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violetsystems · 4 years ago

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#personal

I was invited the other day to join a community as a Creative Advisor from a survey I filled out for Adobe. I made the choice last November to purchase Creative Cloud for an entire year at a discount. When I worked at an art school I had all those applications free. Anybody in the arts community will tell you that software is expensive. I don’t necessarily feel too connected to the local arts community these days. But being a Creative Advisor basically means I participate in focus groups and offer my opinions in writing. It’s a not a bad way to stay active as a creator. I bought a drone basically so I had 4k footage to mess around with in Premiere. I am a YouTube Creator by definition. Yesterday after posting a video of the stream there was another survey in the right hand corner. I cautiously opened it and read through it. It was an inclusion survey. YouTube wanted information to help with their community. The first question was what race I identify as. I can’t really argue I’m not white. The next question was if I identified as part of the LGBTQ community. I don’t so I answered no. The third question was what gender I identified as. I said male because I’m cis. I completed the survey and went on about my business. A few minutes later another popup asked me how satisfied I was with the YouTube community after all this. I answered Very Satisfied and closed the window. I’m also part of a larger community here in Chicago. This can be drilled down so far that you can find yourself standing in a lonely circle with a thousand fingers pointed back at you. My immediate neighbors identify. I wouldn’t know what specifically or why so I don’t ever really pry. I live on a pretty diverse property when it comes to tenants. That expands into a pretty diverse neighborhood with a pretty diverse set of issues when it comes to power sharing. I live the mad max sort of mentality these days. Think more Fury Road than Road Warrior. Where he helps out then silently fades away to focus on his own car wreck of a life. One winter while shoveling snow I discovered somebody had written something in front of one of my neighbor’s doorstep. It said “gay people live here.” I processed it, shrugged and shoveled it away. I couldn’t tell if my landlord was supposed to discover it, if my neighbors actually wrote it, or if it was somebody being hateful. I made a judgement call on the account of safety and made a mental note of it then made it disappear. I cared enough to think about it no matter how much this entire process exhausts me. People join communities for connection. People seek out authentic communities for safety, pride and respect. And people in America should be able to do this freely without being exploited, judged, watched, or compared. Communities overlap and the geopolitics therein get a little tricky. When you live in a city with so many different influences, cultures, and hang ups the fog of the ideological war muddles up everyone’s intentions. I think we retreat to the sanctity of our own communities because they understand the narrative and context best. I’ve been welcomed into many communities that aren’t my own. But my circle is pretty small these days. Mostly because for all the care and attention I apply to the concept of community, I’m often left out to fend for myself here in my bachelor Castle of Doom. Communities do consolidate power for better or for worse. Just like rich people hoard money and dodge taxes. Communities have their own cultural queues and signifiers. Communities in America have increasingly become more like tribes in the economic desert. Impenetrable communes at war with myopic definitions and hidden rules that are meant to keep people out for resource sake. So much so that the Road Warrior doesn’t seem like science fiction to me from personal experience.

It was the great poet Lord Humungus who may have set it best. Just walk away. Safe passage in the wasteland they said. Be your own boss. Own your sexuality and answer for your horny crimes. Shit, I don’t even know where to begin when it comes to where I belong in all of this. For me things have become equally obfuscated and easy to understand at the same time. I’m more of an anarchist these days than I would like to admit. I don’t really want to be on Tucker Carlson’s radar. Simply because everyone is looking for something to label you as so they can pass an easier judgement on you. People want you to identify so they can fit you into whatever conversational hole they wish to project at you. I run into my neighbors all the time. I treat people like people. Simply because I’ve been treated enough like shit to know I don’t want anyone else to experience that. I don’t really want revenge. I want all this nonsense to stop getting in the way of my pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. And the constant arguing and debate team every step of the way is troubling. It’s people with a beaten down sense of self confidence proving themselves in the arena of mob rule. For all the chest beating online on twitter or facebook people are kind of shook in the streets. It is a winner take all mentality. And even the more valid sides of the fight have taken to dirty tactics leaving some of us in the middle of an absolute shit show. Par for the course if you ask me. There are plenty of opportunities to be the hero these days. Not many to be acknowledged as one. You can be you and still support people that think differently. I had a dream about guns last night. I don’t own a gun. That’s not the right choice for a person like me. It doesn’t mean I can make a sweeping generalization for the rest of America. Neither do I actually care to. I’m cis. I don’t spend my time psychoanalyzing or judging gender or sexuality other than my own biases towards it. This is to treat people better and learn respectful communication. Communication is a two way street. And some communication is blocked, obfuscated or hidden for it’s own protection. It can also be self serving. Some of my closest friends are behind infinite onion layers of identities. Layers of firewalls that I pirouette through like a whirling dervish just to show I still care deeply. We take the time to show love. We take the time to understand the obstacles. And we have patience to understand that we have to sacrifice things sometimes for the sake of change. Make no mistake the way I see things on my own is fucked. I am part of a community here on Tumblr. A much wider community. There are times when I don’t fit in. When it’s not about me or you or whoever behind the screen. It’s what we connect to and how we learn to respect each other as human beings first. Not as names. Or fame. Who we really are behind all of this doesn’t really matter as much as the content and ideas we share. Community has it’s own memory and it’s own duty to hold things sacred. Some larger communities do a totally shitty job of understanding the needs of their ideological neighbors. And passion, pride, and lack of patience can burn bridges more quickly than building them. There are times when you realize you are part of a community that doesn’t honor your identity at the core. Sometimes it’s worse. You find you aren’t welcome in a community for whatever reason. If you are an abuser this is a safety issue and not really up for argument or discussion. But sometimes its far less deserving. And it’s a game of musical chairs to understand where you fit in and where you aren’t welcome. For me I’m part Swedish and also a minimalist in nature. Just look at Ikea and my habit of rearranging furniture. I grew more inward this year in terms of who I trust. Now it’s just me and a small percentage of screen names that might be owned by the same person or people. I identify them as my closest friends.

The thing about community I’ve learned over the years is that it can always be infiltrated. Trust can always be broken. We find we don’t belong to the bigger picture because motives are out of place. We long to just be normal and accepted for that. It’s exhausting to have to identify every time you walk out the door. I identify as human. Mostly I identify as Tim. Freedom in America is best summed up by a quote by my favorite person in the world. She’s from China. She said once she loved New York because it was the only place where she felt free to cry in public without anybody prying into why. I’m paraphrasing. But that shit has stuck with me like a knife for years. That isn’t what America is about right now. It’s almost like it’s looking for victims. Looking for signs of weakness to trick into a confidence game. It’s a setup on every corner. A prank waiting to happen. A constant obstacle to your main quest. And this isn’t what America is about. At least not the way I live it. I don’t think I solve the situation with more policing. I don’t think I solve it by doing anything other than continuing to live free. The challenge here in America is constantly evolving as it is around the world. America’s idea of free isn’t always well thought out. It’s riddled with paradoxes. And yet this is all I really have. I’ve seen enough people stalking me in the streets with shirts emblazoned with messages. Freedom isn’t free. Penetrate the world. Blue lives matter. Make seven up yours. I’ve made statements too and found myself more and more alone. And then I’ve started to realize geographically what’s worth fighting for. I’m tied to an address. That’s the address where the government sends my ballots and rejects my state taxes at. That’s the address where the utilities are in my name and I pay my rent on time. Sometimes even a month ahead. I’m fiscally responsible for once in my life. I’ve conquered years of societal glue that held me to mediocre and half assed standards. I’m a diamond in the rough except I’m not really all the rough. I’ve stood up for people who aren’t like me so much that I feel more isolated and weird every day. And I learn that sometimes it’s better to shy away from places where you aren’t welcome than to make a scene. I am stuck in my little hole here. If the answer were getting out there and networking, I’d ask people to look at my passport. It’s not good enough for the state to acknowledge as proof of my identity. But I spent a lot of money going back and forth to Asia trying to do just that. And I paid off all that debt awhile ago. I know the world is bigger than me. And I believe sometimes people think they’ve travelled the world in their computer. They’re the authority on everything. And here is the problem with freedom in America. The authority isn’t always right. This is why we seek out communities. For democracy. For peer review. To have our narrative understood and respected. And we need communities to be more about democracy and less about autocratic reactions to a zero sum game. I think it’s okay to not be part of something you don’t belong. And I also think it’s okay to respect people’s wishes to seek out where they do. But we have to learn to live together in America despite of this. And well this would require us as Americans to really look the beast in the eye. And doing that alone is scary. I should know. I do it every day. So much so that I’m literally not fucking around with much of anything other than what’s easy enough to read. Even when it’s easy to read it doesn’t mean it’s done in earnest. I can only really worry about the things I hold intimate and secret. The creative culture I’ve salvaged with my bare hands. I really don’t care if you don’t get who I am. But I want you to know I care about the world being free. At least for the people I care about. If you ever catch yourself crying in public just remember I’m right there over your shoulder cheering you on. I’ll fight for your right to cry about it and scare off anybody who interferes. That’s just who I am and nobody will know or even acknowledge me by name. Sometimes I do feel like a ghost. I’m not trying to walk through walls people set up for protection. But I will break down the barriers people put up to keep us from living together. <3 Tim

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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years ago

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AS MORE OF THEM

But it was going to use a TV as a monitor? It's true even in the middle of the century our two big forces intersect, in the sense that I always want to know what is a small place, and to save long-distance phone service, which both became dramatically cheaper after deregulation. But Wodehouse has something neither of them did. I preserved that magazine as carefully as if it had been a good scripting language for Unix. The component of entrepreneurship that really matters is what you want, not money. That is a big deal. This kind of focus is very valuable, actually. Essays should aim for maximum surprise.

Football players like to win by writing great software. Plus this method yields teams of developers who already work well together. The consolidation that began in Silicon Valley. And when someone can put something on my todo list. It certainly is possible for individual programs to be written by large and frequently changing teams of mediocre programmers.1 Man-made stuff is different.2 I accumulated was worthless, because I still have it somewhere. Once the playing field is leveler politically, we'll see economic inequality start to rise again. But even to people who sent in proofs of Fermat's last theorem and so on. And grisly accidents. We had to think about it. But you probably have to be.

