Then January 1st, 2009 I made a deal with myself; live on Twitter for 30 days and see what would happen. Since I didn’t want to be another one of those marketing experts that dismissed something just because I didn’t use it, I was going to give it my all.

Fast forward to today. Over 40,000 tweets, almost 50,000 followers and a new addiction later, I realized what Twitter brought me. I was thinking today “What if I didn’t jump in?” since a lot of the talk nowadays is about “ROI” and the business case for social media I came up with a list of stuff I wouldn’t have today if I didn’t make the jump just over a year ago.

If I didn’t jump in, I wouldn’t have:

• The most incredible support system I’ve ever known in my life. When UnJr’s mom passed away in the fall, hundreds, if not thousands of you opened your arms, even if it was just for a virtual hug. I’ll never forget that
• One of the best friends I’ve ever had.
• A book deal with Wiley
• A platform that allowed my blog to have instant readership once launched, averaging 10k readers per post, brand new (key here: launching the blog after building a following)
• Learned to learn again. Seriously. I had stopped learning. Figured I knew everything about business/marketing. And that’s the worst place to be. I now learn all the time, especially from blogs like Convince & Convert, The Brand Builder, Chris Brogan, McKain ViewPoint, Blue Sky Factory Blog, Awake @ The Wheel, Altitude
• A water cooler: being the head of a company is very isolating, especially when you run it from home. Twitter allows me to have that water cooler banter which allows people to feel included
• Six figures in revenue. The reason why I don’t write about this often is people get the wrong idea. They think “if he can make $, then so will I!”. I get a lot out of Twitter because I give a lot. Social media doesn’t change the fact that relationships take time. I just believe that business is built on relationships, so I make building them my business.
• My Mastermind Group: Ok, I don’t have one, since I have Twitter. I have met some incredible business minds that I can float ideas to, and they can do likewise, all under the belief that we can better each other. I’m surrounded by awesome every time I fire up Tweetdeck
• Writing about my passion: Not only did I get to meet, and consider an awesome friend, Erica Ehm, I get to write the UnDaddy blog, which has given me a writing outlet I never thought I’d do, and love it
• A free trip to DisneyWorld for me and my son. As well as a Tassimo coffee maker, RockPort shoes, 35 books and counting
• The ability to go to events and already know people. Twitter allows me to meet people online, then when I see them at an event, I feel I already know them, because I do
• Allowed me to do my greatest passion in business, speaking at events. A lot of those gigs were generated from a single tweets. Caught someone’s eye, then they went to my site.

And finally, Twitter has renewed my faith in humanity. I’ve never “met” more kind, caring, genuine, funny, smart people, anywhere than I have on Twitter.

And for that, I thank all of you. Don’t forget, none of the above happens without giving on Twitter first. Jump in.

What has Twitter brought to your life/business? Comment below!

**Turns out my man DJ Waldow wrote about this exact thing today too**

**And now Lisa Barone wrote a perfect reply to our posts. I wanted to argue with her, but couldn’t. She’s right**