It's not necessarily just us bloggers that get caught up in debating on why our families and friends should support what we do. People in many career fields find themselves alone in chasing their dream jobs. They reach out to family and friends when they are first discovering their talents. In this post we'll just stick to the creative fields. Friends and family struggle with accepting the idea of being an artist, or a musician, or even a writer. We're all taught that the real money is in teaching, banking, pharmaceutical/medical field, and engineering.
Even if they accept what you do they have a hard time making themselves available to support you. I don't know of any family that have actually viewed my blog. If they have they never let me know. As far as friends I have a few that actively show support and their support is very appreciated. However, I've lost count of other friends who have either said they don't read or they have wanted me to personally send them a link every time I publish. There is one person specifically who told me in several tweets how he's lazy and just can't click on the link to the my blog ever. I could have gone on in life without reading those words.
At one point I convinced myself that if anyone close to me showed support it was beautiful, but if they didn't then that was cool too. There are tons of strangers who are willing to read and interpret whatever I put out. However, Brittany Gibbons (unknowingly) proved that friends absolutely make a difference when they support your message.
Gibbons is an author, blogger, professional speaker, model, and has many other titles. Her current career started off from starting a blog to broadcast being confident in her skin. She was fat and she wanted to feel confident in her fatness. It has worked. This is also why she ended up on Steve Harvey's show recently. She was broadcasting her confidence, but she received a big surprise along with that.
Several women who were also fans sat in Steve audience and told Gibbons how she affected their lives. More than half of those fans were also friends of Gibbons. Yes, her friends were in the audience to tell her how her blog encouraged them to be better and feel better about themselves. Another amazing factor is that she actually met some of these friends because they started out as fans. However, the topic of turning fans into good friends is for another day. Watch the video below.
Again we can't force people to do anything they don't want to do. However, the support of friends makes a world of a difference.
P.S. This episode really didn't need to point out how important support is for bloggers. This is a support driven field. It thrives on views, shares, and comments.