And a good thing.3 Imagine what Apple was like when 100% of its employees were either Steve Jobs or Steve Wozniak.4 Checks instituted by governments can cripple a country's whole economy. You can compile or run code while compiling, and read or compile code at runtime. Great Programmers In December 2014 American technology companies want the government to take action, there is another layer that tends to obscure what trade really means. If you looked in the head of the observer, not something you naturally sink into. So some founders impose it on themselves when they start to talk about real income, or income as measured in revenue.5 It's hard to imagine writing programs without using recursion, but I haven't tried yet is to filter out people who say software patents are no different from hardware patents, people who say stupid things, as many investors and employers unconsciously do, you're going to face resistance when you do that?

But should you start a startup. Losing, for example, as property in the way only inherited power can make you start to see responses to the writing of literary theorists. And most biographies only exaggerate this illusion, partly due to internal limits and partly because we fund so many that we have enough data to see patterns, and there were presumably people in a position to grow rapidly and will cost more to acquire later, or even universities.6 One valuable way for an idea to be wrong is to be rewritten.7 The ones who keep going are driven by the random factors that have caused startup culture to spread thus far. Great things happen when a group of founders know what they're thinking.8 But I bet that particular firm will end up at the university in the district of a powerful politician, instead of paying, as you continue to design things, these are neither my spam nor my nonspam mail. You're supposed to be an equal participant in its design. Com/apply. Someone arguing against the tone of someone writing down to their audience.9

They didn't want to start a company. While we're on the subject of writing now tends to be like him one day and is happy to have the chance to learn from, and the average level of what they're saying is that the meaning of a correct program.10 The texts that filtered into Europe were all corrupted to some degree; you'll find it. Don't try to seem more or less con artists.11 Both languages are of course moving targets. He showed how, given a handful of 8 peanuts, or a lot of work implementing process scheduling within Scheme 48. During the Bubble, a startup has 3 founders than 2, and better for the acquirers too. I want to know is almost always the same. If you want to understand startups, understand growth.

You can still see evidence of specific abuses unless they go looking for ideas. Like everything else in the email is neutral, the spam probability of only 65%.12 In fact, they're lucky by comparison.13 Really, you want to invest in Airbnb. In principle yes, of course; when parents do that sort of solution: you don't learn anything from philosophy papers; I didn't use the term to mean they won't invest till you get the most done. Customers loved us.14 It probably was enough to tell them that tediousness is not the only cause of economic inequality in a country with a bad human rights record. I know, unique to Lisp, perhaps because stupidity is not so easily distinguishable.15

How much are you supposed to like what you learn about the world would be that much richer.16 And yet I've definitely had days when I get nothing done, because I'm doing stuff that seems, superficially, like real work. If early abstract paintings seem more interesting than one without. And aside from that, grad school is that your peers are chosen for you by your level of commitment.17 Microsoft and the record labels. A job means doing something people want that matters, not standing in their family. Ordinary employees find it very hard to do on the maker's schedule? So we concentrate on the basics. Maybe that's possible, but it could be very popular.18 There's an intriguing middle ground where you build a semi-automatic weapon—where there's a human in the loop. Really good hackers are much better than me.

Notes

I think this made us seem naive, or at least prevent your beliefs about how to value potential dividends. But it's useful to consider behaving the opposite. If big companies don't advertise this.

Horace, Sat. Economic History Review, 2:9 1956,185-199, reprinted in Finley, M.

And yet there is undeniably a grim satisfaction in hunting down certain sorts of bugs.

But it's hard to tell VCs early on when you see people breaking off to both. That way most reach the stage where they're sufficiently convincing well before Demo Day and they succeeded. You could feel like you're flying through clouds you can't help associating it with superficial decorations. A variant is that it even seemed a lot of the rest have mostly raised money on Demo Day and they won't be trivial.

That's why there's a special title for actual partners. To use this route instead. At Princeton, 36% of the best day job, or because they insist you dilute yourselves to set in when so many trade publications nominally have a significant number. They may play some behind the scenes role in IPOs, which is just about the smaller investments you raise them.

Now we don't have those. Finally she said Ah!

Geshke and Warnock only founded Adobe because Xerox ignored them.

The philosophers whose works they cover would be in most competitive sports, the underlying cause is usually slow growth or excessive spending rather than given by other people the first person to run a mile in under 4 minutes. Patrick Pantel and Dekang Lin.

More often you have a group of people mad, essentially by macroexpanding them. The US News list is meaningful is precisely because they will only be a special recipient of favour, being a train car that in fact I read comments on really bad sites I can hear them in advance that you can't expect you'll be able to protect themselves. That makes some rich people move, but something feminists need to.

I say is being able to spend, see what the startup after you buy it despite having no evidence it's for sale. If a company. Among other things, they were going about it.

Whereas when the audience already has to grind. Perhaps the solution is to say yet how much effort on sales. In many ways the New Deal but with World War II had disappeared in a bug. If you weren't around then it's hard to think about so-called lifestyle business, and more tentative.

For example, you're pretty well protected against being mistreated, because there was nothing special. 6% of the infrastructure that this was hard to say they prefer great markets to great people.

Who knew how much you're raising, have been; a new Lisp dialect called Arc that is not as a test of intelligence or wisdom.

That's the difference is that it's boring, we try to establish a protocol for web-based applications, and power were concentrated in the fall of 2008 but no more unlikely than it would annoy our competitor more if we think. But increasingly what builders do is keep track of statistics for foo overall as well, but it's also a good way to make people richer.

Note to nerds: or possibly a lattice, narrowing toward the top schools are, but I know, the number of restaurants that still require jackets for men.

But the usual way to tell them what to outsource and what the US. 73 billion.

Investors influence one another both directly and indirectly. It seems as dumb to discourage that as to discourage risk-taking. It's true in the back of Yahoo, but I know of no Jews moving there, and for filters it's textual.

A knowledge of human nature, might come from all over the internet. The Price of Inequality. So for example. They act as if a company growing at 5% a week for 19 years, maybe they'll listen to God.

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caosemsaturno-blog · 5 years ago

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7 Real Estate Photography Tips and Mistakes

In my own journey to learn and grasp real estate photography, I've learned a couple of things the simple way and discovered more things the hard way. You will find loads of sites out there offering advice for capturing real estate picture taking with most of them offering advice so watered down you are still left questioning how long the writer has actually possessed his / her camera. I am also deeply disappointed in the websites that critique photos which were certainly not used by a specialist and by no means warrant the ridicule of the article's writer.

Nuclear Sky Replacements

Sky replacements are beneficial the majority of the right time when doing twilight real estate picture taking especially. Some agencies like clean, blue skies and other realtors prefer to dress them up a little. Most photographers, when first using sky substitutes, will choose an extremely dramatic, oversaturated sky to “then add punch!” That is a mistake. With regards to sky substitutes, less is more. The real home is the complete point of the photo, don't draw someone's attention from it. Instead, choose a straightforward, clear sky. Several wispy clouds go much than candy red and orange sunsets further.

Mind Your Verticals

I'm sure you've noticed this one one thousand times already but it is so important that everyone understands this guideline. And it is not really one particular “you should know the rules before you break them” guidelines. It really is almost a difficult and fast guideline that must definitely be obeyed always. There are extremely few events where you can suggest your camera up or down and also have a good image turn out. To maintain your verticals along directly, use a bubble level or your camera's digital level. And, in post digesting, use the “car” button (in the change section) to ensure that things are directly and down. However, even this may not work constantly and you will have to try out with the “vertical” slider to modify your image. Keep an optical vision on the sides of wall space, window structures, or cabinets and make an effort to align them with the automated grid lines that pop-up when working with this slider.

Flash Shadows

Display shadows shall pop-up where you least expect them. And you hardly ever notice most of them while on-site. Adobe flash shadows switch a great picture into a good photo. The apparent ones are behind roof enthusiasts or light accessories. The less apparent ones will be behind couches, cushions, desks, plants, dining tables, or chairs. Display shadows are a problem where shadows aren't likely to can be found (ceilings) but are more appropriate (if in order) around things such as chair legs. To be able to prevent shadows, a few are had by your options.

Bad HDR

There is certainly good HDR and there is certainly bad “clown vomit” HDR. I've seen real property images finished with Enfuse or Photomatix (Lightroom plugins) that appeared absolutely incredible. And, I've seen very lazy, churn and burn off HDR that appears like someone flipped the saturation slider to 11. I don't take using HDR but attended to understand that you need to experiment with the configurations in the program of your decision in order to make a clean, sharp image. Will the presets work for your capturing style rarely. But if you would like to dedicate enough time in post digesting (or develop your own presets to fit your style) then this is often a great way to hire HDR photography.

OFFERING Work free of charge

It really is got by me. You are very excited to begin working real careers for real brokers. And you also think, “Hey, maybe I could make a far more attractive offer easily include this, this, this, this, this, this, which free of charge!” Do not do it. Everything you do as a professional photographer is valuable and you also deserve to receive a commission for all you do. When attempting to begin a romantic relationship with a fresh customer of mine, She was presented with by me everything in my own collection for the reduced, affordable of 1 of my basic deals. I even returned to do re-shoots free of charge when she forgot to go that a very important factor from the room first.

RECEIVES A COMMISSION Before You Deliver

This may appear such as a “no duh” kind of statement but a lot of real estate photographers deliver photos before they gather payment. And eventually, a lot of real property photographers ask how to approach clients who go weeks with unpaid invoices. The easy answer is to require payment before any photos are released by you.

In the e-mail which has my invoice, I write, “Your photos are prepared for download. Please view them here and if you are satisfied, go through the hyperlink below to pay your invoice. Once payment has been delivered, I will send you a download security password for the photos. If any concerns are experienced by you, please I want to know prior to making your payment.” Nothing at all fancy, nothing at all confrontational. It though seems that the majority of photographers have trouble charging because of their work to begin with and a straight harder time collecting payment. Many await the client to take it up or they talk about it as a “following the reality” suggestion. Keep in mind, what you do is valuable and you will need to receive a commission to do it. You want to earn a living here.

Equipment Acquisition Syndrome

Oh, of course, you like new equipment, don't we? You can find thousands of things I possibly could buy right now actually. Many, many photographers have bad GAS (so don't capture downwind of these). In the true estate picture taking a world, this will come in the proper execution of light setups, new lenses and cameras, drones, and video rigs. Many real property photographers just starting out have a problem with finding their footing and getting a grip (new customers). So they think, “Hey, if a drone is purchased by me, I'll offer that and the customers will come working!” Improbable. However, they, in any case, buy a drone. Next is this fancy new display that another person is using that costs $600. Next is a video rig to get the buttery clean video for video walkthroughs. I understand because I used to be there.

