Interview with Blogger Mehdi of Stronglifts.com
By selfemployedblog | November 11, 2007
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I am happy to post an interview I conducted with self-employed blogger Mehdi of Stronglifts.com. I came across Mehdi’s blog several months ago and was fascinated with his story of quitting his full-time job to become a full-time blogger. This interview has definitely motivated me to work harder on my own web sites. I think you will enjoy it!
1. Could you provide some background information about your business and how long you have been working for yourself?
StrongLifts.com is a blog helping you build muscle & lose fat through strength training. I’ve been doing strength training for 10 years. I became familiar with the concept of blogging September 2006.
My ex-trainingpartner gave me the idea of making a website about strength training in February 2007, StrongLifts.com went online 3 months later May 1st 2007. Prior to StrongLifts.com I had been selling stuff on eBay for about 18 months. That was my first experience as self-employee.
2. What finally made you decide to leave your previous job?
Lack of freedom. Not being rewarded for working hard. Not being able to take your future into your own hands. Living the rat race. Watching myself stepping on the train every morning with hundreds of other people which face told you they didn’t like their job.
Money was always the thing that held me at my previous work. I earned well. Not great, but well. One day I realized I was lowering myself by doing a job I didn’t like for the money solely.
“Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need”. Quote from fight club I didnt understand until some months ago. I quit my job 12 days after StrongLifts.com went online. I never had 1 minute regret, even though I’m living off my savings account.
3. Creating a successful blog can be difficult. What types of challenges do you face as a blogger?
My biggest challenge is productivity. I’m a fast worker. I usually finished a task in 30 mins for which my employer gave me 4 hours. So kept busy doing useless stuff for 3h30. I’m working on losing that habit.
Building a reputation is the second most challenging for me. Getting new readers. I went from 0 to 1400 RSS readers during the last 6 months. It’s not bad, but it’s certainly not up to part to others like Leo Babauta who went to 20 000 RSS in one year.
But I like challenges, I’m very competitive. It’s a question of imitating what worked for others & putting it into practice. Like I said: productivity is my problem.
4. What is a typical work day like for you?
I set 3 major tasks every day. Most of my time goes to writing content & replying to emails/comments. I also spend a lot of time studying things related to blogging, making money online, social media etc.
5. What do you do to prevent yourself from burning out?
I don’t believe in depressions & burn outs. It’s like strength training & overtraining. Yes you can overtrain, but most people are undertaining & not overtraining. I work a lot, often 12h a day. It’s not a life, it’s a temporary sacrifice. I know where I’m going to, I know what I want in life. I’ll get those things eventually, right now I continue to work hard. It will get much easier a year from now. A lot of people think they work hard but they aren’t. Even I’m not working all that hard, because I’m not that productive.
6. What do you love about working for yourself?
- Challenge: building a business from nothing.
- Freedom: I work when I want & how I want to.
- Brutal honesty: you don’t work you get nothing, you work a lot you’ll get somewhere.
7. Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently when deciding to start your business?
Many things. But I think it’s useless to look back. I look forward. I spend a lot of time analyzing current trends, statistics, seeing what works & don’t work, then I adapt from there.
I lost a lot of time before I started StrongLifts.com “planning”. All those plans were useless looking back. I don’t say you don’t need a plan, but I just spend too much time doing it, and there’s not much over of that plan right now. For the rest: I did everything quite right, although it could have happened faster.
8. What is one piece of advice you would pass on to someone who wants to work for themselves?
To make sure that’s what you really want. While I do enjoy what I do, it’s lots of work. It will get easier with time, but right now it’s lots of work. I’m good at dealing with stress (worked in customer support for 5 years) and I like to work hard. But you have to sacrifice a lot. And if you do nothing, you’ll have nothing. So make sure you want to do this.
Looking back, being an employee was much easier: you don’t have to think things over, somebody does that for you. You come home Friday evening, work is done until Monday. Right now things are different. I often wake up in the morning thinking at what I have to do. Sometimes I can’t sleep at night because ideas are coming up. Or I’m with friends & I’m thinking at my work. I always left my work at work as an employee, still need to learn that now that I’m self-employed.
Another advice is to choose something you like to do rather than thinking at money solely. While I’ll think you can start to enjoy something after a time, you’d better do your best to put any negativity out of your life as much as possible. That includes negativity coming from works & business
9. What books would you consider “must reads” for anyone interested in becoming self-employed?
- Law of success: 1000 pages will learn you the 15 law of success needed to get successful in anything. Being successful is a question of attitude, first thing you need to work on is yourself.
- The Rat Race: I’d say the disadvantage of being self-employed is more responsibility + more work, but for the rest it has only benefits. This book gives them all if you don’t know them yet.
- 4 hour work week: read it not so long ago, great one on being self-employed & upping one’s hour wage rather than working more. Eye opening book.
- Zen To Done: Leo Babauta’s book on productivity. I’ve started to implement his tips. It’s much easier than Getting Things Done which is an unnatural way of working to me.
10. Is there anything you would like to add? (upcoming projects, goals, etc.)
To have balls. Lots of people said (& still say) that I was crazy to leave my job which had a good salary & stability. I know what I want & I know that what I did wasn’t what I want. When you want something just go for it. Don’t ask yourself how you’ll get it. I had a vision of blogging will be like this & like that. 6 months later i don’t think I have done anything the way I thought I would. If you just keep working at it, you’ll get there. Persist.
Thanks so much Mehdi for participating in this interview!
Topics: Interviews |
2 Responses to “Interview with Blogger Mehdi of Stronglifts.com”
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11:36 am on December 4th, 2007
I have been self-employed for over a decade and I still found this interview with Mehdi to be very encouraging. It’s comforting to know others are out there working on their dreams and taking chances. Sometimes self-employment can be isolating and this post let me know that there are other kindred spirits following their hearts as well!
Thanks Eartha and Mehdi!
11:27 pm on December 4th, 2007
I’m so glad you enjoyed the interview! I hope others have found it motivating as well.