Writing Is Learning
Spilled Coffee celebrates 5 years
I was terrible when I started.
That’s the truth. No sugarcoating it. If you had read my first post, you probably wouldn’t have come back for a second one. I knew it then and I know it now. But I kept going anyway.
That’s kind of the whole point.
Spilled Coffee turns five years old this month. April 2021 feels like a long time ago and somehow also last week. When I hit publish on that first post, I was writing for nobody. Literally nobody. A handful of friends. A few family members. People who felt obligated to open it.
Five years later, over 12,000 people in more than 125 countries open this newsletter. That number still stops me every time I think about it.
I Didn’t Go to College
I’ve never hidden that fact. I’m proud of it, actually.
I taught myself how to start a business. How to run it. How to sell. How to lead people. I slept on the floor of my office in those first days because I had to. There was no blueprint. No map. No mentor handing me a playbook. I had to figure it out as I went.
That’s still how I operate. It’s the only way I know.
When you walk into my office today, the first thing you see is a quote on the wall. It’s been there since day one. It’s not coming down.
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” Ralph Waldo Emerson.
I didn’t know it at the time, but writing Spilled Coffee would become one of the clearest expressions of that idea I’ve ever had.
Writing to Learn
Here’s something I didn’t expect when I started: writing made me smarter.
Not immediately. Not even noticeably at first. But over time, the act of sitting down and trying to explain something forced me to actually understand it. You can’t fake clarity on the page. Either you understand what you’re talking about or you don’t. The blank page has a way of revealing which one is true.
I wanted to learn more about investing. So I wrote about investing. I wanted to understand business better. So I wrote about business. Every post was me working something out. Still is.
That’s not a method I read about in a book. It’s something I stumbled into. You learn by doing. And writing has been one of the most powerful forms of doing I’ve found.
You have to let yourself write badly before you can write well. I’ve lived that. Every week for five years. Some weeks the words come easy. Other weeks I’m grinding. But I show up. Every damn week.
That discipline didn’t come naturally. It was built. The same way I built my business. The same way I learned to invest. One week at a time.
A Hobby That Became Something More
I started this newsletter because I wanted to. Not because someone told me to. Not because there was a business plan behind it. I had things I wanted to say and I needed a place to say them.
What I didn’t know is that the process would hook me.
There’s something that happens when you hit publish. A small rush. A sense of completion. And then immediately, your mind starts working on the next one. I chased that feeling every week for five years. I still do.
What started as a hobby I did for myself quietly turned into something I couldn’t have imagined sitting in that office in April 2021, writing to an audience that barely existed.
Build. Create. Keep Going.
Start before you’re ready.
I wasn’t a good writer when I started. I’m better now. I’ll be better in five more years. The only way that happens is by doing it. Over and over. Badly at first. Better over time.
You don’t need a degree. You don’t need permission. You don’t need to know exactly where it’s going.
You just need to start. And then keep going.
Five years in, I wouldn’t trade any of it.
To everyone who has opened this newsletter, shared it, replied to it, or simply read it over their morning coffee. Thank you. You’re the reason this thing became what it is.
Here’s to the next five.
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