I found a man offering an extravagant jeans 3 axis gimbal which I thought was the ultimate end-all, be most of the video rigs (a Defy G12). I purchased it off him for $1200 even before I had developed any clients even hinting they needed video work. I used that gimbal for just one paid to take before I tried to market it a complete 12 months later. It had been bulky and big and I never used the darn thing. I sat onto it for 4 a few months although it was on the market and finally sold it for $700 for some man who wished to capture music videos with it. Ugh. Just what waste materials of money.

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squashoffer3 · 5 years ago

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3 Truths You Only Learn From Traveling For Work

This article is brought to you by Adobe Document Cloud.

I remember when I never traveled. Or, rather, I remember when I travelled in the very 90s American sitcom way, which is to say I remember when we piled into my parents’ car and drove somewhere just near enough to not feel exotic, but just far enough to make for a terrible ride up with my little sister beside me in the backseat. (I also remember when they intentionally changed out their practical four-door sedan for two compact, two-door sports cars in the middle of my childhood, whose unbelievably cramped backseats on those seven-hour drives led to a lifetime fear of confined spaces.) I remember when “traveling” meant a rare, exciting, yet ultimately deeply familiar jaunt to Long Island, or Texas, or Georgia, or one of the many places aunts and uncles and cousins resided. I remember when money was very tight, and therefore “travel” was something that happened very rarely, and in very confined terms.

And now, I travel constantly. My work frequently takes me out of my city, even across the country. Travel has become an integrated, obvious part of my life, and all of the attendant, superficial markers of that life have come with it. My passport accumulates stamps. I have become strangely good at packing a carry-on. I know which terminals of which New York City airports have the best food, or the shortest lines, or the nicest gates. And while this does on some level still feel impossibly fancy and grown-up to me, it would be dishonest not to specify that, as most of my travel is still for professional reasons, the actual reality of it is not so romantic.

Over the past few years, I’ve spent literally under 24 hours in certain cities, touching down just to do a day of work and then immediately hop on the first flight to the next destination. I have spent entire trips alternating between stark hotel rooms and corporate office buildings, or never leaving the sprawling reaches of a conference complex. I have learned what it means to travel without really seeing, without really even existing in the place your trip may have taken you. And I’ve also learned what it means to integrate travel into your day-to-day life in a way that does not disrupt your work, or slow any number of goals you may be juggling which have nothing to do with the travel at hand. I have learned the truths which only come from traveling for work — profoundly different than travel for any other reason — and learned how to integrate them into my life beyond just the times I am sipping my bloody mary at 30,000 feet while practicing a presentation. And these are the three biggest of those truths.

1. You’re only as good as the tools you have.

One thing that is particularly true about travel for work specifically — but which can extend into every area of your life — is that you have a maximal amount of things to accomplish, and it’s up to you to make sure they get done. In the case of, say, going to a conference, you have get from one place to the other, eat, go to meetings and presentations and such, network, maybe get a workout in, enjoy the city to some extent, and somehow actually do your day-to-day work. And in this regard, there is nothing more crucial than having all the right tools. As some of you may know, I am a rigorous maker of pre-travel spreadsheets, my Google calendar is always broken down nearly to the minute so I can fully anticipate each day, I tend to pack well in advance (including assembling my plane outfit on a separate hanger), I bring a big enough plane purse for my laptop, phone, charger, notebook, and a reading book, plus I make sure to triple check when packing for all crucial items (which are also in my spreadsheet, of course). But beyond those elements, having an app that allows work to be clean, easy-to-manage, and organized is particularly crucial. And the TFD team loves using Adobe Scan to keep us sane while on the road — everything from the receipts I would otherwise forget to keep (sorry, Annie!), to the letters that come to the office mail while one of us is out of town but needs to see it, are suddenly no longer a hassle. Adobe Scan is a free app that lets you take pictures of documents with your phone and instantly turn them into editable PDFs. Receipts, bills, doctor’s forms, work documents, applications — everything that you can imagine that you would want to quickly and seamlessly turn from paper to digital can be instantly changed with a snap of your phone’s camera. Don’t let the feeling of being cut off from your work prevent you from taking advantage of travel, and start seamlessly organizing and sending your documents today, with the totally-free Adobe Scan.

2. It’s up to you to decide to be present.

Simply put, particularly when it comes to travel for work, I have become an obsessive note-taker. I write in little journals, I record notes in my phone’s recorder app like some sad man writing his novel, I use my notepad app religiously, I even have been known to make the occasional sticky note (which is then placed on my laptop or bedroom mirror). I write down or record everything, very much including the things that have nothing to do with work. I am someone who has always been very greedy about joy and sensory pleasure — I plan out every element of an activity and look at each part of making it happen as a separate, discrete unit of joy — but I have become even more hyper-aware of what I’m doing while traveling for work. And it is through this that I am able to get my work done more effectively, because I no longer feel that the travel is a giant, swirling, amorphous thing I should be paying attention to. I force myself to be actively, attentively present in my travel, which means that when I am back in my hotel room, I am able to fully throw myself into what needs to be done without guilt or distraction.

3. Decide what is joyful about things, and lean into them.

Here’s the truth: in life, but particularly in work travel, there is going to be a lot of stuff you do that you don’t necessarily love. And many of the activities you’re not overly thrilled about are going to take a long time, or feel like they dominate your day in some more vague, emotional way. And there’s no getting around that. But one thing I have learned from these frequent situations in which the travel I’m doing is not necessarily the travel I would have chosen is that there is joy to be found in every task (insert Julie Andrews voice here). Being methodical and considered about hanging up my clothes in the little hotel closet and arranging my toiletries neatly on the bathroom counter can be soothing and ritualistic. Making a point to have at least one nice solo lunch or even breakfast with a good book in a local restaurant or cafe is a perfect way to escape and to feel present. Setting mini-challenges for yourself during an otherwise-boring event (like seeing how many actually-useful takeaways you can write down from a dull presentation) turns it into a little game. Even reminding yourself frequently that, in the grander scheme of things, you are quite lucky to be traveling for work is a good way to find the joy in the actual doing of it. The point is, embracing each element of these things you must do with vigor and enthusiasm, and choosing to lean into the parts of it that bring you joy, are the only ways to ensure that your life (and, yes, even the work travel bits of it) aren’t just a matter of getting past one thing in order to get to another. Each moment should be appreciated, and it’s up to us to learn how to do that. Even when we are going to a 7 AM breakfast in a hotel ballroom.

Don’t forget to check out Adobe Scan and Adobe Acrobat Reader!

Image via Unsplash

Source: https://thefinancialdiet.com/3-truths-you-only-learn-from-traveling-for-work/

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paulpowder2-blog · 5 years ago

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3 Terrible Purchases That Finally Made Me Change My Lifestyle

With the approach of a New Year, I think it’s inevitable that we all start reflecting on ourselves and what we’d like to change. While I definitely fall into the category of people who are “New Year’s Resolution-Makers,” I actually do try to implement changes throughout the year and not just at the beginning. I’ve learned throughout the years that I can get easily sidetracked and distracted by multiple goals and projects, so if I truly want something to change, I just have to start (or least start planning) now instead of waiting for a particular date.

But I am a fan of New Year goals and resolutions. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having that motivational push and if it that’s what you need to help you get into the self-improvement mindset. So in the spirit of 2019, these are the three lifestyle changes I’m continuing to work on after making some of my worst purchases. Sometimes these were made out of insecurity and vanity, and sometimes they were simply because I was irresponsible. Either way, these seemingly innocent purchase mistakes ended up teaching me more than how to better manage my budget.

1. A Custom Blazer I Saw On Instagram

Cost: $100 CAD ($75 USD)

When Instagram became popular a few years ago, I began to follow a lot of fashion and lifestyle bloggers. They all posted these incredibly beautiful photos — you know the ones — posing in a stunning outfit in front of a white-washed background with perfect hair and make-up. At the age of 21, I was super impressionable and in awe of all the beautiful people and things on Instagram.

So in 2015, when I was visiting my family in Vietnam and was in the city of Hoi An, famous for custom tailoring, I decided that I was going to treat myself. I had a custom blazer made in the same style as one of the fashion bloggers I had been following. She had just posted this incredibly chic photo in New York in it and I thought it would be perfect for when I returned to work after my trip. To be clear, it was not an average blazer, it was this cape-style blazer that didn’t have sleeves, but instead had the arms slits cut mid-way down the blazer.

I didn’t even wear it once before I threw it in the donation bin a year later.

I realized then that a lot of the beautiful things fashion/lifestyle bloggers wear are on Instagram are not only impractical, they’re down right uncomfortable. That blazer was not functional; because it didn’t have proper sleeves, I couldn’t move my arms without it slipping into an uncomfortable position. Literally the only thing that blazer was good for was Instagram likes.

I knew I couldn’t afford the designer blazer she was wearing so I had a custom one made instead and while $100 didn’t break my bank account, it was a lot of money for me on a backpacker’s budget.

To me, that blazer was the physical manifestation of all those Instagram photos of influencers that I aspired to be like – carefree, beautiful, and always perfect looking with this effortless backdrop. But that blazer taught me I had to be careful not to let beautiful photos skew my perception of reality in how I see myself and what I can afford to spend.

I’d like to say that I cut off all Instagram influence after this experience, but it wasn’t that simple. Sure, I unfollowed fashion bloggers here and there, but it wasn’t just the clothes, it was the lifestyle. Every year I try to get better and better at critically thinking about who I follow and what kind of online world I want myself surrounded by. I try to unfollow people throughout the year if I don’t think if they positively contribute to my life anymore, but I recently found a loophole into this horrible habit. For the past year, I’ve instead been lurking the profiles of people who live these perfect lives to see what they were up to and what they were wearing. And every time I searched them, it would appear as a suggestion in my search bar. So it would be this vicious cycle of me still viewing these people’s highlight reels except I would check back on their profile instead of following them, which was worse (you can judge me for this one, because it really was creepy).

You probably think I sound obsessive, and honestly, it’s probably bordering there. But as of recently and into 2019 I’m going to get more use out of the hide, mute, and block function on Instagram to stop myself from going down that rabbit hole. I fully understand that these are not bad people; I’m sure they are great people, but in trying to stay authentic to myself, I’ve learned that I have to be surrounded by people online that I would want to hang out with in real life. This means following people who genuinely share their successes and challenges in life, and not just the perfect cool girls who were nice, but I never ended up staying in touch with after high school.

