselves so that we can help others do so too. If you ever need any justification to your loved ones for leaving them to go and do something more important, just show them this section and blame me.

Crisis averted.

At the end of the day, how can you be expected to love anyone else if you don’t love yourself? And how can you expect people to enjoy your own company if you can’t be alone with yourself for more than an hour?

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Like I said at the beginning, investing in yourself is the absolute best decision you can make for giving yourself the best shot in life and overall, just being a far happier person. If you lay the foundations right in your 20s, you're on the way to building an amazing life.

Make sure you’re investing in the right things, be sensible with how and when you drop your wonga on said things and you’ll be absolutely flying.

Be sure to follow me on socials to keep up with the daily goings on of The Man Blueprint. You can also sign up for my inner circle using the newsletter form above. Just drop your email in there and it’s job done. Completely free and completely brilliant. Whilst you’re here, have a little browse of some other article you might like below too. You won’t regret it.

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A day in the life of a full time blogger

A 'Day in the life of a full time yummy mummy blogger' article usually goes one of two ways.

There are those who make it look like the best thing since sliced bread with lots of cool meetings in London or weekly press trips to new exotic lands.

Then...

There are those who love to brag about how much of a fat lazy slob they are and that they're just "not capable of adulting good". Blogger Twitter is infested with these weirdos, but that's another story.

I'd say I fall somewhere between the two camps.

My days as a blogger aren't filled with dazzling press freebies, nor are they filled with 15 hour Netflix binges sat in a bean stained vest...anymore.

I work a bit, do a bit of admin to keep everything spick and span, go the gym, then have some leisure time.

That's literally all I do, so if you want to click away now then I won't hold it against you. If you fancy a somewhat more in depth look at my day then stay tuned and I'll go in to more details about the hows and whys of my routines.

If you want an infographic on the whole shabang, check this little fella out:

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05:00 - 07:00 - Wake up/Morning Routine

I absolutely love getting up at 5am - it is fantastic for mental clarity and getting your day off to a flyer. Sometimes though, I just can't be bothered and fancy a little bit of a lie-in, so opt for a more respectable 7am start.

Then I'll get right up so I'm not tempted to go back asleep, make the bed all nice and pretty then go through a quick morning routine.

I've got a massive morning routine, a minimal morning routine and an even minimal-er morning routine that I am currently using.

For now, my morning routine is as follows;

• Wake up

• Have a quick stretch

• Make the bed

• Down a load of water

• Brush my teeth

• Do some more stretches and dislocations

05:15 - 07:15 - Work

I use my Mac book primarily for writing and nothing else - except maybe the odd email later in the day. After I've finished work I don't go on it 'til the next day, opting instead to use an iPad in the night to do anything social, distracting, etc.

This ensures that my mind is cued to get straight into work mode when the laptop is opened à la Pavlov's dogs.

This little 3-5 hour period is when the bulk of my work gets done. Writing is more about your surroundings than anything else, which is why I love this time of day.

For most of it, people are still asleep, so everywhere is nice and quiet which gives me time to think deeply without people interrupting me.

10:00 - Meal #1

I'll split my two work blocks up with a light meal. If it's too heavy, the body will expend too much energy trying to metabolise and digest it instead of using that energy to power le brain.

If however, it is light and not full of quick release carbs, it will give me a nice energy boost to attack the second part of my working day.

That's why I like to go protein/fat heavy with some veg thrown in.

The easiest meal to go with here is;

• 3 whole eggs

• 25ml oat milk

• 30g spinach

• 50g salsa (the less ingredients in it the better)

Whizz the eggs and oat milk in the microwave for 2 minutes, scramble it up. Once that's done, throw in the spinach and salsa.

Made in less than 5 minutes and eaten even quicker than that.

It'll give you sustained energy to get back to work and won't spike your blood sugar when you break the fast. Perfect.

10:30 - Work

Then back to work for 90 minutes.This is somewhat more of a laid back working period as my head ins't quite as laser-focused now but I'll still get done what needs to get done.

A lot of this time is actually spent doing admin such as clearing dead links, doing emails, preparing an Instagram post and other medial minutiae. It may be frustrating but this stuff needs to be done and to think that my working day will be over by the noon is a motivating thought.

12:00 - Secondary Routine

This routine is how I keep my morning routine so basic - most of it has been cut and pasted here instead.

The secondary routine acts as somewhat of a transitionary period between the work day and the rest of the day. It's like starting a completely new day and it gets me ready for the gym later on.

The routine goes as follows;

• Affirmations

• Meditation

• Dead hangs (as long as possible - 5 minutes total)

• Deep squat hold (as long as possible - 5 minutes total)

• Wim Hof Method

• Ice bath

• Put on gym clothes

The great thing about my secondary routine is that again, it conditions me (Pavlov's dogs...) to get in a different state of mind.

Once I start this sequence, I know that I am no longer a working man and that I can rest my brain and conserve some energy for later.

13:00 - Meal #2

This will be my pre-workout meal, so something like a smoothie is usually ideal. You could opt for an apple with some peanut butter or a protein shake with a banana - basically a nice mix of protein, carbs and some fat.

My go-to smoothie at the moment is as follows;

• 200g frozen blueberries

• 50g vegan blend protein powder

• 25g peanut butter

• 25g peanut butter powder

• 7.5g maca powder

• 7.5g ashwagandha powder

It tastes great, gives a load of nutrients and gives me the energy to smash a workout at the gym - can't ask for more than that can you?

14:00 - Workout, Steam Room, Sauna, Plunge Pool

What sort of wellbeing blogger would I be if I didn't dedicate a couple of hours of my day to it?

My workout usually takes about 45-60 minutes and I'm absolutely knackered by the end of it (shout out to The Bulking Blueprint) then I'll hit the sauna and steam room for about 15-20 minutes each, making sure to jump into the plunge pool and grab a sip or two of water every 5 minutes.

This is an almost euphoric feeling - I can't even describe how good you'll feel after this. After a day of working, the workout and the post-workout relaxation are absolute key components for releasing tension.

They allow me to de-stress and take my mind off anything work-related so that I can come back home, chill out and recharge my batteries for tomorrow.

16:00 - Free time

Once I'm back from the gym I can do anything I want with the next 6-8 hours.

It could literally be anything: I enjoy a spot of online 8-ball pool (my one true vice), going out with the #squad, doing something with the missus, taking an online course, watching a movie, drawing - it doesn't matter. All that matters is I don't have to work and I actually get this entire time to do what I want.

Going back to the two types of 'day in the life of a blogger' article examples above - I'd say I am definitely bang in the middle of the two.

It is extremely hard work, but it's also extremely fun - and I still get to binge watch mind numbing movies in my bean stained vest if I wish.

Win win really.

* As you can see, I don't actually do that much work on the blog during the day in terms of actual time spent on projects. However, when I do go to do work, I go deep. This basically means that I have no distractions whatsoever, so 1 hour of my working time is probably equivalent to about 90 minutes - 2 hours of work done within a busy, distracting office environment. *Being a blogger doesn't have to mean you spend 15 hours a day writing, promoting and smashing social media. If you condense your day down into small blocks then you can achieve big results in about half the time.

Since starting the blog about 2 years ago (at the time of writing), I have;

• Been nominated for a 'best male blogger' award.

• Published a book.

• Made it my full time job.

• Travelled to 3 different countries on press trips.

• Worked with brands I love such as Canali, Bvlgari and Son of a Tailor.

• Been part of an art exhibition.

• Met a load of sound folks.

Yes, that's an absolute massive brag on my part, but I am making a valid point. Whilst I do work extremely hard to make this blog a success, I'd wager that I 'work' a lot less hours than most people out there.

If an illiterate buffoon like ya boi can make a decent go of this blogging malarkey then you definitely can too. All you need to do is set some time aside to go deep each day - even if it's just half an hour. Any alone time where you can get distraction-free work done will stand you in good stead for making this your full time gig.

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And that's basically what I do in a day as a full time blogger.

I won't pretend it's exciting all the time and that it isn't a fat slog most days but that's as realistic as you're going to get.

Be sure to follow me on socials to keep up with the daily goings on of The Man Blueprint. You can also sign up for my inner circle using the newsletter form above. Just drop your email in there and it’s job done. Completely free and completely brilliant. Whilst you’re here, have a little browse of some other article you might like below too. You won’t regret it.

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Master And Dynamic MW60 Review: The best over ear headphones?

Master & Dynamic are true icons of the sound game. Whilst they’re not the oldest on the market, they’re certainly one of the best. This blog is going to give a comprehensive Master and Dynamic MW60 Review.

I was sent a pair of their MW60 headphones to put through its paces.

Here are my thoughts.

Master & Dynamic Review

Master & Dynamic was set up in 2014 in New York by Jonathan Levine after getting into the headphones scene via his son who was an aspiring DJ

....I wish my dad would design me some headphones!

Their mission is simple - make headphones that perform as well as they look (and vice versa) whilst not skimping on quality - M & D claim these will last over 50 years!

What did I get?

The MW60 was my headphone of choice.

This is the big daddy of the range and you can see why. It just oozes class.

It comes in loads of colours but I opted for a classic all-black look. I don’t think I could pull off anything else.

The Good - Master And Dynamic MW60 Review

Let’s get stuck into what I enjoyed...

