Freelancing

Monday Spark: Seek out the best, and then remix [VIDEO]

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dylan creative remix

In the early stages of their careers many freelancers try to totally reinvent the wheel when it comes to building their websites or doing their next project for a client.

It doesn’t have to be that hard.

When it comes to writing and designing your own website, why not print out the home pages of the 5 best freelance websites you can find, and then make yours a remix of the best of the best?

If you are writing a sales page for a client, why not find some really good sales pages for similar products or services, take the best from them, and then remix?

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Freelancers: It’s not about what you know, it’s about the message you share.

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I coach a lot of freelancers, many of them just starting out.

More often than not they are concerned about their level of knowledge, or perceived lack thereof.

In other words, they don’t feel ready to approach prospective prospects, because they feel they need to learn more about their craft first.

“I need to learn more about SEO, and writing emails, and social media, and A/B split testing.”

No, you don’t.

Your value in the eyes of your prospects is not tied to the sum of your knowledge, it is tied to the power of the message you share and the story you tell.

Let me use myself as an example.

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Monday Spark: To get to where you want to be, you have to pass through the scary part.

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skydiving freelancerMany of us have wild and exciting dreams for our freelance businesses and companies, but don’t do what it takes to make those dreams come true.

Why not? Because taking the leap is often downright scary.

Well…you’re right. Doing something new is always scary.

A couple of weeks ago I went skydiving for the first time. It is something I have wanted to do for a while. I put off actually doing it for a few months, because as much as I wanted the experience, I found the prospect of jumping out of a perfectly good airplane downright terrifying.

But…to get to the good part, you first have to get past the scary part.

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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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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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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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