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When I first started blogging, I didn’t even know what a blog was. In fact, my blog started off as a non-blog website. I wanted to teach people about personal finance, something that I have been passionate about since my high school economics class.

Ever since that fateful class, my main focus has been finance: I majored in it in college, all of my jobs have been in the financial services industry, and I have my master’s degree in finance.

About My Blog

My goal from the start was to create guides for people in various areas of personal finance so that they could be smart with their money, hence the name of my blog, MoneySmartGuides. Somewhere along the way though, my website morphed into a blog.

Since I started with a website and not a blog, I never really posted all that often. A good analogy was that I was adrift at sea. I really had no idea what I was doing. Then one day, a random search around the internet had me stumble on a personal finance blog that had the Yakezie badge on it. Curious, I looked into the network, but dismissed it as not the thing for me.

I continued my random posting journey, thinking that somewhere along the way, I was going to hit it big, even though I still didn’t have an actual plan for how to do so.

As I found more and more personal finance blogs, I became motivated by reading about others making money doing this sort of thing. As time passed and I was still earning nothing and not sure which direction to go, I slowly became discouraged.

Welcome to Yakezie

Fast forward another year and I am noticing the Yakezie badge on more and more blogs. I am a positive thinking person at heart and feel that everything happens for a reason. We may not know what that reason is at the moment, but one day, we will. I think that I kept seeing that badge because I was supposed to join.

So I decided to take the leap. In a few short months, I had dropped my Alexa ranking down tremendously from over 1 million to under 400,00 and made many new friends. Without the help, guidance and support of the Yakezie group, I would most likely be doing something else right now with my time.

The Power of The Yakezie Network

The benefits of the Yakezie network are immeasurable. From the forums alone, I have learned more than I have ever wanted to know. If I have an idea for my blog, the first thing I do is search the forum because chances are, there is a topic about it. In fact, I will subscribe to threads that I have no interest in at the moment but that contain a wealth of knowledge on a subject matter that I might one day see myself taking advantage of.

Helping people reach their financial dreams is what drives me every day. With the support of the Yakezie group, I can say that I am more successful at doing this than I otherwise would be. In fact, I have been able to publish three eBooks since joining. I have made some great friends through the network and look forward to making many more in the months and years to come.

The friend part is the biggest benefit in my eyes. Everyone in the network is so friendly and willing to help, I wish more people in the real world were like this. No matter how basic a question I would ask, I would get a friendly response. I’ve been in other forums where you’ll get a passive aggressive response about searching since the topic was already covered. Not here with Yakezie. You’ll get a friendly reply with the link to the topic in question.

It Still Takes Work

Even with all of the great relationships I made through the network and the help I received, it all came back to me. I had to do the work to make my blog successful. Yes the Yakezie Network was a big influencer and a great help at my success but if I didn’t do my part, all the help others provided wouldn’t have meant so much.

Blogging is work – hard work. Don’t be fooled into thinking that you will be earning six figures in six months. It takes work and time. But with the help of great people, the work won’ feel like work at all.

Finally, I just want to say thank you to everyone that has helped along the way. Even if we never met or emailed, chances are that a comment you made in the forum has helped me out. For that, I am forever grateful. For everyone that I haven’t interacted with yet, please connect with me on Twitter or stop by my blog.

Note: This is the last of the Yakezie Eta Class. Jon recently got married and was away for a while hence the delay. New Members will be welcomed in early February. Thanks!