Sound

This has to be first.

A set of headphones where the sound isn’t the main player would be a pretty naff pair of headphones...

All sorts of songs sounded crisp through the MW60s. From acoustic sets to hard rock - everything sounded like the artist was singing directly to me.

They say that they’ve made the sound quality as ‘natural’ as possible with only minor tweaks on bass, etc to optimise the sound.

You can really tell as the sound is very different to what I’m used to but I enjoyed it.

Battery life

At around 16 hours, the battery life of the MW60s is just above standard (which I would say is around 12 hours).

Although I’d maybe have liked a little bit longer, 16 hours is still absolutely fantastic.

You’re probably looking at a charge every 3-4 days which you really cant argue with.

Looks

Whilst they didn’t cure my god damn ugly face, they did make it look cooler via the expert design.

Designed and developed in New York, these babies made me feel like a city slicker with their sleek edges and minimal details.

They’re light but sturdy and you feel like you’ve got sex appeal on a headband draped over your ears.

Good stuff imo.

Presentation

Listen, I know it’s not the be all and end all but I am a fat sucker for presentation.

Making a product more of an experience is what people want and I know this because I am people.

The leather cable box, the headphone case - it was all just unequivocal luxury.

I couldn’t stop putting everything back in the box and taking it back out again just to gawp at the design.

Sad, I know - but when you're getting USB C charging cables and audio cables in a great unboxing experience for a comfortable to wear, active noise cancelling with touch controls headphones, who can complain?

The Bad - Is Master And Dynamic Good?

Pricey

Yes, they cost a lot.

£449 to be precise.

But as with a lot of the companies I showcase on the blog, you do get what you pay for, especially with Bluetooth headphones/wireless headphones compared to wired headphones.

If you want the best, you’re going to have to pay a premium.

That being said, if you don’t want to shell out £400+ on some headphones then you’re best looking elsewhere for your audio fix.

Master & Dynamic do actually do less expensive pairs though that start at £199 so you could check them out too.

Not much else

Yep, that’s really pretty much it.

These are absolutely fantastic and apart from being pricey - which I would argue they justify - they are basically faultless.

Overall, I am absolutely certain that these are the best headphones I have ever tried. The quality is on another level. I still love my Dre Beats but bloody hell - the MW60s are something else.

These are genuine game changers in the scene.

And there we have it gang - what a pair of headphones!

If you’d like your own pair, you can pick them up from the Master & Dynamic website.

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Be sure to follow me on socials to keep up with the daily goings on of The Man Blueprint. You can also sign up for my inner circle using the newsletter form above. Just drop your email in there and it’s job done.

Completely free and completely brilliant. Whilst you’re here, have a little browse of some other article you might like below too. You won’t regret it.

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Single tasking will change your life: Here's how

In a world obsessed with multitasking and juggling a million things at once in the name of productivity, is single tasking really a viable option?

In short – yes.

Single tasking has been proven time and time again to be the best way to get stuff done. #SlowLiving anyone?

This article will arm you with the right knowledge and tools to make single tasking work for you. It’s easy when you know how.

WHAT IS SINGLE TASKING?

Single tasking, believe it or not, is the act of focusing your entire attention on one single task. It is the polar opposite of multitasking and truth be told, it is a far superior method of productivity.

Single tasking will help you to get stuff done. Period.

WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?

There’s a whole load of good stuff in it for you as it turns out. I’m lazy, so here’s the top 3. These are the only benefits you need to be fair so don’t hate on me. Cheers.

GENUINE PRODUCTIVITY

When you block out all distractions and focus your energy on one single task, you allow yourself to produce your very best work without flitting between tasks.

Apparently we can only work for 40-ish seconds before we’re distracted, that is absolute madness. Can you believe that stat? I couldn’t either until I actually thought about it.

Picture the scene, you’re sat at your desk…

“Ooo an email!”

“Oh hello colleague that has come over for a random chat”

“Ah let me just have a quick look at the weather…and a bit of news…oh my lord Gemma Collins did what?”

And so the cycle continues. Once you’re able to single task, these distractions cease to exist. They go away and never come back to haunt you again…for the most part.

LESS STRESS

Because you’re actually getting work done and blocking out unimportant tasks, you become a stress free buddha. Well maybe not that zen but because you have prioritised work and aren’t trying to split your time between so many tasks, you become safe in the knowledge that you’re attacking the most important thing and other (less important) tasks will get their turn later.

This absolute organisational #goals is what makes single tasking such a stress-free experience.

BETTER SOLUTIONS TO HARDER PROBLEMS

When you multitask, your mind is spread so thinly that you can’t concentrate on one problem at a time. You’re constantly trying to process about 10 consecutive problems whilst attempting (terribly) to find solutions that are more than likely, rather subpar.

When you single task, your entire mind is focused on the problem at hand. You can give all of your attention to finding the best solution and your head isn’t battered with needless stresses.

This clarity has helped me develop and write up a faeces-tonne of articles over the past couple of years. Simply taking a bit of time to meditate on an issue can be such an effective way to improve the quality of your work exponentially.

HOW TO SINGLE TASK EFFECTIVELY

You’ve been armed with all the juicy benefits, now it’s time to find out how you can actually implement single tasking into your life.

GET A SCHEDULE

This is the easiest thing you can do to single task.

Set yourself time blocks throughout the day. These blocks should be split into things you want to accomplish. For instance, I do 30 minutes of physical activity in the morning, followed by 2 hours of writing, then an hour to do emails and Instagram posts, comments, etc., then it’s lunch, THEN I’ll block off some more time for writing again, freelance work and so on.

Try to block at least 4 hours of pure single tasking throughout your day. Outside of this can be anything you god damn please but during those 4 hours you should do nothing but focus on the task at hand.

I guarantee you that you’ll get more done in those 4 hours than multitaskers will get done in 4 days. They look and feel busy but they’re not really, they’re just spinning their wheels in multiple directions.

Single tasking gets stuff done, multitasking just gives the illusion that you’re getting stuff done. Make your choice.

PUT THAT PHONE AWAY & BLOCK THOSE PESKY EMAILS

We all know that phones are the devil incarnate but to what extent to they affect our productivity?

Well if you have you have your phone in the room with you, it creates an effect which I can’t for the life of me remember the name of BUT it gives you an almost twitch-like reflex to go and grab it to check for notifications.

The dopamine hit you get from these notifications is what keeps us coming back to our pocket-sized enslavers so the best thing you can do is put your phone wayyyy out of reach.

I work from home so I just pop the phone in another room and check it every hour or two for calls and messages. You can try and push it up to 5 hours eventually and see how you cope – it gets a whole lot easier over time.

Once you’ve navigated this hurdle, your single tasking becomes a breeze. Add to that an extension for your web browser and you’ve got a potent combo. I use Blocksite to block emails, football news sites, social media and my biggest and most embarrassing addiction – Miniclip 8-Ball pool…don’t click that link, you might get sucked in too.

Putting these little barriers in the way of these productivity drainers is such an effective method. The amount of times I’ve mindlessly typed those sites in my browser for a little break after an ENTIRE 3 minutes of writing is unfathomable. Thankfully, this extension gives me a telling off and I realise that it’s work time, not mindless scrolling time.

This is your most important step so DO IT PLZ.

GUARD YOUR TIME

I’ve talked about this before but you have to be ruthless with your time. Your team want a meeting for a ‘catchup and chat’?  Bugger off. Same goes for needless coffee lunches with people you don’t really need to see.

If someone asks you to help them out with some work that doesn’t involve you and you don’t have the time, DON’T DO IT. The quicker you stop trying to people please by taking on too many tasks, the quicker your head will stop being full of thoughts of killing your boss and butchering 87% of your co-workers.

Put an auto-reply on your email that tells people you only check it once per day. If they need you urgently they can call your work phone (a phone with no apps, simply for urgent calls), if it not then it can wait. I learnt that trick from the main man Tim Ferriss – click on his lovely name to find loads more ‘life hacks’.

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Single tasking. It’s easier than you think.

Once you stop trying to do everything (sub-optimally) at once and focus all your energy into one area of development, you’ll see the best results in terms of productivity – and life in general – that you could possibly wish for.

Be sure to follow me on socials to keep up with the daily goings on of The Man Blueprint. You can also sign up for my inner circle using the newsletter form above. Just drop your email in there and it’s job done. Completely free and completely brilliant. Whilst you’re here, have a little browse of some other article you might like below too. You won’t regret it.

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The Low Information Diet: It'll change your life

The Low Information Diet is going to be the best god damn diet you’ve ever been on. They key difference? You won’t be restricting calories – just unnecessary information.

You can still be a fat porker on this diet – if you wish.

What I’m about to say may be a bit controversial: I couldn’t give a rat’s arse about what goes on in the world.

I really tried, I read and read about all the atrocities going on around the world, but then I sat there after reading all this negative stuff and thought to myself, “does any of this affect me? And can I actually do anything about it?”. The answer to both was obviously no.

I can’t stop wars in foreign countries, I can’t stop celebrities overdosing on drugs and I certainly can’t stop tax dodging corporations from swindling billions from the countries they reside in.

So why concern myself with any of this? And why should you? There is literally no reason.

