Photo by polifemus (out of order).

This is a guest-post by John Konrad.

At 18 years old I was ill-equipped for the future and struggling academically. I had been an A student in high school but managed to succeed only with the help of caffeine tobacco and by working every late night that preceded a big exam. It seemed to work and during my senior year I had been accepted into the United States Naval Academy.

Then life crashed. The regimented schedules set by the military instructors combined with my father’s diagnosis with cancer from Agent Orange and some immaturity on my part to cause my grades to plummet and, upon completing the difficult first year, I was given the boot.

To make matter’ worse the schools that happily accepted me in High School no longer were willing to return my calls. For the next 4 years I would be stuck going to SUNY Maritime College, a state run school for Merchant Mariners. Located in the Bronx and all but abandoned by the SUNY system (cadets didn’t even have internet access until 2001) the situation looked bleak.

Despite the myriad of problems and annoyances at the school, including the enormous Throgs Neck Bridge that hovers directly over the campus, it did offer one glimmer of hope. Each year, in preparation for a career as officer aboard the world’s largest vessels, the entire school packed aboard the S/S Empire State and traveled to Europe, stopping at as many as five ports along the way. I was in love. The sea was beautiful, the ports were exciting and I had found a job that fit my schedule of nocturnal productivity. The future suddenly was bright.

During my short presence at the Naval Academy a retired Admiral gave a speech in which he told the story of a young John McCain, a less than stellar midshipman who came in second place for the honored title of Anchorman, last in the class academically. The Admiral said he saw a bright future not for the graduates but for those who were kicked out. He predicted success not despite but because of failure. Out of desperation these seemingly ill-fated individuals discover their faults and upon their next success realize that failure rarely kills you.

Today, at age 30, I’m a licensed ship’s captain working on the world’s largest drillship. I’ve circumnavigated the globe, write a successful blog about ships, have seen more countries than I can list from memory and have had short articles published in the NY Times, Wall Street Journal (ok, it was the online edition) and the world’s longest running publication, Loyds List. Most of all I enjoy what I do.

I can’t recommend joining the military, getting kicked out and spending four years stuck under a noisy bridge in the country’s most infamous community as a path to blogging success but I can share a few Lessons Learned to help you find it.

1. Forget Risk

Risk is the Winter North Atlantic or a port call in Yemen, blogging is rarely a risk.

Take bold steps. Call an expert in your niche for an interview, write the inside story that traditional media is unwilling expose, become an LLC and take out a loan. Bold steps are needed if you want to stand out.

2. Be different

The world is filled with bloggers but it is the rare exception to find one doing something new.

I have gotten more publicity by telling people I blog via satellite from the ocean than all my writing, podcasting and hard work combined. Technologically it’s no more impressive than a blogger in Kansas using a Hughsnet satellite but it sound much cooler.

Find something that’s interesting about you and market it.

3. Do What others don’t want to do

My alma mater places 99% of graduates in jobs within three months of graduation at an average salary of $57,000. Garbage men in New York City get better pay and benefits than fireman or school teachers. Why? Because no one wants these jobs.

While the sea may still not be for you, jobs like captain of a research vessel can be very rewarding, the Sanitation department has just as many interesting jobs.

Starting a gadget blog is like becoming an astronaut. Very cool but even the best qualified candidates will find it’s a difficult road to success.

4. Do what you love, do what you’re good at

The most frequent question I get when people learn of my profession is: Do you get sea sick? The second most frequent question is: I must be real difficult for you to navigate such a large ship? I find this ludicrous. Why would anyone take a job at sea if it made them sick? Why would you pursue a job that’s real difficult for you?

If you hate sitting in front of computers or find writing difficult then don’t become a blogger. Try podcasting, it can be just as rewarding.

5. Kill the Nice Guy

Being nice is critical to every blogger’s success. If you answer reader comments in a dismissive manner, be anything but gracious towards your competition or, worse yet, ignore those who wish to converse then you’re blog will quickly fail. It’s critically important to be nice and helpful. That being said you must be able to shut it off if needed.

On the ship we have fire drills every Sunday and I’m always choosing the most inexperienced but eager hands for the fire team. I spend time practicing with them, answer questions, I teach and put my guys up for company rewards when they do well. Late last year we had a real fire and as I approached the staging area found a new seaman suiting up to fight the fire. Being inexperienced I asked him to take a supporting role and, with tears in his eyes he asked me to give him a chance. He told me he could fight the fire, he wanted to prove himself. I ignored his pleas and ordered the guys to escort him from the scene. He was hurt and angry…. but alive the next day.

6. Don’t cave to the wrong type of pressure

Why did the Titanic sink? The company wanted to set a speed record and they were unwilling to wait for summer. Captains are often pressured to make deadlines, take too much cargo or travel shorter, unsafe routes. The rewards for doing so can include a performance bonus, promotion or plaque for the wall but doing so despite safety considerations is a gamble. Legally the captain has ultimate authority and retains the right to say no to his boss on shore, local experts and even the authorities. Granted he may get arrested or fired once reaching shore but it’s always his call.

