I think I waited too long to start a blog. A decision I never thought would make me lament. Some may call this a mea culpa, but this is something more.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, this isn’t my first blog. About six years ago, a friend and I started a niche blog. I used that platform to share my thoughts with the world. A month later, she set up another one, only this time it covered more topics. It was an ecosystem and we both owned it. The plan was to make it the parent website of the initial one. Speaking of plans, we had a lot of those for the new website.
I was amazed with what she could do with a keyboard – her superpower. She wasn’t just a writer, but a developer as I later discovered. She would take care of the site maintenance, while I focused on managing its contents. She was way older than I am, but that never really caused any problem. She respected me just as much as I did her.
Later on, we included AdSense to the niche site. Looking at the growth charts there was so much prospect. I was so happy I had find my bag. But while I was about to secure it life happened. My buddy moved to the States, and had changed her contacts. She literally left both blogs to dry out in my hands. I couldn’t renew the hosting tenure, nor could I access the cPanel.
At the time, I knew nothing about FTP server and other relevant technical knowledge for a website. I lost my website, my subscribers and every dime I had on AdSense. Most importantly, I lost my zeal to own a website or any of that sort again.
Well, there’s this saying that you can take a soldier away from the battle but you can’t take the fight away from him. I was passionate about writing, and I really wanted to get better.
Since I did not have the courage to kick off a new blog, I started contributing to blogs owned by friends, and writing anonymously.
I had lost all hope till I found Steem (now Hive) and my desires rekindled once again. I knew I wanted to write. So I had to organise my affairs to do what I actually liked to do.
It was not a day’s job btw. I had to spend much of my time researching on topics I find appealing, analyse the demand, and so on.
I know if I had started writing on a personal blog sooner, I’d have published a book already. I had been following Tim Ferriss’ series that started out on his blog, and later released as a book.
His Tribe of Mentors was one book I enjoyed reading. My goal at that point was to maintain a regular blogging discipline. I want to write more, to tell the world what I’ve learnt, what and how I feel about it.
A writer is a reader that likes to contribute back to the society. I spend significant amount of my uptime, reading books, blogs or reading some insightful threads on Twitter and Reddit. It doesn’t hurt to learn something new every now and then.
While in school, I never had a course on history. So within the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to get abreast with what I’ve missed out. I want to learn more about the intricacies of world wars. I’ve also been reading about the transition of governments in Africa, and some military coups they had. Not like I intend to start one, lol.
Truth be told, man is yet to learn from the mistakes of his ancestors. We keep making the same mistakes as those before us, it almost seem intentional given that we have these mistakes recorded in history books. Clueless? Well, that’s a discuss for another time.
Why I Chose Blogging
As a blogger, you tend to get better with every piece you add to your tally. This shouldn’t be surprising. I’m a better writer than I was six years ago. However, there’s still room for improvement.
Although I was already having social media marketing gigs before I delved into blogging, it was blogging that made me understand why companies needed contents. I learnt to practice the editorial process, and how to create contents before a deadline.
My basic blogging ethics made me a better worker, as well as a better person. I have no regrets venturing into blogging, except that I didn’t start sooner.
Lessons From Blogging
First, I’d say I’m more disciplined now. Normally, I find it difficult to sit still for prolonged durations. But, I’ve got no choice with blogging. I’ve learnt to be more patient. Delayed gratification brings the best results. Whenever I see the product of my hard work, it’s most often worth the sacrifices made.
I’ve learnt more about myself since I started writing, including the ghostwriting gigs. And I know I’m not the only one. I’ve come to understand my place in the world as a writer. A pen is a delicate instrument, and how you choose to use it says a lot about who you are.
Some decades back, if you want to let your voice be heard, you have to write for columns on newspapers and magazines. But blogging disrupted this pattern. That said, you don’t necessarily have to been a writer to have something to say. You’d find many tech and non enthusiasts that just want to express themselves every once a while.
Starting Zerofy
Zerofy.ng is one of the things that make me happy. It’s a blog that was created for tech and finance enthusiasts around the world. That notwithstanding, you would also find articles on education, lifestyle and a bit of entertainment. It is a blog where I express myself.
I’ve always wanted to share some street-styled financial education I’ve learnt over the years from my close association with businessmen, real estate investors and speculators. Experiences that can’t be learnt in the classroom. Practical approaches that most often aren’t taught in schools. So I felt there may be demand for it on the Internet. Because it actually helps.
For example, the article How to Get the Best Land Deals in Nigeria – there I wrote about some simple tricks I learnt from some friends in real estate sector.
How to spot undervalued lands, properties and calculate the expected profit they can get from selling. If you’ve watched the Banker, you would have an idea of how profitable this sector is. Lack of funds is what usually sends the speculators the other way.
To get a loan from banks in most developing countries is usually a problem. This is because most individuals and entrepreneurs there do not have assets that could serve as collateral. So, I decided to spend some days researching on the Internet to find platforms that would give out loans to those Nigerians. I was able to come up with over 30 of those platforms. All existing platforms were indexed in this article – Get Quick Online Loans Without Collateral in Nigeria.
Also, I wrote about FZMovies. In most developing and under-developed countries, there's a need for low quality versions of movies (480p or lower). This includes movies that wouldn’t require much data to download and movies that can be downloaded for free. So I did a review on one of those platforms.
Another interesting article I wrote about is on unlock chips. I wrote two parts, Unlock Chip for iPhone: Meaning, Types and Disadvantage and How to Unlock an iPhone with a Chip (Latest ICCID Code). The first part is mostly an introduction to the use of unlock chips series. I realised that there were no articles explaining how they work on the Internet. While the second part was written to explain how to set it up.
Zerofy is a platform that I’m happy to be a part of. I’m glad I have several places to share my thoughts.
I find it a privilege to be on Hive. I actually joined the platform in 2017, I can’t seem to find the keys to my other account. I know about the good people and the other ones.
I know some good folks like; 
Glad to be here guys, I’m here to stay.