If something is really important, you will hear about it. You don’t have to concern yourself with worrying about stuff that is so far out of your control it’s almost laughable.

WHAT IS THE LOW INFORMATION DIET?

Listen, a low information diet doesn’t mean you need to stop reading and stop improving yourself with new techniques, viewpoints, etc – that would completely fly in the face of everything this site stands for.

What it does mean is that you need to be selective about what you take in. Never give up your #thirst for knowledge – it’s what keeps our minds young and healthy, just consume better info. Don’t let yourself get carried away with negative or downright wrong information.

Let’s use fitness as an example. If you learn a new workout technique or are on a new program, don’t continue to research other programs.

Stay with this one for 12 weeks and give it a chance. Don’t overload your brain with more useless fluff that makes you second guess everything you do. If you do this you’ll get nowhere.

Give information you learn a chance, observe it and learn from it. Don’t just cram more and more into your cranium until you forget all the gems and retain all the BS.

Basically, once you know what works, stick with it. If it ever stops working, do a bit of research and fix the situation.

WHERE YOU CAN IMPLEMENT A LOW INFORMATION DIET

There are so many aspects of your life where you can implement a low information diet. Here are a few to get you started, young warrior. If you can’t bear to streamline all of these areas at once then just try one out. I found tuning out the news was easiest first…

YOUR HEALTH

One key area where I have neglected the low information diet in the past is with regards to my health. Once I learn one new diet or workout program, I continue to research until I find the new one and I skip over to that after a few weeks without really giving the previous one a full test.

This creates yo-yo diet and exercise habits and isn’t particularly beneficial for getting together any sort of routine in your life.

Research deeply into a topic, find what you think you will be able to stick to and what has proven results and just stick with it for 3 months. Then you can consume some more information if needed. If not, why waste valuable space in that brain of yours by cramming useless fluff in there?

The 3 resources I recommend if you want to get a balanced view of both diet and exercise are:

The Bulking Blueprint by Sam Crawford (aka ya boi)

The 4 Hour Body by Tim Ferriss

Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe

YOUR JOB

Have you ever noticed in the working world how there are meetings for just about every conceivable thing? Why? Because people like to feel busy, even if they aren’t.

Feeling busy and productive appeals to people’s superiority complex and makes them feel like they’re smashing their goals when in actual fact, they’re just talking about meaningless garbage that could have been summarised in a 60 second email.

Start declining meetings and start requesting the post-meeting notes instead. Use that lovely phrase; “I’m too busy” as your get out of jail free card and instead, work on actually getting your work done.

If you hate your job, this becomes even easier. Save up enough money (usually 6-12 months wages) so that you could quit at any time. This gives you the inner confidence to be yourself and stop pandering to snobs and control freaks and take back control of your time and agenda.

This is exactly what I did in my last job. I had a bad few weeks and handed in my notice. Sometimes it is these mini-breaking points that force us to take action and guide us to our vocations.

THE NEWS

This seems to be the one that proponents of the low information diet recommended above all else and I have to agree. Positive news simply doesn’t sell as well as negative news – that’s a fact.

This means whatever you watch on the news is going to be some form of terrible event and lots of what you see on social media (Twitter, mostly) will be people complaining about their lives or attempting to drag others down by calling them one of the following buzzwords: Toxic, problematic or cancelled. Maybe even all three at once.

Anyway, you get the idea, limit your consumption of these and you’ll lead a much happier existence.

Here’s a few examples of how I implemented a low information diet. I asked myself a simple question, got the answer and moved on:

Question: Is eating animal products bad for health and the planet?

Answer: Yes – to some degree.

Solution: Lowered my animal product intake.

Q: What social media platforms do I enjoy?

A: Instagram.

S: Get rid of all other platforms and focus on Instagram.

Q: Do I enjoy my job?

A: Absolutely not.

S: Save up enough money (over the period of 3 years) to quit and work on what I actually enjoy.

These are just a few examples but you get the gist. Ask yourself a question, find your answer and implement a solution. Easy.

Why would you need to know more about the subject? Why watch hours of people debating on Youtube and TV and make yourself angry and frustrated? Why learn more things that confuse your process and hinder your growth. There are no good reasons.

It is not your duty to stay informed. As I’ve said before, if something is so important and life altering, someone will tell you. If not, then it clearly doesn’t concern you and you shouldn’t waste your life worrying about it.

HOW TO CREATE A LOW INFORMATION LIFESTYLE

Let’s explore how you can best implement the low information diet into your life with just a few simple steps.

SAY NO

You should guard your time with brutal efficiency. If someone wants to meet to talk about something with zero substance or that doesn’t interest you, just tell them no.

If they ask why, just say ‘I don’t want to’. People will learn to respect your time and value your yeses much more.

The quicker you stop trying to please everyone, the quicker they will start trying to please you.

BLOCK NEWS SITES

Just bloody block news sites already. Stop reading horror stories about babies falling down lift shafts in Primark. Who wants to read about morbid tragedies like that anyway?

The news is 9/10 always negative because people love to waste time reading negative articles. Eliminate this and stop getting your kicks from other people’s misfortune. You may not even realise you are guilty of this but the chances are – you are.

Just block them and watch your baseline wellbeing shoot up.

BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF

Ask yourself, do you really care about what you’re reading about or are you just wasting time? If the answer is no, then stop reading, take a few deep breaths to get back in the zone and do something that makes you happy instead. Easier said than done but with practice, this becomes habit.

ATTACK IS THE BEST FORM OF DEFENCE

Go on the attack!

Don’t leave yourself at the mercy of circumstance.

Get rid of your TV from your room, stop buying gossip mags, stop buying the paper.

None of this stuff really affects you. At the end of the day, we’re all just specks of dust floating on a rock in an infinite void. Don’t make this miniscule amount of time you have such a negative experience. Take matters into your own hands and go on the attack.

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A low information diet is going to revolutionise your life – if you let it. Try it out for 2 weeks and see how much better you feel.

Be sure to follow me on socials to keep up with the daily goings on of The Man Blueprint. You can also sign up for my inner circle using the newsletter form above. Just drop your email in there and it’s job done. Completely free and completely brilliant. Whilst you’re here, have a little browse of some other article you might like below too. You won’t regret it.

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Why waking up at 5AM will change your life overnight

“5am? Surely not!” I hear you cry.

Oh, I’m sure.

By the end of this article I will have almost definitely swayed your opinion on 5am starts from “impossible pseudo-science” to “quite possible pseudo-science that is backed up by science”.

Now a quick bit of backstory – I started waking up at 5am a few months back, around the time I went started investing a lot more time into the blog. I watched a video of some bloke who looked like Frodo telling me how it had improved his life in just 1 week.

And Frodo had a point, the 5am club really started to appeal to me. I did some more digging and found that one of the guys I really admire – Jocko Willink, advocates getting up super early too (4:30am) which gave this early rise malarky some clout.

Being a relatively early riser anyway (7:30 – 8:30 most days) I figured that it wouldn’t be too hard to do. Even knowing that it was stupidly early and expecting it to be a drag for the first few days I found it much easier than expected.

Obviously there’s always going to be an adjustment period but I tell you what – this is powerful stuff. Here’s why you should join the 5am club.

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5AM: BENEFITS

This will be a relatively short list in comparison to how many benefits there actually are. There are countless stories of the most successful people in the world singing the praises of early starts and hundreds of benefits so you’ll be able to find more online if you so desire but here are the ones that are really going to change your life.

WORK CAPACITY

This is the biggest one for me and probably will be for you too. There’s no need to go on your phone at 5am, or 6am, or even 7am. No one else is doing what you’re doing. They’re all asleep. Who are you going to talk to? What are you going to scroll through? No one’s awake!

This means that you have no distractions. Keep your phone off and it will help you to be as productive as you’ve ever been. Those who keep their phones with them when doing a task have been shown to take up to 3 times as long as someone who is solely focused on the task.

I found that statistic absolute mind blowing. In fact, I thought it was stupid, but then I caught myself doing a blog post and checking my phone every minute for notifications and realised just how spot on it was.

If you’re thinking “pfft, I can work AND go on my phone”, I challenge you to do that same work with your phone put away and I guarantee you’ll do it at least twice as fast.

CARRYOVER EFFECTS

Getting up early can have carryover effects into so many different areas of your life. Just building the discipline to get up at 5am is a beneficial trait. If you can have this discipline from the very start of the day then you will feel better equipped to carry this discipline on throughout the day when making other decisions and performing tasks, be that at work or wherever else.

HEADSTART

The headstart element of being an early riser is one of the biggest kicks I get from it – the smugness levels are off the scale. No one else is getting up and at it for at least another 2 hours. You have all this time to perfect your craft, learn something new or whatever the hell you want to do before anyone else even brushes their teeth.

You’ve had time to wake up, hydrate, fuel yourself and really start hitting your stride by lunch time whereas other people are only really getting going by 11am and then they have their lunch time slump, so in actual fact you’re probably being about 10 times more effective than them. You will also be able to start calling these people ‘normies’ on 5am Reddit subthreads.

For me, I have found this headstart to be invaluable. One big thing that I have noticed has given me a sly competitive edge is that I can do my emails really early. If you time them right, yours can be the first email that brands, clients, etc see in their inbox.