2. The Subscription I Refused to Cancel

Cost: $518.64 CAD ($387.75 USD)

One of the worst and costly mistakes I’ve ever made was being too lazy to cancel subscriptions that I do not use. And I’m sure I’m not alone in this one since gym memberships are notorious for being a prime example of how long one can deny the use of a subscription until actually canceling it. Thankfully, I’ve never lied to myself that much and bought a gym membership. I much prefer to exercise in the outdoors; I pay enough for it by living in Vancouver, BC.

However, there were many times that I talked myself into other costly subscriptions and never fully used them, which is exactly the same thing as a dusty gym membership. For me, my vice is learning. I want to learn everything.

So after discovering the world of calligraphy and typography (on Instagram of course), I got swept away with the idea of learning all things graphic design. Shortly after, I looked into getting an Adobe Photoshop license for my computer, even though I was nowhere near that level that required it. And because I still had a student email account, I learned I got a discount if I subscribed to the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite instead which would come with all of their programs as opposed to just the one or two I needed and I thought, “what a great deal! What a great chance to learn more.” The problem was I only clicked into those other programs maybe once before deciding it was not for me and never opened them again because I was too overwhelmed. I should have just canceled it after the two months after realizing that I didn’t need it and wasn’t interested in learning all these programs after the initial excitement wore off, but I didn’t. I lied to myself for a bit more than a year before finally letting go of that $30+ charge each month.

The plus side is that I did a lot from it, but not surprisingly, I really only learned Photoshop and Lightroom which were the only two I was interested in. More than that, I learned that I did not need the software to really practice my hobby (if I wanted to turn it into a side hustle sure, but I was nowhere near that level yet).

I think constantly having the desire to learn more and further my self-improvement is a wonderful quality and I do really like that about myself. But I’ve also learned I need to put limits on it, both in time and in money. I can’t just jump into things thinking I have the time and desire to learn it. More importantly, I shouldn’t just sign up for costly subscriptions and software to think that I needed them to pursue a hobby. We do live in the age of YouTube and tutorials and if I really wanted to learn something, I should use make use of free resources to consider if I truly enjoy the hobby, before jumping in credit card first.

I could have waited a bit longer to see if I really needed those programs, but I got tempted by the package offer and caved into the idea that I would be “saving money” with this bundle. In the end, I spent over $500 on this very expensive lesson.

Nowadays, I have a budget and account for creative projects. Whenever I make money through my side hustles, I put it towards paying for new creative things I want to learn. I have a budget for everything else, why not creative hobbies? Having a set budget for it really makes me critically think about whether I have the time, energy, and interest to really pursue a particular creative project because I have to work extra hard for side hustle money as opposed to my regular salary.

So far, it’s going great, and made me really think about what I enjoy enough to spend money learning more about. For 2019, I’m going to continue using the budget mostly for my blog because more and more I’ve found my passion for it, and be super honest with myself if I have the budget for more projects. The best part of this system is that it has created a definite limit on my spending and makes me super cautious of subscriptions. Before, the charge would just come off of my credit card, and it would be buried underneath a mountain of other transactions. Now, there’s a set amount in a specific side hustle account in my PayPal account and everything for creative projects gets paid out from there. If I don’t add to it, I simply run out of money and can’t buy it.

3. The Wrong Paint

Cost: $42.97 CAD/$32.13 USD (for the wrong one), $34.97 CAD/$26.14 USD (for the correct one)

Yes, I paid more for the wrong paint.

This one is just a reflection of how poorly I plan and research sometimes. After buying my apartment, I naturally wanted to put a fresh coat of paint on it. Not only for the obvious reason that it would look nicer, but because the previous owners also chose this horrendous brown-y yellow paint for a small bedroom. Like, why?

In my excitement, I did absolutely zero research on what type of paint I actually needed and based 100% of my decision solely on the color of paint.

Life lesson: There are different types of paint.

I ended up buying two colors of paint; a grey one for my living room and a white one for my bedroom. However, after painting my entire bedroom with friends, I learned that I had accidentally bought “exterior” paint, which is sturdy and sticks the second you apply it. While painting, I could see that it looked really streaky, but I told myself that it would look better when it dried. When my mom came over and jokingly remarked “wow, this looks really bad”, I responded defensively. But when the paint was fully dried, I realized (of course) that my mom was right and it did look really, really bad. I had to come to terms with the fact that I had made a mistake and it not only cost me financially, but it cost me time. If anyone has ever painted an entire room before, you’ll know it’s not quick. I had to re-paint the whole place myself and it took many evenings after work to complete it.

Prior to this, if something was broken or needed repair in the home, my parents or landlord would fix it. This was the first decision regarding a home where I was the one completely responsible for the damage and for the repair. And the responsibility was hard to deny when I was literally standing in the middle of a horribly painted bedroom.

As I’ve continued to decorate and organize more of my apartment, I’ve gotten better and better at planning and researching my needs beyond just the aesthetics of it. I’m not perfect, but I’m getting there. More specifically, I’ve started especially really paying attention to the exact measurements of things instead of just eyeballing it. And probably to no surprise, it’s been working. What a concept.

In the end, these were all purchases I’ve made that were probably not my best choice. I actually choke a little when I think about all the money I spent on the fancy tools and software for hobbies I became enamored with (I did not include all of them or else this article would have turned into an essay), but spending this money badly taught me a lot. These bad purchases showed me, in a tangible dollar amount, the not so nice parts of me. It showed me how much I truly do care about my looks (despite what I think), the cost of my ambitions, and the consequences I have to pay when I rush into home purchases. Sure, I could have learned these lessons another way, but these bad purchases really pushed that mirror on me to reflect upon.

These are changes and lessons I’m currently incorporating, and working to improve upon in 2019. I’m definitely not perfect when it comes to curating the noise of social media or planning for my home but every month I get better and better. I’m using the New Year as a way to ride onto the “new year, new me” wave, but I hope you’ll think about something you’ve been meaning to change too. Even if you don’t start on January 1st, that doesn’t make it any less important or mean it will be any less successful.

Kimberly is the writer behind www.millenniallifeadmin.com. MLA is a blog that helps break down the everyday adulthood tasks of growing up; one unavoidable responsibility at a time. You can also find her scrolling through memes and sassy posts on Instagram @millenniallifeadmin.

Image via Unsplash

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Transcript of Everything You Need to Know About Podcasting

Transcript of Everything You Need to Know About Podcasting written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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John Jantsch: This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast is brought to you by SEMrush. It is our go-to SEO tool for doing audits, for tracking position and ranking, for really getting ideas on how to get more organic traffic for our clients, competitive intelligence, backlinks and things like that. All the important SEO tools that you need for pay traffic, social media, PR and of course, SEO. Check it out at semrush.com/partner/ducttapemarketing. We’ll have that in the show notes.

John Jantsch: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is John Lee Dumas. He’s the host of EOFire, an award-winning podcast that interviews successful entrepreneurs seven days a week. That’s right. Every single day except over 1,400 interview, a million monthly listeners. It’s really become not only a great place for you to get inspiration just entrepreneurially but also to learn about podcasting. We’re going to talk about a variety of things today including a new passion project that’s turned into a big business all by itself, I think. Something called The Freedom Journal. John, welcome back.

John Lee Dumas: Well, John, I’m glad to be back and to combine over 2,000 episodes which is just mind-boggling.

John Jantsch: Yeah, it really is. I’ve done it the long hard way. Well, you’ve done it the really fast cool way. Let’s start there with my guessing. Is there anything new in the world of podcasting that you’re seeing coming that you are telling people that they need to pay attention to?

John Lee Dumas: Yeah. I say over and over again, if I launched Entrepreneur On Fire today, it would fail. It would fail in 2016 because (1) I was not a good podcaster when I launched. It took me a long time to get my “interview chops” and that’s why I did it daily so I could really get to practice. Now, I’m over 1,500 episodes. If I launched the show today, it would fail because it’s too broad. It’s not niche enough. I land grabbed. I was there early enough. I wasn’t as early as you, of course, but I was there early enough where I was able to land grab and really get a name and momentum that I’ve continued to be able to build momentum, momentum, momentum. I got there because of that.

John Lee Dumas: If I wanted to launch a successful show today in 2016, I would have to find a niche. I’m not just talking like a narrow niche. I’m talking like a narrow, narrow niche where I would just say, “Hey, I’m going to dominate this topic in the podcasting world, and the area that I’m passionate about and that I have some value to give. I’m going to do it in a meaningful way.” People that launch these broad topic podcast, I think, are going to struggle because there’s just a lot of saturation out there in the broad markets, but there’s never enough niche podcast, people that find that unique value distinguisher that’s going to make them win. That’s what’s new in 2016. In my opinion, podcasting is hot. It is the golden age of podcast and you’ll hear it over and over again, but for a host, if you’re starting any time this year or next, find that narrow niche and dominate it.

John Jantsch: One of the things that I have attributed to podcasting that not everybody talks about. Obviously, there are a lot of people out there that would love to have this success in the revenue that’s come with that success directly related to podcasting that you have, but I talk a lot of small business owners and actually tell them that one of the little talked about things that podcasting can bring you is access. There are many, many people that I have gained access to because I said, “Hey, I want to interview you and promote your book” as opposed to, “Hey, I just want to talk to you for 20 minutes and pick your brain.” I think a lot of business owners miss that opportunity. I think there is a place for podcasting for somebody to just interview hot prospects in their community or people that are doing what they want to be doing in their community. What do you think about type of podcasting?

John Lee Dumas: I think that’s great. I think the regional podcast is really powerful. I look back and I’m not honestly, personally, super religious of a person, but when I first heard about podcasting, it was from my friends that were talking about going to church services or more likely missing church services and then listening to the podcast afterwards like on Monday or Tuesday. I was like “What’s a podcast? What do you mean by that?” They described and I was like “Oh.” Churches were, interestingly enough, pretty early in on the podcasting game like back in the mid 2000s. Literally, some churches were doing this for people that would miss church. They proved that it can be a regional win. The people in the community will say, “Hey, I missed that service, but I want to hear what the sermon was about. Let’s do this.” People today are winning regionally as well. I think that’s really important.

John Lee Dumas: I have a couple friends in the City of Portland, Maine where I was born and raised and actually launched EOFire back in 2012 in Portland, Maine that are doing really cool regional podcast that are being listened to because people want to know what’s happening in Portland, not just in the world. They want the niche podcast. They want the specifics. That’s why people like picking up the local newspaper because they’re going to see their kids in the high school basketball game. They’re not going to get that on USA today. That’s why local newspapers are still winning on some levels. I think regional podcast will as well.

