Blogging and Business

Starting The Magic Elephant (TME) a few months ago has been one of the best experiences and biggest learning curves in my life so far. I have met many many amazing people along the way and have come to the strong belief that every effort pays off in one way or another.
Nevertheless, I don’t want to talk about what we do today, but rather about the journey of building a business.

Having a chat over coffee with Siobhan the other day made me realise once more that blogging (although for some this might be the case) isn’t about numbers, followers, or sales. I completely understand that running a (more or less personal) blog for many amazing and talented people out there means building a business, and using blogging as a marketing tool. For others though, it’s about sharing little moments in life with people who care, being true to themselves, and using their blog as a creative outlet (as cliché as it sounds).

My blog has changed slightly over those past few months, in relation to The Magic Elephant developing. I used to think of this space much more as a business, whereas now my focus has shifted to TME as my business. Which means I am free to use this blog as a platform to share anything I want. At first this was hard, almost unnatural, it felt as if I either had to keep up with two businesses, or give up one of them completely. Then I realised that running TME as my business actually frees me from the pressure of having to keep up with this blog as a business. Knowing that I can use this space to do whatever I want with it is liberating.
I think this realisation really was a turning point for me - something I want to share with you.
While usually I would have created a new column out of this, or written an advice kind of post, I now do it in a way that feels much more relaxed to me.

This isn't an advice post. It’s a personal post - and if you want you can take something away from it. Building a business and running a blog is different for everyone, there’s no one rule to doing things. And I don’t believe that anyone is an expert in this either.
That’s another thing I’ve learnt along the way - no one really knows what they are doing. We’re all just creatives doing what we love, figuring it out along the way. While it might seem that some of us have it all figured out, that certainly isn’t the case.
So instead of telling you what to do, how to run a business, or sharing ‘10 tips to keeping up with two businesses’ (which by the way I believe never works anyway), I am sharing my story, my journey, and things I am experiencing along the way. Make of it whatever you want - just enjoy the story, learn something, or apply it to your own blogging/business journey. It’s up to you.

And if I feel like it I might share another one of these ‘stories’ - but no pressure involved.