This may seem like a small thing but being the first person they deal with before they get time to become miffed at lots of other things in their day is a huge boost. You’re basically catching them on a good day, every day.

CALM

There’s literally no noise. I live on top of a hill so I can’t vouch for the city centre but I’ll bet no one else is awake apart from a few night club goers who still haven’t given up the sauce. It’s calming & it helps you get in the right headspace for productivity due to the absence of constant distraction.

I have never felt peace and quiet like when I started getting up at 5am and leaving my phone in my room. You become fully immersed in a task and I can only describe it as a state of flow. I’m not trying to be some sort of online Bruce Lee calmness master but the stillness of the early morning is something to be savoured in a world so full of noise.

YOUR OWN PACE

There’s also no rush to be anywhere when you’re up so early. For the majority of people, you will start work at 9am. This may mean rolling out of bed at 8:15 running round getting dressed, doing your teeth (if you have time – you dirty scoundrel) and stumbling out the door with a piece of toast hanging out your mouth. The mindset you leave your house in is not going to be great – your mind will probably look like a monkey playing symbols over and over (visual representation).

By giving yourself another 3 hours, you can take life at your own pace. You have all the time in the world to get ready, have a god damn groom if you so please and even have some breakfast if that’s what you’re in to.

If you want to de-stress even further, you could leave for work a bit earlier and miss the crowds of early morning masses. Basically, getting up at 5am is going to open up a whole world of options for you.

NO DECISION FATIGUE

5am is the best time to make your big decisions. Decision fatigue is something I have talked quite a lot about and is something I firmly believe in. It’s the theory that we only have a finite amount of good decisions we can make in a day. After that, we start to make poorer and poorer ones (late night snacks anyone?).

That’s why I recommend using your stores up early on the big decisions. This is also known as eating the frog. If you make your biggest decisions at the beginning of the day, everything after that will pale in comparison, making your day progressively easier, every day.

This is key to consistency and as we all know, consistency over time is what will inevitably determine success. The best way to conserve your decisions is to automate your days as much as possible. This is why you’ll see a lot of successful people wearing the same clothes every day (Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Spongebob…).

This is because they don’t want to waste time and energy thinking about what they need to wear that day, they want to use that energy to make the big boy decisions that really matter. My way of doing this without having to dress like beige personified is to simply pick your outfit the night before – easy.

I also fast for the first 6 hours after I wake up. In this time I’ll do a workout and do as much blog work as I can. This means I don’t have to think about food and I don’t have to think about when I’m going to work out that day – I just do it automatically.

What this does is free lots of time and mental energy for my actual work on the blog and means I can write droves of bollocks like this article you’re currently knee deep in. This is something that a lot of you will be able to implement quite easily, but for that extra bit of insurance, I’m about to show you exactly how you can.

HOW I DO IT AND WHY YOU SHOULD TOO

You’ve got the why – and it’s a convincing set of whys is it not? Now all you need is the how. This is the hard part, but if you implement all of these tips that I’m going to give you then you’ll have your life changed overnight.

THE NIGHT BEFORE

I recommend this to all my personal training clients – get a night time routine and get that phone off! Screens release blue light, which stops the secretion of melatonin – meaning you’re going to find it really hard to get to sleep and when you do, it’s going to be of a much worse quality than if you hadn’t gone straight from the screen to the pillow.

I recommend first of all, to switch your phone off at least 30 minutes before you go to bed, ideally an hour. I’d then go a step further and get yourself a pair of blue light blocking glasses. I got a pair for £25 off Amazon and they’ve been fantastic for my sleep quality. Put them on around 7pm and it’ll help your body continue to secrete melatonin and aid in getting quality sleep.

If you want to go a step further, place your phone out of your room for the night and turn it off. This will stop you from being tempted to go on it through the night or in the morning when you’re trying to get things done.

SET GOALS

You should have your goals laid out, ready for you to attack the day straight away in the morning. Without any set goals you lose focus and feel unmotivated. By having them laid out from the off, you don’t have to waste time thinking what you want to achieve and instead, you can just go out and achieve it.

I bought a whiteboard to write my goals down on so I don’t have to go on my phone in the mornings or when I’m setting the goals at night just before bed. This means I can focus solely on the goals and avoid distractions. A whiteboard costs about £10 and will be a fantastic investment for your self-improvement journey.

JUST DO IT

Sometimes you’ve just got to suck it up.

This is basic advice and could be misconstrued as cliche but I promise you it’s not. I’ve had those mornings where I just couldn’t get out of bed (so I thought) but you realise that once you stand up to go and switch your alarm off – you really are already up and out of bed.

All you’ve got to do is make yourself stand there for about 30 seconds. You’re not going to fall back asleep standing up are you? This is a bit of tough self-love. You’ll thank yourself in the long run because the amount of times I had tried to get up at 5am and then just snoozed my alarm and climbed back into bed is criminal.

I had been trying it off and on for years before I just realised all I had to do was put my alarm at the end of my bed, stand up in the morning and simply ‘just do it’. If you want, you could set up a poster of Shia Labeouf at the end of your bed to remind you each morning to get up and get after it.

GET A MANUAL ALARM CLOCK

This was such a biggie for me. When you have your phone as your alarm clock, what do you do? I bet you pick it up, switch the alarm clock off and then scroll through all your notifications for about 10 minutes, if not longer. You then proceed to roll out of bed feeling horrible because you’ve just exposed yourself to a bright, blue light-laden screen so soon after waking up and the day’s off to a fat stinker.

How do I know that?

Because that’s what I used to do! We all do it – apps are optimised for grabbing your attention and keeping you there. It’s horrible but that’s how they make their money.

If you want to take your attention and early morning productivity back into your own hands then you should invest in a manual alarm clock. You’ll have seen mine on my Instagram stories no doubt. That cost me about £15 and was one of the best investments I’ve made this year.

GET A ROUTINE

Having a morning routine is the key to getting yourself out of bed and awake as quickly and efficiently as possible. By having a certain routine you do every morning, it lets your body know that it has to start doing the same thing at the same time every day.

This means that if you’re always waking up and doing a certain routine, your body will start to release hormones that will help you to wake up at the same time every day. This is why people who work for the postal service that have got up at 5am their entire working life have a hard time not waking up that early when they retire – their bodies are finely tuned to get them up early naturally.

You can find my morning routine recommendations here. I also recommend doing a few sets of dead hangs to stretch out the body after a full night of being laid still along with some outdoor box breathing.

Being out in the fresh air and doing light exercise stimulates the body and helps you to adjust to the early wake ups initially. It also helps to regulate the early morning cortisol spike which is ideal for many health reasons such as hormonal balance & appetite regulation.

THE COFFEE SANDWICH

This is a lovely name I conjured up for a very standard method – however, the results it gives you are brilliant.

Basically, when you wake up, do your routine and whatever you do when you wake up. THEN, have a pint of water. After this, make yourself a strong cup of the black stuff and sip on that to get a nice wee buzz. Once you’ve had that and you’re feeling good about the world, have another pint of water.

This process takes me about half an hour as I’ll take my time whilst I crack on with work. It’s a great way to get into a productive mindset whilst gamifying your hydration so it’s not as much of a chore.

Being hydrated is a key element of being productive. It also helps to get you into an alert and productive mindset as soon as possible when you wake up.

HAVE A SCHEDULE

You should have a schedule of things you want to get done before your day starts. If you don’t have anything planned then what’s the point? Just getting up at 5am isn’t going to change your life – you have to fill the time with things you want to get done. If you don’t have anything set out then your body will just go back into rest mode because there’s no need to be awake.

I suggest dedicating this time to something you want to get really good at – I mean really good at. This way, you can frame your 5am time as mastering your craft.

This could be an hour of dedicated reading around a topic that interests you, it could be painting, writing, working out, researching – it could even be gaming! Whatever it is that you really want to get good at, you should dedicate these golden hours to making it happen.

Personally, I like to try and get a blog post done. This post is actually currently being written in my 5am hours. I started at 05:30 and finished at 08:00. When you’re in a state of flow without your phone to distract you, you’ll be astonished at the sort of workload you can get through.

REDEFINE YOURSELF

“Ooo I’m a night owl look at me I sit up on my phone in bed until 3am because I come alive at night!”. No you don’t. You stay awake at night because you lay in bed on your phone for hours scrolling social media.

I’ll be honest with you now, no one ever got anything great done when they were sleep deprived at night, bleary eyed, watching another greatest premier league goals montage on their phone.

You need to redefine yourself. If you keep telling yourself you’re a night owl then you’ll believe it and you’ll never get up. You need to tell yourself the truth – that it’s a pile of garbage and that you have the power to change your habits & change your life.

*One thing to note*

I know the 5am club simply can’t be for everyone. People have kids or commitments that prevent them from getting into this sort of routine but if you can, maybe just try one day a week and you’ll see some massive benefits.

If you do have the time to start getting up at 5am then make it your biggest priority, you’ll thank yourself in the long run.

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Be sure to follow me on socials to keep up with the daily goings on of The Man Blueprint. You can also sign up for my inner circle using the newsletter form above. Just drop your email in there and it’s job done. Completely free and completely brilliant. Whilst you’re here, have a little browse of some other article you might like below too. You won’t regret it.