John Jantsch: People love to talk about the tools and the technology involved in podcasting. I had Mike Stelzner on recently and he’s a social media examiner. He is always pushing me on the, “Oh, you need to do this to make your audio better and that to make your audio better.” What’s your current mic mixer recording editing software setup?

John Lee Dumas: Yeah. Let me break it down. (1) It’s so much simpler than people think. All you need is a computer, a microphone of some sorts and then recording and editing software. Those are the three things you need. 99% of people that are listening right now, (1) they have that computer. They’re good to go. To be honest, these days, a high-level android or iPhone can honestly work as well. (2) Moving into microphones, I’ll recommend three real quick because I think it’s got a good two different price levels, but my guess to be on my show at a minimum have to have the Logitech Clearchat. It’s 30 bucks. You can get it on Amazon. It’s a USP. It’ll plug into USB ports, to headsets, which is important having a headset and to really quickly get into why that will cut out echo which is really important and feedback as well.

John Lee Dumas: The Logitech Headset Clearchat is 30 bucks on Amazon, if you want to go up to what I consider a really high quality mic. It’s actually my number one recommendation. Combining cost and quality, that’s the ATR 2100. ATR 2100, 80 bucks on Amazon. It’s an amazing quality mic. My number one when you combine the cost and quality. I’m on a Heil PR-40. It’s 350 bucks. It’s not cheap. To be honest, if I was launching a podcast today, I’d be going ATR 2100 all the way downtown. The Heil PR-40 is a broadcast quality mic, but until you really generate significant revenue, the ATR 2100 is all you need. Honestly, people like Tim Ferriss, he was one of the top ranked business podcast, that’s what he uses. People don’t complain about his audio. They just love the show. For recording and editing software, I’m obsessed with Adobe Audition. That is 20 bucks a month. You have to subscribe to the Adobe Creative Cloud for that. I recorded and edited all 1,500 EOFire episodes in Adobe Audition.

John Lee Dumas: If you want to go free, you have Audacity, which is great for MAC and PC. If you want to go MAC because you’re a MAC lover, then GarageBand works really great as well. Again, that’s to record and edit your episodes and then you’re good to go. That’s a podcast. You just need to submit it to iTunes.

John Jantsch: Adobe Audition works PC, MAC too, right?

John Lee Dumas: Yes, it does both.

John Jantsch: It doesn’t matter. Right. Yeah. What about a mixer? Again, I know, now, we’re going down the rabbit hole of making-

John Lee Dumas: Sure.

John Jantsch: …this more complex, but I found that when I switched to just a little simple two-channel mixer, it powered my mic a lot better.

John Lee Dumas: Yeah. I think a mixer can add benefit, for sure. I recommend for people that struggle with the techy stuff, just don’t even go with a mixer, personally. Again, that would be me launching today. Now, I launched in 2012 and I hired people like Cliff Ravenscraft too as a tech geek. I love him for it. He set me up with a PreSonus FireStudio mixer and Firewire that goes into my MAC. This is the setup that I’ve had since 2012. I just pressed the power button. That’s why it works for me because I don’t touch anything. I don’t touch the knobs. I’m just good to go, but with computers, as they are today, with the audio cards in them and with Adobe Audition, Audacity or GarageBand, whichever one you choose, they have FX and that’s just the letter FX that you can just add to improve the audio. I personally don’t think you need a mixer like you use to, but like you said, it can help with the boost and the gain and taking out some of the hissing noises that is best to do at the source rather than after the fact.

John Jantsch: Plus, I sound so much sexier with a little reverb don’t you think?

John Lee Dumas: You do sound sexy, I would say.

John Jantsch: What do you do after you hit stop? Again, I don’t want to go down this whole road of all the technical stuff.

John Lee Dumas: Sure.

John Jantsch: I’m more interested in the fact that you produce so many shows. You, obviously, are getting some help after you hit stop. I’m guessing that, maybe, the last time you fuzz with the actual podcast.

John Lee Dumas: Yeah. I have a whole team now at, again, Episode 1500 four years later. From day one, I learned it. I got my hands dirty. I learned everything. I think it’s important to know how to do these things because if you don’t know how to do these things, you don’t know how to train your team to do these things. I really am glad that I got my hands dirty and I can do all of this stuff. The editing, the exporting, the uploading into the media host, like all of those things I can do, but I have a team in place now that when I hit the stop button, they take it and they run. I do go back. I have my little checks and balances where I’m making sure that everything has been uploaded correctly to the media host and to iTunes into my website, but it’s very minimal, the work that I do after the stop button because my team is in place. It took me years to get here. I think that people should not be afraid of getting their hands dirty to start.

John Jantsch: I completely agree. The technology has gotten so simple to use. Once you know how to do it or once you know how you want your process done, it’s really easy to make a checklist for a virtual assistant to do most of these steps because they all have access to these tools today too.

John Lee Dumas: It’s unbelievable. I actually run the world’s largest podcasting community, Podcasters’ Paradise. Every week, I’m doing a free podcast masterclass for anybody that wants to attend. In that masterclass, I show people the eight steps, all the way from hitting record all the way to submitting to iTunes. There’s eight steps. I show you how to do those eight steps live. I do it live during this workshop in under three minutes. Once you know it, it’s super simple.

John Jantsch: Yeah. That’s so great too because I think part of what holds people back is, they’re thinking, “Oh, who has hours everyday to be doing this podcast?”

John Lee Dumas: Right.

John Jantsch: You’re right. It’s simple.

John Lee Dumas: Right.

John Jantsch: What do you think about the rush to live video that’s going on right now? Again, I know that’s not podcasting but in some ways, it fits into that medium, that space. Are you a fan of it or you think it’s here to stay, you think it’s a fan?

John Lee Dumas: I’m a fan of it. I think that when you have built up an audience, that audience does want more of you. They want more behind the scenes. They want more little tidbits. I actually have a thing that I call JLD rants where I will use video. I’m actually, personally, not a huge, what I would call, “live video person” as much as I am nearly live video person. I say that because I do use, pretty much, daily SnapChat, Instagram stories and Instagram. When I hit publish, it’s immediately available to the world, but I’m not recording it live like I can do a 10-second video on SnapChat and be like, “Oh, that was terrible.” I can redo it and redo it until I like it. Then I publish it, and then it’s available to the world. It’s not, for me, technically live. It’s like near live.

John Lee Dumas: I think some people are fighting a lot of success with stuff that is live like Facebook Live and be a good example. Like Periscope, before Facebook Live came in and butted them out. That is something that I’m seeing people use to build audiences, but I think there’s a really big concern here going back to what I said about the land grab is, there’s a lot of noise out there in this world, a lot of noise. Unless you have an audience that knows, likes and trust you because you built that up through different channels and you have something of meaning to say, then I think you’re going to lose when it comes to live video. Why I think Periscope personally lost and a lot of people within Periscope wasted a ton of time, because they had flip on Periscope and they would bring their face, want it from the screen and they’d be like “Oh, John, thanks for coming. Where are you from? Okay. Yeah. Sarah from Ohio.”

John Lee Dumas: Nobody wants to tune in consistently or something where you’re just welcoming people and shouting out where they’re from. Once you’ve heard your name a couple times, that cool feeling rubs off. Now, people want meaning. They want value. That’s why Gary Vaynerchuck is blowing up. Not to mention, he’s also investing a ton of money boosting his stuff because he has disposable income to put $300, $400, $500 into each one of his videos to really force it into people’s feeds because it’s paid a play when it comes to Facebook. I think the live video is a great way to practice. It’s a great way to really start to try to build that audience who knows, likes and trust you, but just be careful that you’re not just adding more noise to the world. You have to add value.

John Jantsch: Yeah. I think that, again, this sounds so silly to have to keep saying all the time, but there has to be a purpose, there has to be a strategy.

John Lee Dumas: Yeah.

John Jantsch: Am I there to promote other things I’m doing? Am I there to try to give another flavor to the content that people already like. That’s where, I think, you’re right. A lot of people just turn it on and go, “Okay.”

John Lee Dumas: To put an exclamation point on your point is, every time I flip on SnapChat, I have a quote that I’m inspired by. I have a list of 1,000 quotes that I love. What I’ll do is, I’ll say, “Hey, guys. This is a quote that I love from a great entrepreneur. I’ll obviously give the name and the credit to that person.” Then I’ll say, “No, I want to do a rant on this quote about how I think it affects us as entrepreneurs today.” Every one of my SnapChat rants, my Instagram story rants, my Instagram videos, they are all on purpose with a point where I’m saying, “Okay, there’s this great quote by Henry Ford.” Then I’ll go through it and then I’ll say, “Now, this is where I think you can take that quote and use it today.” For me, they’re all mini stories, mini rants off of meaningful words from successful entrepreneurs.

John Jantsch: Let’s now shift gears and talk a little bit about a project that you have been working on, I don’t know, I’m going to say, it seems like a year maybe. It’s been more than a year.

John Lee Dumas: Yeah, two years.

John Jantsch: Two years. Okay, thefreedomjournal.com, a different home for what we’re going to talk about today. Let’s describe that. What is The Freedom Journal?

John Lee Dumas: It was in early January of 2015 where I just hit the tipping point where so many of my listeners of EOFire, what I call, whom I lovingly refer to, I should say, as Fire Nation were just asking met this question over and over again for the years leading up to 2015. Finally, this was like “Okay, this question is so important to people.” That was like “John, you now interviewed thousands of successful entrepreneurs, what’s their secret to success?” My answer, up to that point was always, “They work hard. Hard work is such an important ingredient.” That absolutely, it remains at the forefront of what I say to people to this day. That’s such an important ingredient, but I knew that I wanted to give them more as well.

John Lee Dumas: I really look to people like you, John, who are on my show Episode 563 and other great entrepreneurs like Tony Robbins, Barbara Corcoran, Brian Tracy that I’ve interviewed and I said, “All of my past guests, they know how to set and accomplish goals.” That just kept coming up when I was doing this in-depth study back in early 2015. I said, “Okay, how can I create a tool, a solution? How can I bridge that gap where my guests were successful entrepreneurs are setting and accomplishing meaningful goals and winning and a lot of my listeners are not in losing? How can I fix that? How can I create a solution?” That’s where the idea for The Freedom Journal came. I knew I wanted it to be special. I wanted it not to just be like a PDF or something like an app, like that could be easily replicated or just hitting on a desktop. I wanted it to be special.

