It’s been 10 years since I started ThoughtBrick – originally with my brother Mike from Van Dog Traveller so I thought I’d write a post about it.
At the time it was Christmas 2012 and my brother had bought me a book Laptop Lifestyle which was all about making money online and the law of attraction. This book completely blew my mind – you could have a website and write about things you were interested in and make money. I’ve always loved writing and so I thought I’d give it a go.
Reflecting on this now, this book was probably the catalyst to realising that there were different ways of working that didn’t necessarily involve trading your time for money or working for other people.
Flicking through books at my parents for inspiration, I came across this book from the 1970’s on positive thinking and handwritten inside the book were the words Thought Brick (see above pic) which was a term my Grandparents used to use to describe how you can create and build your reality with your thoughts; for example, the law of attraction.
We thought this would be a great name for our site and so this is how it began.
The idea was to simply share articles on different self growth areas. This was at the time when it was fashionable to set up websites in any niche and then write loads of articles on that subject, rank in a Google search and make money through affiliate marketing. I remember reading books on the subject where people were saying it doesn’t matter if you know or care about the subject – just produce the content. This always struck me as really bizarre, because why would I enjoy writing about something I had no interest in like phone cases or cat toys.
Apparently, your niche could be in anything though and so being passionate about meditation, yoga and self growth in general, this is what my niche was (although in hindsight it’s not really a niche and more about things I’m into related to personal development which is still hugely broad), but I think it definitely helped to actually have a love for what I was writing about rather than thinking I’d spotted some gap in the market.
Fast forward three years of working on my website daily, I began to make an income from it via affiliate marketing – so much so that alongside teaching yoga, my whole income came from blogging and teaching yoga, which felt really great.
I don’t write so much these days, but I think it’s better to write when I genuinely want to as opposed to forcing myself to write an article a day. Rather than most of my posts being preachy or telling you what to do, they’re more about sharing my experiences of different personal development, spiritual and meditation practices and courses, plus my thoughts in general.
It’s crazy to think how much has happened in the last 10 years. It makes me reflect on what’s next. My focus is definitely about being a Mum but also about giving back more in my work. I think when I became self-employed almost seven years ago now, I was focused on making my passions my work which was great.
This is still important, but now more than ever, I want my sole focus to be about how I can give more through my work. I want to get even better at matching the things I’m good at with what people genuinely need and what will help others. So, rather than it being about following my passions, I’m putting others first.
One idea I’ve been thinking about is to do a yoga therapy training. I absolutely love teaching yoga one-to-one and so doing a training in yoga therapy will deepen what I know and allow me to hopefully give more to others. It would be a three year training and I don’t think I’ve studied for that long since my degree but I also feel ready to study something again in a lot of depth.
Anyway, these are just some of my current thoughts. With time and through writing more posts, I’m sure I’ll get more clarity.
Bring on 20223!
And on a final note, if you also have a love for self growth, I’m sharing with you a free Mindvalley masterclass created by Mindvalley’s founder Vishen Lakhiani which you can access below.
The masterclass is just over an hour long and you can get instant access now. Find out more via the link.