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Turn your commute into the most productive part of your day

We’ve all been there – the morning commute. Then followed with a back-breaking 9-5. THEN followed with the evening commute. Repeat this 5 days a week for the rest of your godforsaken life and you can see why the majority of people turn into cement-faced zombies by the time they’re 30.

I’m about to unleash a whole flurry of productivity on you in order to prevent zombification. You’ve got no excuse here either – there’s something for everyone; Trains, planes, automobiles (even cyclists) – I’ve got you covered.

Here’s how you turn your commute into the most productive part of your day.

THE MORNING COMMUTE KING: PODCASTS / AUDIOBOOKS

Podcasts and audiobooks are two of the most popular pastimes nowadays. We are cash rich and time poor, so why sit down to read a book when you could have someone (with a lovely soothing voice) read to you whilst you crack on with another task?

Listening to podcasts and audiobooks on your way to work can relax you before the hectic day ahead and give you insight into the minds of experts in various fields. Tim Ferris runs an excellent podcast where he interviews lots of experts and celebrities – it’s funny and engaging, which is probably why it’s so popular.

You could also listen to audiobooks such as Rich Dad, Poor Dad or The Art of War to expand your mind during those soul-wrenching journeys to and from work.

STAND UP

You’re off to sit down all day, ruining your posture and your health in the process. Why would you want to sit down some more on your way to sitting down? Standing up on your way to work can give you roughly an hour’s extra physical exercise (assuming your commute is a half hour) per day. Now obviously I know you can’t do this in your car, but if you take public transport, give standing a chance.

Standing has so many benefits that people are completely unaware of, due to the fact it’s such a medial activity. Standing for just one fourth of your day can reduce your risk of obesity by 32%, improve your posture, increase your lung capacity and reduce your risk of diabetes.

There are so may more benefits to standing that you simply can’t be missing out on. Aim to stand for at least 3 hours of each day and then try to work your way up to 6 or 7 hours. This can have a profound effect on your health and may be the key to reversing some of the ailments you suffer from that you may have thought were just part and parcel of life.

EMAILS / WRITING

Early in the day is when your creative juices are fully flowing. This is before your head is filled with a million tasks and your boss’s voice is ringing in your ears.

The morning calm can let your mind be free and if you are in any way required to write for your job, then this is the time to get your best work done. I tend to write my best articles early in the morning as I have no stressors or distractions at this time.

Obviously if you don’t need to write, you can get all of your emails in check before you even get to work, freeing up your morning to do whatever you please. This can skyrocket your productivity in work as you won’t have to keep checking in with your emails to see which daft idiot has dared to disturb your coffee break.

Now you have no excuse to sit and zone out on the way to and from the rat race. No more getting stressed about that fat smelly gentleman taking up half your seat on the train. You can put your mind to work and get your day off to a flyer.

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Be sure to follow me on socials to keep up with the daily goings on of The Man Blueprint. You can also sign up for my inner circle using the newsletter form above. Just drop your email in there and it’s job done. Completely free and completely brilliant. Whilst you’re here, have a little browse of some other article you might like below too. You won’t regret it.

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How to start a men's lifestyle blog - from the pros

By the end of this article, you’re going to know exactly how and why you should be starting a men’s lifestyle blog. Let’s get into it.

What would you do if you could round up your industry’s leaders? Would you gawp at them or would you pick their brains about how they got to where they are? Luckily, I went for the latter and decided to reach out to some of the top men’s bloggers to quiz them on how they got to where they are and what tips they’d give for starting up your very own men’s lifestyle blog.

MEN’S LIFESTYLE BLOG? WHAT’S THAT?

When I started out my men’s lifestyle blog, there was a wealth of info out there about starting a blog but, a lot of it was focused around female blogging – which seems to be a much larger market than the male equivalent. Don’t get me wrong, that’s fine – if there’s a bigger market for that then fair play.

But my blog was a men’s lifestyle blog. 

With this in mind, I decided to get as many of the top brass as I could involved in the creation of this guide so that the men’s lifestyle market could finally have the guide that all of us would have wanted when we were starting out.

This will hopefully be the new blogger’s holy grail, so listen closely and milk these answers for everything they’re worth. All bloggers – both those starting out and those who think of themselves as seasoned veterans, can pick up some fantastic tips along the way.

If you’d like to learn more from any of the guys down below then drop them a line – I’ll link their contacts underneath.

Right, let’s get down to it.

SAM SQUIRE

Imsamsquire.co.uk // Twitter // Instagram
Hello@imsamsquire.co.uk

How and why did you get into blogging?

My sister is a blogger and I saw the cool things she got involved in and when I started 4 years ago there wasn’t a whole tonne of guys doing it. There was loads of girls blogging about fashion and lifestyle, however not a load of guys.

I thought I would give it a try and see if there is a niche out there for male bloggers. Really it was just to fill a bit of time, and I definitely didn’t think that 4 years later I would still be going and people would still be reading!

What is your blog and how has it evolved over time?

I think it’s gone from being something that I can use to fill a bit of time here and there to being a real hobby! I personally have no intentions to ever become a full time blogger, but it’s become something that is actually recognised within the industry.

When I first started I was always looking for a break, looking to work with people and emailing around to see what opportunities brands had. Unfortunately most weren’t actually interested in working with me, however now brands contact me asking for collaborations, advertising and sponsorship deals and I have had some massive opportunities to work with brands.

What are the 3 most important factors when it comes to making your blog a success?

Patience

The first is patience, I was so keen to get going and start working with brands at the beginning that when it didn’t happen, I felt like I must’ve been doing something wrong. That’s definitely not the case, it just takes time!

Hard work

The second is hard work, like with anything in life, you don’t get success without a bit of graft. If you’re not in it for the hard work then don’t even try – you need to be prepared to put time into your content to make it the best it could possibly be!

Honesty

My third is honesty, list most honest creators, I am sick of seeing new creators come along and get 50k followers in a month by using bots to grow their followings. It’s important to remain honest and get your growth organically, otherwise you’ve lost the respect of fellow creators before you’ve even started!

Is there anyone you looked to for help when starting out and why?

Honestly, not really! When I first started I felt super inadequate compared to some of the awesome creators out there. I really looked up to creators like John from The Everyday Man, and Matthew Zorpas from The Gentleman Blogger – they were two people that definitely shaped the way I create my content.

I think on the most part though you can reach out to any content creator with any questions or to ask for advice, really we’re a pretty tight community in the male blogging sphere, minus a few that have cheated their way to success – so we’re all pretty happy to give new creators a bit of direction!

What advice would you give to new men’s lifestyle bloggers in 140 characters?

Work hard, engage with as many creators as you can, and make the most of the experience – don’t forget to showcase your personality!

Sam Squire

CURTIS ROSCOE

Curtisluke.com // Instagram
curtisroscoe@gmail.com

Who are you?

Hi! My names Curtis Roscoe, I run the blog CurtisLuke.com where I chat all about fashion, lifestyle and travel. I’m from Wales but currently study in university in London.

How and why did you get into blogging?

I got into blogging through writing for other sites and through internships in the entertainment industry. I decided that this was something I genuinely love so created my blog back in May!

What is your blog and how has it evolved over time?

My blog has and always will be a personal blog. The name ‘CurtisLuke’ comes from my first and middle name. I’m only ever called Curtis Luke by my closest family members. So having this as an overall theme for my blog made it feel so much more personal.

It’s evolved because now I feel like I’ve become more daring in my writing. I’m not scared to challenge views and express my opinions.

What are the 3 most important factors when it comes to making your blog a success?

Passion

Write what you are passionate about (the biggest thing).

Authenticity

Don’t pretend, be authentic. Don’t try write a positive review about something you didn’t like.

Time

Take your time. The best bloggers don’t shoot out a 500 word blog post everyday, they take time.

Is there anyone you looked to for help when starting out and why?

I looked to some bloggers that I followed before I started people like Em Sheldon. She’s a great example of someone who balances being able to blog effectively and also showcase this through social media. You genuinely feel invested in her life. Ali Gordon is another great example. His work ethic is insane.

What advice would you give to new men’s lifestyle bloggers in 140 characters?

Be you, be bold, be brace. Don’t be scared to challenge blogging stereotypes, make your own trend.

Curtis Roscoe

CARL THOMPSON

Carlthompson.co.uk // Twitter // Instagram 
Carl@pincollarshirts.co.uk

Who are you?

I’m Carl Thompson, 5 years ago I left a very successful career in IT to pursue a better work/life balance in the menswear industry. In 2013 I launched ‘Hawkins & Shepherd‘ and began selling luxury, hand-crafted shirts, suits, coats and accessories.

Shortly after I launched blog – I now work from home 7 days a week from 7.30am to about 10pm most days, if not later. 

How and why did you get into blogging?

To begin with I was looking to drive more traffic to my Menswear label, but it soon came apparent that the blog was developing into something separate and deserved its own platform. More and more people were coming to me for advice and I wanted to provide a place for people that wanted to further themselves.

What is your blog and how has it evolved over time?

Primarily it’s still menswear orientated. Menswear is my wheelhouse and I can write prolifically and importantly; fast, when it comes to menswear. Sometime ago Menswear began to bleed into other areas like Lifestyle, and I wanted to talk about things other than fashion such as travel, cars etc.

