I'm Matt Lillywhite, a full-time writer. I've been writing on Medium since 2018 and my work has been featured in Mind Cafe, Publishous, Better Marketing, The Startup, and other publications.

Here's a photo of me with a Quokka:

Why I Started Writing.

Gary Vaynerchuk told me it was a good idea to give it a go. Also, he follows me on Twitter, so I’m happy about that.

Anyway, I was going through a pretty dark period during 2019. My mom had been diagnosed with Breast Cancer. I was also dealing with various mental health issues that often kept me awake at night.

I read one of Ryan Holiday’s books and it completely changed my life around. It helped me to think differently, and approach life with a completely new perspective. I’m so grateful for everything he does and the encouragement he’s given me. Ryan is awesome.

I figured that it would be a good idea to share my own experiences — in the hopes that I could help other people going through similar problems. And sure enough, the strategy worked.

I quickly found myself writing about techniques I used to overcome anxiety and various other issues. And within a short period of time, I received dozens of emails from people saying how a specific article changed their life.

Throughout my writing career, I’ve had several emails from people thanking me for what I do. They told me that they were experiencing suicidal thoughts and were on the verge of ending their life. However, something I wrote helped them to see a different path and a reason to keep living.

If that’s not a beautiful impact on the world, I don’t know what is.

Success Didn’t Happen Overnight.

Far from it. I didn’t have a full-time job. Nor did I have a giant savings account to keep me afloat. I put myself in a position where I was reliant on Medium to create an income.

I literally had to write in order to pay rent and put food on the table. Although I don’t recommend following the same strategy, it was certainly a good source of motivation to show up every day.

Little by little, I found myself increasing my following, view count, and earnings. And after a long period of time, the power of compound interest allowed me to reap massive benefits — since I have a backlog of several thousand articles.

Here’s the way I think about writing. For millenia, humans had no choice but to work a job they hated (such as farming or working in a factory). They might have had the potential to become great artists, athletes, and writers. But unless they came from an incredibly wealthy family, they (probably) never had the opportunity to even see if their dream was possible.

But now, things are different. Sure, you might not make a million dollars from writing. But that’s okay. Because if you’ve made one cent from your creativity, that’s a lot more than most people ever have throughout human history.

It doesn’t matter if you’re black, white, gay, straight, or from a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. As long as you have an internet connection and a laptop or phone, you have the opportunity to make a tiny bit of money from your creativity. And to me, that’s a truly beautiful concept.

I Want To Share Some Random Facts About Me.

- My favorite animal is a Raccoon (aka Trash Panda).

- I’m currently traveling around Australia & New Zealand.

- I’ve lived in Australia, Canada, England, Scotland, and New Zealand.

- I used to be in the Air Cadets as a kid and flew a plane. It was a small one. But still, I flew a plane.

- I was invited on Canadian national TV to discuss the impact of lockdowns on mental health.

- I can name 176 countries on a blank map. In case you didn’t know, my geography is pretty good (traveling the world helped a lot).

Thanks for reading. And whatever you’re doing today, I hope you have a truly awesome day ❤

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