John Lee Dumas: I knew from day one it was going to be this gorgeous, stunning, hard cover journal that someone would be proud to hold. I set about learning everything that I could learn about goals and the setting of them and the accomplishing of them. It took me a full year to create the content within The Freedom Journal. Then fast forward to January of 2016, coming up on a year ago, I launched The Freedom Journal via Kickstarter. I didn’t know what people in 2016 were going to think about a hard cover journal. God forbid, it’s not virtual or in the clouds, so who knew but I trusted that this was something that was needed and it just went viral. It became the sixth most funded publishing campaign of all time. It did $453,000 in just 33 days. Again, this is for a $39 journal. We did over 9,000 sales of The Freedom Journal in just those 33 days.

John Lee Dumas: You, being an author, John, you know that book sales are pretty hard to come from. This is what I’ve been told by other big time authors, if you get over 1,500 sales, you’re starting to get into the 1%. In 33 days, boom. On that 9,000 sales as we are speaking today, I’m over 14,000 Freedom Journal sold. Again, this is not a $9 book. This is a $39 hard cover journal. It just connected with people. They saw that they could actually have an accountability partner that wouldn’t let them fail because that’s what it is. It’s a step by step guide to setting a smart goal, specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time bound. Then accomplishing that goal in 100 days through daily tasks, nightly recaps, 10-day sprints. Every 10 days you’re accomplishing a micro goal, quarterly reviews. You’re looking back over the previous 25 days. You’re seeing what worked to amplify that or what didn’t work to make adjustments and shift so that by day 100, you’ve accomplished your number one goal.

John Jantsch: As I listen to you describe that, that’s actually the path that I have proposed for most business owners. You have your annual planning, which, maybe, that’s where you set your big audacious goal for the year but obviously, then you got to break it down into focus priorities for the quarter and then all those priorities break down into many, many little tasks and then you just start going to work on daily and weekly. Not only an individual goal planning, I think it’s a tremendous … maybe you ought to have a sub freedom journal and created as a business planning too.

John Lee Dumas: Yeah. That’s not-

John Jantsch: Then people think that was really boring.

John Lee Dumas: …co-branding, John.

John Jantsch: Let’s do it. Let’s do it. I’m up for it.

John Lee Dumas: Yes.

John Jantsch: I think it’s a great idea. The one thing I want to look back to and then let’s talk a little bit about why The Freedom Journal has been so successful in your mind, this isn’t new information. How many people for years and years and years have talked about setting smart goals? What stops people from doing it? I think intellectually, everybody gets it, but why don’t they take action or stick with it?

John Lee Dumas: I think it’s overwhelming. I think people, when they look at what they want to grow in 2016, they have so many options. They have the website to build, the podcast to create, the blogs, to write the email list, to grow, the YouTube videos, the social media. They have everything. They just get overwhelmed. They get distracted. They lose focus. That’s why The Freedom Journal was incredibly focused on accomplishing your number one goal in 100 days. The subtitle is not accomplish all of your life goals in 100 days because that’s why people fail. They set too many goals with too many different endpoints. They don’t have that time boundedness, which is so critical. That’s why that 100 days is in there. They just get so distracted. Life, frankly, just takes over.

John Lee Dumas: For me, I know, looking back at my journey that setting the one goal of launching EOFire, which I did in about three, three and a half months. It was right around 100 days, which again, back then in 2012, I wasn’t thinking I had 100 days, but looking back on it and I was confused, I was like “Wow, that actually took me just about 100 days, but I really had to stick to a plan.” I had a mentor that was guiding me every step of the way. I know that by me setting the goal of launching EOFire and then accomplishing that goal by launching it about three, three and a half months later, that was me knocking over the one big Domino that was the result for the chain reaction of awesome that happened post EOFire. If I was trying to do 100 different things and I never launch EOFire, I would have been successful at nothing because EOFire was the catalyst for all of my success. That had to become real. That had to become published for me to do anything of significance or substance from that point forward.

John Lee Dumas: Once I did press publish with EOFire, that Domino knocked over all these other things that have since led to us today where we’re generating multiple six figures of revenue every single month from very diverse streams of income. Sometimes 10 and sometimes up to 15 every single month which we report at eofire.com/income because we wanted to share how our business has grown from accomplishing one goal, launching a podcast.

John Jantsch: It’s the classic example of doing more by really focusing on less.

John Lee Dumas: Yeah, so much.

John Jantsch: I think that that’s the typical business owner. It’s like “Okay, we’re going to do our annual plan and here are our 12 strategic initiatives” and nobody can hold more than two or three at the most and really have any accountability. It really does apply. Let’s say you accomplish that one goal in 90 days or 100 days. Is it then simply a matter of saying, “Okay, what’s the next big one and let’s put that in the hopper”?

John Lee Dumas: Absolutely. Because that’s what I was really seeing that my guest were succeeding in. They were setting that one big goal, accomplishing that meaningful goal and then saying, “Okay now that I’ve accomplished this incredibly meaningful goal, what’s next?” For me, it was Podcasters’ Paradise, which is now over 3,000 members over $4 million in revenue, but that goal could never have been set without accomplishing the first one first. It’s one step at a time. Now, of course, you’re doing and accomplishing other things along the way. That’s really important to do, but your one clear, concise focus is on one thing. Right now, I have one focus. One focus right now and that’s on the next journal that I’m launching this coming January. Nothing else matters to me. That is my one focus. I will accomplish other things along the way, but I will absolutely make sure that that number one focus gets accomplished for the January 23rd launch because that is my number one.

John Jantsch: Well, what that allows you to do is make choices, right? You get asked to do this. You get asked to do that. You get asked to do that. Well, now, it’s like “Well, this one serves my goal. These two don’t.” Easy choice, right?

John Lee Dumas: Yes.

John Jantsch: There has been a lot written about these dual principles of attention and intention. I’d love to hear your thoughts on that. The idea of intention, meaning, “Here’s where I want to go. Here is my goal,” but then the attention part is, “Okay, so here are the things or the three things that I have to focus on in order to meet that goal.” I think what happens is, not enough people really carefully construct both of those elements.

John Lee Dumas: I think a lot of people don’t construct, sometimes, either of those elements. That can be a really big struggle. I’m curious. I’m turning this back on you, John, because I’m curious about where you’re coming from for this. What’s an example of where you’ve seen this happen, like maybe from your audience?

John Jantsch: Well, yeah. My intention that drives me and of course, it’s evolved over the years, but my intention and what really got me going on Duct Tape Marketing was that I saw a lot of small business owners doing what I think is the funnest thing in the world, owning your own business, but it was taking the life out of them because they couldn’t figure out the marketing part. My intention is somewhat of a mission to save small business owners from themselves, one small business owner at a time or to ultimately have millions of small businesses, small business owners that now have a much richer life because they’ve been able to figure out this marketing thing. That, ultimately, is my intention but that’s a pretty big thing.

John Jantsch: My attention, then, is on quarterly almost, “Okay, what’s going to move me towards that goal? Well, perfecting this system or building this tool or having this conversation.” Those become the things that are the priorities, so to speak, for the quarter that I know are driving me towards that bigger thing, that there’ll be more big rocks that come along each quarter, but that the ultimate thing driving me is that one thing that is the intention of my entire business.

John Lee Dumas: I think it’s important that we do realize that this is the journey. This is the journey that we’re on and a lot of people just have this end goal. You see this happen in Silicon Valley all the time. You have people that literally kill themselves for years and they sacrifice everything else for that one IPO, that one sale. They think that that’s going to just solve everything and change the world, and then they finally … 99.9% of them end up failing and it never works. They go back to ground zero but the 0.1% that actually even does work for, they’re just like “Oh my God, what’s next? Now, I have no purpose in life. This was my life.” They never achieved any kind of balance, any semblance of understanding that is the journey. It’s all about the journey and that’s with your quarterly and annual goals and my 100 days. It’s about recognizing and experiencing the journey, intentionally.

John Jantsch: I think if you have a big enough, what I’ve referred to as intention, it’s like the horizon. It’s going to keep moving away from you. You almost want to have something that you never can actually-

John Lee Dumas: Never.

John Jantsch: …ultimately realize, but then it’s important to turn around and say, “Wow, look how far we’ve come,” occasionally. John, thanks so much for joining us. I’m talking to John Lee Dumas. He is the host of EOFire. Find it at eofire.com. Of course, we talked, today, a little bit about The Freedom Journal, thefreedomjournal.com and maybe you’ll come back in January of 2017 and we’ll talk about your new project.

John Lee Dumas: Well, I’d love that.

John Jantsch: I hope to see you out there on the road.

John Lee Dumas: Definitely.

from http://bit.ly/2Je1Qvg

#Marketing Plan

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pullcarol0-blog · 6 years ago

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3 Terrible Purchases That Finally Made Me Change My Lifestyle

1. A Custom Blazer I Saw On Instagram

Cost: $100 CAD ($75 USD)

I didn’t even wear it once before I threw it in the donation bin a year later.

2. The Subscription I Refused to Cancel

Cost: $518.64 CAD ($387.75 USD)

3. The Wrong Paint

Cost: $42.97 CAD/$32.13 USD (for the wrong one), $34.97 CAD/$26.14 USD (for the correct one)

Yes, I paid more for the wrong paint.

In my excitement, I did absolutely zero research on what type of paint I actually needed and based 100% of my decision solely on the color of paint.

Life lesson: There are different types of paint.

Image via Unsplash

Like this story? Follow The Financial Diet on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for daily tips and inspiration, and sign up for our email newsletter here.

Source: https://thefinancialdiet.com/3-terrible-purchases-that-finally-made-me-change-my-lifestyle/

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mattgoxleeca · 6 years ago

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Thinking Outside the Dieline: Package Design for Businesses

In a perfect world, you’d like to hire a freelance or full-time graphic designer to handle your package design. But perhaps you don’t have the time to vet and onboard a designer, or perhaps, the budget is an issue. This article will serve as a startup guide to package design if you don’t have the ability or capacity to hire a professional graphic designer.

You can expect to understand the best software to use for package design, and some basic best practices for creating a quality finished good. In addition to this the article covers some tips for staying on brand, and creative digital mockups of your package.

Software Choices for Package Design

Software in the design world is a big deal. Programs offered by Adobe (the Creative Cloud), are powerful and loaded with features not typically available on other software options. But what programs are best for package design?