And Carl Thompson the blog became an extension of Carl Thompson the person. I love showing off the blog now, although I’ll forever be tweaking it. It has to evolve.

What are the 3 most important factors when it comes to making your blog a success?

Imagery

Imagery is key and is paramount on my blog. I collaborate with a lot of other talented bloggers and photographers. If you’re looking to get into blogging, then I suggest investing in fair-to-middling camera.

You can pick one up between the £100-200 mark second hand and just experiment. Watch online tutorials and convince your friends or folks to get you some photography classes for Xmas.

Work ethic

You have to be willing to get up before everyone else, work longer than everyone else and turn up to a lot of events for free. You’ll have to write a lot of reviews for free. If you have a laissez faire attitude towards blogging it will forever be a hobby, not a success.

Be an all-rounder

It’s not just enough being a good writer, or a good photographer. You have to be knowledgeable about multiple social media platforms. You have to know how websites and WordPress templates work.

I’ve come to realise that you have to have as many arrows in your quiver as possible. (Even now I’m learning the world of podcasting). If you think you’re going to get by on your good looks then good luck. You won’t be able to ride that gravy train forever.

What advice would you give to new men’s lifestyle bloggers in 140 characters?

1. Rocky Balboa – It ain’t how hard you hit, it’s how hard you get hit and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.

2. Yoda – Do, or do not. There is no “try”

3. Rafiki – Oh yes, the past can hurt. But you can either run from it, or learn from it.

4. Ferris Bueller – Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

5. Neil McCauley – You want to be making moves on the street, have no attachments, allow nothing to be in your life that you cannot walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you spot the heat around the corner.

Oh wait… did you mean characters as in… oh boy that’s embarrassing. But phew, 140? I thought I was going to be here all night.

Carl Thompson

MICHAEL ADAMS

Michael84.co.uk // Twitter // Instagram
Hola@michael84.co.uk

How and why did you get into blogging?

I have always had an interest in the web and creating things, and have made other web properties such as websites and forums, so moving on to a men’s lifestyle blog was a natural progression for me.

What is your blog and how has it evolved over time?

Michael 84 is about men’s fashion and lifestyle, and combines personal thoughts and reviews, to news and information about what’s going on in menswear and everything guys like.

What are the 3 most important factors when it comes to making your blog a success?

Work

Putting the work in is definitely the first, you need great content for people to want to come and read it.

Promotion

Being active promoting it is another, this can be by utilising social media.

Perseverance

The last thing is to keep going, so many people start a men’s lifestyle blog because they think it’s a good idea and then it fades away. Most the successful ones are the ones who keep persevering.

Is there anyone you looked to for help when starting out and why?

Not really, since this has been more of a passion than anything else and it’s something which I am interested in. The web is always changing so I am always learning, and do a lot of reading and discussing the more technical sides of running a blog.

What advice would you give to new men’s lifestyle bloggers in 140 characters?

Start a blog for the right reasons and make sure that you’re prepared to work on it, make sure it’s ready then just put it out there.

Michael Adams

JOHN ROBERTSON

Theeverydayman.com // Twitter // Instagram
mail@theeverydayman.co.uk

Who are you?

I’m John and I’ve been writing The Everyday Man for 5 years now.  It’s essentially a men’s lifestyle blog that brings together things that I like with a slight editorial edge.  I cover lots of topics so I hope that most people will find at least one strand that they can resonate with.

How and why did you get into blogging?

I started it back in 2012 as a hobby with no vision of it ever becoming anything more than that.  Over time the growth came and I started to take it more seriously.

What is your blog and how has it evolved over time?

It’s a lifestyle site so I cover a whole range of topics, everything from cars to art and culture to travel.  I love the variety of stuff that it enables me to experience.  Over time it has become a lot more structured but I still try to keep my original ethos of only featuring things that I like or would like to try.

What are the 3 most important factors when it comes to making your blog a success?

Hard work, creativity and commitment I’d say.

Is there anyone you looked to for help when starting out and why?

Of course.  My friend Paula started a site around the same time (The LDN Diaries) and I took a lot of help from her in the beginning.

What advice would you give to new men’s lifestyle bloggers in 140 characters?

Don’t become one of those generic samey sites. By being yourself and not following that mould you will stand out instantly from the crowd.

John Robertson

RORY CARRICK

Eatdrinkrunfun.com // Twitter // Instagram
Rory@eatdrinkrunfun.com

Who are you?

I’m Rory, I’m 40 years of age and my day job is working in the School of Psychology in Trinity College Dublin. I’ve been with them 12 years and am a quadruple graduate of Trinity. This year I’ve returned to study with them for a fifth time and am working through an M.Sc in Digital Marketing Strategy.

How and why did you get into blogging?

I had spent a lot of time studying part time and decided to take a break. I’m a man of many interests and always tied with the idea of doing some writing. I had been reading blogs for years and thought, what better way to try my hand at some writing and at the same time explore my interests which had been put on hold while I studied.

What is your blog and how has it evolved over time?

My men’s lifestyle blog is an eclectic mix of content. I have a strong interest in food and drink so there is an emphasis on that. I’ve also spent time studying wine so you will see some wine reviews scattered throughout it. Movies, travel and running are also passions of mine which feature on the site.

I suppose the blog is a reflection of me. Depending on what is going on in my life the content will change. There may be a burst of travel if I have been away, or a feature on running if I’ve been spending too much time eating and drinking. It’s essentially a diary of my adventures in life.

What are the 3 most important factors when it comes to making your blog a success?

Success?

First I think you need to decide what success means to you. To me, it’s knowing that people read it. I have a full time job so my focus is not on making it into a monetised platform. I write about my interests and that comes first. If a commercial opportunity comes along, I’d consider it, but its not paramount for me.

Effort

Other factors I would consider are making the effort to put the time into your content. If you want people to read it then content is key. Write with passion and people will read with joy.

Numbers

Lastly, I would say, don’t get caught up with numbers. Sure everyone wants their blog read but 40 engaged readers who give you feedback are worth more than a 100 who never talk/engage with you at all. An audience will grow over time and you will find your voice and your niche.

Is there anyone you looked to for help when starting out and why?

Yes, the technical aspects of setting up a blog can be trick. Buying your domain and getting to grips with all the roles a blogger has to play. You are writer, editor, photographer, videographer, marketer and promoter of your work.

I was lucky to have friends in the blogging world who were generous with their time and gave me plenty of set up help. Tips that ranged from, the best way to take photos of food to linking your social media accounts and not being afraid to share your work.

What advice would you give to new men’s lifestyle bloggers in 140 characters?

Be you. Be your own voice and write about what excites you. Focus on your own work and don’t copy others and you will find your place.

Rory Carrick

PETER GEMMELL

Thegentlemanselect.com // Twitter // Instagram 
info@thegentlemanselect.com

Who are you?

My name is Peter and I’m the founder and editor of the men’s lifestyle blog, The Gentleman Select. Through my passion for blogging and fashion I have expanded into contributing to the Telegraph Men’s Fashion section, worked with brands such as Wax London, Mercedes Benz and Braun all whilst meeting some wonderful people along the way.

How and why did you get into blogging?

I actually got into blogging through a couple of factors. Initially my good friend John who runs The Everyday Man had been doing this for some time and I caught a bit of the bug from him.

Also for as long as I can remember I’ve always had an interest in fashion and various lifestyle aspects so to be able to put in writing what I like and importantly what I feel readers would like to know about was a huge influential factor for me.

What is your blog and how has it evolved over time?

The Gentleman Select has a focus on men’s fashion, lifestyle and motoring. It covers many aspects which are current and also more niche areas which may be slightly more off the radar to many readers but I feel they would love to know about.

The blog has evolved in such an amazing way as originally it focused on Horology (watches), another passion of mine, however as I began to introduce more and more of my other interests it evolved and expanded rapidly.

What are the 3 most important factors when it comes to making your blog a success?

Content

For me the first has got to be creating great, engaging content. Through doing this, it keeps my regular readers excited and engaged and also grows my new, unique visitors as well.

Consistency

This then nicely leads in to the second important factor and that is posting content regularly. It stops the blog getting stale and keeps my momentum going.

Imagery

For me it is also important to have strong images to compliment the article, this can give the viewers a great insight into what a jacket, for example, may look like on, this in turn also helps the brands you are working with.

Is there anyone you looked to for help when starting out and why?

Yes definitely, my friend John of The Everyday Man was a fantastic help to me when starting out. There was certain aspects I was unsure of such as how to respond to various emails and how to lay out and structure my website when building it. Certainly don’t be afraid to ask for help, there’s plenty of people out there ready and willing!

What advice would you give to new men’s lifestyle bloggers in 140 characters?

Simply just keep working away at it. It takes time! Stay true to putting out good content and don’t be drawn into cutting corners to get ahead. You’ll get there!

Peter Gemmell

DAN BARTLE

Ablokeseyeview.co.uk // Instagram
Lifeofdanblog@gmail.com

Who are you?

My name is Dan and I am a part time blogger! I run a men’s lifestyle blog. I have been blogging for a few years now, but recently re-launched my blog due to taking a year out to concentrate on family life as I became a dad last year!

How and why did you get into blogging?