You are the captain of your blog and are going to be the one who sinks with the ship if pressured into the wrong decisions. When the leading CPA for sailors called about a blog post I wrote exposing his recent IRS conviction he sounded really nice and offered me a free flight on his private jet and stake dinner to listen to how I could avoid future embarrassment by removing the post. It was a tempting offer and I naturally wanted to help but doing so would mean lying to my readers. I turned off the nice switch and said no.

7. Stay ahead of the ship.

It takes us miles to stop a ship which means we can’t rely on sight alone to predict a collision. We use radar to search miles out and tools to help predict a collision course. If something looks like it may cause a problem we address it early.

You’re blog should be use the same strategy. If a back-up fails, find out why. If a reader says your icons look ugly, don’t dismiss the comment, ask him what browser he’s using.

8. Find a pilot

When a large ship goes into port they pick-up a pilot. This person is a local expert who has spent years learning everything there is to know about one specific harbor and provides the captain with advice during the transit. The captain is still in command and his crew is still steering the ship but the advice is important.

If you’re starting an SEO campaign, blog redesign, platform transition or whatever. Get an expert’s advice. You may need to save money or want to retain control of the project so you decide to do it yourself. This is fine just make sure you have an expert helping you along the way. Don’t expect this service to be free either.

9. Take interesting assignments

At 24 I was the youngest person in my class to be promoted to chief officer but I have a secret to tell. I was not the best qualified or the most capable I simply was the only person willing to try something new. I took a job in Indonesia on foreign ship with an Indian crew and Dutch officers. Not only did no one want the job they all said I would be hurting my career for picking a rust bucket. They were wrong. By working with many nationalities I learned each of their secrets on ship handling. During that time I also worked with many different types of equipment, explored different ways to navigate and learned new ways of doing things I thought I had mastered.

Join a community blog based overseas, write for a foreign audience and try using different platforms and tools. You blog is not alone at sea and if it were you’d still need to know a little about the other blogs you meet.

10. Look The Part

I once boarded a ship that looked impressive. Fresh paint, no rust on deck, all the lines neatly stowed but after two days aboard I found out it was a smoke screen. To avoid hard work the crew had become masters at painting over rust but were incredibly lazy and didn’t maintain their equipment. When auditors arrived they were often so impressed they did no more than a cursory inspection. A year later the ship caught fire, a total loss.

This teaches us two things. First it’s a lot easier to get away with editorial mistakes and impress people of influence if your blog is visually impressive and of clean design. Just yesterday I received a very interesting question from a ship captain with over 30 years of experience currently working for the United Nations. He, like those inspectors, assumed we were experts just because we looked the part.

11. Find your readers’ specialties and ask for their help

Want to know my reply to that UN Captain? I sent him a reply stating “We have a reader with an impressive resume at the UN, let me ask him.” Then I sent a second email to him with his question attached. His response, to my surprise, was “Let me find out”. The next day he sent me a detailed answer and gave me permission to post it.

Your readers are looking to help but will not digg your story because you bug them to. They will tackle jobs that interest them, find out what these are and you suddenly have a team helping you.

12. “I don’t know” is a good answer. “I screwed up” is even better.

The above two replies I use on a daily basis both at work and in replies to my blog. Countless times in history ship captains have caused incidents because they made up answers to questions from their crew. Many more captains have caused incidents because they made mistakes and tried to cover them up. No incident is caused by any single action, it’s caused by thousands of small decisions dating back years that create an incident chain. It might be because you stayed up to watch a movie 2 days before and fell asleep at watch or it could be the cook who accidentally bought decaffeinated coffee or the person who, five years ago, decided to put a barkalounger on the bridge of the ship. The correct answer is it was all three.

You are building a chain of trust with your readers. If you make a mistake admit to it, if you don’t know the answer to a question tell them and then go find out.

13. People like to help

If you’ve ever been a tourist in New York City you may have been confused when one person flipped you off then the next spent 5 minutes helping you with directions. If you’re a pessimist the reason is because people are narcissistic, if you’re an optimist you may believe it’s nature’s way of spreading knowledge. Whatever the reason is, every New Yorker thinks he’s an expert at directions, every Captain thinks he’s a master shiphandler and every blogger is a social media guru.

Anyone who has spent years learning something is eager to share his knowledge. When the Cosco Busan hit San Francisco’s Bay bridge I called the president of the captain’s association, a marine investigation expert and the editor of the leading maritime trade show. I said “I run a blog and my readers are very interested in this event but I don’t have much experience with collisions, can you walk me through the facts?” Each one spent over an hour sharing their knowledge and I posted a great article one the collision. Two days later I was called by the San Francisco Chronicle and quoted on the next front page article with a link to my blog!

John Konrad writes at gCaptain.com — resources for maritime professionals.