What I’ve Learned Through HLB

HLB (www.healthylivingblogs.com) has certainly been my baby for a little while. Do you remember when I first started talking about it and brainstorming the idea of a health bloggers database? Here are some of those early day posts:

• Healthy Living Blogs Database – very first musings! (December 5, 2009!!!)
• Health Bloggers Database Musings – I think I stayed pretty true to most of these. Some are still on the "one day hopefully soon!" list. Others were crossed off (the fee? Although I can’t say I’m still confident in that decision…let’s just say people think I’m crazy for doing this for free/ nothing.)
• The domain was purchased! (February 2010)
• More "hoping to finish HLB today!" (February 2010)
• Design dilemma (February 2010)
• I announced HLB would be going live May 3rd….haha (April 2010)

Wow! It’s definitely been a process, that’s for sure! I’ve learned so much along the way. On top of all the logistical mayhem (I did it all myself and am dang proud of it!), it’s been consuming to get everything just right. All along the way I was figuring out more that I wanted to accomplish through HLB. Even though I had to push back the "by whens" of my HLB goal deadline several times, I can say with 100% certainty that it all worked out for the best and I truly don’t think HLB would have been as successful had I launched it back in May.

Speaking of success, can I just say that we are officially over 1,000 bloggers who are listed on HLB! SO crazy. That’s in less than three weeks, too. Holy smokes! Gotta be honest – totally didn’t see that coming. I naively thought there’d be a couple hundred blogs out there, that’s it…psh! Dream big!! Next goal: 10,000. Do it now.

So what else have I learned through HLB? Here are some highlights (some serious, some amusing, some personal, some professional):

• Things take time. Let them.
• Be patient with people.
• Nothing will ever go as smoothly as you want or as you think it will.
• Be flexible. (Do yoga.)
• Be open to feedback, even if it’s not shared in a respectful manner.
• Remember tone is hard to convey in text, so emails that may seem "rude" or "demanding" are more than likely not intended that way.
• Think the best of everyone.
• 99.9% of the time, everyone cares about HLB just as much as I do – it’s a community project.
• Grow thick skin
• I can’t grasp the concept that connections around the world are being formed and in real life friendships have been made from this little website that I made. How humbling!
• One person can make a difference.
• There are some diverse HLBers!
• There are also some very similar HLBers out there – vegetarian runners are rampant!
• There are some very ironically similar blog names out there.
• Have a support system. (cough savvyjulie cough thenheathersaid cough) Go TeamHLB!!
• Shout out to Heather and Julie again, because I would’ve crawled into a hole in my backyard, crying and sucking my thumb about 1.5 weeks ago without them. And that would have been a problem. Why? I don’t have a backyard.
• Gmail canned responses rock. my. world. I apologize if it seems like you got a standard reply back, but when you’re sending back hundreds upon hundreds of emails that usually have the same core substance, canned responses rock. Insert with the click of the button and customize as needed. (Can be found under your gmail labs.)
• I need an iPhone.
• It’s ok to gently remind people that we can’t do everything immediately. They will understand.
• I need an iPhone. Oops, I mentioned that? Oh, this one’s for Julie. Team HLB needs to run this operation efficiently! Apple/ AT&T sponsorship anyone? ha…
• I think my husband momentarily thought about divorcing me when he realized I was charging nothing for membership, was spending 230948203948 hours a day on HLB jazz, and still had tuition to pay and was iPhoneless. Sorry honey!!

So. HLB has been a wild ride.

Bottom line? Dream big. Allow your goals to go bigger than your dreams. Persevere. And don’t forget to charge an administrative fee per member so you can pay TeamHLB for slaving away with you.

And get an iPhone.

P.S. Everyone go say thank you to Julie and Heather! SJ & THS, I appreciate you two more than you know! One day I’ll pay you big money. Or cookies.