I first got into blogging when my partner started an apprenticeship in PR, she introduced me to blogging as there weren’t many male bloggers around at the time. I thought I would give it a try, I have never had an interest in writing however this totally changed my view on it!

What is your blog and how has it evolved over time?

I originally started with a specialist blog relating to ethical consumerism, however I quickly realised that as this was such a niche subject that it really limited what I could write about and my reader base. My blog has evolved into a men’s lifestyle blog, I don’t have a specialism like some blogs do I just write about anything and everything that I am interested in.

What are the 3 most important factors when it comes to making your blog a success?

Original

Keep your blog original and don’t stray away from your writing style. By doing this you will keep your readers coming back, there are so many bloggers producing plastic posts. They are about different products, however the actual content is same blog after blog.

Social Media

Have a social media “A” game and plan. Social media is the best way to interact with your following, again keep this personal. Show there is an actual human behind your blog and not a robot. So many people make this mistake and schedule post after post, by doing this you can’t always interact to any comments you may receive.

Time

Don’t rush your posts. A lot of people are under the impression you need to post a blog per a day! Some of the bigger bloggers sometimes don’t post once a month! Take time on your posts and always ensure the content you post is relevant. Just remember that if you don’t post in a while to keep on top of your social media.

Is there anyone you looked to for help when starting out and why?

To be honest when I first started my grammar was terrible and my writing style was wooden! I turned to my partner and constantly asked her for feedback so I could improve my content.

What advice would you give to new men’s lifestyle bloggers in 140 characters?

Interact with your following! Ask them for feedback on your posts. Just remember that there are some really honest people on the internet and you might not always like their comments!

Dan Bartle

KRIS STURMEY

1st-man.com // Instagram
business@krissturmey.com 

Who are you?

My name’s Kris founder of 1STMAN, I’m an entrepreneur and director, 25 years old living in London

How and why did you get into blogging?

I started my men’s lifestyle blog because of my own research. I was finding all of this information online in order to improve my own life, and I thought it would be great to share this knowledge and help the male community. I also had a bigger vision of producing high level video content which I knew could begin with a small blog and a loyal following.

What is your blog and how has it evolved over time?

1STMAN focuses on 3 things, showcasing, professionalism and value. We like to combine the best of men’s lifestyles without getting too materialistic. If we were to film a man in a Ferrari with a Rolex on but without any advice/interview content, then it would just be a waste of people’s time.

Therefore we never lose sight of our self-improvement roots which got us to where we are today. In fact that’s how the business has evolved. We’ve increased the professionalism and delivery with each transition without deviating from the original ethos which is so important to us. In short the end vision has remained the same, but the path we took to get there changed multiple times.

What are the 3 most important factors when it comes to making your blog a success?

Promotion

Don’t get caught in a writing cycle. Make sure you’re promoting the content 90% of the time and only writing it 10%. Too many people are concerned with what to write next, however by promoting your best 10 pieces of content relentlessly, they could bring in 50,000 people per month once they rank on Google.

There’s no point spending hours writing content if only 100 people are going to read it. Once you have a huge audience you can write daily in order to keep them there, but at the start rankings are so important.

Detachment

Be detached from the content. Most people start a men’s lifestyle blog and write about themselves and their own experiences. You’re going to run out of content quickly and people will become bored with the “I, me, in my opinion” vibe. Umbrella blogs that have multiple voices and use a report style rather than a story telling style always grow bigger long term.

Originality

Be original. Write every idea and thought down. A lot of people will say that you should simply write all the time and get everything out there. I believe you should write a lot, but only put a few pieces out there. I start with a huge list of potential projects, documentaries, articles, etc that we could produce.

Then I start slashing the typical, boring and bad ideas off the list. Do this until you only have the finest pieces of content left, it’ll improve the overall quality of your blog and force you to think deeper. Take a fashion blog for example. The obvious and boring choice is to write “How men can dress better” but this is dull, it’s been done before and you’re going to get swallowed in the SEO.

Instead sit and come up with original content or alternative ways of producing the same ideas. This increases SEO rankings and gives people a reason to come back to read your content. If your men’s lifestyle blog is a clone of larger and already established blogs, then why would anyone read yours?

Is there anyone you looked to for help when starting out and why?

Sean Russell of Menprovement and myself would talk a lot via email, so he was like a blogging mentor for me. But my main inspiration has to be the likes of GQ, Esquire, Mr Porter etc. I never saw 1STMAN as a simple blog and therefore always looked at the whales of the men’s lifestyle industry as the benchmark.

I was thinking about hosting and filming fashion shows before I even registered the domain name 3-4 years ago, and now we’ve just started doing this type of content.

What advice would you give to new men’s lifestyle bloggers in 140 characters?

Align the brand with the long-term vision and decide upon your entire identity/strategy before you even write a single word.

Kris Sturmey

FRANK CRONIN

fashionablefrank.com // Twitter // Instagram
fashionablefrank@gmail.com

Who are you?

My name is Frank and I am a fashion fanatic! I love sports particularly football and I support Juventus in Italy. In fact I love Italy! It is my favourite country to visit. I love travelling, photography, writing and reading and the gym.

How and why did you get into blogging?

My men’s lifestyle blog is primarily about fashion & lifestyle and recently I have begun to produce fashion and style tip videos. My YouTube channel made the final of the V by Very Blogs Ireland 2017, I was thrilled with this as I have only been shooting video for a short time.

I had no video editing or video shooting experience at all which makes it even more remarkable! fashionablefrank.com has also been as one of the Top 50 UK Men’s Fashion and Style Blogs in 2017, Top 100 Men’s lifestyle Blogs as well as shortlisted for Best Fashion Blog in Ireland in 2016 and 2017.

My aim is for my blog is to become a resource for any man wishing to dress better and feel more confident about their personal style. I believe the better you look, the better you feel! I realise not every guy is interested in fashion so I try to write posts which appeal to every man regardless of his level of interest in fashion.

Looking good to one guy is totally different to what another would consider to be well dressed so I mix up my posts to appeal to most guys. My blog is quite detailed from the point of view it shows easy to understand tips like;

• How to wear…the latest trends, white jeans, khaki, a grey blazer etc

• What to wear…to different events like a christening, the races, on a date etc

• Every man needs…certain pieces in his wardrobe like a grey blazer

• Style tips…my sale shopping tips with practical advice and the pieces I have picked for great prices.

What is your blog and how has it evolved over time?

During my short career my blog has evolved through the use of technology. I have discovered some new passions like photography and producing videos, both of which are challenging but rewarding! I get to travel quite a bit too so I want to write more about these experiences too.

What are the 3 most important factors when it comes to making your blog a success?

This is a difficult question to answer since success can be defined in a number of ways. For me, the factors I think you need for a successful blog are;

Happiness

Happiness! Blogging is a lonely, sometimes derided hobby/profession but why you started it is what will keep you going! Success means different things to different people.

It might sound absurd but happiness is certainly a crucial factor in the success of a blog. There will be times when running your blog will be tough! We all experience it. Is it worth it? No one reads my stuff? Etc its in these moments of desperation you need to remember why you started your blog.

Recognition

While happiness is important I think recognition of your hard work is amazing to receive and develops hunger for more. Recognition is also a sign your on the right track for the industry you are in. I encourage entering awards and competitions because they give you a glimpse of what others are doing. Its an opportunity to learn too.

Down Time

I think it is important to have some down time with your blog. Yes, it is a passion almost an obsession BUT sometimes taking a break from it can lead to new ideas and recharge the creative batteries. Taking some time off will feed the hunger and passion for your blog again! This is something I have learnt during my short blogging career.

Is there anyone you looked to for help when starting out and why

This probably sounds bad but no. I had an idea and saw a niche in the market and went for it. My aim is to help guys to look good, dress better and feel more confident about their fashion and style choices. I want to show guys you don’t have to spend a lot of money on big brand names to look good.

You won’t instantly look better because you are rocking a big brand name. Fashion pieces and how you style them will determine how you look, good or bad. Factors like colour flow and how you layer clothes are what creates a great outfit! It is about the synergy of your outfit. The power of looking good cannot be underestimated! If you look good, you feel good!

What advice would you give to new men’s lifestyle bloggers in 140 characters?

Try to spot a niche in the market. The industry can be tough & very competitive but focus on why you started your blog. Believe in yourself!

Frank Cronin

MIKE LYONS

Mklyns.com // Twitter // Instagram
Mklyns1@gmail.com

Who are you?

My name is Mike Lyons and I’m a part time blogger from a small city called Chester in the north west of England.

How and why did you get into blogging?

I’ve always been interested in menswear, lifestyle and interior design and the launch of Instagram only fuelled my interest. This helped me find new blogs and ultimately led to me bite the bullet and launch my own blog last year!

What is your blog and how has it evolved over time?

I think my blog is relatively young in terms of some bloggers but it’s started to gain some good traction recently which has helped me to work with brands I never expected to have the opportunity to! My blog is mainly ramblings about places I visit, products I love and new menswear collections from some of my favourite brands.

What are the 3 most important factors when it comes to making your blog a success?

I’d definitely say consistency and quality is a huge factor, stick to a similar theme across your content and actually create content you’d want to read yourself!

Is there anyone you looked to for help when starting out and why?