You may think that Photoshop is the best for this. You may also be drawn to it because it’s the cheapest single software plan offered by Adobe. Unfortunately, Photoshop is not an ideal software for things like logo design and package design. If you aren’t going to hire a designer, you need to at least put your best foot forward when it comes to software.

The ideal choice for package design software is Adobe illustrator, with Affinity Designer being in second place (first place if you are on an extreme budget, as Affinity is not a monthly subscription). Both of those software options are vector-based and can export to the same file formats (.ai .pdf .eps .svg).

Photoshop isn’t a great option for final package design because it is raster based, so the graphics can’t be scaled larger than their original size.

Vector, Raster and Resolution

I’ve just thrown around a few key words that may have you scratching your head. I’m going to go over how vector, raster and resolution work. Once you understand that, it will make more sense as to why I said Photoshop doesn’t work for package design.

Vector-based artwork is very powerful in the fact that it can be scaled infinitely without getting pixelated or losing quality. This is because vector artwork relies on key points called anchor points. It fills in colors based on the location of these key points. What that means is if you have 2 points 10 inches apart, and you have the fill color as black, it will fill everywhere between those two points with black. If you then move one of the points 10 feet away from the other point, it will still fill the distance between the two points with black without losing any quality.

Raster-based artwork (Photoshop is a raster based program. You can’t create vector artwork in Photoshop) uses little dots called pixels to fill an area with your image. Let’s imagine you have a 1 inch by 1 inch image. Inside of that image there are 100 of these tiny pixels. In a 1 inch (squared) space, you have 100 of those pixels, all crammed in and nice and small. So small that you can’t see where one pixel ends and another begins. But what happens if we Take that same image and make in 10 inches. Now those pixels have to stretch to 10 times their size to fill the area you specified. This creates the grainy or low-resolution image.

Resolution is locked, in a manner of speaking. The ideal resolution is 300 DPI (dots per inch, or PPI for pixels per inch. This is the same thing). Notice how on the right, the image is grainy, and pixelated? I took that half of the photo and blew it up to illustrate the effect of scaling an object beyond 300 DPI. The further you go beyond that point, the worse, and more apparent the issue becomes.

If you take an image that is 5 inches by 5 inches and 300 DPI, you can use it on your package artwork at 5 inch size without worrying about image quality. However, if you stretch that image to 10 inches (double it in size), that same 300 DPI image now becomes 150 DPI. The DPI measurement is just telling you how many pixels or dots are stuffed into a square inch. In the same example, shrinking that 5 inch image down to 2.5 inches (half the size) would make the image 600 DPI. This DPI will always be tied to the image and resolution can’t be added to a photo or image.

So What is Photoshop Good For?

Nothing! Just kidding. Like I said earlier, all Adobe programs are loaded with high end features, and Photoshop is no exception. Photoshop is great for creating raster-based images to use on your package design.

You should be using photoshop to edit photos for the use on your package design file. Some examples of this are color correction, removing the backgrounds and adding special effects.

Understanding Your Dieline, and Bleed Area

So you have illustrator and you have the dieline from your packaging supplier (the vendor printing your boxes or packages). Let’s open that up in Illustrator and see how that looks, and go over some basics.

The pink lines represent where the machine will cut the stock into the flat shape of the box. In this example above, the dashed pink lines are clearly folds, however, most dielines use cyan (light blue) colored fold lines. The crossed areas are locations for glue.

If you are having a hard time visualizing how the final product will look, you can make a personal sample of it relatively easily. First, print out two copies. Write a number or letter for each panel. On the second copy, do the same thing with the same letters in the same location.

Next, actually fold one up and tape or glue it together. This will tell you what panels on the dieline go where on the finished box. Also take note of the orientation your markers take. Some of them may now display upside down, so your artwork will need to be upside down in those areas to appear right side up. For example, the top-left-most panel in the dieline above would be an area where the artwork should be upside down.

The next thing to account for is the bleed. The bleed is extra area where designers put color to correct for the printer being slightly misaligned. For this reason, try to keep important information 0.125 inches away from the side of the dieline. To put bleeds on a dieline like this, simply extend any colors or images that touch the dieline beyond the pink line by another 0.125 inches.

In the image above, notice how the dark gray and pink texture goes slightly beyond the dieline. This is what it will look like if you’ve designed for your bleed area properly.

Understanding Illustrator’s Tools

The best thing you can do to understand Illustrator’s tools better is to practice. You can also look at online tutorials or more inspiration and understanding of how the software works. You should be well versed in the following tools & features before taking on a serious package design project for yourself:

● Layers ● Swatches / Color Selection ● Pen Tool ● Fill vs Stroke ● Character / Paragraph ● Clipping Masks ● Links

This only scratches the surface, but taking the time to learn about those tools and panels will give you a good jumping off point.

Color Spaces & Printing

When you get your dieline from the printer, you should also find out how they like their files. Also find out if they do spot colors. You will need this information when designing your packaging.

Typically, there are a few options available to you:

1 Color 2 Color 3 Color CMYK CMYK + Spot Colors

One, 2 and 3 color are for when you are only working with that many single Pantone colors. Any use of CYMK color mixing or an image, would require CMYK Printing. CMYK represents the 4 colors of ink that go into printers. All colors that come out of the printer are a mix of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black.

Pantone colors are a special mix of inks to create a specific color. These print separate from CMYK. If your logo has PMS 265C, you would want to load that into your artwork’s swatches panel.

In some cases you will use Pantone colors as well as CMYK printing to create big multi-color jobs (could be CMYK plus 3 or 4 Pantone colors for 7 or 8 total colors). This sounds exciting, but keep the cost in mind. The more colors you’re printing, the higher the cost.

Staying on Brand When Designing Your Own Packaging

Once you have your design software down, it’s time to look at the fundamentals. Staying on brand being the most important. This is especially true if you already have a few products on the market.

The best, and easiest way to do this is take a previously created package design form your brand, and copy the elements (logo, writing, textures etc.) over to your new dieline. Then, place the pasted elements to the same areas where they were previously, and finally resize and retype the new copy to match your new product.

You likely won’t reuse the same imagery, but try to pay attention to the target audience and overall feel of the images between products. Do they feel like the same brand?

If you don’t have previously designed packages: You’re not off the hook. It just means your job got harder. What you create now needs to set the bar for future designs. Try to emulate the look and feel of your logo, and convey the message of your mission statement through your package.

To ensure quality, create 3 different looks for your design. Then take it around to your team and get good feedback. Then, take a VERY hard look yourself and make sure you’re happy with the design. Work that was done by an ameteur usually looks like that. It’s your job to push yourself beyond your limits when designing your own packaging artwork. Go through at least 2 or three rounds of this. You will eventually get to a point where your package looks professional and ready for the market.

Creating Digital Mock-ups

Now that you have your package designed. I’ll show you how to create a digital mockup in photoshop.

Step 1: Save your design as a PDF, and open that PDF in Photoshop. Step 2: Create a new Document (so you should have 2 windows open. Your design and a blank document). Step 3: In your opened PDF, take the selection tool and select one panel of your box.

Step 4: Copy that panel over to your blank document. Next, use the distort tool (Edit menu > Transform > Distort). This will let you alter the perspective of your layer.

Step 5: Repeat steps 3 and 4 for each panel until no more panels would be visible in an actual photo.

Perspective tip: Typically vertical lines should stay perfectly straight. Your box can look deformed if you have leaning vertical lines.

Ultimately, choosing to do package design yourself over hiring a professional designer is your call. I recommend hiring a professional designer to help give your brand an amazing head start, and generally speaking their work will be higher quality than what a non-designer could produce. Just like how a sales manager would be a lot better at acquiring new store opportunities than a designer.

from Survis Posts https://survis.com/posts/thinking-outside-the-dieline-package-design-for-businesses from Survis https://survisinc.tumblr.com/post/174405735241

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luke-porter · 8 years ago

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Three Things I've Learnt From Five Years Freelancing

