The Why
The Why is so important to understand. Whether you are starting a business, a blog, a website, embarking on a new adventure or whatever direction you are heading, you must know Your Why. Your Why is what will drive everything that comes next. For me, the initial Why for starting a Vegan Recipe Blog was much different now that it is now. Why’s can change and develop over time, but understanding it at each stage is still very important. If you don’t totally understand and embrace the Why you are doing something, how can you stay focused, stay on point and clearly communicate your message.
Initially, my Why was not clearly defined; it was more about just starting something new and seeing where it lead. Today, my Why is much more focused. I firmly believe if your WHY doesn’t start with your desire to end animal cruelty and being part of a more compassionate society, you will struggle with your vegan journey. After that, I want to be a unique voice in the vegan community sharing recipes for great vegan food without taking up too much of your time reading more about the process than necessary. I want to get right to the point – let’s get cooking! I want people to know that if an average guy from the Midwest can do this, so can you. I want to share my passion for great food, my passion for ending animal cruelty and my passion for a active and healthy lifestyle. Along with that, I want to keep learning about all the goes with running a blog site, social media accounts and yes even TikTok. There is so much to learn about, from SEO, to branding, to content creation, photography (yes, I know to work on this one for sure) etc. If I can learn to leverage all these different platforms, the more people I can impact. How cool is that!
The Challenge
There is a BIG difference between being able to cook great vegan food that people love and figuring out how to convey this in a manner and platform that people will follow. I am confident if you sat down to dinner with me I could impress you with my food. But creating content and communicating this in a way that makes you want to click on a link, download a recipe or follow me on social media is a whole different ball game. This is the challenge and I have accepted the challenge. I admit, I am not as proficient at this as I need to be – not even close! My kids are very eager to share with me how bad my food photos look, or how my Instagram lacks focus and clarity or how my TikTok videos are “a nice try”. And they are not wrong! But they are also the 1st ones to tell me how much their friends love my food and can’t believe it is vegan. Now, how do I pull all these things together and make a larger impact?
Stronger Together
There has been a pretty dramatic shift in the momentum towards eating meat free. There are so many more options available today than there were just 5 years ago. While you can argue whether all these meat alternatives are healthy and the right choice in the long run, what you can’t argue is that it does provide an alternative to meat and that in turn will limit the amount of animals that are shaughtered for food. It has also provided a platform for discussion and debate. Together we need to use this new found platform to our advantage to further our goal of a cruelty free and compassionate society. The more we share our stories, perspectives and passions, in a positive and non-judgementat way, the better the likelyhood that we will be able to continue to move people in a more compassionate direction. That is my goal. That should be our goal. So I will keep sharing my recipes, keep writing about my journey, keep learning from others who are further along or have strong platforms to educate and hopefully continue to build momentum within this great vegan community. Follow along….this is going to be fun!