To be honest I read so many blogs and I’m finding new ones week in week out. All of them have some sort of influence, a lot of them set the bar very high content wise which gives me some great ideas for my own pieces.

What advice would you give to new men’s lifestyle bloggers in 140 characters?

Create content you’d want to read yourself, invest in a half decent camera, use light to your advantage & keep your content similar in style if you want to make a successful men’s lifestyle blog.

ANDY LONGLEY

Offthecuffldn.co.uk // Twitter // Instagram
Offthecuffldn@gmail.com

Who are you?

My names Andy Longley, I’m the co-founder at off the cuff / ldn where I spend most of my time but I also work agency and client side in the digital industry with large fashion brands across the UK & Europe and I’m currently based in Amsterdam working on ASICS’ digital strategy.

How and why did you get into blogging?

It was a passion thing really, after struggling to find men’s lifestyle blogs blogs that really represented the brands we were interested in we decided to go out on our own and setup a site covering everything we couldn’t find elsewhere.

We really felt British brands that weren’t on the high street were being overlook and we wanted to change that.

What is your blog and how has it evolved over time?

Our aim is to bring together a unique blend of British heritage & modern minimalism to create a magazine & men’s lifestyle blog that celebrates British style culture and embraces the aesthetics & inspirations behind modern men’s style.

Nowadays we only really work with the brands we love, showcasing accessible premium menswear and lifestyle products to create a blog that we hope you’ll find refreshingly different & inspiring.

What are the 3 most important factors when it comes to making your blog a success?

Passion

You have to have a genuine passion for it, if not you won’t last long as it’s not as easy as people may assume, something other than likes and shares need to keep you motivated.

Design

Not the sexiest topic but it’s crucial to be have the right CMS. We spent the first year of our men’s lifestyle blog constantly fighting against a limited system with a poor design and it distracts you from everything else that matters.

Identity

Have a clear point of view that runs through all your posts. With every generic men’s lifestyle blog out there, the majority pass people by. You need to let people know what your blog stands for that others don’t.

Is there anyone you looked to for help when starting out and why?

I’m a big fan of Mr Porter’s journal and took a lot of inspiration from there, in terms of direct help from people – we had to rely on a few web development colleagues to get us all the functionality and clean design we have now.

What advice would you give to new men’s lifestyle bloggers in 140 characters?

Choose a topic you’ll always enjoy. Find a perspective that’s different to the rest. Put equal effort into sharing content as producing it.

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Now you have all the knowledge on starting, evolving & making a success of your men’s lifestyle blog. Obviously it doesn’t have to be a men’s lifestyle blog – it can be any sort of blog you want. But, foundations of a men’s lifestyle blog can be applied to any sort of blog you can think of.

Reckon I could say men’s lifestyle blog any more?

All that’s left to do is apply what all the guys have said and maybe one day you’ll make it into an article like this!

Make sure to follow each of the fantastic interviewees to stay up to date with what they’re doing – I’m sure you’ll pick up a tip or two along the way.

Be sure to follow me on socials to keep up with the daily goings on of The Man Blueprint. You can also sign up for my inner circle using the newsletter form above. Just drop your email in there and it’s job done. Completely free and completely brilliant. Whilst you’re here, have a little browse of some other article you might like below too. You won’t regret it.

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Productivity tips that will triple your output in minutes

Productivity is at the forefront of everyone’s mind. We all want to be more efficient with our time when it comes to work output. How good would it be if we could half the time it took to write that essay, draft that report or read that book?

Well look no further, because these productivity tricks will help you triple your productivity in no time…

PRODUCTIVITY STARTS WITH NO PHONE

Literally the most important thing you will ever do for your productivity.

Put your phone away for one hour and I guarantee your productivity will shoot through the roof. Doing this stops you from looking at distractions like facebook, emails, whatsapp, snapchat etc and lets you focus solely on the task at hand.

If you simply can’t cope without your phone for more than 5 minutes then at least turn it on silent and look at it every 20 minutes so you’re not constantly bombarded with buzzing and notifications. This way you can get more work done but still maintain that oh-so important social media presence.

SET A SCHEDULE

Don’t just make a huge to-do list consisting of 50 unrelated tasks you need to get done, because you simply won’t get them done. What I suggest is a method called ‘time-blocking‘.

Basically, time-blocking means getting all of your to-do list and ordering it into certain time periods where you will get it done. This way, instead of attacking your list un-methodically and burning out, you will have set time-frames to guide you and give you a deadline to work towards.

Not only does this give you rigid guides so you know exactly what to do and when, it motivates you to try and beat these times, giving you more longer to rest between blocks.

GET UP EARLY

No one ever accomplished anything great rolling out of bed at 12pm, making a piece of toast and watching Jeremy Kyle for 4 hours straight. Late rising breeds mediocrity, make sure you get up at 9am latest every single day and make every minute count.

This means waking up, going through your morning ritual and starting work on whatever goals you have set yourself that day/week/month. There’s a reason so many successful people say the key to their success was waking up early every day – do it.

PRIORITISE

To be productive you need to realise what is conducive to your goals and what isn’t. If you’ve got an important deadline coming up in the next week or so, which is more important – Working proactively towards your deadline, using all the hours God sends…Or playing your Xbox for 7 hours every day sat in your boxers eating chocolate.

Learn how to prioritise effectively and you’ll see your output grow exponentially. Sometimes you will have to make important sacrifices – I found it so hard to do any work when I had my Xbox I had to sell it (I actually did this three times because I kept buying it back but I’m video game-sober now…mostly).

This way I got work done and passed all my exams. Sometimes you have to look at the bigger picture and decide where you want your life to go.

DON’T MULTITASK

Multitasking leads to burnout. Trying to juggle your emails, writing, reading and whatever else is just a recipe for disaster. Make sure you set one task and concentrate all your efforts into getting that completed instead of half-trying to complete all sorts of other things. It’s far better to do one task at 100% effort than 2 at 50%.

PROCRASTINATE

Set a little bit of time every couple of hours in order to have a 15 minute walk, watch a couple of Youtube videos or reply to any messages you have on your phone.

Setting this time aside throughout the day allows you to unwind and stops you burning out earlier than you otherwise would. I find that using procrastination can let me work for far longer than if I tried to simply work through with no breaks.

WATER

Often overlooked, but keeping yourself hydrated not only keeps your muscle strong and body healthy – it keeps your mind as sharp as possible. Your brain consumes a lot of calories and a lot of fluid in order to stay at peak performance. Think of water as your brain’s fuel – if it’s not getting that fuel you’re not getting that performance.

There you have it.

Get out there and enjoy all the time you’ll save with all this new productivity power.

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Be sure to follow me on socials to keep up with the daily goings on of The Man Blueprint. You can also sign up for my inner circle using the newsletter form above. Just drop your email in there and it’s job done. Completely free and completely brilliant. Whilst you’re here, have a little browse of some other article you might like below too. You won’t regret it.

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The 80/20 Rule: Benefits of the Pareto Principle

WHAT IS 80/20?

The Pareto Principle or as it’s more commonly known, the 80/20 rule, was devised by Joseph Juran in 1896. In its most basic terms, it argues that 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts. This can be observed throughout all walks of life – economics, science, software and even sports & exercise.

One interesting thing I like to focus on is exercise. In exercise 20% of your exercises are going to get you 80% of the gains (think compound movements) and the extra 80% will add in your 20% extra to the gains (think isolation movements and pump training).

This shows us how wasting time with our inefficient high rep, no weight-progression training methods will not be the exercises getting us results, but the constant progressive overload of muscles with lower rep strength-based moves are.

WHAT BENEFITS DOES IT HOLD?

In short, the benefits you can reap from applying the 80/20 rule to every aspect of your life are;

• Allows you to funnel your approach and focus your full energy into a task.

• Lets you discard pointless fluff in your life that is holding you back unnecessarily.

• Gives perspective to your actions and lets you evaluate what’s working and what’s not.

• Gives you more free time to address other areas of your life and helps you develop as a person at an accelerated rate.

SITUATIONS YOU CAN APPLY IT TO

If you’re trying to build a business do you know what’s handy? You guessed it, the 80/20 rule. 80% of your results come from 20% of what you do. If you’re starting a blog and you’re on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, RSS, Tumblr – whatever, then you’re going to spread yourself so thinly that you forget to focus on your core content.

You should focus on where your main traffic is coming from (likely Twitter and Instagram) and roll with them. This will be where your 80% is coming from. Once you stop focusing on sharing your content on every platform possible, you can spend more time perfecting that content so it’s worthy to actually be shared with your audience.

BOOKS TO GIVE YOU A COMPLETE OVERVIEW

There’s only really one book that you will need to read on this topic and that’s The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less by Richard Koch. This book gives a comprehensive overview of 80/20 and shows you how exactly you can implement it into your daily life.

There’s been lots of 80’s and 20’s in this post but the basic message is cut out the ineffective fluff and focus on what’s really important. Give Richard’s book a read and try to apply the principle fully into your life to reap the benefits.

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Be sure to follow me on socials to keep up with the daily goings on of The Man Blueprint. You can also sign up for my inner circle using the newsletter form above. Just drop your email in there and it’s job done. Completely free and completely brilliant. Whilst you’re here, have a little browse of some other article you might like below too. You won’t regret it.

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