Having developed a creative freelancing business over the past five years, using a breadth of different skills with many different clients, I have learnt a few things along the way that may help other aspiring freelancers in their work and practice. If you're interested in how you can improve the way you think and work to ultimately bring in more clients and stay on top of your business, then read on and discover how these three tips can help you out! Being organised is crucial Effective organisation can significantly reduce the stresses that inevitably come when juggling many different client projects all at the same time. Knowing where to find that client email or that important file you saved last week enables you to work faster and more efficiently. Here are a few tools I use to keep on top of my work: Trello Trello is a fantastic (and free) tool to organise any kind of information. It uses the format of boards, lists and cards to categorise information and set it out in a visual way that is very easy to understand. I have a board simply called 'Freelance', and on that board are several lists such as 'Prospective', 'Coming Up', 'Current' and 'Invoiced'. When a potential job comes in I add it as a card to the 'Prospective' list. If terms are agreed with the client then I move it to 'Coming Up'. When work begins on the project the card is moved to 'Current', and once work is complete and a final invoice has been sent to the client it is moved to 'Invoiced'. When I have received payment the card is archived. Trello features such as due dates, colour labels and checklists are particularly helpful. Having a way to keep track of all your projects and what stage each of them are at is invaluable. Digital Filing System Having a desktop scattered with files from dozens of different projects is illogical and frustrating. Set up a logical filing system to organise your files and keep things tidy. I use a very simple system. I have a folder called 'Freelance' stored on an external hard drive, and in that folder three more folders called 'Projects', 'Resources' and 'Invoices'. Inside the 'Projects' folder I have a folder for each month. Inside each month is a folder for each project. It's all about folders inside folders inside folders. It may not be a perfect system for everyone but it works great for me. Every time a month passes I back up that month's folder to a second external hard drive. Always make back ups - you'll thank yourself when the inevitable happens. As well as storing my invoices on my hard drive I also keep a copy on Google Drive. It's always useful to have an easy-access copy on the cloud in case there is a dispute with a client regarding payment and you're away from your hard drive. Establish a system that works for you and stick to it, so you can access whatever you need in just a few clicks. Spreadsheet (Excel or Google Sheets) Working with spreadsheets may sound dull, but it will save you a big headache in the long run. You should always keep track of your income, not least for tax purposes. Useful columns to have on your spreadsheet may include: Client, Project Description, Amount, Invoice Number, Date Invoiced and Date Received. Setting up an automatic total income sum is very handy, and using colours makes it easy to see at a glance which payments are outstanding. I simply use green for paid, red for outstanding. Having all your income data in one place means you can look back on your earnings, discover trends in your income and keep an eye on which clients are quick to pay up and which clients are not! Work from the inside out Probably the single biggest struggle for people starting out as freelancers is finding clients. But you can't expect them to come to you. Not at first anyway. You have to put the effort in to actively seek out individuals and businesses that you believe would benefit from your services. You won't immediately find hundreds of potential clients by magic, so you have to start with the people you see day-to-day. The people that you trust and that trust you. Friends and family. Begin working from your inner circle, outwards. Then you start to establish connections with friends of friends. Acquaintances. The benefit of working from the inside out is that you are trusted by the people around you and those people you already have a relationship with can put in a good word for you. A good word can sometimes be the key to securing work. People want to work with those they can trust. My first design jobs were for my parents, my friends, my church. For family friends and my brother's friends and friends of friends of friends. I soon became known as 'the guy who did design'. A lot of people weren't looking for the best designer in the world. Especially if they were on a tight budget. They were simply looking for someone who had the skills to do something they couldn't. If you can become known in your circle as 'the guy (or girl) who does [insert creative skill here]' then that will slowly expand outwards and paid jobs will come your way. Of course you can use an alternative method of finding work and approach outsider individuals and businesses as a stranger, offering your creative services to them. That can work, but if they know nothing about you as a person they are much less likely to want to work with you. Working from the inside out is a slow process to begin with but, in my opinion, it's the best way to get work. You establish your business on a personal basis of trust. Being ambitious pays off If you want to be constantly improving your work, getting more clients and increasing your income, you need to be ambitious. It seems fairly obvious that if you only ever work at a risk-free level, remaining inside your comfort zone, that is where you will stay and growth will be non-existent. As I mentioned in my previous post, I never expected to get the design job at RotaCloud when I applied. It was an ambitious move. I was an 18-year-old with no formal training and little proper design experience. But I knew I had to try, and it paid off. As a result I've now obtained a whole host of new skills, developed connections with some great people and gained five months of genuine design experience that I can put on my CV for potential future employment. I've always been interested in motion graphics and animation. I learnt my way around Adobe After Effects at a very basic level a few years ago, but I never produced anything that I was particularly proud of. When my brother Ben, a filmmaker in York, asked if I would be up for producing some motion graphics for a film he was making for one of his clients, I was unconfident in my own abilities. I believed myself to be a fine designer and illustrator, but motion graphics was still largely unexplored territory for me. Ben explained what kind of graphics they were looking for and I eventually agreed. Now I'm not saying that you should agree to work if you know you don't have the skills to deliver what the client needs. But sometimes it's good to push yourself to learn and develop new skills that you would otherwise ignore. I admittedly followed quite a few YouTube tutorials on how to do certain things in After Effects whilst working on that project, but I delivered what the client wanted and I was actually very proud of what I produced. Thereafter I agreed to producing more and more motion graphics work and with each project my skills improved. Now a very large portion of my work and income is motion graphics-based. I was ambitious and it paid off. Hopefully these tips have given some insight into what it's like to run a creative freelance business and may have inspired you to think differently about how to start or adapt your own freelance practice.

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violetsystems · 4 years ago

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personal

I’ve been able to sleep until six the last few days. I’ve been on this miserable eight to four sleep schedule. I ordered a silent vortex coffee grinder specifically to be less annoying in this regard. Even if I could literally just grind the coffee the night before. I also bought a rug cleaner for the first time in my life. It’s amazing the things you don’t realize you need for a home let alone an office. Last night I received an email from LinkedIn asking me to weigh in on a conversation about higher education. The only public facing social networking site I really use actively I pay for. They bought a service called Linda.com years ago. It was probably the most important site to me for instructional videos. These days it is included on the platform so I spend a fair amount of time keeping my job skills plausible. I learned pretty hard the last six months that my professional network had all but evaporated. A hard thing to face when you worked with your friends for over twenty years. But people have to move on. I sometimes make decisions that seem smarter in retrospect. You could even mistake it for premonition but I just call it good judgement. I made the decision to start the process of becoming a LLC. It was pretty easy to do once you paid the four hundred dollars. There’s services out there online that will do the legal part for you. I chose VS consulting as the name which becomes real around mid December if the Secretary of State accepts it. They asked me to cut the ribbon virtually. I congratulated myself in silence but this is pretty much the first place I’ve shared the news with. My mom didn’t quite understand what I had done and my dad is an accountant. I haven’t told him yet either. I got the idea seeing some of the people who still work at my old job starting their own side businesses. Crazy to see people still employed having extra jobs in this economy. But for the most part I don’t really compare my experience to anyone’s anymore. So I just look forward. There are a lot of ways I generate income. Some of them aren’t very lucrative. I released another ep Monday. Three of my friends from across the world I never really talk to bought it immediately. It makes sense because my music is how they know me. So that’s how they keep up with me. From there, Bandcamp revenue share Friday passed with little or no fanfare. It still doesn’t change the fact I owe taxes on the income above a certain amount if I report it. We all know how the rich hate paying those taxes. And the whole world now knows that I work for a LLC on the premier professional social networking site. It’s a win win for me because I can still look for a job but I appear employed. It’s also a nice buffer in these times for your resume. In retrospect, every article I read says the end of December is a perfect time to start your own business. Mostly because January 1st allows you to start with a fresh balance sheet and good accounting. So if anything my New Year’s resolution is to be cleaner and more concise about everything. Even if the rest of society’s ethics and accountability gets muddier as COVID-19 and the election process drags on. The only things I really have to worry about this next year are documenting my spending, opening up a business checking account, and deducting business expenses. Sounds like a job to me.

There are tools you need for a job. I bought a year long subscription to Creative Cloud. I had it for free for years. I worked in a visual communications department for ten years. I saw the most amazing work every morning hung up outside my office. It inspired me to learn about print making and screen printing. I even owned Adobe stock at one point because I realized Microsoft Office wasn’t doing my resume much justice. I shudder to think how many jokes were cracked by the Workday staff over my Chanel submission. Truth is nobody called back for interviews at any of the places I applied. And this doesn’t really stop me from keeping my eyes out for a position anywhere. But if we are talking about generating income, I can do that all by myself. I can also hire people and deduct more business expenses if I felt that was an option. Which starts to get into the meat of why the job market and economy is so fucked up in America. A lot of people didn’t fall in line on a balance sheet when COVID-19 came crashing down last February. And when the fiscal year came time to start fresh, they thinned their liabilities. Companies are now thinking in quarters rather than years at this point. And small businesses like myself also have to think the same because I now owe the IRS money every three months. The accounting side of it doesn’t really bore me. I’ve done every IT role in the business pretty much over twenty years. I guess that’s why LinkedIn calls on me to offer an opinion. I’ve never had to be this hardcore about the finances. Another great reason why I spend so much time in spreadsheets aside from writing on the internet. It’s much easier to approach a professional consultant with twenty years of experience with an invoice than it is to tether them to your payroll with benefits. I’m always having to think six months ahead myself. This has an advantage to it insofar that I don’t often look back. You pay your taxes and you move on. There are many things I could do to generate income. I could make a zine and sell it quarterly on bandcamp along with shirts. I could post flyers around the neighborhood offering after christmas tech support. I could scour the net for opportunities to audit galvanized IT departments. I could do all this with more confidence if I could say I am employed. I could also hire someone to help me. But I could do none of this and deduct expenses without applying for a sole proprietorship. And truth be told I already have to claim this for the New York Stock Exchange. So if you had to put a label on what I do now it isn’t really that much different from any other business. The state’s richest men started as LLCs. They’re also the biggest pricks who pay the least taxes. Trickle down economics is a funny concept. Businesses offer jobs they deduct from their income therefore paying less to the pool. This would be fine for small income generating businesses. But Ken Griffin would say otherwise as he and other rich people benefit from this structure. They say the American Dream is owning your own business. So welcome to my personal nightmare. I hope you don’t mind me taking the itemized deductions after how I’ve been treated.

I don’t actually know how it’s going to work out. I just know I don’t want to appear unemployed while corporate America expects me to wink and make them more money. There are investments that have worked out for me as volatile as they might be. One Chinese company I invested in has made the CEO twelve times richer. I own four hundred and twenty shares of that company in a brokerage. My intent is to hold on to them for the long term possibly making someone richer at my own risk. I could short the entire next year to my heart’s content. My credit scores have gone through the roof. Nobody has had any answers for me on what to do. Nobody has coached me. I read. I think. I come up with solutions to my problems. And I put money in the right places. That doesn’t mean anything is a sure thing. Especially when my government finds it more advantageous to punish other countries while forgetting about it’s own people. I am absolutely in the dark about everything. Everything except running my own business in America. I already have income I have to report over the next three years due the CARES act. So that is income I will deduct. This is how it works here in America. You seize the means of production and you go to work. If it seems backward for me, you wouldn’t know the half. My life is so fucked up in terms of how hazy and confusing other people have made it. People invaded my life on pretenses that I can’t even begin to explain. And part of being a strong, responsible adult is engineering your way out of these problems. And for the most part, I’ve engineered myself into a fort that overlooks the CTA train. And a small portion of that fort can be written off as an office. Which in some ways if you do the math makes rent and utilities cheaper in the long run. I don’t make the rules. This is how America works. A LLC gets a tax id number. It allows you better options for retirement savings with a SEP IRA. You can apply for business accounts and waive taxes on business purchases. Even the family dollar around the corner has a sign in the window reminding me I can apply for tax free status. Maybe they’re mostly to blame for planting the idea in my head. I’m the one who made the call to apply. Nobody held my hand. You could also get audited by the IRS. And I’m sure the IRS would have to figure out how I got into this situation in the first place. Maybe they’d offer me a job. There’s other fantasies in my life I could imagine happening more than that waking nightmare. Like actually having money to retire. I could be travelling around the world cleaning up the mess mark to market accounting has left on big business. The scars on economies the rich have pock marked on the middle class. Or I could just keep generating income and be my own boss here in my kitchen. The one thing I do know is that is sexier to be confident enough to move ahead with your own plan slowly than to short a bunch of stocks disruptively and brag about it on the internet. You could call it my three year plan. Don’t ask me how bonds factor in that equation. I’m not a spy. What I am is a guy that is trying to be the solution and not the victim. And that guy doesn’t ever want to be a burden on the people I love. So that guy is going to keep doing what he does. And I’m not going to lie that you inspire me to do so. As sexy and confident as I’m born to be. <3 Tim

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