Volcan, Panama
I have completed 70 plus house sits with my wife since 2014.
House sitting in exotic places like Fiji, Bali and Costa Rica has certainly not been a heavy burden.
Living rent-free in amazing spots has been a dream.
But I’ve also learned invaluable lessons over the past decade of my life from caring for homes and pets.
In rare moments, challenging circumstances arise during certain house sits.
Imagine tending to dozens of different pets with all manner of personalities. Some pets are well-trained. Others are a bit on the wild side. Inevitably, outlier events unfold. One dog we watched in Panama attacked a porcupine on the beach; she left the encounter yelping and bleeding with a nose full of quills. The dog mended nicely but the situation became quite stressful. The homeowner lived there for a decade and did not ever hear of porcupines existing in that region.
Home care challenges even experienced sitters. Mold is always an issue to stay on top of in the tropics. Torrential downpours create leaks. But cold weather climates offer stout lessons, too, especially in a place like rural Turkey where home heat is via stove. We typically got the fire going but rarely roaring. Indoor temperatures dropped into the 40’s F on some days. Yes……*inside of the house*.
House sitting all over the globe taught me 3 clear lessons that also apply to blogging.
Check ’em out.
1: Find Creative Solutions
Recently, the German Shepherd Dog we cared for in Panama pressed on a plate glass sliding door window and shattered it because of her intensity, prodigious strength and previous light fracture in the glass.
I had to instantly find a creative solution to the situation involving:
- sequestering her in a separate room to avoid serious injury
- taping razor sharp, jagged edges to prevent serious injury
- affixing a large, cardboard box to the section of broken glass to keep the bugs out and soften any potential future canine contact with the glass
- setting up a blind with cardboard to prevent the GSD from seeing a cute puppy who chills by the window and setting off the chain of events leading to the future shattering
Kelli and I have found 100’s if not 1000’s of creative solutions to pressing problems house sitting in dozens of countries all over the world. From the steppes of Turkey, to the jungles of Costa Rica, to the mountains of Thailand, to the farm fields of Bali, rare emergencies mixed in with day to day resistance revealed an imaginative streak in our minds.
Blogging requires creative solutions to pressing problems in order to drive quality traffic and online business income.
Instead of relying only on tempestuous Google traffic perhaps you create a vision to access billions of social media users via:
- text-only updates
- eye-catching imagery
- live broadcasts
- short form videos
Thinking outside of the box brings freedom as you stretch your imagination.
2: Gain Invaluable Experience
My wife and I have cared for:
- Rhodesian Ridgebacks
- a Bernese Mountain Dog
- Rottweilers
- Boxers
- a German Shepherd Dog
- a Turkish Kangal
- large Turkish Shepherd Dogs
- a large St. Bernard/Newfoundland/Great Pyrenees mix
Most have largely been well-trained and sweet.
Some flashed rare moments of being aggressive. One even bit me multiple times.
I gained incredibly invaluable experience in learning how to:
- navigate fear while caring for big dogs
- spot, read and understand canine psychology
- remain cool, calm and as collected as possible in potentially stressful situations
- wade through genuine panic in intense situations like breaking up savage dog fights and being bitten by large dogs
Until you have the intimately personal experience of breaking up a dog fight between two strong, aggressive dogs and/or being bitten by a 90 pound, muscular, frenzied dog, it is almost impossible to relay the level of fear arising in the mind.
However, after these personal experiences, you fear little with big dogs and also feel less afraid of wading into genuinely intense situations.
I used to be terrified of dogs as a kid.
But choosing to gain critical experience with large breeds gave me enough confidence to where I could raise large, potentially problem breeds because I have great experience with big dogs in many circumstances.
Pro bloggers need experience in order to succeed.
Drive quality traffic and profits by calmly gaining 100’s to 1000’s of hours:
- studying
- practicing
- creating
- connecting
all while blogging triggers various fears in the mind.
You need to gain personal blogging experience or you will:
- struggle
- fail
- quit
Until I actually did the work I never triggered fears in my mind for facing, feeling and looking past. I had to gain personal experience with feeling these fears and proceeding to earn my skills, credibility and exposure.
In a way, you certainly cannot succeed alone but you absolutely have to gain the intimate experience yourself, in your being, in order to become a professional blogger.
Bloggers often want to take shortcuts because each fears putting in the work. None gain the experience necessary to go full-time; all struggle, fail and quit before going pro.
3: Leave Your Comfort Zone
House sitting is fun, freeing and fulfilling.
But it ain’t for the faint of heart.
Particularly in developing nations, in rural areas, all types of resistance arises during longer term sits.
Dealing with spitting cobras, massive centipedes, boa constrictors and in the rarest of cases, non-transparent homeowners who painted a vastly different picture then we experienced propelled us light years outside of our comfort zone in moments.
Never mind that our:
- schedules
- routines
- rituals
- customs
change moderately or dramatically each time we do a new house sit.
Dogs rise at 5 AM to beg for their walks in some cases. Other dogs stay up late and require a walk well into the evening.
Meanwhile, we go with the flow, tailoring our routines, schedules and habits to the preferences of homeowners and their pets.
Being flexible is the name of the house sitting game.
Leaving our comfort zone is the way to being highly flexible.
I love blogging heaps.
But this gig launched me outside of my comfort zone early and often.
Fear comes up from time to time. No one loves facing fear here and there but face fear one must to succeed as a blogger.
Knifing into fear pushes you well outside of your comfort zone.
I recall even conceiving the idea of creating an online course over a decade ago; the thought felt highly uncomfortable because egoic chatter in my mind created a laundry list of every reason why this would be a foolish idea.
I baby-stepped outside of comfort – and through fear – to eventually create and sell the course. But walking this journey felt super uncomfortable at times.
Growth occurs with discomfort.
Quality traffic, blogging income and referral business sit outside of your comfort zone.
Get comfortable with being uncomfortable to thrive as a blogger.
Conclusion
House sitting has been a gift for me.
Living rent-free all over the world while caring for pets is largely a blast.
The house sitting lessons I’ve learned and applied to blogging are even more invaluable.
Take ’em and run with ’em to accelerate your blogging success.
