Freelancing

Monday Spark: Place the oxygen mask on your own face first.

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help yourself firstAs infants we are expected to be self-centered and selfish. It’s the nature of childhood.

Once we are in our teens, people around us begin to lose patience with that self-centered part of our personalities.

Once we enter the work force and commit to our first serious relationship, things begin to change. Hopefully.

And by the time we have a family, we can only wish for those days when we had the time and resources to spoil ourselves and put ourselves first.

This is a natural progression. It’s what we expect of ourselves and of those around us.

But there is a downside, and a danger.

There may come a time in your life when you realize you are devoting yourself entirely to your work, your family, your friends and maybe one of two causes you support.

But what about you? How much time do you devote to yourself?

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To close more sales, flatter your readers.

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better golfer celebratingYou’re a good online copywriter. You do good work, and your skills are growing with each passing month.

Judging from other copywriters’ websites, you’re probably way above average when it comes to your craft. Ramp up your skills a little more, and you’ll rise up the ranks even further.

Yes, flattery will get me everywhere.

Actually, it really will.

In a classic psychology test, a group of drivers were asked if they believed their driving skills were above average.

90% said yes.

Something is not quite right there, because mathematically you can’t have more than 50% of drivers having better than average skills.

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Monday Spark: To do your best work, turn everything upside down.

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best work upside down mona lisaTo explain what I mean by this, let me tell you a story.

Back in the late 70s I was a student at the City and Guilds of London Art School, in England.

Back then the school took a pretty traditional approach to teaching art, and as first-year students we had to do a lot of drawing. In particular, we did a lot of life drawing.

We had a teacher, whose name I unfortunately forget, who used to make sure we didn’t become too “precious” with our drawings.

What is being “precious” when you are drawing? It’s when, instead of seeing the entire form, and drawing the figure as one whole, you start fussing over the eyebrows or toes. In other words, it’s when you play around with the details before you have penciled in a working drawing of the entire form of the figure.

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14 Ways to Make Money as an Online Writer or Copywriter [SLIDESHOW]

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online copywriting opportunitiesThe great thing about writing for the web is the incredible variety it offers.

Back when I was writing direct mail, that’s all I did all day, every day, for about 15 years. And the other copywriters I knew did the same. We were one-trick ponies. Very good at what we did, but more than a little limited in our scope.

That’s probably why I finally burned out and jumped over to writing for the web full time in 1998.

Here I am, 14 years later, and a million miles away for any sense of burnout.

Why did I burn out after 15 years writing direct mail, but not after 14 years writing for the web? Because of the incredible variety.

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Monday Spark: Watch how kids create stuff, and learn from them.

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kids createConsider the young child who completes his or her first drawing or painting. If you are the parent, you think it’s the work of a genius. If you are anyone else, you think it’s a charming blob.

But is the child embarrassed by the drawing? Do they feel a moment of low self-esteem or anxiety before they show it to you? No. They haven’t yet grasped the concept of good and bad, or good and better. They have simply created something.

It’s the same with the group of older boys who build their first fort out of scrap wood, cardboard and anything else they lay their hands on.

To most observers their finished fort looks like a total mess. To them, it’s a magical and utterly perfect fort.

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Monday Spark: Say yes to nimble neurons!

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exercise and intelligenceFor a long time self-improvement gurus have been telling us that a healthy body leads to a healthy mind.

Naturally, many of us dismiss that particular piece of advice, because taking exercise sounds like hard work. So we come up with plenty of good reasons why our brains work just fine without having to take a walk or go for a cycle ride.

Unfortunately for the natural sloths among us, science has now confirmed the connection between exercise and intelligence.

It seems that taking exercise has two important effects on our brains.

First, it stimulates the creation of new brain cells.

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